Social Networks Black Day…

Social networks are in the news today. First up, lawyers have been permitted to serve debtors with default judgments through Facebook. Article here. This is timely considering my plea yesterday for the online world to be viewed with more validity than it has been in the past (I’m on the phone to my web-estate agent as we speak.  “Buy up!”.  Sorry, did I say that out loud?)

Also some 1.3 million users will stage a ‘blackout’ protest tonight and turn off Facebook to draw attention to their dissatisfaction about recent changes to the site.

And to top it all off, LinkedIn is offline because it is upgrading the site.  I hope that LinkedIn users will like the changes the folks there have made.  I’d hate to see a candlelight vigil or hunger strike over its alterations.  Who knows, the 1.3million Facebook protesters could have another gig on their hands.

Social networking sites like Facebook are integrating into the fabric of our careers and personal lives.  No longer can they be viewed as a Gen Y distraction.  They are an essential tool for communication, both formal and informal.  Next time you get a Facebook invitation, do not toss it away with an OldManScrooge-like Hmmmph & Phooey…or else you may be all alone in Christmasses to come.

Boost Your Professional Profile And Personal Brand – Online.

This morning, I had the pleasure of being a special guest on ‘Your Career Catalyst‘ Blogtalkradio with hosts Annemarie Cross and Keith Keller from Advanced Employment Concepts.

Listen to the show here.

One of the more pleasurable aspects of my work is disseminating ideas about the online sphere and things like radio interviews (and another upcoming event is the Inspecht HR Futures Conference on 26 February 2009 in Melbourne. I will be one of the speakers in the (the panel discussion with Michael Specht) are a fantastic opportunity to do this.

The broad topic of the show was regulating your professional brand online.  Once upon a time, preening one’s image was a matter of ducking out and grabbing a new pair of shoes, having a haircut; you know, physical stuff.

With the prevalence of online communication, making sure your online profile is in tip top shape is also important.  Don’t publish photos of yourself on the P15S.  Don’t make ridiculous sexist or racist comments on your profiles in Facebook and MySpace.  And while we’re on that, don’t join Facebook groups whose views may prove politically unsavory.  Make comments on blog sites (especially mine).  This is an excellent and subtle way of building your reputation as a person of knowledge in your field.

Point is, each of us should take control of our online branding.  Here I’m reminded of the story about Steve Irwin.  When he died, he didn’t own SteveIrwin.com.au.  Someone else did.  But Steve Irwin was a man with a very successful publicity network.  Why didn’t he own himself virtually?  One of the reasons is it’s taken a long time for the Internet to shed its reputation as a shady medium dealing mainly in porn.

Like the suburb you all have in your states, in Melbourne, for instance, it’s St Kilda, that used to be a hub for dodgy enterprises like prostitution and drugs, but makes good due to an influx of investment, the net’s still being forced to prove itself as viable contender in the publicity stakes.  There are those who remain wary of walking its streets for fear of how they’d say “no thanks, but I appreciate the offer” to a hooker.

As a person who was hanging out in the net’s streets when it was a metropolis for the exploited and mentally unwell, I can assure you of its rise to blue chip status.  It is already the primary tool for communication and for personal promotion.  Get ye to a real estate office and make a down payment today.

Social Networking Is On Fire!

Social networking is king. I’ve discussed this before and the latest Hitwise Australia data, Asia Pacific Social Networking Report 2008, adds credence to my rants.

“The 40 leading social networking websites experienced strong growth in the past 12 months in Australia, New Zealand,Singapore and Hong Kong; Australia and New Zealand experienced the highest growth, increasing 62% and 88.6% respectively comparing market share of visits to the Social Networks custom category in February 2007 and January 2008.”

I’m not going to bore the heck out of you with a bunch of figures. But check out the graph below for the figure freaks:

I will draw your attention to a few salient points. Prime among these is that of the traffic moving downstream from the major palyers Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, 89% is sent to second tier players. This means that many folks are maintaining several profiles on different sites. Perhaps, for instance, they display a professional profile on one site, whereas on another they might choose to communicate with close friends and family. This makes me wonder at the feasibility of a site that morphs a professional site like LinkedIn with a Social Networking site such as Facebook. Users could maintain several different profiles in the one space.

It also seems that the major players are attracting different audiences. Well-educated and more affluent types are veering toward Facebook, while Bebo attracts multi-cultural and family groups. Important data, especially if you’re doing WHAT I’VE BEEN TELLING YOU TO DO and integrating your online presence with a social networking facility.

Finally, and this is the boon for me (Watch for that word in my future blog. It’s old; retro, if you like, but I’m big on it at the moment), users are increasingly choosing to communicate with one another via social networks. Imagine the world without email. Imagine the world where people’s social and professional and familial alliances are built around their online profiles. Now dump yourselves right in the heart of that space.

Vouching For 2Vouch?

2Vouch coming soon.

This is a site based on profiteering from the popularity of internet-based social networking.It works like this: folks sign up and get sent ads for jobs. If they think that one of their friends fits the requirements, they recommend the friend and that person becomes a member as well. If the friend secures the position, the person “vouching” for them gets paid a fee, which can go directly to them or their favorite charity. The beta for the site is well prepared and the instructions are presented to would-be participants in a clear and cogent manner (except the voice-over syncing in the clip is a bit off and reminds one of a Chinese martial arts film). This is always a good start.

I’m a huge fan of this idea and have often pondered its implications at four in the morning when my head is full of cyberspace and the flashing of the computer screen that haunts my days begins to intrude into my night-time. Sites such as Facebook have demonstrated that the drive to be popular and fill one’s profile with a plethora of friends drives many an introvert into sudden extroversion.

I’m bugged by a few factors, though. And I’m prepared to risk appearing overly-critical and ponderous in order to get the low-down on what others think about my suspicions.

Firstly, any business that relies on friends or acquaintances making a profit from one another has an air of the Amway about it. Just the knowledge that there is more to my friend’s recommending me for a job than the simple pleasure they experience from me being happier or taking one more step up the ladder of success – they stand to make money from me. And whether this goes straight to their hip pocket or to that of their favorite charity, they are still gaining something more tangible from my taking the job offered than the joy of an alturistic act.

There are all sorts of personal and political dilemmas that can be foreseen here that may lead people to steer well clear of the site. What about the promotion of jobs from colleague to colleague within the same company? What about the guy who vouches for his mate for a position but the mate refuses to take the job, thereby doing the guy out of a buck. Personal strain…hello, here we come.

And haven’t the old Jobs.com.au kinda tried to do this anyway? Is this another attempt to cut out the recruiter that is going to fall on its face.Let me tell you up front – I hope I’m wrong.

Facebook, Google And Plaxo Join The DataPortability Workgroup

“After publishing an invitation to Facebook to join the DataPortability Working Group January 4, we never thought that Facebook would accept it. Today changes everything you’ve ever thought about social-networking data and lock-in before, because today Facebook, Google and Plaxo have joined the Dataportability Workgroup.”Does this mean we are a step closer to the ultimate ‘Killer App’; a step beyond what Plaxo Pulse is offering?Will Google take full advantage of Facebook’s new stance and create the ultimate shopping complex?I live in a regional area, and when I need something, I walk over to the local shopping strip. There’s a butcher shop there, a newsagent’s and a real nice lady down the end runs a florist. On days when I’m high on life and one of the team has just made a good deal or something, I’ll wander down and buy my wife a bunch of flowers. I never go there just to roam and look in the windows; my mission to the strip shops always centres on a specific aim.Used to be that I lived in a big suburb and when the weather was too hot or too cold, or if I just needed to get out for a bit, I’d jump in the car and drive to the major shopping centre. Boy, those complexes have every shop imaginable, and some you hadn’t really thought about until you see them and their logo or big flashing sign trips a thought you’d been harboring for a while. For instance, I’d see the jeweler’s and remember that I had to get a new link on my watch, or perhaps, walking past the Kmart, I’d remember that I needed some superglue. I would even bump into some of my friends and have a chat. Point is, unlike my trip to the strip shops, I’d go to the complex to browse and wander, confident that the place was so full up with stuff that there’d be something there that would make my trip worthwhile.I reckon the whole strip shopping thing is a great analogy for how internet businesses are evolving. Google success has been based on this idea and sites such as Facebook etc are realising that, in order to grab that rainy-hot-boring-day-let’s-go for-a-wander audience, they need to open up and morph into major internet shopping complexes.Whether or not this is good for smaller sites who are out there in the strip shopping precincts of the net is another debate for another day. We simply need to recognise that this is the way major players in the market are heading and prepare our strategies for marketing etc around that knowledge.2009 could read:I went shopping today and walked out with a new stereo and a new job!