Social Networks: Now For Products!

New consumer devices coming onto the market are including social media features built in.

There is the Flip, which as a pocket sized camcorder, can output video directly to You Tube or formatted for email.  We used the Flip to produce a short video clip for our recent webinar on social media. If you haven’t seen it, make sure to check it out here.

Now, Crunchgear is reporting on the Fujifilm Z20fd, a 10 megapixel point and shoot camera which has the same social features.  Fuji went a step further and partnered with Ning.com to create a social network around their device itself. The site, called ZSpotNow, just launched and already has a few hundred members.

ZSpotNow is based on Ning’s social media platform and has support for media sharing photos and videos, as well as forums and personal blog pages. Events across the country are being scheduled through the site, and members are being encouraged to bring their Z20’s to capture the excitement.

While this foray into social networking isn’t groundbreaking from a technology standpoint, I do find it interesting that a product like a camera is being used to drive membership on a social site. What would be even more interesting? What if the Z20fd outputted its pics and video directly to this site, rather than asking users to repost those photos and videos there manually. You Tube seems like the default place for content from these new devices to go, but Fuji should consider a direct to ZSpot option as well.

What do you think about these new breed of products with social features built in? Sound off in our comments section!

written at July 17th, 2008 and is filed under Internet Video, Social Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.