annenberg online Communities - Recently Updated Pages

Social Networking for Teens

mssjay — Thu, 03 May 2007 19:15:20 CDT

A new website (PopteenUS.com) is zeroing in on the growing popularity of user-generated content among teens. ... User-generated content and social networking sites are extremely popular with teens right now and are only growing in size and capability every day. Popteen is the number one teen media magazine in Japan (www.popteen.jp) and recently launched a US version of their website, PopteenUS.com. To meet user demands, this site is taking a fresh approach to user-generated content by providing a means for teen girls to contribute their opinions, ideas, stories and own personal profiles; thus assigning the reader as the expert, writer, model and celebrity of the site.

February 2, 2007 in Social networks, Youth culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | del.icio.us

A computer network called 'Internet'!

lindscpond — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 14:12:49 CDT

Here is an excellent click from the 1990s regarding 'a revolution that's occuring...called Internet.' I know we have talked at link about how much things still need to be developed, but this is an excellent example of how far the Internet has come. For example, we now describe it with the definite article ("The Internet" v. "Internet)...haha. Anyhow, it definitely seems relevent and interesting to see primary 'artifacts' regarding the history and development of the web.

Disaster preparedness...and zombies

Caroon — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 03:09:24 CDT

I posted this on our wiki for Elizabeth's class, but I thought I'd share on here as well. I came across a site that has an intriguing approach to disaster preparedness and relief...going along with Lindsay's presentation of the Red Cross. Might be a new model that would generate incentive to get involved in community service....

http://www.zombiehunters.org/index.php

"Zombie Squad's mission is to educate the public about the importance of personal preparedness and self reliance, to increase its readiness to respond to a number of disasters such as Earthquakes, Floods or Zombie Outbreaks."

Disney to test 'watch-chat' features on Web

yiyi — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 04:22:39 CDT

I found this article to be really interesting. It seems like the tv stations and cable companies are looking for more ways through social networking to increase publicity and more interactions with viewers. I guess this is what Web 2.0 is all about.
(Article from ZDNet Technology News)

Walt Disney will test a "watch-and-chat" feature next week on its ABC Family Channel Web site that lets groups of viewers watch TV shows on the Internet and chat about them at the same time. Disney, whose ABC broadcast network was the first to offer free streaming videos of its prime-time shows on the Web, now hopes to build buzz around its ABC Family cable shows through the social-networking feature. ABC Family will test the feature on the season finale of its prime-time show Wildfire on Monday night. The streaming video of the show will go live on abcfamily.com an hour after it airs on cable, and will be available through April 1. The feature lets groups of up to 10 people set up "screening rooms" to watch the episode on computers and write a running commentary that will appear on one side of the screen. Each screening room host can pause, rewind and fast-forward video while they watch. Paul Lee, president of ABC Family Channel, said Wildfire was chosen for the test because its audience of predominantly 14- to 28-year-old females is "the most passionate audience of any show on the network." "There is a new generation here...They are changing the way people watch TV or use other technology," Lee said. "When you link (social networking) to TV programming, it's almost like word of mouth on steroids. The network will poll screening room attendees at the conclusion of the test to gauge response, Lee said. If the feature is well received, the network will extend it to other shows as early as this summer, he said. The feature was developed by Lycos, a subsidiary of Korea's Daum Communications. The Disney test is the first use of watch-and-chat outside of Lycos' multiuser video on demand service, cinema.lycos.com, and its content playlist creator, lycos.mix.com, Lycos Chief Operating Officer Brian Kalinowski said. The application feeds on a growing tendency of young audiences toward "spending, day-to-day, more time in their online social circles than in their physical social circles," Kalinowski said. "You may be more apt to join me in a chat while we are watching this than if I send you a link saying, 'Watch this.' It extends word-of-mouth ability," Kalinowski said. Disney has had success building audiences for its cable content--such as its Disney Channel blockbuster High School Musical--with multiplatform marketing campaigns.

Election 2008 Prediction Market

clintschaff — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 22:17:44 CDT

This cool site from Slate aggregates all the Prediction markets concerning the prospects for 2008. By averaging a number of prediction markets, maybe Slate will have the best predictions.

http://specials.slate.com/futures/2008/

Right now, it looks like Hillary will be our next President. I can live with that.

Blog=get new job!

mssjay — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:04:41 CDT

How Blogging
Can Help You
Get a New Job
By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN
April 10, 2007; Page B1

Corporate recruiters have long surfed the Web to vet potential hires, but now they are also surfing blogs to unearth job candidates, expanding their talent pool and gaining insights they say they can't get from résumés and interviews.

Ryan Loken, a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. recruitment manager, says he spends one to two hours a week searching through blogs for new talent or additional information about the candidates he has interviewed. "Blogs are a tool in the tool kit," he says. Since he joined the Bentonville, Ark., retail giant three years ago, Mr. Logen estimates that Web journals have helped him fill 125 corporate jobs. Most of the recruits were referred to him by bloggers and blog contributors, and some were the writers themselves.

Most blog-related recruits are professionals in technology and media because jobs in these fields often require knowledge of the blogosphere, says Kirsten Dixson, a founding partner at Brandego LLC, a career-management firm in Exeter, N.H., that specializes in personal branding.

In June, Brian Balfour's blog, SocialDegree.com, inspired an unsolicited offer for a product-manager job from an executive at Zoom Information Inc. "I was impressed by the points Brian was making and the way he was making them," says Russell Glass, vice president of products and marketing at the Waltham, Mass., technology company. The blog also offered details about Mr. Balfour's work history and education. "It was a no-brainer to give him a call and see if he'd be interested," Mr. Glass says.

Mr. Balfour says he was intrigued when he heard about the opportunity. "It came at a time that was pretty right for me because I was just coming off selling a business and looking for where I would head next," he says. Three months later, Mr. Balfour, who is 24 years old, got the job.

Greg Sterling, a strategy consultant for Internet companies and a blogger in Oakland, Calif., describes job offers as "a natural byproduct of the exposure you get from blogging." He says he gets about 15 inquiries a month from companies and search-firm recruiters seeking to fill consulting gigs and full-time jobs. "My blog is a vehicle that keeps me exposed to people on a daily basis," he notes.

Mr. Sterling believes that one reason his Web journal, Screenwork, regularly generates job offers is that he has never written about wanting them. "If you [blog] to get a job, you'll be less successful," he says. "It's just like dating. If you appear too hungry, nobody wants to date you."

But Ms. Dixson disagrees. "If you're currently job hunting, say so in your blog's 'About Me' blurb," she advises. "Say you're interested in learning about opportunities in your field."

Blogs also help employers probe the qualifications of potential hires, says Wal-Mart's Mr. Loken. "If they have a blog or made a comment on one, you can see what their knowledge level truly is because résumés can be full of fluff."

Job seekers who blog increase the odds that a potential employer will find information online that the candidate wants to be seen, says Debbie Weil, a corporate blogging consultant in Washington and the author of "The Corporate Blogging Book," which was published last summer. "Everybody has an online identity whether they know it or not, and a blog is the single best way to control it," she says. "You're going to be Googled. No one hires anyone or buys anything these days without going online first and doing research."

Indiscrete bloggers can derail job opportunities. A candidate for an entry-level sales job at Zoom was knocked out of the running in December after Mr. Glass read his blog. "My jaw dropped," he says. "The person started to make disparaging remarks about the people he interviewed with."

Mr. Glass was also put off by instances of foul language and comments about getting drunk. "This was a character problem," he says. "Whether you're writing about people you interviewed with or you're making a public statement that can be construed as immoral, these are the types of things an employer is going to look at and consider in their assessment of you as a candidate."

Mr. Glass adds that he doesn't read blogs on a regular basis. He came across the candidate's blog postings because the word "zoominfo" was flagged by a system he uses to alert him to any mentions of his employer's Web site.

Some job seekers call recruiters' attention to their blogs as a way to boost their candidacy. In an interview for a public-relations job in late 2004, Kevin Dugan says he told recruiters at Cincinnati-based FRCH Design Worldwide that he had been writing a blog for two years. "Blogging was a way for me to build credibility," he says. "It was a way to show my writing skills pretty easily as well as my knowledge of blogging and the public-relations industry." Mr. Dugan, 36, got the job and continues to write his blog, which he says generates about one job lead a month.

Companies that allow their employees to continue to blog run the risk of having a competitor poach their talent. Mr. Balfour, who continued to blog after he joined Zoom, says he has been invited on several job interviews because of his blog, though he turned down the opportunities that were offered.

"We wanted Brian to continue to blog because it's a great way to show leadership through zoominfo," says Mr. Glass. "But it's a double-edged sword since he continues to receive job offers."

Some companies encourage employees to blog because they can use them to recruit others. When recruiter Harry Joiner was hired to fill two positions at Musician's Friend Inc. in November, he used an employee's personal blog to help sell his client's rural location of Medford, Ore., to job seekers. "Candidates were using Medford as a reason not to consider the jobs," he says. "As a marketer, I thought, if you can't change it, promote it."

The blog, by So Young Park, the company's director of e-commerce marketing and customer-relationship management, describes her move to the area a year ago from New York City. It includes details about her work, her experience owning a car for the first time, a bear sighting near her new home and related topics. While she started the blog to share information about her experiences with family and friends back East, she acknowledges that it has also been a good resource for attracting job hunters.

Mr. Joiner says he linked to the blog in ads he posted on job boards and in emails to potential candidates. He says it helped him get professionals to leave jobs in Los Angeles. "The blog made a ton of difference," he says. "It humanized [Ms. Park] to candidates and made the jobs more attractive."

MySpace TV

dnooney — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 21:37:07 CDT

It is no secret that News Corp. executives have been working feverishly to monetize MySpace. Currently the return on invest is not meeting expectations. But have no fear Rupert Murdoch; low-brow programming is here to save the day! Episodes of the new internet drama "Prom Queen" will make their exclusive debut this Sunday on the social-networking site. According to insiders, each of the show's characters will have their own profile pages on MySpace. Fans can post messages and get responses from the characters, who will also reveal more of themselves by posting items on their blogs. "It's the 'The O.C.' meets 'Lonelygirl' with a MySpace twist," says Jeff Berman, MySpace's general manager. News Corp. believes that the show will develop a strong fallowing similar to that of a typical network television teen drama. They also hope to sell advertising space and incorporate product placement. After reading this article, I was left with a strong sense of ambivalence. Is this brilliant or desperate? Could this be a new trend or just fly by night attempt to save the site from obscurity? Despite my reservations, the added level of interactivity could truly engage viewers, especially if there input somehow affects the storyline. Anyways, time will answer all of these questions.

Open Source Community Gaining Ground

bengigli — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 19:44:20 CDT

Dell has recently announced that it is considering including Linux pre-installation on more of its machines as a primary operating system. While some commentators believe that Dell may just make token offerings, there are many that believe Dell will include Linux options on mainstream, consumer models. If this is the case, the growth of Linux from a small, open source OS to a major player, available through one of the largest hardware producers in the world as a pre-install, is a major mile stone for open sources communities. More evidence of the bottom-up model of business taking hold.

USC PubD Senior Fellow Benjamin Barber talk on new book - Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children,

Lhaidt — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 13:17:22 CDT

early Protestant ethos: hard entrepreneurial work and altruism. While capitalism is fundamentally about creating more wealth, pre-21st Century American were willing to do the hard work, defer gratification and behave altruistically within their immediate communities.

Capitalism works well when it meets the core needs and wants of the larger populace. It succeeds out of business interest.
Post-civil war capitalism met a great many of needs with real goods, especially for white middle class (Barber not mentions this distinction).

What of audio culture?

Consumer phase of capitalism: a focus on trademarks and brands reveals fundamental shift not of manufacturing to goods, but of manufacturing needs to sell goods that people didn't see themselves as wanting or needing.

Who really need an Apple iPhone compared to what they currently have.
Shift from work to shopping. Lifestyle is key.
Kids must be consumers or consumers must become kids. American society has developed a core identity combining infantile and adolescent qualities (Barber doesn't emphasize this level. How sexual gratification comes from adolescent urges and consumer desires).

A clear dumbing down of American, and thus, global culture.

Look at Larry King any night.

Marketeer's Argument: Freedom is about letting consumer decide what they want

"Hollywood" industry's line - we produce what people want.

This is true. People freely choose to buy Hummers. There is no false consciousness.
BUT there are different kinds of freedom.

When buy a Hummer, consumer sees himself as making private choice.

Doesn't recognize public consequences of private consumer choices.
Individuals face "civic schizophrenia".

Do we highlight civic or private good?

But infantalist ethos emphasizes private ethos.
Chase "freedom" credit card - private freedom. Credit has public consequences too.

Global Perspective: People have deeper needs. Can capitalism re-gear itself to address the real needs of real people on a global level.

"Bottled" water - utterly fabricated. Also 10 billion business plus environmental pollution for transportation costs.
But in rest of world outside West, especially US, there is a water-crisis. What if people realize the ethical dimension of not buying any bottle water?

Democratic institutions must rise to the challenge.
Capitalism left to its own devices created anarchic, wild, simultaneous exploding and imploding realities.

Refashioning of synergistic relationship between the "state" and "government"

This is a bottom-up democratic state revitalization.

Philanthropy is working on gift model. Never gift people what they should work for and eventually create local economy for.

If not, our important "family values" will continue to be destroyed.

Q & A: American ecomoy is 70% based on trade based on consumption (goes back to 1954). Americans simply can not save. To produce things instead of producing desires. Isn't this an incredibly wrenching experiences that you're calling for?

Yes, it will be wrenching crisis. Revolution in politics will be required. A lot of people don't like society that's emerged. Yuppied don't like it (and buppies).

Suburbanization is a part of this. The trend for urban living signals small cause for hope. Check out work of Hernando de Soto - to legalize "off-the-grid" wealth. There is work being done on how to break self-imploding cycle. For example, ten years ago GM had a hybrid model ready. GM says no, Toyota went for it, lost money and went for it. The rest is history. Toyota is taking over GM's market share. Intelligent risks and innovation is deferred by dominant US corporate model.
Where do we draw line over who determines what are our needs and can be deferred? If what you need requires that you be treated like a child (and I'd say an adolescent). Do we really need our music albums to be redigitized and reproduced entire archives of music? LPs worked better. Minor improvements in software (not sure that's even true), but massive consumer hassle. The consumer equipment being produced satisfies no need other than the need to shop and satisfy oneself - "shopping addiction" (is a clear medicalized addiction).

Link to PubD page on talk.

Bumrushthecharts: Informal Virtual Organization

bengigli — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 14:59:24 CDT

Came across this today as I was perusing the net. Its an experiment/social group that is aimed at raising awareness of Indie bands and raising money for causes by bumrushing itunes and trying to drive a relatively obscure band (through pre-arranged agreement) to the front page of itunes and the top of their charts. An interesting form of loosely organized group action.

Office Gossip

Caroon — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 00:11:45 CDT

We discussed the idea of sharing knowledge in class, and I found an article that explores another method of disseminated information- gossip. Gossip is generally frowned upon, however, as stated in the article, in certain instances it can be quite beneficial in facilitating the transfer of knowledge that may help an employee adapt to the subtleties of a work environment. It also serves to form a 'community' feel, wherein employees share a unique bond.

The following are ways gossip can be productive, as outlined in the article:

* Help a new hire fit in. New employees need more than an orientation about their benefits and an introduction to the computer system. They also need to understand the culture of their new workplace, key events in their workgroup's past and the personalities of their new colleagues.
This can include work-related idiosyncrasies, said Rich Martinez, executive vice president and chief operating officer of IS2BE, a high-tech company in San Jose, California: "'If you bring a report in to the supervisor, make sure you've done this first,' or 'If you're going to this person's meeting, make sure you're on time.'"
* Alert management to problems. "You often hear about the grapevine being useful for finding out things that are going on that you need to address," said Carole C. Edman, a human resources consultant and coach in San Jose.
It can be helpful for managers to be tuned in to what workers are saying so they can respond to and clarify, if possible, the latest worries about layoffs or rumors about the company being sold.
* Prevent awkward situations. Sometimes sharing more personal information about a colleague can keep new coworkers from embarrassing themselves. If a coworker's mother is ill and the worker seems distracted, for example, it can be helpful for a colleague who knows about the illness to tell others who are complaining about the worker's performance, Martinez said.
"Then people understand, and they deal with that situation differently," Martinez said. "If you can give someone the benefit of some knowledge you might have and prevent an embarrassing or ugly situation, you should."
* Humanize the boss. Telling new hires about the time the intimidating boss burned the hamburgers at the barbecue could be a good use of informal storytelling, said Eric Marcus, a consulting social psychologist, based in New York, who works with organizations on dealing with conflict. "It can be useful when it exposes people's humanity," he said. "I think the intent is the critical thing."

23andMe.com Has My Attention

saxymaster — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 15:16:40 CDT

This new site has not done a full throttle launch; however, the potential for this research based service is significant. Works something like this; company sends you a kit for a small price, you swab your mouth and send back a sample of your DNA. The company takes your sample and sequences your genome to gather information about your ancestory and family lineage. Someone explained it to me briefly... your DNA has a bunch of static information with about 10% relevant coding and the static information can be matched with your parents, grandparents... This company is probably 5 -10 years from going public, but keep it in the back of your minds because it is the real deal ( I found out about it from the VP of Genentec) and may be a great stock pick for the future. They are also hiring. 23andme.com

NBA + YouTube = YouDunk

mssjay — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 12:54:38 CDT

On the web

click to enlarge

YouDunk is coming to YouTube.

The NBA on Monday unveiled plans to cooperate with YouTube.com on a partnership that will encourage fans to post online videos of their best real-world basketball moves. The league also agreed to share a limited amount of proprietary game and behind-the-scenes video footage with YouTube, an online video-sharing website owned by Google Inc.

The YouTube deal surfaced less than a week after the league announced that fans soon will be able to use the NBA.com website to create personal "mixes" that incorporate game highlights and music tracks from select record labels. Both moves are part of the league's ongoing effort to leverage — and retain control over — digital content spun off by games.

"What we're trying to do is work more closely with YouTube to give people a destination where they know they'll find some legitimate NBA content," said Steve Grimes, vice president of interactive services for NBA Entertainment. "We're also trying to provide our fans with a forum where they can showcase their basketball moves to us and the world."

Sports leagues and their media company partners are searching for the right blend of carrot and stick when it comes to fans who like to incorporate game footage into what amounts to home-produced videos that are shared online. The fans mix video of dunks, blocked shots and the occasional on-court brawl — using footage culled from TV broadcasts — with music culled from their personal collections. The result is short, action-packed videos, often with rock and rap soundtracks.

Type "NBA" into the YouTube search engine and you'll find more than 20,000 videos that incorporate NBA content. Sports fans who enjoy creating the videos often try to one-up each other by producing increasingly elaborate videos. But some of what's available at YouTube, Yahoo and other video-sharing sites isn't likely to pass muster with leagues because of X-rated song lyrics or how the video content is displayed.

The NBA deal with YouTube came several months after the website struck a similar deal with the NHL. In both cases, YouTube agreed to work more closely with the leagues to more quickly take down offensive video. When asked whether similar deals are in the works with the NFL and Major League Baseball, Chris Maxcy, head of business development for YouTube, said to "stay tuned."

Such content deals are important for YouTube because popular video draws consumers who have myriad online destinations to choose from.

But, a few weeks ago, media giant Viacom demanded that YouTube remove 100,000 clips of television programming that had been posted without permission. And MLB regularly demands that YouTube and other online video sites remove its video content.

Leagues know that thousands of action-packed sports videos available on YouTube can be seen as a testament to fan loyalty.

The catch is that leagues expect to be compensated when fans post game-related video on YouTube or another company's website.

The NBA hopes to lure fans away from YouTube with its newly unveiled "NBA Highlight Mixer," an online system that lets registered fans create and share custom videos — think LeBron James dunking to a hot rap group's soundtrack.

Fans will be able to share their work, but the website won't let scofflaws copy NBA game action and upload it to other websites.

The NBA is betting that its editing system and the music that will be available will attract fans who now post their videos on YouTube.

The league also is banking on its rich storehouse of high-quality game footage to draw and keep fans who have cut their online video teeth at YouTube and other sites, Grimes said.

Circle Up

lindscpond — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 14:47:19 CDT

I was job searching on monstertrak and I found this company, Circle Up. Circle Up describes itself as:

"CircleUp is a social communications service that turbo-charges email and instant messaging when communicating with online and offline communities of any size. Today, when you ask a question of online and offline communities you get back 15, 50 or 500 emails and instant messages to open, sort, cut, paste and organize before the results are useful. CircleUp is a free consumer Internet service that turbo-charges your email and instant messaging. As you ask questions and gather information from groups of any size, you get back a single, organized result summary instead of a blizzard of emails and IMs."

And I thought this posed an interesting approach to aggregating the knowledge of our human capital...essentially bottling knowledge gained as workers communicate and solve problems in a succinct way. Check it out!

Taplin ACC Talk

Lhaidt — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:55:47 CST

CA - nation-state due to diversity of our people, power of economy, reach of dream - 6th largest market economy in world

1st American third-world city
Federalist model

Decentralized network - Devolution Moment (ask to see panel)

Eurasian New Deal
New American Century
Creative Disorder
Adaptive Strain

Living in bottom half: innovation come from bottom up innovation
Pushing power out to edge
Notions not brought into governance of republic

Federalist Model

Environmental - Car laws
Stem cell

CA trends - going down in all areas

Especially technology: we are net importer for 1st time. No longer exporting
US Wages and Productivity

Productivity increasing, wages not

Globalization removes floor underneath wages
Massive fall-off in median family wealth

Technology, Devolution, Cooperation - go together (do they - cooperation)

Cost of cooperation has dropped radically - Moore's law

Cost of calls to India. Diffused power. Force of Moore's law
Networks need to say open

Walled garden cancels Moore's law

Open Source movement - Pekka Himanen

Scandinavia wrecked by massive unrest about race and especially religion
Hear voices and scare us and wreck cooperation
(Apache and Open Source win)
Google leverages off open source

Politics of Cooperation - open source basis change nature of politics
CA - started as republic - "Bear Flag Revolution" - "single creative state serve as a laboratory"

High Cost of Centralization of power
Massive time energy commitment to complete federal education programs
Federal - education , housing, labor, agriculture, HHS, transportation - are all duplicative

Options

Create Gas Tax
Increases Taxes
Raise R & D tax credit/lower deductibility of advertising expenditures

Military Industrial Complex

Save 60 billions
Assuming could make big change
HUGE GLOSS OVER: Media challenge: soft on defense

Education - not respecting (Korea - 2.5X make average)

Risk of devolution

Universal Broadband - by 2012. what is terminal endpoint?
Telecommunicating: JetBlue customer service - women work from home, 4 hr. shifts

natural monopoly phenom exists

Universal Health Care
Became World Leader in Green Business

The Tipping Point

Tgiles — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 18:58:03 CST

Sometimes it is the little things that matter and last nights discussion on organizations reminded me of several little things in my life and one particular favorite book, The Tipping Point by Malcome Gladwell.

The book espouses the idea of how small things can create great differences. Which is basically the philosophy that I preach, in terms of political power and the potential for young people to enact change. If you have not read it I would strongly advise you to pick it up since it is well worth the cost and is really one of the most fascinating books to come around in a long while.

Robert Patterson of Radio Webblog did a fabulous breakdown (which I have copied below) of the points that Gladwell covers in the book which I think sums up the simple, but brilliant ideas, included in the book.

THE TIPPING POINT IS:

That one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once.
The moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point, a place where the unexpected becomes expected, where radical change is more than possibility. It is a certainty.

Epidemics

Tip because of the extraordinary efforts of a few select carriers. But they also sometimes tip when something happens to transform the epidemic agent itself.

Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.

Epidemics another example of geometric progression: when a virus spreads through a population, it doubles and doubles again into infinity.

Epidemics are a function of the people who transmit infectious agents, the infectious agent itself, and the environment in which the infectious agent is operating:

They (Epidemics) have clear examples of contagious behavior.
They both have little changes that make big effects.
It takes only the smallest of changes to shatter an epidemic's equilibrium.
They happen in a hurry.

This is the most important trait, b/c it is the principle that makes sense of the first two and that permits the greatest insight into why modern change happens the way it does.
Epidemics involve straightforward simple things; a "product" (I put this in quotes b/c Gladwell writes this book using mostly marketing/business ideas. However, I see it as a way to spark revolution.) and a message.
In order to create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first.
Contagiousness is in larger part a function of the messenger. Stickiness is primarily a property of the message.

THE LAW OF THE FEW:
There are exceptional people out there who are capable of starting epidemics. All you have to do is find them. With an epidemic, a tiny majority of the people do the work. Once critical factor in epidemics is the nature of the messenger. Messengers make something spread.

Word of mouth is still the most important form of human communication. Rumors are the most contagious of all social messages.

Connectors

People with a special gift for bringing the world together, people specialists

Know lots of people

Have an extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances, making social connections.

Have mastered the "weak tie"; a friendly, yet casual social connection.

Manage to occupy many different worlds and subcultures and niches. By having a foot in so many different worlds, they have the effect of bringing them all together.

Acquaintances represent a source of social power, and the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are.

Social glue: they spread the message.

Mavens

Information specialists

Once they figure out how to get that great deal, they want to tell you about it too.

Solves his own problems, his own emotional needs, by solving other people's problems.

Have knowledge and the social skills to start word-of-mouth epidemics.

A teacher and a student

In a social epidemic, Mavens are data banks. They provide the message.

Salespeople

Have the skills to persuade when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing.

Little things can make as much of a difference as big things.

Gives nonverbal clues that are more important than verbal clues.

"Interactional synchrony": human interaction has a rhythmic physical dimension. We dance to each other's speech we're perfectly in harmony.

Motor mimicry: we imitate each other's emotions as a way of expressing support and caring and, even more basically, as a way of communicating with each other. Emotion is contagious. "Senders" are very good at expressing emotions and feelings. They are far more emotionally contagious than the rest of us.

Persuasion often works in ways that we do not appreciate
You draw others into your own rhythms and dictate the terms of the interaction.

THE STICKINESS FACTOR:
There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible/sticky and compels a person into action. All you have to do is find it. In order to be capable of sparking epidemics, ideas have to be memorable and move us into action. Content matters.

What is needed is a subtle but significant change in presentation to make most messages stick.

The elements that make an idea sticky turn out to be small and trivial.

"Clutter" has made it harder and harder to get any one message to stick. The information age has created a stickiness problem.

Pay careful attention to the structure and format of your material, and you can dramatically enhance stickiness.

Can tip a message by tinkering, on the margin, with the presentation of their ideas.

THE POWER OF CONTEXT:
We don't necessarily appreciate that our inner states are the result of our outer circumstances. We are more than just sensitive to changes in context. We're exquisitely sensitive to them. And the kinds of contextual changes that are capable of tipping an epidemic are very different than we might ordinarily suspect.

The impetus to engage in a certain kind of behavior is not coming from a certain kind of person but from a feature of the environment.

Small changes in context can be just as important in tipping epidemics.

An environmental argument.

What really matters is little things

"Broken Windows Theory": in a city, relatively minor problems like graffiti, public disorder, and aggressive panhandling, are all the equivalent of broken windows, invitations to more serious crimes (Rudy Gulliani's belief)

An epidemic can be reversed/tipped by tinkering with the smallest details of the immediate environment.

There are specific situations so powerful that they can overwhelm our inherent predispositions.

Human beings invariably make the mistake of overestimating the importance of fundamental character traits and underestimating the importance of the situation and context. We are a lot more attuned to personal cues than contextual cues.

Character is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstances and context.

The convictions of your heart and the actual contents of your thoughts are less important, in the end, in guiding your actions then the immediate context of your behavior.

THE MAGIC NUMBER 150:
"There seems to be some limitation built into us either by learning or by the design of the nervous systems, a limit that keeps our channel capacities in this general range (i.e. the human minds inability to comprehend things beyond sets 7)" George Miller "The Magical Number Seven"

"The figure of 150 seems to represent the maximum number of individuals with whom we can have a genuinely social relationship, the kind of relationship that goes with knowing who they are and how they relate to us. Putting it another way, it's the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar." Robin Dunbar.

Even relatively small increases in the size of a group [beyond 150] creates a significant additional social and intellectual burden.

The rule of 150 suggests that the size of a group is another one of those subtle contextual factors that can make a big difference.

Peer pressure is much more powerful than a concept of a boss

Transactive memory: we store information with other people. Since mental energy is limited, we concentrate on what we do best.

Groups of 150 are an organized mechanism that makes it far easier for new ideas and information moving around the organization to tip; to go from one person or one part of the group to the entire group all at once.

CONCLUSION:

First Lesson of the Tipping Point
Starting epidemics requires concentrating resources on a few key areas. Your resources ought to be solely concentrated on the Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen.

Second Lesson of the Tipping Point
The world does not accord with our intuition. Those who are successful at creating social epidemics do not just do what they think is right. They deliberately test their intuitions.

Important Conclusion!

What must underlie successful epidemics, in the end, is a bedrock belief that change is possible, that people can radically transform their behavior or beliefs in the face of the right kind of impetus. Tipping Points are a reaffirmation of the potential for change and the power of intelligent action. Look at the world around you. It may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push; just in the right place; it can be tipped.

Notes
Diffusion model: a detailed, academic way of looking at how a contagious idea or "product" or innovation moves through a population.

Innovators: the adventurous ones. Visionaries.

Connectors, mavens, and salesmen make it possible for innovations to connect with the early adopters. They are translators: they make ideas and information from a highly specialized world and translate them into a language the rest of us can understand. They drop extraneous details and exaggerate other details so that the message itself acquires a deeper meaning.

Early adopters: the slightly larger group that is infected by the innovators. Visionaries.
Early Majority: the deliberate and the skeptical mass, who would never try anything until the most respected of this group try it first.
Late Majority
Laggards: the most traditional group that see no urgent reason to change.

A Real-Cyber Merge

Tgiles — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 18:52:37 CST

The USC-Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future has released an interesting study on the importance of the Internet to users comparing the value of their online world to their real-world communities.

A copy of the overview outlines some of the finding of the sixth annual survey on the impact of the Internet. The study supplements our reading on organizing advocacy in that they found that involvement in online communities leads to offline actions, increased social activism, and interaction between members. Some highlights of the survey are listed below.

Online communities: a catalyst for connection and activism

Online communities and offline action -- The Digital Future Project found that involvement in online communities leads to offline actions. More than one-fifth of online community members (20.3 percent) take actions offline at least once a year that are related to their online community. (An “online community” is defined as a group that shares thoughts or ideas, or works on common projects, through electronic communication only.)

Social activism – Participation in online communities leads to social activism. Almost two-thirds of online community members who participate in social causes through the Internet (64.9 percent) say they are involved in causes that were new to them when they began participating on the Internet. And more than 40 percent (43.7 percent) of online community members participate more in social activism since they started participating in online communities.

Online communities: daily use -- A significant majority of members of online communities (56.6 percent) log into their community at least once a day.

Member interaction -- Online communities are online havens for interaction among members. In 2006, 70.4 percent of online community members say they sometimes or always interact with other members of their community while logged in.

Internet users: reaching out across the Web

Posting information -- Growing percentages of Internet users are going online to post information, whether on a blog, posting photos, or maintaining a personal Web site.

The number of Internet users in America who keep a blog has more than doubled in three years (now 7.4 percent of users, up from 3.2 percent in 2003).

Likewise, the number of Internet users who post photos online has more than doubled in three years (now 23.6 percent of users, up from 11 percent).

The number of users who maintain their own Web site continues to grow steadily (now 12.5 percent of users).

Creating Successful Online Communities

Tgiles — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 18:51:41 CST

Rohit Bhargava Vice President of Interactive Marketing for Ogilvy Public panel at CommunityNext, an event focused on everything about online communities coordinated by Noah Kagan at Standford University on February 10, 2007.

On his return home Rohit began to pull together everything he had heard at the conference and came up with a list of lessons learned from some of the "stars" of the Internet world. Below are some of the words of wisdom that Rohit distilled from the speakers dubbed the "10 Secrets for Success" in building online communities.

Avoid being just "niche" - Over and over from founders of online communities was the desire to do away with the word "niche." It seems to stem mostly from the assumption that niches are small things, whereas each of these online communities is spent bringing together anyone with the same passion - not just people from "niche" groups. The lesson here seems to be - don't think small.

Listen to your users - If there was one thread heard over and over throughout the day, it was the power of listening to your users. Each of the featured sites had amassed significant numbers of passionate individuals who provide their time and energy to the site and the community. They are highly likely to share their opinions, and most likely to appreciate and publicize it if you actually listen to their opinions.

Use accidental marketing - An interesting panel question Guy Kawasaki Slide shared that they didn't do any marketing because "the service already was viral." Well, I would argue that viral has to do with word of mouth, which some would consider marketing - but the interesting thing was that most founders didn't seem to feel there was a way to plan marketing, it just happens. Not sure I agree with this view, as I think smart marketing has a lot less to do with ad buys and a lot more to do with doing things that are noteworthy ... but it was interesting to hear their experiences nonetheless. asked at the end of the day focused on the fact that members of companies on the founding panel didn't seem to need or value marketing very much.

Get smart on recruiting - Everyone is recruiting, and many of them are seeking the same types of people ... but the theme of the event seemed to be positioning your community as a great team to join. It was an interesting angle on "sales" - as usually these events are focused on sites recruiting either members or advertisers. Here, I think any of the online communities would have been happy to find the right person to join their team out of the event.

Forsake VC funding - I felt a little bad for Guy in the last panel as he heard from company after company that each had avoided taking venture capital funding. Of course, there is still a big place for VC and leveraged correctly, it can really mean the difference between success and failure. But there was a vibe running through the event that most folks starting online communities would do anything they could to avoid taking VC funding. It seems to have become a last resort.

Have a passion - This was one of the points made very early on by Josh Spear and Aaron Dignan in their opening presentation about Brand Utopia - and repeated throughout the event. Passion in what you are doing may come from different places as founders of online communities shared. For some, it's a personal passion. For others it comes from seeing the way that users embrace a service and feeling connected/responsible to those users. Either way, passion is a prerequisite.

Master the emotional return - One of the best points made by Premal Shah as he talked about Kiva was that the model and concept of the site had mastered the art of providing people with an emotional return as an incentive that was far more important than a financial one. For those unfamiliar, Kiva is a site that allows people to provide micro-loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Of course, everyone needs to make some money. But a successful online community is one that can consistently provide that emotional return to users. That's the most important ingredient - and if you don't have that, then the financial aspect will not last that long.

Don't lose the fun - James Hong of HotorNot.com was the chief brand ambassador of fun on the final panel of the day, and his site reflects it. In an entertaining way of describing the mission of this site, he noted that it was to "waste as much of corporate America's time as possible." It's a classic rebel mission, and one focused on fun as a paramount concept. The fun factor can be the toughest element to keep as a site grows. James has a lesson for any online community worth heeding.

Keep it real - From using error messages with personality, to not being afraid to have a voice as part of the community - keeping it real is a big deal. Part of the appeal of many communities is the personal story behind it and the founders. That's what gets people engaged to start with, and that's what keeps them engaged throughout. Communities are made up of real people. To succeed you have to start real, and stay that way.

Be better than you - I kept this point last because I thought it spoke well to the future of online communities and how they must always be evolving. The guys from Threadless were probably received as the most popular of the day (aside from Guy Kawasaki, of course) - and one of the most entertaining of their slides was the growth chart which plotted time on one axis, and awesomeness on the other. Over time, they have basically gotten more awesome. But a key ingredient in that is always improving - because any competitor gunning for you is aiming to be better than you. So you have to aim for the same thing.

You - Going Down the Tube?

Tgiles — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 18:47:52 CST

The big boys of Viacom have teamed up with the bad boys of disruption, Joost in what must have been the slap heard around the cyber world when they announced that they were allowing the rebels of the web to distribute their content online. Hundreds of hours of programming from Viacom's MTV Networks, Paramount Pictures movies studio and BET Networks will be available to Joost users for free.

Viacom's embrace of Joost less than three weeks after it asked YouTube to take down more than 100,000 videos signals that the spat between YouTube owner Google and Viacom is more than serious. It also seems like Viacom is getting the jump on others in its quest to find the edge over other entertainment companies.

The deal between Viacom and Zennström and Friis, the creators of Joost, comes not only to a shock to YouTube but to a lot of insiders because Zennström and Friis are famous or infamous for disrupting traditional industries. After the demise of Napster, a program written by the duo called Kazaa let people exchange pirated music over peer-to-peer networks. Zennström and Friis then followed up by creating Skype, which lets people place free phone calls from anywhere in the world. Zennström currently serves as chief executive of Skype, now owned by eBay. Friis is Skype's executive vice president of innovation. They are running Joost as a virtual company, with engineers and other employees in five countries.

Looks like YouTube might be YouScrewed.

The Death of MySpace

dnooney — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 15:52:20 CST

If their smart, the good people at Myspace should start to worry. Recently, Mark Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, has attached him name to an innovative project aimed at making the social- networking sites easier to create. Ning, the company funding and executing the initial prototype, promised to launch a set of tools that will enable even the most tech-illiterate person to customize his/her very on site complete with videos, photos and music. Anyone using this free service will have to settle for ads posted by Ning. For the right to post an ad, a user must pay 19.95 a month. A domain name will cost 4.95. For sites generating high traffic, Ning also sells bandwidth and storage; 5GB of storage and 100GB for 9.95 per month. This makes for an interesting hypothetical. If creating social –networking forums become commonplace, will the high number of niche sites over saturate the market? Will sites like MySpace go the way of the buffalo once more people start developing their own communities that meet their own specific needs? Only the future will tell.