Monday, March 23, 2009
Is social media an industry? Sometimes yes, but mostly no
This is an edit of my response to “Is Social Media an Industry?” on mashable
I was surprised to see that nearly 70% of people who voted in an online poll believed that social media was an industry. To my mind, the answer is both yes and no, depending on how you conceptualize “industry” and “social media.” First, there is the issue of the impetus for the question. Just because many people are interested in it, that doesn’t mean it is an industry. There is no established measure of how Google search terms relate to the size of industries, although increased searches do correlate with general interest by individuals.
Social media could be considered an industry for non-market information economies, of the type Yochai Benkler identifies as being critical for the success of the Internet and vastly different from market economies. For instance, social network sites could be considered an industry, as they quite literally build on and trade in social interactions. However, they are poorly, if at all, monetized.
More generally speaking, in market economies, I would argue that the vast majority of applications for social media are not related to a specific industry, but instead are tools used by various industries. Social media (plural: blogs, Twitter, SNSs, etc.) are not an industry. Also, industries are not defined just by popularity, but by the products they create and professionals they involve. "Social media" is a rather ambiguous term used to describe a collection of (mostly) online technologies that rely on connections between people to operate. These technologies are quite disparate, and often individuals and companies use them for entirely different purposes.
In this sense, social media are a vehicle for other industries, such as advertising, journalism, and software development. Each of these industries has very specific products and practices. Social media are integrated on various levels across these industries, but alone, they don’t amount to very much. Social media are tools for various industries, but are typically not their own industry.
I was surprised to see that nearly 70% of people who voted in an online poll believed that social media was an industry. To my mind, the answer is both yes and no, depending on how you conceptualize “industry” and “social media.” First, there is the issue of the impetus for the question. Just because many people are interested in it, that doesn’t mean it is an industry. There is no established measure of how Google search terms relate to the size of industries, although increased searches do correlate with general interest by individuals.
Social media could be considered an industry for non-market information economies, of the type Yochai Benkler identifies as being critical for the success of the Internet and vastly different from market economies. For instance, social network sites could be considered an industry, as they quite literally build on and trade in social interactions. However, they are poorly, if at all, monetized.
More generally speaking, in market economies, I would argue that the vast majority of applications for social media are not related to a specific industry, but instead are tools used by various industries. Social media (plural: blogs, Twitter, SNSs, etc.) are not an industry. Also, industries are not defined just by popularity, but by the products they create and professionals they involve. "Social media" is a rather ambiguous term used to describe a collection of (mostly) online technologies that rely on connections between people to operate. These technologies are quite disparate, and often individuals and companies use them for entirely different purposes.
In this sense, social media are a vehicle for other industries, such as advertising, journalism, and software development. Each of these industries has very specific products and practices. Social media are integrated on various levels across these industries, but alone, they don’t amount to very much. Social media are tools for various industries, but are typically not their own industry.
Labels: facebook, MySpace, SNS, social media, social networking
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Reaction to "Dunbar number" hype
The recent finding that Facebook members communicate regularly with a very small group is not surprising. Sites such as Facebook exist to keep track of a range of friendships, which some have taken to be a test of an online Dunbar Number. There are number of reasons why this is a difficult comparison to make. As danah boyd succinctly discusses, there are a number of reasons why the “Dunbar number” simply does not apply to online relationships. It is a theoretical number based in the real world, describes “grooming” activities by primates, and was developed from observations by anthropologists in non-first-world countries. And, of course, Facebook connections do not capture the entire range of social connections of an individual, just the connections on a single site. Even if you accept that a “Dunbar number” exists online (to play devil's advocate), this does not disprove the utility of these sites.
Many SNS connections are ultra “loose ties” that would seem to fall outside of the purview of a Dunbar number, while others are connections with close friends or family. My personal feeling is that even loose ties can come into more central play in a person’s life through these sites over time, regardless of whether these friendships began online or offline. There are a number of reasons that people may productively use SNSs to maintain large groups of extremely loose ties. These are friends from work or around town that may emerge as close ties at a point in the future, business “contacts” that are not friendship-related but need to be maintained, and individuals who used to be close ties but now have fallen out of favor due to geographic limitations (such as the classic old school buddies).
People gain personal satisfaction, financial security, and community benefit from online socialization with online groups. These groups have very tangible beneficial effects, and tie groups of close-tie groups together, providing valuable “bridging” that facilitates propagation of ideas. These sites are also increasingly a platform for other activities, including bona fide applications that expand the reach of SNSs beyond text and images, a convergence of activities as well as socializations.
Why individuals only interact consistently with a small number of friends can be explained, in part, by Facebook's filtering. Filtering is a key part of social promotion, without which it would be difficult to harness the “wisdom of crowds.” Facebook recognizes the people you communicate the most with, and promote their news feed items above those of others. This is completely natural utility – why would you want to have daily updates from someone you haven’t spoken with in ten years? Unless of course, you renew your friendship and start to interact more with them, at which point Facebook would recognize the increased activity. And you are always free to select “I want to see less from [user]” in the feeds. Even if people are exposed to an over abundance of messages from online “friends,” I doubt this can be shown to contribute to a meaningful negative effect. This “overload hypothesis” is frequently promoted by the media as a death by distraction (so to speak), making bugaboos of everything from cell phones to email. Never mind that if you show someone too much information, they simply do not retain everything, only what they frequently access or are useful in their life. Excess information is not retained, mentally urinated out like an excess of water-soluble vitamins.
Many SNS connections are ultra “loose ties” that would seem to fall outside of the purview of a Dunbar number, while others are connections with close friends or family. My personal feeling is that even loose ties can come into more central play in a person’s life through these sites over time, regardless of whether these friendships began online or offline. There are a number of reasons that people may productively use SNSs to maintain large groups of extremely loose ties. These are friends from work or around town that may emerge as close ties at a point in the future, business “contacts” that are not friendship-related but need to be maintained, and individuals who used to be close ties but now have fallen out of favor due to geographic limitations (such as the classic old school buddies).
People gain personal satisfaction, financial security, and community benefit from online socialization with online groups. These groups have very tangible beneficial effects, and tie groups of close-tie groups together, providing valuable “bridging” that facilitates propagation of ideas. These sites are also increasingly a platform for other activities, including bona fide applications that expand the reach of SNSs beyond text and images, a convergence of activities as well as socializations.
Why individuals only interact consistently with a small number of friends can be explained, in part, by Facebook's filtering. Filtering is a key part of social promotion, without which it would be difficult to harness the “wisdom of crowds.” Facebook recognizes the people you communicate the most with, and promote their news feed items above those of others. This is completely natural utility – why would you want to have daily updates from someone you haven’t spoken with in ten years? Unless of course, you renew your friendship and start to interact more with them, at which point Facebook would recognize the increased activity. And you are always free to select “I want to see less from [user]” in the feeds. Even if people are exposed to an over abundance of messages from online “friends,” I doubt this can be shown to contribute to a meaningful negative effect. This “overload hypothesis” is frequently promoted by the media as a death by distraction (so to speak), making bugaboos of everything from cell phones to email. Never mind that if you show someone too much information, they simply do not retain everything, only what they frequently access or are useful in their life. Excess information is not retained, mentally urinated out like an excess of water-soluble vitamins.
Labels: anthropology, communication, facebook, SNS, social networking, socialnetworking
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Quarterlife.com in freefall
A year ago I started consulting for Quarterlife.com, and helped with the initial sourcing of talent and getting the project off the ground. I haven’t kept track of the site since I started teaching, but did wonder what its fate would be after the television series went the way of the dodo.
In the month of June, the site’s reach dropped from .006 to .001. Admittedly, the most drastic part of the plummet is with reach and rank, but clearly it’s not a healthy social network site. I’m not sure why the drop - it’s too late for it to be due to college students leaving for the summer - but certainly new users aren’t coming to the site like they once were. There’s nothing that says “crash” more than Google adsense advertisements for incontinence showing up on a site’s main page. People notice when you’re selling out the most prominent area on the site for a low CPM rate. It screams desperation.
The whole Quarterlife story is tragic, because if it were successful, it might have ushered in new opportunities for those in the entertainment industry. Chalk it up to short-lived buzz not lending itself to a long-term business. The idea was to get the buzz around the show to feed into a social network, but the may just not be enough opportunities on the site to fill in the gaps between the peaks in popularity. Although promised, the contests have yet to appear. To my mind, this would be the “killer app” of Quarterlife, which would retain users with other activities, similar to OurStage.
In the month of June, the site’s reach dropped from .006 to .001. Admittedly, the most drastic part of the plummet is with reach and rank, but clearly it’s not a healthy social network site. I’m not sure why the drop - it’s too late for it to be due to college students leaving for the summer - but certainly new users aren’t coming to the site like they once were. There’s nothing that says “crash” more than Google adsense advertisements for incontinence showing up on a site’s main page. People notice when you’re selling out the most prominent area on the site for a low CPM rate. It screams desperation.
The whole Quarterlife story is tragic, because if it were successful, it might have ushered in new opportunities for those in the entertainment industry. Chalk it up to short-lived buzz not lending itself to a long-term business. The idea was to get the buzz around the show to feed into a social network, but the may just not be enough opportunities on the site to fill in the gaps between the peaks in popularity. Although promised, the contests have yet to appear. To my mind, this would be the “killer app” of Quarterlife, which would retain users with other activities, similar to OurStage.
Labels: facebook, MySpace, quarterlife, quarterlife.com, SNS, social networking
Sunday, June 01, 2008
How dangerous is posting personal information on Social Networking Sites?
The most recent findings by Ybarra and Mitchell (2008) address the assumption the posting of personal information on social network websites (SNSs) is dangerous. Their results show that when other factors are accounted for, a young person’s posting of personal information online does not significantly increase the likelihood that he or she will be harassed or solicited.
While much more research needs to be done on the topic, it is apparent that other communication mediums are far riskier. Namely, chat rooms and instant messaging (IM) are particularly problematic for adolescents. In the last year, 43% of youth stated they had been solicited over IM, 32% by chat rooms, and 4% by SNS. In the last year, 55% of youth stated they had been harassed over IM, compared with 4% by SNS.
Also, the posting of personal information may be a lesser risk factor when compared with behaviors such as talking with strangers online. Factors in family life also have a strong correlation with likelihood of harassment, such as whether the young individual in question has been abused. This refocusing of concepts is in-line with the ongoing efforts of the CCRC, which in recent years has illuminated why certain young individuals are more vulnerable than others.
For a broad overview on the state of research on cyber-predation, see Wolak, Finkelhor, Mitchell, and Ybarra (2008). Also see: Hinduja and Patchin (2008) regarding their analysis of the rate of disclosure of information on one particular SNS, MySpace.
While much more research needs to be done on the topic, it is apparent that other communication mediums are far riskier. Namely, chat rooms and instant messaging (IM) are particularly problematic for adolescents. In the last year, 43% of youth stated they had been solicited over IM, 32% by chat rooms, and 4% by SNS. In the last year, 55% of youth stated they had been harassed over IM, compared with 4% by SNS.
Also, the posting of personal information may be a lesser risk factor when compared with behaviors such as talking with strangers online. Factors in family life also have a strong correlation with likelihood of harassment, such as whether the young individual in question has been abused. This refocusing of concepts is in-line with the ongoing efforts of the CCRC, which in recent years has illuminated why certain young individuals are more vulnerable than others.
For a broad overview on the state of research on cyber-predation, see Wolak, Finkelhor, Mitchell, and Ybarra (2008). Also see: Hinduja and Patchin (2008) regarding their analysis of the rate of disclosure of information on one particular SNS, MySpace.
Labels: disclosure, facebook, harassment, MySpace, online, predation, safety, SNS, social networking
