American Business Media - where's the beef?

by artytosh

A few months back American Business Media (ABM) launched its "B to B social network" on the ning platform. ABM is the official association of business-to-business media and carries a remit to represent and educatie business media organizations in today's very changing media landscape.

For ABM to launch a social network is a good and worthwhile thing - it gives the business media community an opportunity to play with social media tools in a comfortable setting, so to speak, and therefore envisage how these tools could be deployed on their own media brand websites to their own markets. The site is hosted by ning.com - a mostly free social media platform that boasts almost 900 different social networks ranging from people who love parrots to Ethiopians and Occultists (those are two separate sites, not one for Ethiopians who are Occultists).  Anyway, its a general purpose platform that is very much in the style of Facebook.

GOOD

The tools offered in ABM's network are therefore all about networking - set up a profile, connect with 'friends', send public notes to each other, join groups and discuss things in forums. The site currently has just over 300 members as of mid-March 08. The tools are simple and easy to use, and its quick.

BAD

There is no middle to this network - ABM does not seem to have allocated an editorial overseer to start discussions and create debate; the community is expected to do it themselves. News feeds come from outside, but then lhard link to the source news site so there can be no interaction with that content (within the content). Given that it feels like Facebook and lacks the meaty middle a media brand can give to an online community, I am concerned that publishers will see this as the way social media works and assume that is all there is. Also, can we do something about the graphics?