NetSecrets Blog : Web Design and SEO

Social Networking - The Structure

Basics

In general, social networking services allow users to create a profile for themselves, and can be broken down into two broad categories: internal social networking (ISN) and external social networking (ESN) sites, such as Orkut, MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. Both types can increase the feeling of community among people. An ISN is a closed/private community that consists of a group of people within a company, association, society, education provider and organization or even an "invite only" group created by a user in an ESN. An ESN is open/public and available to all web users to communicate and are designed to attract advertisers. ESN's can be smaller specialised communities (i.e. linked by a single common interest e.g TheSocialGolfer, ACountryLife.Com, Great Cooks Community) or they can be large generic social networking sites (e.g MySpace, Facebook etc).

 

However, whether specialised or generic there is commonality across the general approach of social networking sites. Users can upload a picture of themselves, create their 'profile' and can often be "friends" with other users. In most social networking services, both users must confirm that they are friends before they are linked. For example, if Rosie lists Jim as a friend, then Jim would have to approve Rosie's friend request before they are listed as friends. Some social networking sites have a "favorites" feature that does not need approval from the other user. Social networks usually have privacy controls that allows the user to choose who can view their profile or contact them, etc.

 

Some social networking sites are created for the benefits of others, such as parents social networking site "Gurgle". This website is for parents to talk about pregnancy, birth and bringing up children. Several social networks in Asian markets such as India, China, Japan and Korea have reached not only a high usage but also a high level of profitability. Services such as QQ (China), Mixi (Japan), Cyworld (Korea) or the mobile-focused service Mobile Game Town by the company DeNA in Japan (which has over 10 million users) are all profitable, setting them apart from their western counterparts.

 

Social Status

The social status of an individual is revealed on social networks. Sociologist Erving Goffman refers to the “Interaction Order” which he claims is the “part of the social life where face-to-face and spoken interactions occur” (Rhiengold: 2002, P171). He believes that the way people represent themselves provides other users information about them they want others to believe, while concealing the rest. Goffman believes that people also give off “information leaking true but uncontrolled information along with their more deliberate performances” (Rheingold: 2002, P171). Through social networks people are now able to completely control the information provided about themselves through the photos they include, the information provided, whether it be true or false and the friends they make. People are therefore now able to control their personal information and their desired social status.

 

Additional Features

Some social networks have additional features, such as the ability to create groups that share common interests or affiliations, upload or stream live videos, and hold discussions in forums. Geo-social networking co-opts internet mapping services to organize user participation around geographic features and their attributes.

 

There is also a trend for more interoperability between social networks led by technologies such as OpenID and OpenSocial.

Lately, mobile social networking has become popular. In most mobile communities, mobile phone users can now create their own profiles, make friends, participate in chat rooms, create chat rooms, hold private conversations, share photos and videos, and share blogs by using their mobile phone. Mobile phone users are basically open to every option that someone sitting on the computer has. Some companies provide wireless services which allow their customers to build their own mobile community and brand it, but one of the most popular wireless services for social networking in the UK is Facebook Mobile. Other companies provide new innovative features which extend the social networking experience into the real world.

 

Business model

Few social networks currently charge money for membership. In part, this may be because social networking is a relatively new service, and the value of using them has not been firmly established in customers' minds. Companies such as MySpace and Facebook sell online advertising on their site. Hence, they are seeking large memberships, and charging for membership would be counterproductive. Some believe that the deeper information that the sites have on each user will allow much better targeted advertising than any other site can currently provide.

 

Social networks operate under an autonomous business model, in which a social network's members serve dual roles as both the suppliers and the consumers of content. This is in contrast to a traditional business model, where the suppliers and consumers are distinct agents. Revenue is typically gained in the autonomous business model via advertisements, but subscription-based revenue is possible when membership and content levels are sufficiently high.

Google Preferences On Domain Types

I just noticed an important change in Google's pronouncements on domain name types. I was working in Google Sitemaps and looked at the "Settings" section for one of my .co.uk domains.

Now, there has been the opportunity for some time to set a "geographical target" for a domain in this section which works a bit like the option in Adwords to limit the ads to a specified location or a n-mile radius of a location but I don't often make use of this in sitemaps because, quite honestly, I don't think it's very accurate. Although I am based in the middle of Herefordshire Google sees me as being in Telford because that's where my ISP's point of presence is. But I digress ...

For this domain I spotted the message "Your site's domain is currently associated with the target: United Kingdom" which surprised me as it's a business that primarily sells in UK but is also relevant to overseas prospects. So I clicked on a link which I thought would allow me to remove this preference. I wasn't able to and instead found the following statement:

"If your site targets users in a particular location, you can provide us with information that will help determine how your site appears in our country-specific search results, and also improve our search results for geographic queries. You can only use this feature for sites with a neutral top-level domain, such as .com or .org. Country-specific domains, such as .ie or .fr, are already associated with a country or region.

 

Your site's domain is currently associated with the target: United Kingdom"

 

This tells me 2 interesting things. Firstly if you want to achieve any visibility outside of the UK you have to get a .com, .org, or .net domain. Secondly if you want to sell in the UK you might be better using a .co.uk domain or at least setting a preference in Google Sitemaps for the UK market.

 

So what to do if you want to achieve both? Certainly you can't just have the same website with two domains. That will invoke "duplicate content" issues and at best make one of the two sites ineffective. You need to be cleverer than that, probably with having two distinctly separate sites as the optimal solution.

 

If you have one type of the domain and could do with the other contact our Support Team, Aimee, Micki or Sandy, on 01386 792972 to check what's available or just go to our domain name checker.

 

Equally if you'd like some ideas on how best to combine the two types of name send me a message and I'll advise as best I can.

Social Networking - Potential for Businesses

Social networks connect people at low cost; this can be beneficial for entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to expand their contact base. These networks often act as a customer relationship management tool for companies selling products and services. Companies can also use social networks for advertising in the form of banners and text ads – this is a unique opportunity as many SNS (Social Network Sites) incorporate profiling in their registration process making direct and targeted marketing work on a whole new level. Since businesses operate globally, social networks can make it easier to keep in touch with contacts around the world.

 

One example of social networking being used for business purposes is LinkedIn.com, which aims to interconnect professionals. It claims to have more than 20 million registered users from 150 different industries. Professional networking sites function as online meeting places for business and industry professionals. Other sites are bringing this model for niche business professional networking.

 

Virtual communities for business allow individuals to be accessible. People establish their real identity in a verifiable place. These individuals then interact with each other or within groups that share common business interests and goals. They can also post their own user generated content in the form of blogs, pictures, slide shows and videos. Like a social network, the consumer essentially becomes the publisher.

 

A professional network is used for the business to business marketplace. These networks improve the ability for people to advance professionally, by finding, connecting and networking with others. Business professionals can share experiences with others who have a need to learn from similar experiences. The traditional way to interact is face-to-face. Interactive technology makes it possible for people to network with their peers from anywhere, at anytime in an online environment. Professional network services attract, aggregate and assemble large business-focused audiences by creating informative and interactive meeting places.

 

Over the coming months NetSecrets will be taking these social networks one at a time and telling you specifically how you can use a few effective tools and techniques to maximise your business for the future.

Social Networking - A History

The notion that individual computers linked electronically could form the basis of computer mediated social interaction and networking was suggested early on in the life story of the Internet. There were many early efforts to support social networks via computer-mediated communication, including Usenet, ARPANET and LISTERV, bulletin board services (BBS), and EIES: Murray Turoff's server-based Electronic Information Exchange Service (Turoff and Hiltz, 1978, 1993). The Information Routing Group developed a schema about how the proto-Internet might support this.

 

Early social networking websites started in the form of generalized online communities such as Theglobe.com (1994), Geocities (1994) and Tripod (1995). These early communities focused on bringing people together to interact with each other through chat rooms, and share personal information and ideas around any topics via personal homepage publishing tools which was a precursor to the blogging phenomenon. Some communities took a different approach by simply having people link to each other via email addresses. These sites included Classmates.com (1995), focusing on ties with former school mates, and SixDegrees.com (1997), focusing on indirect ties. User profiles could be created, messages sent to users held on a “friends list” and other members could be sought out who had similar interests to yours in their profiles. Whilst these features had existed in some form before SixDegrees.com came about, this would be the first time these functions were available in one package. Despite these new developments (that would later catch on and become immensely popular), the website simply wasn’t profitable and eventually shut down. It was even described by the website’s owner as "simply ahead of its time". Two different models of social networking that came about in 1999 were trust-based, developed by Epinions.com, and friendship-based, such as those developed by Jonathan Bishop and used on some regional UK sites between 1999 and 2001. Innovations included not only showing who is "friends" with whom, but giving users more control over content and connectivity. Between 2002 and 2004, three social networking sites emerged as the most popular form of these sites in the world, causing such sites to become part of mainstream users globally. First there was Friendster (which Google tried to acquire in 2003), then, MySpace, and finally, Bebo. By 2005, MySpace, emergent as the biggest of them all, was reportedly getting more page views than Google. 2004 saw the emergence of Facebook, a competitor, also rapidly growing in size. In 2006, Facebook opened up to the non US college community, and together with allowing externally-developed add-on applications, and some applications enabled the graphing of a user's own social network - thus linking social networks and social networking, became the largest and fastest growing site in the world, not limited by particular geographical followings.

 

Social networking began to flourish as a component of business internet strategy at around March 2005 when Yahoo launched Yahoo! 360°. In July 2005 News Corporation bought MySpace, followed by ITV buying Friends Reunited in December 2005. Various social networking sites have sprung up catering to different languages and countries. It is estimated that combined there are now over 200 social networking sites using these existing and emerging social networking models, without counting the niche social networks (also referred to as vertical social networks) made possible by services such as Ning where an individual can create their own social networking site.

TweetBeep - Twitter Alerts By Email

Great little application you can sign up for at no cost. Basically it's Google Alerts but for Twitter! Sign up at: http://tweetbeep.com.

And if you aren't yet using Google Alerts to keep track of your brands, industry news and competitors get signed up at http://www.google.com/alerts/

Premier Engraving - Brass Plaques & Corporate Signage

 

Jonathan and Helen Keeling run Premier Engraving and have provided high quality engraved plaques, nameplates and signs in brass, wood, aluminium and stainless steel for many years to a wide range of customers, many of them blue chip internationals.

NetSecrets are pleased to announce the launch of their new website which includes an extensive gallery showing the wide variety of jobs they can undertake. Take a look for yourself using the links below:

• Engraved brass plaques
• Memorial plaques & tributes
• Industrial engraving
• Hotel, restaurant, pub and bar signage
• And much more ...

Jon and Helen can handle any job, large or small, standard or customised, so contact them on 01299 861911 or email info@premier-engraving.co.uk to learn more.

Social Networking - An Introduction

A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.

 

Social networking has created new ways to communicate and share information. Social networking websites are being used regularly by millions of people, and it now seems that social networking will be an enduring part of everyday life. The main types of social networking services are those which contain directories of some categories (such as former classmates), means to connect with friends (usually with self-description pages), and recommender systems linked to trust. Popular methods now combine many of these, with MySpace and Facebook being the most widely used and recognised.

 

Over the coming months NetSecrets will be taking you through the various aspects of social networking. At this point you may be wandering what relevance this has to you and your business...

 

Social networks still remain one of the most untapped resources for generating leads, and we will be sharing with you how you can get the edge over your competitors with some clever little techniques that don't take long but will hold great benefit for you and your business in 2009.

Company Details On Websites

It never ceases to amaze me that a majority of UK websites fail to comply with the requirements of the Company's Act.

Since January 2007 it has been a legal requirement for Limited Companies to display on their websites their company name and registration details. This makes sense as clients need to know who they are dealing with and non-compliance is subject to heavy fines.

For a fuller explanation download "Requirements of Company's Act From 1 January 2007" .

So if, 2 years on, your web designer has failed to inform you yet of this legal requirement I think you should give him/her a hard time and look at using someone who's a bit more on the ball - NetSecrets maybe?

Web 2.0 - The Economics

The analysis of the economic implications of "Web 2.0" applications and loosely-associated technologies such as wikis, blogs, social-networking, open-source, open-content, file-sharing, peer-production, etc. has also gained scientific attention. This area of research investigates the implications Web 2.0 has for an economy and the principles underlying the economy of Web 2.0.

 

Cass Sunstein's book "Infotopia" discussed the Hayekian nature of collaborative production, characterized by decentralized decision-making, directed by (often non-monetary) prices rather than central planners in business or government.

 

Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams argue in their book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (2006) that the economy of "the new web" depends on mass collaboration. Tapscott and Williams regard it as important for new media companies to find ways of how to make profit with the help of Web 2.0. The prospective Internet-based economy that they term "Wikinomics" would depend on the principles of openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally. They identify seven Web 2.0 business-models (peer pioneers, ideagoras, prosumers, new Alexandrians, platforms for participation, global plantfloor, wiki workplace).

 

Organizations could make use of these principles and models in order to prosper with the help of Web 2.0-like applications: "Companies can design and assemble products with their customers, and in some cases customers can do the majority of the value creation... In each instance the traditionally passive buyers of editorial and advertising take active, participatory roles in value creation." Tapscott and Williams suggest business strategies as "models where masses of consumers, employees, suppliers, business partners, and even competitors cocreate value in the absence of direct managerial control". Tapscott and Williams see the outcome as an economic democracy.

 

Some other views in the scientific debate agree with Tapscott and Williams that value-creation increasingly depends on harnessing open source/content, networking, sharing, and peering, but disagree that this will result in an economic democracy, predicting a subtle form and deepening of exploitation, in which Internet-based global outsourcing reduces labor-costs by transferring jobs from workers in wealthy nations to workers in poor nations. In such a view, the economic implications of a new web might include on the one hand the emergence of new business-models based on global outsourcing, whereas on the other hand non-commercial online platforms could undermine profit-making and anticipate a co-operative economy. For example, Tiziana Terranova speaks of "free labor" (performed without payment) in the case where prosumers produce surplus value in the circulation-sphere of the cultural industries.

 

Some examples of Web 2.0 business models that attempt to generate revenues in online shopping and online marketplaces are referred to as social commerce and social shopping. Social commerce involves user-generated marketplaces where individuals can set up online shops and link their shops in a networked marketplace, drawing on concepts of electronic commerce and social networking. Social shopping involves customers interacting with each other while shopping, typically online, and often in a social network environment. Academic research on the economic value implications of social commerce and having sellers in online marketplaces link to each others' shops has been conducted by researchers in the business school at Columbia University.