Derek E. Baird :: Barking Robot

Trend Watch: Why is Twitter Persuasive? [VIDEO]

How did Twitter ever become so popular? This video answers this through the lens of the Fogg Behavior Model used by the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford.

 

 

 

Infographic: Social Media Equivalents in China

View Large | via www.thomascrampton.com

Related: Infographic | World Map of Social Networks

Cartoon Network Launches 'Stop Bullying: Speak Up' Campaign

Last week the Cartoon Network announced further details of its multi-platform Bullying Prevention Campaign at the National Bullying Prevention Summit in Washington, DC.

Speaking to an audience comprised of government officials, business leaders and leading educators of bullying prevention, Cartoon Network’s President and Chief Operations Officer Stuart Snyder unveiled the official title of the campaign—STOP BULLYING: SPEAK UP—which will serve to educate and empower young bystanders to take action to reduce/prevent bullying.

Bystanders represent the 75-85% of students in schools that witness incidents of bullying every year, whether on the playground, in the classroom, on the bus, on social media websites, or cell phones.

The STOP BULLYING: SPEAK UP on-air and online CAMPAIGN will launch in October to coordinate with the fifth annual National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month, sponsored by the National Center for Bullying Prevention.

As part of a larger commitment to the anti-bullying efforts, CNN, sister network to Cartoon Network, which has to date covered numerous stories about the rise and growing concern over bullying in America, will also recognize October Bullying Prevention Month by presenting an Anderson Cooper 360° Town Hall event the first week in October.

“Bullying recently has been designated by the American Academy of Pediatrics as a national health crisis.” -- David Doss, senior executive producer for Anderson Cooper 360°

Award-winning journalist Anderson Cooper will welcome government and education leaders, parents groups and child behavioral experts from top universities and non-profit institutions to discuss the many issues and concerns surrounding bullying.

Cartoon Network’s initial steps include launching a new series of original PSAs that will premiere on Friday, Oct. 1, at 9 a.m., introducing the pro-social effort and directing viewers to key online resources at CartoonNetwork.com.

Twitter Cheat Sheet

Twitter Cheat Sheet

Infographic: What Americans Do Online

via blog.nielsen.com

Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs, up from 15.8 percent just a year ago (43 percent increase) according to new research released today from The Nielsen Company.

The research revealed that Americans spend a third their online time (36 percent) communicating and networking across social networks, blogs, personal email and instant messaging.

Additional findings include:

• Online games overtook personal email to become the second most heavily used activity behind social networks – accounting for 10 percent of all U.S. Internet time. Email dropped from 11.5 percent of time to 8.3 percent. (Source: Nielsen NetView)

• Of the most heavily-used sectors, Videos/Movies (which includes video-specific and movie-related websites only – and is not inclusive of video streaming behavior elsewhere) was the only other to experience a significant growth in share of U.S. activity online. Its share of activity grew relatively by 12 percent from 3.5 to 3.9 percent. (Source: Nielsen NetView)

• June 2010 was a major milestone for U.S. online video as the number of videos streamed passed the 10 billion mark. The average American consumer streaming online video spent 3 hours 15 minutes doing so during the month. (Source: Nielsen VideoCensus)

• Despite some predictions otherwise, the rise of social networking hasn’t pushed email and instant messaging into obscurity just yet. Although both saw double-digit declines in share of time, email remains as the third heaviest activity online (8.3 percent share of time) while instant messaging is fifth, accounting for four percent of Americans online time. (Source: Nielsen NetView)

• Although the major portals also experienced a double digit decline in share, they remained as the fourth heaviest activity, accounting for 4.4 percent of U.S. time online. (Source: Nielsen NetView)

Togetherville: Building a Social Web Experience for Kids

What is it?

Togetherville is a social networking experience intended for your younger children (5-10 year olds). The new service is designed to provide a training ground where parents can teach their kids important lessons about online communication, community building and what it means to be a good digital citizen.

The Togetherville community experience piggy-backs on the Facebook platform and allows grownups to guide their kids through an age-appropriate social networking experience, kid friendly content, moderate connections and interactions all in an ad-free environment.

How does it Work?

In Togetherville, grownups act as the moderator for new contacts, assuming the responsibility for inviting family members/friends and other kids' to join their child's online neighborhood. The 6-to 10-year-olds are invited to engage with their real-world friends, play games, watch videos, and create art.

Is it safe?

Togetherville is intended for kids who are too young for Facebook and is fully compliant with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Kids' are *NOT connected* to anyone without their parents approval, so parents don't need to worry about 'stranger danger.'

Unlike other child oriented social networks, kids' use their real names instead of an alias. This is important because it teaches them to be responsible for their actions within the community. Since their identity isn't a secret, the thinking is that this will reduce the chances that they will engage in cyberbullying or other no-no behaviors.

 

Togetherville "Allowance"

Allowance is a new site feature that helps teach kids financial literacy while providing parents with a way to reward good behavior, both online and off.

Parents or other approved adults (family members, coaches) can give a child Togetherville currency called "T-bills," which can be spent on virtual goods, games or gifts within each child's unique Togetherville neighborhood.

Once they have T-bills, parents and adults can give Allowance to children for whom they are administrators. Kids and adults can use T-bills for virtual goodies, gifts and games.

As with any feature in Togetherville, a parent or other adult with administrative rights has complete control over who can give their child funds. In addition, just like in the offline world, a parent can suspend or eliminate a child's Allowance at any time.

Developing Healthy Media Habits

A lot of people will say that kids' don't need to be online and that they should go outside and play.

Think of it this way: too much of anything is bad. Too many hours playing video games or watching cartoons--not healthy! Eating too much ice cream, Taco Bell or drinking too much soda are also not a good thing.

It doesn't really matter if it's chocolate milk, riding your bike in the dark, watching too much TV or being online. As adults, we need to be the ones who help children develop healthy habits.

Social by Design

Think of Togetherville as a social networking apprenticeship where parents act as a Facebook "expert" who mentor and help their children through the experience of participating in a social networking community.

The situated learning theory argues that learning and knowledge acquisition takes place only when situated in a social and authentic context.

Ultimately this process –known as legitimate peripheral participation—moves the newcomer deeper into a community of practice leading them closer to acquiring the knowledge and skills required to be an expert. In Togetherville, young kids' will form a community of practice (and safety net) consisting of their peers, site moderators, and several parent "experts."

Cognitive apprenticeship is an instructional design and learning theory wherein the instructor (or parent), through socialization, models the skill or task at hand for the child. Kids' may also receive guidance from and learn from their peers.

The role of the parent is to help novices (in this case, your kids') clear cognitive roadblocks (Facebook/social networking) by providing them with the resources needed to develop a better understanding of social media. This process is called scaffolding.

Ultimately the kids will become an expert who no longer needs the scaffolding provided by Togetherville and/or parental guidance. In turn, they will have a better understanding of potential roadblocks and are now equipped the skills to navigate the world of social media/networking sites like Facebook.

Putting it All Together

In the end, what's important here is to take a balanced position when it comes to kids and technology. As a parent or teacher, don't be afraid to jump into the technology and social media pool and get your feet wet.

Use this as an opportunity to spend time with your kids and learn more about how they are using technology, mobile phones and social media in their lives.

Most importantly, when it comes to kids and social networking, don't panic!

The Real Life Social Network: Google, Online Relationships & Influence

The future of the Web is social. What does that mean? Google is trying to figure it out.

The company's previous attempts to corner the social Web, like Google Wave and Buzz, fizzled or failed to sustain much, well, buzz.

But the company is making waves online with a new 216-page slide show that tries to explain how we interact online and how we use those interactions to make purchasing and reading decisions.

It's a long, fascinating document, notable more for its clarity of thought than for any mind-blowing insights.

via www.theatlantic.com

 

The Real Life Social Network v2

View more documents from Paul Adams.

 

Trend Watch: Social Media in the UK 2010 [Video]

This is a little video produced by Ireland-based PR firm Simply Zesty that explores the state of social media in the UK.

The video includes some interesting social media stats and other demographic information, including: 85% percent of the UK population is online and they spend over 6 hours on social media sites every month, nearly 60% of them read blogs and 64% have their own profile on a social network.

Infographic: U.S. Mood Throughout the Day Inferred From Twitter

For over three years, researchers at both Northeastern and Harvard examined tweets (September 2006 to August 2009) to see if they would be able to gauge the emotional pulse of America. The result: is this infographic titled, "Pulse of the Nation: U.S. Mood Throughout the Day Inferred from Twitter."

Knowing they could rely on users for wild mood swings and emotionally charged rants/raves packed into 140-character outbursts, they looked for certain words that indicated a person's mood and combined that data with information from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Google Maps API and other resources.

According to the researchers:

In the video, green corresponds to a happy mood and red corresponds to a grumpier state of mind. The area of each state is scaled according to the number of tweets originating in that state.

Note how the East Coast is consistently 3 hours ahead of the West Coast, so when we're sleeping in Boston, the Californians are tweeting away. It's also interesting that better weather seems to make you happier (or rather, that better weather is correlated with happier tweets): Florida and California seems to be consistently in a better mood than the remaining US.

Also note how New Mexico and Delaware behave very differently from their neighbors. Full results, individual maps, and a high-res poster can be found on the dedicated Twitter Mood website.

 

The time-lapse video shows mood variations throughout the day. In summary: We're happy in the morning (hopes and dreams abound), then not happy (hopes and dreams crushed under weight of reality/freeway traffic), then happy again (crushed hopes and dreams forgotten during happy hour).

 

Pulse of the Nation: U.S. Mood Throughout the Day inferred from Twitter

 

And because "I'm happy" and "I'm less happy" don't always capture an individual's emotional state, researchers used this 49-page manual: "Affective Norms for English Words."

It rates emotion expressed by words. For example, "kitten" and "snuggle" are happier words than "syphilis" and "terrorist."

Infographic: The Rise and Fall of Social Networks

Facebook has announced that it now has 500m active users, just six years after it was first launched. The site has become the poster child of social networking on the web. However, other networks have not fared so well.

View Large | via www.bbc.co.uk

Infographic: How Mobile Phones Are Changing Social Media

Have you ever wondered about the relationship between mobile phones and social media? The mobile web is growing at an exponential rate, and this trend shows no signs of slowing down.

This graphic illustrates the rates at which people access the mobile, social web, as well as what they do once they are connected.

via www.flowtown.com| View Large

Infographic: Social Media Demographics

via www.flowtown.com | View Large

How to Use Social Media to Reach Teen Influencers

A survey conducted by MyYearbook estimates about 80% of US teen Internet users visit social networking sites at least monthly, but it may seem difficult for marketers to reach them there when they’ve signed on mainly to chat with their friends and post personal updates.

The most influential users there care a lot about what their friends say, and are down on marketers. Just 5% trusted what they heard from ads most, and another 5% trusted information from companies.

Reaching teen influencers will mean taking advantage of earned-media opportunities and word-of-mouth that comes from highly trusted friends.

Influencers are more likely than other teens to recommend a variety of products to their friends.

The top 15% of teen social network users are 70% more likely to share purchase decision information with their friends.

via www.emarketer.com| Photo Credit: Derek Baird

Infographic: The Growth of GeoLocal and Location-based Services

via gigaom.com

Infographic: A Strategic Approach to Using Twitter

via Ogilvy 360 Degree Digital Influence group