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?
Thunking, Uncategorized•
on November 12th, 2009•
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. read more
Thunking•
on October 30th, 2009•
Social Media, more specifically how people are using it, is in the honeymoon phase we suggest. Business is eying it warily, a tiger circling its prey, nibbling here and there. Citizens are all playing with it delightedly, discovering their voice. Sharing ideas, trying out new online services and apps. Let’s face it, much of the content being produced is not of much societal value, but is valuable within the groups it is relevant to.
There’s been rumblings of “Online Social Activism” in the past. We’ve seen hints here and there; removing a Cardinal in Boston, outing bad marketing or poor service by companies (i.e. United Breaks Guitars and a number of others.) The failed attempt in Moldova using Twitter to drive a revolution and the successful use of Social Media tools to force BBC and CNN to cover the Iran elections in June of 2009.These are but early sputters of Social Media as a mechanism for significant social change right now.
One of the primary functions of our company is research into Social Media; who, how, why its being used and what tools, mostly for business clients. We’ve covered some very unique and seemingly obscure industries (i.e. model trains, knitting, HAM radios) and in each case we find people actively engaged in sharing, idea generation and discussion.
Having been at this for near two years now, our observation in a recent team discussion is that we’re in a honeymoon phase – the “early adopter” phase in marketing terms. One can’t predict when, but as sure as Luther figured out how to use a printing press to drive the Christian Reformation so will citizens figure out how to use one or several Social Media tools to cause another revolution. Obama made very effective political use of Social Media; it too was just a start and pale to what we predict will come.
Our forecast is that within 3 years we will see people figuring out how to become more organized, how to leverage these tools in ways we haven’t yet thought of. As rural communities and more countries turn on Internet access and the cost to access and use these tools continues to fall, more uses will be found. An article yesterday by Pete Cashmore of Mashable already hints at societal changes in terms of an individuals presence online and the change of privacy.
There is an interesting Chinese proverb/curse that says “may you live in interesting times.” I think we are in interesting times. I’m not sure its a curse though.
Do you agree? Are we in the honeymoon phase of Social Media? Is bigger change coming?
Stating the obvious: There has never been so many media channels in the history of mankind. This will signal a new challenge to marketers and communicators: ethnographic considerations.
It’s nothing to do so much with technology as it does with human nature and culture. During the heydays of broadcast media (TV, radio, print) we saw very little, comparatively, of specialized media channels for different cultural groups. What specialization there was (such as hispanic only radio stations in non-hispanic countries) were limited in scope due to the costs of the mediums being used.
Enter the digital media age and Social Media. These tools enable communications in a way that humans prefer to communicate – enabling groups to form, create, act and continue or cease. In the last 20 years we’ve also seen an increase in migrant populations to various countries. This means more varied cultures sprouting in within countries. Keeping an element of ones home culture is important as an identifier. Even in Canada and America, those originally of British, Irish, Scottish or Scandinavian descent are increasingly identifying with their originating roots.
This will present a whole new set of challenges to organizations reaching an audience – especially via digital media. I predict that the next trend for marketers will be understanding ethnography when doing their marketing research. It’s been hard enough for marketers to gather and incorporate demographic information and then we had to consider psychographic information in planning.
Because Western developed nations are seeing such a dramatic increase in immigrant populations who are gaining increasing purchase power, marketers and public relations pro’s will increasingly need to consider these factors. In Social Media we’re already seeing services like Hi5 develop dedicated Social Networks to hispanic and other cultures. NetLog (Facebook’s main European competitor) has language already figured out. If Facebook wants to be a serious global contender it’s going to have to improve it’s foreign language capacities.
While English may be the most spoken language outside China, it remains to be seen the impact this will have on businesses engaging in Social Media and digital marketing communications as a whole in the future.
Do you think cultural ethnographic considerations will become increasingly important to marketing communications professionals?
(Author: Giles Crouch, Managing Partner)
So many of us Social Media consultants are often writing how Social Media is changing our world, how a revolution is underway. That Social Media is devaluing the newspaper and changing the PR profession. And so it is. But Social Media is still very young and the significance of the changes underway will not be fully understood for perhaps another 10-15 years at least. Why?
I covered this in part recently when speaking to the Communications Faculty at the
NSCC about Social Media. The reason why has everything to do with human nature and our adoption and use of communications technology. A prime example is the printed book. Although Gutenberg invented the
printing press in the 1400’s, it took several decades before protestant leader Luther realized he could print his own bible – the result was the Christian Reformation, then the French Revolution and modern democracy. Books are a social medium.
But before a technology can be used in a revolutionary way, it must evolve within a society. Technology does not cause a revolution, yet a revolution cannot start without the technology. As the image here shows, there are four distinct phases of adoption of communications technologies (and most any type of technology) before we might experience anything that is revolutionary. These “phases” are taken from sociology and are not my invention; the concepts are not new.
Phase 1: Normal – When technology is a normal part of our world. We’ve passed this phase.
Phase 2: Ubiquitous – This is where we are. Social Media is enabled by Web technologies, and the Web is now ubiquitous in Western Society and most of Asia, but less so in developing nations.
Phase 3: Pervasive – We’re approaching this point. But there are still accessibility issues and knowledge of software to overcome.
Phase 4: Invisible – This is when a technology or medium is simply an everyday part of our lives, as in books or auto’s. This is also when revolutions tend to occur.
Today, Social Media is uniquitous, but is not pervasive and certainly not invisible. Avid users of Social Media tools, mobile devices and computers might argue. But the fact is, over 80% of the population in Western worlds use computing technology and the Web in limited ways.
Where do you think we are?
Reference Articles:
Wally Bock: http://www.bockinfo.com/docs/fourphases.htm
Clay Shirkey: http://www.shirky.com/writings/semantic_syllogism.html