Who Is Using What In Social Media?

Some interesting findings from a recent Pew Research survey.  Five key revelations:

1. Facebook remains that most preferred site although its growth has slowed quite dramtically.
2.  Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn saw significant increases over the past year in the proportion of online adults who now use their sites
3. Men now use Twitter more than women.  The reverse was true in 2013.
4. More women (77%) than Men (66%) use Facebook
5. While LinkedIn is showing strong growth more than 60% use it infrequently

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Wealthy But Are They Healthy?

According to an article in Singapore's Straits Times there are thirty two billionaires in Singapore and increase of five over the previous year.

They share a combined wealth of US$65 billion.  What is revealing is the patriarchal nature of Singapore business, which remains very much a tradition within the country and its wealthiest families.

As this graphic shows, none of 32 billionaires are women and most of the money is, and has been, made in the financial sector.  The majority of these super wealthy are not born and bred Singaporeans but have moved there (or their families have) to take advantage of the country's growth and prosperity.

But whether they are a healthy lot is quite another matter with only a quarter showing any interest in health and wellness.  The drive to succeed I would suggest often overcomes any concerns of physical well-being.  That said,  as they have the money to buy the best medical services available, many of these folk enjoy a reasonable life span; the average age of these billionaires being sixty two.

The global trend shows a 7% growth in the number of billionaires and there are now 2,325 of them according to recent research from Wealth-X and the Swiss bank UBS.

12% of the world's billionaires are women and more than half are self-made. i.e. they did not inherit their fortunes.  The old saying about 'money makes money' holds true as most enjoyed an average growth in their wealth of 4.4%.

Even though Singapore is enjoying good growth in the super-rich club the best place to make your fortune remains the USA with China coming a close second.

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Apps, 'Appless And The Great Unwashed

If you think you are going to make your fortune by producing an app and selling it to the multitudes consider this: out of the thousands of apps available, the average mobile user tends to only use between 22 and 28 apps a month.

Research has shown that young users (18-24) spend more time using apps which comes as little surprise, but they use fewer on average than the 25-34 age group.

Earlier in 2014 comScore released statistics that showed social media apps as being the most popular -  Facebook, YouTube and Gmail.

2013 produced a similar result (see below).

Most popular smartphone apps in the United States in 2013

But if you are thinking of developing an App and want to know what type of app people are interested in, take a look at AppBrian Stats which lists the top Android searches.

Music, hacking and password breaking apps figured prominently when I last looked which speaks volumes (if you'll excuse the pun) for the use of apps in general.

Top  Android searches over the last two weeks

Perhaps the final word on Apps and the pervasive nature of their use in society are the recent findings from a Bank of America study.

Apparently mobile phone users would rather give up alcohol, television or chocolate than lose the use of their mobile devices. 47% of U.S. consumers are so wedded to their smartphones that they couldn't last a day without them.

Bank of America Study

The bank also found that there folk use their mobile banking apps to "perform more sophisticated transactions, such as mobile check deposit" while the younger set would rather forgo using deodorant or toothbrushes than lose the use of their smartphone.

Perhaps it would be wise never to mingle in a crowd of young smartphone users if you are fastidious about personal hygiene!

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Not Another Brick In The Wall - A Lesson For All Brand Managers In A Digital World

The leaked internal report from the New York Times details the digital health of the publication and has a number of pointers that any brand manager should be taking note of.

Cultural change seems to be one of the main challenges; a not unfamiliar scenario for many traditional media companies.  Unless this change takes place the NYT faces a dire future.

The newsroom is challenged to expand and engage its audience through discover, promotion and connection.  Their task is not made any easier by "a cadre of editors who remain unfamiliar with the web.”

Overall it is an alarming indictment of a traditional company that has thus far failed to adapt to the expectations and opportunities of the digital age.

This chart sums up at a glance how new media publications such as the Huffington Post and Buzzfeed have captured the market at the expense of the NYT and other traditional companies.

Source:  The New York Times Innovation Report

To quote the report: “The very first step … should be a deliberate push to abandon our current metaphors of choice — ‘The Wall’ and ‘Church and State’ — which project an enduring need for division. Increased collaboration, done right, does not present any threat to our values of journalistic independence.”

  Get the full New York Times Innovation Report here.

It is not possible to do justice to the full content of the NYT document in this blog post, but it is worth reading in its entirety. Their action strategy clearly details what needs to be done to turn the NYT around and will be applicable for many businesses struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing digital world.

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Malware Momentum

Kaspersky Cyberstats

If you ever doubted the veracity about the sheer volume of cyber attacks that take place globally in any given hour, take a look at the Kaspersky Cyberstat portal.

70% of malware is AdWare and 15% are trojans.

The  volume of emails sent in the day and numbers of births & deaths also make for quiet reflection.

When it comes to countries that spam generation, China remains way out it front.  They generate almost twice as much as the second placegetter, the USA.

At time of writing there have been more than 37 million new internet users in 2014; a ripe crop for potential spammers and malware malcontents.

Chew Controlled Gaming Is In Your Face

When I gave up smoking some thirty plus years ago I resorted to the less than edifying habit of chewing gum to satisfy my oral craving.  The thing about chewing gum is that the first couple minutes provide a sugar hit and a mouthful of flavour.  After that the sensation is one of masticating on old tennis balls.

Manufacturers of the stuff would now have you believe that health hygiene for the mouth is improved by chewing their product;  not that this cuts much ice in Singapore where the stuff is thankfully banned.

What might you well ask has all of this got to do with anything digital?

Well the short answer is that there now a game called Gumulon which encourage you to chew the future. I kid you not.


Using facial recognition technology you participate in this action game simply by chewing at various speeds which changes the character moves. They even claim that if you record your chewing and then play it backwards, you will discover the identity of your future tag-team partner. i.e. chew more gum to win.

Chew controlled gaming is an innovative piece of marketing from Mondelēz International's Stride Gum, who are using social media to promote their product to the age demographic that uses it most; and that is not ex-smokers.

Thomas Adams of New York received his first chewing gum machine patent in 1871 and in 1899 joined with others to form American Chicle Company which at that time controlled 85% of the chewing gum business in the USA. The sap of the large, tropical, American sapodilla tree was called a chicle and it is this that was used to create the gum base.

Though a series of amalgamations and takeovers the company eventually ended up as part of the Cadbury stable and it was they who introduced Stride Gum in 2006, before being swallowed up themselves three years ago by Kraft Foods Inc.  Mondelēz International (a.k.a. Kraft), is an interesting food conglomerate in its own right and owns many other brands that were established over a century ago, such as Pascalls and Nabisco.

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As Strong As Your Weakest Link

As the old saying goes "You are only as strong as your weakest link".  Interestingly, in the recent rash of data disclosures from Edward Snowden and his predecessors, the weakest link could well turn out to be of America's own making.

Outsourcing key data activity to contractors rather than keeping it in-house means your online security is only as good as their employees are; in keeping mum about what they discover about your operations in the course of their daily duties.

Consider the fact, expounded by James Sensenbrenner in a recent editorial, that there are some 500,000 employees of private firms with access to the government's most sensitive secrets.  And this is just the States.  There are surely more in other countries contracted to undertake similar surveillance.

Some regard the actions of Manning, Assange and Snowden as heroic and others consider them heinous, but which ever side of the the ethical debate you sit on, the fact remains that confidential data was accessed and shared with those it wasn't intended for.

It is a sobering realisation (or maybe reconfirmation) that it is the low level IT guy who poses your greatest threat. These techs seem to be able to rummage through systems and make discoveries that evade all of the so-called safeguards that the governments throw at them.

Consider for a moment what you might have accessed online or sent to others via email in the past year.  I would suggest that many people who would feel less than comfortable in having a total disclosure of their online habits revealed to the world without their permission.

But is there anything you can do to mitigate the risk that others can and do spy on what you do?

Part of the answer could well have been given by NSA whistle-blower Snowden.  In reply to an online discussion set up by the Guardian newspaper he said that:

"Encryption (of email) works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it".

So there you go.  Even encrypting your email can only assure safe passage between systems and if the systems themselves have a weakness an IT tech on a mission can crack it or share it. Not the most comforting of thoughts and if the technician in question has a thumb-drive (as Snowden is reported to have by Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia), then your data could be shared and leaked well beyond the boundaries of your network.

Am I alone in thinking that these revelations could well have profound implications for the future of the Cloud? The 'contracting out' of data storage from your own servers to a third party based in another country could well have become a far more difficult decision for businesses to make.

And if you wish to mitigate some of the damage your email might cause you could always try using encryption yourself.  Here is one suggestion: GNU Privacy Guard for Windows which is free software.  Mind you I cannot guarantee that a low-level tech at the NSA hasn't already cracked it.

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Getting Your Smart Phone Fix

It comes as no surprise to learn that smartphone addiction is a very real thing, albeit a pleasant one for most in the 18-24 year old demographic.

According a new survey conducted by IDC in conjunction with Facebook, our interaction with each other through our smart phones starts almost as soon as our eyes open in the morning. Within the first 15 minutes of waking up 4 out of 5 smartphone owners are checking their phones.

The focus of the study was to understand how smartphone owners use their phones over the course of a day and the week, with an emphasis on social and communication applications and services.

Smartphones have become woven into the fabric of everyday life.  In the USA where the study of 7,400 people was conducted, half of the country's total population use a smartphone and this figure is projected to rise to 67.8% of the population by 2017.  That's 222.4 million interconnected people.

A sense of being 'connected' was the primary motivation and sentiment experienced by respondents. Talking on the phone (43%), texting/messaging (49%) and direct messaging via Facebook(40%) were the services that drove the highest levels of connectedness across the largest number of people.

Friday to Sunday had the highest levels of engagement and the ease of being able to slip a smartphone into one's pocket was also a major factor.

The average daily time spent communicating on smartphone was 132 minutes and only 16% of that time was actually spent on phone calls. 84% spent their time texting, sending and receiving email and engaging through social media.

Facebook who co-sponsored the survey will no doubt be heartened to learn that 70% of respondents use Facebook on their phone and of this group, 61% use it each day.

82% read their Facebook news feed while 49% responded or posted comments on friends’ updates.  Interestingly, playing games on Facebook was not a dominant activity with only 16% showing this preference, while 7% used Facebook to find apps that interest them.

The survey found that Facebook dominates the total time spent on social and communications activities (on a smartphone),  making up 1 out of every 4 minutes.

One final word on Smartphone addiction; 63% of smartphone owners keep their phone with them for all but an hour of their waking day. And of course, many also use their phone as their alarm clock the next morning!

The full report can be viewed here.

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Serious about Security? This is one Site you should Bookmark

Based on the statistics from the early warning system of Deutsche Telekom, this portal shows real-time cyber attacks and where they are happening in the world. Ninety global sensors contribute the data.

Deutsche Telekom AG

The Top 5 source countries confirms our worst fears about the volume of attacks emanating from the Russian Federation, with Taiwan trailing a distant second.  But it is worth noting these locations are not necessarily the offending hackers’ country of origin as most attacks are automated and seek out the weakest system to exploit.

Something in the Water? Internet Pornography is Big Business

There must be something in the water in Elmhurst, Illinois?  This town has the dubious distinction of being the number one place in in the USA for viewing pornography online.

As this infographic shows the traditionally religious day of rest, Sunday, is prime time for this activity and it only dissipates around Thanksgiving, no doubt due to the close proximity of other family members!

Like it or not, pornography on the web is big business - there are more than 24 million such sites on the Web and just over $3,000 every second is spent by those who view them. In the US alone Internet porn generates $2.8 billion per year and that figure needs to be measured against the estimated $4.9 billion that the industry generates globally

Societal Effects

Setting aside any moral position on the subject, the evidence is fairly conclusive that apart from sheer economics, Internet pornography is having a major societal impact.

Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam undertook a large research study in the field of collective sexual identity.  Gaddam, the co-author of their resulting publication “A Billion Wicked Thoughts" says that "Web porn has changed everything". Tastes once regarded as deviant more widespread.

Another report also shows that Internet porn is creating a generation of young men who are hopeless in the bedroom. "A 'paradoxical effect' is created whereby with each new thrill, or 'dopamine spike', the brain loses its ability to respond to dopamine signals, meaning that porn-users demand increasingly extreme experiences to become aroused" 

But psychologist Michael Castleman takes a contrary view. In an earlier blog post he writes "The evidence clearly shows that from a social welfare perspective, porn causes no measurable harm. In fact, as porn viewing has soared, rates of syphilis, gonorrhea, teen sex, teen births, divorce, and rape have all substantially declined. If Internet porn affects society, oddly enough, it looks beneficial. Perhaps mental health professionals should encourage men to view it."

What ever the conclusions reached by research one fact remains; with 12% of Internet web sites pushing porn, it is likely to be around for a long time and be a huge money spinner for those who profit from the industry.

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Stop The Spread Of Vacationitis

The Hilton and The Onion; hardly a marriage made in heaven one would think, but based on this innovative campaign one would be wrong.

Onion's creative arm, Onion Labs have partnered with the hotel company to produce a web site that encourages a worker to diagnose their ills and recommends vacations as a 'prescription'.

The Urgent Vacation Centre also features the 14 symptoms of Vacationitis and a plea to stop the spread of this malignant disease.

I can particularly emphasise with the malady 'Acute Retinal Monitoritis' !  The viewer has the ability to download a large or small version of each symptom for their office cubicle or share same through social media.

Yellow Post-It Fever doesn't look too pleasant either.

According to the New York Times, more than a third of the business of Hilton Hotels and Resorts is generated by leisure travelers.  The new campaign is directed at them, said Andrew Flack, vice president for global brand marketing.

“We are particularly targeting working professionals. It’s becoming harder and harder to switch off work, harder for people to think about and plan vacations. This time of year is popular for people to plan vacation travel. When they come through Christmas, they think ahead for the year, think about where they might go.”

It all goes to prove that when it comes to advertising a little humour goes a long way; in this case hopefully a long way away from a cluttered desk and a frenetic office.

Upwardly Mobile Shopping & Constant Chatter

Pre-purchasing behaviour has changed over time thanks largely to the impact of technology, social media and increasingly, mobile devices.

But bricks and mortar remain important to your potential customers; the majority (90%) like to know that there is a physical store somewhere.

Nearly half use their smartphone to source for information including selecting which shops they wish to frequent. At the very least they look up and compare prices on a store's mobile site.

One in three have made a purchase using their mobile device in the past 6 months.

Adding Live Chat to the marketing mix has also worked well for many retailers.  What was initially seen as something of a fad now has some true and identifiable value, according to a recent study that reveals online shopper attitudes, opinions, and behaviors relative to live chat.

The survey of UK and US respondents found that:

• Live chat has reached a tipping point of adoption
• Multi-faceted nature of chat, combined with efficiency and control, puts chatters on the path to fandom
• While live chat fans are highly desirable, frequent chatters demand special attention
• Live chat in the UK is on the rise – both in terms of adoption and favorability
• For online merchants to get the most from chat, they have to treat it as a distinct communication channel

The study was conducted online using a third party opt-in panel, 75% of which were located in the United States and 25% in the UK. Those surveyed totaled 2,027. Respondents lived in the US or UK, spent in excess of $250USD per year online, and shopped at least monthly.

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