5 posts tagged “myspace.com”

Today, the Associated Press reported, that four families filed separate lawsuits against News Corp (MySpace), claiming that their 14 and 15 year old daughters were sexually assaulted by pedophiles they met on-line.  The families, located in New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, are seeking millions of dollars damages, claiming that MySpace didn’t initiate strong enough security measures to protect their children from solicitation from adults. Jason A. Itkin, a lawyer with Arnold & Itkin, one of the law firms representing one of the suits said:

"In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users… Hopefully these lawsuits can spur MySpace into action and prevent this from happening to another child somewhere.”

These lawsuits aren’t the first of their kind.  In June 2005, a mother in Texas sued MySpace and News Corp for $30,000,000 in damages, claiming that her 14-year old daughter was sexually assaulted by a 19 year old man, who it is alleged, lied to the girl by claiming he was a senior in high school and luring her into a false sense of trust.

In response to the lawsuits filed today, Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace's chief security officer, issued a statement saying:

MySpace serves as an industry leader on Internet safety and we take proactive measures to protect our members… We provide users with a range of tools to enable a safer online experience.

Nigam went on to discuss the responsibility of users and their parents to “engage in open family dialogue” about on-line safety, transferring valuable off-line lessons to on-line interactions.  The most recent step in the right direction came when MySpace announced that it would introduce parental notification.  (I'll be interested to see how that works.)

While it is a sad reality that creepy people (including sexual predators) exist and that pedophiles use social networking sites to target children, I agree with Nigam.  Social networking websites must take security seriously.  However, it is right to blame social networking sites for the criminal activity of their members.  Doing so devalues the importance of parental responsibility, stifles technical innovation within social media, and perpetuates what is already an overly litigious culture in America.  

Criminals are to blame for their own criminal behavior.  Parents have the responsibility to educate themselves and their children about the dangers that exist on-line and talk about how to avoid them.  The tough part is that because technology and “what’s cool to kids” changes quickly, it is difficult for the average parent to keep up to speed.  

Organizations like Perverted Justice are doing their part to seek out on-line predators.  I wonder whether the world would benefit from a new, multi-national public-private partnership, whose aim is to educate parents and kids about the dangers that exist on-line (how to avoid them, how to report suspicious or unlawful behavior, etc.).  Regionally, members of this partnership could focus on developing legislation that protects kids.  I’d like to believe that this idea could work, but I’m realistic enough to know that it would be an uphill battle, likely fraught with bureaucracy and red tape.  

Citizens of the world have identified a problem that is crying out for a strong, targeted, and evolving solution. While I don’t propose to know what the answer is, suing MySpace isn't it.

If you have ideas, post a commment. If you aren't a VOX user and want to tell me what you think, email me: socialmediablog@gmail.com.

Everyone in marketing is talking about “social media” these days.  I’d be tempted to add the term “Social Media” to my “bullshit bingo” card, except that as you can probably tell from my previous blog posts, I like social media.  In 2007, developing an effective Social Media strategy is an important part of developing a successful and multi-pronged marketing strategy.  The problem is that with so many companies jumping on the “social media marketing bandwagon,” so quickly, marketing-focused social networking sites are running the risk of reaching saturation point, and many marketers are not taking the time to think strategically about how to use social media to their advantage.

There are many examples of social media marketing efforts that have reaped excellent results, but there are even more examples of such efforts that have gone awry, sucking valuable marketing dollars without having much impact.  Yesterday, blogger Jerry Bowles wrote an interesting blog on FASTforward.  In it, he discusses how corporations are using social media to capture new audiences.  The article mentions successful uses of social media in corporate marketing like MyCoke.com and Carnival Connections as well as ineffective attempts like MyDream.tv by Lincoln and Ford Bold Moves. At the end of his blog, Bowles concludes:

“The major truth of corporate-sponsored social media campaigns is that no matter how good they are or how sensitive they are to the concerns of the “community,” they won’t improve the bottomline unless you have something to sell that people want.”

I couldn’t agree more with Bowles final comment.  Adding to it, part of the problem with failed social media marketing campaigns is that they’re not well devised from the start.  Let me explain…

There are two basic ways to employ a social media strategy:
Create a stand-alone social media site, or
Leverage existing social media sites to your company’s advantage (e.g. YouTube, MySpace, Friendster, Second Life, etc.).

In an ideal universe, before deciding which tactic to employ, companies should be very clear about the objective(s) of their social media marketing campaign.  Many companies aren’t clear about their objectives, and I believe this is because:

1. The “science” of social media is too new and largely undocumented/undefined and
2. Companies who do not yet have a social media marketing strategy feel pressured to come up with something quickly, lest they fall behind the curve.  

By defining the goals of a social media marketing campaign more tightly from the start, companies will have a better chance and building a solution that meets that goal.

If the goal of employing a social media marketing strategy is to bolster enthusiasm for a specific product among a group that is already using that product, or expose existing customers/ enthusiasts a particular product to a new product from the same company, then developing a stand-alone social media site, like MyCoke.com, may make sense.  However, before building a stand-alone social media site, a company must already have a very strong base of customer enthusiasts who like to talk about their experiences with products on-line (i.e.: Coke, Apple, Mini Cooper, etc.) and be ready to offer something materially different/ better than those users can get elsewhere.  Creating a stand-alone social media site is an expensive endeavor, but if it is done correctly, for the right reasons, and targeted towards the right contingent, at the least, the likely result is increased web traffic to the company’s website.  MyCoke.com and Carnival Connections (both mentioned in Bowles’ blog) are two good examples. Whether having a well used, stand-alone social media site translates to higher sales remains to be seen, but increased web traffic from customers can’t be a bad thing.  

However, in a world where consumers are increasingly being bombarded with so many social media and social networking options, it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies to succeed in creating stand-alone social media marketing sites that have a sustainable and positive marketing impact and drive traffic.  In my opinion, the safest option for marketers that are trying to attract the attention of prospective customers that are not yet familiar with their specific product, company, or brand, is piggybacking off of existing social media sites – like YouTube, Friendster, MySpace, Gather, Vox, Second Life, etc. to attract attention to their products/services.  It helps to learn how to walk before you try to run.

Today, the self-proclaimed “tech gossip rag,” Valleywag, published the following graph, suggesting that Social Networking is past its peak from a media coverage perspective:

Valleywag writes:

The social network -- the umbrella term for features of a website which allow users to track their friends -- is past its peak.

Mentions in the press of "social network" or another even uglier phrase, "social networking", reached 1,158 in September, but have declined since. That could mean a decline in media interest in sites like Myspace and Facebook or, more likely, an acceptance that all media will be social, all successful sites will allow users to "friend" eachother, and that it's no longer interesting to spotlight a feature so ubiquitous.

It is true that when a trend reaches critical mass, news media loses interest… “News” is only considered “News” if it is, in fact, “new”.  Case in point- the growth of corporate websites in the early 1990s… The first corporations to build websites made international news.  Today, I can’t think of any large, successful company that doesn’t have a website.  Websites are now a prerequisite for big business.  One day, the same will be true of “Social Networking” and “Social Media”…. I’m not convinced that that time is now, or that the recent downturn indicated by Valleywag’s graph is indicative of a “trend”.  Instead, I think it is indicative of stabilization in the market following several months of very big news.  (And, while I have no empirical evidence to support this, it may also be indicative of a shift away discussing “social networking” alone towards discussing “social media” as a whole.  If any of you have seen evidence one way or another on this, please post a comment.)

I’ve numbered several points on the graph to illustrate my point about stabilization.  Looking at the popularity of the word “social networking” in relation to some of the big events on-line over the course of the last year is interesting:

1. July 18, 2005: News Corporation acquires Intermix Media, Inc and MySpace
2. March 2006: MySpace was the second most trafficked site on the Internet (next to Google) with Facebook at number 7. At times, MySpace had more traffic than Google (Duffy, 2006)... And - Hitwise "US Consumer Generated Media Report," reports that visits to MySpace increased 51 percent March-September 2006, outpacing the 34 percent overall growth for the social-net category during the same period.
3. May, 2006: comScore Network reports that Myspace surpassed 50 Million U.S. visitors in May.  The Top 50 Web Rankings and Analysis report released by comScore Media Metrix in may suggests that online interest in the World Cup and NBA Championships and the Spring television season drove traffic to popular social networking sites (see graph) http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=906
4. October 6, 2006: Rumors about Google acquiring YouTube started on TechCrunch.  October 9, 2006: Google acquires YouTube

The “major” events in “social networking” over the last year or so have definitely been considered big news.  The general public, companies, and media outlets seem eager to watch how social media is changing the on-line and business landscapes. Sure, the apparent “lag” in the term “social networking” since October may be the start of a downward trend. In my opinion, it is more likely a brief correction in the market following the major news around Google’s acquisition of YouTube in September and rumors about Yahoo’s social media strategy.  After all, the graph indicates that the term “social networking” is still as popular now as it was back in August, which was the highest it had ever been before.

As the number of mainstream companies announce the integration of s-commerce/ social media into their overall marketing strategies, I suspect that the term “social networking” will be surpassed by more broad categorizations like “s-commmerce” or “social media” of which, “social networking” is a component. 

For any non-VOXers who want to post comments, feel free to email me, and I’ll manually post your comments: socialmediablog@gmail.com.

Note: As I was doing research for this blog, I discovered that Google News doesn’t allow historical searches of news articles between specific dates. If anyone has a site that they can recommend that allows for a historical news search between specific dates, I’d love to hear from you.

Sources:
Michael Duffy, 2006. “A dad’s encounter with the vortex of Facebook,” Time (19 March).

While sites like YouTube and many video search engines allow anyone to view videos, other sides like Grouper.com (based in Sausalito, CA and recently purchased by Sony) enable privacy settings.  I also like Grouper because it allows members to add video to any website or their MySpace, Facebook, Y!360, Friendster, and Blogger pages. Plus, with Grouper, users can control privacy settings on specific videos so that they can't be seen by just anyone.

Privacy in video is important - not just because it allows users to control who sees them/ their video, but it also has the potential to give social media companies the ability to add revenue enhancing features to their sites and explore revenue based partnerships.  I was thinking about this the other day with singshot.com, which is kind of like American Idol, but available on-line.  Singshot provides karaoke-esque background instrumentals, and users sing along. The resulting tracks are posted on-line, and members of the public can vote on them and provide feedback.  The downside with the site is that there is NO VIDEO!  Depending on their subscriber numbers, if Singshot were to add video, they may have the potential for a whole new revenue model.  They could continue to let any member of the public listen to and vote on audio tracks, but they could also offer a premium (paid for subscription service), enabling only those who pay to see, vote and comment on video. Alternatively, they could charge performers a subscription fee (which could include the cost of a webcam) to post video in order to get feedback on style, dance routines, etc.

In addition, to allowing personal privacy, social media "privacy" features are attractive to Mobile Operators, who want to differentiate themselves from their competition. Web-based Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) in the social media space who strive for mobile enablement should be thinking carefully about privacy.  In my experience, mobile operators haven't yet seen the potential of social media to increase revenues and user bases.  Therefore, it hasn't been a huge push for mobile enabled social media.  This is changing.  As this change happens, one thing is almost certain, the social media ISVs that win the mobile game will have thought about privacy.  Mobile operators want to differentiate their service offerings from their competition, and in the social media world, one of the few ways to do that is by offering unique content.  Social media ISVs don't want to make custom versions of their software for every OEM and Mobile operator out there because doing so limits the number of users that can interact, which defeats the usefuleness and viral spread of social media - especially social networking AND, it increases the amount of work that goes into software development and maintenance. I think the way to get around this is through privacy. 

By having different privacy settings, users on different mobile networks would be able to see different premium content and features than those on other networks - say videos, etc..  This would mean that members of the "public" would still be able to access specific sites, but they may not be able to "see" or "do" certain "premium" things from their mobile phone without being a "subscriber" to a particular mobile operator or have a particular type of mobile phone.  I'm not advocating segmenting the market in this way, but doing so may be one way to grab the mobile market, which is difficult to penetrate without carrier buy-in.  In my experience, the only way to get mobile operator buy-in is by guarenteeing increased revenue (through increased subscribers and paid-for software/subscription opportunities).

It seems like everyone in the Bay Area is talking about web 2.0 and social media these days, and there are a ton of start-ups popping-up in this space.  This blog will focus on the fast evolving world of social media: what's happening in the space, what's new/cool, and the ways that social media is evolving/ expanding.

According to Wikipedia, "Social media describes the on-line tools and platforms that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other. Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. Popular social mediums include blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs."  "Social media" includes "on-line social networking" web sites and applications.  Wikipedia calls on-line social networking "a category of Internet applications to help connect friends, business partners, or other individuals together using a variety of tools."

I'm interested in the ways that social media improves interaction between people, making the world a smaller, and more accessible place.  Social media makes it easy for people - regardless of location - to learn from and/or interact with groups of people whose interests are similar to theirs.  The social media revolution has the potential to "fix" the issues that Robert D. Putnam discussed in his book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000). 

In this book, Putnam argues that Americans have become disengaged from their social networks (friends, family, social groups, etc.) and have taken on a more individualistic mentality.   He says that in the old days, many Americans used to belong to bowling leagues, where they made friends and engaged with others.  However, over time, while the number of bowlers increased, the number of 'bowling leagues' decreased, with the majority of players choosing to bowl alone.  Putnam's theories, while somewhat controversial, are supported by statistics and nearly 500,000 interviews over a 25 year period.  He cautions that Americans are socializing less in groups and are becoming less "connected" with the wider human community.  I believe the emergence of social media is changing this paradigm.

When Bowling Alone was published in 2000, the term "social media" didn't exist.  Wikipedia credits Chris Shipley (Co-founder and Global Research Director for Guidewire Group) with being the first person to use the term "social media."  The term was used in the run up to "BlogOn 2004" conference, July 22-23, 2004, to describe a new form of "participatory media," emerging from the convergence of social networking, blogging, wikis, and other, complimentary technologies.

Today, while the number of bowling leagues has probably remained stagnant, the number of social media sites that facilitate interpersonal interaction between individuals and groups with common interests is growing exponentially.  I predict that social media will continue to evolve quickly, with the leading social media companies finding innovative ways to engage new users by developing compelling feature enhancements.  Video, audio, photo sharing, written word location based services, and mobile enablement will all play a role in the future of social media.  My blog will explore the integration of existing technologies into social media, the mobilization of social media, and what's new and cool in  this growing space.