While traditional media spends most of their time dissing social media (it is a competitor after all), traditional agencies find social media a rich source for client campaigns. This post takes a look at how grassroots, user generated flash mobs got hijacked and became agency created, professionally choreographed and danced by hired talent, to flog products. Note: A flash mob is organising for a group of people to show up at a time and place, in public, undertake a noticeable action (live) then walk off as if nothing had happened. Gobsmacked live audience, hidden cameras, YouTube fame. If married to a product, a viral video ad ensues. Or so we are told. Particularly note below that the first Flash mobs were user generated with thousands of participants in Circular Quay and Martin Place (2008) – now they are agency created with small dance troupes, and small audiences (eg Circular Quay 2010 Cruise Liner promo)

This is an agency created (won ad of the year) flash mob for T Mobile – Saatchi and Saatchi. This is not how flash mobs started out.

Compare to “real” viral video. No professional PR/Organisers/Agencies lurking behind the scenes.  There’s a difference between a real flash mob and an agency created dance installation. Of course the term has been hijacked now, but you know what I mean.

Compare this professionally run RockYourBox created About page on YouTube with the one later from the user generated, amateur Sydney Flash Mob group.

Say Cheese! Saturday September 4th – Sydney. Click to book tickets now: http://www.saycheeseparty.com.au/tick… Almost 100 dancers surprised shoppers in Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building (QVB) on Thursday August 26th.  Starring one of Australia’s most famous & delicious drag queens JOYCE MAYNGE, this video was made for less than $500 and everyone volunteered their time.   DJ Dan Murphy and Lee Jenkins send HUGE thanks to all the dancers, camera-people & crew!

Want to be part of the next one? Join Rock Your Box: http://facebook.com/group.php?gid=121…
Party Details: http://www.saycheeseparty.com.au
Starring: Joyce Maynge http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?i…
Choreography: David Olsen http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?i…
Camera: Frankie Shin Nic Hutchings Mark Chisholm
Direction & Organisation: Dan Murphy & Lee Jenkins http://www.facebook.com/DJDanMurphy http://www.facebook.com/lee.jenkins
Sound Equipment: Shan Soley, Slave International http://www.slave.net.au
Contact: rockyourbox@mac.com

The QVB Glee flash mob is not strictly a flash mob. It’s a music video (albeit lipscynched karaoke) where you don’t rope off the pedestrians but let them move around you. The dancers are volunteers but it has a slick production. The comments reflect this on YouTube: UMMM flashmobs are random not so well organised was one. Is Mardi Gras a flash mob? Or a well organised, slick, machine that has a parade and a party? What bout the ANZAC Day march? Where do we draw the line?
Let’s look at some comparisons:

Professionally Created:

You’ll never see “Official” on anything social. Ever. RockYourBox want to be clear that their version of the video is “better” than any bystander video. Pure-at-heart (yes I’m being pedantic) flash mobs want as many videos as possible. End of video – well the comment from YouTube was: “Well done – great venue and looked lots of fun – but flash mobs are a bit yesterday. Time to create something new. A big no to the Corporate Sponsors at the end.”

Social Created:

Circular Quay 2008: Hundreds of normal (heh) people recruited from the internet. Flash Freeze in Circular Quay.Grassroots, basic. Have a look at the Facebook page – the way Sydney Flashmob organise their events:

SydneyFlashMob have a website

… but organise everything through a Facebook group. Because, hey it’s about being social, not flogging stuff.

I particularly like how Sydney Flashmob organise infrastructure like filming
We are “Sydney Flashmob” !

◄ Creators and hosts of the annual Sydney “No Pants” Train Ride ►

Inspried by the original Flash Freeze at Grand Central Railway in New York staged by our good pals at Improv Everywhere, and more recently the Martin Place Flash-mob in mid-2008.  What started innocently as a bit of fun, has now morphed into a group of likeminded individuals, from ALL postcodes, with odd sense of humours and a penchant for performing pranks on the unsuspecting public.

REQUIREMENTS FOR JOINING
• An eccentric sense of humour.
• An open willingness to voluntarily particpate in public art/pranks staged by members.
• You DO NOT have to attend every event.
• Pick and choose.
• At the very least advertise our events if you can’t make them.
• Invite friends to particpate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*** UPCOMING EVENTS ***
•• We are currently accepting ideas for pranks during Feb March and April.
Put your ideas in the “Discussion” section with a full briefing on how you intend it to go down.

•• Want to host your own event ? Read this first → http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=app_2373072738&gid=45259799136#/topic.php?uid=45259799136&topic=12370
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*** ADMIN STAFF : Position(s) available ***

What we need moving forward is a dedicated ‘backstage crew’ – What we offer is your name in lights on every mission you assist with and direct credit for your work to use in your portfolio/CV’s !
We currently require the ongoing voluntary services of people with skills in the following areas.

→ Camera operators : Anyone willing/able to assist with secretly filming missions, whether it be HDD, hidden cameras or mobile phone uploads.
→ Multimedia editors : Anyone who can assist with compiling videos for purposes of YouTube Viral Campaigns, are urgently required.
→ Still photographers : Anyone who is a student/hobbyist in the area of photography is strongly encouraged to get in touch.

Send your details to one of the admin team, where a live chat will be organised to discuss needs and skills offered. (read less)
We are “Sydney Flashmob” !

◄ Creators and hosts of the annual Sydney “No Pants” Train Ride ►

Inspried by the original Flash Freeze at Grand Central Railway in New York staged by our good pals at Improv Everywhere, and more recently the Martin Place Flash-mob in mid-2008.What started innocently as a bit of fun, has now morphed into a group of likeminded individuals, from ALL postcodes, with odd sense of humours and a penchant for performing pranks on the unsuspecting public.
REQUIREMENTS… (read more)
Privacy Type:
Open: All content is public.

Here’s the first user generated Flash Freeze that I remember: Martin Place 2008 – 2,200 participants, for a prank, hitting Martin Place after lunch for a freeze.

A tip: To the Public Relations firm, instead of hiring a choreographer, dance troupe, and agency to promote to media and get covereage after the event, build an online community with resources for flash mobbers. Calendars, video galleries, organisational tools, profiles and other stuff that Facebook fails on – let them build the ecosystem. Then you every so often set a challenge – create a flash mob to promote something that is in your campaign folder. Set it as a competition, or simply a politely worded request . That way the performers themselves will organise and promote the event, get coverage before and after, possibly be grateful to the brand for any prizes and publicity you throw their way, and actually feel connected to the event.

Or become involved in a contextually relevant social network and then put the flash mob idea to them as an option to promote a unified cause. RockYourBox have created a community and get professional sponsorship but there is a backlash as they move into the pro “entertainment agency” space.

Otherwise, keep throwing $$$ at agency created flash mobs until shoppers complain you are blocking their path.  You don’t have much time left before video views drop from millions down to a few thousand. Over it.

Agency Created

Circular Quay, 2010: Team of professionals? Agency created? To promote a cruise line? Rather disinterested live audience if you ask me and little online about it.

Community Created

Semi-professional, more community less client focussed. While some (ok, many) user generated Flash mobs are for a “prank” some have an awareness raising mission or at least a community focus.

Circular Quay Aug 2010 - Nearly 700 NSW public school students launched education week with simultaneous flash mobs at Circular Quay, Miranda and Orange at midday Monday 2 August.

I like that one better – the audience are clearly parents enjoying themselves. Beats hanging around shopping malls waiting for the kids to go up on stage. And on a completely different tangent, when will shopping malls get social? eh.

So what do you think? Flash Freeze with a bunch of strangers having fun or high budget flash mobbing with professional performance installation.

Next Step

When you are at a social media event – a conference, a workshop, a breakfast, drinks, lunch, seminar, bootcamp, you can’t move these days without falling over one – stand up and do the Macarena. Spontaneously. See how many social media people jump up and do it too. That’s a true flash mob. Here’s the moves in case you’ve forgotten them

You know you want to… I’ll cheer you on from the comfort of my seat. After you’ve finished,and uploaded the video online, compare the number of comments you get particularly from those you roped in, and the sentiment to the professional street performances.

Hat tip: this post came about because of the milky goodness of Twitter Dairy Milk Chocolate- in case you were wondering:

ME: “I wish agencies with trained dance troupes doing performance arts installations to flog products would stop calling ‘em “FlashMobs”.”

@JohnLacey “I wish people would start seeing Flash mobs as the moronic exercise they are. They’re not cool or clever.”

@TheBrandBuilder Oliver Blanchard “@SilkCharm Should they stop calling every faux-fan video posted to YouTube that gets more than 1,000 views “viral” as well? ”

@ghostwhowrites Cameron Pegg: “@SilkCharm – examples please ”

Agency Flash Mobs vs Social Flash Mobs is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: agency, Australia, Circular Quay, Facebook, flash freeze, flash mob, flashmob, how to, martin place, mobile, online community, social media, Sydney

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As the online community provider Ning moves from freemium to pay-for services (and eventual death, by Christmas, I reckon) they are sending out warning, reminder notices on email. None of those emails tell you how to remove or delete your Ning network:

TODAY IS THE LAST DAY
Today is the final day for free Ning Networks

We would like you to stick with us and keep your Ning Network running:

Less than 24 hours left to choose

We are contacting you one last time in the hope that you still want to keep your social network. Your Ning Network will be blocked after midnight tonight unless you choose a new plan. We hope you will stick around and take advantage of all the new features! But hurry — the deadline is tonight, Friday, August 20, 2010, at midnight PST.

I’M READY TO PICK A PLAN
Just released!

• Who’s #1?: Use the new Leaderboard feature to put the best content at the top of your Ning Network — and keep your members hyper-engaged.
• Blogger helper: Our new support for MetaWeblog lets you use powerful third-party blogging tools to post content directly to your Ning Network.
Got a question about the new plans? Compare Mini, Plus & Pro or check out the Top 5 Questions people have been asking.

So I logged into kill off a bunch of networks I had created over the years – example sites for students, and working sites for lecturers, companies and celebrity bloggers.  Only I couldn’t. The “remove network” button had been removed from Management tab:

Delete or remove Ning Network

The response from Ning was that THEY would remove the networks when it suited them:

Evan, Ning Product Manager had just told them to put the Ning networks into “offline” mode and they would delete them No explanation on why the delete button had been removed. Very insightful response from Earl J a Customer “when given no reason for removing the ability to delete the network ourselves wihtout warning … and having some delete buttons continue to appear to work properly… we’re left to bring reason to ourselves….”

Pain in the patootie – I missed the August 20th date, wondering if mine will actually be deleted now? Or held hostage until I pay at least a month to delete them? Trust has diminished substantial with Ning, they clearly haven’t used an online community manager/strategist experienced in moving/shut downs of communities. I’m guessing they don’t want a mass exodus and deletions on day one hence the removal of the delete button but why it’s not in Top 5 Ning questions I have no idea. It’s a question that is asked a lot on the Ning Help forums too. Including WHY ARE ALL THE “HOW TO DELETE MY NING NETWORK” INSTRUCTIONS REMOVED FROM THE NING WEBSITE? – she’s even put up screenshots of the “error” messages you get when you try to access the instructions. Very poorly handled – though it did eventually lead me to the answer on how to delete my networks:

Network Deletion
The “Delete Ning Network” link and functionality on the Manage page of your Ning Network has been disabled as part of the product release of the three new plans. If you would like to delete one of your Ning Networks, simply click the “Take Offline” link located at the bottom of the Manage page of your Ning Network. If you haven’t purchased one of the plans for this offline network by August 20th, we will automatically delete it.

Thanks, as always, for your patience while we make the big switch to our new plans.

I’m not a big fan on deleting networks – sustainability of identity is the most likely reason people will come back to Ning after a while. Or at least won’t act as a barrier to entry if they do want to come back. Pixels cost less than you think.  But Ning have their own mistakes to make. … *shrugs*

Anyway, I recommend you move across to WordPress 3.0 (free), enable Multiuser (free), add the plugin Buddypress (free) and Ning to BuddyPress Importer (under WordPress- All Plugins) and off you go. If you think it’s a bit beyond you, lemme know, and our developer will do it for you.  Yes you will have to pay $7 for hosting and other bits and bobs but it’s under your control. Not a company that will close down in the next 6 months.  With WordPress you have control of your hub and a strong expanding solution that the majority of solo social media sites run on. Give it a go.

How to Delete a Ning Network – Removal is not possible is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: delete, deletion, Manager, Ning, ning networks, online community, removal, remove, social media, social network

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Couldn’t go past this one: Skinbook, a safe and friendly place. For you to show your private parts. To complete strangers.

in the nude, Facebook meets Ning. Skinbook

Ok ok, maybe I should stop chortling like a naughty schoolgirl – there’s probably an online community for those too, and if there isn’t let’s start one? Skinbook proves that there is a community for everyone. Niche, esoteric, likeminded. Interestingly Skinbook couldn’t work on Facebook, because of their strict no nipples even in breastfeeding photos rules – though it’s clear they are giving it a shot. You can see the page here – but remember before you join Skinbook on Facebook, what will your boss say? Your mum? Your husband/wife???? Your Newsfeed Is Gonna Tell On You.

But they are on Twitter as @Skinbook:

online community skinbook on Twitter

I wonder if they tweet in the nude. Sure they do. Don’t we all?

The nude car show intrigued me – any comments on that one?

Remind me to tell them that I can help them move off Ning when the time comes for Ning to fold. (Christmas?)

Skinbook: Facebook in the nude is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: nude, nudists, online community, social media, social network

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Every so often newspapers find out what we already know – that human beings take their main course of facts with a side dish of irony, humour and irreverency. The renaming of the concert “The Big Chill” from “The Wanky Balls Festival” should probably have set off warning bells in the  mind of the editor if not the journalist. Ah well. Live and Learn.

From TheBitterWallet:

It won’t surprise you that Big Chill was never called Wanky Balls, Sweaty Nads, Greasy Schlong or anything else for that matter because you see, the bone idle newsrag decided to believe something that was written on a Wikipedia page about the event (screengrab here).

We think you lot should now see this as a challenge to add horsepiss facts to Wikipedia pages before a prominent event is due to receive coverage, to see if you can get them published. Send us the clippings, of course.

Click for full size

No wonder newspapers hate us (by us I mean “readers”, otherwise known as wikipedians, bloggers, social media creators/distributors).

The Independent is a British newspaper published by Alexander Lebedev‘s Independent Print Limited. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily newspapers. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. Originally a broadsheet newspaper, since 2003 it has been published in a tabloid format. The Independent is regarded as leaning to the left politically,^[2] although it has not affiliated itself to any political party and a range of views can be found on its editorial and comment pages.

The paper had a certified average daily circulation of 183,547 copies in February 2010, down 10.88% from the previous year

From Wikipedia so may or may not be true.

Good thing it’s not from Murdoch’s stable, behind the paywall. I’d be sued for copyright for reporting on a pay-for article ripped from Wikipedia. ^.^

Journalism and Wikipedia – Wanky Balls is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: big chill, humor, journalism, Online Communities, social media, social networks, the independent, wanky balls, Wikipedia

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After the last election, all the government websites were wiped. That’s how it works. You get a new government and a new archive of information. I’m not sure why they do that? So we can’t quote past history maybe?

Only now, we have the long tail of comments:

Interesting move – Having women say Tony’s words back to him. I should do one with this quote:

“What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price, and their own power bills when they switch the iron on, are going to go up,” Mr Abbott said.

What do you think?

Gratuitious hot guy. Please spell out I.R.O.N.Y before going all politically correct on me.

In 2007 I blogged on Kevin07 portal:

We will see more of ‘static portal hybrid hosted social networks’ for a while – companies and government distancing themselves from the challenges of social networks by outsourcing to social network platforms.

I was left unmoved by Barack Obama – great for fundraising, nary a thankyou in return (and a great wall of silence immediately he won) – so I’m hardly likely to be moved by “I am, I will, I am” tweets from broadcasting polllies in social spaces.

Ah but it could be so much more.

By the way quick question: have you ever had a politician respond on your blog with a comment? Or respond to your tweet? Lemme know?

Election 2010: GetUp Tony Abbott Mashup is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Australia, election, getup, Politics, social media, social networks, tony abbott, women, youtube

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Facebook has just announced it’s plans to expand it’s Facebook currency. Called Facebook “Credit” it includes a real world component named, rather fetchingly, “App2User”, which aims to encourage merchants and loyalty programs like Qantas Frequent Flyer points and Flybuys and whatnot to use the Facebook points social media system. Social Networks and Online Communities – maybe Twitter? Foursquare? local photo forum? –  will no doubt be encouraged to use this Facebook Credit currency on their external sites. Zynga and Facebook games like Farmville will HAVE to use the Credit/Coin system, and pay Facebook 30% of Credit sales. One Currency To Rule Them All.

Facebook Credit currency economy

This is pretty important. Let me explain why. But first…

Quick note on currency and Virtual Goods

CURRENCY: Money has no inherent worth – it’s all virtual. Even coins don’t actually cost $2 to make, they “represent” a collective, community value of what is worth $2. Technically money is a Medium of Exchange (virtual item easily transported), often a Unit of Account (menu of stuff you can buy, a Show of Worth) and almost never a Store of Value (gold coins actually worth something). Now take the traditional currency of notes and coins that “virtually” represent a value and translate it into modern Visa cards and bank statements and the virtual-ness is self evident. – tonnes more  info on my Social Media Monetization slides.

VIRTUAL GOODS: don’t have to be virtual cows in Farmville or magic swords in World of Warcraft. They can be cds/dvds, software for your office, downloadable whitepapers and books on an iPad, ringtones, music/videos on the iTunes store, films on DVD, images like backgrounds and avatars. And if you can make sure you have minimal production costs (graphic designer to create a virtual item graphic)  and then charge small amounts to members to download (no distribution costs) millions of times, you are swimming in money. Virtual or otherwise. By the way is information – legal advice, consultant strategies, phone consultation – virtual? I think that, if you can bite it, it’s real, if you can’t it’s virtual. Ewww. Stop biting your iPhone!

Converting Real World Points with App2User

To re-word Inside Facebook for an Australian audience:

• Qantas, or Flybuys offer you the chance to convert your zillions of useless frequent flyer points into a Facebook “Credit”
  

  Mark Zuckerberg becomes Treasurer of the Internet

• Now you spend these Credits (Qantas flyer miles, Flybuy points) on Farmville barns, Mafia Wars henchmen and other NON game Facebook items.
• “Sell” unwanted gift cards (vouchers, iTunes, store gift cards) via Plastic Jungle, or get points by clicking on Trial Pay ads and trying affiliate services.
• You can still use the normal points for real world (expensive to Merchant) items like flowers and flights but everyone would prefer it if you spent your points on pixel crap
• No mention is made of offering this as a member-to-member currency, which would place Facebook with 400 million members and growing as the fastest growing economy in the world.

So we use real money (which is itself virtual medium of exchange) to achieve frequent flyer points and loyalty card points (also virtual) which we then swap for Facebook Credit to buy virtual items in virtual worlds. We need a conversion table: 20 Frequent Flyer Miles gets you 100 Facebook Credits which can be exchanged for a $5 gift card or a horse in Farmville. And before you laugh and think virtual money is for geeks, when was the last time your employer delivered a cow, eggs and new sofa to your house as a salary? ^.^

Facebook Money for Social Games

For a start, social games are BIG business. 120 million people play Zynga games in Facebook (Farmville, Farmtown, Mafia Wars) and it makes Zynga $450 million in revenue in 2010 alone. And Zynga are just ONE Facebook game company. 80-odd million log into a Zynga game each month in Facebook.

Stupid puppy needs feeding all the time

Zynga won’t have any say in this – games are being told “use Facebook credits or else”.  So instead of using Paypal to buy Farmville credits you will use Facebook to buy Facebook credits to be used in Farmville. Facebook becomes your bank (store) and currency exchange (transfer).

Facebook could force Zynga to adjust its math. More than 90% of the company’s revenues come from users converting real cash into proprietary virtual currency. FarmVille, for example, has Farm Coins. Say you buy a tractor for 5,000 Farm Coins, which equals about $3.30. Typically the company pays less than 10% of that to a third-party transaction handler such as PayPal and keeps the rest. (In March, PayPal said Zynga was its second-largest merchant after eBay.)

Facebook is testing a service called Facebook Credits that would offer a single virtual currency for use on many different apps. If the social network forces app makers to use Facebook Credits, as some developers expect will happen this year, Zynga would have to pay the company up to 30% of every transaction. “If Credits become pervasive, I don’t think Pincus can stop it. It’s going to hit the margin,” says Peter Relan, executive chairman of CrowdStar, one of Zynga’s many competitors. (BusinessWeek)

500 million members and growing. All using Facebook Credits for everything from games to Facebook gifts like eBirthday cards.

What applications can I use Facebook Credits with? [I added MAU - monthly active users]

- FarmVille 80,800,000
- Island Paradise 6, 500,00
- Hero World 2,100,000
- Music Pets 1,100,00
- Happy Island 10,900,000
- Happy Aquarium 20,600,000
- Happy Pets 9,000,000
- Barn Buddy
- Restaurant City
- Tiki Farm 3,600,000
- (Lil) Farm Life
- (Lil) Zoo World
- Pirates: Rule the Caribbean!
- MouseHunt 410,000
- (Lil) Green Patch
- Robin Hood 25,000
- PackRat 29,000
- (fluff)Friends 475,000
- SocialCalendar – from Hallmark, nonGame – 476,000
- Birthday Calendar
- Facebook Gift Shop – standard virtual giftshop.

“Liu said today that there were around 800 million unique social gaming experiences on Facebook each month.” from Read Write Web. Or to put it another way:

While the phrasing may be different (as this isn’t the exact phrase used by Deb Liu at f8), it’s clear that Facebook wants to make users familiar with the Facebook Credits product. With more than 200 million monthly gamers on Facebook (each of which play 4 games on average each month), only 2 percent currently purchase virtual goods. By seeding users, Facebook will hopefully increase the volume of transactions going through the system over the long-run. (Facebook Application Development)

But it’s not just games is it? if you can trade your Flybuys (8 million Australians) or Everyday Rewards (3 million Australians) for Facebook stuff, that’s like those stores cards are trading with shops in the biggest shopping mall on earth, called Facebook. And I saw a guy raving about how he wants to integrate Facebook Credits (he currently uses Offerpal) with his social betting game. The mind boggles.

Facebook for Market Intelligence/ customer reward

Why should I add the Visa Business Network application?

The Visa Business Network application fosters an environment full of creativity and support. By learning best practices from other business owners in your field, you can prepare your business for a number of challenges, such as managing growth, allocating resources, and retaining satisfied clients. With all of this information, you’ll be well prepared for your business’ next step.

In addition, when you add this application you’ll receive an email with a coupon code that you can activate to receive advertising credits that can be redeemed for Facebook Ads for your business through Facebook’s online advertising system.

To add the application, please click here

Expect to see everyone from Nike (rewarding you for uploading your nutrition/exercise program) to TV Stations (rewarding you for becoming a Fan/Like of Lost or Big Brother page) jumping in. The current emphasis on rewards of credits going to Facebook Advertising implies that Facebook are going hungrily after Google’s Adsense/Adwords revenue. After all, you also get profile based targetting which Google can’t give you… but I don’t think Facebook Credit is just for Social Ads on Facebook.

Future: Facebook buys Foursquare, you get stuff

Let’s just play around for a moment. Let’s say you’ve been on Facebook a few years and every once in a while, Facebook gives you Credits for nothing at all. It’s your birthday, you uploaded a link that a group liked, your Page reached 100 members. So you’ve got 10,000 Credits just sitting there. In fact I already have 80 for doing nothing and it’s only been implemented a short time…

Now lets say that Foursquare (the mobile phone game) is bought by Facebook or integrates their karma point system with Facebook Credits.  Scenario: You go to your favourite cafe and are finally made a Foursquare Mayor. Yay!

Your phone pings you – it’s Foursquare Facebook Credits  - You notice that if you want, you can buy a large skim latte for 250 Facebook Credits. Just show the coupon on your phone to the nice barista behind the counter. Would you?   Full Circle – Member trades Frequent Flyer points for Facebook Credits, spends Credits in the real world.

So, members use their “real world” loyalty points to buy Facebook Credits. Members use Facebook Credits to buy virtual goods on Facebook. Members earn Facebook Credits by being good Facebook citizens. Members trade Facebook Credits for real world items. If you think Zynga are screwed, spare a thought for the Australian Taxation Office.

Would you hire me, as a social media consultant on Facebook credits? I’ll add 2,000 more fans in a week if you’ll give me 100 Facebook Credits. I’ll spend them on music, whitepapers and give them to my niece for her social gaming. Wha does that do to the Digital Economy hmmm Stephen Conroy*? (* Minister for Broadband & Digital Economy in Australia)  Have a look at China’s TenCentQQ – messaging service a bit like Twitter:

QQ from Tencent

The Q coin is a virtual currency used by QQ users to “purchase” QQ related items for their avatar and blog. Q coins are obtained either by purchase, one coin for one RMB, or for using the mobile phone service. Due to the popularity of QQ among young Chinese, Q coins are now accepted by gradually more and more online stores and gaming sites in exchange for “real” merchandise such as small gifts, and raised the concern of replacing (and thus “inflating”) real currency in these transactions. The People’s Bank of China, China’s central bank, says it is investigating the possibility of cracking down on Q coin, due to people using Q coins in exchange for real world goods. Tencent claims the Q coin was merely a regular commodity, and thus not a currency.

We value what we value – and sometimes we value the representation (money) as much as the goods. So Q coins simply become another “medium of exchange or show of worth”. In other words: real money.

One Coin to Rule Them All:

“‘there’s just going to be one currency that people use’ on all apps.” Mark Zuckerberg… but that’s not all is, it Mark dear? And Deb Liu

To be clear, Facebook is also looking to work with third party payment companies for Credits. Liu said that these can include anyone from mobile payment providers to game cards to bank payment systems to reward cards, and it plans to get “100 to 200″ of them as options for purchasing Credits. The company already works with Zong for mobile payments and PayPal for web payments, and accepts credit cards directly. It partnered with Peanut Labs (via RockYou) and Trialpay last week to begin testing advertising offers that can be taken in exchange for Credits, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see it work with more companies there.

…

(Deb )Liu (of Facebook) presented a few reasons why: Facebook can directly ensure the safety of the payment process, it can provide the currency at a scale where many users will have this currency than game or developer-specific ones, it can use its own brand and interface to promote the currency in ways others can’t.

From Inside Social Games - the social economy will trump capitalism perhaps? Or an uber version of capitalism? Ah well, that’s a post for another day.

Still Sceptical?

Now there are a number of bloggers around – won’t mention any names – that think money and “virtual currency” and revenue are not important in social media. Or it all gets categorized as “Second Life”… even though the world is evolving virtual entertainment in leaps and bounds. If you are one of those guys, listen up. I strongly recommend you get your head around social media currencies – soon marketing and PR and customer service will be relegated to second position in social networks when the sales people and money guys move in. When that happens, forget softly softly “listen/engage with the customer” – it’s going to get hardcore, bottom line figures. And at the centre of it will be the question: who will own the global currency markets? At the moment it looks like Facebook. Back in 2005 I was blogging about Yahoo Yen and New$ Dollar but I guess traditional giants missed the boat – it’s freshfaced Mark Zuckerberg and his 400 million strong network that will dominate. Second Life currencies, Everquest Norrath server having the same GDP as Nigeria, they are all a prelude to what’s coming. Think Industrial Revolution and you have some idea…

Scoble may be scared of Facebook owning your social graph: I say, wait until Zuckerberg is Treasurer of the Internetz.

So how do Facebook position App2User and Credits? from Mark Zuckerberg (via Audrey Watters of Read Write Web):

But according to Zuckerberg, Facebook is not doing this to generate revenue, but “for the developers.”

Believe that at your peril.

Final Notes: CIA, Government and Security

Facebook Grows DC Lobbying – Facebook’s lobbying efforts in Washington D.C. have been growing over the past year and VentureBeat reported that the company seeks to continue this growth by adding another staffer to their current mix of four employees. The article includes an interesting set of documents that show Facebook has been not only lobbying the Federal Trade Commission, senators and representatives, but also strengthening relationships with intelligence and homeland security agencies. These efforts amounted to $41,390 for the first quarter of 2010; the 2009 total was $207,878. According to VentureBeat, Facebook was the only major Internet company to go after the intelligence community, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (17 agencies like the CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency. (Facebook Application Development)

Add that to:

DST Buys Into Groupon – Digital Sky Technologies, which bought a $300 million stake in Facebook in 2009, recently invested to the tune of $135 in Groupon, a group coupon buying company that uses Facebook for part of its service. Reuters reported that this money would be used to fund global expansion at Groupon.

And lastly you might want to have a think about Facebook investor Peter Thiel, PayPal investor,  his relationship with Acebucks and virtual currency investors, and the connection of other investors with CIA venture capital company, In-Q-Tel.

All Hail Facebook – I for one welcome our new overlords.

(I wrote this in May, meant to edit it down. Didn’t. Might as well publish it now and do a more up to date one later – when the diagram above is finished. Presented at Web 3.0 conference).

Facebook Credit: Zuckerberg next Treasurer of the Internet App2User is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: app2user, Australia, credit, currency, exchange, Facebook, facebook credits, liu, mobile, Online Communities, social media, social networks

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List of Social Media Election sites for Australian 2010 election. An early analysis of election 2010 sites. It’s particularly interesting to see which social media election sites are allowing the electorate to ask questions -versus who is providing answers.  And how useful is the site to online community members. I think CampaignIQ, Connect ALP or whatever it’s called is about putting in a minimum MyBarackObama, irrespective of the Australian Culture. On the other hand some of the grassroots, unsponsored stuff feels authentic and from a genuine need to connect and share cultural capital.

This election is going to be hotly contested – by social media sites – for relevancy. As politicians are scrambling for cultural relevancy and to be heard (the Debate on Sunday Night has been moved for Masterchef) so will websites that want to provide information on the coming election. If you are looking for a blow by blow comparison of Twitter followers vs YouTube views etc for each party, try the SBS website

1. ABC ELECTIONS broadcast site

The ABC has done a hybrid site – not really a community conversation build but aggregating information from multiple communities.

You can see the embedded tweet is from Lyndal Curtis Chief Political Correspondent. ABC is very much in sourcing content and then broadcasting it out – not engagement – mode. The Campaign Pulse is a social media dashboard monitoring sentiment on Twitter and Youtube and Flickr. None of it is embeddable, referrable or discussable.  Everything is official ABC journalist tweets and blogs, and ultimately unsatisfying.

2. Election Leaflets – Live Election Leaflet Monitoring

Enter your postcode and ElectionLeaflets.org.au will reveal to you all the brochures, posters and other paraphenalia littering your streets, shop fronts and stuck to stobie polls. Why is it important? Because theres some nasty stuff that goes on, under the radar, when it’s not been broadcast publicly on traditional media, but is adorning the front door of the local deli.

Note, they need to fix their iFrame widget to be one brochure and flickable rather than a toilet roll of leaflets. Anyway, see a dodgy leaflet? Take a photo and upload it, or email to ‘em. If your camera takes a GPS position (and a lot do) a map will also be displayed for the location of the brochure. Shame we can’t comment or ask questions about the brochures. Creating a community around some of the photos of brochures would be cool – otherwise why not just embed them from Flickr, like the Greens did one year?

3. Connect ALP – Campaign IQ

And odd site. Like someone looked at the tools that MyObama used and then promptly dropped all the community elements. I can’t friend a profile, there are no many-to-many discussions (though I can write on anyone’s wall, even a non-friend!), creating a group requires approval, and lots of opportunity to promote the labor party’s broadcast material. I hope this site improves a lot. It looks pretty but lacks community functionality. Even the signup process is a huge barrier to entry and looks intimidating. If you don’t need it on signup – not mandatory – stick it in the profile! Where’s the welcome centre? Where’s the leaderboard? I could go on.

No, I don’t know what “submitted issues” or “ideas raised” are either

They are in desperate need of a Help section, if not a whole Newcomer Welcome Centre. BTW I found “issues” but it’s a tiny link hidden in a separate area called ThinkTank (which took me to the signup page again). This site may well improve, social media wise, after a good usability/sociability going over but at the moment it’s  steep learning curve for sophisticated social media users, let alone the average “I’m only on Facebook for the kids” Australian.  The online community real world activism is right out of MyObama songbook – election leaflets (above) may want to add the leaflets?

4. My Politician – Keeping Track of Your Politician For You.

Oh I like a good sense of humour – so many social media site creators lack the ability to storytell and play with their community in a meaningful way.

developed by ireckon

Not particularly social but useful – if you want to avoid having your baby kissed at the local shops by a pollie.

My Politician enables you to search the profiles of all the federal Australian politicians, (candidates for election too, when the elections are on) and in future State politicians…

You can quickly locate statistical and contextual information about politicians in your electorate and compare them with other politicians across the country.

A note from CARA – My Politician provides an important opportunity for everyone to learn more about Australian politicians, and for Australian politicians to learn more from each other.

The My Politician website has been developed by the Cynical Assessment and Reporting Association (CARA – we made that up), an independent association (well, bunch of people) that is responsible, among other things, for making sure you can see nationally comparable data on Australian politicians. CARA has worked closely with no one across the country to develop this website.

The My Politician website provides detailed information about the 226 federal politicians in Australia. It uses a new index of online data publishing characteristics, developed specifically for the purpose of identifying politicians that are trying to communicate with their electorate in a modern and meaningful way. This enables their performance on real things that matter to their electorate to be understood in a fair and meaningful way.

By providing information on Australian politicians, the My Politician website introduces a new level of transparency and accountability to the Australian electoral system.

It’s actually much easier to accept than ABC Election broadcast site – probably because we feel traditional media have had their turn at the megaphone?

5. 2010 Federal Election from University of Melbourne

Blogs are very top down – One Voice To Rule Them All and all that. Even group blogs are not many-to-many discussion channels. In the case of Uni of Melbourne, their blogs are written by “Experts” – University Professors. Being a naughty academic atheist, I’m of the opinion that Professors giving advice on real world election issues is like Priests giving advice on marital sex but hey! what do I know?

Climate change and carbon tax,
Alternative energy sources and zero emissions,Professor Mike Sandiford, School of Earth Sciences
Climate change policy Professor David Karoly, School of Earth Sciences
Climate change policy and the environment Dr Peter Christoff, Department of Resource Management and Geography
Population, immigration and refugees
Indonesian society and law reform Professor Tim Lindsey, Asian Law Centre
Multiculturalism in Australia Professor Shahram Akbarzadeh, National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies
Muslim communities in Australia, freedom of religion, Islam and human rights Professor Abdullah Saeed, Asia Institute
Rights and responsibilities of asylum seekers and granters Professor Sharon Bell, LH Martin Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Management
Social Justice, carbon trading/tax, climate, the underprivileged and disabled Professor Jeremy Moss, Social Justice Initiative
Economy, Industrial Relations and Tax Reform
Financial markets, financial regulation and manufacturing Professor Kevin Davis, Department of Finance
Industrial relations & the return of workchoices Professor Bill Harley Associate Professor John Howe Director, Centre for Employment & Labour Relations Law
Labour market and employment trends, industrial relations Professor Mark Wooden, Institute for Applied Economic and Social Research
Health reforms and hospitals
Economics and funding of health Professor Tony Scott, Institute for Applied Economic and Social Research
Mental health Professor Patrick McGorry, Orygen Youth Mental Health Research Centre
Paid maternity leave Amanda Cooklin,  Centre for Women’s Health, Gender and Society / Parenting Research Centre
Population health and epidemiology Professor Terry Nolan, School of Population Health
Primary care and super-clinics Professor Jane Gunn, Department of General Practice
Education
Higher education policy and governance Professor Lynn Meek, LH Martin Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Management
Schools performance analysis Professor Stephen Lamb, Graduate School of Education
Schools performance analysis Professor Jack Keating, Graduate School of Education
Women and leadership
Dr Lauren Rosewarne, School of Politics and Social Sciences
Environment
Resource management Andrew Hamilton, Department of Resource Management and Geography
Agriculture
Climate change impact on agriculture Professor Snow Barlow, School of Land & Environment
Agriculture and food security Professor Rick Roush, School of Land & Environment
Australian politics
Dr Scott Brenton, School of Politics and Social Sciences
Professor Brian Galligan, School of Politics and Social Sciences
Urban planning
Housing density & urban sprawl Dr David Nichols
Planning theory, planning practice, planning risk Dr Alan March
Urban growth boundary extension & sprawl, funding for urban issues, liveability and
access to public space, crime and violence prevention policy Associate Professor Carolyn Whitzman
Money and politics
Joo-Cheong Tham, Law
Student Voices
Penny Rush is a Masters student in Public Policy and Management at the University of Melbourne.
Martin Bortz is a Masters student in Public Policy and Management at the University of Melbourne.
Jason Ball is completing a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Political Science at the University of Melbourne and is the Greens precinct Captain for University clubs at Melbourne, RMIT, La Trobe and Swinburne Universities.

Still, it’s nice to have these types of influencers talking directly to the public. Why? Because it puts paid to that “Come to Newspapers for Original Source Content – Ignore Loser Generated Content on Blogs” crap – here are the very original sources that traditional media usually has access to, talking to us directly. Be interesting to see if they get any comments…

6. 2020 Women

Bog standard survey

Or feedback form.  There is a blog with comments and a storycatcher (one way – you submit it to them for decision).

7. Your Rights At Work

I don’t know what it is with Community Engine but it breaks a lot of sociability rules. Basic ones. Like if you end up on the “Log in” page there is no “Join Now” yet join now is plastered over other parts of the site. Weird. Like a bespoke package half finished… Needs a Sociability overhaul. Might be a new beta version for the election sites?  Looks pretty but doesn’t function well. Still, signup is better than on the ALP site (meaning, it’s probably the Labor Party fault it’s such a clunky barrier to entry to sign up). The welcome email (for verification) is missing as is the welcome centre. blah blah you guys know the drill now – a social tool that is missing the “soft skills”. It feels very much like ACTU put up the “ideas” and you get to follow their ideas.

I also looked at a bunch of other sites on this list but they were very much:

• Join our newsletter
• For Media Enquiries contact:…
• or in more than one memorable case, a PDF. Kid you not.

Sites 8 Election Blackout

Group blog by Peter Black

He’s locked his page down so I can’t copy and paste but basically, Peter is a Snr Lecturer in Law in Queensland.

Got another one or two going up this week. Remind me!

How about you? Spotted any memorable election social media sites out there? Particularly looking for a user generated site, rather than a pollies Facebook/Twitter account. got any?

Election 2.0 – List of social media election sites to watch. is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Australia, election, election pamphlete, gov 2.0, leaflet, Online Communities, social media, social networks

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Social Media Monetization is becoming THE hot issue in online community chatter. Probably because companies are getting past the “why should we care?” and into “how do we get some dosh?” questions.

Social Ads are driving down the price of regular online ads:

A recent analysis by ComScore shows social networks, primarily Facebook and MySpace, have over the last year drawn an average CPM of only 56 cents, compared to the $2.43 average for the internet at large. Looking more closely, the ComScore data show that the average pricing for online ads exclusive of social-networking sites, namely Facebook and MySpace, would be much higher, about $2.99 for every 1,000 views; social sites dragged down the average online CPM by as much as 18% over the last year.

Some industry executives are concerned that Facebook and its ilk may in fact be reducing the overall pricing of CPMs, or the cost-per-thousand impressions, that are the basis for online ad pricing. (read the rest on AdAge)

The challenge is not that Facebook and other social networking sites are underpricing advertising, it’s that the context is different in online communities. And don’t think normal context – matching ads with subject keywords. Think emotional context.

If you wanted to advertise a new baby pram, you wouldn’t necessarily choose a TV show about cars or a magazine about trucks to do it, would you? And so it is online, we are used to matching ads with audience demographics. Even psychographics, thinking laterally. But what about mood? Focus and attention? At least with TV and magazines you know that at least nominally, they are there with some focus.

How do you advertise to an audience that is busy doing something contextually irrelevant to your keywords?

Situational advertising during social discussions by clintjcl on Flickr

You know what I mean: have you ever been running – nay, flying – from one meeting to another and had one of those guys on the street hold out a hand and stop you with “Do you have a few  minutes to save the planet”? No mate, I don’t – can’t you see I’m sprinting here, running late?

They make you feel so guilty. But there’s a time and place for those sorts of things and about to get the sack for running late yet again is not one of those times.

I think we accepted interruptive advertising on TV – nicely snuggled down to watch Sound of Music (or in my case, Chuck) and the ads come in. We get up, get a drink and do other things. Then back when the ads are finished. We’ve been trained to be passive, mildly receptive and basically quiet and doing as we’re told.

I talk through movies and TV shows a lot and am always in trouble in our house. Are you surprised?

In online communities, we are busy, like we are rushing from one meeting to another. And it’s personal – unlike watching a movie, which only occasionally engages our heart and soul. We are chatting with friends. We don’t want to get up mid conversation and click on an ad. We’re in the middle of our own soap opera.

If you ever wonder why advertising is the lowest revenue when monetizating for social networking it’s this: we are in active mode, not passive. We are in creative mode, not receiving. Chances are we won’t even notice the ads, while we fight with our boyfriend, gossip with our mum and dig around for jobs.

Unless it’s relevant to the discussion. Or we can get a kiss.

Monetization: Social Network Advertising is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Adage, ads, Advertising, Comscore, Facebook, Online Communities, social ads, social media, social networks

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