Web2.0 Wonders

Listen to me... says the consumer

Found this video on Geert Desager's blog. It humorously demonstrates what Seth Godin preaches about in "Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers". Great Book. Great Video.   

 

Social media is a two way street

As social media moves into the focal point of most marketing strategies, many companies tend to jump right in without really understanding the essence of it all. The power of social media is in the dialogues, the reciprocity, and in the relations nurtured; it's not just entering, submitting a bulk of content and watching from the side lines. 

I agree with Sean Moffitt, social media is an art form, you must participate in it to really know it. For social media efforts to show its gain, companies need to really start participating more. Invest in learning and interacting, rather than in simply the analytics and figures. Remember, social media is not a one way street.

Mashbash Tel-Aviv

I attended the Mashbash Tel- Aviv networking event yesterday. It was a great event celebrating Israel's growing tech community, and with over 800 attendees, it just goes to show how the social media scene is really on fire.

The vibe in the Galina Beach Club was thrilling, entrepreneurs networking, social media advocates socializing, startup and high-tech professionals, CEO's and Venture Capitalists all with the purpose to meet, mingle and enjoy the hot Israeli tech scene. It was also a great opportunity to meet Mashable's Adam Hirsch and many others. I enjoyed being apart of it, can't wait for the next one...

Twitter and school notes

Did you ever pass notes to friends during class? When I read about Rohit’s experience about getting tweeted on while speaking at a conference, I thought of just that situation. The hand written notes we passed in class as kids, has been upgraded to instant tweets we convey about ourselves and others online.

This may sound like a funny correlation, yet may actually be quite plausible too. When a conference speaker can read and respond to what’s being said about his/her presentation as it is happening live, it’s like a sneak preview to all the notes circulating in the room! A helpful tool for presenters and maybe even for future teachers alike, with Twitter regard you can virtually be placed in the audience and relate with your crowd.

Jumpstarting a startup on TechCrunch

TechCrunch recently launched a new site for entrepreneurs to pitch their startups to the general public. Short and to the point, startups get a chance to present their businesses to the online community through a 60 second video pitch.

I really enjoyed viewing some pitches, and checking out the highest rated startups. I also liked the clean and simple layout of the site showing you one pitch at a time to vote on. The Elevator Pitches site is a great channel for startups to gain momentum, expose themselves, and even gain customer feedback on their ideas, products or business.

However, I wouldn’t rely solely on a company’s rated score to close an investment deal, if you know what I mean. The community of voters seem like a tough crowd to me, sometimes belittling quite potentially worthy startups. In my opinion, revealing the age group or an authority rank of the commenter can be useful additions to better evaluate the comments contributed by so many diverse users out there.

I hope TechCrunch will keep upgrading and developing the site to make it even easier and beneficial for entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas on this opportunity-triggering site. Looking forward to watching!

Social Media's Achilles Heel? answered

Are you familiar with the paraphrase when you ask a question you will most likely receive an answer? Well, funny because yesterday I asked the question whether social networking sites have the ability to protect themselves from competitor means of access? And today I find a reference relating to the same issue on TechCrunch. Evidently, Facebook block ads with the names of competing social networks, like "MySpace" and "Friendster", which is a direct way to censor out opponents.

Although, the Facebook ad filtering system may need a bit more work, as names like "Bebo" and "OpenSocial" do get approved to publish commercial ads, it is definitely one way to send the "store manager" out to supervise.

Social media's Achilles Heel?

I read a mentioning on GigaOm about Hulu's decision to set up a YouTube channel. Although YouTube and Hulu are not head-to-head competitors but rather only relate to the same audience, it still got me wondering about competitor relations in the user-generated web realm.

So, are consumer generated sites vulnerable to competitor infiltrations?

Traditional businesses have the ability to keep product information out from the competitor's hands. Like the time I went to buy furniture. The store manager almost kicked me out twice, because I took a snapshot picture of a sofa I liked to send to my girlfriend through my mobile phone. I was not a competitor; just merely a guy wanting his woman's approval for a high priced acquisition :) Nevertheless, the store would not permit it, and so took active measures about it...

As YouTube, and other UGC sites, accept commercial involvement, they may be at risk just by allowing so. Well, I'm not so worried about YouTube, but actually the other way around: a promising site that is gaining momentum can suffer by big sites targeting its audience.

Can social network sites protect themselves from this, and more importantly, should they?

 

Social ice-cream by the people and for the people

Lee Lefever created one of the best visual explanations of social media I've seen in a long time. If a picture is worth a thousand words than a video must be worth even more! Check it out.

If you can't beat them join them

Millions of employees around the world spend lots of daily working hours chatting, sharing and scouring social network sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Del.icio.us and the list goes on. Admit it, you do too!

Well, the corporate world has taken notice. No need to panic. Your job is secure. Some companies today are not only aware of their employees' social media activities, they encourage it and even acknowledge social networking as a positive tool for strengthening internal business relations and progressing corporate goals.

In the past two years, IBM has been busy launching several in-house versions of Web 2.0 hits, including Dogear, a community-tagging system, Many Eyes, a data loading and discussion board webpage, and the latest, Beehive, a Facebook format social network for the thousands of IBM employees across the globe.

IBM and others, like the Blue Shirt Nation™ team of Best Buy™, are evolving with the times. When understanding the significance of the web2.0 medium, more businesses will leverage social media for their corporate advantage than forbid or dismiss it trivially.

Social Networks for a Good Cause

If we found a way to contribute to the society without leaving our home, we would do it in an instant. I know I would. The new Facebook Missing Children application is just one example of such an opportunity. Once downloaded, the application displays information of missing children on the user's homepage, capturing the attention of your friends to identify and hopefully help missing children reunite with their families.

The parents of four-year-old Madeleine McCann have expressed their support for the charity Missing Children initiative: "We would urge the millions of Facebook users around the world to keep looking and to do what they can to help bring these children home."

Social network sites have the power to access millions of internet users around the world, crossing countries, borders and cultures. Using this medium to raise awareness, spread the word and hopefully even trace links to thousands of missing youngsters out there, fills me with satisfaction. Imagine, just by adding this application, you can help save lives, a donation truly rewarding.