Archive of TheNextWeb.org
Written on October 29, 2008 – 3:22 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
His research concluded that trying to control the use of sites such as Facebook, which alone boasts more than 100 million users worldwide, could even harm organizations.
This is a line from a news message Reuters pumped in the blogosphere today. Obviously, we can expect a lot of blog coverage about this matter. It’s saying exactly what we, early adopters, already knew: companies shouldn’t think you can control social networks. Better try to benefit from them.
British think-tank knows better
Demos, a British think-tank, studied the effects of social networking on business. Author Peter Bradwell concludes that when employees gossip, talk and share photos on Facebook, MySpace and others - it could actually benefit firms. It’s all part of professional networking and helps people keeping in touch with colleagues and customers.
However, there should be practical guidelines to limit non-work usage - Bradwell said. But blocking is not the way to go: “Allowing workers to have more freedom and flexibility might seem counterintuitive, but it appears to create business more capable of maintaining stability.”
“Banning Facebook and the like goes against the grain of how people want to interact. Often people are friends with colleagues through these networks and it is how some develop their relationships.”
How can companies get the most out of Facebook?
Demos doesn’t give firms any practical tips on how to get the most out of Facebook. Maybe we can get some together in the comments here. Moving some of the business related communication to a certain network might stimulate the right usage. But with my zero corporate experience, I think you guys should do the talking.
I hope you like that post!
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Written on October 26, 2008 – 4:22 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Since February, I’ve regularly praised the marketing efforts of MySpace in Europe. Just like Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn, and several other services, they desperately tried to get some of the ever growing European social network pie. Yesterday however, MySpace realized that they will never taste the sweetness of the Dutch cake.
All of the American giants face fierce competition of regional social networks like StudiVZ (Germany), Netlog (West-Europe and Turkey), Amiz (France), Hyves (Holland), and Bahu (Mediterranean countries). These networks were the first ones to lure folks into the online social world. People have gone through all the trouble of connecting to their friends. So why would they - all of a sudden - switch to an international version? (More on that here)
A Murdoch-owned company respecting cultural differences
Myspace NL launch
Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace all have different approaches, of which I like the MySpace one the best. Whenever Murdoch’s web 2.0 experiment launches a local version, MySpace installs a local team who knows what’s hot and what’s not in the country and throw a great party. In March I wrote:
I’d thought I would never say this about a company owned by Murdoch but here we go: It feels like MySpace respects the cultural differences more and really wants to make an effort. I hope it will pay off.
Hail Hyves
Well, in Holland it didn’t. Dutch news site Webwereld reports that MySpace Netherlands throws the towel. Country Manager Holland Derek Fehmers told Entertainment Business that when he entered the market in February, he realized Holland was tough. “We arrived pretty late and had a large competitor which was hard to fight”.
That large competitor would be Hyves. More then 33% percent of the Dutch have registered to this social network.
MySpace Holland made a connection between the offline and online world by organizing parties with local bands. Unfortunately this original and cool approach wasn’t profitable enough. The 650.000 registered Dutch users will now just have language support. The local content is history.
[Photo credit: Polle de Maagt]
Written on April 6, 2008 – 2:24 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Sometimes I stumble upon a service that strikes me as special, yet when I do a quick blog search I find no mention about it in the blogosphere. That recently happened to me when I found Pakt.com, a service for collaborative learning. Users can ask questions and at the same time contribute to the community by writing tutorials and answer questions from other users. This project fascinated me, especially because it also looked like it had an enthusiastic (yet really small) user base. So I emailed the founder Chris Weitenberner to find out more about this new service.
Chris, who are you? “I have a background in software development and project management. Over the past few years I was a tutor and mentor during my spare time for a couple non- profits. On the way home from a mentoring session, I started wondering if the concept of mentoring could be expanded on a larger scale. I started looking for parallels to my experience with mentoring online and couldn’t find what I was looking for. I kept thinking to myself there’s got to be a better way to learn online and to reach out to a community for help.”
“What made the most sense was a social network, however most social networks were centered on the relationship, not the content. I thought I could improve online learning by using the content as the center and leverage the network for help. What I came up with was a “collaborative learning” environment called Pakt. I wanted to focus on content that anyone could create, such as tutorials and Q&A. Questions & Answers provide quick to the point information while tutorials provide more detailed knowledge. Combining relevant tutorials and questions & answers creates a unique source of user submitted knowledge.”
Organize what you have learned
So Pakt’s mission is to empower people to learn and share knowledge, therefore the site is open to everyone. The mission sounds good to me, yet I always wonder who will sign up. When I’ve a question, I just hop on the Google train. So Chris, why would I sign up?
“It becomes a problem to organize what you have learned, where it is located, and getting help to finish if needed. Pakt allows you to track your progress of learning step by step in every tutorial. You can then share that progress with friends or everyone. This makes the learning experience more interactive and helps you complete your learning objectives more effectively. You can further reach out to the community for help and set up a one-on-one or one-to-many private mentoring chat session. Just like in school, many people may need help, but don’t want to ask for it in a public setting. Pakt also offers a revenue sharing program that can be an incentive for bloggers or freelance writers to express their expertise on Pakt.”
Experts
Ah! Expertise, sounds like Pakt has a 3.0 flavor over it. Chris: “From my perspective, anyone can be an “expert”. The main problem I have with sites like About.com is that they only offer one solution to a problem. Where in reality, there is rarely one correct way of doing something. Pakt leaves it up to the audience to determine relevant and quality information.” Taking this in account, it’s a Web 2.0 service after all, since it embraces the wisdom of crowds and doesn’t use an experts filter like lots of services do.
I like the idealistic approach of Chris Weitenberner, yet I wonder whether there is a need for Pakt. Since most people use Google to find tutorials, find answers at services like Yahoo Answers and browse through Wikipedia for specific knowledge. Pakt does make a chance when it manages to build up an enthusiastic community of a few hundred people. They’ll help each other in everyday life and at the same time push the pages up in the Google results.
Pakt really deserves this, even if it was just for the diversity of the tutorials and answers. Chris: “Since the inspiration for Pakt came from a humanitarian interest, I tend to like tutorials that inspire people to change the world around them, like “Take the Live Earth Pledge”, or “How to Donate Your Hair to Children with Hair loss Medical Conditions”. You never know what to expect with Questions & Answers, they go from “How do I unlock my iPhone?” to “How many days should you call a girl after the first date?”. I enjoy reading them all.”
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