SocialTimes.com

Posted: 22 Sep 2008 02:03 PM CDT

Last week Tim O’Reilly keynoted at the Web 2.0 Expo and rather than promoting all the potential that Web 2.0 provides, he criticized developers for investing many of their resources on building completely useless applications. From throwing sheep to chugging beer, many of the applications have not provided much substantive value. The question that I have is if it is really the developers who are at fault or is it the users that download and install the applications that should be criticized?

Unraveling the Social Change Equation

Over the past couple years, a large movement has been brewing on the web. With the help of social technology, internet users now have access to over 1.4 billion individuals (Source: Internetworldstats.com). With all of this connectivity, we figure that there must be some way that we can drive change like never before. We have seen the launch of Change.org, Idealist.org, Zaadz.com and a whole slew of newer services that help individuals drive change.

Just last year when Facebook launched their platform, Causes was launched by Sean Parker and Joseph Green and the team has been working to try to drive the number of donations being given through the application. We still have a long way to go though. If you take a look at the top cause on the Causes application, there are over 3.375 million members supporting “Support the Campaign for Cancer Prevention” and $72,697 has been donated. This amounts to approximately $0.02 raised per user.

Advertisements could have easily generated more than $0.02 per user. So can social networks be used to drive change, if so, how?

How Can Social Networks Drive Substantial Change?

It’s clear that there is a ton of untapped potential in social networks to drive change. As Tim O’Reilly pointed out, much of that potential is being funneled into ways that individuals can waste time. Can we really be disappointed by our escapist desires? So far, I have yet to find a single social network which has truly impacted the world in a way that idealists believe social networks could positively impact the world.

Simply through their existence, web-based social networks help to spread democratic ideals and help individuals around the world share their experiences with others. I’d suggest that as a whole we have yet to develop effective metrics for measuring change. Right now Causes could use dollars generated as one metric, but how about the application’s ability to drive users to action?

This is just one metric and I’m sure that there are hundreds of others. We all have that gut feeling that social networks can drive substantial change. Some of them already are but frequently we end up creating a network of individuals that talk about change rather than do something about it. While passive change is one form of change I have a feeling that there is a lot more opportunity out there.

What ways do you think social networks can more effectively drive change? How can we measure the impact?

Politics Heats Up on Social Networks

Posted: 22 Sep 2008 10:34 AM CDT

Last week MySpace announced the launch of the MyDebates site which takes politics on social networks to a new level. There is an interactive quiz which lets users see where they stand on issues in relation to each of the candidates. There is also a section which lets users see results of the polls. So far the results are definitely interesting with 45 of 50 states going to Barack Obama according to the latest poll.

While I don’t know the exact statistics on the people that took the quiz, it appears that the 21-34 years olds appear to have the most influence over the poll currently. One of the coolest features of the site is that there will be live coverage of the national debates and the ability to talk with others that are following the debate as they happen.

I actually found the poll to be extremely useful for judging my position although I wasn’t completely surprised by the results. Social networks are rapidly becoming a central place for political discussion. Just last week CNN covered how Facebook is being used to encourage users to register to vote:

"We need your help more than ever," the Obama campaign said in a Facebook update Thursday which touted an updated version of the campaign's application on the popular social networking site. The revised application is now headlined by a large module that allows users to check whether they are registered to vote, to request an absentee ballot, and to locate their polling place. The new module replicates functionality available on a Web site launched by the Obama campaign soon after the Republican convention.

The Obama camp's effort to encourage registration and absentee voting on Facebook comes less than a day after the McCain camp rolled out its own application on the site to encourage its supporters to vote early or obtain absentee ballots.

"Now more than ever, your vote is critical," the McCain-Palin update said. "Voting early, or with an absentee ballot, is the best way to avoid the long line on Election Day and get your vote counted." The new McCain application takes users to a page on the campaign's Web site where they can fill out a form to request an absentee ballot or register to vote.

While it’s difficult to measure the impact of political activities on the various social networks, it’s clear that both parties are taking social networks seriously as they demand a large portion of young voters’ attention. It will be interesting to see how much traffic is generated to these sites as the Presedential debates take place over the coming weeks.

-MyDebates Map Screenshot-

Interact 08 Coming to D.C. This Month

Posted: 22 Sep 2008 10:04 AM CDT

-Interact 08 Logo- If you haven’t noticed, over the past few months the D.C. area has been building buzz with new start-ups launching regularly, events popping up daily and the media covering more of the events taking place. One event which sounds like it is going to be a killer event is Interact 2008. The event also has a pretty long description:

INTERACT will gather together the top creative, strategic, and tactical marketing minds to speak about proven methods in which Interactive Media and Web presence can achieve the following: Increase market share, increase awareness through branding, increase sales through Web presence, increase profitability though e-commerce, increase knowledge of best marketing practices on the Web, state-of-the-art mobile marketing, plus, futuristic outlooks from subject matter experts on how Interactive Media will shape the future growth of National, International, and Global companies in the future.

Talk about a broad focus! I will be speaking on a panel in the morning about social media and there are a bunch of other great panels throughout the day. If you are looking to attend you can also get $500 off (more than a 50 percent discount), by visiting http://www.interact2008.com/promospecial. Let us know if you’ll be attending. We look forward to seeing you there!

Social Ad Summit: Social Network Advertising

Posted: 22 Sep 2008 08:25 AM CDT

Last week we hosted the inaugural Social Ad Summit in New York City. Over the past week the video team has been compiling the videos and this week we will be posting them on the site. The first video which I’ve embedded below is the Social Network Advertising panel. The speakers on the panel are Spencer Ante, Computers Editor at BusinessWeek and author of “Creative Capital”, David Borstein of MySpace, Bill Alena of MyYearbook.com, Mike Trigg of hi5 and Martin Green of Meebo.

I will be posting transcripts of the various panels in the coming weeks as they get posted. Enjoy!