This is a brilliant explanation of social media…

This is just brilliant, often the best explanations are the simplest and this hits the nail firmly on the head – and I particularly like the reference to Google+!

 

Christmas and networking

Now I am probably missing something fundamental here, but can someone explain to me quite why we all feel the urge the increase our business networking ten fold over the weeks leading up to Christmas – a time when we are all very busy at work anyway?

I have been looking at my diary for this week and I am out every evening at a client ‘bash’. Now don’t get me wrong – the chance to get together with other professionals and clients is welcomed, but why do it all over a two-week period? Networking events occur all year but there are always a huge number leading up to Christmas. I can guarantee that I will see certain people at every one of the events I attend this week, surely we don’t need an ‘excuse’ like Christmas to organise this type of get together?

With social media now such a huge part of so many people’s lives it is easier to keep up with others movements and careers, and a ‘face to face’ meeting is a pleasant change, but perhaps spreading them across the year might actually make them more effective? Or is it that in the current (or any economic climate) change is seen by our competitors as something bad?

I really don’t know the answer, but it does make you wonder…..

 

Has email had its day?

Interesting times we live in – the web has become an integral part of our existence. We all have email addresses and even the least “IT savvy” among us have mastered this form of interaction – ask the Post Office!

So when the founder of Facebook announces that “email is dead” should we be worried? Or is he right?

Obviously Facebook have a vested interest in how we all relate to each other via the web, there are a staggeringly large number of Facebook users worldwide. And they can interact without using email!

Google also want us to use their conduit – Google+, but so far this doesn’t appear to be happening. We also have LinkedIn, twitter and other social networks we can use. So does Mr Zuckerburg have a point?

I think he does, only to a point and more because email has become abused so badly. The level of spam in the ether has devalued emails to the point that they have become a daily deluge that has to be filtered by the user. Our office spam filter removes around 97% of our incoming email – a frightening statistic!

But if we ditch email and move to another form of contact there are some issues that need to be dealt with;

How are we to limit its abuse so that it doesn’t go the same way as email?

In business some form of paper trail would still be necessary.

And surely the cycle will turn full circle again and we will find whatever we adopt next becoming ‘flooded’ after a period?

Perhaps what we need are far stronger controls on our current system to prevent spam and put the value back into email?

 

Google+ who needs it?

I will admit to being a bit keen on social networking, it is here to stay so it needs embracing by all of us - I am on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and enjoy blogging. I think I have a reasonable understanding of what social networking is – but having now tried Google + (I was not invited to the beta but it’s just gone live) I just don’t get it!

First of course there was Google Wave, that died a quiet if lingering death some time ago – it just didn’t work or offer anything over and above the likes of Facebook (and my recollection is that it wasn’t straight forward to use). My take on Google + is that it also isn’t particularly easy to get into (either that or I am getting old) and doesn’t have many people on it yet! Quite why you would migrate from Facebook to Google + it is a mystery to me – although I am open to comments why I might be wrong?

Again I don’t believe it offers anything over and above Facebook. Google appear desperate to take possession of an area of the market that they also appear not to ‘get’. Their search engine and online apps are excellent, isn’t that enough for them? Or do they just feel that they need to dominate every sector of the market?

My advise to Google (for what it’s worth) – is leave it alone, you don’t need it, you already run people’s lives and others do this so much better! I am all for changing if something is better or offers more – but this on first look offers neither.

 

LinkedIn – the ‘grown-ups’ Facebook?

LinkedIn is ‘the quiet one’ in the noisy world of social networks but it now has more than 100 million members.

The business had recently been valued at over $4bn (£2.5bn) – not bad for something that is “not Facebook.” However at its launch on the New York stock exchange this week shares have more than doubled, having been priced at $45 each.

Its share price hit $122 at one point in the sort of debut rally not seen  since the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s. LinkedIn sold 7.84 million shares at $45 each. At $100 a share the company is worth about $10bn

LinkedIn now has achieved 100 million members by concentrating on being a serious place for professional networking – rather than somewhere to post pictures of last night’s boozy party.

The trick it’s pulled off so far is to become increasingly useful as a free service to members looking to advance their own careers, while earning money from businesses using LinkedIn as a recruitment and advertising platform.

This of course looks modest compared with the figures of $50bn and more being bandied around for Facebook’s valuation.

Mark Zuckerberg’s much bigger social network is seen as being far more attractive to advertisers than LinkedIn, and, in relation to its revenues, is being valued roughly twice as highly.

However, to those sceptics who believe social networking is ‘for kids’ and has no place in the work environment it may be time to think again!

 

Twitter – a sleeping giant?

Some while ago I blogged about social networking (SN) and the options and what I was trying out in this regard. One of the main forms of SN I signed up to was Twitter, the format appealed to me and some of the well-known exponents of it at the time appealed to me – Stephen Fry as an example.

I have now been using Twitter for some time and have a better understanding of how I use it and how it fits into my life. At this point I should add that my wife still cannot understand why anyone would wish to tweet! But, my use is perhaps not entirely as she might expect!

I have found my usage of Twitter has fallen into 3 distinct areas:

1. To publicise my blog entries.

I can get WordPress to link directly to my Twitter account and send out a twitter of a link to my latest blog. This appears to be an increasingly used approach by many bloggers – including some from the BBC, and links in nicely to my second use.

2. To keep up to date with current news and various interests.

This is I believe currently the biggest use for Twitter by most people, it is a great way of following news sites, or websites specialising in certain interests. The majority of Twitterers are I believe ‘passive followers’.

I have used Google Reader as an aggregator to pull down RSS feeds from a variety of websites for a number of years. These include a number of BBC feeds (National news, Local news, sport etc) plus a variety of ‘techie sites’ and the like. I have found this a great way of getting the main news headlines in a ‘bite sized’ form. All RSS feeds are linked to the main webpage and so if I want to read more I can click through to it. This has worked well for me (and I still use it). I have found Byline to be a superb app on my iPhone for this and would recommend it.

However I now find Twitter provides me with much of what I was getting from my RSS feeds – but much quicker and ‘specific’. We are all getting used to the news getting out about events happening all over the world via SN services. It appears that Twitter is best suited to this task, being more like a ‘global text message’.

The role of Twitter in Haiti following the earthquake and the recovery of a trapped person rescued by tweeting their location was well publicised in the media, there have been various other examples of this and it has not taken the news agencies long to grasp the effectiveness of Twitter for their own use.

The BBC are an excellent example of this, they have Twitter feeds for most of their news sites and a number of their correspondents and presenters are also on Twitter. Consequently I now receive up to date news both Nationally and Locally via my Twitter account. I find it a very quick information service (and a low user of data when on holiday). I also follow various presenters and get an ‘inside’ view of events (such as the Grand Prix’s). I can even follow my Professional body the RICS, who are not known for their modern approach to technology and media!

3. Tweeting

This is what Twitter was originally created for, and without people twittering it would be nothing. I have so far tweeted around 450 times – not a great amount of twittering, and much of it fairly inane ramblings (possibly why I only have a few followers!). But I do find it quite therapeutic, perhaps it does bring the grumpy old man out in me, but it is fun and I enjoy it!

Interestingly I was tweeting whilst returning from my recent holiday in France, my wife was driving so I was able to use my phone. We were coming up the A1 from London to Nottingham and I noticed that the O2 signal was to say the least ‘poor’. So I tweeted this fact (grumpy old man syndrome), I was just venting my anger at not being able to use my iphone to its best and did not expect any reply. However later that day I received the following direct tweet from Vodafone;

Vodafone UK (@VodafoneUKdeals)
04/04/2010 11:49
@Spuddey If you ever fancy comparing our coverage in Lincolnshire here are the maps bit.ly/7YDWuG we’d love to have you onboard ^BH
Sent with Tweetie

This is I believe the other great use of Twitter. There is a massive untapped source of comments from all sorts of people, much of which is rather ‘open’ and ‘unguarded’ in its nature. I assume Vodafone are searching for comments regarding iPhones and O2 and using this as ways of getting more business – good luck to them if it works (in my case I think it may as I am told we may well be moving to Vodafone from O2 as our work phone provider). Interestingly I have heard nothing from O2?

Whatever the outcome though I believe we underestimate SN at our peril in the work environment. It has great potential for publishing deals done, or changes to services offered. As a firm we have a Twitter feed which is kept well up to date and has a number of followers and is linked to our website. The other side of the coin however is ensuring that nothing is Twittered that could be an issue at work, people tend to let their guard down on SN sites. Perhaps some control needs to be considered by companies in relation to their employees use of such services?

So my thoughts on SN sites now a few months down the road?

I still have a Facebook page, but rarely if ever update it. I tried Google Wave, but never got ‘grabbed’ by it in the way Twitter has. I do use LinkedIn and have my Twitter feed linked to it, this is very much ‘Facebook for adults’ and I definitely think it is worth using (hence my Twitter link to it).

Overall then my experience of Twitter is a positive one, I certainly have no intention of leaving it, in fact I rather enjoy using it!