Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category
November 9, 2009
There is something elegant about the theory that a digital entity, especially one based on networks and their associated dynamics, will obey, or at the very least, be susceptible to, the natural laws of science. Ergo, collapse under a dead weight, with nothing pressurising against external forces like costs, development and competition. In the case of Myspace, that “nothing” isn’t exactly true. There are still millions of accounts, the issue however is a growing percentage of dead profiles, not to mention the ever present issue of inaccurate account profile data that has made targeted advertising next to useless. As the ‘bounce rate’ indicates a site’s usefulness under certain search conditions, so the ‘echo rate’ predicates the social network’s usefulness and demise; a vast repository of accounts with no one home. A little preemptive? Well, that’s the point of social networks. They rise quickly, and collapse just as fast. This momentum affect of networks works to both its advantage and disadvantage. At the moment, the Myspace phenomenon is only sustained by lazy and unimaginative media buying groups. Once buyers run out of excuses in trying to explain the poor results of their $1m Myspace buy, the thing will commercially implode.
Curiously, the above estimates (source: Quantcast) of site traffic for Facebook (blue) and Myspace (green) suggest a type of zero-sum game, so that by April 2009 when the two networks crossed paths, they were set on on two divergent trajectories. The collapse of Myspace audience traffic (relatively speaking) is well documented, but what’s more interesting is the impending convergence of Facebook traffic growth with the steady decline in Yahoo.com site traffic (red). Based on this trend, the two sites are likely to converge around February 2010. Once ‘hit’ by the Facebook missile, is Yahoo.com likely follow the same downward spiral experienced by Myspace? There are clear differences in between two properties, but the one difference which clearly gave Yahoo its edge (i.e. 3x the site traffic of Facebook) is no longer sustainable. But we digress. Right now, brands need to clear the planet because Myspace is about to go Supernova.
September 27, 2009
The hacker culture is much maligned, often singled out as harbouring perpetrators of IT system break-ins. But a more accurate portrayal is a culture of learning, discovery and invention. Australian academic and author, McKenzie Wark, defined the ‘hack’ as “new information produced out of existing information.” In other words, taking a new perspective on current thinking.
Thus was born Music Hack Day in July this year, at the Guardian’s London offices. Hundreds of programmers, designers, artists and journalists were hot housed for a weekend, with the intention to create new tools and applications for accessing and manipulating music content.
Some of the stunning outputs created APIs to hack data hosted by Last.fm, SoundCloud, Google Maps, Song Kick and even the BBC itself (all with their blessing). The accessibility and transparency of the data enabled attendees to create music dating games, an iPhone app that visualises music and a music mapping system for global cities, including Sydney and Melbourne. In turn, the growth in applications further bolsters the publisher’s relevancy.
Other, more popular apps included software that automatically combines three tracks or more into a single remix, and the mobile phone app (developed via Google’s Android platform) which re-engineers the mobile phone into a musical instrument.
More recently, the Berlin Music Hack Day created music plug-ins for Wordpress, music-based viral games and mash-ups across numerous music sites. Again, the intention was to innovate and improve on existing data sets and music services, not to abuse the copyright of the content itself.
With more than 250 known music-related applications developed over 2008, Music Hack Day and the near-commercialisation of the hacking fraternity to encourage innovation across music consumption, will inevitably lead to the number of applications in 2009 dwarfing the previous year.
This innovation needs to be embraced by rights holders. New technologies, mash-ups and applications which tap into music services such as Last.fm, SoundCloud, and eventually, rights-friendly services such as Spotify, dramatically differentiate the legitimate channels from the pirates.
Access to data detailing demographics, geographies, music preferences, music history and even music purchases (the user’s meta-data) allows the hackers to mash these details with the music itself, creating a visual, more dynamic representation of an individual’s or community’s music profile.
Providing hackers with stem files, open platforms or unreleased material to remix and upload into systems not only encourages further remixing (2nd, 3rd generation music), but more importantly, exposes many more listeners to the original music (1st generation). This is the essence and value of an engaged hacking community - smart people developing new music distribution channels for new music audiences.
August 1, 2009
With news of Kazaa ‘back from the dead’ and the Pirate Bay now a little more mercenary (how long before the name changes to Tariff Bay?), the world of music downloads has lost a few of its high profile superstars to perhaps a misguided strategy that file-sharers will change their spots when cash-for-content becomes the mantra.
Yet despite the best intentions to swing heavy music consumers towards a ‘all-you-can-eat’ subscription model, the world of P2P goes on, swallowing terabytes of data every hour like a deep space vortex, distributing ‘leaks’ at near light speed. Faced with such gravitational pull (and distribution efficiencies), an uneasy truce seems to have descended between parties in these so-called copyright wars.
While legal machinations seem to be giving way to technical monitoring options, there is a measurable rise in deliberate marketing tactics designed to take the sting out of ‘leaks’ through the seeding of free sample tracks, either directly into social media communities or via an established media partner.
Whether you conform to the ‘music is water’ theory, or uphold a solid, unerring position on copyright, the reality of local P2P music download activity holds a simple objective truth: it is pervasive, and involves the vast majority of consumers who regularly attend live music performances, or take an active interest in maintaining a music library of sorts. New, or rehashed payment models bolted onto P2P ‘brands’ will not alter this behaviour in any material way.
Right now almost 78m music tracks are downloaded across Australia each week, with the top track alone, usually a mainstream, high-rotation artist (Black Eyed Peas, for example), recording more than 500,000 downloads on a consistent basis, while a local hip hop group, like Hilltop Hoods (Chase That Feeling), which again has the backing of local radio, might record up to 188,000 downloads. By comparison, an indie group like British India (God is Dead, Meet the Kids), with a much lower rotation, records just over 9,000 downloads.
Of course, the correlation between airplay and downloads is not that clear cut., or even that strong.
Black Eyed Peas (Boom Boom Pow), for example, records 571,687 downloads concurrently with 271 spins for the week, which equates to 2,109 downloads per spin. By comparison, Taylor Swift (Love Story) reports 422,780 downloads concurrent with just 18 spins, or 23,487 downloads per spin.
Other artists with high download rates but low spins include: Chris Brown (Forever), 267,982 downloads with five spins; Rihana (Disturbia), 283,557 downloads with seven spins and Dizee Rascal (Dance With Me), 137,585 downloads with just five spins.
Clearly, with so much data on local P2P activity now coming to light, there is still much more to understand about what the download market can define in terms of niche music tastes and what insights they provide to justify this type of analysis becoming an accurate barometer to music trends and, more importantly, emerging stars.
August 1, 2009
Recently, a rather old-fashioned word crept into our popular vocabulary - “narrative”. The thematic qualities of this term resemble a story’s ‘arc’ or the more sinister ‘sub-text’.
Whatever the moniker, this broader, almost minimalist approach to identifying what actuality matters in the ‘scheme of things’ is both a waste saver and a potential red light to crowds powered by the sheep mentality.
In the language of the dismal science, a macro-trend is just such an arc. Standing back, absorbing this vista means taking in a new perspective, and perhaps a new conclusion.
Such an approach has a habit of making the otherwise absurd, obtuse and the downright ambiguous as clear as crystal.
Take for example the synopsis that, for at the least next 50 years, Australia will never suffer a recession, a slow-down perhaps, but never two quarters of negative growth.
This brash, binary call isn’t presumptive at all. Taking your eyes off the next pothole, and back onto the horizon, you realise Asia’s middle class isn’t yet, relatively speaking, a mass market; that’s still a century into the future.
In the meantime, Australia’s minerals, agricultural produce and intellectual property will be sucked northwards like a twister in the sky, fuelling smelters, stomachs and minds.
A macro-trend of that magnitude won’t be diverted, or distracted, by a case of broker embezzlement, Chicken flu or even the next Al Qaeda suitcase bomb.
Ergo, Australia is recession-proof for the next half century.
Another macro trend relates to the long-term consequences of a networked world and the digitisation of assets, particularly intellectual property.
Social media in all its clever and hard-to-monetise guises, is its own type of macro trend. Like the ‘golden rule’ that economic growth requires the consumption of commodities, the ‘rule’ of social media is that the more people broadcast their lives, the more self-aware they become of the ‘content’ of their routines, including the experiences and memories that punctuate their days.
Put plainly, the larger and more active our digital networks become, the more we need to entertain these ‘audiences’ with worthy anecdotes and clever impressions.
Social networks are not sustained by the mundane, the average or ‘middle of the road’, they glow white hot with what we can muster that is ‘jagged and shiny’.
From this point onwards, the macro trend we call social media takes on a new persona – a mass audience and mass market for the unique, the tangible, and the experiential that cannot be replicated by processing lines of code.
Importantly, this shift is not based on the division of wealth, where the less well off are subjected to a commoditised, homogenised existence. On the contrary, the attribute of wealth is in fact neutered by the intellectual and creative elements that increasingly dictate terms. The artisan, the scientist, the explorer – these are the new rule makers. They personify a new aesthetic, largely detached from the materialism that has characterised the ‘acquisitor age’ (Ravi Batra).
It is this aesthetic that now ignites a more authentic introspection on the part of so many more individuals; indeed, a more widespread perspective on what contributes to happiness and wellbeing.
This search for quality, uniqueness and beauty is nothing new, only the scale of the phenomenon has altered; a scale made possible by the diffusion of network technology and our desire to broadcast ourselves committing to new experiences and a re-weighting of particular values.
The trajectory of this macro trend, or social arc, is unstoppable. Being on the cusp of this mass movement, where an increasing number of individuals now put their lives, their decisions and their associations into perspective, means institutions likewise must now recast their own assumptions about consumer motivations and political relations.
May 13, 2009
Sulphur gas lays ankle deep, dressing the town square like a morbid magic show. The once distant echoes of cannon fire are now a persistent percussion movement, with undertones of service boots scrambling across broken glass and through shallow puddles. All the while, townsfolk play their games and make light of an abominable situation.
MySpace 2010 and the fight for survival.
The final Google ‘mortgage’ payment to MySpace is scheduled for June 2010; US$75m out of a US$900m deal, and the last serious money left in the forecast.
Arguably, this advertising agreement has been the only reason News Corp has persisted with propping up MySpace for so long, leaving the future of the social media behemoth in serious question post-contract. How did we get to this point? 70 million world citizens zipping to and from the mothership, yet no value creation? Actually, there’s plenty of value, its just all subjective and personal, not objective and commercial.
For all its sordid, trivial and intensely personal streams of consciousness, social media (collectively) is a much loved shanty town. Yet, it groans under the weight of rubbish, clutter and poor (and poorly designed) infrastructure. The land lords are going broke anyway, but the cash drain is accentuated by the increasing disengagement of residents.
In April 2008, for example, almost 42% of Facebook visitors also associated themselves with MySpace. In November that same year, that figure slipped to 35%. As of April 2009, just 28% of Facebook users had any association with MySpace (Source: Nielsen Online). This rapid decline in shared audiences between the two has resulted from a massive drop in the monthly MySpace audience and the rapid growth in FaceBook numbers.
In fact since April 2008, Facebook’s monthly AU audience has grown 80%, to more than 4.7m UAs, compared with a 26% decline in monthly UAs for MySpace over the same period to 1.9m. There is an indisputable trend downwards for the once Golden Child of the News Corp empire; a hard lesson which will be taught to every social media poster child - without an objective value, implicitly agreed to by end-users, social media business models have no longevity (or saviour), save for a quick buy-out devoid of due diligence.
Given the diabolical commercial nature of social media, a more interesting philosophical question in this period of bank and automotive nationalisation, would be to ask: should governments (and which governments?) step in and financially support a social media entity - arguably providing an important personal service to hundreds of millions of citizens - if it threatens to file for Chapter 11? And if bankruptcy is the result, what’s the fate of the Terrabytes of data sitting on servers in the rusting warehouses of Cleveland, Oxford and New York?
May 4, 2009
An interesting article published in the UK last week asked the provocative question: are we drowning in music? In other words, has the currency of music been irretrievably de-valued by the rising tied of mediocrity? (And no, that wasn’t a mixed metaphor).
This post isn’t about to answer that question, but the insight does provides a nice introduction into the world of music entertainment and the growing plethora of online, music-related sites. In Australia, the ranks of music streaming and retail services will shortly be joined by the likes of Guvera, MyDJ and the gorilla of them all, MySpace Music - the latter scheduled for release before Christmas.
We’re not short on services, but what about demand? At what point do we reach saturation where the audience hygiene audience factors start to drop, and in turn, the CPM rates for ad-based music services also start to weaken? But that’s a whole other can of worms.
There are two market metrics Victrix uses here: Nielsen and Comscore. The former suggests online music entertainment has in fact peaked, and now skims along at about 3m uniques a month (March 09) - down from 3.4m in March 08.
In comparison, Comscore considers the glass half-full, and reckons the audience for online music entertainment has grown 21% in the last 12 months, to 4.3m uniques a month (March 09). Again, this isn’t about picking a fight with one or both of the world’s largest panel methodologies; I’ll leave you to ponder the reasons for the discrepancies in audience figures before a more informed opinion is expressed. Both figures exclude online music retailers (and associated applications).
However, where one platform seems to reflect a depleted, almost exhausted market for music entertainment, the other is reporting double-digit growth; not just in terms of the overall sector, but for individual players, including Last.FM - up 115% to 342,000 uniques a month - and even locals visiting MySpace Music (US) - up 72% to 935,000 uniques a month.
Other strong players include MTV Networks (again AUS visitors to US sites) up 60% year-on-year, Universal Music Group up 52%, and the ABC’s Triple J, up 25%.
These audience stats aren’t the makings of an exhausted or confused listening audience. Far from it. In fact, with improved AI and smarter curatorial processes (behavioural targeting), online music entertainment will only evolve into a more relevant service offering.
September 4, 2008
Events at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in the US have seriously electrified the blogosphere and comments pages across the Internet. More accurately, it has been Sarah Palin’s introduction to the Republican ticket and her acceptance speech which has created some very serious seismic activity, outdoing even Steve Jobs and his iPhone hyperbole.
From Yahoo!’s poll of polls and TechPresident through to Politicaltrends and Wonkosphere, the measurement of online commentary and sentiment has never been so prolific or detailed. In short, the sudden reframing of this campaign has crystalised some very stark differences between all four candidates across the two tickets, effectively polarising general opinion, and more importantly, reducing the independent vote to a negliable number.
The result? A massive influx of individuals prepared to step forward and be counted by their words, many of whom, it might be assumed, have previously been observers (readers) rather than contributors.
This is a digital scream-fest, consuming the worlds of both UGC and professional media. Every story, video, sound-byte attached to the RNC, and Palin’s speech in particular, is being hammered by both liberals and conservatives with a blend reasoned opinion and out-right vitriol.
And the result? An immediate change in online sentiment, with McCain racing to intersect Obama’s lead. Palin’s introduction has been a game-changing event, for better or worst, and online momentum has resoundingly swung in the Republican’s favour. It is this real-time measurement of opinion (though skewed in so may ways) which acts as a very powerful barameter on issues, personalities and tone.
It also puts into perspective the relatively static social media space, in particular Facebook and MySpace and the weight previously given to such stats as Obama’s and McCain supporters (Obama outnumbering McCain more than 5 to 1 on Facebook and more than 6 to 1 on MySpace).
No doubt there is some correlation between funds raised and friends enlisted, but the true test seems to be whether these ’supporters’ are resolute enough to go in and fight for their candidate as the two party machines open up all guns in a broadside battle? The Palin factor was the opening salvo.
August 31, 2008
Curiously, the innovation investments made in the spaces of search and social media seem to be paralleling one another. Both areas are increasingly recognising need to emphasis quality over scale.
In other words, both platforms have matured in recent years to a point where their diffusion and ubiquity has reached a scale where their value, in terms of search results and the quality of personal networks, is arguably diminishing.
In other words, a tipping point has been reached where diminshing returns are setting in. A response to this system failure (in relative terms), is an increasing range of innovations to do with vertical search systems (or databases) and subject or audience-specific social networks have emerged. Interestingly, the one subject area which is straddling both is health - witness the beta of Google Health and Health 2.0 social networks like Patients Like Me and Organised Wisdom.
In the case of social networks, current set-ups simply do not offer the prerequisite integrity to give members confidence in crowd ‘wisdom’. Every network has ‘influencers’, but in a large scale operation like Facebook or MySpace, their influence diminishes over time for two key reasons: fewer people have confidence in their opinion (diminshing credibility), and they are seen to be less likely to resemble the average member as the network grows.
Further, as the number of nodes in the network increases, the search to confirm an individual’s expertise in a particular subject area becomes more laborious, presenting a real barrier to the ongoing efficiency of the network as a conduit for reliable information. Enter the emergence of specialist social networks.
In the case of health, the trend is being spearheaded by primarily by patients, or at the very least, individuals affected by a particular illness, either directly or via friends and family. This commonality of experience, told through stories, opinion and advice, represents a powerful influence on individuals who feel isolated through a lack of support, or overwhelmed by a plethora of professional advice.
To breach the gap comes social media technologies and platforms operating within a far more specialist environment. As the following graph illustrates, the sources most preferred by people seeking answers on matters of health include the Internet and doctors, followed at a distance by relatives/friends/co-workers.
In this research (iCrossing, January 2008), the Internet was most nominated because it had the ability to put people in contact with individuals and/or their personal stories telling of their own experiences. It is this desire for first-hand knowledge which so completely overwhelms every other potential source of news, and for that matter, comfort.
The Health 2.0 phenomenon represents social media’s ‘higher calling’, far removed from the banalities of current systems.
August 18, 2008
Universal Music’s recent product launch of a CD compilation containing user options such as additonal tracks, interviews and band profiles really crystalised the emotion felt by some consumers vehemently opposed to record labels because of their perceived recalcitrance in dealing with the commercial realities of a digital paradigm, and those who are increasingly challenging the ‘free’ mantra as a viable business model.
Universal has been stung with criticism that the label still persists with this walled garden approach to music marketing, effectively forcing consumers to pay for a cluster of tracks, with a supposed hook of user options. Others defend the label, insisting the ‘industry’ is getting it, allbeit by small increments.
MTV adds its two cents worth to the discussion with the release of its Music Matters annual research pack, profiling music usage in several Asian markets, including Australia.
The 2008 survey (5,700 15-34 year olds in the “urban middle class”) taps into markets as diverse as Vietnam, India, China, Indonesia, Singapore and Australia.
Not surprisingly, “whats hot” includes listening to music (53%) and social networks (37%); “whats not” includes spending $ on music and watching TV (46%). For an MTV-sponsored survey, that last one has got to hurt.
Despite the overwhelming enthusiasm for music (THE killer application), MTV sees the glass being half-empty. Illegal or ripped forms of music downloads now account for more than two-thirds of activity amongst the 15 to 34 age group (aggregated across the different markets), while in the specific case of Australia (”Oz”), 45% of survey respondents didn’t pay to download music in the previous month.
One of the more unpredictable stats in the research related to mobile activity, primarily music videos via the handset. In 2007, 13% of respondents used their mobile phone to access a music video (versus 27% via the computer and 78% for TV), 12 months later, mobile access reached 38%.
In terms of online reach for music videos, 32% chose YouTube, versus 16% for MTV, 10% for MySpace, 10% for [V] and 10% for iTunes.
The bottom line: consumers cannot get enough music content. Further, this rate of consumption is only set to accelerate as mobile and the building of personal libraries encourages even higher rates of music consumption, forcing the product’s life-cycle (i.e. utility of the music track itself) to become shorter and shorter.
Despite all the looney tunes and fruit loops which dominate the music industry’s personality scene, it would be a mistake to assume the industry is too stupid or too ignorant to learn and adapt to future market conditions - even if that involves adopting a free price point for some projects. The irony is the music industry, of all industry types, could be the first to develop a sustainable commercial model that works in a paradigm where scarcity does not play the ‘invisible hand’.
August 10, 2008
Those of you who are more perceptive of systems change (others will refer to it as the Zeitgeist) will recognise the Internet’s morphing from a web of documents to a web of people, sweeping aside the traditional, but authoritative role of documentation for the emotive and subjective language of opinion and assumption. Remember, we’re all experts now!
In essence, this change is about electronic word-of-mouth (WOM) or consumer generated media (CGM) ripping holes in the delicate fabric of corporate positioning strategies. Reputations built more on spin and less on actual service and product quality are first in the firing line.
Given then how this ‘ripple effect’ is an obvious business risk, where’s the commercial will to employ analytics to quantify both the speed and direction of this consumer shock waves? Where’s the emphasis on sentiment as a precursor to consumer behaviour?
And that’s the key.
Sentiment analysis (and its poorer cousin, sentiment mining, which is done by the likes of BuzzMetrics, BlogPulse etc.) is the canary in the mine. If done well ( meaning comprehensive, robust samples, with more human interevention than software application), sentiment analysis identifies more than just frequency of expression; it determines market drivers and inhibitors to commercial and organisation growth. It’s as simple as that.
The Twitter example above, highlights a rudimentary form of sentiment analysis, this time focused on the commentary swirling around recent movie releases. A more ambitious analysis would seek to develop correlations or relationships between sales performance or brand equity and the quantums associated with positive/negative sentiment.
The difficulties of using automation to conduct this type of analysis are obvious. Much of the current debate dealing with sentiment analysis is focused on how software can reduce the number of false positives without compromising on the efficiencies of scanning/spidering billions of characters in a cost-effective manner.
The alternative is a hybrid solution involving people (i.e. analysts), with the obvious drawback on volumes and expense. Nevertheless, the rules of sample methodology are equally applicable here as they are elsewhere, suggesting conclusions with high confidence levels can be reached without necessary trawling every online comment or opinion piece.
The bottom line: which is more effective when it comes to semantic orientation classification - man or machine?
Fortunately, this isn’t a battle the machines are likely to win. Quiet simply, the value of sentiment analysis is only fully optimised when context is taken into account, alongside the sentiment of opinion/comments being scrapped. In other words, the value in determining an overwhelming negative or positive sentiment is only realised when we also have insights into the beliefs, personalities, community, influence and authority of the individuals making the actual comments.
And this can’t be condensed or modelled into an algorithm - no matter how hard Google tries.
