Open up your mind and say, ahh...

I would have written this article sooner, but I was busy on Pinterest. If you are still among the uninitiated, the social platform for collecting, sharing, and commenting on of photos of personal passions is uniquely engaging, absorbing, and addictive.

The human instinct to collect things–be it baseball cards, miniature spoons, or teacups–is as old as stuff itself. But it took Pinterest to perfect this process online. So no wonder it’s having a moment: comScore found that Pinterest just hit 11.7 million unique monthly U.S. visitors, who spend an average of 98 minutes a month on the site, compared to 2.5 hours on Tumblr, and 7 hours on Facebook. It’s also driving more referral traffic than Google+, YouTube, Reddit, and LinkedIn–combined, according to Shareaholic.

But why would Pinterest, which has been around since 2008, be attracting such swarms of devotees now? Fast Company turned to the experts to uncover the psychology behind Pinterest’s winning formula, and why it’s resonating with thousands of new users.

Finding Your Happy Place and Sharing Your Ideal Self

Dr. Christopher Long, a professor at Ouachita Baptist University teaching a course in consumer psychology this semester, says some of his students expressed concern over an assignment to use Pinterest to pin their own examples of content relevant to each chapter in the textbook. “They were trying to wean themselves because they were concerned with how much time that had spent on the site last fall. One even said her New Year’s resolution was to cut down on Pinterest,” Long says.

Long believes that Pinterest, like Facebook, relies on people generating content that interests other users, so once a critical mass of people comment and re-pin, it reinforces others to generate content. The more content is generated, the more it makes sense for users to frequent the site.

It’s more than just a critical mass of users, though, that’s driving Pinterest’s growth, says Long. “Pinterest boards are like its users’ personal happiness collages. They represent things that I appreciate, that I desire, and that express who I am, whether the things are cupcakes, shirtless David Beckham, or an inspirational quotation,” he says.

In contrast to Facebook, Long believes Pinterest is a refuge from relationship status, check-ins at restaurants, or pictures of kids. “It’s not a place where I have to worry about being bombarded by other people’s over-sharing of un-interesting or annoying daily experiences or about accidentally revealing intimate details of my day-to-day life,” he says.

In an ironic way, Long says, this frees many people to be more public about who they really are and who they want to be, because it’s less focused on the kind of personal content that sets off privacy and security alarms. “Pinterest is a place where we can demonstrate: ‘If it weren’t for all those mundane things that I do that I post on Facebook, this is what I would be doing and consuming. Here is my real self,’” he explains.

Perfecting the Art of Collecting

Though he doesn’t have his own Pinterest account, Ken Carbone, an acclaimed graphic designer whose clients include Tiffany & Co., Herman Miller, the Museé du Louvre, and the W Hotel Group, spent half an hour dissecting the design of the platform, after which time he admitted he’s jealous of everything from the logo to the generous but restrained size of the photos.

Beginning with the logo, which Carbone pronounces, “Casual but considered. People actually crafted this and it speaks to their attention to detail, which is not too rigid.” He goes on to praise the ease with which Pinterest devotees can gather images and create lists.

Carbone says Pinterest trumps Google image search because most of the images appear to be from original sources and art-directed photography, which makes products looks terrific.

“Not only does this stuff look great in the way it is presented, it takes me to this different world. I could waste a lot of time here. It’s visually very engaging,” says Carbone.

Though many social platforms have a tendency to lean toward content-rich density, Carbone says “That translates into busy and repulsive for me.” Pinterest’s secret weapon, he says, is its simplicity. “It’s generous in the way the graphics appear. With scrolling you can have a lot of content but not in the one frame. They’ve carefully built an interface with subtle touches of gray framing that is just enough.”

The proportion of the comments is also well-designed. “It is a clear sign the images are the hero and we are going to make those look as good as possible,” Carbone says.

Secret Sauce of Sharing

Long doesn’t know why some images get shared more than others. “I assume someone at Pinterest does, and that they are staying up late figuring out how to turn that into more users and more revenue.”

He does say that users seem to respond differently to pins from brands than the same one posted by an individual. “On Facebook newsfeeds, brand communications often take the form of sponsored stories or other ads, clearly indicating that this recommendation is being placed in your newsfeed because the brand wants it there.”

Long says that because Pinterest boards are essentially collections of “Likes,” the expectation is that users curate these more carefully than they may curate their Facebook Likes. “When I pin or re-pin something related to a brand, I am saying that I care about this content enough that I want to hold onto it or that I want to show other people that it is important,” he explains. “If Pinterest can keep enough eyeballs on people’s boards, those pins can functions as a more powerful and permanent recommendation than will my Facebook newsfeed’s transient mentions of what I listened to on Spotify or what brand of coffee I liked today.”

Carbone concurs. “The whole thing is advertising, but I don’t feel like I’m being sold anything directly, even though each pin will eventually take me to the source. I feel like a service is being provided for me to totally enjoy something that I am passionate about and find images I didn’t know existed.”

Room for Improvement

That said, Carbone has one suggestion. For decades, he’s kept versions of Pinterest’s mood boards in paper journals. “My own way is analog and private. I don’t necessarily need to share all my stuff,” he says. But for design and development, private Pinterest boards would be an excellent tool for professionals. “I would buy a subscription to that.”

Are you listening, Pinterest?

Related: Chobani Yogurt Tickles The Tastes Of Pinterest Addicts, And So Can Your Brand

Image: Flickr user Bryan Costin

Imagine a company catalyzing a new approach to student learning and achievement in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). And what if the company’s purpose were to prepare students around the world, from all corners and walks of life, to collaborate in solving social and environmental problems, beginning right now?

Imagine the power of the relationships these children will have when they are in their 20s and 30s as they continue to work with each other.

Sound ridiculous to you? Do you wonder: How is this possible, given that one billion children live in poverty, many in remote rural villages, others in densely populated urban slums? When so many children in developed countries aren’t even getting decent educations, much less children in the developing world?

What if I told you that middle school and high school students from some of the world’s most deprived communities are already working together on solutions for sustainable energy sources and to purify water? That 250,000 students are already collaborating on STEM projects through 60 schools, universities, and NGOs around the world? And that plans are well under way to scale such educational opportunities to reach millions?

What I just described is pilot program for Hewlett Packard’s Catalyst Initiative. Catalyst is part of HP’s Social Innovation program, which encompasses education, entrepreneurship, health, and community. Particularly distinctive about Catalyst is that “all the learning creates far-reaching results in problems facing humanity,” says Ajith Basu, chief program executive for the Agastya International Foundation, and head of the New Learner consortium of Catalyst.

While HP’s Social Innovation program can be considered a particularly evolved case of corporate social responsibility, I think it is much bigger. Corporate Global Vision (CGV), a concept that I have articulated, is a better descriptor: Envisioning and achieving the greater potential for both the company and the world by affirming the interdependence of corporate success with the health and prosperity of the planet and its people.

“We wanted to figure out how to create immersion learning experiences,” said Gabi Zedlmayer, vice president of HP’s Office of Global Social Innovation, when we got together at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting last fall. “We know that technology alone is not the solution. So we decided to build a network of schools and people across boundaries and frontiers to find a different way of learning.”

HP’s goal with Catalyst is to reimagine STEM education and the classroom, Jim Vanides, senior program manager for HP, said in an interview. He described how HP established “an international network of innovation sandboxes” to answer the question: “What does a powerful learning experience look like, and how does technology enable it?” Further, he explained, HP’s goal is “STEM plus”–not simply STEM, but also creativity, collaboration, and problem solving–“all that students will need to be valuable citizens of the world.”

According to Vanides, by raising STEM+ literacy and increasing the quality of the STEM pipeline, the next generation will be prepared to solve the large and seemingly intractable social global challenges.

“Breaking down all barriers is fundamental to success,” said Vanides. ”Barriers between countries, secondary and college education, universities and NGOs. At work, we solve problems through collaboration with people throughout the world. If young people learn to engage in learning and problem-solving without any silos, they will be prepared to have an enormous impact.”

HP had a vision of the true potential of children of all backgrounds throughout the world.

“This experience has transformed me,” said Basu. “My greatest learning has been that children have no problems anywhere. The problem is the system and the lack of resources.” Even in the poorest, most remote neighborhoods of India, Basu says, “the children are much smarter than we were. Much faster. We must create systems around that. We can create powerful learning communities.”

Re-imagining education is not a fantasy. It’s becoming a reality.

Consider a student in a classroom of 35 students that never had funds for lab equipment. Starting last year, via Catalyst, she can conduct experiments remotely by using laboratories at MIT and the University of Queensland in Australia. She can, for example, measure radiation emissions as a function of how far she holds her cell phone from her ear. She can design the experiments herself, and watch the Geiger counter in Australia via live media. She can run the experiments as many times as she likes at her own pace, produce a lab report, and then compare results and experiences in the classroom with her teacher and fellow students. The results are already in: Students who use the virtual instruments show significant increases in test scores.

I actually ran the experiment myself online while Skyping with Dr. Kemi Jona, Ph.D., director of the Office of STEM Education Projects at Northwestern University. Science was never so fun, and it stimulated my curiosity. “Here’s the vision: Remote labs can be transformative at a district, state, or national level because you can create a server function or cloud solution that can provide a centralized shared facility of science experiments,” says Jona. “A district no longer needs to buy lab equipment for each school as we do now in the current funding model…a model that is financially prohibitive for most communities.”

Next, imagine students in the remotest villages in India helping to find solutions to waste management by participating in science projects via mobile science labs, science fairs, and young instructor leader programs. This is already happening through the Agastya International Foundation.

Through 62 mobile science vans that take science education to the village doorstep, 28 rural science centers, and a 170-acre Creativity Lab campus, Agastya has reached over 4 million children and 150,000 teachers in several Indian states and is supported by scientists and educators from the Indian Institute of Science, Defense Research and Development Organization, and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

And finally: Imagine a magnet middle school in Stamford, Conn., where 50% of the students are from educationally disadvantaged families, helping to solve local well water contamination problems through a partnership with middle school students in Shandong University Middle School in China. Throughout the process, the students from Stamford are learning Mandarin and the students from China are learning English. (Students are pictured, top, collecting water samples from Long Island Sound.)

“This began with our seeing water contamination in our local water wells as a teachable moment,” said Bryan Olkowski, assistant principal at Scofield Magnet Middle School. “Then, by engaging in Catalyst, the world has opened up to us.” Since 2010, Scofield students have worked in partnership with students at their sister school in China, remotely and through exchange visits. They are collaborating using geospatial information studies (GIS), technology, and systems with university faculty and resources provided by HP.

Scofield teachers traveled to New Dehli last spring to present at the international Catalyst Summit, attended by all of the consortium partners; a new group of Scofield teachers will participate in the follow-up Summit this spring in Beijing. And HP has introduced new funders to Scofield, including the International Society for Technlogy in Education.

According to Olkowski, one thousand students in Connecticut have already benefited from Catalyst, as well as 640 in China. He believes that the project is a contributing factor to increasing math and reading scores on state tests for kids in his school.

“This is what’s possible for public school education,” said Olkowski. And that key message from this project is spreading: U.S. Congressman Jim Himes visited Scofield, and Olkowski was asked to brief the U.S. Congress on the project.

Scaling the solution through further investment, collaboration, and advocacy.

Beyond the sharing among the Catalyst consortium partners, further collaboration occurs between HP and corporate, foundation, and government leaders.Jeannette Weisschuh, HP’s director of education initiatives, spoke with me last week from London, where she attended the Education World Forum, the largest global gathering of education ministers. “The focus here is on innovative concepts to jointly increase student performance, especially in STEM education and entrepreneurship and using technology to increase student outcomes and enhance learning experiences and achievement in all disciplines, for the purpose of building a better world.”

With the pilot phase just completed, HP is embarking on Phase II. This year, HP will determine which of its innovation sandboxes is yielding the best results, invest further resources accordingly, and engage additional funding partners in order to scale the best solutions.

A particularly important HP partner has been the World Economic Forum’s Global Education Initiative. Additionally, OECD is working with HP to study the best uses of technology to advance STEM education through innovative learning environments; together they will issue a report at the end of this year.

Corporate Global Vision: Envisioning and achieving the greater potential.

The field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been maturing for over two decades. Since the 1990s, many of us have been helping companies transition from philanthropy and service to CSR–an integrated strategy that advances social and environmental purposes while also enhancing corporate financial value.

Corporate Global Vision (CGV) takes the C-suite and boardroom view. With Catalyst, HP demonstrates the problem-solving capabilities of HP technology; expands markets by increasing education rates and wealth worldwide; and builds relationships and goodwill with customers, including businesses, governments, NGOs, and individuals.

David Packard understood this when he said that “the real reason HP exists is to make a contribution, to improve the welfare of humanity.”

For more leadership coverage, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Guest post by Francisco Dao

Most people view the social web as a tool for bringing people together and sharing ideas. They credit it with everything from democratizing media to enabling the protests of Arab spring, but they fail to see how these same community building attributes can fuel dangerous thought bubbles and lead us down paths of extremism.

By providing a forum for everyone, the web – especially social web platforms – allow us to connect with people we probably wouldnʼt be able to find offline. In most cases this is a positive trait. Advocates argue that this promotes greater collaboration and facilitates the sharing of ideas. But it has a darker side in that it can lead us down deep rabbit holes of thought by making small groups appear larger and more influential than they really are. Imagine someone who is a fanatical white supremacist and favors the reimplementation of slavery. As a percentage, like minded people would be a tiny number – perhaps .1%. In the real world, this would make it virtually impossible for this person to find others who share his views. But the internet provides a platform for everyone, and .1% of 300 million Americans is 300,000 people. Proportionally itʼs minuscule but for the racist looking for support, 300,000 is more than enough people to reinforce his ideas and lead him to believe that he has the support of the masses.

Iʼm not suggesting that the web is a bad thing, and I do believe its power to produce positive connections outweigh the negative aspects of where some of these connections may lead. But itʼs important to understand how our minds and the personalized social web create a feedback loop that blinds us to new ideas.

Research shows that it is natural human behavior to seek approval and avoid cognitive dissonance. Dr. Carol Tavris author of Mistakes Were Made but Not By Me describes decisions as being made at the top of a pyramid. Two people can begin with very similar beliefs but once they decide one way or the other – for example two moderates, one choosing Republican, the other Democrat – they then self identify and start sliding down the sides of the pyramid drifting further and further apart. This behavioral trait is built into all of us and makes true impartiality impossible. Our decisions will always be affected by previous choices that form our underlying beliefs.

Along with our need to avoid cognitive dissonance is our drive for social acceptance. In short, belonging to a group feels good. It provides support and reinforcement, a strong identity, and a sense that we are part of something greater than ourselves. Like all approval seeking tendencies, group belonging has itʼs roots in human survival. For millions of years the only way to survive was to belong to a strong core group – a village. If you were unwilling or incapable of fitting in, you were likely cast out and eaten by predators. Some would suggest that the modern world renders these human traits irrelevant but the modernization of the last 300 years is a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms and evolving past our instincts is not so easily done.

Contrary to the open collaborative world envisioned by internet utopians, the social web has instead mirrored our behavioral characteristics by evolving dynamics that push us into virtual villages. This is most apparent in how Facebook sorts our friends and decides what to show in our news feeds, although Googleʼs personal search results also share blame. Instead of showing us everything and letting us decide, Facebook and Google show us what they think we want to see essentially placing us into villages of reinforced beliefs.

As dangerous as this may be on the general web (see The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser), nowhere is this thought bubble more prevalent than with the people building the platform on which it exist: Internet entrepreneurs. Unlike other industries that rely on old models of press to spread their message, much of the internet community is focused on building social media tools that are largely based on self promotion. Share your location, what youʼre eating, what youʼre buying, who youʼre with and definitely share what youʼre reading. Itʼs the equivalent of TV producers making reality shows about the lives of their friends. Essentially the social web has become itʼs own biggest advocate and unsurprisingly the entrepreneurs and their associates are its first adopters and the most adept at using it. The end result is a largely insular world of technology entrepreneurs using social media to reinforce each others beliefs in a virtual echo chamber that produces clone after clone of like “blank” for “blank” type companies instead of breaking new ground. From the outside looking in, it looks like a great club to be a part of where everyone seems to be the most popular kid in school. But this has resulted in a disproportionate amount of attention given to this segment of technology compared to say clean tech or industrial advances which arenʼt in the business of building their own media tools.

Some of the loudest noise emanating from the social web echo chamber has come from the death of Steve Jobs. The sharing of Jobsʼ quotes and wisdom have been deafening and yet I fear those who seek to pay tribute to his genius have fallen into the exact trap that Jobs railed against. It was well known that Jobs was an advocate of pursuing different interests and areas of study. Travel through India, design a staircase, study calligraphy, even his criticism that Bill Gates would have been a more interesting person if he had dropped acid or lived in an ashram speaks to Jobsʼ belief that ideas come from a combination of many sources. Jobs understood the importance of seeking knowledge outside his immediate realm and his resulting innovations made a major impact on several different industries.

Internet entrepreneurs have been given a blank slate to build a world that could only be imagined 20 years ago – a virtual world that will have great influence on the direction of the actual world. They can choose to be the architects of skyscrapers or the builders of tract homes. Most of us grew up in tract homes and they serve their purpose well, but as Jobsʼ put it, they donʼt leave a “dent in the universe.” I implore the internet innovators of today and tomorrow to get out of the echo chamber. Donʼt read the same books your friends read, seek out people who inhabit different spheres, stop believing what Techcrunch writes about you, explore the real world like Hemingway, Twain and Jobs and build a virtual skyscraper. The alternative is to slide deeper and deeper into a bigger bubble of small ideas.

Francisco Dao is the founder of 50Kings, a private community for technology and media innovators. He is a former leadership columnist for Inc.com, a lifelong entrepreneur, author and former stand-up comic. Follow him on Twitter.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Coldplay isn’t making its latest album, Mylo Xyloto, available on Spotify or any other streaming music subscription service.

Fans will either need to purchase physical copies or MP3 downloads from places like Apple’s iTunes store, Microsoft’s Zune store or Amazon.

The reason for the decision isn’t entirely clear. An anonymous industry source told Cnet that Coldplay wants Mylo Xyloto to be heard as “one cohesive work” — which hardly makes any sense, given that the songs are available for individual purchase online.

The decision is more likely financially motivated. As one of the world’s bestselling music artists, Coldplay stands to make a great deal more money by encouraging the tens of millions of consumers who have streaming music subscriptions to purchase the songs.

Recording artists only make about three-tenths of a cent every time one of their songs is streamed, and 20 cents for every song sold on iTunes, according to estimates published in Rolling Stone.

The decision not to stream appears to be an effective one, as The Guardian points out. Adele’s latest album, 19 — which hasn’t been made available on subscription streaming services — recently broke sales records worldwide. And Mylo Xyloto is on track to hit number one.

SEE ALSO: 11 Apps and Services for Sharing, Discovering and Organizing Music

In an emailed statement, the band’s record label, EMI, said, “We always work with our artists and management on a case-by-case basis to deliver the best outcome for each release.”

Spotify, for its part, said that it respects Coldplay’s decision not to have its music on Spotify, whatever the reason. “We do however hope that they will change their minds as we believe that the Spotify model is adding, and will continue to add, huge value to the music industry,” a spokesperson said. “Right now we have already convinced millions of consumers to pay for music again, and… As we increase in scale, we will continue to re-educate millions of additional consumers as to the value of music, and we will thereby revitalize artists’ ability to make music and make money from it.”

Rhapsody declined to comment.

Should Artists Delay Album Releases on Streaming Services?

This is not necessarily the case for less established artists. Speaking of its client Idle Warship‘s decision to distribute its latest album on Spotify three weeks before its official release, Element 9 VP Stu Pflaum said, “I think we gain more than we lose, especially with an underground project like Idle Warship where it’s not that well known. Just getting the music in people’s hands is the ultimate goal.”

“Our web traffic has more than tripled in terms of site visitors and discussion,” he said in a separate interview with Billboard. “Nobody is pirating the album even after we’ve distributed promo copies. And most importantly, we’re getting real-time feedback from listeners on which tracks they favor and are able to adjust our marketing accordingly with most of our budget still intact. The group and the album have a legitimate buzz now.”

It will be interesting to see whether a trend is established between bestselling and lesser-known artists, and the timeliness with which each group releases new songs and albums on streaming music services.

I saw a selection of Steve Garfield’s photos on Instagram (well, technically, they were on a site called Inkstagram, so maybe that’s related?), and it got me wondering: does using a social sharing service like Instagram (or Flickr, or Facebook) make you a better photographer? And by better, I don’t always mean that you figure out the right F-stop or aperture settings, etc, but maybe I mean a more “mindful” photographer. Do you think differently about the kinds of photos you intend to take and share?

I’ve long since teased the users of Instagram by saying “It’s like turning your insignificant photos of your life into instant album covers for fake albums.” With all the filter effects and over-bold colors, Instagram makes some photographers cringe, citing an absolute lack of subtlety. Not me. I think it’s swell how everything gets a lot more bold. But that’s not really my point.

Does the act of sharing photographs on social sites make you more mindful/a better photographer?

That’s the question at hand. I’m thinking yes. I’m thinking that it differs from site to site. I’d say that Instagram is on one end of the spectrum, where most people tend to want to shoot thoughtful photos of everyday life. I’d say that Facebook seems to be more for social sharing. I’d say that Flickr’s in the middle, with a blend of uses, as some people share their professional work there, and others take photos of whatever happens to rush across their lens. Beyond these three sites, there are many more “focused” communities of photo sharing, I’m sure.

But what about you? Do you share your photos on social sites? Does it change how you curate what you post? Does it change what you consider a “good” shot?

Would love your insights.

If you swing by chrisbrogan.com, and click on any post, you’ll notice there’s a little Google +1 button at the top, alongside the Facebook Like button. Okay. It’s easy. You don’t even have to comment. You can just +1 something and move on, if you like it. It’s like jazz people snapping their fingers a few times at a good line or riff.

A +1 is a pretty nice thing, indeed. It has some potential implications to search value, or so I’m learning, but I’m not smart enough to talk about that kind of stuff. Read Search Engine Land and SEOmoz to learn about that stuff.

But then, there’s this extra step. If you +1, and you have a Google+ account, you get this nifty little box:

That means that you can share a post that you like directly into Google+, adding some comments and insights and explaining to your readership why you like the post. There are a few ways you can use this:

• Share to a private circle of one (just you) called “bookmarks” to remind you to read the post later.
• Share to a small circle of your work colleagues so that you can discuss implications to your business.
• Share to the public and curate interesting content that you find useful to the kinds of people who read your stuff.

Here’s how Google describes it:

If you can’t see the video, click here

Get Your Own Plus1 Button

If you’re running a WordPress site, you can get it here. If you’re running a Blogger site, I found this easy tutorial. If you want even more scoop about the Plus1 button, there’s more about it here.

Sharing is Caring

People use sharing in a few ways. If you’re the one doing the sharing, it’s a way of saying that you find interesting material and share it with those who might also find it useful. If your stuff is being shared, it’s a social signal that says that people appreciate what you’re doing. It’s also a way to tell the web what’s worth looking at and what’s not, and that means telling search engines where to look next.

Are you in the habit of sharing items socially? If you’re not tending to use the +1 or Like buttons, where do you do more of your sharing? Are you tweeting more links? Stumble Upon? What matters? And how often do you share?

For that matter, how often do you comment? Let’s practice here! If you don’t normally swing by to comment, click here and leave a note. : )

In recent weeks journalism and the future of all media have once again gone under the knife. Experts on either side of new media debated whether or not Twitter’s CNN moment truly was indicative of the future of journalism. The dissection of Twitter’s role in the spread online dialogue that speculated the death of Osama Bin Laden were studied at great depths to better understand when and where news actually surfaces, how its validated, and how news travels across the Web and in real life.  Perhaps nothing visualized the power of a single Tweet with such dramatic effect as the network graph developed by SocialFlow.

Twitter is becoming a veritable human seismograph as it measures and records events as they unfold. But for this discussion, I’d like to focus not on the future of journalism, but instead on human behavior and the reality of the social effect. In doing so, we will identify the click paths and the sharing patterns of the informed and connected to learn how to design vibrant information exchanges on the traditional Web as well as in social networks.

The End of the Destination Web and the Revival of the Information Economy

In hindsight, the days of Web 1.0 seem like an era long gone. I think back to the early days of the Web and I struggle to think about what fashion, cars and popular music thrived as the Web radically transformed the then information economy. It’s as distant as the behavior that embraced it. For many, Web 1.0 was empowering. But to access information, we were reliant on our willingness to visit desirable web sites for insight, entertainment, and news. Home pages, bookmarks and email subscriptions helped people manage the information overload that overwhelmed consumers with so much great content. Over the years, portals helped us manage the content by aggregating content from the sites and topics we preferred. We were then gifted with RSS feeds and readers to enhance the way relevant information found us.

The bridge between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 was forged through a series of connections between a Web of Data, a Web of Content, and a Web of People. Although abbreviated, this evolution is important as it sets the stage for where we are today. Web 2.o is the great democratization of the internet. Everyday people were empowered to create as much or more than they consumed.  Among the greatest transformations in the history of media, traditional sources of information were now rivaled by new voices. These rising pundits, experts and authorities  seized the opportunity to create content that satisfied the needs of an audience who were hungry for vertical and dedicated content. As a result, the construction of new information networks strained the long-established relationships between push or broadcast content and market demand. The tipping point for this orthodox practice was reached long ago yet media is now just realizing its effect, potential, and also consequences. It was the beginning of the end of business as usual for the conventional media empire.

The transformation of media was only hastened as the Social Web fused the principles of Web 2.0 fostering social networks where people connected with one another to communicate, discover, share, and learn. Social networks carried a profound challenge and opportunity for media and information commerce. Leading networks essentially cannibalized attention as they rapidly evolved into a universal portal and information exchange. People now received news and important information based on who they connected to, what captivated their attention, and in turn what they invested back into the community. This important shift signaled the end of the destination web as the primary source for information and the revival of the information economy.

Individuals connecting in social networks exchanged information as a form of currency. When news broke or events transpired it became commonplace for a traditional new outlet to dramatically amplify reach as the story reverberated from person to person and network to network at the speed of clicks. And those clicks carried a power that we’re still trying to grasp, the ability to, with just one click, imply endorsement, evoke trust, interrupt attention spans, and alter courses of action through a one-to-one-to-many network effect. CNN greatly benefited from this new distribution model when its Balloon Boy story hit Twitter, soared to the top of the Trending Topics list, and continued to permeate the social web for days to come.

While content long celebrated its reign at the top, context was now king and connections that formed the interest graph would now dictate the content introduced within it. As the social web matured, it would introduce a new form of information brokers who would further propel the information economy and its role in culture and society. The role of curator would emerge between creator and consumer to facilitate the exchange of relevant information within their networks of relevance and among their interest graphs. I refer to this phenomenon as The 3C’s of Information Commerce and it is triggering the development of new technology, networks, and platforms to empower curators to bridge material content to those seeking it.

Retweets, Likes, connected commenting systems such as Disqus, Facebook, and Echo, URL shorteners, curation networks such as Paper.li, Pearltrees, Sccoop.it and Flipboard, along with any other social sharing button you can imagine now served as the tools for curators to curate the experience they envision. Additionally, curation expedited the migration away from static web sites as a destination, as a well from which to bring water back to their village. Wells were now in greater abundance than their demand.

Information is now portable and people expect it to find them.

This.Just.In

Here we are, learning to adapt in a market in transition. Online experiences continue evolve, but what’s clear is that there are three specific consumer segments that require unique support systems. This is where the future of media begins. By understanding that different people find, share, and interact with content differently, experiences can then be architected and information channels activated in ways that consumers expect.

1. Social Consumer: Represents the emergent segment where consumers rely on social networks to discover, share, and learn. Doing so changes the click and clique behavior and how they in turn make decisions.

2. Online: The category that visits destinations of presence for continued information. This category also relies on Google as a point of entry for discovery.

3. Traditional: Consumes content in print, broadcast and remains loyal to their trusted and proven information sources, including word of mouth. They too will visit online destinations, usually those that provide tangible (and tactile) experiences and value in the real world.

In a world where social, online, and traditional consumers live independent of one other, this market in transition is teaching us that the lines between each category are certainly eroding.

In the face of life and death, new media in the very least represents a near death experience. These important encounters add a critical element of survival into the next steps of anyone touched by enlightenment and the realization that things can and must be different. As such, destination sites are embracing new media as  necessary steps to persevere. Many of these steps seem prescriptive as if following an instruction manual to relevance.

Step 1: Integrated social functionality into the dotcom, remove proprietary functionality

Step 2: Create a Twitter and Facebook presence

Step 3: Launch blogs

Step 4: Instruct reporters to promote their work within their social networks

Step 5: Develop a layer for citizen participation and journalism

Step 6: Create a mobile app

Step 8: Create an iPad subscription service

Step 9: Install a paywall

Step 10: Gamify the dotcom to enliven the experience

Brand Journalism

The future of media is not limited to everyday consumers. Brands too are becoming media. Tom Foremski refers to this branded media movement as “Every Company is a Media Company” and EC=MC is the transformative equation for business.

refers to brandOnce supported by brand advertising, media is now witnessing a new era of brand journalism that seeks to outperform and outreach the audiences that are for lease by today’s traditional networks. The market for information is now becoming rich with social objects that are designed not only for consumption but also for sharing. With the democratization of the web comes the democratization of influence. It’s now anyone’s game to become the resource and source for information related to a segment. Brands realize this and are experimenting with the establishment of nicheworks dedicated to their industry. Indeed the future of marketing starts with publishing.

Companies are seeking new CEO’s (Chief Editorial Officers) and are hiring journalists, editors, and freelancers to transform mediarooms and blogs into veritable newsrooms.

This move is paramount and as Foresmki it is equally transformative. There are several reasons why the stars are in alignment for brand journalism.

1. Social consumers are no longer captivated or enticed by traditional advertising.

2. According  to a recent Edelman survey, trust in peers is falling while trust in experts is soaring.  It is the latter that holds the greatest promise for brands and any media network.

As social networking evolves from social graphs to interest graphs, connections also evolve from relationships to relations weighted on the value of the currency exchanged between them. In this case, current is information and value is measured by insight, education, entertainment, further personalized at the individual level. While the market for content is commoditized, the market for insight is limitless and priced accordingly.

The Attention Rubicon

In Engage, I introduce the concept of an Attention Rubicon, the line where attention is short supply and whether people realize it or not, its state is measured by what reaches them, what doesn’t and also what they deem worthy of sharing. The Attention Rubicon has long since been passed by the social consumer and is on the horizon of many online and traditional consumers. It will be crossed and as a result, the information economy will adapt.

Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism published a study that further details the shift away from the destination web and the rising tide of social streams as the attention dashboards of an important class of consumers.

As Pew’s Kenny Olmstead, Amy Mitchell and Tom Rosenstiel observe, “Whatever the future of journalism, much of it depends on understanding the ways that people navigate the digital news environment—the behavior of what might be called the new news consumer.”

This is why social media has never been about the technology as much as it has been governed by social science (2007) to better understand its state and its direction.

In partnership with Nielson, Pew examined the top 25 news web sites in the U.S. and studied the four main areas of audience behavior:

1. How users get to the top news sites
2. How long they stay during each visit
3. How deep they go into a site
4. Where they go when they leave

As discussed earlier by the 3 Segments of consumerism, Pew found that there is not one group of news consumers, but in fact several. And as a result, news organizations or any organization for that matter, require unique strategies for addressing each audience.

Among the revealing insights…

It’s clear that social networks aren’t a fad, they’re not going away, they’re in fact rivaling the top referrers for site traffic.

The top brand news sites depend greatly on “casual users,” people who visit just a few times per month and spend only a few minutes at a site.

USAToday.com was typical of most of these popular news sites according to Pew. 85% of its users visited USAToday.com between one and three times per month. Three quarters came only once or twice. Time spent was even more daunting…when all the visits were added together, 34%, spent between one and five minutes on the site each month (footnote)

As Pew notes, online data tend to count some users multiple times, inflating the number of casual users and undercounting repeat visits, casual users till would be the largest single group.

A smaller core of loyal and frequent visitors to news sites, called “power users.” These individuals return more than 10x per month to a given site and spend more than an hour there over that time. Among the top 25 sites, power users visiting at least 10 times make up an average of just 7% of total users. That number ranged markedly from as high as 18% (at CNN.com) to as low as 1% (at BingNews.com).

Google remains the primary entry point. The search engine accounts on average for 30% of the traffic to these sites.

Of all social networks, Facebook in particular, is a powerful, and growing, news referring source. At five of the top sites, Facebook is the second or third most important driver of traffic. Surprisingly, Twitter barely registers as a referring source. In the same vein, when users leave a site, “share” tools that appear alongside most news stories rank among the most clicked-on links.

News consumers to the top news websites are on par with Internet users overall. This stands apart from news consumption on traditional platforms, which tends to skew older, and may bode well for the industry.

The future of media is evolving and its direction is far from certain. What’s clear however, is that any media organization or business will have to compete for attention in this information economy in real time and over time. This is about competing for the future by competing for the moment. The consumer of the future is visible today at they’re always on. The interest graphs they weave within social networks serve as qualified information networks that can amplify information with unprecedented speed, efficiency and personalization. It creates a  human algorithm that brings to life an awakening and revolutionary reality, we are now reaching an audience with an audience of audiences. They’re no longer consumers, but stakeholders in the information economy.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Facebook’s privacy settings are extremely detailed, giving you the ability to fine-tune the privacy aspects of almost every little part of your Facebook account. Unfortunately, for most users, this level of micromanagement makes Facebook’s privacy settings a convoluted mess.

Even worse, these settings change often; you may think you know everything there is about them, only to be greeted with a completely different layout and a bunch of new options the next time you visit the dreaded Facebook Privacy Settings page.

So, what do you do when you’ve got over 170 options to choose from? You focus on the most important ones. We’ve entered Facebook’s maze of privacy options and came out on the other side bruised, battered, but with 10 essential settings in our hands. Disregard them at your own peril!

1. Sharing on Facebook

Account > Privacy Settings > Sharing on Facebook

Controlling how you share content is quite complex and will probably make your head hurt, but it’s essential that you take a good look at the settings and decide for yourself what you want to share and with whom.

Facebook gives you the easy way out: You can share content with Everyone, Friends of Friends, or Friends only. However, if you’re using lists (see item number eight on this list), you might want to customize the settings and set a certain type of content to be visible to the people on some of your lists, and invisible to others. For example, only my close friends can see all my photos, while business associates can see just a few.

It’s important to note the “Preview my Profile” option which lets you see your profile as someone else would. Setting all the options just right can sometimes be tricky. When in doubt, defer to this option.

2. Existing Photos

Account > Privacy Settings > Sharing on Facebook > Customize Settings > Edit album privacy for existing photos

Settings for sharing content on Facebook can be treacherous as they don’t always apply to all your existing photos. With this setting, you can go through your old albums and change the privacy setting for each one, including your Wall Photos.

3. Checking In to Places

Account > Privacy Settings > Sharing on Facebook > Customize Settings > Friends can check me in to Places

Another setting under Sharing on Facebook often goes unnoticed, and it can be very important, as it lets your friends check you in to Places. Having someone else telling the world where you are can be unpleasant and even dangerous in some cases. If you want to avoid it, disable this feature.

4. Connecting on Facebook

Account > Privacy Settings > Connecting on Facebook

Privacy settings for sharing content on Facebook are separated from the settings for connecting, which basically means sharing information about you: Your photo, gender, age, education, hometown etc.

Furthermore, these settings determine how people can find you on Facebook. Can they do it simply by searching for your name? Can anyone add you as a friend, and send you a message?

Here, you can change those settings to Friends Only, Friends of Friends, Everyone or — in some cases — customize them. For example, if you get pestered by too many anonymous messages, you might consider letting only your friends send them. Be careful: If you set everything to the strictest available privacy setting, people may have a harder time finding you on Facebook.

5. Apps You Use

Account > Privacy Settings > Apps and Websites > Apps You Use

This is another painful setting as it usually means wading through dozens of apps and either removing them or editing the privacy settings for each of them individually.

We suggest removing all of the apps you’re not using (hint: If you can’t remember what it is, you probably don’t need it), and carefully reviewing the permissions you’ve given each individual app. For example, some apps like to post on your Wall even though they don’t require the option to function.

6. Instant Personalization

Account > Privacy Settings > Apps and Websites > Instant Personalization

We’ve covered this setting in-depth before. For detailed info on what it does, check out this article. Essentially, it lets third-party websites personalize your experience, which can be nice, but it also allows access to your personal data.

You can opt-out of Instant Personalization on individual third-party websites, such as Pandora, simply by clicking on “No Thanks” when asked about it. However, on Facebook you can completely disable it by leaving the checkbox before “Enable instant personalization on partner websites” unchecked.

7. Info Accessible to Your Friends

Account > Privacy Settings > Apps and Websites > Info accessible through your friends

This is where Facebook’s privacy settings get really tricky, and most users don’t realize it. No matter how tight your privacy settings are, you’re still sharing some of your content and info with a group of people, even if it’s only your closest friends. However, what you share with them doesn’t necessarily end with them, especially if their privacy settings are lax. In the end, your friends might be sharing your info with third-party services, which is precisely what you want to avoid.

With this setting, you can set exactly what information is available to apps and websites if your friends use them.

8. Public Search

Account > Privacy Settings > Apps and Websites > Public Search

When someone searches for you on a search engine, they might get a preview of your public profile which, in some cases, can be very revealing. If you don’t want that to happen, you should turn this option off.

9. Friend Lists

If you’re a typical Facebook user, you have 130 friends, and it’s very likely that you don’t want to share every detail of your life with all of these people.

This is where Friend Lists come into play. By creating lists of — for example — your family members, close friends and business acquaintances, you can finely tune the details you want to share with each list (as explained above).

Creating lists can be a bit dull at first, especially if you start doing it when you already have hundreds of friends, but once you set them up, it’s easy to add each new friend to a particular list.

10. Enabling HTTPS

Account > Account Settings > Account Security > Secure Browsing (HTTPS)

The last setting we’d like to highlight has more to do with security than privacy. However, if someone hacks into your account or sniffs your data (which can be easily done with an app like Firesheep), all the privacy settings in the world won’t help you protect it.

Recently, Facebook started introducing HTTPS support, which makes it a lot harder for someone connected to the same network to sniff your password and other data. It makes Facebook a bit slower, and certain features don’t work yet, but we highly recommend it as HTTPS is essential to online security on all web services, not just Facebook.

If the option isn’t available to you just yet, don’t worry. Facebook promised it will gradually roll out the feature in the following weeks.

The term “influence” doesn’t mean a lot, and yet, it seems to be the holy grail for online social media people. Marketers coming to the fold worry quite a deal about reaching the influencers. The dogma, such as it is, says that anybody can be an influencer. Only, you and I know that we all feel like a nobody sometimes, and that we’re not all influential about the same things.

For instance, I trusted Mark Horvath to share good advice on the cameras he uses for his projects, and that’s why I bought my Canon Vixia HF S200: because Mark said It was a good one. Mark was/is much more influential to my choice than someone with 200,000 followers on Twitter (or similar). He certainly has more influence to me than most ads, because I know Mark’s a real guy that I know and have met.

Klout says this about my influence:

When I look for analysis, I get this:

• Chris Brogan has built a very large and engaged network through high quality, trustworthy content.
• Chris Brogan is very likely to have any message amplified and acted upon.
• Chris Brogan is constantly engaged by very influential people.
• Chris Brogan creates quality content that engages a very large audience on a level very few can achieve.

But what does that all mean? Or a better question: Can we improve our influence? Here are some thoughts.

It Starts With a Solid Platform

I should be clear. I never set out to be influential. I set out to be helpful. That word, “helpful,” turns out to be ONE way out of several to be influential. Rich people often get to be influential, because money gives people improved reach, and improved options for decision-making. Because I didn’t have a ton of money, I ended up finding ways to be helpful instead. And I put that helpfulness right out there to be seen on my website, my home base. Over and over, I gave more than anyone I knew, and I gave away my “secrets,” so that you could do it, too. But it wouldn’t matter one bit without the next step.

The next step of influence is awareness.

Get Seen

I joke with Steve Garfield all the time about his awesome book, Get Seen. I ask him, “How do you get seen?” And Steve answers, “Be there.”

That’s the secret. Be there. I had accounts on every social network early. (I’m in the first 11K to join Twitter.) And when I got there, I connected, communicated, and offered help. But we’ll get back to that. First? I was there. And I was active. And I was not just active, but I shared the spotlight.

I did the same thing in real space. I’m one of the rare social media types who’s actually met several thousand of the people he’s connected with online. And I’ve met quite the mix of influential people and up-and-comers. (Know where the real gain comes from? Spend time with the up-and-comers.)

So, I started with a platform, and then I showed up everywhere I could afford (and sometimes not afford) to go. But what did I do once I got there?

Share the Spotlight

One thing that helps one become influential is to work on helping others rise up. The more people you can support and help, the more people who will remember where they got that help, and who will extend some level of your influence, whether or not they choose to do so. I promote others far more often than I ever talk about my own accomplishments. Why? Because you didn’t come here to learn about me. You came here to improve your own efforts. I share as much as I can about other people, so that you understand what will give you the best chance to improve.

Sometimes, I talk about people like Tony Robbins, who I think has given us lots to learn. I talk about Tom Peters, a mentor of mine for decades, who continues to really light my mind up with new ideas, and as I tell him at every opportunity I get, who continues to get me in trouble, all these many years later.

Other times, I talk about aGlenda Watson Hyatt, who is helping bloggers and businesses figure out accessibility and helping them grow a market segment that we all are missing our chance to help. I point out Suzanne Vara, who is one of the most loyal, most energized, most dedicated person I’ve met. To me, there’s great value in what Glenda and Suzanne show you, and I’d rather you get to know them better.

Sharing the spotlight in this way, though, improves your influence. How? It shows people (you!) what I value, and it suggests that I’ll be quick to point you out when someone else needs what you offer.

Working The Numbers of Influence

I work really hard to get my RSS subscribers. I ask for more whenever I can. I also ask people to subscribe to my newsletter. I don’t work as hard on getting followers on Twitter. Instead, I work really hard on being relevant and useful and funny and quirky and worthwhile. I work on promoting other people and sharing what they’ve found. Why? Because I think that’s how to get numbers there. (Want more Twitter followers? Get More Twitter Followers today!)

I look at my stats via Google Analytics, via PostRank, via HootSuite, and from other sources, to see what works for me, what doesn’t. I work those numbers. I don’t just let them show up magically. I’m not using HubSpot on this site, but in future projects, that might be another way for me to improve my numbers and measurement, as well.

Influence Isn’t Handed Over

No one passes out influence. Yes, sometimes, someone very influential will tap you and you can benefit from this, but that’s rare. No one came and tapped my shoulder. And yet, I did something with each and every opportunity I was handed.

When I worked with Jeff Pulver, I worked hard to help his efforts, and I also did what I could to meet the people he put in front of me. I listened hard to his every lesson, and I learned from observing the kinds of people he spent his time with, who he gave his attention to, and where he put emphasis. Every step of the way, I gained influence.

Before Jeff, I worked on influence by learning things. Christopher S. Penn and I figured out how to run PodCamp, and we learned from that how to build networked relationships with important people in the podcasting and new media space.

After Jeff, I learned how to leverage every new opportunity I got into a chance to help someone else, a chance to promote someone else, and/or an opportunity to grow my business. Never once did someone hand me more influence. I earned it.

That’s the Silver Lining To This All

Don’t work on your Klout score. Work on understanding influence. Don’t work on how many followers you have, except insofar as you worry about how to feed them useful information that will grow your reach.

Do work on learning how to be most helpful to those in your segment of the universe that are growing. Do work on putting more resources in the hands of people who need to grow. Do work on never missing an opportunity to take a privilege and to extend it into something more than what you started with. And say thank-you a thousand times more than you are today.

And that, friends, is some of what I know about influence.

You?