Twitter and Facebook growing as MySpace shrinks

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The Guardian reports MySpace had 124 million unique visitors in February, shrinking 2%, according to the marketing research company comScore.

Meantime, Facebook grew nearly 17% to reach 276 million unique visitors month over month. It is now double the size of MySpace, the one-time heavyweight of social media.

Twitter, the Wall Street Journal reports, counted 9.8 million users worldwise, up from 6.1 million just the month prior. That's astronomical growth.

So, why is one site catching on so fiercely while another is losing its grip? And what does it mean to communicators?

For me, the answer lies in the user experience and in the idea that there's a theoretical limit to the number of social networks a person needs to maintain.

I'm a firm believer in good design, both in functionality and form. Facebook has a clean, simple interface that is plain but not unpleasant. MySpace, on the other hand, is an ungodly mess, difficult to read and next to impossible to pretty up without a lot of html coding.

Unless you're a band trying to share music and tour dates, MySpace also lacks the rich functionality to keep each visit fresh and interesting.

Facebook has invested heavily in the user experience. I just checked in on my profile, and saw at a glance a client's weekend camping trip photos, an 80s song lyrics challenge, a request for my birthday -- which is coming up April 9 so felt compelled to respond, links to articles, and so much more.

User experience explains why people are attracted to Facebook and leaving MySpace, and it compounds on itself: as more people leave, there's less reason for others to stick around. Looking at Twitter, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Twitter applications to enhance the user experience, it's incredibly simple to join and connect with people, and the site just made an enhancement to its functionality today: See Twitter Blog: Replies Are Now Mentions. As I told a reporter doing a story for Rhode Island's WPRI.com, it's the functionality that makes a site matter to the user.

I also believe that the mass market has a limited attention span for these networks.

If the average person can get their social needs met from one mainstream site like Facebook plus one niche site for their particular interest, like Twittermoms or Flickr, then they're going to stick with what is most convenient, productive and relevant for them.

It's the same principle to me as Dunbar's number: a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. The number is somewhere between 150 and 230.

If there's a theoretical maximum for social relationships, then it follows that there's a similar maximum for social media websites.

For instance, I have neglected accounts with BrightKite and FriendFeed. I ignore Plaxo requests but continue to invest deeply in LinkedIn. These are examples of some of the sites that have fallen outside my theoretical maximum, for now.

When it comes to social media survival, MySpace would be wise to borrow a page from Google's successful strategy--and quick: keep it simple, make it easy, and create a rich user experience if you want people to give you their time and loyalty online.

Choice words from Chris Brogan

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I drove up to Orange County and attended my first meeting of the So Cal Action Sports Network tonight, having learned about it via Twitter from @kirstenwright (who referred me to @tawnypress who had an extra ticket). The organization is primarily San Diego-based and was started by Bryan Elliott after many years in the action sports industry.

Hosted at Oakley's formidable headquarters, the event featured a panel of experienced action sports and lifestyle brand marketers to talk about social media followed by blogger Chris Brogan who is social media lightning in a bottle.

The panelists shared a lot of industry wisdom. My favorite piece of advice was from one shoe and skateboard marketer who observed (and I can vouch for this) that parents won't skimp on their kids, though they might skimp on themselves. Therefore, as a mid-priced fashion shoe product, he targets a $45 to $75 retail price so that parents see it as the more affordable choice against other shoes priced at $100 and up.

Hansen's soda and Oakley representatives were both vocal about listening to their customers, being involved directly in the sports and activities their customers care about, and keeping the brand experience authentic despite the economy.

Chris Brogan batted clean up. His opening slide included a hashtag (Note to self: include your own hashtag on your intro slide) so attendees could 'live Tweet' the presentation and make sure all Tweets were aggregated into one feed. See it here.

Brogan queried his Twitter followers prior to his presentation, trying to get a handle on action sports from the 55K+ people who follow his Tweets. He said "I ask Twitter everything, because they're smarter than me and there's more of them." From a communications perspective, Brogan obeys the first commandment: know thy audience. And he makes an effort to speak directly to their interests and needs, despite being, he joked, more of an expert at wiping out and falling down than action sports awesomeness.

Whether it came from Twitter or his own personal insight (a little bit of both, I'm sure) he suggested to the audience that what all the action sports company execs had in common is that they all started out the same: finding something cool and wanting to share it with others.

Sharing, he noted, is at the heart of what social media is all about.

Don't focus on the tools of social media. Keep the focus on the story and enhancing its ability to be shared with others, he advised. An example he cited was touring Oakley and seeing a tester blast pellets into the lenses of a new pair of Oakleys. At first it looked fun, like playing at a shooting arcade for a living, but Brogan realized it would get monotonous fast, and he'd probably turn the pellets on himself. After Tweeting this, a response came from one of his followers: that person's son was wearing Oakleys on duty in Afghanistan and having glasses that could withstand pelting sand and protect him in a truly hostile environment was essential. That touched Brogan, and it became part of the Oakley story that was worth sharing.

On Facebook, "no one cares about your stupid product. Stop blurting it out," Brogan admonished. When brands handle their communications in this fashion, in social media circles, they are quickly unfollowed or unfriended. This is not broadcast media and people don't have to pay attention to unwanted messages. They just drop you from their network.

The metaphor Brogan applied was the difference between someone shaking your hand when you meet and someone sticking their tongue in your mouth. Some things that a company would never do in person they tend to feel they can do in a social network, apparently.

One of the common objections to participating in social media, Brogan observed, was the fear that negative feedback would be posted to a company's blog, but to Brogan, negative feedback is great when you treat it as a learning opportunity. And where better to have people bring their complaints but to your own doorstep where you can respond to them right away and directly.

All good points and choice words from one of the leading advocates and consultants in the social media space.

San Diego media on Twitter - Part II

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I originally drafted a list of San Diego media professionals on Twitter via the San Diego Metblog that I also write for. It has become the most popular blog post on that site because it's information people want.

More journalists and media personalities have joined Twitter, so I have drafted an update here and included the original post below.

Note that some of the additions are because of a new online breaking and local news source, San Diego News Network which launches March 18:

@sdnewsnetwork - News from SDNN
@sdtips – Travel editor for SDNN
@carondg - Food editor for SDNN
@sdradio – KGB radio reporter
@ericcollins - Channel 6 weekend news anchor
@culturelust – KPBS FM news reporter Angela Carone
@michellemowad – San Diego Business Journal real estate and development reporter
@mjdavis – leads strategy and interactive at SDUT
@joshkopelman - publisher of Dining Out San Diego
@krdavy - editor of the North County Times
@tkarnold - editor of Home Media Magazine
@sdmetblogs - citizen journalism site



ORIGINAL POST - "San Diego Media Takes to Twitter"
By juliewright February 26th, 2009 @ 8:04 AM

Whether you call it real-time conversations or microblogging, Twitter is a tool that San Diego’s media are picking up and putting to use. You can follow individual reporters or on-air personalities in San Diego as well as subscribe to Twitter news feeds:

Media Tweeps
@dodgemedlin – San Diego Union-Tribune assistant news editor
@RickyWhy – San Diego Union-Tribune local government editor Ricky Young
@ninagarin – San Diego Union-Tribune ‘Street’ reporter Nina Garin
@jimtrageser - North County Times reporter
@drolland – San Diego CityBeat editor David Rolland
@ericwolff – San Diego CityBeat reporter Eric Wolff
@catherine739 – NBC 7/39 anchor Catherine Garcia
@carondg – San Diego Foodstuff blogger, freelance food, travel and tech writer Caron Golden
@lcaloh – KPBS convergence editor Leng Caloh
@culturelust - KPBS arts and culture producer Angela Carone
@tmack01 – KNSD 7/39 photographer
@helenchang – San Diego News Network business editor (launching in March)
@michellemowad - San Diego Business Journal real estate reporter Michelle Mowad
@Hula933 - 93.3 FM AJ’s Playhouse personality Hula Ramos

San Diego News Feeds on Twitter
@sdut - San Diego Union-Tribune
@utstreet - Union-Trib’s Street section
@sdbackyard - Union-Tribune’s SD Backyard community social media news site
@nctimes - North County Times
@sdcitybeat - San Diego City Beat
@kpbsnews - KPBS FM news
@nbcsandiego - NBC 7/39 News
@10news - KGTV 10 News
@sandiego6 - San Diego Channel 6
@SDSU_NewsTeam - San Diego State University news / media relations
@UCSDNews - UCSD news / media relations
@bizsandiego - BizSanDiego
@sdbloggers - SDBloggers.com

If you’ve got other local media or newsfeeds on Twitter to suggest, send them to @juliewright. And thanks in advance for any contributions.

Tools for Twittering

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Thinking about geting on Twitter? There are many do's and don'ts, some of which you just have to learn by doing. (Or contact me and I'll walk you through some of them or present to your organization.)

In the meantime, I've been bookmarking and compiling helpful tools to get the most out of my Twitter experience. And thought I'd share my collection:

tweetdeck.com – Adobe Air desktop app for viewing, posting, replying, and monitoring. I could not Tweet without it.

search.twitter.com - Enter any search term to find out who has recently posted it. For instance, here's s search of the term "WiMAX": http://search.twitter.com/search?q=wimax

tweetgrid.com - Monitor Twitter in real-time for multiple search terms. Here's a search of my Twitter ID @juliewright, 'obama,' and 'ipod.' These last two terms are updated in real time. Very cool.

twittersheep.com - Displays the most common biographical elements in a person's followers' bios--their herd. For instance, mine shows that most of my followers are social media consultants or junkies, PR professionals, bloggers, news hounds or other media connections.

tweetclouds.com - See what kinds of things a person twitters most about. DISCLAIMER: This website is taking so long to load that I abandoned it. Like many Twitter tools, most are free and therefore there's no business model to underwrite additional servers, etc. as they become more heavily used. I'm assuming that's the problem here.

tweetscan.com - Searches Twitter for key search terms and sends you emails with links to relevant posts. This is a very convenient way of staying on top of Twitter activity relevant to your interests or business. As with Tweetclouds.com, I'm having trouble loading their site.

futuretweets.com - Tweets for you while you’re away from your computer/phone, so allows 'time shifting.' Claims to be a great way to create an alibi too. Um, not sure about that.

themattinator.com - Post to multiple Twitter accounts simultaneously.

tweepsearch.com – Find people to follow.

twitter.com/mrtweet - Recommends people to follow.

twitpic.com - Send photos via Twitter; people can comment on them. Your comments on other people's photos will appear as Tweets. See mine: http://twitpic.com/photos/juliewright.

twickie.com – Embed Twitter threads in your blog/website.

twitbacks.com – Create customized backgrounds

twtpoll.com – Create a poll you can embed in your Twitter stream and monitor results.

tweetcongress.org - Find Congress people on Twitter. Apparently 11% are there.

mediaontwitter.pbwiki.com - Find other media on Twitter (also search #journotwit too).

meetup.com/sdtweetup - Meet people you Twitter with in person. This is the San Diego link. But there are usually TweetUps in all major cities.

tweetergetter.com – EVIL. Don’t do it…. This enables you to generate new followers or follow others in a spammish way that is counter to the principles of good social media practices.

Which brings me full circle to the do's and don'ts of Twitter and social media in general which will have to be the subject of another post, another time!

P.S. I do not vouch for the security of these tools. Most will require you to share your Twitter ID and password to fully use them.