socialisation online

Socialisation Online: The Growing Community Model

for Delivering Instant Social Support and Connection

presented by: Dawn Marie YankeelovPresident, ASPectx

dawny@aspectx.com

Date: June 15, 2004www.aspectx.com

What We Will Cover

• Evolving Support Mechanisms• Types of Support Found• Acceptance of Online Choices• The Blueprints –Case Studies

– Instant Communities – Finding Love and Friends– Forums into Communities– Business Networking Online– The Make You Well World

• The Future Faceless Space of Change

Socialisation

• Coming together, meeting - the social act of assembling for some common purpose

• The adoption of the behavior patterns of the surrounding culture

• Rheingold (1993) describes them, "virtual communities are social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships... " (p. 5).

Evolving Support

• Computer-mediated communication

accepted for healthcare and related education

• Dating online is a social must

• Business Networking for instant introductions leading to sales

Notable differences• Most VCs are Not Real Life, F-to-F • Anonymity• Expertise, perceived, or real• Anytime, anywhere• Less personal judgment• Power in all relationships established• Conduct “reality checks” with minimal effort• Easy Access and lower personal cost in time

Types of support

• Informational support

• Emotional support

• Esteem support

• Tangible aid

• Social network support

• Small group support

VC tools evolve

• From Usenet groups, bulletin boards and email only to:– Weblogs, instant messaging, Wikis, and

comment threads in blogs, online videos and films, support group events

Now to: --from groupware to social software on the

desktop which includes real-time surveys, personal introductions, and psychological tests

Acceptance Surveys

• Everybody’s doing it—but does it add to psychological well being?– Receiving Social Support Online,Implications for

Health Education by Whit Dorman (2001)– Online Socialization: What the Future Holds (Canada

2003)– Exploring Internet Use Among Older Adults (USA),

June 2002 by University of Maryland, Eun-Shim Nahm commissioned by Natl. Institute of Nursing Research

– Attraction to Computer-Mediated Social Support (Walther & Boyd) (2002)

Emerging Key Group: Seniors

• 70 percent of US seniors who own a home computer surf the Web.

• -Survey conducted by SeniorNet and Charles Schwab, Inc.

Blueprints of the Model:Small Group Support

1. The Instant Community in last 2 years– Wireless craze– Do it now– Localize it for your neighborhood– Keep it fun and games

Instant Communities

• Flash Mobs– Cambridge--A store’s greeting card section for

a card for Bill– “Conducting” ring tones in Minneapolis– “Fashionably Dead”—flocksmart.com and

mobproject.com

• GLOBAL FLASHMOB #2 ================================== SATURDAY, JUNE 19th 2004

This event is dedicated to the first officially documented flashmob in the world, which was performed on June 17th in Macy's Department Store in New York city, USA. If you want to know more about this event, read this article http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,59297,00.html.

On June 19, 2004 we celebrate 1 anniversary of Flashmob phenomenon. It will be a SECOND GLOBAL FLASHMOB! All over the world at the same day at the same local time mobbers will perform the same scene. Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, Americas, Australia. The first who will read the Script Instructions and perform the Global Flashmob will be New Zealand mobbers. The last ones - Los Angeles, USA.

If you want to participate in the largest flashmob that has ever been held - the second Global Flashmob (GFM) - write down the date: Saturday, June 19, approximately in 2 p.m.

Also you can visit the GFM Headquarters here: http://www.fars.ru/forum/viewforum.php?f=10 or here: http://flashmob.wiki.taoriver.net/moin.cgi/

Convergence: Games and Social Networks from Virtual Communities

• Online and Offline – A Mixed Bag

Example: Pac Manhattan.com

Ingredients: wi-fi connections, cell phones and custom software and experiential websites

Players take on tasks and costumes and collect “pellets”

Instant Communities

Blueprints of the Model:Social Network Support and Esteem

Support• Finding Love and Friends

– Validation and Intimacy

– 24/7 Ability to Hunt or Discuss

Options for Love

– “To observe self-disclosure may be to infer significant intimacy” –(Walther & Boyd)

Match.com

•12 Million Registered Users

•Began in 1995

•200,000 people found “the match” of their lives in 2003

•30 online dating sites

Finding Love and Friends

• Match.com newer developments– Support of voting in American market—swaying of

public opinion

– Matchmobile.com—cell phones

– Onlinespeedmatching.com—speed dating

– the exclusive Total Attraction Matching™ system -- which incorporates powerful, scientifically-based personality profiling tools and the first and only physical attraction matching platform

Visual matches tied to profiling

Finding Love and Friends

Rightstuffdating.com

List of acceptable schools includes the Ivy leagues and about 30 more, including Wesleyan, Duke, Stanford, Emory and Rice.

Finding Love and Friends

• Friendster.com—anyone can help in six degree method

• Greensingles.com—Specific audiences

• 8minutedating.com (extending the tangible community)

Friendster.com

Blueprints of the Model:Information Support or Tangible Aid

• Meetup.com

– Join other Nanotech Enthusiasts near Louisville, KY

– 315 Nanotech Enthusiasts are currently voting on where to meeton June 17. Some of their choices include:

--Starbucks Coffee 3521 Springhurst Commons Dr.

--Wick's Pizza Parlor 971 Baxter Ave

--Heine Bros. Coffee 2714 Frankfort Ave.

Forums into Communities

• www.ideafestival.com

Blueprints of the Model:Information Support, Social Network

Support, Tangible Aid

Business Networking Online

Business Networking=Data Mining plus Community

•As an experiment in 1967, Stanley Milgram, a Harvard University social psychologist, sent 300 letters to randomly selected residents of Omaha, Nebraska.

•Milgram asked recipients to forward a letter to a designated "target" person using only their personal networks.

•This started a chain from one colleague to the next until the target was reached.

•It turned out the average number of steps from the Omaha originator to the ultimate Boston-based target was six, giving birth to the oft-heard expression: "six degrees of separation."

Blueprints of the Model:Information Support, Social Network

Support, Emotional Support

• Etherapy

• Healthyplace.com

• Urbanbaby.com

Make You Well World

Patient Connections

Healthyplace.com

• In Top 50 of health sites by Traffic• 750,000 visitors per month/began Sept. 1999• Viewers stop at 7-10 pages• Average time: 17-45 minutes; 3 times a week• 80 percent of visitors go straight into a chat• Targeted by disorder newsletters• 70 percent are female visitors• Online radio programming; 4,000 a month

Relationship Management

• Specific company example:– Softwatch (began 1994)

– Online Physician Promotion and Management Solutions

– Manage your on-line Physician community without the hassle of coordinating with multiple groups. SoftWatch takes care of all the details to launch and maintain your Physician community, launch campaigns and generate tailored reports.

Patient Support

• Online Choices—follow the pharmas

• Fee-based Online Consultations

• IVR Solutions

• Intranet Efficiency Among Branches

• Appt. Confirmation

“The Big One”: Adhere to Appropriate Standards

Future Faceless Space of Change in Social Support

•Convergence of online and real world interactions

•Relationship Multiplication Factors will be Exploited

•Access to support experts online will increase

•Demystification of healthcare

•More video, more events, more gamelike interactions

Aspectx

Competitive Intelligence *Marketing *Public Relations*Business Planning *Event Marketing

*Web ConsultingFor more information contact:

Dawn Marie Yankeelov, PresidentAspectx

(w) 502-292-2351(c) 502-548-1304(f) 502-292-2364

Dawny@aspectx.comwww.aspectx.com