Monthly Archives: May 2011
Hey Social Sixers,
This week’s Social Six is bigger and better than ever (literally). To spice things up, each week I will be blowing out one of the six pillars, with lots of my own opinion baked in. Feel free to disagree or agree with me in the comments area. This weeks focus is on communities, but if that’s not your favorite topic, have no fear. Each week a different pillar will be the focus, so keep checking back.
10 Fascinating Facebook Facts — And What They Say About Us
With over 600 million people using Facebook, there are bound to be behaviors and tendencies that speak to our culture as a whole that can be found through the social network. A new study had the same thought, and did some research on the stats and facts behind this social giant, and what they found, is fascinating. While there are of course exceptions, most of these stats represent users general feeligns towards the community as a whole, whether they feel a part of the Facebook community, or would like to keep themselves more removed. These are the top ten “fun” facts that have been revealed about our community:
1. 56% of Americans think it’s irresponsible to friend your boss on Facebook
2. Facebook links about sex are shared 90% more than average
3. People in Facebook relationships are happier than single people
4. 21% of people would break up via Facebook
5. 85% of women are annoyed by their Facebook friends
6. 25% of households with a Facebook account don’t use privacy controls
7. 48% of parents friend their kids on Facebook
8. 47% of Facebook users have profanity on their walls
9. 48% of people say they look at their ex’s Facebook profile too often
10. 36% of under-35s check Facebook, Twitter or texts after sex
Read More
I’ve been away a while, apologies. I little hiatus, but not without reason –
I’ve spent the past four weeks thinking about MOBile mentality and how I’ve fallen susceptible to something I’ve always disliked – regurgitating news and thinking in one space.
Sure I know mobile really well, but I also know social, web, interactive, etc etc. I had to return to why I chose to write about mobile in the first place – it’s the new thing, it’s the next trending thing. The more I write about it, the more apparent it becomes that the trend is catching up to me. What’s next? Well it’s the fringe I love. That bleeding edge the encircles our industry. The bleeding edge is what I would like to capture. And hopefully not just the edge of tech, but the edge of art, of marketing, or our industry.
So a reformat is necessary.
There’s always new ways of solving problems as technology evolves. It might be mobile, it might be a new startup, technology, or piece of hardware, it might be a new philosophy, but whatever it might be there’s a discussion there. And it’s these discussions that are important.
So MOBile mentality will go the way of the minidisk, and will reboot as a post called “What’s Next” whenever there are ideas to share. Did you think I was going to say UMD?
Communities
Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg on Women in Workplace
Sheryl Sandberg delivered the commencement speech at the all-women college Barnard this past week, and she had quite a message to deliver to these ladies. Sheryl Sandberg is the COO at Facebook, and in charge of keeping techs most popular company in check. But the challenge she has posed to these Barnard grads was simple. She explained to the women that essentially, “men run the world”. She explained that women have the opportunity, now more than ever, to realize their ambition and act on it. While it may seem that many tech, and even social media companies, are run by men, she encourages women everywhere to get involved. She did not become Number 2 at Facebook without ambition. Graduates and parents alike applauded the speech, with one student even saying that her speech was a “perfect fit” for the way they teach at Barnard. What do you think? Is the gender gap still too large? Will tech companies be willing to hire female leaders with open arms?
Tools and Technology
Proposed Law Would Require Social Networks to be Private by Default
The newest move in the fight for social media privacy has come from California Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett (D-San Leandro). She has proposed a new law that would change the way social networks operate their privacy systems, and these social networks are not happy about it.
In the past week, the competitive nature of Google and Facebook’s relationship devolved to a place at which many modern social media and PR practitioners openly condemned one party. The short version, which you can read more about here, is that Facebook hired PR firm Burson-Marsteller to seed a story about Google related to their Social Circle program’s implications on user privacy. A selection of words has been commonly associated with the situation: smear, debacle, and slander.
Previous to this, Google and Facebook have been strategically maneuvering around each other since each has reached a place in their road map to make a play for something that the other has. Google wants a “social” and Facebook wants to get its average time on site up to 23.5 hours. Read More
Communities
Speaking Up in Class, Silently, Using Social Media
Long gone are the days when teachers were handing out detentions for using a cell phone in class. Now, a movement has started in which teachers are embracing social networks like Twitter to help their students communicate more freely. For example, a teacher from Iowa allows her students to keep a running online commentary during class while reading poetry. That way, students feel free to express themselves without interrupting the poem, and without feeling pressure to speak in front of the class. While only a small group of teachers have adopted this method, it seems to be having a positive influence on the classrooms that have had the opportunity to be taught this way. These students no longer feel pressured, but rather encouraged and free to express themselves. What do you think about using social media in the classroom?
Tools and Technology
Tag Pages in Facebook photos
Facebook rolled out a new feature this week, allowing users to tag places in their photos. This means, that whenever you have the sudden urge to tag your favorite brand in a photo, you will be able to do so. 
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Last week Amazon started shipping it’s latest version of the popular eReader, the Kindle, with “Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers.” At $114, the price tag on the ad-supported version of the Kindle is $25 cheaper than it’s comparable model. In the weeks since it was first announced, there’s been plenty of grumbling about having ads on the device. Some others are debating whether $25 is enough of a discount to have to endure the ads. But the people having these arguments have it all wrong. I’m not buying one until they launch a model with more ads. Or at least ads in different places. Hear me out.
The latest Kindle uses ads on the home screen and menu page to subsidize a portion of the cost of the device. It’s a smart strategy from Amazon, aimed at getting more Kindles in more people’s hands by lowering the base price even further. But the content on the Kindle (the books, magazines, newspapers and blogs) is still pay-as-you-go, and free from advertising. Consumers and reviewers ought to be demanding it the other way around.
As both the device manufacturer and the publishing clearinghouse, Amazon has taken a page from Apple’s playbook. Sure, they probably make some money on the devices, but more importantly, they lock people into purchasing content for the device from them and only them. It’s the modern day equivalent of giving the razor away for cheap so that you can make a killing on the blades. The only problem is that consumers are used to getting those blades for free.
