Friendfeed is an aggregator of social network content that allows users to create feeds that pull updates from all kinds of social networking sources, social media, micro-blogging sites (such as Twitter), video sites (such as Youtube) and blogs (such as this one and millions of others).

Along with Facebook’s already developed real time search capabilities, Friendfeed will give Facebook a much greater reach and potentially give them control of a bigger chunk of the overall search market.

Facebook’s immediate target seems to be Twitter – which has also been developing a real time search engine. But Google will be influenced as well. The impact of sites like Twitter and Facebook is starting to make Google’s search territory look old school and even boring in comparison. As Facebook and Twitter become more viable search sources, Google’s stranglehold on that area will be threatened.

Microsoft/Bing/Yahoo are involved in this too, since Bing now provides search not only for Yahoo, but also for Facebook. For more details see Watch Out Twitter! Facebook Launches Realtime Search.

Say you’re interested in dog training. If there is a dog training topic already created in TipDrop you can share your insights in (relatively) short entries of 255 words max. If there is no topic in your area you can create one.

Other members can vote your tips up or down. The more votes a tip gets, the higher it stays on the tip page for that topic.

This is a great way to build a focused identity for yourself based on the quality of your tips. Check it out at TipDrop.com.

That means you have to constantly do networking.

Here’s an example of a networking tool that has great potential for local business. We’ve just developed a site called AgentMapIt.com aimed at providing real estate agents with a place to network with other real estate agents across Canada and the US – real estate agent networking.

AgentMapIt uses Google Maps to locate agents. Search for your town, state or province and you’ll see where the agents you’re looking for are located right there on the interactive map.

Click on an agent marker and you’ll be taken to the real estate agent’s profile featuring all the important information about this agent – testimonials, contact information and in some cases even a profile video.

To help subscribing agents network with other agents, AgentMapIt.com has networking tools built right in. Click on the “Contact” link and you can send an email message. No hunting around for contact information. It’s all right there. In fact you can do this without even logging in – a big hassle with most social networking sites.

And in the next revision of the program you will be able to click on the “Network” link and start building your own private network with agents of your choice. You’ll even be able to send a special email message to every agent in the sytem. Now that’s networking!

Now just imagine the application of this set of tools to local business networking. Say there was a similar website for your town where local business people could join and create profiles for themselves. You need to find an accountant, so you just go to the map, do a search for accountants and up comes the locations of several accounts in town. Same goes for lawyers, real estate agents, financial advisors, mortgage brokers, marketing people, web designers, restaurants, home renovators, etc., etc., etc.

Now say you want to form your own local business network – a circle of acquaintances with the same business objective: to share business opportunities and referrals with each other. So you do a search for members in each category, and as you find someone you think you’d like to network with, you invite them to join your little private network.

Say you want your private network to include just one member in each relevant category: one accountant, one lawyer, one web designer, one printer, one financial advisor, one insurance agent, one real estate agent, one restaurant owner (for dinner meetings of course)…

Can you think of an easier or more effective way of doing it that with a program like Agentmapit.com – I’m not talking about AgentMapIt.com itself. I’m talking about an adaptation of this program just to local networking.

Now wouldn’t that be a great tool for local business? Well, with any luck we’ll have just such a tool available over the next couple of months. Contact me if you’re interested.

First, it is important to study the site in question (Digg, Twitter, Youtube, whatever) from the tactical point of view. Take a close look and learn what readers respond to. Generally to develop a following you have to create content that has broad appeal. And the best way to do this is to use a kind of “template”. As an example of a template Maki pulls apart the approach used by Cracked.

In short, they use  what he calls an attention grabbing frame into which they can plug almost any type of content about anything. By virtue of being packed into the frame it gains mass appeal. The Cracked formula boils down to this (supposedly tongue-in-cheek) -

The” + (Number) + “Most” + (Over the top adjective) + (Subject) + Of All Time (Synonyms like “in History” or “Ever” will also be accepted) = Popularity

For example, “The 6 Most Stupendously Obvious Political Lies Of All Time”

Of course you will then have to go on and actually provide some content about whatever it is you’re talking about.

Also, assuming you want this to be relevant to your own target niche it should be something that people within your own community of interest will find interesting or intriguing.

I don’t want to be overly anal about the marketing angle in all this, but from the marketing perspective, what’s the point of getting “diggs” from people who have absolutely no interest in what you are trying to market. Or as I’ve said elsewhere, what good is getting thousands of views of your “dancing monkey” video if you can’t convert that into interest in whatever message or product you are trying to push?

So the challenge is not only to find the “attention grabbing framework” that works, but to find a way to cram your marketing message into that framework. Off the top of my head, the best example I can think of is the “Will It Blend” series of videos.

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