http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2006/10/more-visual-links-3 Digital Lifestyle Aggregation - helping to establish open source infrastructure Fri, 29 Aug 2008 22:23:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2006/10/more-visual-links-3#comment-118718 Phoenomi - Surfing the Longtail » Blog Archive » Niches are the future of social networking Sun, 22 Oct 2006 03:09:13 +0000 http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2006/10/more-visual-links-3#comment-118718 [...] I read a couple of posts today which deepened my belief that the future of social networking lies in niches. First there’s the recent news from investor Jeff Clavier that his social networking investment, Dogster, is already in the black. The simple feature of adding friends (even if they’re dogs) seems like it could be used to some degree in all web applications. For instance, VC Fred agrees with Marc Canter’s idea that “faces are a key component of social media and networking - and any software that doesn’t display a user’s face - is uncomplete.” Social networking becomes even more important when you realize that, if used correctly, it is probably the single best way to virally market a good product without cost or effort. By “used correctly” I mean that you should build your web apps so that the experience is obviously enhanced when people invite their friends. There’s a definite spectrum of effectiveness for social networking. For instance, MySpace is using the concept to its fullest since the whole point of their site is to invite friends, search for friends, meet new friends, etc. On the other hand, a news site like Digg seems like a less obvious choice for a social networking component since the adding of friends isn’t essential to the experience. Still, the idea of community is essential for a news site, and Digg is almost nailing that (they just need user pictures). [...] [...] I read a couple of posts today which deepened my belief that the future of social networking lies in niches. First there’s the recent news from investor Jeff Clavier that his social networking investment, Dogster, is already in the black. The simple feature of adding friends (even if they’re dogs) seems like it could be used to some degree in all web applications. For instance, VC Fred agrees with Marc Canter’s idea that “faces are a key component of social media and networking - and any software that doesn’t display a user’s face - is uncomplete.” Social networking becomes even more important when you realize that, if used correctly, it is probably the single best way to virally market a good product without cost or effort. By “used correctly” I mean that you should build your web apps so that the experience is obviously enhanced when people invite their friends. There’s a definite spectrum of effectiveness for social networking. For instance, MySpace is using the concept to its fullest since the whole point of their site is to invite friends, search for friends, meet new friends, etc. On the other hand, a news site like Digg seems like a less obvious choice for a social networking component since the adding of friends isn’t essential to the experience. Still, the idea of community is essential for a news site, and Digg is almost nailing that (they just need user pictures). [...]

]]> http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2006/10/more-visual-links-3#comment-114004 THE IDENTITY GANG / More Visual Links #3 Sat, 14 Oct 2006 20:17:28 +0000 http://blog.broadbandmechanics.com/2006/10/more-visual-links-3#comment-114004 [...] Original post by Marc Canter and reblogged using an RSS aggregator at The Identity Gang BlogReGator [...] [...] Original post by Marc Canter and reblogged using an RSS aggregator at The Identity Gang BlogReGator [...]

]]>