Editor & Publisher just came out with a report that highlights the complexity of measuring social media.  It’s not just about number of page hits anymore.  Advertisers are also starting to look at length of time spent on the site is good . . . so are repeat visits.  The “length” measurement is a bit ironic, given the web often demands bite-size content which doesn’t encourage lingering (maybe it’s about LOTS of bites).

What matters most?  No answers yet.  Personally, I think it depends on the goals of the program, the type of content (for example videos tend to keep people on a site longer) and the nature of the audience.

Social media-based marketing programs tend to be resource intensive.  For example, it’s not enough to just read content.  Participation is the name of the game.  Reading, creating, posting and commenting requires a lot of cycles.  These cycles either translate to additional employees or added hours by the agency team (read: more expensive).  With social media still so new, trendy seems to be trumping traditional when it comes to justifying social media programs.  Eventually the question of ROI will need to be answered.  The race is on to find a measurement standard.

CNN health released a study, people who search more often on-line, their brains active more often than normal people. Google makes them smarter. 

The experiment goes like this: scientists invited 24 people (age 55-78) to join. A half of them are Internet heavy users and the others are not. In the first stage, they were asked to read some text on a screen, and the machine (MRI) monitored the activities in their brains. The “reading” and “language” parts of the brain became active when people are reading, which is already known by the scientists.

In the second stage, people were asked to google something on the Internet. Then parts of brain, which are in charge of “logic” and “policy making”, started acting. Furthermore, people who are heavy users, the activities in the brains happen more frequently than others.

Non-savvy reading                                        Non-savvy searching

Web user reading                                           Web user searching

What makes the differences? The research does not explain the reasons with a strong conviction. Any ideas do you have? Maybe try to google something.

view the reaserch

As a strong believer in the Creative Commons project, I was delighted to find this lovely short video by Jesse Dylan illustrating the importance of CC.  Creative Commons has become a vital tool in creating community and maintaining dialogue online by simplifying the legalese involved in the process of sharing and reacting. As opposed to defaulting to retaining all rights, CC offers a system that is tolerant towards variable levels of participation and reaction to content. It shifts the focus from content to community served and moved by content.

Watch and enjoy.

If you’re not going to change with the times, eventually time will change you.

Trite platitudes aside, John McCain’s presidential campaign apparently has seen the light when it comes to net neutrality. Despite the fact that McCain has repeatedly voted against measures to enshrine net neutrality into the legal framework that undergirds the Internet, and though he doesn’t mention it once in his campaign’s technology policy platform, his campaign now gripes to YouTube because it has pulled down some of McCain’s ads on the website in keeping with the law of the land for which McCain voted, the NY Times has reported.

“The commercials incorporated snippets of television news broadcasts. Using provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the news organizations demanded that the commercials be removed from YouTube because they violated the organizations’ copyrights,” writes Saul Hansell of the Times.

Hansell continues:  ”Senator McCain has not had much common cause with the Internet free speech movement. He voted for the D.M.C.A., and he opposes legislation to enforce network neutrality. So not surprisingly, the advocacy groups jumped to highlight the irony of the campaign’s letter.”

While this makes for an interesting and humorous example of hypocrisy on the part of the McCain campaign, it also sheds light on how the “Net Neutrality” movement might gain ground.  As businesses increasingly turn to social media and adopt its “amateur” aesthetic, which includes the mashup, for purposes of promoting business and upping profits, the market for fair use material on the internet will grow. And, as the market grows, social norms and mores will shift toward allowing more digital material to fall under the category “fair use.”

But how would McCain negotiate his seemingly hypocritical stance on “fair use?” Hansell puts it well: “If the polls are to be believed, we may never know how much a McCain administration would fight for everyone’s right to make mash-ups.”

Obama is now targeting the young male audience (ages 18-34) from inside video games. In game advertising (IGA) or “advergaming” has been around for while. This is the first time a candidate has used video games to promote a campaign. Microsoft and Interpret LLC, a new media research firm, released a study that in game ads had a positive impact on the gaming experience. Since the XBox 360 is connected to the internet - ads can be updated and shown for specific periods of time. Check out the MSNBC article.

This is a replica in three dimenssions of the Forbidden City in Beijing.  For more than three years, IBM designers built it pixel to pixel.  All the palaces and patios. You can addopt a charactor and explore all the corners of the Forbidden City. You can also talk to other virtual visitors and/or particiapte in the activities. Of course you need to download the software (it takes about 20 minutes), but try it, it’s fun! Of course this doesn’t replace a real visit to Beijing, but for those who can’t afford to go to there, it is an alternative. Click here to visit the Forbidden City

I love the comic strip Zits, which is really in tune with the parent-teenager relationship. I don’t have a teenager but I was one, and I often see echoes of myself and my parents within the strip. Recently though, the strip has been focused on the ways in which teenagers communicate with each other and the ways in which this is challenging for their parents. I don’t see a whole lot of myself in this. I’m no longer a teenager and I don’t have any digital natives of my own. I just have to assume that, as always, Zits is doing an excellent job of portraying this world. It certainly seems accurate.

Read more Zits here.

I am focusing here on the People part of Groundswell’s POST process.  To recap on last weeks posting, the P in POST is People, referring to your social techno-graphic/audience/target group.  Watching their YouTube posted video expanding on this idea, the blogging community is divided into 6 levels of interaction: (For more on the 6 levels and why YOU need to know them, click here).