I wanted to let you all know that I currently have an unlimited number of invitations to MeeMix. So if anyone would like to receive an invite, please just leave a comment below.

For those of you who don’t yet know MeeMix, it is a personalized internet radio community which aims at identifying individual taste and taste prediction in music using its own behavioral-based algorithm and additional methodologies.  MeeMix takes into account your behavior on the site (for example, which songs you added to your favorites) and uses it to predict what music you might like to listen to in the future. It is one of my favorite Web products and I highly recommend you all to try it out.

I have covered MeeMix a few times on my blog already as I am a big fan of this site. MeeMix is a personalized internet radio community which aims at identifying individual taste and taste prediction in music using its own behavioral-based algorithm and additional methodologies.  MeeMix takes into account your behavior on the site (for example, which songs you added to your favorites) and uses it to predict what music you might like to listen to in the future.

I met this week with Gilad Shlang, the CEO of MeeMix, who gave me the scoop on a few new features that will soon be launched on the site….so get ready, this is exciting stuff!

I will start with a few new features which have already been uploaded on the site:

Mee Feeds - Mee Feeds allow you to see all your friends activity on the site: What stations or songs they added to their favorites, what Meeps they added (I will later explain what a Meep is), who befriended whom, who updated their mood, etc. Mood on MeeMix is just like your status update on Facebook. You can now update your mood letting your friends know exactly what you’re up to.

Gallery Enhancement - Now when you click on any photo, it’s enlarged in the center of the page plus you can also add tags to any of your photos which will later lead to easier searches on the site.

Meeps - Meeps are your comments. You can Meep about any artist, album, or song and let everyone know exactly what you think of it. This feature is part of the Player so when you listen to a song you can at the same time check out the related Meeps - who Meeped what and add your own Meep. You can also reply to someone else’s Meep. There are three kinds of sorting options for Meeps: Interesting Meeps - Meeps with the most comments, Online Meeps - Meeps written by people who are online now, and Friends Meeps - Meeps written by your friends.

Favorites upgrade: Now adding songs to your favorites is easier than ever. When you click favorites (the heart icon) you will be presented with the album song list where you can check or uncheck any song. These songs will appear more than others in your station.

And now for the new stuff….

The Talk - This new feature will soon appear on Mee People home and in each station page. Each station in MeeMix has a “Station Home” where members can chat about the station with the Mee’J. The Talk will show on which station people are most actively talking (chatting). The implication of this feature is that there will be live conversations at all times on each station and each of these stations will inevitably become its own mini social network. This will also imply that the members of each station will have more involvement in what happens on each station and which songs, albums are played. For instance, groups will be able to take votes on what songs they want to listen to or which artists should be added to the station.

Artist or Track Block - Like a station but annoyed by a certain artist? Soon you will be able to block any artist or song from a music station you like.

Mee Journey - This new feature will appear on all members profiles.  It will list all their thoughts, Meeps that they posted or responded to, station ratings they gave, photo uploads, new stations they opened, their moods, and more. Basically it will display their whole journey on MeeMix.

Enhanced right panel - If you’ve used MeeMix already you probably noticed that on the right panel appears all the information regarding you - your avatar, friends list, etc. Very soon this right panel will get a major facelift. You will be able to “browse” the person’s thoughts, favorites, stations, and also send him/her a personal message right from there.

All these new features are scheduled to be launched by the end of this month.

Another major scoop which I will tell you about is MeeMix’s upcoming Integration with Twitter. This integration will allow any MeeMix member to update his friends on what song or station he’s listening to, what album he added to his favorites, and more.

I believe that the new MeeMix site is much more user friendly and pleasing to the eye. Many of MeeMix’s features which were unnoticeable until now are much more emphasized on the pages. MeeMix is taking musical taste and interaction to a whole new level. Each station will now become its own mini universe where members can interact with one another and share their thoughts and feelings.

There is one feature which I haven’t yet told you about. I am saving this one for a special post, so stay tuned

Allen Stern wrote a very interesting post recently about how people such as Robert Scoble use Facebook and Twitter as more of a publicity network than a social network to brand themselves and expose their videos, posts. Currently Scoble has 6,892 followers on Twitter and 4,892 friends on Facebook. He has been complaining about the fact that Facebook limits him to only 5,000 friends.

When looking at Mashable’s account on Twitter, we also see Pete Cashmore twittering only new posts on Mashable and nothing else. As Allen points out:

“A social networking tool becomes a publicity tool when “I speak, you speak, I reply, you reply” becomes “I speak, you listen”.

In all honesty, while at first I used Twitter for social purposes, now I find myself twittering mostly about my latest blog posts and using Facebook mainly for my social interactions with people. For me Twitter has become quite a difficult platform to interact with friends as random thoughts and links are being continously thrown on my screen. Facebook on the other hand allows me to interact with my friends in so many different and interesting ways that I hardly need an additional platform to do that. With all due respect, Twitter has merely become for me one of the many applications that I use on Facebook.

It is true that many bloggers and site owners use both platforms (and others) to expose their posts/messages to the world. As Allen writes:

“Are these new publicity networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) the new press release? Think about it for a second, a press release is sent out to x journalists, news providers, etc. These new publicity networks do the same thing except in a quicker, more efficient way. In fact, Marshall over at RWW says these publicity networks are paying his rent. Naturally I am not suggesting that everyone uses these networks in a publicity-oriented manner, but it seems many of the smart marketers are doing so. As long as the people attached to your account (personal or business) understand that’s the use, then it’s a perfect marketing opportunity. In fact, these publicity networks may just overtake RSS in the long-term. And if you are working with a social media consultant who isn’t leveraging these new publicity networks where appropriate, you need to find a new consultant.”

I agree with Allen. All these social networks are vital tools for any marketer today. However, marketers must remember that conversation is a crucial part of the marketing process today. You must offer friends relevant and interesting content in order to catch their attention. Therefore whatever way you use your networks, make sure to continuously offer them content that interests them and serves their needs as well as yours. Choosing your friends based on common interests (such as Web 2.0 for example) is one way of ensuring that you are delivering news that will probably interest them and serve their purposes as well.

I just finished reading an excellent post by Brian Solis regarding conversational marketing.

Brian writes:

“If it’s one thing that we can learn about Social media is that people and the markets they represent have rallied against marketing and slick marketers and have demanded personalization, transparency, and sincerity.

Social Media is about breaking down barriers to engage in conversations.

Conversational marketing isn’t a bandwagon or a golden ticket. It is a call for reform, evolution, and humility.

We’re witnessing the shift from B2B (business to business) or B2C (business to consumer) to P2P (peer to peer) marketing – or better described as conversations between people, not companies doing their best impression of adults in the Peanuts cartoons as they talk to audiences in a monotone, robotic, insincere voice, “wah wah wah wah wahhhhhh.”

No longer are companies controlling the message to their audience but the audience has taken control over the conversation. Each social media platform has its own unique audience with its own opinions and ideas and the marketer must find his place within this network. People are not looking for catchy slogans or traditional advertising technics - they are looking for sincere interaction with the community.

Many traditional marketers have a hard time understanding this new form of conversational marketing and this situation provides a great opportunity for those marketers who are social media experts to step in and lead the way.

However although there are quite a few people who call themselves social media experts, only a small number really understand the art of conversational marketing. This type of marketing is influenced mostly by sociology. As Brian writes: “Relationships are the new metric for ROI.”

Are you as a marketer able to build many long lasting relationships with other members in the network? This is the key to conversational marketing. Engaging in conversation with individuals - commenting on their content, sending them personal messages, interacting with them.

Marketers must remember that they are not welcome within social networks. Many are seen as intrusive if they do not truly know how to become members of their community. Marketers need to earn their right to become members. How can they do this? By learning as much as possible about each network and its members - their likes, their dislikes, their views, etc. Think of each network as a country with its own culture and remember that you are entering a living, breating community made up of diverse individuals.

Doc Searls  writes: “The framing for conversational marketing should be conversation, not marketing. Think about what you want in a conversation, and let that lead your marketing…[conversations are] about paying attention, not getting attention.”

In the end of it all, the success of your efforts in any network will depend on how much you give back to the community. The more you give of yourself, the more you’ll get back.

 Thanks to Somethin’ New for the pic.

I have recently read Yarden Lewinsky’s post regarding Web 2.0 and The Evolution of the Ego. This is a fascinating article written in Hebrew and I wanted to share its key ideas with you. Since Yarden is a Medical Doctor specializing in Psychiatry and also has been involved in a few internet projects, he has a deep understanding of the human psyche and in this post he uses his knowledge to interpret the reasons behind the high usage and popularity of Web 2.0 platforms as we know them today.

Yarden refers to another post by Idan which explains the popularity of Web 2.0 sites like Facebook or Twitter: 

“Given the correct tools, people have a desire to talk to and with an audience or community. Chat, SMS, Email - all these are classic tools for one-on-one interaction (or one-on-few). Web 2.0 opens up new possibilities to talk one-to-many or many-to-many which answers a very basic human need people have in communicating with the outside world.”

Yet Yarden points out that this explanation still does not answer relevant questions such as: Why do people want to talk to and with a community? Is there one basic reason that can answer this question or are there a few? And if we can detect these reasons could we use them in order to build better products?

All the developmental psychological theories deal in essence with a person’s self identity and his relations with his environment. We understand that at a very early stage of human development the definition of self identity stops being dependent only on the person himself and starts being affected by his interaction with his surroundings. Every psychological theory defines this process differently, has different names for it, and gives different explanations regarding the mechanisms which affect this process. Yet if we understand the mechanisms which cause this and are able to detect which ones are dominant in every person, then we can better explain the behavior of this person in later stages of his life. In this manner we can explain why one person may be an introvert and another an exhibitionist.

It is very easy to claim that Web 2.0 is a technological revolution (specifically because of things like RSS, AJAX, API, and XML), yet this is not the case. Web 2.0 is simply a social progression based on the understanding of human needs (see my post entitled Why We Should Care About Web 2.0 where I make the same point). The claim is that technology changes human behavior in a drastic way. Yet in order for technology to succeed and become popular, it must imitate human behavior in order to satisfy our most basic needs and urges.

If we take the most famous sites in the Web 2.0 world we will see that these sites actually allow us to do what we were doing all along, even before the internet, but in a more effective manner. MySpace or FaceBook are based on the way in which we manage our social contacts, Skype is based on our need to talk with others, Google is based on the way that we rank things, Flickr is based on the manner in which we share experiences with others, Amazon is based on the way we talk about books, and Delicious is based on the manner in which we try to remember things.  In essence, the innovativeness of these sites does not come from the fact that they created something new, but rather, from the way in which they allow us to do what we’ve always done - better, more times, in more places, and faster.

Now we understand how these applications became popular. Yet we have yet to explain why we continue to use them. What brings people to use applications like Twitter every couple of minutes in order to let the world know what they drank, ate, or saw? Why are some of us inclined to become friends of other people who we don’t even know on all the different social networks and get updates on all their doings? Why do some of us share our most secret thoughts and intimate details in public blogs? The more popular these applications and platforms become, the more the term privacy diminishes from our language. Today almost everything is public and if it’s already public, then it might as well be distributed on a worldwide scale.

In order to understand this phenomenon we go back to the dynamic theories of man and the society in which we live. According to Kohut’s theory, in the first few months of a baby’s life, the baby expects his environment to provide him with all the essential components that he needs for self development. The “other” turns into what Kohut refers to as “Self Object” which provides the baby with the three most basic components that each person requires: Self value, idealization, and comprehensibility. Kohut also claims that throughout our lives we need the same “Self Object’s” feedback that we see in others around us. In other words, we define other people not as separate identities from us but rather as a continuous source of self satisfaction. When a man with a “defective” self image meets another person for the first time, he does not ask “who is this person? What’s special about him? And what do we have in common?” but rather, he asks “what will I get from him? How will he appreciate me? And how will he affect my self image?” Therefore this person is not able to to build a mature and honest connection with the other.

If we look at what’s happening now in our Web 2.0 world we may easily argue that the most prominent social trend of the last twenty years is narcissism. Our society emphasizes the idea of self potential, uniqueness, and self branding. We raise our kids under the impression that all are created equal and that everyone has the same potential to be rich or famous, even though it has been proven in many studies that this claim is not accurate and that the chances of someone from a lower social standing to become famous are lower than those of someone from a higher social standing. Furthermore, we show our kids that success is actually based on “luck”. You’ll be famous if they’ll hear about you on American Idol, or if you win Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, or if you’ll win the lottery. Thousands of teenagers try to get on American Idol even though we all know that only a few will actually be able to survive as professional artists. Yet we continue to glamorize celebs and forget that if we tell our kids continuously that they could become one of those famous people then their main focus in life will be concentrated on the everlasting search of fame and fortune.

Therefore what we find ourselves with is a full generation of ”little narcissists” who have been educated to think that their personal success is connected mainly to what other people in their surrounding think about them. And then we bring in the internet. On the Web, any average narcissist can find what he’s looking for: A few success stories of people who have become “famous” on the internet based on having thousands of friends on all the different networks, and the possibility for receiving constant, immediate, and limitless feedback is continued. From that moment on, every narcissist presents “his stuff” to the public without limitation of privacy out of hope for receiving acceptance and reassurance. Interpersonal relations continue to exist but turn into something less meaningful while the hope to “be discovered” becomes much more meaningful. In essence, the narcissist can now redefine himself, based on the response of others.

The most successful sites are those that have recognized these basic human needs which are deeper than needs such as “I want to learn” or “I want to talk/read”. It doesn’t matter that most of these people will never become famous. What matters is that these sites help us answer our most basic question as humans: Who are we?

People become members of MySpace or Twitter and write in their blogs because it gives them the feeling that they are famous. They check the statistics of the number of readers they have, how many comments they received, how many subscribe to their “broadcasts”, because all these stats strengthen their sense of self. This is the way they define themselves. All those services that we mentioned above do not invoke the human need for attention, but rather they satisfy it - the same human need that exists amongst all of us and that is affected by our society. Web 2.0 simply allows us to become more human.

 What do you think?  Do you agree with this claim? Would you add other factors into it?

Thanks to Niila Keshava for the pic.

After reading my latest post regarding the Survey on Social Networks Worldwide, Stowe Boyd wrote a very interesting post about Social Networks And The New Tribalism.

Boyd writes:

“I think a new tribalism is starting to emerge through social connection on the web. A bottom-up, emergent sense of allegiance through web-enabled communities is supplanting twentieth century, industrial era alienation. While tribalism has its dark side — a tendency toward inter-tribal conflict and aggression — the wiring of the human mind and new social technologies are combining to engender neo-tribalism….

My primary relationship with the world is through my social network, and I don’t mean Facebook: I mean the specific collection of a few hundred people that I connect with through a smorgasbord of tools and services. And this is more important to me than other allegiance. More important than religion (not that I have one, really, aside from a diffused sort of Taoism), locality (I am a nomad, after all, like many tribal peoples), and definitely more than nationality (I haven’t felt very American for some time).

The difference with the new tribalism is that it is borderless, and isn’t organized as an exclusionary system. Some may reject new tribalism as being in conflict with their other allegiances. Hard bitten business types who feel that the purpose of work is to crush competitors and win at all costs will find the inherent altruism and shared social capital of web tribalism incompatible with their world view. Religions that are based on hatred of non-believers or those that have different beliefs will find web tribalism a growing threat to their exclusionary practices. Centralized national governments will fan the fires of industrial-era patriotism, but will find less adherents that are willing to bond with the notion of national interests trumping global and personal concerns.”

In his post, Boyd digs deep into the meaning of social networks and the human need to connect with others on a level that is beyond religion, geography, or nationality. I also wrote a similar post two months ago entitled Why We Should Care About Web 2.0 in which I emphasized the fact that social networks now represent our new tribal communities:

“Throughout time humans have always liked to interact and share with one another. Web 2.0 is only a digital extension of that desire. Web 2.0 communities are for us today what tribal or village communities used to be for our ancestors. They represent a place where we can make new connections, share details of our lives with them, and discuss topics that matter to us.”

Like Boyd, I also believe that social networks represent our new form of allegiance. We are entering an era of virtual, borderless connections where geography, nationality, or religion are no longer the primary dividers. Connections are now based on deeper personal elements such as: Traits, habits, views, and hobbies. Due to differences in these elements, just like in the past, not all tribes will get along. Each one of us will choose the tribe(s) where he feels most “at home”, with the people that he relates to the most, and pledge allegiance to that community. There will be some people who, as Boyd writes, will view this new tribalism as being in conflict with their other allegiances. These persons have always existed throughout time and have always tried to keep the “masses from rebellion”. For the rest of us, let’s enjoy all the privileges and advantages that this new tribalism brings us by allowing us to forge strong communities based on our own personalities (or inner selves) and not based on what country or religion we were born into.

Only a few hours after Boyd published his post, Jeff Jarvis posted on The emergence of media tribes, which is somewhat related to the topic at hand. Jarvis writes about the latest Pew Research Center study on Americans’ views of their news media showing falling trust, growing divides, and the emergence of media tribes.

Jarvis writes:

“Pew was most struck by the growing difference in opinions about media among people who use different media. Bottom line: People who use the internet as their primary source for news — who are also younger and better educated than the rest of the country — are the most critical of mainstream media (and probably the most likely to sneer at it as “MSM”). TV viewers are older and also less critical.

I see the emergence of media tribes.

Different groups use different media and have different views of that media. Perhaps that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is, the internet is used to criticize MSM and it attracts people who are critical of MSM and thus it is more critical of MSM. Or not. It could be that younger, better-educated people are already inclined to be critical of MSM and that is why they gravitate to a medium that gives them more choice, comparison, and control. Chicken, meet egg.

This is an inevitable outcome of the end of monolithic media: the death of The Press. Now that we have the means of comparison, we compare — and the old controllers do not compare well. I have long decried the allegedly grand shared experience of media that really lasted only three decades — from the 50s, when network TV killed second and third newspapers locally, to the 80s, when the cable box, VCR, and remote control gave us more choice, to the mid 90s when the internet gave us more control. I say it is a good thing to have more voices, more perspectives, more means to compare.

But I’ll also note that this division of the media tribes means that we are each seeing different Americas. That will have ever greater implications for not only news media but also for politics and public policy as well as any consumer business. Of course, this means you can’t just buy network TV to sell soap or ideas anymore. But it also means you’re never talking to one nation.”

So there you have it. Tribes are emerging around us everywhere. Each of us is trying to find his own domain (lliterally) where he can best connect with others who share his views, tastes, and habits, pledge allegiance to that community, get the news that he chooses, share his perspective, and have a say in controlling all of these elements. Web 2.0 symbolizes our freedom of choice in controlling all of these factors and we should cherish this freedom and embrace it.

Which tribe(s) do you belong to?

Thanks to Frans Devriese for the photo.

I was told by a confidential source a few days ago that ICQ’s founders are launching their own television site and now I see that TechCrunch has written about it.

Knocka.TV is described on its site as:

“…the latest from the inventors of ICQ, the web’s first Instant Messenger. Building on our success with bringing people together on the web, “We’ve created a new form of Television!”. It’s social and real. It’s hyper-interactive and creative. Best of all, it’s democratic. Knocka lets the People decide what’s on TV, playing only original videos from the best web video producers in a professional TV broadcasting style.

The People Have Taken Over.
You decide what’s on Knocka.TV…
…and what gets Knocked Out.”

It seems like Knocka.TV will use a similar voting process to Digg where members submit videos and then the community votes and decides which videos will rise to the top and be broadcasted. The site has not yet entered private beta but you can submit your email to be an early beta tester. Knocka.TV is also currently searching for original Web Video Producers to submit content and you can apply on the site for that as well.

Since ICQ was one of the true originators of the idea of an online community, this latest venture seems like a natural extension of their role as community builders. I have signed up to become a beta tester and can’t wait to check it out. 

Did you know that the majority of blog Readers read a very small number of top blogs? Is this social media?  We all have our usual daily reading list: TechCrunch, Mashable, Robert Scoble, Om Malik, Guy Kawasaki, etc. But how often do we invest time in searching for undiscovered blogs with new points of view?

on August 31st, I will be participating in BlogDay. BlogDay takes place once a year and is a day when bloggers from all over the world post recommendations of 5 new blogs, preferably blogs that are different from their own culture and perpective. On this day, blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, diverse, and interesting blogs, from all over the globe.

BlogDay was created by Nir Ofir, VP of Product & Content at blogTV.com, with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest.

Here are the BlogDay posting instructions:

1. Find 5 new blogs that you find interesting
2. Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2007
3. Write a short description of the blogs and place a link to the recommended blogs
4. Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st) and
5. Add the BlogDay tag using this link:
   http://technorati.com/tag/BlogDay2007 and a link to the BlogDay web site at http://www.blogday.org

For all bloggers out there, join me on this day of celebration & discovery, and post your own recommendations. For all my readers, be sure to check back on August 31st for my recommendations.

Matt Danzico, a reporter, has recently announced that he is going to travel around America 2.0 style. He has created this website and is asking all the people watching his video to spread his message:

“Around the America in 2.0 is an Internet-based film project created to explore trust and connectivity. The primary objective of the project is to rely solely on users of video sharing websites, such as YouTube, for food, shelter, and transportation during a trip around the United States.”

On July 16th of 2007, a brief video clip was spread throughout the Internet community asking viewers to transport Matt Danzico from one online user to the next across the entire country within a period of 80 days. During the trip, which begins September 15th of 2007, Matt will create a weekly online television program documenting both his experiences as well as those of the volunteers participating in the experiment.

The purpose of this trip, as Matt says:

“We also hope to disprove the notion of a lack of trustworthiness amongst America’s Internet community. We here at Around America in 2.0 strongly feel that the news media’s insistent concentration on negative aspects of American society has had a substantial affect on Americans’ perceptions of each other, not to mention the rest of the world’s perception of Americans.”

This has got to be one of the most original 2.0 ideas I have heard in a while. It plays on extending online relationships to offline ones and seeing how much these online relationships are actually worth in reality and what online communities really mean to us, the users. 

I wish you much luck Matt!

Here’s Matt’s video:

In the last few months we’ve seen more and more politicians embrace the world of online social media and use it to engage with their voters and gain visibility for themselves. Barack Obama can be found on Twitter and Friendster, while John Edwards is also twittering and on Second Life. Hilary Clinton, who can also be found on many social networks, has followed in the footsteps of Tony Blair and turned to the YouTube community to help her choose her campaign song.

Fox Interactive Media (FIM) recently released a series of research findings from the first comprehensive study examining both the growth and marketing power of online social networks. The study was conducted in partnership with Isobar and Carat USA. It incorporated feedback from approximately 3,000 U.S. Internet users, as well as MySpace clients for in-depth case studies. Results from the study, show the following:

• Social networks have caused a fundamental shift in the way people interact with each other and with media. 70%+ of Americans 15-34 are actively using social networks
• Brands such as adidas and Electronic Arts attributed more than 70% of their marketing ROI to the “Momentum Effect” a new metric coined by Marketing Evolution, quantifying the “pass along” power consumer-to-consumer communication.
• 40%+ of social networkers said they use social networking sites to learn more about brands or products that they like
• 28% said at some point a friend has recommended a brand or product to them.
• U.S. social networkers chose interacting on sites such as MySpace as their favorite activity online or offline, ahead of television viewing and on par with cell phone usage.
• Social networkers spend on average more than seven hours per week on social networking sites. More than 31% of online social networkers claim they spend more time on the Web in general after starting to use a social network. They were also more inclined to engage in other entertainment media and activities including listening to music, playing games and talking on the cell phone.
• Social networkers use the sites not just to improve their online lives, but also to make their offline lives richer and more exciting. 48% said they are having more fun in life in general and 45% said their lives are more exciting as a result of spending time networking online.

So there you have it. The marketing power of social media is growing at an extremely fast rate. Many brands have already figured it out and are using these social channels to talk to and understand their customers. See these examples:

What about your brand? Have you figured it out yet? If you haven’t yet started using these tools to interact with and expose your brand to the world, you’ll soon be left out in the cold. This is an amazing time for marketers to spread their word out there in an original and creative manner. Embrace these new tools and use them. Remember though that each of these channels constitutes a community. Do not just try to “sell” your product. Be unique, offer something different, and listen to what those in the community have to say.

Technorati tags: social media, social network, barack obama, john edwards, hilary clinton, twitter, tony blair, youtube, fim, isobar, carat, myspace, adidas, ea, marketing evolution, brand, web, nintendo, nike, wrike