I think the desire for ambient awareness is what has driven the popularity of Facebook, which through it’s provision of the news feed feature, is supplying a stream of up to the minute updates on what your friends are doing. In many cases this feed substitutes the need for email.  Twitter is another service which streams snippets of thoughts into a single stream.

Whilst the craving for ambient awareness of our social graph (or friends list) might be strong, it is surprising to me that the use of RSS feedreaders to supply a personalised interest based news feed is still quite low.

Feedreaders such as Feed Demon, Newsgator are free and relatively easy to setup and establish a personalised “Interest based ambient awareness channel”.
Whilst adoption of these services is growing, their usage is still mostly contained to the early adopters.  Steve Rubel at Micropersuasion points points to Forrester research that suggests that feedreader adoption is at 11% up only 2% on what it was 3 years ago.

This has always been surprising to me, and led me to consider some possible reasons.

1. Apathy.  Much like programming the VCR, setting up a personalised RSS folder is one of those things that people just can’t be bothered setting up.

2. Ignorance. Many people are not aware of the benefits that can be gained from doing this, which include a faster and deeper knowledge acquisition of your interest area, perhaps at the expense of general media consumption.

3. Trainers. It takes less than an hour for most people to acquire the skills needed to do an initial setup and learn how to maintain an “interest based ambient awareness” channel. However there is a lack of resources who have the knowledge and inclination to spread this around.

So what needs to happen to bring these services into the mainstream?

1. Mainstream publishers will start to provide “niche ambient awareness” channels.  News.com.au in Australia recently launched a new format which allows some degree of personalisation, and yet it falls short of what can be done with a feedreader.  Personalised start pages such as Pageflakes, Netvibes and iGoogle also provide simple tools which will drive the use of “one click” niche interest feeds. Facebook and other social networks will continue to expand their deployment of “interest based ambient awareness” channels via groups and discovery tools.  Take a look at Radus for a new example that fits this description.

2. Emergence of the RSS salesperson. Too many of the RSS early adopters are what Malcolm Gladwell would refer to as “Mavens”, immersed in a deep knowledge of a certain area, and without the inclination to evangelise their discoveries to the world. I have seen the adoption of personalised feeds spread quickly when a connected salesperson evangelises the benefits.

3. Increased demand for customised social Media monitoring. Working in this area, I am seeing first hand the continued demand to unlock insights that are often hidden from mainstream media services. One of the main tools that I use for this is my feedreader. As the demand increases, I think this will encourage the training of resources in the creation and use of “interest based ambient awareness” channels.

We all have a passion or interest. I would challenge you to discover for yourself firsthand the benefits of getting more deeply engaged through the creation of an “Interest based ambient awareness” channel.

Related to this is the changing impact to the news industry.

So it was with interest that I read Jeff Jarvis (of Buzzmachine)’s presentation that examines the changing business models for news publication and distribution in light of social collaboration.  Jeff is planning to give the presentation to CUNYGraduate School of Journalismm, and has put a draft up on Slideshare for comment.

I think Jeff is on track with his scenarios!

Social Media - 3 step action plan (pdf file)

The continued growth of Social media has resulted in a massive power shift to the consumer. The ability for consumers to voice their opinions is unprecedented in the history of media and the ability to effectively interpret and engage with this channel is often ignored.
Social media cannot be controlled; ignoring it just eliminates you from the conversations. Due to the global scale and the sheer volume of online conversations taking place, knowing how to respond to social media can be a little daunting.
In this article I’ll outline a 3 step action plan that will assist you to understand and respond to social media. It will also help you to establish an accurate online brand identity and provide you with the ability to influence conversations, a real competitive advantage for any organisation.

Related presentation on slideshare

It runs through my definition of social media, why it matters, and then outlines the 3 step action plan that I have developed.

- Listen

- Engage

- Influence

Using the term “Generation V”, the research confirms that segments do not relate to age, gender, geographic location or social class, but instead are grouped by their interactions and behavioural usage preferences of digital media consumption.

The 4 levels of engagement in Gartner’s model are creators, contributors, opportunists, and lurkers.

The report suggests

• Up to 3% will be creators, providing original content. They can be advocates that promote products and services.
• Between 3% and 10% will be contributors who add to the conversation, but don’t initiate it. They can recommend products and services as customers move through a buying process, looking for purchasing advice.
• Between 10% and 20% will be opportunists, who can further contributions regarding purchasing decisions. Opportunists can add value to a conversation that’s taking place while walking through a considered purchase.
• Approximately 80% will be lurkers, essentially spectators, who reap the rewards of online community input but absorb only what is being communicated. They can still implicitly contribute and indirectly validate value from the rest of the community. All users start out as lurkers.

“Companies should plan to segment all four levels in the community - each has significant business value,” said Adam Sarner, principal research analyst at Gartner. “Differentiation exists between sectors and industries. Marketers with strong brands attract more creators. Certain industries, such as insurance, draw more lurkers.”

Successful communities support the needs of all four segments, and my research suggests that as communities grow, the percentage of each segment will remain relatively consistent.

I’ve decided to translate some of these tools into widgets.

The study was part of a global study of over 13,000 participants across 14 countries.   59% said they would not trust their mobile devices to provide a secure transaction

Online transactions using mobiles are gradually overcoming concerns about security in much the same way consumers exercised caution before embracing web based transactions.

In terms of countries, Germany at 21% had the most confidence in mobile transactions, whilst France at 12 % were least trusting of transactions conducted from their phones.

Australian banks have been gradually adding mobile accessibility to their services with ANZ offering a complete mobile banking website, and National Australia Bank recently rolling out a SMS banking service.

I believe last week’s Iphone launch will be a catalyst to accessing the web from mobiles, due it’s usability and data plans.

Note: that’s top spot for %, not for speed !

Also reported are these figures from Nielsen which highlight preferred online activities.

The study is titled  “Digital Life Index Study”  and highlights how the internet influences shopping behaviours, making particular comparisons between the UK, Germany and France.

4 key insights of the study were:-

Digital Influence:

The Internet is by far the most important medium in the lives of European consumers — but companies are underinvesting in that influence.

Behavioural Framework: Consumer use of the Internet falls into five distinct classes of behaviours. 

Research, Communication, Commerce are the 3 more established behaviours. 
In the expanding web 2.0 environment Consumer Generated Content is rapidly rising in importance. 
The 5th behaviour is consuming Internet content on Mobile devices.
Smart marketers will clearly understand the mix of behaviours that is most critical to their business — and formulate integrated campaigns to address that mix.

Consumers use the Internet in different ways to make different decisions.

The differences are driven by the impact of the decision on their lives and the range of available choices. e.g. Buying commoditised items like airline tickets are made with less consultation with online consumers than choices that have higher personal impact such as healthcare, or major electronic purchases.

Consumers see the clear benefits of the Internet to their lives, but they still have strong concerns that need to be addressed.

Clearly consumers recognise the value of the internet as a medium, but are also voicing concerns over internet safety.

Real Estate matching is a challenge that most of us have been through at least once, and one that real estate agents solve with an exchange of location information for customer needs parameters such as property requirements and price.

The web has given rise to a wealth of property information, and now represents a major resource for prospective buyers.  Not surprisingly, the industry boasts some of the best examples of how the internet is changing our shopping behaviour.  Examples such as Zillow,  Trulia and Realestate.com.au are continuing evolving the service of matching customer real estate needs against their pool of properties.

Hoodeo is a new online business that launched today and attempts to apply a neighbourhood filter to the property selection process.  After filling in about 10 questions (on 3 pages), you get this page.

The chart (and survey questions) graph the results according to Lifestyle, Property and Price.

I think Hoodeo should have enhanced the engagement of the survey by using images, and I believe the “Lifestyle” parameter should be sub-divided into a selection of lifestyle categories.

The site doesn’t include social features to allow customers to rate, review, share and have conversations about the neighbourhood variables.

Perspective: Whilst digital allows websites to provide functionality not offered in other communication channels, the “experience” is what separates good sites from great ones, and what results in word of mouth spread of the features offered.