Social Networks Revolution

Social networks are revolutionizing the dot com era. Dot com companies connected the world from an infrastructure perspective but the human interaction due to a lack of web based applications resulted in a lull in productivity gains post dot com. Today, companies like CISCO and IBM along with Oracle and HP are developing and launching web 2.0 level solutions that provide the human experience leveraging the dot com investment of 10+ years ago and thus moving Social Networks faster and faster.

Social Networking Site: Get Motivated, Make New Friends & Take Part in Activities MotivatingMates.com is a social networking site designed to get you motivated, make new friends and take part in activities like running, climbing, golf, language swap, social/fundraising events etc. Record your goals, share motivational tips, create your own clubs, groups and multi media albums and plan the year ahead with the 'What's on Who's Going?' calendar of events.

The key to this phase is clearly the transformation and blending of voice and data. This is where the efforts of CISCO and their recently announced Telepresence experience is the right direction for social networks such as DirectMatches.Com which provides a leading edge social network out of Virginia. Is it all here now? Of course not. But the concept and the building blocks are here and thus companies, families and small business are all going to benefit over the next 2-3 years. It's the right investment at the right time. Social networks are here to stay and will get better and better.

Social networking has been around forever. The ability of the internet as a medium in which to transform face-to-face socializing to instant commnications blending both voice and data in realtime over common appliances like a TV, Phone or even your watch has far reaching benefits. The United States is staring at $4.00/gallon gas prices in 2007. In northern Califronia we are almost there today! If companies are going to grow they will need to seriously look at their cost of doing business and one key area in this new Global Market is the cost of travel and displacement. From the airlines to the rental car agencies and the hotel's raising their daily rates to Dot Com levels this is a huge push for Social Networks.

The entire transportation industry and feeder markets will therefore have to look at the impact of escalating travel costs as it relates to supply and demand. Rising fuel costs for hotels means less visitors over time as companies embrace new profit and loss figures and try to balance out the need for physical presense versus telepresence. Alternate channels of influence must be adhered to if the business lifecycle as we know it will continue.

Smaller more regionalized offerings near major (dense) populations will prevail as they are agile and not burdened as heavily as the major hotel chains. As companies use more and more home office approaches to reduce their real estate needs perhaps the hotels can reconfigure rooms for sleeping into more conference rooms for rent by event/hour. Thus a virtual office anytime anywhere augmented with business outsourced type services is in the future.

Imagine being able to have that meeting to close the big deal and not have anyone remove themselves from their primary locations. Sound crazy? It's not, and we can do it today. Companies like MeetUp.Com where you can schedule online meetings anywhere anytime. CISCO recently launched their Telepresence brand and the building blocks from a technology perspective are here and now. Today, you can hold a meeting wtih voice/data over the internet.

The performance of the internet is improving every day with new technology and applications taking advantage of Web 2.0 and thus providing more of a human experience which in itself will transform small to large business environments and even family events.

DirectMatches Rocks

I have to say that when I first started to look at social networks like MySpace and Facebook I was turned off. I was in search of people who were either ...

MySpace Concerns

I guess Im first in the block on this one! As a mother of 3 I have concerns with these sites in general. Im all for free speech but as a parent how the ...

Voice & Data

The convergence of voice and data is in high gear. For the past 10 years the internet has driven this topic to new heights. Pushing and pulling the developers on the OEM teams to provide seamless utilization of the streams of data representing the two elements of communication. The traditional carriers like AT&T, Verizon for example, are scrambling to reposition their products from pure voice/switching in order to defend their customer base and target the CABLE market for new marke share.

Conversely the CABLE companies are stretching their wings to enter the voice market. Who will win? Ultimately the consumer. It clearly doesn't feel like that on your monthly phone/cable bill but we are already seeing aggressive tactics on pricing with bundling of voice/data/entertainment across the competitors. Just the other day we received an offer to do an all inclusive (SAT TV, Voice, Internet) for under $40.00 per month. This would equate to a monthly savings of over $210.00 for our family alone!

So, now we have competition entering in both directions and heading in new market share plans. So, when this is all said and done, what do we gain other than economic discounts? New technologies are emerging faster than ever. We are clearly at a transformation stage within our lives. Most likely bigger than the ill fated DOT.COM growth spurt but this time built on value not fear from Y2K.

Today, you can work from home. Tomorrow you can cancel your air, hotel and rental car right from your phone or pdat let alone your PC and conduct the meeting via the internet with tools such as CISCO's Telepresence suite of solutions. CISCO is embarking on arguably one of the greatest innovative launches in quite some time.

The execution of this next wave of solutions will firmly position a clear path for CISCO's future growth as they unleash their formidable "bank roll" of cash into the development and distribution of new communication vehicles. The sky is truly the limit for such innovative companies such as HP, CISCO, IBM and the Oracle's of our day. Our children will one day look back at the PDA and laugh at how silly we were to have to carry such a clumsy device around just to get on the net at 56K speeds!

Online Meeting Places

With our sports teams you see it and some times this can cause harm to the overall team chemistry if a leader isn't wise to make sure the "whole" team is involved and not isolated. The term clique also emerged but once again with slightly negative connotations. As time evolved the net was introduced and from online chat rooms to outright formal networks like DirectMatches.Com we have seen a hockey stick growth curve emerge with subscription rates soaring off the charts.

Social networks that are based on human communication are basically large databases whereby people can search for like information they are interested in. It is emerging as a great way for small business owners to seek out new customers and partners. Say you need a good web designer. Well at DirectMatches.Com you could go online (Free and Paid Subscriptions are available) and search for just this type of indvidual skill sets. You can introduce your product and need and at the same time find 100's of people willing to assist your venture.

Thus the definition of social network. Here at Planet Berry we have met several professionals who have made such an impact on our site management that it has been a great investment of our limited resources. So, if you are seeking to meet people of like interest and need a good place to do so we reccommend DirectMataches.Com

Borne Online

Which web portal will I be directed to next for an HR Testing zone? Where do I need to file that expense report? What happened to our fax machine. Our children don't even know what a fax machine is! They don't need them in their day to day functions and from an environmental perspective this is a good thing.

We should be a paperless society in the next 10-15 years if current trends continue to head in the direction we are going. Want to get cash at the ATM? Why? In fact, do we need printed money/currency to exist today? When is the last time you went shopping our out to dinner and the vendor did not have an internet connection? We have even seen an outdoor Flea Market stand with a wireless feed! No stopping the Borne Online generation now. Previous generations have an element of distrust in online anything. We have seen too many false starts and a slow development for total access secure environments. Every week it seems a major hacker is found and millions of records were exposed.

Well, in a perfect world with a single electronic identification, we could transfer an exposed ID and replace it online instantly. Thus minimizing a hacker's capability to exert damage on the individual or company. Borne online is trendy and comprehensive. Companies like Oracle, CISCO, HP and IBM have invested millions in research and development to secure a future position for their powerful companies to reposition their revenue streams. No longer is IT just the data center. Every home in America and the Globe is now a data center. Think of it.

With a single ad campaign launched on Google, MSN or Yahoo, a company can extend it's market reach with a fully leveraged message. You could take a Corporate idea targeted to Wells Fargo as an example and apply it to a home in your local suburb. Crazy idea? Not at all. When you look at product platforms you can separate them into stacks like this:

Each of the above has unique capabilities from a tiered marketing perspective. Ease of market deployment however is vastly different however and thus the cost to leverage each topic is considerably different. For instance, software can be marketed quickly and easily to multiple target audiences with very little cost to the product side. Oracle and it's database is a great example.

They can market their flagship product to a single user all the way up to the Fortune 100's. Very little code challenges and tremendous marketing capability with high return on their investment. IBM and other's with Hardware solutions are far more challenged from a marketing perspective as you cannot sell a large server or storage array to both a home and corporate data center from a form factor perspective and a cost differential.

Borne Online is catchy, it has unique inherent advantages and going forward will propel nations beyond their present levels of competition thus allowing nations that might not be as powerful in the G8 sense to begin competing more favorably as their population mix continues to climb and thus exposure to new technologies hit the market.

MySpace & How Not To Do It

MySpace is completely out of control allowing minors to post, say and show just about anything to anyone. This site has law enforcement on it's heels trying to defend minors across the country and for that matter internationally. Kids will post all sorts of information up to and including their personal address, phone number and pictures. Try as they might, parents cannot police access to the internet twenty four hours a day.

It is up to the companies providing these social networks to police their service and lock down the underaged youth from having such easy access. Perhaps a parent must sign up with a credit card (not a fee based suggestion) to enroll a child and then set a two level password restricting the type of use.

For that matter, why does a child under the age of 18 need any social network? Sorry to go negative on this topic but MySpace scares me to no end. Send us your comments and perhaps we can mount a surge of emails at the company and see if enough can make a difference perhaps!

What To Look For

We have built some basic 101 ideas from our experience with our own children and the research of many others on social networks. What works best for you, well that's for you to decide. But we will try and provide a nice bullet list for you to consider.

These are just a few, but highly reccomended must have's if you want your experience and that of your children's to survive the social networks revolution going on within the internet.

If the sites sell products are they age appropriate? For instance, a site that passes the four bullets above may also have a compartment for buying toys (as an example). Based on the age of your child and the Forums you have approved for them to participate, are the products sold online here acceptable? This one is missed sometimes and can lead your child wandering through things that are not meant for their age group perhaps which leads to the dark side of social networks.

ListInferno.Com

Concept: Adds Thousands Of 100% Opt-In Leads To Your List Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 Ease of Use: 5 out of 5 Effectiveness: 5 out of 5 Recommendation: Use Immediately - Major List Building Tool Price: FREE

Anyone successful on the Internet tells you the gold is in your list. But what if you can't get that list? What if you're struggling to get just 100 subscribers a week?

Now there's a better solution, that enables anyone to add thousands of 100% opt-in subscribers to their list, with very little effort.

Technical eMarketer Steve Shaw, the guy behind this tool, says that ListInferno has been designed to "give everyone and anyone the ability to create their own big valuable opt-in list ... this system has been designed to add thousands of opt-in leads to your list for the bare minimum of effort - and it's all 100% free".

When I first took a look at this tool, I thought, "Well, there are some systems similar to this one on the net... What makes this one so special?" How will it help build our business and thus our social network here at Planet Berry?

Then, when I signed up and followed the process in the Setup Wizard, the answer was easy to see. There are some subtle differences in this tool that make it really stand out. And I'd be willing to bet that these differences may well make this the most viral list building tool yet seen online.

It's important to realize, that rather than bringing you huge amounts of traffic, this tool brings you what anyone wanting to make money online needs even more - quality targetted 100% opt-in leads for your list.

This new free tool could well be the easiest, cheapest and fastest way to build your list yet developed. In fact, by jumping on board with this as soon as possible, you could gain a strong advantage over your competitors.

And if they are already signed up, that's even more reason not to waste any more time. After all, the one with the biggest list usually wins, and makes the most money.

Listen, I've tried this out myself - it's so easy and so effective, it would be pretty dumb not to use it immediately. Anything that can give you free subscribers for virtually zero effort is worth a try - and this system can give you lots of those.

Bottom Line: This is probably the most effective list building system we have ever encountered - and quite possibly there will never be anything like this again. We mean that. We just hope it stays free... You should get it now while it still is. Social networks will benefit two-fold from these services.