After a couple of journeys this week during which I was sat opposite people who banned any social media interaction in their companies…I was surprised to see emarketer reporting that 86% of people surveyed are using social media within their business.
How they are using is interesting

I found this chart interesting because I would have expected marketing to be higher, internal collaboration slightly lower and customer service again higher. I see social media in the future having a growing importance internal and especially externally customer service wise. I see social media much more suited to conversations rather than messaging…which means in …read more

Gartner’s 2009 Hype Cycle report has been published. If you want to understand Hype Cycles check out Gartner here or this Engaging Brand podcast with Mark Raskino.  It shows the speed of technology evolution which is quite interesting.
Here is the cycle

“Technologies at the Peak of Inflated Expectations during 2009 include cloud computing, e-books (such as from Amazon and Sony) and Internet TV (for example, Hulu), while social software and microblogging sites (such as Twitter) have tipped over the peak and will soon experience disillusionment among enterprise users,” said Jackie Fenn, vice president and Gartner Fellow
The report highlights the following

Cloud Computing. …read more

RFI Studios have some interesting internet research into “Intent is the new demographic“. What I love about this site as well is on top of the great insight they have given easily retweetable statements under the Twitter name @RuderFinn.
The sentence that stood out for me was from Ruder Finn co-CEO Kathy Bloomgarden who said that “intent is the new demographic.” and that
“Delving deeper into the underlying motivations of online behavior is critical to developing proactive strategies. Just being online is not enough to leverage digital channels to drive business imperatives. Audiences must be targeted based upon their intent.”

More than twice …read more

Do you spend more time on the internet? I know I do. My usage has changed drastically from purely gaining information to entertainment, communication and of course yes, still information.
Social networking has been a large part of my usage and a post over at MediaPost shows some interesting internet research

In the past three years, the average U.S. adult has nearly doubled their daily use of the Internet as the average U.S. adult spent 2.1 hours per day online in 2006, compared to 3.8 hours in 2008
The Internet now represents 32.5% of the typical “media day” for all U.S. adults when …read more