Social Saints — my baby
If you didn’t already know Social Saints is the marketing technology consultancy I started in 2008. Over the past two years (without a website believe it or not) we’ve been able to secure some great clients and really explore our service offerings to see what the Kingdom needs. We are now set to launch or web presence in the next few weeks and really take our position as a premier marketing consultancy for the faith-based sector.

As of now we’ve got a couple of clients under our belts with a few more in the pipeline. Currently we’re working on themichalemahaffeyproject.com [or mikethroughmusic.com] and Batiste Music . The Michael Mahaffey Project is a new, multi-dimensional gospel performance by Michael Mahaffey. Though I can’t disclose any major details, I can say that Mike’s performance will give you some additional perspective and send you on a journey through sacrifice, service and triumph. I’m excited to see the finished product and I’ll let you know when the site is ready so that you can all purchase tickets [Atlanta, Georgia - September 2010].

As far as Batiste, we’re still working out the details but to date, Socials Saints will create a layered social media campaign leveraging their various networking, fans, and contacts. The plan is to allow people to get to know Batiste more while generating awareness for their music and performances. Stay tuned and I’ll let you know when some of our work “goes live.”

A Couple of New Projects and a Pivot
Let me start with the pivot. We recently celebrated our 10,000th user on DIGITALGUESTLIST and so with that milestone behind us, Joe and I decided to take a look at what DGL has to offer and make some adjustments. Thought I can’t talk too much about it yet, we are currently reviewing some changes to the DIGITALGUESTLIST platform. A UI change, feature simplification and a new approach for platform users and marketers will totally change the benefits and utility of DGL. Stay tuned over the next few months.

In addition to my Social Saints clients and a DGL pivot, I’m also in the process of starting two new start-ups. Both of them are tech start-ups and in my honest, but biased opinion are both game changers. One will focus on a new way to foster conversations about your favorite online content with friends, while the other focuses on providing small businesses with a new way to connect with their customers. I know, I know my descriptions are vague, but within the next few months it will all makes sense.

Well that’s all I wanted to say for now. Forgive me for my vagueness but I will share more with everyone soon! Until then be blessed and be safe

-Justin

Oh and to make the title of this post relevant… yes I am a NBA fan and I’ll be watching the Celtics and Lakers play over the next two weeks! If you want to link up and watch (and live in the Atlanta area) let me know.

For the first time last month, traffic to social networks overtook traffic to web-based email services in the UK. Top networks Facebook, Bebo and MySpace took 5.17% of all UK Internet visits, with only 4.98% going to email services including Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Gmail.

If you pay close attention you will see that this took place in the UK, where email already gives way to SMS, but I have to wonder whether we will see a similar trend in the US. If so, then the first question I have to ask is; How will this shift in communication preference influence eMarketers that use email as a primary point of communication?

Another reason this is particularly interesting, to me, is because I previously wrote a post about how social networks started with email. In that article I made mention to the fact that social networks, were a mashup of web 1.0 technologies, that simply faded away in late last century. This, recent, statistical observation reiterates my point, and raise another very big question; are social networks just the evolution of email, or the Texas sized asteriod that will crash into the Planet Email and kill the now pre-historic communication medium? Ok, i’ll admit it’s a bit dramatic, especially considering email is still a baby compared to other forms of communication. Nonetheless, as technology evolves you have to wonder, does the exponential growth rate of technology mean that we will see the product life cycle of internet technologies become shorter? Or does it simply mean that the product evolution cycle will become more and more obvious. I’m not sure, but there is plenty of room to imagine where this is all going. Just something to think about. What do you think?

*Updated 2/24/2008
You can now register for e101 by clicking the link below.
http://bbigonline.com/ignite/events/e101

Before social networks, people would share their photos, interest, and information through email, and before that… well let’s not go there. Online photo galleries would soon give people the ability to share photos and experiences with family member and friends and on many occasions the world, extending the amount of people a person could touch with just a few extra clicks of a mouse. Next came personal websites and the concept of a guestbook. Remember those? A guestbook would allow people people to enter their email address, web address, or name and leave a message on your page(Today we call it a wall). These messages, though now visible to anyone, look very similar to basic conversation style emails you would receive from a friend or colleague. Today social network users have; an inbox, where they can carry a dialog through one-to-one messaging, a photo gallery where people can tag, comment and exchange experiences, a wall where people call publicly post comments and more.

I know that this observation is vague, but if you really take a step back and think about the nature of a social network you may realize that it is basically, and I stress the simplicity, the connection of; email, photo galleries, and personal websites with guestbooks. Of course with the addition of widgets, videos, and broadband connections, sharing information, photos and one’s digital-self has becomes easier, and faster, than ever before, but even with the progressive nature of the internet, the fundamental reason to use a social network stems from the same reasons people originally use email. Again I stress the fact that this observation seems fairly simple, and doesn’t take into account the sophisticated nature of a social networks today, but you really have to ask yourself. Is the social network one of the internet’s first Mashups? Just something to think about.

-Justin D.