CHAPTER 7: Web 2.0 and social media

Long tail

phenomenon whereby firms can make money by selling a near-limitless selection of less-popular products

astroturfing

practice of lining comment and feedback forums with positive feedback ex: wholefoods

Mainstream Media (MSM)

refers to newspapers, magazines, televisions, and radios; distinctly different from internet media blogs; coverage not as diverse, but more credible

social media

technologies that support the creation of user-generated content, as well as content editing, commenting, curation, and sharing

blogosphere

term referring to the collective community of bloggers, as well as those who read and comment on blogs

virtual world

A computer-generated environment where users present themselves in the form of an avatar, or animated character.

Blog Roll

A list of a blogger's favorite blogs. While not all blogs include blog rolls, those that do are often displayed on the right or left column of a blog's main page

RSS

A method for sending/broadcasting data to users who subscribe to a service's "RSS feed." Many Web sites and blogs forward headlines to users who subscribe to their "feed," making it easy to scan headlines and click to access relevant news and information.

Microblogging

A type of short-message blogging, often made via mobile device. Microblogs are designed to provide rapid notification to their readership (e.g., a news flash, an update on one's activities), rather than detailed or in-depth comments. Twitter is the most popular microblogging service.

avatar

An online identity expressed by an animated or cartoon figure.

User Generated Content

UGC is the term used to describe any form of content such as video, blogs, discussion form posts, digital images, audio files, and other forms of media that was created by consumers or end-users of an online system or service and is publically available to others consumers and end-user

NPOV

• An editorial style that is free of bias and opinion. Wikipedia norms dictate that all articles must be written in NPOV. "neutral point of view" • But firms that overreach and try to influence an entry outside of Wikipedia's mandated neutral point of view (NPOV), risk a backlash and public exposure.

Electronic Social Network

• An online community that allows users to establish a personal profile and communicate with others. Large public social networks include MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google's Orkut. • many also are platforms for the deployment of third-party applications (not surprisingly, social games dominate)

sock puppet

fake persona set up to sing your own praises

folksonomy

(sometimes referred to as social tagging) are keyword-based classification systems created by user communities as they generate and review content

Recognize the unexpected rise and impact of social media and peer production systems, and understand how these services differ from prior generation tools.

-impacts: bad press for people/companies, more ads/ways to communicate, can collaborate with more people, creates forums for people to discuss. -Differ: people can comment, and interact on websites, not just a transaction/being able to view something

wikis

A Web site that can be modified by anyone, from directly within a Web browser (provided that user is granted edit access). • can be one of the speediest ways to collaboratively create content online. • Many wikis also serve as knowledge management systems that act as a sort of collective corporate memory that's vital for sharing skills, learning, and preserving expertise even when employees leave the firm. • Provide a version history • Can be software or hosted online services • All changes are attributed • Can have a tagging scheme • Searchable

podcasts

Digital audio or video files served as a series of programs or a multimedia blog.

Embassy

In the context of social media, an established online presence where customers can reach and interact with the firm. An effective embassy approach uses a consistent firm name in all its social media properties.

wikimaster

Individuals often employed by organizations to review community content in order to delete excessive posts, move commentary to the best location, and edit as necessary.

Trackbacks

Links in a blog post that refer eaders back to cited sources. Trackbacks allow a blogger to see which and how many other bloggers are referring to their content. A "trackback" field is supported by most blog software and while it's not required to enter a trackback when citing another post, it's considered good "netiquette" to do so.

Blogs

Online journal entries, usually made in a reverse chronological order. Blogs typically provide comment mechanisms where users can post feedback for authors and other readers.

SMART

Social Media Awareness and Response Team A group tasked with creating policies and providing support, training, guidance, and development expertise for and monitoring of a firm's social media efforts

rollback

The ability to revert a wiki page to a prior version. This is useful for restoring earlier work in the event of a posting error, inaccuracy, or vandalism

Why would a corporation, an executive, a news outlet, or a college student want to blog? What are the benefits? What are the concerns?

• Benefits: can have significant influence, flashpoint for public opinion, faster and more direct, can use for business purposes like marketing, gathering feedback, press release, image shaping, and reaching consumers directly, ease of use, comment threads, search ability, tags, trackbacks • Concerns: can cause brand destruction, companies should have a proper procedure for posting online, public postings can "live" forever on the Internet o Blog comments can be a hothouse for spam and the disgruntled. Ham-handed corporate efforts (such as poor response to public criticism or bogus "praise posts") have been ridiculed. o Employee blogging can be difficult to control and public postings can "live" forever

What are the major classifications of social media services

• Blogs: online diary, share ideas, obtain feedback, mobilize a community, interactive, post quickly (ex: wordpress, blogger) • Wikis: websites that anyone can edit directly from within the browser, collaborate on common tasks or create common knowledge base (ex: Wikipedia, world of war craft) • Electronic Social Networks: online community that allows users to establish a personal profile, link to others, share contents, discover and reinforce affiliations (ex: facebook, linked in) • Microblogging: short, asynchronous messaging system, distribute time-sensitive information (ex: twitter) • Tag cloud: shows what a website covers, has links to, etc

augmented reality

• Computer applications that overlay real-world images with computer-generated imagery and data. • point your Yelp app down the street and activate the monocle feature to see starred reviews hover over the top of establishments that appear on screen

What factors might cause an individual, employee, or firm to be cautious in their use of social networks?

• Content of flows are difficult to control, misuse of feeds, accidental release of confidential information, fear of employees wasting time, privacy concerns, permanency • Employers are trawling the Internet, mining Facebook, and scouring YouTube for any tip-off that a would-be hire should be passed over

Be aware of trends that may influence the evolution of social networks.

• Increasing social networks, increase in advertising and branding by companies, information spreads virally, flow of content is difficult to control as it grows, private social networks within organizations are growing

Know what social networks are, be able to list key features, and understand how they are used by individuals, groups, and corporations.

• Key features: detailed personal profiles, affiliations with groups and individuals, private messaging and public discussions, media sharing, discovery, ability to install and use third party applications tailored to the service many of which allow users to interact even more • Individuals: share their lives with and maintain social ties (especially long distance) • Groups & Corporations: use as a tool to advertise for their respective interests, products or services, organizational productivity tool for projects, internal social networking platforms (secure and tailored to a firm's needs, keep employees linked at all times), foster brainstorming and customer engagement • Groups: if you like a page, then it can pop up on your news feed, better than advertisements and you can comment and have customer feedback

Understand the difference between major social networks MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

• Myspace: largely for public consumption, started by musicians, media discovery tool bringing together users with similar tastes • Facebook: oriented towards reinforcing existing social ties between people who already know each other, secure with settings to allow profile security • LinkedIn: social network for business professionals, users update as they move or change jobs, pose questions to members of their network, engage in group discussions, ask for introductions through mutual contacts, way of maintaining professional contacts, seeking peer advice, networking and even recruiting

What sorts of restrictions or guidelines should firms place on the use of social networks or the other Web 2.0 tools discussed in this chapter? Are these tools a threat to security? Can they tarnish a firm's reputation? Can they enhance a firm's reputation? How so?

• Restrictions or guidelines: limiting employee's use while they are about work, reacting quickly to any bad public opinion • Can tarnish a firm's reputation: example- united breaks guitar, dominoes rogue employees viceos on youtube • Make sure they have a SMART team • Can be a threat to security, but can also enhance a firm's reputation (ben and jerrys giving away virtual ice cream cones?)

What distinguishes Web 2.0 technologies and services from the prior generation of Internet sites?

• Web 2.0- "second generation" of the Web • Internet Services that foster user participation, collaboration, and information sharing, as contrasted to the static, transaction-orientated website of Web 1.0 -peer production -social media

WYSIWYG

• What you see is what you get • A phrase used to describe graphical editing tools, such as those found in a wiki, page layout program, or other design tool. • editing that, while not as robust as traditional word processors, is still easy enough for most users to grasp without training or knowledge of arcane code or markup language

Peer Production

• When users collaboratively work to create content, products, and services. Includes social media sites, open source software, and peer-produced services, such as Skype and BitTorrent, where the participation of users provide the infrastructure and computational resources that enable the service.

mash up

• are combinations of two or more technologies or data feeds into a single, integrated tool • HousingMaps.com combines Craigslist.org listings with Google Maps for a map-based display for apartment hunters

Prediction market

• where a diverse crowd is polled and opinions aggregated to form a forecast of an eventual outcome • stock market is a prediction market • Internet technologies are allowing companies to set up prediction markets for exploring all sorts of problems. • Best buy employee example

What advantage do blogs have over the MSM? What advantage does the MSM have over the most popular blogs?

•Corporate blogs can be published directly to the public, skipping what bloggers call the mainstream media (MSM) and presenting their words without a journalist filtering their comments advantage of MSM- more credible

crowdsourcing

•where initially undefined groups of users band together to solve problems, create code, and develop services, are also a type of peer production •These efforts often seek to leverage the so-called wisdom of crowds, the idea that a large, diverse group often has more collective insight than a single or small group of trained professionals