Consumer voice, user generated insight, word of mouth, whatever you want to call it - what’s the use of a web page if it doesn’t engage the viewer in a way that is meaningful? Slantly is a new opinion poll community and web service that makes it very easy to conduct opinion polls. Slantly provides the features to start, contribute, read and otherwise engage in debates. Slantly not only tells you what topics are popular, but also how people feel about the topic. I’ve included an example below.
The Web 2.0 technology brings together people from around the world to do more than just socialize. Crowdsourcing is a way to put them to work and innovative companies are creating great ways digital professionals can harness the power of diverse talent and resources. Here are 5 ideas to get you started.
Naming - namethis: namethis makes the otherwise time-consuming process of finding a market-ready name quick and painless. Why spend time and money gambling on the ideas of a few, when you can have the market bounce ideas off of you.
1. Someone posts a product or service in need of a name
2. namethis members suggesting names and/or invest points in their favorites
3. After 48 hours of namestorming, the system applies business intelligence to select the winners
The Web 2.0 Internet economy has resulted in countless new innovative businesses and solutions. It’s never been easier to bring a product or solution to market. This sudden spike in new business development has made the market exceedingly competitive. Not because your competition is under pricing you or other typical market challenges; but more because its so challenging to get the right person at the right time to understand your value proposition so you can make a deal. I can’t tell you how many great companies I’ve met with, that after finally getting their one hour face-to-face meeting; left me wondering how I could work with them, what it will cost, how I can share the message with someone that may be able to use them. Honestly I can’t keep track of them all and I don’t try.
I understand that there are many special cases where you may be invited to a direct opportunity or have a inside connection; but for the majority of us the audience could be ice cold. Anything we can do to turn-up the impact and get a slight edge could mean the difference between a big payday and a big waist of time. Here’s a few points to help providers reach customers in the digital space:
Thanks to Bob Deininger of Fulgent Media Group for pointing me to Groundswell a book by two Forrester analysts to help marketers benefit from social media sites. Features 25 case studies, a complete road map for social strategy, and data from around the world. Learn more about the book, download an excerpt.
Profile Tool:Forrester’s Social Technographics® is a Flash-based profiling tool classifies consumers into six overlapping levels of participation Based on our survey data we can see how participation varies among different groups of consumers, globally. You can profile your customers’ social computing behaviors by age, country and gender and the tool automatically creates the selected demographic profile.
I had the opportunity to run a workshop on Web 2.0 and Social Media at for the graduate Marketing Promotion and Communication class at Bentley in Waltham, MA yesterday. This was my first time on the Bentley campus, on a warm and sunny Spring afternoon, beautiful college.
The first part of the course was all about Web 2.0, what it is, technology, we looked at all kinds of sites and services and the second part we talked about social media identity.
In January Sprout launched SproutBuilder, a quick and easy way for anyone to build, publish, and manage widgets, mini-sites, mashups, banners and more. Include video, audio, images and newsfeeds and choose from dozens of pre-built components and web services. At first I thought this may be some kind of “prosumer” tool, nice for marketers or brands that that aren’t big enough for real solutions.
After a thorough review I’m recommending to clients and agency colleagues to seriously consider SproutBuilder for several reasons:
Robust design/authoring environment: Sprout provides dozens of ready built templates but its easy for more advanced Flash designers to create anything from scratch. Many of the common design tools are available and you can upload content including images, video, audio, Flash files (swf’s), and more. Adding these assets to your sprout is as easy as dragging and dropping.
Drag and drop components: Advanced components that you can add by simply dragging and dropping. Choose from slideshows, jukeboxes, RSS feeds, and more. Or “Mashup” any of components from our web service partners including PollDaddy, Google, Ribbit, ChipIn, and others. Continue reading »
Originally posted in the February ITWiki Newsletter, Network World
Web 2.0 technologies are changing the way online solutions are being developed. The popularity of social websites like Flickr, MySpace and Youtube and technology that promotes collaboration such as blogs, wikis, tags and widgets have made Web 2.0 functionality an important consideration for enterprise development. When planning these solutions there are many things to consider. Recent technology advancements have resulted in a flurry of solutions in many categories. The tree will eventually shake out; standards will evolve. Will your project stand the test of time or go the way of the Betamax? Here are 5 things to consider when planning a Web 2.0 solution.
1. Social Networking Standards
There are so many social networks and online communities, social shopping and recommendations, sites for sharing content, and each one with a process to register and manage your profile, interact with members and content. Each site with its own language or application programming interface (API). It’s difficult for developers to learn site specific API’s and then build and maintain applications for multiple sites. A common set of API’s that work across sites would provide a greater use and distribution of applications. Developers could then build and maintain a single application. Continue reading »
An early pioneer in interactive media, Dean Whitney is a Web 2.0 and Social media technology evangelist. Start-up veteran, President of Garfield Group Interactive a Boston-based digital agency.
