Media Analysis, Research•
on March 8th, 2010•
Perhaps “killing” is an aggressive word, another might be maturation or natural selection. Our nearly three years of researching consumer and citizen behaviour in Social Media has taught us a lot and enabled us to see some interesting trends now that we’ve been at it a while. Chief among them now is how people are deciding the fate of existing and new Social Media apps and services. We suspect 2010 may be a year of attrition and consolidation.
Consumers in the U.S., Canada and England tend to actively (i.e. create content and interact) use only 3 services on a regular basis (more than 4 hours per week.) Other services are used about once every two weeks, on average. This is usually tends to be one Social Network app (i.e. Facebook or Bebo), one time-sensitive app (i.e. Twitter or Instant Messaging) and one video app (i.e. YouTube.)
Other services that fall behind the actively used ones are photo sharing or editing (Flickr, PhotoBucket or PicNik), blogs and Wiki’s.
We can clearly see the economic concept of the Solidarity Value at work in Social Media. As in the more people using a service the more inherent value it gains, socially and economically. Twitter owns the microblog space; Plurk and Identi.ca lost out. Facebook owns the Social Network space, MySpace is on a steady decline and lost that race. Facebook has already acquired FriendFeed in August of 2009.
But what we’re also seeing is an interesting trend towards specialized Social Networking sites; such as for cultures, hobbies or life-interests. This trend is just emerging as far as we’re seeing, but has been trending upwards over the past 6 months. For marketers, we suggest monitoring this trend since people tend to spend the most time on the things that they are most passionate about.Obviously.
As we have an abundance of information and a scarcity of attention, the same goes for Social Media services – people can only spend so much time using any set of services. And now we’re starting to see habits emerge as these channels and services become more commonplace in our daily media consumption lives.
When it comes to age groups and this pattern, it repeats itself. In fact, the younger the age, the more “closed” loop they like their services to be (i.e. txt messaging, IMing and Facebook.) Added to this factor is the increasing “interoperability” between services (i.e. aggregating your activities into one place like Buzz or Facebook.) More on that later.
All of this is pointing to a trend that will see a significant increase in the fight to gain peoples membership in free and freemium services and to keep them there. That will be a tough challenge ahead.
(Author: Giles Crouch)
There’s a lot of nasty behaviour online – understatement of 2010. A tweet from a smart communicator, Lauren, lead me to a post about Richard Dawkins feeling slighted over improper behaviour on his forums. The irony of the subsequent comments on that blog post were rather enjoyable.
We’re facing a complex set of new issues around social rules on the Web; in Social Media channels and other online channels. As humanity, these technology tools give us an ability to express ourselves unlike ever before.
Given all the research we do on Social and Digital Media, behaviour is something we look at regularly. We wade through an immense swampland of comments and discussions daily. And probably 85% of it is junk. Spam, nasty comments that are destructive rather than constructive. Porn spammers and the rest. The problem is, we face a challenge in moderating this behaviour in Cyburbia that we don’t have in the real world.
In the real-world in a group of people gathered for whatever reason, a naysayer or nasty person can be quickly shut down and asked to leave. In forums, newsgroups or blog/newspaper comments, there are moderators or a person can be deleted from a forum (but they can easily re-register.) So there are limits to what can be done effectively in Cyburbia. Then you get to issues like Richard Dawkins’ and the final result is to shut off the channel altogether, then we all suffer. Something that can be avoided in the real world.
We often call this online behaviour “childish”. Perhaps because that is exactly the phase we’re in with Social Media; we’re just finding our “Voice of Humanity” and so much of our behaviour is immature. We haven’t established many social rules yet. The “culture” of the Web is unsettled and as yet not entirely defined. It’s easier too when we can hide behind anonymity in these instances – another issue that will need addressing?
Over time I suspect, we’ll develop rules. Ways to shut out overly negative behaviour. It will take time. So meanwhile it’s just part of the “noise” that we have to learn to self-filter or we all suffer for one rotten apple. Issues like this is part of the reason governments are starting to look more closely at online regulations and legislation.
What do you think? What stage are we at?
(Author: G. Crouch)
Apparently, the Obama administration, who has broken new ground in using the Web for a more transparent and engaged government with citizens, is no longer just “leaving it alone.” This marks a significant shift in U.S. government policy regarding structure and legislation on Internet activity. That may just be a good thing and about time. It certainly marks a point of maturity for the Web and the Internet in the U.S.
Here’s our view on why we think this presents some upsides overall and what it may portend.
1. Necessary Protections: Let’s start with child protection. It’s needed. That is an undeniable fact. Canada and the UK would likely follow suit and we’d have better protection for children. Let’s follow that with the Nigerian 419 scams and all the Phishing attacks, spam-bots and Malware sites. Which will only get worse and threaten an entire economic model that has evolved. This is one of the key areas covered by “Internet Policy 3.0″ by the Obama administration.
2. Social Network Implications: Strikingly, in his statement, Senator Larry Strickling shows that government fully acknowledges the voice of the citizen in this new medium as the Internet (sic. Web) is a social as well as business network. That is a significant point of identification of a medium that shouldn’t be missed.
3. Copyright Protections: As per the Digital Economy Bill going through the UK parliament to provide legal protections on copyright, so the US is making these considerations. People who have worked hard for their content deserve some form of protection. The Creative Commons only goes so far and has not entirely resolved these issues.
The implications are broad and some changes will not be welcomed. No doubt they will change the landscape of the Web around the world. What you may be prosecuted for in one country, may be legal in another. We’ve already seen the impact on the U.S. gambling laws for the Internet; it shut down some foreign operators entirely. Likely we will see “underground” networks proliferate, creating a whole new level of policing pressures on government. More perhaps, than now. But to make open government work, some legislation is necessary. The question is “how much” and I don’t pretend to have that answer. Whoever does is set to make some good money though.
At least the U.S. approach is more moderate and open-minded than places like Italy who jailed Google executives recently. Then there’s the UN’s Internet Governance Forum, which is seeing increased input from donor nation governments, that’s not necessarily bad, or good.
This won’t be easy, for either government or citizens. But the lawless days of the Web are drawing to a close and it will be a new landscape in a few years. I suspect we’ll end up with a more transparent and collaborative government with a more engaged citizenship. The Web has grown up a little this year already. Perhaps now it is a teenager than a rampant two-year old?
(Author: G. Crouch)
Media Analysis, Research•
on February 22nd, 2010•
We’re always doing research into how people are using Social Media, much of it for clients, much of it the result of the research we do for clients. One interesting trend we’ve noted over the past few months – people are turning off the garden hose. We’re learning to filter.
As humanity, we’ve suffered from “filter failure” ever since more books were printed than a human could read in their lifetime. All we’ve done is increase the volume, now more significantly.
When we do research for a client, we always look for the “power user” those engaged more than others. We also look at the Echo Ratio (our own stat based on the Solidarity Value of economics) and applying the Power Law Curve. I’m just stating our process here.
Up until 3 months ago, the average joe user of Social Media (i.e. engaged 5-10 hours per week in social media channels) had 5.4 channels they engaged in (that most often comprised in Canada, UK and USA of a social network, microblog, email, blog and one or two others.)
Over the past 3 months we’ve seen that decline quite significantly, down to an average of 3.25 apps per average user of social media channels.
Are we learning to apply filters? We’re now looking at heavier users. I like the posting recently from David Armano on a similar vein.
What do you think?
We’ve done a fair amount of research into the financial sector in the past year, both Canada and the United States. Most of our data is of course, confidential to the client. But we can speak in “aggregate” terms of our findings. The broad strokes so to speak.
To put it bluntly, there is a lot of anger, frustration and distrust out there. No surprise given the tail end of 2008 and the subsequent spiral into a financial quagmire. Canada may have gotten off a little better, but it still saw a wallop at the banks in terms of consumer mistrust.
There’s lots of chatter going on, as might be expected. We found women tend to discuss bank services more than men (62% female overall) and that the most popular age group for discussion was 30-45. We looked at commentary in online newspapers, newsgroups and forums, blogs, microblogs and some social networking sites. Over 1.7M “conversations” in total across Canada and the U.S.
The topics that ranked the highest for consumer negativity towards the financial sector;
1. Mortgages
2. Fees and service charges
3. customer service
As might be expected, the larger the bank, the more negativity. Smaller, more localized banks in the U.S. had higher consumer sentiment while in Canada it was credit unions that saw the most positive sentiment. People are frustrated. Banks that used “trust” statements in their slogans were hit the worst with re-purposed content turning those slogans back on themselves.
So what does this all mean? As an industry sector, the financial world of businesses has a lot more trust building to do with consumers. It’s no small surprise, but banks and other financial institutions are likely addressing this issue. One wonders how consumer sentiment might be in a year or two from now. The volume of discussion is still rising across multiple social media channels as well. We expect to see a peak by May or June of this year, but that remains to be validated.
Because it’s boring. Email is boring.
But more people use email than Facebook or Twitter. Combined. Every day. Still.
Email spans a wider demographic range than any other social technology application. We’re already seeing (in our own research and others) that age groups are defining social technologies…more on that later.
Email is ridiculously simple and it’s boring. Across many age groups, we’ve mastered email, whether that’s via a Web interface like Gmail or Hotmail or if we have an email client like Mail or Entourage or Thunderbird. Most of us already have our various “groups” that we send stuff to. We don’t think about it, we just “forward”, “reply” or create new, copy/paste or drag/drop and hit “send.” And we’re done. Boring. That’s when social change comes about from a technology; when it becomes boring.
Jody Williams won a nobel peace prize for land mine activism – mostly using email and faxes. Two boring technologies.
The phone eventually enabled the ability to have 911 service, of which a TV show was created. Because it was boring and we all knew how to dial a phone. In the 1930’s phones were pretty much banned in offices.
Facebook is not an email “killer” because it’s still complicated and not boring yet. Same thing with Twitter.
A new social media technology that is now pretty much boring is SMS/txt messaging and perhaps the first instance of txt messaging benefiting society was Haiti – that most of the money raised in the US, Canada and UK was through SMS donations. In the 2005 Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, it was txt messaging that played the key role in gathering people to protest the election results and promoted democracy. It’s getting boring.
So, what do you think? Is email still the number one social technology?
We haven’t really seen significant impact on politics in Canada, the USA or UK yet as a result of Social Media. You might be tempted to say “ah, but Obama used it well.” Yes, he did. But it was campaign stuff, slogans, videos, speeches. We’ve seen some effective use of Twitter in Egypt, Iran and attempts in Belorus.
In Canada the whole “prorogued” issue took off in Social Media and became a meme, and continues to thrive, albeit somewhat less so. But it didn’t result in the Prime Minister calling Parliament back. Discussions take place, there are plenty of political blogs, messages on Twitter and then there’s all those Facebook Groups; support this, protest that, save this. Nice. But still window dressing in the end.
I think there’s two factors at work here:
1) We’re still enamored with the capablities; making fun videos, sharing stuff, editing photo’s and such. I’d suggest we’re still in the “Honeymoon Phase” which I’ve suggested before. It’s all still new and fresh and fun. That will change.
2) It’s because it’s still in large part entertainment and to some degree, industrial media portrays it that way. Metrics to measure and understand Social Media are still in their infancy and there are no standards like there are with focus groups and polling mechanisms. That makes it hard for politicians and policy makers to take it seriously.
So if that’s the case, will Social Media become a serious contender for the attention of government policy makers and political parties? Absolutely.
One very important fact about Social Media: it enables the almost instantaneous formation of groups and the collaboration capabilities to enable consensus development.
We just haven’t seen real activism develop from a Facebook group that’s evolved into a determined political agenda resulting in regulatory, policy or legislative change.
That will happen. It’s starting. Some small groups are figuring that out. The US Government made a huge step with the Peer-To-Patent program. As government departments understand the collaborative and citizen-expert engagement advantages, Social Technologies will start to see deeper engagement between citizen and government. I give it 5-10 years. Look at how Innocentive is using such social technologies to solve problems.
What do you think?
(Author: G. Crouch)
It’s quite simple as to “where” we find the time. I wish I could claim I found that answer, but I can’t. With all the research we do into Social Media, I get asked this question a lot by agencies and clients alike.
In America alone, over 2 Billion hours of television are watched each year. Or about 2,000 hours per person…which translates into the fact we watch adverts all weekend on the telly.
All we’re doing is adjusting our free time. In Canada, StatsCan research has shown 64% of Canadians watch TV and are online at the same time. That was two years ago.
If we’re watching 2K+ hours of telly a year, then all we’re doing is re-aligning our time. And telly is a one-way medium, there’s no engagement. It’s like the first century of the industrial revolution – everyone drank gin because they had no idea what to do with their free time.
Then the 5 day work week came along and so did television; we suddenly had the sitcom to occupy our brain, since we just didn’t know what to do with ourselves.
Think of that on a grand human race scale; we went from hunting and gathering to still working crazy hours on the farms, to industrialization and modern commerce and we suddenly had, as a race, more free time than ever.
We’re simply adjusting from gin to telly to social media. And I suspect we’re still in the very early stage as many sociologists think. We’re tossing apps at the iPhone wall and waiting for them to stick; most aren’t, but some will.
Sound reasonable to you?
(Author: G. Crouch)
Media Analysis, Research•
on February 4th, 2010•
If you’re over 30 then I’m sorry to tell you that you’ve “read” your cultural future. If you’re under 30 then you’ve got the sheer delight of “authoring” your cultural future.
If you’re over 30 then you’re spending less than 20 hours, on average 12 hours, per week online; in Social Networks, on blogs, Twittering etc. But if you’re under 30 then that average starts to climb. Under 20? Research shows you’re spending more than 50 hours per week online.
Under 20? You’re creating content on a scale never before known to humanity. Video, photo’s, text. You’re writing the culture of the future. Suddenly, since I’m over 40, I feel rather ancient.
What an incredibly powerful concept; to have the opportunity to write your future culture. Those that succeed in the future, will be able to work in collaborative groups. You’ll come together on political and societal issues. Today, it’s all new and it’s about entertainment, silly simple things.
But then, you’re going to want to start changing things. If we think the Hippy Movement was something powerful, well, we ain’t seen nothing yet. Think anyone under 20 will listen to us 40+ folk? We see this in our ongoing research into Social Technology usage as well. Powerful.
Think about that: Youth is writing our cultural future.
What do you think? Are you helping to write our cultural future?
I admit I love all kinds of new technologies and Augmented Reality (AR) is interesting to say the least. It will further blur the lines between Cyburbia and the physical world with how we interact with things. It will also futher expand the wealth of information and increase the scarcity of attention. In a post today on GigaOm they had some great pics showing how AR might work. That got me thinking of what will be a barrier to entry.
To me, that would seem to be “geolocation” by a user. Research has shown that less than 0.23% of smart phone users willingly enable themselves to be known in their mobile use. We’re increasingly becoming aware of our privacy.
Many AR apps will require that you allow the device to show the world where you are. Certainly if you’re having an affair on a supposed “business trip” you’re not going to want that feature enabled. Personally, I don’t enable that level of connecting.
We’ve not seen any major Web/Mobile app that enables geolocation for the service to work really take off and be mainstream accepted. Perhaps the under 20 age group will enable such services?
But right now, the one major hurdle for AR acceptance to really go mainstream is people allowing themselves to be known to their mobile character and everyone else when they engage in AR apps.
What do you think? Will you enable geolocating when AR becomes more available?
