a number of reports lately about the fact that the main site number of twitter apps will allow for geotagging of tweets. Interesting stuff – but how happy would you be to have your tweets tagged?
Recently we interviewed a young Colombian who spoke about how Tweets in Colombia had been used to trace people and their behaviours and ultimately lead to kidnappings. Having seen Biz Stone speak recently, i like his “Quiet American” (check out the book and not the film) style, but his blind optimism of the power of Twitter to be a force for good rather contradicts some fundamentals of human behaviour.

here are clips from the NBC event we didnt have time to show today – ill be writing more on our thoughts on Brands and Social Media later in the week

just by chance i found this article about democratisation of social networks in the US from the excellent Pew Life project

http://www.pewinternet.org/Presentations/2009/41–The-Democratization-of-Online-Social-Networks.aspx

“With the ever increasing presence of technologies (increasingly mobile) and the popularity of web2.0 app’s & social networks (Facebook / Twitter / Youtube, Orkut etc), individuals are increasingly able and willing to observe and expose elements of their ‘private’ lives to those around them. This creates a range of practical and ethical issues about our identities and behaviours with implications to our virtual and real-world experiences. As they mature as digital citizens and with the migration between social networks, consumers are beginning to question and change their behaviours along with what they are willing to show, share and consume in the digital world.
These processes have important implications for employers, brands and organizations that are increasingly seeking seek to understand and enter into a digital dialogue with consumers, of all ages and social classes. Drawing on rich qualitative research with different consumer groups in both Brazil and the UK, TWRAmericas seek to open a debate drawn from a variety of insights into the emerging landscape of a ‘New Digital Morality’. As social networks continue to evolve within their own competitive marketplace we also seek to explore the differences in experience between the use of different web2.0 tools in different countries (primarily Facebook – UK & Orkut – Brazil)”

1. Social network and blogging sites are now the 4th most popular activity on the Internet

Social network and blogging sites are now the 4th most popular
activity on the Internet (overcoming personal email) with 67% global reach as to December 2008. That is 5% more of what they attracted a year ago.

The strongest growth comes from Germany (much due to Facebook launching a German language interface in March 2008) now reaching 51% of Germans online compared to 39% a year ago (12% increase). Large growth has also occurred in the UK, Spain, Italy and Switzerland (about 10% growth in each country).
The US growth at this time was minor (2.6% growth) suggesting a saturation of the online social activity of the US population.

2. Due to Facebook’s success – time spent on ‘member community’ sites grow three times the rate of overall Internet growth

The overall time spent online globally increased by 18% between December 2007 and December 2008. In the same period, however, the amount of time spent on ‘Member Community’ sites rose by 63% to 45 billion minutes; and on Facebook by a massive 566% – from 3.1 billion minutes to 20.5 billion. Facebook’s time is so high due to having the highest average time per person (three hours 10 minutes).

In most of the countries monitored the share of time accounted for by ‘Member Communities’ has more than doubled. In Switzerland, share of time has tripled from 3% to 9.3%.
A year ago ‘Member Communities’ accounted for one in every 15 online minutes globally – now it accounts for one in every 11. In Brazil alone, ‘Member Communities’ accounts for almost one in every 4 minutes. In the UK they now account for one in every 6 minutes (up from every 13 minutes a year ago) and in Italy one in every 7 (up from one in 14 a year ago).

3. Facebook has driven older people to be socially involved online:

While social networks started amongst the younger audience, today’s audiences are becoming broader and older. This shift has primarily been driven by Facebook, successfully opened opportunities of social networking to a much wider audience.

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can be downloaded from here

The Brazilian media is less dependent on the constant flow of meaningless PR-driven surveys that seem to swell the pages of the press in other countries. It is however equal to most nations in that the findings of a quantitative survey rarely become the focus of discussion beyond those most immediately involved. How nice it has been this week therefore to follow the reaction to the findings of a piece of research conducted by Gallup on behalf of Editora Ática S/A. Not only have the methods and the validity of the research been queried by media commentators but hundreds of Brazilians, mainly males (we assume not statisticians or researchers) have joined the debate about the theoretical underpinning of the research methodology.

On understanding the subject of the research, the reason for the chatter evident on Orkut pages and beyond is perhaps understandable. The research aimed to discover which Brazilian football team has the most fans. This type of study is actually very common in Brazil, but this particular study billed by Gallup as the “Biggest Research in History” differed in that it aimed to take into account the different nature of fan relationships to clubs amongst the Brazilian public.

Topline findings were as follows:
-    Flamengo remain the most supported team in Brazil as is generally accepted and found in most research studies of this type.
-    Following on the heels of Flamengo come Corinthians, Sao Paulo, Palmeiras and Vasco
-    Teams from the south and south east of Brazil are losing their appeal amongst fans outside of their immediate regions
-    – clubs in the interior of Brazil continue to show the biggest increases in support
-    the number of Brazilians who claim not to support a team is falling to just 10% (though still more than the fanbase of any individual team

Comments from fans on various sites (one example can be found here on Orkut) seem to question the validity of the findings…and not surprisingly in many cases reflecting the supposed fortunes of their teams in the results of the research. There are claims of a hoax. Elsewhere the biggest debate seems to be over the decision to focus on the first team supported by respondents rather than allowing them to state a supporting preference for a number of teams. A common comment was that men would only believe the results, the day they were asked to be a respondent in this type of survey.