Facebook or not Facebook?

In the last three months, the increasing success of social networking in Italy, mainly Facebook, is creating a wide debate.

From 1 million of users in May Italy reached 4,2 millions of users in September (Nielsen Netview).

Every day newspapers, magazines, online news never miss to talk about benefits or risks arising from this media.

Somebody even considers Facebook as a danger for couples, and families!

Most users are far from consider Facebook and social networking as a useful working tool.

Using Facebook is mainly considered as something ‘in’, but just for entertainment.

That’s why many companies start forbidding Facebook’s access to the employees, as they believe is just a waste of time.

Word-of-mouth, buzz, social media as a service or marketing tools are just words, especially in public companies.

And it’s very hard to change this trend in many manager’s (and also users’ mind!)

So … what do you think about it? Should companies forbid Facebook’s access to their employees? How can we try to ‘fill a hole’ and change this trend?

Soccer against hunger

Photo by Andrea Staccioli/Inside

Yesterday, the European Professional Football Leagues and FAO launched in Rome a new campaign to create awareness and raise funds against hunger. Also yesterday many people joined the Blog Action Day.

It’s important to know that in the same day different people and different organizations focused their attention on the same topics, poverty and hunger, using different media.

On one hand, we have important testimonials such as the Italian football player Roberto Baggio, government representatives from European countries, and traditional media like press and television. On the other hand, we have hundreds of bloggers, videocasters, the social media and the network. “Anonimous” people versus VIP, traditional media versus new media. In this case, it is not so important to understand which media is more effective, but the number of people this synergie can reach, and the best way to use them for the same goal.

What do you think? Let’s talk about no-profit projects where different media strategies ‘live’ togethere!

If you want to read the article:

http://www.fao.org/Newsroom/en/news/2008/1000935/index.html

Teaching social media

I have the pleasure to inform all my readers that Becky Carroll started a new social media class. It means that there are new blogs from her students!

It is a unique experience to meet people that live in the same area (San Diego), but they are from all over the world. So, it represents a great opportunity to compare different way of ‘affording’ the blogsphere, and to figure out different cultures.

A virtual trip in different countries. Don’t miss them, and help the bloggers with ideas, comments, suggestions, in order to motivate them. The main link is Teachingsocialmedia

Blog, travels, and women

In these days, here in Rome is taking place an interesting festival about travel literature. In the wonderful location of Villa Celimontana, people have the opportunity to meet readers, journalists, writers, travellers, and … bloggers!

After my social media class, I have been increasing my interest in all my favorite topics and their connection with Web 2.0, so I was so excited to find a conference about travels and blogs!

I attended this conference yesterday morning, and I had the chance to keep in touch with one of most interesting italian blogger about travels: Marina Misiti and her blog “donne con la valigia” (the translation sounds as “women with the suitcase”).

The debate highlighted many important, interesting points: how new media affects the way of writing, the difference between blogs and traditional “travel diary”, the network as “a travel in the travel”, just to say some of them.

Many bloggers compared their different way of writing a blog: blogging on the road, blogging after a trip, blogging feelings …

During the conference, I wonder if all these available information limit the ‘discovery pleasure’ of a trip. The answer I gave myself is that every trip generates unique, new feelings, even though you know something about the place you are going to visit.

So, I definitely think that blogs, and network can help people to share these feelings and, consequently, to add some value to personal experiences.

In my opinion, knowledge and information don’t represent a limit in discovering a place, but they offer the chance to better know it.

Moreover, the Web represents a great opportunity for all the people that can travel only with their minds…

What do you think about it?

PS: other bloggers presented their projects: http://www.lonelytraveller.eu, http://lagattasultetto.spaces.live.com, http://italianidargentina.blogspot.com, Il circolo dei viaggiatori

Italy and Social Media

Hi Everyone,

I’m back in Rome, and after this experience in San Diego, one of my first goal is trying to understand the world of social media in Italy.

Event though we are plenty of blogs, actually I don’t have many information about users profile, and marketing via social media in country.

As I’m very interested in this matter, I have been started reading as much as possible about social media in Italy.

The first useful information I found is that from September 12, for three days, there is the first Italian ‘blogfest’. The event will offer the opportunity to meet and talk all about blogs, socialnetworking, and community.

I have only a doubt: the main sponsors of this meeting are Telecom Italia, the main Italian Telco company, and Microsoft Windows Live.

On one hand, we can consider it positively, as it increases the interest for the event. On the other hand, the participation of such huge companies can influence the spirit of this first meeting.

In my opinion, comparing to US, Italian market (and people) is a beginner in using social media for business, or as alternative to traditional media. Therefore, my question is: can be useful or not the presence of these two companies? (just a note: until few years ago, Telecom had the monopoly of the Italian telecommunication market, and they still have some ‘privileges’). Don’t we have to consider social networking as an ‘open space’ where everyone can find his own opportunity?

Social network popularity around the world

This post is just to inform you about a survey conducted by Pingdom. Pingdom is a company specialized in monitoring web sites, network, and infrastructure.

In this survey , they analyzed the 12 of the top social networks to answer a simple, but highly interesting question: where are they the most popular? I found it really interesting for our social media international class, as I firstly heard about some of them from my Brazilian or Indian classmates.

Have a look at it, and let me know if they are true!

http://royal.pingdom.com/?p=336