By: Vincent Maher

Friend Connect (www.google.com/friendconnect) comes in the form of a sidebar for websites and blogs that has a powerful viral invitation tool for getting people to join and become part of a community that centres around the content of the site. Website creators and bloggers can invite new community members from a list of Gmail contacts or share the site inside other social networks such as Facebook, MySpace etc.

The genius of it is its simplicity – much like the paradigm-shift brought about by Google’s Adsense – Friend Connect explodes the notion of social networking completely and enables any website to be a component of a global social network.

How does it work? Website creators log in to FriendConnect using their Gmail accounts, download some code and put it on the site. Once this is done, there are several gadgets that can be embedded into the site to enhance the community aspect once people have joined your network:

• a wall gadget so people can post videos, comments and other bits of social lint onto your site;
• a review gadget so people can discuss how cool or lame you are depending on their mood, and,
• most importantly, an OpenSocial gadget that allows you to embed OpenSocial applications inside your site.

The scale of it is grand, like the Israelites toppling the walls of Jericho with their trumpets, or the rumble of elephants and infantry descending upon the Rhône.

Forget the social network as a walled garden, forget social networks as destination sites – FriendConnect turns the whole web into a social network.

Jeff Palumbo—

The great social network debate is unified profiles -vs- singular social networks. Googles friendconnect is a giant leap for the unified profile. Under the unified profile we will see profiles connected to one another in a more conventional life fashion with out or with little reprensentation of where the profile was created. Under the social network side we have a community for bikers, schools, charities, etc. as one community that you and your profile are a part of. This is a great method for many community types such as an independent private school, a church or a charity where belonging to that community means more than belonging to a website like bed bath and beyond.

This relates to many businesses. How can I leverage my social initivitave with in this great debate. If your company is seeking the relestate of the profile you need to be an application or widget. If you company seeks the verticle community you need your own social network. Which is better? They both serve their purpose and hold value to the respective business that uses them. The unified profile allows the profile owner to dictate the content on their profile. The community allows an enclosed colaboration between people under a percieved community.

 http://www.friendster.com

Young donors and volunteers, snubbing traditional appeals such as direct mail and phone calls, are satisfying their philanthropic urges on the Internet. They’re increasingly turning to blogs and social-networking Web sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, to spread the word about — and raise funds for — their favorite nonprofits and causes. They’re sending Web-based fund-raising pitches to their friends and families, encouraging them, in turn, to forward the appeals to their own contacts.

At the same time, a growing number of charities — ranging from start-ups to established names such as the Salvation Army — are launching profiles on popular social-networking sites, hoping that young people will link up to the pages. Some are also encouraging bloggers to mention the causes on their sites, raising thousands of dollars in small donations from readers.

Many of the nonprofits that have embraced social networking are themselves run by people in their 20s and 30s, who already spend a good portion of their lives online. Some of them also appeal to donors by offering them tangible results of their gifts by directly linking contributors with recipients.

Social-networking sites, for their part, are offering new tools to help attract nonprofits and contributors. In May, a social-action start-up called Project Agape launched a new program on Facebook called “Causes,” in which users can create online communities to advocate for various issues, charities and political candidates. Since then, the program has attracted more than 2.5 million Facebook users, raising some $300,000 for nonprofits and politicians, says Joe Green, 24, the project’s co-founder.

Social netowrk brings a tremendious and relitivly simple system to bring like minded audiances together in a managable enviroment. With a social network people of your like minded group are able to share, communicate, colaborate, in a safe enviroment that you can eaisly manage and market to.

Vancouver, BC (PRWEB) — Memelabs, the user-generated video contest platform company, today announces the release of a custom version of memelabs to help non-profit organizations and charities easily create and manage User Generated Video (UGV) campaigns online. The company is rolling out a pilot version of the new platform for Apathy is Boring, a Canadian non-partisan project that uses art, media, and technology to encourage active citizenry.

Memelabs helps organizations promote viral video marketing that gain targeted exposure for marketing campaigns online, such as the successful viral video contests the company launched for Wells Fargo, Intrawest, Texas Instruments and Garden State Life.

In three easy steps marketers have a fully customized video contest ready for launch.

• Design: the customer can supply its own design or the Memelabs team works with the client to create a design; a fully customizable CSS with 100% share of brand.
• Integration: the Memelabs team applies the design to its contest platform, and can advise on and implement additional social media outreach strategies.
• Promotion: the Memelabs team helps to get the word out through social media tools, such as blogs, newsletters, bookmarks to its user base of over 100,000 people and partnerships with 40 film schools. These are film makers and enthusiasts who have previously signed up and participated in memelabs contests.

Once the contest is up and running, videos are submitted by consumers for voting and ranking by the user base. Memelabs constantly monitors video submissions, rankings and commentary to ensure no fraudulent or offensive activity takes place. In addition, this version gives customers access to the back-end platform from which clients can manage campaign details.

“We chose to integrate memelabs into our National Video Contest as it was the perfect medium to reach our target demographic, Canadian youth, in an engaging and user friendly online environment. We’ve also received an incredible amount of support from memelabs, whether in site development, marketing strategy, and content management, making our campaign a cinch to update and maintain,” comments Apathy is Boring’s Development Coordinator Adrienne Smith. “Memelabs’ commitment to the Apathy is Boring cause has made them a perfect partner for us and we look forward to our continued collaboration.”

Apathy is Boring wants young Canadians to grab their video cameras and cell phones and tell their vision for the next 250 years of Canada and enter this in an online contest at the Apathy is Boring contest site. Running July-September, 2008, one national contest winner will receive a grand prize: a trip to Halifax for the winner to attend and showcase their video during a Youth Dialogue hosted by Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, on September 20th. More information on the Governor General’s Youth Dialogues is available at www.citizenvoices.gg.ca. The winner will also receive backstage passes to the Apathy is Boring Concert featuring artists ill Scarlett.

“New conversations are emerging online between organizations and consumers and as social media has now become part of the mainstream, organizations are looking for new ways to engage with its customers,” comments Dario Meli, co-founder and partner, memelabs. “Memelabs creates this bridge – engaging, encouraging and supporting positive interaction and inspiring community development. All we ask of organizations is to bring their marketing idea and we’ll put it into action.”

About memelabs
Memelabs is the first platform for companies to effectively roll out consumer-generated online video contests to gain brand loyalty in the Web 2.0 world. Easily and efficiently marketers can take advantage of the growing social marketing trends of consumer online video production, viral video marketing and consumer participation in online contests.

“We’ve seen social media can be used to bring people together for all sorts of reasons; I really hope we can bring people together to do good,” said Anthony Berkman, president of BlogCatalog.com, a social blog directory on the Internet, as he launched a social awareness campaign to benefit DonorsChoose.org on May 28.

“Even better, this is a chance to find common interests within BlogCatalog.com and across the Web,” he added.

The campaign asked directory members (bloggers) to write about DonorsChoose.org and raise funds for the non-profit organization. DonorsChoose.org is a non-profit Web site that brings teachers and donors together to fund specific student projects that range from “Magical Math Centers” to “Cooking Across the Curriculum”. Any individual can search teacher proposals and fund specific projects, which are tax deductible.

“Internet social networks from MySpace to Facebook are receiving a ton of media and Internet attention, but we have yet to see an online social community come together to raise funds for a good cause,” said Anthony Berkman, president of BlogCatalog.com. “We see this as an opportunity to empower and recognize bloggers to collectively focus their blogs for good.”  

Berkman’s idea is to challenge directory members to draw attention to and raise funds for this underserved non-profit organization. BlogCatalog.com has set a goal to raise at least $25,000 for DonorsChoose.org, which is a member of the Omidyar Network.

The Omidyar Network is a mission-based organization established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife, Pam (pictured above). Berkman said depending on the success of the challenge, BlogCatalog.com will develop a community service page to host and promote more blog events in the near future. All donations made to DonorsChoose.Org will credit the blogger.

Social networks hold huge opportunities for brands. The personal, interactive nature of social networks mean that brands have the chance to present themselves to users in their own, personal space – allowing for a more memorable, individual interaction.

Added to this, brands can leverage the natural endorsements given through groups and personal associations with brands, almost functioning as free market research into their specific consumer set.

But, how do you successfully leverage your brand within a social network?

1) Create a brand profile

Register your own brand group as the ‘official’ offering on the relevant network. You can then make access of related groups and communities, inviting them to join this sanctioned brand group.

2) Continuous communication

To ensure your community is constantly up-to-date and involved, make sure that relevant content is always available and a host of topics offered to allow users to personally interact with the brand.

3) Encourage collaboration

Run a contest to devise a new campaign slogan or solicit entries for the next advertising spot – it will enable users to interact on a new level, whilst providing cost-effective creative straight from your target consumers!

4) Register your own network

A very big idea but one that is sure to win you prosumer praise. Represent the interests of your consumers by starting a social network i.e. a fantasy league network for a sporting goods retailer.

The people formerly known as the audience have transformed. Blogs and social networks have become vital tools in the arsenal of marketers worldwide and any brand looking to promote and protect itself should seriously consider the influence these resources have on consumer purchasing behaviour.

The new era of prosumers is here and they’re brand-savvy, marketing-aware and prime for the taking. Ensure your brand harnesses the potential of these new ‘super-consumers’ before you are left behind, choking on the dust…