Perhaps it’s befitting that this is Abraham Lincoln’s official birthday. He was certainly a proponent of freedom, and the social networks that have bloomed in cyberspace are all about freedom (the citizen journalist, self-pronounced experts in numerous fields, getting information from many sources, etc.).
While social networking has more going for it than not, and I wrote about it on April 11, 2007, there are some downsides to using these networks. Several of these are discussed below.
First, while we are all aware of the huge amount of data on the internet about ourselves, the stickiness of this data may be more than we all bargained for. Just in the news this week is the article Trying to delete your Facebook account? Good luck (a bylined article by Maria Aspan, issued by the New York Times News Service on February 10, 2008*). Evidently, it is possible to be totally removed from Face Book, but not easily. Situations like this really put a damper on networking and promoting yourself and your business.
While the readers of this blog are more likely to be interested in business-to-business fund-raising ventures and other important activities for start-ups, there are many new ventures and businesses that target the teen market. I had forgotten just how difficult it is to reach teens (and communicating with them is yet another great hurdle to tackle). I had a powerful reminder of this just last week when I showed part of a PBS documentary to my class at GeorgeMasonUniversity.
“The Merchants of Cool” focuses on researchers and marketers who reach the teen and pre-teen markets. The huge irony is that after these experts identify what the coolest kids are doing and buying, this new cool thing moves into the mainstream and is no longer cool to the trend-setters or power teens. This phenomenon happens more rapidly than it used to because of the internet. A recent article confirms that this catch-22 situation continues. Read Youngsters not happy oldies going online (a bylined article by Martha Irvine on January 29, 2008**, issued by Australia’s Courier Mail newspaper) which illustrates this dilemma.
A third constraint is selecting which online service or services you will use. In my first article on this topic, I wrote about the popularity of LinkedIn among my colleagues and other professional business people in the U.S. and mentioned several other networking sites. Since writing that article, invitations from colleagues to link up continue to come in, many from a number of other networking sites. The most difficult part of being so well connected and being on several of these is just keeping track of it all (and keeping track of what settings you elected for each of them).
Here are some more options along with comments about these sites. Please note, by mentioning these, I am in no way endorsing them. Each person must make their own assessment:
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§ Congoo
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It’s primarily a news network; global in scope; can create news groups and browse areas of the web for articles and information not ordinarily accessible to non-subscribers.
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§ Pulse
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This is Plaxo’s new social networking component. I came across a negative comment about lack of privacy. Also, c/net appears to prefer Pownce over Pulse.
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§ Spock
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Network for colleagues. Appears to be able to pull in your info from many other web locations. Homepage says it’s in Beta mode.
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§ CollectiveX
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Anyone can create a group site. Employees from major corporations have groups; other groups are small networks, some professional, others social (my Internet Explorer browser closed while I was on this site; I do not know why).
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§ DooStang
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Exclusive peer-to-peer network, hiring and getting hired focus. Invitation-only career community. Started at Harvard, Stanford, and MIT.
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§ MerchantCircle
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Useful for businesses that sell directly to the public and consumer. My invitation came from a commercial photographer.
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iBelong, since you help entrepreneurs launch networks, I’m interested and probably the readers of my blog are interested too, in learning about your latest ventures. You can respond here with a comment, and/or, better yet, let me know what’s new on your horizon, and I’ll be happy to dedicate part three to your successes.
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* http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-080210-facebook-end-account-story,0,3331222.story
** http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23125981-5014108,00.html
Pat Lovenhart, February 12, 2008 ©