Make Seriously | Design and Life

It’s been too long between posts, so I thought I’d pop in a few words. (Posting has been on the backburner with the million things I have to get done as well as the broken A/C in the house this week, going on day 4 of 90+ heat with no relief!)

Yesterday was the staff retreat for the agency I work at. This year we had a bit of fun with social media at the Indianapolis zoo. Instead of a traditional scavenger hunt, we had our resident pregnant lady sending us tweets for clues from back at the Riverhouse (she couldn’t do the walking, so she got the joy of being home base). The team leaders each were subscribed to her (protected) feed, and as they got clues remotely the teams were to take photos to match the clue and then upload them to flickr. All in all it was a very fun experience.

At the end of the day, my colleague working home base commented that it was fun to be back at control because she got to see what was happening in next-to-real-time as we uploaded and tagged our photos. She knew where we were and what we were doing, and got to watch the search unfold as we completed it. While I’m sure the scavenger hunt idea using social media isn’t new by any means, I think it serves as a great example of how social media can be used.

For instance, suppose you have multiple reporters in who agree to set up a single flickr account and then individually post to sets. Now you get to watch the story unfold from three different angles as it happens, and something that would otherwise be missed by a lack of personell or cooperation can be caught. Or maybe you’re lost and need help. You can send out images of where you are and can get immediate feedback if anyone can identify the landmarks. It’s very, very powerful when used creatively.

You Website Will Be Assimilated

As is fairly typical during my day, I checked UnderConsideration’s Quips. It’s basically a wall where Armin Vit posts cool design-related things on the left, and visitors do likewise on the right. Sometimes it’s just normal stuff, sometimes it’s cool stuff. And sometimes, just sometimes, there is something so amazing it blows my mind. It’s no secret that YouTube has been getting revamped by people wanting to use it in new ways. Many will already be familiar with Nintendo’s very cool advertisement for WarioLand: Shake It. If you’ve been a loyal reader here, you may also be familiar with YouTube Street Fighter.

Well, BooneOakley just blew my mind. Think about the video below that you’re about to watch. That is their website. Yes, that’s correct. Their website is embedded in my website as a fully-functioning, fractal-style, mind-blowingly creative concept:

That this can happen, period, is incredible. You can even try going to their home domain: www.booneoakley.com. Guess what you’ll be redirected to? Yep. Not only do they not need to design or host ANY content, they can have any other company (or design blog, a lá MakeSeriously) HOST their website by embedding the YouTube video. It helps that they’re creative and have cool work anyway, but the concept itself is just amazing.

The only costs for their entire web promotional efforts are to purchase a domain name. No hosting required. No site-building. No broken links to worry about. No one to maintain content. No bandwidth restrictions (thank you third-party hosting!) All of those costs slashed, with SO much value added by taking advantage of a free, universally known video hosting website. They can have their whole website hosted anywhere that a video can be embedded. They can upload and easily change content and “linking” at any time. It’s just so cool to see companies to look at new forms of “media” and take such great leaps to make them awesome.

Twitter is not Statistically Sensible

If you’re in the business of marketing, or if you work with marketers, or if you read blogs done by marketers you may have noticed a new game that’s gotten wildly popular: Statistic Says. It’s an exciting new game that takes Twitter to a whole new level by finding statistics relating to the demographics and use of Twitter, then making up stories about it’s future boom or bust. While it’s a lot of fun, it’s about as useful as looking to Hollywood for accurate depictions of history.

The unfortunate reality of the situation is that most of the competitors in Statistic Says don’t actually know how to read, or use, statistics. Tossing fuel on the fire, Harvard Business released a set of statistics that examine who is using Twitter and who they follow. The real trick to going through this report is interpreting the data.

Watching this hit, I noticed a general reaction to a particular statistic: Among Twitter users, the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one.

It seems that there are two camps on this.
1) Nobody actually uses Twitter! If most people only post once, it shows that it’s pretty useless!
2) Twitter isn’t about posting, or Tweeting. It’s about other people Tweeting and gleaning information.

What Harvard Business did, instead of trying to interpret the data alone, was look at trending from other “social media” sites. They compared contribution rates from users of Twitter, Wikipedia, and Facebook and noticed that Twitter was far more like Wikipedia than Facebook. As a user of all three, I can’t say I find the trend surprising.

During a day of using Twitter, I find that there are several kinds of people, including those that never tweet. The catch, however, is that they still use Twitter. Compare me to Guy Kawasaki for instance. You’ll notice a small (read: enormous) disparity in our posting rates. Me: 826 updates, 66 followed, 107 following. Guy: 25,411 updates, 122,767 follwed, 127,137 following. We may not use Twitter equally. I have 3.2% of his total posts and only follow .05% of the total number of users he does.

However, this follows the exact trend that Harvard Business points out: the top 10% of active users account for 90% of the content. It’s just like Wikipedia. Most of the people who use Wikipedia (and Twitter) don’t actually go there to push content. They don’t have a whole lot to say. Maybe nothing. Instead, they find value in watching it and listening. A few examples of my own use include following the Indianapolis Star’s shopping feed on Black Friday to find out where the lines and sales were. Or following RedBox to get a free rental every Monday. Maybe it’s following Mike Massimino to find out how the Hubble repair mission is going. It could be following the Yankees to get scores on my phone without having to pay for a subscription.

Whatever the case may be, Twitter users aren’t always “users” in the sense that they contribute content. To see the tweeting rate and take it to mean the usage rate is to ignore some very common sense facts about statistics. With that, I leave you with one more thing to think about: lurkers. If you participate on message boards, you likely have noticed the large number of people who never post as well as the very few people who post a lot. The same is true of a very public, very real time message board.

The End of an Era

Last night, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk on Twitter) did something remarkable. He showed the world (or at least the developed world) a truth. It’s no secret that the newspapers are dying. Blogs have become the standard source of media for millions, and news outlets moved their print articles online to stay relevant. The problem they’re finding, however, is that there is no viable business model if they want to maintain their business the way it was run before the online takeover.

Take the New York Times, for instance. Most of it’s content is completely free via the web, but consumers still have to pay for a print version. So what do even loyal customers do? Keep the content, ditch the bills. It’s great for the mass market, and it’s improved readership. But what this move can’t do is pay the bills for the reporters around the world who contribute to the Times. In other words, these businesses can’t keep their models and still hope to compete, much less thrive.

So what amazing thing did Mr. Kutcher do last night? For free, via video, competing against one of the largest media outlets, he streamed live video of himself to thousands of people across the world to declare victory in a competition for market share. Mr. Kutcher had one million followers before CNN. What’s so big about that? For one, Ashton doesn’t have a television station, video producers or a worldwide network to help him get followers. He has Lil’ Kim on YouTube, he has PDiddy on Twitter, and he has the know-how to use social media to create an enormous following without having to spend a dime. He showed that he, as a single person, can hold more clout than a media conglomerate.

So what does this mean for the media? It means their business model is threatened. I would even go as far as to say it was obliterated last night. If we were to look at the cost of production for battle between the two, there would be a huge discrepancy. CNN has to pay contributors, staff, camera men, writers; they have a whole lot of people working to push for the win. Ashton Kutcher had himself, a bunch of free software and a lot of community influence. He’s not the only one. Of the top ten Tweeters, seven are individuals and two are media outlets. In case you’re not convinced, here’s the whole list. The crazy thing is, it’s not just major celebs on the list, there are up and coming stars in their own right littering the top fifty influencers. That’s hundreds of thousands of followers for relative unknowns. And they’re competing with the likes of CNN, The New York Times and NPR. Did I mention for free?

So the business model is bust. Kutcher declared “check!” last night, and now it’s up to the media to decide how to respond. Wave a white flag? Bonzai rush down the hill? Or maybe, just maybe, they’ll rethink the strategy all-together.

Twitter’s new… uh… Competitor

At first it kinda seems like this mockumentary about “Flutter” seems like any other “make-fun-of-Twitter-because-it’s-popular-right-now” youtube videos, but then it begins to sink in. People really do act this way about Twitter. It’s all about creating a market where there isn’t one, and hyping it up to cash out. At the end of the day, a good portion of the people on these services are doing just that: talking it up so they can be “experts” and make a buck. It’s been going on for centuries of course. As a designer at an ad agency, I can’t really say I’m not a part of that. Let me persuade you that you need me and/or my service. You don’t just want it, you need it. Let me tell you what it can do for you. And, pretty soon, someone makes another spin to make another buck, all the while a ton of people are out there wondering why they aren’t making any money. “Where is my kick-back?” they ask. And the answer is that there isn’t one. You’ll only get the value you make out of it, not the value someone else promises you. Anyway, it’s pretty funny. Enjoy.

Twell. Twasn’t That Twerrific.

Yesterday I had the good pleasure of attending not one but two Twitter seminars (technically one seminar and one webinar). The first one was hosted by PRNewswire, given by their resident tweeter and Media Research Supervisor Victoria Akers (@prnewswire). It was really great for a new user or anyone working on the PR side who hasn’t had a plan yet. For me it wasn’t all that new, but there were a few things of note that I think bear repeating.

- You often represent more than yourself, especially if you’re tweeting on behalf of a company. I think about this a lot, actually. As a private blogger, I’m still aware that my behavior will reflect on the company I work for. When I do things well, it helps show that I work for an employer who hires great people. If I were to get catty, it would show that my office is just a bunch of snoots. It’s especially concerning when I write design criticisms, because then I not only represent my company but it seems like I help put a face on “the every designer”. Evidence? Read back to my entry on the Forbes spec work article.

- Fill out the bio. People don’t know who you are if you don’t tell them. It’s advice I haven’t taken yet, but it’s important to remember

- Follow people in your industry. Even if you don’t want to enter the conversation, you’ll glean information straight from the source.

- Don’t be that guy. You know him. He likes to talk about himself and tell you how great he is. He wants you to know why you should like him. (I just secretly want that…)

- Don’t be a Debbie Downer. The best way to lose contacts and turn people away (if not against) is to put others down, act self-righteous and be negative. Even if you’re writing about something negative you can always be positive yourself.

- Don’t get into Twights. (Twitter fights) Save it for your favorite message board.

- Learn to respond to negative comments rather than react to them. Sometimes a reaction is worse than taking the time to write a positive article that puts light on a situation that’s been framed negatively.

The second seminar was hosted by Confluence at the Manhattan on 82nd St. I think, and I may be wrong, that it’s like AIGA is to the design world. That was an interesting session that was useful for starters and users alike. Perhaps my favorite thing about it was the diverse users who regularly used it on the panel as well as the interactivity. While too chaotic to serve a good function, they had a projected queue of the #indyconfluence hashtag up and everyone could contribute while they spoke. It was amusing and engaging. It did really distract from the presentation and take out any control the panel originally had, but I think it really helped demonstrate the ability to communicate with it as well as clarify what hashtags, retweets, @replies and so forth look like in real time. Hopefully I’ll post about that next and clarify what those are as well as make my recommendations for the future. I’m also hosting a training session at the office soon, so keep an eye out for postings regarding that (hopefully we’ll publish video from the session that will be useful in some of the practical issues involved and how to get up and started)