Hamachi.

Hamachi is a small, free program that tricks your computer into thinking that it's logged into your home network. All you have to do is install it on a computer on your network and give it a username and password. Any computer with hamachi can then access the network if you just provide the name and password. The really awesome thing here is that it is "zero setup," which basically means that aside from a password and a few clicks on your firewall, you don't have to do anything to set it up - it just sits there.

I use it for accessing my iTunes share from anywhere. Now I don't have to store my 50 or so GB of music on my laptop and I can still listen to it as though I'm still on my home network. You can also use it for gaming, file sharing, etc.

Now that's out of the way...

We love trying to figure out what's just ahead of the curve for social networking sites. That's why links such as this, this, and this were so interesting for us. The first deals with what could become the 2007 version of youtube (in our opinion, that'd actually be "youtube," but you can't fault people for asking the question), the second is CBS' deal with youtube (which we blogged on), and the last is the subject of the most recent entry.

Matt was most excited about the NHL deal and has three entries on del.icio.us devoted to it. As he worked in a team's marketing department, he knows the importance that the league places on expanding via the internet.

Networks giving their own shows MySpace pages was also pretty interesting and cool, with FX (under the Fox Network - Fox, of course, owns MySpace) leading the trend with their promotion of the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia page. (It doesn't hurt that the show is awesome, by the way.)

Oh - and in the show, the characters reference the fact that they've got myspace pages for themselves, and it becomes a main plot device in the 2nd season's finale. How's that for synergy!?

On that note, another thing we found really cool was the fact that youtube found a haven for politicans, and that for the elections, campaign videos were put up in their own little area of the site. This page shows all the candidates in a nice little list. We thought this was interesting at first, until we realized that by offering space equally to all candidates, youtube proved that it wasn't going to take sides or turn a blind eye if these commercials got uploaded as any other videos. Probably smart on their end.

Well, that's the best of the best in our eyes. Through the semester, we've seen a glut of articles pop up regarding the creative use of social network sites by companies looking for the next big thing. From the beginning when the NHL took the lead on partnering with youtube, to CBS' lucrative partnership with the site, to the last article that talked about the networks' desire to break and form their own ad-supported site, we learned a lot about the heads of marketing execs everywhere.

The main idea here is that these companies have to attach themselves to something quickly. If CBS didn't embrace youtube, its content would be put up there and CBS would see no ad revenue. If they requested youtube remove it, they wouldn't get the publicity. This works out best for them. Same for the NHL.

It's just a matter of time before something new and different happens. Networks are starting to put their own content on their own websites but it's still too complicated for many average users to figure out.

The first network to come along and provide a simple interface with a flash-based player that everyone can enjoy will really take this one, and frankly, we're surprised nobody has done it yet.

An extremely recent article out of Asia reports that multiple entertainment networks, including Fox, Viacom, CBS, and NBC want to cooperate to create an alternative to youtube.

The reasoning behind the deal, apparently, is so that these networks can cash in on advertisements that prior to this point youtube would take a cut of. In light of the developments to the topic over the semester, it seems as though this has some benefits, but suffers from drawbacks that are surprisingly not seen by the networks.

We can start with the good - viral video is where it's at right now on the internet. Youtube is getting millions of hits, google video is doing alright (though I still have no idea how they're positioning themselves seeing as though they own youtube also), and the networks are latching onto this. We blogged about a week ago about how CBS is really benefitting from creating their own channel on the service, in fact.

But we've already done a bunch of entries on why youtube is good for these groups so I'll skip to the bad.

First - how the hell do these networks expect to be able to work together? They represent 4 of the 5 top entertainment entities in the world (with ABC absent - which might not be a terrible idea) and as they normally compete for viewers and clicks, it is insane to believe that they'll be able to completely figure out the revenue-sharing aspect of this deal without a huge problem.

Second - youtube is not this incredibly ridiculous concept that required 1000 of the brightest individuals in the world to come up with. It is online video. It is popular because of a few reasons -
1) Minimalism
2) EVERYONE has flash - no messy codecs to install (I'm looking at you, Mpeg4)
3) Users can upload anything they want.

So you're taking away 3 - fine, CBS' channel is already very popular, so it's not a big deal. 1 and 2 though... How hard can 1 and 2 be to replicate? Honestly? With minimal HTML skills, someone like me could create a tasteful alternative to youtube, well branded (for a specific network), ad-supported, etc. Basically all the things that youtube has with the added benefit of being completely contained on the network's specific server with their logos.

Up to this point, I'd thought that the networks' websites were far too complicated to navigate and the videos too varied, codec-wise, to be enjoyed by everyone. Is this why networks are flocking to some other youtube-type service? I can't imagine why else they would be, seeing as though they already offer a lot of this stuff on their own websites.

Now, one of the first things we blogged about was the fact that the NHL partnered with google video (and subsequently youtube) in an effort to get content out to as many people as possible. NHL.com exists, so why would they want to branch out?

Because youtube had already established itself as a great place for short clips. Highlights, like that sick Alexander Ovechkin goal I posted earlier, were youtube's forte. NHL.com has an outstanding video viewer in its own right (if you don't use a Mac - it uses Windows Media) but it is more of a databank of game clips that aren't easily accessible one at a time.

NBC, for example, would be much better served to put its clips up on its own site, with its own branding, with its own ads, with no mention of any other networks, and frankly, I can't understand why that is such a foreign concept to them.

Not being a member of YouTube or MySpace, I am not percisely sure the benefits of "friending" people (especially on YouTube). On MySpace, I have learned that porn companies create decoy "hot chicks" that interested men (creepsters) will friend, and then subsequently receive mass advertising spam from the porn companies. YouTube has a feature where members can comment on the video clips and discuss/critique them. This has opened up the idea of placing links to pill websites or other such advertisments in the comments sections of the popular clips.

The concept of friending members on MySpace seems more similar to Facebook friending than YouTube. On Facebook and MySpace, your friends are often people you have met in real life, and you just want to use the social network as a method of keeping in touch. However, YouTube is very different; many users are just watching and not posting videos of their own. It is more of a means for entertainment than for communicating to friends. This leads to the user friending someone they are not necessarily friends with but just enjoy their video posts. These entertaining posts could be uploaded by any type of company especially ones with an ulterior motive of compiling mass lists of email to spam via YouTube.

The spam emails are actually from YouTube's email service that alerts members of their friends new posts. This is creating a trust issue with some of YouTube's members. One rather new user od YouTube commented that "I wrote to YouTube customer service this afternoon about the porn spam piling up in my YouTube inbox. I trusted the service by opening an account just a few weeks ago. I hope my trust in YouTube is not misplaced. I'm waiting to hear back from them and will post anything useful."

In the social networking industry it is crucial that these sites keep and build the trust of their members. Facebook does an excellent job of preventing mass spamming and is really making the effort to please its members. A few months ago, there was an uprising within Facebook about the new feature, the News Feed. Facebook quickly realized this was somewhat of a mistake, and made the necessary changes to please the members. If YouTube doesn't shape up, and help out in the prevention of spamming, then members may be put off and growth of YouTube will be hindered.

Let’s tackle each one at a time and see how it relates to what Amazon.com is doing with their personalized, targeted homepages.

Privacy
Mason’s concern about privacy is relayed through a story about monitors in the bathrooms of a Florida school. There’s no question that this is an idea of questionable character to begin with – while it is understandable that you would have to collect some data to see whether or not a bathroom is worth keeping, watching people actually use the bathroom seems to be a ridiculous way to achieve that goal. That’s a true invasion of privacy. Amazon.com will look at previous searches and try to target products to the user that relate to them, but at no point does it do something in even the same zipcode of creepiness that the Florida school did. Frankly, we have no problem with Amazon holding onto that information as long as they do not share it (as they maintain that they don’t.)

Do we trust Amazon? Well, AOL did let its user search data hit the internet recently, but in spite of that, we do trust Amazon to keep our searches under wraps due to the horrible publicity resulting from AOL’s gaffe.

Accuracy
Accuracy doesn’t really apply to what Amazon’s doing – at least not in the same sense that it applied to the story of the bank in Mason’s article. The point taken from that is that computers are still operated by fallible humans.

Property
Who’s property is the information provided to Amazon? Hopefully, just Amazon. We agree that Amazon’s service can help us by providing better targeted information, but if Amazon were to sell the information, they could cause a lot of headaches when more and more advertisers started bothering us.

Access
Access to this technology isn’t such a huge deal when relating to Amazon.com either. While people who are connected (thusly probably better off to begin with) are getting better deals (because they can use Amazon rather than a brick-and-mortar), it makes sense based on the fact that Amazon’s costs – with no actual stores – are much lower.

In the end, Mason brings up some important points, but when it comes to online shopping, as long as the transaction is secure and personal data isn’t escaping Amazon’s clutches, we really don’t mind having our preferences tracked in the name of a better deal.

ning.com

Ning and other similar sites such as PeopleAggregator and Multiply branch out and better suit their consumers' needs. They provide a specific service targeting a specific niche. Ning allows individuals to either join an existing network or users can create their own custom network which they can set as public or private depending on the goal of their site. Karaoke and Photography are some of the topic-focuses of these social networking sites, and they are even as interesting as Dogster which is a canine site.

This niche specific startegy is very interesting because the sites target a significantly smaller amount of individuals. The essence of the social networking site is that it connects one to many different people; without a sufficient customer base, the sites will cease to exist. So the real question here is: Will these smaller sites gain enough market share to operate effectively? The general attitude these new sites ought to take must be to promote building and developing relationships with existing friends. The must steer away from the tradition mindsets of MySpace and Facebook which seem to encourage QUANTITY of friends as opposed to quality.

Once you find CBS' channel (which is actually easier said than done as it doesn't appear immediately on the "channel" page and I had to actually snoop around for it), you might notice that it looks a lot like any well designed myspace page. The site, which is extremely well branded and laid out, features video clips from CBS' properties.

According to this earlier report, however, CBS will in fact take advantage of youtube's advanced content reporting system and will more than likely attempt to get any videos uploaded by general youtube users removed or transferred. This is because CBS shares advertising revenue with youtube whenever one of their videos is watched. Another option mentioned is transferring the clip to CBS' channel, which would preserve whatever the user captured as well as providing CBS with ad revenue. This is a much better idea than simply removing the video because while CBS does have clips of its most popular shows, nobody can really ever guess where viral videos are going to come from.

It seems to be a success - the clip below is one of youtube's top 25 most viewed, coming in with about 1.6 million viewers for the month.

The only question I have for CBS is why their content isn't more readily avaliable - maybe this is a youtube issue even moreso, but why is CBS' channel not listed on the "channels" page. It's not entirely a bad thing - by not playing favorites with CBS over any other user, you're promoting this sense of community, but at the same time, the CBS channel has some of the most content and still isn't really avaliable unless you're actually looking for it or viewing one of their videos.

However, until this project, I had really not explored Google News to the fullest of its potential.

Google News is an aggregate of not only major newspapers, but technology sites around the internet. So, if, like me, you search for "youtube marketing," you might get a story from the Chicago Tribune, and you might also get a story from PC Magazine. It's that extra aspect that makes Google News so useful.

If you were to search Google itself for "youtube marketing," who knows what would come up and from where? If you were to search a database of print newspapers, you'd miss out on a lot of buzz from magazines or reputable tech websites. In a project such as this, where the information we're looking for is so deeply rooted in technology, sometimes print newspapers can be behind, or, even, reporting on stories that were previously reported on by bleeding-edge tech sites such as Engadget or CNet.com.

With Google News, you get the best of both worlds. Pretty much everything you're going to find there will provide you with some useful information - there isn't a lot of filler or fluff - and all the news is neatly aggrigated on the page, sometimes with a preview image.

For me, Google News has been far and away the most helpful tool that I've used to find information on marketing through social networking sites. It really shouldn't come as a surprise that Google can produce such a handy tool, but it is something that's not often used as people often times (me included) just use Google for what its front page provides - a simple yet almost too far reaching searchbox.

Windows Live.

As far as I know, Microsoft had a search engine similar to this in the past under the name MSN. I'm not entirely sure if it was more yahoo-esque (homepage and portal) or google-esque (minimalist search/advertising), but I do know that I never used it. With Live.com, it seems that Microsoft is taking a page out of google's book while adding a few interesting things of its own.

Most notable is the fact that you can customize the homepage with whatever content you'd like to see. It is nice, because it offers a happy medium between google's sparse layout and yahoo's incredible clutter. In fact, even with all five default subjects (including sports, news, basics, entertainment, and holiday) checked, the homepage does not become unusable at all, which is nice.

Another big addition is the "Q&A" section, which is basically what it sounds like. Instead of asking Jeeves (you could, theoretically, ask what happened to Jeeves), you can ask other internet users if they know the answer to your question.

I love the concept - though you have to question whether or not internet users are going to be entirely helpful. The other small problem seems to be a lack of knowledge on the service, as even a simple question (I asked "Who is Martin Havlat?" - the best player on my favorite NHL team and former employer, the Chicago Blackhawks) and the first result that came up was titled "Who is the best player in the NHL") was not answered 100% to my satisfaction.

Again, it shows a lot of promise, and Live on the whole is a major step up from what MSN was (probably) because I never (at all) found any reason to use it, whereas Live is an interesting alternative to google.

A lot of what we talked about was how to market the game to the fans in an interactive manner. How could we get them in contact with the players in ways beyond the game itself or the tv broadcast?

The result was youtube. Could we somehow put our highlights on youtube to let internet users have instant access to highlights at nearly no (bandwidth) cost to us?

Well, as it turns out, the NHL decided to take that idea and run with it. In spite of resistance by Major League Baseball and the National Football League (and their decisions to force youtube to take their content down), the NHL has decided to let users see what the game has to offer, and can you really blame them?

How can you not be at least a little bit excited when you see something like that?

There's no question that this is a good move for a league that desperately needed to make one. NHL.com already has one of the best league websites for streaming videos (including every goal scored by every player this year, conveniently organized by the player), but by using youtube, fans can record and upload their own highlights or compilations, bringing them a bit closer to the game.

In addition, they've partnered with Google video (which, of course, basically owns youtube, so why it is different confuses me) to allow the streaming of full games to google video users. What remains to be seen is if people will pay for the games - which is allegedly the plan, but for right now it is a brilliant idea.

I wish the page would be advertised more heavily, but as someone that wants to see the NHL succeed in this, I'll take what I can get. In a few weeks, after they start charging, I hope to revisit this to see whether or not the idea paid off for google or the NHL.

The article featured prevention tips on all forms of hacking (from digitally penetrating a database to physically digging around in dumpsters). The more traditional, computer-savvy types of hacking can be easily intercepted by one simple step: ENCRYPTION. However, the focus of the article was more on fending off the new, avant-garde methods of hacking; "the glory days of the lone hacker toiling away in his bedroom are a thing of the past." Some of the methods I found most interesting were aquiring citizens' social security numbers by reading the HTML of a county court website, and employees being tricked into revealing log-on and password information by accidentally attempting to access an "evil twin" network. The list goes on with a variety of creative tactics of which the majority are targeted at businesses.

Prevention is key. Most breaches are easily preventable and far more cost efficient that trying to recover after the damage is done. The most important and obvious advice is use common sense and caution. A USB key-drive can easily be slipped into a pocket and information gone forever, so in addition to backing up to data, go the extra mile and get an encrypted one. Password complexity is another interesting point. Firms are forcing employees to make complicated passwords with various symbols and capitalization which must be changed quite frequently; this can lead to people writing the password down on a sticky note and keeping it right near the computer. Now lets think, what exactly is the purpose of this overly comlicated password if it's in perfect sight?

These are factors so simple that they just get over-looked in the big picture. Keeping an eye on simple things like these can prevent thousands of dollars spent on recovering from a breach-- not to even mention the potential loss of customers due to the breach. The simple measures this article presents seem to be the most beneficial. I understand firewalls and encryption are necessary, but who is to say that since people can come up with such powerful encryption techniques, people cannot come up with equally powerful ones to break them?

Case in point: MySpace. What started as a networking site for local bands has now turned into one of the hottest sites on the internet for just about anything. As of now, it is partly owned by Fox, who is using it extensively to promote its new shows, such as It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia or Prison Break.

And Prison Break's site doubles as an Ad for Toyota, which is, of course, featured heavily in the show.

This all brings me to the article in question. What is it about The Facebook that attracts Yahoo? And what is it about The Facebook that attracts Yahoo to the somewhat ridiculous tune of $1billion? (With a "b!")

Well, for one, Google just dropped that sort of cash to obtain YouTube (which, in my opinion, spells doom for YouTube, but I'll pontificate on that later.) In spite of any predictions of doom, YouTube does have a very Google-istic existence: its name is synonimous with its function, it is relatively simple, and it sucks down massive quantities of bandwidth a day. Oh, nevermind the fact that Google's own video application is failing and this will pretty much save that. (Maybe.) And having that asset on its side really does give Google a whole gigantic new userbase to which it can peddle its ads.

So for Yahoo, the answer has to be the large new userbase it can call its "ad viewers." But The Facebook offers so much more to Yahoo: it offers an extension of Yahoo's new marketing direction - the homepage tailored to you. They just redid their page and guess what - they're not just a search engine anymore. They've still got the functionality, but Google's got the marketshare. So with the acquisition of The Facebook (if Yahoo did it), they would effectively renew themselves in the eyes of many of their users.

At first I would have questioned whether or not the Fox acquisition of MySpace would continue to provide MySpace's users with a reason to use the site - after all, if it were way too commercial, people might be jaded by the whole thing - and on a site born from independant bands, this problem might have been compounded. But it seems like everything is going ahead without a problem - MySpace is still popular and Fox is largely out of their hair.

I think that The Facebook could have the same success if Yahoo were to buy it - as long as Yahoo left it largely unchanged (seeing as though Facebook's users seem to cry loudly and en masse whenever there is a change.)