With God As Their Witness, Entrepreneurs Reveal Ways to Bring Social Networking to the Enterprise
What GodTube.com and Internet dating reveal about building customer communities online.
CIO — Jason Martell likes to give the people what they want. For 15 years he has coded websites, specializing in sites where people gather: AmericanSingles.com; JDate.com, a Jewish singles site; and the site now known as Flux, which is a multimedia blog for the MTV crowd. Social networking before it was called that.
This summer, he found God. Well, GodTube.com. In June, Martell, with cofounder and CEO Chris Wyatt, launched the video-sharing site, which they claim is the largest social network for Christians and the first major one to go real-time.
Wyatt, a former CBS television producer and theology student, and Martell, as GodTube's chief technology officer, want to spread the social networking gospel as well as the holy kind. News or music, dating or spirituality—any company can build an active online community, Martell says, whether the goal is to make a sale or get a man or get an "amen."
The best techniques for attracting visitors and luring them back work across industries: Appeal to people's desire for fame, search to belong and urge to have fun.
"I gained a lot of insight at these places," he says. "These technologies and lines of thinking are being funneled into GodTube." Big Jump Media, Martell's software development company, which provides GodTube with its video-sharing technology, has trademarked terms including "Jesus 2.0" and "Godcaster" for future products and services.
Among the top priorities for CIOs this year are developing new businesses and services on the Web and promoting collaboration and knowledge management internally, according to our latest "State of the CIO" survey. A new business that corralled an average of 3 million unique monthly visitors in its six months in existence—and 19 million page views in December—GodTube is worth studying.
A Sample GodTube Video
"Baby Got Book," one of GodTube's popular videos, parodies a Grammy-winning song.
Drafting Social Network Techniques for GodTube Services
Like YouTube, anyone can post a video at GodTube. There are 50,000 up so far. But unlike YouTube, GodTube vets submissions so they are "safe for families," meaning the videos are free of sex and violence.
And like social networking site Facebook, GodTube gives registered members e-mail, affinity groups, personal profiles, online polls, the ability to link to friends and track their activities and the chance to make public posts on "walls." On GodTube's wall, visitors post text and video asking others to pray or light a virtual candle for a specific reason—the Middle East, a premature baby named Daniel, a quick home sale.
