Pinterest the next facebook?

Pinterest is the fastest growing website of all time with an increase of 52% users in one month. It is more impressive that the website is invitation online so the amount of users allowed entry is limited by the operators. Pinterest allows users collect & share images on a digital pin board. 

Unlike other online social networks Pinterest primary audience is females. Replacing the need for physically operation of flicking through magazines and design books and allowing the user to create collection online to share and allow others to enhance. This allows a more personalised space for the user as it is full of things you have put there and want there. Allowing the user to save things for later and plan things out visually, one example in the text is a home schooler planning out her lesson in the medium. 

"Social-networking sites have helped businesses influence people, but they are imperfect. People use Facebook and Twitter to talk to each other, not necessarily to discuss things they might want to buy. In contrast, Pinterest users are more often in a shopping mindset when they are using the service. If you're keeping a pin board called "Spring handbags I'm considering," there's a good chance you'll click through and make a purchase."

This quotes show how pinterest might be used as a shopping service of collecting products and items you are interesting and giving a representation of the life the audience would like to lead. Is this just living through a screen or is this going to convert into real life plans? But it does let users upload their own images allowing a two way conversation.

There was also an interesting comment about facebook in this article about facebook growth is now slowing due to the huge amount of people it has within it. Which results in facebook needing users to stay on the site longer to sell more advertising and sponsored links to the user which has lead to facebook buying out companies like Instagram and creating its own app store. 

Alexis Ohanian: How to make a splash in social media

A broad comment on how the people can change the outcomes, but also how companies and organisation need to be more open to hear the voice of real consumers online. 

It costs hardy anything to get your message onto the internet and to get your message out their. All information on the internet has an equal of chance of being consumered it just depends on if it is something interested in or if the consumer can find it. If people want to share it on social news sizes like reddict or create groups and apps on facebook for it.

Alexis talks about not taking your cause to seriously and let your audience be able to change and enhance your cause/business and most important is that "the message doesn't always come from the top down"

Stefana Broadbent - How the internet enables intimacy

Stefana talks about the democratisation of intimacy from the the break down of traditional rules of communication within institution and working lives. From user communicating with each other under the desk or hiding away at work to make personal call to check in. From her and others research she suggests that we talk to a core of 3 - 6 people daily through online communications. This seems to explore the breakdown of work and personal spaces and times? I feel this link in my area of exploring the two way convocation on social medias with audience and brands through the break down of how and when we are ment to be communicating with each other.

As well how offered would we interact with fan pages and brands in our lives?

Rachel Botsman: The currency of the new economy is trust

This talk by Rachel Botsman explores the rise of the peer 2 peer market place and our online identity and reptations. The internet is allowing a trust between strangers. This trust is created from the social capital of shared values and social interaction which is performed across a range of online platforms which is empowering people to create meaning full connections.

There seems to be a demand for Humanised relationships against the empty transaction we get when go to a big box market or just buying things straight off amazon. People are programmed to need social interaction and that facebook is so important in our busy lives. 

Rachel Botsman talks about a value shifts of wants with haves, which is interesting when put into context of the time we live in with depressing economic prospects and high unemployment. People are unable to keep up with the Jones but however are getting to know the Jones to share and borrow their items. As well this can be explored through sites like freecycle and gumtree where you are able to pick up peoples unwanted items for free.

She also mentions every time a new piece of technology is bought out there is more social interaction allow us to get to know people more easily. For expand the new OSX for Mac has facebook and twitter built in so you are able to share what you are doing off your computer as soon as you do it, instead of going onto the site to share that information. This is allowing to see what we are doing and build and knowledge of us then a trust of us. Technology is making this process easier and easier?

How is digital Identity reflected in the real world? Sites like ebay, linkedin, amazon allow for peer to peer reviews and creates the reputation Rachel is exploring in her research as we are able to see what other have experience of this user and make an informed idea of the person. This could be put into the context of an employer exploring our facebook profile to see if what we said was really true in the interview from what we say and display about ourselves to the social interaction. 

Social Capital

"The interaction & feedback this generates are conclusive to the promotion of shared values & relationships of Trust" The quote talks about facebook fan pages in the context of the social capital model created from this articles research. It talks about how there are basic requirements for a fan page to be revisited and used rather than just "liking it" and not capture the audiences attention. The group needs to have shared values with the audience for example with chocolate brand then the more updates of interest (images/films/samples) will causes more interaction leading onto more trust. This motivates the relationship more and generates consumer trust. The fan page need to keep the shared value up as this allows the continued two way relationship between the brand/product and the niche audience on facebook and keep it consistent. "Corporations are able to change fans in the virtual world into costumers at physical storefronts" but how true is this really? What percentage are then willing to depend from their capital?

The item I take most away is, Its not about them just liking it, need them to be involved within it. But why has this started to occur? Is it because of the rise of technology allowing us to interact? or has something else happen to cause this change in consumers? 

Building an online brand

    Harvard Business Review explores how brands are building successful and unsuccessful presents on social networks. With the power shifting to consumer it has become even more important to listen and engage with them. Facebook and Twitter gives a platform that brands are able to commincate with their customers instantly. Allowing successful businesses on social networks to be able to adopt their business quickly to their consumers demands/feedback but to keep the consumers in the loop.

    The article mention a term called "Ethnographic Research" which researching how brands interact within consumers lives which allows the brands to understand their customers and cultural phenomena in depth. This allows a two a way conovatation to occur between the two parties allowing the ordinary consumer to be heard.

   Why do people want to join up to brands? The business review suggests that their needs to be two key standards for the audience and thats to be enjoyable and to be able to take something away from it.

Personality Impressions

Psychology of Popular Media Culture 2012, American Psychological Association

This journal extract explores how people view facebook profiles. The audiences for our profiles are not just friends and family but employers and universities checking if what we say on the application forms/interviews are really true! We all make judgements on each other when passing in the street so why should facebook be any different? This extract looks at what audiences look for as key information to make an informed opinion on a user. From looking at what profile pictures we choose, whether its us by ourselves or with friends or on holiday says alot about a person. But also the information we write about ourselves in our info sections expresses us according to Zorana Ivcevic and Nalini Ambady. But the judgements are not just informed from what we say to the world but it is also about the amount of interactions within our wall from our users on the site. 

This could be applied to brands with the images and information displays sets the tone of the page as soon as we land upon it.

Brands and Timeline

http://mashable.com/2011/09/29/facebook-timeline-brands/#view_as_one_page-gallery_box2501

The idea of the images being a thousand words seem true the more I look into this, Dr John, Medina explores that there is a lasting impact on people' memories with images rather than words. This could lead to explain why there has been such a huge rise in popularity for sites such as instgram and tumblr. 

The article explores the notion of brands have to decide on Facebook weather they want to be places for communities to be created and involve themselves within this or to show all the hard sells and information on it. Maybe an idea would to be explore how Facebook talks about brands on there site?

The most two main points I take away from this is, Is the internet becoming an image based media? How does this effect quality? Then does small businesses actually need a designer to build them a website when Facebook timeline might be enough to explore their brand and services?

Design Reviews

https://social.ogilvy.com/a-design-critique-of-facebook’s-new-features/

The idea of the Facebook design being an info graphic is something I have not came across before. This frame work allows a lot of opportunity for individuals and brands to create a visual representation for themselves through large and expandable pictures and information boxes. Plus the design taking into account how people are now accessing the internet and sites like this through mobile internet deceives. How are we taking advantage or this frame work and is there issues around this?

Facebook Promotional Video

"Facebook | the things that connect us" or in my opinion "Facebook the thing that connects us". This promotional video found on Facebook.com homepage on the 16th Oct 2012 starts off with using a chair metaphor to the audience. This suggests the basic needs for life, we all need to be able to sit down to be comfortable. We expect for this as a standard of our lives. This leads to the idea of that chairs are designed for us, some are designed for use with a table, some a computer, some for sitting outside but all are abled to move and adopted for our needs. Whilst sitting down we most often socialise to one and another. So Facebook is also a social point like chairs but through a screen (which is detached from that tangible environment we all live and are used to [debate to explore]).  Facebook is a place for socialising which leads to discussion and sharing of data. Data such as images and videos (seen on the timeline below) which leads to the internet becoming an image based medium which I want to explore with Facebooks new purchase of Instgram. But from this video and other article Facebook is nothing without users. We are the content generators which pulls our friends and families and other networks onto Facebook to see what is happening. (able to generate more data from faster and more connected gadgets, cameras on our phones, phones connected to the internet anywhere) (look at function available on Facebook). So from this we can gather that Facebook is just a frame work for users to fill and draw more people onto it. So what does Facebook gain from us? This tutorial video about using your timeline on your Facebook profile has highlighted some interesting things to me. Timeline allows you to back date life events and memorial photos but also current ones and so on to show on your profile for others to see and engage with. This comes across to me as a sort of personal marketing or branding as your able to edit and create things that you feel that represent you through the frame work laid out for you. Why do we want to create with this representation? What motivates us to tell everyone in our network what we just had for dinner? Why is this story so important to other and maybe there is too much information that people are not interested in our own personal stories?

Context - Changing space we call the internet.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jun/20/internet-everything-need-to-know

In this long article "everything you need to know about the internet" John highlights and give some interesting context to our modern online lives and the history. In the above quote he is exploring how we do not how the internet is really going to shape our lives for the long term and will only find out how it does with hindsight. Which I though was interesting as we don't know what this social networking is going to lead to, let alone know what affect it is having on society now. Social networks like Facebook have only been around for seven years in early forms, is that enough time for their true culture impact on us all? No from what John Naughton is explain in the article.

These two paragraphs explore how technology has enabled change in the way we access information off the internet but also how we store things. From the developments of not having to be next to a huge tower of a machine and be able to access the internet from our tiny phones this must of affected the ways in which brands have try to target us in this space but also how platforms have developed to store more of our data (being photos, videos and so on) through cloud software like from google and apple or to creating huge databases on servers like google and Facebook. How is this affecting the way brands interact with us and see us? Are they able to access more personal data than ever before? and is this data secure whilst us not being in control of it?

The comment at the end about "No longer just a publication medium" is really something we are seeing now. We do not just go to the internet to find a data, we go to the internet to engage with data and to challenge and give a opinion on data. Leading to how we interact with brands on Facebook and how they interact, buts its not just brand, its how we interact with each other and represent ourselves through this screen medium.

Like Sherry Turkle explores in her book "alone together" there is no escape from what we do on the internet when our names and ip are attached to it because everything is logged and stored. From google searches to likes on Facebook all these interaction are stored. But how are they used and stored?

Keep brands off Facebook?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/social-media/8879961/Britons-want-brands-to-stay-off-social-networks.html

This article was taken from the Telegraphs website and explores a poll taken out asking the public whether they like brands being on Facebook/social networking sites or not. 

The comment about brands are invading peoples personal space is an interesting point, as brands are everywhere in our offline world. From just walking down your home street the general public is exposed to numerous brands from cars to phones to shops and so on. Why should the internet be different? How does brands create an awareness on social networks without the audience feeling negative towards them? Maybe people are wondering whether the internet branding should be less of a hard sell and more of a personal awareness? Like discuss in a previous article post from creative review, with brands trying to create more personalised appearances.

Another interesting point created was that "74 per cent of chinese" online user comment on brands online and only a third of britons. Why is this? Is there something due to the age or users? Willing ness to be associated with the right brand? Something to explore further.

Crowd Sourcing Designers

Creative Review April 2012

With the internet transforming lots of different creativity industries, I was interested to find out how it effects the design industry. This article from creative review explores how crowd sourcing design websites with short time frames are degrading the quality of design. I think the ethnics of the internet is an interesting avenue to explore more. Maybe I could explore more with the personal branding of the big companies on facebook and the ethinics of it?

Facebook Storyline

Creative Review May 2012

This article highlighted how social media platform effect the way consumers engage with brands. It explores the idea that people are not wanting the hard sell but wanting to become friends with the brands and be able to engage with its story' and personalities. Then maybe once this engagement with the brands has been created the consumer may feel that the brand more represents themselves as a person (maybe even be friends with that brand or "fanboy") resulting in sales and word of mouth marketing? Interesting how business are adopting to social trends to get more brand awareness but creating engagement within their brands. I was interested in the highlight fact of the internet being a text based media but with new social network sites like instagram & pinterest make it a more visual media. Does this make easier for people to relate to each other? I think it interesting how technology shapes the way we communicate and sell.