I asked to a dear Italian friend of mine and one of my university classmates, whom I know since 15 years, to give me a little help to spread the word about and to add some content in Blomap, the online social network I have just launched.
My friend is a very nice and alive girl, a gifted PR and a journalist working at RAI, the Italian public television.

First issues she met in Italy is the fact that Blomap is in English.

Actually –I answered– Blomap lets users choose the language of each of their posts.
But English seems to be an insurmountable barrier and I could not agree more since the big boom Facebook has had after its localisation and translation in several languages.

So translating the few and basic content of Blomap is becoming a priority.
I hope users would agree that leaving the possibility of browsing the content in several languages could stay as further opportunity to be exploited by the many polyglots in the world.

In addition to that my friend tried to help me by copying and pasting in Blomap a review picked up in another website.
First, she posted it as comment to a post about another restaurant.
Then, after my suggestion to post the information in the right place, she properly posted it as a review.
Fortunately I checked the content because I found it a copy of another review belonging to another website.

So I had to write a new review in her place and ask her to post only real, trusty, original and quality content.

Her answer to my suggestion was: ‘I posted the banner of the website of that restaurant on Blomap by purpose, because it is right and fair to quote it and insert it otherwise we make “hidden” advertising in an international website. Kiss, your friend’.

My reply:“Dear friend, it is not as you said.
A banner is an ad space not a text content itself.
The search engines ban your website, if you copy and past text from a website into another.

In addition to that we just benefit people or companies if we make free advertising for them. Nevertheless I would speak of or make information in a community, instead of ‘advertising’.

Advertisements, which will be posted on Blomap in the future to financially support the website, will be concentrated on real and quality content and facts.

Even if Blomap mainly provides microblogging, those short texts must be useful and trusty for the users.

Then “hidden” advertising is something different from what you said. It occurs when someone pays someone else to concealing advertise a product, when and where advertising is forbidden or when you should have paid someone else. For instance there are many cases of those “hidden” ads in TV movies.

My question is: why do you find ‘hidden’ ads concerning Blomap and think that your copying and pasting of content from a website into another, without any reference to your source, would keep us safe from that?

Apart from that, the Web and specifically the Social Media industry is revolutionising everything.
To be short, since the speech about could be very long, all Media are gradually converging in the Web and in Social Media.

We are moving from the information era to the interaction era.

Do you remember our lecturers at the faculty of Communication Sciences at La Sapienza University in Rome announcing the Information era in the far 1998–2000?

You, my friend, as a young person working in the information industry, could become a spokesperson of all of that, but before doing that you should understand all new processes and dynamics in depth, otherwise you could get confused as it happened when you approched Blomap.’

At the end of our conversation I wondered: is it that a repropose of the discussion between mainstream and online journalists and media?
However, I have other anecdotes about the Italian interaction era I will tell you soon about. I am sure you will find them interesting.

The dream of all of us is to lose weight and at the same time to not lose our cheerfulness by starving and through deprivation of our favorite food that obviously helps us put on weight.

I have found my formula without any real intention of finding it and I want to share it with you.

1^st To become a geek

First off, you have to become a geek. There are many definitions of geek and the one I like most is Julia Hayden’s definition which includes many features I can relate to. Fortunately not the one at point 4 “You are wearing ten year old spectacles, made of steel.” and I still have more shoes than email addresses, point 8, but this is merely because I am a woman.

But yes, I have planned to get a second Master’s Degree and I do my best work after 11pm (Do not tell my mother) and yes, I am creating my own social network.
If you read through the definition you will see how much brain work you need to be a geek, this is extremely calorie burning.

2^nd To become a social media member

To be a Facebook member, a Linkedin member, a Twitter member, a Blomap member, a Plurk member, a Stumble Upon member, a Posterous member, a Friend Feed member, a Digg member, a Xing member, a Seesmic member etc. is something questionable for normal people. This is why you need to be a geek before becoming a social media member.

Even this activity requires a huge effort and speediness which brings along a good amount of calorie burning.

3^rd To create a Social Network

If you are social media member and indulge in it, you could come up with the idea of creating your own social network. Basically you can do it quickly through Ning, you have just to sign up for it, invite your friends and that’s it, from a technical perspective. Then all the networking work will be time consuming and adrenalin producing, so you should lose some of your spare tyre.

If you want to make an attempt at something stronger, then you should create your social network from scratch, as I did, and I called it Blomap, a mix of structured Blog and Maps. Blomap embeds Google maps and enables users to mark their favorite locations, it geo-localises the content, it has filters for all the content the users post, and above all, it has been created through outsourcing teams. Oh that is like running 4km a day!

4^th To create a Social Media Agency

After creating your own social network you should be close to reaching the desired weight and start thinking how to reach the last step. Actually it could not be anything else than setting up your own business which would obviously be a Social Media Agency. You cannot set up a Social Media Agency if you have not completed point 1,2,3. In fact, you have to be a geek, an all social media member and the owner of a social network to found your own Social Media Agency.
In fact, only then you can mix the geek, the social media member, and the social network owner that are in you and provide companies with this social media shake.
Obviously to lose further Kgs you have to use the strength of all social media analyzers, find  ways to earn through social media and finally you have to be able to calculate, through definite metrics, the R.O.I. for your clients.
My Social Media company is Swissite International and it has helped me to lose some grams so far, but merely because it is a start up.

5^th To plan your wedding day through Social Media

If you have arrived at this stage you should have reached the desired weight and be very happy with this. The thousand networks you created will help you to keep the weight at the level you desire.

In case you are going to have a big party soon or get married, then this will support you in keeping fit and slim at least till the wedding day. If you are thinking that you will go here and there to organise your wedding and will lose Kgs this way, you are wrong.

You won’t have to run so much and so far to lose weight, you still have to exploit the social media skills you have acquired by passing through phase 1, 2, 3 and 4 to plan your wedding day through social media.

First off, you can search for and add your favorite wedding locations, catering, bride and groom’s dresses shops, accommodation for your guests and so on to your personal map in Blomap. Then you can send the wedding invitation to the hundreds of geeks you have known during phase 1, 2, 3, and 4 through Blomap: you just have to send an event invitation and share your wedding location with your geek guests and that’s it.

So you will be relieved of some costs whilst burning calories through your adrenalin producing work-out made of blo-mapping and sharing.

Does it really work or it is only a joke?

If you are wondering whether or not it really works, well if it worked for me, why not for you? I have recently felt my jeans are looser than usual and I have thought that they were just about to split due to my latin buttock.
It is true that I have been a geek and social media member for ages and I have worked on my own social network for 2 years. So I only had to intensify my activity and finalise phase 3 and 4 by sitting for 2 weeks in front of my computer to create the design for my social media agency and test last issues of my social network. During that time I have been eating a lot of carbs, chocolate and whatever anti-depressive food you can imagine and I have been planning to go to the gym the day after tomorrow again and again. Well, when I finally made up my mind and went to the gym I thought it was high time I weighed myself to face up to the sad plight of the overweight. Nothing could have been more wrong, I went up and down to the scale but actually it was true: I had lost weight through Social Media!!!

Do it and let me know if you have reached the weight of your dreams.

Disruptive technology delivers products which should not be compulsory technological products but just completely new products, breaking into the scene of new markets, being the turning point of life styles and practices.

Precisely, companies engaging in disruptive technology, are able to investigate these new markets and capture the niche of customers who are expecting and are in need of that disruptive technology. (source: The Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen, Clayton M.).

From that point on, that technology has great possibilities to succeed in the case that the owner company is able to understand the laws which rule that technology and apply them.

Think about how many attempts at flight human beings made and how many times they died before being able to fly in airplanes transporting people and wares at high speed as is the case nowadays. Actually we had to understand the laws underneath, such as the law of gravity, in order to succeed in that disruptive technology (source: The Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen, Clayton M.).

In addition to that understanding the kind of processes and practices to apply to the technology is essential. According to that small companies would have many more possibilities to succeed than big companies which would move as clumsily as elephants on disruptive technologies and as lightly as a butterfly on sustaining technologies which are existing products.

The reason for that is that big companies have developed efficient management, processes and practices and know their market of sustaining technologies to such an extent that they can easily measure their R.O.I.

On the other hand all these structured processes and practices do not find any application in disruptive technologies which need flexibility and cannot grow in existing measurable markets but in new explorable markets.

Given that, small companies actually have an intrinsic capability of developing and complying with disruptive technologies, evolving themselves together with the technology and the new markets, adapting to the new customers who are floating in a changeable state for a non determinable time.

Even better, customers’ behavior is going to be ever and ever changing. So technologies which will adapt constantly to the customers who will win.

Social media are that kind of disruptive technologies which are supposed to win more than others because of their complete adherence to customer interests. Actually, social media are made by people, by users.

The tools social media offers to users are meant to meet users’ needs for first hand information, interactivity, engagement, aggregation and further.

Several kinds of businesses are starting to be involved in social media because of that. E-commerce websites themselves are adapting their sales processes by involving users in the sales through web tools which let them discuss and rating products and retailers.

Apart from that, companies are wondering how to measure their investment on social media and are finding often no answers and results which can be comparable to those provided by investments on sustaining technologies.

In fact, social media are filling the gap in markets which have not been investigated so far and that makes Return On Investment far from being measured and analysed in the same ways as it is possible for sustaining technology.

Last but not least Social Media slips out steady rules and measurements because of the interactive nature it is made of which drawns a flexible and chameleon-like shape.

Nevertheless, measurements can be made.

It is all a matter of evolving the standard analysis methods and upgrading them to a flexible level much better at adapting to customers’ fickle behaviors.

Social Media triggers sales and revenue by driving an increase in reputation, notoriety, reciprocity, sense of efficacy, attachment to and need for a group.

After engaging in Social Media, website visits and social mentions multiply and revenues start slightly or considerably being boosted.

These impacts can be measured by crossing web statistics and revenue before and after Social Media campaigns.

Furthermore statistics would collect not only standard web stats but also data such as Twitter and Friendfeed followers, friends and fans on Facebook, Plurk, Diggs, Friendster, connections on Linkedin, Xing, Plaxo, blogs subscriptions, Posterous and Youtube subscription, comments on blog entries, link referrals, trackbacks and so on.

It is crucial to define new analysis methods and Olivier Blanchard by The Brand Builder defines Frequency, Reach and Yield as business metrics to measure Social Media. Watch out the video.
Business-oriented ROI for Social Media: F.R.Y. Metrics explained

Did Retweet fail to get the sense of Twitter by not providing any commentary that users might like to add? Is that true?
It took me a while to understand what Retweet was, though not so long, after using it 3 times I I got the idea and find it much more creative than the Tweet button itself.

Besides, you can see comments by other people who retweet and see who is sharing your ideas, knowledge and interests.
Actually, the problem of Twitter itself and the reason why it launched the List application, which is really rough to be honest, is to enable people to interact in a more organised way.
Otherwise it is going to be a sort of list of micro-news which you can get as though you were gambling to get them.

My personal opinion and question is: why does Twitter not evolve its search engine by developing an advanced search?
In that case I would see Twitter as the leader in micro-blogging news.

What would you like to find in an advanced search for Twitter?