Since Google changed the business model on Microsoft the only way Facebook is going to change the rules is adopt a totally new business model. I think social networks like Facebook will make incremental moves if they try to “out-Google” Google.

Instead, Facebook should start to offer services that “friends” should jointly get value from. The inherent power of many on facebook. Here’s a couple that make sense:

1. Remember IEEE would offer all members a joint insurance (I think it was life insurance) but why cant facebook offer that for groups?

2. How about aggregate buying? If my friends and I all like the new Powerbook how about getting us all combined to buy one at a discount someplace? Update: BusinessWeek calls these purchasing co-ops

I am sure there are many more, but this would be the best use of the “social graph” that’s on my list of friends on Facebook.

#	Question	Example Responses
1	Company name	Adobe Systems Incorporated
2	Name of community	Adobe Developer Connection
3	Community type	Developer
4	# of total members	NA
5	Community Manager / Evangelist (Name)	Jonathan Wall
6	Community moderators	NA
7	Date community was started	September/October 2007
8	Average # of daily posts	NA
9	Key purpose of community	An enhanced version of the Adobe Developer Community, the Developer Connection was launched very recently (late September 2007). The key purpose is to facilitate support and training for developers and to connect with other Adobe developers worldwide. Its users are made aware of current trends and advanced techniques via blogs, forums, exchanges, and events.
10	Platform components for community	1.    User Forums 2.    Exchange for sharing applications and code 3.    Adobe Developers’ Blogs 4.    Blog Aggregator (Feeds/News Aggregator) 5.    Documentation Resource Center 6.    Flex  Cookbook – resource for sharing code and solutions 7.    User Groups 8.    Adobe Labs – information on pre-released products and technology 9.    Technical support for products 10.  Trial downloads 11. Developer Center Article Archive 12.  CSS Advisor – resource for queries on cross-browser compatibility and CSS 13.  Edge Newsletter – free newsletter with videos, ADC Update Newsletter for Developers 14.  Flex bug base – source for reporting and reviewing bugs related to Adobe Flex builder & Flex SDK 15.  Information on Product SDKs 16.  Certification & Training resources 17.  Developer Events 18.  Support Plans for customers and developers by product 19.  Search user groups, community experts and developers/designers by technology/expertise (ADC introNetwork) 20.  The ADC Developer Desktop – provides desktop notifications about changes in status of bugs
11	Vendor for community	In-house (developed by a team of Adobe employees led by Jonathan Wall, Group Manager for developer relations in the Platform Business Unit at Adobe Systems)
12	Top 3 great features / things about this community	Ease of navigation and extensive content – Access to all features and components of the ADC website are provided on the homepage itself, ensuring easy navigation. The page layout and information architecture is user-friendly. The community also incorporates a broad range of developer-centric features and content into its website.  It focuses on the most important component of any developer community – technical content on core developer issues. This is done by means of articles, tutorials, videos, newsletters, forums, information exchange platforms and streamlined search features. ADC introNetwork – A social network for developers, the ADC introNetwork provides users with a search engine to for finding developers and/or designers by technology and Adobe product expertise. Users can search based on professional attributes, skills, professional background and even personality traits. One can also use the introNetwork as a job portal or for engaging certified developers close to their location.   Developer Spotlight – The community, as recognition of the efforts of developers worldwide, has created a Developer Spotlight program which features innovative developers every week. The developers are selected by other members of the community through online voting polls.
13	Top 3 items that need to improve for this community	A community as big as this could do with a separate listing of the key contact points prominently. Having a stat counter listing the number of active users and the total number of users, is conspicuous by its absence. It is a good indicator of how dynamic the community is.
14	Comprehensive community score

 

Just joined Gooruze. Dont know if its going to be YASN, (Yet Another Social Network) but we’ll find out soon. I’ll let you know if its worth checking out.

mmohan.gooruze.com

“Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.”—George Santayana

I worked at Ariba for a during 1998-99, followed by Asera (a Kleiner Perkins startup that raised over $175 Million in venture funding, but showed no traction). The big thing during those days was every industry wanted to build a “Vertical B2B Exchange”. Hundreds were funded – by companies like CMGI, ICG and other venture firms. Many more were funded by large industry consortiums – Covisint, E2Open.

There were 3 dominant themes:
1. Networks of B2B with multiple vertical industries – Chemdex, Vertical Net etc.
2. Small 3 guys and a dog companies – hundreds of which none remain
3. Large consortium funded companies – eSteel, elemica etc.

Of those, the ONLY ones that still are dead men walking are the #3. Others all failed or burned out or flamed.

So when I see a social network for Pharma or a social network for a building, I find that amusing and really history repeating itself.

Dont need it, never needed it, wont need it. Of course I am going to hear this time’s different. I actually used those words during that time.

Photo credit: Cartoon Stock.

There are many consulting companies and vendors that can help you with your community initiative or social network. But the more consulting companies that exist the more confusing your options are. There are basically 3 types of companies. Obviously the entire issue of partnering with a consulting company means you know what your social media objectives need to be in the first place. Lets assume (I know that’s a big assumption) you do know that.

1. The “Agency”: This company will provide an end-to-end service. They will manage your account, provide strategy, ongoing management and consulting for the initiative. This type of company believes its model is best suited for a client who believes the best work is done by experts. It is in their best interest to not mentor your internal resources (regardless of what they tell you). Use this option if you want to outsource your community or intend to get it going really quick or you believe you dont have time (maybe because your competition has beaten you to it) to do it yourself. Most PR agencies of yesterday now offer social media as an option in this list of services.

2. The “Specialists”: This type of company is good in one or more facets of community development. For example they are good at “developing your alpha members” or “viral marketing” of your community or “moderating” your user generated content. If you have one or more members of your team that have some experience with building a community and you only need additional “hands on deck” to complement a specific area of your exposure, this is the best type of company for you.

3. The boutique or “one woman bands”: These companies / individuals are best suited for very large companies who need deep expertise in an area or the very small (community is very small so we can have one person do it all). If you are a mid sized company, this is not the most suited option. This company is obviously risky since everything depends on one person.

Update: My friend Tac talks about Marketing vs. PR agencies.

Looking at all the various responses to Universal’s new take on ITunes. I actually love it. Competition is a good thing. I think Universals’ proposal this time might work. I love my Ipod, but competition should drive down prices, not up I think. If I were to put a perfect music consumption plan I would take the best of Apple iTunes, XM Satellite, Pandora and iTune.fm

1. Finding new music: XM is BEST for this. I keep listening to new music on some of their best channels. Only if I could get XM on my iPod, then I could record as soon as I want and delete the ones I really dislike.

2. Getting music collections of my existing CD’s – My iPod and iTunes (for CD Artwork) is best for this. No better way to get everything in one player than my iPod. Everthing – home stereo, car stereo and personal music system are driven with this.

3. Getting automatic music recommendations from friends and sharing with friends: I get a lot of recommendations on Facebook, on which iTune.fm is the best.

4. Getting “like” music – the best of “Get me more of this kind of music” is Pandora. Great service.

5. Keep me finding new and interesting artists – The proposed Morris plan (from Universal) sounds great for this.

What do you think?

Coming into this discussion late (thanks to Gartner ITExpo). Mashable talks about eBay’s social networking foray.

“eBay is getting ready to launch Neighborhoods,
which is a new feature that aggregates the many micro-communities that
are built around common interests. Neighborhoods should be officially
launched later this week.

The purpose is to give more users a place to connect, and further
express interest in those parts of their lives that revolve around
eBay.”

SF Chronicle says:
“Content for neighborhoods can be tapped from some other eBay features
including product listings, eBay blogs, guides, and reviews. At launch
time, there are 600 different neighborhoods covering everything from
Beyonce to Battlestar Gallactica.”

Techcrunch reports:
“Content from across eBay–including eBay blogs, guides, reviews, and
product search–is pulled into each eBay neighborhood and packaged into
widget-like modules. Members can join whatever neighborhoods they like,
and add to discussion boards there, post photos, invite friends, and
meet other people who share the same consumer obsessions.”

As does News.com“
“eBay Neighborhoods will
allow users to post photos and reviews and offer tips and feedback in a
beefed-up version of its text-based discussion forums. As of late
Tuesday, there were more than 600 groups, with topics ranging from the
Dallas Cowboys to crocheting to comic books. Users can also suggest new
neighborhoods for creation.”

I dont use eBay at all (another post). I can see how this can be of very good value: to enable people that collect or are interested in things “like you” to meet and talk about their passion.

I think you’ll find this like most other “social network on the side” as in “you want fries with that” initiatives. I think there might be opportunity for eBay to collectively gain more by letting like-minded folks connect with one another on their network, but as an experiment this is a good start.

“Evil marketing” in me thinks – the key value for eBay will be:

1. Collecting the “universe” target market of people, so they can know their target audience in cases of promotions. I think it would be VERY cool to see if everyone collecting Beyonce CD’s can be given first opportunity to buy tickets to her concert with StubHub.

2. Cross-selling opportunity. I can sure you can get information at some point that would be very valuable about “everyone that is in Atlanta that buys Beyonce CD’s also is now starting to bid on Oasis music”.

3. Adding value to the community: How about putting together regional events so community members can meet face to face? – That’s going to be something the community will love.

I view my feeds on google reader about 50% of the time from my Blackberry. Unlike several others, I prefer to read online than a physical paper. I also try and catch up my reading on the plane (physical books most times). So I have been eyeing the Sony Reader for a long time. But it struck me when I was reading the iPod touch now running mail, etc. on engadget.

With coverflow technology why can’t I “read” any book on my iPhone, instead of listening to it on my iPhone?

I think the Sony Reader is doomed. If Apple can do a licensing deal with the book companies, I would prefer to use my iPhone as a book reader than buy a new Sony Reader.

As part of the 3rd party developer announcement, I would think this would be one of the first application extensions (support of ebook reading).

What do you think?

At the Gartner ITExpo in Orlando, we had Anthony and Tom talk about Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 technologies. It was a good presentation talking about definition of Enterprise 2.0, who are the key vendors and best practices.

Key themes:

1. Its not a fad, a trend and so dont ignore Enterprise 2.0.

2. In an informal poll over 80% of the audience has implemented or has some adoption of Web 2.0 (Blogs, Wikis, etc.) at their companies

3. There are many vendors so there are not any best practices yet.

Bidirectional, mass collaboration is the key.

It used to be climbing the corporate ladder required a huge investment
to gain an MBA. Evidence is mounting that the ROI on an MBA is showing a
considerable shortfall. 

Shivonee
Byrne’s article summarizes a recent
Brazen Careerist post (which we’ll get to in a moment) with these items
concerning current devaluation of an MBA.

1.   
Not
all rising stars go to business school these days. Hotshots are too busy making money,
so what’s the point?

2.   
Only
the top-tier MBA schools deliver the “Big Job.” The time and
expense of an MBA from a 2^nd or 3^rd tier school could be
better spent elsewhere to advance your career.

We tracked down additional posts from Penelope
Trunk to learn more. She offers 5 more situations where an MBA doesn’t
make sense. 

1.   
A
humanities PhD could make you less
employable not more employable. Getting a doctorate is good for
teaching, but doesn’t help climb the Fortune 500 ladders.

2.    You can shift careers by enrolling in
a night-class. Many fields require some knowledge, but not a degree.

3.   
Grad
school is a bad way to deal with uncertainty. It’s too
expensive as a back-up plan.

4.   
People
who love to learn don’t need a degree for it. Consider the real
qualitative reasons to get an advanced degree.

5.   
Use
LinkedIn instead of an MBA. If you’re going to grad school to
make connections, you might be better served networking yourself. With the
growth of social & business
networking communities, this might be the
best advice of all.

 We determined further investigation into calculating
the MBA ROI was needed. An economic analysis is one way to decide between
spending tens of thousands of dollars, while losing two or more years of
salary, to pursue an MBA.

The information below was gleaned from MBA Podcaster transcriptions featuring Janet Nakano, Anthony Davies, Assistant Professor of Economics at
Duquesne University, Thomas
Cline, an Associate Professor at St. Vincent’s College, and Toby
Hemmerling, admission consultant from Dream MBA. 

Davies
says start with the internal rate of return. “If I look at the tuition that I’m paying for the MBA as
an investment and the extra money I’m earning over the course of my career as
return on that investment, what’s the effective interest rate I’m getting? And
that’s the internal rate of return.”

They found
the internal rate of return—on average using figures ’93-2001—is on a par with
the NASDAQ and better than the Dow Jones Industrial Average—hovering around
18%.  

• For every dollar invested in
  tuition for an MBA degree, you can expect a return of $1.18.

Consider
net present value of your investment.
Consider all the money required to get an MBA compared to the lifetime expected
return. How much would the check have to be to forego an MBA today?  

• They found the net present value
  is significantly more than $500,000.

Consider
your break-even point.
How long until your initial investment is paid off? The average pay back period
is about nine years—down one year from what it was 15 years ago. Although
tuition is increasing, starting salaries are also increasing.  

• The growth rate for professional
  degrees is about 2% better than inflation vs. 1% for Bachelor’s degrees.

School
rankings can be another consideration when calculating your ROI. The less-established schools, Davies
says, are the ones that may not add as much economic value. But top-50 schools
can be just as competitive says Anthony Davies.  

• Top-20 schools will, typically,
  earn a better ROI.

Their final
analysis is an MBA is a safe bet, and there is nothing wrong with an MBA that
hasn’t made the top 50. But if you can get into a top-50 school, you should go.
And if you can get into a top-20 school, go even if you have to borrow.   

The Bottom Line:
Professional educators and recruiters agree that investment in education will
provide a good return. Penelope Trunks asserts you might want to reconsider
unless you get in a 1^st tier school. Also, consider qualitative
factors. An advanced degree may substantially enhance self-esteem, and if money
is not an issue, then an exercise in ROI isn’t even necessary.