Social Media Time

Nielsen’s research states that 18% of time spent online is spent on social networking sites and services. At first glance, this seems a bit high – especially considering the figure is 3x’s greater than last year.

However, if accurate, it provides strong support to the reports claim that

“This growth suggests a wholesale change in the way the Internet is used… While video and text content remain central to the Web experience – the desire of online consumers to connect, communicate and share is increasingly driving the medium’s growth“.

More info is available here.

Social Search

Google just announced Social Search. The service helps you “to find publicly available content from your social circle“.

Google slurps information on your social circle from three sources: Google Reader subscriptions, Google Profiles, and Google chat (GMail). They use the term “surfacing” connections to describe not only adding your friends, but one additional degree: your friend’s friends.

Hmmm…that “do no evil” thing…the ground under that statement is starting to look a little shaky now that google has become an OED verb.

The Web In 5 Years: More of Now

Speaking of Google…Interesting thoughts from Eric Schmidt – CEO, Google – on the web in five years.

It is interesting to note that we are seeing increased consolidation of ideas and concepts around the future of technology and the web.

Schmidt’s comments do not provide anything new. It is a laundry list of topics and predictions that most people who are involved in technology fields are already familiar with:

• Real-time web,
• greater bandwidth,
• user-generated information,
• power / authority shifts due to amateur content,
• growth of Chinese language online, etc.

What’s tragic about this list is that nothing in it seems revolutionary.  Five years ago, the web intelligencia was atwitter (heh) with the buzz of the possibilities of the social web.  And a lot of that possibility has become reality.

But what has also come about is the death of the information revolution, and the birth of concept normalization.  This time, the revolution will be monetized.

Go Grandpa!

By now, I think the view of innate generational differences in technology use has been sufficiently debunked (see Mark Bullen’s Netgenskeptic site).

NY Times highlights the appeal of technology among the elderly:

“Some of the highest growth rates in broadband use are happening among the elderly. The Pew Research Center found that broadband use for those 65 and older increased from 19 percent in May 2008 to 30 percent in April 2009. Since 2005, broadband use has tripled in that group.“

Communicating Complexity

I adore, simply adore Indexed – a site that uses simple visuals to communicate complex relationships and interactions.

For example: The relationship between information and confusion. The simplicity of the approach somewhat hides the impact. We live life in flows, but we are remembered by artifacts. A blog post, a paper, or an image are artifacts.

Given the abundance of information that washes across our mind on a daily basis, an image can have greater impact than a well-reasoned scientific paper. Connections, associations, and relationships can often be better communicated visually than with text.

Falling of The Cliff

When change happens in a networked environment, it is rapid. We have seen it in the financial markets, music industry, TV (YouTube), and, perhaps at it is most pronounced, the newspaper industry.

For example, consider these results from major publications in the US. The average weekday circulation of the nearly 400 daily papers that reported sales slid 10.6% to 30.4 million from April to September compared with the same six-month period in 2008, the Audit Bureau of Circulations said Monday. That was bigger than the 7.1% decline recorded during the previous six-month period.

Only one had increased circulation – others had enormous drops – up to 25% in a six month period. Hierarchical organizations are simply not designed to adapt to change at this pace.  The question then becomes, how do they adapt before they become extinct?