Social Media is People Media

Social media - a backgrounder How the convergence of the media, telecoms and computer industry has people at its heart

Current examples of social media - blogs

Current examples of social media - social networking sites

Current examples of social media - product rating

Current examples of social media - forums

For some time now so-called web 2.0 has intrigued “ The second internet gold rush is in full swing… Jo hn Lanchester gets to grips with the virtual universe and Guardian writers interview the smartest and the luckiest entrepreneurs who demolished the old internet and built a brand new one. ” Saturday Guardian of November 4 2006 The web revolutionaries - the men and women who reshaped the net Screengrab: Guardian video

Is what’s happening new? Are the web 2.0 gurus really smashing the old net and building a new one? Let’s start by looking at what’s the Gurus’ definition of web 2.0

Jimmy Wales - Definitions of web 2.0 Jimmy Wales creator of user edited Web encyclopaedia Wikipedia : Its about “ be ing open to public participation ”.

Evan Williams - Definitions of web 2.0 The creator of Blogger , Evan Williams reckons it’s “… just th e name fo r the wave of stuff that is happeni ng right now ” In other words It’s hype!

Craig Newmark - Definitions of web 2.0 Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster creators of Craigslist “… it’s being used as a marketing term more than anything else”.

Kevin Rose - Definitions of web 2.0 Digg’s creator, Kevin Rose : It’s about “ th e level of participation of the users.” Here Rose is adding some user content (UGC) to a fan’s wall… err.. chest

Joshua Schachter - Definitions of web 2.0 Del.icio.us creator Joshua Schachter : The difference was that it used to be the case that to build a product on the web “ to ok a lot of engineering time, a lot of hardware and expensive bandwidth. It took serious cash. Now a great deal of what is necessary is passion .” So Web 2.0 = LOWER BARRIERS TO ENTRY!! Picture - Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

Martin Stiksel - Definitions of web 2.0 LastFM’s Martin Stiksel reckons its “… so mething to do with the participation of people ”.

Dick Costello - Definitions of web 2.0 “ It’ s the philosophy that customers are in control .” For him “ the companies that provide the most tools and platforms for participating i n the ecosystem will be the most successful.” Feedburners’ Dick Costello : To the right looking glum

David Sifry - Definitions of web 2.0 And David Sifry from Technorati “ It’ s a term that we use to talk about a new group of companies and a new group of ideas that understand the internet as being full of people who are doing things at a given time . PS: Remember this one

Forrester - Definitions of web 2.0 “ A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from from traditional institutions like corporations” Forrester Research’s Josh Bernoff has coined a new phrase to describe the social media phenomena. “ A Groundswell” Picture: Jeremiah Owyang

Other - Definitions of web 2.0 “ (It’s) - User generated content (UGC, often hyphenated), refers to various kinds of media content, publicly available, that are produced by end-users.” Wikipedia

So what is social media or web 2.0? We have three basic responses It’s Hype! It’s Technology It’s Participation

Social media is not hype Time Magazine “Facebook more popular than porn”

Is Social Media technology? Undoubted tech has enabled Social Media But Social Media isn't a new phenomena

Social media was already at work in web 1.0 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2008/apr/18/googlerevenue Google was the undisputed winner of Web 1.0 In the UK - since 2003 - Google has overtaken Cinema, Billboard, Radio and now even National Newspaper’s share of advertising…

Google’s rise in the UK http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2008/apr/18/googlerevenue

Globally Google is now the highest valued media company It made about $16 billion in 2007… Still, TimeWarner , the world’s biggest media company in terms of revenue, made… $46.5 billion!

Let’s compare: How much money did the BT Group make in 2007? This UK telecoms operator made about $41 billion in 2007, more than twice what Google made. The world’s biggest telecoms Company, AT&T made $119 billion!!

Of the 3 industries converging online… (the media , computer and telecoms industries) Telecoms was always playing in one league up from the other two…

Of the 3 industries converging into the net telecoms is the largest

What’s my point?? Many people first thought telecoms would be used to broadcast information one way . Then they thought it will be used primarily by business . They were wrong.

What’s my point?? Boring telecoms companies are interactive & they connect people . They have content (UGC at that) and - one to one - conversations . These conversations are considered very valuable - people pay inordinate amounts to have them. Telecoms is Social Media’s closest antecedent.

The business of corporates giving us news & entertainment (broadcast, top down) One to many

The business of conversations giving us news and entertainment (Interactive, peer to peer, person to person)

The business of top down (One to many) is big… Source: PriceWaterhouseCoopers

The business of connecting & talking is bigger Source: PWC & Gartner

And like telecoms the killer apps of web 1.0 was social as well Email Killer Apps! Search?! Instant Messaging Really? - Email and IM is about connecting and conversation, but is Search !??

The early World Wide Web Have any of you heard of - “ Jerry’s guide to the World Wide Web”?

The early World Wide Web Jerry Yang tried to categorise the web in a directory in April 2004 The company that tried this became Yahoo! But the directory failed, the web was too BIG .

Wild Wild Web (site) growth chart Source: Jacob Nielsen - useit.com Jerry’s guide - April 1994 (1000 websites) April 2006 Page & Brin starts working on the Google search engine (100,000 websites) PS: This chart is logarithmic Google launches (9 million sites)

Why is this significant? Because this spectacular growth of media channels was unlike the limited channels of print, radio or TV! And… … the majority of sites were amateur ! Eek!

The magna carta of the web Do you know what this formula is? PR(U) = (1-d) + d * sumV(PR(V)/N(V)) Painting: Liberty leading the people by Delacroix

It’s Google’s Pagerank formula ‘ PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote , by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “im portant ” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “Im portant ” .’ Google

Pagerank makes the Web a meritocracy The result is that ordinary people and services and products with no brand power or marketing budgets can compete successfully for exposure with established brands in Google’s search results - provided… … their web pages are considered good by other web pages! This makes the web an attractive place for ambitious, creative and smart people! They know they’ll get noticed! Google search is the foundation of social media.

So elements of social media has been with us for some time But recent technology improvements like Ajax lubricates the social wheels, for instance it can make content rating easier

And other new tech like RSS and XML! These really make the sharing and mixing of information and data easy so conversations can travel

Thanks to XML I can send a Flickr pic to my blog with the click of a button And I can follow conversations on Forums and Blogs in my RSS newsreader

So everyday human behaviour and needs have found a home in improving online technology

What kind of human behaviour?

Self promotion (Altruism?)

Being social

Self actualisation (Identity formation)

And connecting (Networking)

Self promotion (altruism)

Often altruism is the flip side of self promotion

Sharing stuff for free is a good way to promote yourself!

This 18 year old - Alex - has 30,000 followers on YouTube This is UGC!

Being social

Playing, making friendships, talking.

It can be serious like where Tony and Bono discuss poverty over a beer.

But its personal & authentic .

Self actualisation and Identity formation

You can find your voice online

You can express your self

MySpace and blogs are very good for this…

Connecting or Networking

finding a client or a business partner …

Like meeting like minded people, staying in touch , finding a lover… &

Let me illustrate by… … showing how these needs are met to various degrees in well known web sites

Second Life Just by being on SL you are user generated content. You are sharing . It’s a very social space, playful. Users of SL tend not to use their own identity, but a elaborate fictional one. There’s not much by way of networking functionality. You don’t have a contact or friend list for example.

MySpace MySpace is ideal for bands or artists to promote themselves. It’s full of UGC! It’s very social . Real identities not that important, but pages very customizable - you can create one Good networking functionality - Anybody can see who your ‘friends’ are, and some users have thousands of them.

Facebook Just by being on the site a user’s actions generates content. It’s a very social site Real identities are very very important. Excellent Networking functionality aimed at keeping you in touch with real world friends. “ You can’t create communities, you can just find them” - Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook - Reuters of humanity? I digress but… Do you remember David Silfry’s definition of web 2.0? Facebook took his definition to heart Facebook’s Personal news feed of what your Friends are doing is a great implementation of this definition. “ It’s the wisdom of your crowd” Jeff Jarvis - Media professor “ It’s the Reuter’s of inanity” Sam Leith - Daily Telegraph

LinkedIn It has some user created content like the Question and Answers section. Users can show how smart they are by answering. There’s little functionality that encourages socialising on LinkedIn (No poking!). Users real identities are crucial, but they are stripped of any depth. It’s a corporate identity. Networking is aimed at connecting with valuable business partners or clients, often with people you don’t know. “ We focus on a few but high value moments” Reid Hoffman , LinkedIn’s founder.

We had 3 responses to the question ‘what is web 2.0?’ It’s Hype! It’s Technology It’s Participation

But the correct answer is obvious. It’s media and technology for & by PEOPLE

People media We can express ourselves

What are key characteristics of people media? It revolves around people , connecting, self expression, interactive, self actualisation, open, free, flat, sharing, recognition, altruism, communicating, talking, authorship, authentic, reputation, meritocracy, reputations

Tom Anderson founder of MySpace “ Andy Warhol said everybody is famous for 15 minutes. Social Networking changed that to everyone is famous for 15 people. If you have a million friends, your broadcasting. You’re an entertainer” THE END

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