Archive for Blogs

Whoa! How Shit Infographics Explain the World (the wrong Way).

So Mashable again explains us the world through an info graphic wallpaper. And every self-proclaimed social media expert retweets it. Usually this is just boring. Sometimes dangerously misleading and pretty embarassing. Such as this time.

Latest example of such pure and utter shit: A ‘study’ (actually a joke) that was published as an infographic on mashable, retweeted today by thousands of Lemmings who only seem to be interested to share the next bullshit-infographic as quickly as possible.

The claim sounds credible: “78% of burglars use Facebook, twitter, or Foursquare to target potential properties.”

Whoa! That’s a lot, isn’t it? And it sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? After all the gods punish those freaks who keep on checking in to any location they enter. If only it would not be all so wrong and only if this handy info graphic wouldn’t be a big PR stunt that everyone keeps on retweeting.

  • The mashable article features the notorious info graphic by Credit Sesame, “a personal finance tool” claiming that 78% of all burglars use social media to gather intelligence about their next victim
  • If you browse the article on Credit Sesame you will find out that the “study” was not at all conducted by Credit Sesame: they apparently just built an easy-to-consume info graphic. The actual “study” was conducted by UK’s security company Friedland: yes, a company that earns money with your fear of burglars.
  • If you read the original “study” you stumble upon the following text: “An overwhelming 78% of ex-burglars interviewed said that they strongly believed social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Four Square are being used by current thieves when targeting properties.”

My Blog of the Week: The Art of the Menu.

It was always an underrated communicative discipline: The Art of the Menu Art has now become a topic for a blog run by Under Consideration. The guys usually chronicle corporate and brand identity work. But I guess the Art of the Menu is very related. Check out the site here

Blogging. Technorati releases State of the Blogosphere 2010.

Blog Search Engine Technorati has just launched its annual ‘State of the Blogosphere‘ report for 2010. Blogging is a discipline in steady change – constantly challenged by microblogging, general work overload and Farmville. According to Technorati’s study blogging has lately been influenced by a couple of key trends

  • The advent of mobile blogging
  • Women and mom bloggers gaining influence in the blogosphere
  • a new interaction mode between the blogosphere and social networks

The study is as usual very insightful and it even stages deeper insights from around the world instead of just the U.S. Find Technorati’s feature article here.

State Of The Blogosphere Presentation 2010

Technorati. State of the Blogosphere 2009.

It has almost become a tradion. Each year Blog search engine/directory technorati presents the results of its survey State of the Blogosphere as keynote on the Blogworld Expo. Blogs lately have come under pressure by microblogging services such as Twitter & Co, making them almost like a weird secondlifesque hobby from 2004. I don’t have to add that I love my twitter account, posterous and Facebook – but nothing feels like a good old WordPress blog.

Technorati obviously agrees in this five part series which I found on Brian Solis’ blog. I found a couple of finding particularly interesting.

Finding 1: Bloggers are male, in their thirties and they aren’t blogging for so long

Finding 2: Personal musings still are the most blogged about topics before technology

Read more »

Evolution. The U.S. Blogosphere 2008-2013.

As a European it is sad to see that the overwhelming majority of insightful data and statistics comes from the U.S. and is mainly U.S. exclusive. This one here is well, but it gives a good sense of what lies ahead in Europe (in about 2-3 years). eMarketer has estimated the number of blogs in the U.S. over a 5-year period from 2008-2013 in a study they have just published. According to this study the number of active blog authors will rise from about 25 to about 38 million. While the majority of U.S. online users will read blogs by 2013.

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Davaidavai? What’s that?

Hi, I am Gerald Hensel and I am your host tonight.

Davaidavai is a blog about the stuff which drives my professional life. Digital ideas, social media, advertising in and beyond the 1s and 0s that seem to have taken control of pretty much everything… I work as Strategy Consultant for Blast Radius, Amsterdam. To check out what I do beyond davaidavai, simply follow this link. And don't forget to send me a message in case there is anything left to say.

The thoughts and opinions on this aite are my own, and not that of my employer.

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