Tom Altman’s Wedia Conversation

I found an interesting post over at SocialMediaToday about “6 types of social networking user“

An extensive social networking research project commissioned by MySpace has identified a host of emerging trends and tribes that the website says have previously gone undetected by the mainstream.

There are so many posts about how young people give away too much information about themselves with social networking and user generated content sites.

The amount of data collected by services like Facebook and MySpace is immense. At no point in history has so much personal information and content been aggregated and shared in the fashion that these types of services make possible. Online privacy has been a hot-button issue for some time, but the evercreepier assaults on privacy (like Facebook’s Project Beacon) have created ever-stronger calls for more online privacy laws and protections.

While I really think people have to be conscious about what they post, but I think we really have to try and understand that the younger generations are not like old ones. These dudes and dudettes have grown up being more expressive and are OK with information being available.

Sometimes there is something to be said for people who have full transparency - it’s the old concept of the devils I do know about are better than the devils you don’t know about!

Social Media Today had a short article called “Get a Facebook Strategy” which had some interesting numbers:

According to data on Alexa:
• 1/3 of all web visitors in August 07 visited MySpace
• 1/7 of all web visitors in August 07 visited Facebook
• 5 of the top 10 sites in the world are all Web 2.0 sites
• ½ of the top 30 sites are all social networking sites

And also ideas on social networking strategy.

In general, you need to think of these social networks as a way of people interacting with your own brand so why not leave a trail of digital breadcrumbs back to your brand by using widgets from other applications to dress up your Facebook profile!

Wired magazine posted this article “Web 2.0 Project Taps ‘Wisdom of the Crowd’ to Probe Presidential Contenders” last week and although it seems to have a bit of the youtube debate flavor - it could prove to be very interesting.

The web-hip “community-driven” presidential debates touted by the television networks have been a disappointment so far. The events may use voter-submitted videos, instant messages and e-mails, but all that packet juice is poured into the same old, tired broadcast formula that appoints journalists as the arbiters of which questions candidates are asked — and relies on the usual small circle of pundits to analyze the answers.

We’ll have to keep an eye on it and see where it leads.

MySpace was THE social network that started much of the Web 2.0 social hype. This is a great quote from the mashable site “If you asked most MySpace-haters what’s their problem with the service, they’d probably say: it’s ugly. Meanwhile, people tell us they are switching from Twitter to Pownce because it’s prettier and easier to use. For those who prize beauty above all else, we brought together 10 of the prettiest social networks.”

So take a look and see what you think.