Influence is a tricky thing and no two platforms provide the same exact readout; as a result, I devoted an entire chapter in my upcoming book comparing the differences in accuracy and results between influence platforms commonly available.   On the other hand, thanks to a public Traackr list on Social Media Monitoring I was able to compare two of my favorite Influence platforms on the same keywords related to Social Media Monitoring to see what the results would be.   I’ll leave a comparison of the new features mPACT has provided for a later post.

Traackr Keywords: “social media monitoring”, “social media” radian6, “social media” sysomos, “social media” “visible technologies”, “social media” attensity, “social media” metrics.

mPACT Query:  (“social media” AND (“social media monitoring” OR radian6 OR sysomos OR “visible technologies” OR attensity OR metrics))

TRAACKR Results

mPACT results

There’s also a map mPACT produces which I’ll leave out here to be fair.    I’m pretty much in the same place in both lists, and most of the names in the Traackr list also appear, in a different position, on the mPACT list.

I like both platforms as they have different strengths.  Traackr allows you to add any outlet and any individual to a A-List, while mPACT maintains it’s own media contacts  and outlets list and does a good job mapping influence to it, as well as opportunities related to the subject taken from it’s MediaSync database.

There’s been a furor about the geo-location information collected by default by iPhone running iOS4 and above (see Read Write Web’s – Stalk Yourself: Use R to Analyze Your iPhone Location Data) because there’s at least two points of view about the information, probably more.

By the way, this application is not in the iTunes App store, and you’d have to follow the instructions in  to get the information from your iPhone (assuming you have one) into this mapping application.

I see this in a larger context, the information being collected about our geo-location can be shared (when we want to) or just stored securely (if we don’t want to share it) but what people do with the information is a different story.

It’s an example of how technology complicates life by giving people more choices than they have had, but also more burdens – because you have to consider not only is the information about your location being collected constantly, but what some people might do with it, including the government, your employer or just about anyone who has their own agendas.

Privacy is dead – but it’s been dead for a while anyway, so this revelation about iPhone location data  isn’t much of a surprise … what is  a surprise  is the information being collected on us is not encrypted or otherwise secure.  That’s scary, at least , to some people.

Should we all be scared, or just accept that privacy is dead, and try to re-educate society to be more accepting about what people say vs. what they actually do (IE: where they say they have been vs. where they actually went, and so on).  This is a difficult nut to crack.

I also read about something that caught my eye with Ultraviolet light – as it turns out I often use the term “Ultraviolet Data” in my writings but this thing with Ultraviolet light, above, is different; instead, it’s a form of self healing materials where the healing or repair gets activated by Ultraviolet light being applied to the object/material as detailed in CrunchGear – Self-Healing UV-Sensitive Material May Soon Coat Your Devices.

In yet another interesting story – there’s a way to cut down noise by 90% by using Green Glue (Huh?!) as shared in TreeHugger -Green Glue Cuts Noise Transmission by 90%. In Social Media Listening there’s usually a lot of noise in the data – so I can really relate to the “noise factor” – and for certain segments like Pharma, 90% is underestimating the noise levels.  Generally speaking, we want to eliminate noise and focus on signal.    Everything in life is full of correspondences, so where we strive to eliminate noise in data, we should also strive to do the same thing in our living and work spaces.   According to TreeHugger:

But the biggest complaint that people have about multifamily living is noise. That’s why Green Glue is so interesting: They claim that it cuts noise transmission up to 90%.

 

Green Glue works by “decoupling”, “or mechanically separating the two sides of a wall to make it harder for sound to pass through the wall. It was developed by a home theater installer who was unhappy with sound proofing systems, particularly at low frequencies. He consulted with a research and development firm specializing in viscoelastic materials, who came up with the stuff. It’s not cheap; a typical room uses three to five cases at $ 160 a pop. It also seems extremely wasteful to sell it in caulking tubes; it takes two for single sheet of drywall. Doing one room means throwing thirty tubes in the garbage. But they do sell it in pails as well.

On the other hand, most methods of sound control involve mechanical systems like resilient channels, that are often poorly installed, and allow flanking noise around the edges. This stuff seals it up tight. Green Glue also has one of the most thorough and

What’s interesting to me is how something as simple as “Green Glue” can do that – solve the noise problem we all face    Is a possible solution for noisy data lie in some fundamental approach change, just as the the solution to noisy apartments rests with using a different material between the walls including Green Glue?  Just a thought – didn’t mean to get all philosophical … but I see the relationships between apparently disparate things in my own way and that has helped to inform my writing and they way I think and view the world.

Finally, I read in JaTIN’s blog that Most SEOs Feel Google Webmaster Tools Is Not Accurate but I wonder how many have actually tried Google Webmaster Tools in any kind of serious way?   One reason why people who do SEO might feel Webmaster Tools isn’t effective is the information isn’t really used by many other third party tools and platforms; the only integration I know of is with Google Analytics.

And it may be that people do not tend to understand what they do not use.  We see the same thing in Social Listening and Social Media Analytics and I spend a considerable amount of time in my book discussing why people who do not understand the data being collected, can not effectively talk to it.

Take that Geo-Data being collected on iPhones that I began this post with … suppose you wanted to create a service for clients that helps them track where their audiences actually are and what brand messaging they may have seen. I can see some communications / PR types salivating on that kind of offering … yet, I’ve maintained, and made a strong argument in my book that “the medium is the message” – if you don’t understand how the data is collected and why … and can’t visualize just how it can be interacted with or interpreted,  you may not be able to fully understand or communicate the benefits of a such an offering in a meaningful way.   Sure, people are used to “hype” – or noise, but what we really want is “signals” or insights.

Had enough of this post – going to bed now.

Just picked up Social Media ROI by Olivier Blanchard which I’m liking, so far (read up through chapter 4); just supporting the community of writers and thought leaders (hoping for the same when my book comes out) and was curious, anyway, with what Oliver had to say about SM-ROI.  I need to read the rest of the book but here are some thoughts I have so far.    Olivier Blanchard has as way of organizing information that makes it easy to work with.

In his own way, Olivier frames Social Media Objectives, targets, KPI’s, performance indicators and other data, that is, ideally, what an Analyst ought to have right off the bat, but almost never does (page 33).  I tried to put some of that in my book (or get it out the minds of those I knew had the information).

Case in point, there are several reports and decks I’ve worked on, most inherited, but sometimes started as well, where a client or stakeholder askes for a Social Media Analysis (brand/situation/competitors, etc) without supplying any of the objectives, targets, KPI’s or performance indicators.   This happens so often that it’s almost comical.    But keeping in line with what Blanchard is saying – I can’t imagine how an analysis of anyone’s situation could be done that well without the analyst knowing which they are almost NEVER given (weather by oversight or deliberately).   No wonder most of the Social Media Reports I’ve seen (and at times had to maintain) are lacking.

And then, if we add the lack of two levels of  segmentation needed for actionable reporting that Gary Angel talks about, it’s a wonder there’s anything actionable in anyone’s reports.  But I digress.   On Page 37 Olivier talks about measuring performance, which plays into the ROI subject; I like where the book is going but I also know the platforms really don’t support, out of the box, the kind of analysis needed to show Social Media ROI and he even says as much, that some of the data you need you’ll have to go out and ask for and try to sync it up with what you can collect.    Looking forward to reading the rest of the book when I get a chance.

In the meantime, I’m also finding SearchMetrics is an very useful platform, especially if your analyzing SEO (which is what it is mainly designed for); I’m looking at the platform now and will be writing a review of it shortly.    Also looking at Spiral16 and MutualMind and I’ll write reviews of both shortly.   Like my review of Olivier’s book, I feel it unfair to write a long post on a book or platform I haven’t really lived with for a bit and I’m always regretful of writing off platforms too quickly, without really applying them to a real task that needs to be solved (and maybe several tasks) so I can visualize what the platforms do best.   Finally, I’ve noticed mPACT has added several new features that are very useful and I’ll be writing about them shortly as well.

As far as what I’m reading about, the Web Journal part of this post, Sysomos has put out a very detailed post about their text analytics capabilities titled Sysomos Text Analytics Roundup: Making Sense of Data – definately worth a read.

A lot of people think Google is the ultimate abitrator of influence (at least, a few years ago more people actually thought about that and back in 2006 and 2007 several, including me, wrote about if “Google is God”) but now we know that Google often gets it wrong, especially with the future.  See for yourself.

Well …    it’s not like the Recorded Future (which I have written about a few times before – and Google actually owns a stake in Recorded Future – ha).

Also, new updates to Dropbox have vastly improved it and lots of people are wondering why Cisco had to kill The Flip, including me.  On one hand, people are so worried about productivity and not whasting money, then Cisco goes out and kills a winner like the Flip (yes, I admit, my iPhone is a better video camera than the Flip … but I digress, again).  And then, there’s Voxy, which TechCrunch wrote about a few days ago; Voxy uses your location to help you learn a new language.

The app uses the SimpleGeo platform to bring users context-based lessons for about 150 points of interest including barbershops, dentist’s offices, banks, grocery stores and more. Each lesson is built so a user can complete it in three minutes, so as not to detract from the actual experience of being in a restaurant or grocery store.

Intersating.   Well that’s enough for now – still rubbing my eyes on being invited to go to the Royal Society in London next month for the Web Science Trust; I’d like the rest of my life to be like this.  Getting there, yep, getting there, just wish it went a little faster.