Open Source Banking, Social Lending, Social networks

Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities

Here is an analytical paper, that develops empirical evidence on how and why people are moving towards microblogging type platforms, and communication methods.  Its worthwhile for us to understand the motivations, notwithstanding the pro’s and con’s we each feel about them. 

University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Using the link structure, following are the main categories of users on Twitter:

  • Information Source An information source is also a hub and has a large number  of followers. This user may post updates on regular intervals or infrequently.  Despite infrequent updates, certain users have a large number of followers due to the valuable nature of their updates. Some of the information sources were also found to be automated tools posting news and other useful information on Twitter.
  • Friends Most relationships fall into this broad category. There are many sub-categories of friendships on Twitter. For example a user may have friends,family and co-workers on their friend or follower lists. Sometimes unfamiliar users may also add someone as a friend.
  • Information Seeker An information seeker is a person who might post rarely, but follows other users regularly.

They go on to make some suggestions that would facilitate usage for people.

Based on our analysis of userintentions, we believe that the ability to categorize friends into groups (e.g. family, co-workers) would greatly benefit the adoption of microblogging platforms. In addition featuresthat could help facilitate conversations and sharing news would be beneficial.

Relevance to Bankwatch:
To better understand the dynamic driving online usage and how customer experience is changing, and developing, as Web 2.0 rapidly evolves.

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2 thoughts on “Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities”

  1. I think the misunderstanding that sites like twitter, but also facebook and even flickr produce is that people obsserving such systems still come from the “website, one to many” broadcasting paradigm, whereas services like twitter are all about narrow-casting amongst a relatively limited circle of friends and family. It’s no coincidence that the rungs of privacy that operate in social media spaces are presented in kinship terms. That is a lesson to learn for companies wanting to engage with their customers in social spaces: they can’t just broadcast, they need to engage on a personal level and get into their customers’ friends lists, become affiliated, literally.

  2. @Menachem … I agree fully … companies [Banks] need to have the customer want them in their network in some way. Thats a big leap …

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