Under Strict Embargo

Would you pay £2000 to join an online social network? Well the FT is hoping so with the announcement today that its will be launching the first of what it’s calling Members Forums aimed at leading figures in digital, new media, mobile and telecoms. The £2000 includes an access pass to its conferences, which might be the real motive for setting up these groups. It will be interesting to see how the tools and services put in place by the FT compare to those freely or far more cheaply available from the likes of LinkedIn and others.

The idea of focusing on elite executives and bringing them together online is an in interesting one and I can see the logic of the FT helping to do this where sector-specific networks don’t currently exist. The Property and Luxury Goods sector are apparently the next on the FT’s list to be targeted.

Whether members will continue to pay the premiums once larger and far cheaper alternatives become established is another question.

I perhaps shouldn’t have been surprised as I was at the volume of press coverage triggered by figures from Nielsen yesterday, claiming the first ever monthly fall in Facebook users in the UK. According to the research firm only 8.5 million unique users in Britain spent time on Facebook in January 2008, compared to 8.9 million in December - a 5% fall.

Speaking to Forbes yesterday I was keen to stress that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions based on a single set of figures, but at the same time we shouldn’t expect the growth of social networks to continue at such a phenomenal rate. Despite this hiccup Facebook fans have been keen to point out that the audience is a remarkable 712% higher than in January 2007 and 9% larger than at the end of October 2007. This contrasts with an apparent 9% fall for MySpace over the course of last year.

What these figures have done is moved the focus onto the next stage of social networking development. A number of commentators have suggested that the future of social networking sites lies in them becoming more niche. The million dollar question is which niche?

The sub-25s may be more relaxed about privacy and advertising but arguably more promiscuous over which ‘cool’ site to spend their time on. Older professionals may be more stable and attractive to brands but generationally far more sensitive to how advertisers take advantage of their personal data.

In any case there’s no need to perform the last rites over social networking quite yet.

UPDATE: Henry over at Tamar has some interesting analysis predicting that next month should see the Facebook numbers recover…

Hillary Clinton’s lack of appeal with young voters is quickly emerging as her Achilles heel and a look at each of the candidate’s popularity on Facebook provides further evidence. Barack Obama has attracted almost 200,000 supporters compared to just 60,000 for Clinton. Last night saw the first of the ABC/Facebook debates and the accompanying US Politics Group - from where the chart below is taken - is well worth a look. The most striking feature for me is the contrast in Facebook support between the Democrats and Republicans overall. There are no shortage of young Republicans on Facebook but it appears the GOP candidates either don’t know how to attract them or bizarrely, simply don’t care.

6. PCTV wins the battle with IPTV
Early next year we are likely to see both 02 and Orange join the battle with BT Vision and others to displace the Sky, Virgin and Freeview set-top boxes in our living rooms. As they spend big to each attract at most a few hundred thousand subscribers, millions of consumers will instead top up their TV viewing online. The implications of the Kangaroo initiative, which will bring together the on-demand services from the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 shouldn’t be underestimated. Kangaroo has the potential to bring PCTV into the mainstream via a single application and EPG. But it will need to quickly become compatible with all those Vista enabled PCs people will have got for Christmas.

In fact one of 2007’s most exciting moves for both online broadcasting and social networking, was Bebo’s landmark deal with the likes of the BBC, Sky, Channel 4 and Endemol to allow users to embed TV programmes in their profiles. A fundamental shift in taking TV to specific communities rather than trying to attract specific communities to TV. The implications of the deal for much hyped but little used services like Joost should be keeping their investors awake at night.

Finally, as millions stream TV content to their desktops, the spotlight will again turn to the performance levels of broadband providers. Download limits and throttling connections will be exposed as the disingenuous excuses for poor service they really are. ISPs and telecoms companies will need to think carefully about where they direct their infrastructure investment, or face a very public consumer backlash.

7. DIY Social Networking
Want to create your own social networking site? Of course you do and so will everyone else, well maybe. As I wrote recently vertical social networks are gathering momentum. With so many categories currently un-catered for, it will be a boom year for the software companies providing off-the-shelf solutions. Many firms will also see the benefits of creating their own social networks as a replacement or as an alternative to expensive and cumbersome corporate intranets and extranets. Whether they will give their staff enough time to use them is of course another question.

8. Traditional media decline accelerates
David Crow at The Business has a great analysis on the seismic shifts in the media landscape this year and the likely developments in 2008. To reverse the general declines in newspaper circulations, more national newspapers will need to follow the example of the Daily Telegraph and invest in their digital operations. The amalgamation of the BBC’s offline and online news operations could lead to a decline in both the quantity and quality of online content, allowing other news organisations to catch-up. The Wall Street Journal liberated from a hefty subscription by Rupert Murdoch, will also be a new force to be reckoned with. Crow also looks ahead to the growth of DAB radio with Channel 4 launching a number of stations to compete directly with the BBC. He concludes by saying, “The firms that succeed in 2008 will be those that focus on the needs, desires and interests of their consumer in the contemporary marketplace – and discard their archaic, elitist prejudices born of a different era. For those still referred to as the “traditional” media, 2008 will be the make or break year.” Couldn’t agree with him more!

9. The Press Release’s condition becomes terminal
In response to the traditional media going increasingly digital, the demand from journalists for well packaged multimedia content will be stronger than ever before. The SMNR and Social Media Newsroom will become the industry standard for modern communication with press and bloggers. The days of four pages of double-spaced waffle will thankfully be nigh.

10. Google struggles with the forces of darkness
Once one of the most loved of internet brands, ordinary internet users will begin to reassess their warm relationship with Google. As with its recent announcement to obliterate Wikipedia, the brand will behave in a way that challenges Microsoft for its evil empire crown. While doing little to damage revenues at first, the loss of public goodwill will prompt a harder line from the competition authorities and legislators, curtailing the extent of Google’s long-term growth. In 2008, while its takeover of Skype gets through, its hostile bid for Apple is seen as a step too far.

2007 has been an amazing year personally. Leaving the warm bosom of agency life was a difficult decision but I’ve since been lucky enough to work with some amazing clients, agencies and practitioners on some really ground breaking digital PR campaigns. It’s been a journey into the future of PR and the future looks very bright indeed. So what do I think 2008 will bring?

1. The Year of the Widget
I have been spending a lot of time over the past couple of months working with some great developers on the design of widgets. I’m not talking about Zombies here, but creative, engaging, viral and above all value-added applications which support wider PR campaigns. The integration of widgets into the armoury of digital PR tactics will really take off in 2008 as developments like OpenSocial improve the economics and allow single applications to access larger audiences across multiple social networking sites. Beyond their role in PR, the widget will continue to change the shape of online advertising, as they move onto the desktop and mobiles – this recent article in Adweek is well worth a read to get up to speed.

2. Do you Vlog?
Video blogging will be one of the biggest tech trends of 2008. This will be driven by high profile bloggers such as Iain Dale experimenting with the medium as well as new platforms like Seesmic and Magnify. Another driver will be next generation mobile handsets with better quality in-built video cameras combined with falling data costs enabling vlogging on the move. It could even capture the media zeitgeist from Facebook, speaking of which…

3. Facebook media backlash
A bit like Jade Goody, having devoted acres of coverage building it up, 2008 will see the media try to bring Facebook down. The Beacon disaster has seen the US press sharpening its knives and the shift in sentiment will no doubt cross the Atlantic. Despite the less favourable coverage, Facebook will continue to grow and members will spend more and more time on the site. Reports of Facebook’s imminent demise by a few over excited commentators are I feel greatly exaggerated. The positives that make the site so great still far out weigh the disadvantages. The Beacon saga has shown Mark Zuckerberg that he stops listening to users concerns at his peril – I don’t think he will be stupid enough to make the same mistakes twice. Removing the negatives in terms of poor data protection and privacy, overly intrusive commercialisation and the small but growing volume of application related spam will need to be his top priorities for 2008.

4. Jumping on the social media bandwagon
Johnny come lately PR agencies will continue to jump on the social media bandwagon. Expect PR Week to be full of more stories of traditional PR agencies appointing heads of social media and creating specialist divisions.

5. A high-profile PR account shifts to a digital agency
The fundamental shifts in the PR industry will come into sharp focus when a high-profile client shifts its PR account to a Spannerworks-esque agency with digital and search at its core. There will be much debate and navel gazing. A few weeks later agencies respond by – yes you’ve guessed it – doing more of number 4.

Double click for full size image. From www.straightfrommybrain.com

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.

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!

A couple of examples of firms harnessing the power of B2B social networks have caught my eye today. Pfizer has announced a partnership with Sermo, the fast-growing US networking site for doctors. Sermo which launched in September 2006 currently has 30,000 US physicians with the site adding 2,000 new members each week. The network allows doctors to discuss medical cases or problems and post personal profiles. It is expected to launch outside the US next year.

Pfizer’s engagement will initially focus on providing medics with online information on its products but the company will also be looking to work with Sermo to formulate rules governing the wider exchange of medical information. This will include engaging with the US Food & Drugs Administration to define guidelines for the use of social media in communications with healthcare professionals. Pfizer is the first of the ‘Big Pharma’ firms to engage with social networking in such a concerted way.

The second example comes from global IT reseller Ingram Micro which has created The Zone. The social networking initiative will allow Ingram’s various VAR communities covering SMB, government procurement etc to create their own Zone sites. Both VAR executives and Ingram employees will be encouraged to create profiles and blogs and network to share information and best practice.

Both examples are a reminder that Facebook and LinkedIn will not be the be-all and end-all of professional social networking. There is a huge potential for well designed vertical sites to really take off in the next year. Also with the growing capability to buy inexpensive off-the-shelf software to create social networking sites, I can see many organisations with large potential online communities following Ingram’s lead and simply creating their own.

David Cameron is a Hottie - not my view of course but the name of a Facebook Group which David Cameron cited in his make-or-break conference speech this afternoon. Facebook and MySpace were both name checked in a section of the speech discussing change and growing personal freedom, you can see the specific clip here.

Apparently the Hottie group had 74 members when Cameron came across it, but this has increased to 170 and growing so far this afternoon. In his defence he does also mention one of the many anti-Cameron Facebook groups which seem to be far more popular…

So after widespread speculation in recent weeks that Microsoft was set to buy a stake in Facebook, it appears that there is some back tracking going on. Last week Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was at Microsoft’s HQ, where he was reported to be negotiating the sale of a 5% stake for $500m, valuing his site at a colossal $10 billion.

The negotiations perhaps didn’t go quite to plan judging from Rhys Blakely’s great interview with Microsoft Chief Exec Steve Ballmer in today’s Times Online. Ballmer claims, “I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs, and yet there’s faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people.”

In case we haven’t got the message he goes on to say, “There can’t be any more deep technology in Facebook than what dozens of people could write in a couple of years. That’s for sure.”

Hmm, sour grapes anyone?

With continuing speculation about a possible snap October election, the Conservative Party has today launched the UK’s first online only political advertising campaign. Promoting the new Tory slogan, ‘It’s time for change’ the banner adverts will be running on Facebook as well as major newspaper websites in the run up to the party conference in October. They are part of a continuing initiative alongside Webcameron to reach out to younger voters and professionals. It will be interesting to see how well the party takes advantage of click-throughs once the adverts go live…

“This London based public relations company is a Facebook friendly workplace” so opened a report on CNN on Friday which like so many media outlets had latched on to the ‘Banning Facebook at Work Debate’ as a means of filling the dead air of the silly season. Now, as a PR person I was obviously glued to the set to see which agency had secured this massive coup with exposure on the world’s largest television news network.

Imagine my shock and surprise that even with almost the entire piece filmed in the agency’s offices and after interviews with not one but two of its staff, I still didn’t have the foggiest idea. No tickers on the screen, no branding anywhere to be seen, not even a lowly name check. I know some PR agencies are terrible at their own PR and marketing and can sometimes forget the basic rules of media relations when the tables are turned, but please! The lack of effort which seems to have been shown here seems such a wasted opportunity and a rather poor advertisement to clients of the agency’s broadcast PR skills. I have managed to find the video on CNN.com, so take a look here and if you can discern the identity of the ‘guilty’ agency let me know!

The CNN report also featured research conducted by UtalkMarketing which claims that most people actually spend just 10 minutes on Facebook a day with a mere 17% admitting to accessing the site at work. I can’t find details of the methodology but given the surprisingly low figures I suspect a cross section of the population was surveyed rather than a sample of a thousand office workers. I do share the sentiments of the findings though, that severe cyberslacking afflicts only a tiny minority of workers and that knee-jerk blanket bans will only breed resentment from the majority of employees who use such sites sensibly.

Update 4.10.07 - Thanks to those who have been in contact, I am reliably informed that the ‘Facebook friendly workplace’ featured on CNN was in fact Resonate PR…

Following last week’s advertising crisis, Facebook has been forced to introduce a new opt-out system for advertisers. The new feature will allow advertisers to block their ads appearing on the pages of some of the 6 million user groups on the site. It appears the UK advertising industry is leading the way in the evolution of the brand/social media relationship with advertisers in the US having to wait until later in the year to be able to exercise the same choice. The opt-out system is apparently the first of a number of new initiatives in development to give advertisers the control they are demanding. It will be interesting to see whether Facebook’s competitors introduce similar reforms in the coming weeks.

A survey by the Lib Dems has surprisingly found that the Lib Dems are the most prolific users of good old Facebook. 40% of Liberal Democrat MPs have Facebook profiles, compared with just 12% of Tory MPs and 13% of Labour MPs. In real terms if my parliamentary arithmetic is correct that’s 25 Lib Dem MPs vs. 24 Tory MPs, a stunning lead indeed. The research was conducted but Steve Webb, MP for Northavon who claims to have over 1000 Facebook mates. The results shouldn’t really come as too much of a surprise, as Mark Oaten would attest the party has always been at the forefront of taking advantage of the Internet to reach new audiences.