ImpactWatch Blog

Here at ImpactWatch, we’re always looking to the future; whether that be information aggregation, social media tracking, sentiment analysis, or mobile communication. So imagine our bewilderment when we saw the following video and realized that the augmented reality that it depicts may not be all that far off. And furthermore – users may not be able to opt-out of facial recognition/social media hybridization.

Read Write Web may have said it best:There’s very little gray area on this one: You’re either completely excited by the potential for built-in facial recognition combined with smartphones and social networks, or your entirely creeped out and afraid for the future of the planet.

Watch the video about video and face tagging (and how it can be synchronized with augmented reality mobile software) and let us know what you thought in the comments:

Viewdle – Photo and Video Face Tagging from Viewdle on Vimeo.

(Re-posted from the Bivings Report)

In comparing the Facebook pages of the top 86 magazines by circulation, while those with the highest circulations generally had the highest number of Facebook fans, much like our newspaper study this presents a problem when trying to quantify engagement. In short, how do you avoid biasing your results towards magazines with a small, but engaged numbers of Facebook fans.

For a magazine like Playboy with 2.3 million fans, what is the best approach  to compare engagement on their Facebook page to engagement on Time’s which has over 2 million fewer members? While there are some  statistical methods can compensate, at the end of the day we believe  it’s going to come down to a qualitative, rather than quantitative judgment. In this respect, we present our own views as to the top ten magazines on Facebook. If you agree / disagree or have a better method please let us know in the comments!

Please feel free to share or embed this image on your blog w/ attribution: Download at http://bivin.gs/i93iiJ.

See the speadsheet of our raw data after the jump -
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Here at the IW blog, we’re all about data aggregation and analysis. This naturally led us to be really interested in hyper-local blogs. They aggregate information and do research about issues that large local newspapers couldn’t devote resources to. These sites are also an interesting microcosm of concerned citizenry trying to make their communities a better place. And thus, we decided to create an IW list of our favorite Washington, DC blogs. Enjoy:

Greater Greater Washington - This blog has over 40 editors who contribute at least 4 lengthy articles to the site every weekday. GGW often features graphs, charts, and research conducted by the authors themselves (as opposed to aggregated data from other news outlets). Likewise, many of the pictures of the site are ones that the authors take using their own cell phones or cameras. GGW also provides handy links to useful (smaller) community pages that even allowed members of the TBG staff to sign up for a Glover Park email listserv.

Prince of Petworth – This hyper-local blog, run by Dan Silverman, focuses on the news, real estate, and events happening in Petworth, Columbia Heights, Park View, Adams Morgan, Pleasant Plains, U Street,  Logan Circle, and Mt. Pleasant neighborhoods. Unlike the DCist, PoP talks quite a bit about area real estate and development issues – while letting their commenter run wild with other topics and open questions.

TBD (for it’s aggregation capabilities) – We know that TBD is affiliated in a local news service (ABC 7), but their focus on the social media information aggregation in the DC community is pretty commendable. The make google maps of cool bars, link to community news, and allow you to create a user account and customize your TBD news experience. We’re also HUGE fans of the @TBDCommute twitter account – which you can follow to get up-to-the-minute tweets about escalator outages, traffic accidents, and other WMATA issues.

DCIst - We may not be breaking any ground here by mentioning a blog in the city-ist sphere. However, DCist can always be relied upon to not only provide relevant news, events, and links that keep us entertained throughout the week.

Also honorable mentions: FamousDC and FishBowlDC which both feature great content.

Curious about other things that are popular in DC nowadays? Check out the Washington Post’s DC Tweeps 2011 list – which recently held a vote to determine the most popular twitter users in a number of categories.

Did we forget to mention your favorite DC blog? Let us know in the comments below

(Cross posted from the Bivings Report)

The Bivings Group has just completed a newspaper online interactivity report looking at Facebook fan engagement amongst the nation’s top 100 newspapers (as determined by circulation). Our main focus was to compare large and small newspapers across the nation by looking at the number of fans that interacted with the newspaper and amongst themselves via posted content via Facebook Fan pages. Over 1,000 individual wall posts were used to determine the averages seen in the above picture.

In addition to ranking each paper by the number of Facebook fans, we also looked at number of comments per post, and the variety of post on each page. The overarching intent was to create a ranking that allowed large regional newspapers to compete on an even digital playing field with large national papers.

1. The Washington Post – The Post ranks 3rd in number of Facebook fans within the top 100 US newspapers, but it’s particularly effective form of audience engagement is what ranks it at the top of our list. It averages 41 likes and 55 comments for every post on it’s fan page wall, and maintains a very high fan-to-circulation ratio. The Post also features two custom tabs and its editors periodically use HootSuite to schedule posts and ensure a consistent stream of information to its readers.
2. The Chicago Tribune – It may be ranked 9th in the US in terms of circulation, but the Chicago Tribune has its Facebook engagement down to a science. It boasts a custom Welcome landing page, a number of newspaper-specific sub pages,as well as a discussion tab. This is in addition to it’s high average number of likes and comments on every post, and its continuous reader questions.
3. The Arizona Republic (azcentral.com web portal) – Due in part to its collaboration with AZcentral.com, the Arizona republic is ranked 3rd on this list despite having a 40% lower circulation than the first-ranked Washington Post. Its average number of likes and comments on posts (as a function of its total number of Facebook fans) shows that Arizona Republic routinely engaged a larger number of its fan base.
4. The Denver Post – This regional powerhouse newspaper has a greater number of Facebook fans than the nationally-distributed Los Angeles Times. The average number of likes and comments on newspaper’s posts are similar to newspapers with much larger circulations. Likewise, the Denver Post utilizes custom tabs to post Contests and Classifieds on its fan page.
5. San Jose Mercury News – This newspaper ranks 8th in circulation within the United States, but we’ve ranked it 5th on this list due to its consistently active Facebook fans. Often, the fan page will feature simple status updates (sans links) and will ask the readers questions or just wish them a good morning. It is this variety in fan communication that earns the Mercury News a spot in the top 5 of this list.
6. The New York Times – This is the nation’s third largest newspaper in terms of circulation, but is by far the most popular news source on Facebook with over one million fans. In fact, their number of Facebook fans actually exceeds their daily circulation – which is something no other top 100 US newspaper has accomplished. However, the number of comments and likes that their posts attain do not show proportional engagement of their one million fans.
7. The Los Angeles Times – This west coast paper’s fan base is surpassed in number by much smaller regional papers such as the Denver Post. However, its fans state engaged and its numbers of average likes and comments remain fairly high.  Distinctive feature: their posts are often published using HootSuite – as opposed to manually sent on Facebook.com.
8. The Cleveland Plain Dealer (Cleveland.com web portal) – By partnering up with the Cleveland.com web portal, the Plain Dealer’s Facebook an page become a hub of all things Cleveland-related.  The page also encourages fans to post pictures and otherwise interact with the Plain Dealer news, sports, and entertainment stories that they post.
9. USA Today -   The page boasts an impressive number of Facebook fans and often asks their fans questions relating to the links that they are posting. However, with a circulation of over 1.8 million (and being one of the best recognized national newspapers)– one would think that USA Today can attain a higher number of fans than 38,000.
10. The Wall Street Journal – This may be the largest US newspaper in terms of circulation (and one of the only ones with a profitable content paywall on the website) , but it’s follower and fan engagement numbers are still only a fraction of those on the NY Times Facebook page. Nonetheless, the page is frequently updates and fans are able to have lively discussions about each post.

This week SLURP140 has been tracking the TEDx MidAtlantic event being held in Washington, DC on November 5th.

Using the ImpactWatch Social Media Monitoring tools, this version of SLURP   140 can serve as your go-to guide to seeing what kind of information is presented during this set of TED talks. If you are unable to attend, watching this SLURP-stream should allow you to glean the most important facts and tidbits from the speakers. We will also be tracking the conference hastags and seeing which users stand out as the event’s shining (twitter) stars.

Interested in going to the always-informative TEDx event yourself? The details for the event are as follows:

• Sidney Harman Hall in Washington, DC
• Time: All Day (8am – 8pm)
• Number of speakers: 22
• Number of attendees: 750

Soluto, which bills itself as “anti-frustration software,” beat out 19 other start-ups to win the $50k prize at TechCrunch’s Disrupt Conference this week. This was especially timely for me since I’ve had two incidents this week where Microsoft’s Diagnostic tool popped up to inform me that Office “seems to be crashing a lot.”

Yes, I’d noticed that as well. After letting MS do a checkup on my machine, I was disappointed both times that it had no suggestions as to what the problem might be. I agreed to let MS upload the data from my desktop, to be added to its database of information from other users that it has failed to help.

Soluto seems to use the same steps as MS’s diagnostics – first checking the programs that are using CPU and memory capacity, then compiling this data from a community of users, to draw conclusions about when and why the system is slowed or stalled. Beta invites are currently delayed due to the influx of interest from TC Disrupt. When it’s open, I would love to see if Soluto can achieve results where MS’s own tools come up blank.

One of the coolest features is that Soluto will be making its aggregate data public. The software makers who are responsible for these technological bottlenecks will be able to see which experiences users find most frustrating. I’m personally interested in how the tool will attribute these issues. Will user error be a category? Can the tool determine when Johnny is storing 5,000 mp3s or when Susie hasn’t run defrag in 3 years?

In all honesty, I know exactly why my computer slows and shuts down programs. I’m a personal computer’s worst nightmare. I have 10 programs and 30 browser tabs open. I’m downloading, uploading, switching between programs and banging on the keyboard like Rick Allen.* I should be using a workstation, not a laptop. I’m sure there are a lot of “power users” out there who are biting off more data than their specs can chew, and I wonder if/how this will be represented in Soluto’s “PC Genome” database of frustrations.

Anyway, it sounds cool and maybe it can help my mother-in-law figure out “what that little spinning rainbow thing means” on her Mac.

Here are the 19 startups that didn’t take the prize but that are worth checking out (they did beat out a few hundred other entrants). Descriptions via TechCrunch:

• Audioo: The Audioo platform allows users to auto-stream, publicly share, and store voicemails from handsets and services including Google Voice.

• Appbistro: Appbistro is an application marketplace for Facebook pages.

• Art.sy: Art.sy is the destination to discover and share original fine art online.

• Betterment: Betterment is intended to be a replacement for your savings account, allowing you to invest in two portfolios.

• ChompOn: ChompOn allows any business to run its own social flash sales.

• Compass Labs: Compass Labs is a social e-commerce ad network for Twitter.

• Fluidinfo: FluidInfo is a Wikipedia of databases – a shared online always-writable cloud database.

• Geotoko: Geotoko is a promotional campaign management platform for geo location based services.

• Keenkong: Keenkong is a social media monitoring engine that extracts why people are talking, what are they talking about, who they are and then segments messages accordingly.

• Live Matrix: Live Matrix is a guide to video events and streams taking place on the web.

• Movieclips.com: Movieclips.com is an online database of movie clips.

• NoiseToys: NoiseToys is a software company uses games and competition to encourage users to share and discover music.

• Off & Away: Off & Away is an online travel site that offers exceptional travel experiences in fun and unique ways.

• Publish2: Publish2 allows newspapers to create a comprehensive, customized newswire for print.

• Textingly: Textingly provides a texting address, a web management console and apis for businesses to create immediate, two-way dialog with their customers.

• Tickreel: Tickreel is a web filter that makes the web less of a black box and significantly improves how users consume the web.

• UJAM: UJAM is a cloud-based platform that allows users to create new music or enhance their existing musical talent and share it with friends.

• VideoGenie: VideoGenie allows companies to customer-source video testimonials.

• WeReward: WeReward is a mobile incentive platform that rewards consumers for check-ins or performing tasks.

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*I’ve been working one-handed to rest my wrist. More on that next week.

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-Image: Soluto.

I discovered (AKA fell in love with) Vimeo about a year ago (despite the site existing months before YouTube).  Like many other casual Internet users, I didn’t know that something existed for uploaded videos more than YouTube and perhaps ZShare.  Like other video sites, Vimeo allows users to sign up for an account and upload videos for online storing, viewing, and sharing.

In 2007, Vimeo became the first video sharing site to support HD video, allowing regular users to upload one HD movie per week.  In 2008, Vimeo went through more changes, the biggest of which occurred in July 2008 when Vimeo announced that they would no longer allow gaming videos on the site due to their lengthy nature which resulted in longer wait times for user uploads.  Vimeo has already differentiated itself by allowing only videos created by the user and disallowing anything commercial or that could be considered pornographic.

The main way Vimeo differs from other sites comes down to attitude.  As Martin Paling said, Vimeo “doesn’t suffer from some of the idiots [on YouTube]”.  Vimeo’s main goal is to foster a community of filmmakers who can critique and discover videos.  Below is an incredible time-lapse video that I found while exploring the Staff Picks section.

The Longest Way 1.0 – one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

Some other advantages of Vimeo include support for MOD files, unlimited movie length, HD support, and a very clean look to the site.  A very thorough comparison of most of the available current video sharing sites can be found here.  Vimeo goes the Twitter-design route be making the interface clean and bright with large buttons and menus.  A user would be hard pressed to get confused with the navigation.  I also generally prefer the way that stats like likes, comments, and other metrics are displayed.  Check out this example screenshot.

Should you switch over to Vimeo?  The answer depends on what you want to do with online movies.  If you want them to be seen by more people and they’re mostly unedited videos of you and your friends, I’d stick with YouTube.  But if you are editing things that can be considered “films” in some way, shape, or form, go with Vimeo.  In short, YouTube is the popular little brother with the high-paying job, but Vimeo is the older art school bro whose parents secretly prefer at Thanksgiving.

comScore says ‘yes’!  In a recent press release, the company released information and data about holiday e-spending in an attempt to show that social media and online purchasing is on the rise.  Earth-shattering news? No.  But interesting nonetheless.

Below is a chart of the various social media channels that respondents to their survey claimed they had used when gift researching this year.

I find it interesting that user reviews influenced purchases more than expert reviews.  Consumers obviously value recommendations from others, but the expertise level of the source doesn’t matter quite as much.  Also, don’t the numbers for Twitter seem kinda…low?  I would have expected the amount of those following a company and those influenced by a friend’s tweet to be at least a combined 10%.

The release also contains a graph showing the amount of online purchases by week leading up to New Year’s Day.  The recession doesn’t seem to be affecting online holiday shopping for 2009, although this may be due to consumers hoping that the Internet will provide them with better deals than stores.  The week beginning with Cyber Monday (November 30th) sees a huge jump in online spending, although as this Focus article explains, Cyber Monday is never the biggest online shopping day of the year.  It typically begins about a week or two later, though still on a Monday.

I absolutely love movies; I probably go see every single one that comes out in theaters (and yes, that includes such gems as Stepfather).  I was excited to see a Twitter application come out that proposed the idea that it could tally a movie review total from tweets.  It’s called TwitCritics.

We already have plenty of websites and blogs dedicated to movie reviews, so why use this?  Well, I like to think that most Twitter users would immediately tweet about whether or not they liked a movie they just saw.  Think of this not so much a review summary, but a ‘first impression’ summary.  The system searches for tweets that include a movie title, and then assigns a tonality based on the content of the tweet.  A handy ‘mistake’ button is present under each individual tweet to ensure that users can report a faulty rating.

Does it work?  Not completely.  Its success is on a movie-by-movie basis.  Some films that have unique names such as The Men Who Stare at Goats and the tweets for that film are easily recognizable.  Other films such as Fame suffer the issue of having a common word for its title.

Most of the tweets were not actually about the movie but were still rated in the system and part of the film’s overall tonality.  Often, tweets about an actual film were still not rated correctly.  A prime example is below:

Currently, the system doesn’t seem to account for popular acronyms for longer movie titles (such as TMWSAG).

The website is still in its infancy with the Beta only about a month old.  Hopefully, they will find a way to work some of the kinks out.  It doesn’t really subsist as a standalone product, but I could easily see something like this incorporated into a more robust site like Rotten Tomatoes.

Cross posted from The Bivings Report

Anyone that has been to a tech conference the last few years knows that there is a huge amount of back channel communication that occurs on Twitter.   People provide live coverage of the talks they go to.  People organize dinner plans.  People stage revolts against panelists.  The conversation is constant, unfiltered and takes place in real time.

The preeminent poli-tech conference, Personal Democracy Forum, takes place next Monday and Tuesday in New York City.  Since we are a sponsor and partner of the Personal Democracy Forum, we decided to launch a tool that will aggregate conversation around the conference.  Check out Twitterslurp for #pdf2009.

We are finishing up details, but here is a list of Twitterslurp’s key features:

• The site will ingest any posts tagged as “#pdf09″, “#pdf2009″ or “Personal Democracy Forum” onto our main page in real time.  We can expand the words we track if other phrases/tags are used.  This will allow us to ingest the entire conversation, and not limit us to only pulling in mentions of a single hashtag.
• Twitterslurp features a leaderboard listing the top Twitter users at the conference based on volume.  Later today, we are going to expand this to feature a fuller leaderboard.  Our hope is that this directory of people tweeting about the conference will make it easy for people to make connections with others at the conference.
• Twitterslurp features a stats page that analyzes the volume of tweets that are coming in.
• We’ll be able to use our backend system to filter out spammers.  At the end of the conference, we’ll also have a database of all the relevant tweets which will allow us to do a full analysis of the conversation post-conference.

Most importantly, we’ll be releasing the code behind Twitterslurp to the open source community next so that other conferences/organizations can use the tool.

Check out Twitterslurp, and follow @bivings for the latest about the release of the tool.