Social Networking Technology is a commodity

There are a thousand ways to skin a cat (never understood that saying-It implies skinning a cat is an important part of ones day or something) and there are also a thousand technologies that do the same thing. There will always be dominant players in any industry, and there will always be smaller players trying to unseat the larger ones. Why am I stating the obvious? Because, after reading an article on TechCrunch about Bebo possibly being on the AOL auction block, it reminds me once again, we are all not going to jump on every technology band wagon in masses, just because it is the latest and greatest or received a new round of funding and possibly been bought by a bigger fish.

Success in social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc, result because they were early entries and had the proper direction to give them staying power. When any technology becomes a commodity, people pick one and settle in. Sure you will have digital anthropologists, futurist, technologist (hell I belong to this group) examining new and old players alike, but in the end, even those people will pick the best (usually the biggest and for good reason) and make that their mainstay.

There is not room for every entry to be at the top, nor for everyone to use every social network that comes along. BTW I use Facebook and LinkedIn more frequently than any other, because they are more accessible to the masses and I don't have the time to maintain all the relationships I have in two places, much less 10. If the rumors turn out to be true, I wouldn't blame AOL for dumping Bebo, but at the same time I wouldn't understand why someone else would acquire them, unless they have the next big thing up their proverbial sleeve.

Analysis before Strategy..Beware of the Snake Oil Salesman

If a company comes to you and makes recommendations about your own company without doing a complete analysis.....RUN!

How does a company make recommendations on how they can help you, before they have:

A) talked to you in depth about where you see yourself as a company on and off line. In addition, discovered what your over all vision and goals are as an entity.

B) Done the research to substantiate OR debunk your own claims

C) After A and B are completed, presented objective analysis


Only after completing A,B and C, can any credible outfit create with you a sound strategy with various ideas and price points to execute the strategy in a reasonable amount of time.

The first part of any business recommendation, be it for Marketing, Advertising, Financial commitment, or hiring, etc is analysis. Analysis of any situation will tell you where you are, how you got there, and what to do next. Any ideas presented before real analysis are usually faulty and doomed to failure.

Analysis first, Strategy second. Just my thoughts...would love to know yours.