Category Archives: Social networking

09Jul / 2010

A tale of two buttons – Fan versus Like

So according to this article Facebook is serving 3 Billion ‘Like’ buttons a day. Don’t get me wrong, Facebook did a smart thing launching the like button. It spreads its seed across the web because it’s obviously much easier to like something than it is to be a fan of something. I might admit to the fact that part of me likes prancing about to a bit of Culture Club, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan. It requires less commitment.

From friend to friend it works, but from a brand’s point of view I think I kind of preferred fan as a benchmark, it made you work harder. ‘Like’ lowers the standards (which are already often low), resulting in the interaction being weaker and inflating the numbers. I’d go even as far as saying it’s the closet equivalent of some sort of standard volume metric in social.

Posted in Communications, Digital, Social, Social Media, Social networking

Tags: , , ,

Permalink 2 Comments

26Jun / 2008

Billy Connolly on digital…

I have just finished reading Billy Connolly’s biography, which has been written by his Aussie comedienne/psychologist wife Pamela Stephenson, and right at the end there is this quote from him on people that use the Internet or ‘The Great Anorak in the Sky’ as he calls it.

“You know why those people are on the Internet don’t you? Because you wouldn’t speak to them in the pub”

Harsh! Billy, there are PubCamp’s going on don’t you know!

PubCamp – The Web 2.0 Media Day from Sticky Advertising on Vimeo.

Posted in Billy Connelly, Biographies, Digital, Pamela Stephenson, Quotes, Social networking

Permalink 3 Comments

14Sep / 2007

Judge more books by their cover

Nowadays I tend to buy the majority of my books from Amazon. When I buy books from Amazon it’s normally when I know exactly what I want – something recommended on a blog or in the paper. However, I still love books shops. I browse and feel my way around them, picking up the books with interesting covers, reading the summaries and generally looking for something but not anything in particular. The last five books I’ve bought on Amazon were; The Brand Innovation Manifesto, The Undercover Economist, Freakonomics, Herd and Convergence Culture. All plannery type of books and my wish list looks similar. Interestingly though, the last five I bought in a book shop were; The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, a Karl Marx biography, Watching the English, The World of Karl Pilkington and Unspeak. All quite disparate and bought on a complete whim.

Hypernarrative has posted this interesting article. It discusses the concept of sites organising products visually and allowing you to meander through and pick up books just as you would in a bookshop. It suggests that ‘bad design’ can in fact be good design. It encourages discovery, although I doubt it would sell as many books?

Excuse this slight random digression and probable guff but it’s just bouncing round in my head…..

So whilst sites like Amazon try and be helpful/sell more products by analysing your history and recommending potential titles, they focus your reading in a particular direction. I now read more plannery type books than ever before, finishing one and then moving straight on to the next. Is this because I’m spending more and more time online? Am I allowing sites like Amazon and Last FM to influence my future knowledge and interests or limit it to specific areas? Sounds a bit extreme I know but I’ve even started to make a conscious effort to return to my broader, more interesting habits, at least so I can avoid boring people at work with just ‘cool work stuff’.

Yep, the Internet gives people access to more stuff than ever before blah blah blah. But rather ironically, because there is so much stuff, news feed, filters, social networks etc allow you to make sense of it, or more importantly limit the amount of new stuff you can discover. Where is the potential of finding something new and unexpected in your Netvibes?

Posted in Amazon, Books, Digital, Internet, Netvibes, News feeds, Social networking

Permalink 1 Comment

04Sep / 2007

The Internet killed the alien star


Image via.

To be honest I’m fairly open minded about the idea of sharing the universe with other life forms but until I see something with my own two eyes, I’m a wee bit sceptical. A recent article by Ziauddin Sardar in the New Statesman draws an interesting correlation between the reduction in UFO sightings and the development of the Internet. Yeah I know, it sounds weird. Sardar’s opinion is that UFOs are merely cultural devices that allow people to explain the unexplainable: ‘Instead of projecting our fears of the inexplicable on to outer space, we project them into cyberspace’. Although seemingly sightings haven’t reduced by the hilarious flaming the poor guy gets from some serious UFO twitchers.

People are apparently now seeking solace in virtual worlds, online gaming, chat rooms, blogs, and forums, instead of in religion and UFOs. Sardar essentially believes the Internet has made us become self absorbed and inward looking. I’m not really convinced by his argument but there are some thought provoking opinions in there, whichis always good. You can read the full article here.

I personally believe that the Internet is anything but inward looking. It is far from being just an introspective tool, it gives people more freedom and confidence than ever before. Rather than feeling the need to seek out ‘the meaning of life’ perhaps people are just more comfortable with their existence and have a greater desire for self expression? It’s the generation of the creators rather than the followers.

Posted in Aliens, Communities, culture, Digital, Divergence, Random observations, Social networking, UFO

Permalink Leave a comment

04Jul / 2007

To Facebook or not to Facebook?

I finally joined Facebook after months of deliberation. After all it is my job to be up to speed on things like this. The basis for my resistance centred around comments such as: I don’t have enough time for another form of social media, it’s only for the kids and it’s only for sados who don’t have friends in the real world. Fortunately I was pleasantly surprised on all counts. Although some things I did find strange.

When I first joined it immediately worried me that anyone who seeked out my profile at this very minute would think I was short of mates since I last met them. Therefore you have to frantically add friends and even steal others who you can tenuously claim as your own. Once you have a healthy list, ideally larger than an ex-girlfriend’s, the amount of time required on Facebook reduces.

Whilst there are loads of people I would like to get back in contact with, there are a few who I would quite happily keep as a distant memory. I had a bad experience with Friends Reunited when I stupidly left my mobile number on it. The result of which was a number of random phone calls from people I vaguely remember going to school with, let alone talking to. One of which was from a guy who told me he was up on a manslaughter charge. Fancy a pint? Did I bollocks! They were horribly awkward conversations I didn’t want to repeat.

I also didn’t and still don’t understand ex-girlfriend protocol. Is it OK to ‘poke’ your ex-girlfriends and see if they bite? I’m worried that my current girlfriend, who isn’t on Facebook will take it the wrong way if I tell her I have been poking Amy on my lunch break, even though I haven’t actually seen her since we did PE in our pants together.

Whilst it is great to upload photos from nights out and have conversations with your mates, the thing I like about Facebook is that it’s like having a fight with a midget and keeping him, or her, I must remain PC, at arms length. It allows you to keep in ‘just enough touch’ with people you won’t phone every week, but would like to know how they are doing from time to time. There are 100s of other neat little features that to be honest make up a fantastic social network. Thumbs up to Facebook. Thumbs down however to the ‘Don’t tell my mum I’m in advertising, she thinks I play the piano in a brothel’ group. You can only join it if you work in London apparently. I don’t want to be your friend anyway, I’ve got other friends now so nerggghhh.

Posted in Communications, Communities, culture, Digital, Facebook, Random observations, Social networking

Permalink 2 Comments

22Feb / 2007

Web 2.0 or whatever

All I seem to hear from people around the agency is web 2.0 this web 2.0 that. I like the cool things you can do on the net and how it is EVOLVING the way we communicate, but the term web 2.0 should be banished from our marketing vocabulary for ever. It’s good to have another point of view on this. This is a great post that has two interesting views on the subject.

Posted in Comms thinking type stuff, Communications, Creativity, culture, Marketing bullshit, Social networking, Web 2.0

Permalink Leave a comment

Twitter

My del.icio.us

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,192 other followers