What's Up...
hey tribsters
Mon, February 26, 2007 - 12:00 AM
Mon, February 26, 2007 - 12:00 AM -
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28 Comments
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Mon, February 26, 2007 - 2:20 AM
Embrace and extend
I've always thought the best way to grow Tribe was to embrace the people who are here and get them to extend the reach.
Let's say, for example, that Tribe was populated by casino chip collectors. That's a totally hypothetical group, of course, but let's use it. Make the chip collectors feel loved. Make sure they know they're welcome and that you want them there. Now what? What else do casino chip collectors do? Maybe they play blackjack. Maybe they travel. Watch for communities that spring up on the periphery of a core group, and then figure out how to embrace and extend that emerging community. Communicate with the moderators of tribes in those growth areas... enlist them to grow their focus. The whole key is to pay careful attention to what people are actually doing on Tribe. Who are the users? What are they doing? What are their interests? The core of active users will be the people who bring in new members. Note that I'm not talking about the hardcore Tribeheads, necessarily. The hypothetical casino chip collectors are going to be busy chattering about chips, and they mostly won't pay attention to the tribes about Tribe. You want Joe Average Tribe User, the guy who just uses it as a tool for day-to-day interaction. There are lots of those people out there-- I still run into them all the time. I go to classes where the reference materials say "go to tribe X for more information", and it's just assumed that everyone knows what Tribe is and how to do that. |
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Mon, February 26, 2007 - 11:16 AM
hello!
im in mexico city with david and carolyn. in the film festival.... just saying hi!
vera |
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Mon, February 26, 2007 - 11:50 AM
Dump the review functionality that people rarely look at, and partner with Yelp where reviews are the primary business and the user community is focused on writing lots of them, but special interest discussion groups are less developed. Their demographic is similarly urban and SF-centered. Facilitate use of each system by existing users of the other one. Do something similar with listings and Craigslist if you can get their attention.
Encourage infrequent users to use the existing but unpublicized option of echoing Tribe mails they receive (and/or new posts on tribes they select as important) to their regular email account. This will lead them to respond more promptly and build traffic on moribund tribes back up to viable levels. |
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Tue, February 27, 2007 - 2:19 AM
Take it to the streets.
Tribe is great for folks at work to stay connected (read: slack) during the day. Create more actual community events under the Tribe such as Tribe meet ups...kinda like that. Yes it's already happening within tribes (i.e. some burners throw a party and promote it on tribe). What I'm talkin' about is a Tribe sponsored event with the Tribe brand. You do it in SF...why not LA...NYC...Seattle, etc.? |
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Tue, February 27, 2007 - 10:33 AM
second that
echoing... I couldn't agree more with Pool on this. the ability to respond directly from the email, digests & alerts that get sent to my inbox would be oh so welcome.
also an interactive area, yes i'm talking about the im animal here, where there is an actual space available for tribesters to boast-balk-banter-begrudge-belittle-bring it, live. NPR style would be excellent... a lot of us love tribe and would be much worse off without it. i think folks would give and give generously if asked to do so. |
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Tue, February 27, 2007 - 4:43 PM
first of all, congrats on almost-break-even! That's a great thing.
I'd echo Pool and rel. LJ lets me respond to posts I've made directly from my email inbox. That makes things fast (and velocity is important if you want to drive people back to the site and make it interactive / engaging for them). |
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Wed, February 28, 2007 - 10:56 AM
I think it's time for TribeCon. Not a social event, but a conference with interesting speakers on things like Web 2.0, Web 3.0 and case studies about innovative uses of Tribe and what's next in online social networking.
Also, time to think about what technology features can make Tribe different from it's competitors. For instance, integrate Tribe with tools for collaboration, make it a social networking site where people can not only network, but get things done. Group file sharing, calendars, project management tools, a wiki-like thing (I really think Tribe can use its user interface design expertise to make wikis much more usable to the masses), all in one integrated platform. And you can charge users for these extra features, much in the same way Flickr charges for "pro" accounts. I can see applications where people could upload their own music for remixing, exchange snippets of video for mash-ups, plan their Burning Man camp, write a novel collaboratively, edit screenplays. You get the idea. Better yet, expose an API and let people go crazy with their own applications. Use Ajax to let people put their Tribe profile page in any web page. Make Tribe the social networking site for people who make things. |
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Sat, March 3, 2007 - 6:01 PM
More Pincus!
Here's one, it would be good if you stayed more active on Tribe and blogged here too ;) Your last post on Tribe before this one appears to be on September 28th...kind of a long time to be away, wouldn't you say? :) You're interesting funny and have lots of friends and random people who keep up w/your blog. Wouldn't it be nice if they ended up on Tribe and joined to keep up w/your rantings. If you start hanging out here more, I will, how's that for a challenge...that would add at least two more people and who knows what can develop fm there :)
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Sat, March 3, 2007 - 10:03 PM
New Stages
Sure more Live stuff! IM.
More Pincus would be a good step, too. |
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Sun, March 4, 2007 - 4:39 PM
yelp
oddly enough, I was also thinking about Tribe partnering with Yelp a few weeks ago. I had to pull together a list of restaurants for a conference. I asked on the SF Restaurants tribe what I should put on the list, but I needed to look elsewhere for info about those restaurants.
Ended up spending most of my time searching through Yelp instead, once I'd exhausted the info readily at hand on Tribe. It would have been nice to have one-stop shopping, especially since so many of my Tribes have posts asking for "best place to do such and such" |
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Unsu...
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Sun, March 4, 2007 - 5:44 PM
Partnering wth yelp....
Partnergin with yelp is a great idea... I've noticed that a lot of tribesters really dig yelp -- and the recommendations in tribe -- well umm..I prefer Yelp...
I also like the idea of having more tribe sponsored events...On that note -- maybe do more promotion with the place that's hosting it (12 Galaxy theatre, BAGG, etc...) ..this could bring some revenue in for tribe and for the place that's hosting the parties/events. YES...we need more of Mark P... We should definitely start having semi regular events in SF - and then from there - other big cities... But I think having a semi regular event in the Bay area would be good - 4 times a year or every two months (more often than once a year)... doesn't have to be spectacular or overly expensive to do..it'll help promote tribe and the place that's hosting it... my three cents |
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Sun, March 4, 2007 - 9:46 PM
schwag?
t-shirts or tank tops are great mobile billboards. and I've always liked the way Jones Soda encourages people to submit photos, and then prints a limited number of labels w/ their faves. if you do something like this - maybe on Ts or tanks, you actively engage your current user base while encouraging more participation. |
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Sun, March 4, 2007 - 11:08 PM
does it speak to the beginnings of these social networks, that even someone who works at/on the very one we're currently playing on, even uses '-ster' to identify a category of people?
Friendster, RIP long live TRIBE! I'm not being snarky, just making a point. hope this doesn't come off that way. |
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Mon, March 5, 2007 - 1:29 PM
amen to the partnering with Yelp! I'm on there all the time to find the right restaurant to post an event on tribe for. Would be so much easier if it was all linked together. And hey, you already have similar styles!
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Mon, March 5, 2007 - 4:58 PM
I think Tribe would be a lot more useful if POSTS (or perhaps just threads) were "rate-able", just like the reviews.
I use Tribe mainly for social networking, but within this social networking, I am always looking for the BEST posts on any given subject. The "5-star" posts relevant to that particular Tribe. For example, recently I've taken up making kombucha tea. In the Kombucha Tea tribe, there's 10+ pages of various questions, recipes, info, etc. I had to read thru all 10 pages to find perhaps 5 individual posts (yes, posts, not threads) that were the most-helpful to me. Perhaps within the Tribes themselves, next to the "topics" "listings" "events" tabs, there could be a "highest-rated". Then, members of the tribe (or the general public perhaps) could rate posts (or threads), and the ones with highest ratings could be in this particular tab, for easy viewing. I think this would really call to those folks who use Tribe as a means of furthering their hobbies, and would be a sort of "How To/FAQ/Most Interesting" haven as well! That's my idea. If you use it, I'd like a pony. Well, ok, maybe just another Tribe shirt. Or heck, just take it. Fine. You win. |
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Fri, March 16, 2007 - 6:20 PM
I love the tribecon idea. Or maybe even just monthly or quarterly in person meetings to brainstorm ideas and stuff. I'd love to be in on that! I always have a ton of tribe ideas running around in my head.
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Sat, April 7, 2007 - 5:52 PM
About two years ago, I suggested hosting video clips.
You may have heard of YouTube. It seems it was a good idea. :) |
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Sun, April 22, 2007 - 3:07 PM
hmm what to do
So you want to generate more money obviously but keep in touch with your business plans. Ads will definitely make up a majority of your revenue, so now might be a time to collaborate with other businesses. You currently have your domains set up for each of the major cities. Reach out to event planners, corporations, and other organizations of your choosing and show them how many hits or potential audience they may reach based on certain keywords.
Take for example a job fair in San Fran. Offer advertising targeted towards the natives tribes there and also anyone who does a keyword search for jobs, san fran, california etc. Also explain to the event coordinators if they dont have the appropriate logos and icons you can help them with that for an obvious fee. You may also want to expand on advertising for concerts, shows, new movies all geared to the prospective tribester. Art events, museums, galleries, and other artsy events might do well. Then when you feel really confident about doing business do what was suggested above and start a Tribe Fest or Gathering. This will be a promotional opportunity that will allow members from various major cities to attend a convention type event where various advertisers could solicit their wares, information and even job postings. Each vendor would pay a suitable fee plus marketing costs. The only I would caution is try to keep the service completely unique compared to Myspace.com due to the inherent cultural differences I have observed around here. |
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Wed, May 2, 2007 - 10:30 AM
I have to say my first thought was similar to many others...either improve or dump the review feature. as they are now I find them extremely hard to use (to me the search features for all of Tribe is the weakest element). Setting up cross-promotions with other sites like Yelp is NOT selling out, it's smart business. Sounds like your staff is running small so you might try using a broker like Federated Media. You could probably make more revenue running regular ads as opposed to just Adsense.
That said, I'd love to see a simple easy to search classifieds listing like Craigslist. I've had some good luck buying and selling a few things here on Tribe...but again the search and post features are much harder to use than having a specific ads directory. Good job on keeping the site going. I love my personal home page and blog page. I use it as a to pull in feeds from all my different websites. That's certainly a feature you could promote more for new users. Find a way to get the word out at various webcons like Blogher and let people know about these types of features! Also, it wouldn't hurt to be able to customize the personal blog design like you can do with Myspace (errrrg, i just hate even mentioning that place). ;-D |
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Thu, May 3, 2007 - 10:20 AM
make it more of a platform for businesses, not just people.
PS: keep an eye on zaadz coming out with their platform for green businesses soon. |
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Unsu...
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Sat, May 5, 2007 - 10:04 AM
SEARCH ADDRESS BOOK!!!!!
If I could search my address book on Yahoo (of over 400 names) I bet some of my friends are on here, but since we are not connected, we use other things to communicate (FaceBook, MySpace, Connexion). I regularly do the address book search on FaceBook and find more of my friends on there, thus I use FB to interact with them. I am NOT going to type in each of my 400 friends' emails individually to see if they're on Tribe. This option should be available for Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail, at least.
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Sat, May 19, 2007 - 2:55 PM
ideas...
As for usefulness/appeal of Tribe, I'd recommend integrating video and music (ala MySpace) as well as instant message features. As for advertising to a wider audience, I'd recommend stickers. Small, to the point, and the url is so short people will be able to easily remember it. You send me the stickers and a couple t-shirts and I'll cover the Phoenix area =)
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Tue, July 10, 2007 - 4:51 PM
tribe promo video
VIDEO: www.dateunknown.com/just-shoot-me"Here we have “Squeeky” and Tony. They met on a new social networking site called Tribe and have been talking for about 2 years. Their shooting range activity was a weird aspect to this date. Tony was easy-going, but Squeeky is the type of person that you wish was mute." hey mark, as much as i'd rather go to the dentist than show this to you, it's only fair. i mean, don't hate me because i'm beautiful.....hahahahaha. hate me because i'm annoying, apparently. (i didn't do anything!) you can see a close up on the junk in the trunk. i couldn't find my favorite pants that day, those are a little big and are safetypinned in the back and it looks all puffy, but i don't know as we have no full length mirror and dont expect back shots. yes, and my impeccible table manners as we were eating some crumbly thing that ended up all over my shirt. yep, and they kept egging us on about making it raunchy but i had no interest in talking about my sex life. and took the sf quote about threesomes out of context. the crowds love us. something about 'old people being funny'. nice. (thick sarcasm) now i really feel like a celebrity. i've been parodied. well they say all press is good press. are you sure about that? "Date: Unknown" <yo@dateunknown.com> wrote: Thanks for participating! You can check out your episode at any of the following links: 1. YouTube - www.youtube.com/watch 2. Main site - www.dateunknown.com MySpace - vids.myspace.com/index.cfm i mean, don't hate me because i'm beautiful.....hahahahaha. hate me because i'm annoying, apparently. (i didn't do anything!) you can see a close up on the junk in the trunk. i couldn't find my favorite pants that day, those are a little big and are safetypinned in the back and it looks all puffy, but i don't know as we have no full length mirror and dont expect back shots. yes, and my impeccible table manners as we were eating some crumbly thing. yep, and they kept egging us on about making it raunchy but i had no interest in talking about my sex life. and took the sf quote about threesomes out of context. |
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Tue, July 10, 2007 - 4:52 PM
tribe promo video
VIDEO: www.dateunknown.com/just-shoot-me"Here we have “Squeeky” and Tony. They met on a new social networking site called Tribe and have been talking for about 2 years. Their shooting range activity was a weird aspect to this date. Tony was easy-going, but Squeeky is the type of person that you wish was mute." hey mark, as much as i'd rather go to the dentist than show this to you, it's only fair. i mean, don't hate me because i'm beautiful.....hahahahaha. hate me because i'm annoying, apparently. (i didn't do anything!) you can see a close up on the junk in the trunk. i couldn't find my favorite pants that day, those are a little big and are safetypinned in the back and it looks all puffy, but i don't know as we have no full length mirror and dont expect back shots. yes, and my impeccible table manners as we were eating some crumbly thing that ended up all over my shirt. yep, and they kept egging us on about making it raunchy but i had no interest in talking about my sex life. and took the sf quote about threesomes out of context. the crowds love us. something about 'old people being funny'. nice. (thick sarcasm) now i really feel like a celebrity. i've been parodied. well they say all press is good press. are you sure about that? |
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Tue, October 30, 2007 - 7:24 PM
How about
brainstorm.tribe.net/thread/...ccdc0455 |
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Sun, November 18, 2007 - 8:28 AM
hmmmm ...
have you ever run a business horoscope on tribe? game theory asserts that there are so many different strategies to achieve economic success, why not look at the strategies innate to the energy when tribe was created to flush out potential expansion, sustainability, etc. strategies?
peace & harmony, elaine 'freedom must be exercised to stay in shape!' |
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Sat, November 24, 2007 - 10:46 AM
Re: Ideas
I have a membership on a site called www.yuwie.com. It uses the ads on the site to pay for members uses of the site. It also pays the members a small percentage of each ad viewed on the members profile.
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