The Fall and Rise of Media

“Somewhere down in the Flatiron, out in Brooklyn, over in Queens or up in Harlem, cabals of bright young things are watching all the disruption with more than an academic interest. Their tiny netbooks and iPhones, which serve as portals to the cloud, contain more informational firepower than entire newsrooms possessed just two decades ago. And they are ginning content from their audiences in the form of social media or finding ways of making ambient information more useful. They are jaded in the way youth requires, but have the confidence that is a gift of their age as well.”

End quote from The Fall and Rise of Media, a terrific opinion piece by David Carr.

Twitterslurp hits Barcelona at PdF Europe

The Bivings Group powers the Personal Democracy Forum website and is proud to run Twitterslurp, a Twitter hashtag aggregator tool being used by those attending and monitoring this year’s European Personal Democracy Forum Conference, currently being held in Barcelona.

Use #pdfeu to join hundreds of attendees of the conference, which focuses on the many connections between politics and technology and the leaders of both industries across Europe.

Speakers, participants and sponsors are using Twitterslurp today and Saturday to share ideas on the conference’s most compelling topics and panels, including Friday’s opening address on how President Obama’s technology team helped him win the American presidency and Saturday’s keynote on mobile platforms for change.

Only ONE WEEK Left to Apply for TBGives $10k Gift!

If you or someone you know is a member of a deserving Washington, DC-based non-profit, please check out TBGives  for an opportunity to win $10,000 in web consultant services this holiday season!

We’ve received a good number of compelling applications from organizations across Washington, but we are pretty sure there are many more worthy organizations out there who could use our help. Applications will be accepted until next Wednesday, Nov. 25, so please get them in soon. The entry form will only take several minutes to complete. Happy holidays, and we look forward to hearing from you!

Tech Geek Myth Busted: Top Ten Ways Technology Boosts Your Social Life

In 2006, a popular study by experts at Duke University and the University of Arizona concluded new technologies have been making loners of us since 1985. Earlier this month, this theory was challenged and perhaps debunked. New technologies actually increase our social interactions, not our isolation, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found.

Pew’s deep research came up with a variety of causes and conclusions to support their hypothesis, but in my opinion, here are their most interesting finds:

10. There’s been no significant jump in the number of truly isolated Americans. While the study did support the idea the number of many Americans’ social connections may have gotten smaller and less diverse in the last 30 years, there are two important caveats: First, new technologies actually combat, rather than cause, this trend. Second, roughly the same number – six percent – of the American public is completely isolated from others in 1985 and now.

9. Web users are more likely to seek counsel outside their own family. “Whereas only 45% of Americans discuss important matters with someone who is not a family member, internet users are 55% more likely to have a non-kin discussion partners,” the study reports.

8. Many 18-22-year-olds use social networking to keep in contact with nearly all of their key contacts. Pew found 30 percent of those 18-22 — the age group most likely to use social networks — use those networks to keep in touch with 90 percent or more of their “key influentials.”

7. Internet users like clubs. If you own a cell phone, use the internet at work or blog, you’re more likely to join a voluntary group, on or offline. These can include neighborhood associations, sports leagues, youth groups and social clubs.

6. Technology users have more “core” friends in their discussion networks. “On average, the size of core discussion networks is 12 percent larger amongst cell phone users, 9 percent larger for those who share photos online, and 9 percent bigger for those who use instant messaging,” Pew reported.

5. Web users leave their rooms. Contrary to the iconic image of a lone blogger on a couch sans sunlight in a basement apartment, it turns out internet users are 42 percent more likely to visit a public park or plaza and 45 percent more likely to frequent coffee shops than non-users.

4. Cell phone and web users make better neighbors. Whether or not you own a cell phone or use the internet makes no difference in the amount of time you spend face-to-face with your neighbors, however, 10 percent of internet users supplement their face time with personal emails. When online neighborhood discussion groups are considered, 60 percent of users “know ‘all or most’ of their neighbors,” compared to the average 40 percent.

3. Technology users seek conversation outside their marriage. If you use the internet at all, you’re 38 percent less likely to rely exclusively on a spouse as a discussion confidant, the study found. Use instant messaging? You’re 36 percent less likely than other internet users and 59 percent less likely than non-internet users.

2. Sharing those family vacation photos online might make you more politically open minded. “Those who share photos online are more likely to report that they discuss important matters with someone who is a member of another political party,” the study showed. 

1. Bloggers have more racially diverse friends. Pew found those who use the internet frequently and especially those who maintain a blog are “much more likely to confide in someone who is of another race.”

IE 6 is Almost Dead, But Not Quite

Internet Explorer 6 is the bane of web developers existence.  The browser doesn’t support web standards that have become common the last few years, and making sites work in IE 6 adds significant time to the web development process.  Despite the release of IE 7 in 2005 and IE 8 in 2009, a full 10% of users still use IE 6.  In other words, it is still too big of a group to ignore.

The chart below shows a breakdown of the decline in IE 6 this year.  I take this trend line as good news, as IE 6 has lost 8% of market share so far this year.  Here’s hoping 2010 is the year IE 6 finally goes away for good.