LUGNET - LEGO Community

            “Welcome to LUGNET, International LEGO Users Group Network, global community of LEGO enthusiasts. LUGNET unites LEGO fans worldwide through forums, web pages, and services.” Is the opening line to the website, it is pretty evident that its main purpose is connect passionate LEGO users around the world to help each other in using their LEGOs. The LEGO site is actually a database of their products that allows them to have a more refined search of their products. The difference compared to Facebook would be the target information on it. The amount of information for a particular topic is also a lot more than what would be found on Facebook. The LEGO enthusiasts visit this site because they know what kind of information they are looking for such as for the Disney Lego Forum there is an article about the LEGO Group and Disney Consumer Products announcing a building set that is inspired by the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. Yes, they could post this to their website but think of the amount of room it would take on the site. It is in place that people can read it if they want to and if they don’t they are free to ignore it. People who visit a site like the LEGO site would be LEGO users of course, but not your average youngster kids. It would probably younger adults who have used LEGO products for a long period of time and are very creative. They may also have a particular interest in one of the specific products such as the LEGO sets for Star Wars. They may be a big Star Wars fan and have a connection to LEGOs by that. On the website there was no particular company advertising. If you looked at in a marketer or advertisers perspective the whole site is an advertisement for LEGOs though. They are encouraging you to become a member. Not only to become a member but to also build your own LUGNET website. Something that we found interesting is what LUGNET states when you are deciding whether to become a member or not. “If you get a vast amount of value from LUGNET, then you may feel most comfortable paying a large sum. If you don’t get much value from LUGNET or if you’re a starving artist or student, then you may feel most comfortable simply paying the minimum. It’s up to you.” Most forums are free but LUGNET actually allows you to pay for you becoming a member is you feel that you have received value from visiting the site. They are actually receiving payment for their information. So we think that they could really revenue if they got Disney, Star Wars, and Harry Potter companies to advertise on their website. A business that could use this website is an action movie like Transformers. They could launch LEGO products that are influenced by the show. LEGO users could build the robotic characters in the movie than many of the scenes in the movie. This would go along great with the movie and be a great target for the people who watch it. They could use this community to promote the product launch along with the release of the DVD or if they decide to have a Transformers 4. Whether or not they make another movie it would be a great venture for the Transformers product line because it would be extended and be making more money as well.  It is a win, win for all.

Sermo (team carlos )

The community we chose to write about is sermo.com. The mission is that, “Sermo offers a novel way to target and engage the physicians you care about on-demand using social media. On Sermo you will instantly capture real-world expert insights into treatments, medications and products in support of a broad range of objectives” (sermo.com). When you go to the site it states that this is the largest online network, exclusive to physicians. This site is primarily meant for physicians to share ideas, discuss drugs, medical products and procedures. If I were a physician I would probably find this community to be very helpful, but since I am not there is almost no interest to me. However, by this being a physician only based community; it works because only professionals are creating information for the site.

The main way this community differs from using something such as Facebook, is the simple fact that it is membership only. Not everyone can just go look at the site and decide they want to become a part of the community because they feel like it. When you are on Facebook, anyone can look at your page and it makes it less personal and most times less informative as opposed to using a community. When I tried to sign up for an account on sermo.com just to get a look at the community, it even asked me what my social security number was just as part of the sign up process. Facebook is meant for more of an advertising and reminder standpoint as opposed to an informative standpoint.

Obviously, as stated before, the people that are visiting sermo.com are specialized physicians. While trying to look around the site the only things I could really come across, without becoming a member, was what they offered if you were a part of the community. Some examples would be, discuss by posting comments to share insights and learn from colleagues. Another was to solicit input and help peers on challenging patient cases. They are also paying people to participate in surveys and focus groups.

While looking around the main part of the site that was allowed, the only advertisements I saw where ones promoting the app that the community came up with so you can use your smart phone to stay up to date with the latest on the site. Of course this advertisement is very relevant to the website because it gives another way for the member to stay in touch with what is going on in the community. Other than that, there were no outside advertisements that I could view from the main pages.

I would say that Barnhill Sports Medicine Clinic would be a good company that could use Sermo. They are the clinic that helps out with WTAMU athletes so I have seen a lot of them around. They primarily focus on sports related injuries and I believe have two main physicians that work in this office. One way they could benefit from using this site would be to contact other physicians in their field and learn new ways to diagnose patients and figure out quicker ways of recovery.

Ivillage (Canyon, America)

The purpose of ivillage is to have a place where women to talk and ask questions about a wide range of topics including pregnancy and parenting, home and garden, food, health, entertainment, beauty, and love and sex. The site is easy to navigate and has many pictures and videos. Ivillage has an app so users can connect to ivillage whenever they want. This site is different than other popular sites in that it is exclusive to women only and it touches on topics that are important to them. Ivillage is specialized to the interests of its users, women. All conversations are open and focused not on what users are doing but their ideas and feelings on particular topics. There are more than 30 million users for this site. This site caters to women who are looking for help, wanting to answer questions, or just looking for a friend to chat with about what’s going on in their lives. According to ivillage, their site is for “everyday women… to connect, share advice, find life tools and engage in conversations that matter most to them”. According to quancast.com, the usual users are white women between the age of 18 to 49 and the majority have no kids. The users talk about whatever affects their lives. While on the site, there was a conversation between a few women about whether they were going to cancel their subscription to Netflix or not since the recent commotion with their changed rates. Common advertisements on this site were for fabric softener, make-up, clothing stores and many other products that have women as their target market. The ads for women’s products were relevant because the site is made for women and the advertised products show up often in the conversations being had on the site. It would seem obvious that any product that is made for women would benefit from advertising on this site. Netflix could use the conversation on this site that pertains to them to learn what their customers think of their product, help to curve the conversation to be positive for their image, and for them to better understand their customers.