Social Networks | dashPunk

Males vs. Females on Social Network Sites

December 14, 2009 in Culture by Brian Logee

Image via Wikipedia

Royal Pingdom shared an interesting study showing that most social networks are used by women. The exception to the rule are he social news sites Digg, Reddit and Slashdot which have more male users than female. Why is this?

The other social networks are focused on social interaction over discovery. The connection between people and the interaction amongst that connection. Although all people seek this out, guys tend to find this through a shared activity like gamming online or in-person interaction like work, sports, bars, and other projects.

What is interesting is that the three social news networks are more about discovery and sharing of news connecting them through a common activity rather then socially. This could also apply to last.fm, delicious, linkedin, stumbleupon, and friendfeed.

What sets the second group apart from the first is the aggressiveness of the environment. This becomes evident in the tone of what is shared and the tone of the comments. Thus why the ratio is closer to 50% for the second group.

What does this study show me

When deciding on what social networks to participate in consider:

What type of an environment are you looking for: One that is more aggressive or one that is more supportive.
Are you looking for news or personal interaction?

The study is also fun to show support for general marketing and sociological knowledge.

via Podcasting News.

Being a part of something special makes you special

October 29, 2009 in Tribes by Eric

This entry is part 1 of 11 in the series Follow Your Bliss

: Image via Wikipedia

Community is a base essential. Even loners like to pride themselves on being part of a proud tradition of mavericks. We all want to belong. The question is: Belong to what?

There are two schools of thought:

Belong to something popular
Belong to something meaningful

Often, we feel like we have to choose one or the other.

Belonging to something Popular

The easiest choice to make to sign up for what your friends are doing. I read a lot of blogs that discuss techniques bloggers can use to create this sort of peer pressure among your readers to bring their friends in. The whole Web 2.0 phenomenon centered around this idea.

All my friends are on My Space, so I should be on My Space
Now the majority of my friends are on Facebook, I suppose I should join that.
Wow, all these people I want to keep up with are on Twitter. I guess I need to join that

On and on it goes. Each of these sites give us metrics to make us feel popular: Friends/Followers/Subscribers.

The problem with fame is that the more you have (real or imagined) the more you want. It is a drug. Social acceptance is the souls most addictive narcotic. Like with any addiction. Our priorities start changing.

My breaking point came when I was promoting Shine Like Thunder. At one point, I was “participating” in 19 separate social networks on a weekly basis, and 7 more every other week. Add that to my blogging, podcasting, and I didn’t have any time left to write… You know, the reason I started this mess to begin with. I had contact with a lot more people, but made few friends.
I was hooked on the drug. I fed the addiction while letting my passions wither.

Belonging to something Meaningful

All I really want, and I think all any of us really want is the sense that we are a part of something meaningful.

A meaningful community feeds us with enthusiasm and purpose. That is the cost of popularity.

My favorite band, Kiss, and my favorite show on TV right now, Glee, understand this. They preach and practice the celebration of difference. We need to do that too!

Personal Checklist

I realized that in my personal life I need to ask myself some basic questions:

What am I doing that fills my life with a sense of purpose and meaning?
How can I better connect with people to make friends and not just followers.

Social Checklist

And on a broader field:

How can I push the social networks I belong to work together better?
How can I be more social and less promotional and vain?
What can I do to fill my own life with more meaning and purpose?

I am still working on answers to these questions, and I am sure I missed quite a few that should be on the list. What did I miss? Do you have any suggestions?

MMO 2.0: The End of Walled Gardens

October 15, 2008 in Games, MMO by Eric

This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series The Future of Online Gaming

Turbine recently laid out their vision for what they are calling MMO 2.0. In this series, I will go through some of their points in detail.

Worlds are going to have to turn themselves inside out. What was once closed, will have to be open (Wonderland).

The very notion of the MMO being the hub of our social networking and gaming life is appealing, but I must say, I have numerous reservations about how this could and should be implemented.

MMO and Social Networks

We can use these to target specific groups though, and to talk 2-way with our consumers. Social Networks reached over to the game space and pulled games and gamers into their networks in order to drive growth (Wonderland).

Social Networks could be used for so much more. Imagine:

if they offered portable friend lists so you and the friends that you allow, can easily see which MMOs you are currently playing with character and server information.
if friends you made in game (that you allow), could be automatically added to your friends lists on the social networks that you use to allow you to make deeper connections with these people.
if there was an automatic, “online as …” so your friends would know you which game you are on, which server and who you are playing.

Of course, all of these features would have to be opt in, and have privacy options that would allow you to choose who and when these notifications are visible, but imagine the deeper connections you could make with other players if these features were enabled across all MMOs.

MMOs and Virtual Worlds

I am not a big fan of virtual worlds like Second Life, mainly because I do not know many people who use them, or what I could do there.

Like many of you, my time is limited, and I tend to spend my time in City of Heroes where I have friends and know what I am doing. If I could easily import my toons appearance into one of their virtual worlds I would be much more likely to try them out.

I frankly don’t have the patience to create dozens of avatars simply for the purpose of trying out a virtual world. It would also be nice to know if any of my friends are online without having to log in to find out. These features would increase the chance that I would try these out.

MMOs and Other Games

So many games today have an online component, and it is a no-brainer to bring these into a more inclusive social network for all of the reasons I mentioned above.

MMOs as a Three in One

…you have V(irtual)W(orld)s, Social networks and Game space: MMOs are the meet point for all three. As these three worlds combine, the MMO becomes a unique meet spot and launching pad to take the best of these worlds together (Wonderland).

I can see their argument that an MMO is a mashup between the three, but they need to be opened up for more user involvement and out of game connections.

How? I will go into more on the hows in the next post in this series.

Tor’s Future Plans

February 19, 2008 in Books by Eric

Tor is hinting at something coming, something new, something related to their free e-books. If you are interested in getting announcements about their free book giveaways then sign up, but I am more interested in the “Something new” that’s coming.

Maybe the long rumored SF Site from Tor/Forge is actually on the way. Until then, the free books are nice. While I am not really looking for another social network to join, if it helps me find new books to read, then I am all for it.

(via Tor)