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Facebook becomes the internet's No 1

March 18th 2010 06:14

Facebook is the new king of the internet. It has marched into the palace of Google and thrown the incumbent from his throne. Bow down, Google, Facebook now gets more hits than you do each day.

Who would have thought it a couple of years ago when Facebook insisted, against a tidal wave of opposition, on revamping its format. MySpace (remember them?) was still a player back then, and nobody had heard of Twitter, and Facebook appeared to be shooting itself in the foot.

Now, according to new numbers from Hitwise, it is top dog in US web site hits. It has been a rapid rise: Facebook's hit share for the week to March 6 this year was 185 per cent higher than for the same week last year.

Google's share was up 9 per cent for the same period.

Between them, they accounted for 14 per cent of all US internet visit for the review week.

There is a quirk in these figures, however. The measurement is expressed as a percentage of all web hits. For the week, Facebook had 7.07 per cent of all hits and Google 7.03. Yahoo Mail was third with 3.80 per cent and Yahoo (search engine) fourth with 3.67 per cent. If you combine the two Yahoo figures, which seems an entirely resonable thing to do, Yahoo moves into first place.

Then again, on that basis one could add the 2.14 per cent of fifth-place YouTube to the score of Google, which owns it, which would put Google back in first place.

Facebook had better not get too comfortable on the throne.
www.techcrunch.com; image: www.easpd.eu

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Facebook, Social media

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Blogging as the future of global opinion-shaping

March 13th 2010 23:56

The assertions being seen regularly in Bloggercises posts that blogging will take over the world are yet to elicit a response from MI5, the CIA, Mossad or the Taliban, which surprises us because they could all do with a bit of an image massage.

In furthering our case, we ask today, what else is likely to take over the mantle as the world's most powerful shaper of opinion?

The world is currently at a crossroads of information dissemination. The age of newspapers, for so long the credible face of public scrutiny and arbiter of government accountability, is passing. The best newspapers remain mighty thunderers in the public interest, but their time has come.

But to whom is the mantle passing?

The two heavyweight candidates are television and the internet.

The television argument is compelling. It's accessible, it's cheap, it's everywhere. It is the first option for serious advertising and brand promotion. It is the world's favourite relaxation, and as such it is the best way in the world to promote your product, your news, your art or your political aspirations.

Today, television is at the forefront of public consciousness when it comes to information. For politicians looking to gain voter brownie points, for CEOs looking to improve public awareness and for celebrities looking to monetise their latest excess, television is now the go-to medium.

Those arguing for the internet say it is inevitable that it will take over. In the economically advanced world, it is now more ubiquitous than television. Add in the growth that will happen in the next few years in the emerging massive population markets such as China, India, Indonesia and Brazil, and the influence grows exponentially.

More importantly, perhaps, is the argument which we are hearing more often that television will prove no competition for the internet of the future because the internet will simply envelop it. Television progamming is already available via the internet, and this trend will grow. Television content creators are already targeting internet rather than network distribution channels. That giant HD screen in your living room will soon become your internet hub, and television channels will be just one of the options.

The internet is set to become the most powerful medium for entertainment, personal interaction and information, and blogging is set to become the most powerful medium within the internet for opinion-shaping.

The Huffington Post has shown the way, offering high-profile, issue-defining blogs right there on the front page with the breaking news. It is our prediction that, in five years, every news disseminator, be the name Murdoch or Bloggs, will have blogs in its front line of news coverage, and the top bloggers on those sites will be the world's most important shapers of opinion.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Blogging

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The power of blogging

March 9th 2010 18:42

Some time ago I developed a theory, which has so far built a dedicated following of one, that blogging will take over the world.

Now, it seems, the legal system of Australia is recognising the growing power of the medium.

Graeme Gladman had a beef against Datamotion Asia Pacific Ltd and its chairman, Ronald Moir. Gladman used a blog to post a series of attacks against the company and the individual. The attacks were defamatory, but how to stop him as Gladman was not putting his name on them. He posted the attacks under the pseudonym "Witch".

Gladman thought he was safe, sniping out of reach from behind a wall of anonymity.

But he wasn't. He was "hunted down and found", to quote a lawyer for Datamotion, as will, he added, any blogger who hides their identities and attacks the reputations of individuals and businesses online.

Gladman was sued, and in a landmark case Datamotion and its chairman were awarded $30,000 in damages and costs.

What you write in your blog is vastly different to what your write in your emails. Your emails talk to friends and acquaintances. Your blog talks to the world.

Whether you blog under your real name or under a pseudonym, be careful what you write.
Image: B. Tal, problogger.com

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Blogging

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Facebook takes the innovation cake

February 24th 2010 02:20

Facebook is the most innovative tech company on Earth, according to an annual review of corporate imagination by Fast Company magazine.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Facebook, Social media, Twitter

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Twilight's vampires aren't real-life

February 11th 2010 05:39

Stephenie Meyer

Emmet Spain, a 29-year-old Australian who has just successfully negotiated the obstacle course which leads to the publication of a first novel, may have ended, once and for all, the raging debate about the legitimacy of Twilight.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Writing

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Dark corners of the language: clichés

February 1st 2010 05:17

We have in the past advised novice writers against using clichés. There no known excuse to use a cliché, we said. There is no imaginable circumstance in the occupied universe, we advised, that can justify using a cliché.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: A writer's tool kit, Clichés, Language, Writing

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The power of a writer

January 31st 2010 02:49

My novel, which is developing at the pace of a geriatric glacier on Jupiter, nevertheless provides moments of great satisfaction.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: A writer's tool kit, Writing

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What I got for Christmas was a blog stat spike

December 25th 2009 23:02

A year ago, I wrote a post over at NewlyOld entitled "Christmas and the finer points of Cockney".

It was inspired by my 80-something father in law, to whose generation this fun and quirky alphabet of rhyming slang is well-known. The post (which you can see here if interested) proved a comparatively big hit on a small and sparsely populated blog

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Blogging

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A new word for an old feeling

December 21st 2009 06:52

In news which perhaps sums up a year which was unfriendly to the global economy, to the environment, to developing nations and to the remaining optimists who had faith that our leaders were capable of leading, we hear that a senior lexicographer has chosen "unfriend" as the word of the year.

It's a new word which Planet Earth knows well

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Language

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Dark corners of the language: an article on articles

October 27th 2009 04:44

English is simple, right? Where French and Italian makes things difficult with two forms of the definite article, masculine and feminine, and German makes things even tougher by throwing in neuter, English uses just one word. The. Isn't that easy?

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Grammar, Definite and indefinite articles, Writing

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March 2010

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