Originally for this blog post, I was going to write a blog post with simply my opinion of the most influential social media websites, but that didn’t seem very…objective. I mean, my personal opinion of the impact of any particular social media website would be skewed just like any other individual.

So I decided to do this mathematically - Which Social Media websites is the Internet world talking the most about? Which one has people’s attention?

So I created an excel spreadsheet with several factors that I believe affect the “influence” of social media websites. The factors are as follows:

1. # of active visitors (via compete.com)
2. Growth rate (in the last year, via compete.com)
3. Age (how old the site is)
4. Average Visitor’s Time on Site (via compete.com)
5. # of new articles (last month, via Google News)
6. # of blog articles (last 3 months, via Google Blog Search)
7. Inbound links (# of links towards its homepage, via SEO Pro)
8. My personal ranking

I explain more about my math at the end of this post, but just know that the highest score a website can gain is an 8. And yes, I know my math isn’t exactly scientific - I don’t claim it is. I just claim that it’s an interesting indicator of the influence of a social media website. With that, here are the top 15 most influential social media websites, in reverse order.

15) FriendFeed (0.75 points)

Why? - FriendFeed does not score high in this analysis, but it’s mostly because of its freshness. The lifestreaming service, launched this year, has seen tremendous growth. Being able to see you and your friend’s YouTube favorites, Twitter tweets, blog posts, and diggs in one location is apparently a winning model. FriendFeed may not have millions of users (yet), but it does have all of the buzz and it will continue to generate astronomical growth and attention.

14) Reddit (1.03 points)

Why? - Reddit, although nowhere near as influential as large or as powerful as Digg or StumbleUpon, is still a long-standing social news website that drives traffic to many blogs and websites. Its funky alien and active community were enough for Condé Nast (Wired, Vogue, GQ, the New Yorker) to acquire them in 2006. Reddit’s recent move to go open-source and allow others to create their own mini-Reddit communities may pan out to be a game changer. We just have to wait and see to know.

13) Yelp (1.47 points)

Why? - Yelp isn’t mainstream yet, but in most major metropolitan areas, it is the place to go for information on restaurants, movie theaters, clubs, bars, gyms, and local businesses. Reviews continue to pile in and businesses have begun to react, some by improving their businesses and some with annoying blogs against Yelp. In the end, though, local businesses will simply have to develop strategies to improve their ranking on Yelp or miss out on future customers.

12) Last.fm (1.48 points)

Why? - Last.fm is the social network of music. Okay, so MySpace still rules that domain, but Last.fm’s unique radio and social networking features makes it a must-have for any audiophile. Discovering new music has never been easier, as last.fm “scrobbles” your playlist to determine new music that fits your unique tastes.

11) StumbleUpon (1.76 points)

Why? - One of the goals of almost any website is to gain traffic. StumbleUpon is one of the best ways to do just that. The social bookmarking toolbar and website continues to gobble up new users who stumble through websites and articles. StumbleUpon is the ultimate time-killer. And all the while, it drives thousands upon thousands to new and interesting websites.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Originally for this blog post, I was going to write a blog post with simply my opinion of the most influential social media websites, but that didn’t seem very…objective. I mean, my personal opinion of the impact of any particular social media website would be skewed just like any other individual.

So I decided to do this mathematically - Which Social Media websites is the Internet world talking the most about? Which one has people’s attention?

So I created an excel spreadsheet with several factors that I believe affect the “influence” of social media websites. The factors are as follows:

1. # of active visitors (via compete.com)
2. Growth rate (in the last year, via compete.com)
3. Age (how old the site is)
4. Average Visitor’s Time on Site (via compete.com)
5. # of new articles (last month, via Google News)
6. # of blog articles (last 3 months, via Google Blog Search)
7. Inbound links (# of links towards its homepage, via SEO Pro)
8. My personal ranking

I explain more about my math at the end of this post, but just know that the highest score a website can gain is an 8. And yes, I know my math isn’t exactly scientific - I don’t claim it is. I just claim that it’s an interesting indicator of the influence of a social media website. With that, here are the top 15 most influential social media websites, in reverse order.

15) FriendFeed (0.75 points)

Why? - FriendFeed does not score high in this analysis, but it’s mostly because of its freshness. The lifestreaming service, launched this year, has seen tremendous growth. Being able to see you and your friend’s YouTube favorites, Twitter tweets, blog posts, and diggs in one location is apparently a winning model. FriendFeed may not have millions of users (yet), but it does have all of the buzz and it will continue to generate astronomical growth and attention.

14) Reddit (1.03 points)

Why? - Reddit, although nowhere near as influential as large or as powerful as Digg or StumbleUpon, is still a long-standing social news website that drives traffic to many blogs and websites. Its funky alien and active community were enough for Condé Nast (Wired, Vogue, GQ, the New Yorker) to acquire them in 2006. Reddit’s recent move to go open-source and allow others to create their own mini-Reddit communities may pan out to be a game changer. We just have to wait and see to know.

13) Yelp (1.47 points)

Why? - Yelp isn’t mainstream yet, but in most major metropolitan areas, it is the place to go for information on restaurants, movie theaters, clubs, bars, gyms, and local businesses. Reviews continue to pile in and businesses have begun to react, some by improving their businesses and some with annoying blogs against Yelp. In the end, though, local businesses will simply have to develop strategies to improve their ranking on Yelp or miss out on future customers.

12) Last.fm (1.48 points)

Why? - Last.fm is the social network of music. Okay, so MySpace still rules that domain, but Last.fm’s unique radio and social networking features makes it a must-have for any audiophile. Discovering new music has never been easier, as last.fm “scrobbles” your playlist to determine new music that fits your unique tastes.

11) StumbleUpon (1.76 points)

Why? - One of the goals of almost any website is to gain traffic. StumbleUpon is one of the best ways to do just that. The social bookmarking toolbar and website continues to gobble up new users who stumble through websites and articles. StumbleUpon is the ultimate time-killer. And all the while, it drives thousands upon thousands to new and interesting websites.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Yesterday, I took a break from computer screens, social media conversations, and blogging to visit Six Flags Great America with friends. Never forget to take a break from your work.

I don’t have photos of the trip for you (yet), but I do have some insight I gained while I waited in line for the Iron Wolf roller coaster. In order for this insight ot mean anything, I need to explain a little about my day yesterday.

When we first arrived at Six Flags, the first roller coaster we went to was Superman: Ultimate Flight (they flip you so there’s absolutely nothing underneath you). Little did we know that we’d be in line for over two hours. Why? Because the roller coaster broke down while we were in line. Twice. The first time took about 25 minutes for them to fix the roller coaster. The second time it took 15. Strangely, we didn’t leave the line. Why? Because we were already so deep into the line that leaving would have meant wasting all of that time standing in line. So we toughed it out and we got our coaster ride, but we left with a bad taste in our mouths (though the staff were very courteous about the situation and talked with people in the line to answer questions). Several others left though and, of course, a lot of people didn’t join the line for the roller coaster for the rest of the day. It also didn’t help that Superman only ran with one car for the rest of the day.

Picked up on the analogy yet? I am talking about the one and only Twitter. Twitter is the microblogging service that has been lambasted by the blogosphere for being down far too often. I’ve been highly critical of Twitter - No internet service should need to turn off features on a consistent basis to stay up.

A few observations based on my Superman: Ultimate Flight experience and turn them into advice for Twitter:

• If you go down, you lose people. When Superman: Ultimate Flight broke, nobody new entered the line because it would be a waste - they went elsewhere. People in the line at the time left and went to other rides. Most stayed, but became annoyed and complained. The same is true of Twitter. Facebook went down this morning, and for every minute it is down, it loses about 200 new users. Now how many potential users do you think Twitter has lost because of its downtime and bad press? Not only that, but it has lost people who would have been repeat customers. I know I would have gone onto Superman another time if it had not broke down.
• You can’t run on partial capacity and expect people to be happy. People weren’t happy that only one car was running on Superman for the rest of the day. People aren’t happy that Twitter has had to turn off multiple services the last few weeks. If you promise something or release a new service, you better deliver. Your customers expect it.
• People will stay if they’re committed. I’m not going to leave the line when I’m on the platform for a roller coaster, even if it did just break down. I will wait it out and hope they can fix it. People have thousands of followers and friends on Twitter - they’re not going to just abandon it. But they will not return as often or speak as highly of it to their friends.
• Good customer service can help minimize damage, but it doesn’t heal damage either. When the staff came to talk with us, we were distracted, we were less angry, we were even pleased that they’d come out. But it didn’t make us tell people how great Superman was as a roller coaster and it didn’t convince us to come back. Twitter’s downtime whale and openness to answering questions may be appreciated, but it doesn’t absolve them for their mistakes.

We tried out a variety of other roller coasters with smaller lines for the rest of the day and had incredible experiences on nearly all of them. So I want you to think of your product as a roller coaster - As the line gets bigger, you’ve got to do more to please your customers or you will lose them. Even if you have an incredible service. Breakdowns and delays are unacceptable and no amount of openness or customer service can forgive you for those two sins.

But unlike roller coasters, you can’t just start off with a fresh customer base that doesn’t know about the events that transpired the previous day. You can’t just wipe the slate clean. Unlike roller coasters, your mistakes are there to be scrutinized forever. I hope FriendFeed, the rapidly rising social media aggregate service, is learning from the downfall of Twitter, because they’re next in line for the same rapid rise and scrutiny Twitter has experienced.

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Yesterday, I took a break from computer screens, social media conversations, and blogging to visit Six Flags Great America with friends. Never forget to take a break from your work.

I don’t have photos of the trip for you (yet), but I do have some insight I gained while I waited in line for the Iron Wolf roller coaster. In order for this insight ot mean anything, I need to explain a little about my day yesterday.

When we first arrived at Six Flags, the first roller coaster we went to was Superman: Ultimate Flight (they flip you so there’s absolutely nothing underneath you). Little did we know that we’d be in line for over two hours. Why? Because the roller coaster broke down while we were in line. Twice. The first time took about 25 minutes for them to fix the roller coaster. The second time it took 15. Strangely, we didn’t leave the line. Why? Because we were already so deep into the line that leaving would have meant wasting all of that time standing in line. So we toughed it out and we got our coaster ride, but we left with a bad taste in our mouths (though the staff were very courteous about the situation and talked with people in the line to answer questions). Several others left though and, of course, a lot of people didn’t join the line for the roller coaster for the rest of the day. It also didn’t help that Superman only ran with one car for the rest of the day.

Picked up on the analogy yet? I am talking about the one and only Twitter. Twitter is the microblogging service that has been lambasted by the blogosphere for being down far too often. I’ve been highly critical of Twitter - No internet service should need to turn off features on a consistent basis to stay up.

A few observations based on my Superman: Ultimate Flight experience and turn them into advice for Twitter:

• If you go down, you lose people. When Superman: Ultimate Flight broke, nobody new entered the line because it would be a waste - they went elsewhere. People in the line at the time left and went to other rides. Most stayed, but became annoyed and complained. The same is true of Twitter. Facebook went down this morning, and for every minute it is down, it loses about 200 new users. Now how many potential users do you think Twitter has lost because of its downtime and bad press? Not only that, but it has lost people who would have been repeat customers. I know I would have gone onto Superman another time if it had not broke down.
• You can’t run on partial capacity and expect people to be happy. People weren’t happy that only one car was running on Superman for the rest of the day. People aren’t happy that Twitter has had to turn off multiple services the last few weeks. If you promise something or release a new service, you better deliver. Your customers expect it.
• People will stay if they’re committed. I’m not going to leave the line when I’m on the platform for a roller coaster, even if it did just break down. I will wait it out and hope they can fix it. People have thousands of followers and friends on Twitter - they’re not going to just abandon it. But they will not return as often or speak as highly of it to their friends.
• Good customer service can help minimize damage, but it doesn’t heal damage either. When the staff came to talk with us, we were distracted, we were less angry, we were even pleased that they’d come out. But it didn’t make us tell people how great Superman was as a roller coaster and it didn’t convince us to come back. Twitter’s downtime whale and openness to answering questions may be appreciated, but it doesn’t absolve them for their mistakes.

We tried out a variety of other roller coasters with smaller lines for the rest of the day and had incredible experiences on nearly all of them. So I want you to think of your product as a roller coaster - As the line gets bigger, you’ve got to do more to please your customers or you will lose them. Even if you have an incredible service. Breakdowns and delays are unacceptable and no amount of openness or customer service can forgive you for those two sins.

But unlike roller coasters, you can’t just start off with a fresh customer base that doesn’t know about the events that transpired the previous day. You can’t just wipe the slate clean. Unlike roller coasters, your mistakes are there to be scrutinized forever. I hope FriendFeed, the rapidly rising social media aggregate service, is learning from the downfall of Twitter, because they’re next in line for the same rapid rise and scrutiny Twitter has experienced.

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(update: FriendFeed comments work again. I think there’s a time delay.)

So if you scroll down (on individual posts), you’re going to find something new: FriendFeed comments appear on my blog! FriendFeed, the rapidly rising lifestreaming service, allows you to comment on any item that comes through FriendFeed. Some blog posts and twitter comments can have 50+ comments, and that number is rapidly rising as more and more people sign up for FriendFeed.

Well today I stumbled upon this post on FriendFeed by Chris Pirillo that he had added FriendFeed comments to his blog via a Wordpress plugin by Glenn Slaven

Glenn, thank you.

Now as you can see, any comments on this post (or any post) via FriendFeed will appear under my normal Disqus comments. Plus, you can post to FriendFeed via my blog. Disqus, a customizable and dynamic blog commenting software, is what I use to run comments on my blog currently and I couldn’t be happier.

But with FriendFeed comments on blogs, I wonder: Could it compete with Disqus? And then I wondered: Could this be the start of something bigger?

First on Disqus: One of Disqus’s main advantages is that you can track the comments of someone you like across multiple blogs. Another is that it can help build community around comments via a “community page” hosted on disqus’s servers.

My argument is that FriendFeed performs both of those functions better. You can track a person’s comments on blog posts via FriendFeed. Hell, you can track a person’s Disqus comments via your FriendFeed too. Now that those comments appear on blog pages, everyone can see them too! A person doesn’t even have to join FriendFeed, already a more popular service than Disqus, to see what a person they like is saying on not only blogs, but on YouTubes, Twitter, Facebook, etc. It’s far more dynamic of a tracking system than Disqus.

The second, on community: You can build community around FriendFeed. You can encourage people to visit your FriendFeed blog posts (it’s real simple to give a link that only shows your FriendFeed blog posts) and to comment via FriendFeed OR the blog. I may very well make FriendFeed my “message boards,” so to speak.

Of course, you have to sign up for FriendFeed to comment via FriendFeed, which of course makes regular commenting much easier to use. But as more and more use FriendFeed, you’re going to see more and more people comment via FriendFeed rather than Disqus, Wordpress, or any other commenting system. That could be bad news for Disqus, but good news for the rest of us.

As more people install this plug-in and integrate FriendFeed comments into their blogs, there may very well be a dynamic shift in how FriendFeed is used and perceived. Hell, this could be the beginning of a movement that makes FriendFeed mainstream. This grants FriendFeed more exposure and leaves people who are not currently part of the FriendFeed universe with a desire to be heard (one that can only be fed by joining FriendFeed.

FriendFeed comments on blogs is a game changer, people.

- Ben
(By the way, I encourage you to comment on this blog via FriendFeed and then to follow me!)

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(update: FriendFeed comments work again. I think there’s a time delay.)

So if you scroll down (on individual posts), you’re going to find something new: FriendFeed comments appear on my blog! FriendFeed, the rapidly rising lifestreaming service, allows you to comment on any item that comes through FriendFeed. Some blog posts and twitter comments can have 50+ comments, and that number is rapidly rising as more and more people sign up for FriendFeed.

Well today I stumbled upon this post on FriendFeed by Chris Pirillo that he had added FriendFeed comments to his blog via a Wordpress plugin by Glenn Slaven

Glenn, thank you.

Now as you can see, any comments on this post (or any post) via FriendFeed will appear under my normal Disqus comments. Plus, you can post to FriendFeed via my blog. Disqus, a customizable and dynamic blog commenting software, is what I use to run comments on my blog currently and I couldn’t be happier.

But with FriendFeed comments on blogs, I wonder: Could it compete with Disqus? And then I wondered: Could this be the start of something bigger?

First on Disqus: One of Disqus’s main advantages is that you can track the comments of someone you like across multiple blogs. Another is that it can help build community around comments via a “community page” hosted on disqus’s servers.

My argument is that FriendFeed performs both of those functions better. You can track a person’s comments on blog posts via FriendFeed. Hell, you can track a person’s Disqus comments via your FriendFeed too. Now that those comments appear on blog pages, everyone can see them too! A person doesn’t even have to join FriendFeed, already a more popular service than Disqus, to see what a person they like is saying on not only blogs, but on YouTubes, Twitter, Facebook, etc. It’s far more dynamic of a tracking system than Disqus.

The second, on community: You can build community around FriendFeed. You can encourage people to visit your FriendFeed blog posts (it’s real simple to give a link that only shows your FriendFeed blog posts) and to comment via FriendFeed OR the blog. I may very well make FriendFeed my “message boards,” so to speak.

Of course, you have to sign up for FriendFeed to comment via FriendFeed, which of course makes regular commenting much easier to use. But as more and more use FriendFeed, you’re going to see more and more people comment via FriendFeed rather than Disqus, Wordpress, or any other commenting system. That could be bad news for Disqus, but good news for the rest of us.

As more people install this plug-in and integrate FriendFeed comments into their blogs, there may very well be a dynamic shift in how FriendFeed is used and perceived. Hell, this could be the beginning of a movement that makes FriendFeed mainstream. This grants FriendFeed more exposure and leaves people who are not currently part of the FriendFeed universe with a desire to be heard (one that can only be fed by joining FriendFeed.

FriendFeed comments on blogs is a game changer, people.

- Ben
(By the way, I encourage you to comment on this blog via FriendFeed and then to follow me!)

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