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• The “Secret” New Media School Project
• MySpace Layoffs Go International
• Super Rewards Monetizing Twitter-Exclusive Mafia Game

The “Secret” New Media School Project Posted: 23 Jun 2009 02:20 PM PDT If you happen to read my other site, AllFacebook.com, then you possibly read my article from earlier today about our new “Holy Grail Of Facebook Privacy” Guide. As part of the benefits I listed out access to a new site that I’ve been working on for the past six months: New Media School. I privately launched the site a few months back to see how it would work and get some people talking in the forums. The test went pretty well but my launch strategy was not as effective and ultimately not well thought out. I’ve gone through many revisions and still continue to but now that it’s public I can at least share what it is! The vision of New Media School is to “help individuals and businesses succeed in the digital economy”. Given my expertise with Facebook, I’ve started creating content for a program completely focused on the site but have many more programs planned. For now I’m taking it one step at a time because after spending two years as a hare, I’ve begun to see the value in becoming a tortoise. I have a number of speaking engagements lined up over the next few months which include seminars about leveraging social technology for brands. What’s most important is having a library of content to integrate into those presentations, which is why I wanted to launch New Media School. There’s a serious void in the market for educating companies and executives how to take advantage of these new technologies most effectively. I think the largest void is in education from true experts. While numerous companies offer education services, very few have taken the time to master the tools. Those that have mastered the tools are not willing to take the time to provide thorough education services. It’s the everlasting catch-22 of the world of education. It’s not to suggest that great services don’t exist already … they do! The demand is too large though and with technology evolving quicker than educational programs, we need solutions. I’m hoping that New Media School will serve as one of those solutions and over the coming months we’ll roll out new programs that I hope you can be part of! If you are interested in teaching your own course or want to partner in any way, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

MySpace Layoffs Go International Posted: 23 Jun 2009 08:40 AM PDT Last week we received confirmation of the rumors surrounding the MySpace layoffs, with the social networking company trimming its staff by 30% and releasing statements regarding its plans to restructure and focus on innovative products for its future. Today MySpace offers up more details surrounding its intent to restructure, stating that its international operations will be cut back in some regards as well. MySpace will be refocusing its international operations around a smaller number of territories, with plans to “retain a robust global consumer presence,” according to the statement sent out by MySpace. While this plan is still subject to consultation with the international employees in various countries, MySpace is really looking to make a uniform move here across all the countries in which MySpace has a presence. Should everything go according to plan, MySpace will cut down its international staff from 450 employees to 150, closing at least 4 offices outside the U.S. London, Berlin and Sydney would become the promary hubs for the reorganized and tightened regions, through which the bulk of MySpace’s international activity would run. That leaves several other offices, from Canada to Argentina, Italy and India, in dire straights as they will be under review for restructuring. This is another major move for MySpace, as the social network has spent the past two years aggressively building up its international presence, seeking growth outside of the U.S. in order to maintain a high level of dominance in the social networking realm. One of MySpace’s core strategies in its global push was to set up sites as well as physical offices for a country-specific version of MySpace, tying in with local culture and events. Having to step back from its international push is indicative of the state of affairs over at MySpace, especially as other social networks such as Facebook are increasing their presence around the globe. As MySpace is still looking to grow in terms of its reach and user base, the whittled down staff will be left with an increase of work and a lot of pressure to revolutionize much of what MySpace has become. See here for more thoughts on MySpace’s future.

Super Rewards Monetizing Twitter-Exclusive Mafia Game Posted: 23 Jun 2009 05:00 AM PDT Super Rewards started as a project for monetizing Facebook applications, and the company is expanding outwards to now include Twitter. The virtual goods and currency platform that works for online games and social networks has created a way to generate revenue for games that have been designed to work exclusively with Twitter, including 140 Mafia. So how does it work? Users earn points redeemable within the game by recruiting new users via Twitter. It’s yet another exchange-based system that has proven successful, to certain degrees, on Facebook. In exchange for a user participating in certain offers and actions, they earn points and other benefits to be used in the game or social network. As Twitter continues to prove useful as a distribution platform, taking advantage of its cross-device access and usability, there are other “platforms” that are cropping up in order to build on that spreading reach. The game 140 Mafia already leverages the Twitter format, as it is a text-based game. Level up in the Mafia family in order to gain property, position and wealth. For the Mafia game and Super Rewards in particular, the model used for monetizing Twitter is one that is very similar to what has been readily proven within Facebook applications, by way of games and virtual environments. What remains to be proven, however, is whether or not this type of rewards application will work on a microblogging platform such as Twitter. On the one hand, recruitment is often considered spammy within a social networking environment and has been curtailed with various regulations. Spam on Twitter has already begun to run rampant, and any institutionalized application that monetizes itself via Twitter will need to be careful to avoid becoming perceived as spam. On the other hand, monetizing virtual goods is becoming a saturated market, and we’re seeing a good amount of the rewards-based monetization move into the mobile realm. This all becomes particularly noteworthy as news of Twitter’s possible revenue plans coming through branded microblogs for corporate organizations. It seems that there are several emerging ideas being implemented towards the monetization of Twitter.

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