Social Software powered by Instant Communities

Happy New Year!

We wish you all a very happy 2010!

As a small gift from us we extended our Facebook Connect implementation :)

From now on you can send all your posts in any sixgroups.com Community to Facebook and Twitter at the same time:

Post to Facebook and Twitter from sixgroups

Post to Facebook and Twitter from sixgroups

Post on Facebook send from sixgroups.com

Post on Facebook send from spielwiese.sixgroups.com

Post on Twitter send from spielwise.sixgroups.com

Post on Twitter send from spielwise.sixgroups.com

Frohe Weihnachten

Das sixgroups Team wünscht allen Freunden, Mitgliedern und Geschäftspartnern ein gesegnetes Weihnachtsfest. Wir werden die nächsten Tage ein wenig kürzer treten und neue Kraft tanken. Wir freuen uns, euch endlich das Projekt, an welchem wir die letzten Monate hauptsächlich gearbeitet haben, zu zeigen.

Basierend auf unserer Communitylösung haben wir zusammen mit dem Hamburger Verlag Gruner und Jahr Anfang dieser Woche  das vertikale Netzwerk Schöner Essen gelauncht. Es ist noch sehr früh und wir sind mit dem Testen und Reparieren ;-) der Site beschäftigt, aber in ein paar Monaten soll Schoener Essen viele Blogs aus dem Foodbereich zusammenbringen und euch mit den Rezepten der besten Food Websites versorgen.

Schaut es euch doch einmal über die Feiertage an, wir sind dankbar für jedes Feedback. Alle kochbegeisterten Foodies sollten natürlich auf jeden Fall die Site im Auge behalten.

Habt ein wunderbares Weihnachtsfest und einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr. Euer sixgroups Team

Andy, Jo, Jan, Helge und Philipp

Register with Facebook Connect

With Facebook we have added THE social network to our list of identity providers:

fbconnect

Enjoy here.

Server downtime

One of our database servers had a physical defect which caused temporary downtime yesterday and today. We apologize for inconveniences.

Thoughts…

Co-founder Johannes Schmidt published some thoughts on a Topic Mappish LAMP stack.

Speeding up Performance

By upgrading our database servers and finally switching to a master-slave setup we further optimized the performance of our site.
This led to a speed increase with up to 3 times faster query-responses resulting in a smoother browsing experience for our users.

Further upgrades will follow the next days.

Enjoy your faster sixgroups.com!

The Social Media Revolution

See this dense collection of facts why social media is a true media revolution. The video is inspired by the well known and truly eye opening  “Did you know” , which you have to watch too, if you haven’t seen it yet.

A quick sumup of key points if you’re lazy:

  • 1 of 8couples in the US meet via social media
  • Facebook added 100 Million new users in 9 months, it took radio 38years to reach that audience
  • If Facebook was a country, it would be the worlds 4th largest
  • Ashton Kutcher has more followers on Twitter than the entire population of Ireland, or Norway
  • 25% of search results for the world’s largest brands are links to user generated content
  • We no longer search for news or products, they find us through social media
  • More than 1.5 billion items are shared on Facebook – per day!
  • ‘Its a people driven economy’ – stupid (Erik Qulaman, 2009)
  • The new paradigm: “Listening first, selling second”

Why lost chats and public messages are present again

The recovery was successful, data is present again. Thanks for your appreciation.

Die Datenwiederherstellung war erfolgreich, ihr solltet jetzt wieder alles sehen. Danke für euer Verständnis.

How social media can make history

Clay Shirkey about the new communication paradigms generated by digital communication & social media – brilliant.

Shirkey manages to picture and explain the impact of the internet on our social structures in easy words and with compelling examples.

“Internet is the first platform that allows both group-building/management & conversation”.

“Media that is good at creating conversations (e.g. phone) is no good at creating groups, media that’s good at creating groups (movies…) is no good at creating conversations. The internet is the first medium that has native support for groups and conversations at the same time (many to many pattern)”.

“The Internet also becomes the main carrier for ALL other media!”
Never thought about it like this before but it makes complete sense. The Internet is also a meta medium.

We kall now consumers become producers now, but I like Clay’s analogy on this one:
“It is as if you bought a book, they threw in the printing press for free”.

Using the last big Chinese earthquake as an example, he demonstrates why in a new media landscape, where the news is not only produced by so called “professionals” it will become increasingly difficult for countries to censor the Internet. “Media is produced locally, quickly, by amateurs and at an incredible abundance” which makes it practically uncontrollabel.

Times of classic  sender and receiver models are over, we are increasingly in an environment where media is global, social, ubiquitous and cheap.

“Convene your supportters, dont control them”
Never try to hide conversation, e.g. delete negative replies. They happen whether you like it or not. So deal with them appropriately.

“Media is less sending a message to an individuum, but about creating an environment for convening and supporting groups.”
Well, I guess that sums it up nicely. I couldn’t agree more

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Social Media is like teen sex…

“Social media is like teen sex. Everybody wants to do it. Nobody knows how. When it’s finally done there is surprise it’s not better”

Avinash Kaushik, Analytics Evangelist, Google

This presentation I just found explains why you SHOULD care about social media:

Contact us for advice on how to incorporate social technologies into your company