Want to start up in social media? A primer –

Here is an excellent primer of the ten most common stages that businesses experience as they travel the road to full social media integration (list and link below)

Stage 1: Observe and Report

Image via Wikipedia

Stage 2: Setting the Stage + Dress Rehearsal
Stage 3: Socializing Media
Stage 4: Finding a Voice and a Sense of Purpose
Stage 5: Turning Words Into Actions
Stage 6: Humanizing the Brand and Defining the Experience
Stage 7: Community
Stage 8: Social Darwinism
Stage 9: The Socialization of Business Processes
Stage 10: Business Performance Metric

Full article available at http://mashable.com/2010/01/11/social-media-integration/

Facebook developments 2010

Heres an excerpt/oasis of information taken directly from a ITV Consumer Media newsletter that talks of social TV and the news that Facebook is making some nicely timed, significant changes… thanks to my good friend for passing this info on;

“…Open Graph, a developer focused follow-up to Facebook Connect, will let users log onto third-party sites using their Facebook account information.

Image via CrunchBase

The Open Graph API will allow any page on the web to have all the features of a Facebook Page (a fan pages) – users will be able to become a Fan of the page, it will show up on that user’s profile and in search results, and that page will be able to publish stories to the stream of its fans.

More here on the changes:

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/10/29/mark-your-calendars-planning-for-facebooks-platform-changes-over-the-next-3-6-months/

Also, new rules will allow marketers to collect email addresses, bridging the gap between social media and email marketing.

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=180558067130

Here’s a post about TV on Facebook

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=173065077130

Here’s Randy Zuckerberg talking about Facebook and TV

Facebook developer roadmap – a detailed ouline of what Facebook have planned

http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Developer_Roadmap

Social TV measurement – a blog post on this new phenomenon and how to measure it

http://www.mediazbiz.com

Interesting article on social TV

http://www.personalizemedia.com/social-tv-reloaded…”

Social Media Changing Lives

Image via CrunchBase

I found a good article on how social media is here to stay at mashable.com, a website dedicated to the latest trends in social media.

For those of you with less time on your hands, due to making alot of toast for guests, a very quick precis:

1) Social media such as Twitter et al  is becoming an increasing source of trusted information.

Image via CrunchBase

2) Is a new avenue to market for business and start ups with little budget – eg Facebook groups

3) Social media has created a new platform for creating and refining new and old friendships.

4) Tweets and status posts create greater opportunity to view personal feeling and “greater transparency to human nature”

5) The ability of the individual to influence the public has increased.

Image by NASchmidt via Flickr

Check out the article, indepth, below:

http://mashable.com/2009/10/16/social-media-changing-lives/

The Internet v Old Business Models

With the advent of the internet and the ability for anyone to reach a consumer market directly, (especially so for

Image via Wikipedia

musicians and writers), the corporations of this world seem to be finding it hard to let go of the business models and operational policy from last century. The middle man has been removed, but hes not going silently into the night…

Though many people (including myself) are still coming to grips newer business models and the long tail effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail), the way is still foggy, but with innovators like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails selling their music directly to users for … a song, I have a hope that information continues to be democratised.

Just to reiterate my thoughts, I’m hoping that all IP is freely accessible and distributable – within reason. How this happens, needs to be ironed out, but the overall effect will be an immeasurable benefit to society. I draw from my own experience of using libraries during my substantive years to learn and access knowledge. If those books weren’t free, I don’t know what state I’d be in now. So, free access to all knowledge would be the closest thing to utopia, for me.

So heres to the next user-led innovation that will break ground and lead us to the information promised land!

On a related note, heres an interesting article on how social media can benefit journalism; -http://www.socialmedia.biz/2009/10/02/newpaper-social-media-policies-all-miss-mark/#more-14414

Today’s Buzzword: SocialMedia

I found this neat video on YouTube explaining the practical application of Social Media. Fantastic. I then performed what is now second nature to many netizens – and entered “Social Media” into Google and Wikipedia.

So what does Social Media really mean?

Here is a definition from Brian Solis posted on webpronews.com:

“Social media describes the online tools that people use to share content, profiles, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives and media itself, thus facilitating conversations and interaction online between groups of people. These tools include blogs, message boards, podcasts, micro blogs, lifestreams, bookmarks, networks, communities, wikis, and vlogs.

A few prominent examples of social media applications are Wikipedia (reference), MySpace and Facebook (social networking), Twitter and Jaikue (presence apps), YouTube (video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), Upcoming (Events), Digg and Reddit (news aggregation), Flickr and Zooomr (photo sharing), Blogtv, Justin.tv, and Ustream (livecasting), Stickham, YourTrumanShow (episodic online video), Izimi and Pownce (media sharing), del.icio.us (bookmarking) and World of Warcraft (online gaming).”

http://www.webpronews.com/blogtalk/2007/06/29/the-definition-of-social-media

What does Social Media REALLY mean?

It means I need to log on to multiple websites to access the thoughts of friends and people I follow – Do i log on to Friendster, or create a Myspace account, are all my friends on FaceBook? Do I need to set up an event and invite participants or do i create a tweet, maybe an email or a doodle mail. Social Media means I need to block and ignore mindless applications. I need to turn on privacy settings and stop FaceBook from giving away my personal details to third parties. I’m bombarded every second by inane photos of attention seeking females and their self portraits. Pokes, Zombies, Mafia Wars, Surveys, Quizzes, Applications, the list goes on. Links, Status updates, Polls, Email, Messenger conversations – my eyes are all abuzz!

We are spending more time online than ever before, we are connected all the time. Wired. In the Matrix. When will we wake up? And is this the destiny of the human race?

I believe its time to take my head out of the proverbial “cloud”.

Time to go for a walk and enjoy the fresh air and the nature that surrounds us.