CardMarketing 2.0

Interesting article in the New York Times on the weekend. It appears that Cisco, the Silicon Valley networking giant, has the technology assets of Tribe.net, the social networking site, in its sights. This on top of its February acquisition of Five Across, a platform for social networking and communities. Now, why is a company like Cisco so interested in social networking? Hasn't it got bigger fish to fry?

On the contrary. Cisco sees huge potential in the ability to roll out social network functionalities to its numerous clients. "Cisco believes the network is the platform for organizations to connect with their constituents and for individuals to connect with each other," said Dan Scheinman, senior vice president and general manager of the Cisco Media Solutions Group (CMSG). "With the acquisition of Five Across, Cisco is taking an important step towards helping its customers evolve their website experience into something more relevant and valuable to the end-user."

Cisco is especially interested in Five Across's Connect Community Builder, a 'rapid-deploy web publishing platform that enables organizations to promote and monetize user-generated content, including video, photos and audio without compromising overall site performance. For example, media companies can leverage user profile pages and user-generated content pages to build advertising revenue; consumer product and services companies can leverage online communities to build brand awareness and preference; and sports networks can use communities to increase event attendance and build excitement around the sport.'

Cisco's Five Across acquisition and Tribe.net interest are symbolic of the growing emphasis major global companies are placing on social networks and the community features of Web 2.0. In fact, it seems that Cisco's take, in line with that of many Web 2.0 apologists, is that websites alone are slightly passé, and have been superseded by social networks, which are far more alive, interactive, loyalty-breeding... and lucrative.

As discussed in a previous post, leveraging specific social networks, or closed communities, is certainly a huge opportunity for issuers. In their vast databases, card issuers have endless unrealized, unmonetized latent social networks in the form of affinity groups. 5,000 holders of a specific affinity card – a baseball team, say – are perfect for building a social networking site around, and cementing long-term, profitable relationships.

This site isn't just a place where the holders of the baseball card go to print off a statement or make a payment, or get a number to report a lost or stolen card, it's also somewhere they can: download the fixture list; view the profiles of their favourite players; ask questions of the coach in real time (sponsored by the issuer); listen to podcasts of post-game discussions; watch vodcasts of some of the best moments from the most recent game; compete for free tickets and buy tickets for games that are otherwise sold out; vote for the player of the month or season; buy kit and other team paraphernalia at a discount; download screensavers and desktop pictures; design their own cards with images of their favourite players (copyright permitting); upload photos they may have taken for others in the community to see; give their own views on the team's performance or latest signings; chat with other like-minded fans on anything else in various discussion forums; and subscribe to RSS feeds giving them the latest news whenever their team is mentioned on whatever website.

Now there's a site that would boost acquisition rates and improve cardholder retention. The challenge is to satisfy the sheer multiplicity of affinity groups — but it's surely one worth taking up.