Mediaboss Marketing

In 1996, when the internet was in its infancy, Brett Brewer and a couple of college buddies decided to start a company from their pad in Manhattan Beach.

What became Intermix Mediawhich would later give birth to the original social network, Myspaceinitially started off as an ecommerce business called Entertainment Universe that sold movies, music and games. It took 18 months for Brewer and his partners to get the venture off the ground and raise any sort of capital; by April 1999, the company went public, just before the dot-com bubble burst.

What [the dot-com bubble] did, interestingly, is it took most of the well-funded competitors that were losing tons of money and it either put them out of business immediately or put them out of business slowly, Brewer told Minnie Ingersoll on this weeks episode of the LA Venture podcast. We had so little capital anyway; we always had to look at it like, We actually need to make money.

In 2000, with the dot-com scene in pieces, Brewer and his partners sold off the ecommerce site and began experimenting with low-cost content sites. As well as early forays into online dating and an embrace of performance-based advertising, Intermix also began experimenting with social networking with the help of employeesand soon-to-be Myspace foundersTom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe.

I feel like it was yesterday, Brewer recalled. [Anderson and DeWolfe] came up with a bunch of good ideas we whiteboarded out. And one of them was to build what we thought would be a version of Friendster except way cooler, and way more control for the user.

The rest was history. Myspace became an early social media behemoth, initially going toe-to-toe with Facebook and luring more than 100 million users; Brewer recalled that the average user would visit the site six-to-eight times a day and view anywhere from 10-to-15 pages. Intermix and Myspace were eventually sold to Rupert Murdochs News Corp. for $580 million in 2005.

It really was a roller coaster ride that ended on a high note, Brewer noted. I was very happy for Los Angeles. I was very happy for everyone that works in Intermix. We had a lot of amazing people over all those years, put blood, sweat and tears into the entity and had that kind of happy conclusion.

In his post-entrepreneur life, Brewer entered the world of venture capital investing and launched Santa Monica VC firm Crosscut Ventures. Outside of work, he has a particular passion for education; in the wake of the pandemic, Brewer launched LA Tech Cares, which provides underserved students with tech and academic resources as well as mental health services.

I've always been a believer in education and this concept that equality in education is a must, he said. I think it's sort of the number one thing that, as a society, we need to be delivering.

Hear the full episode by clicking on the playhead above, and listen to LA Venture on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

dot.LA Engagement Fellow Joshua Letona contributed to this post.

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

Read more here:
Crosscut's Brett Brewer on Starting Intermix Media and Myspace - dot.LA

For many people in the biopharma and biotech industry, the thought of career networking makes them uneasy. Some dismiss it as a superficial practice better suited to the corporate world. Others simply feel theyre too antisocial and awkward to be out shaking hands and looking for new jobs.

Theres a science to networking as well, though. If youre trying to meet professional connections, then you need to reframe the way you think of networking. Stop viewing networking as a transactional process and see it as a way of building and maintaining professional relationships.

Even if you arent looking for a new role in biopharma right now, nurturing relationships will only benefit your current role and career.

Why You Should Network

Networking is the best (and only) way to access the hidden job market. According to statistics compiled by Finances Online, awhopping 70% of jobs are never advertised to the public. Why? In every industry, including biopharma, managers prefer to hire people that have been recommended to them by colleagues. 85% of all jobs are filled thanks to networking. In other words: networking is crucial for advancing your career.To help you start making those vital connections, here are four easy ways to build your networking skills.

Four Key Tips To Networking in Biopharma

Make the most of industry events.

The biotech and biopharma world may have more conferences than any other industry. Think of how many symposiums, product releases and summits take place in biopharma every year. If youve attended even just a handful of them, then youll know they almost always have networking events in the evening.

It can be tempting to skip these events after a long day. If youre looking to meet more connections, though: dont. What might seem like a superficial hour of shaking hands and small talk could lead to making key connections for your future.

After all, everyone is there to relax and unwind. It could be your chance to meet with people outside a professional setting. Bring your business cards and be ready to talk about yourself. You may end up with the beginning of a very beneficial relationship.

Build relationships, not transactions.

That brings us to your most important takeaway: when youre networking, focus on building relationships, not making transactions.

Many people see networking as a one-shot process: ask about a job, find out about a job, apply to the job, the end. Its much more complicated than that.

New connections wont necessarily have a job just waiting for you. However, like you, theyre looking to meet like-minded people who can help them in their line of work. Youre both looking to find people you can trust, and who also benefit from a connection with you for years to come.

The first time you meet someone, your focus needs to be on beginning a trustworthy relationship. Once you do that, leads to new jobs and other connections will gradually follow.

Be proactive on Linkedin and social media.

Your social media footprint can be your most valuable tool for growing new connections. Especially once youve met someone and want an unobtrusive way of keeping in touch. Of all social media platforms, LinkedIn is one of the best for professional networking.

Its likely that you already have a LinkedIn profile. Now is the time to make the most of it. Post articles that will be of interest to people in your industry every few days. Join relevant LinkedIn groups and be active in them. It goes without saying that your personal profile should be up to date. If you have any work thats been published online, make sure you link to it as well.

Other social media platforms can be very useful as well. Twitter can be used to find useful industry news, and to find more industry connections. Even Facebook, Instagram and TikTok can help you network. Just be sure to use them in a professional manner and leave your personal life offline.

If you havent done so already, include your LinkedIn URL on your business cards.

Nurture and grow your connections.

It bears repeating: networking isnt a quick transaction, its a long and sustained relationship. Like all relationships, you need to nurture and grow a connection youve made while networking.

Ideally, a successful first connection ends with an exchange of business cards, or by following each other on LinkedIn (exactly why social media can be so important). Think of that as planting the seed of a new business relationship. A seed will never grow unless it receives water and sunlight. Neither will a new connection if you forget to nurture it as well.

Within 24 hours of making a connection, send a quick follow-up note. Say it was great to meet them, briefly touch on the things you spoke about, and then tell them you hope to speak more in the future.

After that, make sure you actually do stay in touch. Engage with any content they post on LinkedIn. Share articles that you think they may find of interest. If you find out theyre going to be at the same upcoming event as you, make plans to meet up.

Above all, have patience and allow things to grow organically. Never try to force the connection to be more than it should. You should also accept that some business leads will end up going nowhere. Others may lie stagnant for a while before becoming active again. Networking can be unpredictable, but every connection could lead to a new role for you.

It's true that networking can push some biopharma professionals out of their comfort zone. If this is you, you just need to revisit the way you look at the networking process. Once you realize that networking is about building and growing a mutually beneficial relationship, youll find it easier to make more professional connections. Best of all, youll be able to find links to jobs you never knew about, and build the biopharma career youve always wanted.

Continue reading here:
It's Who You Know: a Guide to Networking in the Life Science Industry - BioSpace

When you're considering creating a new account for a website, chances are you'll be given an option to use your existing Facebook, Google or other account as a sign-in. This method is commonly known as single sign-on (SSO). Facebook and Google connectivity are the most common offers but some services add Apple, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts as well.

The question is, should you use one of those existing accounts to log in to this new website, or go to the trouble of creating a new account with your email address?

The single sign-on method can get you signed up for a new service really quickly. However, it does give you less control over what information is shared when the account is activated. Your social media credentials will likely share things like your email address, name, and profile photo to the app, and it may be able to access more personal details like your birthdate and phone number. What does or doesn't get shared ultimately comes down to the policies of both the preexisting account, and the one being signed up for. The app should also provide text making clear what is shared during the signup process.

To iron out all the details, we've enlisted the help of cybersecurity experts Paul Bischoff and Dan Fritcher to give insight on how this SSO technology works. We'll also outline how Google, Facebook, Apple, and Twitter handle third parties accessing your data through them.

The main selling point of SSO is simply saved time and convenience. It skips the lengthy registration process of filling out forms and fields, since that information can likely be pulled from your social media account. It also cuts down on the hassle that comes with keeping track of usernames and passwords, and which ones match up with which. After the umpteenth account registration, that can seem like a nearly impossible task. Your preexisting account acts as a key that can be used to access a wide variety of services. While the third party is able to collect data from this transaction, they will not be able to see your social media password.

"Overall, signing up with a social login isn't necessarily more or less secure than just signing up with an email and password," says Paul Bischoff, privacy specialist for Comparitech, via email. "Smaller apps and websites probably have less security than big social networks, so foregoing handing over a password and email address in favor of a social login could be a safer option. That being said, developers have been known to abuse social login data as well (see: Cambridge Analytica)."

Some apps can also use a linked account to import useful files. For instance, Dropbox allows photos to be directly imported from Facebook to cloud storage. Productivity suites like Zoom and Slack can also be synced with Google calendar. However, you don't necessarily have to use single sign-on to take advantage of these functions.

The disadvantages of SSO all come down to personal preferences and security. This method limits the choice of what gets shared during registration. As mentioned earlier, the app may be allowed to scrape names, photos and contact info, although you may have entered many of those things during signup, regardless of which method you use. In some cases, the new app gains access to more personal info like your age, location or interests. These details then may be used to serve you personalized ads, or sold to data collection companies.

"Using a social login creates a network of sites that hold a shared identifier on you. That identifier can be used to create a shared advertising profile based on your activity on each of the sites," emails Dan Fritcher, chief technology officer of Sysfi cloud services. "Over time, that profile grows larger and larger. For most people, it won't matter much, but the risk is we have no idea what it will be used for in the future."

Ultimately, you should be aware of what data each account will share and decide whether or not you're comfortable with granting access. For instance, a site that hasn't built up its own trusted reputation may be more likely to take your contact info and sell it to scammers for a quick buck. Trustworthy sites will have accessible documentation charting out what data they collect, and exactly how it's intended to be used, commonly known as a privacy policy.

SSO may also present more cybersecurity risks than regular registration. If a hacker is able to get hold of your social media login through phishing or a password leak, then they could also have free reign over other accounts you registered using that info. The account may also be locked, blocking access to sites that used single sign-on. Furthermore, If Facebook or Google experiences a service outage, that can temporarily crash that service's SSO function across the board.

With that said, here's a look at the data sharing policies of the companies most likely to offer SSO.

Like other services, Facebook will provide your name, email address, and profile photo when a single sign-on is initiated. However, Facebook can also give the third party access to information it labels under the "public profile" umbrella. This essentially covers anything that is made available on your profile page, including more personal details like your age, gender, birthdate, relationship status, family details, hobbies and devices used. It may even serve up things such as your hometown, work and education history, religion and political leanings.

The data that Facebook collects is extensive, and it's more than willing to share that data with third parties, as recent scandals and lawsuits have shown. However, some of this info can be flagged as non-public using Facebook's privacy options.

At a minimum, Google will share your name, email address and profile photo with the third party during single sign-on. Some apps may also attempt to retrieve files, photos, messages, or calendar events stored on your Google Drive. However, they will have to specifically request those permissions to be granted access.

Apps registered through Twitter will be granted read access, which includes screen name, profile photo, bio, general location, preferred language and time zone. The app can also see all your tweet analytics, as well as follower, mute and block lists. On the other hand, Twitter does not share your email address during sign-on, unless specifically requested.

Apple's SSO process is unique compared to others. When the registry is initiated, name and email are shared with the third-party app. However, users have the option of editing their name before it's sent. They can also choose to hide their email address, at which point Apple will generate a dummy address which automatically forwards back to your account. Forwarding can also be turned off in the future to prevent spam, if needed. Two factor authentication is also a requirement to sign in with Apple. The company says it doesn't collect any data about your interaction with the app.

If you plan on using single sign-on, be aware what info gets carried over. If you are offered a choice of companies, go with the service that will share the least amount of data. Based on what information is shared, and what users have control over, Apple appears to be one of the best services to use when it comes to SSO. You can create an Apple account even if you don't have any Apple devices.

Or you could opt for Twitter as Bischoff prefers. "Compared to other networks where I store a lot of private information and data, almost everything related to my Twitter account is public, so there's not much more data an app can glean from you logging in with Twitter," he says. However, not every app will have every sign-on option available.

You should also beef up your social media security by enabling two factor authentication, which generates a temporary passcode to be sent to your personal email or phone number. This is one of the quickest and most effective methods to prevent unwanted online access, and it will have the added benefit of protecting your single sign-on accounts as well. The most secure practice is to create unique passwords for every service you use, and an encrypted password manager will be useful in keeping track of all of them.

More here:
Should You Use Facebook or Google to Log In to Other Sites? - HowStuffWorks

Aemi founders Hieu Nguyen and Kim Vu

Social commerce sellers can be as small as one person selling products to their followers on social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook. Many dont have a web storefront and instead rely on private messages to take orders and payments.

This might not seem like enough to move significant amounts of product, but in many Southeast Asian markets, social commerce sellers are making up an increasingly large portion of e-commerce. In fact,according to a recent Bain report, social commerce accounted for 65% of Vietnams $22 billion online retail economy last year.

Despite their combined retailing power, many social commerce sellers cannot buy in bulk directly from brands. Instead, they rely on wholesale aggregators, but that means they may not be able to trace the provenance of their products, said Aemi co-founder and CEO Kim Vu.

Aemi was created with CTO Hieu Nguyen to help solve social commerce sellers supply chain issues. By working with hundreds of social commerce sellers, it is able to buy directly from brands. Because Aemi works with hundreds of sellers, it has the purchasing power to negotiate lower wholesale prices than individual sellers, while at the same time guaranteeing the provenance of products.

Currently focused on beauty and wellness, the startups ultimate goal is to expand into more verticals and create a suite of backend software that will help sellers manage inventory, ordering and payment.

The startup has raised $2 million in funding from Alpha JWC Ventures and January Capital, with participation from Venturra Discovery, FEBE Ventures and angel investors. The funding is being used for hiring, especially for product engineers to build software for Aemis micro-merchants.

The social commerce sellers Aemi works with are typically micro-influencers, with follower counts of about 10,000 to 30,000. Vu told TechCrunch one of the reasons she wanted to start Aemi was because shes a social commerce enthusiast.

I love buying on social commerce, Facebook stores, Instagram shops and the like, because I trust the person, so I trust that they have done a really good job at breaking down the products and reviews from a content perspective, said Vu. At the same time, when she had questions about a products authenticity and source, she found that many sellers could not assure the products were genuine because they didnt have the selling volume to develop a close relationship with brands and instead relied on wholesale aggregators.

I see a huge demand from a consumer standpoint, but also from a supply perspective, said Vu. Not too much effort has been put into growing supply chain support for this sector.

Before founding Aemi, Vu spent six years as a management consultant for Bain, where she specialized in retail. This included working with global brands to grow their distribution in emerging markets. She found that they approached branding and distribution in a very traditional way, missing the growing dominance of social commerce.

A lot of effort is being put into high visibility, like physical stores, but people have a growing affinity for buying social commerce, buying items online and getting it delivered to their house, Vu said. From a supply chain perspective, not too much has been built in.

As a result, many social commerce sellers not only have unreliable supply chains but also dont have the software and marketing support they need to build their businesses.

Aemi also offers marketing support, which means helping sellers create memorable content. Many have created a niche for themselves by recommending certain types of products, like skincare or beauty products, but dont have the social networking clout to gain brand partnerships. Aemi helps by providing professional product photos, product descriptions and information to sellers. It is also planning to build software, like drag-and-drop storefronts, that will help sellers manage sales and inventory across multiple social media platforms.

The people that we are catering towards are what would be classified by brands as long tail distribution, said Vu, but they make up the majority of volume on social commerce in Vietnam.

Read this article:
Aemi eases the challenges of social commerce in Vietnam - TechCrunch

In the wake of a chaotic Brexit and an ongoing pandemic, farmers in the UK are experiencing high levels of isolation and loneliness. A poll in Farmers Guardian found that 94% of UK farmers felt this isolation was harming their mental health.

In research funded by the British Academy, we looked at how farmers engage with social media to understand whether it can help overcome isolation. To do this, we analysed 5,000 tweets by farmers and interviewed 25 farmers who use social media.

Our findings showed that social media provides farmers with a way of connecting to others and reaffirming positivity about their identity as a farmer. For example, the hashtag #Farming365 started life as an annual social media event to bring farmers together online. Now, its become a way for farmers to share their everyday lives online all year round to show that farming requires constant commitment.

Given the long hours spent in remote locations and the number of social events in the farming calendar cancelled thanks to the pandemic, this sense of positivity is crucial to prevent plummeting job satisfaction or even a mass exodus of farmers from their jobs. So anything that can be done to increase it could be worthwhile.

Social media especially Facebook and Twitter can help farmers learn about new technologies, equipment and practices. And information shared on social media can offer immediate answers to farming questions ranging from upcoming weather forecasts to fixing farm machinery.

Read more: From field to store to plate, our farmers are increasingly worried about climate change

But farmers social media use goes beyond simple information gathering. We found that Twitter is often used by farmers as a diary to map out farm work as it progresses, using photos and videos.

As farming is shaped by annual rhythms, its common for farmers to reflect on their decisions in relation to previous seasons for example, by comparing pictures of their current crops with last years. Documenting farming online allows farmers to receive empathy and encouragement in real time.

Farmers also use social media to interact with the public. In particular, many advertise their skills and products such as meat and vegetables through sharing stories about the journey from field to fork.

Farming vloggers such as Tom Pemberton have even found an alternative stream of income by making YouTube videos discussing their everyday struggles and achievements. As part of the online event #farm24 run by Farmers Guardian and supermarket Morrisons, Tom shares with viewers the typical tasks he accomplishes in a days farming: including milking, calf-rearing and running the familys farm shop.

Alongside marketing benefits, our findings suggest that social media is an important way for farmers to respond to news items and farming debates. One farmer we interviewed commented that social media offers a chance to give our side of the story.

Read more: Ukraine: how the global fertiliser shortage is going to affect food

This might involve revealing unseen aspects of farming to the public, such as routine activities like milking which take place inside farm buildings during the early morning and late night. We found that receiving positive responses to these posts, particularly during the pandemic, helped to boost farmers sense of pride in their work.

On the flipside, negativity was commonly reported by farmers on social media: especially around issues of animal welfare, gender and environmental issues. Our research found that this potential for criticism meant social media posts are often heavily curated and stylised.

This can lead other farmers to feel that such posts give a rose-tinted view of farming, masking some of the harsher truths of the occupation such as animal death and disease. Such a bias towards positivity can be detrimental to farmers wellbeing, with one commenting that it makes you feel that everyone is doing a better job than you.

Social media cannot replace face-to-face contact or in-person networking opportunities, both from a personal and professional perspective. But online platforms can play a big part in bridging the gap between rural and urban communities, offering avenues for support beyond ones immediate farming network, and helping farmers work together with the public to build a more sustainable food system.

Read the original post:
Farmers are finding a new following on social media our research suggests it could help with isolation - The Conversation