The milestones of a social media addict

Now, I am happy to confession I am a facebook Junkie and I think that a lot of people would nod in agreement. The other day I nearly sent my friend Sam into a fit when I emailed her some  startling news that our mutual friend Jesse had just deleted Facebook as she “wasted to much time on it and need to finish her uni degree”. Sam was shocked. And couldn’t believe the social suicide Jesse had just committed. Sam replied “Some people surf, some read, some even whale watch, but I, I Facebook.” Has Facebook really become a listable hobby? Why are we all so obsessed? And where did it all begin? For me the beginning was MySpace.

Social media fun facts

Everyday I stumble along new facts and stats on social media. Here’s a fascinating video I stumbled across recently…

One dress – 365 days 365 ways

Like every I know, chances are somewhere in your closet will hang the staple LBD – Little Black Dress. Or in my case five. The importance, necessity and need for this most valuable fashion item is undisputed. One can add accessories, don a jacket in winter and  interchange stylish ballet pumps for killer heels to take the you from day to night. The possibilities, as they say, are endless. To ask a girl why they need yet another black dress, is a crime punishable by a startled stare and a roll of the eyes. Girls turn to their LBD’s like they would their morning coffee, their best friend and their afternoon chocolate fix. And this leads me to my favourite blog  –  The Uniform Project.

Russia tops social media

The beautiful St Basil's Cathedral

Story by Matt Rhodes from Fresh Networks 

Earlier this year we reported on how Russia is the fourth largest social networking market in Europe. Data from TNS showed that use of social media and social networking in Russia is widespread, making it the fourth largest market in Europe for social networking behind the UK, Germany and France. In part this position is driven by strong local social networking sites, principally Odnoklassniki (Одноклассники), which reports some 30 million registered users, and VKontakte (В контакте) with some 28 million registered users.

These numbers are truly impressive and perhaps the rate of growth in membership of social networking sites in Russia is even more so. But recent research from comScore shows that Russians are the most engaged users of social media in the world.

The research showed that in May this year, 1.1 billion people went online worldwide, and 75% of these visited social networks and online communities. In fact, the typical user of the internet spent 3.7 hours on such sites in May. But users from Russia led the way with the typical internet user in that country spending a total of 6.6 hours ever month on these social media sites. Brazil was second with an average of 6.3 hours per user and Canada was third with 5.6 hours per typical user. These numbers compare with 4.6 hours spent by the typical UK internet user on social networks. And a typical 4.2 hours for people in the US.

By this simple measure, the Russian internet audience appears to be perhaps the most engaged in the world in social networking and online communities. This highlights the danger of focusing on English-language-centric developments in online communities, social media tools and social networks. In Russia, two local sites each reach more than 40% of the entire Internet population in the country. Facebook, by contrast, reaches only 2% of the Russian internet audience.

Some of the most interesting developments in the use of social networks and online communities are happening where the users are most engaged and where the user bases are growing most rapidly. This is more likely to be in the markets where the audience and access is developing quickly. Perhaps we should all look to Russia and Brazil more when we want to know what comes next.

Creating a click

“If you don’t like the news…. go out and make some of your own.” — Wes “Scoop” Nisker

Nisker’s words can be a tribute to citizen journalism today. I thought it’d be good to compile a list of organisations where people are making some news of there own. Here is a list of citizen journalism publications,that are demonstrating the strength of this new media platform:

The end of TV?

When I want to get my Gossip Girl fix, I don’t wait for 8.30 Tuesdays on Fox 8 to roll around, I simply hop on line. Now, with websites such as TVshack, Surf the Channel and Youtube, internet users have the ability to watch what they want when they want it. My friend is obsessed with John Mayer… I mean obsessed… and he was so excited that he could preview the latest John Mayer clip for Who Says on Youtube rather than waiting for it to hit the radio or MTV. More and more we are heading to our computers and using the internet to access entertainment that we would normally seek in mediums such as TV and radio.

Don’t be a twit

Suzanne Mostyn wrote a powerful article in The Weekend  Australian, on September 12-13, about narcolepsy and the misreprestation of it in the media. The story is set around a tweet Mia Freeman posted with a link to a YouTube video with the words “Made me laugh. Rusty the narcoleptic dog.” 

The clip Freeman posted is of a dashshund running around on grass before, suddenly, inexplicably, collapsing in a heap, asleep. Mostyn raises the question; now imagine that it’s your child. Your child running, playing and – suddenly, without warning – collapsing in a heap, unable to stay upright or alert. Mostyn’s son suffers from narcolepsy and she didn’t find this clip funny at all.

She discovered that the footage was actually part of an instructional video shot for scientific purposes that’s been purloined for use as a punchline on YouTube. The words at the start of the clip say “Sleep disorders. Unit 3: states of consciousness”, while the accompanying commentary says “This dachshund, Rusty, suffers from narcolepsy, a condition that causes him to suddenly fall asleep when he’s trying to do ther things. Little is known about the cause of narcolepsy, except that it can be inherited. It affects humans and animals alike.” Here we can see how often the internet as well as viewers of the internet can take things out of content and something that is a sensative and important issue can be turned into humour by ignorant others. As Mostyn says “Freedman’s tweet ‘Made me laugh’ should have prompted a ‘made me sad’ or better yet – ‘made me think’ or ‘made me investigate’.”

I think it’s a lesson for people to truely understand what information they recieve and to be careful what they say. This can be said for the whole of the media, people with highly respected positions must have the sense to realise what they are saying will have an impact on their viewers, listeners or readers. Journalists and public figures, while they can voice their freedom of speech, must also have a greater social responsiblity that doesn’t create a narrow minded society. We can see the abuse of this power in Kyle Sandilands’s contoversal comments made about Magda Szubanski’s recent 25kg weight loss on his 2DAYFM breakfast show, Sandilands said she would only be skinny if she was put in a concentration camp.

I think Mostyn’s words “think before you tweet . When you don’t you are rendered nothing more than a twit” should apply to the whole of the media.

Tweet this, Mia; the misfortune of others isn’t entertainment – http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26056147-7583,00.html

Kyle’s big mouth in nasty relapse- http://www.watoday.com.au/entertainment/kyles-big-mouth-in-nasty-relapse-20090909-fgfx.html

The power of one

While journalists are finding it more and more difficult to get into countries in turmoil, such as Pakistan, Iran and China, to expose the political atrocities that are occurring, the world wide web is having no problem getting past border security. Twitter, Facebook and Flickr are defying government censorship, and becoming a new forum for freedom of speech. While an everyday chatting tool for many, Twitter has become a weapon of communication used as a way to combate censorship. You tube has replaced TV news reports and Flickr is giving photjournalism a wider and more accessable audience.

It seems the impact of the social networking sites has not been lost on governments themselves, with the Chinese Government shutting all social sites down in a bid to suppress information from the deadly riots in China’s western region of Xinjiang, in July this year.

Here are two tweets I’ve found:

Aslyssakuhns: Sorry I couldn’t update in China because of the riots … the government shut down all social sites but now I’m back!
1.14PM Aug 3^rd from web

GengHongwei: Fackbook and Twitter were blocked in China since the Urumqi Riots!
4 days ago from web

Here is a video from YouTube taken of the political unrest in Tehran on the 20^th of June and captures an Iranian student being shot to death by police.

Most of the ametuear videos on the unrest in Iran were shot while people are hiding in houses or alleyways and shows the determination of the public to demonstrate to the world what is really happening.

Here we can see people taking journalism in their own hands to inform the world of whats going on. Social media is helping breaking barriers and sends a message to governments that the people can’t be silenced.

Other links:
China blocks access to Twitter, Facebook after riots
Twitter, facebook hit by cyber attacks