Social Networks - Search Engine Marketing for Web2.0

There are few Search Engine Marketers who would debate that most community based websites are favored within Search Engine Results’ Pages or SERP. These Web2.0 sites also have high Google Page Ranks. Links from these could help increase your site’s Google Page Rank while also boosting your site in the SERPs of most search engines if done properly. Within this article you can find how your site can benefit from utilizing social networks as part of your SEM for web2.0 strategy.

Social networks are getting a lot of attention these days including Wikipedia, del.icio.us and MySpace. Along with the buzz, these sites are also generating a lot of traffic! How can you integrate links for these types of social network sites into your search engine marketing program? While there are an increasing number of social networks, this article will stick to the above as they are kings of their domains so to speak.

I recently had the opportunity to attend Search Engine Strategies in New York City this past February, 2006. While attending a session in regards to community marketing tactics using both Wikipedia and tagging, the panel asked the audience, “Who here knows what Wikipedia and tagging are?” less than half the room raised their hands.

Let me give you an overview of these concepts.

Wikipedia is a free community content driven encyclopedia. I have included an excerpt about Wikipedia from their about section located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About

“Begun in 2001, Wikipedia has rapidly grown into the largest reference website on the Internet. The content of Wikipedia is free, written collaboratively by people from all around the world. This website is a wiki, which means that anyone with access to an Internet-connected computer can edit, correct, or improve information throughout the encyclopedia, simply by clicking the edit this page link (with a few minor exceptions such as protected articles).”

Your benefits of using Wikipedia as an online marketing strategy are various. To begin with, your submitted content about your product or company may be very short and simple to begin with. As your content ages and more members view and contribute to your content with edit revisions, your content submission will grow and grow. For example, your submission may start out as a forty word brief that may turn into a multi-page article. Additionally, Wikipedia has a good Google Page Rank of 9 which will help boost your website’s PR with a quality backlink from your submitted content. Finally, using keywords that relate to your site in your contribution will assist you in controlling more space within the search engine results’ pages for your particular brand, product or name. For example, doing a Google Search for the term “Microsoft” returns a Wikipedia content entry about Microsoft in the tenth position of the Google SERP for “Microsoft”.

You should only submit content about a famous person, a patented product your company invented, a trademarked brand, famous places, etc. When you write your content you will want to write from an extremely neutral viewpoint. Don’t write all sorts of features and benefits; write more factual based information related to your subject. Your focus needs to be the community and not your subject. Tread lightly, the community is helpful to assist you in producing additional content, but be careful of keyword spamming and link spamming.

Although there are many benefits to using Wikipedia for SEM, there are also just as many caveats to using it. Submitting content to Wikipedia is a double-edged sword. You will only want to contribute to Wikipedia if your product or service is of relevance to the community. Using spammy techniques in your content or submitting an entry that has no real value such as “another affiliate website” could have the opposite of desired effect by producing negative feedback about your brand or product from the community.

Tagging on the other hand doesn’t have quite the negative drawbacks as posting to Wikipedia.

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site where members contribute links based on tags that anyone can search. I have included their about page found at del.icio.us/about below:

“What is del.icio.us?

del.icio.us is a collection of favorites - yours and everyone else's. Use del.icio.us to:

• Keep links to your favorite articles, blogs, music, restaurant reviews, and more on del.icio.us and access them from any computer on the web.

• Share favorites with friends, family, and colleagues.

• Discover new things. Everything on del.icio.us is someone's favorite - they've already done the work of finding it. Explore and enjoy.”

There are a few simple techniques for commercial tagging through community type sites such as del.icio.us: create bookmark worthy content or link bait, get your tags in front of the right people or choose the right category, give your created tags only one self generated bump in del.icio.us, rinse and repeat about once a month. Below is an excerpt from del.icio.us to help you answer what various parts of tags are:

Posts

When a user saves an item on del.icio.us, it is posted to the front page as well as the tag page for each chosen tag. A sample is below explaining the various information pieces:

Here is a del.icio.us example listing under the tag “web 2.0”

O'Reilly -- What Is Web 2.0 save this

by Scottcard to web2.0 oreilly article reference ... saved by 2938 other people .

You will first notice the title with the link to the site, next is an option to save the link to your tags. Secondly, you see a Username Scottcard. Here you can click the username to see Scottcard’s tags. Next you can click on the next links to see other related-sites within those tags. Lastly, you will see a highlighted link where you can view the members who have saved this site.

The good and the bad of tagging is that you will receive good quality backlinks to your site and increase visibility. The bad is that the majority of the time your tags will be removed from community members because the members are technically savvy and intolerant of any type of commercial push. Choose your keywords wisely and make sure your tag is in the right place and contributes to the community. Other tagging sites to consider are: http://technorati.com/tags/ and http://digg.com/. There are many others, but these are the ones that matter.

I see tagging or social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us gaining in popularity within the next three years as blogs did two years ago. Yahoo has already taken notice by purchasing del.icio.us and flickr. Digg.com and furl.com are also making headway. Other sources to consider are the social network sites for developing a web2.0 SEM strategy.

MySpace is the current king of social networks, as it is literally a social-space network with 2.5 times more daily users than Google (psst, this is a huge untapped market). The domain dates back to 1999 where it was originally an online hard-drive of sorts. The current rendition took hold in 2003 making MySpace barely three years old. The main demographic is made up of teens to 20-somethings. The music industry is currently using MySpace as a marketing tool, not the labels themselves, but the bands. For example, Pearl Jam is announcing their upcoming release for May with sample songs and concert date announcements. One of their sample songs from their upcoming albums is one of the most played songs across the entire MySpace network. Independent film makers have also taken notice. In February 2006, amateur filmmaker David Lehre released a short film called MySpace: The Movie. This short film has quickly become a hit, registering over six million views following its release.

Benefiting from MySpace traffic is pretty straight forward. You will want to create a user profile and post links to your company or websites such as blogs, feeds, etc. Profile note, you can post html code in any field regarding your profile. Next, create your social pipeline of users and keep the demographic inline with any product or link you wish to shamelessly promote in the future. You don’t want to get spammy here either. The downside would be getting your user profile terminated from MySpace or members posting negative comments within your profile. Again, tread lightly by thinking neutral and keep the benefit of the community in mind.

The opportunity costs associated with community based SEM are very high. However, tagging in particular may be time prohibitive for most organizations as it requires a lot of trial and error. Tagging can seem like a waste of time as most tagging submissions will be removed by community members who find your submission “spammy”. Time spent on tagging isn’t a problem for most sole proprietors, but can be costly to your employer who is left with little equitable return to show for your time spent.

Utilizing Web2.0 sites such as Wikipedia, del.icio.us and MySpace, will prove effective for your business if done properly. Remember to tread lightly, don’t use “spammy” techniques and stay neutral keeping the benefit of the community at heart in your content development. Doing so will help your business to avoid a negative backlash toward your brand from the community you are developing content for.

About The Author
Warren Pattison is the Director of Search for Elixir Systems, a full service search engine marketing company specializing in organic search engine optimization services, online public relations management and paid search or PPC management. For more information visit http://www.elixirsystems.com this article can also be viewed at http://www.elixirsystems.com/articles/a060322.php.

Social Networking - The Next Great Marketing Medium?

There has been a virtual explosion of social networking sites in the past couple of years. Even the big players like Google, Yahoo and MSN are getting into it.

With so much interest in how social networks work, one begins to wonder if there is marketing potential within these social networks?

I’ve been watching social networking for some time now. In fact I’m a member of various social networking sites including MySpace and LinkedIn just to name two.

I joined partly because I wanted to see what they were, but more importantly to see what impact social networking would have on SEM in the coming years.

I’ve been a member of various services for some time and the reach these sites have is incredible.

For example, from my LinkedIn network of seven people I have an expanded network of over 12,600 people.

Imagine that - I’m only a click or two away from close to 13,000 other people who share my similar interests ranging from what I like to watch on TV to work I could provide to them.

Through my connections and their connections, I’m connected to people ranging from the American Cancer Society, to Sun Microsystems to the University of Texas to Google.

But what marketing opportunities are there for Social Networking?

Well, let’s look at MySpace.

MySpace is one of the top sites on the Web today. It racked up 9.4 billion page-views in August 2005 (more than Google) and new users are signing up at a mind-boggling rate of 3.5 million a month.

MySpace is typical of where today’s 18-30 year old goes to manage their digital life. It allows users to post photos of themselves and their friends, create a blog, list their favorite bands, view and share videos, suggest things to do and lists a set of people they consider friends. It is on this “Friends List” where most of the opportunities lie.

All thirty million plus users of MySpace have a friend’s page that lists people that person considers their friend. This is a list of people that they are interested in talking to and about, as well as hearing from on a regular basis. Once you add someone as your friend they can send you emails, comment on your photos, read your blogs, as well as leave messages that you can then share with others. This is an opportunity for instant feedback about you.

The ability to add friends to your page is key for marketing to MySpace users. According to Courtney Holt, head of new media and strategic marketing at Interscope Records, “This generation is growing up without having ever watched programmed media.” “They don’t think in terms of the album, and they don’t think in terms of a TV schedule. They think in terms of TiVo, P2P, AOL, and of course MySpace.”

You can see how this could grow.

Let’s say you create a MySpace account to talk about your product or service. You blog about it and search for others that may share your interests.

You then invite them to be your friend. When they become a friend you start your “soft sell” pitching your product to them.

As they grow to appreciate it, they start blogging and sharing it. Soon hundreds or even thousand of people are talking about you and your product or service.

Don’t think this will work?

Let me give you some examples. There are many bands who have gotten their start on MySpace. Simply by hosting some of their music online and blogging about themselves they developed a following. Soon they had record deals and contracts lined up.

Of course to use services like MySpace you need to have something this target market needs. If you don’t then you probably shouldn’t put too much effort into MySpace.

But that doesn’t mean other social networking opportunities should be overlooked. As I mentioned above, LinkedIn is more of a professional introduction service. If your product or service fits here then by all means explore it further.

And there are others as well. Services such as Yahoo!s MyWeb, Flickr, del.icio.us and more.

So if you’ve ever wondered what other online opportunities could be out there, consider social networking. It could be the next great online marketing channel.

About The Author
Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for Textlinkbrokers.com. Textlinkbrokers is the trusted leader in building long term rankings through safe and effective link building. Please provide a link directly to Textlinkbrokers when syndicating this article.

Social Networking – What’s New, What’s Hot!

In the 21st Century, the old bromide is more true than ever: It’s not what you know; it’s who you know and who knows you.

In large part, we can thank the Internet for that these days. Despite its vast size and complexity, the Internet has turned out to be a profoundly personal phenomenon. People around the globe are forming networks based on every conceivable common interest, from the serious and practical to the outright silly. In 2005, the 80-million member networking site MySpace got more page views than Google. And the movement is only continuing to grow.

It was only forty years ago that Dr. Stanley Milgram amazed everyone with his “small world” experiments, showing that a person could be connected to any given stranger in the United States by a remarkably short chain of I-know-someone-who-knows-someone. Those experiments, which coined the term “six degrees of separation” were a revelation in the 1960s. Now the concept has become so familiar that it is perhaps better known in its movie trivia form: “Six degrees of Kevin Bacon.”

To better understand what is happening and what it means for individuals and organizations, we turn to a relatively new field of study: Social networking. We’ll look at four books. First we’ll see what the ever insightful Malcolm Gladwell has to say on the topic, in his book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Back Bay Books/Little Brown and Company, 2000). Second, we’ll turn to an exciting new book that’s hot off the presses: Karen Stephenson’s The Quantum Theory of Trust: Power, Networks and the Secret Life of Organizations (Financial Times Pearsons, 2006). Then we’ll examine the groundbreaking academic treatise Structural Models in Anthropology by Per Hage and Frank Harary, et al. (Cambridge University Press, 1984). And finally we’ll discuss Robert L. Cross and Andrew Parker’s The Hidden Power of Social Networks: Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations (Harvard Business School Press, 2004).

Malcolm Gladwell’s book popularized the useful and now nearly ubiquitous term “the tipping point,” which in epidemiology describes “that one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once,” Gladwell writes. He examines a similar phenomenon in culture. Small factors, ideas or behaviors gather momentum and become contagious. When they reach critical mass – the tipping point – they become epidemic. Gladwell’s experience writing about AIDS for the Washington Post, convinced him that change is about the “law of the few.” He intuitively realized the powerful role which some people, who spread AIDS or create buzz for the newest novel or product, can have in moving along a social epidemic of any kind. Using this model, he shows how the crime rate can drop or Sesame Street can spread all over the world.

What interests us here is the motive force that Gladwell says drives all those little things toward their tipping point: People engaged in social networking. He identifies three types of social networkers: Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen. Mavens love to gather knowledge and pass it on to others. Connectors seem to know everyone. They can get information where it needs to go. And Salesmen are great persuaders. They are irresistibly positive and their ideas and attitudes are infectious. When these three types of people interact with a social network, little things can turn into big deals with astonishing speed.

Although The Tipping Point is often found in the business section of bookstores, it’s message is just as applicable to sociology, history, science and other fields. Plus, it’s simply an entertaining read.

Gladwell approaches his material in a highly intuitive way, but in
in a New Yorker article in December of 2000, he profiled a scholar who examined the same concepts in a more analytical and rigorous fashion. Karen Stephenson, a professor and business consultant, studied social networks within organizations to understand how information and influence flow in those settings.

By charting the flow of information, she showed how organizations are evolving from command and control structures, past the trendy world of networks to a strange new world of networked institutions, paying homage to Friedman’s spot-on prophecy that the world is both small and flat. She maps a pattern completely unlike the traditional organizational chart. She represented each person as a dot and drew lines between them to show paths of communication. In this way, she showed how information really flows through a system. At the time, she used her insights to help IBM create a new business on it and companies better organize their physical workspaces to accommodate and encourage social networking. Now that she has put her valuable insights into book form, with The Quantum Theory of Trust, she may be the Margaret Mead of social networking.

Stephenson has a background in quantum chemistry and mathematics but earned her doctorate in anthropology, studying the social networks found among Gibbons. The combination led her to study anthropology through a bio-statistician lens. She then spent ten years as a professor in the management school of UCLA before going out on her own, only to be invited to teach at her alma mater, Harvard, in the Graduate School of Design. Thus, over thirty years, she has devoted her life to culture and design, both of which have intricacies that are invisible to the untrained eye.

Her social networking studies show that information follows through and around certain archetypes. Some people are Hubs; information pathways radiate all around them. They know many people and others seek them out. But Stephenson warns that such people are not necessarily sophisticated in directing the flow of information. If you want to keep a secret, she says, don’t tell Hubs since they may be naïve in their attempts to make connections. Gatekeepers, on the other hand, are expert at managing information flow. They know whom to tell what and when. Gatekeepers are an indispensable resource in building effective social networks. A less visible, but equally important archetype is the Pulsetaker. Pulsetakers are connected through a variety of networks but choose to STAY below the radar. They are keen observers of the people and trends around them and often make excellent mentors and coaches. Machiavelli proved himself the ultimate Pulsetaker when he described the Medici court.!


As Stephenson puts it, “Hubs know the most people; Gatekeepers know the right people, and Pulsetakers know the most people who know the right people.” Professor Stephenson adds that Pulsetakers make some of the best change agents.

However, she admits, one rarely finds a pure archetype in real life. She sees Gladwell’s descriptions of Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen as useful hybrids of her archetypical Hubs, Gatekeepers and Pulsetakers.

Stephenson Gladwell
Hub-Pulsetaker Connectors
Gatekeeper-Pulsetaker Maven
Hub-Gatekeeper Salesmen
Used with permission 2006 Dr. Karen Stephenson
For her, Gladwell’s Connectors are Hub-Pulsetakers. They combine the buoyant enthusiasm of Hubs with the finesse of Pulsetakers. They enjoy knowing a large number of people, without feeling obligated to form deep relationships with all of them. And they are quick to use their Pulsetaking skills to find opportunities to bring members of their network together.

Mavens are Gatekeeper-Pulsetakers. They may not know quite as many people, but they are more invested in the people they do know. They lead softly and often imperceptibly by helping, teaching and enquiring.

Salesman are Hub-Gatekeepers. They are masters of interpersonal communication, picking up on subtle cues to better connect with their listeners. They get information across, but also seem to put their listeners under a spell. It is very difficult to say “no” to such a person.

Finally, Stephenson identifies one more important position. Some people combine all three of her other roles: Hub, Gatekeeper and Pulsetaker. She calls them “Strange Attractors”. These individuals are often unaware of the reach of their influence, but they can be a “powerful force for good or evil,” she says. She regularly finds them in organizations and is relieved they are a limited resource. Once identified, she says they “should be sparingly sprinkled into any recipe for change.”

Stephenson gained her precise perspective from her early scientific training and in part by working and studying for years with the deeply reflective anthropologist Per Hage and Frank Harary, a practical applied graphics expert. Our next book, Hage and Harary’s Structural Models in Anthropology. is the forerunner of rigorous social network analysis as we know it.

The book approaches network theory as a continuation of the work of structural anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss, who was looking for the basic unit of kinship, just as there is a basic unit of speech, the phoneme, in the field of linguistics. Per Hage was a traditional anthropologist who liked to use stories to show relationships, while Frank Harary is known for his development of approaches and ideas in graphic theory. Their work pulled together articles and research to move the social network community inexorably toward identifying a basic unit of relationship as “the relationship”, rather than the anthropological view of kinship as the basic unit of relationship.

They showed the way for how to use graphic techniques in social network analysis. They did not intend for the technique to “race ahead” of the theory; rather their focus was on the fusion of economics, sociology, anthropology and logic. They used “cultural” clues to represent the smallest particle of a work organization so that readers could see and decode the cultural particles, which is a bit like decoding the Da Vinci Code as Dr. Stephenson would say.

In their overview of the history of structuralism in Anthropology, the authors used famous studies from Margaret Mead to Claude Levi Strauss and the characters in famous novels to portray relationships among and between people, food, bodily fluids, rituals and reciprocity. Whether it’s the kinship roles in Brazil or the role of women, chains of relationships in networks trump individual relationships for clout and influence.

It’s a bit like the current US advertisement showing a network of people behind someone with a mobile phone. Hage and Harary show that it’s the power of the network and the group. It’s a fascinating book if you enjoy history and the process of creating visual representation of concepts like organizational design and analysis.

Although it is out of print, this brief but dense book is well worth tracking down. When you read through it, you will start to understand the power of graphic representations of social connections and gain a new respect for what happens in the social network analysis of organizations.

For a more hands-on look at how social networking functions in organizations and how to better manage it, check out The Hidden Power of Social Networks, by Rob Cross and Andrew Parker. Their book is an in-the-trenches bunch of tips to understand how social networks, often invisible to management, can save or scuttle an organization.

The important networking roles Cross and Parker identify include Central Connectors, Unsung Heroes, Bottlenecks, Boundary Spanners and Information Brokers (borrowed from the early work of David Krackhardt, Tom Allen, Karen Stephenson and Malcolm Gladwell), as well as various types of Peripheral People. They examine factors that contribute to or inhibit social connections, like physical proximity, time invested in relationships, length of time known, expertise gaps, network preferences, and organization positions.

The book is essentially a how-to guide with lists. Using examples from different types of businesses, the authors encourage managers to look past the formal hierarchies they have put in place and to analyze the social networks that actually control the flow of power and information in their companies. Cross and Parker provide simple tools for that analysis and suggest practical methods for doing one’s own problem solving. Knowing about networks and organizational analysis, leaders are warned to avoid blanket approaches and pinpoint the roles and players who have leverage in their organizations. Although it lacks the broader and deeper view of the other three works we’ve examined, this is a good, practical book to give to first-line supervisors and managers to help them understand how their networks function.

In different ways, the four books, with their unique insights and guidance, help explain the complex metaphor of organizational success as represented by companies like General Electric and BMW. GE, one of the last century’s most successful organizations, is off to a great start in this century. Much has been written about the leadership of Jack Welch, but what has had less media time is the organization’s extensive reliance on social networks long in place. GE sustains organizational success decade after decade with different CEOs, thanks in great part to its fostering and effective use of those networks.

GE is an organization that knows its culture. The leadership knows and understands the culture’s strengths and weaknesses, the portfolio’s capabilities, and the reach and strength of its human resource network across all businesses and functions. Within the culture are protected core values that are nourished and promulgated among every incoming generation of employees. The behaviors and performance requirements are clear and practiced from the top of the organization to every level below.

Therefore the management of directional tipping points such as the recent commitment to eco-imagination resound quickly and efficiently, setting a major organization in a new direction supported inherently and completely by its extraordinarily connected networks and functions. This is only the most recent example of a strategic tipping point shifting the cultural energy of a major company toward its next success agenda. Stephenson’s theory elegantly explains how a company like GE could succeed over generations of leaders. She points out that “networks, more than hierarchy and more than markets, make culture what it is and what it can be.” (Chapter 5 in manuscript).

GE has done a great job of creating social networks through its management development curriculum. Its more than 60 year history of management development programs like Financial Management, HR Management, Manufacturing Management, Executive Development Course or Management Development Course at Crotonville, etc. have created informal networks that get things done. These programs attract the top cadre of people who become the leaders of businesses over time. What you become at GE is a function of who you knew when. The transfer of people across divisions and functions has also kept networking alive and robust. Plus, there is the annual ritual of the senior management meeting every January in Boca Raton. The value of networking at this major event is well known. So in GE, a big measure of knowing you’ll “make it” is “When do I get to go to Boca Raton?”

Karen Stephenson talks about how trust fuels networks and then how feed and sustain a culture. Networks are a tool of culture at GE. The GE culture is fed by the shared values of its members. The company’s selection process is about seeking people who fit the GE mold. And the de-selection process is about ridding the organization of those who don’t fit. “Session C” at GE, the discussion of the characteristics of top-level executives, is a way of ensuring that the folks who don’t fit the culture leave while the networks support the rest.

Essentially, networks of trust at work are ways of keeping a company moving forward through the sharing of information, confidence, knowledge, best practices. An organization’s ability to use and promote such networks is key to its success, though it’s a key that is often overlooked. It is easy to look at GE and see only a charismatic figure like Jack Welch, but in reality it’s the ebb and flow of information and trust shared by a complex web of people that keeps a company on course and nourished by a thriving culture. The four books we have examined, taken together, provide a roadmap to understanding those networks. Networks can be difficult to see, but once you spot them, you’ll never look at an organizational chart -- or ever think of “culture” -- the same way again.

See more about Dr. Karen Otazo at:
http://www.globalleadershipnetwork.com

About The Author
Dr. Karen Otazo is an author, consultant, global executive coach and thinking partner for multinational companies worldwide. http://www.globalleadershipnetwork.com

Project e-Play, Satisfying The Digital Thirst Of Social Networking Communities

As advancements in technology keep progressing at an incredible rate, our focus from the outside world seems to be getting narrower by the second. Have we as a society become distant from one another for the sake of "keeping up with technology?" From the looks of it, our world seems to be shrinking at an incredible rate too.

Or is it?

Due to our consistant technological graduations, society as a whole no longer depends on just one major screen for communication. We've graduated from the TV screen to the laptop, PC, ipod, and cell phone screens. Better yet, as we move forward into constant technological upgrades, we find ourselves standing on an integrated platform of multi-media screens.

This is evidence that we have completely graduated from an informational age into a communicational era. This graduation has created our current evolution, the phenomena of an increasing digital society. Today, each individual has multiple opportunities of making their personal world much bigger than they could have ever imagined. The average Westerner today has more friends than two years ago. The rise is attributed to the explosion in social networking sites and communication phenomena such as email, instant messaging and multi-media screens.

Social networking has clearly become a juggernaut in the online marketplace. It has become an arena for individuals or organizations to blend with one another with ideas, interests, values, financial exchanges, or just simply friendships.

People today, more than ever before, have a digital thirst to participate and communicate with one another through social networking communities. This movement is completely evident in the increasing population of social networks like YouTube and MySpace. Today, when you take a serious look at MySpace, it is clearly obvious that its massive population is large enough to form its own country. What is more interesting about this movement is that it is still heading towards exponential growth. For anyone willing to enhance their online game experience , primarily serious entrepreneurs and online game players, on the social networking growth will be greatly rewarded for doing so.

One major example of an unprecedented growth opportunity is the online game skill arena. The ability to challenge, play, and test personal online game skills with anyone in the world, will catch on fire amongst the social networking arenas. The digital code for this trend will be completely viral and will be boosted by a massive explosion of digital thirst amongst current and upcoming social networks. Virtual World Direct recognizes that the interactive nature of Social Networking sites keeps visitors coming back again and again. If you try to monetize this market of people wanting to have fun playing online games as well as having their own web space/blog and being able to talk to each other live, the potential is staggering. Well, that is exactly what you will have.

For savvy entrepreneurs and online game players, this will be one of today's modern gold rush.

As a matter of fact, a European Internet Analyst, Alex Burmaster, Nielsen/NetRatings (a global leader in Internet media and market research) said, "Take the fact that the online games sector is growing at four times the rate of overall Internet growth together with the increasing numbers online and it is easy to see why companies such as MTV Networks are looking to get a piece of the action."

Now let's stop right there. Imagine for a second, a current online sector that is rapidly growing four times faster that the internet! To give you an idea of what that means and to really put it into context, recent figures from analyst firm DFC Intelligence said that the worldwide online games market is forecasted to grow from $3.4 billion USD in 2005 to over $13 billion USD in 2011.

Currently, the online skill game market has a worth of approximately $5.2 billion USD. That easily equates to a worth of $164 USD per second, and in the next 156 weeks is expected to grow to $412 USD per second of every minute of every day, and growing.

These numbers cannot be ignored.

As an entrepreneur, and/or online game player, the timing couldn't have been any better to position yourself in front of a market that is expected to grow to a worth of $412 every second.

The beauty about this rare movement is the timing and the massive crave that can be created purely from the digital thirst of challenging friends and contacts to games, all in the mix of social networking.

Now imagine being able to be part of this powerful medium, and even better, use it to fuel your new online skill games and entertainment experience. To illustrate the appeal of this industry, Internet Café's derive 30-40% of their revenue from people playing games online. The focus on online skill games is growing immensely throughout the world, the virtual world.

Well, imagine no more. eVolution has stepped up to the plate and is bringing the online game sector to serious entrepreneurs and online game players who want to play games, get paid, and have fun in the process. The digital code has been cracked to the online game sector, social networking communities, and social marketing/network marketing 2.0 industries.

The Project that consists of fun, entertainment, social networking, and online game challenging will be the e-play code of a colossal digital society.

About The Author
Dr. Ricardo Lalama is a home based entrepreneur teaching people how to have their very own effective online home business. For more information on the Project e-Play Code, visit http://www.whoisdrlalama.com/evo

Getting Sucked Into Social Networking

The 21st century saw the boom of the social networking industry. Online social communities have formed and flourished, bridging that space between and among people from different ages, race, and gender. Dozens of social networking sites are now catering to the hobbies and interests of millions of users all over the world.

Social networking began with Classmates.com in 1995. This site’s goal is to help its members find, connect, keep in touch, and form a network with friends and acquaintances from preschool through college, from work, or from the military.

Unlike other networking sites that gained popularity in recent years, Classmates.com uses real names instead of screen names. It also has a rigid privacy policy - the contact information of the member is never revealed within the network unless disclosed one on one by the account owner to another member.

Another social network, SixDegrees.com, emerged in 1997. SixDegrees allows its users to send messages or post bulletins to a list of friends or family members found within their network. SixDegrees faced its early demise four years later, just as the Friendster online community was starting to flourish.

With Friendster, you can invite and add as many friends as you want. You can also upload photos, write blogs and reviews, instant-message other members from your network, and form online groups with those who share the same interests as you have.

At present, Friendster’s social network has more than 40 million registered users. Until around April 2004, Friendster was on the top lead among dozens of other social networking sites. MySpace overtook Friendster in terms of page views, and many other social networking sites like Multiply and Hi5.

MySpace is one of the most popular websites in the Internet these days. Just like Friendster, it allows you to collect a network of friends and share blogs, photos, music, and videos with them. This social networking website is very much popular on English speaking countries, while most people from Asia prefer to use Friendster. MySpace already has more than a hundred million members in 2006.

The two major search engines, Google and Yahoo!, have launched their own social networking sites - orkut and Yahoo! 360°. Most blogging sites also allow you to create a network of friends online.

The thing is, most social networking sites work similarly – they all allow users to expand their network by inviting friends or acquaintances and to share information over the Internet. When you post blogs or files in your account, everyone from your network of friends will be informed of the update through RSS feeds. You also have the option to keep a particular post private to just a few individuals in your network.

Social networks are the best way to increase the number of people in which you are connected with, so if you are into business, you might as well get yourself into social networking to promote your product and increase your sales.

You can choose from hundreds social networking websites available in the web today. However, you might prefer to use a particular networking site in which a lot of your personal friends and contacts are already members. In this way, it’s much easier for you to expand your network and share the contents of your site to other users.

About The Author
Matthew Bredel is the owner of TheWebReviewer: http://www.thewebreviewer.com, Home Based Business Reviews, and http://www.netwebvideo.com: Home Based Business Lessons. Matt currently is located in Southern California and is married with two children.

Social Networking - Do You Practice Netiquette?

Over the years, the beauty of the Internet has opened many different doors pertaining to socializing, networking, and the overall art of communication. Today, computer users of all ages are exploring the possibilities associated with chat rooms, discussion boards, forums, and online personals. Sending emails, instant messaging family and friends, and relaying text messages across the World Wide Web are also popular forms of contact. Despite the fact that users are unseen behind the guise of their computer, there is still a written and unwritten code of conduct that exists about the Internet.

Even in the world of online communication, one may offend, confuse, and irritate the people they send emails to or speak with in a chat room. Just as you participate in face-to-face communication, you are often aware of the way you move your body, execute hand gestures, or raise your voice. When contacting others across the Internet, there are also certain messages conveyed through the way you type out your thoughts. One of the most irritating online habits involves the use of all-caps when typing to others. Not only are long strings of capped words a strain on the eyes to read, but is often viewed as "shouting."

When typing emails or chatting with others while online, spelling and grammar really does count in not only making people see your side of things, but also promoting intelligent and free-flowing conversation. Usually, glaring spelling mistakes cause a distraction and confusion in correspondences. Additionally, just because you attempt to avoid making spelling errors and lapses in grammar – doesn’t mean you have the right to criticize others for their poor use of the English language. It is highly suggested to ignore the spelling mistakes of others and concentrate on the way you communicate while online.

Additional email etiquette rules include the avoidance of sending or forwarding junk mail and Internet hoaxes, forwarding virus warnings (which are sometimes hoaxes), replying to all recipients of a collectively sent email, and sending unnecessarily large attachments.

There are also plenty of "netiquette" issues to recognize when communicating with others in online communities (chat rooms and forums). One of the first things to do when joining a chat room, forum, or other online group is familiarize oneself with the rules or guidelines of the service. This practice comes in rather handy and helps one avoid any future online confrontations or misunderstandings.

At all times, your privacy should be protected, as well as other members of the online community. It is unwise to use full names in chat room correspondences and is rude to ask the full names of those you come in contact with. Staying on topic is also a rule of Internet etiquette. For instance, if you have joined a chat room community regarding model airplanes, it is often inappropriate to start sharing your marital problems with others. Using offensive language is warned against and is usually punished (suspension or ban).

When chatting, it is also suggested to keep messages short and present information in the most concise manner. Also, a common practice is to use abbreviations, but not everyone is familiar with the current lingo and this should be kept in mind – the abbreviation of your words and phrases should be used sparingly.

Overall, it is suggested to treat communication across the Internet in the same manner that you like to receive correspondences. Usually, the things that irritate you are the same actions others dislike as well.

About The Author
Linda Allen is the co-founder of GirlfriendsCafe, a popular social networking site for women throughout the United States and Canada. http://www.girlfriendscafe.com