Social media dichotomies

I’ve been having a think about the different types of social media services. Structurally, different services can be very different. Below are a few bipolar scales that different services can find themselves upon Structure Public <——————-> Private Permanent <————-> Transient Centralised <————-> Decentralised Hierarchical<————> Non-hierarchical Automatic <————–> Manual Exclusive <—————> Inclusive Zero-sum <—————> Shared gain [...]

Connected: The amazing power of social networks and how they shape our lives

“Connected: The amazing power of social networks and how they shape our lives” was the title of the talk given by Dr Nicholas Christakis at the RSA earlier. Due to rather poor time management, I didn’t make it to the event itself, but followed it online. This link should eventually have the video and downloadable [...]

Can social media become a mass media?

My short answer is “Yes, if it continues to evolve”. But there are numerous challenges to overcome within this evolution process. SIDENOTE: Throughout this blog, I’ll be referring to social media in the singular. I know that technically media denotes plurality, but, to me at least, phrases such as “social media aren’t mass” sounds weird. [...]

Twitter, unlike Facebook, is socially mobile

The reciprocity of relationships is, in my opinion, the most fundamental difference between Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook, both sides need to agree before the connection is made. On Twitter, people can follow whoever they like. Does this make Twitter more “social”? I think it might. I’m writing in broad terms, since different people use [...]

Return on conversation

EDIT: As has been pointed out, I made a rather embarrassing miscalculation in the original post, which made me seriously underestimate the CTR. I evidently need to evaluate my quantitative credentials My previous post on conversation monitoring was tweeted and retweeted by several individuals. Firstly, I’m grateful that people both read this blog and are [...]

Should we listen to every conversation?

Over on the Essential Research blog, I have responded to a post by a social media conversation monitor who eulogised the death of focus groups. In that post, I have outlined why focus groups themselves aren’t the issue; rather it is shoddy application. Here, I want to expand on that a bit. It is my [...]