Under Strict Embargo

Given this week’s focus on personal data in the public domain, the Information Commissioners Office has been timely in releasing a report today on the potential dangers of the content which young people are leaving online.

David Smith, deputy commissioner for the ICO claims, “Many young people are posting content online without thinking about the electronic footprint they leave behind. The cost to a person’s future can be very high if something undesirable is found by the increasing number of education institutions and employers using the internet as a tool to vet potential students or employees.”

The hazards associated with open profiles on social networks are not new, but the message clearly isn’t getting through. The report found that half of those questioned had little or no restrictions on who could view their profiles. More tellingly 71% of 2,000 14 to 21-year-olds said they would not want colleges or employers to do a web search on them before they had removed some material!

The stat which the social networks will perhaps be most concerned with is that 95% of those surveyed had real concerns about personal details being passed to advertisers and other websites.

I pity the guys over at Computer Weekly. Following yesterday’s security breach by HMRC, they are no doubt being inundated with tenuous news-hijacking pitches from companies however vaguely connected to IT security and consumer data. Sympathies also to the PR folk whose advice not to bother has been ignored. Sometimes a rapid response online ad with a great image can cut through the noise – congrats to the guys at online back-up firm Total Recall for this effort.

This week I received yet another invitation to join a new social networking community, this time a site targeting Asians working in the online and IT space. The site looked great but I declined the invitation because I knew I simply wouldn’t have enough time to invest in making it work for me. With the number of new vertical social networks increasing almost on a daily basis, the obvious question is how many can you regularly engage with?

Most vertical sites fall into three broad categories – Life-stage, Professional and Fans. Recent high-profile launches have filled some of the key life-stages gaps. Mothercare’s Gurgle is cleverly targeting new parents with SAGA Zone taking aim at the silver surfers. A crowded number of sites including Imbee, hi5 and Piczo are attempting to stratify and grab a section of the kids and teenagers segment.

The launch last week of KylieKonnect a social networking site for devotees of the pop princess (no I am not a member!) heralded the arrival of the Fans category. Parlophone/EMI has stated that the site is likely to be the first of many such communities built around their key artists. Hobbies and interests whether music, skateboarding or supporting Spurs lend themselves beautifully to vertical communities. Prepare for a plethora of launches in the coming months.

The professional category obviously has the most scope for growth with hundreds of professions and industries that could benefit from dedicated social networks. I recently joined Marcom Professional the closest thing yet to vertical network for the PR community. The site has huge potential to become an essential tool and has some nice features. However, using the site is a reminder that a large part of the power of Facebook lies in its intuitive interface and navigation. Nevertheless I would recommend signing up and giving it a try.

My feeling is that it is probably difficult to actively and regularly interact with more than four social networking communities at a time – but that just might be me. I think most people will have a home network which might be a ‘general’ site like Facebook with varying combinations of vertical sites from the categories above. The picture is obviously complicated by the Twitters and Habbo Hotels of this world. What is clear though is that first-mover advantage will be critical in the vertical social networking space. Despite her enduring popularity I doubt there is space for more than one network devoted to Kylie!

Hot news! It seems Australia’s Photon Group has reinforced its great taste in PR agencies by announcing the much anticipated acquisition of Hotwire PR. An announcement was made to the Australian Stock Exchange on 1 Nov stating that Photon Group will be paying an initial sum of £10 million for North by Northwest Group, the holding company for Hotwire and sister-agency Skywrite Communications.

It is claimed that the total sale price could exceed £20m dependent on tough earn-outs over the next 3 to 4 years. Rumours that Hotwire and Frank PR (also bought up by Photon last month) are to move into a single Soho ’super-hub’ office in the new year, alongside the Groups two other UK businesses – Corporate Edge and REL Field Marketing - are described as being “wide of the mark”.