Posts from — December 2007

Have you ever heard that social media can be compared to a fishing tournament, or that it’s a lot like high school, or maybe you’ve heard the pond analogy? While, these are all very interesting, I would like to propose that social media is a lot like the weather. Not just because it is unpredictable, always changing, and catastrophic at times, but because, just like the weather has major societal impacts, social media is making a huge impact on society as well.

Stu Ostro has an interesting commentary on The Weather Channel blog that I think explains this a bit better……..

“Webster’s New World College dictionary (the dictionary of choice of the Associated Press, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal) lists eight variations of the definition of ’society’. But the one that seems to best fit when applied broadly to weather and climate as opposed to, say, an organization, is, “All people, collectively, regarded as constituting a community of related, interdependent individuals.”

And for ‘impact’, the power of an event, idea etc., to produce changes, move the feelings, etc.”’

What could better describe social media than “people collectively, regarded as constituting a community of related, interdependent individuals”? And isn’t social media at its finest when people are moved by their feeling toward an event? So in comparison, a major societal event like Hurricane Katrina, can effect the world and and their responses just as ground breaking news and opinions can.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not comparing a catastrophic hurricane to someone’s opinion of the iPhone but what I am saying is that a societal impact can occur in any given circumstance.

Whether it’s the weather or the media, society is constantly intertwined with information and will continue to depend on one another for the global proliferation of it all. As far as weather compared to social media, I leave you with this quote:

“The science satisfies our quest for knowledge, but the profession exists to serve humanity.”

If social media exists to serve humanity then our quest for knowledge can be satisfied in our journey to connect, respond and share information.

Once upon a time, someone decided that it would be fun to journal about their life on-line, hence blogs were formed. Once folks caught on to blogging, the next item on the list was to figure out a way to make money while blogging, hence the Pay Per Post.

As it turns out, social media is no different. What once started as a way to promote, converse, and network on-line has now taken a turn toward for the worse with black market media. According to Leonard Bartholomew from the Turnkey Business Blog, there is a new site in town willing to pay you for your votes on Stumble Upon and Digg and it is creating quite a stir in social media circles……….

“Nothing motivates, and corrupts, like money and there is a new black market site that is willing to pay you for your Digg and Stumbleupon votes. The site is called Subvert and Profit.
The site will email you a number of links, not all of them pay so you will not get the fifty cents per post on every one of the links. The links that do pay are hidden. You go to Digg and Stumbleupon and vote your conscience, they do not tell you how to vote. It is only required that you do vote on every link provided.”

Leonard is convinced that if this travesty continues, what is intended to be social and democratic will surely turn into the corruption of social media as we know it.

I have to say, I’m not the least bit surprised. Money is a powerful motivator and with the incentive for income from advertising based on traffic it makes sense that site owners would pay for votes. What do you think? Is it unethical to pay for an article to hit the front page of Digg? Let me know with your comments.

John Blossom, over at Shore, discussed a really interesting topic in his post on “Tiny Bubbles: Social Media Explodes in a Thousand Small New Ways“. John answers the question, “Is there a social media bubble?” with a simple yes and no………

“There’s no doubt that there is nearly as much ill-counseled money chasing so-so ideas for Web content as there was in the heyday of the dot-com boom. The difference this time around, though, is an explosion of tiny bubbles in online publishing courtesy of Web 2.0 technologies and the acceptance of social media as a key publishing venue.”

It’s inevitable that some of these bubbles will pop and some will grow bigger and bigger. It’s a fact, that on-line conversations can be started by anyone, anywhere about anything and they are here to stay no matter how big or how small of a bubble they are. But John asks a really good question,

“So if personal and enterprise users control the production, the distribution and
the aggregation of content, and infrastructure companies like Google control the contextualization, what’s left at the bottom of the glass of bubbly for today’s media companies?”

I can’t help but think these media companies will surely think of something.

Okay, so I’m about a month late in joining the Mixx party but like I always say, “better late than never”, right?

The good news is, Mixx is still in beta and folks like Tamar Weinberg and Tad claim that this “Digg clone” is gaining momentum with Digg users and folks who don’t feel comfortable on other social networks. Tamar says, “for that reason, you should join now.” So, I took her advice and joined.

Tad goes on to list 12 very good reasons to join Mixx and abandon Digg……..

1. New, fresh, nascent community where your contribution counts
2. Politeness in disagreeing, basically any flaming is banned at Mixx so the ugly Diggers we’re used to by now and who also flame on StumbleUpon won’t attack you here
3. Personalization instead of one size fits all, the front page metaphor of the newspaper does not work for the Net, at Mixx you get your personalized news first, not just the lowest common denominator, thus also niche news get exposure
4. Mixed media with images and videos right up front like on social news mashups allow you a quick overview
5. It’s not just about exploitation of UGC and your “social capital”, you can also gain by promoting your own stuff.

I definitely like the idea of being able to promote my own stuff without being harassed for self promotion. To me, social media is all about the conversation. These sites are simply a means to tell others something, whether it be your own information or the information of others. But some have gotten so “nichee” with their content that no one wants to use them anymore. All the big hitters are signing up for Mixx, you should too.

Scott Monty, over at the Social Media Marketing Blog is concerned about where I’ve been. It seems I am not as familiar with Chris Brogan as I very well should be……..

“Chris is one of the founders of PodCamp,
does some amazing stuff with text, audio and video, knows how to build
communities, and on top of that, is a genuinely nice guy.”

Well, now that we all know a little bit about Chris, let me tell you about a unique mission he is going on to make sure that the value of the world’s social media and networking efforts grow to their utmost potential……

“I will post specific strategies, tactics, tips, and resources to help
you develop your skills and abilities in these areas, particularly
insofar as these might help you develop your personal brand, build
business for yourself or your organization, or otherwise perhaps be
helpful to what interests you.”

How can one guy possibly do all this? Simple. He is dedicating his next 100 blog posts to accomplishing his mission and I, for one, will be tuning in religiously. Chris is planning on having some his very smart friends help contribute and is even inviting folks to e-mail him personally with posts they want to submit. Me? I’ll just be reading and learning and maybe someday I’ll do a 100 Social Media Posts myself.

Yesterday, I wrote a post about the social bookmarking site, Stylehive, and the fact that it is a growing segment in the social media realm that focuses on primarily, fashion, trends, and shopping. Evidently, Stylehive has noticed a need for content and not just bookmarking applications because as of yesterday, Stylehive has acquired StyleDiary.

According to HipMojo, this is a reflection of a trend in social media……..

“the challenge of monetizing social media and user generated content,
even in fashion, where you’d think e-commerce would finance the growth.”

A smart move by Stylehive, I must say. For the life of me I could not figure out how they were going to market themselves to anyone outside of the fashion industry and Ashkan explains it this way……

“Without content, social media sites will face challenges in monetizing
their audiences… and today’s deal is a manifestation of that.”

The days of stand alone sites may be a thing of the past and offering a myriad of platforms may become a trend in 2008 for sites that have to find new ways to differentiate if they want to succeed in social media.

As a mom, working at home, it is often a challenge to budget my time between, marriage, house, work and kids. I know other work-at-home moms have the same struggles and what makes it even harder is when you love your job and simply don’t want to stop Digging or Stumbling to take care of other responsibilities.

Working at home requires serious self discipline, and Brian, over at Collective Thoughts, has 7 surefire ways to own social media before it owns you, that will give any person involved in Social Media an effective way to balance work and family life……..

“Can we really multitask as well as we think? Kathy Sierra, one of my favorite bloggers ever, would argue that we cannot multitask effectively.

Brian seems to think we can and gives seven great tips to keep us multitaskers from experiencing social media overload. My favorite is #5, “Family Time”……….

“Family time. Whether you’re an 18 year old social media pro or someone with a wife and kids, your family likes you. Walk away from the computer for a few minutes. You might notice that your kids have grown since you last looked at them”

In all the excitement of growing a new blog and devoting my life to Stumble Upon I have not been very good at forcing myself to walk away from the computer in a disciplined manor. The good news is, with the holidays approaching and a new year ahead a resolution is in order and I’ll be using Brian’s list to get started.

Social Media is not limited to communities of people, pictures or videos. There are many sites in the world of Web 2.0 that favor bookmarking trends. One of those sites is Stylehive, and they have become a leader in the realm of socially bookmarking your favorite products, the stores that sell them and the people that find them.

Evidently, with Stylehive you don’t have to join to enjoy it. You can browse or sign up through RSS, but the best way to experience Stylehive to its fullest is to join in and build your own hive…….

• Build your own part of the hive by creating tagged collections to share
• Comment and speak with other hive members
• Build your own 24/7 shopping magazine by following the people you like
• Build and share your own shopping “wishlists” for the holidays, weddings and parties
• Professionals can promote themselves and get noticed by the world for their style
• Join the fun, by helping build the hive with hot bookmarks and recruiting people with style

Karen over at Loved did not know that Stylehive was a a social community for people to discover or be updated on what’s HOT and what’s NOT…..

“It focuses entirely on products and shopping - which I know you girls would love! If you’re a fashionista guru well, this is the perfect place for you to
share your expertise and knowledge about fashion. Or check out some of
the latest fashion all over the world!”

The Stylehive community is shaping the way people shop. From retail experiences to fashion faux pas, you will find what’s hot. Right now. And you can tell others the same.