Links – 8th March 2009

My recommendations for the past week include:

• Paul Graham on why he thinks social media has contributed to the death of TV. He makes some good points on the social nature of TV, but I disagree that synchronicity will fade away. TV will continue to prompt watercooler chat around shared experiences. If the watercooler is the workplace, then a show only needs to be viewed the previous evening – not necessarily at the same time. But if the watercooler is Facebook or Twitter, then synchronicity and real-time feedback still matter.

• Penelope Truck thinks we shouldn’t look to grad school as a way of mitigating the effects of the recession

• Adrian Ho looks at the role culture plays in companies and self-organised groups

• Farhad Manjoo doesn’t see Twitter killing Google nor Facebook

• Al Ries writes that consumers only love brands once they know them. In a competitive market, familiarity can be a barrier to switching

• Jeremiah Owyang proposes that companies should look to the social web for opt-in consumer information, which would remove the need for registration forms

• Tom Ewing explores the differences in rating music and films, and wonders what effects this has on accumulator sites such as Metacritic

• A recent study suggests that leaders emerge by talking first and often, but not necessarily making the best points

• And I’ve been adding some great Slideshare presentations to my favourites

sk

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Facebook Polls could be pretty useful

At the recent World Economic Forum, Facebook Global Markets Director Randi Zuckerberg demonstrated Facebook polls. This, accompanied by an interview in the Telegraph, has sent the blogosphere aflutter in two separate directions.

In one corner are those excited by the prospect of 120,000 responses in 20 minutes (as a question on Barack Obama’s stimulus plan received). In the other are those concerned with online privacy and civil liberties (Given the tone of this Comment is Free article on phorm, it is surely a matter of time before the Guardian whips up a fresh batch of hysteria on the matter. And this comes from a Guardian reader).

I’m in the former category. In limited situations, it has the potential to be a valuable tool.

This is something of an about-turn since my recent rant against online polls. However, within a limited sphere of usage I can see the value. If someone wants to quickly know “what”, then this seems like a valid option. If they want to know “why”, then they should look elsewhere.

What are Facebook polls?

If my understanding is correct, a Facebook Poll is a question that appears within one’s newsfeed – similar to a sponsored ad. The user can then answer or ignore the question.

Questions are targeted to a specific audience, and basic quotas on responses can be set. Facebook has since denied that it will use personal data for Facebook Polls, but I would think that this is just semantics. Behavioural data and interests may not be used, but the poll would be pretty useless if basic age, gender and location information wasn’t monitored.

Despite this recent chatter, it should be pointed out that Facebook Polls aren’t new. Ray Poynter ran an experiment during the London Mayoral elections, and it was only last month that they were put on hiatus. This merely marks a repackaging of an existing product.

Another necessary correction is the conflation of Facebook Polls and Engagement Ads. Engagement Ads are a separate product – namely advertising widgets that can be shared and commented upon. Jeremiah Owyang has a summary here.

What are the benefits of Facebook Polls?

The nature of Facebook offers several benefits to a polling tool

• A captive audience regularly refreshing their news feed provides a fast response
• Real-time response mechanism allows immediate analysis
• Relative unobtrusiveness and simplicity could give a decent response rate
• Scale of either large response, or decent response among a targeted niche (if permitted)
• Traction among the public allows for decent tracking over time

What are the uncertainties surrounding Facebook Polls?

A rudimentary polling tool is bound to be limited. Areas that need to be explored include

• How limited will the infrastructure be? Not only in types of question, but even character limits (Shouldn’t be a problem for Twitter users)
• How attentive are the users? They are going to be multi-tasking and processing a great deal of information – how much thought will they put into an answer? (But in some cases, gut reaction is desired)
• How representative will respondents be? Not only in terms of non-Facebook population, but also with the heavy user and participation bias within Facebook (Though present research panels are hardly a beacon of quality in this respect)
• Will demographic info used for analysis be accurate? People are projecting a public persona and so may be tempted to lie on some matters. However, I cannot see age, gender or location being any more innaccurate than present survey panels
• What sort of buy-in would it receive from the industry? There is little point using Facebook Polls if no-one trusts or uses them

What is the future of Facebook Polls?

How could Facebook Polls expand? Matt Rhodes is sceptical that this will evolve into a research community. I’m less so.

Poll users can be directed to a group or page, where questions surrounding a certain topic can be explored in more depth and with more nuance. They may not evolve into a full “community”, but if visitors can be persuaded to return then they will have some value. This evolution would also support a recommendation or sharing service whereby respondents can be recruited by friends – engagement that is part of the Facebook experience (though it would have to be handled better than the various Ninjas vs Zombies widgets).

Furthermore, if these people were to opt into sharing some of their personal information then a very rich understanding of behaviour and opinion could emerge. People are on Facebook to talk and procrastinate – we should try and utilise this state of mind.

Meanwhile, looking further ahead, Read Write Web ponders the introduction of a “sentiment engine”, whereby prevailing moods and attitudes can be judged through a contextual understanding of status updates.

This would be great if a robust analytic tool could be developed, but in the meantime it would be overcome by bored people proclaiming their hunger / tiredness / hangover.

Though unproven, I can see the potential in Facebook (re)launching this product, and it will be interesting to see how it develops.

sk

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenpoff/

Links – 22nd December 2008

This post is part 1 of 2, and they will effectively be my only link updates for December. A shame considering I kept the updates fairly consistent beforehand, but December isn’t the easiest month to keep on top of things – particularly with ATP and illness.

Anyway…

Social media

• I’ve been using Twitter a lot more recently – I think the main reason is the use of Tweetdeck, which has useful filter features within a great interface. This has allowed me to distinguish signal from noise to a greater degree – something that concerns me with social media. Two posts on the subject resonated with me – Inquisitr’s “Is Social Media Becoming A Social Mess” and The Tumbling Cod’s “I’m Pretty Sure Tumblr Makes You Stupid“

• Most people reading will be familiar with the furore over Chris Brogan’s sponsored post. For those unaware, Jeremiah Owyang has a comprehensive overview of the situation. I think Chris Brogan defended his position well (for the record, I have no problem with it so long as it is disclosed. If it happens more frequently than I’d like, like others I would unsubscribe) while Dirk Singer wrote the best opinion piece on the matter that I read.

• Jeremiah Owyang has an overview of the different ways in which companies can respond to the personal brands of their employees in the social media sphere.

• E-Consultancy looks at social media’s metric problems. A while back, I wondered how best to measure the online sphere in general. I don’t envisage a universal answer being forthcoming anytime soon.

• JP Rangaswami has a thought-provoking post on the nature of asymmetric networks and conversations within the social media sphere, while James Governor also gives his thoughts on the asymmetric follow

• Tamar Weinberg has published the ultimate social media etiquette handbook

• Paul Carr has a typically humorous post on his experiences at LeWeb, and the fallout from the less than perfect proceedings

• Hugh Macleod has put together his manifesto on why social objects are the future of marketing. A brilliant read.

• Graeme Wood has put together a great presentation (with notes) on the future of media

• Mashable argue that relevancy, timing and persuading users to seek out advertising are the keys to Facebook succeeding in overcoming its advertising problem

• A superlist of what not to do in social media

• Bubble Comment is  a new tool that lets you overlay video comments onto websites. I’m not sure whether this constitutes fair use, so it may not be around for all that long in its current form, but worth a look.

The Internet

• Ged Carroll has published 29 not very technical things that every PR should know – some solid advice and some great tips in there

• The Guardian have published their top 100 websites for the year ahead – a couple of notable omissions but by and large a good list

• Merlin Mann responds to the productivity/advice blog genre that has eaten itself. His contention is that it is wrong for people to look for quick tips and lifehacks – the best way to improve is to follow a cohesive and comprehensive plan. We should concentrate on doing, rather than living vicariously.

• Cory Doctorow puts forward a persuasive argument for not extending the copyright privileges of recording artists

• An interesting article in Wired on how a potentially lethal flaw in the Internet architecture was discovered

Research and data

• The latest Trend Blend map is available. Download it along with previous editions here

• I’m a sucker for both data and innovative presentation, so Flowing Data’s 5 best data visualisations of the year was a no-brainer for me

• Research Talk have an excellent article asking just how healthy brand health measurement is?

• I loved this accumulation of elements affected by the financial crisis – whether beer, marriage or personal maintenance

• The year in media errors and corrections – there are some zingers in there

• Dataopedia is a brilliant, free resource pulling together all the publicly available stats for different websites.

A pretty huge list. So, for those that don’t have a lot of spare time over the Xmas period I would particularly recommend Jeremiah on the Izea brouhaha, JP on asymmetric networks,  Hugh on why social objects are the future of marketing, Guardian’s top 100 websites and the latest trend blend map

sk