I have just finished reading Grown Up Digital and have been trying to relate this with a lot of the changes that are happening with respect to how people are networking. From Sharad who has been looking at the mobile device as a means for recruiting people to Prabhu who has in fact been dabbling with this new revolution for quite some time, there is a paradigm shift in the way people are learning to reach out to what Don Tapscott calls the Net Generation.
So it came as no surprise when Prabhu introduced me to the latest gadget he has been working on "UTVatPlay". A user-customizable radio (called the UDIO) – something that one can configure in three simple steps: Add Music that you like, Add your voice, Save and Launch! So, what's exciting about this? This is an excellent adaptation of the social networking concept to the world of Music. Throw in the ability to customize and personalize your radio (an important criteria for the Net Geners) and I have a powerful medium to reach out to my social network. I have the ability to add my voice, so I can now host my own talk show, or share information with my friends. For example, having just returned from a vacation, I can now talk about how wonderful the holiday was, and why it must be a place that you must go to if you want a quiet holiday…far from the madding crowd. This, surely will have a lot of takers…especially like-minded friends who are looking to get away from the hustle and bustle of their daily hectic lives. So, this now becomes even more powerful than a status message which I put on facebook!
The second important aspect is the ability to bring together a group of people with like tastes and preferences. When I create a radio which contains music of my liking, it is quite likely that I will have some followers (quite similar to the followers of my blog) who will be keen on knowing what kind of music I listen to. More importantly, for someone who is looking at getting a target audience with similar interest profiles, it is quite possible that they will now have a profile of people who apart from belonging to a network have also similar taste in music. I'm sure that's something that is of immense value to someone who is looking for such a niche target market.
The third aspect is that this tends to grow just as any other Social Network. I will soon be linking up to friends and friends of friends who have got something interesting to talk about, or are playing music which I like. And soon enough we'll probably have a group that keeps close tabs on what each other are doing. More importantly, for someone who is tracking all this, it soon becomes quite evident the kind of music that is popular, the radios that have the highest audience, the time and duration that people listen to these radios each day. An advertiser can easily pick the sweet spot for placing his commercial in between songs.
I just hope Sharad gets to read this…for I'm sure he can come up with another million ideas of how to exploit this medium!
And while he does that I'm trying to figure out how this can be used in a knowledge management scenario…especially one that may benefit the microfinance sector!!! Any ideas….leave me a note.
