Analytophilia, Analytophobia and Social Media Weather Forecasting

I was introduced to a new word today. Analytophilia. I love it. Analytophilia is the addiction to (or love of) checking how connected you are in social media: - how many tweets, DMs, facebook contacts, Linkedin connections and comments on your status, or others. This is a world where agoraphobics feel safe, but can also feel really social, without leaving their desk or iPhone (and entering the physical agora or marketplace).

I’d add another term. Analytophobia. This is the fear that your analytics would reveal, with cruel accuracy, that you’re a ‘nobody’, - not even a ‘somebody’ in the digital sphere. This would lead the sufferer to fear the login, like pressing the answerphone button and hearing ‘You have NO new messages’ too often. It’s not good for the old ego Sir. Time to join an online role-play game (MMORPG), like World of Warcraft. They’ll fix the fragile ego in a jiffy because anyone will play with anyone, and they do so in their millions.

Analytophilia and Analytophobia are, in fact, two sides of the same digitally mediated psychological coin, like pride and shame. Welcome to the Sociology of Social Media Emotion.

There are important implications for businesses which need to figure online, and have figures to prove it, in the growing cloud of online social buzz. There are loads of ways of doing it... if you know how and have the time to do the reporting and tracking, and sifting and monitoring. Trying to do it without the right tools to hand and operatives to use them, is like buying a pile of hammers and saws and nails and trying to build a house. You might actually succeed in building a hut of sorts, which will keep the rain out for a while. But you’ll never build a house or a good one at least. And think of the time, and injuries; and it might fall down in a storm! That’s when you call the likes of my good self (shameless plug). Yes we can! (Bob the builder, not Obama)

Prediction/observation: The net, and all communication is, and will be, driven by data, and those who can handle data and present it in a beautiful, simple, meaningful and actionable fashion... will always be busy.

It’s strange to admit, but I love numbers and the challenge of becoming a social media weather forecaster because weather is interesting, and the language of weather is taking over the language of surfing and sea that haunted the web since its nascent beginnings (from surfing and waves to clouds etc). And did you know that the biggest computers were built, partially, to handle the billions of computations necessary to predict the weather? Eniac for example. That chaos theory arose out of the big shift in weather prediction shown because of a few decimal points being omitted? Physics, maths and the computing that facilitated them were largely driven by the simple need to know what the weather is likely to do next. Well, now is the time for the Social Weather and forecasting, and the computing is being done already, but not by one machine, by the cloud of users and their computers. Businesses and people need to know the temperature outside, before they leave the building.

The driving equation and goal for social media: -

(messages ↑, efficiency↑, news/information/gossip ↑,freedom/mobility ↑, work/life-balance ↑) = (time spent↓)

The online clouds, (word of mouth/public opinion) are moved by the seas (offline people whose opinions (temperature) move much slower, but they hold their opinions for much longer). The net is a much more promiscuous, impatient and ephemeral space than the real world. Always has been. Within the clouds there can be hurricanes (like when MJ died), smaller storms, (#Lisbon2), and little squalls (#Luas). The online activity, in a storm, can strike offline public opinion like a bolt of lightning too, when the fact of the online news being so busy has a huge impact on the news of traditional media, and ALL public opinion (reflexively). The weather is also driven by the medium (the air, or platform (PC/iPhone/Facebook/twitter), and the sun (the Internet connection).

OK. The analogy is getting tired. But, it might still be useful.

In short! What can be done with this? Well, we can:

• Monitor social media: Any topic, issue, group, industry category, sector... whatever. This includes forums, blogs, YouTube, twitter and news sites. We can graph, present, analyse and output for you and yours
• Put scale on the storm: how big, how busy, how powerful, who’s involved
• Forecast: where it’s likely to go next. How big it’s likely to get
• Take part: setting up a social media portal/outlet for your business, and maintaining it
• Alert you: When the unhappy or unruly come knocking at the door of the office.
• Give you an Umbrella: Protecting you with online PR advice and provision

So, don’t be afraid of the Social Media weather. Let us give you the forecast and provide you with an umbrella!

Is Social Media a Fad?

It seems not.

Web 2.0

Irish Online Recruitment

After travel, recruitment is the most popular category of Internet use on a monthly basis by Irish Internet users. Irish jobs is the most popular Irish recruitment site, and the 6th most visited site by Irish Internet users, with 34% visiting the site at least once a month. Recruitment sites are much more likely to be visited weekly, or monthly, or less often, than on a daily basis.

This makes sense, as many will post their CV on several sites, and ‘see what comes in’. Around 20% of recruitment site users are apparently actively looking on a daily basis for a new job.

The second most popular sites is Jobs.ie, with 29%, and then comes Monster.ie, with 27%. Recruit Ireland comes in with 26%. There is then a drop off to the less mainstream and niche sites, with Publicjobs.ie with 13%, Nixers.ie 8%, Careersinhealthcare.ie 5%, Brightwater.ie 5%, Educationposts.com 5% and Salesforce.com with 1%.

Web 2.0

So much has been written lately about this new concept. It’s a buzz term, true, but also a description of fundamental changes happening in ICT. Europe is far behind the Far East and America in terms of our Internet usage, and Ireland is at the bottom of the European scale of things… So, I’d like to discuss some of the philosophy and thinking surrounding the concept. I’m just going to chat about some bits now, as there is an on-going, endless and somewhat tedious debate going on about ‘What Web 2.0 Means?'. These are the bits of what it means that I think are most relevant and interesting. Hopefully they’re relevant to you too. Tell me what you think

Many people, from the head of Microsoft and Apple, to futurologists, have pointed out what should have been obvious, but wasn’t too many. Once the software and hardware is in place to a sufficient degree, people start to do business online. Once they’re doing that, the business winners will be the service companies. It’s a clear set of stages which can be explained by analogy with the train industry.

The first companies to do well out of the age of the train are the track builders, Cisco in terms of ICT. Then the engine builders, Microsoft and Intel etc, and then the various train companies. After that, the train companies that get the trains running on time, and quickest, post the best timetables and get you to the stations efficiently, these are the next wave of companies. On the Internet thats true too, and we’re on the third wave of new communication technology development. Service! The funky software and sites that set appointments and schedules, the widgets that help you manage chats, conversations and photos. The software that gets you communicating, gets you sending your data from A to B the in the most efficient manner, and reminds you when to send it. These companies are distinct from the utilities; those who build the machines, and the pipes that channel your information around the world.

However, we’ve gone beyond this stage too. The software providers now place value on their software not by what it can individually do, but by the fact that everyone else is using the same software, or that this software speaks will all the others types of software, regardless of who’s using it. So, the individual piece of software might be totally cool, but it’s better if it merely works well, and everyone else uses it too. Also, it’s better if the software is online, and free. This is a whole new model for software companies and a very risky strategy for the software company investor. If the software catches on, happy days, as long as you can get sufficient donations, and/or advertising, or its used by so many people it will be bought by Google, or Yahoo! or someone. (Unlikely to be Yahoo! at the moment.)

So, the loop has reached the stage where the service itself is more important than the software. For example, consider Plaxo, Del.icio.us and the millions of other free site soft wares out there, doing everything from your household accounts, to setting up a free shop.

Data That Grows with Use and Users
This comes out of the previous point. As more people use these free/cheap online services, the better they get. More people tag on Del.icio.us, the better it gets; more people use YouTube, or Bebo, it comes alive; the more people use friendsreunited, dating sites or geneology sites, the more opportunity they have to function.

Trusting users as co-developers

This is where the net development goes all commy. It always was in a way. The language of the net, with surfing, waves and nets. Its all symbolic of the watery, fishing land of the west coast. The America lingo, is there because that's where it all started. That’s where Silicon Valley is, and the people with that surf dude mind-set, the bright ones, made their millions. However, they made their millions out of IP. Shares, futures, and intellectual property… all that stuff.

Open source is a term for a movement where the developers of a peice of software invite users to develope that software. Most web and other software these days is open source, is seems to be in a stage of perpetual beta test. Indeed new free versions of the software seem to come out daily, rather than once every few years in the past. With open source and software stuck in beta test stage really taking on, BitTorrent is an example, software development and use comes together, software and sites become more popular, and the users more loyal.

The Power of the Collective

Remember the Borg? Well, Web 2.0 is a Borg concept, or vice versa. The power of Wikipedia is the users of Wikipedia, the power of Del.icio.us is the members of Del.icio.us. There was a time in the very recent past, where the database, and the time that had gone into its construction, and the data it contained was the valuable entity. Now databases are populated by the users of the databases, and their true value is in their popularity. The use of the database is free, and everything else follows.

The Long Tail
A great concept with a silly name. Think of a line on a graph. Starting big, and then petering out. The big companies are at the high part of the line, but on the internet, there are thousands upon thousands of smaller businesses. The tail of the graph is very long. 5 years ago, companies used to service the head of the graph, and not the tail… Now, the big business is being done servicing the needs of the long tail. Double click is a good example. Big expensive software which had to be bought by large publishers who wanted ad revenue from a few standardized formats on their site. Google arrives along with a whole new mechanic for buying ads, and anyone can ad a small bit of code to their site, and the ads are served. A completely different format, everything's changed, and it works. Google services tiny companies, and individuals with blogs. Google services the long tail.

Conclusion
The Irish Internet space has changed immesurably and irreversibly in the last few years and we have to understand it if we are to satisfy the needs of advertisers, advertising being the life blood of many of the sites and services discussed above. Net Behaviour is an advertising company that tasks itself with understanding the Internet the way it is today, and tracking the changes in Internet usage as they happen, to best facilitate advertising for our clients. This is an ongoing job. We've found in the last year that sites with user generated content are working better and better for our advertisers. We've also started working with clients on strategies that involve the new social movements and usages of Irish Internet users. In the past the Internet had the potential to be a two directional medium but content was coming much more from traditional content providers... the newspapers, TV stations and radio. In the last year the flow of content has come much more the audience. User generated content sites and services have also developed more audience than tradition Internet news and information providers. This will be more or less true as fashions change, but I'm of the opinion that the graph is only going one way on this, towards UGC, though these will progressively be owned by International conglomerates.

I understand of course that there are different types of content. If there's a war with Syria, traditional news providers will get the audience. But I feel there is a new segment of audience that will always like UGC, the get a buzz out of providing for it, and getting their friends and colleagues to view what they've provided, ,or sending funny stuff around the a gag group. Also, there will always be those who enjoy the un-constrained fun that can come from hidden video, jokes and pranks and studenty type films. Twink fell foul of this set. Does it matter who owns these sites, or where they are? No. Irish eyeballs are watching the web all over the world, and watching extremely local and international content, regardless of where the server resides, or who owns to company. NB will facilitate advertisers to reach this audiece, wherever it may be.

OK... Thats it. Those are some of the bits of Web 2.0 that interest me. I hope thei interest you too.