Emerson Direct Marketing Observations

It’s wednesday April 20th 2008, so I think it’s important that we keep it light, interesting and still add a bit of tech stuff in todays post. First off lets go here:
The world’s most famous colossal squid was still thawing yesterday in a New Zealand museum laboratory as researchers prepared to measure it, probe its interior, and take samples. It has a huge eye.

Here’s how much of a snooze fest was American Idol was last night, I started watching the Pittsburgh Penguins versus the New York Rangers hockey game!

How can they have the contestants singing songs we haven’t heard… ever?  Or better yet, songs our parents barely remember? And they wonder why the ratings are starting to slip. Perhaps we’ll look back on Neil Diamond night as the night the show “jumped the shark”. 

For the uninitiated, the term jump the shark refers to when a tv show tops out in popularity and starts to fade in to Bolivian-as Mike Tyson once said.. The origin of the term comes from an old episode of Happy Days, where Fonzie decides to try and jump over a shark on a pair of water skis…nuff said.

On Monday night I caught the intro to Deal or No Deal where they had Storm Troopers as brief case holders, Darth Vader as the banker and Chewy as a cheerleader…Can you say JUMP The Shark?

This just in: If you’re young and have zero cash, then you probably use Yahoo more, and if you are rich and older, then you use Google! Say what? According to Hitwise the stats bear this out, check the matrix.

According to Uptrends, there are some social networks out there that need to get their act together. This is in reference to the amount of time certain social networks were down, as in “Page not found”. Not a good idea to be anti-social when your business model is..ah hem a SOCIAL NETWORK. Two of the biggest offenders were BlackPLanet.com and Reunion.com. BlackPlanet was down for a total of almost 21 hours in the past 30 days and Reunion.com, almost 13 hours. Uptrends, is one of the leading remote website and server monitoring companies that tracks uptime of some of the most popular social networks.

My plan for optimizing some terms for the sake of SEO, specifically the term, direct response marketing, seems to have worked rather well. I’m not shouting it to the rooftops, just merely giving myself some props for having a plan, sticking to the plan and watching it work. Right On, Me! It was not an easy term, but it wasn’t like it was mortgage lenders either, but the results have been favorable.

On a sports note, The Spurs are still the champs until someone knocks them off, though the Lakers are really looking good. The Chris Paul gang out of New Orleans is a really good story this year, and I’m glad the Rockets are not laying down. Are the Mavs ready for an overhaul? The New York Times thinks so.  Looks like the J kidd trade might not have worked out. But do you fire the coaches? Same holds true for the Suns and Shaq? It’s been fun to watch snippets of the games each and every night. Looks like we might see the Pistons advance as well as the Cavs. Am I the only that thinks the Wizards are turning into a bunch of punks? Don’t think I’m right? read this post by Mary Schmitt Boyer  One last thing, the TNT announcers on all of these games have been fabulous! Major shout out to them.

 

 This morning I decided to see how many cool Twitter applications were floating around. The key for me was how quick could I understand them and if that was the case, maybe the common person might be able to grasp them as well. There’s nothing worse than someone touting the next big thing, and it being so difficult to understand or implement that it ceases to be very cool.

Flotzam seemed to have a cool take on twitter. In this mash-up of Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Digg and blogs, you can use this simple application to configure what you want to watch and the speed in which you see it. To Quote,” Want to view what your Twitter friends are doing? Want to see the photos your friends have posted on Facebook? Or maybe their photos on Flickr, too? Download now and have all of your photos, Tweets, Diggs, Facebook invites & pokes and feeds come to you”

Madtwitter was kinda of a cool desktop/systray app. Once configured it will stay at the bottom of your desktop (in the systray) showing itself when you receive new “twits”. Clicking on its icon will show the main window where you can write your “twits”.

How about a couple of cool Twitter search engines? I like this one Twittertroll and this one Twittersearch  Here is a nice directory I’ve used quite a bit as well TwitDir. Here is a Digg combo called Twitigg

PicoBuzz is fun because it picks up on the latest buzzwords that have been tweeted. The voyeur meets Twitter. This next one should be on everyones list. It’s a black list of Twitter spammers called the Twitter Blacklist

So you’re on the go and not sure when you need to be somewhere to receive the package that is being sent via UPS or Fedex, well now you can track them using Twitter and @Trackthis, This one might be my fave.

Sales people unite! Salestwit seems to have potential, though it did lock up on me initially but that might be because its behind an SSL? But hey anything that can arm the sales person out there with ammo to close the deal, right?

twi8r translates text message shorthand to English and vice versa and let’s you post immediately to Twitter.  Moby Picture lets you add postings to your Twitter and Flickr account from your mobile phone, email or from the web, including pictures! All postings to this platform are automatically also placed in your Twitter account with a tinyurl, directing to the posting photo. For Flickr you can automatically add tags as well.

Similarly, Snaptweet  allows you to send your Flickr photos to Twitter. Now Tweeetwhatyoueat is like having your peeps check out what your eating and it also helps you manage what you eat.  It’s your daily food diary It answers the question - what did you have to eat today?

This next one is a total time killer but hey sometimes when your’re doing nothing, it might be just what you need! Straw Poll Now fills that void.

This twiiter app is hilarious. Some if it I can agree with but essentially its suck search app. IN other words, search for things that suck. Ifsuck

Wanna twitter like a pirate? Aye Matey then ye will be wanting to check out Post Like a Pirate

Twitthis has a definite niche so you’ll want to add it to the list. When visitors to your website click on the TwitThis button or link, it takes the URL of the webpage and creates a shorter URL using TinyURL. Then visitors can send this shortened URL and a description of the web page to all of their friends on Twitter.

Feed your Innertwitter here.  Take notes when you are anywhere with Twitternotes 

 

In a world of too many options and too little time, our obvious choice is to ignore the ordinary stuff. Marketing guru Seth Godin  awhile back, spells out why, when it comes to getting our attention, bad or bizarre ideas are more successful than boring ones. And early adopters, not the mainstream’s bell curve, are the new sweet spot of the market.

Did you know that a billion text messages are sent per day? Did you know that 2 years ago that nearly 11% of all voting done on American Idol was via text messaging? What kind of a hard number was that?  Try about 65 million.  Mobile marketing is projected to grow from $708 million in overall revenue in 2007 to $2.2 billion in 2012 according to Jupiter Research. In 4 years it’s going to grow almost 300%.

The mobile web is exploding, and if you don’t understand that by now, then you’ve been living under a rock. Thanks to the iphone in particular,  and Safari more specifically, intenet enabled phones are becoming more user friendly and more robust in their offerings and overall customer satisfaction. With that being said, the mobile web is now becoming a more desirable place for marketers to try and pitch their products.

Interestingly enough, the mobile web is a more collaborative environment for marketers and their products in that It requires and has a lot of moving parts. You cannot run a mobile campaign without buyin from multiple channel partners, multiple departments, and multiple vendors and technological entities. But truly what marketers need to know best is their consumer, their user, the person they are trying to reach through their mobile device.  Yes it’s product centric, but trying to appeal to a demographic of 54+ with a NIke mobile text to win ad, might be tougher than going after  the 18-24 male demo- so the point is mobile is best at going after the meat and potatoes consumer who is no more than a foot away from their mobile phone at all times. The person who’s cell phone is an extension of their personal brand. Find that person. That is the key, then tie that person into THAT specific offer. A 1:1 offer that makes sense to that person.

With more than 70% penetration of mobile use in urban areas. The last great frontier of marketing to consumers is mobile. It’s only going to get better and the potential will be endless.  Opportunities exist for marketers in the form of text to win campaigns- the most pervasive and common currently, as well as consumers using their mobile phones for everything from purchasing tickets, mobile video, searching for pricing, searching for coupons, downloading music through wifi, and or interacting with billboards.

What marketers needs to know is that, yes it’s not too late to get in the game and yes it’s a game that everyone is eventually going to be participating in to a certain extent. Bear in mind that not only are theur savvy marketers and companies out there, but the consumer is becoming more hip and more comfortoable with the technology, and thus the bar will keep getting raised in regards to consumer expectations.  Always keep in mind that the phone is merely an extension of or a conduit for entertainment. Whether its music or video or chat or sufring the net. Consumers like to be entertained and with the continous advances in pushing the content out, the opportunities to piggback enetertainment are just as viable as a text to win campaign.

Along with text campaigns that keep spiffing up the offers, another aspect to keep in mind is that search will become more of a viable optiion with mobile as well. So you the marketer need to be aware of and prepared for your mobile web offerings to be compliant and search engine friendly to mobile search. Yes there is a lot here, but if you start doing your homework now and start small, you will be well ahead of the game and more comfortable with what is thrown at you and what you can bring to clients.

How far does mobile marketing extend? Here’s your last example. Virgin mobile has a mobile campaign that allows users to interact with ads in exchange for free services. How old is the target market? 13-34 year olds. 13. How many registered users are there up to this point? Almost 700,000. Your goal, figure out what the consumer wants and deliver a mobile solution.

Below is a conversation I had with Fred Yee, President of ActiveConversion/FoundPages in regards to a question that I had posed to the Linkedin group. The Question Details are below, but the main question is in the title of this post.
——————–

Me: I once had a colleague who told me he rather would have a 2 sales people rather than x amount for marketing. I had another colleague or vigorously defended marketing and branding as something that could not be ignored. It ended in a stalemate. Is it possible to have one without the other and still be realtively successful?

On 4/23/08 11:50 AM, Fred Yee wrote:
——————–
Marc, I think I understand your question and although the ‘mix’ is important, and having all is important, I may have your answer if there is only one allowed.
Today I would say online marketing. You can do a lot with a website, search marketing and email marketing, which is low cost and bring leads in, so that even non-sales (owner, manager, admin and technician even) can engage to produce sales. It’s also why Google has 800,000 customers now…
Offline is good for branding and credibility but short on producing tangible sales. Sales people can close but they need leads and without decent marketing, it’s expensive sales.
Of course, there are situations and industries where online marketing doesn’t work that well or is outperformed by the others but in general I have noticed that it works well for most.

Links:
http://www.activeconversion.com

On 4/23/08 12:52 PM, Marc Meyer wrote:
——————–
Fred, I would have to agree with you in that given all of the online productivity tools that are out there, the advent and rapid acceleration of user generated content and the ability to leveredge them at little or no cost, an inhouse team that consists of everyone from the folks in HR to the folks in IT, to the people down the hall in management, all have the opportunity to brand and market and create sales leads and marketing materials and opportunities. Which means that a collaborative effort and a sense of ownership can do more for growing a company selling a product than a single marketing department operating out of a vacuum, an autonomous sales force working without sales leads or a management team demanding results without a budget.

Thanks for responding to a great thread.

Marc, what can I say? Having been pained by this for over 15 years, I totally agree. Great minds must think alike! Fred.

Marc

I know you get tired of going to the same sites day in and day out hoping for something other than your usual blah blah experience. It could be your blog you go to and you’re hoping for that killer response to your post that you labored on for hours. It could be a new connection in one of your many social networks. Or maybe it’s the hopes that some of the 129 emails in your inbox are actually from people you know! Instead of the usual plethora of Nigerian kings, male enhancers, and cheap software emails.

Nevertheless, here are 11 websites that you might actually bookmark and go back to at least more than twice. Who knows? You may even bookmark and use one or two of these on a regular basis!  So Here is your latest weekly List:

RateMyDrawings Might be a good one to try out with the kids or maybe you might want to use it yourself.

Yapta This one’s timing might be better than ever. Track airfares and save money!

BossBitching I had no idea there were sooo many bad bosses out there! How did they get the jobs in the first place?

Want to access your pc from your phone? Then check out Soonr Over 600 handsets supported, including all major feature phones and smartphones.

Whenever Google buys something it must be good, so maybe that is the case with Grand Central With GrandCentral, you can be reached with a single number, answer a call at any phone you want, seamlessly switch phones in the middle of a call, and even know whether a call is important before you take it. Cool!

How bout free wake up calls? Ok I know we all don’t travel that frequently, but still good to know about Wakerupper Because it does more than just wake up calls.

I know I could use something like this ProQuo which stops junk mail and protects you from ID theft!

This company I could have used back in December Mobical allows you to securely backup your mobile data for free.

Here’s a quick way to send files, pics, vids and music to your cellphone with Beam it up Scotty

Now is a good time to be watching where your money is going, try this free app out Mint

Lastly, this site lets you funk things up a bit Be Funky

First, let me talk about how I just tried to publish this and poof it was gone, so I am having to rewrite it. But it’s also giving me more time to think about whether social diversity exists online in social networks. My gut reaction is that online social networks are direct reflections of the offline world and thus we run with our own pack and very seldom do we like to step out of the bubble. Heres a quick test: Try doing a search on social diversity in social networks, there are no results or better yet, nothing with any substance. 

Although in doing an initial search, I did come across an interesting site called Mixyourworlds. The title should say it all but Mixyourworlds goal is to “put the fun back in racial profiling”. I say that tongue in cheek but they are dead serious. Mixyourworlds wants to help its members create diverse friend groups while helping them realize and change their racial biases. In fact it’s tagline is “Can racial profiling be fun?”

A noble if not challenging task to say the least. Especially when there are many many other larger, more well known social networks out there. Yes but are they diverse? That’s tough to say. But interestingly enough, when searching for friends on Facebook for example, you cannot search based on race. And why should you? or should you? I understand the premise. We want you to search on people not race, creed, or color.  Which means that you can search on people, just people… People with like minded interests but who may have a different skin color or ethnic background. You won’t know until you see their picture. Then you’ll make your snap or accelerated decision.

 But if we like to hang with people who are like us, another question arises, Do mixed race, mixed ethnicity relationships work better in social networks? Do they have a better chance of making it?

They do if the social network is niche based. They might have a better chance to flourish. Businessweek broaches the subject in the Rise of Niche Social Networks But really what we are talking about are 2 types of social networks here. We’re talking about the pasty white networks that are Facebook and MySpace and then all of the “other” social networks. Mixyourworlds’s ”racial profiling” for instance, comes from tracking the make-up of users’ friends on the site and pointing out racial attraction preferences and biases. So if your looking to expand your social base beyond what MySpace and Facebook offer, then the thinking is that “yes there are plenty of other niche sites out there to meet exactly what you are looking for”. I know that is a direct conflict in trying to create a harmonious online social networking experience, but that may be more of a reflection of 21st century society than we care to admit.

After thinking about this long and hard, I decided to throw the question out to my Linkedin colleagues a few weeks ago.  The question wasn’t geared towards diversity in social networks per se, but you will understand the context as you read further. Here was the question:

Can social networking help the poor and the disadvantaged?

On the surface social networking seems to be reaching the far corners of the universe. But are the poor, the disadvantaged and even minorities, operating on an even playing field? Do class distinctions hold steady even in social networks?

One of the better answers came from Jason Breed from Neighborhood America:

Good question. I will answer in a couple of ways.
1. I’m making a couple of assumptions - it seems the spirit of your question is genuine and I do not believe you are trying to insight any prejudice or tensions by grouping anything together, you simply want to know if and where social nets are leveling the playing field and are there still inequities. the other assumption is that by “social networking” you are referring to digital social networking. In both of these cases, I”ll give you some examples where it has worked.
2. Case Studies (and a couple of different ways to think about it) - MOBILE - adidas has a campaign running “Basketball is a Brotherhood” targeted to basketball players at the street level or street-ballers. there is a mobile component to this campaign that lets you interact with any of the 5 sponsored players like T-Mac, KG, Chauncey Billups, etc. They have received over 100k people who have opted in via mobile that is a series of ongoing interactions. Consider Mobile as a way to engage populations who are less likely to be online or who want to connect whenever, however they want to.
The second example is the Government (believe it or not). Specifically working in the Miami area, the transportation department is mandated to reach out to citizens and provide fair access to information on any project and specifically on a road project that spanned 7 different neighborhoods of varying socio-economic and demographic residents. Using the web, the department was able to create dialogue with residents who were comfortable using the web in this way. The benefit is they were able to focus their limited amount of employees to meet face-to-face with more of the people who did not want to communicate via the web. This is in-direct however very effective use of social media in the gov sector. Who would have thought, right? I have dozens of other examples too. Hope this helps.

A great response that touches on a few points there. The most important being that social diversity can exist on may levels in online social networks, and is and can be accessible by more than just the privledged, affluent, white middle and upper class. Tom Ford, CEO of Town Connect puts it more succintly:

Interesting question. The public Internet and sites like MySpace remove economic, class and social barriers. Since anyone with internet access can interact with anyone else with Internet access.  People are communicating online with others that they would never interact with offline.

In the U.S, class distinctions are determined by wealth, income, education, and type of occupation.

Although Linked In enables greater interaction between classes (CEOs connecting with entry level workers) it still remains a social network for educated, higher income, knowledge workers.

Facebook began as a network for class distinction based on education - each university was their own network. The students at Harvard weren’t friending the kids at Podunk State in rural U.S. Today, networks are still established based on class distinctions - corporate, geographic, etc.

Our research and experience with TownConnect indicates people feel safest in social networks in their local community and with those they know. The class distinction in our network is based on where you live- which implies a level of income. Online social networks are mirrors of offline social networks, just accelerated.

Accelerated relationships. Couldn’t have said it any better than that. So do accelerated relationships promote the possibility of social diversity? No, if anything they imply that you make a quicker decision based on quick touch points, like ASL. People cut to the chase online and probablly as much do the same when reading profiles. You read a profile, you look for certain things. If you do not have access to a profile then what do you do, you look at a picture. Then you are going to make a decision based on that picture and nothing else. Looks like an accelerated decision is at hand.

Bottom line, social diversity in social networks probably has a better chance of succeeding online than it does offline since you can go out of the hood without the usual fear and backlash that accompanies someone who does the same in the offline world. Bottom line: We choose to run with our own pack even in the online world.

Wow, it finally it might be warming up in the Northeast. And we’re only mid way through April! With that being said, you’re still going to have some down time here and there since you might be bumming a little that Kristy Lee Cook finally got the ax on American Idol.  So as you peruse all the info that you can get your hands on regarding American  Idol, here are 10 other websites you might want to check out that may deliver more a bit more than Idol updates.

Shout Out to Google

First off let me throw some major props out to Google.  If there is one thing that I will not stand for, it is the exploitation of children in any way, shape, and form, and child pornography would have to be #1 on my list. The fight against child pornography is getting an assist from technology designed by Google to help identify copyright-protected clips on its YouTube video-sharing site.

Four Google employees used their “20% time” — during which the company encourages them to pursue unofficial, out-of-the-box projects — to customize the copyright software for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s program for identifying children in sexually explicit photos and video.

Software already has been used to match known images, but when new ones are submitted by law enforcement and service providers, analysts generally make identifications manually, often based on recollections. The center has recently employed facial-recognition technology to make those IDs easier, but with limited success.With the new Google tools, analysts can also seek matches based on other attributes, such as the color and shape of a couch or the wallpaper pattern in the background of a photo.

Anything to stop this in it’s tracks, I’m all for, so right on Google.

Next up is an Ad agency in Pittsburgh Called Smith Brothers I personally know these guys and they are a good bunch. They just received some major recognition out at the Adtech 11th Annual Awards Ceremony in San Francisco, The Brothers received top honors for Best Integrated Campaign for the Heinz Top This TV Challenge campaign - beating out hundreds of entrants from top advertising and interactive agencies worldwide Smith Brothers’ campaign featured the innovative use of messaging on the labels of millions of Heinz ketchup bottles and ketchup packets - combined with integrated support from print, TV and interactive advertising. The campaign invited consumers to visit TopThisTv  where they could create, upload, view and vote on the best consumer-generated Heinz TV commercial. To further promote and facilitate consumer participation, Smith Brothers formed a strategic partnership with Google and YouTube - and the response was unprecedented. The campaign received over 10 million views, 8,000 consumer-generated commercials and visitors to the site spent over 127,000 hours interacting with the brand while viewing and voting on the consumer-submitted videos Good job fellas.

On a side note that has nothing to do with Heinz or Smith Brothers, but plenty to do with branding, check out John Mayer and his ever evolving sleeve!

I came across this site the other day, though I’m not sure how. It’s called the experience project  It seems rather cool and unlike “most” social network sites. Here’s the description”

Experience Project is the first social experience website where you can anonymously share the experiences and personal stories that matter most to you. Quickly build a network of supportive new friends who understand your life, while exploring over one million life experiences told first-hand by people just like you. You can be yourself here.

Awhile back, I had thrown a question out my Linkedin Network which asked whether social media sites were doing enough for the poor and underprivledged. The responses were interesting, but one of the sites that I was made privy to was a site called Kiva whose tag line is,”loans that change lives”. Essentially it is a social networking site that helps to put donors of cash in touch with 3rd world or developing nation entrepreneurs. A cool concept if you ask me. And it’s a way to give back through the power of a social network!

Another site that caught my eye is called Friendfeed FriendFeed enables you to keep up-to-date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing. It offers a unique way to discover and discuss information among friends. Hey anyway that I can keep the chaos that takes place on my desktop in some sort of order works for me, check it out and let me know what you think.

Ok, the spring time means lots of things in lots of places. In New Orleans, where I grew up it means 2 things to me. One is the Jazz Fest and the other is Crawfish. If you have never been to NO then you need to go to the JazzFest, generally the weather is awsome though there might be the occasional sprinkle, and the combination of music and food over a 2 week period is ridiculously fun.  Check out this small snapshot of a line-up:The Neville Brothers, Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffett, Tim McGraw, Santana, Maze feat. Frankie Beverly, Sheryl Crow, Widespread Panic, Dr. John, Al Green, Diana Krall, Keyshia Cole, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss….Woooowheeee… Ok.. So if you can’t make it, then the next best thing might be a few pounds of crawfish. The above link will ship them right to your door. Live. You do know how to prepare them right?

I saw this sight Rollyo and all I could think of…well never mind what I thought, but it has a pretty cool app when it comes to search. And remember folks, just because Google is the big dog, doesn’t mean that the other breeds of dogs are bad…So Check out Rollyo 

This last site you will def have to bookmark. It’s called Workhappy. Hey, any website titled “work happy” is going to grab my attention. It’s sorta entrepreneurial based but I’m sure you know someone who could benefit from it.

I came across this other day to and it seemed sorta interesting, let me know if you had any opinion of it, good or bad. It’s called Loladex and the tag line is, “Local picks from people you trust…” What if you trust no one?

 I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday and he told me would be with the same company in 5 years. I said, to quote my favorite tv spot of the moment: “dude”… “no effin way”.  I said, don’t you realize how fast things are moving? There is no way to really know what you will be doing in 5 years. Which made me think about…oddly enough,  how fast things are moving. Generation C, user generated content, and the art of self promotion seem to be growing at an exponential pace leaving one to ask, “what could possibly be next at this rate?”

Generation T, for Transparent

Let’s face it. A lot of people, and I mean A LOT, are interested in gaining fame, fortune, notoriety and all the entrapments that come along with it, any which way they can get it. One of the fastest and most effective and most viral ways that this can be achieved is through the internet. Namely social media aka social networks. Awhile back, Rohit Bargava had written an interesting post entitled Using Blogs for Personal Marketing that essentially maps out how one can market oneself through social media. What Rohit failed to recognize back then, were the lengths and the extremes that people were willing to go to and utilize to extend their personal brand. Putting shame, morality, ethics and common decency aside, today’s generation of online users now try to leverage their “me” brand by any electronic means available. From creating videos for You Tube, and Flickr pages devoted to last night’s party, to developing first person-”if it bleeds then it leads”-content with a mobile device to creating inflammatory blogs. The  amount of tools available for content creation today almost exceed the possibilities that exist in which they can be used. And that, is a scarry thought. 

Coupled with these personal branding tools as we said, are the possibilities, and given todays culture of laying it all out there-on the bleeding edge, the only limitations to content creation seem to lie in the acceptable moral boundaries of the viewers of said content and the creators imagination. The FCC notwithstanding, what can be found in cyberspace can boggle the mind in regards to not only user generated FREE content but also paiud content. Amazingly enough, all of this content can be guaranteed of having some type of audience.  Because of the notion that everyone wants to get paid, and everyone is willing to pay, would be auteurs are coming out of the woodwork with content that continues to push the envelope, try the patience, test the boundaries and skirt the law with their home grown submittals of what they think can fly online. . Where does it end? I have bad news for you, it has only just begun.

Generation E as in Exhibitionist

2 years ago in The Washington Post, Robert Samuelson had written that the Internet had unleashed the greatest outburst of mass exhibitionism in human history. This was 2 years ago!  If This is when MySpace and Facebook had truly exploded, what are we to make of todays social networking state of affairs? Sure they were hot, but now, today, at this moment, what we have seen is the explosive growth of niche social networks and numerous other ways to put yourself out there for all the world to see, 24-7-365. As Samuelson states:

“People seem to crave popularity or celebrity more than they fear the loss of privacy. Some of this extroversion is crass self-promotion. The Internet is a cheap way to advertise ideas and projects. Anyone can post a video on YouTube, free; you can start a blog free (some companies don’t charge for “hosting” a site). “

If that was 2 years ago, then what we see now is the explosion of tools and sites and networks that help people exploit themselves to no end. In some instances this has come back to haunt some people who have tried to get jobs only to be denied because recruiters had accessed their MySpace page and saw suggestive photos or comments. 

What we have seen and are seeing is a ship that is steering towards an even shorter attention span and demanding more of a punch line or a money shot. Now people expect to see a video that pushes their buttons quicker. Like wanting the porn without the acting.  Gone will be the 22 minute sitcom. Gone will be the 9 part mini-series. Goodbye Roots, see ya later Rich Man Poor Man. It’s bad enough that ”24″ has the audacity to have a 2 part series. We have become a society that wants to see “rea stuff” real quick. Remember when reality tv shows like Survivor were the rage? Well now, what plays well in Peoria is real YouTube video consisting of a 3 minute clip of either someone being humiliated, hurt, or embarrased or of someone we idiolize being put into a compromising position (Britney anyone?) or who is out and out being spied upon.

Our fast food nation now wants it, no, demands it’s content the same way. But the flip side is now we can create content that  a) showcases ourselves, b) shows someone being humiliated, c) someone getting their ass kicked, or d) showing off  some bizarre backwoods talent, or even more, e) blatantly spying on someone, or even more extreme, having sex with someone else.And for what?  All for the benefit of our perceived audeince and it’s insatiable thirst for this type of programming. Privacy has never meant less than it does today. But what this desire to show and share people our world has created, is the last piece to this new generation and that’s the Gen V public. The Voyeurs. The people that like to watch; and the portion of the public that has fueled the desire to put oneself out there.

 Generation V as in Voyeur

Nic brisbourne offers up this blurb in his post titled Mediated Voyeurism in which one of the comments on just what social networking has become states:

“The most prevalent use of Facebook was as a social activity – students reported using Facebook with friends to view and discuss other people’s profiles. Essentially, Facebook appears to operate primarily as a tool for the facilitation of gossip.

“…the consumption of revealing images of and information about others’ apparently real and unguarded lives, often yet not always for purposes of entertainment but frequently at the expense of privacy and discourse, through the means of mass media and Internet.”

So essentially we have become and I beg anyone to truly refute this, a society of watchers. What would most people do if they could not talk about others?  Part of the activity of social networks is the ability to access the content of others, to watch the content created by others, and to share that content with others. Thus not only in online social networks but also offline, we want to share that voyeuristic moment with others. The bottom line is again, we are a society that loves to watch, and now we have become a society that loves to watch content created by our peers. It’s raw, or so we think, it’s real, so we think, and it’s created by people that could be our next door neighbor and thus it has more value, more of a believe-ability factor than something created by Hollywood. It’s personal and some might agree that it’s private, which makes it that more “fun” to watch. Think about it, why do you think Americas Funniest Videos is so possible and successful? Because it captures video moments, for the most part, that are spontaneous and brace yourself, might be less than one minute. Amateur genertated content brought to you quickly and without makeup. And America absolutely has embraced it. Would be filmographers, would be actors on a stage for all the world to see, all thinking the same thing.”Maybe I’ll get discovered”!

 The Mobile Social Generation 

If you wanted to know where to look next for what might be on the horizon for sociological trends it would be no more than a foot away from you at all times. Thats right your cell phone. Within you hand held device is a social community. You just don’t know it yet.  Mobile social communities are sites where mobile subscribers can communicate with groups of like-minded individuals. They mirror traditional online social networks. These sites are growing in importance as more users of online social sites discover similar communities that they can reach via their mobile phones. Recognizing that there is a growing demand from consumers to access communities, many major online social networking sites are moving to mobile as well.
Thus, the newly formed, quickly evolving mobile social networks will be the next big extension of user generated content.  As soon as more sites become more mobile social friendly, look for more mobile friendly social content to be cranked out as well. Has it already happened? yes. To what degree? We have not even hit critical mass in regards to the type or amount of content that will eventually make it there.  Furthermore, there are more and more mobile web sites that are coming onboard daily, that are creating compelling content and grabbing eyeballs.  Lastly and you knew they would be mentioned, amateur mobile content creators will eventually dominate the space. Accoring to Businessweek: “Before long, everyone’s cell phone might make space for MySpace “. Thats not an if. Thats a when.

So what are you? Are you a social media voyeur? a social media exhibitionist? Or are you Transparent?