I am one of the few people who didn’t throw a huge fit when the new version of Stumbleupon left beta. I admired the simplicity of the new interface and, as with most new things, decided to give the overhaul a fair shot before voicing my concerns about its limitations. In many respects, it’s much changed from the Stumbleupon the community had grown to love.
The developers at Stumbleupon attempted to make the site more social, adding in a bit of Facebook, a bit of Twitter, and some minor changes to the navigation options of your home page. The most important of these new navigation options, the Discover tab, takes users to a page with even more tabbed options: Recent Activity, Top Rated, Shares and Topics.
Now, if you’re anything like me, you don’t nearly have enough time to keep up with all of your subscriptions’ discoveries and stumbles. These options, taking you to popular websites as rated by the community, seemed the answer. Users without the benefit of extra time could now discover the most popular content as selected by their subscriptions, bypassing the time-consuming default Stumble! button and getting straight to the highest rated content. While this may have been a great idea, providing Stumbleupon users with a dynamic and unique page of popular content (it is based on your subscriptions, right?), it really just exposed the fallacies inherent to Stumbleupon. Take a look at your Top Rated tab and maybe you’ll understand where it is I’m going with all of this.
Here are some of the links I’m greeted with when hitting the aforementioned tab:
All of those pages equate to what we call blogspam. Unfamiliar with the term and what it applies to? Allow me to explain.
Image Attribution
This is a very simple lesson in content creation that we all should understand and start adhering to if we wish to rid the Internet of stolen content and, well, stolen content.
Every image on every site should have attributions for their photos. If a stumble is primarily text and utilizes one image that simply relates to the post, that is fine (though it should technically still have a credit unless the blog owner bought it on istockphoto — or a similar site — or there’s no doubt they own it by some other means).
Here’s what every image should have otherwise (image source links are usually found beneath the image but sometimes a single link will be found in a post’s introduction paragraph):
Now, if you actually took the time to visit the links I listed above, you may have noticed the insane amount of traffic each one of the uncredited posts have accumulated. Thanks to Stumbleupon’s update, these numbers are made available to anyone with the desire to do some investigating. The cumulative traffic count for the four URLs is just about 600,000 pageviews. Not too shabby for blog / site owners who create none of their own content and fail to credit other people’s content every time they steal it. I don’t know about you, but I preferred the days when I was ignorant to the amount of traffic these undeserved thumbs generated for these bogus, lazily updated sites.
So, if you’re a site owner, credit your content. And, if like most of us, you’re simply a Stumbleupon user, try to demand more from the sites populating your precious community. Without policing, it’ll just get worse.
All too often, I come across blog posts that are simply a regurgitation of some breaking news or someone else’s earlier thoughts.
Shouldn’t a blog be more? I sure think so.
Sure, sure…content is king. But shouldn’t it be original content? As we are nearing the 1 year anniversary of Collective Thoughts, I wanted to share with you a peek into very selective process in finding great bloggers to head it up. The single most important factor was that each contributor was totally original and the real thing. You know it when you see it. That said, here are the aha moment that I had in when reading the work of my esteemed colleagues:
Andy Beard – For me, Andy has had more thought provoking posts than any of the contributors here, so it was really special for me that he’s part of the team. If I had to pick one post there, it would be the Wordpress Masterclass post. An oldie but goodie, and may show many of you how little you know about Wordpress after all
Dave Harry – While Dave is a relative newcomer to Collective Thoughts, I’ve been a fan of his writing for quite some time. The Sphinn awards got my attention – great way to get a community buzzing!
Mark Laymon – Mark is quite a character. For those of you that don’t know him, you probably know of him as the guy that relentlessly throws sheep and pokes you in Facebook. This post on getting a PDF to the front page will live on forever in my memory. I’ll bet every commenter on Digg had their jaw to the floor when it happened
Shana Albert – As we all know, everyone loves Shana. Shana is a rare talent that has an outstanding writing ability to capture the human spirit. She actually started writing on Collective Thoughts prior to the almost immediate debut of Social Desire. Would have to say that my favorite post of hers has been how social media is like high school.
Tim Nash – I believe that his name will forever be associated with StumbleUpon. Who can forget the Stumbleupon Algorithm post? No doubt that this was a different thought than the crowd.
What post has been the aha moment for you? We’d love to hear from you.
StumbleUpon one of the collective thoughts team favourite social media sites has been getting a makeover and the features are slowly being rolled out beyond the beta group according to TechCrunch.
The new features have been slowly being coming along for beta users for a while, these include:
Expanded use of ratings via the 5 star system
Revamped Friends system, no more 200 user limit but limitations on friends per day
New profiling system to identify likely friends
Along with the obvious cosmetic changes, pundits expecting to see new toolbars for Safari and Google Chrome will be disappointed. Few people are suggesting see changes to the amount of stumblers coming to their site most reporting lower numbers but with no official comment it is more likely these come from a decreasing userbase.
Mutual Friends
One of the things not immediate obvious is the way friends are added has changed, you may notice your fans are now called subscribers, and when they subscribe they send a friends request (it appears in your inbox) it is unclear how StumbleUpon plans on handling the thousands of existing fan relationships but at a guess they will simply leave them as they are. However the move has put the site more in line with other social media sites.
Enough to stop Stumbles rot?
So are the new changes enough to stop the rot within StumbleUpon? Over the last six months they have been plagued with bugs in the toolbar, slow site and a significant drop in users are the cosmetic changes enough? Or will StumbleUpon slide perhaps the new “web toolbar” will be the answer? Or perhaps maybe it will take a new buyer?
Of all the great news and views from this past week, by far our favorite is the announcement of Brendan Picha (from Squareoak) joining the Collective Thoughts team (welcome aboard Brendan)… Beyond that we have funnies, tri-dimensional conversations and hyper-connectivity to keep the head spinning and the belly aching. Also new this week is Tim’s idea that we each pass along some thoughts for the week… we hope they find you well.
Thought for the week; It’s always amusing to see the criticism of social media. Funny thing is, it usually comes from people that proudly display a few flashy badges that link to their social accounts. Upon further inspection, the critics are barely using social media.
Thought for the week; Social Media can be very confusing and even intimidating for the Webmaster or Small Business Owner new to Web 2.0. My suggestion would be to start with one Social Networking site/activity and start to know the community. Once you have done that you will be amazed how helpful the Community will be.
Thought for the week; I wanted to pass on the words of Chuang Tzu -
The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten.
The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten.
The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten.
Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.
Thought for the week; It’s really, really easy to get caught-up in routine. Many end-up reading the same blogs, talking with the same people, watching the same news channels. From a creative and educational standpoint it’s very important to make breaking your routine a routine in and of itself. Try making unusual connections like how understanding the dynamics of an ant colony can help you understand social voting or if economic trends augment social behavior online. Inspiration for such thinking can come from reading a book you’d never pick up, watching a documentary you wouldn’t normally watch, or attending a lecture you’d never attend. Routine can have the ability to suck the life right out of you so make sure you get out there and embrace the unknown!
Thought for the week; Expanding your social graph to include peers you would not normally meet in an offline world may offer pleasant results. I have expanded my networking from social connections made online to solidifying offline at various MeetUps and conferences. If you are in the Miami area this weekend I will be attending both Social Media Camp and the Mashable party.
Unless the rock you’re hiding under has been blocking that Wi-fi signal you were pinching, you’ve likely heard of the latest Social Network in the fray – Plurk. And those of you not in the quarry would know its like Twitter’s friendlier sister who’s got a full featured personality. But is Plurk really a player in the big game with the likes of MySpace, Facebook and Twitter? Who are these Plurkers and should you bother with yet another social profile?
To look into just what is going on over there and find out what might make this cool tool or deadpool; we decided to talk to some People Lurkers (Plurkers).
The initial experience
There is certainly a sense that the Twitter Whale has a large role in Plurk’s initial success as is some of the ‘gee whiz’ factor that Plurk brings to the table. There was certainly no lack of Twitter references or people that had emigrated via Tweets as down-time and fluttery birds left the addiction unsatisfied. But that certainly wouldn’t explain why people stayed.
One thing common in my research was the fact that Plurk seems to enable and encourage a friendlier atmosphere and is perceived not to be as business-like as Twitter… Why? That seems to vary on items including;
The Name
The Timeline
Emoticons (smileys)
Threaded conversations
Chat room environment (which Old Schoolers seemed to like)
Conversation diversity
Relaxed personal environment
This common sentiment was best put by Audrey Seiberling with;
“I see Plurk as more of a social gathering and Twitter as a professional tool.”
But this wasn’t uniquely universal as noted by Mike Wilton, whom is more an information hound than socialite;
“ …a lot of the users that I typically get my information from aren’t using it and the ones who are; aren’t using it in the same way they use Twitter. Plurk has been filled with a lot more banter than information sharing.”
In the end the most endearing aspect seems to be a personal touch that many get from it. Many people related to it much like forums and chat rooms of days gone by. For the Bloggerati out there is a great place to reach out and communicate with the user base on a more informal atmosphere. Twitter is often perceived to be a publishing atmosphere whereas Plurk offers true, cohesive interactions.
Who’s using Plurk?
While I did have limited access to the full numbers and other 3rd party sources vary, it is safe to say that much of the early adopters are definitely the geeky types and more specifically, the web development, blogging and marketing set. One of the better responses once more came from Audrey;
“I truly believe internet marketers are the beta testers for all things “trendy” on the net.” – Audrey Seiberling
We have seen some of the usual suspects like Leo LaPorte and Guy Kawasaki, as well as socialites such as Muhammad Saleem, Maki and Progblogger’s Darren Rowse. I haven’t really seen too many big name evangelists outside of Leo. There has not been corporate adoption such as we’ve witnessed with Twitter… but that could likely change should the buzz continue.
More and more as each week passes the demographics seem to be getting more toward the average web wanderer as its user base swells. Is it enough to make it a legitimate place for leveraging marketing campaigns or research? There seems to be enough inertia at this point to seriously consider it and start building a dialogue – but remember this is a more personal space and tact is likely an important tool in best utilizing the power of Plurk.
Is this business or personal?
Another area that we talked about was how Plurk was being used. While seen almost entirely as a networking tool there was also the same line of thought that it was encouraging less formal conversations. Some Plurkers also noted that they found the informal setting had allowed them to get on the radar with those they considered to be the thought leaders in their industry. Once more the lines of personal and professional seemed to meld.
Some noted aspects being;
Blog visibility
Forming industry relationships
Forming friendships with like minded individuals
Meeting new friends
Personal support mechanism
Access to industry whos-who
Among the respondents, Steven Bradley summed it up well;
“The people I network with are like minded individuals, but we network in a personal and conversational manner.”
One very interesting aspect is that many people gravitated to the site for networking only to find themselves in a more relaxed personal setting. This most certainly not only creates a unique identity for Plurk but also hints at what may give it wider adoption in the long run.
Another interesting side effect is that many people have also found that their other social profiles have also been growing since they started on Plurk (such as; Twitter, StumbleUpon, FriendFeed etc..). So, while not a direct goal of using the service, it has been a tool for furthering other profiles.
This persona branding was seen as well suited to this medium to some such as Samir Balwani whom added;
“If you want straight brand recognition, more people seeing your logo and name, then Twitter is the way to go. If you want people to associate your brand with a personality, Plurk is where you have to be. “
Plurk as a Traffic Driver
While most of the people that took part did own a blog, most were hard-pressed to actively promote it nor seen great traffic boons. To qualify this though, it wasn’t far from Twitter activity in that most had limited response from traffic promotion akin to what they experienced on Twitter. Most have been inching towards more active promotion of their content on Plurk in the coming months.
“If a post falls in the forest and no one’s there to read it can it go viral?” – Steven Bradley
Once more pulling the train back into personal attachment station, there was an aversion to appearing spammy and thus greater intimacy with respective follower bases seemed to be the call of the day. While those that had tried driving traffic found a greater latency effect than one might with a platform such as Twitter.
One of the better snippets that was borne from this journey was again from Audrey ‘the Quotable’;
“With Twitters unorganized layout and difficulty in following conversations, I found that many sites and posts I attempted to share were lost in the fray. With Plurk, everytime someone leaves a new response on one of my Plurks, it puts that particular Plurk in front of all of my friends and fans faces again. This helps for people who may have missed the original Plurk to still see it and visit that link.”
One can surmise that such considerations which give rise to greater reach and presence would also work great for lesser known bloggers and obviously encourage viral for more known entities.
Be warned though, there is every reason to believe that this is not a place for the broadcast style of promoter. Merely posting your latest blog post, product or service announcement detracts from the personal interaction and can as easily turn people off. Once one earns respect among followers/friends is likely the best time to start considering overt promotions or data collection.
As with many related sites, networking and forming consumer relations should be the primary goal and driving traffic a mere benefit of those relationships. This is not as much social media is it is a networking platform – understand this well.
Which way did that rabbit go?
One of the more troublesome or unique aspects to Plurk is trying to contain and track the conversations one gets in. Notably, people long for a way to hunt down favourite threads and past interactions. To a certain degree one can do so via cliques; private threads that can easily be accessed. But adoption of this wonky system is slow.
Most people though have not been utilizing them to any degree and most agree some further type of segmentation would be useful. While considered an upgrade to systems such as Twitter some consistent road blocks included;
Building cliques non-intuitive
No notification of Private/Clique Plurks
Resistance to checking Private/Clique Plurks
Instability of Clique system
One simple example that Samir noted in his lamentation of the fumbling system was;
“ ….some way to alert the user that they have private plurks even if it’s just another link, for example 6 updates | 250 responses | 7 private plurks | 100 private responses – ”
Ultimately while there are situations where grouping followers can be advantageous, it does not solve the problem of being able to track conversations with greater ease. This is certainly one area that is worth looking at for the Plurk development team.
The Crystal Ball
One of the more important areas we covered in our conversations with Plurkers was where they felt Plurk was headed. There were mixed feelings as far as where it might fit in as far as reaching maximum velocity or ultimately being a niche locale. A flash in the pan it most certainly is not; to a person, each felt there was a future for this micro-blogging schizophrenic.
In many ways, as noted, Plurk is not really a Twitter clone nor replacement. It does remain to be seen if people really have time for both in their busy lives. Beyond that there was a sense that some new features are required to really make this a true competitor to Twitter;
search for friends by Zip Code, Area Code, Interests, etc
SMS, IM, and API support,
Browser add-on system
Ability to bookmark/track Plurk threads
Groups or rooms that anyone can join (unlike cliques)
Some good news is that the Plurk team has discussed having an API released soon and are cognisant of the potential issues;
“We will release an API, the reason why we don’t do it now is because it’s a challenge to make it scale – > and we don’t want to release something that will be a burden for the general service.” – Amix’s comment on PlurkiVerse
One does have to believe that there is the potential for the service to actually plateau short of wider adoption without some more prominent evangelists to legitimize it or features to deal with some existing roadblocks. While the personal nature of the platform and threaded replies are certainly strong points, people will usually hang out where their friends are – so adoption may be the key to its ultimate place in the social networking space.
Obviously along with this will be the ability or Plurk to scale properly without getting into the crash cycle such as we’ve seen on Twitter. Once more, there are as many differences as similarities between Plurk and Twitter and one can’t truly compare the two
The Verdict? If you’re looking for a new social space with a personal flavour you most certainly should give Plurk a try. If you’re a business or blogger looking to further nurture a following or consumer relations, then be warned this is a place where broadcast style micro-blogging without a more personal touch can easily backfire.
If you’re interested in carrying on this discussion and add some thoughts of your own; be sure to check out the newly created Collective Thoughts on Plurk.
To those that helped; I want to thank some of the fine folks that took time to answer a few rounds of questions from yours truly as this post wouldn’t exist without you –
People like to talk about social media sites in terms the amount of traffic sent by getting on the front page, backlinks, profile backlinks, and passing pagerank.
Today, we’re going to have a little fun with it. We’re going to take the web 1.0 metric of time on site and go a little more touchy feely with it for a web 2.0 world. Trust me, this will be fun. Here is a list of my top 5 favorite most addictive sites within social media. Perhaps they aren’t even my favorite, but rather that I can’t seem to get myself off of them
Plurk
There’s a reason that people are taking a long hard look at Plurk, some of them even migrating or at least spending more time there than on Twitter. Two words: Instant gratification. As if Twitter wasn’t instant gratification enough to type in 140 character points and responses, Twitter has fallen from some people’s obsession list as Plurkers seem heavily engaged, providing rapid threaded responses. It isn’t uncommon to see dozens of responses to a Plurk in 15 minutes – something you’ll never see on Twitter unless your name is Guy or Scoble. What’s worse (best?) is that Plurk’s karma, a key factor in its addictiveness, will actually go down if you’re inactive for a while. Oh, and don’t Plurk too much, the safe Plurking habits guide recommends no more than 30 Plurks per day. Brilliant.
Twitter
Once you’ve found interesting people to follow and have a following, Twitter is an awesome place. Also helpful is to be watching some search tools and have a good client (I’m big on using Twitterfox and Hahlo for the iPhone). It’s great for asking questions, looking for resources on a project, and keeping up with what people are doing.
Breaking news can often be found on Twitter as well. And yes, it has been criticized for its uptime performance – the same people that are hitting the refresh button every 2 minutes while Twitter is down Yeah, it’s that addictive.
StumbleUpon
It’s been around considerably longer than many people think. StumbleUpon is one of my favorite sites due to all the great finds I get through it. SU is a true discovery engine, something that if positioned correctly can give traditional search a true run for its money. StumbleUpon is doing something right, and people are taking notice. I’m a big fan of what they have done with SearchReviews (now in Yahoo as well), putting in your friends stumble ratings right on the SERPS.
Facebook
I know what you’re thinking. Facebook is for kids. It’s annoying. It invades my privacy. Say what you will, but with facebook chat, a few addictive apps, and seeing people on there that mainly stay off other social sites (read: have a life off the computer), Facebook is still a daily mainstay for me. It’s a great way to connect with people that you haven’t seen in years, and you can quickly get lost in time through all the possibilities.
Say what you will. Digg has its issues, but for me, it’s still something I’m checking out throughout the day. While Digg has its challenges and critics, it really is a great place to find a wealth of content (and finally has a new comment system). Yes, a lot of it is just funny/linux/apple, but there really is a lot of good stuff.
There are several others that just missed the list for me: Mixx, Reddit, LinkedIn and FriendFeed, just to name a few. Reason is that I’m finding with the demands of my total addict sites, I’m just not spending time on these other sites every day consistently.
Which social sites are you finding the most addictive?
When it comes to hearing about success in social media, we’ve all heard the mantra everyone uses: “content is king.” And yes, there is truth in that statement. How can anything be expected to virally spread like wildfire with crappy content?
Imagine, if you will…the content court jester. How many times have you been surfing around through StumbleUpon and come across a patently obvious sponsored stumble? Yes, StumbleUpon says that these things will happen for 1 in 20 stumbles. Does that mean that a paid stumble has to be a content court jester? Of course not. It was just poor planning on the marketer that spent more time on the campaign than the actual content.
Face it. Nobody likes to be sold. Let people see what you have to offer and have them make their own decisions. The best marketing out there is so subtle or enjoyable, you don’t even realize (or mind) that you are being marketed to.
Now, this isn’t to say that content court jesters do not have their place in the world. It could just be that a company is doing a landing page test to see how well they are converting. Such companies should be warned: social media users are well armed with thumbs down, snarky comments, and adblock, so they had best do their business in the most attractive way possible.
Remember boys and girls..”content is king.” Just because the page was promoted through social media doesn’t mean it it doesn’t convert. Conversions happen. Conversations at the least will happen, and you’ll hear what people really think of you.
Back to our StumbleUpon point. The whole idea of this article came about after I saw what appeared to be a sponsored stumble from Nokia. Then, I looked at its Stumble record:
If you’ve been around StumbleUpon enough, you’ve probably seen this page by the likes of Nokia and others. Nokia isn’t stupid. So why such a sales page on StumbleUpon? Conversions. Sure, people thumbed it down. At the end of the day, if they are a high enough conversion rate, it may be well worth it for them. Even if conversion is poor, people are talking about them and they have some valuable analysis on their hands.
Social media marketing eventually comes down to ROI, like any other marketing.
Granted, a more subtle page may return a higher ROI, of course the only way to know would be to test both side by side.
The king may rise and fall from power. Perhaps the court jester makes sense: he pays his bills
This post is inspired by Dave Gorman the UK comedian who is known in the UK for looking for other Dave Gormans amongst others and in America as the stats guy who occasionally appears on the Daily Show. Dave Gorman was recently featured in a TV show where he traveled across America only to make it far more fun he choose to travel without giving any money to “The Man”. “The Man” is the large faceless corporations that seem to be pandemic across the western world from Starbucks to Wal-Mart to IBM “The Man” is everywhere. If you haven’t seen the film or read the book go do so now!
So can you market a site without “The Man”?
Dave was on Radio 2 the other day (yes I am an old fart) promoting his book and he got me thinking with Tad’s ranting on Google doubled with people’s general dislike of corporations is it possible today to market your site without the aid of these large groups.
Well, let’s find out!
Domain names and websites
It’s actual impossible to create and market a website without giving to the man. Since the domain registration system is run by a large corporation and while ICANN the global governing body is a non-profit corporation in the US nearly every national registrar is a faceless corporation. However all is not lost and with a quick tweaking of the rules finding a mom and pop registrar which is reselling a big boy is possible. Hosting its still possible to find small hosting centres just remember to avoid the big boys 1&1, Pipex, etc.
Obviously the site itself can be hosted on good Linux systems and open source software, just remember to avoid Fedora (RedHat) and SUSE (Novell) one thing you might have not thought about your Feedburner, and Google Analytics will have to be put to one side.
Search Engines
Sorry these are all out, at least the big 3 indeed to be truthful to the goal we probably need to block them totally so out with your robots.txt file.
Without search engine traffic we will have to rely on other forms of advertising the obvious answer is social media!
No StumbleUpon
Sacrilege I know but life without the man includes life without StumbleUpon which of course is owned by Ebay it also means life with out PayPal again an Ebay company. Interestingly a quick search for ways to stop people sending traffic from StumbleUpon returned virtually no results but fear not we can use HTACCESS to send this unwanted traffic away.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} (stumbleupon.com) [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.stumbleupon.com [R,L,NC]
Ok that’s sorted the StumbleUpon traffic it’s now being sent back to StumbleUpon of course thinking with our marketing head we perhaps would want to send it to a page explaining the idea of not getting traffic from “The Man” and with a link for them to find their way back!
Digg
Tricky one this is Digg owned by the man? I think not so it’s safe to market their maybe an article on how to block the evil corporations and “The Man” would go down well just a thought.
Propeller
No chance with it’s Netscape, AOL, Time Warner, Google owners this is clearly the sort of corporation we are looking to avoid so no Propeller traffic once again we will want to redirect users. Normally we would have to come up with some complex strategy to still gain benefits from these links to help our search engine strategy but for once this is not an issue as we blocked them at the start.
Myspace/FaceBook
Sorry News corp but you are the sort of people we want to avoid as for Facebook with a turnover of $15 billion according to Wall Street Journal and with investments from Microsoft and at least 3 major Venture Capital groups looks like your out to.
Looks like the man is pretty widespread but let’s not despair all is not lost we live in the age of web 2 where every kid and his programmer have an idea and the number of start-ups are immense it is still pretty easy to drive some traffic without going to the big corporations.
But why do it?
We are creatures of habit it is worth looking at other sources simply to have a backup strategy it’s also good to support new ideas what is new today may well be the norm tomorrow so it’s better to be in on the ground floor.
But the spirit of independent entrepreneur is being eroded once it was about coming up with a great idea marketing it and amazing people. Now its come up with a concept, get large venture capital company to fund your lunches with Google’s reps.
The next step
First off all I am not advocating giving up traffic sources, or blocking Google on your sites but I am passionate about supporting the little guys who are just like me. So I do plan on setting up a “Man” free site with the whole purpose of finding new traffic methods and ideas.
If you got any ideas or if you think that I was being lenient by claiming Digg was not “The Man” why don’t you let me know below!
p.s Dave Gorman book and DVD is available from his site and Good retailers as is his GoogleWhack stage show DVD (Not suitable for children) if you take nothing from this post go read the books and watch the DVDs!
We are here today with a distinguished guest that sits outside the realm of social media, but is rather a Political Science professor. (In fact, he was a professor of mine once upon a time). Before all of you think that I have lost my mind, let me explain further. Professor Patrick Regan is an expert in conflict management resolution and game theory, having authored several books including Organizing Societies for War, and the upcoming Sixteen Million One (excerpts found on his site). Thanks for joining us today, Professor.
1 – What do you think about social media in general?
Social media is new and fascinating to me. It is not a medium that I grew up with, so it is a bit harder to get use to, but I can certainly see how this forum for communication can fundamentally change the way people react to public problems. We can see this, for instance, in Tibet today. The Chinese government has overwhelming capabilities to suppress the Free Tibet movement, but the movement has what you refer to as the social media on its side. China quickly tried to shut down as much of this as possible. China is not alone is recognizing the immense power of the social media, as political campaigns today will attest.
One of the downsides – if there really are downsides – to this medium is that conventional forms of communication get marginalized. At first this shows up as loss of profit, of which I am little concerned, but without of viable free and open conventional press we will suffer from the potential abuse by those in power. At least in the short term there needs to be some balance. The unfortunate inclination is for conventional media to respond to the challenge posed by the social media by consolidating and brining less and less variability and initiative into the conventional media. Sounds like doom and gloom, and in the end the more open media will win.
2 – You might not have drawn a parallel of your field of expertise with social media in the past, but I believe there to be striking similarities between social media and game theory, more specifically the prisoner’s dilemma. Cooperation (friending users) is key. What is your take on this?
Game theory provides for us a way to think about choices, how choices are made under certain types of constraints. Your expected payoffs from some action matter a lot, and how you conceive of your expectations and the value of the outcome is a function of information. Game theorists ask questions about how resolved the actors are to press for their preferred outcome, and the like. Cooperation is a bit more difficult if both sides are committed to getting their way, and game theory can show us why. We also know from game theory that the frequency with which we expect to replay the game matters a lot. If it is a one off game, just do what is best for you. But if you’re going to see this person again, then cooperation might be a better strategy. I think this is what you mean by ‘friending users’ – though I bet that word is not in the Webster’s dictionary! The more information we have about those we interact with the more opportunity we have to shape outcomes that are mutually beneficial. Now in principle, if you have a lot of information – at least if it is one-sided information – then there is the opportunity to coerce or exploit as well. A free, open, unregulated social media portends to reduce one-sided information and increase the frequency of interactions over ideas.
3 – There has been a great deal of controversy in the largest social news site, digg.com in which many of the top site contributors were planning a revolt and were getting ready to organize on a live podcast. Toward the end of the podcast, the founders of Digg came on to directly address the crowd and respond to their questions. Typically, Digg has not been very responsive to its users as of late. Do you feel that the Digg founders resolved the conflict in an effective manner?
I am not an expert on Digg.com, though I have read a bit about the revolt. Compromise borne of concessions approaches a necessary condition for a negotiated settlement. Absent concessions, stable outcomes pretty much have to result from a disparity of power, and therefore from coercion. The very first concession in any bargaining environment is the agreement to discuss. By implication if you agree to discuss then you agree that there is some point on which you would give. It might not be enough to settle the dispute, but the recognition is one that implicitly points to the potential for movement. As I gather it the Digg folks did this. Did they come all the way across the table? Not to my knowledge. One way to think of this is that they don’t see it as what we would call an iterative game, but rather each move is a one shot deal. My sense is from reading about this is that the contributors see this as a repeated game. They want compromise and the Digg folks want to coerce behavior.
The protest might be one way to demonstrate that repeated plays are valuable, and maybe the norm. But the protesters also have to realize that successful negotiations most often require concessions from both sides. They can’t expect to be completely coercive any more than they would accept that from Digg. The real key would be demonstrating to Digg that they get a better outcome if they see this as a repeatedly played game or interaction.
4 – More on Digg. The following month, there was a Digg Town Hall event in which the founders had a live webcast where questions could be asked (although they had a list prior to the show, so live participants were not given true voice). Was this an effective method?
It seems that it is effective if both sides play the game. It might not be how I would organize a negotiating session to sort this out, but it sounds to me like some of the contributors bought into it. Better, maybe, to offer to bring an agenda to the table around which discussions or negotiations can take place. By what I understand of this relationship the contributors participate on Digg.com for the personal sense of value (I get my views out there); Digg.com folks do this either for a job or the potential to sell it to a start up venture, that is take it commercial. The contributors would have to demonstrate that Digg.com has no value without the contributors, but also to show that they value Digg.com over the long haul.
Maybe you should all try to get a mediator to sit down with you to work this out. Seems pretty simple on the face of it.
5 – One of the key elements in trying to resolve conflict is the underlying assumption that both sides are rational. Do you think that both sides of the fence are being rational here?
Rationality refers to cost benefit maximization. It could be that the Digg folks are under some sort of constraint to diversity their portfolio of contributors so that they can set this up to be more commercially viable (I’m just guessing). If that is so, then they might be acting rational by compelling diversification. The Contributors might also be seeing their personal viability being challenged by the new constraints on making the headlines. Both can be considered rational in a maximization framework. Is there middle ground? Sure seems like it to me. It almost seems like people aren’t explaining motives and with a clear idea of why each side is being so resolute, concessions might actually be easy.
6 – For those that are not familiar with the prisoner’s dilemma, can you expound on it a bit and how you think it falls within the social media world?
Prisoners dilemma is just a way to think about how choices are made. In the dispute with Digg it is whether to open the process up to the most prolific and interesting or creating diversity. This is a bit like cooperating and defecting in the prisoners dilemma game.
To my mind the idea of a prisoners dilemma is useful for many types of social interactions, the social media might be but one. We use to use it to understand the arms race, the ending of civil wars, and the like. It is really just a way to think about the value of cooperation over defection, and under what conditions can both side rationally conclude that doing the “wrong” thing is right. Everyone knew the nuclear arms race was silly, but both sides went happily down that silly path, and appeared quite rational in doing so. Funny how the world works!
7 – Do you think that social media may one day find its way into your political / game theory teachings? How would you see something like this come about?
I teach a lot about Osama bin Laden this semester and I suspect that much of his communication might fall under what you would describe as the social media. So if his form of communication meets such standards, then the world’s most sought after villain is making great use of social media. But I think I’ll leave you and your readers to figure out whether he is leading, following, or uninvolved with social media.
Thanks for stopping by, Professor Regan – you’ve been a wonderful guest!
It has been a pleasure.
If you would like to see more about Professor Regan, here is an interview he did after doing research for his latest book:
When you have completed reading this post you will understand my babbling, but to do so I will tell you a little bit about myself.
Up until recently my favorite flower was a Yellow Rose. Something about a Yellow Rose was always calming. Maybe that was wishful thinking. Again that was until recently. Now I have lost all relevancy to them. We will not go into the reasons today…
As writing this I would have to say that the Dandelion has taken the place of the Yellow Rose as my flower of choice. When I see a Dandelion I immediately go back to my childhood. It has been over twenty years since I have seen a field covered in Dandelions. As a kid growing up on the outskirts of a small town in the Midwest there were not many organized things to do, so most of the kids in the neighborhood collected at a nearby field. The field was often covered in Dandelions. Each night as we were walking home from playing baseball or whatever game we happened to play at the time, the air would be heavy with the distinct aroma of smashed Dandelions. This smell has never left my memory even two decades later.
Now I would like for you to close your eyes for a moment and think of the sound that a Dandelion makes as you pop the head of the flower from its stem and the soft moist texture as you crush it between your fingers. If you have ever pulled one from its stem you know what I am talking about.
About now you should be asking yourself what in the world am I getting at? Why am I decapitating the heads from innocent flowers? If not, you may be the one with some issues. For those of you that did question what am I talking about read on.
The Collective Thoughts blog is about Social Media. Social Media to me is about using interactive elements of a website to get your proposed message across. What better way of getting into someones head then to let them see a little bit into your own mind. It is all about how you build your rapport.
So what is your favorite flower? I would like to know what your favorite flower is and why you would classify it as your favorite. Take this assignment with a small sense of seriousness. Don’t tell me “buds” are your favorite flowers and the reason is that you like to smoke them.
Today’s task is about building a rapport between us. So this is what I would like for you to do on your end. If you are reading this blog I am sure you have already installed the StumbleUpon toolbar on your browser of choice. I would like for you to use that toolbar to create a review of this post and in doing so tell me your favorite flower. In turn, I will write a small review for one of your sites in a future post on this blog.
Welcome to the new wisdom of crowds. Each member of Collective Thoughts is here because not only are they a known or rising star in their own field, but they also have a passion and unique understanding on social media. Together, we make up Collective Thoughts. More
The developers at Stumbleupon attempted to make the site more social, adding in a bit of Facebook, a bit of Twitter, and some minor changes to the navigation options of your home page. The most important of these new navigation options, the Discover tab, takes users to a page with even more tabbed options: Recent Activity, Top Rated, Shares and Topics.
(Source: Collective Thoughts)
Social Media Camp Miami
There’s a reason that people are taking a long hard look at Plurk, some of them even migrating or at least spending more time there than on Twitter. Two words: Instant gratification. As if Twitter wasn’t instant gratification enough to type in 140 character points and responses, Twitter has fallen from some people’s obsession list as Plurkers seem heavily engaged, providing rapid threaded responses. It isn’t uncommon to see dozens of responses to a Plurk in 15 minutes – something you’ll never see on Twitter unless your name is Guy or Scoble. What’s worse (best?) is that Plurk’s karma, a key factor in its addictiveness, will actually go down if you’re inactive for a while. Oh, and don’t Plurk too much, the 
Once you’ve found interesting people to follow and have a following, Twitter is an awesome place. Also helpful is to be watching some search tools and have a good client (I’m big on using 
p.s Dave Gorman book and DVD is available from 
We are here today with a distinguished guest that sits outside the realm of social media, but is rather a Political Science professor. (In fact, he was a professor of mine once upon a time). Before all of you think that I have lost my mind, let me explain further. Professor Patrick Regan is an expert in conflict management resolution and game theory, having authored several books including 
