How are we going to cope with the Buzz?

Time, not the sky, is the limit for people using social media. The new Google Buzz is trying cut into our daily life and attract us to spend more time Buzzing.

As a result, this means less time for Facebook, Twitter and many less populated social medias.

We still need some time to take care of our daily works and even traditional emails.

Time management is becoming an issue again. Mobile tools makes it possible to socialize while on the move, but there is still a limit to all of this.

Australia leads world in time spent socially online

Mike Bantick  writes in his blog iTWire Sunday, 24 January 2010 that Facebook, Twitter and other social based internet systems saw massive increases in usage through 2009.  Despite having some of the best weather for getting outside, Australians lead the world in spending time on social networks according to The Nielsen Company.

Helge: Let’s have a look what they are doing online. Need to call my brother Helmer in Sidney to learn how he thinks about the local online activities.

2009 was a big one for social networking online.  The latest Nielsen Company numbers showed the continuing trend for social networks has not waned in the past two years.

 Helge: We can see the same trend in Finland. The average person in street suggests “let’s get connected over Facebook". Twitter is still a little geeky.

Figures just released for December 2009 showed an increase of 82 percent in time spent in social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter over the previous year.  On average in December 2008, social networkers spent just over three hours, this increased to more than five and a half hours in December 2009.

Helge: Do people have more time for online engagements and activities due to the global recession. Are we looking for new jobs, contacts and opportunities?

According to The Nielsen Company: Globally, social networks and blogs are the most popular online category when ranked by average time spent in December, followed by online games and instant messaging. With 206.9 million unique visitors, Facebook was the No. 1 global social networking destination in December 2009 and 67% of global social media users visited the site during the month. Time on site for Facebook has also been on the rise, with global users spending nearly six hours per month on the site.

Helge: I guess we are moving in the same direction. I don’t have comparable figures. Maybe they can be found through the reference information.

In the battle(!) to see which countries population spends the most time online socially, Australia topped the table with a average time per person of 6 hours 52 minutes and 28 seconds racked up during December 2009.  Perhaps it is the tyranny of distance for a small population spread over such a vast geography that entices Australians to keep in touch online.

Helge: I figure that big countries with long distances between villages and people lead to increased online activity. USA and Canada are big as well. Finland has a small population in a large country.

By comparison US folks hit 6:09, the United Kingdom notched 6:07 and Italians came in fourth spending just over six hours Facebook’n, Twittering or Myspace’n at the end of last year.

Helge: We’ve national platforms as well so the figures aren’t comparable with English speaking countries.

Of the popular social networks, using US based data, The Nielsen Company charted the rise of both Facebook, and in particular Twitter over the past year: both Facebook and Twitter.com, outpaced the overall growth for the category, increasing 200% and 368%, respectively. Among, the top five U.S. social networking sites, Twitter.com continued its reign as the fastest-growing in December 2009 in terms of unique visitors, increasing 579% year-over-year, from 2.7 million unique visitors in December 2008 to 18.1 million in December 2009. However, month-over-month, unique visitors decreased 5%.

Helge: I guess both Twitter and Facebook are growing here as well. Qaiku is a better service for online collaboration but it’s still a local / national thing.

Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2: Sunday Morning Reading

Stumbled upon this through Twitter. There is some "Scary Stuff" happening on the globe to people with and opinion.

Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2: Sunday Morning Reading: "Sunday Morning Reading by Warner Crocker.

Some Sunday morning reading to share.

• A Kansas Supreme Court may have just thrown foreclosure out as a legal tool. This could get very interesting and I’m sure it won’t hold up.
  
  
• A Census worker is found hanged with the word “fed” written on his chest in Kentucky. Scary stuff.
  
  
• The Washington Post gives its employees new guidelines for social networking that essentially says don’t show that you have an opinion. The need to keep pretending that impartiality exists.
  
  
• Time Warner is thinking of selling its magazine business.
  
  
• Nancy Nally of Web Worker Daily challenges the assumption that extra batteries really come in handy.
  
  
• The Birthers are now running Infomercials. These guys know when a money is to be made out of nothing.
  
  
• Looks like there is going to be a resurgence of George S. Kaufman plays this season.
  
  
• Ballmer admits Microsoft screwed up Windows Mobile, long after the horses are out of the barn.

"The airlines are adding surcharges for the busiest holiday travel days. No surprise there. Here’s the question, does this mean they are going to improve their service on those days? Guess again," Mr. Warner Crocker writes.

OfficialWire: Mistakes To Avoid In Social Media Marketing

OfficialWire: Mistakes To Avoid In Social Media Marketing: "Here are some of the things you must avoid when you engage in social media marketing. These are the things that will prevent you from gaining the full benefits of using social media for marketing and for engaging clients.

Having poor internet etiquette - it is very important to treat people online with respect. Even if the internet is highly interactive, it is also important to respect people’s opinions. When leaving comments or interacting with anyone online, do not post anything offensive or anything that you may regret later on. In the time that you will spend online, you should expect to meet people who have poor internet etiquette. Even when you meet such people, you should maintain your own composure and continue to adhere to internet etiquette.

Suppressing criticisms - because the internet is very open, you cannot and should not attempt to suppress criticisms. Even if you delete bad criticisms about your company from the comments section of your blog or try to suppress other criticisms made about your company of your products, the unsatisfied customer will become more irked and will find a way to spread the criticisms against you. The best way to deal with criticisms online is to find out the real cause of the criticism and draft a carefully-worded apology and try to redeem your name by..."

Read more on the blog...

Blackenterprise.com - Barack Obama’s Lesson in Social Media

blackenterprise.com - Barack Obama’s Lesson in Social Media: "June 18, 2008 -- With Sen. Barack Obama being recognized as the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, he can make history if he becomes our next president. Not only by being the nation’s first African American president, but he is also being referred to as potentially the first customer relationship management (CRM) president. You also may even consider him to be the first social media president based on his campaign’s savvy use of the Web.

Helge: The first CRM president...Hmm.

Those who view him in this light suggest that Obama’s approach to the use of social tools such as Twitter (www.twitter.com) was an important factor in his victory over Sen. Hillary Clinton. Twitter is a micro-blogging tool that allows you to send out short messages using up to 140 characters. People can follow your messages, or tweets, and you can follow theirs. Users can receive your tweets via text message at Twitter.com, or even from within Microsoft Outlook by using a free service such as OutTwit (www.techhit.com/OutTwit).

Helge: I understand the value of social tools such as Twitter.

The Obama campaign’s use of Twitter serves as a good lesson for those trying to understand the importance of social media in business. While it is not nearly as popular as e-mail, instant messaging, and other important business tools, its influence is growing rapidly. As of March 2008, there were more than 1 million users on Twitter, with 200,000 active weekly users, according to popular industry site TechCrunch (www.techcrunch.com). Tweets from Twitter can drive significant Web traffic. Twitter power user Jason Calacanis, CEO of the human-powered search site Mahalo.com (www.mahalo.com), recently noted that Twitter is sending more than 20,000 people per month to the site."

Helge: I need to do some more tweeting myself.

Working with new things: social capital

The most common excuse I hear about business blogging is that entrepreneurs and CEO's don't have the time to do it.

The second most common is that they don't like to write.

How about you? Have you established a regular blogging routine? If not, what are your excuses? Are they valid?

The relationship of business communication to financial success is strong.

Many may find financial success without social media or blogging but things will change in the future.

What does Ivan Misner write about social capital?

Most entrepreneurs know the meaning of financial capital, but many may not have a clear idea of social capital.

Social capital is accumulated by an individual or a business and is used, or is available for use, in the production of wealth.

Social capital is about the accumulation of resources developed through personal and professional networks. We accumulate social capital through networking.

These resources include:

1. ideas,
   
2. knowledge,
   
3. information,
   
4. opportunities,
   
5. contacts and,
   
6. of course, referrals.
   

Just what do we need to keep in mind when thinking about building our social capital? We learn by talking and interacting with people.

According to Wayne Baker, “Success is social; all the ingredients of success that we customarily think of as individual-talent, intelligence, education, effort and luck-are intertwined with networks.”

The new definition of Friends

Facebook is for me a window to the contemporary world.

"Friends" are defined as people that have something in common on a global scale.

Most of my Facebook friends are people I haven't seen in "real life".

The same goes for many other social medias.

1. Twitter
2. Pownce
3. Jaiku
4. Microblogging
5. Ning
6. Xing
7. LinkedIn
   

Social Media in the recession

How Social Networking Could Kill Web Search as We Know It - Faceboogle - Google vs. Facebook - Popular Mechanics

How Social Networking Could Kill Web Search as We Know It - Faceboogle - Google vs. Facebook - Popular Mechanics: "The larger the Web grows, the more important search becomes, right? That’s probably so, and as a note of clarification, he changed his statement slightly to say, “Search, as we know it, is dead.” What he means is that, with the rise of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Second Life, LinkedIn and even Google’s own Orkut, the next generation of Web users may find what they want by using their social network rather than a search algorithm. After all, the people in your online social network should know you better than a mathematical equation, right?

Helge: That looks like a great change.

Actually, the issue is even larger than searches and social networks. The Web is, in a sense, maturing into a different medium than the one that search engines were originally designed to tackle. Allow me, for a moment, to oversimplify the issue in the interest of making a point: Until now, the Web has largely been a resource for information organization and consumption, with the user functioning as a consumer. In this scenario, a search engine is an ideal tool—you need some information (a restaurant address, the name of a song stuck in your head), but you don’t know where to find it, so a search engine is the natural first stop in your online journey."

Helge: The net is becoming a space, a journey...

Digital Storytelling 2004 and 2008

I wrote about Digital Storytelling August 16, 2004

16. elokuuta 2004

Digital Storytelling.

Name: James West, Journalist, Location: North West, United Kingdom.

Digital Storytelling started at the Centre for Digital Storytelling in the US.

The picture is from an event combining locally produced food and tourism to the City of Porvoo.

The idea is that there's a vast archive of interesting photos and artifacts in homes around the world, and by getting people to tell stories about themselves and post them online we can tap into this archive, and give Joe Public a chance to have some control over the media for a change.

"The BBC has gone for this in quite a big way," I wrote several years ago. What has happened since? Nobody speaks about Digital Storytelling as such anymore. People are just doing it. We've blogs, wikis, Ning, Facebook, YouTube, Microblogs, Microchannels. Millions of stories are told every single day.

Digital Storytelling? Everyone has a story to tell. Technology now allows anyone to tell it in their own way. This is more than true. We spoke today (London, Heathrow airport and Loviisa, Finland about an on-demand medical training and knowledge transfer model to support Mediracer user education. This can be made a reality today.

Digital stories are short films made by people like you using computers and personal photographs.

BBC is broadcasting a part of the stories for viewing on the big screens. I wante to apply the idea to a road information and large screen displays at service stations along the road VT 6 from Helsinki to Kajaani.

Tampere NeXT Time

Jörg and Alexi, I visited Tampere March 5, 2008. The schedule was loaded with appointments I didn't manage myself. Just had to follow the stream. Arrived at 0930 am and leaving for Helsinki for a meeting at TE-keskus at 0600 pm.

It was a good day. We covered some interesting aspects about future of paper and board making. As we all know, there is the aspect of money. Every project is a hard sell and it takes time to get to the "dreams come true" level.

We've been busy for a long time with things like using social media to sell products, services and innovations. I'm writing a book entry into Yritys 2.0 / Enterprise 2.0 with the title VIRTUAALISET ORGANSIAATIOT 1970 - 2010. Kajaani Electronics will be one of the examples and I mention Jörg W. in the text a few times (listening to classical music...intel and motorola expert).

I try to explain that social media and socializing was before Web 2.0, Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, blogs, wiki, podcasts, Ning, YouTube, etc.

I still remeber the klatter-klatter of the telex with good, bad and ugly news from all over the world.

Decided to use my most personal blogs to communicate my message to you. I've become a great believer in open, social, innovation, interaction and dialog with my audience.

Is there a value in this virtualization of business operations? I would say yes. Small and big companies are still very reluctant in the use of open web applications. We'are all scared to death about IPR's, NDA's and Internet security.

Things are however changing. There is so much more we can do. It was my plan to be at Taloussanomat / Helsingin Sanomat in Helsinki, but had to continue working with a thing that isn't completed yet.

Doing things with deadlines is sometimes very boring. Decided to write to you and tell that I couldn't smash in a meeting, but I'm fine, we'll be traveling to Sotkamo next week and stay there a week or so.

I also wrote this today...There tons of new things we could discuss. Good evening to you and see you later!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Innovating over Internet

The Internet is becoming real now in a way it has never been before. You can take your talk, pictures, movies and text presentations to your customers in real time. Powerpoint presentations don't have to happen in a meeting room. A sales talk can be delivered for on-demand downloading. However, I would say that the real thing is to do things live from a distance.

The Web is becoming the main medium in which consumers engage to get information and to communicate. You can see this happening in advertising, you can see it happening in telecom, video with YouTube, with music, with newspapers and magazines.

"It is all shifting en masse, and all consumers are basically moving over to the Internet. We all talked about it in the 1990s, but it didn’t happen then. Those were just experiments. But now it is really happening," Tells Marc Andresseen to Spiegel February 22, 2008

Helge: It didn't happen then but we live in a new world with lots of opportunities for small and innovative companies wanting to make it big one day.

Presidential Hopefuls Spending Little On Web Ads. Why? Social Networking.

Presidential Hopefuls Spending Little On Web Ads. Why? Social Networking.: "Whether we talk about the general, all-encompassing social emporiums of MySpace and Facebook or more specific cloud-based gathering grounds among the likes of My.BarackObama.com, we can all recognize collectively that modern social frameworks on the Web are remarkably efficient platforms and means with/by which messages can be relayed.

Helge: How much are they really using the Web?


And if we are to take into account the reality that many millions of Americans are connected in one way or another to online networks - if one should look at the growth of social networks over the last few years, one can see quite clearly that a very significant percentage of Internet users in the U.S. are connected to a social framework of some sort - it then must come as little surprise that advertisement spending by the present set of presidential campaigns has been, well, exeedingly small. Especially given the very momentous circumstances we find ourselves in."

Helge: Are SM people going to have an impact?

Social Advertising Network, SocialMedia » Blog Archive » understanding-the-basics-of-social-advertising-on-socialmedia-networks

Social Advertising Network, SocialMedia » Blog Archive » understanding-the-basics-of-social-advertising-on-socialmedia-networks: "Understanding “the Basics” of Social Advertising on SocialMedia Networks.

Helge: Social Media in advertising and marketing...

For the last few weeks, I’ve been working with SocialMedia on Developer Relations. Today, I sat down with SocialMedia Network’s resident analytics and SEO expert, Dennis Yu, to ask questions about Social Advertising on SocialMedia Networks from the perspective of a new advertiser/ developer:

Lisa: What is eCPM, eCPC, CPC, CTR, CPI, and other acronyms and why should I care?

Helge: Advertising and marketing?

Dennis: The short answer is– you shouldn’t. At the end of the day, what matters is cash and whether you are earning more or less money. These other metrics are for analytics so that we can diagnose potential issues with your traffic.

Helge: What?

Our ad server determines what the right mix of ad inventory will produce the most revenue for your traffic. So, you shouldn’t have to worry about whether 12 cents per click or 50 cents per thousand impressions will make you more money. Our system does that for you.

Helge: Hmmm!

For example, if your app has heavy page views per session, and therefore, a lower CTR (Click-Through Rate) on ads, then selling your inventory on a CPC (Cost Per Click) basis might not be as good a..."

Helge: Ahaa...?

The Latest from TechCrunch

So Long, Nick. We’ll Miss You.

Posted: 01 Feb 2008 12:00 PM CST

The list of former TechCrunch writers who’ve gone off to greener pastures grows longer today. Yesterday was Nick Gonzalez’s last day at TechCrunch - today he starts a new job at the San Francisco startup Social Media.

Helge: I tryed to get a first impression about SM.

Nick started at TechCrunch in June 2006 and has worked along side of me, day and night, since then. For many months in early 2007 he was the only person other than me writing for the site. He was a perfect business partner, always steady emotionally as my temper flared at regular hosting outages, missed stories and pissed off readers. In addition to writing and general analysis, Nick also kept the site running and wrote any new code we needed. Basically, I worked him to death.

Helge: Technical.

Social Media is still a young area

Social Media is a young area with early adopter uptake. So what does it mean to be an expert podcaster, an expert in blogging, or any of the other domains of peer production? Let's take a small News Relase here:

ANALYSIS

By Tom Curry

National affairs writer

MSNBC

updated 11:03 p.m. ET Jan. 19, 2008

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON — In a year in which the oft-heard slogan has been “change” it was the two battle-scarred old political pros, Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton, who emerged as winners in Saturday’s most meaningful contests, the South Carolina Republican primary and the Democrats’ Nevada caucuses.

McCain’s win was narrow but dramatic; Clinton’s was quite muddled, with Sen. Barack Obama winning 13 delegates to 12 for her.

I made these notes on one of my sractch-book blog Sunday, May 14, 2006. Social Media was a new thing to me. Today I can be looking back and do some reflections.

• Expertise comes through participation
  
• You need to participate to understand and learn more
  
• How do you and the rest feel about it?
• Listen to the crowd
  

You have to use the tools to know them and to learn more

• Blogging compared to Usenet
• What about people commenting
• Able to record a podcasts and to add them to your blogs
  
• Also to do a video and add to blogs and SM sites
  

Comparable experience from another point of view

• There are different barriers: technical, social, inter-personal, company, friends
  
• If the users are limited in their view to printing there are more barriers
  
• This is a new medium and it takes time to adapt
  

We have the right to judge

• Who are participating in the process?
• Where is the information coming from?
• What is the origin?
• You need a level of expertise to manage the technical details
  
• Produce a podcast for your blogs
  

We got a problem here

• No voice over IP for the moment
• They didn't edit the information
• When they do blogging workshops
• Will anybody read the blogs?

Where do you wanna go?

• Write a journal
• Write a business blog
• Start a corporate blog
  

At the same time they are producers

• They know how to make a record
• This social media is so new (much better known 2008 compared to 2006)
  
• There are no standards but a multitude of platforms (Google, Facebook, MySpace)
  
• We don't know what the 'need skills' are for a blogger

Videoblogging

• People coming from network television
• Technically include don't know how to hold the camera
• The skills from old media
• How to combine both

Hybrid

• I love technology
• Art director in real life
• I have a lot to contribute
• I can form and phrase things so people understand

Conversational Media

• blogging
• transfer from that
• easy accessible
• flickr
• there are so many in between them
• a whole lot of people saying this and that
• do we need to have a website?

The numbers communicating

• most blogs drop down in 3 months (I've been around for years with several blogs)
  
• it's still an astronomical number of people blogging
• how many will do it 2010?
• 2015?
  

What's in a name? Or label? How do the labels that we use or that are used by others impact mainstreaming of new media and perceptions of what blogs, podcasts, and video blogs/podcasts and other new media are about?

BBC NEWS | Technology | Hi-tech tools divide social sites

BBC NEWS | Technology | Hi-tech tools divide social sites: "Hi-tech tools divide social sites Gap store, AFP/Getty | One application lets people model Gap clothes.

Social network sites are moving to make it much easier for software developers to write add-ons for the hugely popular web destinations.

Bebo, Facebook, Meebo and Friendster have unveiled plans to help them become more than places to keep in touch.

The add-ons will allow users to add extras, such as video and music clips, to the personal profiles they maintain.

The alliances behind the technologies also reveal the fierce competition between social sites for users."

Social Networking is more than Facebookkeeping

My primary relationship with the business world is through my social network. The basic tools are:

1. Twitter
2. Jaiku
3. Pownce
4. Tumblr
   
5. Several blogs and blog platforms
   
6. Ning
7. Xing
8. LinkedIn (not so much even though it's on f the most effective business networks)
9. Skype
10. Instant Messaging
11. Basecamp Project Management (several different project platforms)
    
12. Facebook
13. E-mail: traditional email less and less, but gmail is a great messenger
    

I work with a specific collection of a few hundred people that I connect with through a mixture of tools and services. Most of the people I work with or communicate on a daily basis are using the same tools and methods. I've seen only a fraction of these people face to face.

Being one of the little people (figuratively speaking)

Helge: Learned about Being one of the little people (figuratively speaking) today from Twitter. Added her (saranicole) as a friend today.

Being one of the little people (figuratively speaking): "Utterly crazy month since I posted last. PodCamp Boston was a revelation to this newbie (I don’t feel as much a newbie anymore) as I now ‘get it’ about the power of networking via all these different vehicles.

Helge: I've been podcasting occasionally but would need to re-engineer and re-start podcasting to give a voice to my face.

How I would sum it up (and I will) is that various people I know can be found on various social media web hang-outs (Second Life, Myspace, Twitter).

Helge: I use Twitter but rarely MySpace and didn't have time to start with second life yet.

So the first benefit is if I regularly visit and update on these websites, my friends will know what’s going on with me. I like my friends, so this is a good thing. The other benefit is the whole “web-presence” aspect.

Helge: Web-presence...

I can increase my visibility to people who are web- and tech-savvy through regular posting of meaty content. It’s part of the whole “personal branding” challenge (notice use of buzz words - picked them up at PodCamp) of choosing a public face and spreading it around.

Helge: Personal branding, good point!

So, what do I have to offer? Once I’ve attracted people’s attention via the social media network, why should they stick around? My personal brand is that I’m eager to learn new things and develop as a person.

Helge: Learning by doing. Internet, the blogosphere and Social Media are great learning platforms and environments. Yes, I agree.

I see my work and myself as springing from the same source, and both help each other to grow. It doesn’t hurt that all these social media sites are also fun."

Helge: Fun.

The future of journalism

tippingeurope : A copywriter or a journalist ?: "The interesting point here is that where before the political parties could rely on the news media to channel their policymaking and communication objectively to the potential voters on the other end of the tube, they can'€™t anymore.

• They have to use several channels

Now it'€™s like playing the game called Phone -€“each person that passes the message along gives it a new subjective spin.

• I guess, "Laiva on lastattu," In Finnish.
  

The political parties not only need to make their message rise above the other actors'€™ messages, but they also need to fight against the channel itself.

According to Esa-Pekka the rules of the game have changed, so the political communication needs to change as well.

• We all have to change.
  

Where the other participants in the game use entertainment media, marketing communication and social media (online communities, blogs etc.) in addition to the normal news media to push their message through, political parties have no option but to follow suit.

• Sounds natural
• The same applies for business people, corporations, enterprises, companies
  

Does this mean that when in Rome, play with the voters'€™ feelings by using the same dirty marketing tricks as the Romans do?

• The ideologies are out and we've to think in terms of images
• What are the perceptions of the voters
  

To make a point, perhaps, but to put it differently: You cannot serve the public if the public cannot hear what you'€™re saying or gets someone else's version of it."

Read more about Ville Vesterinen on his blog.

Biography

Me.

My name is VILLE VESTERINEN and this is my blog [Go to Link]. I am an entrepreneur with an interest in politics and a passion for social media.

I am currently working at Stirred Up Magazine. I hold a BSc from the Helsinki School of Economics and an MSc from the London School of Economics.

I have worked in various fields and disciplines -from a non-profit to a faceless multinational and everything in between, and as you're reading this about to start a new publishing venture.

The blog.

You live and learn they say. The blog has evolved as my thoughts have. Now I try to dedicate the space to everything I find interesting in life. Hope you enjoy my doodlings. And please do comment.