The Off Topic Conundrum of Newsgroups

Hopefully I can stay on topic with the topic of going off-topic. I think we’ve all noticed this effect and so we did a little research to look at this common occurence in Social Media channels and here’s what we found. To do this we examined the comment sections of 1,200 blogs that had an average of 5 comments per post and a posting frequency of at least once per week. Then we looked at 1,200 newsgroups and forums across multiple topics (auto’s, knitting, model building, tool and home repair.) We then compared. Continue reading »

2010 Social Media Challenge: Getting Attention

A fundamental rule of economics is that when you create a wealth of one thing, it results in a scarcity of another. Today we have created a wealth of information and a scarcity of attention. I’m not the first, or last, to say that. But looking at some of our research into Social Media across varied industries from pharmaceutical to manufacturing to software, one thing has become apparent as a growing issue – it’s getting hard to get attention on a big scale, now and ever more so into 2010. Continue reading »

What Age Groups Consume the Most Media?

It’s a question we get almost every day from current and prospective clients. Usually it focuses on Social Media, but of late Social Media is getting lumped into “media consumption” as a whole. Let’s put this into perspective. Generationally speaking.We think the question is more appropriately posited as “What media is most popular by age group?” Different age groups consume media in different ways. Understanding this is vital to developing effective communications strategies, advertising or marketing. Continue reading »

How Social Media Will Strengthen Cultures

Before the advent of Social Media, even the Web as a whole, there was argument that Western television was destroying other cultures. Yet the most popular shows in Brazil (still are) are called Telenovela’s made in Brazil, by Brazilians and watched daily by more than 60 million Brazilians – more than ever watched American TV shows produced in the U.S.

Step forward to today. Internet access reaches over a billion people around the world. With the advent of Social Media, we can create content and distribute it globally in just seconds. Never before, in the history of mankind, have we been able to do that. Continue reading »

The Digital Age Vs. The Industrial Age

The industrial age heralded mass-manufacturing and the use of machinery to do so. The printing press revolutionized our thought processes and communications. With the rise of the industrial age the telephone and it’s widespread use, became possible.

At the opening of the industrial age, children were employed to fix machines. Many died. The work week was seven days, pay was horrid. A new social concept came into being – unions. The church also chimed in saying Sunday was a religious day of observance. The 5 day work week came into being, along with the concept of shift work. Huge social change occurred. As the telephone came into being, new social rules around its use evolved over time.

Enter the Digital Age, the advent of the fax machine, the Internet with email…snail mail use plummeted. It was easier and cheaper to use email. The cost of the transaction was put down to almost zero.

We are in a transition phase from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age. Watching this happen and with our ongoing analysis for clients across healthcare, manufacturing, shipping and more, we’ve noted some curious events happening. Here’s some of what we think will change;

Work Hours: The 8 hour white collar day will change, not so much the length of the work day, but the when. Shifts that enable connecting with other time zones (it’s already happening, has been for a while.) It will just become more common.

Work Location: Well, the concept of home office and remote office working is far from new. But it may become more realistic in the future.

Work Social Rules: Workplaces will first deny all access to social technologies. Then they’ll learn how to use those social technologies to their advantage (some already have) but limits will be put on “personal” social tools.

Etiquette: We predict a renaissance in social etiquette. Just as it’s not cool to wear your mobile on your hip, it will be uncool to check your mobile device at dinner functions and cocktail parties while talking to people.

Social rules are changing. A new age of transparency is upon us, but we are in the early stages of change. We’re just beginning to understand these social technologies and barely understanding their implications on our social behaviours. Paul Carr has some good insights.