Social tools’ usage and potential are far from have been completely explored. This is a fact. Besides their original use – Social Networking for friend aggregation or Social Bookmarking for common bookmarks shared on a webpage – there are subsequent effects and results that have derived from the constant use and reinterpretation of social tools. One specifically comes as a result of peer pressure, generation Y and the Youniverse theory – the rise of a civic and social conscience on the Web.

Surely you’ve come across P. Diddy’s campaign “Vote or Die”. A political service group, Diddy’s group Citizen Change aimed at getting young people to vote. Exercising civic duties is a lost art on younger generations who grew under the influence of disappointed, entertainment driven parents whose disbelief in politicians and economical system influenced the younger people to just not care. Following the words of Bart and Lisa Simpson – “We’re the MTV Generation. We feel neither highs nor lows.” Well, they couldn’t be farther from the truth – this generation simply lacked the necessary tools and influential peer to actually push towards a more civic mind.. Continue reading ‘For a better World… The Social Tools’ True Purpose’

Social Bookmarking Websites are definitely a trend – most of the techies/geeky receive a feed from one SBW every day, telling them what’s the new buzz, what’s the news with the Iphone in Yugoslavia or the best top 10 reasons to stop questioning your parents. But, with the rise of new competitors to the market that bring new added value, are SBW going down the same path Newspapers went – from source of news to shallow tabloids?. Continue reading ‘Natural Evolution – The Top Ten Iphone Replacements That Microsoft Wants [PIC]‘

Browsing through the Internet demanded originally some previous knowledge when you wanted to find something. Sites were scarce and they were too oriented towards information depots – you knew that there was a clear distinction between real life and the virtual web, as contents you’d find in one were different and required specific search logic to find it. I’m talking about the time of the Web 1.0, of course, where you could find some static non-interactive information regarding your traveling needs, for example.

The evolution in the Web was so amazing that searching for information on any given search engine is a natural input of keywords – users no longer have to devise careful anagrams and keyword combinations to find the page they needed. Essentially, they have to think what they need, type it in and find it. This shows how the fusion of the virtual and real world has evolved – you know you’ll find those tickets you need, the hotel you want to book and information regarding what other users thought about the services you are using.

This leaves a lot of room open for the transition of offline services to the online world – that’s what people are expecting to find – but, of course, taking in account the whole sociological and societal evolution that is occurring online. In this logic, a great amount of services online are appearing in a daily basis, taking advantage of the tools and spirit the users are immersed.

This entire introduction serves as a basis to explain a type of website that is a perfect example of real world meets virtual world in web 2.0 logic – Social Lending Sites or Microlenders. I’m not talking about lending services for objects or services – I’ll approach those on another post. The Peer-to-peer lending focuses on two axis – people who have money to lend and people who want to borrow money. Each user is a bank on its own and can gain interest off a loan while users who want “small” amounts and that wouldn’t be eligible for a loan in a real bank have an opportunity to get that investment cash! Continue reading ‘Can I borrow a dime? – P2P Lending Sites’

Online audiences nowadays require a study of its own. That’s just how important they have become. No longer are we just limited to targeting the offline targets with the purpose of bringing them online – the online publics are actually developing a persona of their own, emphasizing the user enhanced experience that can categorize them into groups that share a culture and purpose in their surfing experience. Sure, this might be obvious for some, but considering the time that Web 2.0 actually exists and the current amount of interactions that occur in it, it is a very short time for this audience to actually have developed a behavioral pattern of their own.

Where is this most obvious? Well, in my personal opinion, I’d say Social Networking. Sure, it might sound cliché to mention it once more in a post in this blog, but face it – we’re Trendwatchers and there’s nothing trendier than Social Networking nowadays. Brands are developing strategies taking in consideration Social Networking Websites, adjusting their functionalities and presence according to two factors: the nature of the Website itself – such as a personal brand page in Myspace like it was a regular user or adding a Facebook utility to enhance the users’ interaction with the Brand – or the profile of the Social Networking users themselves. Both these factors require an article of its own, so I’ll begin with the most interesting one for me- the profile of this online audience. Continue reading ‘Social Networking Profiling Part 1 – The Consumers’