Charmian's Journal

1. Myspace and Facebook may not be very profitable, but that doesn't mean social networks are not monetizable at all, says this blogger.

It's possible, apparently, to have high revenue earning social networks, because you can make money off of digital items and casual games. Myspace and Facebook don't really use these much, apparently. (Or at least to make money)

Quote: "For social networking sites, one of the key “experiences” of users is self-expression. Think about it: is the Facebook news feed more about the reader or the poster? Isn’t someone’s MySpace page all about self-expression? If people are there to represent and express themselves, shouldn’t you build a business model that charges for the ability to better differentiate oneself? Shouldn’t you also charge for ego-gratification on a sliding scale (the bigger the ego, the more the charge)?"

In other words, appeal to the user's vanity, not their desire for functionality? A virtual gift isn't, after all, something of much concrete value.

2. I've sort of been following Posterous.com, which is a microblogging startup whose schtick is posting by email, and here's a post by one of the founders about designing the sign-up process. He has a lot to say about how the sign-up process can be stream-lined and made simpler.

petronia posts about social scripts. Although the "community" talked about in the article is a group of people, I would also argue that even if it isn't restricted to "site" or "software," many of the definitions seem to involve place, in a metaphorical sense.

Anyway, my commentary (cause I am always verbose)

( cut for length, boringness )

In other news, I am reading about Sanada Yukimura, after I became embarrassed that he's like, the #1 Sengoku general (by popularity polls) and I know jack about him. In the first thirty pages of a 200 pg book, I have learned mainly that his name wasn't really Yukimura and that scholars disagree about his age.