Social Media Gnomes!

By Erik Hekman on 19 October 2009

One reason for the interest in social media is that people expect to make money on it. Some investors paid serious money for popular social media sites. However sites like Twitter or MySpace are now having difficulty finding funding respectively have been down valued from their original buying prices. After watching a rerun episode of South Park, I concluded that most social media business strategies could be compared to the Underpants Gnomes business strategies.

tagged with: south park, business models, user-generated content, social media

The Fat Guy

By Harry van Vliet on 7 October 2009

No I am not talking about a new cartoon series or a new Flickr community but about something I picked up today at the conference ‘Business Model Innovation Cultural Heritage’ at the Hermitage in Amsterdam (not a terrible bad place to spend a afternoon by the way). The term ‘de dikke man’ refers to the added value one must seek in developing new innovative services. Eppo van Nispen of DOK, keynote speaker at the conference, used it. He demonstrated what he meant by this by showing a video clip of an audition of a Michael Jackson imitator on one of the many ‘nobody’s got talent’ shows aired nowadays. Nothing special so far, but halfway through the act a ‘fat guy’ joins him and they start dancing together. The crowd goes wild.

tagged with: business models, cultural heritage

Communication management and Crossmedia

By Harry Smals on 4 October 2009

Why would we bother about crossmedia? Why not just apply internet, TV, radio, print and events; isn’t that the same as crossmedia? I don’t think so! Crossmedia is not just about media, it’s about communication. The word ‘’medium’’ means that it is between two other things and connects them; a sender and a receiver in this case. Connecting, that is what media can do. Two or more people connect and consequently form a duo, a group, an organisation, and a network.

tagged with: communication, loyalty, crossmedia

Generation Dumbstein

By Dick Swart on 30 September 2009

By now, most of us reasonable people have figured out that ‘Generation Einstein’ is just a silly term invented by elderly people who were impressed by the apparent agility with computers and other gadgets of their ‘kidz’. It turns out that they aren’t multitasking at all but just constantly distracted, and only the more sensible kidz are capable to turn off their distractions when they have something important to do like studying for a test or listen to a teacher (he said grinding his teeth).

tagged with: netgeneration, social media

Social Supermarkets

By Matthijs Rotte on 27 September 2009

Having been able to do research on social media, a lot of things have been drawn to my attention lately concerning the term. As we all use the term, there is still no consensus on what we mean by it. Is it because we are all too stubborn to embrace a collective definition? Or is it that it is just complex material? I think that the latter is true.

tagged with: wikipedia, social media

A literate paradox

By Kees Winkel on 23 September 2009

According to the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) 97% of the population of men and women between 12 and 75 years have used the Internet in 2008. That is an amazing number, I’d say. 20% uses the Internet at somebody else’s place, like at a friend’s place, 47% uses the Internet at work and 18 % in school. 6% uses the Internet somewhere else, meaning in an Internet café, hotel, etc. So, what do these figures tell us? To be frank, I wouldn’t know.

tagged with: paradox, literacy, visuals, internet

We're all on Twitter, but nobody tweets

By Yvonne Buma on 21 September 2009

Off course this statement is an exaggeration. Sorry!  But recently I stumbled upon an interesting research by Harvard about how people use Twitter. The researchers questioned over 300,000 Twitter users and found that most Twitter users are merely followers. Half of Twitter users tweet once very 74 days, 25% of the users never tweet and 10% of Twitter users account for over 90% of tweets. This is an even smaller percentage than people contributing 90% to Wikipedia (15%). In the comments on second state of dutchtwitosphere you will find similar numbers on the Twitter users in The Netherlands: “50% of the Dutch Twitter accounts have less then 12 updates. 5% of the Dutch Twitter accounts have more then 550 updates”.

tagged with: twitter, social media

Not one, but two!

By Harry van Vliet on 8 September 2009

Yes indeed we are proud to present the first two issues of our CELL Cahiers series. Both are the result of the research we did the passing two years since we started the crossmedialab. Speaking of first results!

tagged with: cell, media literacy, cultural heritage

Information Overflow

By Kees Winkel on 19 August 2009

I have been a list member of SocNet for years now and every now and then some posting attracts my attention. Take a look at this recent message from John Maloney:

tagged with: information overflow, ugc, social media

What's the point of Web 2.0?

By Harry van Vliet on 27 July 2009

The abundance of web 2.0 tools and networks is leaving a clear mark on the internet today. Users present themselves by way of profiles, connect in large numbers to colleagues and old classmates, post their photo’s on a global bulletin board and tell their whereabouts in short bursts of ‘I exist!’. At the same time a discussion is rapidly unfolding on the media literacy of young people. Media literacy refers to acting consciously, critically and actively in a global world of media. In a world of digital identities, electronic files, camera surveillance, virtual communities and online transactions, there is no doubt that media literacy is a necessary competence. Not only to survive in a digital jungle but also as a way to express oneself, digitally.

tagged with: media literacy, media 1.0, web 2.0