Millennial Living runs on Drupal software

Tom Russo of Millennial Living uses Drupal for his social networking website, and I ask him for good Drupal references for another client.  Here is his reply, with hyperlinks to those resources he recommends.  The second and third are my Amazon Affiliate links (you pay the same, but Amazon gets a tad less.)

Russo’s Drupal Reference Recommendations

Tom says, “I have bought and read numerous books on Drupal. Most were not worth the money. Nevertheless three I found very valuable, because they were well written and were in plain English.”

The Drupal Cookbook for Beginners Free and very good because the Author Nancy C writes clearly and gets you hands on. Even if you have a site already set up, very much worth the read.

Building Online Communities With Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress By far the very best book I ever read on Drupal. Why? Because it tells you about the important modules without being too nerdy.

Drupal: Creating Blogs, Forums, Portals, and Community Websites: How to setup, configure and customise this powerful PHP/MySQL based Open Source CMS This was the first book I purchased. It was helpful but not well written and quite frankly became useful only as I had a better understanding of Drupal.

Russo’s Drupal Resource Tips

Use Drupal Forums and Documentation.

Also googling Drupal topics is sometimes better than using the Drupal site search.

Related Posts

Software for Your Social Networking Website or Online Community: Open Source CMS Options

The Social Network Business Plan, By David Silver: A Book Review by Tom Russo

Building Social Networks Using Drupal — Good Reference Manuals is a post from: How To Start A Social Network

Need a checklist to make sure the launch of your online community or social networking website is smooth?

Martin Reed over at Community Spark has a post that lists seven bases to cover before you start.

The Pre-Launch Checklist for Your New Online Community

If you’re at launch stage, you’ll find this extremely helpful.  Thanks, Martin.

Related Posts:

Social Network Business Plans: What Makes Them Different

Loayza’s Online Business Models for Social Media Startups

Pre-Launch Checklist: Recommended Link is a post from: How To Start A Social Network

What should your online community strategy be?  What are the elements on an online community strategy?

Bill Johnson of OnlineCommunity Report has begun an excellent  “Back to Basics” Series, with Developing an Online Community Strategy as a first post.  He plans to cover

1. Goal Definition
2. Member Needs Research
3. Social Media Ecosystem Research
4. Designing an Online Presence Architecture
5. Engagement Planning
6. Community Platform Selection
7. Management & Moderation
8. Metrics & Reporting
9. Policy Creation & Roll-out
10. Governance
11. Superusers / Elites

I’m already subscribed to his RSS feed, and I suggest you do too.  He’s also looking for feedback on these topics, so you might also want to swing by http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com and leave him a comment.

Online Community Strategy: Recommended Series is a post from: How To Start A Social Network

Did you miss one of the top posts of 2009 on How To Start a Social Network?  Here they are, as you clicked and voted for them:

1. Business Plan for a Social Networking Website — What Makes It Different?
2. Virtual Currencies and Virtual Goods — Definitions and Revenue Streams in Social Networks
3. How to Start a Social Networking Website Part 2 – Business Models and Revenue Streams
4. Social Media and Social Network Revenue Alternatives That Work
5. Community Engagement — Track Engagement Metrics to Understand Community Activity and Growth
6. The Social Network Business Plan, By David Silver: A Book Review by Tom Russo
7. Virtual Goods in Social Networks — How Motivation to Purchase Works
8. How to Start a Social Networking Website Part 1: Background, Manuals and Lists
9. How to Set Up A Social Networking Website Part 15: LinkedIn’s Revenue Model
10. Business Models for Virtual Currency and Virtual Goods

Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year.

How to Start a Social Network — Top Posts on This Blog for 2009 is a post from: How To Start A Social Network

What are examples of the use of virtual goods and virtual currencies is social networking websites?

This is the fourth in a four-part series on the topic.  Earlier posts covered definitions of virtual currency and virtual goods and their expected revenues;  purchase motivation; and business models.

Virtual Gifts and Facebook Credits on Facebook

Facebook Uses Credits to Increase Promotional Gift Engagement Nick O’Neill of Allfacebook.com called Facebook credits “a trend that we’ll continue to see over the coming year: the integration of social platforms and virtual currency.”

Facebook and Lala:  Facebook Adds Digital Music to Gift Store Explains Barb Dybwad of Mashable.com, “For one Facebook credit (10 cents), a “web song” can be played back online forever, or for 9 credits ($0.90) the track can be downloaded and transferred to other computers or devices.”

Facebook’s PayPal Rival?  Gift Marketplace on the Way. Ben Parr of Mashable.com suggests that if Facebook provides both the gifts and the currency, they will have greater control of transactions than rival PayPal.  And if Facebook adds real to virtual gifts, the revenues are even greater.  “While virtual gifts will still be about $1 (10 credits), these real-life gifts could go into the hundreds of credits, as you would expect for a real-life item.”  He speculates that Facebook credits might become a viable web currency.

Games with Virtual Goods for Virtual Currency on Facebook

Cheap Thrills Online game company Zynga based its businss on social networking and microtransactions, says this United.com article.  And it’s reaping the rewards.

Farmtown overtakes Pet Society as Most Popular Facebook Game According to Nick O’Neill of AllFacebook.com, “Farmtown is currently monetizing its application through two channels: advertisements and the sale of virtual currency. That virtual currency, or “coins” as they’re called in Farmtown, can be used to purchase more items from the store. Store items range from seeds to grow more plants that you can eventually sell, animals, buildings, and many other items for your farm.”

Virtual Protests Erupt in YoVille “YoVille, one of the largest virtual worlds on Facebook, recently experienced a relatively large protest against a major change yesterday which modified the way users can earn virtual currency.”  Now they have to spend money to make money, says Nick O’Neill of AllFacebook.com.

11 Million Facebook Users Flock to Virtual Farming Daily.  Referring to its creator Zynga, Barb Dybwad of Mashable.com explains that “FarmVille and many of its other titles make money through virtual goods sales, where players spend real dollars to buy virtual currency or items in the game.”

Pay to Play?  Health Insurers Exchange Fake Facebook Currency for Anti-Reform Letters. TalkingPointsMemo on award by “Get Health Reform Right” of Facebook credits for gamers who write anti-reform letters to Congress.

Virtual Currency on Twitter

PreTweeting:  Twitter Gets a Prediction Market Ben Parr of Mashable.com describes how Pretweeting works:  The site “focuses around the market for words on Twitter. You could make a great deal of virtual cash buying a trending topic on Twitter before it trends, or you could lose a bunch if a word drops off the list.”

5 New Twitter Games to Make Tweeting Fun.  Ben Parr of Mashable explains the Spymaster game on Twitter, which uses virtual currency.

Twollars: An Innovative Approach to Fundraising on Twitter Stan Schroeder of Mashable.com calls Twollars “a very powerful virtual-currency-meets-micropayments economy that could be a great way for charities to raise funds, individuals to (directly or indirectly) support a good cause, and businesses to raise awareness of their brand by supporting a good cause.”  With potential for misuse?
And a video interview with Twollars founder: Twollars video

Virtual Currency for Virtual Rewards on Foursquare

Foursquare’s Virtual Rewards StartaSocialNetwork.com writes about how Foursquare uses badges and awards to encourage specific user behaviors, such as posting a profile photo.

Virtual Gifts on Ning

Ning also has enabled the use virtual gifts.  Here’s a link to their categories and prices.  And more on award gifts for members.

Virtual Currency for Virtual Gifts on Hi5

Buy Hi5 Virtual Currency with Just Your Phone Number Using Paymo mobile payment system, you can buy gifts and pay for them on your next cell phone bill.

WeeWorld Virtual Gifts

WeeWorld Launches Virtual Gifting This Valentines Day. According to Kristen Nicole of AllFacebook.com, “The site has typical rewards system for an environment that’s solely virtual, as it encourages a great deal of site activity and further engages users on a variety of levels within the virtual world. That means users can earn points by spending more time on the site, playing games, and finishing quests on WeeWorld.”   WeeWorld has its own virtual currency.

Virtual Currency Metrics

Twofish:  Real Economic Insight for Virtual Currencies Jennifer Van Grove of Mashable.com says “Twofish hopes to help developers optimize pricing, currency exchange, and content channels, with advanced post-purchase insight.”

Comments?

How do you feel about virtual gifts and virtual goods?

Related Posts:

Virtual Currencies and Goods — Definition and Revenue Streams in Social Networks
Virtual Goods in Social Networks — How Motivation to Purchase Works
Virtual Goods in Social Networks — Alternative Business Models

Virtual Goods in Social Networks: Examples of Facebook, Twitter and More is a post from: How To Start A Social Network

This is the third in a four-part series on virtual currency and virtual goods.  The first covers definitions and potential revenues from virtual goods.  The second, purchase motivation.  The final post features examples of the use of virtual currency and virtual goods in social networks.

Benefits for Owners of Social Networks

In his excellent video on Virtual Currency in One Hour, Tom Hale of Second Life describes three advantages of virtual goods for website owners:

Direct Monetization. Revenue comes directly from users, “not from ads or eyeballs.”

Profitability. With virtual goods being very inexpensive to produce, profit margins are high.  Hale says the average user earns the site owner $2-3 per month, and a few into three figures monthly.

Engagement. Once users have spent money in a site, they are invested both in their personal reputation and in the community itself.  Hale calls the virtual goods model “incredibly sticky.”

Similarly, in Beyond Facebook Gifts: Virtual Payments, Anu Shukla described user activities associated with virtual goods and shows how they benefit the social network owner:

• Inviting other people to the property, which encourages viral success and growth
• Logging in every day, which helps increase stickiness and loyalty
• Completing certain tasks or quests, which helps to build engagement and activity
• Completing ad offers, which advertisers like

Business Models for Virtual Goods

Hale also lays out three business models:

Direct Model, in which the publisher sells games, currency or brand partnerships.

Indirect Model, where users create content and the site owners collect transaction fees, ad and listing fees, service fees and exchange fees.

Hybrid Model, which combines the above with subscriptions or hosting services.

Virtual Good Purchase Percentages

Virtual goods is one of the five models that Jun Loayza describes in 5 Social Media Business Models .  He reports that an astonishingly high number of website members take advantage of virtual goods.  He quotes Ali Moiz of Peanut Labs as saying that 10 to 20% of users purchase virtual goods with credit cards, and another 30 to 40% get goods free by taking surveys or viewing offers through companies like his.  In Virtual Currency Monetization, Hussain Fazal explains how an “ad wall” works, where social network users fill out surveys or subscribe to services to receive virtual currency.

In conclusion, the model for virtual currency/virtual goods is rich, and the outlook is promising.   But despite its rapid growth, Ro Choy sees brand advertising in social media as the winner in the long term.   In  The Future of Social Media Monetization: Virtual Currency, Choy concludes “…brand marketing has a high probability of being a much bigger opportunity than virtual currency in the space and deserves real focus from developers and publishers given its true potential within social media.”

Comments?

What do you think about these business models?

Related Posts

Virtual Currencies and Goods – Definitions and Revenue Streams in Social Networks
Virtual Goods in Social Networks — How Motivation to Purchase Works
Virtual Goods in Social Networks– Examples in Facebook, Twitter and more

Virtual Goods in Social Networks — Alternative Business Models is a post from: How To Start A Social Network

Why do users spend virtual currency or real cash to buy virtual goods in social networks?

Yesterday, my niece Jennifer offered me a “banana tree” in the online game Farmville, played on Facebook.  This tree is a virtual good.  She also asked me to give her a virtual gift in return.  Now why would I do this, I ask myself?

If I accept her offer of the banana tree, Farmville also wants access to my profile and friends, presumably to share this breaking news with my friends.

This post is the second in a four-part series on virtual currency and virtual goods.  See also an earlier post on definitions, of and revenue potential from, virtual currency and virtual goods.  And check also those on virtual goods business models and examples of social networks using virtual goods and virtual currencies.

Motivations To Purchase Virtual Goods

In his excellent video on the topic, Tom Hale of Second Life describes three primary motivations:

Self Expression.  Virtual goods like clothing or avatars allow the user to customize and personalize his or her online profile.

Increased Capability. In the gaming world, purchase of additional “objects” such as a sword give the user increased powers in the game.

Further Relationships.  Gifts like Jennifer’s banana tree and other stylized messages to friends are used to deepen and enhance relationships.  In The Future of Social Media Monetization, Ro Choy explains that social interaction is behind many such successful games:  “It’s no surprise that many of the top social games have been specific genres (farming, restaurants, community chat) that focus on nurturing and growing a product or business through social interactions with friends…”

The dating site HotOrNot.com is another example of how virtual goods can be used to further relationships.  Admirers can sent a women virtual flowers (flower stickers for her profile) as a gift, such as the roses Renate received, below.  These reportedly cost from $2 to $10.

Renate gets four gifts of virtual flowers from admirers

Susan Wu has another take on virtual goods in  Virtual Goods: The Next Big Business Model. She claims that they aren’t goods, but services; that these create real value for users; and that the cost of buying them is cheaper than earning them. (Some sites offer users the option to fill out surveys, watch ads, or subscribe to earn virtual currency with which to buy virtual goods.)

I have not yet accepted the banana tree from Jennifer in return for giving the game application access to my friends.  I decided to write this series of posts to learn more before I wrap up my virtual Christmas gift for her.

Would You Pay For a Virtual Good?

Please leave me a comment and tell me if you would buy your niece a virtual good.  How about for Renate?

Upcoming Posts:

Virtual Currencies and Virtual Goods — Definitions and Revenue Streams in Social Networks
Virtual Goods in Social Networks — Alternative Business Models
Virtual Goods in Social Networks– Examples in Facebook, Twitter and more

Virtual Goods in Social Networks — How Motivation to Purchase Works is a post from: How To Start A Social Network

How can virtual currencies and virtual goods be revenue streams in a social network?

In the excellent video Virtual Currency in One Hour, Second Life’s Chief Product Officer Tom Hale shares insights about the rationale for virtual currency and virtual goods.  He also explains consumer behavior as it relates to virtual goods and describes the Second Life economy.

This post is the first in a four-part series on virtual currency and virtual goods.  Later posts describe purchase motivation, business models using virtual goods and virtual currency, and examples of their use in specific social networks.

“Virtual currency” is simply currency used to purchase virtual goods.  Wikipedia defines “virtual goods” as “non-physical objects that are purchased for use in online communities or online games. They have no intrinsic value and, by definition, are intangible.”

Market Potential for Virtual Currency and Virtual Goods

Virtual goods are a rapidly growing revenue stream, as eMarkerer tables from Virtual Goods Mean Real Dollars show.  Similarly in Virtual Goods Start Bringing Real Paydays, Claire Cain Miller states “Analysts estimate that virtual goods could bring in a billion dollars in the United States and around $5 billion worldwide this year — all for things that, aside from perhaps a few hours of work by an artist and a programmer, cost nothing to produce.”

Ben Parr envisions huge growth in virtual goods.  In The Future of Gaming: 5 Social Predictions, he says “It shocks us how big the virtual goods market has already become. The U.S. market alone is thought to be worth $1 billion and the Asian market to be worth around $7 billion.”  And he suggests there is big upside potential.

Types of Websites That Use Virtual Currency

In his video, Tom Hale explains the different uses of virtual currency in four types of websites:

Gaming — primarily for purchase of in-game goods that enhance game play.

Virtual Worlds – primarily a mechanism for exchange.

Online Communities – primarily nonmonetary, used for points, to enhance status and prestige.

Social Networking Websites– primarily nonmonetary, used for points, status, and prestige as well as mechanism for exchange.

His video goes into detail about the use of virtual currencies and goods in gaming and virtual worlds.  However, in this series, I’m interested in how and why they become revenue streams in online communities and social networks.

Upcoming Posts:

Virtual Goods in Social Networks — How Motivation to Purchase Works
Virtual Goods in Social Networks — Alternative Business Models and Applications
Virtual Goods in Social Networks– Examples in Facebook, Twitter and more

Virtual Currencies and Virtual Goods — Definitions and Revenue Streams in Social Networks is a post from: How To Start A Social Network

How do you measure growing engagement in a social networking website or online community?  What metrics should you track?

Erica just launched TheLegalBalance, a social network for Chicago women attorneys, and she asked me that question.

The Online Community Report site of ForumOne is an authoritative source for online communities.  Their 2009 survey data provides a list of metrics online communities are tracking, and what they’d like to:

Top 5 Online Community Metrics Tracked

• Unique Visitors
• New Member Registrations
• Page Views
• Visitors
• Message Posts

If you add the free Google Analytics code snippet to your website footer, you can easily track unique visitors, page views and visitors.  If you set up thank-you landing pages for registrations and message posts, you can also track these as goals in Google Analytics.

Top 5 Desired Metrics

• Member Satisfaction
• Influencer / Evangelism
• Member Life Cycle
• Member Loyalty
• Referrals to Community

If Erica asked how she might begin to  measure these items, here’s what I would say.  To track satisfaction, I’d recommend a quarterly survey or drop-down quick survey.  Eventually I’d consider separate surveys for new and existing users.  To get a handle on influencers and evangelists, I would track number of logins and “time on site” of the top 10 community users.  For life cycle, I’d track data over time that measured login frequency.  For loyalty, I’d look the monthly percentage of returning users to the website.  For referrals, I’d ask each new member to answer a question on how they learned about the site as part of registration.

Idea Engagement Metrics

In “Online Community Engagement: Recent Research,” the Online Community Research Network, also affiliated with ForumOne, identified ideal engagement metrics as:

• Amount of activity on site: page views, logins, searches, feature usage
• Number and type of content items created: discussion posts, tags, shared content, etc.
• Number of connections / relationships created: friends added to network, or inferred via frequent discussion exchanges
• Time on site: Total time per month
• Frequency of visits: / per month
• Recommendations: Members referring new community members, passing along community content outside of community, blogging about / promoting community

Start Tracking Basic  Metrics Monthly

With this information on what is ideal and what community managers are now measuring, Erica and others can organize their monthly reporting to begin to capture user engagement in their communities.   The initial action step is to decide which key metrics to track monthly, to assign responsibility for reporting and to set a monthly date when the report is due.

Comments?

What do you think of these metrics?  What are you tracking, and what would you like to measure?

Related Posts

What I Learned about Customer Engagement and Loyalty at Alterian’s Engaging Times Summit
What Do Site Users Do in Social Networking Websites?
How to Start a Social Network Part 10:  Engagement

Online Community Engagement Metrics — What Should You Track? is a post from: How To Start A Social Network

Did you know there was a directory of social networking websites running on the virtually free Ning.com platform?  If you missed my earlier post, here’s how to create your own site on Ning.

Ning Directory of Existing Social Networks.

Whether you’re thinking about starting an online community and checking out the existing networks or looking for people to connect with that share your passion, there’s probably a community about it on Ning.  Here’s the Ning Directory link.

This directory is NOT official:  here’s the disclaimer:

“This site is not endorsed by Ning. Although, we are proud to be a Ning powered site, and we support all Ning efforts. Go Ning go! This site (the Ning Directory) was built for Ning Network Creators: where you can meet, exchange ideas, and advertise your Ning Network. We are here to help put your Ning Network on the map by: promoting your Ning, making it easier for potential new members to find your Ning, helping you better optimize your Network, and assisting in matching new members to your Ning Social Network.”

Do you Ning? Did You Find a Social Network Around Your Interest?

Please leave me a comment.

Find Niche Networks in the Ning Directory is a post from: How To Start A Social Network