What’s really happening with privacy today is that consumers/netizens and business are negotiating a new “social contract.” Sure Facebook and Google among others, have made mistakes in how they deal with privacy. So have netizens who post a comment or statement on a blog open to everyone and then get angry when they are confronted with libel or slander by the offended party – you post it where it’s open to the public, it’s your fault.
So how are we going to deal with this?
The reality is, the general public is figuring this out as much as the companies offering social technology services. Both are to blame for mistakes and wins.
1. Business wants less privacy so they have more data on people and groups to sell to product manufacturers and services providers. They want “marketing data”. A business really does not care about an individual. They don’t have the time or resources. As much as the business world talks about 1 to 1 customer relationships the reality is quite the opposite.
2. Consumers want more privacy to protect personal data from marketers. They also want it so they can better manage their social relationships and the relationships they may form with corporations.
The reality is that no one has all the right answers – how could we? The issues of privacy will be settled over time and with that most powerful of incentives in our world today – money. When consumers are truly frustrated with a company or product, they don’t buy it and they don’t participate. Or citizens push (as is their right) government to develop legislation for regulation.
Despite Facebook’s privacy faux pas, they continue to grow rapidly. Google remains the top search engine. Hundreds of millions still use Gmail and other Google services. Twitter continues to grow.
Privacy issues like we’re addressing today have never before been an issue in society. We have absolutely no precedence to refer to. A form of “social contract” existed before because it was quite easy to control privacy. With the advent of CCTV cameras, low cost of networking these services and then the Web, all of a sudden we face new issues on privacy.
The debates and outcries will continue for some time yet. Eventually I suspect a happy medium will be found. Until then, we have perhaps a few more decades before a new “social contract” on privacy becomes apparent. Until then, as citizens, I think we have a responsibility to learn and develop our terms as much as business is learning. It’s people that run a business and successful businesses are always innovating and part of that is pushing boundaries, to understand what is and isn’t acceptable.
What do you think?
(Author: G. Crouch)
Today’s NY Times article on Facebook’s rapid success in global reach serves to show that the battle between Google and Facebook is in full swing. Google beat out Microsoft and Yahoo! in search and now it faces an even bigger threat from Facebook.
Google has failed lately with every attempt to become a “social network” to tie in it’s search strength. Given our research we spend a lot of time looking at these two, amongst many others. I see pluses and minuses to both these companies and their services. Here’s why I think Facebook will lead the social network battle, unless Google thinks in similar ways.
Facebook is a little like AOL was 12+ years ago – a closed network aiming to provide content. AOL died because people prefer to decide on what they want to do and see online. What Facebook provides is simply a “framework” making it easy for people to shape their “content experience” in the same way humans behave offline in groups. Facebook fits well into human social interactions. Google does not.
Google is all about “open” and in this sense is “non-linear”. Buzz is an interesting service concept, but it’s not that easy to use. It takes a fair bit of effort to figure out. Facebook does not. It’s more complex to move about Googles services, they don’t “combine” easily. I’m a huge fan of GoogleApps, and they’ve done well with how you can manage and access GoogleDocs. If they took that approach into a social networking format, they may do better.
But the biggest challenge Google faces now with regard to Facebook is portability of peoples networks. People don’t have the time for multiple social networks. Once they build their profile and connect with people they want to connect with, it’s done. If Google finds a way to “import” all your Facebook data, including all your friends, fan pages, groups pages and such, then they may have a hope. That is unlikely however. There will need to be a a very compelling reason to switch. The switching cost is just too high for the average consumer.
Google made a huge mistake with Buzz – they assumed everybody wants to connect with everybody. They don’t. Most people connect with only those they want to; friends, family, co-workers. In the Gen X to Lost Generation segments, they don’t randomly add people. They tend to cultivate the relationships they have. Millenials will quickly and easily add people to their network, but they restrict carefully who they closely communicate with.
There are over 100 cultural, ethnic or nationalist oriented social networks around the world. Facebook is getting people to move over. How? I’m not sure, but they’re doing it. Perhaps because of how well Facebook provides a framework for people to work from?
This battle for eyeballs and consumer time will be an interesting one. Google has some phenomenal resources in terms of human smarts at it’s disposal and now so does Facebook. For now though, when it comes to massive global penetration of social networks however, I’ll put my money on Facebook.
Social Media is nowhere near being used braodly for bigger social change in developed nations, like it is in Iran or Sudan or the Ukraine. Eventually it will be. We wanted to look at what were the hottest societal topics in Social Media channels.
But it seems that for Social Media to be the underlying technology that enables broader social change, as a society, we aren’t mad enough about a major topic; it’s just too fragmented. Yet. The undercurrents are there. Here’s a look at the largest social issues we see trending in Social Media channels (Sept. 2008 to March 2010);
1. Financial Crisis: It remains top of the list across the U.S., Canada and UK (where we conduct our research.) A number of sub-topics feature in here (i.e. lending practices, citizen and government debt.)
2. Corporate Greed: Ties into #1 but is more related to issues around corporate leaders, their bonuses and making too much money; perception or otherwise. The volume of discussion was high enough to warrant it’s own segment.
3. Aid Relief: Over the past two months this has mostly been focused on Haiti, but China’s recent earthquake trended upwards for a few days.
4. National Politics: It’s hot, but not that hot. In the U.S. it’s Tea Party related, in Canada it was Proroguing Parliament and ongoing scandals and in the UK it was MP expenditures followed by the election. Debt related we placed into the financial crisis.
5. Iraq & Afghanistan: Perhaps this can also be said of foreign policy of U.S., Canada and UK. But it mostly focuses on Iraq and Afghanistan – in a negative manner. Broad public support is not there.
6. Energy: This is trending upward. Discussions revolve around alternative energy sources such as solar power and are negative towards our reliance on fossil fuels.
7. Healthcare: While this ranked very high in the U.S., Canadian and UK discussion is there but brought the overall ranking down.
8. Food: We see a lot of discussion going on around food, namely the source of our food and then as it relates to our health. This is fairly equal across the U.S., Canada and UK.
9. Climate Change: Could be categorized with energy, but we see this as a separate issue since it covers energy, industrial pollution, foreign and domestic policy and the G8. While discussion goes on across Social Media channels, it is surprising to us it is not higher up the list.
10. Privacy: It’s out there, perhaps on the low side, but the launch of Google Buzz and other apps has kept it simmering in the background.
Methodology:
Using mediasphere360, we looked into the blogosphere, newsgroups, forums, microblogs, social networks (10) and 256 non-profit websites for traffic rankings. We used a set of common keywords around the issues above. Keywords were identified by using Google Insights. We then filtered out celebrity discussions and entertainment properties. The search methodology and analysis as it relates to our technology are proprietary to MediaBadger. Searches were refined to U.S., Canada and UK (colonies and territories excluded.)
Social relevance. Social Media is constantly evolving with meme’s, brand discussions, product rants and raves, funny concepts and ridiculous to the sublime for content. Generated by people as we know. Yet advertising has traditionally been a reflection of society.
Social Media, with so many channels (there’s over 60 different types of Social Networks) and so much happening so fast, it’s increasingly harder for an ad agency or market research agency to keep up. Funny and innovative content on the Web changes so quickly that by the time a creative director finds a clever way to tie in a product to a TV, radio, print or online ad, the concept is stale and the ad flops. No matter which medium it is carried in.
Then an ad appears or some form of campaign, it goes viral and reaches even beyond the original target audience that in effect it has no real effect on product sales as it was intended.
Print advertising as with radio, are still key elements for real marketing. Perhaps more so in one sense. Yet they are challenges for the ad agency who wants to find something of relevance across all mediums, in a timely manner.
Agencies will be under increasing pressure to generate creative concepts ahead of the consumer who is creating the content themselves.
What do you thunk?
(Author: Giles Crouch)
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
