The runaway train

Yes I know this Facebook stuff can get a little boring sometimes, but put that to one side for a moment and look at the graph below. Facebook has now reached 350m users worldwide.

It is the speed at the growth that is particularly staggering about this figure, they have scooped up 200m new users worldwide in 11 months. That is a phenomenal 600,000 signing up A DAY.

There is, as ever another side of the argument, as many observers claim it is hard, almost impossible to leave Facebook, and that actual unique visitors isn't a patch on the 350m number, but you wouldn't expect it to be. And 130m unique daily visitors isn't half bad is it? Further to this, Australia has now topped 8m active accounts, more than half the internet population.

And there is little sign of this abating in the coming months. All more fuel that us creative and media agencies need to better equip ourselves to integrate Facebook (and other social channels) in to our thinking.

Cheers

Nic

What is a real journo?

Jeff in 303’s Digital team used the phrase “Real Journo” in an recent email to me and it got me thinking...What is a “Real Journo?”

It would be safe to assume he was referring to a staff writer or freelancer for a major news corporation. No problem with that.

What I found interesting is that even cutting edge Gen Y’ers like Jeff still hold the traditional media hacks in some sort of mythical esteem = “Real Journos”

From a PR perspective I’ve always had a slightly more sceptical view of what constitutes ‘real journalism’ especially in Australia, “land of the free, home of the media cartel fighting for advertising dollar.”

Approx 60%- 80% of everything that appears out of major news corporations in Australia is written, sourced, researched by a PR person. It lands on news desks as a pre-packaged product. The media clip, cut and post it with their name attached to it. Job done. The media release is the original user-generated content.

When you add into the mix syndicated stories from overseas and the growing number of opinion pieces from the public and you begin to get a picture of how ‘real’ local journalism actually is.

Over the last few years, very quietly the citizen journalist has begun to surpass ‘real journos’ in one area. Sports reporting. Yes, really.

Try being the Herald Sun in Melbourne and reporting objectively on the AFL when access to players and administrators form 90% of your entire sports coverage and your readership is interested in little else. Write an investigative piece on the AFL, see how far it gets past editorial and business management. You need them more that they need you.

Add the complication of advertising dollars from the AFL and If you are a serious sports fan, bloggers and online community are your only source of genuine opinion or unbiased analysis. The same goes for all of the major football codes. The Sydney media has the same devils contract with the NRL.

However the resistance is gaining ground with sites like www.theroar.com.au using content from frustrated major corporation writers and citizen journos and providing them with equal billing. Opinion egalitarianism of sorts. As a result the quality of user-generated content posted is far beyond anything you are likely to see from News Corp or Fairfax anytime soon. Opinion egalitarianism seems to raise everybody’s game.

So what is a ‘Real Journo?” - I would say one with the freedom to write without looking over his/her shoulder.

The digital age is producing plenty of these – You.

Nigel

IKEA and Facebook

Hi

Just wanted to share this piece of work from Sweden for IKEA. A wonderfully simple idea, utilising one of Facebook's most popular features - photo tagging.

It's examples like this and Whopper Sacrifice that really display the opportunity for creativity in Social Media channels.

Cheers

Nic

Social media ROI

From the people (Socialnomics) who brought you the last 'amazing digital and social media statistics set to a piece of music' video, here's their latest version.

There are actually some excellent stats in here, and an important point of view in terms of the measurement of Social Media, so it is well worth a few minutes. Share on with clients and colleagues if you can.

Enjoy.

Nic

More Google Wave...

If you missed the outline I sent on Google Wave a couple of weeks ago,

you might prefer this one.

Google Wave Pulp Fiction style.

Cheers Nic

Nowism

Many of you will know Trendwatching, so apologies if this is old news, but I thought it was worth sharing their latest briefing called "Nowism" which focuses on today's society, the need for instant gratification, leaving feedback, comments and opinions.

Considerably fuelled by the interwebby and Social Media of course, but they include some interesting references offline too.

http://trendwatching.com/briefing/

Enjoy. Sign up for future ones and they'll pop straight in to your inbox.

Cheers

Nic

Ride the Wave?

A couple of weeks ago Google invited tens of thousands of people to test Google’s new big thing “Wave”, much to PB’s disgust we didn’t make it on the list.

Anyway, if Google get their way it’ll be a major development in communications so we thought a quick outline of it would be useful. Here’s what Google say:

"A Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."

Basically it is a platform that combines all of the good things from email, instant messenger, Social Media, wikis and blogging to aid collaboration. Essentially it allows multiple people to join a conversation (social or business) at any given time and see all of the information from the start of the conversation, add their comments and content in real-time to make communication an all round easier prospect. Simple.

Mashable provide a far more expansive outline for you to read http://mashable.com/2009/05/28/google-wave-guide/

And this video nails one small (but important) part of it in just 2 minutes.

Opinion on whether it’s an over-hyped red herring or the next big thing is somewhat mixed so we’ll just have to wait and see… Personally, I'm a fan and when you think of the thousands of emails you get in a week - you can only see this will help.

Enjoy

Nic