
The other day prolific blogger and VC Fred Wilson was at the gym. Frustrated with his ability to read the links in his Twitter stream, Fred twittered this-
“Is there a 3rd party Twitter app that builds a link page based on my follows? If not, someone should build it. It would be my start page”
With in a few days Fred received responses from a bunch of people who had built something based on his tweet. By the end of the week Fred had the custom app he was looking for.
I’ve watched this happen with Fred a couple of times. I’m seeing it a lot lately. People with large, authentic, followings are able to leverage those followings for tremendous gain. Watching this has made me realize a persons social graph, their number of followers, their social media reach is an asset, a HUGE ASSET!
Traditionally; homes, 401k’s, and cars are the most valuable personal assets of the average person. Looking forward, I see a persons social graph added to the list and possibly topping the list with the exception of the home.
In the not to distant future, a baseline online social presence will be required for the most common of lifes exercises, like getting a job. In the future, if you don’t have some semblance of an online presence you won’t even be considered for the job. If employers, or recruiters can’t learn about you online, through your social graph, they won’t be interested. I expect online vetting of dates, baby sitters, potential employees, etc. will only increase. Having an online social presence will be the required price to play.
If I am right and an authentic online social graph will be required to play, then a large, sweeping, highly engaging, informative, online social graph will be worth it’s followers in gold.
A strong online social graph allows us to do a lot of things.
Get help – On a couple of occasions, I’ve screwed up my blog. Each time I got stuck trying to fix, folks from within my social graph helped me out. People I’ve never met, in some cases they were people I never even knew were in my social graph, but were readers of this blog or followers of followers on Twitter.
Get Information – I watched Fred request and get help with a number things including; how to plot a power curve, do you know what a power curve is? Apparently some people do. Fred got what he needed.
Promotion – If Seth Godin points to a blog post, views of that post go through the roof. I recently watched the chatter about Socialcast, a Twitter for the enterprise company, blow up after A-List Blogger Chris Brogan mentioned his company was using and liking Socialcast. A strong online social presence exponentially grows your influence.
Ideas – Not sure what to do, how to attack a problem or need a spark of creativity, corraling the masses could make the difference. With a strong social graph collaboration is only a few key strokes away.
In the future, getting a job, raising money, promoting your e-book, getitng a seat at the exclusive restaurant, becoming the exclusive restaurant will be determined by the asset of the future, your online social graph.
Today Oprah, undoubtedly has the greatest reach in the world. Built by traditional media this reach is a real asset she leverages every week. She uses it to give her guests glamorous free gifts or turns uknown authors into overnight sensations. Traditionally, only those in media had reach. That’s changing. In the very near future everyone will have some level of reach. The question will no longer be do you have reach, but how much reach do you have?
Soon, how much money you have, the neighborhoods you live in, the jobs you get, the schools you attend, the friends you have, and your overall success or failure will directly correlate to your online social graph.
A social graph will be most peoples largest asset besides their home. It will have real value. It will have liquidity It will rise and fall in value.
The asset of the future will be your social graph. Have you started investing in it? You should be. Like most assets, the returns are much higher when you get in early.
UPDATE: I’m talking this topic to the next level and writing a book with Leslie Poston. Online Presence is going to be at the core of all of our social, professional and economical worlds. The book is going to breakdown why, and the impact of social media and the internet to our everyday lives. Check out Asset of the Future in the menu above.
Stay tuned, we’ll be sharing chapters, and bringing you along for the ride. It’s going to be fun.
The Community Blog vs. The Information Blog
There are two types of blogs. There are community blogs, where readers leave lots of comments and the discussion in the comments can be as interesting and informative as the actual blog itself. Then, there are information blogs, where the destination is about the information. Community blogs have lots of comments. The discussion is often happening between those leaving comments rather than with the author. Fred Wilson and Chris Brogan are excellent examples of community blogs. Information blogs are destination blogs, where people visit for the content. They read, they leave. They rarely leave comments and there is little dialog happening on the site.
I like community blogs better. I love the interaction. I dig the dissent and conversation. Community blogs do just that, they create community. Community blogs improve the content and promote interaction through the dialogue. Community is what makes blogs better.
I was talking to a reader of this blog today, and asked him why he doesn’t leave a comment. He couldn’t tell me why. He wasn’t sure. He said he shares the information with his non blogosphere network, but he doesn’t leave comments and he didn’t know why. He committed to think about it and get back to me. I’ll update this post with his thoughts when I hear back from him. Or, maybe he’ll leave them in the comments.
What do you think? What makes a community blog a community blog? What happens, that turns an information blog into a community blog? When do you comment and when don’t you? Why? I’d love your thoughts, you can leave them in the comments.
September 1, 2009 | Filed under: Web 2.0/Social Networking,What I Think! | View Comments |