Yuwie – earn cash for playing

The explosion and evolution of social networks on the internet is something I have been watching and participating with a keen interest especially Youtube, Facebook and SecondLife. What is great about these social networks is that around the time of the dotcom crash period most commentators said that people would not “socialize” on the web, preferring personal contact. Well I don’t think these commentators predicted the impact that the millennial generation or generation X would have on social networking! History is now proving thesm wrong, Facebook has over 50 million users and is valued at £7.5bn

With results like these imitators are of course following fast. It’s simple economics and anyone familiar with Michael Porters 5 Forces model will know that industries displaying high profits and low barriers to entry will attract competition. One of the new boys on the block is Yuwie an social network who’s proposition is to share with it’s members a percentage of the advertising revenue the company gets. According to founder Korry Rogers “Yuwie users get paid every time they log on, send a message, upload a picture or invite someone to join.” So if you visit pages, you earn money, if you invite friends, you earn money, if your friends login in, you and they earn money…sounds like a no brainer… but is it? Do people really want to earn money out of their social networking and what their friends do…Facebook believes that it’s core members don’t and the opinion of some analysts is that people use social networks to link up with friends and make new friends not to earn money out of these social activities. So will the lure of making a potential £200 or more per month be enough for users to switch from their current social networks? Personally, I like Facebook and funnily enough now feel that I have a “personal investment” and connection with the site so for me it isn’t easy to just switch. However, Yuwie launched in July 2007 and has over 350,000 members and is growing at 50,000 members a month. Seems to me that Yuwie’s proposition is working. Now of course the mighty Facebook could eliminate this threat by matching Yuwie’s offer but this would erode industry profits so they are unlikely to do so for now…But I’m intrigued enough to give Yuwie a try and who knows maybe earn some Yuwie pocket money… let’s call it a social networking experiement, I’m keen to be part of this evolution…

Looking back to look ahead

One of our colleagues, Raymond de Villiers, is doing formal post grad work in Future Studies. He is particularly interested in future backward scenarios and alternative histories as methodologies of future planning (Google these terms if you’re interested, or contact me for more info). He got me interested in this stuff, and so my radar is always on for articles on the topic of looking backwards to look forwards.

Here is something I found in a recent edition of The Economist.

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Beware the Chicken Littles (SA, ANC, Zuma and more)

I received this by email from the great lads at SA The Good News. I don#8217;t go with everything they say below, but it#8217;s worth thinking about (especially for our South African readers):

The prospect of a Zuma ANC presidency is becoming more and more of a reality and with it a scenario so long feared by the chattering classes. The prospect of a Zuma ANC presidency is becoming more and more of a reality and with it a scenario so long feared by the chattering classes.

Normally sane, rational people have said things like “If Zuma becomes President, I#8217;m outta here!? and “You#8217;ll really battle to find any “good news”? if Zuma is elected. The country will be screwed.”?

It reminds me of the hysteria and popular opinions that swirled around the suburbs before the 1994 General Election (“You better stock up on water, canned food, guns and ammunition because there#8217;s going to be chaos”?). Similarly, the world wide angst over the Y2K computer bug in the lead up to January 1, 2000 (“Planes are going to drop out of the sky! Nuclear plants will melt down!”?).

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More lessons from SAS Institute

Over the years I have been doing presentations about attracting and retaining talent, I have watched global lists of “Best Companies to Work For”. Very consistently, SAS Institute, a privately owned software company based in the USA, has been rated as one of the very best.

One of my favourite quotes about the role of leadership in talent development comes from the CEO, Jim Goodknight, who has said, “Every afternoon at about 5pm, all of the assets of this company leave the building. It is my job to make sure they want to come back in the morning.” Nice!!

The Economist latest edition does a profile on SAS, and indicates that the approach of valuing staff is really reaping some great rewards for this company. Read it here (subscription may be required), or see extracts below.

PS – if I haven’t said so recently, then let me say it again – if you only have time to read one magazine a week, then it must be the Economist!

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