Topical items and views on the impact of digitisation on publishing and its content and the issues that make the news. This blog follows the report 'Brave New World',
(http://www.ewidgetsonline.com/vcil/bravenewworld.html ), published by the Booksellers Association of the UK and Ireland and authored by Martyn Daniels. The views and comments expressed are those of the author.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Social Space

Social networks can be like fashion they come and they go. How many social networks can one belong to?

We have seen Friends Reunited, BeBo, LinkedIn and many more come stutter and wane. Now it’s the turn of that one time leader of the pack MySpace to experience downturn. It no longer is in the prime slot which is now held by Facebook. It has announced it will cut staff by 30% to better compete.

So is cost cutting going to change the service, alter the consumer and market perception or is it just damage limitation?

They may appear more attractive to purchase now and get bought. They may reinvent themselves, or remain in downspin and become just another site with the hundreds of what2bes. Social sites come and go as fashion, people put enormous amounts of effort to climb there slipper poles and socialise but when crowds move they often leave empty spaces behind.

1 comment:

The social network services (Flickr another that has had ups and downs) are increasingly susceptible to the aggregators. My blog service (Typepad) is constantly upgrading so that one's posts can be automatically exported to Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed etc, so one rarely actually has to go to these sites to maintain a presence there. Also, secondary services aggregate what is on these sites for you, eg Thwirl which allows you to put all your Twitter, Friend Feed etc contacts onto one notifier widget. Again, this removes any need to actually go to the site itself. This is great for users as they don't have to repeatedly log on and access a range of sites or worry about transfer of their content if they find another one they prefer, etc (And sites like MySpace are so full of flashing adverts that I doubt anyone would want to go there if they could get the content another way, without the ads.)

About Me

Before entering publishing I worked for many years as a Senior Executive in blue chip organisations in the retail, oil and automotive sectors. My publishing induction was initially as Director of Strategic Development at VISTA. There I was responsible for, and a contributor to, their highly acclaimed ‘Publishing in the 21st Century’ research series, the primary creator behind publishing services PubEasy and ‘batch.co.uk’, the initiator of the development of new Front Office systems to support publishers. In 2006 I joined Value Chain International(VCIL) initially as VP Marketing, Media and Publishing before becoming their President in 2009. In July 2011 the company's operations were acquired by Syncordia. I hold two non executive positions with publishing industry players Bibliophile Ltd and Haven Group and currently setting up Read Petite a service focused on providing digital short form material online via subscription.
Email mdaniels@opus57.co.uk