Posts Tagged ‘login’
Connecting Outside of Your Social Network
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Life, login, social media, web 2.0
Over the past week several of the major players online have announced the opening of their social networks. MySpace’s “Data Availability,” Facebook Connect, and Google’s Friend Connect. While I am slightly skeptical about the immediate implications of these new applications, the long term ramifications are huge. I have been searching for a way to prevent users from creating a new login, a new identity, and the overall hassle of creating another account with in our community. And here I am today with several options before me.
Of course, in typical media war (in this case social media) fashion, everyone is quick to announce their latest and greatest new development, with out actually releasing it.
“We expect that Facebook Connect will be available publicly within the next several weeks.” - Facebook Official Release;
“With Google Friend Connect (see http://www.google.com/friendconnect following this evening’s Campfire One),” - Official Google Release;
these both come a few days after MySpace’s annoucement regarding their new data availability program. The reason for the haste, is fairly obvious, but it is absurd nonetheless. I digress…
The huge potential impact of these new programs brings a solution to many developers’ and publishers’ dilemmas: “how do we reach social users with out disrupting them out of their routines?” Well here it is, now we can allow users to log in using their original passwords, allow them to quickly, easily, and natively bring their friends with them and truly build on the idea of an open social network and create true connectability across websites.
I am extremely excited about this and will have at least one if not all three of these new technologies up and running as soon as they become available and I have a chance to figure them out.
Ahh, the cure for my login addictions (well, maybe not..)
Login Addiction
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Life, advertising, login, revenue models, sharing applications, social media
Do you have log in addiction? I’m pretty sure that everyone I know has log in addiction, and the growing influence of social media online is only compounding our problems. Do you find yourself refreshing gmail to see if you have any new emails? Logging into facebook to check the updates? Refreshing your homepage to check for any updates on your RSS? I do, and so do you.
Seemingly every day I come across something new to sign up for, log in to, and then gage my response from. Do any of these applications actually add value to my life? - That is the question on many people’s mind these days, but does it really matter? As all of these new sharing programs emerge and millions of people are logging in every day, what is the world coming to?
My question is how will all of this ever be monetized? There is no way to charge for it, because users will immediately reject that and move to a similar and equally useful/less service that is free. Do we fill the application with advertising? If so, how do we measure the value and effectiveness of these ads? Will marketers really want to pay to reach these tiny niche markets that have suddenly become giant flat, almost muddy, fields?
As I sit here writing this I have 5 other tabs open on my screen, all of them require a log in, a sign up, an email, a profile, something to connect me to all of the anonymous users out there pleasantly sucked in by their ceaseless need to log in. But what is the value of this to me? To you? Facebook has billions of pageviews a month, yet they are losing money. Sure the potential value of those views is huge, but how will they make it happen. What will be done to address these revenue models?
Five websites I’m on. Simultaneously. Two of them have advertising on them. Three of them do not. Why do these websites exist, and how are they going to make money.
If you build it they will come… well if they come, how will you get them to stay long enough to make money? The answer is simple - login addiction. We love connecting ourselves so much, in this increasingly disconnected world, that we will try anything that is fresh, cool and can keep us in touch with the people we care about.
Facebook, Gmail, MySpace, Blogs, Forums, Chat Rooms, Twitter, YouTube, on and on and on, until we stop liking each other. Oh, by the way, don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed…
