“Message from Jeremy: To all Tech IT Easy readers, who could obviously not necessarily remember the initial announcement, I have invited my friend Steve to help me try to provide you, dear readership, with everyday better technology insights. Steve’s mission statement is that there’s no mission statement: what matters most here is to raise the right issues on underlying market trends, bringing to light new software, Internet services and consumer electronic devices. Steve, the floor is yours…”
Hi everybody,
This will be an unusual post. Instead of providing you with information, I’ll take some from you. Well, at least, if you have some knowledge to share about Web 2.0 .
Let me explain. I am currently composing a working paper for academic purposes, in order to complete my graduation from France’s well-knowned business school, HEC. The subject I chose will be of interest for many of you readers. Here I go:
“Can we build a sustainable business model by connecting users in a social netwotk ? The example of some Web 2.0 companies. (“Peut-on bâtir un business model durable autour de la mise en relation des utilisateurs ? L’exemple de quelques sociétés Web 2.0″)
I would be glad to obtain information on some flagships of the social network industry, especially the most profitable of these, such as Meetic, Facebook or LinkedIn. Nonetheless, since I presume accessing these corporations will be less easy than introducing a nuke inside Fort Knox, I’ll be highly interest to have a little chat with any Web 2.0 entrepreneur, who had even the faintest experience with social networking. I would really appreciate your contribution, and will reward it with a nice copy of my final report, as well as a free coffee or a free lunch in Paris. This shouldn’t take you more than half an hour, and you will also help science - while no strategic information will be disclosed or even asked for. The major conclusions will, naturally, end up in a synthetic post in Tech IT Easy !
You can contact me right here, in the comment sections. Or by email: steve.danino@mailhec.net. Or MSN: stevedanino@aol.com. Or even by phone, Skype, snail mail, or by carrier pigeon if you wish.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Hum… 2 month too early for me!
Sorry
Comment by Julien — April 7, 2007 @ 03:24
Hi Julien, since I plan to deliver my final report by end of June, I am sure we could have an interesting conversation some day…
Comment by Steve Danino — April 7, 2007 @ 11:23
Well,
I haven’t started any websites recently. But i did run a website for car enthusiasts a long time ago.. about 3 years? I programmed it and all so that each user can upload info photos etc. of their own cars…
Anyhow. i’m a much more savvy web developer and a marketer now, and i do my share of research and write opinions on my stuff.
If you want some information, go to my blog and read some older posts regarding facebook and their marketing, API, etc., and you’ll see how Facebook became a profitable ship.
I won’t posts links on this post – it’ll be marked as spam. Email me if you’re interested in some more stuff – who knows, you migth give me a great blog post idea and I can write about it, and thn you can take it for your research!
Comment by Jeff Kee — April 9, 2007 @ 03:04
Hey Steve. I just sent you to your hec address a very basic document that I had written on the “shopping communities”. It is not very analytical but it might help you for I regard shopping communities to have some commonalities with social networks (are they considered as such?). Anyway. Good luck.
ps:I write my thesis on the following theme, any help (jds182@gmail.com) will be appreciated:
“How did the 2001 bursting of the technology bubble influenced the e-commerce sector?”.
Comment by Jedi — April 9, 2007 @ 10:26
Hi everybody.
Thanks for your help. I hope I’ll be able to deliver a good research paper, nonetheless I’m afraid to say that it will be written in French – I promise I’ll post an English summary on Tech IT Easy when I finish.
Comment by Steve Danino — April 9, 2007 @ 21:41
Steve,
You should talk to Lars Hinrichs, founder of Xing (openbc) in Munich.
Greetings from Zurich!
Comment by Valerie — April 11, 2007 @ 07:03
Small note from Czech republic: web developers, entrepreneurs and evangelists here tends NOT to have any social networking with each others. Moreover, they prefer to work and think about business solely by them own and initiatives, which tries to change this situation are signed as “buzzword” and “web2.0 bullshit”
Hope it will change someday.
Comment by Misha — April 12, 2007 @ 02:30
Misha, actually by social networking I meant online services for allowing users to meet each other; see LinkedIn, Facebook, or Meetic for instance. Basically, these are websites where you fill in a profile, which will be centralized in a database, and then users may browse your profile, (all the rest being secondary, really).
However, your blog is interesting. Nice to discover new things thanks to Tech IT Easy.
Comment by Steve Danino — April 12, 2007 @ 03:11
Thanks, I have found you blog recently by this post – http://jeremyfain.wordpress.com/2007/03/06/europes-contribution-to-the-internet/ – and the rest is interesting as well
OK, I had a wrong understanding of your question, I meant social networking at all, not only with these tools – and result is obvious: when people do not network at all here, they dont use any networking service
But of course, there are several Czech people on LinkedIn, but it is no widely spread and used.
Comment by Misha — April 12, 2007 @ 11:57
Probably Misha,
but Facebook or Meetic
are considerable successes indeed. Actually, my point is rather to understand how you can become a Web 2.0 leader – which Linkedin is, sorry for France’s excellent service Viadeo – in virtually no time, with little money and basic technology.
I really do not intend to underrate the tremendous work of Facebook’s engineers for example, but I have always been struck by the discrepancy between software and Web 2.0 websites.
For exeample, some Web 2.0 sites such as Facebook can achieve a tremendous popularity while programmed with little effort, in comparison of software powerhouses which, despite millions lines of codes, might never emerge among its competitors.
Comment by Steve Danino — April 12, 2007 @ 20:07