The Web analytics firm, Sysomos, has examined the pathology of Twitter and determined that it's not quite the social network one thought --- mainly, people use it to broadcast information but the sharing has its limitations.

Sysomos looked at 1.2 billion Tweets over the last two months and found 71% generated no response whatever. Some 23% generated a reply, but a very small percentage (6%) were deemed worth sharing with one's followers upon receipt.

And perhaps the more startling finding is how Tweets wither on the vine quickly --- if they're not ReTweeted in the first hour, they tend not to be at all. Some 92% of ReTweeting took place in the first hour, Sysomos found. (It is possible that Twitter streams are so vast that users can't keep track of what they're sent, so they don't dig very far back to look for content to share.)

How deep are conversations on Twitter? Sysomos said not very. The number of Tweets three levels deep --- that is, those that are sent, replied to, replied to again and replied to again --- amounts to about 1.5%.

 
 
In deciphering the noise about Facebook's latest measures on privacy and sharing, Buzzmachine's Jeff Jarvis admits he's been a little baffled. Why have so many people suddenly gotten hostile to the social network?

Jarvis thinks it may have to do with Facebook confusing sharing with publishing. In other words, Facebook is assuming that what you put on your page is effectively there for the world, when he thinks it ought to simply be there for the public you've chosen (that is, your Friends and perhaps their Friends).

Facebook wants to be the creator and enabler of identities, but cannot because users do not want it to be so, he asserts.
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Every so often comes research that redeems faith in the human condition.
Babycenter  and the Keller Fay Group conducted research that indicates new and expectant mothers are influenced by word of mouth more than anything.
The research shows that such women have an average of 109 such conversations a week and are more likely to be influenced on buying, trying or considering a product or service.
The oldest social network there is, still works.

 
 

News that the Gannett and Meredith organizations have conscripted a social-networking technology firm to generate new digital enterprises.
In the case of Gannett, it'll create an independent music site to promote local artists in an effort to connect them to radio play. The fever of social networking will presumably be the catalyst to get them on the air.
And in the case of Meredith, it wants to launch what it says is the first user-generated recipe-exchange site.
Both have enlisted Ripple6, which has built a thriving new social network for the Guiding Light television program for Procter & Gamble.

 
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