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ZDNet social networking article misses the mark (and the facts)
6/18/2004 By
Brad Howarth’s ZDNet Australia article, Social networking tools face uncertain future, completely misses the mark. It would be one thing if it were just another rant about the supposed lack of a business model for social networking sites, but this one is so chock full of inaccuracies as to be worthy of comment:
Inaccuracy #1: “To date only one company, Ryze has announced profitability.”
FALSE. Tickle.com, Ecademy and Contact Network Corporation are also profitable. Add to that online communities that technically don’t fall into the social networking category, but are closely related and have proven the model — Craigslist, eWomenNetwork, and many, many others.
Inaccuracy #2: “There is little evidence these companies will generate sufficient revenue from users to be profitable.”
FALSE. It’s simply too early to tell. Most haven’t even tried to start charging for the services, so there’s little evidence to say they won’t be able to, either. The purely social sites like Friendster are just now hitting the early mainstream part of the adoption curve. The business networking sites are still in the early adopter stage — they haven’t crossed the chasm yet, so there’s just no way to say.
Inaccuracy #3: “If social networking is another bubble, it is one that will most likely float right over Australia. Linked-In, boasts 700,000 users globally, but at the start of June had only 8124 in Australia.”
FALSE. Hmm… 8124 / 700,000 = 1.3%. Australia’s 13 million internet users divided by the world’s 945 million equals… 1.3%! Looks like Australia is right in step with the rest of the world when it comes to using LinkedIn. Your own numbers disprove your point.
Inaccuracy #4: “You end up with groups of people in two categories – those that really need introductions and need the service, and those that already have their own networks and don’t need the service. Im not sure if the two meet”.
FALSE. There are two broad groups of social networking tools. One, the online communities with public interaction spaces, provide the opportunity to build new connections in large quantities. In them, the “social networking” features of tracking “friends of a friend” is really incidental to the group interaction in the discussion forums. I have multiple examples of people who have very strong networks, but by creating a group within one of these sites, have been able to build their audience more rapidly than with a website, and to monetize it as well. One woman started a network on Ryze, and within three months generated $5,000 in revenue from two teleclasses, only marketing them to that group.
The other group are what we call “social network visibility software”. This includes sites like LinkedIn, Spoke, Visible Path, and Contact Network. What these do is give visibility into your network beyond the first degree. No matter how strong your network is, you can still only see into it one degree. There is no way to go into your CRM system, or our Outlook Contacts, and figure out who can introduce you to a particular person. It simply can’t be done. That’s why LinkedIn HAS attracted many very senior people with lots of industry connections — Esther Dyson, Joi Ito, Flip Filipowski, and many, many more.
Inaccuracy #5: “finding examples of people who have profited from them is difficult”
FALSE. Where did you look?!? I took an informal survey of 125 Ryze users. Over 40% had done profitable deals with people they’d met on Ryze. The Ecademy Marketplace is full of people who are doing business on there every day — in the thousands of dollars. A simple survey in the right place would have found those examples.
How do you find out what’s working? Simple. Keep looking until you find one person who it’s working for, and then they’ll introduce you to more. Talk to the nay-sayers, and you’re only going to get introduced to more nay-sayers.
New business search engine
6/18/2004 By
quoting from a press release:
FLAWED ONLINE SEARCHES COSTING U.S. BUSINESSES
$31 BILLION EACH YEAR
FIND/SVP Partners with Industry Leaders to Launch Find.com The First True Search Engine Designed Specifically for Business Professionals
New York, NY June 17, 2004 U.S. businesses are throwing away billions of dollars in lost time due to ineffective and deficient research tools, according to a new study released today by FIND/SVP (OTCBB: FSVP), a leading provider of business research, advisory, and consulting services. In fact, 84 percent of respondents feel that Web searches take longer than they should due to poor results, costing businesses an estimated $31 billion in wasted time. According to the study, 71 percent of business executives are frustrated with consumer search engines, and an astonishing 74 percent are not confident that their results are reliable. Despite this lack of confidence, 67 percent state that it would be difficult or impossible to do their jobs without Web-based search tools.
To solve the issues related with this critical business function, FIND/SVP and Empire Media today announced the launch of Find.com, a next-generation, true business search engine designed to meet the search demands of business professionals.
Find.com (www.find.com) provides a solution for business professionals in need of precise and reliable business-related information. A newly-formed venture of FIND/SVP, Empire Media, and TripleHop Technologies, Find.com is a publicly-accessible search engine specifically created with the business users information needs in mind. Find.coms searches are powered by an award-winning, next-generation retrieval technology, which aggregates documents from all major consumer search engines and combines them with results from more than 3,000 business Web sites, as well as access to premium research content from leading business information sources.
Accurate and timely research is critical to a business executives ability to make sound business decisions. However, the engines currently available do not offer executives information that they can fully trust, said Chris Travers, co-founder of Empire Media and chief executive office of Find.com. Because Find.com was designed for the business professional, it takes users straight to the most relevant information from the most trusted sources available, saving businesses both time and money and providing accurate support for the most vital business decisions.
Find.com is First Search Engine to Think Like an Executive
Find.coms powerful technology helps users cut through the clutter and pinpoint precise information from the best sources both off and on the Web. Its innovative clustering technology thinks like an executive by automatically anticipating additional classifications that may be relevant within a search and instantly organizing them into folders with their powerful clustering technology. Searches can be further filtered by file format, site, and source and search topics and results can be saved for future use.
In addition to its powerful usability features, Find.com provides unparalleled access to the best business content. The Find.com engine can simultaneously query its own index of hand-picked business Web sites, launch a query into several consumer and news search engines, and connect to databases of premium research content, quickly sifting through terabytes of information to return one merged list of results. Only Find.com provides universal access to business research, meaning that users do not need a password to access key business information from premium content sources. Premium content is generally made available on a fee-per-document basis.
For corporations that truly want to maximize worker productivity and minimize the use of consumer search engines, the Find.com technology can also be leveraged as a corporate-wide application that enables users to search simultaneously the most-trusted external sources of business information and their companys internal files, in a fully secure environment.
“The commercial search market is dominated by search engines that must target the broadest consumer audience possible, with the broadest scope of content, in order to sell advertisements for any and every product and service possible,” said Tim Hickernell, vice president, META Group. “The commercial search market has barely begun to address the untapped demand for highly-specialized and screened content and we believe this market is poised for growth in the next three to five years.”
Leading Industry Content Providers Complete the Solution
Find.com has partnered with some of the most esteemed and recognized business resources to ensure that its users have direct access to trusted information sources. Find.com provides universal access to provider content, eliminating the need for passwords and site registration, making searches more efficient. Find.com premium content providers include:
The Gallup Organization leading research firm that helps organizations increase customer engagement and maximize employee productivity
Frost & Sullivan industry-specific white papers from this international consultancy firm specializing in strategic consultancy, market intelligence, and management training
BNET creates and distributes white papers, case studies, Webcasts, audio conferences, and other interactive business content and tools
FIND/SVP innovative knowledge services company offering a full suite of custom business intelligence, advisory, and consulting solutions
ChoicePoint (NYSE: CPS) leading provider of identification and credential verification services. KnowX, a subsidiary of ChoicePoint, is a low-cost source for instant access on the Internet to reliable and comprehensive data that enhances business decision-making.
NetContent provides electronic news feeds and newsletters from nearly 2,000 sources including magazines, professional journals, newspapers, and online publications
Executives cannot make informed business decisions without the right intelligence, said Jay Gulick, director of BNET. Our goal is to arm professionals with the tools they need to thrive in the marketplace, and Find.com is a great venue to disseminate this information.
Find.com is in active discussions with other leading-edge content providers to continue to build proprietary benefits for the business executive, giving them access to the most relevant information available to assist in the decision-making process.
Business Professionals Doubt Reliability of Consumer Search Engines
Despite the importance of online searches, consumer search engines hinder productivity. Seventy-two percent of respondents state that they would be more efficient if better Internet search tools were available. Business professionals also question the reliability of this information, with 52 percent only somewhat confident that results originate from credible sources. Other statistics that illustrate the importance of online search and limitations of consumer search tools include:
67 percent of respondents search for financial information and reports, and 47 percent seek competitor information
More than a quarter (28 percent) spend between 6 to 10 hours weekly researching online
Almost half (45 percent) encounter broken links that do not work
45 percent are slowed down by sites that require registration and/or passwords
39 percent felt that information found online is outdated
We are confident that Find.com will become an invaluable tool within the business community, helping executives to work smarter and more effectively, added David Walke, chief executive officer of FIND/SVP. Find.com will help all business professionals, regardless of their industry, make better decisions through better information.
For more information, visit http://www.find.com.
About Find.com
Find.com is the only publicly accessible search engine for the business community, helping executives work smarter and sort through informational clutter. Find.com utilizes the most advanced search technology on the Web to retrieve documents from all major consumer search engines, and combines them with access to premium research content from leading business information sources.
Find.com is the best place for business people to start their search for the valuable information that will improve the quality of their work. Find.coms results are targeted to business needs, and are presented in a manner that speeds navigation.
Find.coms premium content is made available on a fee per-document basis. Find.com is a partnership of FIND/SVP, Empire Media and TripleHop Technologies. Find.com has been organized as an LLC, with FIND/SVP, Inc. and Empire Media owning 47.5% each, and TripleHop Technologies in the balance.
About FIND/SVP
FIND/SVP, Inc. (OTCBB: FSVP) is a knowledge services company that leverages the expertise and resources of its professional research teams to help its member clients protect and further their business interests. FIND/SVP helps executives enhance their business performance, profit from opportunities and address critical issues through targeted research and advisory work, providing its nearly 2,000 member clients with a competitive business advantage. Founded in 1969, FIND/SVP is the second largest member of the global SVP Group, which serves more than 75,000 executives in 11,000 companies worldwide. FIND/SVP is located at 625 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10011. More information is available by calling 212-645-4500 or visiting FIND/SVP’s website at http://www.findsvp.com
About TripleHop Technologies
TripleHop Technologies (www.triplehop.com) provides advanced context-sensitive search, retrieval, and classification software solutions, giving enterprise users immediate access to the most accurate information. Headquartered in New York, New York, TripleHops award-winning MatchPoint enables users to access and share the most relevant information from disparate sources, improving productivity, yielding ROI and freeing up time for proactive activities.
TripleHop Technologies won nine awards or nominations in 2003 and 2004, including Best of Show at AIIM, Trendsetting Products of the Year from KM World, and Best Information Software at I-Expo (France, June 2004).
About Empire Media
Empire Media ( www.empiremedia.com ) is a diversified media group with a focus on publishing and interactive media. The Company was founded in 2002 when it launched empire, the magazine of business innovation. It continues to expand rapidly in the field of interactive marketing through its acquisitions of theMighty Seven and oneFN online advertising & promotion networks. Empire is cultivating a high-end customer base that is effective for advertisers looking to promote premium business and consumer products to an affluent audience. It delivers on this promise through its own media properties and through those of its major media partners for whom it acts as an agency and aggregator. The Company also owns the proprietary technology platform, PowermailBox, for email marketing and electronic newsletter distribution.
For more information, please contact:
Danielle Arceneaux
Peppercom
212-931-6122
darceneaux@peppercom.com
Laura Jensen
Peppercom
212-931-6127
ljensen@peppercom.com
