Hi we're Ben & Debbie, 3rd year Advertising students. This is our journal on the brand we've chosen for our final major project. You'll find our thoughts, ideas, interviews, research and vision for the future of Google Plus :)
Monday, 27 February 2012
Words brands use: Path
capture a moment
Share a moment
smiled at my moment
excited share with you
what im thinking
the ones you love
Share a moment
smiled at my moment
excited share with you
what im thinking
the ones you love
TECHCRUNCH: Pinterest stats
JOSH CONSTINE Tuesday, February 7th, 2012 Pinterest Hits 10 Million U.S. Monthly Uniques Faster Than Any Standalone Site Ever -comScore, TECHCRUNCH
Here
Here
According to comScore, the average Pinterest user spend 98 minutes per month on the site, compared to 2.5 hours on Tumblr, and 7 hours on Facebook. If you don’t count sites like Google+ or new Yahoo channels that have built in user bases, comScore’s data shows Pinterest would be the fastest site of any kind to hit 10 million monthly uniques in the U.S.
TECHCRUNCH: Jay Jamison on The Rise of Interest-Based Social Networks
Saturday, February 18th, 2012 JAY JAMISON
Beyond Facebook: The Rise Of Interest-Based Social Networks TECHCRUNCH
Here
Beyond Facebook: The Rise Of Interest-Based Social Networks TECHCRUNCH
Here
Humans are inherently social creatures, and we define ourselves both by the people we know and our interests. We make decisions about where to eat, what to buy, where to visit, etc. based on a complex matrix of social relationships, past experiences, location, long standing interests and future goals. Today’s platforms approach our lives from different angles but both are integral to how we define ourselves and interact with the world around us.
At the same time, the rise of these new interest based social networks does not really threaten Facebook, in fact, they are more likely to benefit Facebook. Specifically, Facebook has evolved itself brilliantly into not only an end user application drawing near to 1 billion accounts but also a robust, powerful platform other apps can leverage in order to drive more users to their services. Pinterest, Instagram, Fab, and many others have adopted Facebook’s Timeline API for precisely the reason of wanting to raise awareness of their services and drive more users to their sites. As these new services grow, more content gets pumped back to Facebook, Facebook’s platform gets more robust. Wash, rinse, repeat… Facebook’s positive feedback loop gains more momentum, and becomes more powerful.
In the words of Marc Andreessen, “Software is eating the world”, and in the world of social media, there is, for now, plenty of world to go around.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Mashable: How Google's +1 Button Affects SEO
21st Feb 2012 Keith Kaplan
from here
Since the days of Google Buzz, the +1 button has been a mystery to users and content producers alike. It’s different from Facebook’s “Like” button, in that it doesn’t directly share content to a user’s social stream. But the cultivation of a social graph has long been the goal of Google, and its connection to search was likely inevitable.
Google defines the +1 as a feature to help people discover and share relevant content from the people they already know and trust. Users can +1 different types of content, including Google search results, websites, and advertisements. Once users +1 a piece of content, it can be seen on the +1 tab in their Google+ profile, in Google search results, and on websites with a +1 button.
The plot thickened last month when Google launched Search plus Your World. Jack Menzel, director of product management for Google Search, explained that now Google+ users would be able to “search across information that is private and only shared to you, not just the public web.” According to Ian Lurie from the blog Conversation Marketing, in Search plus Your World, search results that received a lot of +1s tend to show up higher in results.
Google has come out and described the purpose of a +1, but hasn’t necessarily explained the direct effect a +1 has on search ranking. Here’s a breakdown of what we currently know.
Does a +1 Affect my Site’s Performance in Social Search?
The +1 has an indirect effect on your site’s search rank. This does not mean the more +1’s a link has, the higher rank it achieves in traditional search results. Take this scenario:
When a Google+ user +1’s a piece of content, he gives it his “stamp of approval.” Then, say one of his connections from Google+ searches for the same or related topic. Because of Search plus Your World, his friend is more likely to click on the same link the original user +1’d (when a signed-in user searches, his Google results may include snippets annotated with the names of connections who have +1′d the content). This is because content recommended by friends and acquaintances is often more relevant than content from strangers, according to Google.
This is also true for users who are not signed in to their Google account when they search. When a user searches for the same phrase, the results might display the total number of +1’s a link has received, which is another validation that it’s a relevant link.
How Does This Relate to SEO?
Since the +1′d link has a chance at a higher Click-Through-Rate (CTR), there is a greater potential the link will be shared, whether it be on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or any social network. An experiment by Rand Fishkin, CEO and co-founder of SEOmoz, tested the relationship between Twitter and Facebook shares and search results in Google. He found a positive correlation between the number of retweets and shares a link received and its search ranking. This means, the more the link was passed around on Twitter and Facebook, the higher the search rank of the page. This in turn led to better SEO.
What’s the Take-Away?
A Google +1 can indirectly lead to a better page rank. A greater number of +1’s increases a link’s potential for a high CTR, which could lead to increased social sharing, and in turn can increase its Google search rank. What’s important to note here is the correlation, not causation, between +1′s, other social shares, and search rank.
The bottom line is, the SEO effects of a +1 are very indirect, which means traditional SEO practices should not be ignored. SEO methods such as link building, relevant keywords, and URL structure have a more significant impact on page ranking.
The Google +1 feature is still in its infancy of course, and more data needs to be gathered to draw a statistical correlation to search. As Google said, “For +1′s, as with any new ranking signal, we are starting carefully and learning how those signals affect search quality.”
SEO experts, such as Erin Everhart from 352 Media Group, have a positive outlook on the future of social search. She says, “I don’t think we live in a world, nor will we ever live in a world, where any social cue doesn’t have influence over SEO.”
Are you seeing the effects of Google +1 on your SEO? Will the +1 eventually have a direct effect on search rank? Share your experiences in the comments.
from here
MASHABLE: Smartphone trends
The survey of 20,000 U.S. mobile customers found that smartphone ownership skews toward the young and the wealthy — exactly as you’d expect.
What is more surprising, however, is this nugget: smartphone penetration among young people in the lowest income bracket is higher than it is among older people in the wealthiest bracket.
Among 18- to 24-year-olds, more than half of respondents who make less than $15,000 each year said they own a smartphone. This might be explained if the parents of many college-age students footing their children’s phone bills. Still, even in the next oldest, post-college age group, the percentage of those in the same income bracket who own a smartphone was a mere 13% lower.
Making less than $15,000 in a year doesn’t stop 43% of these 25- to 34-year-old mobile customers from paying for a smartphone.
Meanwhile, fewer than 20% of respondents older than 45 who make less than $15,000 said they owned a smartphone
Sarah Kessler 20th February 2012
A mashable post here
Future Human Podcast: Social Animals
Can our personal identity, reputation and status really be transacted? And with our lives being played out online and our complex tastes being reduced to thumbs up/thumbs down binaries, are we seeing our personalities changing as a result?
Joining podcast host Jack Roberts to discuss these questions are fellow futurehumanista Ben Beaumont-Thomas; social networking CEO Alex Halliday, who runs the ‘make your own social network’ site SocialGo; and the London Business School’s Xi Zou, who is conducting pioneering research into human behaviour within social networks.
They discuss the commercial opportunities, status anxieties and behavioural patterns that are redefining the rapidly evolving world of interactive social networks.
Find out more about innovation in an age of radical change at www.futurehuman.co.uk.
You can also:
Mail us at futurehuman@goodpublishing.co.uk
Tweet us at www.twitter.com/futurehumanista
Or like us at www.facebook.com/futurehuman
from here
Notes:
I think the interesting issue in this podcast was how the way we express our identities is being dictated by the social networking sights we use.
"Facebook is maneuvering its users into becoming less purely independent humans interacting with one another and actually almost turning each of us who use that service into a brand; we have to define ourselves by our likes and the things we ally ourselves to.”
complexity gets boiled down- eg. “its complicated”
group norms change- the norms that change on platforms change what is acceptable
are we using the tools in the best way
-our windows to the world around us has changed from our eyes to our phones
-are we defined more accurately as we use social networking sights more or does part of us get lost in the process?
- worried about kids and identities
ADVERLAB: Why Facebook Will Do Search And Why Google Needs Social
Adverlab Blog
3rd Feb 2012
This post relates to the posts before about how who we trust is changing.
It also is interesting thinking of a brand map of facebook and Google plus, how they are thinking they might be competing with developments this year and in the future.
3rd Feb 2012
This post relates to the posts before about how who we trust is changing.
It also is interesting thinking of a brand map of facebook and Google plus, how they are thinking they might be competing with developments this year and in the future.
Mark Zuckerberg posted a picture of himself in front of his computer, and an eagle-eyed blogger noticed that his version of Facebook sports a larger-than-usual search box. An unintended leak or not, Facebook competing in search is only a matter of time just as, in retrospect, it was inevitable that Google would integrate social elements deeper into its main product.
This is why.
It wouldn't be a revelation to say that no large-scale ad delivery system is perfect.
Reason one is that, at any given moment, only a fraction of the exposed audience is actively on the market for the benefit that the advertised product delivers. Yes, I actually might be interested in switching to your cell phone plan, but talk to me in 15 months when my contract is about to expire. This is the efficiency problem of advertising: in order to reach the few people who are interested right now, the delivery systems by necessity overshoot and spam the crap bejesus out of thousands who promptly tune out.
Reason two is that few would admit they believe advertising. People consider the source and recognize the nature of the claims as self-serving and discount them accordingly. This is the effectiveness problem. The advertisers' typical recourse is to bypass rational thought altogether and to beat the claim into the audience's subconscious through incessant repetition.
(Now is a good time to note that we are are talking only about ad delivery here. Effectiveness of creative is a different topic.)
That's what the main media planning principles of "reach" and "frequency" are about -- solving for efficiency and effectiveness. In the picture above, this situation is illustrated by the undesirable lower-left quadrant that says "You Are Here." You are there because most of the existing large ad delivery systems are both inefficient and ineffective.
Except for two.
Google with all its imperfections is the most efficient way to deliver ads -- only people who need something now would actively look for something and see an ad for it.
And even though it took them awhile, Facebook is figuring out that they have this whole effectiveness thing down. According to many studies (the one below, and others, including my own), friends are the most trusted source of product information. Facebook has hundreds of millions of friends, and Facebook also sells advertising, and now Facebook is putting two and two together to make advertising that comes from friends.
But Google and Facebook each solve only half of the efficiency/effectiveness problem. The impeccably timed search ads Google delivers are still self-serving. And the perfectly trustworthy social ads on Facebook still show up at the wrong time. In other words, Facebook and Google each have what the other doesn't, and they are going to fight for it.
On Google's end, this is what the whole Search Plus Your World business is about -- fixing the source problem. That's why the push to get people to +1 stuff, and then connect people into social graphs via Gmail and Google+, and then use +1ers as implicit endorsers. Not, you might notice, unlike Facebook.
And Facebook needs to fix its targeting. "Interests" have an expiry date and "likes" of pop-culture icons are only tangential indicators of predisposition towards, say, vacuum cleaners. Facebook does have several more precise mechanisms for intent targeting useful for certain categories (a recent change of status to "engaged" is a reliable signal for the wedding industry), but by and large nothing as precise of an intent indicator as search.
Monday, 20 February 2012
INTERVIEW: Alex Good, Director, Seesr
Over the next few weeks I hope to talk to some interesting people about how they use social networks, in particular Google Plus, and what they think about it.
My first interview is with Alex Good, male age 24 developer and director of a tech start up.
Circles
D: How do you use circles?
A: I follow the hacker news circles so all the people on hacker news are in a google plus circle, you can add yourself to it, and then add everyone in that circle to your circles, and that means that I see all the content that they’re posting, but then I dont have to see it if I don’t want to; so half the time I’ll restrict it to friends, so theres a few people sharing on google plus and I occasionally share on there
Social Search
A:Its also good because where it integrates with the social search functionality on google, if I search something- say I’m searching for something technical then I can use the social search menue and because most of the people who are in my circles are from the hacker news circle; which in technical terms they’re reliably and I trust their opinions on technical matters then my search results will be kind of linked to what they think about various articles there
So I’ll end up with a search result for whatever technical term I’m interested in which has been curated by a bunch of people who I trust the opinion of which is really really useful.
It definitely improves my search results, and its not like the main google search results are effected- its only when I choose social search
Pictures
D: How do you share pictures?
A: I share pictures a lot but with individual people- really really specific, because I’m quite paranoid about photos anyway so sharing pictures with a few specific people works quite nicely for me
D: What do you mean your paranoid?
A: I dont like the idea that its available for everyone to see, on Facebook photos are available for any of your friends to see; its quite difficult to restrict, whereas Google plus makes it really explicit whose going to see your particular photo, and even warns people when they're re-sharing it so you have to think about how you’r re-sharing. It still bothers me that its an un-centralised service but in the absence of any other solution it works
D: So they’re trying to make it easier to choose the privacy you want?
A: Yeah, Facebook have privacy controls that are equivalent to Googles; you can achieve exactly the same thing on both platforms but Facebook doesn’t make it that easy to do and feels like theres some inertia set forcing you not to- thats what I find anyway
D: I was thinking that with photos google plus reflects what you want to do in real life a bit more because people want to brag occasionally about something, but really you just want to share photos with one or two people, so google improves the quality of what you see, you don’t end up seeing a load of crap
A: Yeah generally speaking I’m not interested in seeing stuff people are bragging about. Have you heard of Path? Its a photo sharing social network where you can have a maximum of 50 friends so it restricts it to small groups of people you actually know. The whole point of it is to try to have meaningful online relationship rather than Facebooks' ‘I’ve got more followers than you’ type thing. Path is focused on real relationships
D: Yeah, If my parents come over, they are really interested in seeing my photos, but if I see one of my Uni friends they're not like ‘oh what have you been up to lets have a look at your phone photos.'
A: Yeah I like google plus for that
D: Do you think other people feel less inclined to post less relevant stuff on Google Plus?
A: I don’t know, no one seems to post anything on there any more its a ghost town so its hard to tell. Loads of people in the tech world post on there but none of my friends who aren't in the tech community post on there
D: Do you think its got anything to do with it being more like following on twitter? People are more inclined to post something that will make people want to follow them?
A: I guess when people are posting publicly, I’m not sure how much people realize theres a difference between public and non public posting, its in the same place so it may feel like the same thing- I think they could probably do better with that actually, if public posting was in a separate part or something
The way it looks
D: What do you think of the way it looks?
A: I don’t think much of the new Google theme in general, lots of grey and red, but then Facebook doesn’t look that great either
D: I like that it feels more spacious and it feels more gentle- like its a background for the content
A: Yes thats true but I think when you look at it Facebook actual mangages that better, because its blue, its neutral but red has massive effects on your ability to think
Chat and Hangout
D: Have you used chat and hangout features?
A: I have used the hangouts once I think to hang out with two other people
A: I google talk with pretty much all my friends, coz they all have android phones, and Gmail and ichat, so I usually use it instead of a text message
D: So you use it differently to instant messaging?
A: I do use it on my laptop as well, but then I can get in touch with someone when I’m on the run without having to send a text on my phone, its really easy.
If I’m talking to someone on Google chat is usually because I want to talk to them about something, and its the best way to get in touch with them. If I’m at work or something I can send them a message on my laptop but it will be equivalent to a text but its still a-synchronous so its good
Competitors
D: Who are the competitors for you?
A: For me definitely Facebook- if I could use Google plus instead of Facebook I definitely would, if all of my friends were to move to Google plus then I would use Google Plus, I only use Facebook because everyone else is on it and I hate it.
But having said that, if I could use something open source and distributed like Diaspora; if everyone was to move to that, then I would move to that. Google plus is only marginally better than Facebook, and I’m not even sure why I think its better because they are both equally annoying large companies, its not like one’s better than the other in any material way
D: You don’t think the functionality of Google plus is superior to Facebook?
A: Its a little bit superior but it wouldn’t be that hard for Facebook to implement. You could achieve a lot of stuff that you can do on Google Plus, on Facebook; you can get the same kind of groups of friends. The implementation on google plus is nicer, but I don’t use Facebook enough to care about the interface that much- I go on once or twice a day- on a heavy day
D: How often do you go on Google Plus?
A: Once a day I guess, but I go on twitter four or five times a day, because its more interesting, because I follow people who are more interesting stories- I get more out of twitter than I get out of Facebook or Google plus
D: But you could follow people on Google plus that you follow on Twitter?
A: A lot of them don’t post on Google plus and also I’ve got Twitter set up already the way I want it, so I tend to just go with it.
And the twitter app on my phone is a lot easier to use than the Google plus app beucase the google plus app is enormous
De-centralising
A: But again if there was a distributed version of twitter I’d use that instead; the whole point of the web is that its decentralised, and we seem to be centralising everything, and that bothers me.
Theres no reason that you need a central server to follow people; you could have a whole bunch of distributed servers that communicate with each other in the same way that the domain name server does
D: How would that be better?
A: Because no single company server would control all of the information, which is a problem because if someone wants to shut down twitter for example, its quite easy to do. You have to just tell them to stop running their servers and they shut down, so no twitter. But if you've got something decentralised then they can’t shut down, which is a good thing for everybody I think. It just makes it more robust. If twitter goes down right now, then everyones fucked. But if one node in a distributed network goes down then they're buggered but everyone else in the world is fine
D: If something was decentralised would you feel more inclined to use it?
A: Yeah definitely I’d trust it a lot more; you’r putting a lot of information online, you need to trust that its going to be available, that your going to be able to use that service. And to an extent, its not so much of a problem with twitter because its pubic information but with Facebook and Google plus you need to be able to trust that they’re not at the whim or mercies of some foreign government, or even your own government.
If your on Facebook or Google Plus and your friends with people, even if you never post anything, you've never shared any of the information; just the people you’re friends with tells Google, Facebook or whatever an enormous amount about you and what you’r likely to do. -Just because statistically you’r similar to people who have shared that information.
Your handing over a lot of information to the government. And while the government is someone you should be able to trust; they’re not generally speaking someone you can trust.
My problem is that the law isn’t a perfect reflection of what is right; all the law does is reflect social norms. Its not OK to murder people so thats illegal. Social norms change quite quickly anyway, and increasingly more quickly than legislation can keep up with. So frequently the right thing is going to be illegal, just because the social norms have changed but the law hasn’t. Copyright and filesharing is an example.
So you can’t trust the government to be doing the right thing; if only because they can’t necessarily move fast enough for the right thing to be the legal thing. And so giving all that information away, is giving someone who may not have your best interests at heart; lots of power over you, and information is power. So I guess thats why it makes me uneasy.
My first interview is with Alex Good, male age 24 developer and director of a tech start up.
Circles
D: How do you use circles?
A: I follow the hacker news circles so all the people on hacker news are in a google plus circle, you can add yourself to it, and then add everyone in that circle to your circles, and that means that I see all the content that they’re posting, but then I dont have to see it if I don’t want to; so half the time I’ll restrict it to friends, so theres a few people sharing on google plus and I occasionally share on there
Social Search
A:Its also good because where it integrates with the social search functionality on google, if I search something- say I’m searching for something technical then I can use the social search menue and because most of the people who are in my circles are from the hacker news circle; which in technical terms they’re reliably and I trust their opinions on technical matters then my search results will be kind of linked to what they think about various articles there
So I’ll end up with a search result for whatever technical term I’m interested in which has been curated by a bunch of people who I trust the opinion of which is really really useful.
It definitely improves my search results, and its not like the main google search results are effected- its only when I choose social search
Pictures
D: How do you share pictures?
A: I share pictures a lot but with individual people- really really specific, because I’m quite paranoid about photos anyway so sharing pictures with a few specific people works quite nicely for me
D: What do you mean your paranoid?
A: I dont like the idea that its available for everyone to see, on Facebook photos are available for any of your friends to see; its quite difficult to restrict, whereas Google plus makes it really explicit whose going to see your particular photo, and even warns people when they're re-sharing it so you have to think about how you’r re-sharing. It still bothers me that its an un-centralised service but in the absence of any other solution it works
D: So they’re trying to make it easier to choose the privacy you want?
A: Yeah, Facebook have privacy controls that are equivalent to Googles; you can achieve exactly the same thing on both platforms but Facebook doesn’t make it that easy to do and feels like theres some inertia set forcing you not to- thats what I find anyway
D: I was thinking that with photos google plus reflects what you want to do in real life a bit more because people want to brag occasionally about something, but really you just want to share photos with one or two people, so google improves the quality of what you see, you don’t end up seeing a load of crap
A: Yeah generally speaking I’m not interested in seeing stuff people are bragging about. Have you heard of Path? Its a photo sharing social network where you can have a maximum of 50 friends so it restricts it to small groups of people you actually know. The whole point of it is to try to have meaningful online relationship rather than Facebooks' ‘I’ve got more followers than you’ type thing. Path is focused on real relationships
D: Yeah, If my parents come over, they are really interested in seeing my photos, but if I see one of my Uni friends they're not like ‘oh what have you been up to lets have a look at your phone photos.'
A: Yeah I like google plus for that
D: Do you think other people feel less inclined to post less relevant stuff on Google Plus?
A: I don’t know, no one seems to post anything on there any more its a ghost town so its hard to tell. Loads of people in the tech world post on there but none of my friends who aren't in the tech community post on there
D: Do you think its got anything to do with it being more like following on twitter? People are more inclined to post something that will make people want to follow them?
A: I guess when people are posting publicly, I’m not sure how much people realize theres a difference between public and non public posting, its in the same place so it may feel like the same thing- I think they could probably do better with that actually, if public posting was in a separate part or something
The way it looks
D: What do you think of the way it looks?
A: I don’t think much of the new Google theme in general, lots of grey and red, but then Facebook doesn’t look that great either
D: I like that it feels more spacious and it feels more gentle- like its a background for the content
A: Yes thats true but I think when you look at it Facebook actual mangages that better, because its blue, its neutral but red has massive effects on your ability to think
Chat and Hangout
D: Have you used chat and hangout features?
A: I have used the hangouts once I think to hang out with two other people
A: I google talk with pretty much all my friends, coz they all have android phones, and Gmail and ichat, so I usually use it instead of a text message
D: So you use it differently to instant messaging?
A: I do use it on my laptop as well, but then I can get in touch with someone when I’m on the run without having to send a text on my phone, its really easy.
If I’m talking to someone on Google chat is usually because I want to talk to them about something, and its the best way to get in touch with them. If I’m at work or something I can send them a message on my laptop but it will be equivalent to a text but its still a-synchronous so its good
Competitors
D: Who are the competitors for you?
A: For me definitely Facebook- if I could use Google plus instead of Facebook I definitely would, if all of my friends were to move to Google plus then I would use Google Plus, I only use Facebook because everyone else is on it and I hate it.
But having said that, if I could use something open source and distributed like Diaspora; if everyone was to move to that, then I would move to that. Google plus is only marginally better than Facebook, and I’m not even sure why I think its better because they are both equally annoying large companies, its not like one’s better than the other in any material way
D: You don’t think the functionality of Google plus is superior to Facebook?
A: Its a little bit superior but it wouldn’t be that hard for Facebook to implement. You could achieve a lot of stuff that you can do on Google Plus, on Facebook; you can get the same kind of groups of friends. The implementation on google plus is nicer, but I don’t use Facebook enough to care about the interface that much- I go on once or twice a day- on a heavy day
D: How often do you go on Google Plus?
A: Once a day I guess, but I go on twitter four or five times a day, because its more interesting, because I follow people who are more interesting stories- I get more out of twitter than I get out of Facebook or Google plus
D: But you could follow people on Google plus that you follow on Twitter?
A: A lot of them don’t post on Google plus and also I’ve got Twitter set up already the way I want it, so I tend to just go with it.
And the twitter app on my phone is a lot easier to use than the Google plus app beucase the google plus app is enormous
De-centralising
A: But again if there was a distributed version of twitter I’d use that instead; the whole point of the web is that its decentralised, and we seem to be centralising everything, and that bothers me.
Theres no reason that you need a central server to follow people; you could have a whole bunch of distributed servers that communicate with each other in the same way that the domain name server does
D: How would that be better?
A: Because no single company server would control all of the information, which is a problem because if someone wants to shut down twitter for example, its quite easy to do. You have to just tell them to stop running their servers and they shut down, so no twitter. But if you've got something decentralised then they can’t shut down, which is a good thing for everybody I think. It just makes it more robust. If twitter goes down right now, then everyones fucked. But if one node in a distributed network goes down then they're buggered but everyone else in the world is fine
D: If something was decentralised would you feel more inclined to use it?
A: Yeah definitely I’d trust it a lot more; you’r putting a lot of information online, you need to trust that its going to be available, that your going to be able to use that service. And to an extent, its not so much of a problem with twitter because its pubic information but with Facebook and Google plus you need to be able to trust that they’re not at the whim or mercies of some foreign government, or even your own government.
If your on Facebook or Google Plus and your friends with people, even if you never post anything, you've never shared any of the information; just the people you’re friends with tells Google, Facebook or whatever an enormous amount about you and what you’r likely to do. -Just because statistically you’r similar to people who have shared that information.
Your handing over a lot of information to the government. And while the government is someone you should be able to trust; they’re not generally speaking someone you can trust.
My problem is that the law isn’t a perfect reflection of what is right; all the law does is reflect social norms. Its not OK to murder people so thats illegal. Social norms change quite quickly anyway, and increasingly more quickly than legislation can keep up with. So frequently the right thing is going to be illegal, just because the social norms have changed but the law hasn’t. Copyright and filesharing is an example.
So you can’t trust the government to be doing the right thing; if only because they can’t necessarily move fast enough for the right thing to be the legal thing. And so giving all that information away, is giving someone who may not have your best interests at heart; lots of power over you, and information is power. So I guess thats why it makes me uneasy.
George Colony from Forresters talks at LeWeb
Notes:
"We see a model emerging that we call app internet. It says that we'll have very powerful services in the cloud; data, services etc. connected to (..) very powerful applications on these mobile devices."
- "This trend is not just being driven by technology" (but by user preferences)
- Faster, simpler, more immersive; a better experience."
"The web is not the internet; (often people confuse the two) the web is a software architecture that we all decided to put on the internet 20 years ago."
(App architecture will replace it)
-Google don't want the Web to end because every time people use the web they have an opportunity to make money
App-Internet ecosystems
-apple
-android
-amazon silk
"In the US, online consumers are using Social more than they are volunteering; more than they are praying (being religious/being in church); more than they are on the phone; emailing and using snail mail, and finally more than they are exercising. And we're using social just a little bit less now than we are shopping, and a little bit less than child care"
"So we believe that social is running out of hours."(reached the limit)
"We are going to move to a post-social world"
"We believe that the next wave of social will be social applications which are more efficient; faster; easier to use; and have a higher value-per-time equation."
-72% of companies are either in social or want to be
DAVID ARMANO: Six Social Media Trends for 2012
Monday, December 19, 2011 David Armano
http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2011/12/trends.html
Originally posted on Harvard Business Review
Each year at this time, I look forward and predict trends in social media for the coming year. But first, I look back at my predictions from last year. How'd I do? Not bad.
Social media continues to move forward toward business integration, a trend that I identified last year. In a joint study from Booz & Company and social platform developer Buddy Media, 57 percent of businesses surveyed plan to increase social media spending, while 38 percent of CEO's label social as a high priority.
I was also partially accurate in predicting that Google would "strike back" in 2011. They did, with Google Plus, a formidable initiative that acts as Google's "social layer" to the Web. Part social network and part social search, Google Plus has industry observers scratching their heads, wondering if Facebook will be given a run for their money or if the service evolves into something complimentary in a highly social Web.
I had one big swing-and-miss on Facebook's intrusion in the location-based services war. While Facebook still supports location tracking in a number of ways, it has not put Foursquare out of business. Foursquare still enjoys a niche audience of highly active participants who enjoy telling the world where they are and post pictures to prove it. It is however worth noting that Facebook recently acquired location based network Gowalla, so continue to watch this space.
So what can we expect in 2012 in a world that seems to grow ever connected by the hour? Here are six predictions to ponder, in no particular order:
Convergence Emergence. For a glimpse into how social will further integrate with "real life," we can look at what Coca Cola experimented with all the way back in 2010. Coke created an amusement park where participants could "swipe" their RFID-equipped wristbands at kiosks, which posted to their Facebook account what they were doing and where. Also, as part of a marketing campaign, Domino's Pizza posted feedback — unfiltered feedback — on a large billboard in Times Square, bringing together real opinions from real people pulled from a digital source and displayed in the real world. These types of "trans-media" experiences are likely to define "social" in the year to come.
The Cult of Influence. In much the same way that Google has defined a system that rewards those who produce findable content, there is a race on to develop a system that will reward those who wield the most social influence. One particular player has emerged, Klout, determined to establish their platform as the authority of digital influence. Klout's attempt to convert digital influence into business value underscores a much bigger movement which we'll continue to see play out in the next year. To some degree everyone now has some digital influence (not just celebrities, academics, policy makers or those who sway public opinion). But for the next year, the cult of influence becomes less about consumer plays like Klout and more about the tools and techniques professionals use to "score" digital influence and actually harness, scale and measure the results of it.
Gamification Nation. No we're not taking about video games. Rather, game-like qualities are emerging within a number of social apps in your browser or mobile device. From levels, to leaderboards, to badges or points, rewards for participation abound. It's likely that the trend will have to evolve given how competition for our time and attention this gaming creates. Primarily, gamification has been used in consumer settings, but look for it in other areas from HR, to government, healthcare and even business management. Perhaps negotiating your next raise will be tied to your position on the company's digital leaderboard.
Social Sharing. Ideas, opinions, media, status updates are all part of what makes social media a powerful and often disruptive force. The media industry was one of the first to understand this, adding sharing options to content, which led to more page views and better status in search results. What comes next in social sharing is more closely aligned with e-commerce or web transactions. For example, Sears allows a user to share a product or review with their networks directly from the site. Sharing that vacation you just booked, or recommending a product, or service from any site to a social network is where sharing goes next. We probably don't know what we are willing to share until we see the option to do it.
Social Television. For many of us, watching television is already a social act, whether it's talking to the person next to you, or texting, tweeting, and calling friends about what you're watching. But television is about to become a social experience in a bigger and broader sense. The X Factor now allows voting via Twitter and highlights other social promotions, which encourages viewers to tap social networks while they watch. Another way media consumption is becoming social comes from a network called Get Glue which acts as something of a Foursquare for media. Participants can "check-in" to their favorite shows (or other forms of media) and collect stickers to tell the world what programs they love. Watch for more of this this year as ratings rise for socially integrated shows.
The Micro Economy. Lastly as we roll into 2012, watch for a more social approach to solving business problems through a sort of micro-economy. Kickstarter gives anyone with a project, the opportunity to get that initiative funded by those who choose to (and patrons receive something in return). A crowdsourcing platform for would be inventors called Quirky lets the best product ideas rise to the top and then helps them get produced and sold while the "inventor" takes a cut. Air BnB turns homes into hotels and travelers into guests, providing both parties with an opportunity to make and save money. These examples may point to a new future reality where economic value is directly negotiated and exchanged between individuals over institutions.
http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2011/12/trends.html
Originally posted on Harvard Business Review
Each year at this time, I look forward and predict trends in social media for the coming year. But first, I look back at my predictions from last year. How'd I do? Not bad.
Social media continues to move forward toward business integration, a trend that I identified last year. In a joint study from Booz & Company and social platform developer Buddy Media, 57 percent of businesses surveyed plan to increase social media spending, while 38 percent of CEO's label social as a high priority.
I was also partially accurate in predicting that Google would "strike back" in 2011. They did, with Google Plus, a formidable initiative that acts as Google's "social layer" to the Web. Part social network and part social search, Google Plus has industry observers scratching their heads, wondering if Facebook will be given a run for their money or if the service evolves into something complimentary in a highly social Web.
I had one big swing-and-miss on Facebook's intrusion in the location-based services war. While Facebook still supports location tracking in a number of ways, it has not put Foursquare out of business. Foursquare still enjoys a niche audience of highly active participants who enjoy telling the world where they are and post pictures to prove it. It is however worth noting that Facebook recently acquired location based network Gowalla, so continue to watch this space.
So what can we expect in 2012 in a world that seems to grow ever connected by the hour? Here are six predictions to ponder, in no particular order:
Convergence Emergence. For a glimpse into how social will further integrate with "real life," we can look at what Coca Cola experimented with all the way back in 2010. Coke created an amusement park where participants could "swipe" their RFID-equipped wristbands at kiosks, which posted to their Facebook account what they were doing and where. Also, as part of a marketing campaign, Domino's Pizza posted feedback — unfiltered feedback — on a large billboard in Times Square, bringing together real opinions from real people pulled from a digital source and displayed in the real world. These types of "trans-media" experiences are likely to define "social" in the year to come.
The Cult of Influence. In much the same way that Google has defined a system that rewards those who produce findable content, there is a race on to develop a system that will reward those who wield the most social influence. One particular player has emerged, Klout, determined to establish their platform as the authority of digital influence. Klout's attempt to convert digital influence into business value underscores a much bigger movement which we'll continue to see play out in the next year. To some degree everyone now has some digital influence (not just celebrities, academics, policy makers or those who sway public opinion). But for the next year, the cult of influence becomes less about consumer plays like Klout and more about the tools and techniques professionals use to "score" digital influence and actually harness, scale and measure the results of it.
Gamification Nation. No we're not taking about video games. Rather, game-like qualities are emerging within a number of social apps in your browser or mobile device. From levels, to leaderboards, to badges or points, rewards for participation abound. It's likely that the trend will have to evolve given how competition for our time and attention this gaming creates. Primarily, gamification has been used in consumer settings, but look for it in other areas from HR, to government, healthcare and even business management. Perhaps negotiating your next raise will be tied to your position on the company's digital leaderboard.
Social Sharing. Ideas, opinions, media, status updates are all part of what makes social media a powerful and often disruptive force. The media industry was one of the first to understand this, adding sharing options to content, which led to more page views and better status in search results. What comes next in social sharing is more closely aligned with e-commerce or web transactions. For example, Sears allows a user to share a product or review with their networks directly from the site. Sharing that vacation you just booked, or recommending a product, or service from any site to a social network is where sharing goes next. We probably don't know what we are willing to share until we see the option to do it.
Social Television. For many of us, watching television is already a social act, whether it's talking to the person next to you, or texting, tweeting, and calling friends about what you're watching. But television is about to become a social experience in a bigger and broader sense. The X Factor now allows voting via Twitter and highlights other social promotions, which encourages viewers to tap social networks while they watch. Another way media consumption is becoming social comes from a network called Get Glue which acts as something of a Foursquare for media. Participants can "check-in" to their favorite shows (or other forms of media) and collect stickers to tell the world what programs they love. Watch for more of this this year as ratings rise for socially integrated shows.
The Micro Economy. Lastly as we roll into 2012, watch for a more social approach to solving business problems through a sort of micro-economy. Kickstarter gives anyone with a project, the opportunity to get that initiative funded by those who choose to (and patrons receive something in return). A crowdsourcing platform for would be inventors called Quirky lets the best product ideas rise to the top and then helps them get produced and sold while the "inventor" takes a cut. Air BnB turns homes into hotels and travelers into guests, providing both parties with an opportunity to make and save money. These examples may point to a new future reality where economic value is directly negotiated and exchanged between individuals over institutions.
2012 Edelman Trust Barometer
2012 Edelman Trust Barometer: Global Deck
View more presentations from Edelman Insights
Social Media and Online Media:
In 2005 Trust shifts from “authorities” to peers
In 2006 "A person like me” emerges as a credible spokesperson
Trust In Social Media for the Informed Public:
2011- 8%
2012- 14%
(up 75%)
Trust in Multiple Online sources for the Informed Public:
2011-22%
2012-26%
(up 18%)
Trust in Social Media has gone up 75% from 2011-2012
Released on the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer
Found on http://darmano.typepad.com/ the website of David Armano (EVP, Global Innovation & Integration at Edelman Digital. This is his personal digital property where he shares insights, ideas and opinions on doing business in a connected age.)
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