Quora, Tunerfish, Hunch, and their obvious differences

As a part of my Personal Learning Project I investigated 3 newer social media websites. Each of these sites (Quora, Tunerfish, Hunch) were anticipated to be among the new trendy social media sites in 2011. After creating accounts on each site and monitoring conversations about each via Twitter I have noticed many strengths and weaknesses for each.

Without a doubt Quora has been the most useful of all three sites. It has the most active community, the most links on Twitter, and the most potential to do big things in the social media community. Quora is a question and answer websites, that unlike competitors, maintains a professional attitude. It was created by two former Facebook employees that are making major names for themselves in the social media community. Quora is also actively used by some other top names in social media such as Facebook's Dustin Moskovitz. It is very simple to get started in the Quora conversation by looking up what you are interested in. Because Quora is still building its community, some specific questions are not on the site. However, submitting your question is very simple. After submitting a question I received a response about a week later. The more users Quora attracts the shorter this turn around time will become.

One complaint I have about Quora is the feature that creates personal communication among users. It is simply unnecessary. I follow 14 people and 0 people follow me back. The people I follow do not contribute to my Quora experience, and my lack of followers do not hinder my Quora experience at all. From what I've gathered it doesn't seem to play a large roll in anyone's interaction with the site. For all intents and purposes, the ability to follow specific questions seems to suffice.

Tunerfish was my least favorite among these three sites. It is just useless. Like Twitter your home page is centered around a question that needs answering. In this case the question is "What are you watching?". After answering the question, then what? Depending on who you follow you might receive good recommendations of television shows. This is where I developed issues. I follow 13 people. When I began following certain people it was based on people with similar taste in television. These people were recommended to me via Tunerfish. The problem with this is, if I want to discover new television, how would I do that if the only people I interact with watch the same shows as me? Tunerfish would benefit by developing a suggestions aspect of the site, similarly to Netflix. Without that feature the site is pretty much useless. Once the initial question is answered, I have no reason to stay on the site longer than that. In my opinion, Tunerfish would be more successful as just an app and not a website attempting to do more than it actually does.

I love Hunch, the only problem is, I don't have time for it. Hunch is a brilliant website that recommends all sorts of things based on your responses to simple questions as well as your rankings of recommendations. The website gets to know you the more you use it and becomes more beneficial the longer you have your account. But unfortunately not a lot of us have time to just waste time on the internet. Hunch is the type of website you would play with on a lazy Sunday morning, or in between flights at an airport. You can so easily get lost clicking from recommendation to recommendation. Which means the website is fun and addicting, but few of us have time for another internet addiction. I could see Hunch being attractive to younger people, perhaps high school aged. These people have more time on their hands and could perhaps benefit from discovering new interests.

Since using Hunch the site has changed a bit. The most recent time I logged in, Hunch recommended that I begin following specific people with similar interests as me. Since doing so, my account has become more about giving other users suggestions, and less about receiving suggestions. I like this because I am still able to discover new products, while simultaneously becoming a more interactive user. I think this is a step in the right direction for the site.

Quora definitely came out on top among these sites. I firmly believe that we will be hearing a lot more about Quora in the near future. I can see it becoming comparable to major social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Linkedin. As for the other two I do not see as bright of a future. Hunch, more so than Tunerfish, has an addicting and fun foundation, I'm just concerned about another hour-killing website out there to distract me. Tunerfish needs to add more useful features if they want to be recognized as a major social media site. As they are now, Tunerfish won't be around long enough to make a splash in this seemingly endless sea of social media.

 

Tunerfish not catching on

I should begin by noting how badly I wanted to like Tunerfish.  It was an innovative (sort of) idea that was a combination of two of my favorite things, social media and television. The website has the glitz and glamour of a successful and fun social media website, but it is missing one very crucial aspect, the social part. Becoming a part of the established community has been difficult.

Other social networking communities I am currently a part of were almost effortlessly established. I haven't found that ease with Tunerfish. I do as I'm told and answer the simple "What are you watching?" question and it seems like I'm having a conversation with myself. I have yet to understand how community on Tunerfish is established.

I also do not understand the awards feature of Tunerfish. I currently have a Guppy Award and an Oscar Award. The Guppy award was completely a pity, thanks-for-signing-up, type of deal. The Oscar award I'm pretty sure is just a result of posting that I was indeed watching the Oscars. Apparently there 121 possible awards to win. But what do they even mean? If I have more awards will I connect with more users? What will earn me awards? None of this is clear. The awards component of this site seems useless and just clutters the site.

While I think overall the Tunerfish website is precious, I just don't see much of a future for a site like this. Once you post what you are watching, then what? There really isn't much offered on the site to keep you their longer than the 2 seconds it takes to post about what you are watching. It doesn't have that addictive pull that Twitter or Quora have.

Maybe there are components I am missing out on that make Tunerfish a site worth noting. My logic tells me however, that if someone fairly savvy in the social media department fails to understand all aspects of a site after 2 months of playing with it, then your site isn't as user friendly as it needs to be. Maybe that's the issue.  Either way, at this point in my exploration, I don't see Tunerfish causing any sort of ruckus in the social media world.

Twitter vs. Facebook: Who got businesses to pay attention first?

"Twitter has not only led the way for the evolution of microconversations, it has single-handedly forced businesses to pay attention to online conversations on a mass, and growing scale."
 - Brian Solis , Engage

I would argue that the above quote is factual minus one keyword, "single-handedly".

It is no secret that Twitter has played a massive role in establishing an unbiased communication tool for consumers and producers. But I wouldn't say they worked alone. I don't know the numbers, but I would say that there is probably a somewhat equal number of business-associated presence on both Twitter and Facebook. Maybe Twitter was easier to get the dialog started, and a less complicated avenue for such dialog, but it is my opinion that businesses felt the need to break into social media because of the overwhelming popularity of Facebook, not Twitter.

Facebook led the social media revolution as we know it today. Sure, 7 years ago we all had Myspace's, but we weren't engulfed in it the way we are in Facebook. Myspace was a one dimensional option for shameless self-promotion. Facebook was a tool for connecting people and creating conversations. Twitter was essentially a less complicated combination of both, minus pretentious behavior.

By no means do I wish to discredit Twitter as an innovative outlet for increasing communication between consumers and producers, but I don't think they worked alone in emphasizing the need for businesses to pay attention to online conversations. I think it just provided the easiest way for them to do so.

MyLikes: Social media marketing on steriods

One of the many celebrities (and by celebrity I mean reality star, don't judge me) I follow on Twitter recently (7 minutes ago) tweeted about her adoration for a site called MyLikes. Out of curiosity (and absolute boredom) I clicked the bit.ly attached to the tweet to find out more about MyLikes.

If you've never heard of MyLikes it is an absolutely crazy yet incredibly relevant new marketing and advertising concept that gives even more control to the consumers. On MyLikes you simply create an account that links to your Facebook, Twitter, or other social networking site. Once an account is created you simply go to the website and start rating and commenting on random products and services. What separates this from everyday consumer promotion is that MyLikes will pay you for your opinion.

MyLikes describes themselves as a "word-of-mouth advertising platform that connects advertisers with influencers on the web. Influencers can spread the word and earn money."

Getting paid to click a "like" button? Am I alone in thinking this all sounds too good to be true? Is my pseudo-celebrity a reliable source? Someone make an account and let me know if how soon their paycheck arrives.

@charliesheen #tigersblood #winning

As of 9:03AM on March 3, 2011, after creating a Twitter account one day ago, and after only 21 tweets, Charlie Sheen has 1,233,041 followers on Twitter. I'll go ahead and join the rest of the world with a resounding 'WTF?'.

When deciphering through the recent media storm that is Charlie Sheen I'm left bewildered by his massive following. His IMDB page doesn't help at all. While considerably lengthy, it really doesn't showcase many performances worth mentioning aside from "Wall Street", "Platoon", and "boy in police station" in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". All of which were made in the 80's.

I am aware of the success of "Two and a Half Men" although I'm not sure how that came to be. His comedy is not worth $ 1.25 million per episode. But aside from that dog and pony show, Charlie Sheen is still undeniably "#winning" right now for one reason and one reason only; he is certifiably crazy.

America loves a good train wreak. All the media attention Lindsey Lohan receives and the success of the "Real Housewives" series prove this point. So when Charlie Sheen said on nationally syndicated television that,  "I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available because if you try it, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body" America was hooked.

Seeing Charlie Sheen rise to Twitter fame in a matter of hours makes me nostalgic for old Twitter. It makes me miss a time when Ashton Kutcher and CNN were battling head to head for days to see who would gain 1 million followers first. It seems that those days are long gone now and I'm left with tweets about "tiger's blood" hot dogs, and how Charlie Sheen is in fact a winner. Sorry America, you lose.

Putting "word of mouth" on the back burner

As a part of a semester long project exploring social media I decided to dabble in predicted social media trends for 2011. After doing a little bit of research on what other bloggers thought would become "mainstream" this year I noticed several mentions about entertainment check ins.

Popularized by Foursquare and Gowalla the idea of "checking in" really took off in 2010. Now that concept is predicted to transition from checking into locations, to checking into entertainment. Several new sites have emerged that allow you to share what you are doing, but not in 140 characters, by checking it.

This idea of of checking into entertainment allows you to share what movies, television shows, and on some sites even what celebrities you are talking about, book you are reading, video game you are playing, and even wine you are drinking. We no longer to need to share our opinions verbally, we simply check into them. From there if your Facebook or Twitter account is connected to the app then these sites will automatically share what you are checked into with your friends and followers.

Right now as I begin to play around with this concept I am experimenting with Tunerfish and GetGlue. Tunerfish an extremely simply to use website that operates much like Twitter. At the top you see an empty box that asks, "What are you watching?" you simply answer that question and see what others are watching right then and there too. You follow people with similar tastes to learn about other shows, movies, or viral videos you might enjoy. I enjoy the simplicity of Tunerfish, but it isn't as well-established as other entertainment websites.

GetGlue on the other hand is probably a leader among new entertainment check-in sites. GetGlue offers you to check into much more than Tunerfish. It is a more encompassing website in terms of the vast number of "entertainments" you can check into. The site has also been growing significantly since 2010. It is more popular than Tunerfish and has more of a chance of becoming one of the big names in social media then Tunerfish.

As I play with these new sites and others like them, I am curious but also cautious. While I find it interesting to share and learn about new entertainment on the web, I am careful to not discredit the old-fashioned way of spreading trends, word of mouth. Even though these new medias are fun and convenient and let's not forget the basics and lose ourselves on the web.

A fine line between public and personal tweets

If you follow the American Red Cross on Twitter you would have seen this HILARIOUS tweet Tuesday night. This gem was left up for an hour before someone working for the Red Cross received numerous phone calls about the tweet.

Gloria Huang, a Red Cross social media specialist is responsible for this tweet and claims it was the result of not being familiar with HootSuite, a brand management service that will assist you with social media.

While confusion could be to blame, it sounds more like to me that Gloria was just too excited to "#gettnslizzerd" after work to focus on which twitter account she was suppose to be updating.


Luckily for her the situation was not a Twitastrophe. Her excited tweet was joked about in later tweets and the whole thing blew over fairly quickly. But for at least one hour the whole world wanted to party with the Red Cross.

Managing Tweets 2.0

I first got my twitter account in 2008. I quickly realized that unlike Facebook, Twitter was a less-personal form of social media. You didn't necessarily need to be friends with someone you were following. So when I began increasing my list of people to follow I learned how obnoxious and spam-like some people were, so without hesitation I "un-followed" them.

If following people was so impersonal, I assumed un-following them would be similar, and not as malicious as the dreaded "de-friending" on Facebook. However with today's introduction of My6sense for Twitter, I'm beginning to think otherwise.

My6sense is a feature of Google Chrome that will track your online reading behavior in order to gain an understanding of your online preferences (much like an RSS feed). Once it gathers this information it will bring stories it thinks you will prefer reading to the forefront of the stream and while burying stories you are likely to be uninterested in.

This week My6sense introduced a component for Twitter. It is used on Twitter in the same fashion as Google Chrome, however it buries tweets you are unlikely interested in.

When I first heard about this concept my initial thought was if you feel the need to "bury" uninteresting twitter accounts, why don't you just unfollow them and only follow people whose tweets you enjoy reading? Or has Twitter become so personal so that "unfollowing" is now considered unfriendly twitter etiquette?

Is Twitter the new Facebook?

Social Media: The New Driving Force Behind a Revolution

In the last couple days we have watched as a modern day revolution in Egypt unfolds. Hundreds of thousands of protesters have rallied together to express discontent with current Egyptian government policies. Yet more so then the political issues at hand, social media has been at the forefront of conversations pertaining to this revolution.

On January 28th, the Egyptian government, in attempt to prevent a massive number of protesters from gathering, shut off the country's internet and cellular networks.

It is monumental events like this that truly highlight the engulfing presence social media has on our modern day society. We are no longer participating in our father's revolution.

In his article featured in The New Yorker, Malcolm Galdwell compared civil rights protests to more recent protests such as the 2009 protest in Moldova, sometimes referred to as a the "Twitter Revolution". He provides an opinion that discredits social media's role in any revolution. He claims that word of mouth generated by the necessity of change has in the past and will remain in the future as the only necessary driving force behind a revolution.

This idea may exemplify the more genuine way to spark a revolution, but with tools, such as Twitter, we are now able to cause a global stir almost instantly. You are able to rally millions of people within hours, as oppose to months. It's truly phenomenal how fast social media works.