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Delving into the mysteries of the Web for the 10,000th time, I decided to go all out transparent and also help a friend today. You see, all bloggers and social networking fools use essentially the same strategies to get what they write notices. Whether the subject is super informative news or simply some refined spam, the methodologies are the same. So, for this one post, let’s see what it takes to make a story successful.

Real Or The Matrix

I have a real story that a bunch of people should take advantage of. Second Brain is a fantastic startup that for one reason or another got behind the curve. I talked with CEO Lars Teigen about doing a contest to draw attention to the cool site again, as it was a leader some months ago. Lars agreed and he put up one of the best prizes ever offered by a startup - a Macbook Air among other great prizes. Well, contests are not exactly top tier blog news these days, so I went to my friend Pete Cashmore to see if Mashable could run the contest story. Well , it went up and Second Brain got some good users and contestants. The problem is that contests, even those written about on Mashable , are often overshadowed by other news. No big deal, it is just harder to get people the news and requires more time.

The bottom line is, no one stands a better chance of winning something worth a damn than in one of these promotions. So, here we are, Second Brain is getting some cool new users but there are still thousands of people who do not even know about the platform or the prizes. However, the biggest potential loss is to the platform as new users are the ones who make these things go. Several of my good friends and a bunch of our network people have joined Second Brain, but still - many people are missing out on a great opportunity simply due to the climate of blog media this month.

Transparent Gaming

Just for fun, let’s take a ride on the blogosphere’s social networking wheel. Perhaps my friend Lars, lots of contestants and in the end Internet users in search of a home will benefit from what Second Brain has to offer. I will let new users be the beta testers on this one, and I will try and open the door from here. So, let’s look at what we are attempting.

1. Write a story with a catchy title - This title should be something that the average 14 year old Digg user might be attracted to - like implying something about more than one brain.
2. Next we need to have a rather novel and interesting subject that is not too long (oops I always have trouble with this). Digg users and many other social media types do not like to read in the first place. So, we need pictures!
3. We will need a friend to submit this story to Digg and Propeller . (Don’t worry, they know everyone does this and Kevin’s team have made it virtually impossible to game the system any way).
4. Now we will line up all our Digg, Propeller, StumbleUpon and blogging buddies and see if they will like (vote) for the story. This is the hard part as everyone gets tired of voting and voting and voting. It is particularly difficult at Propeller as the interface is so slow that life streams by as you send the story to your "friends" (who often ignore messages).

The Kicker

Sounds rather simple doesn’t it? Well, we can make it as complicated as we want (voting from favorites versus directly and etc. at Digg), but in the end - it is just a crapshoot. Back in the day of the "Top Digger" things were a little more interesting and dynamic. The biggest problem with trying to get noticed these days is that there are so many people trying to get noticed. Social networking sort of looks like a classroom full of kids raising their hands to answer a question from the teacher. Which one do you choose? Another problem with networking is that only about one in ten people ever actually respond to requests or suggestions. I have like 300 "friends" at Propeller, but asking every one of them to look at a story might possibly get 50 votes on a good day. What is a person to do when he/she actually has something of worth to present?

A Final Message

The bottom line is that hopefully a great startup will get some more users and we will have created a win-win scenario. Second Brain is truly a great platform and deserving of some attention. I know this is subjective, but the users there have found great value and this is rather safe ground. As far as this simplification of networking strategy, well - everyone knows this don’t they? Check out Second Brain and perhaps win a great PC - what can be wrong in that?