3 posts tagged “cyworld”

Thanks to technology and the Internet, the world is becoming increasingly transparent and accessible.  Social media is playing an important role in this transformation.  So far, most people seem to be responding to the power of social media favorably, and they’re using the power of social media for good.  However, there is a risk that the pendulum could shift in the other direction over time.  Below are the "5 Deadly Sins" of social media - pitfalls that proponents of social media should watch out for and proactively advocate against:

• Market saturation: There is a proliferation of social networking sites available – lots of sites are competing for users time.  Marketers are creating new social networking sites in record numbers to promote their products, and the number of traditional social networking sites (MySpace, YouTube, Bebo, Gather, WAYN, CyWorld, etc.) are also growing.  Users often use different for the same purpose but to meet different people.  If the market becomes overly fragmented, it may become less useful and more burdensome to user.  I hope that a natural market consolidation will happen eventually, but in the meantime, the industry runs the risk of users “burning out” from having to juggle too many different websites, on-line “friends”, different profile inputting tools, and passwords.
• Exploitation of social media at the expense of others: Social media makes it easier than ever to share information on-line.  While, the power of information sharing is good, it can also be dangerous in the wrong hands, enabling: fraud, misrepresentation of identity, identity theft, sexual exploitation, and unethical sharing of corporate or government secrets.  I just read an interesting article on the security risk that social media presents to corporations.  The same is true for governments and individuals.  The “Star Wars Kid”  and Paris Hilton were two of the first people to learn a thing or two about that.
• Eradication of privacy: This one is closely linked to the bullet point above on exploitation, but I felt it deserved its own section because it goes beyond exploitation because what is considered private to one person, isn’t necessarily considered private to another.  The Washingtonienne case is a good example of this.  Another example is that anyone can get an aerial photograph of your house at Google Maps or go to Zillow to find out what your house is worth.  Add location based social media services and mobile phones into the mix, and tracking people's location becomes easy via services like Helio's Buddy Beacon and Dodgeball.  While these are great services and they offer opt-in privacy, it's scary to think what could happen if either service were hacked.  Alternatively, imagine the damage that would result if someone's location information got into the wrong hands or was commandeered by a "friend" turned stalker. 
  
• Opportunistic litigation: Lawsuits like those filed earlier this week against News Corp. pose a strong threat to the health of social media.  If cases like these succeed, the rulings will send a dangerous message to the public: “You’re not responsible for your own safety or the safety of your children.  Someone else is.”  Unjustified lawsuits also stifle technical innovation and have the potential to strangle social media with excessive amounts of red tape.
• Opaque Marketing: Marketers are becoming more sophisticated about the ways that they use social media to their advantage.  It is already difficult to avoid pop-ups and other advertisements on-line.  And, with some social media sites, it difficult to tell what is advertising versus what is genuine, unbiased opinion.  Take, for example, bloggers who get paid by companies to evangelize products (I don’t, but a lot do).  Advertising on social media sites isn’t nearly as transparent as it should be, and social media runs the risk of being tarnished by overzealous marketers.

1/22/07 UPDATE: Thanks everyone for your insightful comments.  I just read a great article by Mark Zielinski, a UK-based security engineer.  The article talks about the threat that social media poses to corporate security.  In the article, Mark talks about how employees use their work computers to check their social networking pages and that this poses a threat to corporate networks.  Unsurprisingly, employees checking social media sites rather than doing work probably, has an impact on productivity - even more so than personal email. With these two points in mind, I'd like to add "Bringing Down the Corporation" as the 6th deadly sin of Social Media.

In typical Friday fashion, I was browsing TheOnion.com over lunch, when I came across an article that made me laugh – out loud: “Recently Unearthed E-Mail Reveals What Life Was Like in 1995”.  If you’re looking for a good laugh on a Friday afternoon… This spoof article will do the trick!  When I was done laughing, the article made me think about what has changed in the last 15 years and how the latest web 2.0, social media, and wireless revolution is now accelerating the pace of ongoing change. 

Today, the Wall Street Journal reoported another first - CBS Corp. is getting ready to unveil a new, interactive game for mobile phones – based on (wait for it) “America’s Next Top Model.”  The game will feature avatars  (discussed in yesterday’s blog) based upon the latest line-up of real-life contestants from the show.

Eberhard Schoeneburg, CEO of Artificial Life, Inc., the company responsible for developing the game said:

We are very excited about this product launch and the opportunity of working with one of the world's leading media companies to produce leading edge mobile games based on such a well known and globally popular TV shows as 'America's Next Top Model' on the CW.  After the initial launch in the US we will also launch the game in many other countries around the globe.

Americas-next-top-model

On the surface, an interactive mobile game doesn’t seem like such a bad idea… A recent Telephia study finds:

Nearly 13.5 million mobile subscribers downloaded a game in Q2 2006, representing average monthly revenues of $46.9 million for the quarter. Since Q3 2005, the number of subscribers who downloaded mobile games from the operator portal has increased by 15 percent. During that same time period revenues jumped 63 percent.

Under close examination, I’m asking myself, “WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!?!!” Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as big a fan of mobile games as the next person, and I think there is a huge potential in both mobile games and corporate sponsorship/advertising in games, but I’m skeptical about this particular game concept.  I can’t imagine that the season (and interest in any show) would last long enough to financially justify developing a mobile game that revolves entirely around one series of a specific TV show.

I come from a mobile background and have worked with hundreds of mobile developers globally, as a Business Development/ Developer Relations Consultant at Palm, Inc.  Mobile game development, when done well, is an expensive and (often slow) endeavor.  The mobile marketplace is a lot more fragmented than the PC and console gaming markets, and there are a lot more scenarios to develop for, which contributes to the cost and development time.  There are thousands of different types of handsets out there – each with their own keyboard layout.  There are also a wide variety of Mobile operating systems and screen resolutions.  Screen resolution is a HUGE issue for mobile games developers because artwork doesn’t always scale well.  Realistically, how many mobile devices will they be able to program this game for?  My guess is - not many.

In my opinion, if media companies like CBS are going to use interactive/ social gaming for advertising purposes, there is a more effective way to do it… As an example, they can develop more general games, which have components/short scenes that can be dropped into/ taken out of a game quickly.  Developing mobile games that based entirely around avatars from one season of a show is too limiting.  How about building a mobile “platform” game where the characters have nothing to do with a particular TV show, but where users have to answer questions from last night’s episode of a particular TV show in order to get extra points or get to the next level?  That would be easy enough to do technically.  Better yet, why not engage multiple viewers of a particular show in a mobile gaming competition (any game will do), and the winner gets to meet the stars of a show?  All of these scenarios seem more sensible from a business perspective than the one CBS announced.  I bet the implementation of their announced strategy will struggle with device compatibility issues and heavy development costs.

The Wall Street Journal article also highlights something that I mentioned in my blog about Second Life yesterday… Marketers are increasingly using avatars to engage new customers and audiences.  NBC Universal apparently announced that it has signed a deal with Cyworld (who I plan to talk about in future blogs), a major social networking site, which started off in South Korea and is growing internationally.  Apparently, NBC Universal will be releasing an Avatar into Cyworld later this month, which is based upon “Fancy,” a character from “Passions,” which is a leading daytime show aimed at teens.  According to the article:

Cyworld members and NBC.com visitors will be able to buy avatar clothing and furniture and decorate a virtual bedroom for Fancy, who lives with her very rich grandmother. Cyworld launched its U.S. site last summer.

Ah, and to think, I remember when the coolest thing you could buy as a teenage soap fan was a Luke and Laura t-shirt (which, you had to write away for).  Yep, the world is changing at lightning speed.  I’ll have to save that article from the Onion and read it again in 10 years… At this rate, I’m sure it will get even better with age.

Last week, San Francisco-based start-up Activeweave launched an exciting new product called Stickis.  At first glance, Stickis looks like any other web overlay and annotation tool (i.e. Google Notebook, Trailfire, Fleck, Diigo, etc.), but dig a little deeper and you’ll see that Stickis does more.  If it reaches critical mass, Stickis could revolutionize the way that people interact with the web and each other.  Unlike popular social networking sites like MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, LinkedIn, Cyworld, etc., which require users to interact with each other within the confines of a specific website, Stickis allows users to interact with people in their network anytime and anywhere on the web.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with web overlay, traditional annotation tools have been around for a while.  These tools are browser plug-ins that let you stick virtual Post-It-esque “notes” on websites.  One of the first and most notorious of these web overlay services was the now defunct “Third Voice,” which many likened to “web graffiti”.  One of the problems with Third Voice was that it lacked privacy features, which critics argued, exposed everyone with Third Voice’s plug-in to potentially lewd and libelous commentary. In 2001, reporting on the backlash to this criticism, Wired reported:

Third Voice couldn't generate enough advertising revenue to raise consumers' awareness of its free service, and it couldn't generate enough consumer awareness to raise the advertising revenue it needed to stay in business.

Web overlay/annotation tools have come a long way since the missteps of Third Voice.  Since then, the web has seen significant technological advances – especially in the areas of privacy management, web search/organizing content, and social networking.   Stickis incorporates several advanced features in these areas into a product that not only free but highly functional, innovative, and easy to use.

One thing that makes Stickis different than its competitors is the way that the service is structured.  Stickis is organized around “channels,” which are groups of Stickis notes published by a particular user.  Anyone can set up a channel – a private individual, a blogger, an organization, a website, or a company.  (Yelp and OpenTable San Francisco are two of the first companies  to have Stickis channels.)  Users can subscribe to new channels or unsubscribe from their existing channels at any time.  Similarly, “channel” owners control the privacy of their content and are able to ensure which of their Stickis notes are shared with which of their subscribers.

Here’s how Stickis works today:

• Register at Stickis.com.
•  Pick a nickname/ username
  
•  Enter your email address
•  Select the channels you’d like to subscribe to
•  If you'd like to publish a channel, pick a name (mine is Socialmedia.vox.com)
  
•  Set-up your privacy settings
• You choose whether you want to make your Stickis channel public or private.  If you decide to make your channel public, you have control over which of your subscribers can see specific posts.  You can organize your subscribers into groups- limiting which of your Stickis are seen by which of your subscribers.  This is done by creating what Stickis calls “antisocial tags” http://www.stickis.com/settings/tags/
• Upon signing up, a small plug-in is downloaded to your computer and installed when you re-start your browser.  This plug-in does NOT contain spy ware and can be turned on or off anytime with the touch of a button, which appears in your browser’s toolbar.
• When Stickis is “on”, anytime you go to new web page, a small, unobtrusive icon appears in the bottom right hand corner of your browser window.  This button displays the number of Stickis notes that your subscribed “channels” have written about that web page.
  

  Corner-button

• Unlike other annotation programs, Stickis notes are easily ignored if you don’t want to see them. 
• If you want to open the Stickis notes on a page, simply click on the button in the lower right side of your browser, and a “tray” containing a summary of each Stickis note appears (listed in reverse chronological order).

• To get a closer look at a specific Stickis note, click on its summary in the “tray” and voila- the entire Stickis note appears as an overlay over the page you’re on.
•  If you want to add to a Stickis note or reply to someone else’s Stickis note, just press the compose button on the “tray” or in your browser’s toolbar, and start writing.
  

  Compose
• You can drag or drop URLs, Pictures, Icons, etc. into your Stickis notes.You can add ‘tags’ to each of your Stickis notes, facilitating easy searching. Similarly, you can add ‘antisocial tags’ to specific posts to ensure that only certain people see those posts.
• You can also customize the look and feel of your Stickis notes so that they reflect your personal style.
•  You can set up alerts that notify you when:
• Your favorite channel posts a new Stickis note.  
• Someone writes a Stickis note on a topic that interests you (e.g. notification when specific ‘tags’ are used).
• To see step-by-step instructions of how to work with Stickis, click here.
  

It’s easy to imagine the different ways Stickis could be marketed…

• Individuals: Share your most / least favorite sites with your friends, family, the public, etc.
• Fans: Talk with fellow fans about all of the latest on-line gossip.  Meet friends who are going to up-coming shows.
• Bloggers: Enhance your reader’s experience by cross-referencing websites that you’ve commented on.
• Blog readers: See what your favorite bloggers are saying about the sites you’ve visited.
• Marketers/ PR people (for products, bands, actors, etc.): Stickis is a great way to engage with the users who want to hear from you.  Create your own channel and share exclusive information with your prospective and existing customers.  Host contests, on-line scavenger hunts, and more.
• Teachers: Create different channels for each of the classes that you teach.  Share relevant websites / on-line content with your students and encourage them to engage in discussions with each other about what they see on-line.
• Politicians:  Reach out to your constituents and tell them what you think about what’s happening on-line.  Engage your staff in a confidential discussion about how to address leaks, negative comments/ allegations that appear on the web.
  

Stickis has the potential to become a leading social networking tool.  To succeed in this capacity, it must continue to evolve.  Activeweave’s CEO, Marc Meyer, agrees:

Today we’re very much emphasizing the annotation features and the ability to discover stuff. In the near future, we’ll be improving  people’s ability to connect more closely to their communities.

To read my blog anywhere on the web, add this blog to your Stickis Network.

To read another review on Stickis, check out TechCrunch.