Social network contact management a pain, survey finds

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A recent survey of European consumers has found that current social networks aren’t living up to expectations, either being too complicated to use or lacking features such as synchronisation.

3,000 consumers were questioned, with key findings:

  • 75% said that updating their contacts across social networks was frustrating
  • 82% wanted a solution to synchronise separate address books
  • 78% wanted a simple, easy-to-use solution
  • Most people wanted automatic updates from the friends on social networks, as well as being able to control over what updates they receive.

[Read more…]

More People Are Reading Blogs (When Compared With Last Year)

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Good news for bloggers! If you are lucky enough to have readers for your blog, they could be spending a greater amount of time reading your content.

An Internet user study conducted by Nielsen last month revealed that people 17% of people spent their Web surfing time on social networks and reading blogs. That number is close to triple what it was back in 2008.

“This growth suggests a wholesale change in the way the Internet is used,” said Jon Gibs, the vice president of media and agency insights at Nielsen’s online division.

“While video and text content remain central to the web experience, the desire of online consumers to connect, communicate and share is increasingly driving the medium’s growth.”

While I have seen several of the blogs I write for and operate flourish, I can’t say I’ve seen my numbers triple. Where is your blog traffic compared to this time last year? Also, do you think blogging and social media can maintain such impressive growth?

Younger generation value Twitter in business, survey finds

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twitter-logo.jpgWhile we already know that Twitter can be a killer business tool when used effectively, it’s always good to have a survey to back it up.

The latest research comes from AIIM, which in a survey of nearly 800 people found that over one quarter of 18-30 year-olds thought that Twitter was an important rapid feedback tool for business use. By comparison, just seven per cent of over-45s thought so. [Read more…]

Findings From Liberty Mutual’s Responsibility Project

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BlogHer, a growing community of woman who blog, recently wrapped up a conference in Chicago, IL.

One of the convention activities included a forum for bloggers to share their opinions on “responsible blogging.” As part of Liberty Mutual’s Responsibility Project, BlogHer attendees were given a chance to sound off on several key blogging issues.

Here are some of the findings [Read more…]

Survey: UK PR companies slowly embracing blogging

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British public relations companies are still lagging behind in their use of blogging as a communications tool according to the Digital PR 2009 survey carried out by Bigmouthmedia.

Looking at the 100 leading British press and PR agencies, interest in social media and networking has improved over the past year and the number of agencies publishing blogs has doubled. [Read more…]

Ordered List CMS Survery Results

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Ordered List has conducted a CMS Survey, which only got 189 responses, a bit low to be really interesting, but still. The survey tells us that WordPress was the most broadly used system, with “Other” as #2, and Expression Engine and Drupal following after that. Expression Engine obviously have happy users, since 64% was very satisfied with the system.

Be sure to check out the Ordered List results post, with all the numbers, as well as very nice looking pie charts. Gotta love those wooden pies!

Research: One in three American bloggers writes specifically about health

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Nearly half of all US bloggers have written about a health-related topic at least once, and three in five of those write primarily on the subject, according to new research by Envision Solutions, a healthcare marketing communications consultant. According to my math, that’s almost one in three bloggers that claim health topics as a niche for their blog.

A few interesting statistics to come out of the report:

  • Numbers: Over 13 million Americans wrote at least one health-related post in the seven months between February and August 2008.
  • Diversity: Nearly three in five health bloggers are female, and nearly two in five are either African-American or Hispanic.
  • Age: Half of all health bloggers are aged between 18 and 34.
  • Motivation: A third of those surveyed said that they blogged to educate others, while one in five did so primarily to market themselves or their services. 10% were trying to advance a cause, and 7% were using the blog as some kind of self-help for their medical condition.

There seemed to be an increase in the commercialization of blogs, with 46% of healthcare marketing professionals claiming to have been contacted by the PR company for a product or service, up from 29% in 2006, while over a third said they had placed ads on their site, up from just over a quarter two years ago. [Read more…]

A List Apart Web Design Survey 2008

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This is slightly off topic perhaps, but still important, I think, being a designer and all. Design community sweethearts A List Apart is conducting a survey aimed at people making websites this year, and the result will be made available later this year. If you think you’re the target audience, do take the survey, it just takes a few minutes so don’t be daunted by the fact that it is 18 pages long, most of them are really short.

WTF Blog Design Elements: Most Recent Comments and Shout Boxes

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In this ongoing series on WTF Blog Design Clutter, we’ve talked about blog clutter with too many “friend” pictures and badges and calendar archives, two of the many elements many use to clog up their blog’s sidebar. “Clutter” is a matter of perspective. If these added design elements really work for your blog, serve your blog’s purpose, and enhance the reader’s experience, leave them. In fact, put them at the top where they are the first thing people will see next to your post title and content beginnings. Promote them. If they are that important, let them stand out.

If they are not important, then they do become clutter.

One of the most popular blog clutters are the Most Recent Comments and Shout Boxes that many feel are important elements to a blog’s design.

The web is now social. People are experimenting with all types of methods to bring the social to their blogs and emphasize how social their blogs are – or at least appear to be. Among the most popular and easy to do are most recent comment widgets and chatting shout boxes. [Read more…]