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New member signups are steaming along at an unprecedented rate and we wanted to pause and highlight one of our new members who has been particularly active.  Fuchida67 hails from Singapore.  He has been uploading and sharing photos by the scores.  He is clearly a gaming enthusiast as he has two photo galleries devoted to computer components and graphics cards.  Check out what we presume is on of his computers, complete with neon lights!

And here is a fantastic shot of one lit up with a black light:

Fuchida67 and his friends:

And one from a funny series of photos that we’re not sure how he produced:

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In a three year study of 800 teens over 5000 hours of observation, The Digital Youth Project found that, contrary to what many parents feel, usage of social networking and social media is actually good for kids. Yet another positive mark for the future of social media.  Among the skills it hones are social and technical navigation.  Will Richardson highlights some of the findings in his excellent blog post:

• “New media allows for a degree of freedom and autonomy for youth that is less apparent in classroom settings. Youth respect one another’s authority online, and they are often more motivated to learn from peers than from adults. Their efforts are also largely self-directed, and  the outcome emerges through exploration, in contrast to classroom learning that is oriented toward set, predefined goals.”

The study further found that youth are mostly using social networking and social media to extend their face-to-face friendships.  They are exploiting the “always on” nature of the internet and mobile communication to keep in constant contact. However this, along with the permanent nature of so much internet interaction is not without it’s pitfalls, but therein lies another valuable lesson young people are learning: to navigate this new medium gracefully.

As Read, Write, Web puts it:

• “It’s a new world for those privileged enough to have access to the web. The consequences of these changes will unfold in years to come.”

Indeed, in the future we may very well see a break between those that have developed these skills and those that have not.

• “Contrary to adult perceptions, while hanging out online, youth are picking up basic social and technological skills they need to fully participate in contemporary society. Erecting barriers to participation deprives teens of access to these forms of learning. Participation in the digital age means more than being able to access “serious” online information and culture. Youth could benefit from educators being more open to forms of experimentation and social exploration that are generally not characteristic of educational institutions.”

So regardless of the detractors, it looks more and more like it will be a social media world in the future.  Unfortunately it might take this fresh generation of social media savvy people to transform corporate culture’s understanding and use (or misuse) of this exciting new medium.

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

The 2008 Crunchie Awards are open for nominations. If you’re a fan of Next2Friends drop by the TechCrunch Crunchie nomination page and cast a ballot for us!  The Crunchies is a kitchy and slightly irreverent awards ceremony for new companies, such as Next2Friends, who have been innovating over the past year.  In their second year, the awards will be hosted by GigaOm, VentureBeat, Silicon Alley Insider, and TechCrunch on Friday January 9, 2009 at 7:30 pm the Herbst Theater in San Francisco.

To nominate Next2Friends in the Best Mobile category go here:

To nominate Next2Friends in the Best Technology Innovation/Achievement category go here:

To nominate Next2Friends in the Best Design category go here:

And, of course, feel free to nominate us for whatever you like at the Crunchie 2008 nomination page!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

We are proud to announce that the Next2Friends Social Suite is now available for the iPhone.  That’s right, owners of one of the most talked about phones in the world can now utilize the Next2Friends bundle of mobile tools to snap and upload photos in two clicks, easily interact with one another from their phones, create opinion polls on the move and meet others based on their real time proximity.

It’s been great getting to know all of our new members. There have been hundreds of new photos streaming to the site from all those iPhones through Next2Friends SnapUp.  Here’s one:

We want to extend a warm welcome to all our new members!  Thanks for making Next2Friends an even better place to be, and by all means, drop by and say hello!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

A very interesting study was commissioned by AT&T and conducted by Dynamic Markets that found that Social Networking facilitates higher efficiency and creativity in the workplace.

“The study, conducted by Dynamic Markets on behalf of AT&T, reveals:

• 65% of employees surveyed say that social networking sites have made them and/or their colleagues more efficient
• 63% say they have enabled them and their colleagues to achieve things that would not otherwise have been possible
• 46% say they have sparked ideas and creativity for them personally

The Top 5 social networking tools being used as part of everyday working life are:

1. Companies’ own collaboration sites on intranets (39%)
2. Internal forums within the company (20%)
3. Company-produced video material shared on intranets (16%)
4. Online social networks, such as LinkedIn and Facebook (15%)
5. External collaboration sites on the web and internal blogging sites (both 11%)

The study and corresponding White Paper look at many aspects of Social Networking in the workplace.  Perhaps the most telling were the predictions.  They read like Social Media commandments:

1. Corporations Will Change the Way They Communicate
2. Corporations Will Change Their Vision
3. Corporations Will Change Their Organization
4. Collective Intelligence and Customer Experience Will Lead Innovation
5. Networking Will Be Key to Employee Excellence
6. Employee Mobility Will Increase
7. Corporations Will Adapt Their Motivation and Career Path Systems
8. IT/Telecoms Applications Will Mutate
9. Corporate Adoption Will Happen at Different Speeds
10. Social Networking May Allow Increased Revenue

You can read the corresponding explanations in the White Paper but the titles are sufficient to get an idea how sweeping the changes brought about by Social Networks and Social Media will be on the corporations of the future.  Changes that we have believed in from the beginning at Next2Friends.  Even if half these predictions come true we’re still looking at a revolution in the way people communicate, collaborate and get their work done!

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Just a quick not to all of our active users that Next2Friends will be offline Monday, November 10th, for a server upgrade and routine maintenance.  Typically we are able to maintain our system without going offline but this week is special because we are doing significant upgrades that will make the Next2Friends experience even better!  We should be back up by Tuesday, November 11th at the latest, probably sooner.  Thanks for your patience, and thanks for using Next2Friends!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

We were trolling videos this week and came across something that exemplifies the power of Next2Friends.  When we began about a year ago we had some very cute and delightful videos submitted to us was by Hash of his daughter Aimen. One was a hilarious situation Aimen got in with her crib. Have a look (don’t worry, he assures us she was ok):

Another was Aimen learning to make kissing noises:

But what got our attention was a video shot this week of Aimen rolling out roti.  Like all kids she is growing up fast, but because of Next2Friends we have gotten to watch it all take place from the other side of the world!  Truly amazing!  And such a great example of the way that mobile tools can truly bring us closer.  Keep the videos coming Hash, and because of Next2Friends, we look forward to watching your beautiful daughter grow even more!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

Next2Friends is offering its mobile tools and special brand of social networking as a White Label solution to companies.  For those of you who don’t know, “White Labeling” is just offering your products to other companies to use and rebrand.  So under a White Label deal a company such as Coca-Cola could introduce all or part of our technology, such as Next2Friends Live, into their own consumer sites.  But instead of “Next2Friends Live” they could call it whatever they liked, “Coke Live” for example.  They could also retool the look to include their own graphics and logos, but the heart of it would be built upon the Next2Friends Live code.

Monetizing social networks and mobile tools is a difficult task.  There are scores of innovative products out there that just don’t have a clear path to making any money.  This is particularly true for applications such as Live Mobile Broadcasting.  Sure, nearly everyone who sees it wants to do it, but few are willing to pay for it, and it hasn’t reached a point where a large enough swath of people even realize the possibilities it holds.

Available Solutions

• Real-Time Mobile Video Broadcasting (Live):

Broadcast quality video from the world’s most popular mobile handsets to the web in
real-time.

• Real Time Mobile Social Suite:

Stay connected with your friends and community when on the move. Upload
photographs, ask questions, user tagging to build a closer connection with members
and a full dashboard to keep you informed of your friends latest activities.

• On-Line Communalities and Corporate Portals:

Real- time mobile to web interaction within a community driven and secure
environment including;

• Member Profiles for self promotion, connecting with others posting videos and photos, upload and play MP3s, blogging and wall posting capabilities.

• Chat (IM) with members online with our online chat tool. Create closer relationships with your friends and customers.

• Send text, audio or video emails to your members and community. Stay connected.

• Create opinion polls to find out what people think about your latest campaigns and products. Poll all Next2Friends members or only your online community and obtain real-time video back.

• Find people ready to engage with you in the real world based on specific demographics and profile information.
• Communities pages with advance search capabilities on members and content.
• Viral widgets and content distribution.

If you have an idea for a way your company could incorperate our real time mobile tools or special brand of social networking please drop us an email.

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

This has been an exciting month at Next2Friends.  It began with our announcement that Next2Friends had developed the world’s first application for broadcasting live mobile video on the BlackBerry OS.  This was quickly followed by the release of Next2Friends Live for the BlackBerry Bold.  Since then we’ve seen a flurry of interest and activity.

The first large blog to break our news was Gizmodo, the highly trafficked gadget and tech blog.  Several others followed suit including JKOnTheRun, TheNextWeb, and dozens of others.

Next was a great article by Mike Butcher from TechCrunch around the BlackBerry Bold release.

AppAppeal, a web based application review site, also had some great things to say.

But perhaps the best part of all this activity is that we’re welcoming scores of new folks from around the world into our community.  It’s very exciting to watch this platform we’ve created become useful to people in all the ways we imagined it could.  One of our new members is Anthony Papillion, an enthusiastic tech writer and creator of CajunTechie.com.  He not only wrote a nice piece on Next2Friends he made a comment that really means a lot to us:

“Next2Friends has an incredible community that immediately makes you feel welcomed and comfortable - even when you’re a newbie making stupid mistakes.”

Sure the recent press is reaffirming but it’s really comments like these that act as our guide.  Our goal is and always has been to strengthen connections and build community through technology and if members are understanding and valuing the community we’ve built then we’re doing our job.  Thanks everyone and we’ll see you on Next2Friends!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

Forrester Research, which publishes surveys and data around social media usage, has come out with their 2008 Technographics Data.  Don’t let the name scare you.  Technographics is Forrester’s method of analyzing consumer behavior.  Here is a nice visual of how they categorize people “technographically”:

As you can see they’ve devided people up into 6 different categories based on their level of involvment with social media.  So to find the information Forrester compiled data from tens of thousands of people in North America, Canada, Europe and Asia. Their results were very telling.

All categories have seen an increase besides “inactives”.  The number of “spectators” increased by a whopping 21 percentage points.  That means more people are on the sidelines watching the action even if they aren’t participating by being “joiners” or “critics”.  But “joiners”, “collectors”, “critics” and “creators” all saw an increase over the past year.  But let’s return to those “inactives” a minute, they’ve nearly halved over the year!  That’s right, that means the number of people untouched by technology is shrinking.

As Josh Bernoff puts it on the Forrester blog, “If you think social technology is about to become a universal phenomenon, we just handed you a nice little bundle of evidence.”  Indeed you did!

Use of social media has seen it’s greatest growth among people 33-45 years old, with 45-54 year olds also posting modest gains as well.  Josh puts it best again,

“It will soon be no more remarkable that your grandmother reads a blog than that she reads email. Social content is going mainstream. Social content ranks high on search engines because it changes so frequently and gets linked to more often, so more and more online adults are becoming exposed to it, accepting it, and embracing it.”

Not sure we’re ready for that one, grandma, are you reading this!?!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!