Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Social Media Trends for 2011, Part 1

Armano admits he is not always accurate.  Who could be when predicting the future?  Interesting ideas here. 

It's The Integration Economy, Stupid
Companies will go even farther in their use of social media to promote their brands.

Tablet & Mobile Wars Create Ubiquitous Social Computing
24/7, real-time
There could be a real fistfight out there as tablet computing and mobile innovations hit the market

Facebook Interrupts Location-Based Networking.
Facebook has the data, they have the consumers, they could force geolocation services like Foursquare into the background

Average Participants Experience Social Media Schizophrenia.
Keeping track of all of one's social media personas may drive average users to distraction.  Addiction may break out

Google Doesn't Beat Them, They Join Them
Google's attempts to become a social place haven't served them well.  What they do very well is indexing.  Apply that to social data and you've got real power for research

Social Functionality Makes Websites Fashionable Again
Existing websites add social capabilities to their sites


Six Social Media Trends for 2011 from Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog

Top Tens 2010, Part 2: The Most Contagious

Forgive me, Contagious.  I have cited you below but I have also sometimes cut and pasted.  I do encourage my reader to follow the link at the bottom of the post.  Consumer trends create innovation.  And there are some great innovations out there.  How can you innovate using these trends?

Remember, innovation is not only technology.  Sometimes simple training is enough.

Movements: Twisting the news, organizing the web
  • Newsjacking
  • Members of the Twitter community take on assumed identities in order to pass comment on current affairs.
  • The Web of Intent - apps that allow the user to customize their experience
  • It Gets Better - people working in all social media to create messages that offer hope
  • Soft paternalism - replacing the stick with the carrot in order to skew the decisions of the populace towards a favourable outcome.

 
Real-time Less 360, More 365
  • If you like something and it's not available, twitter the company and they'll send out more asap
  • Talk to the Old Spice Man real-time on twitter

 
Viral:  Sites Worth Sharing

 
  • TV No longer just the box in the corner
  • Connected TV - "Imagine this – you're on the couch at midnight catching up with True Blood through an HBO app, simultaneously checking baseball scores through an onscreen MLB widget. You dive into two-screen mode to tweet a comment on the show's cliffhanger ending, then download the series for a friend via Amazon. You turn the TV off with your smartphone and go to bed. Pretty smart, right?"
  • Interactive TV

('scuse the formatting problem)

"If connected TV is content you want, when you want it, interactive TV describes the ways in which broadcasters, software developers and content providers are seeking to retain viewers beyond the half-hour broadcast slot, sharing content and buzz with peers through apps and check-ins to shows"

Experience: Connecting the online with the offline
  • Yes, people really do leave their computers and meet up with others

 
Stories: Narrative, transmedia and a thumping great yarn
  • In other words, brands that best tell their stories using multiple formats get a great ROI

 
Demos: Just tell us what it does
  • Video, please!

 
Devices: More than just mobile
  • "Think of it this way – how many times did you hear friends or colleagues declare allegiance to specific devices, with their own proprietary formats, this year? "

 
Projects not Campaigns: Do something useful for a change
  • Brands partner with non-profit organizations to improve their image - and benefit the non-profit. 

Facebook:  World domination, one Like at a time
  • 2009 was the year twitter took over the world
  • 2010:  Facebook


Top Tens 2010, Part 1: Social and Searching

Some of these are counted by number of views, some by keyword, and some by "fastest rising" (aka:  trending) and you can be pretty sure each source has its own unique algorhythm

Youtube Top 10
#1: Bed Intruder Song

#2: Tik Tok Kesha Parody
#3: Greyson Chance ‘Paparazzi’
#4: Annoying Orange Wazzup
#5: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like (Old Spice)
6: Giant Double Rainbow
#7: This Too Shall Pass OK Go
#8: The Twilight Saga Eclipse Trailer
#9: Jimmy Surprises Bieber Fan
#10: Gymkhana Three, Part 2

Twitter
1. Gulf Oil Spill

2. FIFA World Cup
3. Inception
4. Haiti Earthquake
5. Vuvuzela
6. Apple iPad
7. Google Android
8. Justin Bieber
9. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows
10. Pulpo Paul

Google
chatroulette

ipad
justin bieber
nicki minaj
friv
myxer
katy perry
twitter
gamezer
facebook

Yahoo
BP Oil Spill

World Cup
Miley Cyrus
Kim Kardashian
Lady Gaga
iPhone
Megan Fox
Justin Bieber
American Idol
Britney Spears

YouTube 2010  from Stephen's Lighthouse

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

E-Readers and the People Who Use Them

Lots of end-of-the-year buying advice and a little bit about the e-book market

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BSIG has discovered that heavy readers tend to be dedicated e-readers also.  This is even affecting paperback sales. 

The The New York Times finally caught on to the fact that e-books and romance readers are a match made in heaven.  Romance sales are the fastest growing segment of the e-book market.  When  “Maybe This Time,” by Jennifer Crusie hit the market, Amazon sold as many e-books of the title as they did hardback

Even with the bad press about iPad as an e-reader, surveys are showing that it may outsell Kindle this year.  It will be interesting to check after the holidays and see if this is true. On the other hand, I suspect that iPad buyers are wanting a dual-use device.  Ereading is only one of the things the iPad does

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Oh snap!  The New York Times estimates 1.3 million e-readers will be sold over the holidays.  I tend to agree with those who say the dedicated e-reader may only be an interim device but WOW what an impact!

And get this:  eBooks Ready To Climb Past $1 Billion sold.  Is this moving faster than MacDonald's hamburgers in the early years?

The Association of American Publishers reports that e-books amount to 9% of  trade book sales.  This is a 112% increase over last year

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NookColor
Tim Carmody at Wired.com's Gadget lab says:  "Nook Color is the only “reader’s tablet,” straddling dedicated e-book readers like the Kindle and multipurpose tablets like the iPad. I was expecting tradeoffs. I wasn’t expecting its advantages." 

Sarah, at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, has noted that the iPad (10") was difficult to use as a daily commute reader because of its size and heft.  Carmody has found the 7" NookColor to be much easier to handle than an iPad.  He also noted that the keyboard is the easiest to use of any software keyboard he has used. 

Books are easy to buy from Barnes & Noble.  Even better for libraries, the device is compatible with Overdrive.  If you want to read a magazine, you can get full color, including ads or read only in article mode.



****************
Lots of evaluations and suggestions for e-reader purchases out there.  It is expected that Kindle will remain the most popular for quite some time to come.  I can't help but wonder if we are promoting our e-collections enough.  If we did, and somehow noted tactfully that Kindle can't be used with Overdrive, if the Kindle would remain on top? 

Recommended ereaders: 
The Digital Reader:
For the book-buying public: Kindle
If the reader wants to be able to use library e-books as well as purchase books:  Nook or Sony Reader Daily Edition PRS-950 are recommended.

Teleread
For Kids:  NookColor
For Adults:  Kindle 3 or Sony Daily Edition

Both sources clearly do not recommend:
Nook - software still has kinks, Kindle is cheaper
Kobo - if you only want wifi, it's good.  Teleread expects the Kobo to improve, so keep your eyes out
Sony - Anything other than the Sony Reader Daily Edition
iPad - heavy, limited battery life, and hard to use outside.  The bookstore is also limited


 eReader holiday guide
The New York Times estimates that over 1.3 million ereaders will be sold over the holidays. Are you ready? Do your patrons know which ones are compatible with your service
Holiday Gift Guide To eReaders – eBookNewser
NOOKcolor: Hands-On Review and Thoughts for the Future
Dedicated ereaders the choice of heavy readers, says BSIG study
“Which ereader device should I buy?”
Survey shows Apple iPad will soon be bigger than Kindle for ebook reading

eBook Sales at 9% of Trade Book Sales from No Shelf Required

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Big Changes Afoot!

My posts will be even more sporadic than usual for a while.  But I wouldn't want to deny anybody of the awesome thrill of perusing items I have shared via Google Reader.

The items will remain on the right side of the blog, but now you can easily subscribe to my shared items and receive them all in your own reader! 

Here's how:

My public feed URL is
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/Booktender

Just cut and paste that puppy into your own google reader and you'll soon enjoy the full richness of my comments on various items I share.

Or just bookmark it.  Your call

But don't remove Libraryland Roundup from your readers!  While sporadic, I will be back to summarize and opinionize as I can.

Total WINNAGE my dear reader!  Act now!