Category Archive: Social Networking
Subcategories: No categories
SpiffBox.com, pays you to be social, but that’s not the point
I ran into a new social network today called SpiffBox.com, and the only reason it caught my attention is that they allegedly pay users to use their site, i.e “the more social you are, the more you earn” ethos.
“Interesting”, I thought to myself, mainly because I am not a fan of this marketing strategy for a social network (nothing like shallow, low value connections to devalue your network – just ask MySpace), but that’s a post for another day. No, after signing up with a 90210 area code (the site is only available to US people apparently – sorry SpiffBox), I realised that there was something else going on, something that they cleverly mask in the form of a social network.
Here it is: SpiffBox.com is not a social network, it’s a direct marketing platform! Let me lay out my reasons below:
- Credits can be earned, spent, purchased and redeemed.
- The word Spiff is well known to salespeople, referring to an immediate incentive a salesperson receives after a sale, i.e here is a box you can dig around in to earn yourself more spiffs?
- You can absolutely not interact with someone unless you are a friend.
- There is something in it for you to respond to friend requests, messages, chats etc.
- Friendships are shortlived (30 days), but you can pay points to have them extended. Clearly the system is not intended to foster lasting relationships and is encouraging a large turnover of connections. I don’t imaging you would bother to keep track of real-world friends here would you? Rather like the relationship you have with a marketer?
- You can really go into details in terms of your search demographic, this could also benefit those looking for a love interest, but also possibly marketers. Of interest is the long list of what the person would like to spend their points on (Food, Clothes, Bills, etc).
- Emails cannot be forwarded. Marketing might be confidential?
- Friends cannot see other friends. Again confidential.
- You can’t make anything from posting Status Updates? Why is that?
- You can create a list of “candidates” for future friendships, kind of like a sales prospect?
- You are able to take part in SpliffOffers which are promotions, surveys etc which reinforces the marketing angle.
This smells a lot like LinkedIn which masks a recruitment tool as a business network for obvious reasons (professionals are always looking for better jobs, their bosses just don’t know it), if you don’t believe me do a google search for the terms linkedin & recruitment.
The only part I cannot figure out is why you get credits when someone views your gallery and vice-versa, that part doesn’t quite make sense to me yet.
Clearly this is a social network which is setup to NOT foster long term relationships whether they meant to do it or not, and people doing it for the money are not there to catch-up with mates.
I just realised, those looking for love are not too far off from direct marketers hey? Hmmmm…
The Facebook Mobile Texts experience
While there has been a lot of talk afoot about the newly launched Facebook Usernames feature, I took some time to evaluate the Facebook Mobile Texts experience. I was blissfully unaware of the SMS features that existed previously, until receiving a prompt on my Facebook to go and check it out, which I did, and I must admit it seems very handy and quite alarming how much money they could be spending on this little feature that is buried away in the bowels of the site.
The sign-up process was very simple and involves sending a text to a shortcode which then replies with a subscription code that needs to be entered on the site to confirm your mobile number.
At the moment Vodacom is the only listed provider and South Africa is the only African country listed, one of 19 countries in all. So we seem to be very lucky.
There’s a comprehensive config where you can tweak parameters such as delivery times, which types of notices you want etc. Most interesting is the option to receive status updates via sms, when you combine this with the ability to send in your own status update via SMS one starts to see the beginning of a very powerful little group text delivery system which could prove to be a very cost effective real time communication tool to your group of friends. Yes, it seems there is no charge above normal operators charges. Ofcourse MXit is still cheaper in the long run but its not as real time as an SMS, which the recipient is immediately made aware of. To prevent this from turning into a fullblown free-for-all you cannot easily subscribe to all of your friends status updates, but have to manually key in their names on a form.
Furthermore their is a nice keyword language you can use when sending in updates in order to perform different actions like, “wall john smith happy bday” to write on a friends wall and “note this is a mobile note” to write a note.
If they start releasing this to more African countries I can see this developing into a popular “chat via status” tool via SMS if it remains effectively free. (I will be keeping an eye on those charges)
I wonder how facebook looks to recoup losses, perhaps they are planning to make some back on mobile ads, but right now it seems like a dead loss.
Creepy Ad, Tech or Coincidence?
A recent post on Techcrunch retells the story of one particular individuals “creepy” experience with a Like.com ad placed on his profile page that seems to “match” his sunglasses on the particular profile pic in current use.
Erick Schonfeld poses the question whether this is a coincident or Like.com’s previously demonstrated technology in play.
My gut feel is that unless there is some particular special reason why they want to/can match random things in profile pic’s and facebook has catered to them for this purpose, as the standard target ad builder which only allows you to use certain profile items (age, location, interest) as matches, then no.
In order to utilize the likeness search tech, that ad on facebook is going to have to have a pretty decent plugin to the facebook backend and you are going to start getting some performance issues as a likeness search can’t be a particularly fast thing to do.
No I rather suggest this is a massive coincidence based on some other interest expressed by Mr. Bearden in his profile. (Yes, they kinda know you better than you think) Perhaps he expressed an interest in the Topgun movie, Magnum P.I, or he is a fan of cocktails (which matches well with other topgun/tom cruise fans, which lead to aviation sunglasses). Lol
Knocka.tv knocks one out
If its not community or social net based its not cool. Period.
In a world where the power of the collective is becoming increasingly popular TV is still pretty much left behind. OK OK, we all know about YouTube and all its spinoff’s but YouTube is more like a massive media library and you search and drill through content. However when it comes to solid 24 hour streaming blocks of content not much has been done online.
Enters Knocka.tv, but with a twist. How would you like to be able to chat live while watching a clip (similar to uStream), how would you like to vote for a piece and thus make it appear less often or make it appear more often depending on the vote.
These are just one of the many features present on Knocka. Users will also be able to record and upload content, which others could then eventually vote onto the streams.
I have registered for a Beta account, but in the meantime you can have a look at a demo showreel on the site that shows content seperated by typical flash fillers ala MTV. Could this become what MTV should have been, the ultimate in shortform entertainment formats? Possibly this is what could make it work, at the end of the day even if a 3 minute piece is horrendously terrible you will keep watching because you know something new is around the corner.
Good lock to Knocka for throwing one of the first punches in this segment, and lets keep an eye on it.