Comments on: Social Network Sluts

By: sausSoundilia

sausSoundilia — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 02:57:59 +0000

You got to check this video out I found on Youtube. Its badass.

Let me know what you guys think.

By: parkernow

parkernow — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 15:47:43 +0000

Kristen,

Please see my more recent post here http://blogcampaigning.com/2007/08/14/myragan-1-parker-0/ for an update on my opinion.
I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
-Parker

By: Kristen

Kristen — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:30:55 +0000

I find it absolutely fascinating Parker, that you’ve latched on to the one negative comment in with eight positive comments (I am not even counting either Shel or any of the Ragan staffers comments although they’re certainly as entitled to an opinion as anyone else) about MyRagan and used that to validate your initial prediction. But, to paraphrase Robb “your bat, your ball”

The discussions I’ve seen on the MyRagan are consistently related to real daily issues in the life of a communicator in a corporate setting (which I’ve been for nearly 15 years) but I will be sure to check back with your site here at the one year mark to see how this all plays out.

By: Mike Klein

Mike Klein — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 07:43:07 +0000

I’m looking forward to seeing the cake get cut at MyRagan’s first-and tenth-birthday party (though I won’t partake as I’m doing the low-carb thing).

I do love Facebook–but facebook works best as a means of connecting me with old friends. MyRagan is about finding new co-conspirators, and serving as a platform for some intense debates about our industry and its positioning for the future. We’re going at eachother about the role of morality in organizational communication. That’s not something that would happen on Facebook.

By: parkernow

parkernow — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:17:09 +0000

Thanks to everyone for their comments.
If nothing else, it has shown me that MyRagan DOES have the ability to create discussion, even if that discussion is (as Robb points out) fairly self-centered.

-Parker

By: Robb

Robb — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 17:39:55 +0000

I see the sheep have all flocked to the defense of their shepherd. I find myragan.com filled with the same problem most social networking sites have - everyone wants to talk and no one wants to listen. This is made worse by the constant self-promotion of members of the myragan.com staff. I know - their bat and their ball. But the know-it-alls there don’t know it all as they pretend. But they don’t want to listen much either.

Eventually, people run out of things worthwhile to say, then there is silence. Or in the case of myragan.com, we create a new nuisance such as mindless video feeds to watch to take out minds off the fact that we’ve exhausted our ability to discuss meaningful issues. Does anyone really care about who lowercased their title? Or how whether J&J has the right to sue the Red Cross (duh, of course they do - done with that topic, move on).

By: Barb

Barb — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 19:49:15 +0000

I, too, am a new recruit to Facebook. I think MyRagan should set up a group there so devotees can join. In the PR biz any publicity is good publicity (or so they say!) — so perhaps having everyone on MyRagan also join a Facebook group of the same name gets the word out.

Another feature in Facebook is feeds. Blogs and other RSS-fed info from other sites can be posted to either a personal space or to a group and then that feed is fed through the news on each group member or friend’s page. Again, more publicity for MyRagan.

I joined a couple of PR groups (IABC, CPRS) and while they weren’t terribly informative I did find some friends and see notifications about chapter events and news.

MyRagan is a vibrant community with tremendous depth to the structure, something that cannot be duplicated in a social network like Facebook or MySpace.

So MyRagan — set up a Facebook group!

By: benswetland

benswetland — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 19:31:57 +0000

What I like about myragan in particular and niche social networking sites in general is that they allow me to show a different “face” or side of myself, something I couldn’t do if I was only on one site. I have a myspace site for my band, another for my friends, a facebook profile for my friends, and a myragan page for my colleagues.

In a very real sense I’m different people to each group, and it’d be silly (and bad for my career) to use the same profile for each one. I take it you’re on Facebook for professional reasons only, but you’re in a decisive minority there. Maybe someday Facebook will figure out how to show different sides of ourselves to different groups of people (a personal profile/a professional one) in some kind of intelligent way. I think it’s a major hurdle for a Facebook to solve. But they haven’t yet to my knowledge. Until they do I see social networking going the way of magazine publishing: diversified niches.

Besides, everybody who works for Ragan is a genius.

P.S. I work for Ragan.

By: Valarie

Valarie — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 17:58:13 +0000

I’m not a big networking kind of gal, but myragan has been very helpful to me as a professional resource. For example, my boss is working on a report about Internal Communications for senior management. She wondered where the Int Comms dept reports into in other companies (PR, Marketing, CEO, etc). Instead of spending ages on the web trying to research the matter, I put the question to a myragan forum. I received some good responses, including one from a Ragan staffer who recently conducted an Int Comms survey and could quote me exact percentages from his research. So I was able to retrieve some good information with a minimal amount of time invested in the research.

By: Shel Holtz

Shel Holtz — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 22:44:22 +0000

Parker, my analogy of the football stadium involved IABC, the International Association of Business Communicators. My point: Why join a niche professional association when you can wander around the stadium and find those communicators who inevitably are among the 50,000 people at the game? The reason: The focus on communications.

Frankly, while I do spend more time on Facebook than niche networks, I don’t find the groups to which I belong (some 20 of them) very vibrant or active. There is simply more going on that’s relevant to my profession on MyRagan and Communicator’s Network, just as IABC is more relevant to me than a trip to a mass gathering of people.

The point of the article discussing the promiscuity of social network users is simple: People don’t have a problem with belonging to more than one. Just as I belong to AARP for broad benefits for people over 50 and IABC for communications needs, I don’t see why my social networking eggs need to be in one basket (Facebook).

As I’ve noted several times, I’m not convinced niche social networks will succeed. But I’m not convinced they won’t, either.