Several of the readings in the Emerging Markets for Digital Media course this term question the value of mobile phone use among the poor in developing countries.  Richard Heeks blogged last year about research suggesting mobiles are doing more harm than good.  Kurt DeMaagd did a  study (link unavailable) sought to demonstrate the rapid adoption of mobile devices has not resulted in a corresponding increase in productivity around the globe.  And Kathleen Diga’s study “reveals” some Ugandans are choosing to pay for airtime instead of food items.

Why must the use of mobile phones among many of the most poor and isolated demonstrate some sort of measurable advancement in order to be justified?  I doubt people here in the U.S. would question why a welfare mom owns a cell phone.  And I’ve never hear anyone wonder why a senior citizen on a fixed income would choose to pay for phone service.  So why the attitude towards those in developing countries?

I believe there are two reasons for this misguided criticism. Read more…

For those of you who may think Twitter is in a category of it’s own, check out the Nov 7 issue of Businessweek.  A story titled Building a Better Twitter highlights the growth of the microblogging market.  Twitter may have the most followers so far, but other sites that promise more features and better reliability and have a sustainable business model are popping up.  Many of the new ones are content-specific.  For example, Blip.fm for music, Zannel for pictures and Seesmic for videos (all claim they are complementary to Twitter instead of competitive).  And then there’s Yammer that is geared to an enterprise audience. Read more…

Fascinating article in this month’s Atlantic, written by Andrew Sullivan, titled “Why I Blog”.  Conventional wisdom says that blogging represents the death of journalism.  Sullivan says no, blogging is simply another type of media that complements traditional journalism.  His analogy:  blogging is to journalism what Jazz (when it first came on the scene) was to classical music– it represented a different aesthetic, required a new way to think about music, but it didn’t make Bach or Mozart obsolete.

Some will take issue with Sullivan’s point of view.  After all, the rise of the internet is being blamed for the cutbacks at newspapers.  Right?  But those who “get it” know classifieds are what paid the bills.  So, it’s not, for example, the Drudge Report that’s challenging the traditional newpaper model, it’s Craig’s List.  And Craig’s List is not about journalism.

Of course it’s not so black and white.  But it prompts rethinking the view that online journalism is the primary culprit.

Sullivan’s piece is brilliant because it speaks to the fact that blogging is the great journalistic motivator–  it provides the masses with the opportunity for public expression, idea sharing and knowledge expansion.   “The blogosphere has added a whole new idiom to the act of writing and has introduced an entirely new idiom to the act of writing and has introduced an entirely new generation to nonfiction.”

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.