Web 2.0, Annual Reviews and other things predictable

Last week, Ken, Oded & I had the pleasure of attending a breakfast presentation hosted by the London IABC entitled "Managing Web 2.0" technology. We had all been immersed in institutional approaches and strategy regarding the fantastic web revolution, and Julian Mill's presentation on the business perspective was refreshing -- and brought some new ideas to the table.

Reviewing: "Managing Web 2.0 Technology" by Julian Mills

The talk started with the comment that everyone wants a blog. Even people who don't know what a blog is, know that their company website needs a blog. This rang familiar to what I remember hearing at the EduWeb conference in Baltimore last summer. This mass acceptance is an accomplishment, as many other equally valuable web products are held back by fear of technology.

Mills' company has dealt internationally with companies, setting up Intranets and even becoming seen as sort of an expert in the field through its own blog on the topic. One of his observations, after pitching Intranet solutions to clients over recent years, is that a person's background heavily determines what they think Web 2.0 can do for them. This is something we also see when talking with institutions, and even in our own office -- where we all come from different backgrounds. I come from UWO's hip "Media, Information & Technoculture" program, where I happily did my thesis on social networks (dating back to the 1950s), and a sure and confirmed wiki-phile. When we came together to discuss Wikinomics at the start of the year, it became apparent that there were many different perspectives from which to view social web trends. And it's been apparent in the media as well. Traditional marketers grew up on the notion that the brand controls the message -- a concept that Web 2.0 & user-generated content trends such as blogs, comments and wiki's undermine significantly.

In the end, my opinion is that the user has the end decision, and what the user seemed to want in 2007 was to share their opinion -- whenever and wherever possible.

RSS

Mills took some time to talk about RSS feeds -- the quiet, unappreciated technology that preceded all the hype about blogs. Without RSS, we wouldn't have blogs. We wouldn't have podcasts. We wouldn't have newsfeeds! Our RSS feed of Academica's Top Ten runs to people's news readers, shows up in their Outlook, feeds onto my personal homepage, Academica's homepage and even into a couple Facebook applications. Some quick stats:

• 31% of online audience uses RSS
• 27% of online audience has a custom start page (such as iGoogle, powered by RSS)
• 12% of online audience knows what RSS is

Do you see why I call it unappreciated? It is one of the most widely used content distribution methods, but only 12% of Internet users know what it is.

Social Networks, MySpace & Facebook

The presentation then got into social networking, and covered the usual bases (MySpace is still bigger than Facebook -- although actually Facebook is higher in Canada's traffic rankings). Consumers are heavily influenced by peer opinion (rather than marketing), and are 50% more likely to be influenced by other consumers than by traditional marketing (stat from Intelliseek). We see this in students as well -- which is why we launched SkoolPool. The 2007 UAS found that 87% of PSE applicants consider the opinions of friends when making their school choice.

Still not convinced that peer information matters? 4 of the top 8 websites in the world are social media (YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Wikipedia). Here's some more stats from the presentation:

• 87% of 12-13 year olds use the Internet
• MySpace grew by 609% from 2004-2005
• 15-18 year olds spend 88 minutes per day on social networking websites

Take note: social networking is significant. Not just because it is popular, but because it changes how things are done:

• People are more connected.
• Users are not participants and publishers.
• The Internet has shifted from a one-to-many medium, to a many-to-many medium

Facebook in Particular

I have my own thoughts and writings on Facebook, so I won't go too deep into the topic in this review of Mills' presentation. But here are his key points:

• 25 years and older is the fastest growing group
• 1% of all internet time is spent on Facebook (and growing)
• Facebook is the largest photo-sharing site on the web (even over sites that specialize in photos, such as Flickr)
• Facebook has benefitted from extremely tight security features and privacy settings, unseen in previous networks (i.e. MySpace)

Blogging Best Practices

Mills also provided some blogging best practices, as follows:

• Establish your credibility as an expert
• Know your target audience (and engage them!)
• Be informal, conversational
• Your content must be relevant
• Provide links
• Respect your competition

All very sound. Here is my addition to the list:

• Be Honest

When you are a 16-year-old writing about the injustice of school cliques and the battle for love and popularity, your readership might not be high enough for flaws in logic to be corrected. But as an institution being considered by prospective students from across the country and even around the world, you'll get caught if you bend the truth. Mills pointed to the case of Wal-Mart, who got caught trying to pose sales content as user-generated.

Overall it was a really interesting presentation. Mills left us with the message that none of the technologies fueling Web 2.0 are overwhelmingly new. The change is in how we use existing technology, and what we let users and consumers do with technology -- and with content.

Julian Mills maintains a blog at www.getstrat.com