If the folks present at the CommunityNext conference last weekend have anything to say about it, the wisdom of crowds will dominate our future. This emerging industry alternately known as Social Networking and Online Communities, has produced some of the most compelling modes of interaction available to society. And we're only just beginning to understand the significance of, what can only be called, a major social movement.
Sun Microsystems, who sponsored the event, is perhaps the most visible and largest commercial enterprise to declare its support and integral role in advancing the build out of Social Networking. Sun anticipated the importance of this movement to its business model by proffering that the Age of Participation is upon us and the build out of IT infrastructure to make it possible will be led by the companies that operate as online communities and understand what it means to belong to the network.
Here are my telegraphic notes from the event:
Community Next, Saturday February 10, 2007, Stanford University
Organizer: Noah Kagan
- ~ Brand Utopia
- Rules
- Change the world
- Do something you care about
- Do something worth talking about
- "I wanna be part of the carbon neutral network"
- "How do I get credit for using efficient servers?"
- Rules
- ~ Citizen Agency, Tara Hunt
- Rules of enagement
- community != marketing strategy
- cluetrain
- Think like a customer
- 10 ways to shift your thinking
- 1. become a community evangelist
- (reverse of corporate evangelist)
- 2. shift your measures of 'success'
- e.g., GPI (not GDP)
- 3. embrace the chaos
- e.g., barcamp
- 4. find your higher purpose
- 5. understand who you're building that app for
- 6. INreach, not outreach
- e.g., twitter
- 7. design to delight
- 8. be part of the community you serve
- 9. have respect
- 10. have patience
- 1. become a community evangelist
- community != marketing strategy
- Rules of enagement
- ~ DIY Tools, Rohit Bhargava
- ~ Joe Hurd, VideoEgg
- ~ Matt Roche, Offermatica
- ~ Mike Jones, Userplane
- viral mktg. is a myth (it's just spam and banner ads)
- ~ Hiten Shah, Crazy Egg
- Say Now
- Voice messages
- Artist to Fan
- Fan to artist
- Fan to fan
- Voice messages
- mPulse media
- mobile social networking
- ~ loopt
- social mapping (geographic)
- most common text msg: "W U @?"
- "enhancing serendipity"
- enabled by location APIs and security, privacy problems solved
- launched on boost mobile
- 6 invites per user
- $2.99/mo.
- social mapping (geographic)
- social community demos
- ~ MyChurch
- ~ kiva
- microfinance
- borrower-lender networks
- partnered with google, paypal, microsoft, starbucks, ...
- microfinance
- ~ Daily Strength
- 660+ communities
- ~ dogster
- community guidelines
- define early
- enforce them
- cite them when enforcing
- core components
- entertainment
- information
- sociality
- e.g., give a bone
- services
- stay w/in your impact horizon
- don't look too far out
- tips
- start w/ less rules, apply more as needed
- be evolutionary - get feedback
- skip version releases, favor small responsive changes
- revenue streams
- sponsors
- get the first one!
- you're never too small
- can provide gowth capital
- caution! sponsors don't scale well
- direct ad buys
- premium memberships
- bulk ads
- sponsors
- circle of trust: dogster-community-advertisers
- brand campaign
- be picky - find the right advertisers
- build campaigns that bring advertiser intot he community
- don't be deceptive, ever!
- write your advertiser's copy
- think beyond banners, find the right place to position their message
- creative commons attribution
- community guidelines
- ~ skinnyCorp, Jeffrey Kalmikoff & Jake Nickel (Chicago)
- Four Commandments
- allow your content to be created by its community
- put your project in the hands of its community
- let your community grow itself
- reward the community that makes your project possible
- projects
- naked & angry
- fashion based on tile patterns upload
- Extra Tasty
- drink recipes
- example of "Your Project is Not Good Enough"
- poopface
- yayhooray
- threadless - Nude No More
- ~ threadless
- sold > 1M tshirts
- naked & angry
- raised $100K for Katrina via tshirt designed by employee
- Four Commandments
- ~ big in japan, Jake McKee
- support vs. monetization
- everybody goes home happy
- 1. redefine success
- 2. share. a lot
- 4. skip NDA
- 5. set & maintain expectations
- 6. train your collegues
- ~ indieclick, Heather Luttrell
- top ten myths
- 1. if we build it they will come
- 2. members won't cost us anything
- 3. bandwidth is cheap and won't cost anything more as we grow
- 4. we can add ad space to the design after we have built and audience
- 5. our audience won't accept ads
- 6. ads will look terrible
- 7. direct sales (or indirect) will sell all our ads
- 8. we need detailed data to manage ad sales
- 9. we are getting thousands of hits each day, surely they are worth some ad dollars
- 10. advertising is our only source of revenue
- lessons learned
designate a community manager
create an area for advertising discussion
seek advertisers in your niche
be willing to customer for advertisers
con't insist on the highest CPMs
be lexible - timeframes may slip, creative implementation may be complicated and campaigns may be cancelled
expect to have advertisers closely monitor delivery
- fresh content drives traffic
- newsletters allow you to drive traffic weekly
- you can fund a mktg campaign from ad revenue
- 2007 trends
- tier 1 advertisers getting involved in niche sites
- non-traditional advertiseing (custom implementations/sponsorships)
- featured content/video/editorial?
- UGC and advertising (the consumer-created commercial
- rich media e.g., expandable banners
- video
- top ten myths
- ~ claimID, Fred Stutzman
- Key Concepts
- privacy is weird
- 19% sharing with friends
- 27% sharing with faculty
- 29% sharing staff
- privacy is changing
- utility is important
- situational relevance
- many networks - primary and secondary
- networks are constantly in flux
- move in to new networks for actual information needs
- facebook, last.fm (singles bar metaphor: audiences move on, but biz survives)
- social objects
- flickr
- cats in sinks
- del.icio.us
- flickr
- objects provide a shared solcial experience
- situational relevance
- value is granular
- see metcalfe's law
- social communities offer a rich experience - more than a binary
- understand value creation - what's initial value vs. how much value is added by the community?
- privacy is weird
- Takeaways
- respect privacy expectations
- niche into situational relevance
- leverage social objects
- understand the network's multiplier
- Key Concepts
There are some more great tips for budding social networks posted on SEOmoz: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/web-20-fostering-community-creates-value
Posted by: smattoon | February 27, 2007 at 11:56 PM