Tag Archives: email

Facebook dominates how people share content on the Web

Posted on by

Check out this chart was posted last month to Silicon Alley Insider: Facebook is the most popular platform for sharing content — even surpassing e-mail:

Chart

It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that sites like Google Reader have attempted to become more Facebook-like recently, adding the ability to follow friends and “like” links or posts. Delicious also recently made changes in hopes that the site will become a more interactive place for sharing links instead of a repository for storing them.

What also caught my eye was how fractured the social bookmarking sites are. There doesn’t seem to be a truly dominant service among Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit… all hover in the 3-5 percent range.

With Facebook continuing to grow at a surprising clip, adding users and also buying up the technology and talent of FriendFeed, it’s well on its way to becoming the online content-sharing juggernaut. But while it’s slowly moving away from this direction, most of Facebook’s content sharing still happens behind the wall. It’s tough to do a detailed analysis on what people are saying about content after it’s shared on Facebook. Accessing, aggregating and interpreting that information is the real goldmine for marketers and advertisers.

The chart data comes from Add to Any, which is the toolbar I use on the blog to allow readers to share or save content. It’s one of many similar options blogs and Web sites can use to encourage content-sharing (Share This, TweetMeme, Socialize) so I’m unsure as to how the data would hold up if the study were replicated across all these services.

What are your impressions of the chart? Have you made changes to your organization’s Web site so that users can easily share your content to Facebook? Would the fractured nature of social bookmarking sites deter you from incorporating a bookmarking strategy into your campaigns?

Blogs on paper at 35,000 feet

Posted on by

I spent last weekend visiting my cousin in Pittsburgh (GREAT city, btw) and neglected to grab my book out of the pocket of my carry-on when I gate checked my bag. After about 10 minutes with the SkyMall catalog, I decided I’d had enough of virtual reality glasses, adult-sized footsy pajamas and portable neck traction devices, so I grabbed a copy of the in-flight magazine, US Airways Magazine.

usairwaysI started flipping through it and noticed that a lot of its content was pulled from blogs and other sources on the Web. A two-page business feature included excerpts from Harvard Business Review. Later in the magazine was a complete reprint of the first chapter of a forthcoming marketing book, Lynda Resnick’s Rubies in the Orchard. As I kept reading, I realized that essentially none of the magazine’s content was original. Just about the entire thing, except for one feature and some crossword puzzles, was repackaged from existing content and dropped into the magazine.

I flipped back to the front to read the editor’s letter I had initially skipped over. It turns out that the March 2009 issue of US Airways Magazine was part of a redesign to merge the “immediacy of the web with the convenience and quality of print magazines.” (Read the full letter here.) What was even more interesting this paragraph:

The great thing about magazines is — strange as it may sound — their technology. Think about it: You’re holding an amazing device. You never have to load software, protect it from viruses, reboot it, or even plug it in. And you never have to wait for a page to load. You don’t have chaff, you have editors — real people who know what you want, do the selecting for you, and check the facts. If magazines were just invented, experts would be crowing about this cool new contrivance.

The magazine now pulls most of its content from the blogosphere and presents it to passengers in an “amazing next-gen device” (aka words printed on glossy paper and glued together). Editors check the blog content for accuracy. The Web site simply says ”Contributors: The experts at Harvard Business Review, bloggers in the know, and more.”

Effectively, US Airways Magazine has eliminated the need to have writers on staff, or even hire freelancers for all but one feature story a month. I’m sure most bloggers and book authors would salivate at the chance to have their content featured in this space – I admit that I read the entire excerpt from Rubies in the Orchard and will probably find the book and read the rest of it. (It’s about the strategy behind bringing POM Wonderful juice to market.)

I can’t decide if the strategy is lazy or brilliant. It’s probably some of both. And seeing as how the airline was charging for water on flights up until two weeks ago, it’s likely due to financial constraints, as well. I’m actually surprised that airlines haven’t started charging passengers for a copy of its magazine. Is the future of journalism simply fact-checking and reprinting other people’s content?

Ultimately, I think airline magazines will quickly reach irrelevance when WiFi becomes more ubiquitous on flights. Who will want to read magazines when you can check e-mail, surf the Web, chat with your Twitter friends, make calls via Skype, or watch streaming TV or movies? Especially when you can do it on laptop, iPhone, or Kindle… which actually are amazing, next-gen devices.

What do you think? Check it out at www.usairwaysmag.com

Image: Flickr user caribb

Coming soon: Network Overload

Posted on by

Source: Flikr user NorthernLaLa

Do you remember how your mom would tell you every year on Halloween that too much candy at once would make you sick? That you should save some for later, space it out over a few days? But that you were so excited to have all that candy that you scarfed it all down, and then paid for it later?

While a good deal of social networking might be in its infancy, we have to assume that eventually, a lot of these tools and tactics will become mainstream– if you can’t claim that already. As the late majorities and laggards start to come around, it’ won’t be long before Facebook and Twitter are as ubiquitous as e-mail. Niche-specific social networks have begun popping up like Whack-a-Moles. Will all this lead to a social meltdown? Will we really be able to keep track of all of our friends, followers, feeds and networks? Will we NEED a separate network for every conceivable aspect of our lives? Will too much make us sick to our stomachs?

I’m currently a member of two Ning networks: PROpenMic and my industry-specific network. (I’m sure many of you know this, but Ning is a platform for building a Facebook-like social network for a specific group of people.) As Ning and similar platforms become more widespread and more people become comfortable with social networking, I can only imagine that the number of groups creating their own social network will rise dramatically. Remember how it used to be so hard to build a web site and so not may people/organizations had one?

I can envision a point where my university alumni association, church, town, dentist’s office, neighborhood, family and even my pets all have separate social networks. It’s already underway- my family is getting into Geni, my alumni association has integrated lots of social networking features into its Web site. Dave Fleet just noted that he’s seen an uptick in Ning networks and inspired the title for this post:

fleet

The more diffuse my involvement in social networking, the less engaged I am. I used to spend a lot of time on Facebook. Then I discovered Twitter. I’m a member of Geni, GoodReads, TripAdvisor– and about a dozen other sites. The more I join, the less I seem to interact. My interest in one network gives way to another. I’m not so sure that it’s a matter of having the time to participate as having the attention span. Even services like FriendFeed that consolidate my activity into one place make it only slightly easier to handle. And often I’m connecting and interacting with the same people across all these different networks.

So what does the future look like? As we join more social networks, will we actually socialize less? Will people join everything but participate in nothing? What good is a network if none of the members actively participate?

People have been postulating for a while now that “social networking fatigue” will force more interoperability between networks. Will one network, like Facebook, dominate and roll-up all other, smaller networks under its umbrella? I don’t think people will want to manage dozens of profiles and interactions at dozens of Web sites.

As we counsel clients and businesses on social media and introduce them to the possibilities, I think it’s important to emphasize that just because you CAN do something, doesn’t mean you SHOULD (see: shoulder pads, Furbies, and the Pontiac Aztek). Social networking strategies need to reflect a business goals and provide value to an organization’s stakeholders. Just because it’s easy to create a specific social network for your customers/employees/members doesn’t mean that it’s the best tool or method for engaging that audience. Look at what’s already out there and what tools the audience is already using. Are most of them active on Facebook? Maybe a fan page is a better alternative to a separate social network. Maybe all you need to do is jazz up your existing Web site with some interactive features that don’t require a login or profile.

In all our excitement about new tools and opportunities that social media presents, we have to remember that eating all the candy at once is going to make everyone sick. Mom was right – you’ve got to pace yourself!

Image via Flickr user NorthernLaLa