Making Sense Of Social Networks

Making Senseof Social Networks

Yuval Zukerman, Molecular

Agenda

• Social networks – why you should care

• The major players and what’s ahead

• The international angle

• Riding the social wave

• Key Takeaways and Point of View

Why Social Networks

Social networks matter

24%Of the entire US Internet population

use social network sites

Social Networks Matter

55%US teens with social

network profile

48%US teens visit social

networks daily

35%teens worldwide

use social networks

Social Networks are

bigger than Porn

Social networks and teen usage

• Stay in touch with friends (both near and far) on a near-constant basis

• Communicate using friend pages (84%)

• Send private messages (82%)

• Make plans with friends (72%)

• Broadcast message to friends (61%)

• Meet new friends (49%) Source:

Social Networks: omg, latn!

The friend factor

• Friends influence purchase decisions

• Friends are as important as brands

• Boys aged 18-21 have the most friends

Source:

MTV / Microsoft Advertising

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=819541296&size=l

The ingredientshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/phil_g/28524846/

What makes a network social

Map of Flickr users with at least 50 mutual contacts

connect community

Hello, my name is: ‘MySpace’

Hello my name is: ‘Facebook’

Pimp my MySpace

Characteristics

• Basic features– A profile page

– Ability to search users

– Friend connections

• Additional features– Blog

– Comment posting

– Photo gallery

– Messaging

– Layout customization

– Widgets and trinkets

– Privacy controls

SecondLife

Twitter

LiveJournal

Pownce

ElHood

QuePasa

Black Planet

Facebook

CyWorld

Worldof

Warcraft

Friendster

flickr

lastfm

myYearbook

MySpace

Barbiegirls

Tagged

AsianAvenue

Runescape

Categorization· Blotch size generally corresponds

to audience size.· The center represents ‘General

interests and functionality’· The farter a blotch is from the

center, the more specialized the site is in its characteristics.

Major players

Virtual Rising

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=439129656&size=o

Friend the virtual me

A second on Second Life

Current Trends

• User concerns drive traffic away from MySpace– Privacy

– Safety– Features

Family and child focused

Playing the game

Weighing your options

Partner Build Widgets

Partnerships

Picking the right partner

• Are user numbers real?– Membership Inflation

– Registered vs. active user figures• How many users have actually logged in recently?

• How active and involved are users?– Average Login rates

– Other Metrics• Posts to blog

• Photos uploaded

• New friend connections

• Reviews

Picking a partner

• Breaking it down further – find your sweet spot– Geography

– Gender

– Age groups

– User Interests

Picking a partner

The International Angle

• Local networks are strongin their respective markets

• Facebook tails off outside English speaking world

• Many research companies rely on usage by US or European users

• Researchers often focus onknown entities (e.g. MySpace)and ignore unknown local ones

Research black holes

• It’s all about the toolbar (and snooping…)

• IRC-Galleria is big in Finland

• Not tracked by comScore

• Rely on local office data or look at local Nielsen//NetRatings

Proceed with caution

Geography affects usage culture

• PC vs. mobile device for Internet access

• Family size

• Climate

Friends with my water

Partnering with a social network site

• Places your message prominently on social network pages

• Guaranteed exposure vs. cost and intrusion upon users

Nikon partnered with flickr to useembedded photo data to ‘sponsor’photos taken with Nikon camera.Photographers were not compensated. Flickr was.

Build your own

Getting your own, pre-built, hosted

BYO / DIY Social Network

Getting your own, the Ning way

Rolling your own

Social, presidential

Widgets

Definition

• A small application embeddable in a web page or one running on a user’s desktop

B C B Cn

Widgets: your brand, everywhere

• Web Widgets– Free placement on user pages

– Leverage viral communications

– Have users contribute to your growth

– Avoid reinventing the wheel

• Desktop Widgets– Direct communications between

your brand and the user

– Make loyalty programs more effective

Widget

Web Widgets

Desktop Widgets

Embeddable Widgets

Flash (Photobucket)

AJAX / JavaScript

HTML iFrame

Widget Containers

Browser Toolbar

Browser Extension (Delicious)

Native Application

Browser-Based

Yahoo! Widgets (Konfabulator)

Google Gadgets (Google Desktop)

Linux/Unix XWindows Applets

Apple OS X Dashboard

Windows Vista Gadgets

Widget Engine

OS Widget Engine

Standalone Widget Engine

Flash (YourMinis)

AJAX (NetVibes, PageFlakes)

iGoogle

Widget varieties

Web widgets

Random House Book Widget

Desktop widgets

Widget Engine Application

Browser Toolbar

Branded Desktop Application

Widget Challenges

• Getting the word out

• Installation

• Attracting users

• Lack of development platform

Widget hurdles

Widget Directories: Friend and Foe

• MuseStorm.png

The Facebook Platform

StyleFeeder

• “…conversion rates off widgets are better than ads”

Mobile

The next frontier• Existing networks want to accompany users

– Partnerships

– Mobile sites

Mobile access is growing

France Germany Italy Spain UK US

Almostevery day 0.80% 0.50% 1.50% 0.70% 0.30% 0.70%

At least once each week 0.20% 0.40% 0.40% 0.60% 0.70% 1.10%

Once to three times per month 0.70% 1.00% 0.90% 1.00% 1.40% 1.80%

Ever in month 1.70% 1.90% 2.80% 2.30% 2.50% 3.50%

Accessed social network site or blog, June 2007

Source: M:Metrics, August 2007

Social tools on the go

The social mobile web

dada.net imthere.com

Taking messaging to the next level

• Location sharing– Manual and GPS

• Notification

• Messaging

• Online Journal / Blog

Key Takeaways

Social networks are not a fad and are likely toremain popular for the near future

MySpace is dominant but may be too much of a lowest-common denominator for too many users.

Beware of inflated statistics

If you go global, go local

Proliferation of social networks becomes adoption hurdle

http://www.flickr.com/photos/donabelandewen/278804471/

Partnering with social networks is the safest approach to reach their users and for offering widgets

Widgets are hot and gaining momentum

Web widgets have the most impact

Widgets must have a viral component

Widgets await the birth ofa killer app

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=369535204&size=l

Finite real estate will spur competition for widget space

Thank You!

• Yuval Zukermanyzukerman@molecular.com

Making Sense Of Social Networks

Business

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