• Facebook has 250 million active users to Twitter’s 19 million (eMarketer research via Mashable)
• A large number of users quite within the first month (Nielsen)
• Twitter has no revenue stream

So, is Twitter the new attention dashboard? I have my doubts. I think that’s a very limited view of the conversations that are occurring online.

Will the real-time Web be a major influence on communication in the future? Absolutely.

The focus on the newness of things, the tool and its features and the immediacy of information (Twitter beat CNN to the Tiger Woods story this week by 45 mins) is compelling – but only to a point.  Beyond that point, Twitter discussions tend to become rather sycophantic, repetitive, tactical and/or theoretical.

This stuff is important though; The immediacy of micro-blogs like Twitter influences the way that we value information and perceive it.  It speeds up the news cycle and makes information even more of a commodity.

In a presentation at the recent Media140 event in Sydney Barry Saunders spoke about the danger of not considering context when we use the real-time Web as a primary source of information.  This is among the most insightul and interesting things that I’ve heard said about this space.  Its a very valid point, which is – along with others -  being overlooked in a plethora of hype fuelled conversations about Twitter.  Mr. Saunders make some additional points on related topics here.

The Twitter purists consider Twitter to be a conversational tool but many organisations are, in my experience, approaching it is a broadcast medium, as research that we are releasing tomorrow will show.

I will leave you with this analysis from BlogPulse, which shows comparative mentions of ‘Twitter’, ‘Unemployment’ and ‘Iraq’ in all forms of consumer generated media over the past six months:

]]> http://justanother24hours.com/blogging/just-home-much-air-time-does-twitter-actually-deserve/feed/ 0 http://justanother24hours.com/media/media-directions-forces-at-play-that-will-determine-the-future-of-media/ http://justanother24hours.com/media/media-directions-forces-at-play-that-will-determine-the-future-of-media/#comments Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:59:49 +0000 Daniel Young http://justanother24hours.com/?p=930

It’s the question on everyone’s lips: What will media look like in the future?

I was riding the 6:02 from North Sydney to Central station on the way home from work this evening. The girl sitting in front of me was reading two forms of media simultaneously.

In both hands she held The Metro newspaper, a free city newspaper here in Sydney and in her right hand she also held her mobile handset, which was clasped at eye level. She was switching between the two – old media and new.

It was a good metaphor for the forces at play in media. These well reported forces are transforming the media industry and giving media industry moguls like Rupert Murdoch major headaches. Every dogs gets its day, as they say.

I have been thinking about the forces at play on the media industry – it’s relevant to a project I am working on at the moment.

Media in the future won’t necessarily be re-shaped by one  extreme at the expense of another but I think its safe to say that the chips have to ultimately fall on one side or the other, in most if not all cases.

The sooner the better because media is important and sustainable and credible industries need certainty.

So here’s a black and white analysis of some of the forces influencing the future of media. There’s no thinking behind the black and white. The direction that media takes has fundamental implications for the marketing industry but also for our society, communities and families in the future.

It’s with great pleasure that I announce the launch of a new Just Another 24 Hours Series entitled Media Directions. This follows the short and sweet The Microhoo Application series.

The Media Directions series will tackle the forces outlined in this post one by one and seek to pick one winner over another (if possible). The series will capture the characteristics of future media . This analysis will be highly subjective with the occasional statistic and fact thrown in for good measure.

And if you have any suggestions about other forces impacting the media industry then please add them to comments and I will tackle these in due course.

The outcome for Media Directions will be a definitive mind map of the media industry of the future, which will act as a foundation planning and strategy tool.

Watch this space.

Subscribe to Just Another 24 Hours by Email

]]> http://justanother24hours.com/media/media-directions-forces-at-play-that-will-determine-the-future-of-media/feed/ 0 http://justanother24hours.com/social-media/revenue-streams-for-twitter-will-google-and-microsoft-provide-an-answer/ http://justanother24hours.com/social-media/revenue-streams-for-twitter-will-google-and-microsoft-provide-an-answer/#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 02:05:11 +0000 Daniel Young http://justanother24hours.com/?p=922 Twitter is in advanced talks with Google and Microsoft to provide them with access to its data, according to a report in All Things Digital.  If successful, this would provide Twitter with a sizeable revenue stream, which would prevent it having to clutter the interface or alienate users by introducing advertising.

On the other hand, Twitter needs to be sensitive to perceptions around privacy of information.  Twitter uses may not be entirely comfortable with Twitter selling information about their preferences, interests, habits etc. to third parties – particularly to Microsoft and/or Google.   

Twitter would gain added legitimacy if it were added as a Vertical Search option in Google alongisde Images, News, Blogs, Maps etc.  Ultimately, Google and Microsoft are attempting to improve their access to the worldwide Web and extend the usefulness and reach of their search engines. For more on the Real-Time Web check this post by ReadWriteWeb.

We went live with a new website for Burson-Marsteller Australia. You can find it at www.bm.com/australia.

Its about time that we had a local web presence given the fact that we are advising many clients on digital PR and social media strategy. The site is a starting point, which we will add to and develop over time. The site is based on Microsoft Sharepoint, which I found to be an ‘OK but slightly frustrating’ content management tool.

We are currently working on a really exciting research project for Australia and working with clients on a number of digital projects and some cool new business projects. More on this later.

I am also judging a competition for the International Advertising Association and have a medium sized cardboard box of entries from teams of University students to read through over the weekend.

As a daily habit, I have started reading www.techmeme.com in the morning. I am finding that its a great way to keep up to date with what’s happening in digital and tech generally.

]]> http://justanother24hours.com/life/general-update-this-and-that/feed/ 0 http://justanother24hours.com/social-media/is-the-social-networking-star-waning/ http://justanother24hours.com/social-media/is-the-social-networking-star-waning/#comments Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:59:40 +0000 Daniel Young http://justanother24hours.com/?p=783 Is the social networking star waning?

This graph shows the Traffic Rank for the three biggest international social networks since mid-2007, courtsey of Alexa.

Traffic Rank compares all websites and ranks them from number 1 up in terms of traffic figures. Facebook has been the fourth most Trafficked website on average over the last 3 months.

MySpace has gone from 6 in mid-2007 to 11 today. Twitter has enjoyed a steep ascent from around the 3,000 mark in mid-2007 to 15 today.

Google.com is number 1, at the time of writing. The number 1 spot rotates between Google and Yahoo.

This graph shows that total social networking activity peaked in Q308.  It shows the percentage of total daily page views for each of the three sites.  MySpace has been on a steady decline since then.

The MySpace experience suggests that social networks have a limited lifespan or that they need continual re-invention to motivate their members.  The challenge lies in making changes and re-inventing without alienating users, as Facebook has found to its cost.

News Limited is about to embark on a new strategy for the loss-making site . The site will re-cast itself as an “entertainment portal” following a spate of redundancies and cut backs.

In 2008, U.S. ad spending on MySpace was $585 million, up 15% from 2007, and on Facebook was $210 million, up 50%, according to eMarketer.  Facebook generated $210 million in ad revenues in the same period.

Ad spending on Facebook is expected to surpass that of MySpace in 2011. This will be a good indicator of the overall health of the social networking market.

Twitter has dominated the headlines in 2009 thus far. Facebook – which was today valued at $6.5billion – continues to be the star of social networking but I feel that there are signs that it’s star is waning.

Anecdotal feedback from friends suggest that the novelty factor has worn off. Photo sharing seems to be the primary function of the site for most users who tend to interact inside Facebook with the close circle of friends that they hang out with in real life.  The re-design hid many applications and services behind tabs meaning that users have to go and look for content rather than have it come to them.

There are signs of an emergence of editorial ruminating about the future and usefulness of Facebook. In this article for Mac World, Hillary Rhodes asks: Is Facebook past its prime? Hillary makes the point that ‘the quality of the content that people share at Facebook may contribute to the longevity of the site far more than the sheer number of people who connect with each other’.

Negative editorial can only serve to speed the deterioration of the Facebook brand as a cool go to place. We always knew it was geeky but perceptions of the site seem to be edging into ‘un-cool’ or at least ‘old-hat’.

A recent study covered by The Australian identified a reaction to digital lifestyles. It found that the younger demographic longs for simpler times, it interested in retro and vintage (comes as no surprise if you live in Surry Hills) and has a desire for more authentic real-world relationships. The study found declines in the time spent on the Internet amongst 1,600 young adults (16-30 years old).

My view is that Twitter has a relatively sustainable lifespan because of its simplicity and its diversity.  Twitter seems to have m0re potential due to the fact that it connects people that don’t know one another creating many more opportunities for users to refresh, grow and evolve their networks, exposing them to new sources of information and opinion.

It seems inevitable to me that the traditional / new media pendulum would swing back towards the reality of physical offline media.  Like the dotcom bust, this process will redress the balance and bring a sense of reality to what has been a massively over-hyped area. I’d be a nut to argue that social media has had its day. We’re still in the formative phase of social networking and the chances are that Facebook will be superseded by something else in the short to medium term, in the same way that it has overtaken MySpace.

What does this mean for marketers?

Firstly, for online campaigns leveraging social networks and the Web. Marketers must ensure they have a presence within all major social network. Do not put all of your eggs in one basket.  It must be possible for the customer to engage with the brand and participate in the campaign within the social network of their chosing. This ensures maximum reach. Post campaign analysis will provide some interesting insights as to where  your audience participates, which can be weaved into future campaigns.

Secondly, social networks will come and go. What’s important is that brands interact with their target audiences online in an authentic and credible voice.  Its not about Facebook, MySpace or any other social network per se, its about understanding your customers and engaging them via the Internet and other forms of media in meaningful and valued interactions and conversations.

A colleague asked me this very question last week as we were working on developing a message house for a Melbourne based Web agency.

The people behind ‘The D Confence – All Things Digital’, which was held outside San Diego during the last week in May, declared the end of the Web 2.0 era and heralded the beggining of Web 3.0.  They claimed a number of proof points for this claim…

The reasons given:

• because they think something major is happening at the intersection between tech and media
• which deserves its own name
• and because, apparently, when you run conferences you can say stuff like that
• because developments on the Web are resisting the downward pressure of the economic downturn
• the arrival of the thin client, running clean, simple software, against cloud-based data and services
• the fact that we can read the WSJ and other news sources, including photos and videos
• the prevelance of handheld computers

I don’t think that there is any evidence in this list that we are moving into a completely brand new era of Internet.

The fact that the Internet buzz is resilient to the economic challenges of our times does not herald a new era of the Web.

Cloud computing is attracted a lot of headlines as the new wave of the Internet but I don’t see that this is new either – open standards and hosted applications have been available for many years; the Internet itself has been expressed as a cloud or series of clouds for many years.

Robert Scoble agrees with me. In this post, he argues that the Web does not have version numbers. He goes on to define some of the current and emergent trends in the Web (something that the D7 guys failed to do). Scoble refers to the next Internet age as the 2010 Web.

I agree with Scoble that version numbers do the Internet a disservice.

Lets face it, some organisations are still trying to figure our Web 1.0 – and are yet to truly tap into the power of connectivity and interactivity that falls under what we know as Web 2.0.  Labelling the Web as 3.0 without any real reason for doing so creates yet another layer of jargon andconfusion at a time when businesses and Government need clarity.

It’s going to be very hard to explain the differences between Web 3.0 and Web 2.0 to a marketing director when these differences don’t actually exist – many of these guys are already feeling overwhelmed by the speed at which this sector/ space is growing.

The consumerisation of IT is well documented – consumer IT is leading the enterprise into new territory, where they must go if they are to remain relevant.  This is most apparent in the area of corporate websites, which are – in the main – static sites that offer few opportunities for engagement, personalisation and interactivity. I am often surprised by how bad search can be in corporate websites. Many corporates will be spending time and money applying the principles of social media to their corporate websites in the years ahead. In version number terms, they will be making the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. Lets not move the goal posts just yet – especially when the justification for doing so lacks substance (unless, of course, you are trying to generate a few headlines).

Steve Rubel recently blogged on the topic of iconography – the rise of icons and logos as a means of selecting applications and tools. Steve reckons that he is drawn in by icons to use applications that he might otherwise have neglected. I guess there is some truth in this but decisions about the applications and tools we use are determined by a much longer list of factors:

1. Do you know about it (the vast array of tools in any given category makes it hard to really know what’s best)?
2. Does it work?
3. Is there an alternative?
4. Does anyone else use it? Sometimes our social media choices are determined by critical mass.
5. Service and support (including emotional connections – I might prefer to use a product if it is local, for example)

I am sure that some icons stick in our sub-concious and that the reasons for this differ from person to person. And that they have an influence (probably minimal) over the success of a product or service, which leads nicely in to the launch of my new logo:

This documentary style film was made by Brett Gaylor, it features Girl Talk - a mash-up artist (music) (I just downloaded his Feed The Animals album, which is also really good). Gregg Gillis produces music by sampling the music of others and is therefore in breach of copyright law.

The film provides a fairly balanced analysis of the argument including information about the origins of the copyright law and the concept of the public domain. The first iterations of copyright law were designed to find a balance between the rights of the creator and the public by protecting the rights of the creator for a limited period to encourage creativity and then opening the intellectual property up by allowing it to be re-used by everyone after a specific period of time, 7 years I think.

The industry has since been corporatised to the extent that music and other art forms are ‘owned’ i.e. they have owners distinct from the creator who all want to protect and leverage their ‘investment’ – even to the extent of pursuing very minor cases of ‘piracy’.

The film features a number of interesting characters including Lawrence Lessig, an Academic and political activisit.

RIP also documents the complicity of the Clinton administration in relation to the introduction of patent law, which leads to the corporate ownership of ideas.

I’d recommend you check it out – you can pay what you want for it here.

Further reading here at Wired Magazine.

Oracle Listens with innovative Web approach

Oracle recently announced an exciting initiative involving its corporate home page as part of a campaign called Oracle Listens in the lead up to its OpenWorld conference. The company is going to turn its home page into a listening post; unregistered visitors to the page can submit ideas, comments and suggestions. Registered visitors can submit ideas which can be voted up or down by other members in the Oracle community.

This idea is similar to the Dell Ideastorm concept, which famously led the company to introduce its first Linux based PC (as the community voted this as most popular idea suggestion). The big difference being that Oracle is using its home page.

You can find out more in this post by Justin Kestelyn in the Oracle comms team. There are corrections marked on the post and the Oracle homepage is un-changed. Obviously some glitches occurring as this was due to launch last week. There are no further updates from Justin since September 11 – I tweeted him for an update.

It’s critical that Oracle has the resources in place to make sense of the vast number of comments and ideas that it hopes to receive because messages that go un-noticed can easily undo all of the theoretical benefit with this sort of approach as the comment below demonstrates. Oracle claims that executives will be ‘directly involved’ in this process with plans to extend this into a permanent feature of Oracle’s customer interactions.