The Steve Rubel Lifestream

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November 25, 2009

Nearly All Inc. 500 Companies Are Engaged in Social Media

Inc. magazine is out with a new study that tracks the Inc. 500 - the fastest growing private companies in the US:


According to the study, social media usage by companies on the Inc. 500 has grown in the past year, with 91 percent of companies reporting that they use at least one social media tool, compared with 77 percent of companies surveyed in 2008. Of the six social media categories covered in the survey, the one that continues to be the most familiar to Inc. 500 companies is social networking, with 75 percent saying that they are "very familiar with it."

The small are using social media to arguably outmaneuver the larger companies that are taking more time to get it together. This is not to fault the multinationals. It's just taking time to peel back the onion layers to prepare their culture for a new era of real-time engagement and the age of the über-connected organization.

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Filed under  //   research   social media   stats  

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November 23, 2009

When Magazines Lose Their Research Departments, Google Wins

Steve Baker on Bloomberg's takeover of BusinessWeek and what it means for both the blogs and their research departments.

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Filed under  //   google   journalism   media   media reforestation  

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November 23, 2009

Study: Twitter is 80% "Meformers" and 20% Informers

The Miami Herald on a new study about Twitter psychology...

"The communication and information professors, Mor Naaman and Jeffrey Boase, found that there tend to be two types of Twitter folks. The majority, or 80 percent, were what they called 'meformers' -- Twitter users who sent out messages that revolved around themselves, updating others about their activities or sharing thoughts and feelings.

The other 20 percent are 'informers' -- people who were actually sharing information. Not surprisingly, the informers tended to have larger social networks and be more interactive."


If you're going to attract a swarm you gotta inform. Full study embedded below.

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Filed under  //   psychology   research   Twitter  

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November 23, 2009

Intermingling Personal and Professional Digital Personas

"My job is really jumping on the social-media bandwagon and strongly encourages employees to use sites like Twitter and Facebook to help broaden our company’s brand and build a presence online. I’m really uncomfortable with combining my personal online life with my professional one, but no one else seems to mind. Can I push back or should I just go with it?"
A reader question to the New York Times.

This is a common question I hear on the road a lot from clients and others - particularly those who are in PR. The Times' Jenna Wortham offers up sound advice.

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November 23, 2009

Seeing the World Through Other People's Social Eyes

To often, it seems, we forget that the people we interact with have their own lives. Their social relationships have far more impact on their behavior than anything you or I might say or do. This is one of the tenets of The Four Agreements. Nowhere is this more important than in public relations. PR is a lot more about psychology than people realize.

Regardless if you're trying to influence someone or just to break bread, it's important to see the world through their eyes, not just yours. Here are two easy ways to do that.

First, if they're on Twitter, check out cTwittLike. Using this tool you you can see what any given Twitter user might be facing (or not) in the way of noise when they log in. Here's what my friends' social timeline looks like.


You can also do something similar with Facebook by viewing how any of your friends see your profile. This is handy if you don't want someone in your circle to see a small something like "Jessica is now single." To see how others see you, visit this page and start typing in your friends' names.


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Filed under  //   Facebook   lifehacks   PR   privacy   tips   Twitter  

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November 19, 2009

The Apple "Tablet" and Chrome OS are Meaningless - the Phone is the Future of Computing

If you're paying any attention to the techosphere today there are two stories dominating the headlines. Both involve non-shipping products.

First, Google showed off the first demo of its Chrome OS. Download Squad does a nice job breaking it down....

"So what exactly is Chrome OS? It's an operating system based on a web browser called... Google Chrome. The idea is that you won't have to (or be able to) install a single application directly on your PC. Rather, all of your apps will be run from the web and all of your data will be stored in the cloud."

Second, a mythical unicorn called the Apple tablet, which I don't believe exists - at least anymore, is rumored to have slipped to late 2010. Like Google Wave the "iTablet" doesn't solve problems so I can't be bullish about it - yet. Ian Paul seems to be the lone voice of reason ...

"These rumors are getting so ridiculous that I think it's time we accepted the truth: the Apple tablet is dead; in fact it probably never existed."

So why do I think these stories are meaningless? Simple. Your phone, my phone - any smartphone - will become our primary portable computers long before these two products catch on in the mainstream. For the more adventurous among us, it's already happening. Chris Rawson writes about 33 products his iPhone made obsolete. It's not just about the iPhone either. Any smartphone - Android, Palm (a client), Blackberry, WinMo - will soon do double duty as PCs, turning all the above two products into vaporware. 

Why? Simple. Moore's Law. Already an 64gb iPod Touch has enough on-board storage to easily hold two operating systems, OS X and OS X mobile. Apple is even billing it as a pocket computer. As processor speeds increase and full graphics systems get embedded onto single chips, the phones will soon be able to embody a PC experience as soon as they get near a flat screen TV and a keyboard. Some data will be locally stored but the rest will be in clouds - either your personal cloud or your employers. Want a clamshell keyboard and screen like a laptop? No problem, soon we'll see "dumb shells" that encase phones so they can do more on the go.

So take today's news with a grain of salt. The phones are going to be where the action is for the vast majority of users. It's good enough. And the pace of change in mobile will be rapid.

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Filed under  //   essays   mobile   trends  

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November 17, 2009

Ten Common Phrases That Could Soon Be History

Earlier this week Oxford University Press declared "unfriend" its word of the year. This got me thinking... now that we are entering an era of media reforestation what common phrases could soon be history? Here's 10 that I came up with. You may disagree but I believe all of these have faded or will be gone soon. (All images are from Flickr via Creative Commons and are credited.)

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Filed under  //   culture   media   media reforestation   trends   writing  

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November 15, 2009

Google Fast Flip Nearing Launch?

Google Fast Flip appears to be nearing a full integration into Google News. I wasn't able to replicate this in other browsers so right now this appears to just be a cookie test. Stories from Google Fast Flip started appearing at the bottom of my page - even when I logged out of my account.

In addition, Google News searches now show links to Fast Flip results at the bottom of the page. This is visible to all users.

Update 11/16/2009 - Chris from Google News notes in a comment below that this is indeed a test.

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Filed under  //   Google   Google News   UI  

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November 15, 2009

Reviews Stripped from Google Search Options

I make heavy use of Google Search options in refining my queries. I was surprised this morning to see that the "reviews" option is now gone. This was one of the more handy features. Anyone have any insight here?

Search Options before (image via Search Engine Land). Note under that "Reviews" is the last link under "All Results."


And now today...


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Filed under  //   Google   personalization   SEO  

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November 13, 2009

The Next Big Trend? It's All About Curation

Fact: Information sources are exploding. More information will be created in 2009 than all prior years.

Fact: Attention is finite. We're becoming media agnostic, but when we're interested in something we dig down into our interests.

This is why I and others like Robert Scoble are really excited about digital curation. Facebook and Twitter lists are one level of curation. However, there are others. Posterous and Tumblr are fantastic platforms for soliciting contributions from groups of people around a shared interest. And they're platforms that will enable all of us to curate together.

Here are a handful of places where you can see curation at work (more in the gallery below as well) ...
  • My Parents Were Awesome is a group-contributed tumbelog that honors our elders. It has received national recognition.
  • PopURLs Brown by UPS curates information all around business news (UPS is an Edelman client but we didn't build this site)
  • Microsoft and Nissan have built entire brandstreaming sites that showcase conversations around their brand (Edelman built the Nissan site)
  • Sawhorse Media is creating a next generation media company by curating tweets in different topics like pets and now lists too
  • IBM is using Tumblr to curate ideas for a smarter planet
Do you agree that curation - both automated and human-powered - is the next big thing? This isn't just aggregation. As I wrote in my initial post on the subject it's about separating art from junk online.

           
Click here to download:
The_Next_BIg_Trend_Its_All_Abo.zip (1779 KB)

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Filed under  //   brandstreaming   curation   lifestreaming   Posterous   trends   Tumblr  

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