Branded networks, that’s what the new property from Nautanki.tv (read the comments section) YouTopia is going to be. (via agencyfaqs). Update – This is going to be called spaces, and is still under development.
The rationale is that since brands, especially in a nascent market like India, may not want to invest in the infrastructure thats required for social networks, YouTopia would provide the same for individuals and brands to create their own networks with “necessary tools or applications like instant messenger, forum and facility to upload and share videos or photos while configuring their social network”, in return for an annual subscription fee (in the case of brands).
Reminds me of Ning, though in this case, they have said that the brand can choose an independent url (so is that unlike Ning where it has to be say, nautanki.ning.com). Also, there will be an ad network, which will operate on a revenue sharing basis between Nautanki and the owners.(?) (I don’t know whether Ning has a revenue sharing mechanism) And, does the last but one paragraph in the afaqs article mean an API? Hmm
Now the question I’d like to ask is, while (apparently) every brand manager wants a Gang of Girls, is creating a social network the way to go about it, or is it more important to maintain a conversation with the consumers? The argument I have is the same as the one i had for the online communities vs groups -on -social networks post. If the conversation is already happening at a social network, isn’t it better to be a part of the conversation there and be a facilitator? Would a brand have enough meat to pull the audience to a place where it will be the only ‘attraction’, and will they be able to maintain the interest for long. A Facebook group/ page, for example, already offers most of the stuff mentioned above, and I’m sure more features will be added. People have a certain comfort level with twitter conversations, would a brand specific network be able to recreate that? Multi Brand Outlet or Exclusive Showroom?
I understand that its debatable, but meanwhile, there are efforts on to sew the conversations happening on various platforms into one interface. So we have, in addition to Friendfeed, a browser – Flock, an add on to a browser – Minggl, and the last i heard a new entity – Combo (via Startup Meme), which attempts to do this through a web based dashboard and widgets. I hope they send me that invite soon, so i can do some test drives. 🙂
Meanwhile, have you noticed a comment option in Facebook’s news feeds, quite like Friendfeed, i thought. And here’s something for you to go ogle. That was Aditi Govitrikar, now where’s that I’m feeling lucky button?
until next time, scatter or gather?
Hi
There is miscommunication on the part of nautanki.tv. Youtopia.in is an independant
entity, we are collaborating on spaces. spaces is the youtopia.in property and still
under development. release date is not yet finalised.
please correct the post with immediate effect.
Youtopia Team
Thanks for the correction.
This whole episodes gave us slightest insight how online media(news agency) in india works. We have posted same comment(as posted above) on http://digital.afaqs.com/perl/digital/news/index.html?sid=21486 where this false news firstly appears. that comment went for moderation and still not appear on that post. We even mailed the authur “Kapil Ohri” of that article.That also didn’t work.
This is strange paradox. These online news agency claims that they are authentic source of news and they didn’t bother to contact youtopia team before publishing it. There are whole new news media is evolving(atleast in US) where user work as a author. They are much open in their approach, they allow free commenting much more transperancy on their end. Here it work all opposite control, hiding, connection is still part of online news agency.
Case is they failed on both front. They are neither authentic nor open.
This whole episode gave me the feel that there is a need for the startup which take on these guy and changes the working dynamics of news agency based on only one point “openness”.
Youtopia Team Member
I guess many still don’t use the web to its full potential, in terms of having a conversation… but i think we’ll start seeing changes soon, maybe not to the levels in the US, because there are a lot of blogs which cover web happenings, not just quasi blogs like mine, but full fledged ones too…
[…] also brings me to another layer of thought, something I’ve touched upon earlier, if mass media entities want to test out the wild wild web and the currently hot social media […]