Social Media couldn't help NBC's Sochi ratings

Oh the wishful thinking at work.

NBCUniversal's head of research, Alan Wurtzel, recently commented on his unit's analysis of their Winter Olympics coverage earlier this year.  The extensive coverage of the Games (1500 hours, all told), provided a platform for investigating media behaviors.  The network had expected social media to have a "dominating" effect on viewership, driving viewers to both the main primetime broadcast network shows and the sports coverage spread across a number of cable channels.

As it turned out, viewing and social media use didn't explode as planned.  Only 19 percent of viewers used social media to post about the games.  Some 3 million unique users posted a total of 10.6 million Olympic-related messages on Twitter.  NBCU indicated that up to 23 million people saw one or more of those messages.  In contrast, NBC averaged 21 million viewers for its prime time coverage.  The numbers on Facebook were higher, but still only 20 million posted, commented, shared, or liked something "related to the Olympics."  NBCU didn't indicate what percentage were actually focused on their coverage of the games, or were positive posts on their coverage.  (I'll admit to retweeting and posting about some of their analysts' more ridiculous comments, as well as the comically unprepared venues and tourist facilities).

So out came the wishful thinking.  According to Wurtzel, social media wasn't "a game changer yet."

“A lot of people want to show that they are on the cutting edge... Why wouldn’t I want to say to you, ‘We have a potent new way in which we can drive ratings?’" But “it just isn’t true”, he added. “I am saying the emperor wears no clothes. It is what it is. These are the numbers.”

The underlying problem, though, is that people use social media to comment on things they find interesting, particularly things they are passionate about.  Social media activity is also mostly reactive.  Wurtzel and the head honchos at NBCU apparently thought that the world of social media would jump at the chance to provide free promotion for its Olympic coverage, generating the social buzz that would drive up viewership.  Particularly for its prime time shows, which focused more on soft stories of athletes than on sports coverage. 

However, there weren't a lot of U.S. athletes in those games that had active fan bases.  (The most social media savvy, Shaun White, did poorly after an injury.) Similarly, winter sports don't have the huge, and social media adept, fan base of many Summer Olympic sports.  From America's perspective, there wasn't much of interest to tweet about the actual sporting events, leaving social media to revel in the gaffes and general goofyness surrounding the event and its coverage.  And while that may drive social media traffic, its not the kind of buzz that can drive viewing and ratings.

The numbers certainly are what they are.  What's unclear is whether the numbers reflect the impotence of social media, or the impotence of NBCU's coverage of a mediocre sporting event.

Source -  Social media not yet a 'game changer' for boosting TV viewership,  Financial Times

Social Media Week Infographics: Dangers

From  Dangers While Social Networking,  Poketors.com (and Kapersky Lab)

Social Media Week Infographic: Are You Safe on Social Media?

From  Are You Safe on Social Media?, SocialMediaToday

Radio Evolution Conference Proceedings

Last year, an academic conference was held in Portugal with the theme "Radio Evolution".  The conference proceedings, comprising 47 research papers in 7 thematic areas, is now being made available online.
  You can access and download individual papers, as well as the entire proceedings, here -

Radio Evolution: 2011 ECREA Conference Proceedings

Are Smartphones addictive?

  A new book suggests that smartphones are addictive.  Are they?

  According to one article in LiveScience blog, various research results suggest the possibility. 

• smartphones are regularly cited as the first thing people reach for in the morning, and the last thing checked at night
• some people report spending more time with their phones that in personal relationships
• surveys suggest that the majority of young people check their phones hourly
• another survey suggests most people feel "panicked" when they've misplaced their phones

The social researcher in me doesn't find these anecdotes compelling causal evidence of "smartphone addition" any more than similar findings about police or military attitudes about their guns would be evidence of "firearms addiction".  Particularly since many of the research "results" are about cellphones and not smartphones. In addition, I could dig up similar research results from the past talking about the Internet, TV, and even newspapers.
  There are people with addictive personalities that may settle on phones or smartphones as their preferred focus. There are people who will focus on phones or smartphones as their primary medium for information and communication as they find those media more useful or valuable than other more traditional sources (media dependency). And there are people who will develop new habitual patterns in their use of media as a result of access to new forms of media devices.  But those aren't evidence of addiction in the clinical, psychological, sense.
  But "addiction" isn't the main point for the Harvard Business professor who wrote the book - the supposed "addiction" is provided in support of the argument that new habits of use are becoming associated with mobile devices - habits that aren't necessarily efficient or productive within a corporate environment.  The focus of the book is then on how to "break" those habits.
  There is mounting evidence that smartphone and tablet owners are shifting their media use habits.  For example, rather than going to TV or radio to check news and weather in the morning, many go online through mobile devices for that information.  And these habits will have impacts in a competitive media environment, and arguably in the broader social environment as well. In addition, personal habits may not be the most efficient work habits; and eventually people recognize that and develop situational habits and behaviors.  But habits are not addictions in any reasonable or meaningful sense
  So please, let's avoid terms like "addiction" that suggest an illness to be cured, rather than recognizing that for most people, these emerging behaviors are logical and reasonable responses to newer ways of communication, information-seeking, and content use that offer better personal value to the user than the old habits offered.  Crying "addiction" is not the way of reason or science - it's scaremongering.
  If you really want to talk about addicts in that sense, look at those who are unwilling to abandon past habits in changing circumstances.  Doing something that you know is not as useful or beneficial when you have better options (and manufacturing false justifications for those behaviors) is much closer to evidence of addiction than simply doing something a lot.

Source -  Smartphone Addition Is Real... and Rampant,  LiveScience

From Melissa Grimes:

In 2009, 10,839 people were killed due to alcohol-impaired drivers.
This article asks why Google and Apple are allowed to carry apps that tell drivers where sobriety checkpoints are located? The main purpose of a sobriety check point is not to catch a incredibly large number of drunk drivers, but instead to let drivers know that there are randomly placed checkpoints out there are and to detour them from driving drunk in the first place. While Blackberry has removed their version of the checkpoint app, Google and Apple have not. The apps that Google and Apple have pin point the exact location of these checkpoints and eliminate their purpose all together. Technology isn't exactly working in the favor of the general populations safety on this issue. But Joseph Scott, chief executive of PhantomAlert, a checkpoint alert app, defended real-time alerts of sobriety checkpoints as a convenience to law-aiding citizens who do not want to be delayed by a checkpoint. He said, "Assuming someone who gets a D.U.I checkpoint alert if going to drink and drive is like assuming anyone who owns a gun is a murder."

Source: "Helping Drunken Drivers Avoid Tickets, But Not Wrecks," NYTimes

Cell Phones and Health

From Andrew Starnes:

We use cell phones everyday in our lives. Any time someone releases a study showing negative side effects on the body, we should pay attention. If cell phones can lead to bonedeterioration then we could see major hip or leg related problems with future senior citizens from our current younger generations. Cell phone usage should have devoted studies like this because we may be hurting our bodies and not even no it.I also think this is further evidence that young children should not be given phones due to the increased risk on their developing bodies.

Source: "Cell Phone Health Risk to Bones," Information Week

Social Media's Influence is Indirect

A new study by ForeSee Results suggests that social media drives 20% of visits to company sites.  On the other hand, only 1% of company website visits came directly from social media sites.  That suggests that social media might be much better at developing interest in companies and consumer issues, and that interest might drive later visits to company websites.
Or it could be that many social media postings aren't helping out by posting direct links, forcing users to enter URLs directly, or go through intermediate sites.
Still, perhaps the most important thing to take away is the idea that while social media may not produce a lot of direct immediate action, it likely does help develop awareness and interest, and may foster intent to act.

Source: "Social Media Influences Website Traffic Indirectly," Information Week

Social Media's Social Impact

From Melissa Grimes:

Is social media having positive or negative impact on our lives? This was a really interesting article that I found in the New York Times, concerning social media sites like Facebook, Twitter,  and Instagram and their cyclical effect on peoples moods. The article states that we are constantly being updating with peoples activities, and this in turn can cause a FOMO, "fear of missing out", moment which can cause anxiety, inadequacy, and irritation. According to Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, he says we become afraid that we’ve made the wrong decision about how to spend our time. The article states that people are still immature when it comes to their relationship with technology, granting it power to influence decisions, moods and emotions. Sherry Turkle, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, suggests that we still need to figure out a way to disconnect ourselves from technology and limit its influence on our lives.

Source: "Feel Like a Wallflower? Maybe It’s Your Facebook Wall," NY Times