Posts Tagged: social networks

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2
Dec 10

Build an App or Web Site?

The lines between what a mobile app does, and what a web site can do are blurred, and it isn’t clear always which is the best. A new study tries to make sense of it: To App or Not?

“Mobile users like apps when all they want is a self-contained experience, like a game. When they want the freedom to chart their own course, they prefer mobile Web experiences.

Omniture measured the preferences and behaviors of 1,200 mobile users in four key consumer categories: products and shopping, financial services, media and entertainment, and travel. In all four categories, users leaned toward experiences mediated through the browser of the mobile Web. [...] The exceptions to the rule: Social media, games, and other mini-experiences, like maps, in which cases they prefered apps.”

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7
Oct 10

Innovation Forum: Social Networks

The Innovation Forum is a monthly discussion I lead talking about “new stuff that is made useful”.  This was the 4th Innovation Forum. We did a quick overview of various social networks and how they were being used by corporate staff around the country.

Handouts:

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22
Jun 10

Hyperconnected Health

I’ve been reading the human network and there is some fascinating things there. In Mark Pesce’s latest post, Hyperconnected Health he talks about his “cloud” — all the people he follows, and all the people that follow him on the various social networks and how it helps him make better decisions:

“My cloud extends my reach, my experience and my intelligence, making me much more effective as some sort of weird ‘colony individual’ than I could be on my own.   I have no doubt that within a few years, as the tools improve, nearly every decision I make will be observed and improved upon by my cloud.  Which is wonderful, incredible, and – to quote Tony Abbott – very confronting.”

He talks about a few specific incidents where he’s gotten some very useful and timely advice while traveling, and then notes that some industries have seen major shifts due to the ability for people to be hyper-connected. Specifically:

“There’s a direct correlation between the speed at which a motion picture bombs and the rise in the number of users of Twitter.  It used to take a few days for word-of-mouth to kill a movie’s box office:  now it takes a few minutes.  As the first showing ends, friends text friends, people post to Twitter and Facebook, and the news spreads.  After the second or third showing, the crowds have dropped off: word has gotten out that the film stinks.  Where just a few years ago a film could coast for an entire weekend, now the Friday matinee has become a make-or-break affair.  An opinion, multiplied by hundreds or thousands of connections, carries a lot of weight.”

3 days of movie sales down to one … all because we can get recommendations from each other that much faster. I wonder what other industries Twitter is altering?

I only have 167 followers on twitter (Mark has 6800), so I’m not sure that I qualify for the “hyper” prefix. But I’ve posted a few questions and gotten some  select responses. Nothing big, and certainly nothing that has changed my daily use. I can see the potential if I were to expand my social graph.

So then.

I find the technology-enabled social connections interesting, but not yet vital. What concerns me is that what happens when they *become* vital?

I’ve read about kids getting (accidently) left out of birthday parties because the invite went out over SMS and they didn’t have a cell phone. It’s stupid, unintentional, and yet a real problem. Staying plugged in takes time, but it takes cash too. Cell phones have a hefty cash commitment. I guess what I’m wondering: will “hyper” connectivity (and all of it’s advantages) become a class differentiator? Will there be the hyper-connected-have’s and the hyper-connected-have-not’s? The latter of who will be doomed to spend too much money on bad movies the 2nd day of it’s release?

Mark says:

“We can choose to be entirely connected, or entirely disconnected.  We can let the batteries run flat on our mobile, or simply turn it off and put it away.  But there’s a price to be paid.  Absence from connection incurs a cost.  To be disconnected is to cede your ability to participate in the flow of affairs. Thus, the modern condition is a dilemma, where we balance the demands of our connectedness against the desire to be free from its constraints.”

[emphasis added]

I have no conclusions yet, just interest, and perhaps some questions. Hyperconnected Health was a good read.

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11
Dec 09

Courage to Catch Up

Seth wonders about companies falling behind in social media and the web: Is it too late to catch up? He suggests some things to get your company back on track, and in a hurry. Some highlights:

  • Start an email newsletter using Mad Mimi or Mail Chimp. Give the responsibility for the newsletter’s creation and performance to one person and offer them a bonus if they exceed metrics in sign ups and in reducing churn.
  • Offer a small bonus to anyone in the company who starts and runs a blog on any topic. Have them link to your company site, with an explanation that while they work there, they don’t speak for you.
  • Have the president post her (real) email address in every invoice and other communication the company sends out, asking people to write to her with comments or questions.
  • Do not approve any project that isn’t run on Basecamp.

Just like software, in the end it isn’t a lack of access to tools or high startup costs. It’s just plain courage to do it.

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3
Dec 09

The Productivity Impact of Twitter and Facebook

Well, not actually Twitter and Facebook, but “digital networks” of which I say is the same thing:

“MIT research shows that 40% of creative teams productivity is directly explained by the amount of communication they have with others to discover, gather, and internalize information. In other MIT studies research shows that employees with the most extensive digital networks are 7% more productive than their colleagues.”   MIT Professor Sandy Pentland, Harvard Business Review, February 2009