Drew B's take on tech PR

Social media's impact on media consumption trends [report]

One thing that fascinates me as a PR person who works in social media is the ways in which technology is changing our media consumption habits. Which is why I've been poring over the latest Mintel report on the state of the social networking economy. [Disclaimer, Mintel is a 33 Digital client, which is why I've had access to the full report]. 

Mintel's social media report looks at the impact of advertising, user demographics, social networks ranging from Foursquare to Twitter and even Friends Reunited, and interestingly to me, how news consumption habits have changed due to our use of social media.

The research shows that across all age groups, four in ten consumers use social networks to keep up with the latest news, with the expected peak with younger members. 62% of 16-24s cite media consumtion as a reason to use social networks. As Mintel puts it: "the statistics highlight the changing nature of how news is delivered and consumed by the younger generation."

A graphic from the report below shows the skew between younger and older generations. 

The full report is available here - if you use my own Mintel discount code d33 on checkout then 20% off applies. Like I say, 33 Digital represents Mintel, for full disclosure. 

Facebook face recognition. A viral match made in heaven

Remember Glastotag? The massive (record breaking even?) photos of several hundred thousand people stitched together and put on Facebook for people to tag away. It went all over the net, and set a trend for large photo collages of people to be tagged in that way.  A nice little PR stunt for the brands that could spare the time and money putting it together. 

Now Facebook has put live its face recognition technology - the system tells you and your friends when you're in a photo, even before you've labelled it up. The media privacy backlash/outcry/horror has already begun with UK newspaper cover stories on the privacy concerns. 

Pic courtesy of Brisbane Times and Sophos

But smart PR and digital types will be looking at interesting ways to take photos of people and make them spread even further using this new face recognition. The challenge is to tread the thin line between creepy and cool. 

The day the Olympics broke the internet

I wrote a blog for the 33 Digital site this week on how the Olympics ticketing was discussed online. The blog post is here in case you're intetrested in how things are looking. 

What I found fascinating: the surge of activity before 9am - this is quite rare. And also the lack of engagement even when there is a channel. This could have been a really positive opportunity.