[Posted on November 28, 2007 - 5:15 PM]
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Pluck Corp. on Wednesday said it would link the startup's mainstream media customers to social networks such as Facebook Inc. and MySpace.com. Pluck CEO Dave Panos says the service allows social network members to make comments on news sites and have those remarks and a link to the article appear on their social network pages. This feature directs the news to those locations online where people are spending increasing amounts of time, he says.I'm unsure how successful this will be for publications trying to remain relevant to the next generation. On one hand, it would be revealing and a good conversation starter to see what your friends are reading and saying about the day's news, but on the other hand I'm unsure how many people on social networks are reading and commenting on the news. As CNet's Caroline McCarthy points out on her blog, people go to Facebook and MySpace.com to socialize rather than consume information.
Earlier this month ABC News announced a partnership with Facebook that allows members to sign up to follow ABC political reporters and engage in private and public conversations with those reporters as they follow the 2008 presidential campaign. Mainstream media obviously can't afford to stand idly by as technology changes, so they were bound to start experimenting with social networks.
Pluck expects to hook its media customers up with Facebook in the early part of next year and by mid-2008 will use the OpenSocial APIs, to connect clients with other networks. The move is a continuation of Pluck's strategy of bringing interactivity and user-generated content to publishing companies. The company launched in 2003 as an idea for using RSS readers and search tools to find things on the Internet. Panos had signed partnership agreements with news organizations to get the tool distributed, but instead they turned to the startup seeking answers to their own problems.
Newspapers and magazines were already online, but they didn't have a clear idea of what to do with the blogosphere and how to make use of the interactivity available on the Web. So in 2005 Pluck refocused on helping mainstream media outlets syndicate blog content -- "co-opting the blogs," as Panos calls it. That led to a series of services that allow newspapers to let readers comment, run individual's blogs as syndicated content, post user-submitted photos and a variety of other features. In short, Pluck's software keeps old media in the game.
"No one would ever start a new media company without including all of these features in their business plan," Panos says.
Pluck's software runs on 200 Web sites, including those of USA Today, The Washington Post and Fox News. The four-year-old company is also branching out into complementary markets by helping retailers and consumer product companies syndicate content and engage users on their Web sites. Panos sees those markets as big growth opportunities for Pluck, with recent clients in those segments including Circuit City Stores Inc. [CC] and Scotts Co. [SMG], a maker of lawn-care products.
Pluck has raised $17 million from firms including Austin Ventures and Mayfield Fund, while Reuters Group plc [RTR] contributing $7 million in 2006 in the company's most recent round of funding. Panos says the company is expanding into two new markets and may seek capital in the future, but it has no immediate plans to raise money. - Stacey Higginbotham
See Nov. 28 press release from Pluck
See Nov. 26 post from The Social
See Nov. 26 story from The New York Times
I think this move makes sense. Facebook and other social online sights are still in their early stages and are constantly and quickly morphing into more and different things. While you say that people are there to see what their social friends are doing, that is just part of what the social media is all about.
I think Pluck could be onto something, but only time will tell how and what Facebook will look like in 5 years. That is decades in Web 2.0 time.