Category Archives: Gadgets and Technology

Ongoing issue of measuring online audiences

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If you were examining Hulu.com’s online audience figures from the last few months, you would find some fluctuation: 43.5 million viewers in May and then 24 million viewers in June. What happened? Did something radically change with the website? Are people abandoning the practice of watching television online?

No, the main change is that ComScore changed its methodology for measuring who used the website. According to the Los Angeles Times:

The three dominant measurement firms — ComScore, Nielsen and Quantcast — have been working since 2007 with an independent media auditing group to make improvements so the Web data they report don’t have a fun-house quality, in which the same site’s traffic can look emaciated or bulging, depending on the viewer’s angle.

These firms have used different measurements over time including panels of users (like Nielsen uses for television and radio) and embedded tags in videos and websites to track viewership. These numbers matter more than ever for advertisers as they will spend around $25 billion in online advertising in the United States in 2010.

As in many cases, knowing the means of measurement matters tremendously for interpreting statistics.

The “selfish elite” own iPads

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New technology from Apple always seems to stir up a lot of attention. MyType, a consumer research company, studied both the owners of iPads and the new gadget’s critics (20,000 people total):

iPad owners tend to be wealthy, sophisticated, highly educated and disproportionately interested in business and finance, while they scored terribly in the areas of altruism and kindness. In other words, “selfish elites.”

They are six times more likely to be “wealthy, well-educated, power-hungry, over-achieving, sophisticated, unkind and non-altruistic 30-50 year olds,” MyType’s Tim Koelkebeck told Wired.com.

96 percent those most likely to criticize the iPad, on the other hand, don’t even own one, although as geeks, they were slightly more likely to do so than the average population — and far more likely to have an opinion about the device one way or the other (updated). This group tends to be “self-directed young people who look down on conformity and are interested in videogames, computers, electronics, science and the internet,” said Koelkebeck.

A strong reminder that technology is not just a tool; it is often a status symbol. I remember having a discussion with some students about what it meant to have and display an Apple laptop in class. Students were quite aware that they were sending some sort of message about themselves in their computer choice.

It is also worth remembering that Apple once held its own non-comformist identity as they took on big, bad Microsoft. Today, Apple’s products such as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad are the height of cool but those who have them may be considered comformist.

Using Twitter to solve your consumer problems

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Time suggests a means for getting your customer complaints addressed: take your grievance to Twitter. Steven James Snyder writes about an experience he had with Hotmail where a Tweet led to a quick resolution.

Facebook: up or down?

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Stories about Facebook have been plentiful in recent weeks as the company apparently prepares to announce that it has 500 million members and the trailer for The Social Network has hit the web.

Wired suggests “Five things that could topple Facebook’s empire.” One interesting tidbit out of this article: the American Customer Satisfaction Index (from the business school at the University of Michigan) found that Facebook has ratings similar to cable companies and airlines. Also, Facebook is similarly rated to MySpace. Overall, “That puts the world’s most visited website in the bottom 5 percent of private sector companies in the survey.”

Looking ahead 40 years

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Smithsonian magazine celebrates its 40th anniversary by writing about “40 things you need to know about the next 40 years.”

Out of the 40 predictions, some of the ones that intrigued me:

4. New cars will be given away, free.

11. The heartland will rise again.

12. The top US social problem? Upward mobility.

13. By 2050, one out of three US kids will be Latino.

25. Artists will run the world.

27. Everyone will make his own music.

36. Good-bye stereo; hello, hyper-real acoustics

40. Reading will become an athletic activity

Selling more e-books than hardcovers

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According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon reports it has sold more e-books than hardcover books over the last three months.

This may seem impressive…but I’ve always thought hardcover books were a terrible deal anyway. In what other market are you offered the product initially and then months later consistently offered the same product at half-price?

Also, I still don’t feel compelled to buy a Kindle or a Nook or an e-reader.

Expanding your “weak ties” on Facebook

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An article from NewScientist looks at the usefulness of “weak ties” among Facebook friends. This term dates back to a very influential sociology paper from the early 1970s:

In 1973, sociologist Mark Granovetter showed how the loose acquaintances, or “weak ties”, in our social network punch far above their weight in their influence over our behaviour and choices (American Journal of Sociology, vol 78, p 1360). Granovetter found that a significant percentage of people get their jobs as a result of information provided by a weak tie. Subsequent studies have revealed that weak ties benefit our health and happiness. Granovetter suggested that this is because these friends-of-friends aren’t like you, yet they are likely to be similar enough in social outlook and personal interests to have a positive influence.

Interesting suggestion in the article that we can only handle about 150 “genuine social relationships.” Even with tools like Facebook, relationships still require more focused interaction and we are limited in this regard. So if we have more than 150 Facebook friends, are we simply fooling ourselves?

Sites like Facebook allow for a broad friendship network with little maintenance needed by either “friend.” A question I have: while these “weak ties” may now be more accessible, how often do people use them to their direct advantage? Say I am looking for a job – can I find one on Facebook? I have several friends that are selling products or services and this seems to be a good way to get word out.

Slow reading and the Internet

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An article from the Guardian discusses “slow reading” and whether reading on the Internet has made us all stupider.

Which all means that although, because of the internet, we have become very good at collecting a wide range of factual tidbits, we are also gradually forgetting how to sit back, contemplate, and relate all these facts to each other.

Because of these developments, critical thinking and analysis skills will be vitally important in the 21st century. For many, the problem is no longer getting information – the issue is now how to put it all together.

Problems for green technology in America

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Wired explores five reasons why the green tech sector has had a difficult time in the United States.

These five reasons are primarily cultural: green technology faces an image issue. Either dire circumstances or a breakthrough technology might be needed to push forward.