Challis Hodge’s UXblog

Launched near the end of 2006 as ArtistsOnline, ArtFlock is an online marketplace for people to buy and sell artwork. ArtFlock offers some interesting community features that make sense.

With ArtFlock, users can display or sell their art, and visitors can browse through collections, artists, and events. ArtFlock can be used to sell craftwork as well, such as jewelry. Visitors can rate art without having to be a registered member. Full members can save others’ artwork to their own galleries, much like a favorites list. ArtFlock offers both free and premium accounts for sellers, which differ mainly in the ways an artist can leverage the ArtFlock community to earn more money.

In his post Social Networking Users ≠ Marketing Bait my good friend Matt MacQueen shares some thoughts on Google’s recent purchase of YouTube. He writes:

“Social networking sites are not the place for marketers to be intrusive,” [MacQueen] said. “These communities are there for people to network for the common good, not to be marketing bait. They are not loyal to the social networking site, they are loyal to their friends.”

The attractiveness of YouTube is not that it’s a great place for marketers to serve up ads. YouTube is the marketing tool. The medium is the message.

“The old mass marketing model, which is pushing the message out to a passive group of sheep,” doesn’t work for these sites, MacQueen said. Rather, the marketing, like the interaction among users of the site, needs to be “more one-on-one,” he said.

“It’s user-centered marketing. You have to look at a customer need or problem, and then have the brand give the customer what he wants.”

I think the message here is that my sermons from 10 years ago have finally come to fruition. :) Control has shifted from business to consumer and as such consumers are demanding products and services that meet their specific needs. This isn’t marketing. It’s the cost of entry to offer a product or service in todays markets.

Matt also commented on Helio’s service allowing users to post pictures directly to myspace from their phone.

MacQueen said Helio, a mobile phone company, has the right idea.

“They are offering an experience that is unique. You can publish the photos you take with your phone right on your MySpace page,” he said. “Helio figured out that the social currency on MySpace is through sharing media with other friends.”

MacQueen called this marketing as a service, not pushing a product.

I agree with Matt’s assessment that helio is offering a service though I think it’s a stretch to define it as marketing. In my view marketing the means to an end. The end being a sale or some other desired outcome that provides value to a business or entity. Helio is simply giving consumers what they want and need.

If Helio plays its cards well it may see the day when its most powerful marketing tool is the very customer it serves. If Google’s bet on YouTube is correct, YouTube it may well be the next paradigm in online marketing–anyone for Google VideoSense?

Dan Brown pointed us to Dashboard Spy, a nice resource for folks designing and developing Executive Dashboards and various business Intelligence tools. Quite a collection of screen shots, commentary and links!