Billy McDermott is a master networker in person — probably the most connected guy in Queens, New York, co-chairing the Queens Chamber of Commerce’’s Communications and Public Affairs Committee and being honored as the 2002 Queens Businessperson of the Year. If anyone knows the value of face-to-face networking, Billy does.
A few months ago, he [...]

META Group analyst Mike Gotta offers a cautious but comprehensive view of corporate blogging. While he thinks it’’s too early for organizations to commit to enterprise-wide blog rollouts, it’’s time to start looking, and the business value is real:
Bottom Line: Innovative decision makers and early adopters will avoid the mistakes of the past (underestimating [...]

Apparently, tech news, travel, and contemporary Scandinavian furniture.
While on Ryze tonight, I glanced at my Alexa toolbar. I was not surprised to see Ecademy, Friendster, LinkedIn, Meetup, and Tribe as related sites, but next was IKEA, followed by Expedia and Travelocity, and then CNET.
Hey, social networking site owners — pay attention! Now you [...]

Mobile phone users on UCLA campus are experimenting with SmallPlanet’’s new CrowdSurfer technology, a social networking system that transmits relationship information up to 100 feet away using Bluetooth radio signals.
“This is going to change sociology forever,” says Vic Downing, President of the strategic advisory firm Global Advantage, Inc. The application goes well beyond the online [...]

If you”re new to all this, here’’s an excellent overview of online social networking covering (briefly) the most popular sites and some of the major issues this new phenomenon raises.

Monster.com announced May 24 their intent to buy Tickle for one million shares of stock and $29.5 million in cash.
Good move for Monster. Monster added networking functionality to their site last year, but it never really took off. Lots of activity, but not much productivity.
“Tickle’’s expertise in career assessment testing, networking and matching, combined [...]

For this month’’s LinkedIn Unleashed teleclass, Konstantin Guericke, LinkedIn’’s VP of Marketing, asked me to set up an “exit poll” of sorts, prompting people who visit the registration page but don”t register for their feedback. Honestly, I was skeptical about the value of doing this, and what the response rate would be, but I [...]

In analyzing relationships between people: What distinguishes a strong tie from a weak tie?
- Age of the relationship. Have you known the person for a long time?
- Frequency of contact. The amount of time you two spend together.
- Emotional attachment. Do you care about the other person?
- Reciprocity. Do you [...]

This useful Blog Software Breakdown displays attributes of different user-installed blog software packages side-by-side for comparison.
Via my colleague, Rodney Lui of Nitron Advisors.

Professor Wayne Baker, in his excellent book Achieving Success Through Social Capital: Tapping the Hidden Resources in Your Personal and Business Networks, lays out the business case for the importance of social networks. He summarizes the empirical evidence demonstrating the many benefits of social capital to individuals and to organizations:
● Getting a job: More [...]