how to make money through social networking... the tedious way
MyLot uses the interactive aspect of social networking to create a site where users are paid to make posts on discussion boards. As many companies are looking for new ways to connect with their consumers, these companies have established their presence on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. The pace has only increased as MySpace claims that it has passed Yahoo! in term of web traffic. This shift makes a lot of sense because advertisers only want to market their products where potential consumers could see them. This is why they like Google and Yahoo! because people often view their pages multiple times per day.
MyLot is a site that wants to jump on this bandwagon. In order to gain the critical amount of participating users such that advertisers would care, MyLot is paying their users per post to participate in discussion forums here. Initially, users will get pennies per post; however, with MyLot's referral scheme, users could potentially earn a lot more. Doesn't this remind you of all the "get paid to be on the internet" schemes from 8 years ago?
Anyway, there seems to be a lot of participation in this scheme despite the enormous time it requires to write meaningful posts. Users also makes money if their discussion topics generate a lot of discussion, so some users are going out of their way to make outrageous topics that clearly scream "I just want to be devil's advocate so I can make lots of money." I even found a
post regarding a user's decision in whether she should have sex with her boyfriend even though she is a virgin. If you read further, apparently this user has pictures of her baby in her profile.
As many people look for more ways to make easy money, I feel sorry for all these users who feel obligated to make posts just to make a meager income. Instead of wasting all that time writing posts for pennies, you may as well spend that energy writing about things you care about. There are enough people on Blogger that share their thoughts for free (before the arrival of Ad Sense). Some of the people who cared enough about what they're writing eventually make enough money because they have popular blogs and websites.
Facebook to remain independent
Despite the $1 billion offer from Yahoo!, Facebook has declined and will walk the independent path unlike YouTube and MySpace.
Bloomberg reports that Facebook director, Peter Thiel, stands on Facebook remaining an independent company and looking to expand its offerings. The director claims that Facebook's niche in the college student market makes itself worth at least $8 billion rivalling MTV.
Given the amount of marketing power that Facebook has with its mostly college-aged members, it is entirely possible that Facebook could create a revenue model not only based on advertising but also corporate partnerships, sales commissions, and merchandise. Facebook is even trying to hold onto its members by adding networks for work and location. The results of Facebook's retention attempts are yet to be seen, but Facebook is pretty serious about becoming the direct connection to today's connected generation.
Social networking was definitely the buzzword of 2006. Let's see how it develops in 2007.
change the world... through social networking
ChangingThePresent launched a social networking site to encourage people to donate what they would otherwise spend during the holidays to non-profit organizations dedicated to saving the world. There are about 400 non-profit organizations with profiles on this page. You can "friend" these non-profit organizations and buy items like "clear landmines" or "fund a scholarship." They also have funny facts about how much people spend money during the holidays on frivolous novelty items.
It's a good cause but a frustrating thing to navigate through. If you want to do good,
ChipIn will help raise money by imbedding widgets in your blogs and/or social networking profiles.
paris on the student budget. possible?
I have two weeks left until I bid a temporary farewell to the United States and head to the other side of the Atlantic. Some friends and I are getting ready for our trip to Paris for a study abroad program sponsored by our university. After two in-person meetings regarding the program, many of us still had numerous questions and concerns regarding the program. Our dorms are located on the "south side" of Paris where most of the cool places are north of the river. There were many questions still floating among us. Are there any cheap eateries available? Where is the nearest bakery? Is the neighborhood relatively safe? Where is the best place to exchange currency without getting ripped off? Where can we shop? We're not talking about the touristy department stores or high-end, super-expensive boutiques. We wanted to know where the "real" Parisians shop. Where are the streets filled with vintage clothing stores and underground shops? Where are the places that the "real" Parisians hang out?
Obligated to be armed with some information to get us started, I began my search online to find the "must-be-seen" spots of Paris.
First, I checked out the forums at the student travellers' site,
StudentUniverse. While looking through the Europe posts to find anything related to Paris. However, most content related to people who are staying there for a few days rather than 10 weeks that we will be there for. Then I went to
RealTravel to browse through their archives of Paris travel blogs. This is an interesting (I know that I've used this word frequently through my recent posts, but I can't think of any other word that perfectly describes my thought. It's better to be blunt than frivolous... I guess.) archive as the blogs are written by real people who have travelled to Paris recently and recorded their photos and thoughts onto a blog. The people are not only from the United States which brings another perspective into the eclectic French city.
This is only the beginning of the many blogs I found devoted to Paris. Heather Stimmler-Hall has written a great guide on her blog,
Secrets of Paris. This alternative look at Paris offers some insightful recommendations (and funny comments) about her experiences in Paris. There are definitely some eateries under 15 Euro that I want to try. I've heard the ethnic cuisine is also fantastic in Paris, and many of them are very inexpensive. There are other sections on Parisian nightlife, culture, the arts, hotel, and essentials that all travelers should be aware of. This blog will definitely be bookmarked as I'm sure we'll refer to it often while in Paris.
Another blog entitled "
Girl's Guide to City Life" is also chocked full of information especially for the ladies. They have sections for not only Paris but for many other international cities as well. Most content is biased towards shopping and nightlife, but there are other little things for the "active girl" or the "travellin' girl" to see. Speaking of fashion, I've also browsed through many forums showcasing Paris street fashion, so that I don't stick out like an American tourist.
I'm still looking around for a very good restaurant guide, especially for student budgets. If you know of any communities, please share.
MIT finds another way to facilitate stalking on campus
I'm sure you all knew about this by now (especially if you read Engadget like I do), MIT researchers unveiled a new social networking application called iFIND that allows anyone to locate a person on MIT's campus via WiFi.
As WiFi becomes more ubiquitous, more students and faculty are spending more time away from their workstations and working in areas such as coffee shops, cafes, and the quads. Of course, use of the application is voluntary. People can choose whether or not they would like to be easily located via WiFi access points as the application depends on the device not a central server.
Although this application only had laptop computers in mind, this concept could easily be applied to mobile platforms such as mobile phones and PDAs. Nowadays, the college student could either call their friends or text them to find them on campus. UChicago's campus do not have as many WiFi access points like MIT, but as more students choose to buy laptops rather than desktops for college, I can see this trend changing. There is only so much information about a location that you can convey through spoken or written communcation. Especially on campuses or venues that are very large, it is sometimes just more simple to have a location marked on a map to avoid confusion and/or miscommunication.
In addition, MIT's new application could be applied to personal information management as well. Just imagine, you could even find out the name of the cute girl or guy and where she or he lives... (just kidding). Revolutionary? That verdict is still out. There are already numerous location-based tracking service available for mobile platforms (see earlier entries) and on the web (i.e. dodgeball). Have they been embraced fully? Not that I've seen or experienced. Personally, I don't think companies have fully figured out how to combine these features into a product that a college student would be interested in buying or can even afford. Maybe it would be better if you target the young professionals straight out of college as this group usually upgrades their choice of consumer products given that this group has more disposable income.
cyworld clone
So it looks like music fashion mogul Damon Dash has created a Cyworld clone called
BlockSavvy. Although it is invite-only, it seems like the African American community is embracing the interactive social networking site that allows users to create and decorate their digital avatars and their own rooms with items bought with Savvy dollars.
There are so many social networking sites popping up that I can't even keep track of the ones I've tried and the ones I've heard from off-hand. With YouTube being bought for $1.65 billion and the price of MySpace looking like a bargain, there must be a lot of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs looking for the next big social networking hit. This isn't too surprising as the amount of valuable marketing information and research found within these sites is pretty daunting.
education in web 2.0
I was browsing through Time magazine today, and I ran across a rather fascinating article entitled "How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century." It offers an interesting perspective on what skills the current generation of children need to have in order to succeed in the future. It criticizes Bush's No Child Left Behind Act as more teachers are focused on drilling basic math and reading skills into children instead of fostering creative thinking. In today's global economy, today's children need to know more than basic arithmetic and English. They need to be able to "think through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information from bad, or speak a language other than English." Essentially, today's global economy demands that today's children be global students and ready to locate, sort, and determine relevant information.
How can "Learning 2.0" be achieved? What does it require? Scott McNealy, chairman of Sun Microsystems, came up with an interesting solution as he attempted to searched the Web for a simple yet dynamic explanation of electricity that his third-grade son could understand. After hours of searching, he ran into a site that explained electricity simply but it was meant for welders. A lightbulb switched on inside McNealy's head as he went on to create an educational website for K-12 students that is browser based and free.
By drawing on the Wikipedia model, he created
Curriki that created a collection of online courses that can be updated, improved, modified, and shared by innovative educators. This site made its debut in January 2006 and has experienced tremendous growth. There are currently more than 450 courses in the works, and thousands of people joined as members. Although Curriki is not meant to replace the in-person interaction among students, teachers, and parents, the website is a great way to complement students' eagerness for knowledge and learning to their current education. Personally, my friends and I learn a lot of interesting things via Internet than at school. With UChicago's emphasis on theory, we always looked for ways to apply theory to practice. Whether we peruse through the business and finance sections of the Wall Street Journal or use our critical thinking skills to work through actual business problems, personally it's nice to know that economics can still valuable vs. any knowledge of finance or accounting.
I do like this idea of a collaborative learning environment through the web. What would be more intriguing is how they incorporate media such as video and sound files into these courses. As the Internet encourages user-driven content, companies and NGOs are surely taking notice. Curriki's partners cover a diverse range including but not limited to the UN, Sun Microsystems, Elluminate, and XWiki.com. The Board of Director and Advisors reflect the global commitment by the site as these people came from a variety of disciplines, backgrounds, and countries. Much innovation is coming from the interdisciplinary approaches across fields and people. These online collaborative learning environments would be a great additional tool to learning foreign languages. Although I speak two languages (German and Korean) other than English at varying levels, I would like to have an opportunity to improve my fluency in these languages. Although the Curriki site's search engine suffers from too much traffic, it seems that it is a little difficult to find the relevant courses I need to practice. There should not be too much worry though. Given the high-powered sponsors and partners, Curriki has an excellent support base to lean on and continue its expansion.
where can i find a good deal?
As Thanksgiving has already passed, there are still a few weeks left until Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, or whatever other holiday I missed to be politically correct. Although I am now at home and away from my college friends, I still get the occasional phone call about what I want for Christmas. Most of the time, I say that I don't really want anything as we are college students at a private college destined for years of paying back student loans. Regardless, this is a fun time for me as I am an avid shopper and bargain hunter.
In the old days without Internet, I would look through the advertisements in the Sunday newspaper to get gift idea for my friends and family. Now, I can just sit right here while I type my blog and peruse through many colorful pages full of great "deals" and "sales." Then I would beg my parents to drive me to the nearest mall or retail store to check out the items of interest and judge whether they would be available at a later date. In addition, I would always go through multiple stores to make sure I got the best deal, but I probably have wasted more money from gasoline due to all the driving around.
Anyway, the point of this entry is that sometimes I really can't find the best deal, or I get gifts based on whatever is on sale at the time. In an age where all companies participate in monopolistic competition, they will try any means to differentiate their products to the price-sensitive consumer's eyes. For example, I am personally looking for a digital camera for extensive use while in Paris. I have requirements that most companies can fulfill. These requirements are the following: 1) at least 5 mp resolution; 2) large LCD screen; 3) optical zoom; 4) lithium ion battery; 5) SD memory card; 6) lightweight. Basically, I do not want anything fancy as I am not a professional photographer, and if I ever do want to pursue photography as a hobby, I cannot afford to buy a high-end camera on a student budget. It all comes down to the camera's ability to take the best picture at any given moment. As you probably realize, most companies already have camera(s) that fulfill these requirements. Although I do understand that there are some companies that you just want to stay away from when you buy a digital camera, I basically do not care much for brand.
Thus, I began looking through various websites such as Amazon, Overstock, Newegg.com, and other online retailers and got frustrated with the fact that I can't compare camera prices and accessories all in one page. In addition, I always find consumers' comments helpful on every product, but some retailers have good rating systems while others don't. The ultimate hole in all these online retailers is that there is no way to see when and what cameras are on sale.
I decided that there must be something on the web where people congregate about the deals they found on the web and where I can find this information. I did happen to find something. It's called
Shoutback. The site allows users to "shout" (i.e. report) about deals they find locally and online for a wide range of products. You can add and organize these deals on your profile, and you can also share your newfound deals with friends too. You can also earn points for every dollar you spend at participating retailers if you go through this site. Then, you can redeem these points for cash, electronics, apparel, and many other goods. An elite program is available for users who participate the most.
Despite the really simple interface similar to digg, I sometimes find this site useful for browsing for gift ideas online if price is the only factor. Instead of having to visit those sites individually to find out there is free shipping or a limited time discount, I like the fact that I can find out through here using the power of online shoppers all over the globe. A search function is available, but it would be interesting to consolidate this under a more well-known search engine like Yahoo!, MSN, or Google.
Need to know when the next PS3 or Wii is available?
ITrackr is an interesting web service that allows members to track hot-selling items online. No more calling local stores to ask when (or if ever) your holiday wish-list items will ever get in. All you have to do is set your zipcode (and it will be remembered if you register as a member).
This site is relatively new, but word is travelling fast as more people become lazy (or efficient) and use the internet as a tool to make their lives easier and productive for little effort.
pimp my photo
Pikipimp is a site that allows you to "pimp" your photo. As I was bored of studying for my final exams last week, I decided to peruse through the net to see if there were any fun things on the internet that I can do and share them at the same time.
It's a pretty easy web application. You just upload your photo from your HD, pimp your image (drag and drop digital add-ons onto your photo), manage your image (rotate, crop, flip, move, etc.), preview your image, then save it on your website. As the "pimp" add-ons include various physical decorations such as beards, chest hair, tattoos, and teeth. There are also seasonal add-ons such as Christmas items (hats, etc.). Basically there was no end to my amusement as I was too lazy to open Photoshop and modify my images professionally with my own creative hand.
Members get some benefits as well. Free membership includes storage space for your "pimped" photos. You can also vote for your favorite "pimped piks" and add comments to other people's "pimped piks." You also get a basic profile to share your "pimped piks" with other members.
This site was a good time-waster for those procrastinating at school and looking for a good laugh after 15 minutes of playing around.
easy way to track shared bills and expenses
Buxfer is a free online web service that lets you and your roommates keep track of shared expenses and bills. Started by three graduate students who struggled to figure out whose turn it was to pay for food, they wrote this small and simple script to keep track of debts and expenses. Playing on the world "bucks" and "transfer," this online application is meant to simplify the tracking of shared expenses between friends.
This service seems like a godsend as I just finished fall quarter at UChicago only to be reminded that I will be emailed by my roommate about electricity or gas expenses for the past couple of months. Granted, I am responsible, and I will gladly pay my share of all the bills. However, I often feel uncomfortable when I blindly pay without seeing the bill. As I do not spend much time in my apartment except for sleeping and showering relative to my other roommates, I often feel shortchanged when I pay my "share" of the bills. In my current living situation, I have three roommates who share the expenses such as rent, grocery, electricity, cooking gas, and DSL internet in vary degrees of usage. With papers, problem sets, work, and extracurricular activities, it is often hard for me to keep track how much I owe whom without having a sneaking suspicion that I am paying more than my share.
All you need is an email to register for the Buxfer service. Your Buxfer homepage shows "net balance" which is the sum of group balances and contact balances, "news" (aka notifications), and a transaction-line-view of the ten most recent transactions you have participated in. You can report transactions either as a "shared bill," "lend or settle loan," or a "personal expense." After classifying the transaction, the site will ask what "group" it should apply this expense to. Transaction details allow you to see amounts paid, received, or spent by transaction partcipants, the amounts that the transaction participants owe or receive, and previous edits as well as comments posted to the transaction. Your site also has a section for contacts for all your transactions, and you can create groups for your transactions as well. You can also tag your transactions, so you can easily see the transaction history for a particular tag (i.e. apartment rent). There is also another page where you can leave feedback to the masterminds behind this site.
In this day and age where college students and young professionals are becoming increasingly connected with each other, this web service will be a sleeper hit once users find out how easy it is to use the site. You can log into this site using your Facebook or Yahoo! ID as well. The only downside is that there is no way to actively transfer funds through this site as it only keeps tracks of expenses rather than allow the user to directly pay expenses (like PayPal). As the founders are dedicated to keep this site free, they are still trying to figure out a way to enable this feature on their website. As Google just announced a "pay transfer" system similar to PayPal, these founders may have found a way to use advertising revenue as a way to fund a system like PayPal's.
It's pretty impressive that this site already tracks more than $1.7 million dollars in almost 8000 transactions, and these numbers still continue the climb. I believe these three grad students have found a niche. I'm already a convert, and I will surely get my roommates to use this system when I come back from Paris.
Labels: buxfer, shared expense tracking, social networking
convocation observations
I was participating in the UChicago convocation as Student Marshal making sure everyone actually received their diplomas in a timely fashion. In one sense, Student Marshal is supposedly the "highest honor" the College offers to its students. How do students get chosen? I honestly have no idea.
Regardless, while I was marching down the aisle of Rockefeller Chapel, I decided to observe what students and families are using in terms of technology. I still remember my dad's graduation at UIC when I was little. People had these gigantic 35mm cameras and were trying to be as discrete as possible to sneak a picture with flash of their loved ones. Although, fall convocation is a historically smaller ceremony (only 200 people chose to graduate this quarter), it was interesting to notice how everyone had digital video cameras and slim digital cameras. Lights were flashing everywhere, but instead of a big black lens blocking my view there was a tiny silver camera shuttering away in front of my eyes. I also noticed a wide variety of people using their cell phones to take photos of their friends and families to put them up as wallpaper. Although the school's convocation ceremony did not allow flash photography, this did not stop some graduating students from using their mobile phones to sneak a couple of pictures of the ceremony and their friends during the ceremony.
This got me wondering. Nonetheless, I have many friends who don't believe mobile phones should serve as a jack-of-all-trades media center. They just want a small phone that allows them to communicated with the outside world. Meanwhile, I see plenty of other students using their 3.0 megapixel camera on their mobile phones to take pictures and send to their friends. Digital cameras were few and far between when I was in high school. (I still remember my 2.0 megapixel Canon S100... yes S100.) Now, they are so ubiquitous that many photo-sharing sites are exploding as more people own digital cameras and want to share these photos with friends, family, and sometimes the world.
It's pretty exciting as America is slowly embracing high-speed data networks and expensive yet fully-equipped mobile phones. Although this country is still far behind my home country Korea and the rest of East Asia, it's still a fascinating time to examine for the future. It's interesting when you have many of the giant tech companies such as Google and Yahoo! headquartered in America, but why is America always behind on the latest in consumer electronics and gadgetry! This has always frustrated me for much of my life. At least now America has finally come to its senses and realized that maybe having high-end gadgets is cool.
social networking around fashion
It seems like the trend in social networking is division of labor. Become as specialized as you can! It's interesting to go through social networking sites devoted to new parents, dog owners, cat owners, food lovers, etc.
Eventually, I ran into this social community called
LookSpark that heralds fashion and personal style. As a devoted follower to celebrity fashion and couture (don't be fooled by my lack of inspiration in my other blogs... I do have other things to do besides blogging), I decided to spend an hour and explore to see what the site has to offer. With the somewhat cheesy motto, "Style is a feeling. Express yourself," the site serves for fashionistas to share their takes on the fashion world today.
The buzzword is "spark." Each entry or comment made by you is a "spark." Like any other social networking site, you can vote on different "Sparks" across many categories and tell other users what you think of Paris Hilton's latest fashion bungle/trend. You can discuss with other users on the topic of the "spark." Also, you can share "sparks" with your friends and gain their input.
Some of the more interesting categories include "Deals and Steals" where users can share their finds online or offline with others on the site. Another category is "What am I wearing today?" which calls for lots of sarcastic jokes and obnoxious hilarity. The "Style Term of the Day" is actually one part of the site where I learn a lot about fashion. I never knew what a "heel counter" (def: plastic cup within the upper which cups the heel to reduce excessive rearfoot motion) or "escarion" (def: light shoes worn in the 16th century) until I ran into this site.
The community itself is very easy to use and navigate. There are not that many "wow" functions or anything out of the ordinary. The reason could lie in the audience where they may not be that tech saavy, but it seems to focus more on content and sharing rather than next-gen applications. There seems to be a lot of "sparks" that get put up every day, but not many users reply to them which begs the question on whether this fashion community is targeting a market that is too small.
I guess we'll see what happens. I'm running out of ideas for gifts for my family and friends, and clothes are usually at the top of the wishlist for many of them.
MySpace to expand wireless access to Cingular uses
The Cinderella dance is over. Helio's exclusive partnership looks like it will expire any time soon as it looks like Newscorp will expand MySpace access to Cingular Wireless users. What fun, I wonder if people will actually buy it. The last time I test-drived Helio's MySpace "service," it was only a web application that took out all the random ads. This should get interesting though as Cingular Wireless has a huge customer base. With network upgrades around the corner, media sharing seems to be a practical possibility.
Google Calendar Saved My Life (at least for finals week and job recruiting)
As fall quarter has officially ended, I always look back in retrospect to see if I have used my time efficiently and well. Most of the time, everything I plan out months in advance in my written planner seems to change once I actually get to the date. Eventually, I figured out that I truly have way too many things to keep track of, and I don't even have enough room in my notebook-sized academic planner. With job applications, presentations, interviews, and the random extra-curricular activities that I am involve with on campus, I figured it was time to make full use of the Google Calendar account sitting with my Gmail account. Not only do I have lists of things to do, but I have list with times attached to them. In addition, many advanced undergrad courses involved utilizing study groups, so this could be a great way to organize and schedule study sessions without having to be on facebook all the time. (As we all know, Facebook isn't for serious get-togethers.)
Now that the job recruiting season is over, I have much to thank to Google Calendar for helping me to organize my life. The calendar even let me send SMS messages to myself to alert me of appointments and interviews 15 minutes in advance. Although I wished that I could color-code events by category or highlight important appointments on Google Calendar (yes, I'm a little
obsessive-compulsive when it comes to my time). Now someone has even developed a Facebook add-on to help us keep track of our facebook friends' birthdays as an iCalendar file.
Anyway, I decided to talk to a few of my friends with varying levels of tech know-how about their uses of Google Calendar (and other shared calendars in general).
The first friend who went through on-campus recruiting with me said Google Calendar was extremely helpful in helping her keep track of resume drop deadlines, presentations and information sessions, pre-interview dinners, interviews, and office visits through one of the most stressful parts of a college senior's life. She checked it daily during the season, but now that it is over (and she has a job), she only checks it once a week. She now uses Google Calendar to schedule some social events. Her calendar is not public, and she rarely uses the "shared" features on Google Calendar. She states convenience and multiple languages as strengths of Google Calendar. For practical purposes, she even couldn't think of anything negative about the service. She too would like to be able to color-code her scheduled events and would use it on mobile if it was free. (Like any college student who is price elastic.)
Then I talked to another friend who has more tech know-how then I ever will. (I actually thank him for many of the applications I use right now.) He actually tried a variety of shared calendar apps before settling down on Google Calendar, Outlook, and Scheduleworld. (Yes, he does have more than one mobile phone.) He thought 30boxes was a little too "Mac-y" while scheduleworld was pretty decent. Due to the different formats and standards used by the shared calendars, he finds it very difficult to sync his multiple computers, mobile phones, and his Xbox 360. Because truly two-way sharing can only be done with Microsoft Exchange (which costs a lot of money), he is always frustrated that he can't upload his schedules on the spot without having to physically input the change into the application. He even spent countless hours during work to figure out how to sync all of his gadgets in a drawing that I have somewhere in my inbox. Currently, he has Outlook to Scheduleworld to Google Calendar in his sync map.
So I thought about this for awhile as I do want to break away from my written academic planner at some point. I decided to peruse through some social networking sites to see if anyone else had any ideas on the subject. Some people thinks that Google is actually stressing them out more because of all the free "productive" tools that were available to them. Someone even made an application that generates an iCalendar compiling all your Facebook friends' birthdays.
Nonetheless, many students still use the old-school academic planners. Personally, I sometimes feel more satisfied when I physically cross out a task in my academic calendar. You really can't emulate that with a calendar application on your mobile phone.
