Social Networks

Pownce, similar to Twitter, allows you to send short messages to your friends or colleagues or to your Pownce profile page. Pownce has additional functionality to send files, links and events. You can also sub-divide your colleage or friends list into different groups to send different things to different groups. However, unlike Twitter, Pownce does not (as of yet) have functionality to update from your phone by text messaging. They do have a bare-bones mobile site which is ok. Pownce also does not integrate into your website or blog to show your “pownces”.

For the B2B marketplace, Pownce could be useful for conducting online meetings or events (reasonably small groups). If you do not currently have a blog, and don’t want to or have time to write long posts, Pownce could be an alternative – as long as you’re not interested in typical web statistics. The integration of messages, links, files, events and comments provides a very robust, conversational micro-blogging platform.

Pownce is relatively new to the micro-blogging marketplace – created in June 2007 and available publicly in Jan 2008. With the ability to send a feed to a blog and the ability to post via text messaging from phones, Pownce could become the platform-of-choice for the B2B marketplace.

Technorati Tags: pownce, micro-blogging, B2B micro-blogging, B2B, internet consulting, B2B internet consulting

Do you need a quick and dirty social network right now? CrowdVine offers a free social network with basic features that takes just a couple of minutes to create. CrowdVine’s networks are centered on allowing network members to connect and communicate. Everything on the network exists to facilitate this communication – profiles, comments, blog posts, and profile questions, all of which are featured on the homepage.

Connecting with other users is primarily through keyword clouds or by seeing an interesting update on the homepage. CrowdVine’s networking assumes users are familiar with keyword clouds and know to click on the keywords to see users associated with them. The keyword clouds are generated entirely from answers to the profile questions, which places an extreme importance on both the questions and the answers in order to properly connect people. Browsing members is also possible, but you have to click into each member profile to get any real information, which can be tedious for a large network.

As stated previously, setting up a CrowdVine network is extremely easy: choose a url, a network name, some colors, and your questions and you’re done. Inviting members is through email, Facebook, or other CrowdVine networks. Obviously the latter two are only useful if you have a group of people who use either, which is probably fairly limited in the B2B world.

If you’re looking for a fast and easy social network with no cost and just basic features, CrowdVine may be worth taking a look at. Keep in mind that your members will need to be savvy with keyword clouds, your profile questions are extremely important, and you’ll need a very active community to get things going. CrowdVine also offers a social network for events that we’ll tackle in a future installment.

I created a sample CrowdVine network, feel free to take a look, join, comment, and get a feel for how it works.

Technorati Tags: crowdvine, social networks, B2B social networks, B2B, internet consulting, B2B internet consulting