Ethan Kaplan, the director of technology for Warner Bros Records gave a lecture at University of California Santa Barbara and came to realize some interesting things –

1. About 1/3 had a MySpace profile.
2. Roughly 90% had FaceBook profiles.
3. Five people, all guys had heard of digg
4. No one had heard of BoingBoing, Delcious, memorandum or NewsVine.
5. About 15 had the Arctic Monkeys CD. None had paid for it
6. Only a few had actually bought music in the last month
7. About 20 had heard about the Sony DRM scandal

One thing which really caught my eye was point #1 and #2. See the difference? Just 33% had a MySpace Profile and 90% had a FaceBook account!

Now that’s the power of exclusivity! You see you need an email with .edu domain to create an account on Facebook whereas anyone can go and create an account on MySpace! Facebook is exclusive (gives an impression) and people just something that makes them feel special.

For the same reason, Orkut is taking over the Indian campuses. People are really going crazy over it and one reason for it is that you need to be invited to join it! And that gives you an elitist feeling. Even I keep in touch with all of my friends in the IITs and elsewhere in other institutions via Orkut.

Lesson for the day : Don’t underestimate the power of making people feel that they are a member of an exclusive club. Everyone likes to feel special.

Via: Scobleizer