Facebook Feeding Frenzy

Facebook 2.0? Not quite, but today’s the day that it looks set to open up access to the ‘feed’. What we’re talking about is the rich real time data that developers would give their eye-teeth to get their hands on; the stuff we’re all sharing with our fellow Facebook users. It’s important because it ups the ante in the ongoing battle with Twitter. After all, search the net, and you’ll already find a plethora of news aggregation sites based on the most popular things people are Tweetering on about.  Knowing what people are sharing is one thing, but imagine filtering it by geographic or company location too. The big question is precisely how much of the feed will be opened up and how it will sit with thorny privacy issues.  What’s to be applauded though is the fact that they’re acting quickly to assimilate the best of competitor social media. People’s attention spans wane quickly online, so anything that sustains interest or reinvigorates has got to be welcomed.

Susan Boyle is bigger than Bush, Obama and Palin!

It’s true. According to Visible Measures, the unexpected star of Britain’s Got Talent has received 47.7 million online views and 125,000+ comments. This trounces views of the Bush vs Shoes incident (33.2m views), Tina Fey’s impression of Sarah Palin (34.2m) and Obama’s victory night speech (18.5m).  What’s it all mean for the future of light entertainment? For a start, it’s further evidence of our insatiable appetite for the plucky underdog – John Sergeant, Paul Potts et al. It probably also points to our desire for a new shared visual experience. After all, very few of us watch the same TV programme at the same time these days  - it’s all Sky+ and iPlayer. Nowadays isn’t it all about gathering round a colleague’s computer and reliving the same clip together? It’s the modern day equivalent of sitting in front of the wireless – collectively enjoying a piece of entertainment and then critiquing as a group. Of course, it might just mean that we’re a bunch of shameless voyeurs with too much time on our hands!

Silly Old Twit-ter

Did you read Chris Barraclough’s recent blog? He handed over the temporary reigns to Casey Bird – a young student of advertising. Casey’s big gripe was that Facebook is being taken over by seriously uncool oldies… like her dad. Well, guess what, it’s happening to Twitter too. According to ComScore and Reuters reporter Alexei Oreskovic, Twitter’s massive traffic explosion is mainly down to 25-54 year olds or, more specifically, it’s 45-54 year olds who are 36% more likely to visit and 25-34 year olds who are 30% more likely. In fact, 18-24 year olds (the traditional social media early adopters) are actually 12 percent less likely than average to visit Twitter.

Sounds surprising? Maybe not. As the company rightly infers, we may need to drop the traditional ‘young early adopter model’ – as the first generation of internet users grows up and businesses make even greater inroads into social media. Should the kids just get a life? Or should the older folk get out of the playground? Perhaps one can argue that we’re all retreating into a cosy world of ‘kidulthood’ rather than face the global economic meltdown? It’s all around us. Just look at the way that Innocent’s infantilism of ingredient lists has spread to virtually every product on the supermarket shelves. No ‘nasties’, indeed!