As we are seeing (click here for nielen/netrating figures), social network sites continue their spectacular rise. Yet another aspect of community that is growing. Social Radio, shared and social video (Youtube etc.) and out and out social networking sites are all rocketing in size and reach. The nielsen figures show MySpace dominating as a service but when you look also at the retention figures the order lower down the list changes a little with Facebook scoring highly.

I like this because it confirms that standard behaviour is occuring online. We read so much about ‘new behaviours’ but the fact that smaller sites have great retention bodes well for up and coming and new ventures in this space and shows that a sustainable model based on satisfied cutomers is possible even if you dont attain MySpace scale - i.e. when you plan to launch something aim clearly at a market and serve that market well.   They will reward you with loyalty.

As we are seeing (click here for nielen/netrating figures), social network sites continue their spectacular rise. Yet another aspect of community that is growing. Social Radio, shared and social video (Youtube etc.) and out and out social networking sites are all rocketing in size and reach. The nielsen figures show MySpace dominating as a service but when you look also at the retention figures the order lower down the list changes a little with Facebook scoring highly.

I like this because it confirms that standard behaviour is occuring online. We read so much about ‘new behaviours’ but the fact that smaller sites have great retention bodes well for up and coming and new ventures in this space and shows that a sustainable model based on satisfied cutomers is possible even if you dont attain MySpace scale - i.e. when you plan to launch something aim clearly at a market and serve that market well. They will reward you with loyalty.

Ok, just over a week to go to the b.tween conference. We would really like to get you start submitting comments, themes, questions or asking me (katz) on here, about the conference content. Each session will be very interactive; we will be blogging the event and using chat systems to enable all visitors and interested parties outside to take part.

Any contributions via this blog or diect to me would be welcome.

Just got back from a break and been catching up. This post caught my eye from Kevin Anderson. Its a rather humorous take on how comfortable the mainstream media actually are with blogging. The main thrust of the arguement from the BBC representative seems to be “who checks the bloggers?”; are blogs trustworthy? Well its interesting that a news organisation (that often commits errors, don’t they all?) can ask that, as it shows that they are running scared and dismissive about ordinary people actually stepping into their territory.

This is interesting. This is a typical middleclass liberal elite reaction to democratisation. Since the dawn of modern pop culture this elite has consistently claimed to support “ordinary people’s culture” while at the same time insisting on the retention of outlets such as radios 3 and 4 and sneering at anyone who reads the Daily Mail and The Sun. People do have the choice to read other newspapers but still they choose to buy the tabloids in their millions, not the qualities, and despite this being real democracy in action it’s not good enough for the elite, they have to attack ordinary poeple who buy these papers so why should their attitudes to social media be any different?
It is interesting that they choose now to attack outlets and channels that allow people to tell their story in their way and insist that their definition of “checking” should be applied to this world too. In other words they want to control it.

These new forms are great precisely because they dont have that old fashioned system of checks put on them. It will be interesting in the coming years to see how this begins to work when smart meta data filters emerge and the whole process of editorial approval breaks down even further.

This post isnt about the BBC by the way its about attitudes in the media in general - feel free to argue with me here or at the festival…

Who could have ever predicted the size and power of the blogging phenomenon? This started life as a few geeks publishing their diaries on the web on a day-to-day basis. Who on earth would want to read that? But people did read that – we are interested in other people’s opinions and personal experiences. Now, Technorati tells us that there are 27 million blogs, with another 75,000 created every day. The trend originated in the US, but has become truly global phenomena in a relatively short amount of time. There were more apparently more blogs in Japanese than in English last month.

Blogging originated as solitary people sitting at their computers writing personal journals. Solitary Bloggers have no power. Then along came RSS, or really simple syndication, which allowed people to easily link to content across the web. Suddenly anyone, regardless of technical skill, could publish a blog and link to other people’s blogs. When the phenomenal numbers of Bloggers across the world start to connect to each other, they start to have real influence. With this much potential for influence, it comes as no surprise that this force can be profitably harnessed by commerce. Trawling and analysing the vast amount of information across these millions of blogs could offer a way of predicting market forces and public opinion. Dr Brian Whitman, based at MIT, has created Echo Nest, a piece of software that scans blogs to find out what people are saying about particular songs. This information allows him to predict market success of the songs, allowing him to successfully forecast which song will hit the top of the charts and when. He claims that his forecasts have proved accurate week after week.

The power of the blogosphere continues to explode. Even Murdoch recently hinted that his media properties should start working with Bloggers, finding ways of linking them into his media empire. It’s a model already piloted by the online version of French newspapers Le Monde and Libération.

RSS offers a model where the user picks up content when they want it. Instead of buying and selling through big sites such as Amazon or ebay we are being offered the chance to buy and sell through blogs and RSS aggregators (iNods and Edgeio). These aggregators push traffic towards individuals’ blogs, making it possible for blog owners to make money or at very least raise their market profile. The first people to understand and exploit these new trends have the opportunity to become global brands.

RSS also offers (fortunately or unfortunately depending on which side of the fence you sit) a way of reaching customers without going through the spam filters that block so much email content.

Mark Rogers is the co-founder (along with RSS pioneer Ian Davis) of online monitoring and response specialist Market Sentinel. Apart from monitoring blogs and message boards Market Sentinel sets out to provide reputation measurement and benchmarking. It has also pioneered attempts to provide feeds free of spamblogs.

Mark (in the Emerging Trends Panel 10.45am Friday 26 May) will explore how consumer generated content and social media (blogs, Podcasts, youtube) are helping individuals do things that were formerly the preserve of the big media corporations publish text, sound and video and reach a global audience. This has implications not just for media owners, but also for brand owners, marketers and even governments.