Social Network 'Assimilation'

Star Trek fans are familiar with the infamous Borg psuedo-race of cybernetic organisms. They operate solely toward the fulfilling of one purpose: to "add the biological and technological distinctiveness of other species to their own" in pursuit of perfection. This is achieved through forced assimilation, a process which transforms individuals and technology into Borg, enhancing, and simultaneously controlling, individuals by implanting or appending synthetic components.

It seems like social networks are quickly becoming 'borg like' as hives of existence and assimilating unsuspecting humans away from the real world and into the virtual realm. If it hasn't happened to you already, "you will be assimilated."

I was at a dinner party with a group of friends and while I was having a pleasant conversation with one of the guests, I couldn't help but notice how his full attention turned to his smartphone mid-conversation. Instead of actually enjoying the dinner party, it appeared that it was more important to update his Facebook page to inform his "friends" how much he was enjoying the dinner party.

It seems that the splintering of the web by the many mobile devices that are connected to the internet has facilitated this migration to virtual fulfillment. What will be the impact on our society where individuals live through their social network at the expense of their 'real' network? Many of us have hundreds of friends on Facebook, in real life, we don't have nearly that many 'friends.'

Clearly for advertisers, this is a tremendous opportunity. Not only can we associate a brand with an image, we can find out by social network user profiles and postings who associates themselves with that image. The main disconnect is the advertisement or social network presence is often promoting something in the 'real world.' As we have seen sometimes there is a significant disconnect between the social network world and the 'real' world.

One example, is when individuals paint a false picture of their real existence within the social network. I've seen social network walls and postings that would suggest an individual is an expert in a particular past time but in reality they are novices. The social network misinformation, in this scenario, could be misleading to advertisers.

Either way, it is clear that the social network is growing into a collective of information that is impossible to ignore from an advertising perspective. As the Borg would say, "Resistance is Futile."

June 2009: The Month Twitter Found a Niche

What do Michael Jackson and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have in common? They both had a major role in the global news media taking note of Twitter last month. In the months leading up to June, Twitter had grown from 1.7 million unique visitors in May 2008 to over 19.7 million in May 2009. Then on June 15, 2009, the Iranian authorities blocked reports from international correspondents who were reporting about the ensuing protests against the contested Presidential election. Once the conventional reporters were silenced the news media turned to Iranian citizen journalists who used Twitter and other social networking media to give real time accounts of the rioting, protests and violence. The opposition party candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi had accumulated over 100,000 supporters on Facebook. During the protest activities tweets were posted at rates as high as 221,000/hour. YouTube saw 3,000 Iranian videos uploaded and 2.2 million blog entries were posted.

Just 10 days (June 25, 2009) after the Twitter spike in Iran, Michael Jackson died. As the unexpected news shot across the globe several major websites crashed under the weight of the web traffic. Michael Jackson "tweets" were almost 30% of all "tweets" in the hours after the news was first reported. Messages were posted at a rate of 5,000/minute at its peak. News media outlets again turned to Twitter for immediate reactions from celebrities and citizen journalists. The true impact of Michael Jackson's death on Twitter is still unfolding as the world watches the coverage of the Michael Jackson Memorial.

It is unclear what the financial impact these events will have on Twitter but what is clear is that the news media is dramatically being impacted by Twitter. Traditionally, if a big news story breaks, the public would turn on their television. Now, they are just as likely to turn to Twitter or other social networking media first.