Will Linked-In outlive FaceBook?

According Geoffrey James:

“With all due respect to Facebook, paying $1 billion for Instagram smacks of desperation.

It’s as if CEO Mark Zuckerberg is terrified of becoming irrelevant and is willing to spend insane amounts of money in order for Facebook remain on the forefront of cool. (…)

That’s a hopeless quest, though.  Facebook may be many things, but it’s not cool any longer.  It lost that imprimatur back when it allowed corporate pages (yes, even yours) and advertising. (…)

More importantly, nobody seems to love Facebook any more.  People seem mostly tolerate it, because it’s convenient. And that’s why Facebook remains vulnerable.

Consumer-oriented social networking sites are like television networks: People will switch when there’s something better on another channel. (…)

That’s not true of LinkedIn, though.  LinkedIn is all about business and people’s resumes.  Because its scope is limited to fundamentally dull information, LinkedIn is simply not vulnerable to something “cooler.” (…)

That’s why I believe that LinkedIn will keep growing, becoming increasingly valuable and relevant–while Facebook will eventually be replaced by “cooler” technologies that appeal to a fundamentally fickle base of consumers. (…)

As a result, LinkedIn is building a loyal customer base, while Facebook is involved in an expensive and probably pointless quest to remain relevant.

James, Geofrrey. LinkedIn will outlive FaceBook. Here’s why. Inc, Apr. 13, 2012. Available from: http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/linkedin-vs-facebook-which-will-survive.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed [Accessed 13th April 2012]

 

 

 

 

 

Social tools for US Libraries: an update

Based on a new report by Joseph McKendrick.  The Digital Squeeze: Libraries at the Crossroads surveyed 730 public, academic, special, education, and government libraries in the US.

“Librarians report a levelling off in the use of Facebook and LinkedIn to connect with customers and the use of wikis and blogs is declining.  However, more of them are using collaborative tools including the sharing of web pages, subject guides, and the use of document-sharing, photo and video sharing web apps.

Libraries, unsurprisingly, reported an increased demand for ebooks, wireless connectivity and other technology tools and services.  More than one-third of the respondents reported that they spent more money on information technology hardware, software, and related IT services over the past year. 

More libraries are moving to the cloud for operational support and content storage.  26% of them are already offering e-readers, with one respondent stating that this activity will be an area of ‘extreme growth’.

 

Skelton, Val. Libraries, the digital squeeze and ebooks. InformationToday Europe, 12th of April 2012. Available from: http://www.infotoday.eu/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Libraries-the-digital-squeeze-and-ebooks-81910.aspx [Accessed 13th April 2012]

Values of Social Network for Scientists (by Comprendia)

“Here at Comprendia, we’ve never advocated that Facebook should be recreated for scientists, as there are 700,000+ life science graduates in the US already using the application,* and they are likely already connected there to lab mates and colleagues. Rather, we should broaden our idea of the ‘social network’ to include any online community of scientists, not just those which are similar to Facebook. The value of social networks for scientists lies in faster access to information relevant to their research and the communities that are made more available by new tools. Here are 6 successful examples which can be used to understand scientific social communities. (…)

1. Facebook Pages & LinkedIn Groups. Scientists have used mailing lists and forums for years. Facebook pages and LinkedIn groups are a ’2.0′ version of them with the benefits of centralization and easier access to participants. Life science companies, most notably Life Technologies, have fostered social networks in the form of Facebook pages centered on a topic.
2. Twitter Hashtags. Scientists use Twitter to share scientific blog posts and news, to find friends and colleagues around a topic or event, and sometimes to vent about their situation. Hashtags, which are text identifiers for status updates on a topic, allow a Twitter social network to form around it…
3. ScienceOnline
4. True Social Networks. (…) ResearchGate’s has 1.4 million users, as we know that scientists don’t have time for frivolous endeavors, especially when they’re under the watchful eye of their Principal Investigator. As we noted in our post a year ago, there has to be a value for them to participate, and the successful ones center around research publications. BiomedExperts, CiteULike, ResearchBlogging, andResearchGate had the highest traffic in our quick study, and they all rely heavily on publications. I like to say that PubMed was the first social network for scientists.
5. Publication Sharing/Open Access. Related to the last point is a subject that requires its own mention as it transverses from proper social networks to desktop applications, Twitter, and even a movement to make research publications more accessible.Mendeley is the rock star of the publication sharing/open access genre, boasting 1.77 million users who are sharing 169 million publications. When we speak with life scientists at conferences or client visits, we often hear about the application even from those who are not strong believers in social media. Additionally, these applications have whetted scientists’ appetites for more open access to publications
6. Blogs.  “blogs were one of the first forms of social media for scientists.”  Blog aggregators such as ResearchBlogging orScienceSeeker feature hundreds of blogs and likely a comparable number of communities focused around individual research topics.

(…)

At conferences and networking events today, we are seeing a transition, albeit slowly, to a new breed of scientists who understand the importance of scientific networks. We need to adjust our definition of scientific social networks to understand the next steps towards helping scientists use them to thrive.

What Is A Scientific Social Network? 6 Thriving and Inspiring Examples
Comprendia, March 12th, 2012

US Inc. 500: less blogging, more Facebooking

To read in Information Today Europe:

For the last five years the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s Center for Marketing Research has been conducting a study about the use of social media in the 500 fastest growing organisations in the US (The Inc. 500.)  The first study, conducted in 2007, found that these companies were much more likely to have adopted blogs than those in the ‘traditional’ Fortune 500.

The latest findings show that the use of blogging in the Inc. 500 companies is declining for the first time. Blogging had declined to 37% from 50% in 2010. (…)

However, as blogging reaches maturity in these organisations, the use of other social media, including Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Mobile apps, texting, Twitter and YouTube, is growing.  74% of responding companies were using Facebook, and 73% using LinkedIn. (…)

Read further:

Val Skelton, A blog post about the decline of blogging. Information Today Europe Blog, 2nd of February 2012.

http://www.infotodayeurope.com/2012/02/02/a-blog-post-about-the-decline-of-blogging/

 

 

 

Health students prefer FaceBook to Twitter

A few findings of a recent study which suveyed health students (medicine, nurse, pharmacy, biotechnology, etc.) in the US:

• use of internet and social media is not a prevalent in the health professional community due to privacy and security concerns, but it is an area that is growing
• 64% responded that they make decision based on ads heard or read on online media
• Online media is the primary source of information for 56% of them
• FaceBook is used by 77% of respondents
• Only 7% use Twitter, 18% Linked-In

Giordano, C. & Giordano, C. Health professions students’ use of social media. Journal of Allied Health, 2011, Vol.40, N°2, pp. 78-81

Linked-In: an awesome information resource…

… for building your reputation, your connections and your knowledge.

Interesting tips to improve your professional use of Linked-In.

Goodman, Elisabeth. FUMSI, Posted on 1st of June 2011.
http://web.fumsi.com/go/article/find/64268

 

Social networking is a cool medical gadget

For Medscape, Social networking belongs to the 10 most cool and useful medical gadgets.

“Facebook has captured the imagination of the world, claiming 500 million active users, half of whom log in on any given day. You can be sure that plenty of physicians are among those masses. But where do you go when you want to discuss medicine or simply connect with other doctors?

LinkedIn, a business-focused networking site, has at least 100 million users worldwide, but there are several social and professional networking sites just for healthcare professionals, some of which offer secure communications suitable for colleagues who already know each other to discuss specific cases. (Medscape’s discussion boards are popular landing spots for physicians).

For patients, there’s an emerging field called participatory medicine. A group called the Society for Participatory Medicine defines it as “a cooperative  model of healthcare that encourages and expects active involvement by all connected parties (patients, caregivers, healthcare professionals, etc.) as integral to the full continuum of care.” Patients facing serious health challenges have been flocking to sites such as Organized Wisdom and PatientsLikeMe.

Neil Versel. 10 Totally Cool and Incredibly Useful Medical Gadgets and Apps. Medscape News Today, Posted: 05/18/2011
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/742609

Trends of the year 2010: Linked-In and BioMedExperts

2008 was the year of Enterprise 2.0.

2009 was the year of social networks.

2010 is the year of niche social networks: among them, Linked-in and Biomedexperts.

“By helping users keep their business lives separate from vacation plans, baby pictures, and videos of kittens, LinkedIn provides a valuable professional resource for its 75 million users“

“BiomedExperts, which was developed by Collexis, provides a good example of how such sites operate. With 300,000 active users and 1.8 million prepopulated profiles (which are generated based on 10 years of published research data), the site is focused entirely on researchers in the biomedical field. Users can track professional connections, co-authors, and published papers to facilitate collaboration“.

Schiller, Kurt. Five trends shaking up the Internet. Information Today, October 2010. Online:
http://www.infotoday.com/IT/oct10/Schiller.shtml

Science 2.0: talking about or doing Science?!

There is no doubt that young scientists are attracted by social network: 56 % of early career researchers use social networking site personally but only 13% professionnaly.

But, despite numerous products on the place (at least 7 major sites only for Scientists), “none of these sites yet seems to have captured the interest of a significant proportion of the scientific community, although this could also be because researchers are unwilling to discuss their work openly. Research in progress is less likely to be publicly discussed, regardless of how useful input could be, for fear of having ideas and results stolen by other research teams“, concludes Sarah Hugget.

At the time being, it is clear that “Science Social Networking” is more a buzz-word than a real practice deeply adopted by Scientists over the world.

David Crotty explained, once again, how science 2.0 failed: “Nearly all of the more visible attempts so far have focused on talking about science, rather than tools for actually doing science.”

David Crotty makes a clear distinction between Science Communication (which is not the core business of Scientists) and the Science itself: “Communication is an important part of being a scientist. It is not, however, the top priority for most. (…) Even without new online technologies, scientists already spend a substantial portion of their time communicating. They share results with peers, plan future experiments with collaborators, give talks, write papers, teach, etc. New social media endeavors ask scientists to devote even more time to communication, but it’s unclear where participants are supposed to find that time“. (…)

“Scientists are no different than other humans. Most people don’t blog. It’s not something they’re interested in doing. Blogging tends to attract those with a strong interest in communication, writing, and teaching” (…)

Even counting 600 scientists on Twitter, “you’re still talking about a very small percentage of the tens of millions of working scientists in the world“.

Crotty, David.  Science and Web 2.0: Talking about Science Vs. Doing Science. Posted on Feb. 8, 2010: http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2010/02/08/science-and-web-2-0-talking-about-science-versus-doing-science/

Hugget, Sarah. Social networking in academia. Research Trends, March 2010. Online: http://www.info.scopus.com/researchtrends/archive/RT16/re_tre_16.html?ut