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Editor’s  note: Periodically, we do a survey of Beaconfire staff to get impressions on a variety of non-profit technology issues. All opinions expressed here are solely those of their authors. With so many social networks out there, every one appeals to a different audience. This week, we thought we’d ask: Which social networks do you have a profile in?

Eve, Creative Director: Facebook, Linked in, and Dogster

Lynn, Principal Consultant: Facebook and LinkedIn

Jeff, Principal Consultant: Facebook (more lurker than active but have over 100 friends), LinkedIN (I use this quite a bit for connecting with former colleagues, partners  and even for recruiting), Terrapin Alumni Network (have profile but found few of my college classmates were on yet. It was early after its launch so worth another look), and MySpace (I believe I have a profile but haven’t used it but once).

Michael, Principal Consultant: The active ones are LinkedIn & Facebook for me.

Kate, Administrative Assistant: I currently use Facebook regularly, after having canceled my Myspace profile a few months ago. I also have a random smattering of profiles on blogs and other things that may tangentially be considered “social networks,” but they’re ill used, so I’ll leave them out.

Andrew, Project Manager: Facebook and LinkedIn

John Brian, Marketing Consultant: I’m on Facebook every day, Flickr once a week, LinkedIn once a month, and Twitter when I go to conferences and such as a way to micro-blog. I was really pulling for Essembly to make it, but it never got anywhere.

Taylor, Software Engineer: I only use Facebook.  When it first opened up I was attracted to its privacy settings and it seemed much more reputable than myspace.  As it has loosened up, i.e.:

• Opening fb up to users under the age of 18
• Allowing external developers to design their own applications,
• Adding the ability for external sites to send feeds about your actions to your fb profile,

I have considered ending my account, but what it boils down to in my mind is that if you are careful and stay informed about your privacy settings and how they change then fb is a fairly secure place to be.  It is also an incredible networking, information sharing and social media tool.

Tim, Functional Consultant: In order from most used to least:

• Facebook
• Shelfari
• MySpace
• LinkedIn
• Flickr
• Twitter

Erika, Operations Manager: I use LinkedIn.  It’s not only a great way to keep in touch with former colleagues, but it’s also a useful recruiting tool.  It enables me to post job openings for Beaconfire and send them out through my network (or post directly to the entire LinkedIn network).  Personal referrals are still the best way to find a job and, from a recruiting standpoint, it’s always better to find candidates who are recommended by people you know and trust.  It reminds me of the old shampoo commercials…”you tell two friends, and they’ll tell two friends, and so on, and so on…” 

Brad, Functional Consultant: Actually use: Facebook, LinkedIn. Have but don’t use: MySpace, Friendster, Yahoo Mash, Twitter (might use Twitter more). Also, it’s not a social network exactly, but I use Highrise to manage my contacts

Ali, Marketing Consultant: Amazon, LinkedIn, Facebook, Delicious are my four big ones.

Elizabeth, Senior Consultant: I use Facebook and Linkedin pretty extensively.  ASAE has started their own internal social networking feature, and I’m cooperating, but I think the horse may have already bolted on that one (there are multiple ASAE and association groups on both FB and Linked).  I joined Naymz because several people asked me to, but I never use it.  And the DC Rollergirls are all on MySpace, so I keep up with derby news there, but I don’t have a profile set up.

Mark, Functional Consultant: Here are mine…

• Yahoo groups
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Linked In
• Flickr

Marissa, Functional Consultant: I’m in Facebook and Goodreads, though I use Goodreads more as a place to maintain the list of books I want to read, rather than a social network.

Kristin, Project Manager: Linked in, Facebook, Yahoo Groups

With new social networks popping up every day, this is bound to increase. In case you’re keeping score at home, of the 16 Beaconfire employees who answered, 15 included Facebook and 12 included LinkedIn!

Most of us think of Twitter as a kind of silly application that lets people say things like “John Brian is preparing for the robot uprising” or “Brad thinks the refs blew it in the Caps/Flyers game 7.” It’s chief purpose, so far, is entertainment, with a dash of TMI thrown in.

But lately, I’ve been wondering.

A couple months ago, at South by Southwest, an interview with Mark Zuckerberg famously went awry when the Twitter-feuled audience first started heckling the interviewer, then eventually took over the microphones. (If you are interested, check out this particularly thoughtful account of the event, which includes an amazing video of the interview with a twitter overlay).

A couple of weeks ago, I was at a different conference (the IA Summit) where Twitter was again used by the crowd, but this time in a far more sanguine way, to share information amongst the audience and make insightful comments about the presentations. It probably helped that the audience and the speakers actually knew each other, even if only passingly in some cases.

I got enough value from following the Summit’s twitter feed that I left thinking, could this actually be of value in a corporate setting?

After all, I’ve been to plenty of all-staff meetings, or large team meetings, where people are already bringing their laptops. The larger and longer the meeting, the more likely people are trying to at least keep an eye on their email. So, the technology is already in place in many offices to try adopting a twitter feed. And what is the value of twitter here?

A second, quiet, channel of information.

The bigger the room, the less anyone wants to interrupt the presenter’s flow to ask a question. The more likely the group is to simply go with the flow. If information they need isn’t provided, they might (if they are lucky) get a chance to ask a question afterwards, or they have to spend extra time cornering the presenter. Having a quiet alternate channel of communication is incredibly helpful. In particular, here are a few of the things that you might use twitter for:

1. Request a resource: “Can someone tell me where to find the .pdf that Michael is talking about?
2. Expand on the content: “In addition to the companies listed, Arlene and I have started talking to Widget Co about this”
3. Gauge interest: “I was hoping to hear more about the bonus program. Anyone else?”
4. Brief side conversations: “Alan, should we be using this tool for Project Z? Looks like it might be helpful.”

In this way, having a second, quiet channel of information might increase the usefulness of a large meeting, or even help positively shape the direction of conversation without grinding things to a halt.

What do you think?

Last week, I received a Facebook update from a true American (some say MegaAmerican) hero: Stephen Colbert. Colbert, of whose show I am one of 10,757 Facebook fans, sent out an update to let his supporters know that he was listed as a finalist for Time’s Most Influential Person award. While he lost out in 2006 to Korean pop sensation Rain, this year’s online to online strategy should net better dividends.

Stephen has a history of using his show to rig these contests. In 2006, he deployed the Colbert Nation to make him the winner of a Hungarian contest to name a bridge, and he’s doomed multiple wikipedia articles to a variety of protected statuses by mentioning them.

But his bids have always been launched from his show, requiring viewers to watch the show, go to their computers, find the contest page, and vote. We’ve always known that there was a significant dropoff in offline to online actions, such as direct mail asks (though asks to make a donation online are often successful because it’s less effort to donate using a web site than it is to go through the myriad of steps it takes to mail a check).

Using a Facebook update to encourage fans to vote him up may not pay dividends this year. With only 10,000 fans, Colbert may not get the bump he needs to win, especially since his closest current competitor for the number one spot, Shigeru Miyamoto has already received 805,000+ votes. But in future years as his online fan base grows, Stephen may be able to use this high concentration of online to online users to push him over the top.

And that’s the word.

Anyone else remember Calvinball? It was the game that Calvin and Hobbes played whose rules changed constantly, with players changing them on fly as the game went on (look: here’s a wikipedia entry!). That’s pretty much how business and non-profit users relationship with Facebook has been over the last few months.

I should start by saying that I remain a big fan of Facebook. I think it is to social networks what the 1970’s Apple was to the personal computer: a critical mature player in an evolving space once only restricted to hobbyists that bridges the gap to bring technology to the masses. It balances the desire to connect with friends with the desire for privacy, and has maintained a core identity, a space for real-life friends to connect on the web, despite business pressures to sell out.

That said, recent choices made by Facebook have convinced me that there really aren’t any solid structures or expectations with regard to the user/company relationship, just a floating set of rules that morph daily.

Examples, and what it means for non-profits, below the fold…

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Happy Spamiversary! Fifteen years ago today, the term "spam" was coined by Joel Furr, referring to an accidental auto-posting of 200 messages to a Usenet group. Today, the term has become so common, it ranks as the second disambiguation on Wikipedia and is estimated to cost Americans more than $13 billion per year (That’s enough to fund the state of Utah).

While spam used to be confined to the world of email, spammers have recently branched out to new frontiers: blogs, social networks, and search engines. It seems that no online garden can stay a spam-free Eden forever (perhaps an inapt metaphor: the apple represented knowledge, not pharmaceuticals).

What all these techniques have in common is that they put practically the entire cost onto the recipient. While direct mail, junk faxes, and robocalls at least have a cost to the sender, all the methods of spam that I discuss here are pretty much free, once you have the system set up for delivery.

More on these new theatres of spam warfare below the fold:

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I reneged on my promise to deliver my NTC presentation while juggling chainsaws and swallowing flaming swords. But I did have a PowerPoint! And here it is: The User Generators: What Makes Them Tick.

Thanks for the great questions.

This week a few years ago, I jumped on the Facebook bandwagon so that I could compete against my coworkers in the NCAA tournament. The bracket captures the essence of healthy competition that largely fuels the social networking site. Therefore it’s not surprising that this year CBS partnered with Facebook to develop a multifunction application. What is surprising is how good it is.

Here’s why I think the CBS March Madness Facebook application is a model use of Facebook.

1. It’s a one stop shop across platforms: Unlike a lot of Facebook applications that are installed and forgotten about, CBS has built it to allow Facebookers to get all the information they need from the application. For example, each team, even those that aren’t in the tournament, has its own page that lists the scores of the games, schedule, player stats and links to team news off the site. You can also watch videos and monitor the live scoreboard.
2. It’s scored the way we like it: You can earn more points for upsets and you can even win money if you do well. There is a $10,000 prize that will be given to a randomly selected person in the top 10% (who is also at least eighteen years old.)
3. There are lots of ways to interact: CBS realizes that March Madness isn’t just about filling out a bracket and watching the games but rather a ritualistic event that spans many weeks. The application allows for creation of groups so you can compare standings amongst particular sets of friends and post on the “Trash Talk Wall.” As Greg Shaheen, senior vice-president for basketball and business strategies for the NCAA says, “…more fans now have more ways to view, follow, debate and enjoy March Madness than ever before.”
4. It is consistent with Facebook’s audience: The application plays into school spirit prevalent amongst the heaviest users of Facebook and encourages the taunting that is common sporting behavior through “TourneyPoke.” This application within an application allows you to send messages to friends like “ran Ali out of the gym” and “Ali called Paul a waterboy.”

I logged into Facebook this morning to see an update that they’d revised their privacy policies. The revisions allow people to set different levels of privacy for different friend groups, as well as set what friends of friends can see. I see this as a direct challenge to LinkedIn for dominance in the business networking sphere.

This is a change that’s been brewing for a while. Late last year, they added friend lists, which let you categorize your friends in whatever taxonomies you wanted (how you know them, where they live, frequently referenced friends, etc). This was helpful when you needed to find a particular friend, but not for much else.

Now, by linking privacy controls to these friend lists, it allows people to friend folks on Facebook that you normally wouldn’t, knowing that you can use privacy controls to connect them to your contact information, but not your photos from New Year’s. It also allows you to be less restrained in your posting of content, as long as you’re careful to sort your friends correctly (and I predict that in about a week we’ll start to see stories about people who accidentally dropped their boss into the "college friends" category and the ensuing results).

The big implication that I see here is that Facebook wants to be the site for business networking. Already, many younger and more web-savvy people I meet offer to connect with Facebook, though LinkedIn remains the tool of choice for business, in part because of its blandness.

I’m betting that Facebook will see success in this endeavor - they already have 68 million users, and if just one percent add one new user per month using Facebook as their business network tool, they’ll grow the network by more than eight million users in a year (not taking into account the new users bringing in people, or other growth). This doesn’t even take into account the value of the data and connections from additional networking; Facebook’s real business has always been data, and the more people link to each other, the more Facebook is able to put together a complete personal profile for advertisers.

I’m with Michael and Nancy: Facebook made a mistake by switching ideological political categorizations to partisan ones. And I say that both as a user and as an ad buyer.

First, the fact that it’s a remarkably unfriendly autofill should have been a big sign that this was a step in the wrong direction. When you’re largely based in the United States, and have put far more investment into your American political coverage (with admittedly mixed results), to have the party that most Facebookers are close to require no less than twelve keystrokes (though I’ll note that the GOP requires a mere three… no real conclusion to draw there, just interesting) is just bad user interface.

It could be improved fairly easily by making the assumption that if someone is in an American network, they’re probably a member of an American party. This doesn’t mean disallowing other selections for expatriates, just skipping them in the autofill for more likely suggestions.

The idea that candidates and parties are the ones demanding this seems strange. First, as a veteran of a Democratic campaign, I can say that Facebook ads are not a major media buy (unfortunately). While they’ll be a bigger part of the media mix this year, particularly with microtargeting, there won’t be enough money there to really make that much of a difference.19

Furthermore, if I’m advertising for political reasons, I’d rather have the liberal-conservative axis than a partisan one - a campaign is going to use different appeals to different groups, and I’d rather have more granularity. For example, I might target a "Make a donation" ad to self-identified progressives, a "Join the list" ad to moderates, and a "Who is [Candidate name]" to those with no affiliation. Instead, I’m stuck using just one metric - are they or are they not a Democrat.

That said, I will give them some credit: the ability to type in your own answer, such as "Independent" or "No party" is a step in the right direction. I never bothered filling in my political ideology because the generic term "liberal" was far too much of a simplification of a complex question. On the other hand, I’m a partisan Democrat so I was willing to indicate that. Allowing users to write in their own answer, as with the religion question, is a choice that will hurt marketing (because it’s more difficult to target people if they phrase the same answer different ways) but be good for users.

Hopefully, we’ll see Facebook unveil some reason for this change that makes sense, or roll it back, as they have with other poor choices. I’ll try to get some reactions from other users at South by Southwest.

Today’s election day in Wisconsin, where most of my Facebook network resides. I’ve been watching my mini-feed in fascination as various friends update their status with who they’re voting for. Could Facebook be the secret weapon that’s turning out the youth and creative class vote this year?

In particular, watching status updates come in today show that in some ways, Facebook’s core functionality is more effective in reaching other users than any application: it’s word of mouth, plain and simple, except that it’s delivered to networks of people at a reach and speed that no mere "I voted" sticker can manage. To say nothing of the fact that few of said stickers indicate for whom you voted, an endorsement that can have more meaning for young people than all the Kennedy’s in Massachusetts.

Just looking at my own feed today, here are some of the status updates I saw (names blurred out for privacy reasons):

Could Facebook, because of it’s natural ability to broadcast messages, addictive nature, and near ubiquity be a stronger mover of votes than offline social affiliations, like unions or churches? Based on the results we’ve seen from youth turnout this year, along with the growth potential as these networks age, more members of the creative class already post-college begin adopting it, and the number of people attending college increases, I’m betting that that’s the trend we’re going to see in this election and the ones that follow.

And it’s a trend that that I, for one, welcome.