Social networking is a commodity now: Marc Canter
Marc Canter is the founder and CEO of Broadband Mechanics which is into the business of building social networks. In 1984, he co-founded MacroMind, which became Macromedia in 1991, and since then the company has continued to pioneer multimedia authoring and standards.
Now at Broadband Mechanics, Marc Carter is merging his multimedia heritage with social networks. He is busy creating what he calls 'digital lifestyle aggregators.'
Broadband Mechanics' open platform PeopleAggregator is a white label solution that allows people to create their own social networks and integrate them with any other software via internal APIs and external Web services.
In an interview, Marc gave his views on the growing prominence of social networks.
What exactly is the concept of white labeled social networking?
There are two models we follow, source code (the business model of Red Hat and other open source companies) or Software as a Service (SaaS). Our earliest clients were 1UP.Com and Tribe.Net.
How can this be beneficial for a company?
There are various ways in which a social network can help a company. I will tell you how some of our customers benefited. Bell Canada had a movie download site from where users could download movies. What we did was to add social features to their plain page. Now users could grade the movies, write/read reviews tech. This gave the company a vibrant community as well as enhanced the user experience.
But how would it help a company gain in terms of revenue?
Historically organizations see this as a marketing expense. At EMI, one of the biggest record companies in the US, we met the marketing team and created a social web for them where in all the sister brands came under one umbrella. We made them aware of the potential of social networking and how important it was to free the user's data.
The moral of the story is there is lot of money to be made in social networking. And also those who embrace the technology early will be the leaders while the rest will be the followers. And remember there is always a difference between leaders and followers. The fact that companies like Oracle and Saleforce have embraced social networking proves its potential.
Also I believe that all software is social. As a vendor you need to be a parent. You need to know when to let go as well as not only talk but also listen.
Now at Broadband Mechanics, Marc Carter is merging his multimedia heritage with social networks. He is busy creating what he calls 'digital lifestyle aggregators.'
Broadband Mechanics' open platform PeopleAggregator is a white label solution that allows people to create their own social networks and integrate them with any other software via internal APIs and external Web services.
In an interview, Marc gave his views on the growing prominence of social networks.
What exactly is the concept of white labeled social networking?
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Most social networking brands offer their products directly to users. However, I was a part of this group of people who didn't like the idea that every time you have to start a social web you need to hire programmers, write the code and spend millions of dollars. And this has gone over million of times. This means that billions of dollar have gone in building social networks. We felt that there was a need for a platform that enabled companies to build their own social webs and tailor these networks to a range of purposes. This is what the concept of white labeling is. The idea is to provide the building blocks for a social network where the platform provider is as invisible as possible to the social network's users. There are two models we follow, source code (the business model of Red Hat and other open source companies) or Software as a Service (SaaS). Our earliest clients were 1UP.Com and Tribe.Net.
How can this be beneficial for a company?
There are various ways in which a social network can help a company. I will tell you how some of our customers benefited. Bell Canada had a movie download site from where users could download movies. What we did was to add social features to their plain page. Now users could grade the movies, write/read reviews tech. This gave the company a vibrant community as well as enhanced the user experience.
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Our another customer Telecom Italia, which has some 72,000 employees want all the employees to talk and interact with each other. They want all of them to have fun together. So it's an HR function here. But how would it help a company gain in terms of revenue?
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Historically organizations see this as a marketing expense. At EMI, one of the biggest record companies in the US, we met the marketing team and created a social web for them where in all the sister brands came under one umbrella. We made them aware of the potential of social networking and how important it was to free the user's data.
The moral of the story is there is lot of money to be made in social networking. And also those who embrace the technology early will be the leaders while the rest will be the followers. And remember there is always a difference between leaders and followers. The fact that companies like Oracle and Saleforce have embraced social networking proves its potential.
Also I believe that all software is social. As a vendor you need to be a parent. You need to know when to let go as well as not only talk but also listen.
Why shouldn't a company go for existing social platform (say from Google when it launches such a platform) rather than building their own?
They shouldn't. Absolutely not. Today, social networking is a commodity. It is same everywhere. Most sites have standard features, personal page, login page, group page etc. However, to have a compelling online experience you need not only differ from competitors, but also offer something more compelling.
Social networking features need to be everywhere whether a productivity suite or an ecommerce tool.
There is a lot of money to be made in social networking. I believe the company who embraces it in the beginning will be the leader.
Social networking is a commodity now. It is same every where you go, standard features, personal page, group page, login. To have a compelling online experience you need to differentiate yourself from your competitors.
Today, OpenSocial mimics Facebook. Today it should be called open widget. However, this is just the opening move of a chess game. This is not the end, but the beginning. The beginning for Google was to identify a hole in Facebook's strategy.
Facebook was great when they opened their platform to developers in May. The site was immediately flooded with several interesting apps. However, in the end Facebook is another closed system. They lock-in their customers. In the end it only works when you go to them.
Unlike Facebook, OpenSocial does not have its own markup language. It allows developers to write in normal java script and html with only minor adjustments needed for the code to work on its platform. Facebook requires use of FBML (Facebook Markup Language) for security reasons, but it also makes code unusable outside Facebook. OpenSocial will especially attract small developers who can create `learn once, write anywhere' apps.
What about the social ramifications of social networking?
They shouldn't. Absolutely not. Today, social networking is a commodity. It is same everywhere. Most sites have standard features, personal page, login page, group page etc. However, to have a compelling online experience you need not only differ from competitors, but also offer something more compelling.
Social networking features need to be everywhere whether a productivity suite or an ecommerce tool.
There is a lot of money to be made in social networking. I believe the company who embraces it in the beginning will be the leader.
Social networking is a commodity now. It is same every where you go, standard features, personal page, group page, login. To have a compelling online experience you need to differentiate yourself from your competitors.
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How is Google's OpenSocial different from existing social networks?Today, OpenSocial mimics Facebook. Today it should be called open widget. However, this is just the opening move of a chess game. This is not the end, but the beginning. The beginning for Google was to identify a hole in Facebook's strategy.
Facebook was great when they opened their platform to developers in May. The site was immediately flooded with several interesting apps. However, in the end Facebook is another closed system. They lock-in their customers. In the end it only works when you go to them.
Unlike Facebook, OpenSocial does not have its own markup language. It allows developers to write in normal java script and html with only minor adjustments needed for the code to work on its platform. Facebook requires use of FBML (Facebook Markup Language) for security reasons, but it also makes code unusable outside Facebook. OpenSocial will especially attract small developers who can create `learn once, write anywhere' apps.
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Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are today one way. But they should be two-way. OpenSocial will be first two-way API. Watch Google, it will get APIs into Maps, RSS Reader, spreadsheets and all probable places. What about the social ramifications of social networking?
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In India you have IT Act for this. Otherwise, it's like nuclear technology which has both upside and downside. So, it's the duty of the social networking vendor to educate people about the good and the bad of social networking. It should be part of their DNA. Download
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