With an amazing 2007 winding it's way up and 2008 getting ready to unveil itself I wanted to take a quick moment to recap some of my favorite personal moments in social media in 2007. Some of these I've read about, others I participated in or know about through some other super-secret means. Rather than give you resolutions, predictions or a sappy 2007 send-off here are the happenings in social media this past year the left their mark on moi.
Traffic, Traffic and more Traffic
During the sudden and fierce snowstorms we had in Boston during December one could read, watch and listen to folks talking traffic. It even inspired an awful commute wiki and Chris Brogan did an impromptu "Call Chris" session through Twitter.
All great uses of time for folks stuck in traffic, for sure, but what about municipalities using social media to help us beleagured commuters? I really like what the St. Louis Post Dispatch is trying to do with their Highway 40 Twitter. As someone who married into the cult that is St. Louis and with my Mom-in-Law visiting from the 'Lou I know what Highway 40 means to these folks AND what the upcoming construction is going to mean (and we thought the Big Dig was a hassle). Yet here is such a simple way for the community to directly help each other with real-time user-generated information.
Wine, Wine, Wine
BusinessWeek originally had this story that I simply loved, for many reasons. Basically Michael Stager sold his personal wine collection in a hope to create the WineCommune site. When he did the bubble burst, he never got funding and amassed tens of thousands in debt. Now? WineCommune expects to bring in $17M in revenue in 2007. Why? They focus on micro-social networking.
Attracting people with a very specific need, whether that be wine-o's (properly called oenophiles, but I like wine-o) or a specific neighborhood is an ideal way to help establish community online, since they are already a community, they just might not have a resource to gather at this point. Stajer didn't just simply create a site that would compete with giants like Wine.com, instead he gathered the wine-o's and let the community dictate what they needed...then worried about the revenue pouring in (pun intended).
Listening to your Community
This one involved me directly and many of you will recognize it since it just happened recently. On December 18th at 7:32pm I Twittered:
as much as I dislike slideshare, it is awfully easy to use
It was picked up by my Jaiku integration and I completely forgot about my comment as I posted some slides up to my blog. The next day I had this email in my in box:
Hi,
Your Jaiku comment came up in my feed. I would love to know why you dislike SlideShare
I find that we learn the most from people who don't like the site for some reason. And if you have a moment to reply, I would appreciate your reply. And no, I won't take offense at criticism. I am genuinely curious.
regards,
rashmi
SlideShare cofounderoâ€"â€"â€"-oâ€"â€"â€"oâ€"â€"â€"â€"o
Rashmi Sinha
CEO, Slideshare
I was astonished at how quickly Rashmi had touched base and how willing she was to get feedback from me. I immediately sent her an email with a few of my thoughts about why I wasn't an overall fan of SlideShare, which she answered within hours with some really helpful tips and tricks for using SlideShare (FYI, I asked for permission to reprint this information.
Personally Expanding my World
This one is the most simple, but simply the most personally beneficial. In 2007 I met hundreds of people online and offline through the use of social media. Twitter, Utterz, Facebook and more. In October I watched the Red Sox win the World Series while Twittering away with many of you including @Bryper, @sarahwurrey, @dough, @jackhodgson and others.
Not surprisingly many of these folks I've been able to meet personally at events such as the Social Media Breakfast. We share information, help each other with blog postings and inspire each other to accomplish more in this industry. In that sense folks like Geoff Livingston, Chris Brogan, Jeremy Pepper, Jeremiah Owyang, Todd Defren and Aaron Brazell.
Each of these people, and many, many more, have enriched my life in 2007, thanks to social media and personal thanks to each of you!
Peas...enough said
Perhaps THE social media story of the year is the Pea movement happening across the web, just go to this page to read all the incredible stories. I haven't commented much publicly about this story because it is a hard topic for me since it touches very close to home. My mom is an amazing survivor of Breast Cancer and back when she was stricken there was none of this social network support, oh sure there were groups you could attend, people you could meet for coffee, and that certainly helped. But what we are currently seeing happening is inspiring to all of us who believe in the power of this medium and perhaps more importantly it is a breathing example to those who don't understand the potential impact of social media.
Go to the site, give money if you can, but read Susan Reynold's amazing story and take a minute to think about her and everyone else that will be effected by this disease in 2008.
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