SWOT Analysis : Citibank's e-Business

In case it helps anyone especially the MBA students:

Social Network Size : How many can You Handle?

When i walk through the lanes of my hometown , i know everyone around knows me there. The people at smaller places are much more familiar and friendlier with each other than those living in big cities(Who has time?). Why so? Is it the time factor only?

In the earlier post on What is Your Online Social Limit? , a question was raised on the Bounded Rationality while we maintain our Social Relationships. Has our Social Network changed with the emergence of New Media? Has the technology expanded it?

Our 'actual' and 'real' friends still are very few limited by our own human nature and capabilities rather than technology. Social media is allowing us to 'maintain' our friends (who otherwise would move on slowly) in the rapidly changing world. As the old saying goes 'Out of Sight means Out of Mind', these sites ensure that friends are never out of sight and hence mind. They help us integrate our networks and rebuild (virtually) our old and many new communities. But where to stop? As we have seen in the drawbacks of Network Effects , after one point any new addition leads to congestion and slowly the value of the product/network/connections starts diminishing.

One School of thought says irrespective of the limits provided by these sites , most of human beings can maintain , nurture and sustain around 150 meaningful relationships at a time , online or offline it doesn't matter. This 150 is what we call as Dunbar's Number. It is considered the basic building block for human organizations (from many traditional corporates to Roman Army - are organized around this one Dunbar Number). Groups less than 150 members can function without any formal hierarchy and structure and hence minimal level of bureaucracy. Everyone knows everyone else and how they are related to each other in such groups.But with increase in level of social complexity in our relationships, this number seems to be getting reduced to a lower level. The average number of friends a Facebook account is currently 120 and (try/check yourself) the number of such friends whom we frequently interact is quite small and STABLE.

Here is this Social Networking Site which is trying to leverage on this phenomenon and restrict the number of friends we can have to 50.

They position themselves as 'The Personal Network' allowing anyone to share the moment (Photo Sharing) with his/her close friends (maximum 50). Hence , while you form your high quality network and share with only those who matter the most , the upper limit ensure that your network is not cluttered with just anyone and everyone.

Beyond 150?

Do we really socialize in big networks? Do we really so called 'network' at all then? We are merely broadcasting (advertising?) our lives to a layer built of acquaintances. Our real intimate friends are still the same - consistent and stable. One way to make meaningful networks is to divide your online friend-list into smaller units (functional , regional , etc) - That is the whole purpose of Tags and Labels for our contacts which we ignore most of the time. Such filters aligns the network's relevance towards the particular need at hand.

So is Big the new Small?

I have been living away from my home since more than 10 years now. From high school to undergrad to work to post graduation , one thing i have noticed that most of the time it is not advisable to have your best friend around as your roomie or as your flat mate or as your working group partner. The magic just wanes away slowly. The strong ties are an expensive bet.

Social Networking sites has given us the ability to build big networks comprising of weak ties which requires less time , dedication , inhibitions and commitment from both end and most of the time very valuable (getting new job or new projects or new client or a recommendation , idea or advise) in harnessing the true value of our network. And the bigger your social network is , the more are the chances that you wont be 'out of sight' of many of your connections. There will always be stream of updates , status changes of yours reaching out to your connections and vice versa and All Live. This is where Allen curve comes - which says that there is an exponential drop in the frequency of communication as the distance between engineers increases which implies the more closer we are , there are more chances that we will communicate. Online Social Networks bridge the gap and the distance and increases our chances of having a future communication with our connections.

You are the Apple of my i...phone

Mashable conducted Your Best Valentine One-Liner Contest calling for best Social Media and Tech Love Lines. The current post collates few pick-up lines submitted as part of the contest. Wherever possible , an attempt has been made to ensure that we have the source's twitter handle mentioned. Enjoy !

The below 5 entries were the winners chosen by Mashable:

Linux is Red, Windows is Blue. But my Android is downloading an app kerneled with you - SVAllie  

You auto-complete me - kamakil

You're the CSS of my HTML - ganyabubrown

Justin Bieber may have Twitter, but you're the No.1 Trending Topic in my heart - jehc180

Baby , you light my FireFox - justinbbradford 

One Bonus pick-up line :

I wanna be on you like Mashable on Social Media - chelsearmg

And Others:

Baby let's go back to de 60's and have a linux love - lulamedia

I fell in love the very first time I googled you - genovevades

I “Share” the things you ‘Tumbl.'

I “Like” the stuff you ‘Tweet.’

I’ll even catch you when you ‘Stumble.’

But most of all, you’ll always be my ‘Facebook Official.’

- ajun519

You are trending in my heart, would you mind if I promote you as #lifepartner  - Vikas Gowda

No one's got style sheets like you. now let's use dirty markup language & take our html to xhtml - caseypenney

You had me at hashtag! It was love @ first mention - wjkievit

Hey baby, wanna come over to Myspace so I can Twitter your Yahoo until you Google all over my Facebook? - pmok

Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, you follow me and I'll follow you :) - designnerdnikki

You make me crash like microsoft products - emre_yilmaz

The only thing that i can't replace with a small shell script is you - emre_yilmaz

Let's reboot our love - shaunstripling

If I said you had a nice <body> would you hold it against me? - twitlessbanter

You've stolen the ASCII to my heart - goliath_growl

Baby, we live on opposite sides of the world, but I'm willing to bit.ly the link between you and me - changchaang

You're the SEO-nly one for me - flick235

You make my heart Twitter - kellyp7

I find you whenever "I am feeling lucky" - jeetuudasi

Check-in with me for a mega-byte - heathersocial

Your RSS feeds my soul - douglasburr

Will you add_action() if I enter The Loop - huzaifahm

#FF0000 is red, #0000FF is blue, but hex codes can't show how much I 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 you - robdix

Yelp is red, Twitter is blue, Can we be Facebook Official? I "Like" you! - lazuber

You still reside in my cache :) - vaibhav5388

I wish you were sin^2x and I was cos^2x cause together we'd be ONE! - pyneeapple

Kindles are "read". Dvds are "blu". I "Like" you on Facebook and I "Follow" you too - TalentSourcing

Follow me and I will poke you forever! - priyaconsulting

Roses are red Violets are blue, I'll never find a reason to Ctrl+Alt+Del you! - jessisoverrated

You tweet me off my feet - kelseyagnew

She's beautiful and smart, not just mashable! - jdbriglia

You turn my floppy into a hard drive - ponyrides

Give me your hand, and I'll take you to the cloud - aseesk

Muslim Brotherhood in the Social Media Era

Okay , i was confused , ignorant perhaps. I really didn't know what Muslim Brotherhood actually means. Yes these two are the catch words if you open any news channel , site or feed , in all probability you will either find them in the headlines or on the bottom ticker. One headline said : 'Muslim Brotherhood to talk to oppositions in Egypt' and i just didn't had any clue.

Wikipedia says that having founded in 1928 in Egypt, it is "the world's oldest and largest Islamic political group, and the world's most influential Islamist movement". Ohhh now i understood why president Obama chose Egypt and Cairo University address last year to reach out to Muslim world.

This group is banned in Egypt since more than 50 years now.Their members fight the elections as independents and still form the largest opposition group in the country. Hence we are hearing about them so often now when protests are in full swing against the soon-to-be-ex-president Hosni Mubarak.

Now take this : They are seeing an influx of new gen youth with an active cyber life breaking the old ideology of Jehad , accommodating the liberal thoughts and often critical of their own organization. And are they against the WEST (the decades old fashion statement)?

Did we find any anti-US slogans, SHOW ME ONE in the current ongoing Egypt's pro-democracy protests? In fact twitter is filled with praise for western reporters (Anderson Copper, Sonia Verma et all) for covering the agony these people are going through. If you are a western reporter at the Liberation Square , the crowd cares for you more because they look up to you helping them to get the freedom they are longing for. The 3 western companies Google+Twitter+SayNow gave rise to new Collaboration for the Cause in form of Speak2Tweet and the other one Facebook gave them the courage to mobilize through various FB pages.

So where United States stands? The dictatorial regimes in Arab worlds are (financially) supported by them. There is a catch here. They don't support them for carrying out this dictatorship. They support them for their own military mileage , with or without democracy it doesn't matter to them. Tell me a current regime who could have been democratic had US not supported them the way it has as of now. US was never the cause for this regime effect.

Whether its Egypt or Jordan or Yemen or just any state dominated by any religion , caste and creed , these people want to be part of the economic and social development, part of globalized flat world, a better life which they were deprived of. Root of Fundamentalism comes from not getting the pie of these developments , it comes from being left out , from not moving on and changing with time. Now these new additions to the brotherhood want to be like us, yes the fortunate us. They are not jealous , they are aspirants. They are not destructive , they are collaborative. They are not aliens, they are us.

And they are coming. We should embrace and share rather than create doubts in the minds. The dangers part of these minds erupts on not being accepted and respected. Once we the fortunate ones start doing it, the world will be a better place. 

Collective Intelligence is said to be the main driver of all future innovations. The more diverse , unique we are the better the Collective groups will be. Hence we should cheer not fear from this cry of freedom from Egypt.

One problem is that protagonists of the Muslim Brotherhood and even those using it currently left and right with the pro-democracy uprising all over don't have any clue what it means now. The term has changed in front of them in their own lifetime. The New Media has done it. Slowly transforming the world we live in.

Who says the next war will be for currency , crop or crime. Let the world get rid of its ammunition , lets have more treaties to remove them all and fight it all out herein @ SecondLife . The winning nation will get what it might be (virtually) fighting for.

What is Your Online Social Limit?

Okay , so i came across one Facebook profile and got stumped by the number of Facebook pages (see below) he has liked. Yes yes the count is in excess of hundred. Got  interested to know how he actually keeps up-to-date with his facebook news feeds. Won't the updates from these numerous pages cannibalize those pouring from his FB friends? And what about the Bounded Rationality concept being taught in our MBA classes? Will he be actually able to 'consume' the contents thrown by this pages? Perhaps he should have chosen Twitter (yes , thats how the twitter is being used now , more like feed/reader).

And can he keep on liking the pages the way he is doing? Can we keep on following on twitter and making linked connections endlessly? No flat no , it would convert the social space into spammers paradise, infact we do see many so called 'tools' which 'connects' to the unknowns basically in pursuit of their own marketing motives. So lets see the limits imposed by the social networking sites to ensure they remain relevant and avoid the spammers' dominance in their network :

Linkedin

• The status updates has a limit of 700 characters but keep it to 140 incase your linkedin account is linked to your twitter account.
• Total number of Invitations any one can send : 3000
• Number of Linked Groups any one can join at any time: 50
• Maximum number of connections one can have : 30, 000
• Also , the number of additional invitations one can receive is a direct function of the acceptance ratio of the invites sent earlier by the account.

There are basically 2 types of Linked Accounts:

1. LION: Linkedin Open Networker - They just go and connect with anyone and everyone sending and accepting invitations with no selectivity and inhibitions. Majority of them are regular recruiters who wants to broaden their network to find the best suitable candidates for their job openings.
2. Non-LION : They connect with only those they know and have some sort of personal or professional relationship. They believe more on the quality of their connections for any potential opportunity in case they require.

Facebook

• Maximum number of Facebook Groups you can join at one time : 300
• Number of friends one can have in his/her friend list : 1000
• Maximum Number of friends one can have is 5000 after which no friend can be sent an invite. But still one can follow any additional person through his/her fan page. What we lose out is having a sense of personal touch with such friends
• There is no limit on number of fans a facebook page can have.
• The status updates has a limit of 420 characters.
• The maximum number of pending friend requests one can have : 120

Twitter

• Maximum number of twitter account you can follow = Max(2000,110% of your follower count)
• There is no limit on the number of people following you.

Twitter in due course of time seems to be converging towards becoming a jungle of affiliate marketers. These accounts follows you indiscriminately so that you follow them back and if you don't in next 2-3 days they unfollow you. They just  want maximum followers for them who can click on the links they tweet and eventually help them get those pay per click advertising revenue. If you have a public (or not protected) twitter account , just ignore them once they follow you. They will go , come back again and again but don't you follow them back as they don't add any value to your network. Hold on.