45,000 Indians a day join social media networks

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/indians-now-spend-more-time-on-soc...

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Social Gaming - Jargon for today

Officially: Social games are a structured activity that has contextual rules through which users can engage with one another. To state the obvious, Social games must be multi-player and have one or more of the following features: people take turns to play, are based on social platforms so you can share your progress easily, invite participants and provide users with an identity, and/or are casual.

Unofficially: A social Bermuda Triangle of time and a reason to connect when you don't have anything but lost socks to comment about

Statistically:
Useful summary 
Full report: Information Solutions Group: 2010 Social Gaming Research

Wikily: Wiki on Social Gaming

Visually:

Social Games: A Bermuda Triangle for Time

Folksonomy - Jargon for today

Officially: More commonly known as a tag they are keywords, normally allocated by the author, that identify what topic or category an element on a website could sit under. These keywords are used in searches to find related content across the web or within a website. If folksonomies are made public, web-based book marking services are able to index them.

Unofficially: Funky name for a tag. It's a mashup of folks and taxonomy.

Wikily: Folksonomy on Wiki

Visually:

That's 'taxonomy' you great Baboon, not 'taxidermy'.

My new iphone and different returns on social media - Part II

It's been a month since deciding to start this blog and I'm left wondering how on earth people find the time to read all the great stuff out there let alone write about it. This led me to the decision that I needed to use my time on the go and there it was, a perfect excuse to get an iPhone. I didn't need much persuading to be honest.

Already it's opened up so much more of the digital world to me. I had a so called smart phone before but it simply wasn't in the same league. To be fair however it was a 2G. Yes they do still exist.

Smart phones are now built more of data usage than telco efficacy. They are changing the way we communicate, disseminate and consume information, and make buying decisions. In fact, when you look at Mashable's comparison of the latest and greatest you'll see it has nothing to do with being a good phone anymore. (Good luck Nokia.)

Now all us marketeers have to do is learn to leverage this and make a little return on it. This return could be in the shape of reducing churn because a customer Tweeted a complaint and it was picked up on, or giving your advocates a platform upon which they can do the selling for you or getting free user research on a new launch. If anyone from the Google Wave team is reading this, I'd love to help with said research.

Although I am sure there are thousands of Digital Gods out there already selling ROI on social media in this way, perhaps it's time for us Mortal Digital bods to do the same?

Why this blog?

A friend and and I were having a debate on whether or not there was such a thing as a digital planner. Did being a good offline account planner automatically mean you could be a good digital one just as long as you learnt how your target consumer used the digital space? To my surprise this person, who incidentally works for the same Agency that produced Steven King, did not think so. What, the consumer is no longer king? OK - I'm grossly simplifying the conversation that covered the brand, marketplace, Client objectives etc. but I'm hoping you'll get the gist. Unfortunately I was told that this is no longer enough and that 'traditional planners' were pretty much a dime a dozen. Apparently what is needed now are planners who know the digital world inside out, anything less and you're no longer future-proof.

Having got over my slightly bruised ego I began to wonder what it is about the digital world that requires such an intimate understanding of the channel itself? Even within that sentence I'm not sure that calling it the 'digital world' or implying it is only 'one' channel is strictly speaking correct. What I do know is that I sit in results meetings and yet again the online team say they've had a brilliant month. 70% growth YOY in orders, falling cost per responses and doubling budgets.

Since I love my job and the power it gives me to be a consumer champion I've decided that this dime a dozen planner is going to learn more. How consumers use it, which part of 'it' they use, what's their reason for using it? Intuitively I know I have to understand all these things and more, but what I want to explore is why and more importantly how it will make my strategies and creative more effective for the Client and more relevant for the consumer.

So I embark on a journey to prove that a 'traditional planner' can embrace the digital world. Is it enough to put the consumer at the heart of everything we do as long as we understand what consumers do and where they do it online? How can we leverage that knowledge to engage and persuade them?

Realising that I am going to be pulling from several sources who know what they are talking about - ironically most of which are online - and that there must be other planners out there in my shoes, I thought it would be worth blogging what I find. At the very least it's a good place to pull together everything for me. Without this I have a strange feeling that I will be as redundant as the banker who said 'yes buying another bank's bad debt is a really good idea'; wish me luck.