Sanjay is heading back to PubCon to speak on a panel about Social Communities. This year the conference will take place April 22-25 in downtown New Orleans–an area hopping with top new media and search marketing professionals. Pubcon is the premier social media and optimization conference and expo. Some of the key players shaping the future of the Web and in particular social media have come to Pubcon over the years to tell their stories and share their visions with attendees.

Sanjay’s session will be on Wednesday April 24th from 4:20 pm to 5:30 pm in Salon C.

This session will focus on identifying and discovering new spokes that support a social hub to help achieve bottom-line goals. Those who want to increase their reach, earned media, influence, traffic and revenue from social can come away with tangible takeaways from this session.

So if you want to learn how to increase revenue on your site then join us there!

“Things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect.”

― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Last summer I took my daughter to Governors’ Island, a small former military island located in New York City. In keeping with her age, fourteen, she promptly lost her iPod. We retraced our steps, asked a few strangers and after an hour gave up. Five months later, we received a message on a social networking site asking her if she was the owner of the iPod and if there was a way it could be returned to us. We were elated, not only to receive the iPod but more importantly that someone had taken the time to find us. Some stranger that wouldn’t benefit in the slightest from this act of kindness.

So, when I read this article in the Sun Times I was profoundly moved. A soldier in the US army named William Kadar served during WWII in France. During that time, Kadar was captured by the Germans and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp where he lost close to 80 pounds. He was liberated in 1945 by General Patton’s army, but somewhere along the way he lost his duffel bag. That could have been the end of the story. After all, we are talking about a duffel bag lost in a different country during wartime 68 years ago!

But unbeknownst to Kadar, a family in France found his bag and had saved it all these years. It probably would have remained in their keeping was it not for the incredible power of message boards. There is a message board on the Internet called Texas Military Forces Museum that has one of the most active subforums for the 36th Infantry, the same division that Kadar served in during the war. Kadar’s granddaughter, who also served in the army, decided to hunt down information about her grandfather’s time in the war. She posted on this message board and much to her surprise was connected with the French family that found his duffel bag.

While an iPod being returned to the user is pretty amazing, all it really required was someone with a degree of honesty looking up the name and taking a few minutes of their time to send a message to us. For Kadar, who risked his life in the war, the return of an item lost during his time of service required people from different countries, spanning over multiple generations, taking the time to locate each other. The most amazing thing is that only on message boards would this really have been possible. Where else would people that served in the same division in the army from almost 70 years ago have a place to connect and talk? So now a granddaughter is reconnected with her family history, a family in France closes a chapter on the war, and a soldier unexpectedly finds himself holding an item lost a lifetime ago — all because a place exists where small niche communities of people can connect.

That is the power of forums.

Crowdgather is pleased to announce the receipt of a Notice of Allowance from the US Patent and Trademark Office for CrowdGather’s patent application No 13/284,799 that contains claims regarding the Company’s invention for systems and methods for targeted advertising. The claims underlying this patent relate to a system for generating targeted advertisement recommendations based upon the social momentum between associated keywords.

This is an exciting development for Crowdgather and we look forward to sharing more in the upcoming months!

As we have discussed before, eMarketer has demonstrated that the audiences on forums are highly valuable. This is true for very obvious reasons:

1. Forum members demonstrate interest in a particular topic every time they log into a forum.
2. Forum members are active members of the Internet and are very vocal. They rate products more than the average Internet user and they tend to influence the purchases of their families and friends.
3. Forum information remains easily searchable, forever. The info you put up about how to fix your iPod, car or dollhouse remains on the forum forever.
4. Forums have high SEO value because of the reasons above.

But the biggest problem with forums is that they have not had a centralized system where, let’s say, a guitar shop owner could target men between the ages of 30 and 45 that are interested in music, electronics and classical music.

So that is where the press release we sent out today is so amazing. CrowdGather has created a system where forum owners can sign up their forum to receive ads in a better monetized system and where small business to large agencies can reach these forums easily. This means for the first time you have access to a self-serve advertising platform made for forums by forum owners.

So breathe easier tonight, if you have been struggling to reach this valuable audience–struggle no more. Now in beta release we invite you to check us out!

www.adisn.com

In 2012, about 18% of the world population use smartphones, compared to 12% in 2010 and 8% in 2008. The market for apps is exploding, and as recent as July 2012 has been estimated at $20 billion. AS more and more people switch to smartphones they have come to expect that they will be able to find a mobile-ready version of your website, and preferably a designated app.

CrowdGather last month launched an app for our largest hosted platform, Yuku.com. The app was created in a partnership with Tapatalk, a company that specializes in forums. We believe that forums should be accessible wherever you are and we are taking steps to create products that are in alignment with that goal. In fact, from our review of Google Analytics, 10-15% of our users were already accessing Yuku via mobile devices.

The release of this app is just the start. We are currently working on an Android version and a completely new, responsive user design for Yuku. Stay tuned!

Download the app!

On July 11th 2012, CrowdGather acquired a very exciting property called, PersonalityCafe.com. Founded in 2008, they are a community that:

“Connects you with like-minded individuals.”

So if you know the ins and outs of being an INFJ or how annoying your ENTP sister is, then you have found your spot! (And don’t worry, if you don’t know what those things are you soon will be conversant and will be exploring the inner workings of your psyche in a positive and fun environment.)

Maybe you are not like us. Maybe when you hear the words “Integrated Forum Ad Server” you don’t go into a state of ecstasy. But this is really one of the greatest things since…well since forums.

So what is an integrated forum ad server? The Business Dictionary describes an ad server as:

Quote:
Computer system which stores, maintains and serves (uploads) advertising banners for one or more websites. Ad servers program, track, and report several statistics about website visitors which are used by advertisers to custom tailor ads and offers to suit different categories of visitors.

If that is not clear what it basically does is connects advertisers to web sites that want to host advertisements. The key function of an ad network is aggregation of ad space supply from publishers and matching it with advertiser demand.

What is unique about the CrowdGather forum ad server is that for the first time advertisers will have a safe, reliable means to reach people in the vertical interest markets of forums. Forums attract niche audiences and up until now it has been difficult to reach these audiences because the majority of forums are too small to show up on the radar of traditional ad networks.

But the value of marketing to forums is really huge. According to Zacks Research, forum users are generally 3.5x more likely to recommend a purchase, 4x more likely to post reviews online, and 3.5x more likely to share new products. Moreover, many forums target very specific niches that can even include specific products, such as Nintendo games and consoles on Nsider2.com.

So the forum ad network that we are developing is:

Quote:
Similar to self-service options available to advertisers on Google or Facebook Ads, marketers will be able to login and upload creative and run banners on specific forums. The result could be higher CPM rates and higher revenues for forum operators. Advertisers will get the benefit of targeted, niche communities filled with enthusiasts, but by connecting all these micro-communities together in vertical interest networks, CrowdGather’s ad server will also provide larger advertisers with much needed scale for their campaigns. In addition to display advertising options, CrowdGather will also offer advertisers the opportunity to market to users via content marketing through sponsored posts.

If that doesn’t get you going we don’t really know what will! This new product lets you reach a highly motivated, previously untapped audience through a flexible and scalable platform!

So stay tuned. We are in beta test now and plan on launching as early as Fall 2012.

Think back to the first time you saw or heard the expression ‘social media’. What came to mind when you first encountered it? My first impression, and one that has stuck, is that it was an online extension of myself: my activities, ideas, friends, and family. Yet recently, I’ve come feel that the ‘social’ part of the term is beginning to feel too organized and somewhat constrained by its role. “Aren’t our relationships actually more chaotic and unpredictable than what ‘social’ permits us to express?” I asked a friend the other day. “Isn’t ‘social’ actually kind of… messy?”

Social is messy but our participation has to some extent made it more utilitarian. ‘Social’ is now a measurable quotient based on your participation online, a profile that influences how you employable you are, your credit-worthiness, your place. As such, it is something that everyone has to consider managing and structuring with an eye to their financial well being.

You could argue that one’s ‘place’ in society has always been currency of some form or another, and that observing each other’s behavior in the digital commons is no different. The difference is that your participation is underwritten by somebody you don’t know who wants to know a lot about your behavior online. This is the tacit agreement all of us has made, the one that’s redefining ‘privacy’ as well: To have a largely unregulated Internet, all its users understand that they will have to be quantified.

Quantifying people’s habits it not inherently asocial, but it could possibly limit this on-going online experiment by encouraging a type of self-censorship—a choice to sanitize your Internet experience for others. And it matters whether ‘social’ is messy or not because the framers of the Constitution recognized that everything about creating a viable democratic society was going to be messy. Their tenure was not marked by general consensus but by bitter division and acquiescence. A system of checks and balances was put in place precisely because the people’s self-interest often trumped any sense of duty to society at large.

All of us have to monitor and manage our online presence as best we can. That’s common sense. What I am asking you to consider as you fashion your ‘social’ profile is to what extent you have steered away from taking a risk with content and what implications that has for how all of us represent ourselves. Can we truly be a democratic society when this generation and the next self-censors as way of remaining viable as a participant in one’s community?

How do I connect my phone to a tripod? Is it worth it to get a smartphone lense? And most importantly, is Tweetdeck really the best social network aggregator?

Pocketables.com answers these and all your other tech questions and is also a space where you can geek out about all things technology on our active forum. Today Crowdgather relaunched the site with a snazzy new layout and also merged three of our other tech sites, GoodandEvo.net, NothingButTablets.com, and StreakSmart.com into Pocketables.

So if you have syncingpostingbuyingrotatinginstalling issues, comments or ideas
with your computer, tablet or smartphone then check us out.

Pocketables.com

Have you had this moment recently? You are on Facebook and you sit there weighing whether or not to post about how annoying your boss is, or to vent about your failed date and then you realize–mom is watching and so is your boss. Randall Stross of the New York Times eloquently stated, “Facebook makes sharing easy — too easy, some would say. Because one’s social network often consists not only of actual friends but also relatives and sort-of friends, along with sort-of friends of their sort-of friends, you need to be careful about what you post. Yes, the site does allow you to define smaller circles of friends, but that requires constantly monitoring what should — and should not — be shared with whom.”

We have a lot to share but as evidenced with the rise of Path, the social network that limits your friends group to 50, people are longing for specialized groups where they can have some freedom to actually speak and share openly about what they feel. Other start-ups in this anti-oversharing crowd include GroupMe, Frenzy, Rally Up, Shizzlr, Huddl and Bubbla.

But, do we need these groups? If we take a step back and look at the social media landscape it is pretty easy to see how forums are already filling this niche. On a forum not only can you find like-minded people but you can find like-minded people that want to discuss specific things–like your bad date last night or how to change the oil in your car or even vent about your boss. And while we caution anyone from putting anything on the Internet that they will regret, forums have provided a space where people can speak freely and not worry about whether or not they are oversharing with too many pictures of their Hackintosh or their beagle or whatever your particular interest.