With all these millions being made from ‘communities’ and ‘user-generated income’ obviously there is a bomb to be made out of a myspace aimed at the business community. Now BT have one http://www.bttradespace.com/. OK I have registered (http://textor.bttradespace.com/). What do I get out of it?
1. A fairly neat way of creating a web site about my company. Actually I already have one of those.
2. I can join a ‘community’ such as software developers or business services. However apart from being listed with other members I don’t seem to be able to commune in any way
3. A forum. I don’t believe it! I have to re-register to use the forum – presumably because they have used a third-part product and haven’t figured out how to integrate it. Given how much money they spent on everything else I would have thought they could work this out.
What is this doing for me exactly?
We have discussed developing something similar ourselves in a particular niche. Investors are keen because ‘community’ and ‘user generated content’ are flavour of the month. However I coudn’t see it then and I don’t see it now. Unlike the average MySpace member who probably thinks it pretty neat to have their own web space (it is), a business looks for business benefits if this is going to take up my valuable time.
This obviously cost BT a lot of money but I don’t see it going very far.
Bob Browning's blog 
Leave a comment