For this new edition of Tech Talk we invited Eduardo Manchon, cofounder of Panoramio, in a session that was moderated by Chris Csikszentmihalyi, Dolors Reig and Llorenç Valverde.

Most of the discussion was about the elements of success in social networks. The debate was especially engaging due to the different views of the participants. According to Eduardo, if you want to build a community that generates content with value, we have to focus in a specific aim, that needs to be addressed to the community properly. A different opinion was showed by Dolors Reig, who pointed out that the success of ideas like Panoramio are based on covering gaps on the needs of users, but also that nowadays the decrease in the participation in social networks needs of another strategies. The question is: Is one clear objective enough to empower communities? Again, according to Eduardo Manchon, there is a need to focus on creators, thogh they may represent just 1 or 2% or the users, and this concrete objective has to be addressed to them, in order to build the critical mass needed by every community.

All of them agreed on the necessity to generate interesting contents, determine social objectives and start “open minded”, meaning in such a flexible way that allows to better fit your community. Also, there was an overall consensus in the idea that in the end is your community who determines the real objectives.

In this line, the conversation moved on few ideas about how to use the capabilities of communities to grow our ideas. El rincón del vago was shown as a good example of it.