Archive for the ‘Geekery’ Category

5 Fun Things to Watch This Summer

Posted on: July 20th, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 9 Comments

Rupert Murdoch says 'sorry' in Newspaper Adverts
Image by ssoosay

It’s summertime and with the heat comes play, even for social media geeks and bloggers. Here are five fun things to watch and play with this summer:

1) Spotify: It finally arrived in the United States last week, and boy it’s fun. As an old person who hasn’t listed to pop radio for more than a decade, this has been a fantastic way to learn about new bands. Favorite find so far is “Holly Roller” by Yacht. Most people are getting their invites to this modern Napster via Klout Perks.

2) Mac OS X Lion: So what does the new robust operating system have to offer that we haven’t seen before? Multitouch gestures, full screen applications, mission control, and new email to start with. Playing with Lion will be fun for any true Apple geek!

3) Rupert Murdoch Gets Roasted: The News of the World phone hacking scandal is getting deeper and deeper embroiling even the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister. Now the News Corp. board has hired its own legal representation. Will the scandal impact Fox News and the Wall Street Journal? Can it even take Rupert down? Couldn’t happen to a better guy, and as much as you hate saying it, from a media wonk standpoint, you can’t leave this story alone.

4) Google+: Blah, blah, blah. See every other marketing blog.

5) Amazon’s Continued Market Entry: Amazon made a stellar entry into the mobile electronics market with the Kindle. Then there were the stores for video and music. Now a tablet is coming this Fall. Finally, we may have a bonafide competitor to the Apple store and its many associated devices (iPad, iPod), etc. Stay tuned to the news.

What fun geekery are you participating in this summer?

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The State of Influencer Theory Infographic

Posted on: July 15th, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 18 Comments

The State of Influencer Theory

The above infographic — “The State of Influencer Theory” (download here) — was published today as part of a primer on influence theory that appeared in SmartBrief on Social Media. The post updates a section of Welcome to the Fifth Estate to include leaderboard theory, such as Klout and Empire Avenue.

Addressing some issues pointed out in “Infographics: Art or Porn,” this graphic is designed by Jess3 (thank you, Jesse and Leslie), the industry leader in online data visualization. The infographic fits on one screen view. Because the graphic depicts people and theories, it is designed as a fun, cartoonesque map that illustrates the evolution of theory, creating a pop art element to it. The downloadable graphic is licensed as Creative Commons (with attribution), is high resolution, and can be made into a poster or screen wallpaper.

The key for the data elements in the graphic can be found in the companion post and is listed below:

The Tipping Point (2000) by Malcolm Gladwell – Movements are caused by three types of influencers; connectors, mavens (subject matter experts) and salesmen. Examples: Old Spice Guy, Dell Listens.

Six Degrees/Weak Ties (2003) by Duncan Watts — Data analysis shows influencers rarely start contagious movements, instead average citizens provide the spark. Examples: Egyptian Revolution, Tumblr – Digg Events.

One Percenters (2006) Jackie Huba & Ben McConnell – It is the content creators amongst Internet communities that drive online conversations. Examples: Lady Gaga, Ford Vista.

The Magic Middle (2006) by David Sifry: The middle tier of content creators and voices break stories and discussing that trickle up into widespread contagious events. Examples: 2008 Obama Election, Motrin Moms.

The Groundswell (2008) by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff: Movements start within communities, and leaders rise up out of the community, and can have many roles including content creator, critic and collector. Examples: Haiti Earthquake Texting, Pepsi Refresh.

Trust Agents (2009) by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith – Influencers are people who build online trust and relationships whose communities look to them for advice and direction. Examples: Gary Vaynerchuk (WineLibrary.TV), Republican Party’s #FirePelosi Campaign.

Free Agents (2010) by Beth Kanter and Allison Fine – These trusted influencers are independent of traditional command and control organizations, and crash into the walls of storied cultures. Examples: @BPGlobalPR, Robert Scoble at Microsoft – Channel 8

Leaderboards (2010-11): Influence can be quantified by online actions taken by a person’s community, including retweets, mentions, comments and more. Examples: Klout, Empire Avenue.

Because the article is meant to serve as an objective primer on well-discussed theories, there’s little opinion about which theories work and don’t. You do see some alignment in the graphic of top down versus bottom up theories, as well as the basic offsetting of these two theory families, with Gladwell and Watts taking opposite sides. However, there is much to say from an opinion standpoint, and it will be said here next week. :)

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Why the Facebook Feature Frenzy Will Fail

Posted on: July 11th, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 16 Comments

Last week Mark Zuckerberg revealed video chat (see above video), the first of many new features in what will be called, “Launching Season 2011.” Yet, this announcement (conveniently timed one week after Google+ launched) only seems to add to the problems that Facebook has.

First and foremost, Facebook’s nightmare user interface offers a plethora of features, many of which don’t fit on one screen view much less a mobile application. More clutter won’t make the mess better. While an interesting business strategy — much like McDonalds’ approach to adding competitive products to its menu — sooner or later so many features are just too much. On the contrary, additions are bound to make Facebook’s menu of social offerings even harder to navigate.

Facebook needs to address its user interface, wonky personal list issues, and privacy concerns as Google+ did with its next generation offering. Google+ is not perfect by a long mile, but it did up the ante.

Google plus android
Image by Geeky Gadgets

Consider the whole mobile experience. Everyone knows the mobile revolution is upon us. Just today Pew released a study showing 25% of Americans prefer accessing the Internet on their smartphones.

If the Facebook web interface is bad, the mobile interface is from hell. Google+ was clearly designed with mobile use in mind. The Android app is fantastic, and exposes a lot of weaknesses in the half functional Facebook app. The inability to provide a great experience in a touch environment is a major competitive issue for Facebook. Not only does it have Google+ to contend with, but Twitter will soon be integrated into all iPhones. Mobile will be a two front war for Facebook.

Like other networks Google+ has privacy issues with content licensing, too. But at least it is built on an opt-in premises with circles of friends rather a big jambalaya of friends, colleagues, and family. It respects the way we work as people and our sense of privacy. This is the exact opposite of Facebook’s approach, which is empire building at the expense of its users.

You can easily make the argument that Google+ is in the beginning, and doesn’t warrant a response, even if it has five million users already. Facebook has 750 million users. But Inside Facebook recently reported that Facebook’s growth has stabilized in early adopter countries, and is even retracting in some months.

Time has shown over and over again that big web companies lose their stature. The “Death” of Facebook is not so unfathomable this month. To stave off that loss of stature, Facebook needs to address its UI and privacy issues rather than create more of the same problem.

What do you think of Facebook’s response (or does it need to respond)?

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