Expert content does have a role in social-networked success

Social networking has been a huge success on the web. Tomi T Ahonen (Communities Dominate Brands) has called it the killer application of 3G. It's certainly going to be one of them.

But one of the difficulties for media companies (or at least, those which existed before the internet took off) is that these sites (orkut, myspace, faceparty, youtube etc etc) attract huge audiences, offer compelling propositions - and manage all this without going to the trouble or expense of providing expert-created content (though, it has to be said, often without troubling themselves about such trivialities as profit, at least in the short term, either).

So it might be easy for us to spit our collective dummies and assume no one wants our fantastic creative genius any more. They just want an opportunity to show off their own.

Maybe. Maybe not.

What if we gave them our fantastic, crafted, creations AND engaged them in a vibrant, co-creation-rich, social-network?

So far, I haven't seen anyone doing both really well - great content to give you reasons to arrive, keep coming back, sample other media etc, combined with a killer social networking function which results in communities with the freedom to interact and form groups in the way they prefer.

Why not? Perhaps because recognised brands create instant 'them and us' in the communities which could form around them. Perhaps it's as simple as the proposition hasn't been right so far?

So let's not give up just yet.

Expert content (off the top of my head...):

• gives advertisers confidence,
• presents a touchstone/testing board for the community,
• is initially more compelling and (if you get it right) trustworthy,
• offers access everyday users can rarely acquire (exclusive)
• provides an historic archive of great content (UGC can't be retrospective!).
• Offers an assurance of a certain quality standard
• er... I'm sure you can think of some others (please post them below)... that expert content is and which UGC isn't

Its addition to a cracking social-network application has to be a bonus, doesn't it?

I'll throw in a third and a fourth strand to this proposal:

• It must be optimised for mobile
• And it must have its commercial thinking rooted in engagement marketing.

Old style interruptive ads just won't work on the optimised mobile environment (and one in which, don't forget, people will be used to watching TV on within two years)...

So, if you can tick all those boxes (and check it against recently identified trends - particularly among Generation-C) you really ought to have something worth investing in.

Two years until mobile internet is bigger than fixed line

I use this blog as a thoughtpad as much as anything else - and so - here's some thoughts about mobile internet pulled together from the many blogs and brilliant minds I access - so credit to you all (see recommended blogs and links):

By 2008 more people will access the internet by mobile than by PC* (Tomi T Ahonen).
By 2008: Mobile TV reaches 25m users in Asia Pacific (72m by 2010). (3g.co.uk)

Mobile on internet delivers things you can't get on PC:
i) a mobile phone-based internet is totally personalised. Our PC is often shared (family, work restrictions etc)
ii) The mobile phone is always on. Alerts can always be delivered at the moment they are needed.
iii) The mobile phone is always within hand's reach. No other technology is so close to us physically at all times.
iv) Mobile phone offers a built-in payment mechanism. On a fixed line internet we need to set up something like Paypal, or need to submit a credit card. On the mobile we can pay with a click.

v) Give the above it's inevitable that the internet big boys will optimise for mobile RATHER THAN pc.

For Content providers:

Users on the traditional PC-based internet expect content to be free, but mobile phone users expect mobile content to be paid-for.
Collecting money on the traditional fixed wireline internet is very cumbersome. Collecting money on the mobile internet is built-in.
The world's biggest internet company by revenues is not Google, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon or AOL. It is Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo's domestic mobile internet arm, i-Mode. i-Mode alone makes bigger profits than the five internet darlings combined.

Where will you put your best content? On the mobile internet of course.

Merge the above thoughts with the following trends I've identified re social-networking - and the idea that social networking is the killer app of mobile internet (ie 3G) and we seem to be building an increasingly compelling case for putting mobile internet at the heart of content provider strategy. See below (previously published)

• Users want to tag their world (3G, geolocation)
• People are making use of new social networking tools to re-establish a ‘we-species’ (as in communities everywhere, but with 3G geolocation these communities can be focused on where you are right now, with the fluidity to allow you to connect with new communities as you move through your world).
• Users want to remain permanently connected to their communities (through text messaging if not ‘online all the time’.)
• People are (naturally) creative and want to co-create their content if we give them the tools.
• People want their opinions to matter – and will rate things (including content others have created).
• People are increasingly used to using several channels, increasingly at once.
• They demand speed of response.
• They have an open-minded approach to change and to experimentation (creative hacking).
• Convergent technology is helping to drive much of the above.
• Crowd-sourcing draws on all these to create contributory communities willing to help develop products which can self-perfect. This can inform all digital development.

Current trends in consumer behaviour

Nokia will publish a white paper at the end of this year on where it sees gaming in 2010.

You can read a preview HERE on Communities Dominate Brands

It's extrapolated from recognition of what is currently going on in gaming and social networking. But I think the insight is worth bearing in mind in any digital publishing plan.

Here's some of what the paper has to say:

"Three interesting aspects about current consumer behavior are:
1) leaving traces,
2) media acrobatics’ multi-tasking culture and
3) pleasure orientation.

"It is increasingly relevant to leave your own mark (tags, comments, modifications, patches (for a really graphic example, see plazes.com...fasterfuture) to the networked media communities and interlinking with mobile with online communities.

"Multitasking refers to a way of using several channels, devices and services simultaneously to link with other products and related themes.

"Media acrobatics refers to the fast reception ability of new technologies, devices and services, as well as an open-minded experimentation mentality and misuse (also known as " creative hackerism").

"As a general effect of these, one can say that media use is in transition points. The change affects mobile games and the expansion and creation of new active consumer groups."

Perhaps the most all-encompassing learning being made from the success of social interaction via digital devices is that the human is a "we species", one which is naturally (ie built to be) social.

That should be at the heart of all new developments.

You'll find more on this from Alan Moore an CDB.