Privacy and safety have always been key issues in social networking, especially when it comes to children. While Facebook’s terms and conditions say that kids under 13 aren’t allowed on the site, no one is going to stop a 12 year old from claiming that she was born a year earlier. To make things easier for parents and provide a place for 8-13 year olds to connect, Everloop is a site that “creates a privacy loop around kids’ connections.” Below is my interview with Hilary DeCesare, co-founder and CEO of this social network for tweens.

1. What benefits does Everloop provide to tweens that may be too young for Facebook and too old for Club Penguin?

Online, tweens want fun while parents want safety, and Everloop delivers both. With more than 600 million Facebook users across the world, social networking site has changed the way people communicate and share information. Everloop has created a unique age-appropriate social media experience by interconnecting customized micro-social networkscalled “loops”. Loops featured on Everloop include community loops of common interest (art, science, culture, reading, sports, fashion, etc.). Social “looping” was specifically designed to allow tweens to share, communicate, and collaborate discretely with their friends while online.

The site also features creative applications, music, games, videos, photos, animation, user generated content and other integrated online experiences. No other social platform on the market today offers as many real-time communications, content-sharing, and collaboration features designed specifically for tweens.

2. What are some of the things that these kids are most interested in doing in social networks?

We’ve found that kids love sharing content with each other, chatting, playing games, creating groups and using technologies that are similar to those being used by their older siblings and parents.

3. Today’s tweens are growing up surrounded by technology and social media. It’s all very normal to them. What kinds of things do you think they will expect from the websites of the future?

I think kids expect and deserve a lot of the same tools adults use and that’s why we offer many similar features provided by major social networks. Unlike many other tween platforms, we don’t deny them these exciting technologies they’ve become familiar with, we enhance them to become safer and more enriching for younger audiences.

4. What are your thoughts on the gamification of education?

There is definitely a place for play in education and we’re eager to see how social networking can contribute to that intersection of gaming and learning. Since computers entered the classroom, gamification has taken many forms, from spelling, math and typing challenges to geography and more. What we’re now calling “gamification” brings it to another level through social interaction and mobility and it’s a natural way to get kids thinking strategically as they aim to “win” their educational challenge or get the right answer.

5. You offer self-serve tool options for companies, organizations and brands. Are you already working with any schools and brands?

Yes, we have relationships and programs with a leading supplier of digital content for schools and with top brands such as Mad Science and Simon and Schuster.

6. What happens when Everloop tweens get older. Does Everloop grow with them or is Everloop just an in-between social network?

We are working on a tool that enables Everloop tweens that grow with the platform to export and transfer their content and memories to 13+ social networks.

7. How do you keep the wrong people from coming into Everloop?

Everloop has the most comprehensive, safe, and fully COPPA-compliant social network designed and built specifically for tweens age 8-13 in the marketplace today. While competitive social networks such as Imbee, GiantHello, and whatswhat.me offer a subset of these tools, none offers full suite and level of sophistication that Everloop employs.

We approach security from 3 perspectives: Secure Sign Up, Parental Monitoring, and Moderation.

1. Secure Sign Up: We have developed a process where any kid can sign up without parental approval but cannot interact or post to any member. Parents are immediately involved upon sign up.

2. Parental Monitoring: Using our Privacy Panel, parents have the ability to see incoming/outgoing email, friend requests/acceptances, group activity and Evercredit purchases.

3. Moderation: Everloop applies a 3-prong-approach to moderation, including 1) Everloop uses the Crisp NetModerator U13 moderation and profiling system for social environments. Crisp Thinking is the world’s leading expert on child safety online and designer of NetModerator and provides world class automated moderation technology for posts, groups, IM Chat, email and SMS. 2) an internally developed UGC/Messaging human moderation tool. 3) empowers kids to identify communication that does not feel right or even un-friending members.

8. What can parents do to protect their kids online while also encouraging them to connect with friends?

Outside of Everloop, parents should educate themselves on the risks involved in adding their children on Facebook. It’s illegal for a reason. Parents should also be aware of COPPA-compliance and seek platforms that adhere to those safeguards to maintain secure Web experiences for their kids. Parents don’t have to deny their kids Internet use, they just need to monitor and participate in their activities to ensure that they’re learning how to be good netizens.

On Everloop, parents control and set their Privacy Panel to monitor their child’s activities and are alerted of actions through email, SMS/text message, or on their Privacy Panel’s dashboard.

9. Bonus: Any advice for future entrepreneurs?

As with any endeavor, it’s essential to build a product or company that fills a void and provides vital resources for an underserved need. Focus. Live, breath, run your company around specific focus area. Every member of the team needs to all be on the same page or distractions will kill the business.

The “Social Media Exchange” Empire Avenue has been getting a lot of buzz. While I heard about the site last year, people like Jeremiah Owyang, Peter Kim, Scott Monty, Robert Scoble, Caleb Storkey and David Armano have written very interesting thoughts in the past week or so, and the community seems to be thriving like never before.

I was going to write a few fun Empire Avenue predictions (e.g. A “Buy” button that’s like the Facebook “like” button), but instead I decided to ask CEO Duleepa Wijayawardhana (aka Dups) a few questions about the past, present and future of his company. I think you’ll find his answers, including a hint about Foursquare as the next network to be integrated, very interesting!

Follow @dups and make sure to add some “DUPS” and “ESTEBAN” shares to your social portfolio.

1. What do you think about Seth Priebatsch’s prediction about the next decade being the decade of games and the “Game Layer?”

To be honest, I happen to believe that most of what we do in real life reflects the human mind’s love affair with what we call games. In fact, in most cases a game takes aspects of what we do in life, things we can understand, and place finite scores, missions, obstacles and rewards into it and then allow us to “play” it.

What I will agree with is the notion that this decade will be the decade that the mainstream understands the use of games and gaming layers in more than just building crops and shooting enemies. I do believe we are seeing the start of a generation that has grown up with computer games and can see that games can actually teach us about Real Life and, indeed, ourselves and how we affect our environment. It’struly an exciting time in my opinion.

2. There have been a few applications/sites that simulate investing in people, websites and organizations. What do you think is the one thing that positions Empire Avenue for success?

We studied almost every single one of them :). What we realized almost immediately is that stock market sites are based on current stock market models, which, I hate to say, are complex and almost incomprehensible beasts. With Empire Avenue, we actually went backward in time to a simpler market system. We have a system of “Market Makers,” who are algorithmic”people” who analyse your content and engagement, and create share prices every night. People add to or subtract from that share price by buying and selling. In effect we have created a very simple BUY/SELL/Earnings system which is not at all a real stock market — something that has many more Bids and Asks and so on. We admit, it does take a little while to “get it,” but if you start with Buy and Sell and watch your money grow, the game mechanics should lead you in the right direction. We also have a long way to make the whole thing simpler and easier. The one thing that puts us ahead, in my mind, is our team and our community. The team is dedicated, the community equally so, and they have helped us move the site to what it has become.

3. The fact that Empire Avenue helps us measure and create influence has been getting a lot of attention recently. How does the system measure one’s influence?

We don’t like to use the word “influence” any more. Each of our Network Scores really gives you an idea of your “Network Value,” and we’ll expand on the stats that give you an understanding of your network use. (By “Network” I mean, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, etc.). The difference between an algorithmic score and the share price is that the share price takes all your scores and then adds the Buy/Sell mechanic to it, which does indicatesome element of reputation. Naturally, in early days people will buy for games and profit, but the same happens in real life; the difference is thatthat initial buy might lead to a valuable connection.

4. What are the benefits for a brand to join Empire Avenue, and more importantly, are there any risks?

The risks are as with any use of social media by anyone, regardless of whether you’re a brand or otherwise. If you are perceived as having done something bad, you could see a backlash against you. This is nothing new and is certainly one risk. The advantage is, in my mind, two-fold:

a. Depending on your ability to engage with users on Empire Avenue, you might just want to connect and use Empire Avenue to value your network interaction. This one is *easy* and requires little to no effort. In this way Empire Avenue can be seen as a training game for a business within social media. We are, after all, a “meta” social network, which connects to multiple networks including our own.

b. You can engage with users by buying and selling, using our search to find people who could be valuable to your brand (not necessarily the most popular, but the most engaged with your product or interest). For example, a search for Samsung: http://www.empireavenue.com/search/#users/samsung . This opens up a world of possibilities: we could create custom Luxury Items forpurchase and sharing with people, so that your brand name can spread; and certainly you get to speak to your Shareholders. The Shareholding concept is also one you can expand on, by rewarding those users who remain shareholders and more. The potential use of Empire Avenue for a brand, as with any individual, is endless.

5. How did your role at MySQL/Sun help you start EmpireAvenue?

Both my roles at MySQL/Sun and BioWare were essential in starting EmpireAvenue. The experience of building out sites for gamers in the millions is obviously an asset, and working at MySQL interfacing with those that produce the world’s biggest websites – from Google to Facebook – was also something I valued greatly.

However, in truth, the biggest help was in working with all the talented and wonderful people that make up our small, dedicated and incredibly passionate team. Without the team, we would not be here.

6. It seems like Empire Avenue depends on advertising and partnerships to provide “Eaves” for users. How have people responded to this business model?

At the moment, we’re earning revenue from the sale of virtual goods –Luxury Items and Eaves themselves — which is something that a lot of other social startups aren’t able to capitalize upon. So far the “freemium” model has paid off quite well for us, and we have other models we’ll roll out in the future.

7. Do you plan on adding other services to Empire Avenue (i.e. Foursquare, Gowalla, SCVNGR, Color)?

Absolutely. Our immediate goal is to simplify the interface some more, but we built a scalable algorithmic system to support any network or service given a certain number of inputs and parameters. Basically we can implement any network, with specific values assigned to various actions. Our next network is most likely going to be Foursquare, but it’s ultimately driven by what our users are asking for.

8. Will we be able to add multiple accounts in the future (e.g. I use both @SocialNerdia and @SamsungEsteban on Twitter)?

For now we haven’t offered that option, simply because of the complexity of the interface, both for managing but also understanding and connecting. Start simple, complicate life later :) We are now in the market to raise financing for our next round, and with that in hand we’ll be able to growthe product as planned and pursue future opportunities.

Bonus question: Any advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?

Believe in what you build, dream big, don’t give up, get a great team and founders around you, and be passionate. Life is short, so do exactly what you want to do, do it well, and do it with humility and respect for everyone else.

However, most importantly, don’t be afraid of failure; we all fail, but it’s a matter of how you get up when you get knocked down!

As you might have noticed by now, curation is one of those topics that I get excited about. That’s why I was very glad to meet and chat with Steve Rosenbaum, CEO of Magnify and author of the book Curation Nation, in the Samsung Blogger Lounge at SXSW Interactive 2011. We talked about the difference between human and manual curation, as well as the idea of becoming an accidental curator and a few other things.

Check out the video and some photos below.

Marcia Conner is a partner at Altimeter Group and the co-author of “The New Social Learning.” She blogs at http://learnativity.com/ and tweets as @marciamarcia.

The book is a good read for anyone interested in learning more about how companies can leverage social technologies and tools to become, well, better companies. I asked Marcia a few questions to go deeper into some of the topics on the book, and here’s what she kindly had to say.

1. If social learning is truly a competitive advantage, how can companies that are late to the game differentiate and compete?

The competitive advantage doesn’t come from the technologies themselves associated with social learning. It comes from the expertise and perspective your people have today that’s often never shared with anyone or put to use in the organization. Social media tools can provide venues for people to connect in ways they hadn’t before, differentiating an organization by the quality and brainpower of their people who now can build new approaches together that they couldn’t before.

2. In today’s culture of sharing, does it make sense for companies to publicly display real-time information about how they are performing and how consumers are talking about them on the social web?

Customer perception — heck, even employee perspective— has been posted on bulletin boards and user group meetings for years. If you don’t believe that, google your company then read 10 or even 20 pages into the search results to see all of the places where you’re talked about now. The trouble with many of those venues is that they are only from a narrow slice of your customers, often without additional insights from people within your organization who have additional information. By engaging with those people in those spaces… or better yet, creating venues for a healthy conversation about what you are doing right and what you need to improve upon, you are far more likely to learn from people’s experiences and correct misperceptions and give people with alternative (and possible more favorable) views a chance to weigh in too.

3. What is needed to inspire and create change at companies with an “anti-social” culture?

I’ve worked with many organizations who consider themselves anti-social because their work is either solitary or senior leadership is very button up… or because middle-management has instilled a sense of fear in the ranks that talking with one another is grounds for dismissal. Each of these needs to be addressed slightly differently.

In the first situation, find bright spots where people are working together and learning from one another despite their individual paths. Use these as exemplars to find more opportunities to cross-pollinate ideas and build relationships between shifts, in common areas, or across online communities where people can congregate in the little moments between other tasks.

If senior leaders are modeling behavior that doesn’t appear to be social, and yet they are interested in fostering a more socially oriented culture, ask them to demonstrate some of the relationship work they do behind the scenes. Perhaps they are active in a community organization where they show a different side of their personality. Encourage them to participate in online social networks where they can be their introverted selves but in a more open and engaging way. Find ways to help them show a side that is committed to working in different ways.

And in the last situation, where there is a fear-based culture because people in the middle feel social is contradictory to productivity, work with senior management to reiterate the disconnect with the larger vision of a more social culture. Actively eliminate roadblocks in people’s path to work together by publicly changing rules and policies that stymie collaboration—and adopting ways of working that more accurately support people’s natural tendencies to learn from one another. You might not, at first, get the buy in or support of people who have been silenced for a long time but you will get newer hires to work in engaging ways, and that alone has the power to shift culture in less time than forcing people to work in ways they don’t believe will be well received.

 I’ve conducted collaborative culture audits with dozens of organizations and almost all of them at first showed an inclination to distrust anyone overly social or relationship oriented. Over time, with specific steps and activities, often with the assistance of easy to use and mobile social technologies, they each became more mindful of what social really means (interacting to get work done) and saw it as an opportunity rather than something to avoid.

4. From SharePoint and LotusLive to SocialText and SocialCast, enterprise collaboration platforms within the firewall are getting quite advanced. What key elements are important when considering these and which do you think is the leading product today?

Each enterprise collaboration tools you mention has pros and cons, environments where they are better suited than one of their competitors, so it would be shortsighted to say one is the leading product today. Having said that, though, I believe it’s important for organizations to carefully consider their culture, their resources, their objectives, and the gaps they are trying to bridge when making a decision on the right tools for their environment. Are they looking for an on premise solution because they have the people to manage the systems? Would a SaaS implementation free people up to focus on business processes and making strides in workforce productivity? Do workers expect one interface where they can access every type of information flow or will they be comfortable using different tools for different activities? These are the types of questions organizations should consider when discerning what’s best for them.

5. What role do executives have in social learning? Do they only provide direction or should they lead by example?

Executives are learning today socially whether they recognize that or not. They learn from their management teams, from fellow executives in other companies, and from being active members of the world around them. While they provide direction to others, if they don’t demonstrate to those that work with them and for them that learning and relationship-building are important, they can undermine their guidance and miss a critical opportunity for people to learn from them too.

6. There are many monitoring tools out there, but they often lack in engagement, social CRM, and analytics capabilities. Do you think they will expand into these areas or will the industry remain fragmented for a while?

Organizations are often so trapped in their fear that relationship-building is anti-productive that they haven’t even begun to consider some analysis of the payoff from those engagements might prove otherwise. This becomes a chicken and the egg dilemma. Organizations are expecting analytics and useful measures of the gains made by working together… and because that level of monitoring isn’t yet widely available, leaders continue to focus on what they fear will happen. Until social technology vendors, on their own, deliver measurement capabilities (and ways to put those metrics into context that proves meaningful, not just numbers for counting’s sake) and up the conversation about the deep change these tools can create, the industry will remain fragmented and there will always be an err of mystery about the value of these tools.

7. In terms of Social Analytics, what should companies with social presences be measuring?

Organizations using social technology to connect people within their ecosystem should, at the least, measure four things:

1) Initiative (how many people logged in)

2) Persistence (how many people came back, presumably because they found value)

3) Connection (how the network expanded)

4) Technology Transition (fewer documents sent across email, for instance).

These four measures will demonstrate to those needing numbers to perceive value that change is underway. It will also begin to create conversations about the usefulness of legacy practices and the multiplier effects of expanding relationships.

The transparent nature of social media makes it easier to measure what’s going on because it can be observed and tracked. For instance, you can analyze what people are searching for and map what they find. You can analyze not only where people go with their social tools, but also how they get there, how long they stay, and what they do when they are there. Although this does not verify the transfer of knowledge or skills, it is a pretty good indication.

The next level of measurement look at functional outcomes rather than simply asking, “Did they engage?” There is little value to the organization if people don’t apply what they take in—put into practice what they learn and how their decisions have been informed. The best measures go the next step to connect using new skills and knowledge with how they affect measures such as the bottom line.

8. By 2014, aprox half of the workforce will be Millenials. Many such Millenials have grown up with video games like Halo, Counter Strike and World of Warcraft. How can companies introduce gaming mechanisms to encourage collaboration and learning?

Children and animals don’t play because they have free time. They play to move through developmental stages and to learn from one another how to interact and how to grow strong. With that knowledge, organizations can introduce more playful practices — be it pool tables in break rooms or races to see which team can come up with more novel ideas to vexing organizational problems. Video games can be introduced in leadership development, customer service training, and even program bug hunts to extend those practices and connect with young workers who enjoy games. Just don’t convince yourself that video games are required to engage a young workforce. Playful, interesting, meaningful work, where people can learn new things and connect with people around topics that matter to them will retain them for a long time.

9. It seems “immersive environments” like Second Life have lost some of the appeal from some years ago. Why is that?

Social tools these days are getting lighter and more mobile, being used to augment work, not as the activity itself. Many of the virtual immersive environments still require a great deal of processing power and big displays that don’t fit easily in a purse or a pocket. This means that the tools providers are either going to need to create an even more captivating and compelling reason to use their tools—or they are going to need to find ways to miniaturize the experience or find ways to take it with you through projection or augmented environments.

10. Should social learning be led by cross-division teams or should it be ”owned” by a specific division/group?

The idea any group or cross-division team can own social learning is like asking one department to be responsible for organizational health. The only people who can own social learning are the individuals who themselves are learning each day, from one another, based on their work and in the flow of work. One department can set strategy and review tools, and even document and advertise healthy social learning practices, but at the point when they give the impression it is their responsibility to manage the learning, they step back in time to an age when we thought training (or knowledge management, or human capital development, or..) was a discreet set of activities and events that could be turned on and off like a light switch. Rather, learning and collaboration are ongoing actions taken by individuals in concert with one another to produce something greater than anyone alone could create. And that is owned by (and directed by) every individual all of the time. Remove the obstacles in people’s paths to do what is hardwired into their DNA—to learn together to grow strong—and you’ll find it creates healthy organizations where social learning is their lifeblood.

Sarah Austin was one of the first live streaming, life-casters popularized on Justin.TV and she is the founder of Pop17, “a collaborative blogging platform and web show that covers and tracks emerging web trends and tells the stories behind what’s going in social media.”

Sarah and I have a SXSWi 2011 Panel Proposal with Brandon Prebynski, Joel Cheesman, Christopher Kahle and Ryan Paugh. We’d really appreciate your votes and comments at http://bit.ly/howtogetajob by August 27th, 2010.

Listen to this entire 38th episode of “The Social Nerdia Show!” with Sarah Austin on the Flash player below. You can also subscribe on iTunes, stream from your phone on Stitcher, and listen to upcoming shows LIVE on blogtalkradio. Some show highlights and quotes are below. Enjoy!

Brands on Social Media

 ”When brands become a part of the community, it really feels like the brand is like your friend. You really love them, like you would a real person. In social media, they take on attributes of people because there are personalitieis behind the brand making tweets, answering questions, customer service, and establishing relationships with people, connecting with people on their interests, and offering something back to the community.”

“Ford’s really great. I had such a time doing the Ford Fiesta Movement. I got to drive a car around and go on all these adventures. It was also a competition. I got to do interviews with Ford designers. It’s interesting to see them being really progressive. Ford used to not appeal to the Millenial demographic. Ford’s really changed and become hip.”

“Companies like Virgin America are doing a really good job. They appeal to a tech demographic and people in social media really like flying on Virgin America. I was able to meet with them and interview Richard Branson. They are really involved in social media and they value people in tech. They syndicate shows like “Wine Library TV” by Gary Vaynerchuck.”

Facebook and “The Social Network” Movie

“Facebook has taken over the world. They own everything but China and they have all the conversations and connections all over the world.”

“To some people, things aren’t official until it’s on Facebook.”

 ”Movies are starting to document a real movement, a social media revolution, and it’s really hitting the mainstream.”

Foursquare

 ”I use Foursquare and have been using it for a while. I have a lot of friends there. If I want to know where my friends are right now, I’ll get on Foursquare. Facebook Places hasn’t quite reached that with me yet. I’m still on Foursquare and plug that in to Facebook.

” It will be interesting to see how developers use Facebook Places and do something cool with it. I don’t think this means Foursquare is over. I think they have to create more relationships with businesses, maybe small local business, so they can provide value on Facebook and stay on there.”

Live Streaming Platforms and Privacy

“Each of the platform has its advantages. There’s just a lot going on. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out when YouTube starts to get into the picture.”

“These sites are going in different directions so what will make them stand out for the long-run will be withstanding all the legal issues that they’ll have to go through, and making the sites safe and guarding by age, demographics, and region. The content and making these sites as secure as possible will be some of their most valuable developments.”

“I use Justin.TV  and I have a lot of information on there. I’ve had 10 million video views and 27,000 followers there. These are people that have a lot  access and have know me about 5 years. I dont really know the informationa bout the people watching me. Having more peripherals set up and have security on my broadcasts. Privacy is a big issue and whichever of these companies can tackle that will have a huge advantage over the competition.”

Word of Mouth

“Word of mouth is one of the most powerful communication tools because people believe that more than anything else. That is the most convincing element.”

Sarah the Geek

“I’m a geeky filmmaker. That’s what I’ve been doing for 13 years. Anything about film making I love to geek out on.”

Interviewing Others

“I think the secret to a good interview depends on whether you’re trying to get a person’s story or trying to get a story out of them. There’s a web of six degrees of separation… everyone is very accessible and the more people that become accessible it opens a lot of doors. What I really wanted to do is capture a positive angle of growth and success, not only contributing to one personal success but also to what they are doing for their communities.”

“I feel like everybody in social media has something to give back to the community and my way of giving back is providing media, documenting and doing interviews.”

Acting

“I took a theater class once. I did act in an indie film that was about a video blogger, it was a horror film. I dabbled in it a little bit, but nothing serious.”

Alternative Careers

“If I had to do something else, it would be something sporty. I’d like to do something where I’m physically active. This might sound silly, but the career before I was thinking about before before was being a park ranger. I hike a lot. It’s beautiful here.”

Our SXSW 2011 Panel Proposal

“We’ll provide a lot of information about how to get a job using social media and how to leverage social media for your career.” http://bit.ly/votesxsw2011

Brandon Prebynski is an Emerging / Social Media Strategist at FKQ Advertising and Marketing and the host of a live USTREAM show called Web Trends. Brandon is one of the first people I “met” on Twitter; you can follow him @Prebynski.

Brandon and I have a panel proposal with Sarah Austin, Joel Cheesman, Christopher Kahle and Ryan Paugh for SXSW 2011 so please vote for us at http://bit.ly/howtogetajob before August 27th, 2010!

Listen to this entire episode of “The Social Nerdia Show!” with Brandon Prebynski on the Flash player below. You can also subscribe on iTunes, stream from your phone on Stitcher, and listen to upcoming shows LIVE on blogtalkradio.

Brandon recently joined FKQ so I asked him about his new role as a strategist. “It’s been great because within a set of guidelines I’ve been able to shape what the position is,” Brandon told me. He is helping clients create long-term strategies around marketing, customer service and product development.

He’s also been working on tracking, analysis and metrics. “We have this big myth out there that it’s really difficult to measure social media and there are many who say you can’t measure the results especially when it comes back to revenue, and that you can only look at trends over time, but frankly with the correct tools implemented correctly, you can sometimes measure it directly.”

Brandon and I agree that the best place to start is with the business’ goals and objectives in mind. If you’re already measuring simple things like the number of followers and Facebook ‘likes’ and comments, “you need to see how it helps you meet your objectives.”

While measuring the size of your community and the level of engagement within it is good, “if you don’t determine what your objectives and make your roadmap according to it, you’re going to be measuring engagement without knowing what engagement means.”

“Companies right now have to define what engagement is. Avinash (Kaushik) has said this many times: ‘the word engagement is an excuse.’  So what is engagement? It has to come back to your objectives as well. If you have lead generations as your objective and you have 500 leads generated over 3 weeks as your goal, then you could say that a user submitting their email address is engagement.  If you produce an online video and all you want is brand awareness, then a view can be engagement.

The word engagement overlaps a lot of times with conversion. We had x amount of conversions and that can be revenue, but isn’t always creating revenue; it could be someone submitting their email, loading a page, or making a purchase.”

Engagement is important when building community. iI you’re starting to build an audience that didn’t exist, then you can consider engagement the number of times that people communicate with you and each other within the community.”

The size of a community and the engagement within it build on each other, and they often demand a deep understanding of the context in which such connections and conversations occur in order to really understand what is happening and where people are coming from. The fact is that a lot of the tools available today can get expensive despite the fact that they often provide vague information like 90% neutral sentiment on a sentiment analysis and they often can’t even provide information (such as Twitter ReTweets). So we talked about context.

Brandon told me “thinking of context… if I’m driving down the road and I see a billboard that has a political message and I repeat that or if I even think about it in my head, i could compare it to a ReTweet.  Does that mean that I agree with that message? Do we even have the tools to crack that anywhere outside of social media right now? It’s a huge issue that requires a lot of work.”

Brandon and I talked about several other topics including the end of Google Wave, the rumors about Google Me, and his live show Web Trends (which is coming back to USTREAM soon!) so listen to The Social Nerdia Show! for much more.