As Google Sites Surpasses 10 Billion Video Views, Do TV Networks Still Matter?

September 29th, 2009 • Industry News, Studies & Research
Tags: comScore, google, youtube

Do traditional TV networks still matter? Recent attempts by networks to find online video business models has revealed the tension between the networks’ willingness to experiment and their desire to control how their content is distributed.

In August, online video reached another all-time high with more than 25 billion videos viewed during the month, according comScore. With YouTube accounting for 99% of its video views, Google was able to rake in more than 10 billion video views in total for the month of August in the U.S. — an increase of more than a billion views in just one month. comScore also credits the internet giant with nearly 40% of the total market share for all online video views. Other notable findings from August 2009 include:

• The average online video viewer watched 582 minutes of video, or 9.7 hours.
• 120.5 million viewers watched nearly 10 billion videos on YouTube.com (82.6 videos per viewer).
• 44.9 million viewers watched 340 million videos on MySpace.com (7.6 videos per viewer).
• The average Hulu viewer watched 12.7 videos, totaling 1 hour and 17 minutes of videos per viewer.
• The duration of the average online video was 3.7 minutes.

Enough About Me. What Do You Think of Me? Study Suggests Social Media Is for Narcissists

August 26th, 2009 • 3 comments Identity, Studies & Research
Tags: facebook, Gen Y, MySpace, San Diego State University, Youth Pulse LLC

Gen Y really is “Gen Me,” as suggested by a San Diego State University study. The study, conducted by Jean Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at SDSU, and Youth Pulse LLC, goes on to conclude that Gen Ys are narcissistic: focused only on themselves and incapable of acknowledging or appreciating others’ points of view or circumstances. Nearly 60 percent of college students polled by SDSU agreed their age group uses social networking sites for narcissistic, self-promoting and attention-seeking reasons.

OMG! Check UR Facebook Page B4 Big Interview

August 21st, 2009 • Human Resources, Social Networks, Studies & Research
Tags: CareerBuilder.com, facebook, linkedin, MySpace, social media marketing, twitter

After months of searching for a new job, you’ve finally scored an interview for a position that doesn’t require you to say “Would you like fries with that?” So, when preparing for that interview, you start making a mental checklist: Resume? Check. Interview suit? Check. Removing “Girls Gone Wild” pics from your Facebook page? Uh oh.

The study, which questioned 2,667 managers and human resource workers, found that 35 percent of employers decided not to offer a job to a candidate based on the content uncovered on a social networking site. (The survey has no margin of sampling error because it was not drawn from a representative nationwide sample but rather from volunteer participants.)

More than half of the employers who participated in the survey said that provocative photos were the biggest factor contributing to a decision not to hire a potential employee, while 44 percent of employers pinpointed references to drinking and drug use as red flags. The top examples cited include:

• Candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information – 53 percent
• Candidate posted content about them drinking or using drugs – 44 percent
• Candidate bad-mouthed their previous employer, co-workers or clients – 35 percent
• Candidate showed poor communication skills – 29 percent
• Candidate made discriminatory comments – 26 percent
• Candidate lied about qualifications – 24 percent
• Candidate shared confidential information from previous employer – 20 percent

What Women Want from Social Networking Sites

August 18th, 2009 • Behaviors, Studies & Research
Tags: eMarketer, facebook, linkedin, MySpace, ShesConnected, twitter, women and social networking

According to the female-oriented social networking site ShesConnected, women who are core social network users expect a lot, according to “The Power of Social Networking For Women Research Study.” Participants in the survey were recruited through several social networks and were encouraged to share it with friends, as reported by eMarketer.

Is Twitter Pointless Babble or A Legitimate Communications Tool?

August 17th, 2009 • Behaviors, Social Networks, Studies & Research
Tags: Gizmodo, microblogging, Pear Analytics, twitter

With Twitter being the shiny new penny of the social media world, many are eager to find out how people are actually using the microblogging platform.

Pear Analytics, a data analytics company, studied the content of tweets to find out how people are really using Twitter. The Pear Analytics group took 2,000 tweets in English from the public timeline over a time span of two weeks, with 200 tweets captured each half-hour from 11am – 5pm CST daily. They then categorized tweets into six different types: news, spam, self-promotion, pointless babble, conversation, and pass-along value.

The winner? Pointless babble tweets, with over one-third of all studied tweets fitting into the “I’m clipping my toenails” category. Conversational tweets came in a very close second with 37.55 percent. Pass-along value — or RTs — captured third-place with only 8.7 percent, but, interesting enough, spam only accounted for 3.75 percent of all tweets studied.

Other key findings:
- News tweets are heaviest at 2:00pm CST on Tuesdays
- Pass-along value tweets are most frequently seen at 11:30am CST on Mondays
- Spam tweets flow consistently all day, everyday
- Conversational tweets are heaviest on Tuesdays

Gizmodo recently published a blog post “If Only 100 People Were on Twitter”, with data visualization by Dave McCandless. What’s significant is that there are“5 loud mouths” per 100, or 5 percent of the folks who contribute 75 precent of the tweets. What does this mean? A handful of narcissistic people are contributing a significant amount of pointess babble to the Twitterverse.

As Twitter continues to develop, not only as a brand but as a communications platform, it’s likely that the usage trends will also evolve. Hopefully, the largest violaters of pointless babble will stick to Twitter’s inherent 140-character philosophy: Less is more.

The 2009 Gartner Hype Cycle

August 12th, 2009 • 1 comment Emerging Technology, Industry News, Studies & Research
Tags: Uncategorized

Every year, technology research house, Gartner releases what is known as a “hype cycle” – rating the expectations behind each maturing technology against their usefulness/adoption within business. It shows how technologies move through the initial spurt (technology trigger), through the peak of inflated expectations (can anyone say “Twitter”), through the trough of disillusionment, into to the slope of enlightenment and finally, the plateau of productivity and mainstream adoption.

This year is no different (see the graphic below)and an insightful write-up of the part of this year’s Gartner Hype Cycle which focuses on social media can be found on ReadWriteWeb.

It is interesting to note that Twitter, or more generally speaking “microblogging”, is falling from the peak of inflated expectations and into the trough of disillusionment. It is great to see corporate blogging moving up the slope of enlightenment and is predicted to reach mainstream adoption in “less than two years”. Personally I am surprised to see online video on the downward slope to to the trough of disillusionment and that it is being outstripped by public virtual worlds in the “race” to mainstream adoption.

It is also interesting to see what is moving up the peak of inflated expectations. Augmented reality is a very cool technology which you can see in action below.

Mobile robots sound very cool and Internet TV could make advertising far more interactive and contextually relevant – imagine watching a Liverpool match and being flashed an ad to buy a Fernando Torres shirt after he scores another screamer…and it being one click away on your remote. You can insert your own preferred sport/team

Most importantly of all for com.motion and our clients, the “Web 2.0” or social media phenomenon is rated as moving into the slope of enlightenment and that it will be adopted by the mainstream in less than two years. Judging by the exciting and innovative technologies on the hype cycle, we are in for an exciting time!

More on the Gartner Hype Cycle for consultants and agencies.

CluetrainPlus10 Project: Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what’s really going on inside the company.

April 28th, 2009 • 3 comments Studies & Research, Tools & Resources
Tags: Cluetrain Manifesto, CluetrainPlus10, facebook

In 1999, Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger wrote a book that was so prophetic, it arguably shaped and reinvented the way that businesses approached communicating with their key markets using the Internet. At a time when there was only a minimal amount of social networking sites and message boards were one of the only ways people were interacting with eachother online, the book was eerily ahead of its time with its theories and predictions. The above title is number 28 out of 95 theses that the authors of the bestselling book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, stated.

Today, organizations are embracing the online and social media space in two distinct ways. Some organizations that have embraced the social Web to communicate their messages with their key markets using a number of different online communications channels. Some companies have thrived to be more open in terms of allowing the public to go behind the scenes. Elements that pull the curtain back on certain organizations are being added to corporate sites more and more frequently. Corporate blogs and liberal blogging policies implemented by other organizations allow employees to share what they do on a day-to-day basis with their stakeholders. This thesis is becoming less and less relevant as organizations begin to utilize social media and social media marketing.

Even a once staid and faceless corporation like Microsoft has opened itself up with internal videos and by actively encouraging employees at all levels to blog and to share their work with the outside world.

Ten years from now, more and more organizations will follow in Microsoft’s steps. They will be open to scrutiny and will continue to win the trust of their key stakeholders once they’ve stepped into the online space. People have a human need to want to connect with each other and we are seeing more people openly and willingly interact with the organizations and brands that they are most passionate about. Facebook, for example, is a social networking site that we see vast numbers of people engaging with each other and with brands on Facebook fan pages.

Although the above thesis may not stand as strong ten years from now, this book is a must-read for all marketers looking to effectively understand why they need to change their marketing strategy and to learn how to communicate with their key audience. As Michael Wolfe puts it, “Love it or hate it, no one with a stake in the online scene can afford to ignore what this book is saying.”