SocialTimes.com

Posted: 21 Oct 2008 12:11 PM CDT

Paul Boutin, who happens to be a correspondent for Valleywag, has posted an article on Wired suggesting that launching your own blog is pretty much worthless at this point. His rationale? Pretty much the same rationale that is passed around time and time again. The primary leaderboards for blogs around the web, suggest that you can’t become a large blog as an individual.

Paul Boutin has a point. If you are looking to build a blog that attracts millions of monthly visitors, you really have a small chance of success. Honestly though, you always have had a small chance of success. That doesn’t mean you can’t succeed though. Just take a look at the desperate brokers blog. Mashable has even gone so far as to suggest that it’s the new Lolcats.

While I disagree with Mashable, the point is that there is still the potential for viral success. Viral success is created by developing hyper-niche content within an unfilled niche. That’s how I grew AllFacebook and while it’s not as big as Techcrunch or Mashable, it’s still possible to create a large enough audience that you can sustain a small business and potentially grow that business.

Other statistics that Boutin uses to support his argument that there is no point in blogging? Boutin suggests that it has become more challenging to generate relevant content that moves up to the first page in Google results for one and two-word phrases. I think Boutin is accurate about this. When you regurgitate content that has been republished for instance on Techmeme, it is challenging to move to the top of Google.

When you generate original content though that targets and unfilled niche, there is still a good chance of success. Ultimately that’s where I differ with Boutin. Yes, the large niches like “technology” have been filled but there still are numerous unfilled niches and it takes a good entrepreneur to find those.

A third argument that Paul Boutin suggests is that the buzz is not taking place in blogs and is taking place on other social media sites (Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, etc). I agree with Paul’s statement but yet again, it’s still possible to generate buzz on a blog.

Blogging Ain’t Easy

The bottom line is this: if you want to build a successful blog, you can’t do it part time. It has to be full-time and you have to be willing to work ridiculous hours to succeed. Nobody said it was easy and I can guarantee you that none of the top blogs will say it’s easy. Even many of the largest blogs are still finding it challenging to optimize their revenue model.

It’s easy to dismiss blogs as a platform for generating buzz. That’s because it takes time and effort to succeed. Paul Boutin also uses a statement from Robert Scoble to suggest that blogging is dead. Robert Scoble says “I keep my blog mostly for long-form writing”. Blogs are not meant for short-form content. That’s why we call Twitter micro-blogging!

Do you think blogging is dead? Would you recommend that others start a blog? Have you had success with blogging? Is it that much more challenging to launch a successful blog now?

Social Networks Global Presence

Posted: 21 Oct 2008 09:06 AM CDT

Oxyweb has posted a chart of the largest social networks throughout the world. The chart is a world map with the each country being colored based on the largest social network in that country. The most significant takeaway from this chart is that Facebook is rapidly obtaining global dominance. The largest competitor on a global level is hi5.

On an individual country basis, Facebook has fierce competition from StudiVZ in Germany, Xiaonei in China, V Kontakte (a Facebook copycat) in Russia, and a few other social networks each with a strong local presence. The chart doesn’t provide much insight outside of that but it definitely is a pretty picture with a basic level of insight for the global social network presence.

I am personally impressed with the reach of Facebook. According to the article, Facebook overtook hi5 in the Bahamas and Cuba. Currently, hi5 dominates Central America and part of South America. Between hi5 and Orkut, Facebook will have some fierce battles in the western hemisphere. Both hi5 and Facebook appear to be the primary competitors for global dominance.

It will be interesting to see how this chart changes 6 months from now. Facebook is on track to overtake MySpace domestically, but it won’t be anytime in the immediate future as MySpace has almost 20 million more monthly visitors domestically than Facebook. The site continues to gain ground though and as Mashable pointed out yesterday, Facebook hit 39 million monthly visitors last month according to Nielsen Online.

Click on the chart below to see the full-scale version.

imeem Launches Application on Android

Posted: 20 Oct 2008 11:05 PM CDT

It looks like the Android press releases are rolling out tonight. The second social network to announce support for Android this evening is imeem. The application provides many of the features currently available on the imeem website. Users can browse through music and create their own custom radio stations. What’s not clear is whether or not users can listen to the full songs.

The application integrates directly with the on-site experience, making the music that people listen to on the go, influence applications on the site. While Pandora has not launched a similar version of their application on Android yet, any launch by them would most definitely be seen as competition. Pandora has been highly successful on the iPhone, providing users with full-song streaming capabilities.

This is the first music service that I have seen launch on the Android Market. Unfortunately the first Google phone that will be launching on T-Mobile has yet to be released so we have no way of testing out the Android applications. The current implementation of imeem for Android appears to be extremely simple, focused entirely on user playlists rather than full social networking functionality (messaging, profiles, etc).

The social network battle for dominance on mobile devices is in full swing and there’s no doubt that this trend will continue for the next few months as carriers decide what platforms to use for their own applications. It will be interesting to see how this battle plays out, but it’s definitely exciting to see another large social network enter the mobile space.

-imeem Android Screenshot-

LivingSocial Launches iPhone Application

Posted: 20 Oct 2008 09:39 PM CDT

LivingSocial, the company know for their suite of social discovery applications made popular on Facebook, has released an iPhone application which was available tonight. We previously wrote about the company when they raised $5 million from Steve Case and D.C. based Grotech Ventures. The application integrates all of the channels currently provided by LivingSocial including books, music, film, dining, gaming, and drinking. One of the best components is that their dining application actually enables users to review from the phone!

For some reason Yelp decided not to include this functionality in their mobile edition, making it impossible for users to review on the go. One other cool feature is the ability to take photos and upload them directly to restaurants when you are visiting them. This is a pretty powerful feature. Personally, I believe that the dining, reading, and drinking components of this application will be most used as they are activities that people do while on the go.

That’s not to suggest that the other components won’t be successful but I have a feeling that these 3 channels are the most significant. This is a giant step for LivingSocial though as they strive to make social discovery a completely ubiquitous activity, accessible from anywhere. This application immediately takes advantage of the reviews provided by millions of users across social networks and LivingSocial’s destination site.

There were most definitely a few bugs when trying out the first version of their mobile application though but as most iPhone applications have the first time around. Most of the bugs stemmed from load-time issues. Additionally, I think that having people fill out an entire registration form is excessive. Perhaps there would be one option to tie the phone number to an account?

Whatever the case is, the LivingSocial application is currently one of the best social recommendation applications that I’ve seen. Given that they already have a large inventory of reviews, the application is pre-populated with valuable data. If you have an iPhone and want to have recommendations on the go, go download the LivingSocial iPhone application.

-LivingSocial iPhone Application Screenshot-

MySpace Announces Google Android Application

Posted: 20 Oct 2008 07:07 PM CDT

Well Google Android is in full swing. Tonight MySpace is announcing the launch of their Google Android application. The first version of this application enables photo uploading, band profiles with tour information, the ability to comment on photos, profiles, and bulletins, the ability to searc hfor new friends, inbox access, and the ability to update and view mood and status.

The bottom line is this is their next smartphone application rollout and it appears to be relatively extensive based on the screenshots displayed below. So what’s the killer part of this application? It integrates directly with Shazam. If you didn’t get a chance to test out Shazam on the iPhone you are truly missing out. The application will tell you what an unknown song is by simply holding up the phone towards the music.

The integration with Shazam will link the band profile directly from the user’s phone when their song is matched. I honestly think this collaboration is bigger than the announcement that MySpace will be available for Google Android. MySpace is one of the first social networks to launch via android but there will be more social network announcements coming in the next 24 hours.

As the first “Google phone” prepares to be rolled out, this is some really exciting news for the company. One interesting thing about this new application is that the design provided by Apple iPhone made many of the applications look similar. This time around applications have a distinct design which I wouldn’t exactly consider the same sort of “clean” look that iPhone has.

I’m guessing this could negatively impact Android phone sales in the long-run. How important do you think design will be for the success of the Android platform?

-MySpace Android Screenshot 1-