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Social Media, in a neat video:

Posted in Industry.

By dean
05/09/2010

8 comments

8 Responses

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  1. o_crunk said
    on 05/10/2010

    Everyone is broadcasting. No one is listening.

    Recently, much was made about Keeneland embracing social media. I followed their twitter feed. Jeremy Plonk made touts on *every* single race for the entire meet. Besides being a dumb use of social media (Was Plonk really playing every race? Would you be?), I saw hardly any interaction, no reaction…no one was listening.

    When an official feed is on the same wave length as all the other hundreds of touts on twitter, then why offer the *same exact* thing as all the other twitter touts that *no one* is listening to?

    This ain’t the future. Just a bunch of big numbers that appear significant. Facebook members being bigger than entire countries? Apples and oranges. And what does it say that more people follow celebrities than the entire populations of Sweden? Sign me up?

    More members, much harder to filter the signal from the noise. Social media is going to be a tower of babel, crushing itself into insignificance. If you pay close attention you can see the long run attrition of those who inhale social media in much the same way that racing bloggers have fallen by the wayside, except the attrition rate is faster.

    If you look even closer, you can see that the facebook wave is about to crest and recede in a big way. Maybe something replaces it, maybe it doesn’t.

  2. Dean said
    on 05/10/2010

    O_c is not going to be giving his left arm for a 0.01% stake in Facebook :)

    There are some things in FB, and social media in general, which are working. They are ROI+ for the people who are using it, whether it be for ads, engagement or getting people to notice you, but I think we are so early on the learning curve that is it tough to tell just what it brings long-term.

    As you mention, people want to be heard and one of the best parts of it is you can listen and learn. Several studies have shown examples of companies learning what their customers are saying and using the base as a ready-made focus group. Others have had facebookers pretty much design a new product, and it sold well.

    This video is from a firm who works with SM, and it is self-serving in several ways. However, the stats I found interesting.

    “More members, much harder to filter the signal from the noise. ”

    I agree, but filtering out the noise does come. Many people have resorted (on twitter for example) starting new names so they do not have to follow 2000 people, which makes the medium irrelevant. I think these things evolve before crushing under their own weight. I think they become better as people learn to use them better. Point taken however.

    Can you expand on this comment?:

    “If you look even closer, you can see that the facebook wave is about to crest and recede in a big way”

    I am interested to hear your take. Care to expand on that?

    D

  3. o_crunk said
    on 05/10/2010

    There was a quote floating around recently that pegged the differences between twitter and facebook. I thought it was pretty spot on:

    “Facebook is the people you went to school with. Twitter is the people you wished you went to school with.”

    I find that to be a true statement.

    Now, when those who I read and consider to be ahead of the tech curve start the whispering about the end of facebook, I listen. Granted, these folks are not the average user of facebook.

    But when the comatose user base of facebook *does* wake up to the privacy realities, they will flea and they will flea very quickly. People will not want to share all their pictures of their drunk friends, or share their political leanings with the entire internet without at least some say in *how* that content is shared.

    While I agree that generally social media is here to stay, I find it really hard to believe facebook will be part of it.

  4. Dean said
    on 05/10/2010

    I have read that as well. I get a little leery when I read it, though. Facebook is not static and can roll with the punches. They can create a better mousetrap and respond quickly to any shock in their business. What they are doing now, as those writers allude, is worrisome and the crescendo you mention can happen, imo, but they also can change. In fact, I think they will be forced to.

    I guess I would put it this way: If FB was public, analysts would be reporting the same thing, but the stock would not be tanking. Not to say it won’t tank, but right now the privacy concerns can be taken care of over time, if they so wish.

    In addition, with valuation concerns, I believe (like most companies who are not public) the goal is always to show mass over ROI. The FB of today will probably look nothing like the FB of tomorrow. It will be leaner and more structured.

    Working with google since late 2001 I have watched some completely bone-headed things be proposed and tried in SEM, but they never ended up being long term policy. A lot of those ideas were before valuation. Clicks were more important than ROI. Now that has changed of course. Even youtube ads are working.

    FB is incentivized to do the right thing because their future depends on it. They can monetize, because their ctr’s and roi’s for ads, for example, are on par with old time google contextual ads; and this will improve. They can monetize without being too intrusive, as well. They could shrink to 20 million from 200 million people and make more money, imo.

    Anyway, long-winded response with the opinion that I would not throw them under the bus quite yet.

    D

  5. o_crunk said
    on 05/10/2010

    When has FB rolled back anything privacy related? The pattern is pretty clear, no?

  6. Dean said
    on 05/10/2010

    Roger.

    The Schmidt realm is not much different. Some Internet cos have a problem with privacy, imo (I think it is in the water… the lets-get-volume water). But when the cash rolls in, their philosophy changes (a little).

    We’ll c.

    D

  7. chick said
    on 05/11/2010

    great discussion you guys are having here, something that is very much “of the time”. I agree with you both essentially, in that the social web is in its gestation — what exactly *is* this thing, or more importantly, what exactly do we *want* it to be.

    I’m not sure co’s know any more than users do, with a few exceptions.

    A network of colleagues past present and future as a source of recommendations and job and hiring leads, with LinkedIn seems sustainable, and very powerful. The power there is purely the network.

    Smallish facebook networks of old high school and college friends and family, a digital representation of our present and past social life. The power again is purely the network. Until networks and identities become portable, network-creation-fatigue will keep most users put. Once your grandma joined that friction cost of trying to duplicate just went through the roof. While I cringe that grannies are taking part in what is essentially a cutting edge, high technology sociology experiment, I can’t help but be impressed that it really is playing out, and so quickly right in front of us.

    Where Facebook is arguable blowing it, is their platform was created to work well for private sharing, that is its core strength and thats how they got the grandmothers. To me they are dilluting this very unique and powerful strength by pushing so heavily to turn that all inside out. Baby pictures are Facebooks killer app. Losing the baby pictures means you’ve robbed the meaning from the network.

    Professional networking is LinkedIn’s to lose, friend and family nets are Facebooks to lose.

    Twitter and Buzz as casual, informal blogging with a sticky networking wrapper to encourage follows and comments, to increase engagement. Blogger reimagined. Platforms suited well for broadcasting, for the *everything else* left over from the above. Entertainment and infotainment. Twitter is the Youtube of words.

    (I believe I just came up with that, I like it)

    It’s going to take awhile for everyone to modulate their behaviors, to understand what they themselves want out of these things.

  8. Dean said
    on 05/11/2010

    “Baby pictures are Facebooks killer app. Losing the baby pictures means you’ve robbed the meaning from the network.”

    Good point. If right, it fits with oc’s thought quite well.

    Thanks for participating in what I thought turned out to be a neat conversation. We should do more posts with only a video here I think :)