Social Media is Slowly Changing the Demographics of Political Engagement

Thanks again ReadWriteWeb for this post on social media's growing impact on the political lanscape

Traditionally, political participation has always been highly correlated with income and education. According to a new report (PDF), this is still holds true for those who participate in political activities online. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, online users with a higher income are still far more likely to participate in political activities online than those with lower incomes. At the same time, though, the Pew study also sees some hints that new forms of civic engagement through social media services could soon change this pattern.

According to this report, 31% of all users on social networking sites engage in some activity "with a civic or political focus." Pew defines this category very broadly, though, and includes relatively simple activities like 'friending' a political candidate as an "activity with political focus." In total, about 10% of all internet users have used social networks for this kind of political activity.

A far more interesting statistic is that 15% of all Internet users have left comments on websites about political or social issues, or posted images or written blog posts related to politics or social issues. What is even more interesting, though not surprising, is that young adults between 18 and 29 are far more likely to use social networks as a venue for political and civic engagement than older users. These younger users who engage in political activity online are also far more likely to participate in politics offline.

Social Media Might Level the Playing Field

Social media is mostly the domain of younger Internet users and while young adults (18-24) are, as a group, less interested in political activities online, they are far more likely than any other group to use blogs and social networking sites to engage in political discussions. About 34% of young adults make political use of social networking sites and 34% post political material on the Internet.

Users under 35 represent 72% of those users who make political use of social networks. In addition, the income and education gap for those who engage in political activities on social networks is far less pronounced when compared to those who use other forums.

Will These Trends Continue?

What will be interesting to watch, the Pew study points out, is how these younger users will use these existing networks as they get older. It will also be interesting to see if these developments will mean that socio-economic status will become less of an indicator of civic engagement, or if these new technologies will create new barriers of entry for those with a lower income and education level.

Given that the US just experienced a highly contested election cycle and is in the middle of a heated debate about health care right now, we have to wonder, though, if these numbers will continue to hold true over the next few years or if they were just a blip on the radar.

7 Technologies Shaping the Future of Social Media

Yummy future (and current) tech stuff from mashable

June 1st, 2009 | by Mike Laurie15 Comments

Mike Laurie works as a Digital Planner at UK Integrated Agency JPMH where he helps brands get the most from digital media. You can follow Mike on Twitter.

In 2019, when you look back at the social media landscape ten years earlier, you might laugh at how hard you had to work. You had to type things into forms (ha! remember those?), type URLs in the address bar (how archaic!), and put up with irritating communications about irrelevant products. Social media in the future will be effortless and everywhere. Here’s a look at some of the new technologies in store for us over the next 10 years that will make our social (media) lives easier.

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1. The Arduino – One Tough Little Italian

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Arduino is a small circuit board commonly used to prototype electronics. Its low cost and ease of implementation has meant that this little device is now leading a hobbyist revolution in connecting real life objects to social networks, like Twitter (). It has allowed one man to create a device attached to a chair that tweets at the presence of noxious natural gasses (ahem), another uses Arduino to monitor when his cats are inside the house or out, and a small bakery and cafe in East London is now able to tweet what’s fresh from their oven. This may all seem like pretty pointless stuff, but the pointlessness is the point.

The revolution of objects notifying human beings of their state (e.g., The Internet of Things) isn’t happening in the R&D labs of large multinational conglomerates, it’s happening in the spare rooms, garages and bedrooms of developers. The printing press, possibly one of the first inventions to aid information sharing, was invented by Johannes Gutenberg with investment intended for an altogether different enterprise: polished metal mirrors intended to capture holy light from religious relics, presumably to sell to hapless tourists. In other words, what might seem like silly tinkering today, might be a key contributor to our future world.

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2. RFID Tags & Transponders

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While Arduino will help household items become involved in our social media world, transponders such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags are truly breathing life into our objects.

For a number of years RFID tags have been used in passports, ID cards, travel cards and credit cards as a means to identify us when scanned, and they are used commercially for inventory tracking. Brands including Abercrombie & Fitch, Levis and Kleenex have experimented with RFID tags to track their inventory at an item-level. Transponders can be made as small as a grain of sand and can be produced very cheaply. So it is widely thought that they may one day be installed in everything from a packet of biscuits to a pair of underpants.

But RFID tags have potentially valuable real-world applications. It may be possible, for example, to create a very cheap device which sits in your trash can or recycling box and monitors the contents by scanning RFID tags as stuff is thrown in. You might ask why anyone would want to do this with their garbage, but there is a lot of valuable data to be had in what is, in essence, scrobbling for your trash. Your trash is a goldmine of consumption data in the same way that your search data or browsing history is, and could be used to track brand loyalty and consumption habits.

And mobile phone manufacturers, particularly Nokia, are currently experimenting with consumer devices that act as readers and scanners, meaning that your mobile device might be able to do things like exchange information with other phones by bringing them near to one another, or gather information directly from products and find out instantly if anyone in your network has purchased the item in the past. Within the context of mobile phones, this technology is generally referred to as NFC (Near-Field Communication).

Of course, just because we could do this, doesn’t necessarily mean we would, or should. There are clear privacy implications involved that might make the idea of monitoring consumption via your trash or tracking your underpants dead on arrival. Privacy advocates such as CASPIAN are highly motivated to prevent this from happening — the notion that RFIDs could be on our person without us knowing is akin to web sites sharing knowledge about us without our consent. The anti-RFID site spychips.org has more information about the privacy concerns of the technology.

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3. Geomagnetic Sensors in Mobile Devices

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The compass is hardly new — it’s been around for thousands of years — but Yamaha has created a tiny 2mm x 2mm chip intended for use in mobile phones as a compass. When used in conjunction with GPS, AGPS or Wi-Fi triangulation and an accelerometer a compass heading could be extremely useful to give more granular positioning data to mobile applications.

Some older phones used to come equipped with these compasses, and though they have been phased out in recent years, they’re starting to make a comeback. Apple Insider suggests that the next generation of iPhone hardware will contain a “Magnetometer,” the feature already exists in the HTC Dream (the T-Mobile G1), though it is currently used for very little.

But the real world applications are many. For example, let’s say that you’ve just come out of a subway at a roundabout, and the first thing you do is take out your GPS-enabled phone’s mapping application to see where you need to walk to get to your friends waiting for you at a bar. In order to orientate yourself correctly, you’ll need to find street names. But if you happen to be in London, where I live, you know that street names are rarely in convenient places, they’re usually hidden behind trees and other signs (where’s the fun otherwise?). So a compass heading is a perfect way to let you know which direction you roughly need to walk in. Likewise, if you want to scan an area at a certain location for a great place to eat, your device is going to need a heading in order to overlay information over the top of your screen.

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4. Optical Pattern Recognition & Augmented Reality

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Imagine you’re on your way to a conference and you have a couple of hours to kill so you park yourself in the corner of a local bar to catch up on Mashable (). You’ve barely begun reading when an attractive girl or guy catches your eye. You’re transfixed, your heart starts to race — you’re in love. But being the shy type you can’t just go over and introduce yourself, so instead you do a quick scan of the room with your cell phone to pick up any latent metadata. Unfortunately, a social network profile pops up informing you that the object of your affection is in a relationship. Your initial excitement rapidly dissipates and you get on with your reading.

That scenario is pretty far-fetched, but it’s one potential promise of Biometric Face Recognition technology that is already used by police and security services to help identify known criminals. 3 years ago Google acquired Neven Vision, a company that provides such technology. Google reported that it is using this technology in its Picasa product to help keep your personal photos organized without you needing to do any of the actual organizing. I have literally thousands of pictures of my children and family on my computer at home. It would take me days to go through and tag each one so that I could search them more easily in the future. But at some point, Picasa might be able to tag everything for me automatically by recognizing faces and objects in my photos.

That’s still not quite to the level of our hypothetical, but Tochindot’s Sekai Camera and Wikitude are making in-roads into rich and immersive ambient metadata, too. Their current goals revolve around tagging inanimate objects, but someday biometric face recognition could be used to attach metadata to real people.

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5. OpenID, OAuth, and the Identity Graph

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Having to remember passwords for multiple accounts can be frustrating, and answering the same questions over and over on registration forms becomes tedious. Ten years from now, filling out our information once and then easily transferring it from place to place might be commonplace.

OpenID is an open authentication protocol that lets users use a single set of login credentials for every site they visit. It’s already in use at hundreds of smaller websites and large sites like Facebook () are starting to accept OpenID accounts. Once you’ve authenticated, a second open protocol called OAuth will help you share data about yourself with other sites you use. OAuth lets your grant authorization to sites to collect data from other places you participate online, which ultimately could eliminate the need to fill in redundant information about your profile and who your friends are at each new site you use. And companies like Cliqset and DandyID are creating platforms that will allow you to share your entire identity graph information from your profile to your contacts to your lifestream.

Together, these technologies could essentially eliminate the need to fill out forms and register for sites all together.

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6. Mind Reading

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My favorite scene from Back to The Future 2 is one in which Marty visits a 1980s-theme cafe where he sees some kids looking at his old favorite arcade game. Marty tells them he’s a “crack shot” but when he demonstrates the interface, the kids complain, “You have to use your hands!? That’s like a baby’s toy.” Classic.

But the idea of being able to control an interface without the use of your fine motor skills has massive implications for human computer interaction. Consider the ability to tweet what you’re thinking without having to pull your phone out of your pocket, type your message and hit send. Imagine being able to think ‘Facebook’ and your screen presents you with an overview of your friend’s activity stream. This method of interaction is at a very experimental stage but there areproofs-of-concept that exist. Most of this kind of innovation is currently intended to help people with limited motor skills, and not lazy social media addicts, however.

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7. Natural Language Processing

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Like Optical Pattern Recognition, Natural Language Processing (NLP) seeks to automatically categorize and understand that which humans understand with ease. By doing so, computers will be able to understand the requests and needs of their human users far better. Of course, talented programmers can already tell their computer to do things with ease, but the rest of us would benefit from applications that understand our curious ways of speaking.

Firefox’s Ubiquity is one project that’s attempting to change the way we interact with the web by allowing people to use natural language commands. Further, in the future, applications might exist that could analyze your tweets or comments with NLP, and suggest people or brands for you to follow.

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The Future

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Many of the technologies explored in this post are in their infancy, but they could have a profound effect on how we use the Internet and social media in the future. If you know of any other technologies that you feel might advance the future social media landscape please mention them in the comments.

Mike Laurie works as a Digital Planner at UK Integrated Agency JPMH where he helps brands such as BlackBerry, Nestlé, Johnson & Johnson, and Hasbro get the most from digital media. You can follow Mike on Twitter.

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More social media resources from Mashable:

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- Tweet Street: 7 Extraordinary Twitter Uses in the Home

- The Evolution of the Social Media API

- 10 Most Extraordinary Twitter Updates

Social nets not shaping purchases... or did they just ask the wrong questions?

WARC article on social media impacts on purchase

I totally agree that purchase decisions are based on experience, recommendations and mix of media inputs, but i think this reseracher may have missed a key difference between the nature of the channels here. Of course people go to brand websites in that active research phase (why they hell would i search facebook when trying to compare camera specs?), but i'm sure if they asked the question around the role of recommendations i.e opinion of peers delivered through a social functionality, as opposed to 'do go to myspace for product info', he would have gotten quite a difference result.


NEW YORK: Consumer purchase decisions are informed by a mix of "old" and "new" media, but more traditional forms of communication appear to exert a greater influence than social networking websites, a new study by Harris Interactive has found.

Based on a survey of 2,355 American adults, the research firm argued the most common way shoppers collect information prior to buying a particular product was via a company website, with 36% of respondents adopting this course of action.

"Face-to-face" interaction with a "salesperson or other company representative" was mentioned by 22% of contributors, while 21% of participants spoke to someone "not associated with the company".

A further 19% of those polled found out about a brand from print advertising, with 15% doing so via broadcast ads, while 14% made judgements "based only on my past experience."

In terms of online behaviour, 19% of consumers used independent websites featuring product reviews – like Trip Advisor or Amazon – and 11% accessed internet message boards.

By contrast, just 4% of Harris Interactive's sample turned to social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace, with a similar number visiting "private social networking sites" and “customer communities".

Results varied slightly by age group, with 16% of 18–24 year olds employing social media to conduct product research.

However, this figure was 5% lower than for ads on TV and radio, and 6% below that for print executions among this demographic, and some 24% smaller than the number visiting company websites.

Ads on broadcast media were most widely-used among 25–29 year olds, at 22%, with print ads most popular among 50–64 year old shoppers, on 27%.

Some 57% of the company's panel also said they "communicated about my positive product/service experience to others" after making a purchase, while 41% "recommended" what they had bought to others.

By contrast, just 11% of this group did so with regard to a negative experience, and only 6% "recommended against" purchasing an item.

In expressing their positive or negative experience, 63% of respondents did so when talking to "a family member, business colleague or a friend."

A further 30% used email to do so, while 12% used a company website, 9% employed social networks, 8% opted for online message boards, and 7% added their comments to independent review websites.

Data sourced from Harris Interactive; additional content by WARC staff, 18 June 2009

Want to Tweet? Do It From an Ad Unit Nearby

Thanks Adage for this post on twitter breeching the media divide

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Nestle's Juicy Juice isn't the first brand to try to integrate Twitter in to an ad campaign (see Skittles and TurboTax). But it may be the first to allow users to post tweets within an ad unit that can appear anywhere on the web.

Juicy Juice's Twitter display ad

Juicy Juice is testing the unit, from SocialMedia, for one month on mom-targeted sites BabyCenter and CafeMom. The units ask questions such as "How do you stimulate your child's mind?" or "How important are vitamin-enhanced foods to you?" and users can answer the queries as short messages, or tweets, directly in the ad.

If users are logged on to Twitter, the answers will be posted to the ad directly; otherwise users are first directed to Twitter.com to sign in. Posts, which also appear in users' Twitter feeds with a "hashtag" (the symbol #, used to group keywords or events for simpler searches on the site) are moderated by Nestle, but there's the option for that to be turned off.

Clicking on the ad unit, meanwhile, takes the user to Juicy Juice's YouTube site, which is chock-full of helpful videos, including a scary one about how many more germs per inch are on a water fountain than your average toilet seat.

The difference between this campaign, dubbed "Twitter Pulse" by SocialMedia, and other recent attempts is that it allows a conversation to be instigated by -- or occur within -- the ad unit, rather than just syndicating tweets already posted on Twitter.

"The ad unit is paid placement but the additional impressions are effectively earned media," said Seth Goldstein, CEO of SocialMedia, a technology company, noting that the hashtag then reaches the follower base of those who have entered tweets, and potentially sparks more attention and conversation.

SocialMedia is tracking a number of metrics for Juicy Juice, including traditional views and click-through rates but also number of tweets posted and the number of followers exposed to the hashtag on Twitter. Like other executions with Twitter, there is no revenue involved with the microblogging service, but, as Mr. Goldstein pointed out, it could be a potential source of new sign-ups and increased usage.

KFC's reinvention plans

Thanks Mashable

KFC has put a lot of marketing muscle behind their new “Kentucky Grilled Chicken,” most notably with the free meal giveaway by Oprah. While that campaign generated enormous online buzz – some of it rather unfavorable as stores refused to honor the coupons – the chicken chain is now turning its attention to social media.

Specifically, KFC has launched a promotion on MySpace (), where the user that submits the best video ad for the brand will both star in an upcoming TV ad campaign and receive a lifetime supply of chicken. KFC will then pick three finalists, and users will get to vote for the winner. How much is a lifetime’s supply of chicken you ask? According to Brand Republic, KFC will be on the hook for around $16,000 USD, or roughly 2,600 two-piece meals.

KFC’s broader strategy, however, is called “unthinkfc,” and features its own website, as well as a presence on Twitter (), YouTube (), and Facebook (), where the company has amassed nearly 200,000 fans. There are also games – like uploading your own “chicken dance” and a “custom grillz” (get it?) application for iPhone.

Ultimately, KFC appears to be a company trying to re-invent itself somewhat, and they’ve setup a well rounded campaign that can certainly generate buzz if executed well. On the other hand, for fans to enthusiastically endorse KFC and participate, the in-store experience will also have to win them over. Having yet to sample the colonel’s grilled chicken, I can’t speak to how they’re doing, but given the clumsy Oprah launch, it would seem the company still has a ways to go.

10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy

Thanks Mashable for this very useful appraoch to social media strategy:

10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy

June 2nd, 2009 | by Sharlyn Lauby11 Comments

Sharlyn Lauby is the president of Internal Talent Management (ITM) which specializes in employee training and human resources consulting. She authors a blog at hrbartender.com.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that your organization should have a social media policy, and one of the things I heard among all the great comments was: “Okay, but what should it say?”

There are generally two approaches to social media policy making. Some organizations handle social media in an evolutionary way. Chad Houghton, the director of e-media and business development at the Society for Human Resource Management, told me that he thinks, “it might be beneficial not to create some arbitrary rules without first seeing where the opportunities and risks really are.”

Other organizations, meanwhile, feel more comfortable establishing a clear policy from the outset. IBM, for example, has published their social media guidelines publicly for anyone to read. It’s a great policy, though rather long.

Whether you’re writing your social media policy from the get-go, or letting it develop organically in reaction to situations as they arise, here are 10 things you should definitely consider. These 10 tips will help you steer clear of pitfalls and allow you to focus on what’s important: engaging the customer.

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1. Introduce the purpose of social media

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All policies need to address what’s in it for the reader/user — what should the reader take away after reading the policy? One of the common themes I kept coming across in introductions to social media policies is the idea that the policy should focus on the things that employees cancan’t do. For those of us who have experience writing policies, this is a real paradigm shift. rather than what they

But that’s the spirit of social media — it’s all about leveraging the positive. And that needs to be evident in the policy. Houghton agrees, “The old way of doing things is to create an unnecessarily restrictive model of engagement that prevents companies from leveraging new media appropriately.”

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2. Be responsible for what you write

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Oren Michels, CEO of Mashery, explains that “people tend to interpret having the ‘right’ to express themselves online as implying a lack of consequences when they say stupid things.” That’s not the case. Your organization and its representatives need to take responsibility for what they write, and exercise good judgment and common sense.

“Dooced” is an Internet expression that means to lose one’s job because of things one says on one’s website or blog. No one wants that to happen, of course, so using common sense and being responsible is important.

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3. Be authentic

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Include your name and, when appropriate, your company name and your title. Consumers buy from people that they know and trust, so let people know who you are.

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4. Consider your audience

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When you’re out in the blogosphere or Twitterverse or other social media channels, remember that your readers include current clients, potential clients, as well as current/past/future employees. Consider that before you publish and make sure you aren’t alienating any of those groups.

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5. Exercise good judgment

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Refrain from comments that can be interpreted as slurs, demeaning, inflammatory, etc. The Internet is full of varied opinions, and it’s okay to share yours, but you never, never, never want to be branded a racist or narrow-minded or an unstoppable hot-head.

Your employees should understand that companies can and will monitor employee use of social media and social networking web sites, even if they are engaging in social networking or social media use away from the office. Eric B. Meyer, an associate at the labor and employment group of Dilworth Paxson LLP, reminds us that, “employees should always think twice before hitting ’send‘; consider what could happen if your organization sees what the employee publishes on the Internet and how that may reflect not just on the employee, but also the company.”

Bottom line: good judgment is paramount regardless of whether an employee’s online comments relate directly to their job.

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6. Understand the concept of community

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The essence of community is the idea that it exists so that you can support others and they, in turn, can support you. You need to learn how to balance personal and professional information, and the important role that transparency plays in building a community. Your community shouldn’t be an environment where competition is encouraged or emphasized, but rather a platform where your customers or users feel comfortable sharing, connecting, and receiving help.

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7. Respect copyrights and fair use

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This should be a no-brainer, but just in case: always give people proper credit for their work, and make sure you have the right to use something with attribution before you publish.

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8. Remember to protect confidential & proprietary info

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Being transparent doesn’t mean giving out the Colonel’s special 11 herbs and spices used in KFC chicken or the recipe for McDonald’s Big Mac special sauce.

Those examples seem pretty self-explanatory, but Meyer, points out that, “employers may fail to make employees aware of any obligation they may have to protect confidential or proprietary information.” Transparency doesn’t give employees free rein to share just anything. Meyer says that every state has a law governing trade secrets.

Therefore, employees who share confidential or proprietary information do so at the risk of losing their job and possibly even ending up a defendant in a civil lawsuit. At the very least, companies will seriously question the judgment of an employee who shares confidential or proprietary information via social media. It’s a good idea to make sure all of this is clearly laid out in your social media policy.

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9. Bring value

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Social media will more likely pay dividends for you if you add value to your followers, readers, fan, and users. Michels, for example, said he’s used blog posts as a “means to frame the conversation around specific issues and make sure that our position is heard and commented on,” or as a way to build buzz for upcoming products or services.

Joe Homs, the CEO of Headset Bros., shared with me two instances where social media has provided an opportunity to bring customer value. Once, on Twitter (), they ran across a person who was looking for a recommendation for a product they sell. A simple message to her that was quick and relevant allowed them to make a fast sale.

Another time, on Facebook (), a customer complaint about not receiving an order led to the realization that their shipping company had lost the package. Sending the customer a new package overnight fixed the problem and they eventually worked out the problem with the shipping company as well.

Still confused about the different ways you can provide value using social media? Check out the video from Barry Judge, the Chief Marketing Officer at Best Buy, embedded below.

(Thanks to Christine Tierney for the heads up on this great video.)

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10. Productivity matters

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I asked Homs if he was concerned that his employees would lose focus if they were spending too much time on social media sites. His comment: there’s not much to balance. He told me, “talking to people (over social media or otherwise) is our ‘real’ job.” Headset Bros estimates that 90% of their business is communication with customers (online and by phone). To help with the rest, they’ve automated most of their other business functions.

But, your social media usage won’t get you very far if you don’t execute on the core competencies of your business. Remember that in order for your social media endeavors to be successful, you need to find the right balance between social media and other work.

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Sample social media policy

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The Headset Bros. were kind enough to let us republish their social media policy. It’s short, but that’s by design, because CEO Joe Homs told me, “we want people to read it.”

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More social media resources from Mashable:

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- HOW TO: Manage Multiple Social Media Profiles
- Why Big Brands Struggle With Social Media
- Social Media for Business: The Dos & Don’ts of Sharing
- A Control Freak’s Guide to Social Media Influence
- The New Social Engagement: A Visit to Zappos

Big brands looking to Facebook

Thanks WARC

Big brands looking to Facebook

PALO ALTO, California: Advertisers including Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Kraft are all using Facebook, the social networking service, to generate consumer insight, but their varying approaches and experiences show marketers have not yet established a consistent approach to using the website.

Many brands have displayed an increasing enthusiasm about utilising social media as popular interest in the medium has grown, but the developing nature of this channel means that few "best practice" examples of how to do so have emerged as yet.

As previously reported, Coca-Cola's main page on Facebook was originally created by two brand enthusiasts, and now has over three million "friends", making it one of the most popular areas of the Palo Alto-based website.

Michael Donnelly, director of worldwide interactive marketing at the soft drinks giant, argues that “many consumers are already sharing information regularly on Facebook," meaning the fan-page was "just one more way to quickly share information in a place where they are already spending time."

He also asserted that the "ease of creating content makes it so that we get very high engagement, far beyond typical page views" by using Facebook, which also "gives us a great platform to listen to the feedback we receive from our consumers."

In support of this, he added that every time the company added "photos, videos or status updates from the page, our fans are quick to tell us what they think. Their feedback is shared with their network of Facebook friends, exposing them to our fan-page."

Starbucks, the coffee house chain, which currently has 1.5 million "fans" for its official page, has also previously employed the social media site to communicate with users about its efforts to raise money for Global Aids Day.

Alexandra Wheeler, the firm's director of digital strategy, said the initiative "became the most viral event in Facebook history," and meant that "not only were customers excited about the brand, but they came together on one day to do something good."

Overall, she asserted that Facebook "helps us get a pulse on what is important to our customers. We can have a real dialog with them about the values and ideals that they share with us."

Kraft, the food manufacturer, also launched an "app" on the site last December, donating six meals to the not-for-profit organisation Feeding America each time it was downloaded.

Over 230,000 people did so within the first six weeks of its launch, while an unofficial page for the company's Oreo brand has also acquired more than 1.3 million "friends."

Stephen Chriss, director of consumer and customer engagement, at the company's US snacks business, said that while the company currently doesn't "formally interact with fans" on Facebook.

However, it does "keep an eye on the content, conversation and number of fans" on the service, and is also "reviewing" its approach.

Victoria's Secret and Sears have also used the site to offer discounts on products, and Unilever's Simon Clift has previously encouraged brands to make full use of such social media

Ted McConnell, Procter & Gamble's general manager for interactive marketing and innovation, however, has warned against brand's trying to "hijack" the conversation between consumers.

Data sourced from Brand Channel/ClickZ; additional content by WARC staff, 26 May 2009
portals.

'Virtual currencies' power social networks, online games

Thanks CNN... jesus, am i really reposting something from CNN?

(CNN) -- When Santiago Martinez wants to give his friends birthday presents, he buys a cake or flowers or sometimes a teddy bear.

'Virtual currencies,' like the hi5 Coin, shown here, are becoming more important on the Internet.

But the 41-year-old, who lives on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, doesn't spend pesos or dollars. He buys the gifts with an online-only currency called hi5 Coins.

He also doesn't deliver the gifts in the physical world. They appear digitally on his friends' online profiles on a site called hi5, which is a social network like Facebook or MySpace.

"They can't eat the cake. It is an image -- the thing that it represents," said Martinez, an accountant with a wife and two kids. "You can send the feeling of that [cake] that you want to send."

In any given month, he spends the equivalent of $40 in this manner.

But Martinez is hardly alone.

As our identities migrate further onto the Internet, currencies that exist only online are becoming a more significant part of commerce on the Web and in the real world. Some, like the hi5 Coin, operate almost like tokens in an arcade or tickets at a fair: They're a stand-in for real-world currency.

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Other "virtual currencies," like Second Life's Linden Dollars, however, are traded on markets. The currencies also fuel online gaming communities and are becoming an important part of social networks.

Several online currencies are competing to be the economic engines for MySpace and Facebook, which don't have their own unified currencies. Other social networking sites, like hi5 and myYearbook, have created their own units of money for their users to spend.

All of this movement leads some experts to see a future in which virtual currencies enter the same trading space as their real-world counterparts.

The online monies are not robust enough to trade competitively against real-world currencies, but people underestimate the large amount of cash that is transferred from the real world into virtual currencies, said Edward Castronova, a professor of telecommunications at Indiana University.

Castronova says people transfer at least $1 billion into the virtual currencies each year, with most of that money going into online games. The actual amount could be much higher, he said, but the market is hard to quantify.

"The question is really one of scale," he said. "Is this big enough for someone to take their 401(k) [out of real-world currency] and start looking into this? No, absolutely not."

Sometimes, people collect online money simply by purchasing it.

In "World of Warcraft," players earn WoW Gold as they advance through the game. The currency has become so sought-after that it is bought and sold on a black market, experts said.

Low-wage workers in China are known to play the game for a living and then sell the virtual currency they earn to avid "World of Warcraft" players in the West. This despite the fact that the game's maker prohibits such activities.

As the market for online-only currency grows, problems that plague real-world economies start leaking in, said Charles Hudson, who runs the Virtual Goods Summit, an annual conference.

"Once you get a virtual economy that's functioning, you run into all the problems that we have with the real economy: taxation, interest rates, inflation. All of the same problems that cause headaches for the Federal Reserve come up in the virtual economy -- and the stakes are the same," he said.

The solution has been for each social network or game that uses its own currency to appoint a money manager. Hi5, for instance, employs a staff economist for this purpose.

The site soon hopes to make as much money through its virtual currency exchange as it does from advertising, which is the primary revenue source for many social networks.

Mark Methenitis, a Dallas attorney who writes a blog called "Law of the Game," said online currencies are "completely unregulated," which will make trading them against each other dangerous.

"There is huge potential for fraud, for what would be the equivalent of insider trading," he said. "Also, since these economies are completely under the control of the virtual world owner, it's pretty easy to cause massive hyperinflation."

Social networks and virtual worlds are currently trying to find ways to manage or capitalize on their developing economies.

These networks' successes may hinge on how they are able to manage their economies and currencies may, experts said.

Facebook is researching the idea of creating a unified currency but is "very early" in the process and has not committed to it, the site said in a statement to CNN.

Currently, applications on the site -- which allow users to play games with each other and trade gifts -- are powered by currencies made by the application's developers, not by Facebook.

These developers are making good money on the system, and Facebook is missing out on profits in that area, said Hudson, of the Virtual Goods Summit.

Joey Seiler, who writes about virtual worlds, said virtual goods are becoming more popular because people are taking their online identities more seriously.

At first, it may seem ridiculous that someone would pay for virtual currency in order to buy a T-shirt icon to put on a social-network profile. But Seiler said more or his friends see the virtual T-shirts on his Facebook page than see any T-shirt he wears in real life.

SUPERCOOK!

Thanks mashable for this highlight of MEGACOOL cooking site, Supercook... i totally agreee with the post on the final cracking of an idea that long held great promise.

Name: Supercook

Quick Pitch: Supercook finds recipes based precisely on the ingredients you already have. Unique search technology, “virtual” kitchen concept, and customized suggestions.

Genius Idea: Supercook finally executes on a concept that I have heard floated around for years: tasty recipes based off the items you already have. Supercook asks what’s in your kitchen and then uses that information to provide dozens, if not hundreds, of unique dishes that you probably would never have thought of on your own.

Adding ingredients to the supercook system is easy, and you don’t even have to register. The niftiest feature is the tag cloud of common items it pops up to make adding new ingredients easy. As you add items, the system automatically begins to suggest recipes based on those grocery items.

The recipes are aggregated from several recipe websites, including AllRecipe and RecipeZaar. The system even suggests yummy dishes to make that require one or two additional items, allowing you to discover more new foods.

One of my favorite features of Supercook though is the suggested shopping list. Based off the items you tell the system are in your kitchen, Supercook will provide a suggested list of additional items to buy to build amazing food delights.

Overall, Supercook is very simple, but that’s what makes it so easy to use. It doesn’t take long and it turns recipe hunting from a painful chore to an enjoyable adventure.

Answers to Questions from Twitter on Teen Practices

Thanks Futurelab for this Q&A on teen Twitter usage and attitudes

by: danah boyd

Before I headed to Atlanta to do fieldwork, I asked folks who follow me on Twitter (@zephoria) what questions I should ask teens. Many of the questions that I received were more general questions about teens, rather than questions for teens. Still, I'm going to take a stab at very briefly answering some of the questions that I received based on what I know and what I learned. I am not answering the larger questions that would require pages and pages and my apologies if my short answers are not sufficient but I wanted to at least respond. Thank you all who contributed questions and my apologies if I didn't answer yours.

To all who asked questions about Twitter: average teens don't use Twitter. They may in the future, but they do not now. Those who do are early adopters and not representative of any mainstream teen practice. Because of Oprah and celebs, some teens are starting to hear about it, but they don't understand it and they aren't using it.

@connyb: Parents' concerned with what kids do online, right? I'd ask teens if they know what exactly their parents do at their dayjobs.

Teens do not tend to know exactly what their parents do, nor do they particularly care. (It's important to note that parental concern stems from a position of power, not interest in the actual activities.)

@mauraweb: when they're searching for info, how do they know what info to trust? esp. w/internet searches

Media literacy amongst teens is extremely varied, but the short answer is that most don't know what to trust. They know that they are not supposed to trust Wikipedia because it's editable (and they automatically recall Wikipedia when you ask about trustworthy information.. that's so actively hammered down their throat, it's painful). One girl told me that she trusts websites that "look" like they are reputable. When I asked her about this, she told me that she could "just tell" when something was a good source. And besides, it came from Google. Le sigh.

@AlterSeekers: According to Facebook Era, Teens see email as a "work" tool and prefer to Facebook message. Is this true among these teens?

I was surprised to find that email is deader than ever among teens. As more of their parents and teachers are getting on Facebook (or MySpace), they see little reason to email with anyone. Thus, email is increasingly needed for having an account on various sites and for getting access to or sending attachments. But even when teens do use email for "work", they do not use it for social purposes.

@mirroredpool: What borders to teens place of social networking sites and education? How would they react to using an SNS to do class work?

@annejonas: i'm curious if they want schools involved in social networks or if they like it as a social space outside the realm of formal edu.

This is messy. Many teens have ZERO interest in interacting with teachers on social network sites, but there are also quite a few who are interested in interacting with SOME teachers there. Still, this is primarily a social space and their interactions with teachers are primarily to get more general advice and help. In some ways, its biggest asset in the classroom is the way in which its not a classroom tool and not loaded this way. Given that teens don't Friend all of their classmates, there are major issues in terms of using this for groupwork because of boundary issues.

@shcdean: What future do they see for FB or Twitter.

They don't use Twitter. When asked, teens always say that they'll use their preferred social network site (or social media service) FOREVER as a sign of their passion for it now. If they expect that they'll "grow out of it", it's a sign that the service is waning among that group at this very moment. So they're not a good predictor of their own future usage.

@lazygal: Do they really care about/use school library websites? Twitter? Pageflakes? Libguides? or only if teacher insists?

Nope, they don't. All but Twitter are categorized as school tools and are only used when absolutely necessary and Google won't suffice.

@anindita: My favorite question: read anything good lately?

I asked "Recent book that you enjoyed" on my questionnaire. Half said "none" and most said books they read in school (with a *). Books that were mentioned: City of Bones, Ashes & Glass, A Year of Impossible Goodbyes, The Outsiders*, Drama High Series, Mice and Men*, Catcher in the Rye*, The Poisonwood Bible*, Twilight series (twice).

@texas_sooner: I'd be interested to know if teens denied access to SNS (by parents/choice/SES reasons etc ) feel left out/pressure to join, etc.

Parental restrictions are a huge source of frustration because of a sense of isolation. (As a result, they are typically ignored.) SES is not actually a predictor of non-use at this point except in more rural regions where Internet access is generally absent for the majority of teens. In these cases, teens don't feel left out because they aren't being socially isolated by it.

@SavvyPriya: what is one thing that teens are passionate about?

This varies across teens, but God comes up a lot. The only thing that really competes is friends. Family is also important to some teens. School and sports are also important to some teens. And then some teens have particular hobbies or activities that they love. But God and friends really dominate the passion list.

@paullowe: where do they get their news from and what kind of news do they want to get

Teens primarily get their news from word-of-mouth, not directly from any particular source. School current events and TV time are the other dominant place I hear about. Otherwise, it's generally osmosis. They walk through the living room when their parents are watching the news. Or they pass by a news article when they get online. But they are not directly and intentionally consuming much news at all.

@thornet: ask 'em how they judge whether a news outlet is credible.teens r good @ spotting fakes & phonies;wonder what their news criteria r

They don't watch a lot of news and they have no media literacy training and they're not even thinking about credibility of news.

@andrewmiller: how does having a smartphone change their interactions w/each other on SNS? more photos/videos? faster rumors? have/have-not gap?

A gap is definitely occurring. A smart phone means more more more more more - more SMS, more web consumption, more status updates, more photos, etc. Certain smart phones are desperately desired items. That said, teens are also doing quite well with the iPod Touch + wifi as an alternative. Smart phones are helping them stay more engaged and connected.

@shawncalhoun: Were teens more engaged in politics by Obamas #socialmedia storm? If so has engagmnt continued evolved in2 something new or faded?

Most teens are pretty oblivious to his social media practices. That's actually hitting the college/20-somethings more.

@alexleavitt: Ask them if they feel like they'll want to develop the social Net when they get older: eg., developers developers developers.

No. Most don't associate using social media with computer science or developing software whatsoever. And the classes on programming in their schools aren't helping.

@pbernard: do they still care about changing the ringtone on their phone, even though they make less and less calls?

Ringtones are tricky with American youth because it very much depends on who pays for the phone/ringtones. Among teens who can change their ringtones whenever they want, there's still motivation. The phone still rings (and beeps with new SMSes) and having a cool sound is desired. But of course many teens spend most of their day with their phones on buzz-only.

@harraton: Do they care about their privacy?

VERY much so. But what constitutes privacy for them is often quite different than what constitutes privacy for adults. Privacy is not dead.

@simonchambers: I'd ask how they see themselves helping to solve problems like climate change and extreme poverty...

They don't. Most teens are not that engaged with larger societal issues (except as activities to get into college). This makes sense - they are not part of public life. They have no voice. They don't hear the debates. They aren't exposed to much beyond their narrow worlds. And, for most of them, their parents aren't involved either.

@dougthomas: Teens; what are their thoughts about downloading songs? films? software? without paying for it.

They want access. Their parents won't pay for it. They don't have credit cards. They get what they are looking for by any means necessary. And those who get access to it traffic in that content among their peers who may be less technologically savvy/economically privileged.

@jamesb: how does their mobile contacts differ from social network contacts? When do they crossover?

Mobile consists of their closest friends because of the economics of the phone. Social network sites are their broader peer group. Their closest friends are a subset of their broader peer group.

@alfredtwo: Do teens view all adults in social networking the same or are parents a special case? Young relatives friend me not their parents

Depends on the teen, but many are happy to connect with adults who don't directly hold power over them or who they "trust" - aunts, older cousins, youth pastors, "cool" teachers, etc.

@mjmantey: how aware are they of general advertising/marketing ways and means?

If it has advertising, they think that it means that it'll be free for a long time. But they don't really think much about it.

@mojo_girl: how many email accounts do they have that parents don't know about- do they use same password 4 all #socialmedia ? #teens

They don't use email so it's more a matter of which ones they forgot about. They often forget their passwords so I would guess that they don't use the same password consistently. Of course, they also share certain passwords with their closest "trusted" friends so that gets messy really fast. And they change it when there's a breakup.

@matlockmatlock: OMGSEXTINGWTF?

Continuing to be present and very very messy. Sharing of naked photos seems to be more prevalent in certain teen groups than others and I'm still trying to work out what this means.

Original Post: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2009/05/16/answers_to_ques.html

Tags:

• danah boyd
• digital living
• online behaviour
• social media
• teens
• Twitter
• young

Danger Mouse's Next Album Will Be A Blank CD-R

Thanks @damjanov for sharing this post on how Danger Mouse is sticking it to the man!

By Dan Nosowitz, 6:00 PM on Sat May 16 2009, 66,165 views (Edit post, Set to draft, Slurp)

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Danger Mouse, the amazing mashup artist, producer, and half of Gnarls Barkley, is unable to release his newest album due to legal battles with his label, so he's embracing piracy to get his music heard.

After "legal battles," Danger Mouse's new album has been shelved by his label, EMI. But fearful that his work would never be heard, Danger Mouse came up with an idea to get his music out there while at the same time showing his anger at EMI. The album, entitled Dark Night of the Soul, will be sold as a "100+ page book" of photographs inspired by the music and taken by David Lynch, and will include a blank CD-R to be filled with torrented mp3s. All copies will be clearly labelled:

'For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.'

Danger Mouse made his name with a mashup of The Beatles' White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album titled, of course, The Grey Album, which was only available through non-commercial means, so this is a guy who despite his success is very aware of the state of music sales. Dark Night of the Soul is already available to stream for free from NPR, so it looks like Danger Mouse is going all out with his plan to thoroughly infuriate his record label. [via Boing Boing]

10 Tips for Social Media Marketers

Great post from the (now ex-market head at H&R Block). Thanks for this and the great work at H&R.

There have been many chapters in the book of my life, some sad but most really happy. I’m now at the end of another chapter and it is bittersweet. I’m leaving H&R Block to become the General Manager of a new online shopping site that will be launching this fall. I’m excited to start this new chapter as it is fulfilling one of my dreams, but, sad to leave behind a great brand and wonderful colleagues.

Over the last three years, the H&R Block brand has embraced the opportunity to communicate with consumers differently. We have been on the forefront of social media and been honored by positive mentions from thought leaders such as Shel Israel, Francois Gossieaux, Jeremiah Owyang, Jake McKee, Andy Sernovitz, and Chris Heuer. Traditional media has also taken note of the “tax company that could” with mentions in the Wall Street Journal, PC World, Advertising Age, ClickZ, and Marketing Sherpa among others. But most importantly, consumers have engaged with us in new and different ways through YouTube, Twitter, Second Life, FaceBook, Myspace and our own community site at hrblock.com.

This has been an incredible journey for me personally. The accomplishments we have achieved are the result of a team effort. I’m happy to know that I’ve had a positive influence on that team and overjoyed knowing that the team will be carrying the torch and continue to make a difference with our customers. There are some key learnings about social media that every corporate social media marketer should know:

• Every brand can be and should be “social” - Conversations about your brand and products are happening everywhere. You need to be part of the conversation and if H&R Block can make taxes social, your product can be social too.
  

• Just get started – It doesn’t take a big budget to get started in social media marketing. In fact, much of social media marketing is human capital. Start by listening. Set up Google alerts to look for conversations about your brand or product. Use TweetDeck and set up a brand search to monitor what is going on about your brand or product in the Twitterverse. Then participate in the conversation, just remember to be authentic, honest and transparent and you will be fine. If you take the first steps to engage in the conversation you will learn more about how your brand or product fits into the social media space and it will help guide any future programs.

• Integrated marketing vs. social media - There is a difference between an integrated marketing campaign that includes viral components or online/offline coordination and a social media program. A marketing campaign has a short life; it is singular in desired action and is usually focused on demand generation. A social media program is a commitment to engage and communicate with consumers where the consumer wants to communicate. If you are going to start a marketing campaign with social elements versus a social media program, you must start with the end in mind. The worse thing a marketer could do is build a group of fans, friends or followers without a clear exit strategy after the campaign is completed.
  

• Find your brand’s own path – What works for one brand in social media does not mean it is right for another. For example, the path of engagement with a movie franchise is very different than engaging consumers about taxes. Remaining true to your brand promise is the best way to approach social media. Utilize your brand promise as a guiding principle across all your social media efforts. Reflect it in the content that you create, the tone that you use, and the programs that you develop.
  

• Media $ versus human capital – I mentioned human capital earlier. Companies can spend a lot of money trying to launch a social media program. For the most part, I would really classify those efforts as an integrated marketing campaign. Your approach and funding of an integrated marketing campaign needs to be in line with the size and scope of your overall marketing budget. Social media programs can be a lot more cost efficient from a media budget standpoint, but, you still need human capital to run them. In many cases you may be trading media $ for the human capital needed to run a program. For example if you are taking the first step of listening and engaging in the conversation, there is no media buy necessary. However, you do need to have some person dedicated to scanning and responding. Ideally, that person is an employee of the company. Why this should be an employee leads to the next tip.
  

• Agencies play a great role, but the voice needs to be the company’s -There have been many company backlashes by having your agency respond in the social media space. Remember that the consumer wants to connect with you, not your agency. Your agencies can monitor and identify opportunities, but it is the company that needs to respond – authenticity is key.

• Your agency needs to walk the walk – I hate paying an agency to learn on my dime. When we started three years ago, social media was so new and changing so rapidly that we were all learning together. Today there are many different agencies that are building expertise in social media including public relations firms, interactive agencies and newly formed agencies focusing on social media. As you select an agency partner make sure that they don’t just talk the talk but also walk the walk. Are they active in social media? Does the agency blog or twitter? Judge the agency not solely on their pitch, but also on their actions.
  

• Get legal involved early – Your legal department can be an ally or a roadblock. What you need to understand is that in the area of social media there is not a lot of legal precedence to draw on. This makes your legal department nervous because it is more difficult to know the best way to protect the company. Involve your legal department early and help them understand your goals so you can build a partnership and not hit as many roadblocks. Ask your legal department to help you solve for the risks versus just state that you cannot proceed with a program. There are always solutions to mitigate risk. You and your legal department can find solutions together.
  

• Have a crisis management plan – The recent Dominoes episode clearly identifies the need of a crisis management plan. In a world of 24x7 communications, the brands that can respond quickly to a crisis will be the brands that weather the storm. A good crisis management plan must begin with active monitoring. Judgment will need to be exercised to distinguish a customer service issue from a true crisis management situation. Once a crisis has been detected, the brand will need to respond in a matter of hours not days. Early action will help nip a crisis in the bud before it explodes into something larger. No action or ignoring it will only exacerbate the issue. A brand that is already active in social media will also carry more credibility and rally more supporters to come to the brand’s defense.

• Selling the C-Suite or ROI – One of the most popular questions that I get asked is how to build support at the C-level. Having a clearly defined objective is critically important to gain support of any initiative. However, everyone is always focused on the ROI or return on the investment. I have defined ROI a little differently in this new and emerging space as Risk Of Ignoring. There is an absolute change occurring in how we communicate and seek information as a society. The millennial generation is the first digital native generation with very different expectations of companies and marketing. In the not so distant future the millennials will be a larger purchasing demographic than the boomers. Not understanding this segment will be detrimental for future marketers. Watch Shift Happens and share it with your senior leadership team. It is a great example of how we are living in exponential times.
  

The last topic is not really a tip but a reality of the brave new world we operate in – personal brands. The lines between all the roles we play as an individual are becoming blurred. Books like Me 2.0 are promoting self-branding. In the social media space there are divided camps and murkiness all around. Scott Monty has been accused of using his profession at Ford to drive his personal brand, when the reality is that Scott Monty has been using his personal brand in the social media space to promote Ford. On the flip side, individuals who participate in social media are experiencing the impacts of their personal communications being equated to corporate communications even when there are clear disclosures that the views expressed are their own. And we hear a news report every few weeks about how content that is shared publicly via FaceBook or Myspace is being used in employment screening.

There is not a guidebook on how to best proceed in the new age of communication. I play many roles. I’m a wife, mother, friend and employee. My communications take on elements of all the roles that I play. I know I’m not perfect and I’m making mistakes as I learn. The best advice I have in this area is for you to realize that the sum of all your activity through social networks does become your personal brand. Understand your goals for your personal brand. Are you going to use it specifically as a friendship connection, to maintain professional connections, or are you trying to build a personal brand to promote yourself? These are three distinct paths that will drive different types of communications. Understanding your end goal is the first step to navigating a space filled with landmines.

I know that H&R Block will continue to be a leader in the social media space because they truly care about engaging in customer dialog. I leave behind a great team of talented professionals who are as passionate about social media as I am. A bright future lies ahead for H&R Block and I will be cheering them on from the sidelines.

As sad as I am to leave H&R Block, I’m excited to start my new chapter. I’m also thrilled to start actively engaging and sharing in the conversation. Due to competitive considerations I have been limited in my ability blog openly, as I start my new adventure expect to hear from me more frequently. Stay tuned for more…