"No one uses MySpace"
To continue on the issue of online representation of offline societal trends, Piskorski also looked at usage patterns of MySpace. Today's perception is that Twitter has the buzz and Facebook has the users. MySpace? Dead; no one goes there anymore. Tell a marketer that she ought to have a MySpace strategy and she'll look at you like you have a third eye.
But Piskorski points out that MySpace has 70 million U.S. users who log on every month, only somewhat fewer than Facebook's 90 million and still more than Twitter's 20 million in the U.S. Its user base is not really growing, but 70 million users is nothing to sneeze at.
So why doesn't MySpace get the attention it deserves?
The fascinating answer, acquired by studying a dataset of 100,000 MySpace users, is that they largely populate smaller cities and communities in the south and central parts of the country. Piskorski rattles off some MySpace hotspots: "Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Florida."
They aren't in Dallas but they are in Fort Worth. Not in Miami but in Tampa. They're in California, but in cities like Fresno. In other words, not anywhere near the media hubs (except Atlanta) and far away from those elite opinion-makers in coastal urban areas.
"You need to shift your mindset from social media to social strategy."
"MySpace has a PR problem because its users are in places where they don't have much contact with people who create news that gets read by others. Other than that, there is really no difference between users of Facebook and MySpace, except they are poorer on MySpace." Piskorski recently blogged on his findings.
Group items tagged
Are textbooks history in the digital era? | Marketplace From American Public Media - 1 views
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Are textbooks history in the digital era? : States across the country are slashing education budgets, forcing schools to cut expenses. One option getting a lot of attention is digital textbooks. Stacey Vanek-Smith reports.
Book Review - 'The Time of Their Lives - The Golden Age of Great American Book Publishe... - 0 views
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A little bit of history from the Sunday New York Times Book Review
Old Dominion U. professor is trying to save Internet history - 0 views
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Interesting project for Internet archiving...wonder about some of the (eventual) privacy issues that might be involved, though. As the article quotes the archivist: "'Whoever is going to be president in 2048, she's in high school now, and she may have a Web site, and we probably have it.'" How many political opponents would love to seize on this hypothetical person if her teenage rants (e.g., "OMG my mom is so horrible, she won't let me go to Kasey's party on Saturday! Isn't there some kind of law against child abuse?") came to light when she's 53 and in a position of power? Is/Will it be considered fair game to judge a middle-aged woman by what the adolescent says now?
xkcd: The Pace of Modern Life - 1 views
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It's all just a little bit of history repeating...some of these quotes sounds awfully familiar these days WRT lamenting how no one writes or reads paper anymore because of the frenetic pace of life.
Magazine History - 1 views
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Seems like a great resource.
The Mindset List: 2016 List - 0 views
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"Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List, providing a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall." 2. They have always lived in cyberspace, addicted to a new generation of "electronic narcotics." 5. If they miss The Daily Show, they can always get their news on YouTube. 18. Their folks have never gazed with pride on a new set of bound encyclopedias on the bookshelf. 27. Outdated icons with images of floppy discs for "save," a telephone for "phone," and a snail mail envelope for "mail" have oddly decorated their tablets and smart phone screens. 35. Probably the most tribal generation in history, they despise being separated from contact with their similar-aged friends. 47. Before they purchase an assigned textbook, they will investigate whether it is available for rent or purchase as an e-book. 56. They have always enjoyed school and summer camp memories with a digital yearbook. 71. Despite being preferred urban gathering places, two-thirds of the independent bookstores in the United States have closed for good during their lifetimes.
How to Remove Your Google Search History Before Google's New Privacy Policy Takes Effec... - 3 views
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Not really about digital publishing, but incredibly important for anyone who uses a Google product and cares about their privacy.
How to Remove Your YouTube Viewing and Search History Before Google's New Privacy Polic... - 0 views
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If you care about your online privacy and you use Google services, you should watch this video.
Steven Johnson: Where good ideas come from | Video on TED.com - 0 views
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People often credit their ideas to individual "Eureka!" moments. But Steven Johnson shows how history tells a different story. His fascinating tour takes us from the "liquid networks" of London's coffee houses to Charles Darwin's long, slow hunch to today's high-velocity web.
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A thoughtful discussion on the root of big ideas and innovation. I found this talk particularly apt to the publishing business and the business model innovations we're currently discussing. "Chance favors the connected mind."
Obama's Is First Web 2.0 Inauguration -- InformationWeek - 0 views
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Short article on how the inauguration also made history as far as the web is concerned.
IngentaConnect The evolution of Web-based peer-review systems - 0 views
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Article about the history of electronic peer-review sytems coauthored by Lyndon Holmes, creator of Editorial Manager.
Amazon: A Patch for Your Novel Is Ready To Download - Digits - WSJ - 0 views
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As e-books go mainstream, authors are gaining an opportunity to literally rewrite history. Eagle-eyed owners of the Amazon Kindle e-reader, like Paul Biba of the site TeleRead, have taken note of messages from Amazon letting them know that an e-book they had purchased "contained some errors that have been corrected."
Mark Coker: Why E-Books are Hot and Getting Hotter - 2 views
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2009 will go down in history as the year e-books went mainstream.
A Tribute to the Printer Aldus Manutius, and the Roots of the Paperback - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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Book publishing history
The Torching of Timbuktu's History - Esquire - 2 views
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Sad. Just very very sad
The Machine That Made Us - 0 views
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Documentary from the BBC, hosted by Stephen Fry, about the Gutenberg press.
Understanding Users of Social Networks - HBS Working Knowledge - 1 views
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This I find interesting: if I read this right, it would mean that if you had something that was of a more local interest and away from the major cities -- the biography of a local football player, a history of local landmarks, a self-published book by a local political figure, etc. -- it might be effective to have a MySpace strategy as well in the mix, which wouldn't necessarily be the first strategy to come to mind.
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Women and men use these sites differently.
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Piskorski has also found deep gender differences in the use of sites. The biggest usage categories are men looking at women they don't know, followed by men looking at women they do know. Women look at other women they know. Overall, women receive two-thirds of all page views.
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I'm not entirely sure I agree with their broad characterization of the gender differences in how social networking sites are used, but my evidence to the contrary is also anecdotal and the plural of "anecdote" is not "data." :-)
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