In May of 2008, the median age for Facebook was 26. Today, it’s 33, a good seven years older. That’s an interesting turn of events for a site once built for the exclusive use of college students. So where are today’s college students hanging out now? Well, to some extent, they’re still on Facebook, despite having to share the space with moms, dads, grandparents, and bosses. Surprisingly though, they’re also headed to another network you may have heard of: Twitter.
All you read about is how females are dominating the online world: they dominate social networking sites, are seen by marketers as carrying the largest share of online influence, and they make up a rapidly-increasing share of the market for video games. Forum One’s 2008 study of this same subject found that 55% of community manager positions were held by women. While that number decreased slightly this year (52% of the respondents were women), 52% is still a majority . Why, then, the substantial disparity in incomes between male and female community managers? And why the widening gap (women make 87% of what men make, according to the 2009 survey, while last year that figure was 91%)? It’s bad enough that female social media speakers are being ignored; now you’re telling me that even though women are often considered to be better suited to online community management, they’re making way less than men at it?
More than 1,400 organizations around the world, including large enterprises, educational institutions, government agencies and the US Military, currently use Second Life to hold meetings, conduct training and prototype new technologies more efficiently and cost effectively. For example, IBM held a conference in Second Life that it estimated was executed at one-fifth the cost of a physical event, saving the company more than $320,000. Additionally, military organizations and defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman have significantly reduced R&D costs by moving design and simulation efforts to Second Life.
Email is the digital glue of the social web.” (Greg Cangialosi of Blue Sky Factory at Marketing Profs Digital Mixer)
What’s unclear is where social networking goes from here. Experts at Wharton say there’s still a lot of growth left in the sector, but a round of consolidation, reinvention and restructuring is likely in the not-too-distant future.
Facebook doesn’t break out figures for small businesses but says it has 1.4 million business “pages,” with an average of 100 fans per page. Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said in a speech in New York last month that every day, 10 million people become fans of pages.
While social media can provide additional channels to network and help grow a business, many small businesses may not have the manpower or the time required take advantage of them.
It’s been several weeks since we assembled more than 19,000 sales people virtually for Cisco’s annual sales meeting. Cisco broke new ground for the sheer size of this virtual event, as well as the creative combination of technologies that included TelePresence, WebEx, IPTV and a very engaging Alternate Reality Game (ARG) called “The Threshold”.
In a 24-hour period of time starting Friday, October 16th at 9 am (PDT) and lasting until Saturday, October 17th at 9am (PDT) people all over the internet stratosphere will be asked to send tweets and Facebook status updates and to blog using #BeatCancer in their posts. Ebay/Paypal and MillerCoors Brewing Company will donate a penny ($0.01)* for every Twitter message, Facebook update or blog post that includes the phrase #BeatCancer. All money will be donated to non-profit cancer organizations.
We are creating a new generation of digital extroverts who gain confidence in online interaction reinforced by every new update, follower, retweet, public @ (acknowledgment), and linkback. I then suggested that this may actually have a positive impact on society as, we then carry this new found courage back into the real world, supported by our invisible army of supporters who define our social graph. I call this, until I can come up with something better, the “Verizon Network” theory.
