The Newest War has Just Begun. Who Will be on What Side of the Social Networking Line

Morning folks!!


Things are moving so fast now it is hard to keep up. Harder to even define. Unintended consequences are on the horizon. Pitfalls and pots of gold.


The key thing to watch in 2011 is how Social Networking manifests itself. I think this is the biggest, most massive and fastest change in human behavior and habits in my lifetime. A new normal is coming but it is still in formation. Battle lines are developing. How much is too much? What expense will it ultimately take? There are many unanswered questions and too early to even think of where it will all sort out. There is good and bad and each are vivid. That is why this will become such an issue.


In a story this weekend one of the headlines was 'Twitter and Facebook don't connect people – they isolate them from reality, say a rising number of academics.' So we are about to see a new social war to breakout. Defend or define, just more money that some can get their hands on.


And did I mention that Social Media may actually backfire on businesses? They best be careful. It can grow their business if used right or destroy it if they make some bad moves. Stay tuned. This is only the first chapter of a story that will take many months or years to play out.


Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz




23 thoughts on “The Newest War has Just Begun. Who Will be on What Side of the Social Networking Line

  1. Bhaiyya

    Easy. Each of these (network of) sites will have their own Social Network.
    Every operator will try to create their own ‘walled gardens’ whether it be with one domain or a hundred domains or a thousand domains.
    Microsoft. Twitter. Apple. Google. Facebook. Frank Schilling (Note).
    I think the most open operator will win. But that’s just a guess.

    Reply
  2. Greg

    The network who is truely”not evil” will win. Lots of hype and companies will soon figure out they are building someones elses site/business and not their own. It is a great tool but nothing more, not an asset, just another potential bill for marketing.

    Reply
  3. Jeff Schneider

    Hello Rick,
    Facebook and others smack of Big Brother is Watching and flashing Red Lights. The medium is too untested to get meaningful model results. My sense tells me to proceed cautiously before you trust a social site with your BRAND.
    Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)

    Reply
  4. Morgan

    As the Internet continues to grow and evolve I’m paying careful attention to where the traffic is. Right now I think there are three main traffic sources that Domainers can leverage:
    1) Type-In Traffic
    2) Organic Traffic
    3) Social Media Traffic
    Just like type-in and organic traffic there are a million ways to do it wrong and miss the traffic. However, just like type-in and organic traffic…those who get it can cash in!
    Great post Rick and definitely a hot topic for 2011!

    Reply
  5. rob sequin

    Social media should only be considered a marketing tool in a marketing campaign… or for pure entertainment.
    I can’t believe when I see a TV ad for a major brand and then the web address at the end of the commercial to be facebook.com/major brand.
    Just ridiculous.

    Reply
  6. Rick Schwartz

    Rob, they are trying to be”cool” and show they are just like you and me. Yeah right. It has a place. But not the center of their universe.
    It is nothing more than training wheels to get folks online and in business. This is the first bus to come along and why not hop on it? But the bus does not go to the final destination. It gets you to the next point on the graph. Gets folks to change the habit of how much time they are behind a computer or online. The rest will unfold from that. Innovation will happen because they all want to do something big like that. $$$ are coming online like never before.

    Reply
  7. Jeff Schneider

    Hello Mike,
    The Social Network has a powerful flaw in their Brand. People do not like people that come to you as friends when really they are looking at you as a marketing channel. People that come to you as business people have a decided advantage. People do not like friendly opportunism. Other major Marketing Hurdles are appearing ,but this one point is a major obstacle they need to figure out and SOON !

    Reply
  8. John Thalacker

    I’m calling my Ning network Motorhomes.com the Online motorized RV Show. Training wheels are on! Thoughts on the idea?

    Reply
  9. UFO

    Well, I’m already OUT of NEW social media. What a bore it is.
    Most people will work that out as well eventually. All as you are doing is handing over all your information so you can be a battery farmed consumer with targeted ads. It’s like getting excited about store bonus cards where your buying habits are just part of a data warehouse.
    What’s all this twitter twaddle? I mean are their lives are so vacuous with socially mobility that 256 characters can sum up their entire worthless existence? Get a life.
    Don’t know how people can even like FacePoke, its just spoon feeding for frontal lobotomy patients. I mean sheeze, do people really get off on reading about utter inane trivia of other peoples lives? Are they so shallow that their sense of self worth is reflected by the number of non entity friends attached to their username?
    You have been warned. Social Media sites lead to Gonad Entropy.

    Reply
  10. Stephen Douglas

    Rick, I think you’re spot on in this conundrum: I’ve noticed major companies and TV networks starting to use Facebook ID’s as their”contact us” returns. No domain names, just a FB ID. Ooops, that looks weird: FB ID as in”FBI D”.
    I agree 100% with you on this.

    Reply
  11. Michael

    Well said – after all, if a company doesn’t engage its customers and provide transparency in the social web, it can easily tarnish the brand they have worked to build.

    Reply
  12. Bill Roy

    I think there are three things that need to be enshrined in development of a social networking site to prosper long term:
    1) The site must have a target audience that it can be clearly associated with and target;
    2) The site needs to evolve into more than just a social networking site – it must actually provide a service its members want or prospective members will want;
    3) It must monetise the site in a way that is not off-putting to the members of the site.
    These three points cannot be seen as exclusively all that needs to be done, but most site owners/developers either miss or ignor at least one of these major issues.
    Rick, you are right that this is just the beginning of social networking, admittedly and obviously an astronomically explosive beginning, but just the beginning. Now is the time for cool business heads to analyse the phenomenon and taking the ‘best’ strategies evolve this social networking arena into profitable long-term businesses.

    Reply
  13. Dan

    Hi Nice Post Rick…
    The”Migration” Is already starting to happen:
    JC Penny moved their entire 250K product line on to Facebook…where you can shop and buy anything they have to sale.
    ***J. C. Penney Moves Entire Product Catalog to Facebook***(not my site)
    http://www.practicalecommerce.com/blogs/post/788-J-C-Penney-Moves-Entire-Product-Catalog-to-Facebook
    ____
    And on another note, here is a quote from”adage”…. The”Migration” has already started…it might not effect Google to much…in the short term…but give it a year….
    Here is a quote from: adage……
    ” According to an estimate from eMarketer, Facebook took in $1.86 billion in worldwide advertising revenue for 2010, a 151% increase over the company’s estimated 2009 advertising revenue of $740 million worldwide. Not surprisingly, the majority of that, $1.21 billion, was earned inside the U.S.”
    “But what is surprising is the majority of revenue, 60% or $1.12 billion, was earned from smaller companies in 2010, those more likely to be using self-serve tools rather than work through a media agency. That’s greater than the $740 million coming from major marketers like Coke, P&G or Match.com”
    _____
    Best To All,
    Dan Brown

    Reply
  14. Steve Cheatham

    I am suprised at the number of major businesses that use Facebook pages. Plus NBC displays it’s logo on evey news show close.
    The large corporations probably get to share the harvested data or they would not be on FB. The value of diaplaying tha FB logo on the end of every news show is worth a million dollars a day.
    The small emerging business that has a good idea and plan doesn’t want all that data being collected by a third party. Besides that you get no benefit to see any data.
    Doing things like requiring you to opt-out of new features causes you to do something that has value in data to them. You visit and opt out. The rest are assumed opted in. You action is duly noted.

    Reply
  15. AlanR

    I see FB as just another marketing tool and the latest fad for now. People are fickle and will flock to the next new fad once it appears. Look how My Space was the king of the hill and is now a has been. There are just too many smart people in this world who will use this internet medium for new and improved purposes! It’s unlimited and as time passes, the one constant that will forever shine is having a good domain and website. Those are the new essentials in business in this new world economy!

    Reply
  16. Dan

    Hi AlanR,
    Facebook currently has a better advertising system than Google…If used correctly.
    If they ever decide to take it”out of house” and have it up for use for website owners (publishers) and pay out more than what Google is doing right now with”adsense”….Game Over.
    Plus, if you use the”pages” in your account the right way…it is unbelievable what you can do.
    Peace!
    Dan

    Reply
  17. MicroSourcing

    That’s how it is for any marketing tool. It can build or destroy businesses, depending on how they strategize. Social media connects people on the virtual level, and isolation only happens when it’s done in excess.

    Reply
  18. AlanR

    What I hate to see is so many businesses jumping on the FB bandwagon by promoting FB as much or more than they do their own businesses. There will be a time when something new comes along that will be as good or better than FB and all that money and time spent pumping up FB will come back to haunt them. They will fall behind on the next trend that comes along from being too complacent and too dependent on riding the FB wave. They need to pump up their own brand and website first, not the FB brand. FB should be used as a tool to promote their website outside FB, not the other way around.
    FB has almost become another parallel internet out there competing with the internet we are all familiar with. It’s getting to be about as big and as popular but the isolation from the rest of the internet will create a vulnerability that could cause it to collapse in on itself. With the regular internet, we have the support of the whole internet system that is pretty much free from the controls that a closed system under the control of one company like FB. Not a good thing to be associated with if you are totally dependent on them. So many little shops who have only a sub-page as their URL instead of their own domain that they can fall back on if something were to happen. Even some bigger businesses who should know better by having their own domain don’t have them yet. If FB were to start using sub-domains rather than sub-pages, .facebook.com would be the biggest domain extension ever. Bigger than dotcom and most extensions combined. It would fall under the category of a second level domain extension like .co.uk but at over 500 million strong, a power to appreciate! But not to depend on as an alternative to the internet!

    Reply
  19. Dan

    Hi,
    And the”migration” will continue as advertisers and maybe publishers have a new place to go… A very well established and respect place.
    LinkedIn Launches Targeted Ad Service
    After a two-year beta test, LinkedIn on Wednesday launched LinkedIn Ads, a self-service pay-per-click product…
    http://feeds.informationweek.com/click.phdo?i=a828ecbb4d771837e77ceb8205dd3e1a
    ____
    Best To All,
    Dan AKA”Danno”
    BTW: My blog is currently being moved to its own”platform”…so I am kinda in ‘limbo ‘ right now…as I cannot make any post…should be done soon.

    Reply
  20. Landon White

    Kiddie Book:
    It is like a Brick n Mortar pitching a tent in there parking lot,
    mostly browsing traffic wandering around, the real biz is still
    in the store, just a gimmick to grab traffic.
    The real Flaw with FB is that everything is 15 year Schoolgirl
    oriented with the ‘COOL thing going on and your friends, blah blah
    that’s where the buzz mascara market cash flow is for NOW!
    till one day in the future …
    and you mention FaceBook, and your FRIENDS
    call you a DICK HEAD that still goes to that lame Website …
    Next fad?
    just a mini-rant.

    Reply

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