Corporate Social Networking

Posted by Brian Balfour in UncategorizedJun 23rd, 2006 | 3 responses

The term social networking has become more main stream with the publicity of sites such as Myspace and Facebook. As a result large corporations are following suit wanting to jump on the social networking bandwagon even if they don’t know what it really is.

To take advantage of this, a couple companies promoting an “all in one” social networking package have emerged. Web Crossing and Eventrobot.com are trying to find major players to integrate their social networking platform in with their online presence. For example, eventrobot’s most recent project was the Vans Warped Tour Website where users can sign up and connect with other warped tour concert goers. Eventrobot provided the community platform while the site was designed by Vans.

The warped tour website managed to sign up over 25,000 users in about two weeks with no promotion according to Eventrobot’s president Tim Young. In addition the site made some serious gains among a hitwise traffic report for music sites around the net. Part of these gains included a jump in the time an average user spent on the Warped Tour site.
Large content companies are consistently looking for ways to increase the stickiness of their site, and the numbers prove integrating social networking does just that. Both Eventrobot and Web Crossings are in a very good place to make some major moves in the industry. I expect many major magazines, news publications, and other content sites to incorporate SN into their online presence and Eventrobot/Web Crossings could provide the quick easy solution that every company looks for.

[tags]Social Networking, Social Network, Web Crossings, Eventrobot, Myspace, Facebook, Warped Tour, Brian Balfour[/tags]



3 Responses to “Corporate Social Networking”

  1. Tola says:
    June 23, 2006 at 3:17 pm

    Private label social networks should become more commonplace in the near future. I think these guys are headed in the right direction. I like Event Robot’s angle - seems like they are focused towards concert/entertainment/music industries. See: eventrobotlabs.com. In this same arena are Geek Teknologies who have put together socialplatform.com. I believe that an example of their work can be seen at omotion.net. I think the market for private label social networks will depend on price points and the relationships the platform providers have with marketers, music companies, or big businesses. My guess is that Web Crossing can leverage some of their existing customers and provide them with a social networking service as well as other community services. Oh and ease of set-up and hosting arrangements will probably also play a role in this market as well. You might toss in Sparta Social Networks as another private label social networking business. And CollectiveX might offer a private label version of their web based service. It’s still the wild west in this arena. Niche social networks are definitely the wave of the future…does anyone know anything about Canter’s People Aggregator. What’s that going to be like? Could that potentially change the landscape any?

  2. Randy Soltz says:
    July 18, 2006 at 9:09 am

    I heard that People Aggregator’s product actually wasn’t that good, but that’s just hearsay. I haven’t checked it out myself. There’s also the GoingOn Network but they seem to really just have you create your network under their umbrella site which means they own it and the site goes under their url (kind of like Yahoo Groups. If you’re really pinched for money that’s an option.

    For people that want an online social network that is client branded/private labeled and that is made to look like your site or even launch from it and sit under your own URL Small World Labs is an option. It seems good for those that want more control over the site and don’t want to send their users or customers to another site. Their website says they work with corporations, associations, and the like.

  3. Randy Soltz says:
    July 18, 2006 at 9:15 am

    Ok, I need to re-learn HTML. The link that doesn’t work is Small World Labs. The others should be fine.

    Here’s the rest of the post:
    I heard that People Aggregator’s product actually wasn’t that good, but that’s just hearsay. I haven’t checked it out myself. There’s also the GoingOn Network but they seem to really just have you create your network under their umbrella site which means they own it and the site goes under their url (kind of like Yahoo Groups. If you’re really pinched for money that’s an option.

    For people that want an online social network that is client branded/private labeled and that is made to look like your site or even launch from it and sit under your own URL Small World Labs is an option. It seems good for those that want more control over the site and don’t want to send their users or customers to another site. Their website says they work with corporations, associations, and the like.

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