| Thursday, January 10, 2008 - There's been a lot of developments in the social networking space of late. I think the perspective we take is what determines how important the developments are to us. |
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There's been a lot of developments in the social
networking space of late. I think the perspective we take is what
determines how important the developments are to us. Some think that
social networking is a passing fad. They are likely the same people (or
related to those) who five years ago swore they would never have a
mobile phone or a computer, and now have a combination of the two.
Businesses are looking at the social networking space, governments are
checking it out, and hundreds of thousands are making millions of
visits to their own private network.
So how do we see this space?
I would suggest looking at it like fast-food burger restaurants. Back
in the day, the top three were McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy's.
Dave never posted the billions of burgers he had ever sold, nor did he
ever have a jingle that reminded you there were choices, but he seems
to have done ok for himself! Then along came the pizza places, and the
chicken places, and then the taco places and the rest of them. We have
fast food everything, and where is McDonalds? They are still within .1 miles of every exit off the Interstate.
So how did the fast-food phenomenon start? We were all minding our
business, eating 2-3 meals a day, and doing just fine. Then along came
someone offering more convenience. They promised us quicker,
consistently processed food and provided disposable containers so we
didn't have to do the dishes. The next thing you know, we are all
waiting in line around a building sniffing the fumes of the car in
front of us.
There are people who will never eat in a McDonalds, but they will keep
a handful of the others in business. So it is, and will be, with social
networks.
Some of us get really, really annoyed with the instantly blaring music
and ultra-slow loading pages on MySpace. others are sick of being
bitten by the Vampires and Werewolves on Facebook, and others are sick
of being spammed on Friendster. If they have a preferred social
networking site, like one where their close associates and friends hang
out, they'll go there and deal with whatever makes others annoyed.
So where's the beef? I think it's in the apps. Once we all sort out
where we want to be and why, we look for the bells and whistles. Not
the loud and obnoxious ones, just the ones we can use. Someone will be
ruling that space, and for now it appears Google wants it, and they
want it badly!
It appears we finally made it through all the hype of OpenSocial, and
we've all seen our share of pros and cons being discussed. But was I
the only one who missed Google Adsense's move in the online video realm?
AdSense introduced what they call "video units," that let you include
YouTube video in your blog, and make money from the ads on it. Check
out what they have said:
"We're excited about the launch of video units -- a new way to enrich
your blog with quality, relevant video content in an embedded,
customizable player. Simply embed a snippet of code and have relevant
YouTube partner content streamed to your blog.
Excited? I'll bet! We are using video more and more to communicate, and
as more and more people get higher bandwidth and the videos are able to
take up less, it's going to be interesting to see just how many pages
don't have a video embedded in them.
I can't wait to see how this advertising model looks . . . I hope it's not like the previews at the movies . . .
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