Open The Dialogue

A few weeks ago, a coworker mentioned they had tried a new chat service where you can meet random people online using a webcam.  I didn’t give it much thought then because I couldn’t test it out as my webcam on my laptop was broken.  I did, however, give it a moment’s pause for what was about to be unleashed on the masses with this anonymous video chat service.  Those thoughts proved prophetic and Chatroulette has since exploded on to the scene.  This obviously didn’t happened on its own, and with the use of MWW Groups D.insight powered by Radian6, I take a look into how it came about in the last couple of weeks.

Total Mentions:  58,704

Media Channels

Based on the chart above, the conversation is really taking place mostly on micromedia websites like Twitter and Friendfeed.  However, the three next most popular channels suggest that there is a lot of conversation happening about Chatroulette based on the high volume of comments and forum replies.  However, to understand what is really driving the conversation over time, a more detailed view is required.

Daily Trends and Key Drivers

The following graph really captures the sudden rise in buzz about Chatroulette.

As the graph shows, starting on February 20th, there was clear rise in mention on blogs and comments.  The New York Times article “The Surreal World of Chatroulette” started off this rise in mentions on the 19th, which was later followed by CNN and a number of other news sites.  While these stories primed the public on the topic, they were not the source of the major spike in mention on the 23rd and 24th of February and again on March 4th.

It took Mashable’s post “Calling All Romantics: Chatroulette Now Has Its Own Missed Connections” to give it that boost that traditional news sites could not.  Also a major driver of mention was the short documentary about user behavior by Casey Neistat.

The second large spike on March 4th was due to a piece by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show.  The video is available on the Daily Show website and should be viewed at your own risk.

Key Sentiment About the Site

While the service has received high increase in mentions in a very short time, a majority of the mentions are neutral.  However, this chart highlights the prevalence of some key words used to describe the site.  The website is definitely connecting with the public because of its entertainment value despite traditional media’s framing of it as the “dark side of the internet.”

Key Personalities

While Jon Stewart’s video was a major driver of conversation, there were a few other notable celebrities testing out the service.  Even Kermit the Frog was seen engaged in some questionable practices on the service and hope the Jonas Brothers will not need counselling from being exposed to the website.

Just because it’s Friday doesn’t mean we are taking the day off! Here are some of the social media stories that got bookmarked by Dialogue Media this week.

One is the Loneliest Number, but One Billion is a lot Happier

In case anyone is still trying to convince you that social media is a fad, new numbers suggest that two of the largest sites in the world could both pull in 1 Billion Dollars in revenue in the coming years. It seems that Facebook is geared to hit the 1.1 billion mark in 2010 while YouTube could hit the magic mark in 2011 ( and have Google keep 700 million in the process).  Not bad for a fad.

American Idol’s Social Profiles Get a Facelift

After establishing profiles for each of the 24 contestants earlier in the season, American Idol has apparently consolidated their entire operation into one account on each major network.  Fans of contestants were greeted by “Thanks so much for following me! All my updates from now on will be on our Official Ai9 Twitter Page”. Some are wondering if follower counts were taking away some of the mystery that AI usually enjoys.  We’re wondering if this will affect how fans interact with the brand down the road.  What do you think?

Foursquare and Owalla to Battle for World Domination at SXSW

Well… not really.  But after unveiling last year at the conference, both have rolled out new features in anticipation of this year’s party in Austin.  Techcrunch is reporting that Owalla has done a major redesign while Foursquare has added a category functionality.  And the word on the street is that both are rolling out new mobile apps next week.  We’re happy using both, but it will be interesting to see who wins this battle of the buzz.

What were some of your favorite PR or social media stories of the last week?

Pew Internet and American Life Project and the Project for Excellence in Journalism released “Understanding the Participatory News Consumer,” on Monday and it has received a ton of attention around the key findings.  Notably, the majority of Americans (92%) use multiple platforms to get their daily news, and more than half (59%) are getting news from both online and offline sources on a typical day.

The degree to which Americans are personalizing and filtering this content is especially noteworthy, with highlights collected by MediaBistro including:

• 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.
• 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.
• 37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.
• 51% of social networking site users who are also online news consumers say that on a typical day they get news items from people they follow.
• 23% of this cohort follow news organizations or individual journalists on social networking sites.

This fits with the recent Cision report (pdf), which showed how media are using social platforms to publish, promote and distribute what they write (64% use blogs, 60% social networks, and 57% Twitter).  Additionally, a full 89% of media are turning to blogs for their online research, making this process truly cyclical.

With 70% of Americans noting that the amount of news and information available from different sources is overwhelming, I think we will see more and more trends pointing to users testing multiple news sources and filtering for perceived noise.  From a PR perspective, this points to the importance of brands telling a cohesive story over multiple platforms, providing a range of consumer touch points, and as always, creating content that is truly valuable for media and consumers.

Although fashion and social media are two industries that have always seemed to be very separate, over the past year, with the news of publishing powerhouses losing readership to their online counterparts and advertisers dropping like flies, the fashion industry, once ruled by magazines, has seemingly surrendered and is beginning to embrace digital media.

Survival of the Fittest

Big-name magazines like Glamour, Vogue and Elle now have their own blogs – usually connected to the publication’s website. Most major magazines including Vanity Fair and Vogue’s UK edition also have a presence on Twitter as do many of their individual employees. New York Fashion Week even maintains its own Twitter account with details of shows and Fashion Week events.

Technologically speaking, it was recently reported that Conde Nast, one of the industry’s largest publishers, intends to release some of their top magazines on the newly released Apple iPad. Conde Nast also announced that Vogue, one of the publisher’s largest and most well known fashion magazines, will be launching an iPhone application. This application will help user with shopping and styling. The Wall Street Journal’s Christina Brinkley calls it “part of the all-out rush in the fashion industry to embrace technology—most notably with blogging and tweeting.”

Power Plays

Bloggers, once considered lint on the tailored jacket of the fashion industry, have become a force to be reckoned with. Blogs such as Bryan Boy and Style Rookie creator Tavi Gevison have garnered enough respect to warrant star-treatment typically reserved for the upper echelon of style writers and editors.  In fact, Tavi, who is 13-years-old, was flown to Tokyo to cover a party with popular French label Comme des Garcons for Harper’s Bazaar.

Not only are these bloggers writing extensively about the industry, they actively participate in events including runway shows. This past month at New York Fashion Week alone we saw an influx of bloggers not only attending designer’s shows but sitting front row amongst fashion industry royalty such as Anna Wintour, Grace Coddington and celebrities like the Olsen Twins.

To accommodate these bloggers, designers have also embraced the digital age. This past season, big name designers like Marc Jacobs and Calvin Klein made their shows available to home viewers by live streaming their shows.

Shares Well With Others

The fashion industry is traditionally based on a hierarchy of exclusivity and while some industry veterans disagree with the growing digital trends it seems that the industry as a whole is starting to accept that their target audience is paying attention to these mediums. What is the draw? Besides the obvious:  it’s cheaper and easier  to access –  interaction is key. Fashion bloggers are interacting with their readers; hosting giveaways and translating runway looks to the sidewalks. This accessibility is putting a different face on fashion – one other than models and style moguls.

The fashion industry has learned the same lesson as many other industries: shunning the online world will not make it disappear or lessen its influence. It seems, for now at least, that fashion publications, designers and editors are embracing digital media and learning to wield the powerful tools that are the digital world.