Since the concept of social news is pretty new to me, I decided to do some research. What I have found amazed me. As it turns out, there are over 380 social news sites online. I came across Dosh Dosh, a blog "about how to make money online". Check out this post http://www.doshdosh.com/list-of-social-media-news-websites/. It provides a list of 48 social news sites devided into 2 categories: General Social News and Niche Social News.
Among General Social News, there is Digg, Netscape and Newsvine, a new-to-me site that I've found quite interesting. Newsvine's got articles on a variety of topics. Users can submit links to articles from mainstream media as well as create their own profiles and blogs. As the owners of the site describe it, "At Newsvine, you can read stories from established media organizations like the Associated Press and ESPN as well as individual contributors from all around the world. Placement of stories is determined by a multitude of factors including freshness, popularity, and reputation. Contribution is open to all, and editorial judgement is in the hands of the community." You can check out local weather, read news from mainstream media or written by Newsvine columnists (basically people like you and me with their own blogs), search news by tags or users, take a look at the "most active" articles (most voted and/or commented on). The topics covered are much broader than those on Digg in my opinion and appeal to a broader audience. I think Newsvine users and visitors have a lot of control of what they want to read. The way I see it it's like mainstream media PLUS opinions of many individuals. If you don't like the mainstream article on the topic, you can always find one that someone has written to express his opinion which can be pretty similiar to yours.
There is a wide variety of sites among Niche Social News sites suggested, ranging from celebrity gossip and wine to stock and investment news and open source software. One that may be of interest to us, ad people, is perhaps Design Float (http://www.designfloat.com/) focused on design-related content. The site covers advertising, web design, graphic design, identy & branding etc. After clicking on Advertising category, I've selected Creative Advertising entry and guess what. The link took me to a Russian (!) blog that features a whole lot of guerilla marketing stuff from all over the world! Check it out at http://malevi4.wordpress.com/2007/12/17/creative-advertising-2/. All the stuff posted is in English (except for the author's comments) so you should have no problem understanding it. Well, let me tell you I found that pretty amazing, and am planning to come back to Design Float again.
Overall, I think Social News is a huge trend right now, and I don't think it's going anywhere any time soon. So we, advertisers, need to find ways to use it to our advantage. We have to be careful, however, since I think part of the reason those sites are so popular is that people feel freedom and in control. Overpopulating these sites with advertising will take that away and may kill the trend all together. How can we use this trend in advertising? Take a look at Chictini (http://chictini.com/) and Iliketotallyloveit (http://www.iliketotallyloveit.com/). Those sites are focused on new cool trends, styles and products and have links to online retailers where those products can be purchased. This is where Social News and advertising effectively merge in my opinion.
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