Nothing draws like sex, money, and power. It's no different for social networks. Successful communities need anchor tenants to draw the masses. Who's winning?
Sex
MySpace started with musicians and actresses. Fans flocked to create circles.
Sex also draws illegal sex. Thus, Myspace may have limited their appeal to the silent majority - although sex does have universal appeal.
Money
Facebook wins. Angel and venture investors have been swamped by friends.
LinkedIn is a poor second - appealing to the working class business development, marketing, and recruitment crowd.
Power
Facebook wins. Politicians and publishers anchor huge communities of fans.
I have not checked Michael Spitzer's Myspace page. Cheap shot. ;-)
 | Spitzer lied in plot to smear Bruno Buffalo News, United States - Dopp declined to comment, but his attorney, Michael Koenig, said he “has been an unfair political punching bag for the past nine months, and now he can ... |
Sex Workers Turned To Twitter, iPhones, Tumblr During Spitzer Scandal
Henry Blodget | Mar. 29When the Spitzer bombshell hit, sex worker spokespeople rushed to these and other technologies. Read >
Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft
These companies had fans and communities. Today, they save time and money for the masses.
Emerging Social Media
Digg, Mixx, Reddit, Stumble Upon, Technorati, and Techmeme are some of the emerging communities. Most seem to attract the universe of active bloggers and publishers. Who are the anchor tenants? Why would these anchors shift mindshare to these communities?
A few quickie observations:
- Tumblr is a poor man's blogging tool.
- Twitter is a mobile utility angling to get sold.
- FriendFeed is a lifestreaming utility angling to get sold.
- IMeem, Pandora, and others build communities around shared music. Is this the same as fans of?
List of Emerging Social Networks | |
NEWS: Chinese Social Net Puts Facebook, MySpace To | |
NEWS: Social Site’s New Friends Are Athletes |
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With All Else Failing, Starbucks Tries Social Media
ReplyDelete()
...Every posted idea immediately shows up in the recent ideas queue, where it is voted on in a Digg-style manner. If it gets enough votes, it gets 'promoted' to the popular ideas list and top all-time list, from which Starbucks employees and management pick the best ideas to actually implement in stores. If your idea catches someone's eye, it will be labeled as **under review**, and if they actually decide to implement it, you will see a **coming soon** tag next to the idea....
Overall, the site is an absolutely great idea. In many ways it is very similar to Dell's IdeaStorm which I similarly praised. Every company could benefit from its own implementation of a socially driven marketplace for ideas, especially major consumer brands such as Starbucks and Apple, which have developed an incredibly loyal core following.
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ReplyDeleteApple has Steve Jobs and the loyalty of musicians and actresses.
ReplyDeleteDell has cheap computers.
Starbucks is a convenient meeting place. So are thousands of independent coffee houses who have a more loyal fan base - particularly the ones where artists perform regularly.