Social Networks, Blogs and Beer
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I was dumped with this list of links to read and browse my weekend away with. And it’s Sunday, 5 o’clock in the morning and my head is just bursting with information and data that are interrelated somehow and I just have to write it down and try to make sense out of it. Here goes:
David Hornik believes that the online communities we have now are Social Networks 3.0.
According to him, the foundations of social networks were started in the late 1990s with the likes of eGroups/Online, ICQ, Evite and many more. These networks weren’t explicitly described as such back then but they were the underpinnings of these communications platforms. In early 2000, as developers and entrepreneurs began to comprehend the nature of these networks and the power it could generate by fully and clearly defining or formulating its structure, Friendster, Tribe, Orkut, LinkedIn, Spoke emerged and thus began the era of Social Networks 2.0. These services allowed users to organize their recreational and business networks. The primary focus of these services then as they were first built was to enable the creation, growth and management of an explicit social network. As the excitement and energy around pure play social networks began to wane, it became clear that the building and management of a social network was not, in and of itself, a compelling consumer experience. Even Dana Boyd wondered whether MySpace is just a fad as Friendster has lost its steam. This now posed another challenge to entrepreneurs as they came to recognize that users and their interests or desires are significant and important considerations in building social networks.
The power of the individual user has never been magnified with yet another tool, blogs. The phenomenal surge in the number of bloggers has taken the internet by storm. Blogherald’s count as of July 2005 was at least 70 million blogs. Worldwide. And nothing is more powerful and effective than word of mouth and blogs has now become a voice and a force to reckon with as proven during the last US Presidential elections.
Stephen Baker and Heather Green of Business Week Magazine had the right idea when they said Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up...or catch you later… No wonder everybody’s scrambling to jump on the bandwagon.
Glenn Reynolds has made an interesting analogy between journalism and making beer to demonstrate the power of blogging and how it has shaken the mainstream media. Even without formal training and using cheap equipment, almost anyone can make beer. The quality may be variable, but the best home-brews are tastier than the stuff you see advertised during the Super Bowl. This is because big brewers, particularly in America, have long aimed to reach the largest market by pushing bland brands that offend no one. The rise of home-brewing, however, has forced them to create “micro-brews” that actually taste of something.
And in every region in the world, home-brewed beers are the ones that get the largest slice of the cake. Here in Manila, Heineken, Budweiser and other brands have tried to get their own slice of the cake too but they just couldn’t compete with our San Miguel and sister brand Red Horse. So is the case in China. In Germany. Or anywhere for that matter. The thing is, home-brewed beer has the inherent and distinctive taste that is and will always be preferred by any local community.
I think I have to sample different kinds of beer to discover the compelling reason behind a community’s loyalty to their own beer. And see if the same can be applied to online communities. San Miguel anyone?
David Hornik believes that the online communities we have now are Social Networks 3.0.
According to him, the foundations of social networks were started in the late 1990s with the likes of eGroups/Online, ICQ, Evite and many more. These networks weren’t explicitly described as such back then but they were the underpinnings of these communications platforms. In early 2000, as developers and entrepreneurs began to comprehend the nature of these networks and the power it could generate by fully and clearly defining or formulating its structure, Friendster, Tribe, Orkut, LinkedIn, Spoke emerged and thus began the era of Social Networks 2.0. These services allowed users to organize their recreational and business networks. The primary focus of these services then as they were first built was to enable the creation, growth and management of an explicit social network. As the excitement and energy around pure play social networks began to wane, it became clear that the building and management of a social network was not, in and of itself, a compelling consumer experience. Even Dana Boyd wondered whether MySpace is just a fad as Friendster has lost its steam. This now posed another challenge to entrepreneurs as they came to recognize that users and their interests or desires are significant and important considerations in building social networks.
The power of the individual user has never been magnified with yet another tool, blogs. The phenomenal surge in the number of bloggers has taken the internet by storm. Blogherald’s count as of July 2005 was at least 70 million blogs. Worldwide. And nothing is more powerful and effective than word of mouth and blogs has now become a voice and a force to reckon with as proven during the last US Presidential elections.
Stephen Baker and Heather Green of Business Week Magazine had the right idea when they said Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up...or catch you later… No wonder everybody’s scrambling to jump on the bandwagon.
Glenn Reynolds has made an interesting analogy between journalism and making beer to demonstrate the power of blogging and how it has shaken the mainstream media. Even without formal training and using cheap equipment, almost anyone can make beer. The quality may be variable, but the best home-brews are tastier than the stuff you see advertised during the Super Bowl. This is because big brewers, particularly in America, have long aimed to reach the largest market by pushing bland brands that offend no one. The rise of home-brewing, however, has forced them to create “micro-brews” that actually taste of something.
And in every region in the world, home-brewed beers are the ones that get the largest slice of the cake. Here in Manila, Heineken, Budweiser and other brands have tried to get their own slice of the cake too but they just couldn’t compete with our San Miguel and sister brand Red Horse. So is the case in China. In Germany. Or anywhere for that matter. The thing is, home-brewed beer has the inherent and distinctive taste that is and will always be preferred by any local community.
I think I have to sample different kinds of beer to discover the compelling reason behind a community’s loyalty to their own beer. And see if the same can be applied to online communities. San Miguel anyone?
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