Category Archives: Social Media
Email is dying? Better check your inbox
From eMarketer today…
The latest death knell for email was sounded by data in comScore’s “2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review” report, which noted a decline in time spent with web-based email among all US internet users under 55. Users ages 12 to 17, who have been most likely to drop email in favor of other online communications like social networking, had the steepest decline in usage, down 59%.
But web-based email checked at a desktop computer is only one slice of all email communications, and email represents an overwhelmingly important communications channel.
According to research from customer relationship marketing agency Merkle, 87% of internet users checked personal email daily in 2010, a number that has changed little since 2007. Among those with a separate email account for commercial email, 60% checked daily, down just 1 percentage point since 2008.
Further, social media usage is hardly taking away from email. Rather, social media users are significantly more likely than other internet users to check their email four or more times per day, and less likely to check infrequently…
I’m no expert, but it seems like it takes a loooong time for communication technologies to die. Radio, tv, newspapers, landlines, postal service, etc… all still with us in huge numbers… email too. Communication options are multiplying rapidly and the old stalwarts are not disappearing… shrinking in many cases… some would argue slimming down from eras of gluttony. This means lots of noise, lots of confusion, lots of splintering of audience. Businesses that can focus attention of groups of people and facilitate communication should be well positioned to provide value. Front Porch Forum is in the business of helping nearby neighbors connect and build community. We’re technology/channel agnostic, but we do know what attributes we like. More to come!
Local businesses buying lots of social media advertising
eMarketer predicts that U.S. marketers will spend $3 billion on advertising on social media in 2011…
With a great portion of that flowing to Facebook…
And most of that ad money seems to be coming from small and medium-size businesses. From Greg Sterling…
AdAge reports and rounds up some of the Facebook ad revenues data that have come out in the wake of the Goldman investment in the social network. However here’s the interesting part of the article:
[W]hat is surprising is the majority of revenue, 60% or $1.12 billion, was earned from smaller companies in 2010, those more likely to be using self-serve tools rather than work through a media agency. That’s greater than the $740 million coming from major marketers like Coke, P&G or Match.com.
Local small and medium-size businesses continue to snap up Front Porch Forum advertising space. Many are repeat customers, eager to reach FPF’s active audience of neighbors.
Coyotes in Suburban South #BTV #VT
Traditional media frequently uses Front Porch Forum for story leads. Today it’s the Burlington Free Press covering coyotes in suburban South Burlington…
In the wake of a rabid coyote attack last year on several people in Westchester County, N.Y., coyote-spotters have maintained a lively dialogue on the Butler Farms Front Porch Forum.
Chuck LaBombard, who has lived in the Oak Creek development for 11 years, is one of them.
“The coyote population has continued to increase during the past decade and I get it. We live in their territory,” he wrote in a January post.
“To occasionally see them on the golf course or in back of the development is one thing. To routinely see them on our sidewalks is totally another,” he continued. “Imagine if a child s pooked them or a lone adult was in the wrong place at the wrong time. My 11-year-old daughter is becoming afraid to play in her own yard… front or back! I am not a house-on-fire kind of person, but I am concerned!”
LaBombard and other neighbors have found no easy fix, and Police Chief Trevor Whipple has cautioned them against frontier justice in a crowded neighborhood: Firearms discharge is illegal within city limits…
Neighborhood Sites Can Awaken Community Involvement
[This posting originally appeared on PBS MediaShift/IdeaLab and Huffington Post.]
“When I was first on my own I used to bemoan that my fellow renters could hardly be bothered to return a wave but someone kept stealing my newspaper…,” wrote author Laura Grace Weldon in a recent blog post, What Makes A Street Into A Neighborhood? “Then we moved to a little house. It was silly how hard it was to meet the neighbors. They’d wave but that’s about it.”
Along the same lines, Sarah Byrnes wrote in YES! Magazine that “In the past, neighbors knew each other and engaged more naturally in mutual aid, sharing common resources and helping those in need. Nowadays, our mutual aid muscles are out of shape and pretty flabby.”
The National Conference on Citizenship’s Civic Health Index has attempted to bring science into the discussion by measuring things like the percent of people in a place who discuss politics with family and friends (44 percent in Vermont, for example). They found that 9 percent of Americans work with neighbors to improve the community, and 16 percent exchange favors with neighbors a few times a week.
Local Sites Drive Engagement
In their new book, The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods, John McKnight and Peter Block provide strategy and tactics culled from decades of community organizing. The book is chock full of hands-on, face-to-face ideas for pulling neighbors together. The Internet gets a mention, but it should get more.
A recent study from the U.K. by Hugh Flouch and Kevin Harris found incredible civic engagement impact from neighborhood-focused websites. Among the findings reported by residents who use these websites:
- 95 percent feel more informed about the neighborhood
- 92 percent feel useful information gets shared efficiently
- 82 percent feel people pull together to improve the neighborhood
- 69 percent feel an increased sense of belonging within the neighborhood
How is this possible? I’m guessing that the sites studied offer highly relevant (that is, very local) content, don’t waste people’s time, and emphasize relationships and communication among “participants” over simply feeding news to passive “readers.” These sites likely move away from social media’s 90:9:1 principal, which posits that 90 percent of visitors are lurkers, 9 percent pitch in a little, and 1 percent create the vast majority of a site’s content.
Sometimes even the 1 percent of the content that appears to be user-generated is actually supplied by paid contributors, such as the recent case with Yell.
Front Porch Forum
I see a different pattern with our Knight News Challenge-supported Front Porch Forum. We host a pilot regional network of online neighborhood forums in Vermont with the simple mission of helping neighbors connect and get involved.
In one rural town, we found that half of the community had subscribed to FPF after one year and, remarkably, 66 percent had posted. Instead of 90:9:1, we saw a ratio closer to 34:44:22. In another study in Burlington, Vt., where half of the city subscribes to FPF, 90 percent reported that their local civic engagement had increased due to this online service.
Finding quality, timely and accessible local information is a daunting task in our current environment, with traditional media’s convulsions and new media’s fits and starts. But that’s only half the battle. An informed yet isolated and disconnected populace does not make a democracy. We need more efforts like those covered in the U.K. study above that get people connected to neighbors and involved in the places where they live.
That’s our mission at Front Porch Forum and we’re excited to find growing interest in turning online words into offline local actions. Please share examples in the comments.
Me vs. Us: Can Social Media Prioritize Groups Over Individuals?
I just revisited a blog post by Dan Schultz titled In Search of a Community That Takes ‘Me’ Out of Social Media. I came to it after a fan of Front Porch Forum pointed out to me why she likes FPF so much… its design puts neighborhood before individual. Many of the giants of social media these days go the opposite way… they’re all about optimizing the experience for the individual. Here’s Dan’s chart…
Year-end look at hyperlocal big boys
Peter Krasilovsky offers a year-end look ahead at the WalMart approach to hyperlocal news…
… there is a rap out there that hyperlocal doesn’t scale and these [Patch and Fwix] are toys. Is it still the case?
Patch now has a local presence in 600 communities, with editorial and sales “pods” of 12 each Some of being run by longtime newspaper industry leaders. Last Sunday, LA Times media columnist James Rainey wrote that Patch is revitalizing local journalism and asserted that may have become THE place for journalists to go (aside from wages of $35k-$50k, or half the salary that big city journalists might have gotten from the big metro, if they were hiring).
Patch President Warren Webster… didn’t dispute my characterization of Patch as an experiment that wants to quickly get a national footprint to attract national, regional and local advertisers; create a business directory that goes beyond the Yellow Pages; and scale editorial and sales resources.
On a macro-level, local ad revenues typically split 50/50 between targeted national and local. For Webster (and cohorts), the bet is that Patch is poised to do both. They’ve publicly said they were spending $50 million to ramp it up in 2010…
Peter offers this list of horses in the race, grouped in an interesting way…
National/regional “hyperlocal” news sites
Local editorial and sales
Patch
Main Street Connect
Hello Metro
TBD.org
Geographic aggregation for media partners
Topix
Outside.in
Fwix
Datasphere
Everyblock
Local event and news sites
AmericanTowns.com
Center’d
DiscoverOurTown
Aggregators also supported by unique user-generated content and pro/amateur content farms
Examiner.com
Associated Content
Demand Media
Helium
Merchant Circle
No more nasty anonymous newspaper comments…
Glad to see this move by the Sun Journal is western Maine…
The obligation to stand behind your words has also been a core principle of journalism and this newspaper for many years.
The Sun Journal does not use unidentified sources in stories. When our readers write a column or letter to the editor for the newspaper they use their real names.
That, we believe, makes them accountable for what they say, plus it adds weight and credibility to their words.
But we have deviated from that principle for the Web, believing for several years that “online” was somehow different than “in print.” Nearly all newspapers have.
While we have known the identity of many people commenting on stories at sunjournal.com, it was difficult or impossible for users to know. As a result, some comments have been factually incorrect, reckless and mean-spirited.
While the technology of the Web is very different, our core principles should remain the same.
Both our website and print newspaper are, in fact, like a town meeting or community gathering.
So, beginning Feb. 1 all online comments at sunjournal.com will be accompanied by the real names of the people commenting. Only registered and verified users will be able to make comments. Anonymous comments will not be allowed.
All commenters, including subscribers and those registered now, will have to re-register under the new system.
Many newspapers, including the Portland Press Herald and the Bangor Daily News, are now taking steps to make Web commenting more responsible and accountable.
But our new system is the most ambitious effort we’ve seen to elevate the level of online discussion.
Plus, most of our current commenters seem to agree. In an online survey, 57 percent said they would prefer that real names accompany online comments.
The Sun Journal’s motto is “Connecting you with your community,” and for more than 160 years this newspaper has knit together Western Maine communities.
The advent of the Web has given us powerful new ways to connect people and allow anyone to become an active part of every discussion.
We know this decision will not please everyone. In time, however, we believe it will result in a better online experience for all.
Grand Isle Co. + FPF = iPod?
Do you know someone who lives in Grand Isle County, #VT… or spends significant time on the Islands? If yes, then please share this…
Join your Grand Isle County neighbors at FrontPorchForum.com and win an iPod!
Sign up today for your town’s e-newsletter: Front Porch Forum. If you live in The Islands you’ll be entered to win an iPod shuffle!
Front Porch Forum is building community in the Islands by helping neighbors connect. Need a babysitter, electrician, or snow plow guy? Just type a quick message and it goes out to your neighbors. Want people to attend an event, or know about a break-in? FPF is a great way to get the word out.
It’s easy to sign up… just go to FrontPorchForum.com and fill out a quick form. Then start reading and posting!
Do it soon! Only new sign-ups received by December 31, 2010 will be eligible to win the iPod shuffle. Sign up at: FrontPorchForum.com
Sample messages:
- Group rate for fuel oil
- Seeking reliable plumber
- Break-in report
- Free bookcase and table
- Childcare available
- Keys found
- Community supper in the works
- School board member responds
- Casseroles for sick neighbor
Front Porch Forum is available across 50 Vermont towns, now including all of Grand Isle County. Thanks to the e-Vermont initiative for sponsoring FPF in The Islands.
About Blog
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more
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