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SMO

The Rise and Fall of Facebook

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With the current changes in the layout of Facebook last week. Which has caused consternation in the community. I was going to write my own post about it, but than I came across this article written by Jason Lee Miller.

Which raised the same issues that  I was thinking about. The crux of the problem is that not enough people are clicking on the advertisements on their profile page. Running Facebook is not cheap. One can only hazard a guess at the number of transactions that our carried out daily on their servers, but I would put it in the hundred million for sure.

Everybody was having a good old time on FaceBook. Posting links to their new website, project, photographs etc. Of course they  thought it was all free. Well it looks like the free lunch is over. I would personal start clicking  on the advertisements but I do not think that would solve the problem, unless one brought what was on offer.

So what are the other options? Paid subscription service might work… May be we really have started to see the decline of the social network advertising model. Facebook are unique in that both Linkedkin and Xing offer paid subscriptions model. Of the two only Linkedkin is making any money. In fact Linkedkin is the only cash postive social media site that I know off.

Below is excerpt from the blog post by Jason available here here

“What do you do?

Do you:

A.    Don’t fix something that’s not broken. And by not broken, it means that meteoric growth over the past year led your site to trounce MySpace and every sensitive person on the site is relatively happy in their social networking habitat.
B.    Ignore that a growing number of people seem to like an incomprehensible platform much like a feature you already offer. Remember that you have 175 million and growing members, and that Twitter does not, and show that you have plenty of confidence in your product. After all Google didn’t just become a portal because some people didn’t get the spare interface.
C.    A and B, and focus on Job 1, which is figure out a way to monetize so that you can rejoin the Masters of the Universe at Davos next year.
D.    None of the above. Instead, hold a press conference. Announce you’re making the website more democratic if that’s what everybody wants and call for a vote. While everybody’s busy voting on that, change everything.

If you picked D, congratulations, you’re thinking like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.”

Websites

Wcx Cool links for 2009-03-22

Ask a Question, ideas

Small Elections – Making them Effective

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Should societies be allowed to represent institutions when they hold ineffective elections with a low turn out?

I presume the point of any society is to represent its members and their area of interest on a wider scale. (this idea is  open to debate) . If  members feel that elections are a more a popularity contest and by this a mean that by influencing the vote and winning the competition it will make them more popular. It makes a mockery of the society and its stated aims.  A lot more could be done to insure that fair elections are held in small societies and committees.

int_00_elections-day

A considerable amount of time is taken by  people standing to prepare speeches and ideas and they should be judged on their contribution to the societies and the ideas that they put forward. If they feel that the process was a ineffective and due to a number of predetermined votes that have been decided before and are able to shift the balance of the outcome these elections. The society will never attract the best calibre of candidates.

If people come there purely to vote on the basis of agreement than on what each candidate can offer. The ultimate result is  that people that can make a considerable contribution end up feeling short changed and mistrust the process which creates a negative and  ineffective society.

Something that I would like to see implemented across all societies but for certain in smaller societies is block voting clause in the constitution to safe guard against this practise.

For a example a team of 8 people that have block voted in election from a total of 27 votes. Could insure that 5 members of that particular team that may be  standing gain a place on the committee . If one mathematically breaks this down it shows that they achieved a guaranteed 25 percent of the vote. by this practise. Which is an unfair advantaged for any other candidate standing not adopting such a practise.

This link explains that theory on a bigger scale

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_at_large

Constitutions of societies could also be changed so that if one considers the elections to be unfair they have some sort of readdress, ultimately decided by the current exec or an independent panel. For example, If the ballot papers were named and there appears 8 papers with the exact same voting pattern it should be easily identifiable as weather some thing is amiss considering the current election factors.  With out doing something about block voting, societies will never engage and represent all the people they are suppose to. It is important for it to be seen to be fair and just and give people the idea that are being represented by a democratic process and want to get involved in the societies activities.

Another idea is to raise the minimum percentage number that needs to be present at an election before it is binding. With out at least 40 percent of the members voting. Is it representative?

The last idea is to invoke active and non active member voting rights. Where members only gain voting rights provided that you have been present at a number of the society’s events as a whole.

Websites

Wcx Cool links for 2009-03-18

Websites

Wcx Cool links for 2009-03-16

Social Media Sites, Websites

Wcx Cool links for 2009-03-11

E-Commerce, fun

Art of Luck in Business

The viewpoint that we create our own luck is a strong one. If one is constantly performing or over performing in what they do they build up a momentum that generates opportunities as it rides along. Whether that be through are own interactions with other people or simple generosity.  One could argue that is creating your own luck, and I would tend to go along with this. Having said all that the most remarkable thing happened to someone that I know.

A acquaintance of mine recently  won over £1200 hundred pounds from gambling machines in matter of days. He went down to the pub on three separate occasion and and won -/+ £400.  The pub owner thought that he had installed a faulty machine, it was not faulty. fruitmachine-1kFruit machines general speaking are only meant to pay when they have reached a certain amount credit.  So if you want to win on a fruit machine try it last thing at night. In the story above that was not the case. I have figured out what the odds are of that happening and they are quite remote.  A general rule of thumb  is that over a period of time such as a year the machine needs to pay back 85% of the money that has been put into it.