Amplified 08 – connecting the dots in the social media maze

Yesterday I went along, like the rest of the Twiterrati, to Amplified 08 at the HQ of NESTA. Amplified is the new brain child of NESTA and Toby Moores (founder of Sony game Buzz whom I recently interviewed for a fascinating piece ‘in the mind of the serial disruptive innovator’ for a project for Creative Sheffield). It bills itself as a ‘network of networks’ that connects people from around the country who are developing leading-edge thinking in using social media technologies.

Around 200 people were there from a surprisingly broad range of disciplines – teachers, media producers, techno geeks, citizen journalists - a mix of ages and personalities but with a strong male bias. A fairly lose structure of discussions made for a somewhat chaotic space – having been to the OneMedia open space conference recently I found the sheer volume of people here a bit unwieldy to really have useful conversations – but in general the spirit and the ideas were full of vibrancy and excitement to connect and share ideas, and it was nice to put some names to faces and meet new folks outside of my usual digital media bubble.

The sessions were as diverse as the attendees, but tended to focus on changing the world a bit by changing a bit of the world, and what web tools can do to enable that. I popped into quite a few – some were really useful like Online Video, others a bit unstructured and meandering so I think it pays for session curators to be a bit better prepared to present their ideas to help focus the discussion. There’s probably a learning curve here and some delegate education needed on how to successful do open space or semi-curated events like this so people get the best out of it. We were all told to tweet after each session so there are heaps of tweets you can trawl through here.

On the whole I found it probably a bit too ahead-of-the-curve for my own more commercially focused practice (yes, me is un-cool consultant) – and sometimes I wonder if it’s best to go to ‘what you know’ where you can contribute and learn more or to throw yourself into the least relevant and known subject to see what you can learn. I did a bit of both – maybe at the next one I’ll throw myself into the deep end and go to more of the blogging-will-change-the-world instead of is-home-taping-killing-music sessions I usually choose.

I bumped into Toby then next morning at Tuttle London – many of the Amplified Individuals were somewhat muted after a night of boozing. Whereas I went over to a church hall in Leytonstone to film a pop video dressed as a school mistress (I kid you not – coming soon!) til the wee hours instead. Toby says the next step is to hold regular networks across the country to start to connect the dots – with sessions in the Midlands, South Coast, London, the North and maybe other places too. Hopefully the Amplified network will somehow will feed into my own plans to improve the connectivity and networking of creative thinkers in my hometown of Nottingham.

DMEX Cross-media Exchange for North West Freelancers

I’m very pleased to announce I am working on a new project with The White Room, a progressive new creative and digital consultancy based in Manchester where we’ll be giving 20 North West TV and media freelancers a unique opportunity to work on a paid 20 day work placement, workshop and mentoring programme to help them working in digital production and cross-platform environments.  Exciting stuff – the North West are definitely ahead of the pack here in skills for the digital age.  Here’s the blurb:

The White Room have been commissioned by Northwest Vision & Media to run a cross-media exchange programme, commencing in October 2008. This is your chance to get involved.

Northwest Vision & Media, the regional screen agency, are committed to developing the skills of its digital and creative workforce to compete in the increasingly digital media age where cross-platform and 360 degree commissioning, digital marketing strategies and online video are blurring the lines between the skills needed to produce ‘old’ and ‘new’ media.

DMeX Cross Sector Exchange is a new pilot programme, which will lead the North West in a pioneering approach to work placement training, linking the wisdom and skills of traditional media producers and placing them in digital production environments, with the opportunity to get paid to work on live briefs for cutting edge projects, along with high level master classes and mentoring from leading digital industry pioneers.

If you’re intrigued by Twitter, Linked In with many social networks and have heard about and now want to experience Second Life, commercial blogging, vlogging, virals, digital distribution and production skills – DMeX will help you with the knowledge and real-world experience to go digital.

This programme is designed for broadcast or film media production professionals (TV, radio, film or corporate video) with at least 3 years production experience and the equivalent job title of assistant producer or producer, assistant director, script writer/editor, vision mixers, animators, camera or crew.

The programme takes place from November 2008 to March 2009 in a flexible delivery period, in response to opportunities to deliver live client projects and allowing for a range of types of learning to fit in around your other work commitments.

We are recruiting 20 media professionals for this pilot programme.  They will undertake a paid (BECTU and PACT equivalent rates for a 37.5 hour week) placement within companies whose core business is producing digital content. The White Room are currently recruiting for this project which runs from November 08 to March 09.

If you are interested in getting a placement, please call or email Susi O’Neill on 07981 222799 or send your C.V and covering letter to susi@thewhiteroomcec.com to register your interest.

For further information on the programme, email dmex@visionandmedia.co.uk

What do I get?

• A training diagnostic planning session to identify your development needs in working in digital environments Opportunity to learn skills vital to producing media in digital age
• A paid 4 week work placement at a NW digital business working on a live brief.
• Individual training and development plan.
• Attendance at 3 master class seminars with leading digital industry pioneers to offer handson experience and Q&A on topics including Digital Commissioning, Pitching, IP and Collaboration.
• Access to an individual mentor with senior experience in digital environments.
• Access to the on-line DMeX learning resource Access to all training and resources with encouragement and support to record your placement and training through blogging and video diaries.
• Opportunity to participate in a virtual worlds collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University MA Creative Writing tutors to produce a digital short with Moviestorm or in Second Life.
• Become part of a network of Freelancers and leading Digital Companies in the NW The support of dedicated programme co-ordinators to ensure you have ongoing benefits from the programme.

How do I get it?

Call me – Susi O’Neill on 07981 222799 or send your C.V and covering letter to susi@thewhiteroomcec.com to register your interest.

About Northwest Vision and Media

Northwest Vision and Media works on behalf of the TV, film, radio, digital and games industries in the North-west to grow a world-class media economy within the region. We provide strategic leadership, help to build businesses, develop skills and talent, encourage and invest in production and inspire audiences. Find out more at www.visionandmedia.co.uk
Northwest Vision and Media is funded by the UK Film Council, the Northwest Regional Development Agency,
European Funds, Skillset, local, city and council authorities across the region.

Interactive Drama: The State Of Play

“Movies, television, DVD, internet. It’s all the same thing, just different configurations…it’s an incredible landscape.” Quincy Jones, Film Producer

Described by The Simpsons creator Matt Groening as “a funny film-making genius”, Hazel Grian, Creative Director of Licorice Films, has been at the sharp end of cutting edge new forms of interactive content, including Alternative Reality Gaming and online drama. In November 2007 I caught up with Hazel in Bristol to chew the fat on her involvement in KateModern, the first drama commissioned by a social network, and the state and future of the strange-shaped genre known as interactive drama.
(NB: This is a bastardisation of what was originally an academic essay so forgive the over icing of the digital cake.)

Convergence of television and the internet

Marshall McHuhan, the guy who dubbed the wired world the “global village”, believes the content of any new medium is actually from an old one. This certainly applies to the recent phenomenon of online video and the convergence between broadcast television, digital television and online content.

Television has become a predictable, institutional ‘old’ media – but its original ambitions were akin to those of interactive media today – immersion, extension and communication. Its form has evolved through its history – a storytelling medium enabled by technology. Television is considered a ‘push’ medium – like print and newspapers – whereas the internet is a ‘pull’ or search medium, its take-up dominated by communication over publishing.

Convergence disrupts the tripartite relationship of print, telecoms and broadcast. Broadband offers the ‘multiplexing’ of TV, potentially an additional video platform (e.g. 4oD, iPlayer) but also an enriched, additional experience.

Throughout the 1980s and 90s audiences became more active, critically aware and discriminating. This has led to a rejection of television in favour of genres exploring interactivity, niche interests and virtual reality where viewing is replaced by active participation.

Cross-platform content creates permeable boundaries and intertextuality between forms, blurring the boundaries between producer, distributor, consumer and reviewer. Content is not always top down publisher-led, but blogs, chat rooms and message boards create a market for perishable, instant content. Interactivity also allows for emotive, collective participatory experiences.

Also dubbed “transmedia” storytelling or “polymorphic narrative”, multi-platform creates different entry points into the product’s heavily franchised world. And many platforms equates to more cash – there are more platforms for a brand than ever before. But it’s not a noughties phenomenon: “Wizard of Oz” was a book (1900) then a stage play (1902), then a film in 1910 and 1939, which spawned variations like “The Wiz” and “Wicked”. The heavy corporate hand has been a part of transmedia rich history; the first Broadway production of Oz featured its own sponsor placement content: the Irish wizard sings “Budweiser is a friend of mine”.

Interactive drama – a brief history

Online interactive drama is a synthesis of broadcast drama, live role play, game play and interactive social media, relying heavily on a sense of user engagement, interactivity and playfulness. However, interactivity creates a dilemma of intellectual property – who ‘owns’ the content, therefore who can exploit and monetise it? Fan fiction – cultural fan production – especially creates added dilemmas. Harry Potter Puppet Pals, a totally unauthorised puppet response to the films and novels of JK Rowling, is gathering quite a following of its own thanks to bottom-up user platforms like YouTube.

Interactive drama is an evolving phenomenon, relatively immature in its development. The first experiments (2001-5) were single platform with “Wheel of Fortune” (2001), broadcast simultaneously on Radio 3, Radio 4 and online where viewers were told to ‘bet now’ to access 90 million possible permutations of the story. This complex, futuristic approach was later replaced with the controlled and easily understood method of voting – viewers chose between three ‘voices’ in Radio 4’s “The Dark House” (2003) voting on a love triangle on Five’s “Family Affair” (2004) and a life or death ending in “Casualty” (BBC1, 2005).

The next wave (2005-7) productions were more truly interactive, exploiting the nuances of the internet. Nickelodeon’s CGI animated “Jimmy Neutron” was an early 360 degree cross-platform application – existing on TV, video, comic, internet and film. BBC’s “Jamie K” and “Wanabees” (2006), both aimed at teens, could be seen as the first interactive dramas – ‘broadcast’ online, allowing the characters’ ‘friends’ (online viewers) to vote and build up ‘friendship scores’.

During this period, broadcast drama became increasingly cross-platform e.g. “Dr Who” (BBC) online games relating to plotlines, “Hollyoaks” (Channel 4) enhanced content on mobile phones and “Skins” (E4) mini-‘webisodes’ available online. Interactivity allowed for deeper character development and for users to interact more intensively than in the weekly broadcast of a typical TV soap opera.

“Dubplate Drama” (2005), commissioned by E4 and MTV Base, was an interactive format for TV, similar to the 1980s publishing phenomenon of Bantam’s “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. A six-part gritty urban drama about grime musicians, it starred urban celebrities Miss Dynamite and Rodney P (So Solid Crew) and was available on 3 mobile network and Sony’s PSP. Each episode ended in a dilemma cliff hanger, encouraging viewers to text in what they should do next. The producers believed the social element of the drama as a means of getting teenagers to discuss complex social issues.

Kate Modern – drama played out online

KateModern is an online, interactive drama commissioned by Bebo – the UK’s most popular social networking site with 31 million users, predominantly youth and teen. Bebo proves a great proposition for marketers: users spend on average 41 minutes online, making it a more “sticky” platform than television, and a means of reaching the lucrative teen market, turning off their TVs in droves.

Aimed at teens, it is part-comedy, part-drama, part-mystery (described as “a kind of Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Skins”) telling the story of troubled art student Kate and her three friends. Running from July to December 2007, users can send messages to the characters, help solve puzzles, vote and generally participate in the story. The interactivity is principally through the Bebo network rather than the ‘vote now’ model, however, few episodes are shot at a time, allowing for user feedback to be accommodated within a defined plot arc. This is a revolution from the pre-digital means of influencing drama where a letter to the editor or BBC’s “Points of View” (featuring the ever-youthful Anne Robinson and her infuriating wink) would be the primary form of viewer feedback (other than voting with the off switch).

KateModern is produced by the team behind the Lonelygirl15 phenomenon – the most subscribed YouTube channel showing the diaries of an attractive American teen who becomes embroiled in cult activities – which intrigued and frustrated new media exponents and marketers, and was later revealed to be staged.

Set in London and boasting a cast including Ralf Little (“The Royle Family”), it combines the inter­activity of social networking – where fans can do everything from commenting on episodes to interacting with characters – with scripted “webisodes”. It is a UK sister series to Lonelygirl15 - aping its ideas of an undercurrent of horror, cult themes and humours – but KateModern stays in the realm of fiction, encouraging the intense quasi-realistic relationships between viewers and makers in soap operas.

Live events including concerts and “flash mobs” link the real with the fictitious world. Actual up-and-coming band, “The Days” feature in the plot, with the intent of leaving viewers guessing what is real and what is fiction.

With a speculated £1 million budget – similar to a comparable terrestrial drama series – KateModern is commissioned by Bebo and financed by sponsors including MSN, Pantene, Gillette and Orange who have difficulty reaching a youth market on TV. Unlike typical film and TV product placement, the brands are integrated into characters’ dialogues and plotlines. This links with recent advertising trends of integrated marketing, brand profile and below-the-line marketing e.g. ‘seeding’ discussion of brands in internet chat rooms. Paramount Pictures UK used the drama to get characters to discuss plotlines from their new horror film “Disturbia” and episodes mirrored the film’s plot and themes.

The writing team behind KateModern are Luke Hyams (“Dubplate Drama”) and Hazel Grian. Hazel has a varied background as an actress, writer and director in TV, theatre, short films, animation and radio, working particularly in improvisation, comedy and science fiction. Prior to KateModern she created MeiGeist, an Alternative Reality Game, collaborating with HP Labs and Watershed Media Centre, which was the first to use video in addition to actors, live events and online game play. Regular short-listing in Watershed’s Depict! 90 second film challenge was a good learning ground for things to come.

Luke and Hazel’s writing process started with a sketch of characters and the same genre and rules as LonelyGirl15. Unlike TV soaps, each episode was micro, condensed and variable length, running from one to four minutes (15 to 20 minutes of content a week). The narrative presents a single vision (i.e. each episode is self-contained) and linearity but recognising it may be experienced in non-linear fashion, and to appeal to the ‘YouTube generation’ who prefer short bursts of activity and will likely fast-forward what they see as ‘the boring bits’.

The directing is intentionally lo-fi ‘guerilla’ style, with no ‘hidden cameras’ but video diary style, with characters seen reportage recording on mini-DV cameras and mobile phones, with intentionally staged ‘pieces to camera’ rather than the usually ‘fourth wall’ theatre or television drama approach. The production is more similar to user generated content video uploaded to YouTube than “Play of the Day”.

Hazel’s greatest challenge as a writer was working with sponsor brands to make product integration fit with the show’s dark material – like reflecting Ralph Little’s excitement at installing a wireless router and integrating references to Tampax (‘What, is she on her period again?!’). Hazel believes:

“The advertiser dominated framework made me experience what it was like to work in 1950s television on the original advertiser soap operas.”

Some product placement worked better than others as a natural synergy between brands and actions e.g. Live Maps and MSN Messenger – but the constant ‘name checks’ can grate on the viewer. The character Charlie works in PR and creates viral adverts for brands within the narrative, making the advertising self-referential.

Hazel believes interactivity creates a richer user experience – a role play between audience and producer. It creates a new dimension and depth of exploration with a story, from ‘lurkers’ to active participants and hardcore fans. It also creates a complex relationship – Babylon 5 producer J Michael Straczinski went online daily responding to fans posts. Hazel posted ‘in character’ as Kate, responding to fans posts and messages (she later trained a junior web producer to do this). Interactivity and reaction is essential to the dramatic believability of the form. Hazel believes that future audiences:

“…will not simply be ‘viewing’ or ‘watching’ interspersed with an injection of hated, in your face advertising. What you will be producing for your audiences must be commissioned and sponsored ‘experiences’. Film and television will have the feel of live theatre. Cinema and radio with the feel of a conversation.”

The show’s Executive Producer, Miles Beckett, believes “viewers interact with the characters in a way which is impossible with television.” Yet the rules of ‘old media’ drama are still tightly obeyed: “We have very consistent conflict, resolution, cliff hanger at the end of the week, A-plot action, B-plot character and interpersonal development.”

The jury is out on the popularity of KateModern. Although scoring three million views in its first eight weeks, in interactive media, the depth of interaction is more significant than numbers and viewer’s belief in the show’s authenticity could be compromised with its overt in-your-face productisation. All sponsors have signed for a second season, indicating they belief the association is boosting their brand. KateModern is a microcosm of contemporary entertainment convergence –interlinking localisation (based in London), regionalisation (a UK version of a US format) and globalisation (distributed to a potential global audience).

Hazel believes the future of interactive drama will be a TV-style model of broadcaster fee with core sponsors, not product placements. She is currently working on a production with Henry Normal/Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow productions sponsored by Ford. Rumours of a MySpace interactive drama at $400,000 per episode may be greatly exaggerated, but Bebo have already commissioned its next online hit: “Sofia’s Diary”.

Hazel believes comedy and parody work best for online drama – serious online drama doesn’t yet work yet as the medium itself is not yet considered serious. Interactive drama is still seminal and embryonic – investment and publicity is skewed more in its innovation than in meaningful content. But she remains optimistic of the future: “New roles are emerging from new forms of entertainment; I feel I am not at the forefront at an exciting time.”

The jury is likely to be out for some time on the uptake of interactive drama. The non-linearity of interactive drama may encroach a dramatic vision and never step out of the deepness of Hollyoaks. However, rich integration of character, personalised responses and the ability to influence action may in time prove a more rich medium, closer to emulating the emotive responsive of theatre than television or film. Many computer games already combine live action film or humanistic CGI characters within sophisticated interactive platforms, shaped by the user’s vision and their unique exploration of the game’s virtual world.

The trend for users migrating their time away from broadcasting and onto interactive platforms is likely to continue, and so will evolve how new hybrid medias work with audiences to create collective dialogues (e.g. MMROGs, social networks) and new interpretations of dramatic forms.

71% of Facebook users prefer their music digital

I was shocked to click on the ‘poll of the day’ link from my Facebook profile to the question: ‘How do you hear most of your music?‘

A stagering 37% gave iPod as their preference, and 31% computer. Adding a further 3% specifying satellite (digital) radio, this is a total of 71% of those polled prefering digitally distributed formats, against 30% prefering physical formats (radio 20%, CDs 10%).

Of the oldest age category (35 – 49), only 43% prefered digital to physical formats.
Of the youngest category (13-17), 77% prefered digital formats, and equally 77% of 17 – 24 years olds. However, their digital format preferences were converse, with 13-17 years (‘digital natives’) prefering iPods (48%) over computers (28%). They have little time for CDs (5%), but radio (19%) is more enduring than you’d think. Whereas 18-24 year olds equally like iPods (34%) and computers (34%), CDs were still more enduring (12%) but radio less so (17%).

I must be old – vinyl was not an option of the poll

Of the 1000 respondants, 81% were under 25, with a male bias, fitting Facebook’s typical demographic, and are naturally techno-savvy users.

This clearly shows that the next generation of workers, employers and voracious media consumers will abandon physical products in favour of the volume and convenience of digital distribution. The music industry must create models to promote talent and incentivise sales, licensing, and experiences with music and artists which take into account high volume, low value distribution. This may potentially include advertising-funded digital downloads.

Check out Andrew Dubber’s excellent New Music Strategies Manifesto for tips to survive as a music business in the digitally-distributed music age. Andrew warns:

“At present many music businesses are attempting to dry their hair with a toaster, which kind of works — but it’s not ideal. What they really should be doing is collaborating with technologists to invent the hairdryer.”

Guide to social networks for creativity (or ‘I finally found a use for LinkedIn’)

This lengthily-titled (and length) post is about two things – creativity and social networks. Like many of my peers (and other self-proclaimed digital experts), social networks are both an intrinsic part of ‘building your online brand’, but also a neat thing to play around with, whether you’re a cyberspace digital geek, or a real-world social networker (who would have thought digital technology could connect two such diverse groups?).

So here’s my subjective take on the three I’ve used the most – LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace – and how they work (or not) for me to promote the different strands of my business.

LinkedIn

Particularly since the meteoric rise of Facebook, I’ve come to question, what exactly is the point of LinkedIn? It is designed to: ’strengthen and extend your existing network of trusted contacts’. When I first used it in 2004 it seemed well cool – freelancers or job-hunters could sponge up thousands of new contacts to boost their work, working on the ‘bow tie’ theory that it’s not your ‘inner circle’ of immediate friends, colleagues and family that get you work, it’s the much bigger grouping on the ‘outer circle’.

The problem is, LinkedIn doesn’t really DO anything – other social networks are about learning, connecting, joking and sharing – whereas the interactions of LinkedIn seem to be quite limited to just linking and…well that’s it. At least you don’t need to submit your ‘links’ work email now to connect (thus defeating the point of having a network which sits outside of your current job and transcends to past and future). You can pay to ‘get connected’ to the CEO of Sony Entertainment or whoever – but why would he/she want to read your email any more than if you’d sent it through their corporate website?

I conclude, LinkedIn is off the boil, its time has past. Even people I know who are very well connected tend to stick at 100-150 contacts. Mine is a mere pathetic 50 and no more people I know are using it. A network needs common identity and shared purpose, it can’t exist for its own sake. I guess the main problem with LinkedIn is it doesn’t feel very…well..friendly. It’s all about making ‘connections’, but not strengthening the human interaction behind those connections. I’d rather respond to a ‘thanks for the add’ friend request than a request to ‘get linked in’ – the call is not compelling. That said, it’s the most private of social networks and a great way to store all your email contacts in one place.

However lately I had a new revelation: you can use LinkedIn Answers to ask all your network, or indeed the whole community, a question – which is superb from a focus group/user-testing perspective. The questions tend to be quite highbrow, of the ‘How do we solve the problems of the Middle East?’ type or ‘Do CEOs of European VC backed technology companies get the necessary support, resources and time to succeed?‘ (hmm..axe to grind?). It’s useful for the question poser, but also a good brain-sharpener on those moments of downtime for CEOs of European VC-backed technology companies. Expect on average 15-20 answers from the global community within the week.

I answered an interesting question posed by James Stuart: What does creativity mean to you? Global answers ranged from:
“Creativity is the blending of imagination with reality.” (Marc Aniballi, Creative Technology Strategist)
“Creativity is an outcome of simple space and courage. The space that one needs to imagine, and then the courage to do.” (Abe Kasbo, CEO Versoni Worldwide)
“The ability to see things that can’t be seen yet and may never be” (Stephane Mot, Author and Chief Propagandist)
Through to…
“Creativity is what you do when your fly won’t zip up and your first-date is at the door.” (Edwin Hung, COO Utopia Printing)

I think what was interesting was the varied interpretations of the word creativity – some saw it as a force for innovation in business, some self-expressionism and an intrinsic part of the soul, others as a unique activity in itself (e.g. as in the ‘creative’ industries).

And look who won the swot prize for best answer

Anyway, here’s my LinkedIn profile – please become ‘linked’ to me as I need some more links/friends!

Facebook

I got into Facebook a few week back and, like many new converts, am hooked. The premise is, it’s like MySpace for students and (not really quite) grown-ups, where you link with your real life college friends and share photos, news, entertainment recommendations and sometimes turn them into a zombie (in the form of 1000s of games and silly plug-in applications you can install with one click for maximum goofing around).

What’s most amazing about how Facebook’s technology influences the community, is that every action you take, you send out a slug trail (or feed) to all of your Facebook friends (aka your real friends) telling them you’ve joined a group, made a new friend, posted an announcement etc. This is an amazingly intuitive way of sharing fun, light bits of transient knowledge (a bit like Twitter, which I see as being part and parcel of the Facebook type of social networks) – particularly as the feeds only stay live for a couple of days – thus the need to log back in regularly to see what’s happening in your personalised community.

Rather than write a formal email requiring a formal response, I can post a ‘hows tricks?’ email to a friend or colleague through their Facebook email or write on their ‘wall’ (which will be visible to all, but you can only see the reply if you’re friends with both people corresponding), making communication more light, fluid, informal and fun. Of course, living your life so publicly can have big repercussions in protecting your identity (one in five employers admit to using Facebook to vet potential employees’ suitability).

Today, I found out that one friend in my locality is going to my local for Sunday lunch (handy if I wasn’t stuck 300 miles away due to the floods), some guys I used to be in a band with are doing a gig, and an old friend is ‘no longer married’ and a work contact is ‘now single’ (the latter may be a result of a change to their profile as oppose to a final decree.). So here are my five tips tips for using Facebook:

1. If you value your privacy very highly, don’t use it
2. If you value privacy quite highly, don’t use a photo or join a regional network, and only link with people you really know and trust
3. Don’t put up anything you aren’t proud of doing, especially photos, or write about places or things (like work) you don’t want some people to know you’ve been to – i.e. keep it light!
4. Learn how to delete stuff off your mini-feed (grey cross) if you change something (like joining the Patridge Family Appreciation group) but you don’t want everyone to know.
5. Try and create an identity where you are around open people and can be open about the kind of person you are and the live you lead (desirable, but obviously not always possible).

The language, tone and main user groups for Facebook is under 25s US college students and alumni (e.g. how to I say I’ve worked as a contact/associate with someone but not at the same company?) – so how does it work as a business tool? As well as the ‘light touch’ informal contact, you could download the Happy Hour application and buy your real life contact a virtual drink – handy if you’re 100s of miles away! You could also pose a question to your group, as you can in LinkedIn, but it’s better to keep it more of the fun and frivolous rather than deep and meaningful (I was bitten by a zombie by a digital media colleague!) – and be careful you can guess your contacts share a similar humour. You can gain a deeper, richer idea of your clients/contacts through learning what they are up to – what their hobbies are, what films they like etc. It’s legal snooping! As a business tool, it’s better for younger people as oppose to more traditional colleagues or formal relationships, although, the Vice Chancellor of University of Bristol tells me he has a Facebook profile, and the recent contest for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party was described in the press as a ‘facebook off’ for popularity. For me, there needs to be more critical mass among my business contacts and more business-focused applications for it to be more useful, but it is growing.

Here’s my Facebook profile (or ‘I am not a number’).

MySpace

The mother-ship of all social networks, MySpace (aka MurdochSpace) is not just a website, it’s a terms used to describe a whole generation – the previous Generation X. But you’re not included. Except maybe you are. It accounts for 80% of all social networks traffic, is rumoured to have over 100 million worldwide users (though typically only 20% may be active at one time) , and was valued at $580 million when bought by NewsCorps in 2005. It’s total value could reach $15 billion within years, though on paper (or should that be wires?).

Money aside – what’s it for? Think: the social network with multimedia. You create a profile or identity (typically a pseudonym) and start off with a friend they give you called Tom (ditch him quick or he’ll skew your number of connection profiles). Then you search and hit ‘add to friends’ to connect with your real friends – and if you like, the bands, actors or people you admire (sometimes run by their labels, sometimes by fans or as parodies) and even make friends will people the world over you don’t yet know. You can upload, share and comments on videos, pictures and music and ‘tag’ your profile (like a teenager would their bedroom) with multimedia badges of interest, or ‘pimp my myspace‘ with some extra colour, backgrounds and HTML.

But where MySpace has come into its own is as a means of promoting new music – Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen claim to have been ‘created’ by MySpace, but remember they both had significant record deals at the tim. The website provided a good platform for promoting their music, cheaply, to an international audience.

I’m a musician and have a profile for my music on MySpace. As a musician, it’s indispensable. I like it because I know I can check out a band and always get the same ‘ingredients’ – four songs, pictures, a list of influences and friends, and a means of getting in touch – I can add or read comments if I want. (Although I wish people didn’t abuse their profiles with nasty background images and bad design – there’s no accounting for people’s tastes ) It saves going through a hard to navigate band website to find all that. I can ‘re-discover’ musical artists from the past, and new ones. It’s enabled me to hook up with ‘friends of friends’ and meet old bands I’ve played with or know from before in London. The downside is, lots of requests from people with tenuous connections musically, and I do like to check out all the requests I get to see whether I think they’re suitable or related enough to be a friend – I have my own ‘brand’ to consider and it becomes a time-consuming activity which may be distracted from me doing more direct forms of marketing.

From a commercial point of view, I haven’t found MySpace great for upselling music – I’ve only sold one CD through a MySpace contact. It tends to be a bit of a ‘free lunch’ scenario where people want it all for free. And the ‘rot’ has already set in with opportunistic pluggers using ‘friends’ profiles to post adverts (often dubious porn type content too) or general meaningless self promotion or the ubiquitous ‘thanks for the add’ message (post one of these and I will delete it!).

MySpace is much more about the mass connectivity than the more intimate experience of Facebook, it’s about a sense of playfulness, parody, and what I’d glibly call ‘youth’. But what’s the business benefit? I think it’s limited for most – if you have a youth brand (music venue, band, T-Shirt manufacturing, photographer) it’s an invaluable way of making links but the connection isn’t ‘deep’, it’s very surface level. The commissioning editors of Channel 5 all have MySpace profiles and other business figures – but it can be hard to control – competitors could post negative comments on your message board. If you can work the network and build up a significant volume of ‘leads’, you can message them through MySpace in a less intrusive way than email – but you’ll need extra software to navigate MySpace’s crumbling, poor and sluggish interfaces (it’s stuck in Web 1.9 rather than 2.0 and above as an online experience – frustrating). You can’t control your brand through the platform (one reason big advertisers have stayed away), but others can abuse it – my friends include Prince Harry and Cillit Bang man (from the advert), who has more friends than Gordon Brown (tag line: ‘don’t you wish your MP was hot like me?). Use MySpace as a platform if you have a product to showcase or you just want to use it as a means of ‘bookmarking’ interesting stuff.

Social networking: make it work for you

So these are my experiences – what about you? Let me know how you find these sites for your own business connections. Of course, I’m not being remiss by missing out YouTube, Flickr or Last FM etc. – while these are major social network sites, I see them more as platforms than communities – you go to YouTube to watch a video, not make a friend or business lead.

I don’t think the perfect tool is yet how there for business – but perhaps there never will be. Web 2.0 to 3.0 is much more about forming niche communities of interest, and perhaps that will be through existing portals and brands – e.g. Internet Movie Database (IMDB) builds a community around the existing names in its catalogue.

To make a social network effective for you, remember it is not ‘free’, like all contacts, you have to put in significant time into searching, seeking, cajoling and mining your friends’ friends contact to increase your network. But there’s no point in having 50,000 ‘friends’ as many MySpacers do (mainly through software like Badder Adder), each connection has to be meaningful and regularly nourished with extended contact – on and off line.

Not all social websites are for you – decide your goals, maybe as a means to ‘bookmark’ some work colleagues (they may stay with the network longer than their job) that is as fine as using one to announce your next divorce…