Friday 30 October 2009

blog 3# subjects Twitter lists and Virtual gifts on Ning

Twitter Lists

So, busy yesterday looking at twitter lists.  Looks like you can have 20 lists which are like sub accounts - I am using these lists to put twitter contacts into groups - this will take some time, but not that long as I have around 5000 on @lemonknickers and a couple thousand on several other accounts.  The list names are changable, I might even merge my accounts as the reason I opened up multiple accounts was to track different subjects - not to spam!

Most of my current lists are private, but I have the directory - of products and services open, and cool people - which are people that have my kudos!

open lists - that are still being sorted - on an ongoing basis:

http://twitter.com/lemonknickers/directory (Products and services)

http://twitter.com/lemonknickers/cool-people (People I give kudos to)

http://twitter.com/lemonknickers/top-cats (People that are known to be head of the pack)

http://twitter.com/lemonknickers/ning-nomads (Ning friends)

http://twitter.com/lemonknickers/local (Weston-super-Mare)

My use of the lists is mainly to organize people by location, UK, USA and by subjects like Coffee - all twitter need to do now is add a status box at the top of these lists so users can message people just in that list (like the message all members of this group function on Ning)  maybe that is something they could charge people for ?

The private lists are for my use, I might open them eventually.


Other subject Ning Gifts - idea is good - I still think they need to add a few more free ones, like profile comments or HI5's - so that people can give them out as welcome presents, as I think it takes a while to build up motivation to pay for virtual gifts, it need to be ingrained into the network - like the game of monopoly - who want's the racing car and who wants the old boot ? - answer different people like the different ones like flavours of crisps - i.e you all rush to get the car (or the salt and vinegar crisps in my family) a mystery gift might be good in that it could be opened and a person won't know if they are going to get a generic gift like a heart or a lucky clover - or like the lotto they might get some bling/sport car/luxury gift.  The virtual gifts could have collectable themes too, like an eco friendly collection or a love heart collection - reasons to make the person want the whole set - like people that collect thimbles - they get the case free then buy new thimble every month.  These kind of ideas could make virtual gifts work - if someone created a coffee collection for example - I'd collect them myself and give out coffee gifts to new members or if they liked rainbows or cats - I might leave them a gift relating to their hobby/niche - a fisherman  might collect fishy's - not rocket science is it ?

be interesting to see if they do develop the gifts, as they are it is very basic, not enough to motivate me to spend real cash on them just yet - alot the point prices need to vary - it is dumb to give people 100 points free to start when gifts are 75 each - better to add some at lower points like 25 - so atleast a person can try the gift function twice before having to pay out.

If they aren't going to add freebies other than cancer, aids and army for free (good causes, but not universal in appeal when trying to sell the app to potential new users) they should let a person be able to sent at least 7 gifts free - I use 7, as 7 times is 7x exposure use of the gifting feature - and they say it takes atleast 7 times to 'sell' an item to some people before they buy  - these gifts aren't shiny enough for compulsive buyers yet in my opinion - if the price varied - with some lower and some 'expensive' like $5.00 each you might get a complusive buyer or buyers buy them as mini status symbols - as in "I like you and respect you so much I am wiling to buy you this diamond encrusted virtual rose, because money means nothing in comparsion to your beauty!!!" see what I'm saying ? - A person that has alot of shiny gifts have alot of people that care enough to spend on something so trivial. - this would work with charities - if you are socially minded - as 'save the rain forest' could recieve donations via gifts to each other on a network - maybe Ning could offer that function to network owners - to have 25% of the 50% rev share donated to a charity - that way, everyone would have themed gifts that benefit 1. Ning, 2. Charity/social cause 3. Network manager  4. givers 5. recievers who are sharing - how can that kind of win/win deal not work for mutual benefit eh ?

Posted via web from Zara Lockwood's Posterous Blog

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