Q&A microblogging social networks are becoming increasingly prominent in the mainstream media and their use is trickling across to the traditional blogging platforms.
Will these Q&A services be the big thing to watch in 2011?
Here’s five to check out:
Fluther (recently acquired by Twitter)
Formspring (the Daddy of the current crop of Q&A networks)
VYou (Video based platform)
A new Business Culture Index survey has indicated that UK SMEs are increasingly looking to digital solutions to help grow their businesses.
UK’s 4.7 million SMEs, 38% set themselves aggressive growth targets.
Of the UK’s 4.7 million SMEs, 38% set themselves aggressive growth targets and
… more than one in ten exploit mobile marketing internet sites or services for business, compared to only 2% of those SMEs not seeking to grow.
The report points out that:
In a market where mobile internet penetration amongst mobile phone-owning consumers has only reached 33% to date (TGI GB Q4 data), this shows a keen appreciation of getting on board with a burgeoning trend early and exploiting it before competitors pick it up.
Additionally, social networks are being used in greater numbers than before too:
18% of all SMEs and 23% of those with ambitious growth forecasts use social networks such as Facebook and Linkedin to market themselves. Company websites are also of particular importance for SMEs seeking to market themselves (used by 25% of SMEs), along with recommendations/word of mouth (29%) and door drops (15%).
The Kantar Media survey just goes to re-iterate that digital is vital to helping business grow in the ever changing communications space.
Delicious and Flickr are feeling the force of Yahoo cost cutting measures, it has been reported over the last 24 hours.
Two of the web’s innovators, purchased by Yahoo now find themselves in a kind of “what next?” position, with staff layoffs and talk of ‘sunsetting’ abound.
Both entities must not be allowed to cease in their existence.
It matters because of the amount of data that users have uploaded to them and because cloud computing is the way forward for data storage.
Not only do they provide a service that is genuinely useful to millions of people, they have also the cloud at their core.
I’d like to see them sold, rather than go independent – they both need financial support to develop – which may see them end up in the deadpool.
San Fransisco bus stops have a new way of alleviating boredom for waiting travellers: computer games.
The San Fransisco Examiner reported a few weeks ago:
…tech giant Yahoo has installed digital video screens at 20 bus shelters in San Francisco, mostly in the downtown area. As part of the promotion, transit passengers from 20 specified neighborhoods will get the chance to compete against each other in different video games — and the community that wins the two-month contest will host a block party featuring the rock band OK Go.
To compete, passengers need only to tap the screen and choose one of four games, which range from visual puzzles to sports trivia competitions. Once a rider has selected which neighborhood they want to represent, they can challenge any other waiting passenger to a live competition. Also, for anyone curious about duping the system, Yahoo has set up barriers to prevent any sort of automated competition.
Each time a rider wins a contest, their neighborhood receives 100 points. The neighborhood with the most points by Jan. 28 will be crowned the winner and get to party with OK Go on Feb. 5. Once the victorious community has been decided, the exact details of OK Go’s performance will be finalized.
What I really like about this is the community element of the game, as well as the integration of technology with a mundane activity.
It’s yet another example of how gaming is becoming more and more pervasive, less the preserve of geeks, and technology is injecting something genuinely fun, innovative and inspirational into everyday life.
Last week UK students took to the street to protest against a rise in tuition fees.
Amongst the carnage and politics, their clever use of Google Maps went unnoticed.
Ben Goldacre noticed that students from University College London (UCL) were using Google Maps to tell each other what was going on and where. For example, where police helicopters were, where riot police were stationed and even where fires had broken out.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the protest (and I highly recommend reading this post from Sunny Hundal about the current protest movement), the use of technology must be applauded.
The key point to think about for me, is how we use this sort of idea more widely, and make it easier to use on mobile platforms.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) released figures on Monday indicating that there has been a worldwide decline in democracy since 2008.
The 2010 Democracy Index has revealed that France, Italy, Greece and Slovenia dropped from the category of “full democracies” to “flawed democracies” over the past 24 months.
According to the index:
The democracy score was lower in 2010 than in 2008 in 91 countries out of the 167 that are covered, although in the majority of these the deterioration was modest. The score increased in 48 countries and it stayed the same in 28 over this period. In all regions the average democracy score for 2010 is lower than in 2008.
Key points from the new data include:
• A noticeable decline in media freedoms in recent years has accelerated since 2008. In 36 countries there was a decline in scores for media freedom between 2008 and 2010.
• Negative political trends in France in recent years have resulted in the country being downgraded from a full democracy to the flawed democracy category. Public confidence in political institutions is extremely low, among the lowest in the developed world.
• The most pronounced decline between 2008 and 2010 in democracy was in eastern Europe. In 19 countries of eastern Europe the democracy score declined between 2008 and 2010.
• The US and the UK are near the bottom of the full democracy category. In the US there has been an erosion of civil liberties related to the fight against terrorism. Problems in the functioning of government have also become more prominent. In the UK the main problem is a very low level of political participation.
• Although almost half of the world’s countries can be considered democracies, the number of “full democracies” is low (only 26); 53 are rated as “flawed democracies”. Of the remaining 88 states, 55 are authoritarian and 33 are considered to be “hybrid regimes”.
What do you make of the data, and do you think digital technologies can help to re-awaken the perception of democracy in the UK?
The folks at Mobile Future have put together a video containing a whole bunch of statistics which demonstrate the increasing pervasiveness of mobile activity over the past 12 months.
Via Mashable
I’ve read quite a lot about the Wikileaks saga over the past week or so and I’m trying to absorb as much information and opinion as I can given that it is one of the most important political events in the last decade or so.
Not only does it demonstrate the importance of transparency, it will affect the way that behind-closed-doors communication takes place, forcing more information into the open, but keeping top secret data, even further from the public domain.
Here’s five posts that I highly recommend you take a look at:
Clay Shirky: Wikileaks and the Long Haul
Jeff Jarvis: Wikileaks: Power shifts from secrecy to transparency
Liberal Conspiracy: The assault on WikiLeaks threatens free speech and democracy itself
Light Blue Touch paper: Wikileaks, security research and policy
Twitter Analytics are a much talked about subject, and soon their in-house developed package will be available, for free.
Twitter has revolutionised the way that brands can talk with their customers but measuring the exact impact of those conversations has so far been left in the domain of third party developers.
So, as a comms type, here’s three things I’d like to see from the package – let me know in the comments what you want.
Official numbers on trending topics
If I manage to get my brand’s hashtag trending, I want to know how many people it took to mention it, and over what time period to make it trend.
Potential Reach
I can already know, using a URL shortener with a decent stats pack, how many people clicked on my links and when, but I’d like to know how many people may have seen my brand’s tweet in their streams, how many retweets it had and how many people that may have exposed the content to.
Search Volumes
Twitter user’s use of language is different to that of bloggers, for example. I want to know what search terms people are using to find relevant content, and to what extent, so that I can optimise my tweet content accordingly. Not to spam, but to make sure they may pick up on a piece of content that is useful to them.
So what do you want from the new Twitter stats?
