It's been too long between posts, so I thought I'd pop in a few words. (Posting has been on the backburner with the million things I have to get done as well as the broken A/C in the house this week, going on day 4 of 90+ heat with no relief!)
Yesterday was the staff retreat for the agency I work at. This year we had a bit of fun with social media at the Indianapolis zoo. Instead of a traditional scavenger hunt, we had our resident pregnant lady sending us tweets for clues from back at the Riverhouse (she couldn't do the walking, so she got the joy of being home base). The team leaders each were subscribed to her (protected) feed, and as they got clues remotely the teams were to take photos to match the clue and then upload them to flickr. All in all it was a very fun experience.
At the end of the day, my colleague working home base commented that it was fun to be back at control because she got to see what was happening in next-to-real-time as we uploaded and tagged our photos. She knew where we were and what we were doing, and got to watch the search unfold as we completed it. While I'm sure the scavenger hunt idea using social media isn't new by any means, I think it serves as a great example of how social media can be used.
For instance, suppose you have multiple reporters in who agree to set up a single flickr account and then individually post to sets. Now you get to watch the story unfold from three different angles as it happens, and something that would otherwise be missed by a lack of personell or cooperation can be caught. Or maybe you're lost and need help. You can send out images of where you are and can get immediate feedback if anyone can identify the landmarks. It's very, very powerful when used creatively.
Twitter is not Statistically Sensible
If you're in the business of marketing, or if you work with marketers, or if you read blogs done by marketers you may have noticed a new game that's gotten wildly popular: Statistic Says. It's an exciting new game that takes Twitter to a whole new level by finding statistics relating to the demographics and use of Twitter, then making up stories about it's future boom or bust. While it's a lot of fun, it's about as useful as looking to Hollywood for accurate depictions of history.
The unfortunate reality of the situation is that most of the competitors in Statistic Says don't actually know how to read, or use, statistics. Tossing fuel on the fire, Harvard Business released a set of statistics that examine who is using Twitter and who they follow. The real trick to going through this report is interpreting the data.
Watching this hit, I noticed a general reaction to a particular statistic: Among Twitter users, the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one.
It seems that there are two camps on this.
1) Nobody actually uses Twitter! If most people only post once, it shows that it's pretty useless!
2) Twitter isn't about posting, or Tweeting. It's about other people Tweeting and gleaning information.
What Harvard Business did, instead of trying to interpret the data alone, was look at trending from other "social media" sites. They compared contribution rates from users of Twitter, Wikipedia, and Facebook and noticed that Twitter was far more like Wikipedia than Facebook. As a user of all three, I can't say I find the trend surprising.
During a day of using Twitter, I find that there are several kinds of people, including those that never tweet. The catch, however, is that they still use Twitter. Compare me to Guy Kawasaki for instance. You'll notice a small (read: enormous) disparity in our posting rates. Me: 826 updates, 66 followed, 107 following. Guy: 25,411 updates, 122,767 follwed, 127,137 following. We may not use Twitter equally. I have 3.2% of his total posts and only follow .05% of the total number of users he does.
However, this follows the exact trend that Harvard Business points out: the top 10% of active users account for 90% of the content. It's just like Wikipedia. Most of the people who use Wikipedia (and Twitter) don't actually go there to push content. They don't have a whole lot to say. Maybe nothing. Instead, they find value in watching it and listening. A few examples of my own use include following the Indianapolis Star's shopping feed on Black Friday to find out where the lines and sales were. Or following RedBox to get a free rental every Monday. Maybe it's following Mike Massimino to find out how the Hubble repair mission is going. It could be following the Yankees to get scores on my phone without having to pay for a subscription.
Whatever the case may be, Twitter users aren't always "users" in the sense that they contribute content. To see the tweeting rate and take it to mean the usage rate is to ignore some very common sense facts about statistics. With that, I leave you with one more thing to think about: lurkers. If you participate on message boards, you likely have noticed the large number of people who never post as well as the very few people who post a lot. The same is true of a very public, very real time message board.
The End of an Era
Last night, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk on Twitter) did something remarkable. He showed the world (or at least the developed world) a truth. It's no secret that the newspapers are dying. Blogs have become the standard source of media for millions, and news outlets moved their print articles online to stay relevant. The problem they're finding, however, is that there is no viable business model if they want to maintain their business the way it was run before the online takeover.
Take the New York Times, for instance. Most of it's content is completely free via the web, but consumers still have to pay for a print version. So what do even loyal customers do? Keep the content, ditch the bills. It's great for the mass market, and it's improved readership. But what this move can't do is pay the bills for the reporters around the world who contribute to the Times. In other words, these businesses can't keep their models and still hope to compete, much less thrive.
So what amazing thing did Mr. Kutcher do last night? For free, via video, competing against one of the largest media outlets, he streamed live video of himself to thousands of people across the world to declare victory in a competition for market share. Mr. Kutcher had one million followers before CNN. What's so big about that? For one, Ashton doesn't have a television station, video producers or a worldwide network to help him get followers. He has Lil' Kim on YouTube, he has PDiddy on Twitter, and he has the know-how to use social media to create an enormous following without having to spend a dime. He showed that he, as a single person, can hold more clout than a media conglomerate.
So what does this mean for the media? It means their business model is threatened. I would even go as far as to say it was obliterated last night. If we were to look at the cost of production for battle between the two, there would be a huge discrepancy. CNN has to pay contributors, staff, camera men, writers; they have a whole lot of people working to push for the win. Ashton Kutcher had himself, a bunch of free software and a lot of community influence. He's not the only one. Of the top ten Tweeters, seven are individuals and two are media outlets. In case you're not convinced, here's the whole list. The crazy thing is, it's not just major celebs on the list, there are up and coming stars in their own right littering the top fifty influencers. That's hundreds of thousands of followers for relative unknowns. And they're competing with the likes of CNN, The New York Times and NPR. Did I mention for free?
So the business model is bust. Kutcher declared "check!" last night, and now it's up to the media to decide how to respond. Wave a white flag? Bonzai rush down the hill? Or maybe, just maybe, they'll rethink the strategy all-together.
My Dock Got ‘Decked…
One of the programs I regularly use to keep up with Twitter is Tweetdeck. It helps me meet my goals using Twitter: easy tracking of people I follow, easy posting, short URL integration, instant notification, trending, columned viewing, custom grouping and simplified navigation. It does all of the things that Twitter can't do by itself at a much more reliable level. There are no fail whales on Tweetdeck. I had seen the old icon for Tweetdeck on many a designer's dock, constantly wondering what the heck the program was. And, of course, it's nearly impossible to search for an app based on it's icon. It didn't help that it was a black bird because all I got were Beatles Lyrics and torrents to download Beatles music (or close to that result anyway). Well, in all of the Twitter research I did over the last few months I discovered what it was and fell in love with the program.
To be honest, the old icon is ugly as sin. The illustration is awkward and clunky and the dimensionality is equally poor. It's got some really uncomfortably sharp creases in the highlights, and the weighting of the various anatomical parts is... off. However, it was always very easy to find, and quite frankly it was unique among the slew of square icons on my dock. As you can tell by the dock image, it fits in quite nicely with my CS products (even better if you've upgraded to CS4). And, quite frankly, I hate it. And the bird illustration is even more clunky (if that's possible...) Without the dimensionality, the head has gotten too heavy and feels fat. The small feather indications on the head, tail, and wing are gone. The balance is forced forward, making the bird look like it's going to fall forward. Some of the weight is gone from the upper part of the leg (and there wasn't enough to begin with) and now it feels too twiggy. The wing is also gone, further forcing the weight too far forward. A small clip out of the tail was also "resolved" and now it's a fluid, but unbalanced shape. It feels more like an awkward Peep than a bird. For all of the problems the original had, it had finesse. I also don't want it to blend even more with my dock. For some, that's probably a relief, for me, it does the opposite of what the original did by standing out. It's also lost a bit of it's legitimacy too, taking on the web2.0 psuedo-design feel that most of them have taken. It's joined the legion of icons that all look the exact same, attempting to declare "hey! I'm web2.0 too!" Ehn.
Where Twitter Can Go Wrong
My colleague Jeremy sent this SuperNews! video to me today, it's pretty much hilarious. In other news: a comic to come soon.