Recently, Stanford Media X Workshop – New Metrics for New Media: Analytics for Social Media and Virtual Worlds

On August 5th and 6th I led a workshop with Martha Russell on social network analysis of social media as part of the Stanford Media X Summer Institute on New Metrics for New Media: Analytics for Social Media and Virtual Worlds this Summer.

New Metrics for New Media: Analytics for Social Media and Virtual Worlds
Organizers: Martha Russell, Marc Smith
August 5-6

Social media and virtual worlds offer two important frontiers for measuring earned engagement. In both, audiences are actively engaged as participants. This workshop covered foundational concepts in media measurement, describe new frontiers in measuring audience engagement in social media and virtual worlds, and provided hands-on experience in using new analytical tools.

This session also provided a walk through the basic operation of NodeXL, including generation of social networks from social media data sources like personal e-mail (drawing data from the Windows Desktop Search engine) and the Twitter social network micro-blogging system. Arbitrary edge lists (anything that can be pasted into Excel) can be visualized and analyzed in NodeXL. Attendees were encouraged to bring an edge list of interest. Sample data sets were provided.

Video about the New Media for New Metrics Workshop

Agenda WEDNESDAY, August 5: #124 Wallenberg Hall

08.30 – 09.00 – Welcome, Introductions & Overview

Martha Russell, Director, Media-X, Stanford University
Marc Smith, Internet Sociologist, Connected Action Consulting

Martha spoke about the changing media landscape and the need to measure new media in the mix of media consumption measurements. She suggests that old measures may not always fit new media and that new media offer new opportunities (and challenges) for measurement. Martha runs the Media-X program at Stanford that ran the workshop.

09.00 – 10.00 – The MEdia Generation (and others): Trends in Media Multitasking in the US and China

Don E. Schultz, Northwestern University Agora-IMC, Inc, BigResearch

Professor Schultz teaches marketing and communication at Northwestern University. He runs a series of surveys about media consumption in the US and in China. The results show people consuming multiple media at the same time, but not in the same mix (China uses mobile more than desktop).

10.30 – 11:30 – Panel: Metrics for Management Decisions

Moderator: Martha Russell, Media X at Stanford University

Richard Rommel, Senior VP Emerging Business, Best Buy
Blaine Baggett, Executive Manager, Office of Communication and Education
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA
Louis-David Mangin, GrinShot
Maury Giles, Founder, Pursuit

Richard Rommel (Best Buy) discussed their Twitter strategy and commercials. Best Buy now features their employees as a service via twitter to all askers and features that in their TV commercials.

JPL in Pasadena is using the web to push the “science is cool” (and fundable) message to all who will listen. When NASA lands something on Mars its the JPL that gets the huge traffic spike. They are opening up conversations between researchers and the public and increasing the surface area for science media.

11:30 – 12:00 – Synergies Between Search and Social Metrics

David A. Shamma, Yahoo Research

Ayman spoke about measuring engagement in a Yahoo Messenger video sharing and chat feature. He found that chat activity spikes during the credits. Except in Japan where strings of “wwwwwwwwwwwww” denote laughter and continue through out a shared video session.

Ayman also did a study of Twitter usage during last year’s political debates. He found the chat did not echo the terms used in the debate. Chat activity also spiked after the debate.

13:00 – 14:00 – Measuring Social Media & Digital WOM

Michael Wu, Chief Scientist, Lithium

Michael presented the ingredients of the Lithium Community Health Index which (pictured) includes the notion of interactivity (speed to reply).

14:00 – 15:00 – Panel: Metrics for Moderating and Managing Communities

Moderator: Marc Smith, Internet Sociologist, Connected Action Consulting

Sameer Patel, Pretzel Logic
Gail Ann Williams, Director of Communities, Salon.com

Gail and Sameer focused on the ways they directly manage communities in a commercial environment. Gail tuns the community for Salon’s Table Top and Well social spaces. She runs fee based spaces that require customer retention (but sometimes wish they could selectively apply customer ejection!).

Sameer consults on the selection and use of enterprise social media. He focused on the metrics his customers want to see in an internal deployment, focused on usage and connection rates among users.

15:15 – 17:00 – Social Network Analysis Tutorial: Part 1
Concepts, Data, & Tools for Producing the Social Graph

Marc Smith, Internet Sociologist, Connected Action Consulting

I showed the slides previously presented at the Catalyst Conference, this time in a longer form at the workshop: http://www.slideshare.net/Marc_A_Smith/2009-catalyst-conference-social-media-research slides focuse on the use of social network and activity analysis to identify key contributors in social media spaces.

17.00 – 17.30 – Discussion: Navigating the Terms in Social Media Metrics

Moderator: Don Schultz

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Agenda THURSDAY, August 6: #124 Wallenberg Hall

08.30 – 09.30 – Patterns of Mobile Media Advertising–Taking 3G Portals as an Example

Chunlin Duan, South China University of Technology Profit

Professor Duan is Dean of the School of Communication at South China University of Technology. She described mobile device usage in China (huge!) and the major focus on IM, chat, and message boards, along with the dominance of QQ and its virtual goods and currency.

09.00 – 09:30 – Cell Phone Usage in Japan for Social Networking and Advertising

Neil Rubens, University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo

When toddlers have cell phones mobile device penetration is high! Japan is highly mobile (although on its own island of technology) and using social network services via their devices.

09:30 – 10.30 – Panel: Emerging Metrics for Virtual Worlds & Immersive Environments

Moderator: Greg Nuyens, Qwaq Forums
Gene Yoon, Former CFO, Second Life
Parvati Dev, Innovations in Learning
Henrik Bennetsen, Stanford Humanities Lab

Gene Yoon is the former CFO of Second Life, he spoke about the use of metrics in his business. He focused on engagement as the behavior he wanted to measure.

Parvarti Dev is a former Stanford Professor using virtual reality social worlds to role play emergency room procedures among nurses and doctors.

11:00 – 12:00 – Trends in Metrics for Self Monitoring

Gary Wolf, Sr. Editor, WIRED

Gary is documenting the emerging world of the “Quantified Self” – people using mobile devices with sensors and networks to collect detailed records of their own behavior and medical vital statistics. These data sets, in aggregate, may reveal new insights for evidence based medicine, self improvement, and public safety.