Ragu... I mean Razoo!

In taking a peak at this article, PR Leap cites Razoo's stated mission as:

"To promote social good and to inspire others to get involved by making giving
and serving fun, easy, and meaningful."

Many people have seen the Ragu (yes, the pasta sauce) commercials. Didn't they try to promote the same type of thing? Inspiring people to get together to have fun with other meaningful people, and enjoy an easy meal by serving Ragu as an easy way to complete that meal. Sounds about right...

But, what's the real premise of Razoo (the social networking site this time)?

Razoo is trying to pioneer a new type of web 2.0 where visitors work together for a shared cause characterized as "good" in nature. It's the beginning of what Paul Lamb of CNET News calls, "Neighborhood social networking." Paul talks about these new sites as a way of learning about people in need, and then actually helping them, all on the go!

While initiatives like this always sound magnificent in theory, there are a few concerns I have:

1) Will enough people actually use it so that an older lady in an Idaho town who needs help, can actually receive the help from someone else located nearby?

2) People will abuse the system by either a) volunteering and never appearing, or b) subsequently stalking persons they help out.

From these concerns, word of mouth with thine friends sounds just a bit more promising, and safe. What's more, you're essentially soliciting anonymous helpers by inviting anyone who wants to help to contact you. Each site of this kind works differently, but I think an entire-address-book-mass-e-mail is a better idea.

User Generated Flubb

Thanks, Derek Powazek, for putting the phrase User Generated Content (UGC) into some context for us:

"User: One who uses. Like, you know, a junkie.

Generated: Like a generator, engine. Like, you know, a robot.

Content: Something that fills a box. Like, you know, packing peanuts.

So what's user-generated content? Junkies robotically filling boxes with packing peanuts. Lovely."

Lovely, indeed! When you use Google, you expect that you'll be able to find anything you're looking for. What about all the useless, trashy pages that come up instead of what you really want?

Or, how about the home pages of people that ramble on about their opinions regarding any and everything, offering not even a link to something factual. Lee Odden mentions, however, that it's costly to ensure that UGC is actually relevant and useful. True, it's impossible to moderate what anyone posts, but it's becoming increasingly more difficult to filter out what is credible/factual from what is not.

Perhaps opinion is what you're looking for when you need the chemical formula for benzene, but is the mass amount of UGC being produced every day going to help us out further, or will it start getting in our way?

(It's C6H6, by the way - thanks Online Encyclopedia)

Facebook Changing Politics...?

Is facebook going to revolutionize the face of politics in the United States?

I doubt it. All the side-bar facebook advertisements with politicians' faces on them in the world wouldn't sway me to vote one way or the other. For me, it's about fundamental beliefs and provocations...what their face looks like doesn't matter to me. I've long heard that the younger, college-age generation has the most power to sway elections. Why? Well, we can organize in mass to vote, we're more likely to want to vote because we believe it will make a difference, and our demographic has special voting habits (tendencies) that can exploit one party or the other.

In South Korea many politicians use Web 2.0 services, namely blogs, to help get their campaign and image out to the public. For that society, such a technique has a measurable impact. I believe that it's yet to be proven that political blogs have an impact here in the US.

As far as making other impacts goes, these two teens were able to raise several hundred thousand dollars for their campaign to support Darfur. Being invited to Capital Hill to speak definitely implies that your social networking efforts have had an impact on politics. However large or small, you've done something.

Web 2.0 efforts have the ability to revolution specific causes, and have an even greater chance of getting a huge outpouring of participation when the day comes when US citizens can vote in elections online. In my nine-thirty post, I discuss the pros and cons regarding online voting. It's something that I think the US should do. With current Web 2.0 technologies, a non-biased facebook ad encouraging me to vote would do a great job of reminding to perform my civic duty. By eliminating the need to physically travel someplace to vote, apathy will no longer be an excuse for political inactivism.

The Word "Gullible" is Written on the Ceiling

So I found myself blog surfing, and came across a comment on someone's blog post that starts like this:
_____

hi,I am a Nigerian, I live in Osun state.Don't think for a minute that my invitation is spam and I'm a spammer.
_____

I'll let you make your own conclusions.

On a separate note...

I was reading through the US Postal Service's handbook on mail fraud a few weeks ago. A little light reading for the AU shuttle ride, nonetheless. Inside, I came across a few interesting topics.

First was the concept of unsolicited packages. Say for example, a package of cheese and sausage arrives at your doorstep. You definitely didn't order it, but it's got your name and address on it, as well as a bill attached requesting payment. Well, perhaps you feel some obligation to pay for this package, thinking you may have forgotten about ordering it, or something. My take on the law, per the USPS's handbook there, is that unsolicited packages are yours to keep, and not return, if you so choose. If you want nothing to do with it, then simply write "return to sender" on the outside and leave it for the post man. However, should you actually open the package with your name on it, and inside it tells you that you must pay for the package you just opened... then you're actually not obligated to pay for it. You can keep it. Obviously there are some caveats and restrictions that apply, but that's the general gist of it.

Unsolicited packages addressed to you are yours.

Next I got to the part about letter scams requesting help in foreign countries for a small fee. I wrote several months ago in The Nine-Thirty about scams similar to this, but in an online context:

"It's just like e-mails from fraudulent people trying to convince people to input their bank information in an online form to confirm that they're still patrons of a certain institution. Hundreds of examples like this exist. Yet, still, high-faluting lawyers, and even congressmen (I believe he was from Florida) get conned, and have their identities stolen."

Well, if you get one of these things, it may constitute an act of mail fraud. So what do you do? Well, you can turn it into the authorities, but I think most [non-gullible] people choose to open and read them, have their laugh, and then throw them away.

Whatever floats your boat.

The Eight-Thirty

One could call it a title-downgrade from The Nine-Thirty, but The Eight-Thirty has a lot of interesting posts containing my opinions on numerous topics having to do with Social Networking and its interaction with Business. Business is quickly growing into a more online world, and social networking in that world is bringing business people together. Learn about it as well as find interesting commentary, links, and references to printed materials all having to do with social networking and business.

Also, if you have any interest in Mocial Networking (Mobile Social Networking) and all the really exciting, emerging technologies that it's beginning to feature, then check out this post at http://eight-thirty.blogspot.com/.

Just click!

Mocial Networking

It's Social Networking on steroids. The latest wave of technological advancements involves taking social networks mobile. I was very excited when I coined the term Mocial Networking (Mobile Social Networking), until I discovered this website where someone seems to have coined it before me. There's also another site that has adopted the word "mocial."

I'll elaborate on my understanding of mocial networking, as I've defined it. Mocial networking is web 2.0 but on an extremely mobile platform. The best way to engage in mocial networking is to have a GPS-enabled cell phone. With that, you can use sites like Kakiloc, Trackut, Socialight, Fring, and Bliin. Altogether, these sites allow you to place geo-specific digital sticky notes with text and pictures that provide information or opinions about specific locations, and are permanent to the specific location from which the user uploaded it. Also, these sites allow friends of yours to track you in real-time as you travel anywhere in the world.

People you designate as your friends can receive permissions to track your whereabouts at all times using Google Maps. The sites mentioned above can even tell your friends the speed and direction you're traveling, as well as where you're going if you designate your destination ahead of time. Of course, you do have control at all times over who you want to see what...

This is very awesome technology, however there are concerns about people abusing it. For example, tracking gullible minors (or even adults) for purposes of abduction.

Regardless, Stef Kolman from Bliin says that the risks associated with mocial networking aren't any greater than with traditional social networking (1.0/2.0) methods.

What do you guys think? How likely are people to abuse this new, exciting technology?

SPAM - Part 2

About a month ago I wrote a post highlighting how much I dislike receiving spam, and how large a problem spam really is. If you have 2 minutes 4 seconds, then watch this video that Google's spam-czars put together. It highlights ways that Google software engineers are able to filter out so much spam. From the chart on the original blog post, it looks like 67% of the e-mail that enters Google's servers is spam. But, look at how improving the Google spam-fighting algorithm has paid off over time! Hardly any spam actually makes it through the filter any more.

'Not'working

In reading the short post here, I was surprised to view this recruiting ad for Yahoo on Craigslist. Many companies, especially in India, recruit a substantial portion of their new hires through internal networking means. This means that current employees of the company, will refer someone they know as a candidate for a job at that company.

I would think that an online empire like Yahoo would have the social networking skills and connections to recruit recently graduate college students for hire. People have friends, but Yahoo has Craigslist. I don't think this makes Yahoo look very good. In a sense, online marketing for hires like this is good thinking, but in my opinion, it's not good enough. A nice little "I'm for Sale" tag goes up in my mind on anything that I see on Craigslist. Yahoo is simply saying, "we're too socially inept that we can't think of any better way to recruit hires than on Craigslist." How's about putting the recruitment ad on... YAHOO?? Perhaps on the Yahoo careers page?

This site talks about one's blog as fulfilling the role of their new resume. Your blog represents you. Well, I'd like to relate this back to the Yahoo faux-pas mentioned above. Job postings, in my eyes, are, as the blog reads, "serious business," "represent[ative] of you [i.e. Yahoo]," and "the unedited version of yourself." So, then, is Yahoo's recruiting techniques to say "we're cheap, not serious, and unoriginal?" It certainly appears this way. This reminds me of when an Army recruiting ad accidentally appeared on a gay social networking site.

I believe that how an organization recruits is reflective of the company's nature, style, and operation. What I am suggesting in this post is that my professional opinion of Yahoo has lessened slightly.