Ofcom has released a report stating that half of eight - 17-year olds have a profile on social networks. The report also reveals that some under-13s are bypassing age restrictions (who knew??), that the average adult social networker has profiles on 1.6 sites and most users (30%) visit the site once a day.

As expected, the big three all feature heavily with Bebo the choice of children, Facebook the choice of ABC1 adults while C2DE adults are more likely to have a profile on MySpace.

Most media outlets are focusing on the privacy of information issue as expected with two thirds of parents claiming to set restrictions but only half of children agreeing with them.

Mostly information we already knew but the report is packed full of lovely stats that clients crave so much. My favourite part is the breakdown of personalities found on social networks. Personally I see myself as a ‘Faithful’ when it comes to social networks but what are you?

You can see the BBC report here or dowload the full Ofcom report here.

 Tom Watson, the first blogging MP, has announced the setting up of a ‘Power of Information Task Force’. No, don’t have nightmares, this isn’t Tom, George Orwell and Blofeld all sat round a table in Room 101,   this is potentially empowering for citizens! 

Tom was seen as radical when he started a blog five years ago. He says…

 “People couldn’t believe that I had opened myself up to such scrutiny and occasional daily abuse. But the blog broke down the walls between legislators and electors in a way that interested me. So I persevered. Today I’m no longer a pioneer. There are thousands of political bloggers. And politicians can no longer set to default broadcast mode. They have to engage.” 

Social media is always viewed as a tech-geek solution when in actual fact it’s really simple and old fashioned. People being able to talk to each other and connect in a way that has become lost in a television/call centre world. Here’s how Tom describes it…. 

“The 19th century co-operative movements had their roots in people pooling resources to make, buy or distribute physical goods. Modern online communities are the new co-operatives. Mrs Watson is a regular user of Netmums. It’s a great site. Parents chat, and offer, I’ve been there, advice on everything from baby whispering to school admissions. Except it’s not just a handful of mums and dads, it’s thousands of them, available in your living room, 24 hours a day. Sounds like hell well, it’s a lifeline when your baby’s screaming at four in the morning, you have no idea why and you just need to know you’re not alone. But my point is, imagine if quarter of a million mums decided to meet at Wembley Stadium to discuss the best way to bring up their kids. Midwives would be there dispensing advice. Health visitors, nursery teachers, welfare rights advisers would be there. Even politicians would try and get in on the act. But when twice this number chooses to meet together in the same place online, we just ignore them. That’s going to have to change.” 

There are already good examples of government putting this into practice….

“And today the PM announced an initiative that would allow you to find your community Bobbies using your postcode. And in the week where the digital world went crazy over Mystarbucksidea.com (I’ve already voted for free Wifi), NHS choices launched a blog about diabetes, bringing together the people who treat the illness and the people who receive treatment. It’s a brilliant idea and hopefully will foster a new information community who can work together to improve things.  “Let me give you and example of this by naming a public servant that I think should have his desk moved into Number 10. Peter Jordan works at DirectGov. His job is to assess how people find the DirectGov site, what pages they look at and what they do when they get there. Last month DirectGov had over 7 million visitors. Peter is seeing the aggregate desires of millions of UK public service using citizens. I had half an hour with him a fortnight ago and came away with a dozen ideas as to how we can improve our public services.” 

Full version of Tom’s speech here. Good discussion on politicians using social media at Wadds in the last couple of days

Last night we attended a highly informative presentation by Blake Chandlee, commercial director of Facebook hosted by TBWA\Manchester. The presentation to prospective clients, media and account handlers gave an insight into the company that can only be described as a social media success story.

He addressed some interesting issues including recent media claims that ‘Facebook fatigue’ has kicked in and active user numbers are dwindling. Blake claims quite the opposite citing the rise in users following the recent launch of the social utility across other European countries. He explained the ambitious system of translating the huge network into different languages with the support of the community through the ‘Translation’ application. What astonished me more than anything was the speed with which the translations took place within the community- just 8 hours for one of the languages!

He covered numerous topics including polls (”Don’t ever pay for one”), Beacon (”Didn’t go down well”), Apps (”Some work but a lot fail”),  taking on HSBC and even Mark Zuckerberg (”He looks about 12!”). The most interesting aspect was Facebook’s perception of itself as an altruistic company, seeing themselves as a social utility rather than a network - a tool to connect people and extend relationships rather than a social space. There’s conversation at the moment about the sharing of information and applications across multiple user spaces as encouraged by Google Open Social. Blake explained that Facebook is excited about this development and has no goal to keep users locked into using the site.

All this relates to the user experience. Something that Facebook are trying to make as enjoyable as possible. In relation to marketing, this means you’re likely to see the flashy side bar ads disappear in the near future and clients investing more in social advertising. Currently appearing in the newsfeed section of the site, these are likely to develop although Blake did note that personal information would always be kept secure and never given out to third party advertisers despite the adverts becoming more personalised.

As for the continual barrage of app spam we receive every day from so-called friends? Well Facebook has banned ‘force invites’ in apps - something I wasn’t aware but probably only because it was publicised to the developer community. As Blake commented, if an app is forcing you to invite friends, just report them and they’ll be kicked out.

He did also comment afterwards that their business plan is constantly changing so who knows what we can really expect from Facebook in the future? Only Mark Zuckerberg really knows and so let’s hope he really is one of those rare individuals who “think different“.

Just imagine the pitch situation, where the ad agency, in this case AMV, tries to convince client, in this case Doritos, to make an advert to broadcast to aliens in outer space! For some reason Doritos are broadcasting their next ad into outer space, maybe just to generate headlines but we shouldn’t dismiss them as gimmicky.

Doritos are doing some really innovative things with their PR and advertising. As well as advertising to aliens the idea is that this new ad will be part-developed by the public or specifically a Doritos customer.

What Doritos is looking for is a two-way dialogue with its customers that involves them in the brand.This is a well thought-out vehicle and bang-on their target demographic. PS You win £20,000 as well as having your ad broadcast on (extra) terrestrial TV.