A couple of great resources

I found Marketing Voices via iTunes and http://www.podtech.net/ Marketing Voices is a fantastic source to hear interviews with the leaders who are shaping social media.

Resource #2 is FriendFeed, which I learned of when listening to this interview with Co-Founder of FriendFeed, Bret Taylor courtesy of Marketing Voices.

FriendFeed is a solid Web 2.0 enabling application that takes feeds from friends (great name, ha?) on applications like Twitter, Flickr, Digg, and YouTube. It even allows you to display that content in Facebook. The thing I don't like about it, is the default view on Facebook is of your own feeds, not your friends. I would like to see a setting that would allow me to show my friends' feeds by default.


I have no idea how something like FriendFeed ever becomes a profitable business. It feels like a feature, rather than a product, that will likely be acquired by another company and integrated into a broader suite of social media tools.

Web 2.0 in the Enterprise – Paybacks & Pitfalls

Here are my notes/thoughts about the Web 2.0 in the Enterprise - Paybacks & Pitfalls teleconference at 11 a.m. PT on 7/15. NewsGator sponsored the presentation to position it's solution as a key tool in the Web 2.0 space.


See the notes below for the details...here is my summary:

Sites like Facebook and MySpace have set the standard for how users expect to use social networking applications (status update, add friend, news feed, subscription, photos, groups)

NewsGator is capitalizing on this, by delivering a service that looks like "Facebook for the enterprise".

Even though people interact with work colleagues on Facebook and MySpace, they will hesitate to interact the same way with work colleagues in the enterprise--especially older employees (Forrester's words about older employees. Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger.)

Corporations need to think about how to roll out the tools so they can create a critical mass to make it worthwhile for employees to participate. They also need to measure value to nudge reluctant employees, and show that their investments are paying off to key decision makers, to secure additional funding, and make improvements. Key proof points are cultivating passionate employees to convince other employees and the use of testimonials and case studies.

Notes from presentation:


Speakers:


Greg Reinacker, CTO, Founder NewsGator

G. Oliver Young, Analyst, Forrester Research


There are 3 WEb 2.0 lenses:

• Enabling Technologies (Flash, AJAX, XML. etc.)
• Core Applications (Social Networks, Wikis, etc.)
• Behavioral Shifts (Social Computing, Collective Intelligence, etc.)
  

Business efficiency is cited as the #1 reason for adoption of Web 2.0 technologies by CIOs.

One in 3 firms will invest in Web 2.0 tools in 2008. The bigger the company the more aggressive they are in investing in Web 2.0 technologies.

Firms tend to be deploying point solutions to solve a specific need, but do not have a holistic strategy.

However, the value of deployment goes up by adding multiple tools. (The value of the whole is greater than the parts.)

2 types of tools, content creation tools and content access tools. Content creation tools make content creation more efficient, and content access tools make existing content more valuable.

Forrester wrote case study on Northwestern Mutual, and found that interest in Blogs wained, but was restored with content access tools. (Here's the summary, but the full study will set you back $279.00.)

There are 2 main types of social networks: consumer and corporate

Consumer social networks (Facebook, MySpace)

Corporate social networks (Typically nice looking, rich extranets; example: Intel vPro Expert Center)

G. Olver Young suggests that there is room in the enterprise for sites LIKE Facebook and MySpace, like the solution NewsGator provides.

What Web 2.0 needs are there in the enterprise?

1. Locating expertise is a key enterprise need, especially amongst large organizations.
2. Managing teams and sharing content is another.
3. Setting cultural norms and fostering a sense of community.
4. Creating company affinity and support groups.
5. Attracting and retaining new, younger workers. Example: Ernst & Young using Facebook to attract young workers.

Pitfalls and shortcomings of Enterprise 2.0 deployments:

Age is a major driver of adoption

(don't REQUIRE older employees to participate)

Older employees tend to have the most knowledge that others can benefit from learning

Show older employees the value from participating, and also take into account ROI for the larger organization.

Recommendations:

1. Identify solvable problems that Web 2.0 tools can tackle


2. Design & deploy tools for limited users in pilot programs


3. If value is shown deploy more widely as fit


4. Let users spread virally, and support with optional training


5. Measure the results!

Hello, Again, Plaxo

I was reintroduced to Plaxo the other day. When I last knew Plaxo in the early 00's, it was an "address book in the sky" that would automatically make sure we always had the latest contact information for the people we needed to stay in touch with.



Plaxo's idea was that each person has one, correct, contact file (personal address, work address, phone numbers, etc.) The flaw in how we keep contact information up to date is that we all keep our own copies of an individual's contact information (let's use the name 'Sue' for this post). When Sue moves or changes her contact information, she needs to tell everyone she knows about it, or hope that all those people with the now out-of-date information ask her for the new contact info. By signing up to Plaxo, you created a permanent connection between your contact information and anyone else in your network that was also a Plaxo member and had permission to view your contact information. So when Sue updates her contact information, everyone ON PLAXO, in her network is automatically notified. And you could sync Plaxo with Outlook to make sure you had the updated information where you could use it.



The challenge with Plaxo was a scale problem. It had to have enough people subscribe to have enough of any one person's contacts in the system to make it worthwhile for them to subscribe. In the late 90s, and even up until recent times, people were afraid to use the Internet to keep their contact information up to date. Sure "aggressive" social networkers like me will put their information anywhere they think they can make a connection. But the mass market was reluctant, meaning Plaxo could not get enough mass to pull it off.



(Side note: it seems like Microsoft would be in a better position to pull off something like this, since it probably has the contact information for more than 80% of the U.S. population in its Outlook users' contacts. However, the backlash from Microsoft being seen as "big brother" and risks from inappropriate use of contact information would outweigh the potential revenue they could generate. Some times companies (like Plaxo) really aren't in a position to solve the problems they are trying to solve.)



So I was surprised to see that my old friend Plaxo had been given a "social networking" coat of paint, and relaunched as a cross between LinkedIn and Facebook/MySpace.



They seem to have taken a Web 2.0 approach to the whole thing. They have a feature that allows you to "Hook up the websites you use". You can link Plaxo to the content you post on many of the social networking sites you might want to use, such as MySpace, Facebook, Bloglines, Bebo, del.icio.us, flickr, Twitter, Amazon Wish List.



I think it's an interesting approach. They call it Plaxo Pulse. Here is how they are positioning it:

1. Keep in touch with the people from all your social networks you actually care about.


2. It's an open system that allows you to connect with many social networking sites.


3. But, it's secure and allows you to share personal information with friends and professional information with work colleagues.

The ironic thing is that the ultimate success of Plaxo still depends on scale. If it can't get enough people to subscribe to it, then it will have to reinvent itself, again, and hook itself to whatever the next big thing is.