Nice tool…
Great time tracking tool over at Tickspot. A big deal for those of us who need to keep track of time. Even if you don’t have a commercial need, keeping track of your hours worked on community and charitable projects can be of real use when assessing if it was time well spent.
Got this via the new and improved Styleboost…
Peerage Production
There has been plenty of talk in the blogosphere about the power of peer (or, community) production. The notion being that by virtue of us all coming together and creating/contributing the product is defined and created.
I’ve often wondered the extent to which this is actually happening. There might be plenty of participants but few contributors. Richard has some sats on Digg that seem to reinforce this notion:
- Of Digg’s 445,000 registered users, only 2,287 contributed any stories to the site during the last six weeks.
- The top 100 users contributed fully 55% of the stories that appeared on the site’s front page, and the top 10 users contributed a whopping 30% of the front page stories.
Nick chimes in with a great descriptor: “Peer production? I think a better term for it would be peerage production.” Digg’s stats are here.
All of this points to one of the core questions we ask in building any community – “to pay or not to pay for participation – that is the question”.
Answer – it all depends on the nature of participation. In the realm of those participatory ‘platforms’ that depend on light contribution and content aggregation (ranking things for instance), incentivized networks will ultimately win over those that depend on the enthusiasm of the community to contribute – a group which while sparking the initial flame of enthusiasm often shrinks back to the core over time. Compare that to communities and networks that depend on hardcore participation and engagement – think Java or Wikipedia. Much more stickiness, less incentive required.
Anyway, that’s a theory I’m developing and testing and this set of data seems to point to it. If you want to build a community and keep them engaged, make it sticky and get them engaged.
The Long Debate…
The Long Tail is finally spurring debate. It is refreshing to see some pretty big brains going at the notion and debating it. Lee Gomes took a swing at the notion in the WSJ to which Chris has responded. Nick weighs in, publishing a more detailed email from Lee.
Where do I sit? The Internet is changing everything (still). I’m not totally getting the math that the majority of sales come from the long tail though.
The Trend Thing | Podcasts
A new report from Nielsen/NetRatings gives some interesting demographics of podcast listeners. Generalizations aside, the report has some interesting results:
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51.6% of people who listen to podcasts pay their bills online. But, podcasting is not yet nearly as popular as viewing and paying bills online, 51.6 percent, or online job hunting, 24.6 percent. 24.6% have participated in online job searches.
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6.6% of adults have downloaded a podcast and the the 18-24 age range is twice as likely as the average adult to download podcasts.
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Apple users are more likely to download podcasts as Windows users. Audio and video podcasters are over three times as likely as the average Web user to use Apple’s Safari as their primary Internet browser.
Is Apple the platform of choice for the Web 2.0 generation?
Big Trends Done Quickly
Keith over at PRWeek asked for some thoughts on the most important trend, tool, service, company, or whatever will be in the second half of 2006. Here are my quick thoughts done late at night and on the fly. Caveat – when it comes to predictions I am normally wrong… Let me know your thoughts…
- Trend: Communities and their citizen editors reassembling the fragmented media and conversation space creating powerful micro channels to which millions flock.
- Company : The one with the biggest community. Think Nike, Apple, VW, Lego. …ok, so I wimped out… Apple if they can integrate the iPod, video and phone fully. And Microsoft – the degree to which key technologies such as RSS is implemented in IE7, Vista and Office 2007 is fantastic.
- Technology : The Wiki & Community creation platform (think FiveAcross).
- Service: SixApart, (TypePad, Vox). And, Dabble db – finally we can build our own applications in real-time! And iTunes – what AP/PR Newswire was to the press release, iTunes is to the Podcast.
- Person: . The blogger, podcaster, vcaster and participatory communicator.
Saying all that… some expanded thoughts… No company matters as much as the community. Communities are ascending as defining force. Nike matters less to me as a soccer fan than the Nike community Joga.com. The companies that matter to consumers will be those with rich communities. Other thoughts on what might happen:
- Fortune 500 corporations hire their first “conversationalists” – staffers dedicated not to transmitting information (PR) but rather, igniting conversations.
- Media continues to fragment and reassemble around citizen editors.
- PR continues its rapid evolution from transmission of content to igniting conversations.
- Measurement takes a backseat to monitoring as communicators efforts to keep track of the blogosphere and citizen media kick into overdrive. In background mode, measurement practioners start working on new metrics that track participation. (There is an absolute difference between monitoring and measurement).
- Major agencies launch new press release formats, following hot on the heels of tech boutique Shift. BusinessWire and PRNewswire wake from their slumber and assemble these fragmented efforts into a compelling Web 2.0 offerings.
- Having discovered the power of technology to add value to their clients, major agencies step-up their efforts with branded RSS readers carrying highly customized content to audiences and customers.
- As media fragmentation accelerates, media planning starts to raise its head as a critical communications function. Once the purview of advertising departments, communications practioners deliver media planning as a means of hunting and communicating with elusive audiences.
- More than half the PR profession is still in catch-up mode. They don’t listen to podcasts, use RSS readers or blog. Therefore, the most important technology isn’t the technology, it’s the adoption of it which will continue to accelerate.
- The Wiki & Web 2.0 technologies such as Writely and Dabble db. They will change the way PR practitioners work internally and share with clients. I’m using Quickbase today – which is pretty expensive but very good.
- OMPL files finally start getting integrated into marketing offerings.
