Posts Tagged ‘social networks’
Leo Laporte and the end of social media
August 25th, 2010
One of the more visible social media professionals has decided to disengage, citing the pointlessness of the platforms. Is this the beginning of the end of ‘social media’?
Leo Laporte, the influential broadcaster behind the TWiT network of podcasts has posted a heartfelt blog in which he reasons that all social media is roughly the equivalent of talking to the wind.
The agent of change was his discovery that a glitch with Google Buzz – a social platform he has championed - meant that everything he had posted there for over two weeks hadn’t been seen by anyone. Worse still, no-one noticed.
Is Leo right? Are we all, effectively, talking to nobody when we engage online?
It often feels like that – but we have no real idea about who we have connected with through our ideas, unless we have engaged directly.
The power of social networks really lies in their universality and commonness. If you wanted an analogy, you could say that social networks allow millions of people to ‘overhear’ conversations in the way that we listen and learn from people talking on the train, the Tube, in cafes, restaurants and pubs.
This information is often of no immediate use, might be flippant, irritating or noisome but it’s also often very beneficial. It might colour our days, make something more understandable, or simply give us pause for thought.
More than that, the sharing of information, directly or indirectly, informs and celebrates the way we live. We like to share because it is a benefit. If no-one is listening, if the chatter machine has broken down temporarily (ie the pub had to shut its doors for a while) then definitely we lose an outlet for our egos.
But it does not mean that being social has no purpose and I think maybe it’s the reverse. It reminds us that we’re not special, individual or separate and we need to share together.
What will Facebook do with its News Feed patent?
February 26th, 2010
This week Facebook was awarded the patent for the News Feed - a feature common to Facebook as well as other social networks such as Twitter and MySpace, and a number of social media apps and startups.
The patent refers to the method of displaying stories/news items relating to online activities to a predetermined set of viewers, and “assigning an order to the news items”. According to reports, the patent also covers the auto-generation of a user’s activity and the display of that to friends. That means the news updates you get when your friends upload videos and accept friend requests is covered by Facebook’s new patent.
It’s true that Facebook pioneered the News Feed technology back in 2006, and so on the face of it deserves to own the patent…but what does this mean for the rest of the social media industry? Facebook is currently the world’s largest social network, and so if it’s going down the road of seeking patents for its technology, this could really hamper innovation and progress within social media, and render networks such as Twitter useless.
It’s currently unclear what Facebook plans to do with this patent. It could take the hard line and pressure Twitter, MySpace, Google etc into taking down their News Feed features, or at the opposite end of the scale it could choose not to exercise its patent.
The reason why social media has evolved so quickly is all down to collaboration, the mashup of content and technology and the sharing of creativity. Patents are arguably not a good thing in this space, but what can we do to stop them?
At the moment this is primarily an industry story, but should Facebook choose to make use of the patent, it’s likely to reach the attention of a wider audience. Ultimately the power rests with individuals to stop Facebook from agressively patenting its technology - if the business becomes too commercial in its focus, it will lose popularity, and could suffer massively in terms of online PR.
Privacy and the currency of disclosure on social networks
January 15th, 2010
Comments by Mark Zuckerman, founder of social network Facebook, have reignited the debate on the value of individual privacy, an argument expanded in an elegant blog post by Kieron O’Hara, senior research fellow in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton.
Kieron argues that privacy is actually essential, not only for the individual to act freely but also for society to function effectively. While his argument addresses broader issues than the impact of social networks, it acts perfectly as a test for these communities.
Social networks redefine the notions of individual privacy. We join tribes of people who we may have never met and who do not “belong” to our physical community. Our individuality is reshaped as we adopt new or different personas to mesh with the norms of these groups and to engage successfully with these tribes, we need to disclose ‘personal’ information.
In these exchanges, the essential, private “me” is revealed to be a chimera. Online, we are who we choose to be and we do so because it a benefit to aspects of our multi-faceted selves, and to the communities we belong to. The selective disclosures we make blur the line between private and public spheres in positive ways for both us as individuals (playing the game) and our communities.
Of course, communities are not simply atomised “game players”; they are also host to business entities, and the individuals who play the role of corporate sentinels. Communities have swiftly educated companies who thought that they could hide their commercial purpose and the sentinels also find that the selfish, disingenuous strategy has no place in these open, sharing groups.
In this sense, communities are self-healing and corrosive activity, which damages the tribal members and the tribe as a group is kept to a minimum. Information is exchanged “on my terms”.
The isolated, private individual whose engagement is limited mainly to passive adoption of social and commercial transmission is the ideal consumer unit. Association with social networks, with a subscription paid in the currency of disclosure, is clearly a benefit to both individual and community, offering multiple reference points for informed choice.
Does the Zuckerman imperative then present challenges to the legal concept of “reasonable expectation of privacy”? Responsible consent informs this challenge and there is little doubt that unwitting disclosure of personal data by an individual – and its misuse by third parties – would be deemed unreasonable. If the agent enabling that misuse is a commercial entity, like Facebook, then the consequences for that company would be terminal.
Facebook’s business strategy is almost wholly dependent upon the currency of disclosure. It is in Zuckerman’s interests, and indeed all those leaders of social networks, to ensure that this currency is exchanged equably.
There are certainly issues over how the multi-faceted individual reforms and represents aspects of his/her online selves. The networks archive snapshots of personas, which do change and the management of these progressions is complex. It requires continual disclosure and responsible openness – neither of which is in itself harmful; quite the opposite.
Unexpected and catastrophic use of personal information by government or commerce must surely educate individuals to understand the true value of their personal information, which persona they adopt and how much they give away.
There is a recent and shocking UK legal case in point where a woman who alleged she was raped by a group of men had IM messages she had posted used against her by the defence. According to reports, her credibility was “shot to pieces” with the submission to the court of excerpts from her MSN messages, which showed that she was “prepared to entertain ideas of group sex with strangers”. The judge at Preston Crown Court ordered the jury to return “not guilty” verdicts.
Should the messages – fleeting representations of her changing thoughts and ideas – have been kept private? There is a strong viewpoint made on the F Word about the case. I personally find the court judgement extraordinary and dangerous. Whatever the view, the judgement is a clear lesson on the need to understand the currency of disclosure.
A regular guest on the Liberate Media blog, Lorraine Warren, Director of Postgraduate Education and senior lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the School of Management at the University of Southampton, has blogged on the complexities of privacy, freedom of speech and management of relationships on social networks like Twitter. We’ll be picking up the arguments and discussion on privacy with her and hopefully with Kieron over the next few weeks. There’s a world of ideas to explore - and we’d love to hear your views.
Social networks as an educational tool
February 24th, 2009
As the Barcelona Mobile World Congress chatter echoes into silence for another year, and the winner of the MOFILM grand prize celebrates her short-film success, thoughts turn to other conversations more local and urgent.
In just over three weeks’ time, Tom Watson MP, UK Cabinet Minister for Transformational Government will join leading thinkers in education, gaming, social media and consumer electronics for an extended conversation on game based learning.
Graham Brown-Martin, director of the Game Based Learning Conference could not have chosen a more appropriate time to extend the remit of his event organisation from the widely respected Handheld Learning conferences. For there are dark mutterings from the House of Horrors in Westminster concerning the effects of social networking on the nation’s youth.
Baroness Greenfield, a scientist, this week waded into the debate on the potential psychological and physical outcomes from “too much SM”. From the reports I’ve read so far, there was little in the way of objective research data to back up the argument to the Lords but I will keep searching. It does make you wonder whether too much Lordism is damaging for older people’s minds - but I’m sure that is more than likely a line of thought sparked by a moral panic and nothing more.
Meanwhile, we can look forward to a different type of debate and conversations in three weeks at the educational London conference, where I believe the beneficial, even mildly revolutionary, effects of Social Media in extending the boundaries of learning will be more fully explored.
Mobile the key to more inclusive and youthful social networks
February 10th, 2009
Two reports caught my attention this week and reminded me again how much more effort will be needed before the mobile sector catches up with the rest of the connected universe. The Future of Social Networking workship in Barcelona featured a clear call from Dominique Hazaël-Massieux, W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative Activity Lead for the mobile providers to open up and lead the push for ubiquitous social networks.
She said: “Now is the time for the diverse social network actors out there to work together and resolve barriers to industry growth and stability. All social networks users, and especially young people, expect the richest possible social experience, but with full mobility, accessibility, and privacy.”
The workshop report emphasises the importance of mobile in the social network mix, with contextual information and sharing key data across all networks both key to progress. With the downturn, full-scale collaboration between the operators on all sides is sorely needed to avoid the partial implosion of the still young, vibrant but vulnerable online culture.
And talking of youth, the Independent’s Richard Garner this week flashed a snapshot of youth habits online. It’s even more official - young people are migrating away from TV and spending up to 31 hours a week online with social networks taking an increasingly important slice of that time.
Even more reason, then to ensure that the people and pipes that control and connect are as open, free-thinking and resilient as the users.
PR’s positive attitude to social media can help to play a significant role here and let’s hope that the grumblies and doomists who are joyously predicting the demise of sociability will soon be drowned out by a realistic and visionary chorus of social media advocates.
Moving mobile social networks beyond MySpace and Facebook
November 12th, 2008
A lively time in Wardour Street last night at the Chinwag event on mobile social networks with feisty (and drink-enabled) characters in the audience providing a testing warm up for the expert panel and chair Bena Roberts (GoMo News).
When things settled (departure of character with the Voice of Reason), it soon became clear at the MoSo Rising gathering that while there are no stellar new performers in the space, with established marques like MySpace and FaceBook leading the charge into always-connected social spaces, there are many positive signs.
Right now though start-up and niche mobile-only social networks are wrestling with the best revenue models, with white-label services a winning play at the moment, as ads and subscriptions largely fail to deliver.
More pressing for many agencies and PRs on the night was the need for clarity on how best to advise companies interested but fearful of mobile/social web. Panellist Alfie Dennen, CEO Moblog, suggested that brands and agencies need to think in more inclusive way, and embrace mobile as part of the communications mix, in much the same way that broadcasters have.
Harry Blunden. Head of digital at ?WhatIf! Digital advised that all agencies
should have at least one mobile savant - the one who could read the current mobile terrain and map out the potential for clients. He and other panel members all felt that many agencies did not understand Mobile but needed to embrace it.
Ron Shelton. CEO Next2Friends also urged agencies to encourage client to experiment with Mobile now, educating them away from the fear of the platform.
The view from the panellists, not necessarily shared by everyone in the Slug and Lettuce, was that digital agencies don’t yet get the mobile space and that a focussed education programme was needed to pull agencies into the new age with clients still very reluctant to put money into mobile.
A positive view on the development of the mobile/social web came from the floor as Conor McKenna, business development manager at mobile search company Taptu who said that growing numbers of people leading quite disconnected working lives used mobile web and social networks to communicate and engage and as a form of escapism.
Bena Roberts added how Polish workers she had met were addicted to social networks on mobile as this was all they had to keep connected with their social groups.
And in Hungary, people in villages who had not heard of broadband were using their mobiles as web/social media access tools.
The key messages I took away from a thoughtful evening were that MoSo is only just starting as is going to be a greater part of the mobile, always connected web with massive opportunities for all the players: operators, service providers, brands and agencies. While “always on” mobile is maybe 5-10 years away, there are great opportunities for brands to engage with their customers and for agencies to build business.
At the moment, brands can harness Mobile by playing to its current strengths, keeping it simple and direct but also thinking creatively about how to use the at present limited functionality. It’s not just about delivering ads and brand messages one way.
And the simple questions for agencies and brands to ask around Mobile: “What do we want users to do? How do we create real value that engages?”
Gustav creates an online social media storm
September 1st, 2008
I have been following the Gustav hurricane updates today on Twitter and am amazed by the amount of people talking about it over social networks and with social online tools.
Twitter has also been embraced as a ‘perfect storm’ for Twitter - A CNN reporter named Rick Sanchez has embraced Twitter with a vengance, calling on Twitter users to feed him information from the hurricane zone.
Twitter says Gustav is the most trended word of the day followed by Hurricane Gustav and #gustav - no surprise really!
Other sources of information include a blog called Gustav Bloggers - a group of concerned techies from the Internet sector who are based in New Orleans and survived Katrina from a New Orleans skyrise with NO DOWNTIME.
You can track Hurrican Gustav in Google Earth, listen to updates via Fox News radio, watch Hurricane Gustav Webcams or join a Ning group called ‘Gustav Information Center - Alerts and Information Regarding Hurricane Gustav’.
For more information also check out Gustav’s own Wiki page and the official Wikipedia page online at Hurricane Gustav.
It great to see people using social media as a way of communicating the latest happening for others that are not in direct contact with Gustav, but want to be kept updated in real time.
June 6th, 2008
It seems that the open online generation is beginning to have second thoughts about the content that it shares with the world via the web.
According to a press complaints commission survey into the media’s use of personal material sourced from social networks, and the web in general, sharing has quickly turned into protecting.
The survey revealed:
- Almost 80% of social networking site users would be more careful about the details they put online if they knew the media might use it.
- 89% wanted guidelines introduced on what the media could use.
- 49% of respondents said it was wrong for the media to use information that they had posted online without asking consent of the person concerned.
- 58% were fairly or very concerned about the lack of control about how they were depicted on websites.
We have already seen the result of employers searching for a prospect’s background on the web and turning up various images and text that the average candidate wouldn’t want their prospective employer to see, and now it’s spread to the media.
To be honest, i have little sympathy for people that freely share content one day but then want the brakes applied when it comes to using that information in the media. I do have some sympathy for people that didn’t know that they were being filmed, or if the content is pure fiction, and in those cases yes, regulation would be advisable, but wholly unenforceable.
However, for those that feel the need to share their most intimate/private moments and content on the web, even in so called ’safe environments’ such as friend-invited Facebook, the old rules still apply. If it’s on the web, it’s in the public domain and you’ve waved your rights.
I even find myself agreeing with the chairman of the PPC, Sir Christopher Meyer, who said: “In the digital age, self-regulation, with its sound principles and speed of operation, has never been more relevant.”
I must be getting old, as this just seems like common sense…
The BBC has the full story.
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November 29th, 2007
The PR industry has taken another bashing over the past couple of days for failing to embrace and understand social media as they should. If you’ve missed out on the conversations, it’s worth reading Will McInnes’ post “World has changed: PR agencies haven’t“, and Antony Mayfield’s follow-up post “Can PR evolve quickly enough?”.
Although Will makes the very valid point that “PR will NOT die at an industry level”, he insinuates that most PRs are in danger of being usurped by other agencies or disciplines, who have a better understanding of social networks.
And this is where I strongly beg to differ.
Expert PR thinking will always be at the strategic heart of any ‘PR’ campaign, and so long as we are always focused on being up-to-date in our approach and techniques, we will never be pushed out. The definition of ‘PR’ is on the very cusp of being radically overhauled, but our expertise and understanding of the media will never become redundant.
I am the first to admit that many PR agencies are taking too long over adapting and embracing the media climate that’s evolving so rapidly, but they shouldn’t feel bullied into having to becoming social media experts and having all the answers to hand. Their current PR expertise will be the only foundations and knowledge that they need to build on.
A great analogy to reference at this point is the publishing industry’s evolution from print to online. Ten years ago I got my first job at Ziff Davis, which coincided with the launch of its first two internet divisions - Gamespot and ZDNet. These websites were set up by traditional publishers and run by print journalists and editors - none had any prior knowledge of the Internet. To look back now it’s easy to see that we didn’t have a clue what we were doing, but we believed in the Internet and knew it was the right thing to be doing, and so just went for it! I don’t need to tell you how successful ZDNet and Gamespot are today.
My point is that we didn’t waste our time debating about how we should embrace the Internet, and who was best placed to succeed at it, or how we’d all lose our professions if we didn’t…we just did it, and learnt as we went along. As a result I’ve now been working in the digital industry for the whole of my career - I owe a lot to t’Internet!
So at the end of the day, us PRs are still the best people to do the job!
Technorati tags: pr, social_networks, socialmedia, willmcinnes, zdnet, communications
Google strikes back with OpenSocial
November 2nd, 2007
Google has announced that MySpace and Bebo are onboard with its OpenSocial platform, which promotes a common set of standards for software developers.
The OpenSocial network already includes Friendster, Hi5, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Ning and the blogging network SixApart, as well as the software makers Oracle and SalesForce.com. It gives developers access to a standard software kit that will allow their applications such as games, video players and photo albums to work across multiple social networks.
Google says it has invited other social networks, including Facebook, to participate in the spirit of openness.
Facebook showed the way forward by opening up part of its code to encourage the multitude of applications that are evident on its network today. It has replied by saying that Facebook will respond to Google’s invitation once it has had a chance to evaluate the OpenSocial network.
I think it’s safe to say that beyond ‘openness’ -OpenSocial represents Google’s ambition to sell more advertising on participating sites, similar to the $900 million advertising partnership it already has with MySpace.
Microsoft took a small but expensive stake in Facebook to secure ad rights just last week, but if OpenSocial is successful, Google could really mop up the ad opportunities in social networks. Furthermore, if Facebook does decide to join the OpenSocial movement, it could set up a battle of the heavyweights with Microsoft and Google rubbing noses on Facebook.
Whatever the motive, Facebook are still sitting pretty, enjoying being courted by the big boys.
The BBC has the full story.
Technorati tags: opensocial, google, myspace, facebook, bebo, microsoft, social+networks