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While Ebay markets its services to professional sellers and buyers, another internet startup is attempting to get back to the roots of Ebay’s success. The idea that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is the foundation of Ztail, a Palo Alto, CA based startup. A veteran of Google, Shopping.com (formerly ePinions.com), and Women.com, co-founder and CEO Bill Hudak wants to bring together the independent sellers on the web and help people find the forgotten value in their unused belongings.

Ztail favors a social networking model. The site aims to provide an “interactive pricing guide that answers the question of ‘What’s It Worth?’” Not only an auction environment for buyers and sellers, Ztail also acts as a kind of online Kelley Blue Book, giving people an idea of what others might pay for their unwanted items. Users who sign up for accounts can “get worth” by listing an item, “sell it”, or “give worth” by casually appraising other people’s listings.

Ztail enthusiasts can give worth one of four ways:

• suggesting a price you might pay within Ztail
• adding a polling-type widget to their social network profile (blog, Facebook, etc.)
• link to a similar item on a classifieds site, Craigslist, Amazon, etc.
• find historic sales info from Ebay to estimate a price

These methods hope to attract users by encouraging not only interaction within the site, but ties to other online communities. Ztail’s What’s It Worth function is available as a Facebook application, within Ztail’s site, and as a e-widget for a user’s blog or personal website. This allows Ztail to cultivate a presence outside of their home site, and it allows users to share their listings with friends and family. Perhaps your cousin has always admired that antique porcelain doll you’re selling, or a colleague is looking to buy your old iPhone when you upgrade. Ztail’s social environment makes it easier and more trustworthy to buy used items over the web.

The one shortcoming of Ztail is that it relies on “crowd sourcing” of a sort. The more people participate in the What’s It Worth rating system, the more accurate it will be. While one person might be eager to pay $750 for your cocktail napkin autographed by Don Johnson, someone else might think it worthless. However, the more people join the site, the better the appraisals will become. This is particularly true if the site can attract professional appraisers and auctioneers, which will lend credibility to the “Blue Book” values of various items.

While Ebay will continue to be home to unopened boxes of Wii consoles and used car dealerships, Ztail hopes to attract individual sellers who are looking to take their garage sales to the web. As they employ social networking to bring together buyers and sellers, their user base will expand and become what Ebay once was: an active and engaging way to make money from your unwanted junk.

While many of us have embraced Facebook status updates, blogging, and other social media, microblogging is just beginning to blossom. Twitter is the leader in this trend, allowing users to stay in constant contact with friends and family through a series of short, concise blog posts. The microblogging service, currently celebrating their lack of major outages following Steve Jobs’ keynote yesterday, is gaining more and more media attention and accolades.

Twitter allows users to post text-based stories of up to 140 characters, which are colloquially called “Tweets”. These short blog posts update family and friends as to your daily activities, thoughts, aspirations, and location. As Twitter’s website humorously explains:

• Eating soup? Research shows that moms want to know.
• Running late to a meeting? Your co-workers might find that useful.
• Partying? Your friends may want to join you.

Twitter has been used for everything from inane socializing to major layoffs to notifying family of legal problems. One Twitter addict used the microblogging service for a now famous post: “Arrested”. Grad student and journalist James Karl Buck wrote of his arrest and political plight while covering protests in Egypt. As a recent CNN article explains, “Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt — the same ones who had taught him the tool only a week earlier — were alerted that he was being held.” His quick action, and Twitter’s wide reach, led to his release. Buck is now working to secure the release of his colleague and translator, Mohammed Maree, who was arrested on the same day.

Another Twitter user blogged about his layoff from Yahoo! earlier this year. As Silicon Alley Insider puts it, “Yahoo’s Ryan Kuder was canned today. A drag for him, but a gift for the rest of us–because he Twittered it. A new form of literature is in the making…”. Kuder used the microblogging format to give frequent updates about his last day at the search company. Some excerpts of his writing include:

“Walking around saying good bye to some great people and good friends.”

“On the plus side, my commute just got a lot shorter.”

“Lots of whispered conversations. Like people are afraid to ask who’s gone.”

“I’m going dark in a few minutes. The HR guy is on his way over to confiscate my laptop.”

Kuder’s Tweets reached a huge, unexpected audience, and he was inundated with sympathy, encouragement, and yes, job leads.

This new form of communication can be a blessing for journalists and writers to showcase their talents and give up-to-the-minute news to readers. It can also provide a much-needed creative outlet for folks who want to share their days with friends and contacts. Twitter even claims that it can be a relief from the daily grind. As their website puts it, “Twitter puts you in control and becomes a modern antidote to information overload.” Whether Twitter creates or minimizes information overload is up in the air, but it certainly has the power to bring blogging to a whole new level.

Dove is attempting to tie together their famous “Campaign for Real Beauty” with their product line through a new, MSN-hosted web site. Dove.msn.com highlights the beauty company’s product line, gives users access to special offers and free samples, health quizzes, and beauty tips and tricks. However, unlike other corporate websites, Dove’s new channel hopes to create a community around their products and their mission. They have made headlines and garnered support for showing real women, not airbrushed models, in their advertising. Now they hope to organize the women who are touched by their message in a social networking model, complete with plenty of product promotion. But can a combination of activism and advertising really reach the kind of customers Dove attracts?

As the Campaign for Real Beauty website explains, “Dove’s global Campaign for Real Beauty aims to change the status quo and offer in its place a broader, healthier, more democratic view of beauty. A view of beauty that all women can own and enjoy everyday.” This view, especially coming from a beauty products company, struck a chord with many women. Dove surprised consumers and competitors alike with ads showing regular women, and the market place was highly receptive to their message. However, as a recent Wall Street Journal article notes, “While Dove has received a blizzard of free publicity for the “Campaign for Real Beauty,” the marketing impact has been somewhat blunted by the fact that the social cause hasn’t been linked directly to specific Dove products.”

To further make the connection between the social change and the products, Dove’s new female-focused website is combining positive body-image messages with product promotion. Sections are broken down into top navigation tabs, and they include Products, Connections, Expertise, Features, Offers, and the Campaign for Real Beauty. Some sections are pure advertising, with professionally crafted messages about shampoos and lotions. Even on these pages, though, the models using the products are average-looking, and the photos do not appear to be enhanced or airbrushed.

Other pages feature articles, blogs, videos, and discussion forums for users. Customers can create individual profiles by filling in the answers to questions like “My best beauty secret is:”, “I’m beautiful because:”, or “Last movie that really inspired me:”. Of course, the profile wizard also asks you how often you purchase certain Dove products, your age, and your geographic location. The content focuses on beauty and health information, all through Dove’s lens of “real beauty”. One blogger writes about the danger of fashion magazines to young girl’s self-esteem, while another writes about the delicate balance between femininity and power in the work place.

Dove’s new channel also hosts a number of videos, many of which have been hits on YouTube. The most popular is called Evolution, which shows an average-looking woman being transformed into a supermodel through a combination of makeup and Photoshop effects. Another, aptly titled Onslaught, shows the effects of ads on young girls. The spot warns parents, “Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.”

Dove is innovative in their use of anti-beauty industry messages to sell beauty products, but they are not the first to reach out to women through online social networks. Proctor and Gamble, the force behind popular beauty brands like CoverGirl, Herbal Essences, and Olay, recently launched Capessa, a female-focused networking site. In their own words, “Capessa is a gathering place for real women to share their stories, offer their personal wisdom and practical advice, improve their lives and be inspired. It’s a place where experiences are the common thread, where advice comes from personal experiences. Capessa is you and women just like you.”

Is this heavy-handed marketing really going to make an impact. In the case of Capessa, I doubt it. Even though their site is not as laden with advertising, it doesn’t have a clear focus or culture. The key to a solid social network is creating a culture within the online framework, and people rarely unite over something as humdrum as shampoo or hand lotion. While many women (and men) are loyal to certain beauty products, I think the industry overestimates how many of us want to talk about our loyalty to certain beauty products. In Dove’s case, however, the web channel is about more than just a product line, despite the obvious marketing purposes. They have begun a discussion about the place of “fake” beauty in advertising, and continuing the conversation online is a natural next step. The key is not to drive away women with too many product promotions and special offers.

With its popularity reaching new markets and users around the globe, Facebook is changing it’s familiar look. Users have long complained about cluttered profiles and endless scrolling to see all the news, activities, applications, photos, and “wall” posts on friend’s pages. Now Facebook has announced changes that will eliminate crowding on user’s profiles. A recent press event was held to promote the new look, and the changes are promising.

The New York Times reported on the press event, giving Facebook devotees a brief look at the new interface. “The biggest change: user profiles on the service will evolve from a single, flat and often cluttered page into four tabbed sub-pages dubbed feed, info, photos and applications.” The tabs will encompass the major areas of activity of each user, and visitors to their profile will be able to look at the information they’re seeking without a lot of scrolling or clicking through applications. “Feed” will give a history of a user’s activity on Facebook. “Info” will contain personal and professional information, such as addresses, educational background, and top friends. “Photo” will house each user’s online albums. “Applications” will house third-party mini-programs like the popular Scrabulous word game or Superpoke.

Some third-party developers are less than thrilled with the change, as a tabbed system could cut back on the visibility and subsequent popularity of their products. Currently, a typical Facebook profile showcases each application in at least three locations, unless a user chooses to minimize them. Chamath Palihapitiya, vice president of product marketing at Facebook, told the New York Times, “This [redesign] will shift success to those applications that are deeply and meaningfully engaging. Applications that are more static in nature may not be as successful as they may have been in the current ecosystem.” Applications that users access frequently, like Superpoke, will still be popular. Those which simply sit on the page like “Sports Fan”, which showcases a user’s favorite teams, will probably lose momentum.

Facebook released screen shots of the planned changes, and the redesign looks significantly cleaner and more focused.

Many users, however, are concerned that the changes might impact their ability to navigate their profiles and applications. One user writes, “Please don’t take my side nav away”, while another laments “i hate that you can’t collapse minifeed anymore!”. Others, however, are embracing the coming changes, writing “This look great!!! Facebook needed this change ;)”.

Speculation about the reason for the changes is rampant, though most industry experts agree that Facebook may be facing a slump. A redesign is a great way to reactivate users who are scaling back their usage and attract new users as well. The site has not been able to equal their 98% growth from last year. However, despite these setbacks, Facebook has continued to dominate the social networking landscape. As they expand to other markets around the world, expect to see more positive changes from this young company.

Just when you thought no other universal human experiences could be translated to the web, a new trend is hitting offices around the country. Coworkers are discussing last night’s episode of Lost and their weekend plans on internal social networks, rather than around the watercooler. With many companies experiencing the strain of multiple office locations around the world, these networks are helping people bond with their associates near and far. These networks can serve as virtual business cards and resumes, a personal profile like those on Facebook or MySpace, and a means of communication without the formality of email.

One company embracing the “virtual watercooler” tool is IBM. IBM employees log on to Beehive, a web-based portal that functions as an internal Facebook. As a recent CNN article points out, “The 27,000 IBMers using Beehive can post pictures, video and one-sentence updates about themselves. They can share lists of ‘things I can’t live without.’” Not only that, but IBM’s workforce can use their Beehive profiles to highlight their expertise and past experience, giving others a chance to learn from them without the red tape that a large corporation can bring.

Beehive has been successful so far because of its possibilities beyond simply socializing. As IBM’s Watson Research Center website points out, “Beehive can also come in handy for upcoming conference calls. If users don’t know the people on the call, they can go to their Beehive profiles beforehand and find out if they have common interests — either work-related or recreational — or if they have colleagues in common. Beehive is a quick way to figure out who a person is and what they spend their time doing. If users are hosting an event, they can create an event page in Beehive and invite people to attend. The page can be a place to spread the buzz about the event and get people talking about it through the comments feature. It’s also a handy place to keep track of who is invited and who’s RSVPed.” It not only helps to stay in contact with close friends at the office, but also helps break the ice when working with new people.

Another example of this type of social networking can be found in the product offerings of Open Mentoring, a SaaS company which offers software to businesses. Employees can sign up to mentor/be mentored by others with different experience-levels or skills. This is especially useful to multi-nationals with collaborative teams from around the world. A product developer in London could supervise a manufacturing engineer in Shenzen through the mentoring service, giving him not only the specific knowledge related to the product, but also help practicing English and cultural cues which could apply to any organization.

In addition to sharing knowledge and skills, virtual watercoolers are coming in handy for business meetings. IBM is also employing technology for this purpose, using Activeworlds software to build online meeting spaces for their employees. Others are using Second Life, a virtual 3D world, to conduct business, hold “mixers”, and meeting with colleagues overseas. As CNN notes, “When CDC Software recently staged parts of an annual sales kickoff event in a virtual world created by Unisfair Inc., it included an online version of the golf outings that commonly accompany such affairs. It held tournaments in baseball and golf video games — and gave real trophies to the champions.” This kind of competitive activity, often labeled as “teambuilding”, can help employees get to know each other and work more closely when the fun is over, even if the game was online.

As businesses feel the strain of multi-national growth and employees embrace technological advances, it’s likely that more and more office communication will relocate to the web. While there’s no substitute for a good face-to-face meeting or brainstorming session, internal social networks and virtual environments can help employees bond and learn from each other.

As the U.S. workforce ages with the impending retirement of many baby boomers, employers are finding that young workers have different expectations of office technology. Not satisfied with email and sticky notes, the newest members of the workforce are bringing their Web 2.0 communication tools with them. Perhaps “tools” is too strong a word; instant messaging, social networking, widgets, and text messaging are habits for this segment of population. So how are businesses adapting to these new workers and their toys?

The smart employers are using Web 2.0 addicts to their best advantage. If there’s one thing this next-generation knows how to do, it is multi-task. It seems that my college-age acquaintances and family members are almost constantly in contact, whether it’s monitoring their Facebook profiles or answering their email on web-enabled phones. When I attended college, students took notes during lectures with a trusty pen and paper. Now, students are bringing laptops to class, and in between taking notes they are organizing their iTunes libraries or updating their blogs. This ability to absorb and distribute information simultaneously, while not very comforting to professors, could actually be beneficial to employers who know how to take advantage of these skills.

Many businesses have embraced instant messaging as a means by which workers can stay updated on projects and connected with each other. They are also looking at online document suites, such as the SaaS offerings of Google Apps and Adobe Buzzword, for teams to collaborate and share information. Blogs and Twitter accounts are already keeping young devotees apprised of their friends’ every moves, and employers are encouraging this “oversharing”. Though it has the potential to create a saturated information pool, and will likely lead to non-disclosure agreement violations, businesses are focusing on the potential upsides of increased productivity and communication.

Another Web 2.0 technology trend is getting mixed reactions from the business community. Social networking, best exemplified by Facebook and MySpace, allows users to create personalized profiles and connect with friends and colleagues online. While some businesses have built proprietary social networks for internal use, others are allowing employees to connect with each other on their already existing profiles. This has its downsides, however, as a recent study in the UK found that the average worker spent 30 minutes a day of office time on Facebook. This has led some employers to block access to the site. While many workers rely on contacts and relationships formed online for their job duties, others are using the social networking sites as a time waster.

And what a waste of time it can be. As Rob Maille, founder of Makibie pointed out, “Today I am actually getting ready to delete MySpace account because all I get out of it is sex offers or someone asking for me to smuggle gold bricks out of Africa.” Many professionals who jumped into Facebook and MySpace are now finding that the sites, while great platforms for connecting with business contacts, are potentially inappropriate for enterprises. LinkedIn has stepped up to fill that gap, offering many of the networking opportunities of popular sites without all the “superpoking” and drunken fraternity photos. The site is built specifically for professional use, and it allows users to connect with past and current colleagues, business contacts, and like-minded workers.

While some may relish in the casual atmosphere of Web 2.0 technology, it is clearly seeing a shift towards enterprise functionality as the Facebook generation enters the workplace. Employers are making nods to the skills that young workers have honed on Wikipedia and Flickr, and they are finding that many of these technologies can add a much-needed collaborative element to the office. As baby boomers continue to leave the workplace, a super-connected, tech-savvy generation is filling their shoes, and they’re bringing their laptops, smart phones, and Facebook friends with them.

Hot on the heels of Yahoo!’s better-than-expected earnings report, the search company has revealed new plans that will change their social networking strategy. Instead of continuing to pursue Yahoo! 360° as a social networking spot, Yahoo! will open its platforms to external developers, allowing users to unify their various services and choose from third-party applications to create complete profiles. This will give Yahoo! users just one location for all their functions, including email, calendars, news, photo storage, and instant messaging. With Microsoft’s takeover offer looming, this strategy may help Yahoo! redefine their services for the new generation of internet users.

PC World has reported this development from the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco Thursday, where Ari Balogh, Yahoo’s chief technology officer gave a keynote address. Balogh said, “”It is rewiring Yahoo from the inside out, across all of our properties, to fundamentally open up those Web services and provide a consistent development model, a consistent deployment and consumer experience as well.” If all goes well, the strategy has the potential to unite hundreds of millions of people who use Yahoo!’s email and messaging services in a social setting. It could potentially give Yahoo! the boost they need to compete with social networking giants like MySpace and Facebook, both of which are open to outside developers creating applications for use within their sites.

Yahoo!’s APIs (application programming interfaces) have been available to developers on a limited basis in the past, but this move is much more broad, and will hopefully create a streamlined process like that provided to third-party Facebook developers. With Yahoo!’s recent acquisitions of Flickr (photo sharing site), Del.icio.us (social bookmarking site), and Upcoming (calendar sharing site), the combination of services into a single dashboard could be quite appealing to users. Third-party applications could include anything from games, blogging tools, file sharing, and a variety of other popular social networking tools. As Balogh said in his address, “We are not building another social network. We are building social into everything we do.”

The first piece of Yahoo!’s puzzle that will be opened up to developers is Search Monkey, which will give outsiders a look at their search technology. Users and developers will be able to customize and tweak search results, as well as applying SEO techniques to bump them up in Yahoo!’s rankings. A senior researcher at Forrester told the BBC, “My hat goes off to Yahoo that they have been able to execute this in a very difficult and stressful time for them on a strategy that I think is potentially very interesting.” Indeed, with Microsoft’s deadline for their takeover offer looming, Yahoo! has shown no signs of slowing their progress.

Their earnings report released earlier this week shows a 9 percent increase in revenues and an 11 percent increase in profits over last year’s first quarter. Yahoo! executives no doubt hoped this news would solicit a higher offer from Microsoft, but the software giant has not backed down. Tomorrow will be the deadline for Yahoo! to begin talks, and Microsoft has threatened to go hostile if an agreement is not reached. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has indicated that the offer may be taken directly to Yahoo! shareholders, bypassing the company’s management.

We all love an underdog, and many in the technology community are rooting for Yahoo!. The new social networking strategy will likely win them even more fans, and potentially give them the bargaining chip they’ve been looking for.

The technology world is full of bright ideas, promising startups, and spectacular disappointments. You never know which brand new company is going to break through to the mainstream, and which is going to fade into obscurity. BookLamp.org is aiming to be one of those great ideas that becomes a mainstay in the lives of internet users the world over. The self-described “Pandora.com for books” is a new beta project which attempts to match readers with books that will appeal to their personality, style, and preferences.

The brand new site uses a graphing system to determine key points, which they call “bookmarks,” about any given work. After scanning a book, their proprietary software determines the pacing, density, action, description, and dialogue levels of the title. Users can rate the books they enjoy and receive recommendations for other works that closely match the bookmarks of their favorite reads. Pandora.com uses a similar approach to recommend music that users will like, though they employed human musical analysts to discover the details within a song that make it appeal to any given person.

BookLamp.org features an informative video about their process and goals in scanning and analyzing books. While they acknowledge that readers reviews can help determine if a book would appeal to each individual, they argue that reviews can only consider the characters and storyline as appealing, not the overall writing style of the author. BookLamp’s system can analyzes books based on the parts of speech used, tracking the language of each scene. This gives their reviews a consistency across styles and authors that the average human reviewer cannot achieve (i.e. you might like books about seafaring, but you might despise Melville’s writing style).

The site is in early beta at the moment (even the FAQ section is not complete), so it’s difficult to give the idea an informed thumbs up or down. I did register and check out the graphs for the two books in their system that I’d read (they’ve analyzed just 179 books at present, most of which are science fiction). They hope to work with publishers and significantly expand the database to appeal to a wider audience. The idea itself is quite innovative, and if they get the interface right and grow their catalogue, I can easily see this idea taking off, particularly if they reach out to social networking users. A Facebook app which allows you to search, review, and recommend books to friends based on BookLamp data could be tremendously successful.

Some might say that a software analysis is not a very good way to interact with literature, and on a wider level, I would tend to agree. After all, your reaction to any given book might be very different depending on your mood or your circumstances when you read it. For example, you might like to read Alexander McCall-Smith during a quiet afternoon at the beach, but you prefer Dan Brown’s novels during air travel to pass the time. These two author’s work have very little in common in terms of action, dialogue, and themes, but it’s certainly possible to enjoy them both. As BookLamp’s database and services expand, users will want a way to search by genre and theme so their recommendations are not only accurate, but also varied.

BookLamp is likely to get plenty of attention from avid readers and techies alike. Here’s hoping they can break through the initial hype and build a lasting success in the online world.

We are all familiar with the multitude of social networking applications that are popular today. Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, LinkedIn…the list goes on and on. In a time when the online world is so easily accessible to the mainstream, it’s no wonder that these types of social networks have grown in popularity. However, while the aforementioned sites are predominantly aimed at teenagers and college students, a new phenomenon is taking place. As a recent eWeek article points out, social networking is becoming more and more compelling for businesses. This begs the question: will corporate social networks be the next big thing?

Professional social networking websites are becoming more and more common. A few months ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article about a social network for licensed physicians. This site, Sermo.com, serves as a way for physicians to share information, keep each other up to date with daily happenings, and even to help one another make the correct diagnosis of a patient. The article describes how a network of doctors were able to correctly diagnose a 21-year-old patient without ever having physically met. Other such professional websites, such as LinkedIn and SelectMinds, provide professionals with a means of staying in contact with others in their field as well as with their colleagues and friends, which bears a striking resemblance to the MO of the websites aimed at the younger demographic.

But what if a small or medium size company wants to have a bit more control over its company’s social network? As the eWeek article points out, there really aren’t specific vendors for this kind of venture: “The big names in social networking don’t really provide tools for enterprises (there’s no Facebook Business Edition, for example).” However, as the article goes on to discuss, this is not as big a problem as some IT professionals may think. The article offers up three potential systems that will work with a company’s enterprise portals and Web 2.0 applications:

• Microsoft SharePoint Server - an enterprise portal system originally intended as a way of offering data flow control. Integration with the Microsoft suite makes building a social network with SharePoint easy and practical. The downside to this system is limited functionality of many popular social network features, like blogging. It could easily be integrated with an open source blogging tool though.
• Plone - open-source web platform which, according to eWeek, has been used “for everything from enterprise portal systems to project management to Web 2.0 deployments. Every feature needed to run a social network site is available within Plone.” The main drawback here is that the platform is based on the Python language, which is less commonly known and therefore would require a certain skill set among a company’s hired IT professionals.
• WordPress - a highly popular open source blogging platform, with recent add-ons that make it a great fit for low-demand usage. If it can be made more suitable for enterprise use, this platform will be a major competitor in the world of professional social networking.

The Human Capital Institute asserts that corporate social networking is the new frontier in making up to date information readily available to the global community, and also serves as a way to bring professionals together. However, as the popularity of these networks grows, there are several legitimate concerns, the most pressing of which is the need to protect intellectual property. While this has always been a priority of competitive businesses, the advent of these new social networks will add a new level of difficulty in protecting one’s own work and ideas. Heightened security features, which need to operate internally and externally within any enterprise, will no doubt have to be implemented as these social networks gain a foothold in the business world.

Still, even with the added risks, corporate social networking seems to be the latest application to be introduced in the trendy work place. Professionals have finally learned what teenagers and college students have known all along, that social networks are a great way of staying in touch and sharing information with friends, colleagues, and contacts from all walks of life. And while I don’t expect that professionals will be fully assimilating to that culture (although, the thought of reading a corporate budget proposal inundated with terms such as “lol! j/k” does bring a smile to my face), it is clear that social networking has entered the workplace in a big way.

Traditional market research is seeing another shake up with the inclusion of social networking into their mix of techniques. While we’re all accustomed to seeing advertising on Facebook (everything from “That’s what she said” t-shirts to floral gift baskets are being hawked on their ad board), a new strategy has been popping up in the marketing departments of major companies. Now, not only will you see ads for your favorite products, but you will be asked to discuss them in social networking forums.

The process of tweaking and improving products is being taken out of the hands of R & D departments and being thrust upon the consumer. In an increasingly user-generated world, everyday consumers are being asked for their feedback on everything from doggie treats to tax software, all through the lens of online networks. Not only is this a cost-effective way to conduct high-level focus groups, but people sitting in front of a computer are more likely to be brutally honest than those sitting in a stuffy conference room. Some companies are using the standard sites like MySpace and Facebook, while others are creating their own social networks. Some are made up of selected consumers or internal employees, while others are open to a larger market set.

A good example of this is Proctor & Gamble’s networking site Capessa, which is open to any internet user. It focuses on what are believed to be “women’s issues” like health, beauty, parenting, relationships, and gardening. As the website explains, “Capessa is a gathering place for real women to share their stories, offer their personal wisdom and practical advice, improve their lives and be inspired. It’s a place where experiences are the common thread, where advice comes from personal experiences. Capessa is you and women just like you.” Not terribly subtle, is it? What is subtle is Proctor & Gamble’s involvement, which is mentioned hardly anywhere on the site. Users can post blogs and videos, recommend links, and chat about their favorite shoes and makeup, while P & G collects their opinions and ideas for future product development.

Another example of this is model is Turbo Tax’s Inner Circle, which is a social network open to any taxpayer, whether or not they use the software. The site boasts a membership of about 5,000 users, and they can ask questions and post comments about taxes and the software packages offered by Turbo Tax. Their marketing department monitors the questions and concerns and even stokes the conversations to gather data. What differentiates this from Capessa is the open acknowledgment that user comments and ideas will be used for future product cycles. The website urges users to, “Tell us how we can improve our products and services. Contribute ideas for new features.”

In addition to individual companies who have created online forums for focus group research, there are a few pioneering technology firms developing social networks as a business service. Mzinga, which translates as “Beehive” from Swahili, allows companies to integrate social networking tools into their existing website. These add-ons can include blog-style forums, wikis, consumer surveys, polls, user profile pages, and social bookmarking. Another front-runner in this trend is Networked Insights, has the added feature of rating customer comments and activity based on the responses they receive. For example, an active commenter who does not spark debate or attract other comments would be less important for market research than a one-time commenter who set off a firestorm discussion. This allows marketing departments to screen ideas based on their validity and popularity.

Companies who engage in focus groups based in online networks are reaching out to users in a low-cost, high-yield way. Clever marketers could potentially get free advice from people who actually care about the outcome of the product. One word of caution, however: be prepared to actually use their suggestions. There’s nothing quite as puzzling to consumers as ignoring their opinions. Making a product based on user-generated data not only has the power to appeal on a massive scale, but it also has a built-in consumer and the buzz of word-of-mouth advertising. It’s the recipe for a perfect storm, and I suspect that more and more corporate websites will be asking me to create a personal profile in the near future.