The power of community and social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Myspace

Lately it seems the shift to community driven websites and social is becoming bigger and bigger, everyone is jumping on the Web 2.0 band wagaon. Whether you look at the success stories of YouTube, MySpace, Facebook or any of the other bigger user generated content (UGC) sites it seems "community is king". I've got to admit I was a late adopter of MySpace and Facebook, but I have been a member on the UK equivalent of Classmates.com known as Friends Reunited since 2001. As someone who's lived in 3 countries: Australia, England and the U.S. Through these sites i've noticed first hand the power of social networks and community first hand as I began to reconnect with classmates and old friends who lived all over the world. My 10 year high school re-union was organized through it… I can’t even imagine the effort involved in doing this prior to the internet!

Now in my professional life one site that has had a profound effect on me is LinkedIn. Again I embarrassed to say I a late adopter, a sales rep from a software company invited me after a pitch and I was on the way to becoming LinkedIn.

In my opinion LinkedIn has become the most important and useful professional community and social networking site I use today. Gone are the days of word resumes, my rolodex full of business cards and costly searches for new hires and vendors. LinkedIn has provided a great platform for helping prospective, existing and former clients keep in touch (networking). Not to mention a great tool for recruitment. Having your LinkedIn profile linked on my blog has also helped in the seeding giving me an SEO lift.

I've been involved in participating in question and answers sessions centered on the internet and web technology. I've also been approached by software vendors, headhunters and job seekers who instantly qualified me as they know who I am and what I do, some of this can be good or bad depending how you look at it.

So if you are looking for a way to build your professional network and get connected with a community that opens up networking and career opportunities today I suggest you to get LinkedIn.

Internet Retailer 2007... Community is King!

Last week I visited in the Internet Retailer 2007 conference in San Jose, California with a co-worker Chris Larson an Interactive Strategist at my employer Hanson Dodge Creative. It was an amazing trip to the Silicon Valley, my first time and I've returned with plenty of new information and ideas on how the web is breakdown down the barriers of traditional bricks and mortar establishments.

We started a blog while we were out there for 5 days to record some of our learning and our antics.

My three major takeaways from this conference were:

1. Community driven websites, sites that give users a sense of ownership and contribution are the way of the future. Community is King!
2. Buy versus Build. ASP or Hosted web software solutions with solid API's and support for Web Services and syndication are replacing the need to build it from scratch. They are cheaper, turnkey and will offer a greater ROI.
3. Big company’s do their research and development by merger and acquisition.

I have much more to share, but wanted to get these high level idea's down and expand on them at a later date.