June 28, 2007

CDW Joins the Social Media Fray

Let's just confess - most of the web sites we go to, are about one way transactions.

YOU read what THEY write. Social media, at least one part of it, is about you being a PART of the conversation. User Generated Content - UGC - is what many call it.

In a new launch, CDW has joined the fray with its new site - cdwconduit. Why did CDW create this site?

"An ëIT department of one' is not at all unusual in small businesses. As such, these isolated IT professionals often miss out on peer networking, which is an important source of education and technical perspective," said CDW Vice President of Marketing Mark Gambill. "Without the informal communication that happens at coffee machines and in lunch rooms at larger companies, small business IT experts have no one to talk to who understands their challenges."

CDWconduIT is quite busy - there's a lot of links and text and an an annoying image of a guy moving around windows. I also think that with so much IT content available, I'm not so sure if there is a compelling need for yet another content site.

On the other hand, I'm sure this new site is a minimal expense for CDW and dollar for dollar it can at least add some value add to their customers and potential customers.

Having a place to share IT stories and read the stories of other IT pros could be something that IT professionals would like to read and share about. One story's here.

So far it's news and views section is full of stories from mainly one source - Tech Republic. Tech Republic is a VERY good site, but I hope CDW expands their selection of story sources.

You can rate stories in a similar fashion to Digg, Netscape and other social news sites.

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