Do Kids Read Blogs? New Study Aims to Confuse

A new study released earlier this month seems to contradict findings from Pew Internet Project's February report on the declining blog authorship and blog readership among the youngest generation of online users. Instead of seeing a downward trend in blogging, the latest research appears, at first glance, to have us questioning those prior reports. According to the latest study, this one from BlogHer and iVillage (red flag?) and co-sponsored by Ketchum and The Nielsen Company , young adults known as "millenials" are the top demographic group in both reading and writing blogs with nearly one-third reporting they read blogs and just over 40% saying they blog themselves. So was the earlier study - the one claiming "kids don't blog" anymore - wrong? Sponsor Odd Demographics Studied In the new study, the focus was on four age groups: millenials (ages 18-25), Gen X/Y (26-42), Boomers (43-61) and Seniors (62-76). This is a confusing segmentation of demographic groups because they've lumped in some of the millenials with the the "Gen X" group to create a hybrid group called "Gen X/Y." The term "millenials," however, is often used interchangeably with "Gen Y," so it's unclear why they've decided to break up that demographic group in this way. To boost Gen X's numbers, perhaps? We can't be sure. Ignoring Those Under 18 More importantly, the study simply ignores the youngest generation, the one we like to call "generation I" or the "iGeneration" (you can guess why), which was a major focus of Pew's study. In fact, Pew's study showed that only 14% of tweens and teens ages 12 to 17 now report that they blog , down from 25% only four years ago . And only 52% reporting reading and commenting on their friends' blog, down from over three-quarters back in 2006. In other words, the Internet's newest users aren't blogging or all that interested in reading blogs. Instead, they prefer Facebook, said the study. It's their method of communication between friends and for getting the latest news. Yes, sigh, Facebook is the new Internet. And the social network's latest moves will only further solidify that position with the launch of the universal "like" button for the entire web, the "instant personalization" provided by websites like Pandora and Yelp (to start), the "sign in with Facebook" boxes that appear on seemingly every site now and so on. How this youngest online generation uses the Internet is an important trend to watch. Although their habits may change over time, it's worth considering that their general disinterest in sharing their thoughts, feelings, news and ideas via blogging is a trend that will continue as they age. After all, who needs to blog when you have Facebook? BlogHer/iVillage's Findings For what it's worth, the BlogHer/iVillage study found that those 18-25 were the group most likely to write or read blogs, with 40.4% reporting the write blogs and 30.3% reporting they read them . The mysterious Gen X/Y group was a close second with 28.1% of the group saying they were blog authors and 29.3% saying they were blog readers. Some of the other numbers are questionable, although we have no way of proving their legitimacy or lack thereof. But really: 12.8% of bloggers are seniors? This is perhaps the most shocking number of them all. Nothing against seniors, of course, but I live in a state filled with them , and I have yet to meet a single senior who even knows what a blog is, much less authors one. At the end of the day, the study's numbers just feel a little too bullish on this whole blogging thing for my tastes. Plus, there's little info about the methodology included in the report and, then there's the fact that BlogHer, a blogging community for women, is, in part, behind the research. The truth of the matter is that neither this latest study nor Pew's research is likely painting an entirely accurate picture of the blogging landscape. We've questioned Pew's methodology many times in the past and we're skeptical of positive studies put out by those who would benefit from the news.

Tags:demographics, facebook, friends, internet, latest, likely-painting, news, Pandora, research, social, study, words

Facebook Open Graph: The Definitive Guide For Publishers, Users and Competitors

Facebook just shook the tech world by announcing several major initiatives that collectively constitute an aggressive move to weave the social net on top of the existing Web.The rumors were that the leading social network would launch a "Like" button for the entire Web. Instead, Zuckerberg & Co. unveiled a bold and visionary new platform that cannot be ignored. The bits of this platform bring together the visions of a social, personalized and semantic Web that have been discussed since del.icio.us pioneered Web 2.0 back in 2004. Facebook's vision is both minimalistic and encompassing - but its ambition is to kill off its competition and use 500 million users to take over entire Web. Sponsor Whether we like it (pun intended) or not, we have to understand what this move means. It impacts users, publishers, competitors and, of course, Facebook itself. In this post, we summarize what Facebook announced and ponder the impact this will have on everyone. Facebook Open Graph: Publisher Plugins The Open Graph is a set combination of publisher plugins, semantic markup and a developer API. "This new API turns Facebook into a read/write storage of user's tastes." Login with Faces & Facepile : The simpler publisher plugins enhance Facebook Connect. They makes it easy and compelling to sign in by leveraging Facebook cookies and showing faces of Facebook friends who are already members of the service. Like Button and Like Box : These plugins add the liking feature to any content, typically the whole page. Both can be enhanced with semantic markup, described below. But the very basic intent for these is to get users to Like on the site and post a link to Facebook, which is then permanently stored on a user's profile and points back to the original site. Activity Feed and Live Stream : These plugins show static and dynamic activity on the site. Activity Feed lists recent likes and comments from the site, while Live Stream shows a real-time view of activity on the site and is intended for interactive events. Recommendations : This plugin surfaces personalized recommendations for the user based on what friends and everyone else is liking on the site. It is intended to drive the users to other pages on the site. Facebook Open Graph: Semantic Markup Facebook announced simple, RDF-based markup to make the plugins smarter. In a nutshell, the markup enables publishers to say what object is on the page - a movie, a book, a recording artist, an event, a sports team, etc. This automatically enables semantics, that is, an understanding that the user is not just interacting with a webpage, but that he or she is liking a specific kind of thing. Semantics then leads to bucketing of the objects into categories like books, movies, music, etc., and gives rise to all sort of applications, including personalized recommendations. Perhaps even more importantly, the markup helps Facebook connect the users across common interests across different websites. For example, if both Pandora and Last.fm annotate a page about The Beatles using Facebook's markup, then users will be able to see their friends, who like the Beatles across different sites. This is very significant, because the data around friends is sparse and scattered around the sites. Previously, Facebook would surface this data in the stream without persisting it. Now, the information about a friend's likes of movies, music, books, recording artists, events, sports team, etc. will be permanent on Facebook profiles and readily available in context around the Web. Facebook Open Graph: New API The new Facebook API is elegant and streamlined. It makes it easy to access user information (with permission of course) such as profile, friends, etc. All of the calls are REST based and return JSON objects. For example, my profile information can be fetched like this: http://graph.facebook.com/alexiskold. The authentication is based on OAuth 2.0 protocol and makes it simple not only to connect, but to also prompt for permissions to access user information. This new API turns Facebook into a read/write storage of users' tastes. And not just one user - all Facebook users . Implications for the Users With this release, Facebook asks users if they are willing to trade off privacy for personalization. To be clear, no personalization is ever possible without users telling a system about their tastes. What Facebook is asking for is necessary in order to then create personalized Web experience. Whether users want this sort of thing is a different question, but assuming that you want to know more about your friends you will. Friends' interests around entertainment, sports, travel, etc. will be categorized and available. It will be easy to figure out what your friends are into both on Facebook and around the Web. In addition, Facebook is going to be using its own engine to bring you recommendations for related content. This will further accelerate the discovery and cross linking between friends. This will likely further impact the amount of search people do around the Web. As Fred Wilson pointed out - passed links replace search. Yet, the crux of user implications is neither of the above, but one single issue: privacy . It is unclear at this point that this issue is a concern for actual Facebook users, but it is clear that tech world is raising its eyebrows: Marshall Kirkpatrick , Dave Winer , Jeff Jarvis and many others expressed their concerns. People are saying that not only Facebook will know too much about us (because Google is already there today), but that it will be able to control too much. Personally, I am skeptical that the average Facebook user is going to care all that much. People are notoriously naive about being watched on the Web, and this is likely to be no exception. More likely than not, Facebook users will enjoy the personalization aspects of the new platform and won't think much about it - until Facebook starts openly targeting them. This was not been part of f8 of course, but Facebook is likely to use the information for targeting. After all, advertising is a major part of its monetization already so why won't it make it even better? If this targeting is too spot on, lots of users will probably get annoyed. Facebook is likely to sooth them via Facebook credits and heavy discounts, negotiated because of their massive volume. How exactly users react remains to be seen, but they will probably like the new Facebook more because of increased relevancy and interaction with friends around the Web. Next page: Implications for Publishers Implications for Publishers On the surface, this Facebook offering is a no-brainer for publishers. Who does not want more social activity on their site? However, in reality this is far from a slam dunk. To understand why, consider two types of sites: sites that are either social networks or have social networking integrated, and the sites that have their own commenting and ratings systems. In the first camp you will find Last.fm, Flixster, Goodreads, etc. None of these sites were a launch partner, understandably so. Social connections around music, movies and books are their bread and butter as are the ratings, reviews and recommendations. If they switch to Facebook for all of this, what do they have left? So any site that already has social networking built in has to decide to abandon that before jumping into the Facebook Open Graph. The even worse problem is the ownership of ratings and comments. Are publishers really ready to give that up? Nobody seriously thinks that users are going to be rating through Facebook and then through the site again. So how is this going to work? It is unclear at this point, but it's likely publishers will ask for ways to replicate or export comments and likes that users sent to Facebook via their site. Perhaps an open API that allows publishers to manipulate the data is the answer, but it is easy to see how some publishers would be very concerned. "You don't need to look too closely to see that Facebook is creating a feedback loop, which includes it, users and the rest of the Web and excludes its competitors." However, if you run a website like eCommerce or a blog or a service like Pandora that currently does not have a lot of social built-in, this offering is a no-brainer as it will instantly start recycling your pages through the massive Facebook power of passed links. Implications for Competitors This is aggressive and brilliant move by Facebook - and Twitter, Google, Yahoo, MySpace, AOL, eBay, Amazon and others, except for Microsoft, should be really worried. It appears that Microsoft is content with just partnering with Facebook, perhaps rightly so. Possibly a Bing deal is in the works, which would make a lot of sense. For all other players on the Web, the worry is that Facebook is trying to close the loop in exclusively owning user eyeballs. Apparently Facebook is not content with just connecting people; it wants to connect people and things. And not only that, it wants to do it around the Web. And not just any people - friends. You don't need to look too closely to see that Facebook is creating a feedback loop, which includes it, users and the rest of the Web and excludes its competitors. There are several things that other big players might try to do, the worst of which is to try to mimic Facebook. The "me too" that we've seen way too many times recently has not worked, and will not work now. The second best choice is to try to block it. As strange as it sounds it might just work. Between publisher and user issues there are a lot of concerns, and a carefully orchestrated and coordinated campaign may seriously hurt this initiative. Remember, Beacon was brought down fairly quickly by a combination of user backlash and derogatory press. The third option - to embrace and extend this platform, to innovate on top of it - is likely to be the best move. Innovation has always trumped stagnation on the Web. The problem is that it might not be that easy to embrace this initiative. After all, it does not look like Facebook asked everyone to gather around the table and cooperate on this. It might not be open to cooperation, but if it is then this is the way forward. Technically speaking, what Facebook has done is elegant and correct. From markup, to plugins, to API, all of it is modern and awesome. The missing bit is that Facebook appears to be the only repository of data in this equation - and that makes the whole offering seriously closed. Publishers and users don't have a choice as to where to store the data. It is going to Facebook and Facebook alone. Perhaps there is a way to rework the system in a way that fixes that. We will look forward to see how this unfolds. Implications for Facebook Clearly this announcement is yet another turning point for Facebook. Before the conference Facebook was the biggest social network on the planet. If its vision actually happens, Facebook will be the biggest network of people and things on the planet- or to put it differently, it will be the taste graph of the planet. Obviously there is a different technology that Facebook will need to be building. It already perfected the social networking part, but semantic analysis, recommendation systems, vertical categories like movies and books, as well as having completely open read/write storage of tastes is completely new to the team. The biggest challenge that Facebook will face is to inject, re-deliver and most importantly make use of the data that is flowing into it. Facebook will be doing some serious number crunching and UI revamps to prepare for this next phase of its life. But perhaps the biggest experiment and test will be delivering relevancy. Google succeed with this in search; Facebook will now have the challenge to bring relevancy to the recommendations and taste-based advertising arena. Next page: Implications For the Semantic Web Implications For the Semantic Web One of the most exciting parts of the Facebook announcement to me personally is the possible breakthrough in semanticizing the Web. We've written previously about the Semantic Web here , and it has been a personal passion of mine. What Facebook has done has a chance to make vast parts of the consumer Web including movies, books, music, events, sports, and news semantically tagged. Publishers and websites finally have a strong incentive to mark things up and get return traffic from Facebook. "This is a great chance for the Semantic Web to finally hit consumer verticals and become real." The actual protocol that Facebook suggested is very simple. To describe the object on the page, the site owner needs to specify the title, type of the object, image, url and the name of the site using simple meta tags. The format is extensible and additional tags can be added. For example, for a book a site can add an isbn number. This format leaves room for ambiguity. The goal of classic semantic markups traditionally has been to refer to entities precisely; for example adding the director to a movie, or a year to remakes. The Facebook protocol does not seem to have this. There were lots of previous efforts to markup the Web. To name a few, RDF , microformats , Google Rich Snippets , Yahoo's Search Monkey (based on RDF and microformats), and lastly, abmeta , which was developed by me with help from Peter Mika at Yahoo. Of all these formats, Facebook's is most similar to abmeta because the markup is placed into meta tags, and is simple and human readable. This simplicity is the key to broad adoption. So all around, this is a great chance for the Semantic Web to finally hit consumer verticals and become real. Implications for Developers Every new rich platform that has been rolled out in the past couple of years presented a big opportunity for developers and this one will be no exception. While we do not know exactly what sort of applications will be build on top of new Facebook, we know that they will be very powerful. This platform has the potential to give rise to to new kind of personalization and attention economy that people have been talking about for years. It has of course, a chance to majorly backfire, but I am optimistic. This will be a gold rush for application that is likely to last for at least a year, like the last one did. It's too early to tell whether this will be a platform that survives and does not hurt is participants. However, it is very likely that the best applications built on this platform will be owned by Facebook. Still, there is a huge new opportunity here for developers and the sky is the limit. Checkmate? Facebook made a major chess move. It might have checkmated its competitors, or perhaps it might have to lose another piece like it lost Beacon. Whichever is the case, right now there are deep implications for Facebook and its competitors, publishers, users and the Web at large. What Facebook has announced cannot be ignored and can not be undone. Everyone needs to figure out the next steps and understand what to do. Time will tell where we land, but my gut is that positive things will come out of this. If nothing else, let's give Facebook credit for innovation and re-imagination the Web. Discuss

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Facebook Open Graph: The Definitive Guide For Publishers, Users and Competitors

Tags:amazon, api, consumer, director, facebook, Pandora, personalization, plugin, publisher, ratings, recommendations

Is the Freemium Model (Still) Viable for Startups?

In an email to staff yesterday, new Ning CEO Jason Rosenthal wrote that "When I became CEO 30 days ago, I told you I would take a hard look at our business. This process has brought real clarity to what's working, what's not, and what we need to do now to make Ning a big success." With that, he announced Ning would be abandoning its longstanding business model and discontinuing non-paying sites on its network. In light of this, is it time to reevaluate and reign in some of the excitement about the freemium model for startups? Sponsor Offering free services for a product alongside premium fees for advanced or special features - the freemium - has been touted as a promising business model for startups for several years now: "Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc, then offer premium priced value added services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base." The Freemium Summit in San Francisco last month featured many companies who've been able to leverage the freemium model to great success, including Evernote , Pandora , and Dropbox . A recent New York Times article predicts Pandora could reach $100 million in revenue this year. Finding the balance between what to offer for free and what to charge for is not easy. The trick is to put enough in the free version to get traffic and usage, but not so much that there is no incentive to upgrade. Companies who use the freemium model need to integrate their free service or product into someone's routine so fully (either by making sure it's accessible on their computer and on their mobile phone, for example) that users reach the point where they feel they simply must pay. In yesterday's press release , Ning noted that 75% of its users do pay for some sort of premium service. It may well be then that Ning's announcements are less a reflection on the freemium model than on the company itself. Despite over $120 million in VC funding, Ning has been unable to develop a sustainable business. Yesterday's announcement about the end to free Nings was accompanied with news that 40% of their staff would lose their jobs - an indication perhaps that the company's overhead was simply too high. Nevertheless, the news may serve as a cautionary tale for those startups who think the freemium model guarantees success. As David Heinemeier Hansson wrote in a post on 37signals , "Eyeballs Still Don't Pay the Bills." It remains to be seen if Ning can pull through this reorganization and turn a profit, or if they will also serve as a lesson on what happens when a business that's used the freemium model dumps all those "freeloaders." Discuss

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Is the Freemium Model (Still) Viable for Startups?

Tags:analysis, Business, CEO Jason Rosenthal, David Heinemeier, Don, eyeballs-still, Freemium, freemium-model, jason-rosenthal, jobs, model, news, Ning, Pandora, press-release, Read, referral networks, reorganization, San Francisco, york times article

Is the iPhone Now as Enterprise Ready as the Android?

The enterprise may now have what they have wanted for the iPhone. But now they have to decide if such a locked down device is control they want secede to Apple We expect that Apple's tight control over its hardware, software and content will not stop an enterprise from purchasing the device. But it may cause some to pause and consider a smartphone with the Android OS - built on an open-source model with many of the same enterprise features that will come with the iPhone OS 4. In our post last week, we spoke with Ken Westin , CEO of ActiveTrak , who said the iPhone OS lacked multi-processing, SSL VPN, an and relied too much on MobileMe, making it troublesome for IT administrators. ActiveTrak allows for devices to be tracked if lost or stolen. Sponsor It looks like Apple checked most of the items off Westin's list except for one caveat. Multitasking work on the iPhone 3GS, its latest device but not the iPhone 3G. That actually may help sell a lot more phones into the enterprise. IT will want the multitasking feature, primarily for security purposes. As Westin points out, it's the multitasking that makes it possible for the ActiveTrak service to run in the background. With multitasking, ActiveTrak would not have to do any social engineering as is required wit the current OS. Currently, ActiveTrak is disguised as a Safari icon on the iPhone. The application activates when the user accesses the Internet from the iPhone. If it is not accessed, the device can not be tracked. But the Android has had multitasking capability since its inception so in this respect, it is not revolutionary for the iPhone to get such a feature. As for control, could an enterprise lose access to iPhone apps? This is not likely but as we have seen with Flash, Apple will make uniform decisions about what content it allows. The Android offers an open marketplace that has none of the restrictions that Apple imposes. Here's what is included in the iPhone OS 4: Multitasking ReadWriteWeb's Mike Melanson says the purists may not consider it multitasking but for most uses, it is close enough. He writes that multitasking, "for the most part, is handled by a double click on the home button, which pulls up a screen showing icons of all the apps currently hanging out in the background. Some, like Skype or Pandora, will actually be running, while others will simply be in a frozen state." Is that enough for an app like ActiveTrak? He said that from what he has seen so far, yes, it will suffice. Bit it is not something that puts it ahead of the Android. SSL VPN SSL VPN is now supported in iPhone OS 4. Apps are expected from Juniper and Cisco that will support SSL VPN, which allows for better way to securely access the enterprise from a browser across any device. Microsoft Exchange Email on the iPhone is now up to speed with the rest of the market. The iPhone allows a user to set up multiple Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync accounts. It also works with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. Multiple email accounts may be pulled into one account or accounts may be viewed separately. Data Wiping and Mobile Admin Control IT administrators may now configure devices to update wirelessly. The device may be monitored to abide by corporate policies. It may be locked down if lost or the data may be wiped. Wireless App Configuration This would allow the control over what apps someone places on their device. According to Apple: "The iPhone OS 4 enables enterprises to securely host and wirelessly distribute in-house apps to employees over Wi-Fi and 3G. Apps can be updated without requiring users to connect to their computers. One thing we don't hear mentioned much is the lock down of the iPhone. Is it a major issue? It does mix into the whole scope of the app platform. So, we argue that it does. But, overall, we have to agree with the NextWeb. The difference between the iPhone and the Android in the enterprise might be best considered a draw: "Wireless delivery of applications, great data encryption, Exchange Server support. When you're in a business world, with today's technology, these things become expected. These are no longer seen as value-added features of any OS, mobile or otherwise. Now, in fairness, Android OS is not at the top of the Enterprise game. But neither is Apple. For years, RIM has set the standard. Even today, other companies have a lot of work to do in order to catch up. I have to call this an even draw." Discuss

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Is the iPhone Now as Enterprise Ready as the Android?

Tags:active, apple, Business, Cisco, companies, computers, data, device, enterprise, flash, G Apps, G. That, internet, iphone, Juniper, Ken Westin, Mike Melanson, mobile, news, open marketplace, open source model, Pandora, Read, skype, user

Apple Announces Multitasking for iPhone? Close Enough.

So before the purists go off the deep end, fuming about the iPhone OS 4.0 announcement today , let's just concede one point - it isn't truly multitasking. Apple announced "Multitasking" with seven key points, one of them being "Fast App Switching", and this is what they meant for much of multitasking. But, here's the thing - for some of the most exciting things we've wanted to do, multitasking-wise, with our iPhones, the new OS will indeed offer true multitasking, and for that we're fairly excited to say the least. Sponsor Multitasking, for the most part, is handled by a double click on the home button, which pulls up a screen showing icons of all the apps currently hanging out in the background. Some, like Skype or Pandora, will actually be running, while others will simply be in a frozen state. The multitasking feature will be available for iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 2nd Generation starting this summer and Apple is guaranteeing that it will not only keep your device moving quickly but will work to conserve battery life. In this effort, the company has released 7 APIs to handle the "multitasking". Instead of allowing the application to continue running a full instance in the background, potentially clogging up the system and draining power, the OS will handle background operations for several specific processes. [Image courtesy of GDGT .] For other applications not using these specific background services, switching out of the app will simply freeze it in its current state for the user to return to later. Otherwise, Apple certainly nailed it as far as the types of services we were hoping to run in the background. You want music to keep streaming through Pandora while you catch up with reading on Read It Later? You got it. How about keeping track of your bike ride across town with Map My Ride and being able to look up directions on the way? Sure! Keep Skype running in the background and get phone calls and chat notifications? Indeed. The iPhone will even complete tasks, such as uploading photos and videos, in the background - a feature sounds rather like "true" multitasking to us. We admit, "true" multitasking or not, this fulfills many of our wishes and we're quite excited. The only thing we'll have to hope for now is that the apps we want to multitask implement these new APIs. By doing multitasking this way, Apple has tried to assure that it can control the quality of the experience, but we'll have to hope for companies to follow along and release updated versions. Discuss

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Apple Announces Multitasking for iPhone? Close Enough.

Tags:apple, Apple Announces, applications, background, exciting-things, experience, iphone, iphones, map my ride, Multitasking, Pandora, Read, reading-on-read, skype, summer, the-background, true multitasking, user