Resource of the Week: Social Media News -- Web 2.0 Clock Counts Upwards; "Suicide Machine" Cleans Your Social Media Record
Resource of the Week: Social Media News -- Web 2.0 Clock Counts Upwards; "Suicide Machine" Cleans Your Social Media Record
By Gary Price, Founder and Senior Editor
+ Total Number of Tweets
+ Number of Mobile Phones Shipped
+ New Facebook Members
+ New Blog Posts
+ Amount of Mobile Video Watched by Americans
AND many, many, more.
We were also very pleased to see that after visiting the developer's blog, he lists the sources from where many of these numbers come from. Our hope is that he adds a link to this info from the clock itself. Numbers are numbers but knowing where they are coming from makes them more or less valuable, useful, and authoritative.
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Note from Shirl:
Social media statistics are a "frequently requested" item. My favorite fishing hole is the collection maintained by social media consultant Jeremiah Owyang of the Altimeter Group in Silicon Valley. The stats are nicely organized into sections -- all social networks, by region/geography, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tagged, Twitter, Yelp, YouTube, mobile/desktop social networks. Stop here first before you spend a lot of time/energy/bandwidth searching elsewhere.
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Going the Other Way
As we were watching the numbers moving upwards quickly, we thought about a tool we've been reading about lately and will create some accounts to try out in the future, The Social Media Suicide Machine developed in the Netherlands. This service wipes your online accounts clean on one or more of the following social media services:
+ MySpace
+ Twitter
+ Facebook
+ LinkedIn
With a couple of clicks (see FAQ), your social media records (friend info, tweets, etc.) on one or more of the services is gone without the chance of returning. It's a free service that for the most receives positive comments, see below.
Of course, these days it's rather obvious that the counters are moving forward MUCH more rapidly than moving backwards. What about long term? Not that social media is going away, but will users want to be sure that their records are clear if they decide to stop using a service? Will "social media removal" by third party companies become a booming biz? What about removal from other online services? Will users feel more secure using a third-party vs. using something the social network or another type of online service provides? Only time will tell.
It's also worth mentioning that in January, the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine was sent a cease and desist letter (2 pages; PDF) by Facebook. However, it appears (we haven't confirmed) that it's still possible to use the "machine" to "remove" yourself from Facebook.
More from us soon. In the meantime here are some other stories:
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