Archive for the ‘Social media site inspection’ Category
Twitter Joke trial – #IAmSpartacus
November 12th, 2010
There has been plenty of discussion around the now infamous #TwitterJoketrial case this week, if you’re not familiar here’s the low down on the story from the Guardian.
Putting issues of bomb threats to one side for the moment, and our country’s obsession with coming down hard on anything remotely related to the subject, especially in relation to aircraft and airports, even if it is clearly a joke, I wanted to pick up on a great article by Milo Yiannopoulos at The Telegraph today who beautifully overviews the issue between our judicial system, which is dramatically out of touch with the social web, or even the pre-social web for that matter.
I have a small insight into the clash between how we lead our online lives, and how our legal system interprets that, as my wife is a solicitor. From my own personal experience, I am constantly amazed by the antiquated systems and processes she has to follow in accordance with our legal system, and she works for a relatively progressive and modern firm. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, and in general our solicitors have a good grasp of what is taking place online, but the system they work under does not.
The system and its understanding is one problem, our obsession as a country with security and the removal of our natural sense of humour in relation to such matters is another, but in my opinion it’s the double standards that annoy even more.
Let’s take the case of our Twitter joker. Yes, it was probably not the best thing to do in light of recent cases where even obvious jokes have resulted in dramatic action, but let’s be honest, this was never a threat, and should we all need to be that careful? Some might argue that the hard stance is to attempt to cut out such instances of joking about serious matters, but that’s really not going to happen. If you look at our social history we have faced most of the major threats to this country with humour, is that going to change now?
The reality is, if you look at the content available on the web, there are many more real examples of threats and dangerous content. So, why take action against the citizens who may have joked about something that is undoubtedly serious, but pose no real threat, and not these other examples?
The reality for Paul Chambers, the 26-year-old accountant who has lost two jobs as a result of his Twitter joke, is he has lost his appeal and will have to pay a £1,000 fine, around £2,000 in costs and he will have a criminal record for threatening, in jest, to blow up an airport.
If I look at my Twitter feed now, I can see a range of what could be construed as threats if we are working on the Paul Chambers example. Should these people be arrested and charged? Should I stop following them as a result? Or should we all get some perspective here and put our legal energies into dealing with the real threats and not those that are clearly written in jest.
Furthermore, if you search for the #IAmSpartacus hashtag in Twitter now, you’ll see the number of people who feel this joke has gone too far by re-issuing the so called threat that Paul Chambers tweeted, in support of him.
The scary thing is, as the number of people who utilise social media in its various guises expands, the likelihood of similar cases also expands. So, while I don’t expect anything to change quickly in our legal system, we’re likely to see more unfortunate examples such as this. Furthermore, if you don’t understand the social web, #IAmSpartacus is about to become its latest case study.
June 16th, 2010
Tweasier the new Twitter management application, and brainchild of Chris Norton, launched last week. I’ve been having a play around and wanted to share my experiences with you.
First of all, what is Tweasier? Well, over to Chris to explain:
“The idea for Tweasier came from an idea after I started blogging specifically just about useful Twitter tools . The Tweasier blog started to grow in stature and popularity and I started to think that maybe a tool should be developed which has some really great features. I suppose you could say it’s because of you guys.
“The application is only in beta testing (so please be gentle) but we are hoping you guys (its users) will help us find the nasty bugs so we can eradicate as many as possible before we launch this tool to the world.”
So, what’s the difference between Tweasier and the other Twitter management applications? Surely Chris has missed the boat and been beaten to the punch by other Twitter clients? Well, no, Tweasier is much more than a client. Tweasier’s brilliance is in the features it offers, and specifically the analytics suite.
Yes, i know there are other free Twitter analytics packages, but Tweasier is well…easier. It’s an all in one package, and the Tweasier team has obviously put a lot of thought into exactly what the user wants from their Twitter application, including simple but effective search and suggestions features.
To offer you a quick rundown of the features, i’ll revert back to the Tweasier launch post:
The new Tweasier application is packed with helpful services, allowing Twitter users to do any of the following:
• Run, save and clone Twitter searches based on location, keywords and personal biographies so conversations can be monitored.
• Receive personalised email notifications informing the user about their activity within the Twittersphere
• Visit Tweasier’s fully equipped analytics suite – providing more than 30 different up-to-date statistics on any Twitter account. Some of the graphs and data can also be exported for use in future presentations or reports.
• Sort an account’s friends or followers by more than 20 different criteria such as: people that haven’t tweeted in the last 30 days, people that didn’t follow the user back and also prune your friends to clear an account up if necessary.
• Users can take a quick peek at Twitter conversations between two people to get both sides of the story.
• Users can read messages, tweet, direct message and even shorten long URLs using Tweasier’s dedicated Twitter client.
• Scheduled tweeting – users can write and save several tweets until later in the day
• Users can use Tweasier’s own in-house ranking system which easily shows whether a user is worth following or not
Take my advice, when you go to Tweasier, check out the Analytics package, and have a play. I think it’s a real triumph of useful data displayed in a simple and readable format. The dashboard offers 30 different types of stats, including network features that show who of your followers is most influential. Some stats can also be exported, which makes my life so much easier!
Tweasier is currently in Beta and i’m sure it will improve, but it’s already excellent, and although i’m sure the last few weeks before launch have been tough for Chris and his team, he can rest assured that it’s been worth it. I’ve already shown the package to a few clients and they all love it.
Well done guys!
Facebook application review: Like Button
April 26th, 2010
Let me begin by being clear from the off that by ‘Like button’, I’m not referring to the Facebook share icon that you see on various blog posts, an example of which can be seen on the right-hand side of this post. I’m actually referring to the range of news stories that are shared via Facebook share icons called Like Button.
Overview
The Like button has a set of miniature Facebook type pages set inside it. The first page you come to has a general subset from news sites such as CNN, TechCrunch, The Wall Street Journal etc. This can easily be changed to sub categories such as Technology.
Inside each miniature news fan page you get a breakdown of the news from that source, as well as a summary of how many times it has been shared on Facebook. Another nice addition is the ability to search on who is talking about that brand’s news within Facebook.
The good
- Great selection of new categories and sources, and you can also request more
- Clean and functional design
- Excellent search functionality
- A good source of trending topics
- The ability to add your own site and find out how many times your content has been shared on Facebook
The bad
- The name is not ideal. I would have preferred a more relevant title such as: Most shared news (on Facebook)
Final thoughts
This is certainly a site that I will be visiting again and recommending to my colleagues and clients alike.
Conversation joins the Social Technographics ladder
January 22nd, 2010
Back in April 2007, when Liberate Media was just a year old, and the social media question was still very much ‘if’ and not ‘when’, Forrester’s Charlene Li and Josh Bernhoff wrote a paper called Social Technographics
The executive summary for which is overviewed below:
‘Many companies approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed – a blog here, a podcast there – to achieve a marketing goal. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for. Forrester categorizes Social Computing behaviours into a ladder with six levels of participation; we use the term Social Technographics® to describe a population according to its participation in these levels. Brands, Web sites, and any other companies pursuing social technologies should analyze their customers’ Social Technographics first and then create a social strategy based on this profile.’
If you are a digital marketer, you’re no doubt familiar with Social Technographics, as many of the related models and thinking from agencies all over the world were either based on, or used parts of, this profile to develop their own thinking. However, the all encompassing rungs and often simplified definitions have also been criticised as they are not specific or far reaching enough. I think that although these criticisms make a good point in terms of accuracy, the model is very useful to help communicate strategies and considering it’s based on Forrester’s own primary research.
Furthermore, the primary data that Forrester used to develop Social Technographics took into consideration how consumers approach social technologies, going beyond simple adoption figures that don’t necessarily tell the whole story as people try out technologies and leave them before settling on a group of favoured tools or methods.
So here’s the original profile:
As you can see the Social Technographics ladder was divided into six different categories of participation. It’s important to note that participation at one level may or may not overlap with participation at other levels, which is why the model was developed as a ladder, with the rungs at the higher end of the ladder indicating a higher level of participation. This is also why the figures don’t add up to 100%.
The model has worked well, but as we know social media moves quickly and an update was required, which came this week via Josh Bernhoff (Charlene Li has since left Forrester and founded Altimeter Group)Â and as overviewed in Advertising Age.
So what has changed? Well, as Josh has explained:
‘As you can see from the graphic, we added a new rung, “Conversationalists”. Conversationalists reflects two changes. First, it includes not just Twitter members, but also people who update social network status to converse (since this activity in Facebook is actually more prevalent than tweeting). And second, we include only people who update at least weekly, since anything less than this isn’t much of a conversation.’
Who are Conversationalists? Josh confirms that ‘they’re 56% female, more than any other group in the ladder. While they’re among the youngest of the groups, 70% are still 30 and up.’
It’s also interesting to note that the data from the new survey continues the trends from the last two and a half years, showing Spectators are up to 70%, Joiners are still growing rapidly, and Creators are growing slowly.
We can also see the number of online consumers not yet using social media is down to 17%, showing room for further growth although it could also be argued there is plenty of room for growth within the 70 % of joiners too.
Josh also highlighted three potential uses for the profile, although there are many more:
1. Convince your boss this stuff is for real, and that if you haven’t jumped on it, you’re late.
2. Profile your customer base, and see what they’re ready for, before planning a project to reach out to them. (After all, People is the first step in the POST process.)
3. Segment your audience; build different strategies for different segments. (Social is so prevalent now that a single approach for your company is probably too broad.)
I wonder what will the next rung on the ladder will represent and how long will it take to appear? Or will the ladder format be rejected for a more complex graphic representing the connected and complex nature of the community as a whole.
Google and Twitter – the rumour mill grinds on
April 8th, 2009
The web’s soothsayers have been talking about Google acquiring Twitter for some time, but last week, the rumours seemed to have a bit more substance thanks to stories of a Google/Twitter deal and potential acquisition talks that started on TechCrunch and spread rapidly, as you would expect.
The original TechCrunch story has been updated three times, including an official denial from Twitter on Friday, and further discussion from various sources that agree or disagree that acquisition talks are going ahead.
What most people seem to agree on is:
1. Google wants a deal, but initially focused on real-time feed of Twitter updates to speed indexing, as it currently has to index each Twitter user periodically to look for updates. This is apparently the main point of the current discussions, and certainly makes sense for Google at least when you consider global visits to Twitter approached 10 million in February, up 700% from the same time last year, according to comScore, and this figure is only going to keep growing, which leaves Google with a big issue.
2. Twitter’s current valuation is $250 million following the recent round of funding
3. Twitter values itself at much more, some sources say closer to $1 billion at least
4. Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone have already sold Blogger to Google five years ago
So why would Google want Twitter? Well I think this quote from Jeff Mann of Gartner Research that appeared in Forbes sums it up well: “Twitter’s value is in its content, growing by 6 million tweets per day. Twitter is attractive because it has built a service that attracts this much volume, creating a constantly growing, twitching, seething real-time source of comments, news and opinions.”
Beyond that, Twitter is the real-time search engine for breaking news and comment, it’s also not a bad reputation engine and Google undoubtedly wants a piece of this, as mentioned in my post in March.
Why would Twitter want to work with Google? Well, beyond having done it before, Twitter has so much potential as a revenue generating platform, but seems to be having trouble in realising this potential. Could Google be the answer to get the business model moving?
Whatever the eventual result, i think it’s going to take longer than a week to resolve, and since the story first broke last week there has been much discussion, an example of which can be seen in this Paid Content article, but little in the way of movement. As we know, these things don’t tend to move quickly.
So, do i think Twitter will be acquired? Probably, but probably not this year until they have developed a few more valuable services, proved revenue generation and got that all important valuation up.
Social media site inspection: Mobile
February 2nd, 2009
Welcome to the regular feature on Liberate Media’s blog: the social media site inspection. Inspired by NMA’s long-running site inspection, which has graced the back page of the magazine for many years, we will be looking at four websites from a different sector each month. This month’s chosen sector is anything mobile related. The chosen few will be reviewed by members of the Liberate Media team and scored on four key aspects of social media:
- Social media components
- Sharable content
- Social bookmarking score
- Freshness of content
We will also add an overview of how we rate the site in its current form, where improvements could be made and generally give feedback on our impressions.
We hope you enjoy the reviews, and please let us know your thoughts on the sites or our ratings – we would welcome the feedback.
BLYK
Social media components – 22/25
Sharable content – 20/25
Freshness of content – 20/25
Social bookmarking score –
194Â bookmarks at Delicious
3Â pages posted on Digg
0Â pages posted on Reddit
12Â page references from Yahoo! Answers
248Â blog reactions from Technorati
Comments
For those that are not aware of Blyk, it’s the free mobile phone network for 16-24 year olds. Of course by free, I mean advertising-funded so any users signing up to the network will receive advertising messages in return for an allowance of free minutes and texts, which can be topped up at an agreed rate.
The service launched in the UK in late 2007 and sparked much debate about whether mobile-based advertising will succeed and the downside of its potentially intrusive ad-serving nature.
However, I’m not here to review the idea, I’m here to look at the site’s social media capability in what I hoped would be a slick and open site, considering its socially-aware and connected target audience.
On opening the site, I was pleased to see a simple layout and easily accessible core elements:
Information on joining, signing in and getting more credit is upfront and clear. As I continued to look around the site the theme of simple bite-sized chunks of information, supported by helpful content such as video and click-through data continued. What’s more, on the about page I found a link to Blyk’s UK blog. The blog is updated twice monthly on average, other than December where no updates were made, which isn’t great, but the posts themselves were more impressive. No hard sell, okay there were one or two, and a range of commentators from the founder, to members and even a work experience guy.
The subject matter was useful, helpful and encouraging with tips and content that would be valued by the community. The blog layout is again simple, with good use of images, social bookmarking (which could go further) and a search tool.
The Blyk membership page is also full of personalised information and on further investigation the help menu directed me to a forum, which is well used and includes tag clouds meaning finding information is easy. What’s more the shop is simple to use and actually orientated to help the user locate a product, brilliant!
It’s also easy to click through to the corporate site, which retains the usefulness and offers a different blog, easy to understand layout and helpful biog to what looks like nearly all the senior team.
So, at the start of this review I was confident that as a newish service aimed at a socially-aware audience, Blyk had to deliver on the social media front, and while there is much more it can do, I feel Blyk has got the balance of attracting new users and keeping the community coming back for more pretty much spot on. Overall, well done Blyk, top marks!
Review by: Lloyd Gofton
Other sites in this sector: Not too many ad-supported free mobile networks, but plenty of traditional mobile networks:
www.vodafone.co.uk
www.orange.co.uk
www.o2.co.uk
www.three.co.uk
www.t-mobile.co.uk
O2 UK
Social media components – 9/25
Sharable content – 15/25
Freshness of content – 23/25
Social bookmarking score -
512Â bookmarks at Delicious
35Â pages posted on Digg
2Â pages posted on Reddit
188Â page references from Yahoo! Answers
1415Â blog reactions from Technorati
Comment
The one-way signs are very brightly illuminated for the non-O2 customer on this site. It’s very much a sales tool for the UK market, focusing on the people who have signed up to the service.
I thought that the site might open up a little, relax and be more engaging as I drilled down but I had to work quite hard to find points from which I could find sharable content.
There is, unsurprisingly, a massive amount of information on the O2 UK site, covering the company’s consumer and business markets for mobile and broadband. But it’s also unsurprising in its delivery – click and read, click and learn, click and listen, click and watch. Yes, deeper down in the site I found the podcasts and vodcasts for sport and music.
Maybe I’m being a little unfair, in that there is a link from the home page to the “What’s on at the O2 section†but for the novice, the untutored or the bewildered there is no indication that here lies the really interesting, sticky stuff.
It took me more than half an hour to find this rich seam of data – and that’s where I stayed for some time because it was engaging and shareable (links to Facebook, MySpace, del.icio.us and Digg). I felt human again – albeit a left-out human because I wasn’t a part of the Priority posse snapping up tickets for Pink, Tina Turner and Simply Red. I’m being unfair again, there are also no Priority tickets available for Depeche Mode, Kings of Leon and Walking with Dinosaurs. Anyway, O2 understands the meaning of Exclusive. I almost wanted to change mobile providers.
The user reviews are again enclosed, with no opportunity to respond on the page but with the facility to go to the forums. The reviews that I tasted were, largely, uncritical and solo. I had expected a few more.
The forums are lively enough with nearly 35000 members and the widest range of concerns, questions and expertise on display – and you don’t have to be an O2 customer to rant there. Tempting … very tempting.
And I can send a free text message from the site to *any* mobile. But you have to register using your mobile number, then get a validation code and then text away. I lost the will to live after the first stage.
On its own ground, the site delivers – selling phones and services. But I was surprised and disappointed that it did not engage as a social media tool. After all, the company is all about connecting people.
Review by Tim Greenhalgh
Other sites in this sector:
Vodafone www.vodafone.co.uk
Virgin Mobile www.virginmobile.com
T-Mobile www.t-mobile.co.uk
Ericsson
Social media components – 10/25
Sharable content – 16/25
Freshness of content – 17/25
Social bookmarking -
73 Delicious
5Â Â Digg
1Â Â Reddit
10 Yahoo! Answers
795 Technorati
Comments
Ericsson is a Swedish manufacturer and supplier of a GSM family of radio access networks and core networks.
First impressions always count, and my first impressions of the site are “what a drab looking site!â€
My first glance seemed to suggest no social media elements at all, no sign of an Ericsson forum, blog or community, no link to a Facebook group, Twitter feed, or Youtube video.
A second more extensive look around reveals a couple of social media elements, including the Telecom report podcast, technology news via RSS and press releases via RSS all of which look reasonably up-to-date.
Next I spot the multimedia tab, maybe there will be some shareable video here – to my surprise there are no videos at all – what a let-down!
It feels like Ericsson are yet to truly embrace social media, one suggestion could be that the press releases featured on the site, none of which have shareable social bookmark features, could be turned into social media press releases – here’s hoping!
Review by: Andy Merchant
Other sites in this sector:
www.motorola.com
www.quios.com
www.nokia.com
3
Social media components – N/A
Sharable content – N/A
Freshness of content – 5/25
Social bookmarking score –
52Â bookmarks at Delicious
1Â pages posted on Digg
1Â pages posted on Reddit
71Â page references from Yahoo! Answers
797Â blog reactions from Technorati
Comments:
It’s a bit ironic that a mobile network publicising mobile broadband on its homepage has barely anything to offer to its customers by way of social networking features. While networks such as Orange are using websites as entertainment and networking portals, 3 is sadly lagging behind in terms of social innovation.
In all honesty, it is almost impossible to write a social media site inspection for the 3 website. The site is primarily being used as a UK sales tool, and doesn’t seem to have been updated in a long while. In terms of content and services on offer, there is little to pull 3 customers back to the site or entice new customers in. On comparing this to the Orange website the differences couldn’t be more stark – I quickly got lost in the Orange celebrity blog and user reviews on films, whereas the 3 website took me a matter of minutes to browse through.
In terms of personalisation, a service called My3 is available to 3 customers only, which I wasn’t able to access. This wasn’t a massive loss going by the description of the service, which refers to paying bills and checking number of minutes/texts left, with no mention of exclusive content or networking services.
The ‘Products & Services’ section of the 3 website is the one glimmer of hope that I came across, but again, without being a 3 customer I was not able to access its ‘Planet 3’ entertainment and information portal which is available solely through mobile handsets. The absence of any integration between web and mobile is surprising and disappointing – surely mobile networks should be leading the way in offering a joined-up and open user experience?
I was left with a very poor brand experience, which goes to prove that price isn’t everything when it comes to selecting a mobile network nowadays.
Review by Wendy McAuliffe
Other sites in this sector:
www.orange.co.uk
www.t-mobile.co.uk
www.02.co.uk
December 1st, 2008
Welcome to a new regular feature on Liberate Media’s blog: the social media site inspection. Inspired by NMA’s long-running site inspection, which has graced the back page of the magazine for many years, we will be looking at four websites from a different sector each month. This month’s chosen sector is technology. The chosen few will be reviewed by members of the Liberate Media team and scored on four key aspects of social media:
- Social media components
- Sharable content
- Social bookmarking score
- Freshness of content
We will also add an overview of how we rate the site in its current form, where improvements could be made and generally give feedback on our impressions.
We hope you enjoy the reviews, and please let us know your thoughts on the sites or our ratings – we would welcome the feedback.
Cisco
Social media components – 23/25
Sharable content – 20/25
Freshness of content – 25/25
Social bookmarking -
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681 bookmarks at Delicious |
|
145 pages posted on Digg |
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30 pages posted on Reddit |
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311 page references from Yahoo! Answers |
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14470 blog reactions from Technorati |
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1156 inbound links from Wikipedia |
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3 pages made to the first page of Digg |
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9 comments on StumbleUpon |
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7 inbound links from Google Groups |
Comments
Recently redesigned, the Cisco corporate site is an extraordinary business and technical resource at the top level, with strong engagement and conversations as you drill down.
Sales focus and one-way messaging dominates the early part of the journey through the site but this quickly gives way to a mass of downloadable technical data and active discussions around the products and services. Forums (you need to register) and blogs form the main points of conversation and knowledge-sharing.
The first taste of the corporate blog site was very pleasant – a mass of well-organised, clearly-signposted information on a wide range of topics that Cisco, as a company, touches on a daily basis.
The gentle brilliance of this site (I’m no particular fan of Cisco, its methods or culture) is clarity in information design and therefore usability. Fully searchable by post and author, with pretty good matches, good calls to action with newsletter sign-up and feeds subscription, popular tags, most popular posts and “What we’re reading” – it has that almost indefinable quality of “rightness” – you feel comfortable there.
The top layer focuses on general issues around the Cisco corporate culture, from current views on the economics of business in challenging times, through corporate social responsibility to cloud computing and inclusion. This layer is stuffed with YouTube videos, an extraordinary amount of info that’s updated almost daily. Maybe, with this level of passive activity (well, that’s how I see web video a lot of the time) that’s why the actual text conversations are buried deeper in the Cisco blog universe. You have to scroll down a long way on this layer to find a comment.
As soon as you leave the “Platform” layer, less worthy and more inspiring materials start to appear, in Collaboration, Mobility and Virtual Worlds, for example where excellent essays nuzzle up to trends in higher education, security, environmental activity and tools. It’s hard to tear yourself away once you’ve started scanning.
Review by: Tim Greenhalgn
Other sites in this sector:
Nortel Networks – www.nortel.com
Juniper Networks – www.juniper.net
Alcatel-Lucent – www.alcatel-lucent.com
Hitachi Data Systems
Social media components – 12/25
Sharable content – 12/25
Freshness of content – 9/25
Social bookmarking score –
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34 bookmarks at Delicious |
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3 pages posted on Digg |
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0 pages posted on Reddit |
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0 page references from Yahoo! Answers |
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386 blog reactions from Technorati |
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2 inbound links from Wikipedia |
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0 pages made to the first page of Digg |
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0 comments on StumbleUpon |
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0 inbound links from Google Groups |
Comments
Hitachi Data Systems is one of the goliaths of the storage industry and that’s enough to lose most people, but before you give up on this review, bare in mind that storage is not only an essential element of any business, it’s also a multi-billion pound industry involving some of the largest technology companies in the world.
Therefore, I was interested to find out if a data storage company, which should be full of tech-savvy thought leaders eager to share their findings online, could develop its communications and embrace social media.
First impressions on opening the site is it’s a typical B2B corporate site – there are a few free applications, briefings and downloadable elements, but nothing that grabs the prospect.
In the web feeds section we find blogs, RSS, podcasts, forums and newsletters, which is much more promising, but it’s a bit disappointing that I had to route through the site to find them. On further investigation the blogs are updated with varying frequency, some at least weekly and others not this year! This could explain the lack of comments. Overall the blog posts do contain interesting information, that I would find useful in the sector, but all too often it has a sales slant, which is enough to put anyone off.
In terms of other social media-specific elements, there are a range of podcasts, but only one from 2008. On the plus side, the forums are perhaps the most used and interesting element of the site. Overall the site has tried to embrace elements of social media, but it appears this began circa 2006, and the evolution halted there, as did the appetite for providing useful content.
Review by: Lloyd Gofton
Other sites in this sector:
Texas instruments
Social media components – 19/25
Sharable content – 16/25
Freshness of content – 20/25
Social bookmarking -
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224 bookmarks at Delicious |
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16 pages posted on Digg |
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7 pages posted on Reddit |
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188 page references from Yahoo! Answers |
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438 blog reactions from Technorati |
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434 inbound links from Wikipedia |
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0 pages made to the first page of Digg |
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2 comments on StumbleUpon |
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2 inbound links from Google Groups |
Comments
Texas Instrument, huge brand, huge site, huge amount of products, huge let down!
Texas Instruments is a designer and supplier of digital signal processors. Other products include discrete and integrated circuits, calculators, and digital light processing (DLP) technologies.
So why is it a huge social media let down? I’ll tell you why. First of all I’m still trying to find the link from the homepage to the blog (I only know it has one because I found it via a search). Once inside the blog you notice they have attempted a few podcasts and have some featured company bloggers, but unfortunalty the blog looks like it is updated very rarely. The page also consists of some basic social boomarking features and RSS feeds from various pages. I dig around some more and click on DSP Discussion Groups which leads me to Join TI’s new Online Community. This looks more like it, as the first thing you notice is a nice big BETA sign. From here you can easily navigate to one of the four blogs it has, go to the discussion forum or check out the endless videos (shame there not sharable). Other nice features it has on the Community page are tags clouds and the ability to see how many members are live in the forums – I take it all back T.I!
To sum up the Texas Instrument site is very confusing to navigate your way through to the social media stuff, but when you do you can see it has made a good job of it, although you still cannot find a link to the Texas Instrument Twitter account.
Review by: Andy Merchant
Other sites in this sector:
Dell
Social media components – 18/25
Sharable content – 10/25
Freshness of content – 21/25
Social bookmarking score –
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1407 bookmarks at Delicious |
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626 pages posted on Digg |
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70 pages posted on Reddit |
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4801 page references from Yahoo! Answers |
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12882 blog reactions from Technorati |
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379 inbound links from Wikipedia |
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35 pages made to the first page of Digg |
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22 comments on StumbleUpon |
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11 inbound links from Google Groups |
Comments:
Back in 2005, Dell was lucky enough to learn an early lesson in the amount of brand damage one disgruntled customer can do across social networks. The infamous ‘Dell Hell’, as coined by well-known blogger Jeff Jarvis, drove the PC and laptop manufacturer to adapt quickly to the rise in social media.
It is therefore disappointing that the homepage to Dell.com remains a product showcase and sales site. The ‘Participate’ category is hidden well below the fold, and offers little hint that it leads to the heart of Dell’s online community. The overall message is clear – sales are still more important than engagement.
But dig a little deeper and you get to the Dell Community with features including blogs, forums, media galleries, groups, and its brainstorm hub called Ideastorm. Its recent single sign-on feature is a nice development, making content easily accessible.
There’s a good mix of Dell product information and industry commentary, and aside from the awful welcome video on the homepage, there’s no hard sell. Information topics are well categorised and supported by a tag cloud, with recent content being easily visible in content boxes across the fold.
The community have access to 12 internal blogs – Direct2Dell seems to be the most popular, generating 3.5m page views/month apparently. Posts can be sorted chronically, as well as by ‘most viewed’ and ‘most commented’, with the most commented-on post being about Inspiron Notebook product delays with no less than 1455 responses! Dell has been blogging since June 06 and it shows- the content is refreshed daily, well optimised and on hot topics.
The only down side to the Community is the lack of shareable content and entertainment features. The entire portal is text heavy, and although it’s full of help and advice, there’s little you can take with you. This is a missed branding opportunity by Dell, and more could be done to improve the level of interaction and reward across the site.
Review by: Wendy McAuliffe
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Watch out for four more social media site inspections from a different sector next month!