The United States presidential election has been the first major democratic process anywhere in the world where the use of social media has played a significant part in communications.
Of the eighteen candidates running in the primaries for the two main parties, nine had blogs, including both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Involvement in social networks was significant from the earliest days. Republican Mitt Romney was the first prospective candidate to launch a Facebook profile, Democrat John Edwards set up a campaign headquarters in the cyber world of Second Life. This resulted in a bizarre web 2.0 event when it was vandalised by the avatars of his political opponents. Clinton used her web site to launch her campaign.
It was Barack Obama though who was the prime mover from the outset. He engaged with most of the high profile social networking sites including MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter. On the day that Barack Obama announced he was forming a presidential exploratory committee in January 2007, student government co-ordinator Farouk Olu Aregbe created a group on Facebook called “One Million Strong for Barack”. The social web was critical to the Obama campaign in another fundamental way. It played an important part in the funding of his bid for office. In a campaign video directed at his supporters he said “Instead of forcing us to rely on millions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs, you’ve fuelled this campaign with donations of $5, $10, $20, whatever you can afford, and because you did, we’ve built a grassroots movement of over 1.5 million Americans.” Obama’s success raising money via these small donations was achieved in a way never before possible as part of a U.S. presidential election campaign.
The 1960 election of John F Kennedy was thought to be point at which television became central to the democratic process. 2008 may well be the year that sees the critical intervention of the social web
What with hurling virtual food or sheep at your digital friends or being “bitten” by zombies, Facebook- not so long ago - seemed quite innocuous.
How times have changed.
The episode of the Aussie guy who goofed off work, tried to claim it as holiday but was rumbled by the HR department because of his Facebook status on the day in question (and I quote: “Kyle Doyle is not going to work. Fuck it I’m still trashed. SICKIE WOO!”), was, frankly, hilarious and probably caused a mass deletion of Facebook statuses worldwide, just in case.
But a harder edge to foul ups on Facebook was revealed last night as 13 Virgin Atlantic cabin crew now find themselves out of work after posting less than complimentary comments about Virgin passengers (”chavs”, apparently) and planes (”full of cockroaches”, allegedly).
People are paying the price for confusing conversations on Facebook with those they probably have in the relative privacy of the pub with a few mates or over the dinner table with their other half. Look folks, if you post it online, it’s thoroughly and absolutely find-able, whether you like it or not.
The Facebook thing also presents an internal communications challenge to companies, as the Virgin case smacks of stable doors and bolted horses. And sacking the offenders then turns it into an even bigger story.
Having HR policies is one thing, but staff are unlikely to be checking the company handbook while sounding off or making mischief about their working environment. After all, Facebook is personal publishing, giving immediate and unedited voice to millions who’ve been anonymous up to now.
Getting employees to understand the impact their ill-judged comments can have on the company is a communications job. But it’s one that is two-way and needs to be tackled before staff are using Web 2.0 to harm their employers and, in turn, themselves.
2001 doesn’t seem so long ago does it? Well, not to me, but it does when you take a little trip back in time with Google. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the mother of all search engines, Google has re released the oldest index that it still has; the January 2001 version.
It’s not often we get this kind of opportunity to roll back the years. Looking for Facebook gives you just 1,810 results. Not too surprising as it had only just been created and was available exclusively to a handful of Ivy League colleges. Most of the links are now dead but you can get an idea of what Facebook looked like in the early days through the links to the Internet archive. If you want an idea of how it looked at the time click here for the Harvard Currier House version. Trust me, you’ll feel a lot happier about the latest redesign.
Try looking for the iPod and you will only find 1,300 sites and none of them referring to the Apple music playing device because in January 2001 no one has an iPod. There is a revolutionary new immersive entertainment device called the VRex iPod but you have to climb inside it to be entertained. Searching for Flickr gives just 34 results and these are all spelling mistakes. Searching for Youtube gives a great big fat zero. Imagine a world without Youtube.
Having had my fill of early new media, I wondered about the most popular searches of 2008 and how they might they compare. How did ‘Britney Spears’ fare compared with the 87 million results we get now. Well there were nearly a million results even in 2001 but what innocent times; ”Britney Spears is like many 17 year old girls. She loves shopping at the mall, romance novels, and long strolls along the beach.” Want to really experience how things were back in the day? One click will do it.
Interesting how people get attached to what they know and just hate change.
Take Facebook’s new look and feel, which has spawned - ironically - a “hate the new Facebook” group on the site itself.
If I’ve got this right, the new look was, initially, a clickable option to be viewed before returning to the familiarity of the old look. Then, it became the default view, with an option to click back to the old version. For me, it took a couple of visits to get used to it, and now it seems pointless to make the effort to seek out the former incarnation.
Sometimes, with change, you have to be bold. As long as it doesn’t take users’ experience so far backwards they get fed up, you can expect the majority to come along with you, though some sticklers will keep up the protest.
This just in - music and film retailer HMV is launching its own social networking site getcloser.com where you can do - well - the sort of things you’ve been able to do on Facebook and MySpace for quite a while.
So why now? Will the punter feel that “the man” is trying to get in on the act? What will it do to drive sales that HMV’s regular e-shots don’t (and I should know, as they consistently empty my wallet).
Social media is constantly changing. Well that’s what we all thought with the migration of MySpace to Facebook but what if the online tools we’re using today could actually develop at the same pace as our attention span?
Maybe it’s me, but it feels like Flickr, Digg and Twitter have been around for so long, I can’t remember life before them!
On the anniversary of the launch of Facebook Platform, the company has announced on its blog a whole host of improvements coming soon. Many of you will have noticed the change in profile layout, something that I think is a massive improvement allowing me to find the most recent information quickly. More importantly, I’m no longer being distracted by all those apps I added a year a go.
The most interesting part of the post for me is the upcoming Facebook Connect:
“Facebook Connect is a new way to use applications, on the open web and not just on Facebook. Soon, you’ll be able to use your Facebook account to login and connect on websites throughout the web. Imagine never filling out another profile at a new site, or having to find your friends all over again. Facebook Connect will help make this a reality and allow you to use Facebook to share information from all over the web with your friends.”
So that’s my personal information following me around wherever I go on the web. Is it ok for me to be intrigued and scared at the same time?
I’ll be fascinated to see which sites sign up for this and what benefits there are for web developers in the short term. For advertising I can see huge benefits in terms of personalisation.
Flash forward to a point when facial recognition becomes common place in CCTV cameras and that personal data is not only following me around the web but down the street.
Once it’s up there, it’s not just going to disappear, even if you ‘delete’ your profile. We’ve put into action a chain of events where information is the currency of the technology age. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Stalkr - (pronounced stalker) a person that you don’t know who tries to Facebook you or become your friend on MySpace or indeed on any social network. The term also apples to someone you may know a bit who decides to relentlessly pursue a more active online discourse than you would like. Would also apply to someone you are not following who frequently talks @ you on Twitter. Essentially a stalker in the 2.0 style of Flickr, Tumblr etc.
Moving on and looking to the (not so distant) future, companies have a great opportunity to place themselves in the pockets of consumers and considering how affordable the 3G iPhone is now, that audience has just grown. Of course, online services such as Last.fm, Shazam and Facebook have developed great applications that extend their traditional offering but other companies are becoming a little more creative.
Hats off to the team at Carling who developed iPint which I can only describe as the perfect game to play with mates after a few beers, followed by a virtual pint as a reward. Delicious and fully branded.
British Airways have provided a useful flight finder allowing frequent travellers to monitor changes without having to check to departure board. Although I probably would given the number of crashes from other apps I’ve experienced so far!
I’ll be keeping an eye out for other, creative applications coming from corporations who can afford to give them away for free which, let’s be honest, is the real clincher in whether consumers are going to try something out. Thankfully Carling and BA didn’t get greedy and try to charge for their apps but beware, the iPhone could soon become the new fighting ground for all those application developers who are moving on from Facebook.
Facebook has launched Lexicon, a new tool that allows members to see the buzz surrounding different words and phrases on Facebook Walls. For PRs, it’s another tool to monitor who’s talking about your brand, in a similar style to Google Trends or Technorati, but in the enclosed environment of Facebook.
After a few initial searches, I have some client names talked occassionally but nothing surprising. Of course, I’ll be monitoring it carefully when my next national news story breaks to see if the topic flows over into the Facebook conversation.
To be honest, it’s more fun to search for generic terms to see what unusual spikes and drops appear. Conversations about ‘Halloween’ predictably climb rapidly, peaking on 31st October. ‘Love’ is at an all time high on Valentine’s Day while there are fewer people wishing ‘Happy Birthday’ on leap day, 29th February.
Lexicon pulls from the wealth of data on Facebook without collecting any personal information in order to respect everyone’s privacy.
Well that’s good news considering all the recent media hype surrounding privacy of online information. But Lexicon is a far cry from companies who constantly monitor conversations across social media such as 1000 Heads.
As their homepage states:
Web forums and communities are where these decisions are being made. In these public spaces, users discuss their thoughts and experiences, recommending, or warning against using certain products and services. This peer to peer dialogue is guiding the purchasing decisions of a new generation of information rich consumers.
Clearly an area of growth for some brands to invest in but an area that could be perceived as a moral tightrope for others. The rise in concerns over online privacy are only going to tighten especially with the introduction of Big Brother-type programmes like Phorm.
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“.
