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Posts tagged 'myspace'
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Posted on April 28, 2008
Are Personal Sites a Thing of the Past?
BY JENNIFER EUBANKS
Yesterday I came across an entry on Jeffrey Zeldman's blog talking about a seeming disappearance of personal sites. In one example, he talked about a site that, while it contains links to what might in the past have been links to other internal pages, all of these links took the user to external sites such as linkedin, flickr, twitter, etc.
While there can be advantages to outsourcing your online persona in this manner, there can be possible disadvantages as well. As someone creating an online presence, you should be sure that you understand what you want to use your personal site for (if indeed you even choose to have one amid the sea of social networking sites). Social sites often let you create a profile where you provide links to personal sites--these can help drive traffic to your personal page. Likewise, providing links to these social sites on your personal page can drive traffic to these external representations of you.
Posted on November 20, 2007
Connections Still Lost in Age of Social Networking
BY JENNIFER EUBANKS
With all the social networking sites out there, it's easier than ever to keep in contact with people, as well as reconnect with people from your past. This is especially true of people you haven't seen since, say, high school. With all the methods to stay connected, you would think it would be easier than ever to accomplish tasks such as high school reunions. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, these sites are not yet being fully utilized by reunion committees.
Case in point: my 10 year high school reunion was set to happen this year. I was actually looking forward to attending--seeing what my fellow classmates have been up to, who is already successful, and who is still trying to find their way, that sort of thing. The reunion was set to happen earlier this month, but the event was cancelled at the end of October. The reason? The reunion company hired was unable to locate enough classmates.
I was not on the committee, but the organization of the reunion did not appear to have been handled in the best manner. A page just for the reunion was created on Myspace, and many of my classmates friended the profile, but this page was not really used to post or disseminate information. In fact, when the reunion was cancelled, it took weeks for them to post a list of "missing" classmates. When the list was finally posted, at least 1/4 of the people on this list were not only on Myspace, but also a friend of the reunion profile! How can these people be missing when they clearly have a way to be contacted, and have an interest in the reunion if they were a friend of the reunion profile? Just by simply typing in the classmate's name into Myspace, several of the "missing" people could have been found. In the case of those who friended the reunion profile, posting a message asking for contact info might have helped. Why was the list not posted earlier? People cannot provide information if they do not know it is needed--keeping people informed and up-to-date is key in planning events, and with all the bulletin and event features on these networking sites, there is no reason why people couldn't have been kept in the loop.
It just seemed like the committee and reunion company were waiting for the information to come to them, instead of using resources such as Classmates.com, Facebook, and Myspace. No reunion group was set up in Facebook that I was aware of, thus not taking advantage of this popular site either. While Facebook does not turn up as many graduates for my year as Myspace, there are still a few people on there who cannot be found on Myspace.
Adding to the frustration is the fact that, a few days ago, the Myspace profile was deleted, thus increasing the misutilization of this web tool. In the event that the committee tries to plan an 11 year reunion, they will have to try even harder to reach out to the class, since I doubt most people will be motivated now to actively seek out more information.
With the power of the internet allowing people to find information and locate lost friends more easily than ever, it seemed to me that something like a reunion should be a piece of cake to organize. Sadly, this was not the case, and now my class will probably not have one at all. It makes me wonder how on earth these events took place back in the days before technology--perhaps it is a sign that the traditional non-electronic methods are still effective. In reality though, the committee and/or company was probably hoping that everyone would somehow know where to submit their contact info and that there would be no need to search for anyone. While that certainly could have happened, the lack of announcements or notifications alerting people where they could find reunion details or submit their information made it nearly impossible for the "lost" people to be "found"--even those who were never truly lost to begin with.
Posted on November 8, 2006
Social Media - Are We Experiencing Too Much of a Good Thing?
BY JENNIFER EUBANKS
Last week, the San Francisco Chronicle printed an interesting article about social media sites. A good summary of the article would be to say that many young people are getting burnt out on all this sharing.
The article raises some good points in its discussion of the multitude of social sites that exist today. Social sites are great because they allow you to share with friends an family, help you reconnect with lost friends and acquaintances, and even meet new friends. On the downside, they also require a lot of effort to create and maintain.
The process of filling out an online profile isn't difficult, but if you want to be thorough, it IS time-consuming. What was once a fun, novel way to pass the time has now caused "social networking fatigue". The reasons for this are many:
1) The amount of effort required to completely fill out a new profile.
2) The sheer number of sites out there, many of which people sign up for just for the sake of one or two friends.
3) Keeping the many different sites up to date requires logging in to each one and updating them separately.
4) Unsolicited messages, friend requests, and advertisements often bombard users, adding to the frustration.
As the number of sites increases and the novelty of the phenomenon decreases, we may finally see a drop-off in the number of users. At the very least, only a few will emerge as the leaders, and the rest will drop off into obscurity. Social media has already evolved since arriving on the scene in 2002, and in order to survive, the Chronicle suggests that more "niche" sites will become prevalent rather than "broad, general, catch-all platforms." We may also see social networking aspects become more integrated into other sites.
In the end, as the article quotes, "[Social media has] both been overhyped and underestimated." The giant bubble that has grown around it cannot be sustained in terms of how big all of the existing sites can grow, but the concept as a whole is here to stay and just needs to be refined.
It will be interesting to witness the next generation of social media, and see just how it integrates more and more into our daily lives. There is an intrinsic need among people to stay connected--the trick is to avoid burning out and stick with a select few sites that work for that person's needs for their current time of life.
Posted on August 31, 2006
MySpace, YouTube - Money Can't Buy You Love in Social Media
BY JAMES CLARK
Marshall Kirkpatrick, of TechCrunch, posted about a recent Hitwise finding showing MySpace is driving more online retail traffic than MSN search. First of all this is great news for MySpace, and all indications are that MySpace will continue to grow in presence and influence over the next two years. Where they'll be in terms of influence after that is still to be seen - come on we're talking about the Internet here. Other social media sites like YouTube are picking up tremendous speed, plus YouTube is not under the ominous ownership of Fox like MySpace is.
Personally the most interesting line in Marshall's post was the summary of The Financial Times article on the belief that the shortage of marketers skilled in negotiating sites like MySpace and YouTube is one of the biggest barriers to the growth of advertising online.
We can attest to the truth behind The Financial Time's position, as the largest and most sophisticated brand and marketing agencies are getting stumped on how to enter social media sites. We are seeing a sharp increase in curiosity and questions about how to capitalize on the growing popularity of MySpace and YouTube, and a lot of that interest comes for large established brand agencies that are use to dropping a few million on traditional main stream media campaigns.
Sure there are companies and people right now setting up clandestine marketing programs in MySpace, hoping their message will go viral. But our perspective lies in leveraging the deep niche interest areas of the site that bring people together because of shared passions. It's one thing to make a funny video and see it spread like mad through YouTube, it's another to reach out to a particularly small group of people that have chosen to communicate with each other because of like interests and provide something of value to the conversation.
Reaching out and spending time communicating with small niche groups is not a skill set most marketers are good at. In social media the idea of marketing needs to be replaced with the idea of having a conversation. Buying your way in doesn't cut it - you need to actively join and participate to gain credibility and confidence from your peers. Hmm, sounds a lot like real life doesn't it? Maybe that's why it scares people.
