Social Networking & Business

I can’t believe this is my last posting for Social Networking & Business.

I learned many things through this class. Every reading was interesting and gave me a lot of knowledge about the Social business. At first, when I began to study social networking, I did not know much about social networking and my attitude about learning class related with computer was passive so I just accepted the information. However, I can rethink about the issues by reading and analyzing the articles about the social media.

When I started this course, I expected just the social media but as time went by, my knowledge of social business improved and I learned lots of things than I thought. Every subject was surprised because whenever I read the articles, I was surprised the development of Internet Technology and many people are already known and using them. However, the most impressed subject is virtual team. It was like the real as I imagined which people can meet and discuss the topic without face to face meeting and Google doc is really cool way to share the information between members. Whenever I did group project, it was annoyed to send e-mail to others or print out for each member. Nevertheless, I did not need to meet the member in person for doing the group assignment in Social networking & business and send e-mail to him.

I already participated in SNS but through this course, I could learn this more specific beyond the simple tool to extend the relationship between people.

If an international student asks me, How about Social networking & business class, I can answer it’s really good for you to improve your knowledge without hesitation. Bye!

Conversation is money on the internet.

Actually, today I had a quiz about the return on investment (ROI) in accounting class. I have only learned how to calculate ROI in specific company with precise figure. However, it’s an old way to calculate the ROI. As changing the environment of company, CEO and other employers have to apply to different way for determining the ROI. This is the ROI for social media.

Because of the power of social media, it cannot be ignored any more the ROI for social media. Before people evaluated their products by Mouth to Mouth (M to M) but, in these dyas, many people find the information on the internet and trust it more than M to M. Emergence of social media generates a different consumer-behavior depended upon internet so it is really needed to adjust this change and measure the ROI for social media.

When the company evaluates the affectivity of social media such as how many people see the information and share it with others in their blogs or other sites, this figure has to be QUANTITATIVE. Whether social media is successful or unsuccessful relies on how many people read the information. The quantity of Links and Traffic is included in measuring the ROI for social media.

Links
After getting on the homepage of one of these sites you should see an
increased number of incoming links, which should lead to an increase in your
search traffic.

Traffic
Sites like Digg can drive thousands of visitors to a website within minutes which can be very valuable to website owners. Granted those visitors may not click on ads, but if you have something that perks their interest they may sign up for it.

Also, the quantity of comments is another useful method to calculate the ROI.

The ROI for social media is more important than before, by changing the consumer-behavior, the result of what kinds of information have to be quantitative and measured for ROI. And now, such as the perspective of Jason Falls that “every session on measuring ROI in social media is a waste of time” is wrong and it’s time that many CEO have to consider the precise quantity in social media seriously.

Cited Site:

http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/measuring-the-roi-from-social-media-marketing.html

Photo Credits:

http://www.trendbird.co.kr/758

I first know Twitter through the ITEC’s reading.

Form the wikipedia, Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

People can access to Twitter either laptop or your mobile phone anytime you want. It is the strongest point in these days because mobile phone occupies the bigger and bigger part of their life and is better to access internet than through laptop or desktop.

Twitter has interesting characters and opportunity in business.

1. Social networking site: It’s based on the relationship which is already known the person and then extends their relationship to other people who participate in Twitter. We can use the relationship based on Twitter, as like James Karl Buck case.

2. Reply culture: through the internet, all over the world, people can write the comments about the topic immediately and it can be a play to leave funny comments.

3. Citizen journalism: It’s possible to exchange their daily life without delay, so many people in Twitter can be the fastest citizen journalist in the whole world, such as China earthquake.

4. Conservation marketing: If one person writes his/her opinion about the product, anyone can add their opinions about the products on the comments freely. It can be a good source to one who thinks whether buy it or not.

However, Twitter promotes an atmosphere that people make anonymous relationship through the wireless than face-to-face. In addition, does it really need to share their every action through the internet and know other’s every movement? Sometimes, I think it needs to be far from the internet and enjoy one’s own time. I often feel many people too much be attached to appliance which can access to internet and to anonymous people.

In my home university, most business classes on summer/winter session are given lessons on-line and most of classes have a group assignment so I familiar with virtual team (Even though I couldn’t realize that I participated in virtual team at that time, I’m convinced of virtual team when I read article). Student by themselves made a community to do their assignment that they post their materials and opinions and they discuss about the subject through messenger.

I think virtual team is more convenient than face-to-face work in aspect of physical. You can save the time because you don’t have to go to meeting place in person. You just need laptop and cable for Internet! And you can write your opinion on community whenever you want to do. In addition, you feel more comfortable to express your thought (I think it’s is the best advantage of virtual team because I often feel a difficulty to talk about my thought to others watching their eyes). You don’t have to meet them in person so you can more freely to participate in discuss their thought through internet. If virtual team applies for business meeting, it will be effective way to improve employees’ ability more creatively for discussing group meeting.

When I did group assignment with virtual team, our group was just 3 people including me but one person didn’t participate in doing assignment at all. In the end, my friend and I were compelled to write a 30 pages paper without the help of him and we got A+ on the paper with him. At that time, I was very angry the fact which he got the same grade with my friend and me without doing lift a hand.

From my experience, therefore, it’s important to make plan accurately such as allotting a part of assignment and setting their participation and each person have to have a responsibility to do work together through on-line. Trust and responsibility are most important element to success in their virtual team.

Mom, I'm also journalist!

When I was in Korea, major newspapers in Korea enraged readers because they often disregarded and wrote the article opposite readers’ opinions. These major newspapers only dealt with government’s opinion. Thus, many people built up a campaign against these newspaper and many people try to make their own news on their blogs or other newspaper sites. Through this process, I can know civil journalism.

(Ohmynews is the most famouse news site as civil journalism in Korea. Left: Korean Right: International)

By development on Internet, civil journalism is famous concept in these days. People are not passive readers on newspapers any longer. They can write out article that express their thought by themselves. Through these active by readers, the influence of existing newspapers is decreasing than before when they leaded people’s opinion about the society.

Sometimes civil journalism is the place where the unconfirmed rumors are spread out and lack of information filtering makes problems which people believe the wrong truth about the celebrity or corporation such as Steve Jobs.

However, I think civil journalism is a good phenomenon of internet. First, newspapers should get out of their misunderstanding that they can control people’s thought through their existing power of influence and then have to try to co-opt with their readers. Second, the social issues which are ignored or neglected by traditional newspaper can be known and make attention among people. Especially, the matter of censorship within one country or the unknown global issues according to the power of country such as the war in the world can be known to the general public. Therefore, civil journalism can be easy to obtain a diversity of information in the world and disclose information more transparency among the readers so it’s difficult to cover up the issues. Furthermore, people can get a variety of sight about the matter.

How about your social networking on the internet?

In these days, it’s important to make various relationships with many people and make the relationship to be deeper and longer. People consider managing their relationship with other people as important ability in these days than old days. Kyunglim Park who is celebrity in Korea published her essay about social networking and became bestseller in Korea because she is known as one of people who have far-reaching relationship with various status people and people want to know how she makes and manages her relationship.(when she got marry, 5000 visitor attended her wedding!)

Many people want to control their social networking more efficiently and especially the social networking based on internet makes easier to manage their networking. By one click, you can send email easily to everyone on your list. In addition, social networking based on internet reduced the effort to find information because people own the information about anything in common on the internet.

When I was in Korea, I was looking for an apartment to live in Washington and then someone let me know the site, cragslist. Suddenly I wondered how I can be sure the fact is true or not so I couldn’t trust the information about apartment.

This is problem! We can’t trust the information on the internet and always doubt the opinions what you are looking for. Furthermore, the strength of social relationship is much weaker than real society relationship. When I receive the email, we can immediately distinguish this email thought about me or just send email for people on the list. On the internet, people always distrust the information and their relationship so it’s difficult to build and maintain the trust among the people. However, I think it’s unavoidable the lack of trust on the internet because people can’t personally meet each other. For these reason, to solve the problem about the trust on the internet which is another society in web 2.0 ages needs the regulation about the information and effort among people without infringement of one's freedom.

Photos credits to :

http://imagesearch.naver.com/detail/frame_top_080722.html#

Can we protect our privacy on the internet?

When we start facebook, myspace, and cyworld, these sites request us to put our profile based on the truth. However, how many people really write down their profile honestly? Nearly half (46%) say they give at least some false information. Many people who especially are living in an age where Life is an Open Book Test are worried about that how we can protect our information through internet without any defensive measure.

In Korea, leaking personal information frequently happen and mainly celebrity becomes the target of leaking personal information but sometimes a mediocrity can be the target. What is more serious thing is that the person who acts incomprehensibly is the target for witch-hunting on the internet. Furthermore, many people put on the information about that person like his/her mane, cyworld address, cell phone and which school he/she attends like this.

Finally, one man who many internet users thought the person hit his girlfriend severely sued the portal site (Daum which is big portal site secondly in Korea) because Daum didn’t do anything to protect leaking his profiles through comments on-line. After that matter, he couldn’t live ordinary life since many internet users called to him or his office/house. In the end, the man won the court which said the portal let the negative and contained personal information comments on the internet but they have responsibility to manage comments on the internet.

If we cannot make safe defensive measure to protect from lifting personal information, people would like to put the false information on their profile. How can we are trust the other aspect of the internet such as comments, rates and can do the things such as conversational marketing based on confidence have really meaning about the offered information on the internet?

Would you want to advertise my product?

In these days, many people have more strong personal influence to others based on the SNS sites. Myspace, Facebook and Cyworld are the good sites to express personal character and what they are interesting and people can show their opinion about products that they bought or ask a person who had already bought about the product they are interested. People can give their opinion at one’s pleasure.

I agree that Conversation Marketing is helpful for the companies’ marketing. First, the companies can adjust the FOCUS of the consumers who are interested in their products so they can raise the efficiency of advertisement only small price than traditional TV or news advertisements and map out a strategy for special consumers who really are willing to buy their products. Second, the companies can strengthen relationship with their customers on the basis of FRIENDLY. Companies can make relationship with their customers on the internet so companies make customers to be loyal to their products.

(This is a cyworld and this picture is the palce to companies can PR themselves.)

On the other hand, is it really good just to focus on special customers? I think companies have to consider other potential customers who will buy their product some day so it is dangerous that company just focus on the customers who already have been their loyal customers. If corporations want to seek and maintain their profit, companies have to work out a strategy to deal with both loyal and potential customers. How can I trust other’s opinion about that product is objective? I can’t know the person who wrote about the product on their sites or blogs is a loyal customer for that company. We have to think twice when we have to accept other’s opinion because the person can be friendly to that company by knowing each other on the internet.

People have a tendency to listen and find others opinion about the product what they want to buy. Therefore, Conversation Marketing is the better method for both company and customers to sell products or express their opinion than WOM(Word Of Mouse). However, when corporations make a marketing strategy or customers receive others opinion, we have to think twice is it really helpful for companies? or whether he/she has an objective opinion about product or not. Since people can hide on the internet by anonymous, anyone takes the responsibility for our decisions.

Have you ever been deceived by knowledge on the Internet?

When I search information for my research paper, sometimes I found wrong information I already known is shown on the Internet. If I don’t know that this knowledge is wrong, I’ll use this information into my paper and it will be the minus defect to get a low grade in my paper. Whenever I go through these experiences, I raise doubts that people really have ability to reproduce information on the Internet?


Nowadays it’s really easy to put people’s opinion or products’ information on the Internet and limited or erroneous information can circulate through Internet. Sometimes the knowledge on the Internet is of benefit to improve my information or my life by realizing the good information. However, in fragmenting culture, if we don’t spend much time to accumulate deeper knowledge by reading something – book, newspaper and so on – this information which circulates through Internet really have values to be known to others without any filtration? Is it truly possible to circulate the deep information without any basis of the knowledge about the specific fields? Even though UGC is the good method to increase the quantity of information, it would be possible to reduce the quality of information. How can we block to circulate below the level information on the Internet? In addition, in democracy is it indeed right to get the good knowledge without any effort to pursue the information which is a result of other’s effort?



On the other hand, many people use Internet as a method to check other’s review about the product before they buy something. This is helpful because the person who really uses that product gives the information only the view of the customer - what are merits and demerits of the product. However, how can we distinguish the information which can be faked by intent and find the correct information we want? Especially from my experience some sites and blogs which anyone can submit their review about all of product are more difficult to value the review because there are more possibility to invent information!

(This capture is the most famous site "Naver" in Korea where people can easily ask and answer about their curiosity. Anyone can use this site!)

In these days, we get out of the traditional way to learn the knowledge and information and try to pursue fragmenting culture that makes people can easily hold knowledge with others. However, I wonder how we can protect the quality of information which is truly reliable and deep knowledge. Do people just want to take the positive function of the UGC without me?

Drift my information & idea through Internet!

How can we fulfill our clients’ desires? It is the main concern for executives of all companies because customers are the important factor to success in these days. Many companies want to get and manage customers' information easier so corporate social networking software uses to make companies be alerted about the change. Corporate social networking software is similar concept with social networking software - myspace or facebook. If many companies try to connect each other using based on customers' information or even share the information, how can we know the fact? When many companies make an effort to offer more convenient service to customers, my information can be exposed to others not me, how can I deal with this problems? Or hackers attempt to intrude on networking for selling this information to others, what can individual do to protect from this attack?

According to changing the society, customers' desires also change so it's difficult to catch up customers' desires and always be a step ahead to lead the society. In the end, 'Nike' brings out an innovative method to follow customers' desires, it is that customers can be a designer for their own shoes. (It's a Customization) Nike just makes big concepts about the shoes and then customers can change the details in person. I think it's a good method to because whenever I bought my shoes, I couldn't find exactly what I imagine. However, there is also privacy problem; how can I protect my idea about the shoes from the Nike? Under customization, it's difficult to guard my fantastic idea from the company which offers this service to customers and can be easy to check customers' ideas for free.
(it's my design for my shoes!)


Nowadays we are provided a lot of convenient services especially participating in our purchase to create my style. Though we have to think about these services have really worth that we should give up the right protcting out privacy - our information and idea - without any limitation.

Do you need "Second Life"?

When I firstly heard about the ‘Second life’, I thought it is similar online game with ‘sims’ which is a kind of simulation computer game. However, as I know about second life, I felt my thought was definitely wrong.

What is the big different between second life and sims? Sims is a computer simulation game and Second life is a virtual life. It means that there is no scenario in second life so you don’t have to follow the directions and you should have your plan and then create your own life anonymously.

(this is a part of sims)

Second life is another life which we can create and participate in virtual life. Many people say there is no difference between real life and virtual life. This is to certify that by bigger and bigger the virtual life, many global companies try to participate in Second life. They want to use second life to verify consumers’ responses. Many companies consider second life as place to advertise their product and to test market. It’s very efficient method to let people know their companies with low-cost.

(IBM - in Second Life)

(Samsung - in Second Life)

I think second life can change a way of people communication. If virtual life affects real life, people need to do computer in their home just connecting with virtual life than to move personally in real life. However, it is difficult to predict how much our society accepts this change because it can’t guess how people act in this situation.

picture credit: http://www.ea.co.kr/ko-kr/games/pc/sims/sims2/screenshots/

http://cafe.naver.com/cetech2003.cafe?iframe_url=/ArticleRead.nhn%3Farticleid=20838

Worth? Or Not?

In these days social networking service(SNS) is very important word in Silicon Valley. There are many SNS sites in US especially people have a growing interest in Facebook or Cyworld which is the most famous site like Facebook in Korea. These sites base on the reality in off-line and your profile can be seen anyone who want to see it through these sites. If you update your profile or your picture, it will be known your friends who already have relationship with you through internet as soon as you change your information. It’s a terrible imagine which my information get about between anonymous people in real life. However, in on-line, it’s a little different situation people don’t care about their information be known other people. Many people extremely keep a lookout for being invaded other’s interesting in my life, but they are willing to open their information to anonymous people in on-line.

People think they participate in social networking that make relationship with other who come from other countries or never meet before by joining these sites. Did you really make relationship with other who you don’t know her/him? In these sites, you can reorganize your social graph that shows your human relationship in reality. You have relationship in internet base on the reality that you already know or meet before through off-line and that’s form your social graph in on-line. In my case, my friends in Cyworld are all of my friends who meet off-line, it don’t help to extend my social networking through internet. It’s more efficient way to spread my social graph.
In addition, some people predict SNS will be a good marketplace because many people make lots of small groups that are different from the reality. “Experience” will be a keyword to have social relationship with others. People would gather through their interesting and it will extend your social graph. Furthermore, this social graph will be a target to company which want to sell their products only defined people.

Is there really worth Facebook or Cyworld are received popularity?
I already had made one homepage in Cyworld but I can’t sure that Cyworld is worth to get reputation to change our life. What is the truly “change our life”? I think the really technology have to harmony with human. It means that technology would make the better society in positive aspect. When social networking service really overcome the limitation of making human relationship like on-line relationship has strong link between people, Facebook and Cyworld can gain genuine reputation to extend our social graph.

It's my first blog :)

I'm Kyoung-Min, Lee (just call 'min') and I'm abroad at AU for 1 year.

My major is French and Business but I lost how to speak french.

I hope this class be a good time for each other.

“On my honor, all posts on this blog are my own”