Nashville Technology Council

The Nashville Tech Story (10/21/09)

The Pew Internet Foundation released new data today on the generational differences of social media.  “The median age of a Twitter user is 31, which has remained stable over the past year. The median age for MySpace is now 26, down from 27 in May 2008, and the median age for LinkedIn is now 39, down from 40. Facebook, however, is graying a bit: the median age for this social network site is now 33, up from 26 in May 2008.”

Three groups of internet users are mainly responsible for driving the growth of this activity: social network website users, those who connect to the internet via mobile devices, and younger internet users – those under age 44.

Some 19% of internet users now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others. This represents a significant increase over previous surveys in December 2008 and April 2009, when 11% of internet users said they use a status-update service.

In addition, the more devices someone owns, the more likely they are to use Twitter or another service to update their status. Fully 39% of internet users with four or more internet-connected devices (such as a laptop, cell phone, game console, or Kindle) use Twitter, compared to 28% of internet users with three devices, 19% of internet users with two devices, and 10% of internet users with one device.

It will probably become more difficult to track status updating as an independent activity as social network updates feed into Twitter and vice versa. For now, it is clear that a “social segment” of internet users is flocking to both social network sites and status update services. This segment is likely to grow as ever more internet users adopt mobile devices as a primary means of going online.

The Nashville Tech Story (9/9/2009)

Believe it or not, social media is so popular, that it is even a hit in space.  A new application called Twisst, allows you to track the positioning of the International Space Station (ISS) through Twitter.  Twisst can pull your global position and time zone from the location listed in your Twitter feed.  It can send you a personalized message when the ISS is in route toward your location.

Twisst is basically a combination of several data sources.  Twisst first taps into Twitter.com and determines who is following the @twisst account, as well as the location entered by the user in their profile.  The locations are then “geocoded” using Google Maps or Yahoo to find out the geographic coordinates for each location.  Once the coordinates are found, Twisst visits www.heavens-above.com to determine when the ISS will fly over those coordinates. 

Finally, Twisst taps the geographic database Geonames to find the time zone the location is in.  An alert is then sent to the Twitter user indicating the ISS is nearing.  It also includes information on how bright and how high the space station will be on the pass.

Nashville Tech Story (August 28, 2009)

Is there ever a time when someone can have too much power?   Well the developers at Power.com are working hard to provide a powerful social media tool that allows the user to track all of his/her social media accounts in one place. 

There are other applications out there that are slicker and allow you to track your social media presence, but require the opening of multiple tabs in your browser.  The marketing on this says that it will help consolidate all communications, calendars, and social networks.  It fell short of expectations, but if you are a power user on social networks, you might find some value in logging in once to access all of your sites.  It was a pleasant surprise to find Hi5 included in the social nets as well.

Interested in learning more?  Visit www.power.com

The Nashville Tech Story (8/19/2009)
by Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service

Web sites such as Twitter are becoming increasingly favored by hackers as places to plant malicious software in order to infect computers, according to a new study covering Web application security vulnerabilities.

Social-networking sites were the most commonly targeted vertical market according to a study of hacking episodes in the first half of the year. The study is part of the latest Web Hacking Incidents Database (WHID) report, released on Monday. In 2008, government and law enforcement sites were the most-hit vertical markets.

Social networks are “a target-rich environment if you count the number of users there,” said Ryan Barnett, director of application security research for Breach Security, one of the report’s sponsors, which also includes the Web Application Security Consortium.

Twitter has been attacked by several worms, and other social-networking platforms such as MySpace and Facebook have also been used to distribute malware. That’s often done when an infected computer begins posting links on social-networking sites to other Web sites rigged with malicious software. Users click on the links since they trust their friends who posted the links, not knowing their friend has been hacked.

The WHID sample set is small, encompassing 44 hacking incidents. The report only looks at attacks that are publicly reported and those with which have a measurable impact on an organization. The WHID’s data set is “statistically insignificant” compared to the actually number of hacking incidents, but shows overall attacker trends, Barnett said.

Other data showed how Web sites were attacked. The most common attack was SQL injection, where hackers try to input code into Web-based forms or URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) in order to get back-end systems such as databases to execute it. If the input is not properly validated — and malicious code ignored — it can result in a data breach.

Other methods used include cross-site scripting attacks, where malicious code gets push to on a client machine, and cross-site request forgery, in which a malicious command is executed while the victim is logged into a Web site.

The WHID found that defacing Web sites is still the most common motivation for hackers. However, the WHID includes the planting of malware on a Web site as defacement, which also points to a financial motivation. Hacked computers can be used to send spam, conduct distributed denial-of-service attacks and for stealing data.

“Ultimately they [the hackers] want to make money,” Barnett said.

The Nashville Technology Council will be hosting the 8th annual InfoSec Security conference on September 17th.  The event will feature Ryan Burnett and his team from Breach Security.  For more conference details or registration information, click here

The Nashville Tech Story (8/18/2009)
by Jake Hird, Research Analyst for Econsultancy

The social media statistics I posted a few weeks ago seemed to strike a chord amongst the digital community, especially in highlighting just how big an issue this particular area of online currently is. So I’m happy to say that I’ve trawled around the internet to bring you some more snippets of useful data and awesome figures.

As before, all this information is likely to be out of date in six months or so, but until then, they’re reasonably recent facts and I feel they demonstrate the meteoric rise and importance of this rapidly evolving area of online.

In no particular order:

• Social networks and blogs are the 4th most popular online activities online, including beating personal email. 67% of global users visit member communities and 10% of all time spent on the internet is on social media sites. 
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populated place in the world. This means it easily beats the likes of Brazil, Russia and Japan in terms of size.
• 80% of companies use, or are planning to use, LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees during the course of this year. The site has just celebrated reaching their 45-millionth membership. 
• Around 64% of marketers are using social media for 5 hours or more each week during campaigns, with 39% using it for 10 or more hours per week. 
• It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners. Terrestrial TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users. The internet took four years to reach 50 million people.  In less than nine months, Facebook added 100 million users.  
• Wikipedia currently has more than 13 million articles in more than 260 different languages. The site attracts over 60 million unique users a month and it’s often debated that the information it contains is more reliable than any printed Encyclopedia. 
• The most recent figure of blogs being indexed by Technorati currently stands at 133 million. The same report into the Blogosphere also revealed that on average, 900,000 blog posts are created within a single 24-hour period. 
• It’s been suggested that YouTube is likely to serve over 75 billion video streams to around 375 million unique visitors during this year. 
• The top three people on Twitter (Ashton Kutcher, Ellen DeGeneres and Britney Spears) have more combined followers than the entire population of Austria.
• According to Socialnomics, if you were paid $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia, you would earn $156.23 per hour. 
• The online bookmarking service, Delicious, has more than five million users and over 150 million unique bookmarked URLs.  
• Since April this year, Twitter has been receiving around 20 million unique visitors to the site each month, according to some analytical sources.  
• Formed in 2004, Flickr now hosts more than 3.6 billion user images.  
• Universal McCann reported that 77% of all active internet users regularly read blogs.

Some Nashville related statistics, according to NashMash.com:

• There are currently 19,991 Twitter users in the Nashville area.
• One of the most influential Twitter users in the Nashville area is Dave Delaney of Griffin Technology.
• This month alone, more than 46,000 tweets have been posted on Twitter. 

For more information and other interesting articles revolving around this topic, visit www.econsultancy.com

The Nashville Tech Story (8/12/2009)

LinkedIn celebrated their 45 millionth user sign up. According to comScore, LinkedIn had 16 million worldwide monthly unique visitors and 331 million page views in June 2009, up from 7.7 million and 114 million a year ago, respectively.
 
The company was valued at around one billion in its last (2008) round of financing, and says they’ve been profitable for 2+ years. The company is a strong 2010 IPO candidate. CEO Reid Hoffman stated earlier this year “we can go public any time we want to.”
 
For those who are unfamiliar with the social network known as LinkedIn, here is a brief explanation. LinkedIn is a free business social networking site that allows registered users to create a professional profile visible to others. Through the site, individuals can maintain a list of known business contacts, known as “Connections.” LinkedIn users can also invite anyone to join their list of “Connections.” 
 
The Nashville Technology Council currently has 1,283 members in their group. By being a “groupie,” you have the opportunity to connect with other professional’s in the technology world and post events and announcements.
 
Click here to join the Nashville Technology Council’s LinkedIn group and get connected today.

The Nashville Tech Story (July 13, 2009)

IBM and the Nashville Technology Council will be hosting an interactive webinar series on July 15th.  This will be the first of multiple informational discussions over the next few months within this series.  The first topic will focus on “The Convergence of Collaboration and Social Networking.”

Even though companies are facing tough economic times, this series will teach you how to take the economic “bumpy road” to create opportunities for immediate and sustainable growth.  The successes and failures of this program will depend on how each business can embrace the changes needed to make a difference.

These 60 minute discussions are idea sessions to help businesses and IT decision maker’s develop ideas for improving the application of technology to their business.  Some of the other topics in the series will include:

• Mapping out a winning business strategy
• Affordable approaches to security in a connected world
• Business Intelligence: Finding new value in old information
• Risk & Compliance: Remedies for regulatory woes
• Financing strategies, stimulus packages, and protecting cash flow
• Web 2.0: Ready or not, here it comes
• Exploring the case for Green Technology
• Business Resilience: Survival strategies
• Intro to Cloud Computing

Interested in receiving more information?  Click Here!  Looking to register for this FREE webinar?  Click Here!

The Nashville Tech Story (July 10, 2009)

The Nashville Technology Council hosted the first session of our Entrepreneurial Series last night with 98 folks in attendance.  Moderator Bryan Huddleston of Microsoft and panelists Kate O’Neill of [meta] marketer and Bill Seaver of MicroExplosion educated the crowd on how to gain a competitive advantage through social media.  Kate and Bill shared social media success strategies they have used and listed some tools that can assist users along the way to be successful. 

Having many followers is good, but attracting the right followers can create a positive image for your online brand.  Latching onto the most successful social media personalities can be very beneficial to your online growth model.  Nashmash.com helps users identify successful tweeters by listing the top tweeter in your area.

Keeping your message fresh and educational is also a large part of social media success.  With the speed of developments on social media sites, information is quicker to become “old news.”  Tweetdeck is a great tool for refreshing your image and message.  Tweetdeck monitors activity and trends on Facebook and Twitter to keep you up-to-date on new trend developments to help keep your message fresh.  

Another interesting fact is that most businesses have multiple objectives to achieve.  As we all know, too much information can cause “overload” on followers.   A strategy to avoid this problem is to invest in multiple accounts on social media sites and utilize hash tags to eliminate tweets from posters that have little or nothing to do with your message.

If you are interested in helpful reading material, a book mentioned last night called “Ground Swell”  is a great read and specifically covers the POST concept – People / Objectives / Strategy / Technology.

Also, if you would like to track the conversation on Twitterfall from last night, you can do so by clicking here.

“The incredible turnout is testament to what a draw “social media” is as a topic, but it’s a challenge, too: almost everyone in the community knows something about it, but as we saw in audience responses last night, the levels of comfort and familiarity are all over the place. We tried to address the disparity by focusing on strategy and overall best practices rather than getting too caught up in the details of implementation and execution, but the success of the event itself seems to have validated a desire for more detailed presentations on these topics. It will be exciting to see this programming evolve.”  Kate O’Neill, [meta] marketer

“I had a great time at the NTC panel last night. I think the size of the group, the level of attention, and the number of questions they asked just showed the kind of momentum around social media in business today. I hope the people who came were encouraged and empowered through the discussion.”  Bill Seaver, MicroExplosion

The Nashville Tech Story (7/5/2009)

Twitter has become a popular communication tool for nearly all businesses, young professionals, etc.  However, one organization that is overlooked when talking about social networking is the church.  Yes that’s correct, even your pastor is beginning to rely on Twitter.  

One of the first churches to experiment and tweet about a hosted major event on Twitter was Trinity Church in Manhattan on Good Friday this past April.  While it seems like a great marketing tool for the church to get folks interested, there are also a lot of negatives that have to be addressed.  Besides, most that use social media are young people, so what better way to increase your global marketing presence.

As church staff members twittered on the church’s annual Crucifixion event, thousands from around the globe followed the event via smartphones.  Great visibility and marketing for this denomination, right?  Some of the quotes from those tweeting included “Darkness and earthquake,” “Crucify him!”

…so much for that idea.

However, even though Trinity church experienced unexpected feedback on their first run with the social media world, the discussion about further involvement continues.  While Twitter has no bar against crude tweeters, churches and religious leaders all over the world are questioning whether they should incorporate, not only Twitter, but other social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

Even though Trinity church had a bad experience, they continue to tweet about their Sunday services and their following continues to grow.  However, religious organizations still have some serious questions to answer.  Should there be limited access? Censoring? Is it appropriate for a clergy member to “friend” a minor?

While these questions continue to surround the merger of religion with social media, church goers only need to ask themselves one question.  WWJD – What would Jesus do?

Nashville Technology Council & Digital Nashville present
Social Media 101

From Facebook to Twitter to Yelp and many more, social tools are dominating the way people communicate about all aspects of life, especially brands they like or dislike. In this session, Kate O’Neill covers the philosophy behind social media, why social marketing is taking over as the quickest way to reach an audience, rules for engaging a social audience and the many tools that are available.

Venue: Cumberland University
Labry Hall – Computer Lab 014
Lebanon , TN 37087

7:30 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. – Breakfast & Networking
8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. – Social Media 101

Cost: $25 per person
*cost covers breakfast, refreshments, and the program

Click Here to Register Online

Kate O’Neill has earned a reputation as a passionate advocate for innovative, interactive online experiences in business. Working in online content in Silicon Valley during the 1990s heyday, she introduced the techniques of blogging (before it was called blogging and before there were fantastic tools like Wordpress) to many companies as an employee and later as a consultant. As social networks and social media have sprung up, Kate has been a vocal advocate for their inclusion in savvy business and marketing strategy, as well, both for the SEO boost they often imply and for the way they can strengthen a business’s relationship with its customers and enhance the customer experience.

Kate currently runs [meta]marketer, a web marketing un-agency and freelance consultancy she founded this year. She also maintains four blogs, three Twitter accounts, and dozens of other semi-neglected social media accounts.

Directions:
• Take I-40 East (toward Knoxville) to exit 238 (Lebanon)
• Left at traffic light at top of ramp,
• Travel straight through four traffic lights,
• Left at the next light, Leeville Pike (West) TN Blvd.(East), Ryan’s Steakhouse is on your right.
• Straight at the 4-way stop,
• Right on South Greenwood,
• Left at the 2nd road on left, Martin Ave.
• Park in the parking lot along Martin Ave. Labry Hall is half way up the block adjunct to the gymnasium.