This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 03 May 2008, by Adam Bohannon.
-
03 May 08
-
"It's really an evolution of media from a one-way direction to a highly interactive model, where people are developing relationships around content. That drives engagement...and creates a whole new opportunity for business," Mike Jensen, director of technology group at Credit Suisse,
-
One opportunity for new business is in e-commerce.
Dave McClure, an angel investor at 500 Hats, believes the future of the business will be in so-called social commerce, or the intersection between online shopping and socializing. Netflix might be an example of early social commerce because it encourages members to recommend movies to friends. But he envisions social commerce going much further.
-
"Social commerce is where (the business is) headed. Companies that have mined enough social graph data and can combine shopping to it--whoever figures that out, they will be set," McClure said during a panel.
-
more developers should be working on applications that provide utility to people, rather than just entertainment. For example, spin-offs of Twitter for health care or emergency workers could hold promise
-
Thanks to social networks like MySpace and Facebook, companies are armed with much more data on people's habits, preferences, and social behavior. Executives believe that data, if used right, can build the next advertising giant.
-
Still, social networks have long been challenged to sell their inventory to mainstream advertisers for several reasons. For one, advertisers are squeamish about putting their brands next to a user-generated video of high-school band practice, for example. Another reason is that salespeople from social networks don't speak the same language of metrics that traditional advertisers and agencies speak.
-
"The promise for this space is that you've got this engaged audience--people spending 20 to 40 minutes talking to each other in a way they haven't before--and if you put these ads in front of them, what do you call it and how do you sell it to agencies?"
-
MySpace is seeing early success for its advertising service called hypertargeting, which lets advertisers reach customers by their behavior on the social network. Oberfest said people are responding more positively to those ads.
-
Seth Goldstein, founder of SocialMedia Networks, an advertising platform for social networks, said that he envisions an open system from Facebook or MySpace that would allow companies to look at a person's social graph, or collection of their friends. Then the company could extract who is most influential to that individual in areas like travel or movie recommendations.
"If I can select the right person to have influence over you, I can choose that person to send you a message," he said.
-
Nicolas Kardas, senior product manager at Microsoft's Windows Live Platform group, said despite the forward twist on social media, the business models aren't that different than those of years past. It's just that with social networks, companies know much more about the consumer, and that information delivers the option of a much bigger premium for advertising.
-
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.