Posts tagged social networks
Prediction for 2010…
Jan 4th
The start of a new year is the time for predictions, so I thought I would venture one of my own for 2010. The topic is a change I think will happen with online networking users, and although this refers to personal use, businesses will probably be affected as well.
A good analogy I’ve heard is that social networking brings far away people closer to you, at the expense of making those close to you further away. This makes sense, because we all have our limit of desired social interactions in a day (or week or month), and time spent talking with the college buddy who lives in Boston is time not spent talking to your much better friend who lives across town.
And after the initial rush of catching up with the high school friend who you haven’t seen in 17 years wears off, you suddenly realize that you really don’t care that they “Took the kids for ice cream this afternoon” or “Chose tiles for the big bathroom remodel project today.”
That’s not meant as a knock on old friends!
But everyone has limited time, and we are asked to do more and more with our finite resources these days.
For an example, More >
The Evolution from Technology to Content
Dec 14th
I recently read an interesting article that explored the histories of two former online titans, AOL and MySpace, web companies that seemed to have the world on a string. Once the leaders of two gigantic categories, Internet Service Providers and Social Network Media, what went so wrong?
While some bad business decisions, such as the disastrous “merger of the century” between Time Warner and AOL, certainly share some of the blame, that isn’t what killed either AOL or MySpace. No, what took these companies to the brink was the outdated technology they offered to consumers.
AOL’s core business in the ’90s was dial-up Internet, which was wildly profitable then. Their groundbreaking platform was many people’s first introduction to the Internet and World Wide Web, including my own. (akl26jimbo, for those of you that have known me long enough to remember) But it seems that very quickly the introduction of Cable Internet and DSL made AOL’s technology obsolete. The tides turned quickly, and the company was too slow to respond.
MySpace had a similar experience. They were the first company to introduce social networking technology to the masses, and grew rapidly at the beginning. But their platform, while groundbreaking and innovative, was also unrefined More >
Why Slashing Your Marketing Now Is Such A Poor Decision
Dec 1st
When you read the news about our current economy, it’s easy to become confused. Is the economy getting better? Standing still? Continuing to decline? I guess it depends on who you ask. And hey, the stock market is doing great! And lots of folks see that as a sign that our economy is on healthy footing. Today someone on CNBC today was even touting “Dow 12,000” by the end of this year. Can you imagine that?
After all we’ve been through that’s hard to believe - starting with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, the sub-prime mortgage crisis and credit crunch, and then government takeovers and massive bailouts. Then throw in record unemployment, a weakening dollar, huge government borrowing, and record bank closures. You get the idea. Yes, we were saved from the brink. But things still hardly qualify as “normal” these days. And we are now talking about Dow 12,000?
But what has become crystal clear that some of the challenges that we are currently facing WILL be here for a while. Unemployment is now over 10%, and if you count those that are under-employed or have given up looking entirely, the numbers are significantly higher. Most economists agree More >
