Expert opinion on Blogs and Social Networking

I am proud to present to you an exclusive interview with Charlene Li of Forrester research .In this interview Charlene talks about social networking , blogging and its implications on society . Charlene is a VP and Principal Analyst in Forrester Research . She is an avid blogger and researcher.

1.Myspace.com is a very popular site in the US , a lot of elections material and content is being routed through the website , and almost all the Presidential candidates have their profiles in Myspace. Going forward do you see websites such as these becoming more and more popular in creating and managing public opinion

These sites have always been about relationships, participation, and communication. Moreover, once something hits a chord with someone, they are more likely to tell their friends as well. So it’s natural that organizations that want to influence public opinion – politicians, marketers, religious groups, non-profits – would want to be there to influence individual opinion and engagement.

2.Blogging is becoming immensely popular and with the meteoric rise of Google Adsense , there is a lot of incentive for being able to provide breaking news . One such example of breaking news was reported by my friend Basab Pradhan in his blog this was about the delay of the launch of the iPhone , which was blogged and had an adverse effect on the Apple price . Blogger's as a community would like sensational news to reflected in the blog without necessarily being sure about the validity of the news , where according to you does the balance lie between posting sensational news and ensuring validity of the news before you post ?

Let’s take a look at the original breaking news “blogger” – Matt Drudge. Some people love him, others can’t stand him. You know when you read him that the “news” has to be read with a huge grain of salt, but that there’s some truth to what he’s saying.My favorite example of this recently was the Google and Salesforce.com pending “strategic”announcement – the speculation ranged all the way to one Google’s acquisition of Salesforce.com Or the supposed negotiations between Microsoft and Yahoo! about a potential merger/acquisition.I don’t think it’s about the money only – it’s also about the notoriety of being first, being the most connected, and having the most cred that drives this. But I put a lot of trust in blog readers having some sense – they are able to figure out pretty quickly and with multiple posts, who the best bloggers are.I don’t think it’s about the money only – it’s also about the notoriety of being first, being the most connected, and having the most cred that drives this. But I put a lot of trust in blog readers having some sense – they are able to figure out pretty quickly and with multiple posts, who the best bloggers are.

3.A lot of companies do have corporate blogs , and some are in the verge of setting up blogs , how do companies who have blogs justify the business benefits of blogging.

The key benefit is buzz and brand awareness – blog are great at generating attention, links, and subsequently, search engine rankings. Others include lower costs to support customer service or sales. I have a long post about this at

http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/2007/01/new_roi_of_blog.html.

4.Social networking sites creates a platform of sharing of ideas , views etc , people from different walks of life come and upload content , what could be the unintended consequences of social networking (example –there are many cases when photographs of people have been downloaded from orkut and have been morphed and displayed in pornographic websites) and how can these be mitigated

With social interactions also come social diseases, and the loss of control of your identity and image is one of them. The only way to mitigate this is to limit access to your information to the people that you trust, hence the popularity of private profiles on places like MySpace and Facebook.