Shark Lady Tech

Technology, Internet, Gadgets and Geeks

Posts Tagged ‘social media’

Buzz Off, Google!

February 10th, 2010

It’s hard to understand Google’s hysteria when it comes to social media. True, Twitter gives Google a good fight when it comes to real-time search, and people spend more time on Facebook than on any other site. So what do they do on Google? They try to fight back. And it looks ludicrous.

Gmail is one of the net’s most useful services. It’s the best webmail around and it has tons of useful features. My Gmail tab on Firefox is always open. In fact, by far, it’s the site I spend most of my time on. And I am not the only one.

Some of us don’t want many distractions to interrupt our work. I mean, web games, Twitter and porn are distracting enough. But Google doesn’t seem to care. First was the annoying, blipping Google Talk, which you can only disconnect from, but not disable entirely, and now there’s Google Buzz.

Without asking for it, I got the Buzz icon in the left sidebar of my Gmail. The icon looks familiar… Wait a minute… Is that a Microsoft service? Ah, no. Just another Google annoyance. So, I click on the Buzz in order to disable it, and I am horified to see that I already have followers. Worst of all – these aren’t my friends. They are not even my online friends. They are a random bunch of people I once mailed or contacted, mostly in business-related matters. I sure don’t want THEM to follow me anywhere. I also don’t want to follow them, but it appears I am doing just that.

Where’s the Block?!

It seems that Google Buzz is a Twitter/Facebook wannabe – it encourages you to share thoughts, clips and links. Only here, for some reason, you can’t choose your friends that easily. For example, if you access the list of your followers, you only get an option to follow them back. You can’t block them or prevent them from following you. At least, not that easily. In order to block a person on Google Buzz, you need to click on their icon and block them from there. I hope you don’t have too many followers at this point.

Where’s the Privacy?

If you are concerned about your privacy, Google Buzz is definitely not for you. The message that appears on the Buzz’s main page is: “Your Google Reader shared items, Picasa Web public albums, and Google Chat status messages will automatically appear as posts in Buzz”. This is the default, unless you change it.

Also, activity on the sites listed on your Google Webmaster account will also be made public, unless you prevent Google Buzz from spreading around your every move.

Best Feature of Google Buzz?

Clearly, Google Buzz is a noise-making, privacy-damaging, redundant service. If you have Twitter, Facebook or both, you really don’t need the Buzz. I don’t even want to THINK what this does to the well-known Gmail-Firefox memory leak.

The best feature on Google Buzz is clearly the option to disable it entirely. This option hides as a little, tiny link on the bottom of your Gmail screen.

Google, do us all a favor. Stick to worthwhile services, like Gmail, RSS Readers and, um, that little thing called “Search Engine”. When I want a bunch of strangers to follow me around, I’ll open a Twitter account and announce that I am Ashton Kutcher.

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Posted in Internet, Privacy

Tags: annoying block Facebook google google buzz Privacy social media twitter

Social Media in 2009: Twitter, Facebook and MySpace Trends

February 9th, 2010

comScore released its 2009 U.S. Digital Year in Review Report, and it has some interesting data. One of the hottest topics (still) on the net, is social networks. So, what happened in the social media in 2009?

Social Networking Trends 2009

According to comScore, social networking was one of the web’s top activities in 2009. Nearly 4 out of 5 Internet users visited a social networking site in December 2009. The activity now accounts for 11% of all time spent online in the U.S.,
making it one of the most engaging activities across the Web.

Facebook and Twitter Grow

Facebook and Twitter both posted triple-digit growth. Facebook surged to the #1 position among social networks for the first time in May 2009, and continued its strong growth trajectory throughout the year, finishing with 112 million visitors in December 2009 – up 105% during the year.

Twitter finished the year with nearly 20 million visitors, a huge leap from just 2 million visitors in 2008. Much of Twitter’s extraordinary audience growth occurred during the first few months of 2009.

MySpace has experienced some softening in its audience; however, a new strategic focus on entertainment content is exhibiting signs of success with MySpace Music having grown 92% in the past year.

Facebook has also shown impressive growth in unique visitors, page views, and total time spent – all increased by a factor of two or more. As more people use Facebook more frequently, the site has grown to account for three times as much total time spent online as it did last year.

Demographics of Social Networks

MySpace’s user composition tilted toward younger users in 2009. Users age 24 and younger now comprising 44.4% of the site’s audience. Facebook’s audience was evenly split between those younger and older than 35 years of age.

The initial success of Twitter was largely driven by users in the 25-54 year old age segment, which made up 65% of all visitors to the site in December 2008. This a different segmentation than the common one in social media networks, where usually the younger audience build the brand’s success. In 2009, with the help of celebrities and media coverage, younger users flooded to the site in large numbers, with those under age 18 (up 6.2 percentage points) and 18-24 year olds (up 7.9 percentage points) representing the fastest growing demographic segments.

Summary

It seems that social networks still need the younger audience in order to grow. Also, it’s clear that social networks can’t stand in one place, and have to keep developing new features and attractions, as the young audience gets bored easily.

Facebook is still the strongest network, by far, and at the moment there doesn’t seem to be a serious competitor for it.

According to comScore, social media marketers must be aware that social networks can deliver substantial reach for ad campaigns and despite low click-through rates there is measurable view-through value from these ads.

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Posted in Internet, Social Networks

Tags: 2009 comscore Facebook myspace social media social networking stats twitter

66% of US Government Organizations Use Social Media

January 18th, 2010

A study by Human Capital Institute (HCI) and Saba details the use of social networking within local, state, and federal governments. The study also looks at the effectiveness of social networking in conducting government work, how agency type affects the use and perception of social networking and the future expectations and barriers for its use within the public sector.

The study shows that 66% of all government agencies currently use some form of social networking – from blogs and wikis to IM and discussion boards.

Except for municipal governments, all other agencies reported that social networking tools are used most effectively for knowledge sharing and informal learning and development functions. 32% percent of those surveyed within the Department of Defense use social networking tools for these reasons, as well as to create communities of practice.

Security restrictions — chiefly concerns about the loss of confidential information — are the largest barrier to future implementation of social networking tools within governments.

The study recommends encouraging and enhancing the use of social networking within the government, such as the Defense Department’s use of social networking tools for project planning and state government agencies’ use of social networking tools for public communication.