Monetising niche social networks

Will, Anna and I are at the Mad.co.uk Social Networking & Media for Business conference today in drizzly London Victoria. I get extremely fidgety if I am made to sit and watch presentations so I’ve ducked out for a bit to write this. Hope Will doesn’t take offence as I think he’s speaking right now. I’m sure he’s entertaining everyone :)

BuddyPress - Bringer of Open Social Network Bliss?

Having become somewhat disillusioned with the mainstream social network fair on offer these days, and having seen one too many targeted ads for my liking (yes, I like Guitar Hero/no, I don’t want to buy the T-shirt), I’ve been eagerly following the developments of BuddyPress, the Free open social network that’s powered by WordPress (MU version).

The end of multiple identities online?

Jekyll and Hyde

At Barcamp Brighton 2 last weekend I hosted a discussion group around the future of social networks. Some interesting themes came up around decentralised/portable networks. I gave the group this statement to discuss: “In the future, users will have just one profile page for all of their social networks”. This is a central idea behind portable social networks: Users have their own domain name which hosts their personal profile, and this is used for all of their social networks (so no more having to enter all of your personal details and uploading a photo each time you join a new service.)

Someone (I think it was Aral) said that many of us like to maintain multiple identies online: We have a different persona whether we’re hanging out on myspace, LinkedIn, Facebook or Dopplr, so although having a single profile would be convenient, it’s doesn’t necessarily reflect how we want to express outselves.

My personal experience is that my online personas are starting to merge into one: I have a more relaxed, informal profile in business-related contexts, and my Facebook profile avoids anything too outrageous. I don’t know about you, but I obsessively de-tag myself from the ‘messier’ pictures from nights out with friends.

So, is there a risk that our online identities will become a watered-down, lowest common denominator of the various sides of our personalities and lives? A persona that you don’t mind your boss, your mother or your best mate seeing? Or will we find ways to express all of the different sides of ourselves? Let me know what you think.

By the way, if you were at the discussion, ping me on Twitter, it would be cool to stay in touch.

Tom wrote this on 20.03.08 – 1 comment
It's filed in the Events & conferences, Social media, Social networks box

BBC response to a video upload for “Your news, your pictures”

I live in Brighton and NixonMcInnes is based close to the Brighton Pier.

Each and everyday I take a wander along the seafront and today was by no means an exception.

Even though a storm appeared to be in full swing, the rain and the wind didn’t put me off in the slightest. Gusts of wind pushed me back but I kept on walking toward the seafront and when I got there, an amazing spectacle of nature was taking place: massive waves were breaking below the Brighton Pier. Read more…

Telmo wrote this on 10.03.08 – 4 comments
It's filed in the Interesting, Social media, Social networks box

What is social media for?

Good question; deserves big answer. Read more…

Ruth wrote this on 05.03.08 – 8 comments
It's filed in the Internet, Marketing, NixonMcInnes, Off topic, Social media, Social networks box

The BBC iPlayer and buzz monitoring in action

The tweet

Last night, while half watching an episode of Skins on Channel 4 and half messing about with BBC iPlayer, I spotted that a new episode of Ashes to Ashes was available to download. Slightly miffed that there didn’t seem to be any way of getting an update prompt when a new episode of a show is released I twittered a flippant (yet fortunately expletive free) remark.

Minutes later I found I had a new Twitter contact. Some bloke called James Cridland had obviously been tracking the keyword “iPlayer” and a quick visit to his site revealed him to be the Head of Future Media & Technology at BBC Audio & Music Interactive. Turns out that he was interested in finding out what I’d meant by my off the cuff tweet and I explained (in 140 characters or fewer) how neat it would be if new episodes would “automagically add themselves to the download manager. Or it’d prompt you. I expect you’re already thinking about this :)”… Of course, it turns out that they are. Because he told me.

Morals from this story?

Firstly, the BBC still kick ass.

Secondly, never underestimate the powers of your own actions online (no matter how insignificant or throwaway they initially seem).

Thirdly, the wealth of opinions about your entity (organisation, product or even person) have never been so readily available. Actively listen to your critics, users or visitors, like James is, harness that information… and use it to make something better!

What is tracking? (From the Twitter FAQ):

Tracking is an SMS or IM only feature that allows you to receive all twitters that match a word you’re tracking. For example, if you send track Obama, you will receive all updates that match “Obama.” All updates sent from tracking will begin with parenthesis. You can easily stop getting these messages by sending untrack Obama.

More about buzz monitoring

Read ‘Essential Buzz Monitoring‘, Chapter 5 of our FREE e-book - “A Marketers Guide to Social Media”.

This is a user-friendly, no-jargon guide with great examples and useful tips on how to use the latest digital techniques to make your online campaigns successful. Essential reading for marketers.

Download the PDF from our ebooks section, and sign up for notification of future chapters while you’re there.

Trevor May wrote this on 22.02.08 – 7 comments
It's filed in the Buzz monitoring, RSS, Social networks box

A social media web browser - Flock

flock

Here at NixonMcInnes we love all things social media so I couldn’t help but blog when I came across a new release of an uber cool web browser. It’s called ‘Flock’, is based on Firefox and has lots of wonderfully cool social media plugins that integrate seamlessly into the browser. After all, it does call itself ‘the social web browser’.

Why is it a social web browser? Does this mean it talks to you more than your friends do? No, of course not. That would be silly (cool, but silly). So what does it do thats different from Firefox. Well, the key bit for me is its integration with the various social web tools we all use. For example, it hooks right into Twitter, Facebook and and Youtube and has customised sidebars that allow you to see all your updates, actions, friends, status changes etc without having to go to the website.

It also allows you to upload photos into your social media accounts directly through the browser. Want to add photos to your facebook or Flickr app? Just click the upload photos icon, select the service you want to drop into and drag and drop. Lovely.

And a further note to cement its coolness, its allows you to blog directly from within the Flock browser - working with most blogging services like Blogger, Drupal, LiveJournal, MovableType, Typepad and WordPress. Nice.

Have a look for yourself, and let me know if you discover any other neat tricks it can do!

Matt wrote this on 19.02.08 – 4 comments
It's filed in the Blogging, Interesting, Social media, Social networks, User experience box

Facebook, myspace and gig promotion

I keep hearing everyone say, ‘Facebook is a social tool, it’s not really for club promotion – myspace is what that was designed for’. Interesting. Sure, myspace seems to have all the record labels you could want, plenty of artists showcasing their music and great features for artists in general, but is it good for the local artist who wants to let people in his local area know gigs are occurring? Myspace feels very international, whilst Facebook feels local.

I have a myspace page, have done for a few years – and I have used this to publicise every gig I’ve played at, or have been scheduled to play at, showcase my music and act as a profile page. Whilst friends I know have responded to gig requests, it’s never really made any huge difference (that I can see) to those numbers attending the gig that are outside my friend circle.

I created a Facebook account a while back now, and decided to use the ‘events’ feature to publicise my gigs on Facebook. Much to my surprise, I had people I don’t know confirming themselves as coming, photographers asking for passes to take photos for the night, and generally much more of an online ‘buzz’ about the event than I have seen on Myspace for one my events.

I’d like to hear if anyone else has any similar experiences? Whilst Myspace may be the first place to look for gig details and information for the major players in the music industry, perhaps Facebook could work better for us local talents? It’s an interesting notion, that I’ve yet to see fruit properly, but the indicators for me, at least, are there.

Matt wrote this on 28.01.08 – 4 comments
It's filed in the Blogging, Brighton, Interesting, Internet, Social media, Social networks box