Gender Differences In Social Media Participation

“I think women put more emphasis, focus and time into their social media browsing than men. Men seem to be very ADHD with social media, jumping from news story to story, whereas I’ve noticed women take slow time and incorporate what they read more into their daily life and lifestyle planning.” Loren Baker, Search Engine Journal So before getting to a list of some observations and a handful of insightful quotes from my social media friends, let’s draw a conclusion. I believe that the social media professional will be much more successful at his or her craft when taking gender differences seriously. The key, really, is to understand the needs of each person you interact with. Offer them something in return. But don’t assume that everyone wants the same thing. Take the time to understand what motivates each of your social media friends and go above and beyond the call of duty to interact with them so that when it comes time that you need something, they are eager to help. And remember that it’s very easy to wear out a social relationship of any kind (marriage, friendship, business) if one party is not having his or her needs met or if one person is carrying too much of the burden. Before ending this article I’ve included a few more general observations that come from various social media friends who chose to be anonymous. We’d love for you to add your thoughts in the comments.

• Men often make accounts that look like attractive females for pragmatic purposes (to motivate more action by other social media participants)
• Women tend to use Twitter more for chatting and real conversations
• Men tend to use Twitter more for marketing
• Women are more likely to forward chain emails
• Men are more comfortable with manipulative behavior so long as it helps them acheive their goals
• Women like sites that facilitate discussions about life and offer a peek into others’ lives
• With men, social cooperation comes down to swapping favors
• With women, you have to earn social cooperation through relationship

Twitter has been used for a lot of different purposes, and one has been to report breaking news. But there's been some criticism of how Twitter deals with news, such as the Swine Flu outbreak. With that in mind, O'Reilly Week in Review talked to Tim O'Reilly himself, co-author of the new Twitter Book, about the role of Twitter in informing the public. James Turner: Thanks for taking the time, Tim. You guys have just come out with Twitter Book. Right now, Twitter's getting a lot of volume because of the whole Swine Flu to-do. Do you think that it's been a net positive? Tim O'Reilly: You made the comment that Twitter's getting a lot of play, but Twitter has so many uses. It's a little bit like saying, "Well, the internet's getting a lot of play," or, "The telephone is getting a lot of play," or, "Video is getting a lot of play." People are using this medium, and what's so interesting about Twitter is that it reflects all the many, many use cases, including spreading misinformation as well as being the first alert of new information. All of these are good functions. And I think some people reacted a little bit to the fact that Twitter seemed to increase the fear and hype level a little bit.

Elektrischer Reporter – Mobile Communities: Unterwegs und unter Freunden

Elektrischer Reporter – Nerds: Weltretter mit Hornbrillen?

Nathan Eagle’s talk focuses on two unique aspects of his work. As a PhD student at MIT, Eagle created mathematical models of data coming from mobile devices and an algorithm that analyzed this data from his sample of 100 students and could predict what each would do next. Since then he has been working with much larger mobile data sets from up to 250 million people in Europe, Asia, and Africa to help telecom companies better understand their customers and also to create a model of contagion dissemination. Eagle then turns his talk to the work he has been doing for the past two years in Kenya. The majority of the mobile phone user market lives in developing countries and is under-served, a condition which motivated MIT to start EPROM, Entrepreneurial Programming and Research on Mobiles, to make sure computer science students in Africa learn how to program mobile phones. Eagle describes two student projects he has been involved with in Africa – one in which mobile text messaging has been used for hospital blood supply management across the country and a second in which an SMS bulletin board was created allowing low-end mobile handsets to access web content similar to craigslist.

IT Conversations - Emerging Communications: Millicomputing

In his presentation at Ecomm 2008, Adrian Cockcroft of Netflix describes his 'millicomputer' concept. A millicomputer is any device that uses less than a watt of power, or to put it another way, a computer that fits in your pocket, but won't burn your leg! As Adrian reveals, today's millicomputers are already impressively powerful. But as millicomputers look set to eclipse even notebook computers in the next few years, their capabilities will become even more impressive. He looks at what makes today's millicomputers, including the iPhone, so impressive as well as some of the surprising capabilities that lie within your Zune player. The consumer space for mobile computing can only get hotter, as the iPhone competes with Android in the OS market, and Intel and Arm battle it out for supremacy in the production of mobile hardware. Looking further into the future, Adrian offers a glimpse of some of the amazing possibilities that await us, as mobile computing becomes ever more powerful. Web servers that fit into your pocket, real-time 3d sound projection and more will revolutionize the way we work and play. Adrian also talks about how the open-source prototyping activities of the Home Brew Mobile Club are helping today to make these things a reality by pushing at the boundaries of what is possible with conventional mobile technology.

• Millicomputing
• Ecomm 2008 - Millicomputing
• Adrian Cockcroft's Blog

"The Power of the Digital Us: Obama and Beyond"

Die Politik in Deutschland entdeckt im Superwahljahr 2009 die sozialen Medien. Der Vortrag bietet einen Überblick auf das aktuelle Wahlkampfgeschehen im Netz. Welche sozialen Plattformen werden genutzt und welche Trends sind absehbar? Dabei wird hinterfragt, was davon alles Marketing ist und was davon vielleicht zu einer Öffnung von Politik führen wird.

Politik 2.0: Wi(e)der die üblichen Verdächtigen?

Wenn man demokratische Prinzipien ernst nimmt, dann muss die Hauptfrage für jegliche politische Kommunikation im Netz sein, ob sie eine gleichberechtigte Teilhabe aller Bürger ermöglicht und damit die bisher bestehenden Ungleichheiten im Profil politisch Aktiver (nämlich das diese häufig älter, besser gebildet und reicher sind) überwindet.

Die britischen eDemokratie-Pioniere mySociety ermöglichen mit Webseiten wie TheyWorkForYou.com und WriteToThem.com hunderttausende Briten die politische Beteiligung übers Internet und haben damit Vorbildfunktion für ähnliche Anstrengungen weltweit übernommen, zum Beispiel auch in Deutschland (z.B. abgeordnetenwatch.de oder direktzurkanzlerin.de) Die erste systematische Untersuchung dieser selten erfolgreichen eDemokratie-Projekte soll Aufschluss bringen bezüglich der Demografie der Nutzer und ihrer Motivation. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Projekte dieser Art sehr erfolgreich politisch wenig Interessierte aktivieren können, dass zugleich aber auch - nicht zuletzt aufgrund der anhaltenden digitalen Spaltung - weiterhin wesentliche Bevölkerungsgruppen außen vor bleiben, so zum Beispiel die formal weniger Gebildeten.

Politics and Media in the US Blogosphere

Innovation as a product of an ivory tower of individual ownership is not so much a thing of the past as an obsolescence. Many minds sharing freely solve problems faster.

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