Archive for the 'Niche Communities' Category

I’ve come across a number of women’s networks and blogs online recently, with the focus on business, enterprise and professional networking. This seems to be a growing niche - and no doubt, a fairly large market niche - and will be of interest to businesses and communicators who are looking at connecting with the female market. And especially given the research from BurstMedia in June 2007 which finds that the web is women’s favourite place to shop.

You may like to explore some of the online women’s networks below:

REAL Women
An online community for Rising Entrepreneurs And Like-minded women.

This is a community created by Zena Hockley, a British entrepreneur based in the Netherlands. The site features business-related articles of interest to women and interviews with real women entrepreneurs, asking them how they developed their businesses, the challenges they faced and their advice to other business-women. It’s good to read real stories from business women who are not necessarily celebrities but who are talented and persevering, sharing their experiences and advice.

Diva-Biz.com
The heart and soul of business - from a woman’s perspective

British entreprenuer Fiona Price created this online network for women in business, launched in Sept 2007. It features videos of interviews from women leaders such as Sarah Deaves, CEO of Coutts & Co as well as a forum, mentoring sessions, group discussions. It is currently free to join but they may charge a fee later as the project develops. Also, it looks like it’s not exclusively for women as “MEN who are interested in understanding more about women’s leadership style and what they contribute to business, are also welcome to join!”

Expat Women
Helping women living overseas

This is a fairly big, corporate-looking site - and very pink - developed by Andrea Martins, an Australian, and Jill Lengre, an American, to help expatriate women share stories, network globally and find resources. There are also volunteer mentors, forums and a huge women’s blogs directory (by country).

BlogHer

The community for women who blog

This is a huge and high-profile community of women bloggers with an annual conference in the US, founded in 2005 by Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins. It’s free and you can add your blog to a vast array of others, listed under topics ranging from Astrology and Horoscopes to Travel and World. It is strong on discussing blogging related issues with a women’s perspective eg monetizing your blog and business blogging. I’ve signed up my blogs and joined this community.

Do you know any other women’s networks that have a strong online presence or community? Please do add a comment or email me using the Contact link above.

Photo: shows the three founders of BlogHer, from their website

Laurence van der Posts book “The Bushmen of the Kalahari” instilled in me an awe for the skills of the bushmen trackers in the eternally magnificent African landscape. Now in the 21st generation, their ancient skill that has been passed down through generations is being enhanced by PDAs - personal digital assistants. According to the International Trade Forum:

The high-tech wildlife trackers have been used against poachers, in ecotourism, environmental education, research and monitoring. The free software that links up traditional knowledge to electronic data mapping has been applied around the world to social surveys, organic farming, integrated pest management and disaster relief.

I love this photo that shows how comfortably the uber-modern sits with the traditional.

A survey by BurstMedia in June this year on women and the internet reveals that over half of the women (54.5%) in the US say the Internet is their primary source of information when researching products they might purchase. The survey sampled over 1,800 women aged 25 and upwards. Their next port of call is to ask family and friends - but only 10.9% of the sample do that. Newspapers and magazines come in at 9.9% and brochures and pamphlets at 5.1%, with radio as the last port of call with a rather sorry 1.3%.

While this survey is specific to the US, I expect that you might infer a similar tech-savvy approach to shopping in most of the industrialised nations where women are empowered and have the oppportunities for self-actualisation and financial independence.

For businesses, this represents a huge opportunity to tap into these eager consumers online. The key factor here is that these women are using the Internet to find out about products before or as they purchase. If your business has products and services that are of interest to women, you could really capitalise on this with creating informative and user-friendly pages that will help these potential customers in making their shopping decisions. While they are on your site, reading up on all your useful data and advice, they are engaging with your brand and your online presence - all great for marketing and customer-retention as well as conversion of these potential customers into actual ones.

One thing to remember - you don’t have to target your customers in a gender-biased way eg this opportunity is about more than handbags and pink accessories. Women have to buy household goods, computer equipment, iPods - even power tools - just like men. So whatever you sell, there’s an opportunity here to help all your customers with their buying decisions, not just “the ladies”.

Blogs are an easy way to share your opinions and reviews about products. Here are some to explore:

Shiny Shiny - hmm, very pink and very focused on the gender thing but a good and useful site in spite of that.

Endgadget - the ultimate gadget guide

Rugged Notebooks - a number of bloggers blog about this hardy product, one of whom is digitalnomad, a ZenGuide regular commenter.

Amazon of course have the customer review sections for all their products. I rely on those fairly heavily when considering whether or not to buy a particular book or digitial gadget they are offering. Whether it’s the case or not, customer reviews always feel as if you’re getting a range of opinions and not just the store or manufacturer’s party line.

Photo: thanks to brittanycondo.com

Elton John recently ranted against the internet and social media, according to Neowin.net and other news sources. He is quoted as saying:

“The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff. Instead they sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK but it doesn’t bode well for long-term artistic vision. It’s just a means to an end. We’re talking about things that are going to change the world and change the way people listen to music and that’s not going to happen with people blogging on the internet. I mean, get out there — communicate. Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the internet. Let’s get out in the streets and march and protest instead of sitting at home and blogging. I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span. There’s too much technology available. I’m sure, as far as music goes, it would be much more interesting than it is today.”

It reminded me that there are still many people out there who don’t know much about online social culture and who for some reason don’t want to know about it. I think it’s a shame for them - there is so much creativity and experimentation online in terms of self-expression and artistic expression as well as increased communications between people and cultures.

Here are some examples:

Music

There are a number of virtual recording studios like Net Studio where musicians can collaborate with other musicians anywhere in the world, not just those who are in the same town as they are.

Podsafe music is music that can be used for podcasting without paying a royalty. Podsafe networks allow musicians to distribute their music globally over the internet and there are internet stations like Accident Hash that specialise in playing podsafe music. And a lot of it is really good stuff, too.

Individuals doing funky things with music for themselves and their friends and in the process becoming music legends online - like this young Korean guy playing Pachelbel’s Cannon like you’ve never heard it before.

Books and Blogging

Bhagdad Burning was a blog by a young Iraqi girl which was subsequently turned into a prize-winning book of the same name.

Blood, Sweat and Tea is a book that was compiled by the blog of a London Ambulance driver, Random Acts of Reality

The Blooker Prize is an annual prize for the best blog, modelled on the Booker Prize for books.

Photography

Andrew Losowksy started a collection of photographs of doorbells in Florence, Italy on Flickr, the photo-sharing site. He would write stories to accompany the pictures. He gained a huge following online for his stories and the photos and stories have now been transformed into a book The Doorbells of Florence that has won the Blooker prize.

There’s a whole genre of photography around the theme of a daily photo from your city eg City Daily Photo Blog, Santiago de Chile Daily Photo Blog, Brighton Daily Photo etc

There is a group on Flickr that creates short stories using a series of five photos.

Art

I love this web installation by filmmaker and artist Miranda July - it’s filmic, witty and a commentary on websites all at the same time: http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com/

Rhizome is a site that posts news about new media art and the intersection of technology and art, with great links to a vast range of different art websites and blogs.

Social Networks

As for making connections, blogging and social networks like Facebook help people connect so much more easily than in the days of snail mail. I’ve personally made some great new friends in Malaysia through the litbloggers network there and I enjoy using the online telephony service Skype to connect with my family. Facebook and Twitter has enabled me to keep in contact with a range of friends in the UK and Malaysia that I might otherwise not keep in contact with. In many ways, I feel I have a much richer social life through both offline connections with my regular local friends and online connections with those who are further away or in another country.

In my view, the things that are going to “change the world and change the way people listen to music” - and for that matter, change how we relate, connect and create - are already happening online with great energy and creativity. With or without the likes of Elton John.

The UK Department of Health has launched www.privatedickmovie.com, a website where you can watch short films that look like old ’70s porn flicks. You can create your own version by using your name and those of your friends as characters in the movies. After personalising the film, you can then send it to your friends.

A government department promoting porn - is this another example of the degenerate West? No, it’s part of a campaign to encourage safe sex. On the official campaign website Condom Essential Wear, it says: “Sex is great. But if you don’t protect yourself, it could soon stop being as much fun.” The aim is to “make condoms a fun and essential part of your sex life.”

Sex education in the UK really has come a long way since those TV ads in the early ’80s that featured a big monolith in a thunderstorm and a doomsday voice warning about AIDS. I recall being mystified by that ad, which told you nothing directly about AIDS or what to do to protect yourself - it seemed to be the darker, meaner version of the Monty Python “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” sketch.

This new campaign is cheeky and fresh and is clearly aimed at a very modern audience that would not give the time of day to being preached at. It’s in the same vein as the Colgate Smile campaign (discussed in my other post of today) in that it aims to make something rather dull and dutiful fun - and even a bit sexy.

Colgate, the toothpaste giant, is going online with a viral marketing campaign to promote good dental health, according to BrandRepublic.com

The viral solution is a send-a-smile generator that allows parents and kids to upload pictures of their kids face and customise the picture with a range of funny and clever accessories under the themes of cowboy, fairy, pirate and princess.

There is a competitive element to the campaign and prizes include kids parties and smile-card packs.

You can check out Colgate Smiles to have some fun for yourself and your kids.

This is a great way of engaging customers - and potential customers. The competitive element with a great prize also draws people into the fun. And fun is the key - it can transform something rather dull and dutiful into an engaging activity that involves everyone in the family.

Staying with the fun and health themes but at a completely different end of the spectrum, in my second post today, we can see how the Department of Health is trying to make safe sex fun…

Photo: thanks to greefus groinks on flickr.com

I got an invite to Joost last week and it really is fab! What is Joost? It’s internet TV poured onto your PC screen via broadband. There are different channels - documentary, comedies, entertainment, music, cartoons and more. But no full feature films as yet.

I’m impressed by the quality of the picture, sound and speed. I’ve been watching the stand up comedians at the Montreal Comedy Festival - which star quality acts.

And it’s got integrated social networky type stuff like live chat with your friends and a quick blog tool so you can blog while watching TV. So no more sitting alone in your room watching telly - you’re alone, yes, but you’re also not alone, since you are networked to the rest of your Joost community at the same time. The thing is: you’d better be good at multi-tasking to take advantage of all these functions.

Click on the picture below to watch a promo video

Joost is in beta testing at the moment and is by invitation only. And I have some invites! Email me via the Contact link above and I can send you an invite - only available until the invites run out. Or click on the badge below.

The only thing is, with this network installed on my PC, I’ll never do any work again…

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