Why are they online anyway?

Many people focus on why they are online and simply assume that most others are doing the same thing.  A recent post on a Facebook group confirmed this fact. 

There was a post on a “friend add me” group stating that this person was unhappy with the group because the friends they added through the group did not join their game application.  For whatever reason they assumed that all the open networkers were going to join in on the game they liked to play and boost their level in the game.  The creator of the group responded with an honest answer “I only offered a group to help you get new friends; I did not promise they would give you more power in your game”.

Others try to convert the social network into a no cost product website or information site and direct people there expecting that they are on this social network to shop or start a business.  Again, most people’s response is to disconnect.

What is missing is the other persons why.  Why are they here? 

Determining their why is a little more complicated then joining an add-me site.  Here are a couple of ways that will help determine their why. 

First create or join a group on the subject and invite your friends to that group.  If the person who was looking to make friends that play the game application had done this they would have a better shot of finding others with the same interest.  

The same is true for a type of product.  Setting up a general group based on the type of product or system is a great way to attract people interested in that type of product.  

In both circumstances expect the competition to join in with their point of view, it is all part of the open online environment. 

The one thing that is great about social networking is your ability to connect with people, a few each day, and find those who share your interests and goals.  It just takes a little time each day and a commitment to meet new people.

Networking ok, but on my terms. (Whats in it for me?)

The selfish personality becomes very evident in a social environment, even if you know little or nothing about a person.  Those who wish to participate in a social network and still wish to act selfish will find their experience a very lonely or ridiculed one.

I received a message from one of the Facebook groups I belong to this morning.  A couple of new members were bashing the group and the admins.  It is clear that they read nothing about the group and attacked the admin for issues which were outlined in the definition of the group.  So you have to question why did they join the group in the first place?

One person was complaining that people from the group were contacting them, even though they joined a networking group.  One of the complainers had an issue with the fact that they did not get the personal results they expected; results that no one offered or promised.  The response to these posts were basically ridiculed from the other members.  

The ability to freely express you opinion on the internet is a great thing.  It allows us to view ideas from many angles.  At the same time it also makes us accountable for our own actions. 

Accountable for our own actions, what a novel concept…

Great series topics on money and kids

MSN has a great series with tips regarding children and money.  There is a lot of stuff here that I try to instill in my boys.  http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/StockInvestingTrading/should-your-kids-know-your-salary-series-home.aspx?GT1=33011

Change by Zig Ziglar

Change

By Zig Ziglar

Change can be good for you.  In today's world of societal and corporate change, job security is a thing of the past.  While we must face the fact that change is inevitable, we should also realize that many changes are positive and benefit both individuals and businesses.

Some things you can change and some you can't.  You cannot change when you were born, where you were born, how you were born or to whom you were born.  It's a fact that if you were born white you will stay white and if you were born black you will remain black.  It's a fact that you cannot change a single event that has already happened.  You can't change one whisper of yesterday.  Tomorrow, however, is an entirely different matter.  If you're willing to change your thinking today, you can change your life and your living to make your tomorrows better and brighter.

Example: As a student at Yazoo City High School in Mississippi, table tennis was one of my favorite sports.  Frankly, I could beat most of my buddies at that particular sport.  Then a new kid came to town and he beat me regularly.  I was using the old three-finger grip; he was using the new "handshake" grip.  I felt that I was playing as well as I could with the grip I was using so I changed to the "handshake" grip.  Initial results were disastrous.  My buddies beat me like a drum.  But after a couple of weeks I started winning and eventually was able to beat the "new kid in town."  I'm convinced there was no way I could have done that without changing my grip, though I actually got worse at first.

Message: Analyze your situation.  Have you gone as far as you can go and are you doing as well as you can with present procedures?  If so, don't be afraid to take two steps back if it will enable you to move three steps forward.  Make those changes and I'll SEE YOU AT THE TOP!  

 Zig Ziglar is a motivator and teacher.  He is the author of 27 books and loved by millions of people world wide for his practical wisdom and his gift of hope. 

Mobile Networking SMS 2.0 vs. Web 3.0

The public social networks are already scrambling to retain their hit numbers in the wake of tons of competition but will Web 3.0 really be the future of networking? 

The buzz being generated by the industry is that Web 3.0 will accommodate the changes in the landscape from Web 2.0’s “join me” environment to the new “follow me” environment.  I wrote about industry plans to create open id’s to help their users stay connected over a number of sites, but is this really what their users are looking for and how will the current rule based social networks handle the data? 

Open ID’s and Web 3.0 in theory would allow your connections to follow you as you travel from site to site.  The hole in the Open ID platform is each of these sites operates on a different platform, allows for different information, and most importantly they all have different limits.  For example I currently can add only 9 new connections on LinkedIn, if I were to invite my 250 members from Facebook to join does LinkedIn now waive their limit?  On Linked in I have slightly over 800 connections; I have an additional 1000 on MySpace so forget trying to invite them over.  If LinkedIn does decide to toss out the limits in the wake of Web 3.0, Facebook’s and MySpace’s platform isn’t even close to LinkedIn’s so the user would be forced to enter a lot of information anyway.  This is a large piece of the sale for Open ID’s.

If I owned one of these giant social websites I would be asking my users why they are looking else where and why are they are trying to bring their network with them? 

I believe the reason people are shifting from site to site isn’t because they have a prettier background.  It is because someone else is driving the ship and they don’t really care about our experience they care about our assisting them in generating a profit.  All of these sites have arbitrary rules that keep changing to meet the needs of the corporation.  At the same time advertising space expands and workspace shrinks in almost direct relation to the size of the user base and hit counts.  More people and more hits equal more advertising potential.  MySpace for example has simply turned into one big advertisement and the site is basically a free-for-all regarding spam.  Facebook shifted to a multipage profile format, which drastically expands their hit count and advertising space.  It is almost like there is a competition for who can figure out how to get the most advertising space on a page and all their user base is trying to do is communicate with their network.

The level of concern about their users experience is very apparent.  Try to file a complaint with any of these sites when you have an issue with its operation or another member.  If you do get a response it is the automated – thank you for contacting us greeting.  Facebook’s solution to a violation report regarding their terms of use is to automatically block your access to the person – problem solved...  I guess that would be more profitable than removing a member who is helping generate a profit. 

I see the social networking company’s biggest problem being the very noticeable shift away from web based communications.  Users are creating their own personal texting networks through mobile communications where there are no corporate rules, no controls, and no advertising blocks cluttering their networks.

Only time will tell if Web 3.0 will save the beast or we are entering the new era of mobile networking through SMS (Short Message Service) 2.0.  My money is on the later.  One plus with Open Id is it will definitely help users transition away from public social networking sites by helping them take their network to the mobile networking SMS  2.0 platform.  Using sites like Twitter and new mobile phones we can have the best of both worlds a SMS text network on our cell phone without the Advertising clutter …  Maybe that is why Twitters member count is growing at lightening speed.

What do you think?

There is an underground information network proliferating across the world.

I recently attended a training conference where there was a discussion about how our method of communications is undergoing radical changes.  Those discussions we were having just two months ago are already obsolete. 

We were sharing information about internet social networks, online texting sites, and SMS cell phone communications.  We heard stories about inflated text counts and excessive phone bills because of thousands of texts.  Well those numbers and communication networks are already yesterday’s news. 

There is an extensive and growing base of non-internet messaging networks being developed by individuals and they are sharing information at the rate of over one thousand messages an hour.  Yes we are talking about over 1 million messages per month being received by a single cell phone. 

You have to wonder how one individual can send an average of 23 texts a minute all day, every day.  They have to sleep, eat, and do something else – Right? Well it is all possible with updated hand held technology, address lists and group texting. 

The implications of this type of networking are both intriguing and unnerving. 

My first indication that something was happening was when I started seeing groups popping up on social networks where individuals were sharing and asking for mobile numbers with strangers.  Groups with thousands of members and all were sharing their cell phone numbers.  I couldn’t fathom why someone would want to share their cell phone number with strangers and have to put up with all kinds of annoying calls.  There wasn’t much information outside of a one liner which said “I need numbers” and then they posted their number.

Yesterday the rest of the story fell into place when two separate incidents happened.  I was chatting with one of my clients and he was telling a story about his daughters who had thousands of incoming texts the month before.  When he asked her about the number which exceeded 20,000 she said that’s nothing I have a friend who had over 1 million incoming texts on the month prior.  While her service was limited to 250 outgoing texts by her parents, she was receiving hundreds of texts at a time as part of her text network.  He asked her friends parents if the story was true and they validated that this teen actually did receive over 1.3 million texts the month before and they actually had to terminate the service and obtain a new number.

At first this was a story and a laugh, but then last night I received a text from one of my teenage cousins who blindly forwarded me a text he received about joining a cell phone singles network.  At the end of the text it said forward this to everyone on your address book and I can see by the message it was forwarded to him.  It all started to come into focus.  They were building an information network through SMS texting that did not require permissions, could not be controlled by any corporate terms of use, and because most cell phone companies pushed unlimited texting for teen phones, it does not matter how many communications are sent or received in an hour.

My next thoughts were regarding the positive and negative implications of this disruptive change. 

A positive affect would be if there was an immediate threat or natural disaster, news would travel through this network and everyone would be aware of the issue within minutes.  Text messages can also include video and pictures.  Important information shared quickly to millions.  People would not be waiting for a news truck to setup, get the story, shoot the video, and then broadcast the event.  (news at 5…)

A negative affect would be that there could be an immediate sharing of information regardless of the content.  Take the recent broadcast email containing distorted facts suggesting that people not purchase gift cards this year from two dozen different chain stores because they are rumored to be “going out of business”.  When in fact just about all of those companies have no intention on going out of business and they are only closing individual stores which are not generating enough revenue or legally reorganizing so they do not have to go out of business.  Today this type of inaccurate email and inaccurate news takes days and weeks to replicate and these companies have time to react and halt the rumors.  Take that same news shared to millions in minutes.  There is no time for the company to react and quell the rumor.

There is no question that there is an information revolution underway and it is impossible for any corporation or government to stop the sharing of information regardless what it is.