Let the flood gates open. TECH Cocktail RSVP registration is now available. If you missed the story on what TECH Cocktail is, or why I am helping organize it go here. Here are the details: When: September 6th, 2007 Where: Tequila Rain by Fenway (Boston) What: Open bar, music, 300+ people, and a whole lot of fun Price: FREE RSVP here: http://techcocktailboston1.eventbrite.com/ You MUST be on the RSVP list in order to attend. Space is limited so register early! [tags]Social Networking, Social Networks, TECH Cocktail, Brian Balfour[/tags]

A few months ago I was on an endeavor to create a new group for the tech community here in Boston. I realized that there was a huge amount of young tech entrepreneurs in the Boston area, but that the only networking events in the area felt like a conference (don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of WebInno). There was nothing that was just about having fun, which in my opinion is the environment where you make the strongest connections. Ironically at the same time I met Eric Olson of Feedburner who had started a tech event in Chicago called TECH Cocktail. I told him what I wanted to do, but wasn’t...

Jeremy Liew over at Lightspeed Ventures had an interesting post today titled, “Top Social Networks For Engagement” where he proceeds to list out of the top social networks in rank of engagement. I was glad to see some lesser known communities like VampireFreaks, which I have covered before, on the list. Jeremy defines engagement by average pages per visitor per month, and average visits per user per month. I think Jeremy did a good job on the post, and he definitely includes a lot of valuable information. But the question that becomes most apparent to me is, is this the best way...

I think a lot of people don’t understand that when it comes to building an amazing online community, it is less about the features, and more about the environment that you create. Many have a hard time grasping this concept because a community’s environment is an intangible item. You can’t explain it in numbers, or paragraphs of text. Its just there. And if you partake in the community, you know when a kick ass environment exists, and when it doesn’t. Do features, design and UI help create the environment? Absolutely. But...

My friend, Noah Kagan, is putting on the second Community Next conference on Saturday July 14th in Palo Alto. The topic of this one is “Viral! From 0 to 10 million users.” Personally I think Noah is a punk for not doing one in Boston :), but if you are in the area you should definitely try to go. Great line up of speakers, and more importantly a BBQ afterwards. Go here to check out the details and register. If you end up going, make sure to give Noah a big hug for me….you’ll know who Noah is because he’ll have a burrito in his hand. [tags]Social Networking, Social...

There are user interaction designers, user interface designers, ui architects, user experience gurus, etc, etc. With communities there is a new breed of designer that is becoming extremely valuable; social interaction design. A lot of UI design in the past was focused around strict conversion. Monetary conversions, converting to a registered user, converting users to more page views, conversion from one step to another. But in a community or social network conversion to certain actions are important, there are many other factors at play. Social interaction design isn’t about strict conversion...

My company, ZoomInfo, has announced a major partnership with business social network XING. Due to my heavy involvement in the deal and future implementation, I am unable to write a post with any honest substantial opinion. So instead, I want to to turn it over to my readers… What would you like to see in a ZoomInfo + Xing integration to help business social networking improve? Intial Press Coverage: VentureBeat Press Release Mashable [tags]Social Networking, Social Network, Online Community, Xing, ZoomInfo, Brian Balfour[/tags]

Last night in the shower (yes, the shower…I do my best thinking there) the question came into mind, will an online community ever offer stock options to community members? It sounds ridiculous at first, but there are some interesting reasons for why it might happen, and at the same time be a very powerful community builder. 1. Companies offer stock options to employees, employees help build the company. Community contributers also help build the company, just in a different way. 2. The same economics of stock options apply. The early users would get bigger chunks of stock options than...

There is no question that the new Facebook platform is going to have a massive impact on the market. A FB app and integration is going to become an essential part to any social site and startup, just like the rage of widgets was middle of last year. With only days under its belt, we’ve already seen one massive success with iLike’s music service. Despite all of this I do think that there will be challenges for developers and entrepreneurs ahead: Overcrowding With massive popularity, the Facebook platform is going to get flooded with new applications. It won’t be long until...

Articles such as this one, “Pitfalls Ahead for Social Networks?” from InternetNews can get me really riled up sometimes. There are still a lot of critics of social networks. It might be different people, but it is always the same arguments. They are trying to answer new problems with old solutions. How well does that work? Valid concerns? Yes. Unsolvable Problems? Absolutely not. When search came along in the late 90’s everyone wondered how they were going to monetize it. They tried to fit old solutions to a new problem by turning them into portals. Then….the google...