Social networks, development prospects and ways to monetize. Part 1
Recently, UA WEB conference was held, at which I spoke on social networks. And so I decided to post it on Habré. The report turned out to be great, even at the conference did not meet, so I will lay out in 3 stages. I ask you to treat with understanding, the first part of many Habralyam may not be so interesting because of their extensive knowledge, but 2 and 3 just like it! :)
And so first, the outline of the entire report, and then the first part, in general, about social networks.
1. Social networks
2. Development prospects
3. Ways to monetize
In this report, I will talk about such an important and topical issue today as social networks. Recently, this type of site has become very popular both in the west and in our country - in Russia and Ukraine. Investments in such projects reach hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars. In Ukraine, these sums have exceeded several million dollars and continue to grow, which indicates the growing popularity and confidence of investors not only in the return of their investments, but also in their multiplication.
')
The results of numerous studies show that social networks already cover more than half of all Internet users. In Russia and Ukraine, this figure is still less than the world, but it is growing rapidly.
Wikipedia gives us the following definition: social network (eng. Social network) - a social structure consisting of a group of nodes, which are social objects (people or organizations), and the connections between them.
The term “Social Network” was introduced long before the advent of the Internet and the modern Internet networks proper, as far back as 1954 by the sociologist from the “Manchester School” James Barnes .
Modern concept in a simple form means a certain circle of familiar people, where there is a person himself - the center of a social network, his acquaintances - branches of this social network and relations between these people - connections. If you look at the social network more deeply, you may find that the connections are divided into types: one-sided and two-sided; networks of friends, colleagues, classmates, classmates, etc.
In the second half of the 20th century, social networks began to actively develop as a scientific concept, at first they became popular in the west, and later came to us. Then this usual professional concept of sociologists turned into a fashionable concept, one of the central ones in the concept of web 2.0 , which was introduced as a concept by Tim O'Reilly on September 30, 2005 in his article “Tim O'Reilly - What Is Web 2.0”.
The first computer social networks were, oddly enough, all the same groups of people who used to create and maintain social connections means of computer communication, which became e-mail . It happened on October 2, 1971 - the day of the first message sent to a remote computer, and the first users of the social network were the military in the ARPA Net network. It was the first step to creating the Internet and modern social Internet networks.
The next step was the invention of IRC (Internet Relay Chat) - a service system for real-time communication. IRC or “Irka”, as it is also called, was created in 1988 by a Finnish student Brightly Oikarinen . These were already more “advanced” social networks, but still far from modern ones.
From the invention of computers, e-mail, IRC and many others, on August 7, 1991, the invention of the Internet emerged. It was on this day that the British scholar Tim Berners-Lee first published the first web pages and thus made the next step towards modern social networks.
And in 1995 , the first, close to modern, social network Classmates.com , created by Randy Conrad , owner of Classmates Online, Inc., appeared. This site helped registered visitors find and maintain relationships with friends, classmates, classmates and other acquaintances. Now in this network more than 40 million people are registered, mainly from the USA and Canada.
The concept of Classmates turned out to be successful and since the distant 2005 it has been developing and not only within this network have such world giants as MySpace, FaceBook, Bebo and LinkedIn or the giants of the Odnoklassniki RuNet appeared, VKontakte, MoiMir and MyKrug.
Well-known writer Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “Whatever science comes up with, all this is then used by the military” and he is certainly right. In our time, there is actually an information war. And the most valuable is information. And where is a lot of easily accessible information? Of course, in social networks! Therefore, social networks are actively used to extract a variety of information about people or organizations.
The image of a person in social networks
Many people, without thinking, communicate in social networks, fill out their profiles, post photos, personal videos and voluntarily give a lot of other information about themselves. And as practice shows - in vain.
The Economic Dictionary gives us the following definition: image (English image) - the image of a person, the image of him, the image of others. In social networks, active people inevitably have a certain image - the opinion of other users of a particular network about it. And this image can significantly affect various aspects of a person’s life (from a banal change in the opinion of friends about a person to failure when trying to get a new job).
For example, you can take the MoiKrug social network and me in this social network - http://semenov.moikrug.ru/ - Nikita Andreevich Semenov. In my profile you can find out about my interests and professional skills (only what concerns the profession), about the places of my work and what I do in general, see how I look (photos in a suit, office), people from the 1st circle can see my contacts and contact me, see what books I read (mostly business literature), see the topics created and commented on (professional only). Any outsider who comes to my profile has only a professional positive opinion about me. And this is the goal that I pursued in this network.
Work and social networks
One of the important functions of social networks is job search. In some social networks, the user is given the opportunity to look for work himself, in some, interested people find the user.
The most effective networks for job search, of course, are professional social networks, such as Western - LinkedIn or Russian-speaking - MyKrug. Such social networks have the right audience of users and functionality that contributes to the search process.
This is actively used by recruiters (HR). At the moment they can be seen in large numbers in MyKrug. As a rule, they first find people who are interesting to them (who are already in the thematic communities or who communicate on professional topics), then browse their profiles, invite to be friends, begin formal communication and, as it were, accidentally start to wonder about a possible change of job, and with a positive response, they call the person personally and invite them for an interview. Thus, they can handle dozens of people at once, and the likelihood of finding several suitable candidates is very high.
In addition, people themselves are actively using their social connections to find a new job. All in the same MyKrug there is a special tick "I am looking for work", when you click on that, all the friends of this person will know about it, they will have information in a special box "Your friends are looking for work." I recently conducted an experiment - I ticked off about finding a job, as a result, the next day I received up to 10 job offers. The effectiveness of this method depends on the circle of acquaintances and human activity in the social network.
There is a reverse side of the coin. Often, in such social networks, bosses are also registered, which sometimes may want to know what is going on with subordinates, and quite often various interesting details are found. In the west, recruitment companies categorically do not advise leaving personal information on social networks, which can be used against an applicant. In RuNet, this practice is just beginning to appear, but it is worth thinking about what can be left on social networks, and what is not worth it.
Personal data
Recently, more and more talk about personal data on the Internet, anonymity and things like that. It could not get around and social networks, which store a lot of personal data.
All “personal” and “secret” messages, photos protected by privacy settings, videos “for friends only” are not always such “secret” and “personal” messages as promised by the owners of many networks. At a minimum, they are known to the owners of the social network in which the person is registered, at most, almost everyone can know them.
The most innocent can be considered the use of personal data by the owners of social networks for the development of their business. The easiest way is to search for information based on completed user profiles, for example, the social network from Mail.Ru - MoiMir automatically finds and offers classmates and classmates after adding information about the place of study.
Separately worth remembering advertising technology . It can be said with confidence that a user profile (he voluntarily provided information about himself) and his behavior on the social network (involuntarily provided information) are an invaluable source of information for marketers and a very promising source for profit. Already, many social networks offer the possibility of behavioral advertising, and these technologies are rapidly developing. Starting from a simple division by gender (like for example on FaceBook) to complex systems of tracking and analyzing user actions, on the basis of which advertising will be shown to him.
Although at first glance it seems that there is nothing terrible here, and everything is quite logical, everything is not so wonderful. In 2007, one of the most popular social networks - FaceBook launched the advertising service Beacon, which actually spied on users of this social network, the total number of which at that time exceeded 50 million people. Facebook Beacon sent user purchases to friends of users. As a result, more than 70 thousand people opposed such innovations, and soon the service was sent for revision, and the founder of this social network, Mark Zuckerberg apologized to users.
Remembering privacy, involuntarily come to mind services for cracking passwords to social networks in runet. And it is quite inexpensive (only about $ 20 for one password), payment only after hacking and checking the password. There were real stories with the consequences of such a hacking, when suspicious spouses bought each other's passwords and found lovers and mistresses with whom the partner corresponded. In addition, lawyers say that frank messages on social networks can affect divorce proceedings, mainly in the west. So the next time when a married user will be in correspondence on the social network to mention confidential information, communicate on candid topics with his mistress / lover, you should think twice about what this can turn into, and who needs your personal information.
Or no less interesting news: in February 2008, the Canadian Ministry of Defense circulated a memorandum stating that the military should not leave personal information about themselves on the social networks of the Internet, as Al-Qaeda militants are closely watching such sites.
Having learned about the problems with private data, some people decide to just delete their profiles from social networks and forget about it, but even here it’s not so simple. Again, you can remember FaceBook: in early 2008, network users initiated its verification by an independent British organization ICO (Information Commissioner's Office), since after deleting accounts, some personal information still remained on the servers. And FaceBook is not the only social network in which there are problems with the removal of information. On many Western and our social networks, after deleting information, problems arise, and quite often you can hear users complaining about this.
Debtors search
Another interesting aspect of human life in social networks is the search for bank debtors. A similar technique was invented and used in Russia. The scheme is quite simple: an image of an attractive girl with a good profile on social networks is created, after which the “girl” begins to look for “friends” who at the same time owe a certain amount to the bank. With the help of personal correspondence and flirting, that person is checked, then the phone number is found out, and then everything is quite simple and predictable.
Strangely enough, this technique works quite well, the number of both debtors and registered users is very large, and the “girls” from the banks are working actively.
Law enforcement agencies
Law enforcement agencies have been using social networks for various purposes for quite some time. Western bodies started using them due to the earlier development of both the Internet and specifically social networks. Such services actually represent a huge database of various information, which naturally could not fail to attract attention.
They are used for different purposes, for example, to search for the same debtors, because this issue is not only important for banks. As mentioned earlier, personal correspondence in social networks can influence divorce proceedings and be evidence in court, this is especially true in the west. There were cases when crimes were prevented due to social networks (after reading by personal correspondence bodies); when murders and disappearances were revealed (again thanks to the study of correspondence).
In addition to petty crimes and law enforcement agencies that deal with the detection of these crimes, social networks are also used by more serious agencies, the special services. We can say that a huge number of users voluntarily make up a dossier for themselves. There are practically no official confirmations of this, but there are rumors that many social networks work very closely with the special services, and such rumors naturally have confidence, because it would be foolish not to use information from social networks.
The leader in solving crimes with confidence can be called a social network - YouTube. We already know a huge number of cases of disclosing and finding criminals, and in some cases even preventing crimes.
However, there is one very interesting version , a rumor, according to which social networks in general were created by law enforcement agencies to collect information about people.
Addiction
Recently, conversations about social network dependence have begun to appear. In my opinion, this is still the same Internet addiction, which was officially recognized as a psychological illness, only in a more specific form.
These problems are caused by the desire to communicate with a large number of friends in social networks. At first, a person does not feel this dependence, at least until he gets what he depends on, but once he loses access to the social network, symptoms of addiction immediately appear. Experts in the field of psychology believe that this dependence can lead to problems with sleep, anxiety or fear, mood swings or even sexual disorders ! Getting rid of this addiction is quite difficult. In this case, it will be effective to switch to real communication with friends, who in turn should help the person to recover.
Revealing dependence on social networks is quite simple: you need for some time, for example for a month, to prohibit social networks, and if there are no problems with this, there is no dependence, if an irresistible desire begins to appear - the dependence is definitely there.
Competitive intelligence
We have said above about the search for debtors by banks with the help of pleasant “girls”, but what prevents us from using such a method for another purpose - for competitive intelligence? The answer is nothing (except for legislation in some cases, however, in Russia and Ukraine, strangely enough, they do not pay much attention to this).
On the Internet, you can be anyone, you can create any image you want, you can find people from almost any company and get a lot of information, including non-public information. And to do all this is quite simple: first we decide on the purpose of such intelligence, i.e. what information we need, then we determine the place where we will search for the right people (for example, professional social networks), find and meet people, have a normal conversation, recognize a person and in the process gradually find out the necessary information. For such techniques, there are whole schemes with the use of methods of psychological influence, but due to the unethical nature of these methods, I will not consider this process in more detail, and do not advise you to do this at all; be competitors!
Social networks, like many things, are amenable to conditional classification, i.e. separation by any signs.
By type of social networks are:
According to the openness of information:
By geographic coverage:
By level of development :
All social networks are divided by type. There are networks for finding people: classmates, classmates, colleagues and other people. There are business networks for job search, partners, professional communication and other business issues. Some networks are based on video, some on audio and specifically music, and some on photos. There are also niche networks that may not fall under the above categories.
Also, networks can be divided into geographical orientation: global or country-specific.
In addition, in different networks they relate differently to the policy of open information. Most of the networks are currently open, but there are also closed ones where people get by invitation only. Closed networks are just starting to appear, but one can already expect their popularity in a few years, people, of course, like everything that is forbidden and difficult to access.
In terms of development, social networks can be divided into Web 1.0 — the first social networks with basic functionality, Web 2.0 — modern social networks with broad functionality for communication, and Web 3.0 — the future social networks that solve specific problems.
There are three levels of development of social networks on the Internet at the moment: global, Internet and Ukraine.
In the world of social networks are developed quite strongly, and already now quantitative saturation has occurred, now there is a tendency towards a qualitative improvement. At the same time, free niches are filled, of which not much is left.
In runet while there is a quantitative saturation and a set of users. At the same time, the main mass projects already exist not for the first year, but they have not yet gained their audience. Indeed, few networks develop qualitatively, although in a short time we will observe precisely qualitative development.
In Ukraine , as a special part of the Runet, social networks are just beginning to appear. This is largely due to the seizure of our market by Russian social networks. So, for example, VKontakte recently developed the Ukrainian language and, as a result, a significant proportion of users from Ukraine, especially many in this project, are teenagers.
Due to the different levels of development, various problems arise that can be grouped into general groups.
In the world, the main problem for new non-unique projects is attracting users. The competition is very high, and almost all users who are interested in this topic have already attracted existing networks. For existing social networks, the main problems are technologization and possible migration of users from one social network to another (this problem, in particular, is experienced by the most popular social network MySpace: more than 220 million registered users who start migrating to FaceBook and other more convenient networks) . Another special problem is personal data, now it is widely discussed in the Western media.
In runet problems of another level. Now our social networks are more interested in how to gain a foothold in the market and gain maximum users, as well as attract those who are not yet users of social networks or use them passively because of their ignorance, but could potentially become an active participant.
In Ukraine, social networks are underdeveloped, so few existing networks have the task of showing themselves and recruiting users. Also a big problem is competition with the giants of the RuNet, which now have a lot of Ukrainian audience and great resources.
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Copyright 2008, Nikita Andreevich Semenov
SECL GROUP , CEO
And so first, the outline of the entire report, and then the first part, in general, about social networks.
Plan:
1. Social networks
1.1. Definition
1.2. Story
1.3. Man in a social network
1.4. Classification
1.5. State of the art
1.6. Problems
2. Development prospects
2.1. Development of niche social networks
2.2. Technologization of existing and the emergence of new
2.3. Social networks in business
2.4. Mobile social networks
2.5. Social networking
2.6. A little imagination
3. Ways to monetize
3.1. Cost increase
3.2. Advertising
3.3. Paid services
3.4. other methods
3.5. Niche social networks and unique ways to monetize
Introduction
In this report, I will talk about such an important and topical issue today as social networks. Recently, this type of site has become very popular both in the west and in our country - in Russia and Ukraine. Investments in such projects reach hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars. In Ukraine, these sums have exceeded several million dollars and continue to grow, which indicates the growing popularity and confidence of investors not only in the return of their investments, but also in their multiplication.
')
The results of numerous studies show that social networks already cover more than half of all Internet users. In Russia and Ukraine, this figure is still less than the world, but it is growing rapidly.
1.1. Definition
Wikipedia gives us the following definition: social network (eng. Social network) - a social structure consisting of a group of nodes, which are social objects (people or organizations), and the connections between them.
1.2. Story
The term “Social Network” was introduced long before the advent of the Internet and the modern Internet networks proper, as far back as 1954 by the sociologist from the “Manchester School” James Barnes .
Modern concept in a simple form means a certain circle of familiar people, where there is a person himself - the center of a social network, his acquaintances - branches of this social network and relations between these people - connections. If you look at the social network more deeply, you may find that the connections are divided into types: one-sided and two-sided; networks of friends, colleagues, classmates, classmates, etc.
In the second half of the 20th century, social networks began to actively develop as a scientific concept, at first they became popular in the west, and later came to us. Then this usual professional concept of sociologists turned into a fashionable concept, one of the central ones in the concept of web 2.0 , which was introduced as a concept by Tim O'Reilly on September 30, 2005 in his article “Tim O'Reilly - What Is Web 2.0”.
The first computer social networks were, oddly enough, all the same groups of people who used to create and maintain social connections means of computer communication, which became e-mail . It happened on October 2, 1971 - the day of the first message sent to a remote computer, and the first users of the social network were the military in the ARPA Net network. It was the first step to creating the Internet and modern social Internet networks.
The next step was the invention of IRC (Internet Relay Chat) - a service system for real-time communication. IRC or “Irka”, as it is also called, was created in 1988 by a Finnish student Brightly Oikarinen . These were already more “advanced” social networks, but still far from modern ones.
From the invention of computers, e-mail, IRC and many others, on August 7, 1991, the invention of the Internet emerged. It was on this day that the British scholar Tim Berners-Lee first published the first web pages and thus made the next step towards modern social networks.
And in 1995 , the first, close to modern, social network Classmates.com , created by Randy Conrad , owner of Classmates Online, Inc., appeared. This site helped registered visitors find and maintain relationships with friends, classmates, classmates and other acquaintances. Now in this network more than 40 million people are registered, mainly from the USA and Canada.
The concept of Classmates turned out to be successful and since the distant 2005 it has been developing and not only within this network have such world giants as MySpace, FaceBook, Bebo and LinkedIn or the giants of the Odnoklassniki RuNet appeared, VKontakte, MoiMir and MyKrug.
1.3. Man in a social network
Well-known writer Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “Whatever science comes up with, all this is then used by the military” and he is certainly right. In our time, there is actually an information war. And the most valuable is information. And where is a lot of easily accessible information? Of course, in social networks! Therefore, social networks are actively used to extract a variety of information about people or organizations.
The image of a person in social networks
Many people, without thinking, communicate in social networks, fill out their profiles, post photos, personal videos and voluntarily give a lot of other information about themselves. And as practice shows - in vain.
The Economic Dictionary gives us the following definition: image (English image) - the image of a person, the image of him, the image of others. In social networks, active people inevitably have a certain image - the opinion of other users of a particular network about it. And this image can significantly affect various aspects of a person’s life (from a banal change in the opinion of friends about a person to failure when trying to get a new job).
For example, you can take the MoiKrug social network and me in this social network - http://semenov.moikrug.ru/ - Nikita Andreevich Semenov. In my profile you can find out about my interests and professional skills (only what concerns the profession), about the places of my work and what I do in general, see how I look (photos in a suit, office), people from the 1st circle can see my contacts and contact me, see what books I read (mostly business literature), see the topics created and commented on (professional only). Any outsider who comes to my profile has only a professional positive opinion about me. And this is the goal that I pursued in this network.
Work and social networks
One of the important functions of social networks is job search. In some social networks, the user is given the opportunity to look for work himself, in some, interested people find the user.
The most effective networks for job search, of course, are professional social networks, such as Western - LinkedIn or Russian-speaking - MyKrug. Such social networks have the right audience of users and functionality that contributes to the search process.
This is actively used by recruiters (HR). At the moment they can be seen in large numbers in MyKrug. As a rule, they first find people who are interesting to them (who are already in the thematic communities or who communicate on professional topics), then browse their profiles, invite to be friends, begin formal communication and, as it were, accidentally start to wonder about a possible change of job, and with a positive response, they call the person personally and invite them for an interview. Thus, they can handle dozens of people at once, and the likelihood of finding several suitable candidates is very high.
In addition, people themselves are actively using their social connections to find a new job. All in the same MyKrug there is a special tick "I am looking for work", when you click on that, all the friends of this person will know about it, they will have information in a special box "Your friends are looking for work." I recently conducted an experiment - I ticked off about finding a job, as a result, the next day I received up to 10 job offers. The effectiveness of this method depends on the circle of acquaintances and human activity in the social network.
There is a reverse side of the coin. Often, in such social networks, bosses are also registered, which sometimes may want to know what is going on with subordinates, and quite often various interesting details are found. In the west, recruitment companies categorically do not advise leaving personal information on social networks, which can be used against an applicant. In RuNet, this practice is just beginning to appear, but it is worth thinking about what can be left on social networks, and what is not worth it.
Personal data
Recently, more and more talk about personal data on the Internet, anonymity and things like that. It could not get around and social networks, which store a lot of personal data.
All “personal” and “secret” messages, photos protected by privacy settings, videos “for friends only” are not always such “secret” and “personal” messages as promised by the owners of many networks. At a minimum, they are known to the owners of the social network in which the person is registered, at most, almost everyone can know them.
The most innocent can be considered the use of personal data by the owners of social networks for the development of their business. The easiest way is to search for information based on completed user profiles, for example, the social network from Mail.Ru - MoiMir automatically finds and offers classmates and classmates after adding information about the place of study.
Separately worth remembering advertising technology . It can be said with confidence that a user profile (he voluntarily provided information about himself) and his behavior on the social network (involuntarily provided information) are an invaluable source of information for marketers and a very promising source for profit. Already, many social networks offer the possibility of behavioral advertising, and these technologies are rapidly developing. Starting from a simple division by gender (like for example on FaceBook) to complex systems of tracking and analyzing user actions, on the basis of which advertising will be shown to him.
Although at first glance it seems that there is nothing terrible here, and everything is quite logical, everything is not so wonderful. In 2007, one of the most popular social networks - FaceBook launched the advertising service Beacon, which actually spied on users of this social network, the total number of which at that time exceeded 50 million people. Facebook Beacon sent user purchases to friends of users. As a result, more than 70 thousand people opposed such innovations, and soon the service was sent for revision, and the founder of this social network, Mark Zuckerberg apologized to users.
Remembering privacy, involuntarily come to mind services for cracking passwords to social networks in runet. And it is quite inexpensive (only about $ 20 for one password), payment only after hacking and checking the password. There were real stories with the consequences of such a hacking, when suspicious spouses bought each other's passwords and found lovers and mistresses with whom the partner corresponded. In addition, lawyers say that frank messages on social networks can affect divorce proceedings, mainly in the west. So the next time when a married user will be in correspondence on the social network to mention confidential information, communicate on candid topics with his mistress / lover, you should think twice about what this can turn into, and who needs your personal information.
Or no less interesting news: in February 2008, the Canadian Ministry of Defense circulated a memorandum stating that the military should not leave personal information about themselves on the social networks of the Internet, as Al-Qaeda militants are closely watching such sites.
Having learned about the problems with private data, some people decide to just delete their profiles from social networks and forget about it, but even here it’s not so simple. Again, you can remember FaceBook: in early 2008, network users initiated its verification by an independent British organization ICO (Information Commissioner's Office), since after deleting accounts, some personal information still remained on the servers. And FaceBook is not the only social network in which there are problems with the removal of information. On many Western and our social networks, after deleting information, problems arise, and quite often you can hear users complaining about this.
Debtors search
Another interesting aspect of human life in social networks is the search for bank debtors. A similar technique was invented and used in Russia. The scheme is quite simple: an image of an attractive girl with a good profile on social networks is created, after which the “girl” begins to look for “friends” who at the same time owe a certain amount to the bank. With the help of personal correspondence and flirting, that person is checked, then the phone number is found out, and then everything is quite simple and predictable.
Strangely enough, this technique works quite well, the number of both debtors and registered users is very large, and the “girls” from the banks are working actively.
Law enforcement agencies
Law enforcement agencies have been using social networks for various purposes for quite some time. Western bodies started using them due to the earlier development of both the Internet and specifically social networks. Such services actually represent a huge database of various information, which naturally could not fail to attract attention.
They are used for different purposes, for example, to search for the same debtors, because this issue is not only important for banks. As mentioned earlier, personal correspondence in social networks can influence divorce proceedings and be evidence in court, this is especially true in the west. There were cases when crimes were prevented due to social networks (after reading by personal correspondence bodies); when murders and disappearances were revealed (again thanks to the study of correspondence).
In addition to petty crimes and law enforcement agencies that deal with the detection of these crimes, social networks are also used by more serious agencies, the special services. We can say that a huge number of users voluntarily make up a dossier for themselves. There are practically no official confirmations of this, but there are rumors that many social networks work very closely with the special services, and such rumors naturally have confidence, because it would be foolish not to use information from social networks.
The leader in solving crimes with confidence can be called a social network - YouTube. We already know a huge number of cases of disclosing and finding criminals, and in some cases even preventing crimes.
However, there is one very interesting version , a rumor, according to which social networks in general were created by law enforcement agencies to collect information about people.
Addiction
Recently, conversations about social network dependence have begun to appear. In my opinion, this is still the same Internet addiction, which was officially recognized as a psychological illness, only in a more specific form.
These problems are caused by the desire to communicate with a large number of friends in social networks. At first, a person does not feel this dependence, at least until he gets what he depends on, but once he loses access to the social network, symptoms of addiction immediately appear. Experts in the field of psychology believe that this dependence can lead to problems with sleep, anxiety or fear, mood swings or even sexual disorders ! Getting rid of this addiction is quite difficult. In this case, it will be effective to switch to real communication with friends, who in turn should help the person to recover.
Revealing dependence on social networks is quite simple: you need for some time, for example for a month, to prohibit social networks, and if there are no problems with this, there is no dependence, if an irresistible desire begins to appear - the dependence is definitely there.
Competitive intelligence
We have said above about the search for debtors by banks with the help of pleasant “girls”, but what prevents us from using such a method for another purpose - for competitive intelligence? The answer is nothing (except for legislation in some cases, however, in Russia and Ukraine, strangely enough, they do not pay much attention to this).
On the Internet, you can be anyone, you can create any image you want, you can find people from almost any company and get a lot of information, including non-public information. And to do all this is quite simple: first we decide on the purpose of such intelligence, i.e. what information we need, then we determine the place where we will search for the right people (for example, professional social networks), find and meet people, have a normal conversation, recognize a person and in the process gradually find out the necessary information. For such techniques, there are whole schemes with the use of methods of psychological influence, but due to the unethical nature of these methods, I will not consider this process in more detail, and do not advise you to do this at all; be competitors!
1.4. Classification
Social networks, like many things, are amenable to conditional classification, i.e. separation by any signs.
By type of social networks are:
1. To search for people (Odnoklassniki.ru)
2. For entertainment (VK)
3. For work and business (MyKrug)
4. To collect news (news2.ru)
5. To collect bookmarks (BobrDobr)
6. For video (YouTube)
7. For audio (Last.fm)
8. For a photo (FiXX.RU)
9. Niche social networks (Habrahabr, drugme, geni and others)
According to the openness of information:
1. Open (FaceBook)
2. Mixed (PRO2)
3. Closed (PlayboyU.com)
By geographic coverage:
1. World (MySpace)
2. Country (Connect.com.ua)
3. Region
By level of development :
1. Web 1.0
2. Web 2.0
3. Web 3.0
All social networks are divided by type. There are networks for finding people: classmates, classmates, colleagues and other people. There are business networks for job search, partners, professional communication and other business issues. Some networks are based on video, some on audio and specifically music, and some on photos. There are also niche networks that may not fall under the above categories.
Also, networks can be divided into geographical orientation: global or country-specific.
In addition, in different networks they relate differently to the policy of open information. Most of the networks are currently open, but there are also closed ones where people get by invitation only. Closed networks are just starting to appear, but one can already expect their popularity in a few years, people, of course, like everything that is forbidden and difficult to access.
In terms of development, social networks can be divided into Web 1.0 — the first social networks with basic functionality, Web 2.0 — modern social networks with broad functionality for communication, and Web 3.0 — the future social networks that solve specific problems.
1.5. State of the art
There are three levels of development of social networks on the Internet at the moment: global, Internet and Ukraine.
In the world of social networks are developed quite strongly, and already now quantitative saturation has occurred, now there is a tendency towards a qualitative improvement. At the same time, free niches are filled, of which not much is left.
In runet while there is a quantitative saturation and a set of users. At the same time, the main mass projects already exist not for the first year, but they have not yet gained their audience. Indeed, few networks develop qualitatively, although in a short time we will observe precisely qualitative development.
In Ukraine , as a special part of the Runet, social networks are just beginning to appear. This is largely due to the seizure of our market by Russian social networks. So, for example, VKontakte recently developed the Ukrainian language and, as a result, a significant proportion of users from Ukraine, especially many in this project, are teenagers.
1.6. Problems
Due to the different levels of development, various problems arise that can be grouped into general groups.
In the world, the main problem for new non-unique projects is attracting users. The competition is very high, and almost all users who are interested in this topic have already attracted existing networks. For existing social networks, the main problems are technologization and possible migration of users from one social network to another (this problem, in particular, is experienced by the most popular social network MySpace: more than 220 million registered users who start migrating to FaceBook and other more convenient networks) . Another special problem is personal data, now it is widely discussed in the Western media.
In runet problems of another level. Now our social networks are more interested in how to gain a foothold in the market and gain maximum users, as well as attract those who are not yet users of social networks or use them passively because of their ignorance, but could potentially become an active participant.
In Ukraine, social networks are underdeveloped, so few existing networks have the task of showing themselves and recruiting users. Also a big problem is competition with the giants of the RuNet, which now have a lot of Ukrainian audience and great resources.
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Copyright 2008, Nikita Andreevich Semenov
SECL GROUP , CEO
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/22811/
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