Archive for the ‘virtual world’ Category

I want “Google Circles Meets Twitter Meets Hootsuite” product – is there one?

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

We all live different lives in the eyes of the people around us ….putting up different personas and vibes based on the company we keep at any given time. This is not only true in our real world interactions but also in our virtual worlds. For example, we are lot more laid back in our interactions on Facebook versus on Linkedin. We try to keep those personas to their respective companies/groups – to have some kind of semblance to the relationships we keep and maintain. For example my care and affection toward my family is different from friends which is different for colleagues. We verbalize certain emotions and reactions based on the person and group we are interacting with – and this is same regardless of the medium – virtual or real! So, in real world, we are able to do this judo of keeping our relationship based groups superbly (except for George Costanza in Seinfeld – <a href=”http://youtu.be/uPG3YMcSvzo” title=” -World’s Collide ….” target=”_blank”></a>). We are also to expose those relevant personas to the right set of people. We have been doing this for hundreds and thousands of years.

Thanks to hugely popular micro blogging (Twitter and Tumblr to some extent), each of us have voices to share with the world but how can multiple personas survive in such a ecosystem without an ability to limit our messages based on the groups those voices should reach. For example, I blog about technology, innovation but also care about Cricket, rampant Indian Corruption, macroeconomic conditions, Rugby and on and on. Twitter or Tumblr doesn’t give me an option to limit my commentary to the right groups and people.

Here is the challenge – When you say the same thing to all the people, the value of what you say is diluted based on what you say. Not only that, it impacts the perception and ultimately your relationships (professional, personal & casual). 

Google Circles is an amazing way to create the groups based on the personas and your personal criteria for your contacts.
Most of the Social Network Applications such as Hootsuit and the like allow us to “post” to multiple social networks but don’t give you the ability to “limit” your message to certain groups within your social networks.
Most of the specialist social networks such as #Hashable and #StockTwits offer us the ability to “post” just to those communities without posting to Twitter or other networks. This is very good but those comments and conversations are limited in those communities and don’t reach others who are in my network who also care about that space.
I am yet to see a product that marries Google Circles with Microblogging with Hootsuite.

Google Circles + Twitter+ Hootsuite

Is there one out there yet?
@Vsistla

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Posted in Facebook, Google Circles, Hashable, Innovation, Microblogging, Personas, social networks, StockTwits, Tribes, Tweet, Tweeter, Twitter, virtual world | 1 Comment »

Social TV – What works and what doesn’t work!

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

Every time we stumble upon a new concept, we extrapolate its use cases across everything we can imagine only to realize that it doesn’t work in every instance! While some other times, we bring those use cases to market much sooner than the market is ready for them. Whether it is the most advanced hard disk drive – Kitty Hawk- from HP in early 1990s, or video streaming in the mid 1990s or online adv supported dot.com ventures in late 1990s, we have left a trail of such untimely ventures in the past.


 

Welcome to Social TV!Social TV is in its infancy and its good to understand the rules of Social TV based on current market conditions, limitations and end user’s expectations. These rules might not be relevant once the market matures with a different ecosystem than the early days of Social TV.

I define Social TV is an interactive television viewing experience with one or more individuals who are not co-located.

These groups of viewers can not only interact with each other via Television but also with any other devices. In case of certain genre shows such as reality TV or live competition, active social TV viewers can easily influence others in their voting/sentiment.

TV watching has been a fairly lonely experience until now. With connected TVs hitting over 40 million sales by the end of 2011, it doesn’t have to be a only experience. That was also one of the reasons why more youth are spending majority of their time Online rather than watching TV – despite good quality and compelling content.

Cover of
When you are in the theater

Social TV is akin to going to movies with a bunch of your friends without Shhing …..and turning off your cell phones while watching.

At least a “pinch hit” substitute for going to movies.

That said, these are the basic rules of Social TV.

  • Social TV is not for everyone – Social TV is a very interactive and passive experience unlike traditional TV viewing. Most of us are accustomed to this passive experience and might not take to Social TV experience as some of the younger generations might. So, there will be some significant parity between how each generation approaches Social TV. Industry should be mindful of such generational parities in building their Social TV platforms.

 

 

  

  • Social TV is not for every type of content/show/movie – Just the way not all types of content evokes similar/same reaction and engagement, Social TV is not for every time of content. Social TV is ideal for content that is inherently debatable, passionate with high emotions and opinionated.

  

  • Social TV is most compelling when it gives a strong enough reason for the audience to change their viewing patterns and behavior! – Social TV is not just about chatting and interacting with other viewers. Social TV should be able to change the user behavior – at its fundamental level. For example- People who are fans of a show who watch the show in “time shift mode” should find compelling reasons to watch the show “live” along with thousands and millions of other fans. That would dictate the success of Social TV.

   

  • Social TV with well-thought through privacy options is very critical. Privacy will be one of the cornerstones of Social TV. Your entertainment viewing options would have profound impact on who wants to be your friend and how close they want to maintain their friends with you. Social TV adds another source of information – about you – to your friends. Your reputation, persona, personality, priorities, values and principles get re-evaluated in the eyes of the world.  So, privacy becomes that much more important.

 

  • Social TV should be non intrusive – should not spoil the experience of watching the show or movie. Done right, Social TV should not negatively impact the viewing experience. If anything, it should enhance it.  

 

  • Social TV gets interesting when there are two or more sides/teams/parties – aka – Sports is the most apt genre for Social TV. Yes – Social TV thrives when there are sides, teams, emotions and passions. Sports content is most suitable for Social TV interactions.

   

  • Social TV is not just socializing while watching TV ….its also bringing TV to social networks and online communities. Social TV brings conversations from online/web to your living room. Your Online communities enter your living room.

 

  • Conversation is the engine between social TV – content is just a topic at hand! That’s correct – Social TV enables the conversations, heated and passionate debates in real time instead of waiting until the Water Cooler moment the next day morning.
poor water cooler design
Image by dennis -Nothing to talk at Water Coolers – via Flickr

 

 

  

  • Social TV thrives on the principle that we often look to others when we make media consumption decisions. We are less hardwired about these decisions than life changing/serious decisions

 

 

  

  • We are heavily influenced by the people in our physical space than remote. So, your social interactions vary based on who and how many are around you while watching TV. You might interact lot more with your remote buddies when you are watching TV alone versus with someone in the room. As George Custanza from Seinfeld would say, the “World’s Could Collide” that might lead to interesting scenarios - based on type of conversations and your company in the living room.  

 

  

  • People care deeply about how they look to others! Social TV is no different – if users don’t have appropriate tools to control how they are perceived by others, Social TV will die. Humans self-censor and we cannot live without it ….

   

  • Social TV is most suited for Sporting Events, Live Events and Reality Television – Based on above rules and scenarios, I feel Social TV is most suited for Sporting, Live and Reality TV Content - in that order.

 

- All Opinions are my own and not of my employer.
@VSistla

 

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Posted in Apple TV, Apps, Attention, Broadcasters, Customers, Facebook, Home, Influencer, Information Age, Innovation, Internet, iTV, Over the top, Privacy, Real Time, Reputation, Social Capital, Social Grooming, social networks, Social TV, sociology, Twitter, virtual world | 1 Comment »

Top 5 Enhancements to Chatroulette (Chatrt) – to make it mainstream!

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

If you have not checked out ChatRoulette, check it out …but very cautiously ….. and make sure it is not during business hours over your corporate network. For those of you who want to just read about it, ChatRoulette is a Web Application – that combines the boring chat and Webcam experience with “chance” i.e roulette ….. what’s so great about it? If you throw such an App in the wild with millions of people, what comes out of that is nothing short of the world itself …….for now, its all smut but that’s only the start!

ChatRoulette was created by a Russian teenage over a weekend has become the latest breading ground for people to interact with complete and total strangers …….this is Social Networking 2.0 in my view.

Here is how it works – in its current instantiation – You open ChatRoulette.com in your browser and it will ask your permission to use your Webcam and microphone. As soon as you accept, you “spin” the wheel to see who is out there to chat or interact with you. Once the system finds a partner, you have an option to interact with that person or disconnect and spin again. As Forrest Gump’s mom would say, its a box of chocolates …. you never know what you are going to get ….except that in the case of ChatRt, you most certainly can guess what you might run into!

chatroulette-casey-video-001

Some of non scientific analysis by Casey Neistat is shown in the image here.

Agreed that most of what you see in ChatRoulette is smut and desperation …… but that will ultimately be over shadowed by interesting and innovative applications …….either out of ChatRoulette or some copy cat down the line …..

So, with that said, here is my top 5 enhancement list to ChatRoulette concept …..

5. Just the way you have Seeders and Leechers in the world of P2P, identify users based on what they want to do – contribute, just watch, listen, chat, and so forth. This way, user can select the type of their audience.

4. Create lead generation and brand marketing channels – a very powerful application. If I am looking to buy a brand new TV, I want to sign into the Electronics Channel and consume messages about the latest TV and maybe interact with the customer service and brand representatives – a good source of revenue for ChatRoulette.

3. Ability for users to bookmark certain contributors – for an added premium. This gets into another source of revenue for ChatRoulette. Contributors get compensated by their regular audience and ChatRoulette makes a % of that exchange. For such paid audience, the odds of getting the bookmarked contributor will be increased.

2. Currently ChatRt brings the content from its audience to its audience – why not add some automated sources of content – potentially from libraries of interesting video and audio content cataloged over the years? Contributors could plug in their hundreds of hours of content from Youtube and Podcasts and the likes into the mix.

1. Create “specific” channels and let people sign in with proper credentials to contribute to the ecosystem. This way, people with various objectives get to spin the wheel and interact with what they are looking for; in short vertically integrated roulette’s ……for the masses! Auctions (ebay is so 1990s), live shows (Broadway is so 20th century) and so on …..With some “on demand” elements to ChatRt, many industries such as recruiting, dating, shopping, cooking, and entertainment might go through massive disruptions in the near future !

Happy interaction gambling!
-Vamsi
Opinions expressed are my own and not of my employer!

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Posted in Ads, Analytics, Automation, Convergence, Entrepreneurship, Facebook, Google, Information Age, Internet, Social Capital, social networks, sociology, virtual world, Web 2.0, Web 2.0, Widgets | 1 Comment »

Function Related (Dunbar #, # of Social Connections [FB, Twitter, Linkedin]) Returns “Hell! No”;

Monday, October 26th, 2009

In geek speak, I am saying that Dunbar # has less to do with # of Social Network Connection one might have to generate meaningful relationships ….

My cuber social map by Frank Da Silva
When I read Seth Godin’s blog about Dunbar number this morning, it got me thinking ……

Seth’s blog

Dunbar postulated that the typical human being can only have 150 friends. One hundred fifty people in the tribe. After that, we just aren’t cognitively organized to handle and track new people easily. That’s why, without external forces, human tribes tend to split in two after they reach this size. It’s why WL Gore limits the size of their offices to 150 (when they grow, they build a whole new building).

Facebook and Twitter and blogs fly in the face of Dunbar’s number. They put hundreds or thousands of friendlies in front of us, people we would have lost touch with (why? because of Dunbar!) except that they keep digitally reappearing.

I am not qualified to comment on Dunbar’s reasoning with respect to human “neocortex” limitations to maintain social relationship, but I feel Dunbar was trying to say something else and has less to do with number of (useful and productive) social connections one might have in the 21st century. Somehow his core research on tribal formations and groups got dragged into the current generation social networking paradigms.

Going along with the assumption that Dunbar’s # can be used in the context of current generation Social Networking ……. here are my thoughts.

According to Wikipedia, Dunbar got to this number with this kind of research/analysis, amongst others …

Dunbar’s surveys of village and tribe sizes also appeared to approximate this predicted value, including 150 as the estimated size of a neolithic farming village; 150 as the splitting point of Hutterite settlements; 200 as the upper bound on the number of academics in a discipline’s sub-specialization; 150 as the basic unit size of professional armies in Roman antiquity and in modern times since the 16th century; and notions of appropriate company size.

Regardless of whether an individual is able to build a cohesive relationship with all the 500+ Linkedin or Facebook connections or not, lets analyze Dunbar’s analysis.

1. 150 is the mean number concluded based on historic tribal group sizes – from the hunter-gatherer societies.

That is fundamentally a flawed argument – because the limitations, challenges and ways of life are so different between the hunter-gatherer society and the 21st century.
- In that era people got out of their beds (realistically patches of grass in their caves) for survival and sustenance and current generation human to grow up the Maslow’s pyramid.

2. Dunbar is talking about 150 as the size for the groups to have incentive to “remain together”.

- Current generation social networkers are not planning to “remain together” when they add their friends. Eschewing the real motivations and reasons for someone to “add” new friends(maybe in another blog), I am certain it is not to “remain together”.

3. Dunbar concludes that 42% of an individuals time is spent towards social grooming and nearly all the people in these tribes are physically close.

- While being physically close was a must in the tribal era, but it is not necessary in the 21st century to build and maintain value add relationships. Thanks to technological innovation, social grooming should not take 50% of your day’s activity.
social networking image

4. Dunbar does conclude that “language” as one of the tools for early humans to do social grooming. In fact he concludes that because of language, humans have a bigger Dunbar number than primates. This again proves my point that – on top of language, we have many other tools – that let us build “valuable” social relationships – albeit virtual – potentially increasing the Dunbar limit of 150.

PS: Please note that above data points about Dunbar are taken from Wikipedia.
PS: I have not read Dunbar’s book – Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language.
Disclaimer – Opinions expressed are my own and not of my employer.

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Posted in Anthropology, anti-social, Dunbar, Facebook, Influencer, Linkedin, Social Grooming, social networks, sociology, Tribes, Twitter, virtual world | No Comments »

Will no inhibition virtual world impact/influence us in the physical world?

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

When you go to a networking event or get together and you run into someone you know and they snub you for NO apparent reason – what would you do? Would you confront them right then and there to make peace or would you 2-parrots-dont-talk-mad-look-away3keep it to yourself even if it bothered you or reason out that there might be a valid justification for that person’s behavior and move on? Most of us end up choosing the later – keep that to ourselves and move on even if it bothered us to some extent.

Recently someone removed themselves from my Linkedin contact list. I realized that when I wanted to drop a note to say hi and see what that person is up to. Removing someone from your network – after accepting them once – on Linkedin or Facebook is as good as snubbing someone at a party or get two-monkeys-ignoringtogether in our real world. Should we follow a similar physical world protocol and move on or should we try to find out and then decide – either to make peace or move on?

While our response to such situations might vary based on the circumstances – ex girlfriend, disgruntled subordinate, rude neighbor, etc – we tend to be lot more audacious in the virtual world.

Last fifteen years in the virtual world showed that people show less inhibition than in the real life. For example, more people blog or write on the web than actually go to a podium and deliver a speech about the same topic. More people upload their silly videos than act silly on a stage or in public.

Virtual world is also lot less intrusive than the physical world. For example we can accept complete strangers as our friends or contacts in the online world where as complete opposite in the real world. One of the main reasons why Burger King’s campaign for a free whopper for every 10 deleted friends on Facebook took off so quickly (until Facebook pulled that out) is because of this laissez faire mentality in the virtual world.

Now the question is – will these habits or behavior in the virtual world influence our physical world? If so, in what way and how? Can we drop our inhibitions and be more audacious in the real world?

On the flip side …..

Over time will we start to emulate our real world behavior in the virtual world? Will the virtual world start to become as intrusive as the physical world in the future?

Thoughts on Ideation

What if social networking sites – LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace provide more options for people to communicate their emotions and true intentions?For example, I don’t want to connect/be friends with you anymore because we don’t have anything in common or you spam too much or don’t like your content or links, you are marrying my ex love, etc, etc.

It would be a good research area to investigate if the virtual mores are influencing our real life interactions and if so in a positive or negative way.

Posted in anti-social, Network, sociology, virtual world | 2 Comments »