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GeoSocial Universe

The Socio-Cyber Universe

May 22, 2011 / Comments Off on The Socio-Cyber Universe / Posted in: Blog

Since the Big-Bang of the cyber world, internet becoming public during 90’s, the cyber universe expanding with increasing growth rate. The infographic by JESS3 agency visualizes the status of the current social networks and points to the emergence of new social platforms such as friendster, badoo, besides the well known titans such as Facebook, Skype, Twitter.

GeoSocial Universe

Especially, if we compare the data to the 2010 version of the info-graphic, very interesting points show up:

  • We see that Skype with 663 million users, is ahead of Facebook in the registered user count. That is an important rationale behind Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype. However, we have to note that Facebook with more than 500 million active users, is still ahead vs Skype with about 180 million active users in terms of active usage. In this regards, we can still clearly say, that Facebook is the biggest active social network.
  • In webmail networks, we see Hotmail leading followed by Yahoo and Gmail.
  • Myspace appears to have passed the point of no return. With a steady decline, it’s gonna be hard for the company for sale to find a new buyer.
  • Twitter is growing rapidly.
  • The “made in china” version of Facebook, Qzone, is soon to reach its original.
  • Some mobile device oriented location based services networks are still the smaller links of the socio-cyber universe, but Google Latitude and Foursquare show some remarkable growth.
  • The mobile device market is continuing the exponential growth, the increase is in billion levels

 

GeoSocial Universe 2010

Twitter and Journalism on the Grapevine

May 3, 2011 / Comments Off on Twitter and Journalism on the Grapevine / Posted in: Blog

Just like many of you, I didn’t hear the news that Osama Bin Laden was killed from a TV channel, nor a news agency, nor an official institution, but Tweets bursting out from Twitter, Facebook/MSN IM networks, simply put from friends in a  “on the grapevine” fashion and within a time frame of about 3 hours after the first public source.

We are observing the evolution of journalism. Actually, I realize that I haven’t read a paper published newspaper for so long that I’m missing the joy of a journey between the pages of a newspaper on a sunday morning.

Lets check the numbers first… According to Twitter’s official announcement, tweets about Laden’s death broke the Sustained Tweet Rate record and reached 3000 tweets per second over 10:45pm – 2:20am period. After USA president Obama’s speech it tweet rates reached 5008 tweets per second. This rate can reach the average daily visits of New York Times online (~30million) in about 3 hours. The exponential spread and later the damping of the tweet rate can be noticed by the tsunami like shape in the figure. This quantitative growth raises qualitative concerns, as it is commonly seen that false news go viral on twitter, but 3000 tweets per second is a significant rate.

 

If we approach this emerging trend from the consumer behavior perspective, we consume “news” much like other goods, there are many analogies. After the industrial revolution, the era of mass production emerged, profit by mass production & sales of a single product. When Ford manufactured his first cars, the consumers didn’t used to have too many options, just like everybody used to read the same newspapers and watch the same tv channels in the early years of the media.

As the technical improvements evolved, and new production methods emerged, there was a paradigm shift in late 90’s to mass customization. To be honest, we are extremely spoiled. If we think of today’s extreme, you can buy your iPhone/iPad with the configuration you want and with your name laser-written on the back (Henry Ford would probably drown in tears, if he would experience this).

This nature of ours is apparent in all types of consumption. We want to have our own choices. When we read news, we want to compile our own configuration with the authors we prefer, fuse the knowledge we want to synthesize through RSS channels, and consume it through the interface we prefer.  Products for mass audiences simply don’t make the cut. Especially if news is considered, the time lag of conventional methods results in old news once it reaches to the customers. When establishing our corporate and personal identities, we cannot neglect these changes.

The digital world is by-passing the intermediaries and makes us come one more step closer to the source of everything, while a new era is shaping in front of our eyes.

– this post has been published in dijitolog