Digital Society on BlogTalkRadio

Join us on BlogTalkRadio today at 2pm pacific as we talk to Eleanor Wynn, Social Technology Architect at Intel Corporation. Show details are here. I hope she will dispel my gloomy view of tomorrow’s digital panopticon.

Eleanor is an articulate speaker that concretely addresses social media and organizational behavior. Her insights into the future include ways social network mapping can be used to understand where conversations were happening and where centers of competence exist. This is the next iteration in enterprise social media and she’s the only speaker I’ve heard address the topic. We’ll explore:

• What’s the role of anthropology now that digital lifestyles are fair game for research?
• Are you a participant observer? What does that mean?
• How does digital society map to face to face society? What’s inhibited, what’s enabled?
• What’s your projection for the near term, revolution in co-worker relations or a massive time sink?

Please join us for a great show. Call us between 2 and 3pm pacific and weigh in on tomorrow’s digital panopticon. The call in number is 646 478 5503

Moon’s Gloom

Bernard Moon’s post forecasts a “dark period” for social networks. He points out that the novelty of user experience wears off quickly. Even Club Penguin is suffering as 8 year olds migrate to fresher venues.

As the attention deficit economy putters along to the latest eye candy, social networks need to embrace new content strategies to remain interesting. The question is whether the current crop of social networks can innovate their way towards relevance.

There are two trends that counter Moon’s gloomy mood. The first is a boom in real time media. This research report reveals some drivers that are more, um, discreet.

“WebCam total market forecasts indicate that there is strong growth from a number of segments. The pornographic WebCam market is more hidden from analysts than the other segments, but it is a lively part of the market. The Internet revenue started with porn and continues to benefit from this aspect of use. Because of the relative anonymous aspects of viewing sites, there is usage that might not occur otherwise.”

The other immutable trend is the opening up walled gardens with APIs from Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and others. Data aggregators, data miners, and marketers love this stuff. That’s what’s propelling the next round of social media investment. Barring any unexpected results, it just may work.