Comments on: What do you want to know?

By: Keith

Keith — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 18:13:24 +0000

The key to social networking is exactly that – you have to be social and involved in the community. Any web 2.0 application requires commitment on the hosts part as well as the participants.

I couldn’t agree more that organizations should look at what exists already and co-opt it for their use. That makes a lot of sense to get over the momentum hurdle. In Bill’s case I think his organization is large enough – and their existing network is large enough that a custom solution (that used parts of this application and that tool – a mashup) would work better than joining something that already exists.

I think there are a lot of good forums and social network frameworks out there to use (but maybe not exclusively). I think we get caught up in a view of what a forum is, or a blog, or a website – and that limits us when thinking about how to stretch pre-made applications beyond what they can do.

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 16:42:17 +0000

I like the idea of social networking, but an active person would need to belong to several of them. One of the cool things about web 2.0 is that you can steal other systems. For example, instead of making a photo sharing site, use the flickr api and embed . I don’t know of any good web 2.0 networking or forum systems, but it seems like there should be one out there that you could piggy back on. This would increase the probability of it getting used and likely be easier to develop.

By: Bill Sims

Bill Sims — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:44:12 +0000

Ok, I’ll give it a shot.

As you know we have been considering adding a forum to our site, for exclusive use by our clients, our “Alumni”. The purpose would be to provide a networking system so that they could share experiences, trade stories, seek assistance and advice from each other etc. Web 2.0 stuff, social networking, etc.

My own hesitation lies in the fact that I have never seen, nor participated in, a forum that seems to work out as intended. Most of them just sit there, great tools that are little used, or are often abused.

Are there better models out there, tools that are working? Or, is it simply another case of proper marketing, using all available channels, to make folks aware of the system and get them engaged in the conversation?

At the recent symposium we attended in New Orleans, Wiki’s, or the use of a system such as InCircle was suggested.