Video: Social Media in Plain English

And I'm glad to be your Digg submitter:

http://digg.com/tech_news/Social_Media_in_Plain_English

Lee and Sachi, well done, you've done it again!

After your post the other day discussing how we are "Assuming Too Much About The Web We See" I love the way you are getting back to basics here and talking about the "big picture."

I'm really impressed that you managed to generalise the way that so many Web 2.0 sites work into one video that encompasses them all. I'd encourage you to find as many other ways of doing the same! We need more simple explanations for the luddites of this world and fewer high tech whizz-bang gizmos.

last week we were discussing how in ICT language teaching there is often too much emphasis on the technology and too little on how it can help us (teach &learn languages in our case.)

With more simple and easy to follow explanations of the way social media, Web 2.0 and other interactive content works, we'll be able to help more of the "Las Vegas" folk you mentioned catch up with the Seattle, USA (and Trento, Italy) folk of this world.

Common Craft Bridiging the digital Divide? Maybe not on their own, but certainly playing their part!

:-)

Seth

OK! that turned out great!

Hello, i just finished to post a description of your website. It's in italian but there is a translations plug in on my wordpress so you can read it in english. :) Thanks for your awesome videos :) I like them a lot ;)

Yet another great video - I was just telling my boss how much I enjoy your videos and then I got the email that you posted this one. Thank you!!

I'm amazed to see how mature your style is getting. It is so refined compared to videos from last year.

As far as the promo bit at the end, I think that it was a little heavy handed. Perhaps just having the text on the screen about the different licensed versions available and with the voice that says something like "More of our videos are available online at the Common Craft store."

I would hate for people to not want to show/share your videos because of the closing bit, they are too good.

You did it again! Wonderful video, great metaphore use.

Love the video, I think that for the most part, it works as a great metaphor for how social media works today. However, I feel like you didn't address the problems that stem from social media. Maybe that is beyond the scope of the video, but the ice cream factories ARE being hurt. Newspaper sales are falling dramatically. Since newspapers are part of larger corporations that are publicly owned, this hurts their quality of journalism. Maximizing profits for shareholders is required by the law, while quality journalism isn't. To keep their profit margins the same, papers are firing writers, doing less reporting, increasing the amount of advertising and featuring more "soft news." Very few papers in the U.S. can afford to do quality foreign reporting anymore (which is very costly for the amount of readers it attracts). It's much more cost-effective for them to have less reporters in Iraq and more stories about Lindsey Lohan.

I'm not blaming blogs or social media. It's just that there are inevitable problems created when we no longer pay for our information.

I love your stuff, and this one too. Perfect for explaining things to stodgy boards and committees. My only addition to this one would have been a slide or two to the effect that "Jane notices that John often gives ice cream the same ratings as she does, and she likes his comments. So she scans the bulletin boards looking for other ice creams John ranks highly, figuring she will like them too." Keep up the great work!

Fantastic job breaking down social media. Although, I'd say I have a fairy good grasp on the concept, I can honestly say I'm thrilled now that I can look at it a much much different way. Kudos again to the gang.

D.

Thanks for another great one! Your videos are just terrific.

Good idea to use video instead of just reading about it. People can understand it better if its in a video i found this very helpful cheers!

Nice video. We're thinking of linking to it from our site.

I've found video marketing to be very effective over the past few years as broadband coverage has increased and find YouTube to be a valuable tool in the marketing arsenal. I have yet to figure out how to integrate all the social media components so that they actually deliver any ROI. It's all so time consuming just like the old chat room / new group days. I understand the need for networking, but somehow it's all a bit overwhelming even for those of us who have been around the block a few times.