linkfluence blog

November 20, 2009

First map of the Eurosphere
linkfluence, socialweb — Anthony Hamelle @ 7:40 am

For everyone attending (in the flesh or via Twitter and other means) the PDF Europe, here’s linkfluence’s presentation about the European political web, its structure and dynamics, and the level of interest of different national political communities for the designation of the first President of the European Council. More explanations and details coming today as an update to this post…

UPDATE  & DETAILS (21/11/09)

Let’s get to the bottom of things, shall we.

First, what exactly is included in the map of the Eurosphere. Inside each of the spheres included in this preliminary piece of research (which rests on the analysis of 4 European countries, namely France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands and a specific European-affairs sphere), there are communities of political bloggers and portals (i.e. communities whose members are affiliated to a given party or clearly advocating a political platform, represented in shades of blue), communities of journalists and experts (shades of green), communities of political pundits commenting on public issues without a clear or distinctive party line (under the label “opinion”, shades of red), media websites (shades of orange), trade unions (shades of purple), think tanks (light blue), institutions (websites of public bodies or international organisations, brown), NGOs and activists (grey).

Second, how do we explore and segment the social web and build maps of online communities in general, and of the political Eurosphere in particular. According to theories and concepts drawn from sociology and the social graph field (see this research paper we published at ESOMAR for a lot more details), we use proprietary web crawlers and algorithms to reveal clusters of websites (blogs, social networks, forums, etc.) that flock together and form true communities whose members listen to and influence one another, mainly around their shared topics of interest (politics in a broad sense for the Eurosphere). The distance between websites (in a given community) and between communities (on a given map like the Eurosphere) simply reveal the density of their interactions. The closer they are, the more they engage each other (or engage the same websites around them, meaning that two websites or two communities may not engage each other but may interact with pretty much the same websites around them), the further away they are, the less they engage each other in conversations. We base ourselves on these concepts to draw conclusions as to the dynamics of the social web and the Eurosphere in particular.

Finally, we also conduct opinion research by way of monitoring all the public conversations happening inside the communities we have mapped. This is how we are able to measure quantitatively and analyse qualitatively different items of perception, interest or judgement.

All the findings of our preliminary piece of research (which will be updated in the coming months) can be found in the PDF file below. Here’s a summary:

A true Eurosphere has emerged on the social web
- Composed of key opinion leaders, official bodies and institutions
- A relatively small sphere that sits at the intersection of larger national communities
The Eurosphere embodies the European idea, serving as a unique meeting point for diverse communities
- The Eurosphere serves as a meeting point for national communities; it embodies the European motto of unity in diversity
- Although all national communities are somewhat connected to the Eurosphere, France is leading the way thanks to key gatekeepers and bridges whereas Germany and Italy are more detached
National communities do not interact much with one another
- Most interactions and conversations happen within the respective national communities
- Euro-sceptics and anti-federalists are among the only ones circumventing the Eurosphere to interact in a systematic manner above and across national borders

Map & Analysis of the European political web

April 17, 2009

The Domino’s Effect: crisis over, now the hard part
linkfluence, socialweb — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 9:57 am

This was a tough week for Amazon and Domino’s, although -for a change- it had nothing to do with the economic recession.

Both brands, for different reasons, have suffered bruising “web-storms”. Fortunately, no one dies in these kinds of storms, but reputations can get blown away in a matter of hours or so it seems. Domino’s will now join the growing list of famous brands who got punk’d on the web, following in the footsteps of the Dells and Jet Blues of this world.

Looking at the graph below, which is based on a qualified sample of web conversations across 41 communities, there was no way for Domino’s to keep this “on the down low”, as seemed to be the preferred strategy in the early stages of the crisis.

dominos video buzz volume

Domino's video: buzz trend (tracked by linkfluence)

More importantly, the incident quickly spread across various communities in a matter of a couple of days, as mass media exposure turbo-charged viral propagation of the incident over and across social networks and online communities:

In terms of “buzz volume”, it appears Domino’s even vaulted past AIG on April 16, which is no small feat. (The two pizza employees did not manage however to beat the buzz generated by another Internet sensation this week: Scotland’s new web-celeb’, Susan Boyle).

buzz comparison AIG dominos susan_boyle

comparison on of buzz trends: AIG, Domino's, Susan Boyle (tracked by linkfluence)

For all the Sturm und Drang over this most distasteful video, the crisis has probably already peaked. With the arrest of the two pranksters, and a message of apology from Domino’s CEO, Patrick Doyle in a YouTube video, the story appears to have now run its course. This was probably a shrewd move, already tried and tested by JetBlue’s CEO and Starbucks in response to YouTube-powered controversies.

Although Patrick Doyle’s video (orange line in the graph below) has only received a tiny fraction of the total number of views obtained by the initial video (purple line), it was released quickly enough, at the tail end of the story cycle, to benefit from a good amount of exposure in subsequent articles and posts.

number of links to initial video and apology video

number of links to employees' video (Orange line) and CEO apology video (purple line) - measured by linkfluence

Unfortunately for the company however, the fact that attention is already shifting away from the incident does not imply its reputation will not suffer lingering effects.

Wordle: domino's video incident meta data

Clearly, the long term impact of this episode will need to be tracked and measured for some time as part of the recovery process. And as Domino’s rushed to Youtube and Twitter to respond to the groundswell of negative publicity, they will now most likely follow the example of many other brands burned by social media. They were forced to jump into the social media arena in the midst of a crisis and had to sustain their social media presence, long after the immediate ruckus had subsided.

This will undoubtedly be Domino’s’ strategy as well going forward, to progressively regain the confidence of their followers and build up their web presence in each social media channel of the Conversation Prism in order to better respond to the next Big One.

September 23, 2008

linkfluence @esomar
linkfluence — admin @ 12:38 am

Esomar, the world association for market and opinion research, is holding its annual congress in Montréal between September, 22nd and 24th.

The 2008 Congress is all about Frontiers, in social sciences, in marketing and communication, in research. I will be pleased to take the stage during the "frontiers in technology" session to speak about "social graph theories as an alternative to traditional sampling methods" - although, to be fair, social graph approaches to market and opinion research rather constitute valuable additions to the traditional methodological landscape, especially when it comes to the social web.

The abstract is as follows: “Has the monopoly of traditional population segmentation criteria and sampling methods come to an end? Can demographics (employment, age, sex, ethnicity, etc) or behavioural (consumption and cultural habits) criteria be replaced by new “community membership” criteria? Has the “one voice - one vote” principle long lived for market and opinion research? Guilhem Fouetillou and Anthony Hamelle of linkfluence, a social web research institute, will offer creative and sometimes iconoclast perspectives on these issues. Basing themselves on social graph theories, they will share their insight on the importance of links, how they reveal the existence of true opinion communities, how they help single out opinion leaders and what this all means for the research industry.”

anham

July 13, 2008

linkfluence on social web politics at the Personal Democracy Forum
linkfluence — admin @ 11:42 pm

As announced in a previous post, we were pleased to share the stage of this year’s Personal Democracy Forum with a set of distinguished speakers.

For those of you who could not make it to New York, the videos of the presentations have been published on Blip.tv.

The video of our onstage presentation can be accessed directly here.

And for those of you interested in these topics, don’t forget to follow our coverage of this year’s US presidential elections on Presidential Watch 08.

Update: you may have a glimpse of the great amount and quality of comments received from online political pundits on Digg or on Twitter

anham

July 10, 2008

Mapping the future of public media
linkfluence — admin @ 12:18 pm

For those of you who were not able to attend this year’s Beyond Broadcast Conference in Washington, DC, its organizer, American University’s Center for Social Media, has published a complete overview of the day’s debates and discussions.

 

Within a framework of discussions around the future and the independence of public media in an always evolving mediascape, notably because of new uses made possible by the Internet, three main topics were addressed:

  • maps and dataviz solutions as ways to share information at a time when information comes in abundance;
  • maps as a way of revealing the future of public media (where linkfluence was kindly asked to share its view)
  • mapping the money (commercial media ventures vs. non-commercial media ventures)

“it will be much harder for any single actor to set the agenda, because they would have to be present in every community.” Instead, “media actors will have to work with local outposts in terms of providing information and setting agendas.”

I shared with the distinguished audience the idea that the mediascape was becoming more and more clusterised, with communities of interest becoming more and more prominent. Any venture, either commercial or not, wanting to push and promote information these days will have to work community by community, and not just broadcast to the masses. Read (and watch) more here.

anham

June 15, 2008

linkfluence @BeyondBroadcast & @PersonalDemocracyForum
linkfluence — admin @ 12:47 am

Guilhem Fouetillou and Anthony Hamelle will tour on the U.S. East Coast in June 2008 to take part in conferences on the future of public media and on netpolitics.

Each year, the Beyond Broadcast conference, held by American University’s Center for Social Media, observes the evolution of social, or participatory, media. This year, the main discussion topic will be "mapping public media". Several angles will be dealt with: How are media makers using online mapping and visualization tools to tell stories and engage communities? What can those same tools tell us about changes in the public media landscape? linkfluence’s intervention will notably focus on the latter.

Prestigious netpolitics and Internet experts gather at the Personal Democracy Forum: Ariana Huffington, Vint Cerf, Joe Trippi, Esther Dyson, Lawrence Lessig, etc. This year, the PDF’s organisers hope to reboot the (political and democratic) system. The impact of new technologies and new social uses on political life and democracy will be analysed under numerous angles. linkfluence shall present the updated version of its Presidential Watch 08 map as well as several case studies on the presence of important campaign issues within communities of the social web.

Come see us in Washington D.C. on June, 17th or in New York City on June, 23rd & 24th!

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