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Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

Reading, Sending, and Searching Tweets Using Cable Television; Facebook Also Available

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Gary here. Both Twitter and Facebook have been available via my tv for some time but never tried either one. Today, after reading about upgrade today on the Twitter portion of the service, I gave both services a try on my tv. Pretty coo and it’s also an example of things to come. We will see a lot of social media (computers and mobile devices) in non traditional places in the coming year(s). And what about other content sources like eBooks, eMagazines music? Being able to purchase them and then read/list to them on via your television is likely.

Who is making the service I am using available? My cable tv provider, Verizon FiOS. If your cable or satellite service offers social media and other non-traditional content I would love to learn about it and add the info to this post.

UPDATE: Xbox LIVE from Microsoft is running tests to offer access to Twitter and Facebook

What’s New With the Twitter of FiOS Upgrade

Via ITVT:

+ An easy way to toggle between tv programming and Twitter.
On a related note, default view for Twitter and Facebook divides the tv screen in half with the television picture on on one side of the screen and the Twitter/Facebook content on the other.

+ Tweets now auto refresh every 30 seconds.

Here’s what you can do with the FiOS Twitter Widget:

+ Login to your account, read tweets. It’s not possible to monitor multiple accounts at the same time

+ Set-up and monitor favorite topics using words and/or hashtags

+ View/Read trending topics

+ View/Read tweets on the current show your viewing (on the other half of the screen). Interesting idea.

+ Send tweets

+ Set-up a friends list

+ Review the tweets you’ve sent

It really works.

What Can You Do with the FiOS Facebook Widget?

Accessing the FiOS widget is easy. Login using the keyboard on the tv and your ready to go. Like Twitter the television screen is divided in half.

What can you do?

+ Switch between user accounts
You don’t have to erase and then enter logins and passwords for the whole family. Each Facebook user can access their info.

+ View Your Profile

+ Receive status updates from your friends

+ View photo albums

+ See a list of all your friends, click and read/review what info your friends have made public

+ Post to Facebook by selecting “What’s on Your Mind”

It will be interesting to see where these and other social media services can be accessed a year or two from now.

Note: For the geeks out there, of course, it’s possible (on some televisions) to view your computer screen on your tv and view Facebook and Twitter that way. The point of this post is that a cable tv service are making two social networking services available directly on the television screen.

Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

Review Almost 5000 Tweets from Interent Librarian 2009

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

The archiving of social media may become a big issue. How will it be archived? Who, if anyone. will the info be of value to? Will different services require differnt protocols to archive and retrieve? Privacy concerns? These are just a couple of the many issues that need to be discussed. Would a business researcher find a searchable archive of tweets useful if they were compiling a report about what was said about a their company or a competitor over an extended period of time? What about the very long term? If social media lives up to what’s predicted what resources will historians use to review this period of time? Again, things to think about. We wonder if the Internet Archive or its Archive-It service will begin offering social media archiving?

When it comes to Twitter just finding and accessing a tweet from a few weeks ago can be a challenge. We did a search using Twitter’s own search engine and limited our query to results from the month of September. We were unable to find a single result for the words Chicago and video.

As far as Internet Librarian 2009 goes, Gary was in attendance and on Monday wanted to test out a free service named Twapper Keeper. It’s a free service that creates a permanent* archive of public tweets based on a hashtag, in this case, #il2009.

According to the FAQ, the site is updated every five minutes and if you need to make a change you can contact the provider of Twapper Keeper. We’ve asked the provider of Twapper Keeper a few questions, one of them is if we’re seeing every #il2009 tweet or just selected tweets. If/when we get a response, we will post it here.

You can review tweets in various sized groups from 100 at a time to “all of them” on one page.

If you’re looking at all of them on a single page, you can search by using control-find.

Another feature of Twapper Keeper is the ability to export the material. An API is also available.

So, here’s the page containing nearly 5000 Twitter tweets from #il2009.

Prefer to view smaller groups of tweets at one time? It’s easy, make your selection of how many you want to review at one time near the top of the page.

If you didn’t attend the conference, it’s a great way to get a feel for what took place. If you were there, the archive may be useful to learn about sessions you were unable to attend. It’s also a “modern way” of sharing “what went down” with a variety of groups.

* Finally, it’s true, the archive is only as permanent as the service is. That’s the case with so many Web 2.0 tools and services, available one day, not available a week later. If you really want to make the info permanent either download the tweets or take a scrolling screen cap and save them locally, or use a locally based archiving tool in the first place. This RWW article by Sarah Perez provides several resources to archive Twitter content both web-based and locally.

Posted in Libraries and Librarianship, Social Media | No Comments »

Kudos to Michael and David: Library 101 is Now Live
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

Congrats to Community Organizer, Librarian and Web Junction guy, Michael Porter (aka Libraryman) and Librarian/Author David Lee King, on the launch of the Library 101 Project. The event took place at Internet Librarian this afternoon in Monterey, CA.

At the moment (the site will grow), you’ll find a music video featuring the Library 101 song, the Library 101 (now you’ll see where the 101 comes in), a link rich essay with the 101 Resources & Things to Know (RTK) as a working librarian.

From the Web Site:

We both believe that if library staff read this list and used some of the tips and resources it contains that libraries and library staff will be closer to making it through and succeeding during the social and technological change we are seeing today … and will see more of in the coming decades.

You’ll also find essays about being a librarian during this time by many well-known info pros including:

+ Sarah Houghton-Jan
+ Helene Blowers
+ Kenley Neufeld
+ Stephen Abram
+ Roy Tennant
+ Maurice Coleman
+ Cindi Trainor
+ Rachel Vacek
+ Michael Sauers
+ Meredith Gorran Farkas
+ Loriene Roy
+ Susan Hildreth
+ Tony Tallent
+ Lauren Pressley
+ Beth Tribe
+ Brenda Hough & Cindi Hickey
+ and of course the site creators, Michael Porter and David Lee King

Library 101 is a great idea. This educational effort that should be required reading for all librarians. Yes, there is a lot to read and numerous resources to explore and learn about but keeping current is essential these days. In fact, helping people keep current and learn about new resources is also why Gary and Shirl spend time updating this very site just about seven days a week.

We hope to see a constant stream of new content on the site. That will get people to return on a regular basis and that’s important.

Finally, look for Library 101 to become an essential resource in library and info science programs.

See Also: Learn More About the Project by Watching the Launch Video with Michael and David

See Also: The Library 101 Facebook Page

Posted in Libraries and Librarianship, Resources, Social Media, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

Study: Use of Social Networks at Work Costs Companies Big Money
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

From the Article:

A U.K. firm today released a study showing that people who use Facebook, Twitter and other social networks while at work extract a heavy cost on their employers.

Employees who use Twitter and other social networks in the office are costing U.K. businesses about 1.38 billion pounds, or more than $2.25 billion a year, according to London-based Morse PLC, an IT services and technology company. Morse surveyed 1,460 office workers and found that 57% browse social networking sites for personal use while in the office.

Those workers use social networks an average of 40 minutes a day at work, which adds up to a lost week each year, the survey found.

Source: Computerworld

See Also: A Bit More via the Official News Release from Morse PLC

Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

Google Social Search Goes Live at Google Labs Experimental
Monday, October 26th, 2009

From a Search Engine Land Post by Danny Sullivan:

Google Social Search is rolling out, a new service from Google that allows you to easily find material written by people you know and trust. It’s a pretty cool idea, especially in that it’s pretty painless to get started using it. The service will be available through Google Labs Experimental.

Danny goes on (it’s important reading) to explain what Google Social Search is and is not.

He makes it very clear the Google Social is NOT real time search and NOT Twitter search although Google made an announcement last week that they had made a deal with Twitter.

What is it?

It’s a way that Google figures out people you trust, then ensures that you see content from them showing up in your search results.

[Snip]

How does Google know what your social circle is, in order to produce the social search results? Three methods, the company told me, when I talked with Google about the service:

* Your Google Reader account
* Your Google Chat / Gmail Contacts
* Your Google Profile

You can access Google Social here.

Much Much More from Danny about Google Social

Source: SEL

See Also: Official Google Blog Post

All the information that appears as part of Google Social Search is published publicly on the web — you can find it without Social Search if you really want to. What we’ve done is surface that content together in one single place to make your results more relevant. The way we do it is by building a social circle of your friends and contacts using the connections linked from your public Google profile, such as the people you’re following on Twitter or FriendFeed. The results are specific to you, so you need to be signed in to your Google Account to use Social Search. If you use Gmail, we’ll also include your chat buddies and contacts in your friends, family, and coworkers groups. And if you use Google Reader, we’ll include some websites from your subscriptions as part of your social search results.

Posted in Social Media, Web Search | No Comments »

Consumers Are Using New Media to Engage with Companies on Issues of Corporate Responsibility
Monday, October 26th, 2009

Consumers Are Using New Media to Engage with Companies on Issues of Corporate Responsibility

A recent survey of American new media users found that 44% “are searching for, sharing or discussing information about corporate responsibility (CR) efforts and programs” via such outlets as social networks, blogs, and online games. The survey, undertaken by Cone, a brand strategy and communications agency, sought consumer responses in the areas of brand marketing and cause branding, as well as CR.

Seventy-eight percent of new media users reported interacting with companies online, up from 59% in 2008. Thirty-eight percent reported doing so at least once a week, compared to 25% in 2008.

Sixty-two percent of respondents to the survey indicated that they believe they can influence corporate decision-making through participation in new media outlets. Twenty-four percent reported that they have contributed to online discussions about CR, and 23% have contacted companies directly. Three-quarters of respondents “expect companies to join conversations about their corporate responsibility practices happening on new media.”

Forty-seven percent believe that companies are transparent and honest in addressing CR efforts online. The online venues most often accessed for the purpose of learning about CR efforts were email (27%) and corporate web sites (22%). The findings suggest that opportunities for more interactive venues such as social networks and blogs have yet to be exploited.

+ 2009 Cone Consumer New Media Study
Free registration required.

Source: SocialFunds.com/Cone

Posted in Business and Economics, Consumer Issues, Media, Search News, Social Media, Technology and Internet, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

Social Networking – Legal and Ethical Issues for Lawyers and Investigators
Sunday, October 25th, 2009

Social Networking – Legal and Ethical Issues for Lawyers and Investigators

Should an investigator or attorney “friend” a prosecution witness in order to find impeachment evidence? Are there legal or ethical bars to surreptitiously gathering data from social network profiles? Should the intent of the user have any bearing on the formulation of law related to access? These and more questions were stirred up in the mix of case studies presented at the (first, annual?) symposium, Social Networks: Friends or Foes? Confronting Online Legal and Ethical Issues in the Age of Social Networking, sponsored by UC Berkeley School of Law. Yeah, a long title but, hey, these folks are academics. And the case studies constituted just the first panel (”Problems Unique to Social Networking and the Law”) of an extraordinary assemblage of academic, government, activist, policy and practicing lawyers rounding out the 5-panel day.

Much of the discussion concerned access to profile content, – the difference between civil and criminal (where there’s the familiar prosecution/defense imbalance) cases – whether certain information should be private even if it can be viewed by unintended parties. For example, should employers be able to view deleted personal information? No one mentioned the issue of whether schools have a legal right to compel students to turn over their user names/passwords (See: “Area School Wants Access To Students’ Social Networking”). There may be instances when a legal requirement for disclosure would apply. Lauren Gelman, Executive Director, Stanford Law, Center for Internet and Society, raised the question of whether evidence in the online sites could be used, say, in divorce cases, to support evidence gathered by other means. The Deputy General Counsel for Facebook took the position that user’s profile content is private, begging the audience to sue the company to settle issues of access.

See: Social Networks: Friends or Foes

Source: PI Buzz

Posted in Legal, Papers and Presentations, Privacy, Search News, Social Media, Source File, Technology and Internet, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

The Fifth International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration Begins Today
Sunday, October 25th, 2009

WikiSym begins today in Orlando, FL. at Disney’s Contemporary Resort.

From the Web Site:

WikiSym is a symposium (conference) series dedicated to wiki and open collaboration research and practice.

Here’s a link to the program and another link to the proceedings.

Here are links to abstracts for some of the sessions that we found most interesting:

+ Opening Keynote: Visualizing the Inner Lives of Texts by Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg (IBM Research)

+ Closing Keynote: Community Performance Optimization: Making Your People Run as Smoothly as Your Site by Brion Vibber (Wikimedia Foundation)

+ Understanding Learning – the Wiki Way by Joachim Kimmerle, Johannes Moskaliuk, and Ulrike Cress (University of Tuebingen) (Germany)

+ rv you’re dumb: Identifying Discarded Work in Wiki Article History by Michael D. Ekstrand, and John T. Riedl (University of Minnesota) (USA)

+ The Singularity is Not Near: Slowing Growth of Wikipedia by Bongwon Suh, Gregorio Convertino, Ed H. Chi, and Peter Pirolli (Palo Alto Research Center) (USA)

+ Analyzing the Wikisphere by Jeff Stuckman and James Purtilo (University of Maryland, College Park) (USA)

+ Social Search and Need-driven Knowledge Sharing in Wikis with Woogle by Hans-Jorg Happel (FZI Research Center for Information Technologies) (Germany)

+ A Jury of Your Peers: Quality, Experience and Ownership in Wikipedia by Aaron Halfaker (University of Minnesota), Aniket Kittur (Carnegie Mellon University, CMU), Robert Kraut (CMU), and John Riedl (University of Minnesota) (USA)

+ Organizing the Vision for Web 2.0: A Study of the Evolution of the Concept in Wikipedia by Arnaud Gorgeon and E. Burton Swanson (UCLA) (USA)

+ Practitioner Report: Wiki for Law Firms by Urs Egli (Egli Partners Attorneys-at-Law, Zurich, Switzerland) and Peter Sommerlad (HSR Hochschule für Technik, Rapperswil, Switzerland)
Note: We were able to access the full text of the paper (PDF) and slides.

+ Leveraging Crowdsourcing Heuristics to Improve Search in Wikipedia by Yasser Ganjisaffar, Sara Javanmardi, and Cristina Lopes (University of California, Irvine)

+ Creating “the Wikipedia of pros and cons” by Brooks Lindsay (Debatepedia) (USA)

Access the WikiSym Web Site and Archives

Access the WikiSym 2009 Wiki

Posted in Social Media, Technology and Internet, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

Graphic: The Rise of Social Networking With American Adults
Sunday, October 25th, 2009

This graph illustrates the growth of social networking (from 8% in 2005 to 46% in 2009) with American adults. Here are some other stats from a presentation by Pew’s Amanda Lenhart.

79% of American adults used the internet in 2009, up from 67% in Feb. 200
46% of online American adults 18 and older use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn, up from 8% in February 2005.
65% of teens 12-17 use online social networks as of Feb 2008, up from 58% in 2007 and 55% in 2006.
As of August 2009, Facebook was the most popular online social network for American adults 18 and older.

Eds. Note: Facebook now has over 300 million total users (all ages, worldwide) and 65 million accessing the network using a mobile device.

Of Adult SNS Users:

73% have a Facebook account
48% have a MySpace profile
14% have an account on LinkedIn
1% each on Yahoo, YouTube, Tagged, Flickr and Classmates.com
10-12% are on “other” sites like Bebo, Last.FM, Digg, Blackplanet, Orkut, Hi5 and Match.com

Also Available: The Slides from Lenhart’s Presentation, “The Democratization of Online Social Networks: A look at the change in demographics of social network users over time.”

Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project

Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

Twitter as a Tool to Recommend Books for “Heavy” Book Buyers
Friday, October 23rd, 2009

From The Bookseller

Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter cannot be relied on to build book sales, as an overwhelming majority of readers do not use the sites for recommendations.

The results of a survey, conducted in collaboration with book website Lovereading [a UK website] and market research firm BML, discovered that while 56% of respondents used the internet to find out about books, only 17% of respondents found Twitter “useful” for recommendations.

This was the lowest score of any source. Only 34% found other social networking sites “useful”. The figures contrast with author and retailer websites, which 83% found “useful”.

[Snip]

Jeremy Ettinghausen, digital publisher at Penguin, said that social networking websites are in their “really early days”. He added: “The media spend a disproportionate amount of time talking about Twitter, it’s like Second Life was a couple of years ago.”

[Snip]

Other publishers spoken to by The Bookseller said that pricing was constantly up for review. Ettinghausen added: “We sell through retailers who are at liberty to sell at what discount they wish . . . It’s something that is being constantly looked at and reviewed. We don’t want to start underselling our authors.”

Lovereading interviewed more than 1,300 people, the majority heavy book buyers, about their reading habits.

Source: The Bookseller

Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

NASA Releases Its Own iPhone/iTouch App
Friday, October 23rd, 2009

If you’re an iPhone or iTouch user and are also a space and/or astronomy geek (or now of one), NASA just released it’s own iPhone/iTouch app. It’s available for free.

From the Announcement:

The NASA App collects, customizes and delivers an extensive selection of dynamically updated information, images and videos from various online NASA sources. Users can access NASA countdown clocks, the NASA Image of the Day, Astronomy Image of the Day, online videos, NASA’s many Twitter feeds and other information in a convenient mobile package. It delivers NASA content in a clear and intuitive way by making full use of the iPhone and iPod touch features, including the Multi-Touch user interface. The New Media Team at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., developed the application.

The NASA App also allows users to track the current positions of the International Space Station and other spacecraft currently orbiting Earth in three views: a map with borders and labels, visible satellite imagery, or satellite overlaid with country borders and labels.

This page has some screen shots from the app. One thing that Version 1.0 is missing and we would love to see is a live feed from NASA TV*. Hopefully, it will be coming in future releases.

If you would like to try the app out, this URL will take you to the appropriate iTunes page to download.

Source: NASA

* See Also: An app does exist that streams one NASA Television channel. It’s named NASA News and costs $.99.

Posted in Social Media, Wireless Web and Search | No Comments »

Law Libary of Congress Now Has a Twitter Feed & Center for the Book Starts Facebook Page
Friday, October 23rd, 2009

The social media continues coming from the Library of Congress.

LC’s Matt Raymond reports that:

1) The Law Library of Congress now has a Twitter feed. You can find it at: http://twitter.com/lawlibcongress.

2) The “Books and Beyond” series in the Center for the Book now has a Facebook page. Matt calls it, “essentially an online book club.”

Source: Library of Congress

Posted in Legal, Libraries and Librarianship, Social Media | No Comments »

State of the Blogosphere 2009
Friday, October 23rd, 2009

State of the Blogosphere 2009

Welcome to Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2009 report. Since 2004, our annual study has followed the growth and trends in the blogosphere. For 2009, we took a deeper dive into the entire blogosphere, with a focus on professional bloggers. This year’s topics include: professional blogging activities, brands in the blogosphere, monetization, twitter & micro-blogging and bloggers’ impact on US and World events.

Source: Technorati

Posted in Search News, Social Media, Technology and Internet, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

Publish Your Own Magazine With the Help of Wikia and HP; Out of Copyright Books Can Also be Printed On-Demand
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

From the Article:

Perhaps you’ve heard that the magazine business is struggling? So amateur competition could not come at a better time, and it comes Wednesday in the form of a partnership between Wikia and Hewlett-Packard that will put a magazine printing press in the hands of anyone who wants to create a glossy book from the site’s user-generated content.

“We have no idea how popular this is going to be at first, but I see the potential for a huge future here,” says Wikia and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales on his blog — and then he gets personal.

[Snip]

HP itself says that the new technology could allow anyone “to publish a glossy, full-color magazine for friends, the coffee table or mass distribution” and asserts that there is a demand for “Wikia’s passionate communities of readers … to enjoy information on their favorite bands, hobbies, comic books and more in a tangible print format that is both cost-effective and environmentally friendly.”

Source: Wired

The Sacramento Business Journal Has More.

H-P (NYSE: HPQ) is working with Jimmy “Jimbo” Wales, who started Wikipedia, on Mag Cloud, a service that lets people pay about 20 cents a page to create and print magazines from Wales’ for-profit San Francisco-based Wikia Inc. business. Someone can put together content from various Wikia pages and print them out as a magazine.

People can print books if the copyright has expired using another H-P service called BookPrep. To print a 250-page book will cost about $15, for example.

Posted in Print Publications, Social Media | No Comments »

Neuroscientists Work to Improve Wikipedia Entry
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

From a Blog Post:

The Wikipedia entry for “neuroscience” looks all right at first glance, but after attending a session on Monday, I knew otherwise. Two enthusiastic scientists turned Wikipedia Academy volunteers, Bill Wedemeyer and Tim Vickers, explained that Wikipedia articles get grades for completeness and readability and that the “neuroscience” article earns only a middling grade.

[Snip]

The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) thinks Wikipedia neuroscience ought to be better and has called for its members to edit Wikipedia, working on the premise that the more the public knows about neuroscience, the more votes and dollar support they’ll throw behind research and the more bright people will want to work in the field. Vickers said that as the Internet’s seventh most visited site and most people’s first stop for information, Wikipedia is a public outreach powerhouse.

[Snip]

But even if editing Wikipedia is the right thing to do, scientists may have good reasons for not wanting to get involved. Neuroscientist Chris Lossin of UC Davis pointed out that editing a Wikipedia article is time-consuming, and young scientists need to spend their time publishing articles for their tenure files. And until there’s a way to give scientists legitimate credit for their work, editing Wikipedia may seem like charity.

Source: Findings (Science Magazine)

Posted in Science, Social Media | No Comments »

Lee Rainie from the Pew Internet & American Life Center Speaks to Librarians on the “Magic of Social Netwoks”
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Lee Rainie gave this presentation today to the Iowa Library Association, in Appleton, WI.

From the Summary:

This presentation covers the Pew Internet Project’s latest findings and why they suggest that libraries can play a role in people’s social networks in the future. Lee describes the reasons that people rely more and more on their social networks – using old and new technology — as they seek information, share ideas, learn, solve problems, and look for social support. He examines why the internet and cell phones have changed the way people construct and operate their social networks and why this opens new — sometimes “magical” — opportunities for librarians to do what they naturally do: act as “nodes” in people’s networks.

You can find Lee’ slide deck embedded on the summary page or by going directly to this URL.

Source: Pew Internet and American Life Center

Posted in Libraries and Librarianship, Social Media | No Comments »

First Bing and Now Google Makes Deal to Provide Twitter Results
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Just hours after Bing made an announcement that they’ll now offer Twitter results at: http://www.bing.com/twitter, Google has just announced that will also offer Twitter results.

From a Google Blog Post by Marissa Mayer:

At Google, our goal is to create the most comprehensive, relevant and fast search in the world. In the past few years, an entirely new type of data has emerged — real-time updates like those on Twitter have appeared not only as a way for people to communicate their thoughts and feelings, but also as an interesting source of data about what is happening right now in regard to a particular topic.

Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and [our emphasis] we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months.

Btw, at the same time Bing announced their Twitter results engine, they also said that they have made a deal with Facebook to also include their results. That stream of content will be available at a later date.

Matt McGee is blogging Marissa Mayer’s panel at Web 2.0 (with several other big names). You can find the live-blogging here.

Posted in Information Industry, Social Media, Web Search | No Comments »

New Report from Pew Internet & American Life Project: Twitter and Status Updating, Fall 2009
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

This report was written by Susannah Fox, Kathryn Zickuhr, Aaron Smith

From the Summary:

Some 19% of internet users now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others. This represents a significant increase over previous surveys in December 2008 and April 2009, when 11% of internet users said they use a status-update service.

Three groups of internet users are mainly responsible for driving the growth of this activity: social network website users, those who connect to the internet via mobile devices, and younger internet users – those under age 44.

In addition, the more devices someone owns, the more likely they are to use Twitter or another service to update their status. Fully 39% of internet users with four or more internet-connected devices (such as a laptop, cell phone, game console, or Kindle) use Twitter, compared to 28% of internet users with three devices, 19% of internet users with two devices, and 10% of internet users with one device.

The median age of a Twitter user is 31, which has remained stable over the past year. The median age for MySpace is now 26, down from 27 in May 2008, and the median age for LinkedIn is now 39, down from 40. Facebook, however, is graying a bit: the median age for this social network site is now 33, up from 26 in May 2008.

It will probably become more difficult to track status updating as an independent activity as social network updates feed into Twitter and vice versa. For now, it is clear that a “social segment” of internet users is flocking to both social network sites and status update services. This segment is likely to grow as ever more internet users adopt mobile devices as a primary means of going online.

+ Read the Full Report Online
Note a link to view the report as a PDF file is located on the top right side of the page.

+ Review the Survey Questions

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project

Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

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