Twitter Vs. TV: It's Not Comparable

So you've visited my blog for the first time. Will you come back? Perhaps. How many times? Probably once or twice. I'm not monetizing my blog, so I have no desire to really keep you coming back. I am passionate on what I do for a living and write, so I'll keep at it. If you don't like the content, you'll leave, and I'm fine with that.

This is not the case for a business. The purpose of a business is to generate profit, otherwise it is a non-profit organization and should therefore not pay taxes. In reading Nielson Wire's recent look at Twitter retention rates I'm catching a wiff of jealousy from Industrial Media - since Twitter is so active as a medium, it takes away viewership from broadcast television, which means lost ad revenue and perhaps less revenue for Nielson.

One clear fact I've come to discover with Twitter: Until you break the 100 followers mark, it doesn't make a lot of sense...but that's another blog post. Here, we're talking retention.

But is that relevant entirely? Television is a "passive" activity, there's little to not "activity", generally you don't interact with television. Which is a key point. We watch television because we want to "consume", but in a passive way - we simply want to be entertained for a while. Twitter is an "active" engagement medium, it's 2-way.

You can just read, but to get to get to a useful amount of information, you have to engage in the conversation. If you're not engaging, you miss things. In some cases, you might only engage with 10 people; and that's fine, since that's the only 10 people you care to engage with. Everyone else is moot.

I don't think it's a comparable metric. The two mediums are very different, therefore, retention is not really the metric is it? Rather, I think the metric should be "engagement" and you don't engage on TV, you watch. Twitter is "active" and television is "passive". Two different objectives. In my view, Nielson is approaching the issue in entirely the wrong way and comparing Twitter to Television is like comparing well, oh dear, apples to windows.

What do you thunk?

Industrial Media, The Web and Crying Wolf

Watching the news this morning on CTV and CNN I was ready to go out buy a gas mask, seal the windows and hide my family indoors for a while...apparently we're all about to die from the swine flu. Listening closely to the anchors I heard such definitive and tremulous words as "large numbers" and "vast amounts of people" or "many, many people" as well as "global threat" and impending pandemic. Streets are being emptied and entire cities shut down.

This made me ponder what may be the true death of "Industrial Media." Their own over-hyping may be their very undoing. A quick Google search will point out the volume of discussion on how traditional media is dying. Unfortunately, Industrial Media has subscribed to this "perception" and in so doing has ramped up the hype process.

Less than a month into the financial hiccup last year Industrial Media was proclaiming economic doomsday, depression economies and mass global financial collapse - despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Now the latest hype is "Swine Flu"...but look and listen closely to the spin. There's a lot of "if's" and words that present a sense of "doom" and "massive quantities." Then listen to the U.S. and Canadian CDC who are trying to inject some common sense into the interviews they give.

So Industrial Media leverages fear and panic to drive viewership, which in turn improves advertising sales. This is not a sustainable business model. At some point, will we just turn it off? If everything is over-hyped and eventually we're all looking for the wolf but it never shows, then won't consumers at some point say no?

As we learn to look for alternate sources, and find sober second thought and better evidence of reality online, then this sows a serious seed of discontent into the mix for Industrial Media does it not?

Could such tactics lead to newer, more stable and reasonable reporting via the Web?

The Catch 22 of Corporate Social Media Engagement

Social Media is all about people. For businesses looking to engage in Social Media this represents a bit of a conundrum. On the upside it means the people in your organization working your Social Media strategy are more directly connecting with existing and potential customers. Forming more engaging bonds.

As I read a great post from Beth Harte today regarding a local Domino's Pizza franchise owner, this conundrum struck me. The franchise owner understands and leverages Social Media tools very well to build relationships. This is good and his sales growth reflects his efforts.

Two things present an issue here 1) Dunbars Rule and 2) long-term sustainability and continuity of engagement. In Dunbars rule, the basic concept is that you can only effectively maintain about 150 relationships. It's just what our brains can handle. To a degree we can extend this using the right tools. But that only goes so far.

The second issue is more concerning over the longer term. What happens when the employees engaging in your Social Media efforts quit and move on? Or get hit by a bus? We've seen what happens to corporations with maverick CEO's coming and going (i.e. Lee Iacocca and Chrysler, which he left in shambles in sustainability terms) and lack of long-term shareholder value. It doesn't do much for the shareholders.

So a significant challenge over the longer term for businesses, organizations and governments engaging in Social Media will be the right tools to connect with larger audiences, continuity of their people engaging in Social Media and sustainable practices.

I don't have all the answers. I don't think we can yet, it's so early in the game. But perhaps we can start thinking of some? It's a Catch 22 in some ways isn't it?

What Signal is Ad Spending Really Giving Us?

As the axiom goes "the only thing right about a sales forecast is that it's wrong." Seems those watching and forecasting ad spending trends are facing this dilemma in a world in drastic change mode. As eMarketer reported today, most ad spending won't just decline next year, it will plummet.

However, the silver lining (there's always a silver lining isn't there?) is that online ad spending is increasing, about 8.6% the forecasters are predicting. So, we continue to see ad spending in traditional media channels continuing to slump.

I doubt many are surprised that ad sales are declining so significantly in traditional mediums. I think there's two things at play here however; 1) people aren't responding to advertising anymore the way they used to and 2) people are creating their messages the way they want to and this presents a whole new set of challenges.

Let's also not forget that despite the explosive growth of the Web and the advancement of "digital" channels, there was a huge growth of new magazines and newspapers worldwide over the past ten years. Now we're in a market correction and so many of these specialty publication are dying as a result of natural market movements.

Perhaps the biggest take-away for me in this story is number 2 above; that consumers are fundamentally changing the social contract that has existed for the past 60+ years in the modern age of media. Seth Godin points out how marketers are liars...and as consumers, we're tired of the same old approach. What these stats may really be showing is the shift in this social contract as a result of the uptake of Social Media.

Do you think this is part of the story? Has the social contract ended?

The Jekyl & Hyde Evolution of Search?

No tier 1 search engine delivers you results about your personal network. For years there have always been those companies who say they're the "Google killer"; we've yet to see anyone come close. Google has always been on the offensive and perhaps has launched only one defensive move in 2007 when Facebook enabled public search capability outside its network.

This past week Stumbleupon broke away from eBay and returned to it's original strategy, sparking further discussion that perhaps Stumbleupon could start to give Google a run for their money. And remember last July the launch of search engine Cuil? Started by former Google engineers they proclaimed the death of Google and launched. They dazzled in their failure, results even missing social media thought leader Chris Brogan.

In his weekly digest Jeremiah Owyang points out that Stumbelupon may be about the change "search" all over again. Then there's been discussion around Twitter changing "search." So, who's going to revolutionize the "search" business?

Right now, I don't think we can know what's going to happen, but I assert that we're entering a new phase of how people are using search tools. I think we've broken search into two classifications;

1) Generic Search: Where we search using standard consumer search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Cuil or Haiku and visual search engines like SearchMe. This covers everything except searching for information that is "personally relevant." None of the mainstream search engines are designed to deliver you content produced by or about your friends.

2) Personal Content Search: This is where the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Ning and social networking tools come into play. This is the content that is more relevant to the individual and their network. In part it is a reflection of an individuals desire to "connect" with more people while facing Dunbar's Rule that we can only connect to so many people meaningfully. But this connectivity can expand past the theoretical 150 threshold and therefore we look for content meaningful to our social interactions. Perhaps in part this is why services like FriendFeed are so valuable?

And this is where the mainstream search engines fail. It's general search versus social search. When Google figures that out, they will have taken a significant step and perhaps they already have, tying in Gmail and Gtalk with Android.

So what do you think? Do we have at the top level of "search" two primary search activities that we conduct?

Indicators of the Coming Change

Research firm IDC in tracking PC sales showed less of a decline in sales than anticipated (7.1 rather than 8.2% as predicted.) While for the first time in memory television set sales are anticipated to decline, despite the U.S. and soon Canadian, switch to entirely digital networks.

Yet the growth of broadband Internet connections carries steadily upward and PC sales decline very little. While overall sales of handsets have leveled off, sales of "smart phones" like the BlackBerry and iPhone continue to increase; perhaps slightly lower, but they continue.

Prices for PC's are expected to drop in 2009 in line with smart phone costs and overall data packages for these phones. And this is important to note, for I see it signaling ever more relevance of the Web in our social and business lives.

The main driver to ever broader adoption of the Web and Web technologies still rests in four crucial areas;

1) Cost of the device/technology

2) Cost to access the Web

3)Micropyament Mechanisms

4) Ubiquity of Access

These three primary issues are what I have seen as roadblocks to broader adoption of the Web in society as a whole. As the cost of the device falls, so does the cost of access. This is currently happening.

The last two areas, micropayment mechanisms and ubiquity of access will improve, but I suspect somewhat slower than device and access costs. I've been touting the need for micropayment solutions since 1997, and while it's getting better (i.e. PayPal) it's still not there. The primary issue being credit card companies charging too high a rate to merchants for the transaction. Ubiquity of access still comes down to the same issue it has for the past ten years - that last quarter mile. Wireless is, I and many other pundits believe, the answer, but there is a cost of access and who pays. The provider of the service (i.e. the local coffee shop) or the "accessee" of the service (i.e. the patron.) The models are mixed and the arguments good on both sides.

In terms of the Social Web (Social Media) increased PC sales and smart phone sales means that this sector of the Web will grow much faster than what I term the "Commerce Web" or nice electronic brochures.

As the Social Web increases, businesses and organizations as a whole will be further drawn into using these tools. Not just to engage with their audiences, but as productivity and business tools. This is where Google, Salesforce.com, teamworkpm.net and others are set to see significant revenue growth.

So as much as there may be a "recession" (there is no "depression" folks, nowhere near it), the Web will take o an increasingly important place in our economy overall - one as yet largely ignored by the Luddites of traditional industries - to their peril.

"Localization" On The Web: Just Not Here Yet.

"Hyperlocal" - are we there yet? In a NY Times article of April 12th, some "locally-focused" web services such as EveryBlock and Outside.in are presented. There's a number of "localised" mobile notification services and some varied attempts at localized search, including GenieKnows. Twitter is starting to have create some "localized" impact. But are we there yet? When will we be there? Not anytime soon.

Many of the biggest issues I see for "localism" or "localization" remain pretty much the same as it was 10 years ago - Web access, cost of entry, ubiquity and content loading. While these have become much better, they're still not quite there. Those that are, remain very much "local", such as LocalBlock which serves but 11 cities and then only in the U.S., Outside in claims to serve over 11,000 cities, but remains U.S.-centric and is still not massively popular. There is citizen journalism, but even this remains fragmented, unreliable and often is highly biased.

One of the more popular forms of localism is event information. There are a number of mobile apps and Web-based apps for local event listing, from Waldii to EventBrite to EventBox and...yes, far too many.

But the biggest issues I see are ubiquitous access, how these services are accessed and how the cost of content gathering/editing/analysis is covered. This is where a serious opportunity resides for newspapers. Some have started to leverage this, but for the most part, newspapers are still fighting the inevitable. The Guardian's April fools joke created a short spout of furor, yet they could be on to something.

A cold fact remains that not everyone is connected to the Web yet. In fact, the lower income demographic is at a serious disadvantage here. They can barely afford to have a phone, let alone pay a monthly fee to access the Web, plus they must find the means to buy a computer. Even an experiment by the Wall Street Journal in an affluent community, well connected to the Web was a disappointment.

While "hyperlocalisation" is a goal to work towards, the current executions remain fragmented and have yet to prove a viable business model - and "cobbling together" a bunch of choices is not the answer for true success. What may become opportunities here is Facebook or NetLog as Social Network tools. Another approach might be to more deeply understand how people share news, what they trust and what actions they might take. The future of hyperlocalism may rest in "news" becoming more active than passive.

Chicken, Potholes and Marketing

Is KFC's latest marketing campaign smart and truly "responsible" in it's orientation or is it a sign that marketing today is suffering from an ability to find effectiveness in a world turned numb to most of the messaging we receive today? At first I thought it was a sign of desperation...then perhaps not.

Yes, city streets and the citizens of the 5 selected cities do benefit, municipal governments save and can apply the funds elsewhere. Oh and yes, we are talking about. in the Social Web and in professional media...and that exposure ads up. So it's innovative.

It is also an example of a strategy that crosses multiple mediums and perhaps will spark a flurry of other companies to run similarly oriented campaigns.

The upside might be that through responsible marketing tactics, the economy is somewhat spurred and citizens gain. Campbells Soup for example might suddenly sponsor major soup kitchens in depressed urban areas. Adidas might build soccer pitches in needy areas...

...and it's all good. For a while we might talk about these things, spread the word virally. I just hope we don't get "immune" to these tactics too quickly. Too many marketers have made promises that fell through at the purchase point. Too many marketers have lied and we've become tainted, untrusting and suspicious of the marketing message.

I like this campaign for a unique approach and that people win. It would be nice to see more companies giving back this way and creating a new style of social marketing. Perhaps. Jury's out yet. But done right, it might inspire cross-media discussion and action.

What do you thunk? What kind of similar campaign would you suggest?