Virtual Entrepreneur

Playing With Privacy

May 25th, 2007 | Author: MrMoney

Law.com:
Ours is an interconnected world. And thanks to the explosive growth of virtual communities and social networking sites like MySpace, we are seeing a seismic shift in the way we work, play and socialize.

To enhance productivity, companies like Entellium are redesigning business software using interactive game techniques. Customer relationship management software users, for example, can build a dossier of clients and sales prospects that include photographs and lists of likes, dislikes and buying interests like character descriptions in popular role-playing games.

Additionally, Web-based functionality is increasingly mobile. We can call, e-mail or text-message while listening to music, watching videos or playing games, all from one hand-held device. We can also locate friends on-the-go with inexpensive, buddy-finder applications (e.g., Boost Loopt). With buddy-finder tools, users can find each other offline by joining a closed social network that appears as dots on a mobile device.

To complicate matters, according to an April 2007 Pew Internet & American Life Project study on social networks, American teens lead the trend toward ubiquitous Web-based connectivity. In fact, about 55% of American teens already have social networking profiles online. Of those teens with online profiles, about 32 percent said a total stranger had tried to contact them. Needless to say, ubiquitous connectivity can make supervising online behavior even more challenging for parents.

Not far behind, companies see the opportunity and are exploring new ways to promote goods through viral marketing. According to a recent Forrester Research survey, 20%t of marketers currently use social networking to promote products, and about 60% are expected to do so by the end of 2007.

Harvesting Player Profiles… read on.

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