Geoff Livingston has an interesting post on mashable about the social media efforts of the Republican and Democratic parties for the upcoming election. Link: http://mashable.com/2010/09/23/congress-battle-social-media/
According to Livingston, the GOP strategy has focused on community listening, crowdsourcing and targeting "influencers" and bloggers who will advocate positions held by the Republican Party or other conservative positions.
Livingston says the social media strategy of the Democrats is focused on trying to facilitate peer-to-peer connections and to drive voter turnout for the upcoming election. He also points out that while the Republicans are catching up, the Democrats have the advantage of the considerable social media presence of President Obama that was built during the '08 election. (The Obama and national Democratic efforts are coordinated under the umbrella of "Organizing for America.")
A couple of things stood out to me about the article. The first was the effort by the GOP to use social media to connect with women voters and activists. Connecting with female voters is an area where the GOP has struggled in the past (or at least according to conventional wisdom), so it will be interesting to see what impact the "RNC Women" website and social media campaign has on the upcoming election.
The second thing that stood out was the iPhone application developed and implemented by Organizing for America. The app helps supporters find people who live nearby that the supporters can visit to talk about politics. Here, you have interpersonal interaction and influence driven by social media and technology--the online leads to the offline.
When I step back and think about how both parties are using social media, I am fascinated, and I applaud the Republicans and Democrats for using social media to encourage and enact the democratic process. Social media is helping supporters of both parties can become more engaged politically and that social media helps them find others to engage in the political process.
At another level, though, I sometimes find myself frustrated by how these social media campaigns spill over and influence my own social media use--without my permission. My Facebook and Twitter feeds are increasingly cluttered with calls to action from my friends on the left and the right--so cluttered that it is easy for me to miss video links posted by nonpartisan friends. Links like this: http://tiny.cc/gbyyj
I mean who doesn't want to see Justin Bieber get hit on the head with a water bottle?
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Online tracking: Going after the kids
Well, if you thought that it was creepy how much third-party companies were tracking your movements on the Internet, you might want to read today's article in the WSJ "On the Web, Children Face Intensive Tracking." Link: http://tiny.cc/435p9
Similar to the first article on Web tracking, the reporters visited 50 of the most popular websites for teens and children. The sites placed 4,123 cookies, beacons and other tracking software—30 percent more than they found in the earlier report (i.e., 50 most popular sites).
So, if the earlier pieces didn't pique Congress's interest, I can almost guarantee you this piece will. I predict further hearings later this fall complete with an appearance by this lady: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh2sWSVRrmo
One interesting thing from the article that I don't remember reading in the previous articles was a discussion of Google ad preferences, which help determine what online ads you are exposed to. To see what Google thinks interests you (i.e., the terms that are associated with your computer and/or account), Google "ad preferences" from the computer you normally use, and you'll see the broad search terms associated with your computer.
Edited to add:
Here is another link that is worth checking out...
The link is to a step-by-step analysis of the privacy policy of the online social media site "Blippy." The analysis was performed by lawyer Francoise Gilbert, and it's fairly easy to understand.
Link here: http://bit.ly/dtb9f6
Similar to the first article on Web tracking, the reporters visited 50 of the most popular websites for teens and children. The sites placed 4,123 cookies, beacons and other tracking software—30 percent more than they found in the earlier report (i.e., 50 most popular sites).
So, if the earlier pieces didn't pique Congress's interest, I can almost guarantee you this piece will. I predict further hearings later this fall complete with an appearance by this lady: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh2sWSVRrmo
One interesting thing from the article that I don't remember reading in the previous articles was a discussion of Google ad preferences, which help determine what online ads you are exposed to. To see what Google thinks interests you (i.e., the terms that are associated with your computer and/or account), Google "ad preferences" from the computer you normally use, and you'll see the broad search terms associated with your computer.
Edited to add:
Here is another link that is worth checking out...
The link is to a step-by-step analysis of the privacy policy of the online social media site "Blippy." The analysis was performed by lawyer Francoise Gilbert, and it's fairly easy to understand.
Link here: http://bit.ly/dtb9f6
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Power law and the long tail™
Here are links for the two articles I mentioned today in class:
Link 1: http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html
Link 2: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
The first link is to a post by Clay Shirky from about seven years ago. In the post, Shirky discusses some of what we've been talking about recently. In particular, he offers an explanation of why a relatively few websites, blogs, discussion groups, etc. capture the greatest number of visits, inbound links, responses, etc.
Shirky also notes that power law distributions have been found in everything from wealth distributions to frequency of word usage. (As an aside, healthcare costs also conform to a power law distribution, and some of you may remember from Principles of PR that we sometimes use the term the 80/20 rule or the Pareto Principle when referring to a power law distribution.)
One interesting quote in Shirky's post is, "Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality, and the greater the diversity, the more extreme the inequality."
Shirky states that this is a somewhat counter-intuitive finding, and I agree. We've been so conditioned to think about the normal distribution, that it can be easy to assume that this is the only important distribution. Thus, to the casual observer, more diversity of options would likely be expected to create a more equal distribution. Instead, we see the power law distribution manifested frequently in social networks.
The second link is to the article in Wired written by Chris Anderson. As I noted in class, this article was lengthened into a best-selling book by the same name.
Since we covered the main points in Anderson's article, I won't discuss them again here. There is one statistic that I referenced vaguely, though, that I want to clarify--Amazon.com captures more than half of its revenue from books outside its top 130,000 titles. This is, in short, the power of the long tail.
Anyway, I encourage you to read the articles if you find the topic interesting. One or both articles can provide grist for your blog posts.
P.S. The ™ is ironic.
Link 1: http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html
Link 2: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
The first link is to a post by Clay Shirky from about seven years ago. In the post, Shirky discusses some of what we've been talking about recently. In particular, he offers an explanation of why a relatively few websites, blogs, discussion groups, etc. capture the greatest number of visits, inbound links, responses, etc.
Shirky also notes that power law distributions have been found in everything from wealth distributions to frequency of word usage. (As an aside, healthcare costs also conform to a power law distribution, and some of you may remember from Principles of PR that we sometimes use the term the 80/20 rule or the Pareto Principle when referring to a power law distribution.)
One interesting quote in Shirky's post is, "Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality, and the greater the diversity, the more extreme the inequality."
Shirky states that this is a somewhat counter-intuitive finding, and I agree. We've been so conditioned to think about the normal distribution, that it can be easy to assume that this is the only important distribution. Thus, to the casual observer, more diversity of options would likely be expected to create a more equal distribution. Instead, we see the power law distribution manifested frequently in social networks.
The second link is to the article in Wired written by Chris Anderson. As I noted in class, this article was lengthened into a best-selling book by the same name.
Since we covered the main points in Anderson's article, I won't discuss them again here. There is one statistic that I referenced vaguely, though, that I want to clarify--Amazon.com captures more than half of its revenue from books outside its top 130,000 titles. This is, in short, the power of the long tail.
Anyway, I encourage you to read the articles if you find the topic interesting. One or both articles can provide grist for your blog posts.
P.S. The ™ is ironic.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Follow up - 9.7
For those of you interested in today's topic of online tracking, here is a related topic that has been getting some press lately--radio-frequency identification tags (RFIDs). You may remember reading recently that Wal-Mart has proposed installing RFIDs in clothes to help keep track of inventory. (Of course, some wonder if that is all they would use the information for...)
Anyway, here is a nice story on RFIDs. Link here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/05/BUCE1F8C1G.DTL
For football fans, see this from 9.5: http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?q=texas+tech+football&date=2010-9-5&sa=X
Also, I mentioned ways to track what's trending on Google searches, which is known as Google Zeitgeist. Here is a link so that you can find out what people in the U.S. (but also other parts of the world) are googling: http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist/index.html (Trace Cyrus? Really?)
Edit: This story just moved on WSJ: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/09/08/qa-getting-people-to-pay-for-privacy It's a Q & A with the one of the founders of Abine, a company that helps you manage online privacy. For what it's worth, they offer a free program that can be added to Firefox and Explorer that helps you track and control the information that companies capture when you visit their websites.
So, will we eventually have accounts at Reputation Defender and Abine (or companies like them) in the same way that we have auto or health insurance?
Anyway, here is a nice story on RFIDs. Link here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/05/BUCE1F8C1G.DTL
For football fans, see this from 9.5: http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?q=texas+tech+football&date=2010-9-5&sa=X
Also, I mentioned ways to track what's trending on Google searches, which is known as Google Zeitgeist. Here is a link so that you can find out what people in the U.S. (but also other parts of the world) are googling: http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist/index.html (Trace Cyrus? Really?)
Edit: This story just moved on WSJ: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/09/08/qa-getting-people-to-pay-for-privacy It's a Q & A with the one of the founders of Abine, a company that helps you manage online privacy. For what it's worth, they offer a free program that can be added to Firefox and Explorer that helps you track and control the information that companies capture when you visit their websites.
So, will we eventually have accounts at Reputation Defender and Abine (or companies like them) in the same way that we have auto or health insurance?
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Upcoming readings - Part 2
On 9.2, we talked about Rosen's article, "The End of Forgetting," and being aware of how to track and manage our digital footprint. This is an important "macro" issue for individuals, as well as our clients.
On Tuesday (9.7), we will talk about the amount of information that companies gather by tracking our online activities. You will receive further instructions in class, but as you read the articles that are linked below, I want you to think about both the practical and ethical implications associated with online tracking.
While there are many recent articles about online tracking, a good place for you to start is a recent investigative series by The Wall Street Journal. Link here: http://online.wsj.com/public/page/what-they-know-digital-privacy.html
You should read "The Web's new gold mine: Your secrets" and "Personal details exposed via biggest U.S. websites." You should also identify a third article (it can be part of the WSJ series or from another newspaper).
Be prepared to discuss what you learned and how this information can be used to assist your future clients. Also give some thought to the ethical implications of online tracking.
P.S. If this area interests you, WSJ has a "What they know" twitter feed. Link here: http://twitter.com/WhatTheyKnow
P.P.S. Here's an interesting article WSJ ran today on how Google is responding to some of the negative reaction to its tracking policies: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/09/03/google-helps-users-learn-what-it-knows-about-them/ Have they gone far enough?
On Tuesday (9.7), we will talk about the amount of information that companies gather by tracking our online activities. You will receive further instructions in class, but as you read the articles that are linked below, I want you to think about both the practical and ethical implications associated with online tracking.
While there are many recent articles about online tracking, a good place for you to start is a recent investigative series by The Wall Street Journal. Link here: http://online.wsj.com/public/page/what-they-know-digital-privacy.html
You should read "The Web's new gold mine: Your secrets" and "Personal details exposed via biggest U.S. websites." You should also identify a third article (it can be part of the WSJ series or from another newspaper).
Be prepared to discuss what you learned and how this information can be used to assist your future clients. Also give some thought to the ethical implications of online tracking.
P.S. If this area interests you, WSJ has a "What they know" twitter feed. Link here: http://twitter.com/WhatTheyKnow
P.P.S. Here's an interesting article WSJ ran today on how Google is responding to some of the negative reaction to its tracking policies: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/09/03/google-helps-users-learn-what-it-knows-about-them/ Have they gone far enough?
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