The Rise of Contextual Social Networks
Social networks rise and fall as people try to find a site that satisfies their social needs, and the “one-size fits all” networks may no longer hold the value that they did when you first signed up. Are hourly updates from a childhood friend you're long out of touch with actually relevant? Do you want to share personal updates with your co-workers? People are feeling overwhelmed by the amount of information they are being inundated with and are looking for truly social experiences that enable them to make meaningful connections with the people and communities that matter to them. Contextual social networks are giving people the experiences and relationships that originally drew them to social networks: having a private online network catered to shared interests. Is this a new era of social networks? This diverse panel of social networks share how contextual platforms foster meaningful interactions based on real relationships, shared interests, activities and even around neighborhoods.
Presenters
Colleen Taylor is based in San Francisco where she is a reporter for TechCrunch and TechCrunch TV.
Previously she worked as a reporter for GigaOM, the Financial Times’ Mergermarket newswire, and the semiconductor industry newsletter Electronic News.
Nate Johnson is the Vice President of Marketing of Path, where he oversees marketing, public relations, and customer service. Prior to joining Path, Nate was the first consumer marketer at LinkedIn, a product marketer for Google Maps and Google Earth, and ran university student marketing for Apple. Nate received a BA from Middlebury College and a MBA from the University of Michigan. When he’s not at work, you can find him smoking brisket and pulled pork in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Sarah is Co-Founder and Vice President of Marketing at Nextdoor.com. Prior to Nextdoor, Sarah worked at Benchmark as an Entrepreneur in Residence. Sarah also previously served as Vice President of Marketing at Shopping.com, where she led the effort to create, brand and launch Shopping.com following the Epinions-DealTime merger. Before Epinions, Sarah worked as an associate at Greylock Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm. She started her career at Microsoft, where she spent nearly five years as a product manager on the teams that launched Office 4.0, Office 95 and Office 97. Sarah graduated with a BA and a MBA from Harvard University.
Saturday, March 9
