Posts Tagged ‘Social Networks’

Social Networks. Age is definitely more than just a number.

First of all follow Pingdom on twitter. Seriously.

Secondly, it is not common for me to quote the research results of one thinktank for the second time in two days. Here I will make an exception. Simply because Pingdom respects the golden rule of being quoted on the social webs in perfect harmony with the four key elements of social nerd buzz:

  • do the research/poll/well argumented guess about Planet Earth
  • follow up with number crunching (if there are numbers)
  • draw a great looking diagram
  • tweet the hell out of it

Today we talk about age distribution and social networks. It’s neither a secret nor surprising that there is an age gap between LinkedIn and Twitter. But as long as you don’t nail down this fact into a diagram you don’t make a point on the intertubes. Right? Right.

Here we go…

Fact: Age distribution in social networks varies among social networks

High five! We are number one. If you are a 36 year old tech savvy, male, digital nerd the following diagram enlightens you with one key information – you will meet the ones you like (and who are like you) over and over again. Your mom probably isn’t yet a registered member of Facebook and your teenage cousin probably isn’t as well. But be prepared for the next generation to be 150% part of the game. Unfortunately they are not really relevant yet marketing wise (but they will follow….muahahahahahahahahahahahaha).

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Bring the Noise. Why google Buzz will Fail.

Two days ago google announced google Buzz, a new socialnetworky add-on to its well known and beloved gmail service. As expected, google is trying once more to advance into enemy territory – social networking. Since its foundation the company is great in search and media but it sucks big time when it comes to content and real, human interactions.

So, yesterday morning I found this google Buzz Button in my gmail account. And what I saw next was nice but two years too late.

One day with google Buzz

google Buzz tries to do anything at once and doesn’t do anything really good. Basically it’s a mixture of twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed and Foursquare. That does not sound too bad, unfortunately I have no idea where google is in this concept.

Apart from the lack in own, new ideas the first finding is – the UX is horrible. Years ago google was on the forefront of UX design. But google Buzz almost looks like google Wave light. Do you remember google Wave? Sure you do (I have 1 gazillion invites left if you like). In short, google Buzz combines at least four specialized interoperable social services in one shitty interface, spices it up with even worse than ususal privacy flaws, integrates it into gmail an calls it Buzz.
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Technographics. Forrester’s Ladder just got a new Rung.

In 2007 Forrester’s Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff introduced the world to the Groundswell model. It has become something like a standard (if there is one) in Social strategies, summarizing data-based strategies for companies that want to harness the power of social technologies. One key aspect of it was the Social Technographics Ladder that profiled users from all over the world according to their level of tech-savvyness in the social realm (plus, they offer a handy online tool too).

No doubt, the Technographics Ladder was a great first model to profile overlapping customer groups and their ability to move in the social space. And – what I liked most about it – Forrester fed it with up-to-date data to turn it into a valuable model for marketers. Nevertheless there were too few rungs on the ladder. We understood that there are Inactives, Spectators, Joiners, Critics and Creators…but something was missing.

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Oh My God. If reality was Facebook.

Yesterday I almost missed a personal appointment since I deleted all even invitations on Facebook at once. Unfortunately this one important invitation was among it. We all get flooded with invitations to Mafia Wars, Farmville, Friend requests by some weird guy from the first grade…you know what I mean. The infamous Cracked.com has now (again) asked its readers to take part in a Photoshop contest. The challenge: What would the real world look like if it was Facebook?

Here are the results.

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Foursquare. Seven days in Frankfurt.

Today’s topic may not be completely new for my American readers but probably for some of those from Germany. On November 19th the third wave of cities for Foursquare has launched. Among them now my hometown Frankfurt in Germany as well as about 50 new cities worldwide. It’s been around in a lot of bigger cities for quite some time. In Germany it’s now live in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and Frankfurt. Zurich and Vienna are Foursquare cities in Switzerland and Austria.

So what is Foursquare? Basically it’s a local location based social network (I will use this word in the presence of my granny in the next couple of days). That means: You download a client to your iPhone or Android phone, connect with some friends and start your day in the city.

The big difference to…let’s say Facebook…is, it only works in specific cities (well…yet)  and it’s all about exploring and recommending locations and events. Let’s say for example, you know this fantastic little bar around the corner and you think the White Russian there deserves a little more attention – then you simply locate your favourite nightly hangout via GPS (or start a new venue) and leave a shout to all other Foursquare users in the area to make them try the White Russian here.

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Private Social Networks. A brief overview of the German situation.

This little overview about the status of Germany’s private social networks is a Point of View which me and Johannes Kleske were working on for our employer Neue Digitale / Razorfish. It is not an empirical study. It describes a rough status quo in a highly dynamic environment with just few reliable figures. Please understand it as a brief paper which tries to picture the current situation in the extremly unique and difficult market Germany. But it is also a paper which enables us to give a clear recommendation on which platforms are hot or not in our home country.

Germany was always tough terrain for social networks. According to a recent Forrester report on social network use in Europe, “Online Germans remain the hardest to engage with social media“. In terms of total membership, choice of service, international connectivity, etc Germany always lagged behind. There are several possible reasons for this effect: One of them may be a deep traditional concern about privacy issues. Germans tend to believe their personal data might be misused and are skeptical about institutions securing their data properly.  Language barriers (in comparison to UK, US) and a slight skepticism towards new, individualized technology may contribute to the current situation.

Social Networking in Europe

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Social Networks. 36 Months to make the world a different place.

Thanks to Chicago Tribune

Microsites. Killing them softly.

Two weeks ago Facebook has hit the 300 million users mark. That’s just one symptoma of a trend which redefines the role and position of digital assets all over the web. One of them is the demise of the microsite. Facebook, Twitter & Co cannot leave the classic digital platforms unaffected when the ordinary usage scenario switches from WWW to social networking. I found this diagram on digitalbuzz (via culturalfuel). And yes, it is symptomatic for what lies ahead – the end of the non-connected microsite. And that’s great!

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Social Networking. How we share stuff.

I got this diagram from a colleague of mine from Razorfish U.S. It was just posted at Silicon Alley Insider and Mashable and describes how many people do share stuff on certain platforms. It is based on data taken from the sharing service AddtoAny. According to the company, Facebook now dominates sharing, with 24 percent of shares from the widget consisting of users posting items to the social network. That handily beats out email (11.1 percent) and Twitter (Twitter) (10.8 percent), making the world’s most popular social network also the most popular service for sharing content. Quite interesting.

I would like to know if this varies over different sharing platforms…

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 strategic concept developer for Neue Digitale / Razorfish in Frankfurt, Germany. If you wamt to check out what I do beyond davaidavai, simply follow this link. And don't forget to send me a message...

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