Was Osama Bin Laden on Social Media?

Osama Bin Laden was found and killed by the American navy-seals. He was hiding there for a long period of time, far from the Americans but close to the Pakistan people. Not everyone knew Osama Bin Laden. Was he himself the last years? Or did he had another identity?

In present time, we as human beings have a lot identities. People take on identities throughout their lives and find new ways  to represent themselves to the world. Was this also the case with Osama Bin Laden? Did he have multiple identities?

Identification is a process which we are working on all the time. Identity never stops or has an end date, it is going on and on. Long after people have their own home, a nice car and live happily in a nice neighborhood, they still work on their identity. This all depends on the situation we are in, the people we talk to, the stage of life we are in etc.

We can determine two main identities, the first one is personal identity and the second one is the social identity. The personal identity is made by answering the question "Who am I?". What do people think about who the are? The social identity is created by the view which others have about us. What do others think of us? What do others tell about me?

So, did Osama Bin Laden had multiple identities? He could be on social media with a fancy profile and could pretending to be someone else. But we will never know..

Inspiration: Computer Mediated Communication and Identity Making

BuddyAbroad: mobile app for exchange students!

An enthusiastic project group of undergraduate students User-Interface Design of Tilburg University in the Netherlands designed a mobile application for exchange students who are going to study in the Netherlands. There are some similar products in the market, but this app contains all the features that students want to have and need.

The application is divided into two main parts, "information before going to the Netherlands" and "information during their stay in the Netherlands". These two components form the basic elements of all the experiences, tips and tricks which are contributed by other exchange students. Topics such as housing, travelling, public transport and medical services are examples of this great application with interesting features. 

Students can add "spots" to show where they are, and connect with friends easily. Below you can see some screenshots of this application. 

Students can choose in a simple interface in which country they are going to study

The menu gives a nice overview of the subjects of the features and content. 

 forum-liked interface with photos and other images makes the application pleasant to use. 

The project group at Tilburg University , is now challenging the possibilities of taking the product into production. You will read it here if and also when the product is going out on the market. Keep in touch!

Which perspective is better, Lost or Liberated?

Not many years ago, communication was mainly conducted face to face or via telephone, but since the internet was introduced, most of the communication is transferred digitally. Online communication is one of the fastdeveloping industries at the moment. Examples of this new forms of communication are e-mail, chat (messenger), Social network Sites, Skype (a video calling program) and SMS.

Scientists are situated in a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of this digital development. These two perspectives are standing right in front of each other. What is the effect of this development? Does it have a positive or negative effect on relations and communication? The theory describes two different perspectives to look at this phenomenon, the lost perspective and the liberated perspective. The lost perspective declares that new media does not play a role in the development, in contrary to the liberated perspective which declares that new media has had an enormous impact on the media landscape nowadays.

Lost perspective

Social presence
The social presence theory is based on the fact that if there are fewer visual cues, this results in less social presence. Less social presence results in more task-orientated communication and less relation orientated communication. Face to face conversation has high social presence and computer mediated communication has low social presence.

Media richness
The second lost theory is the media richness theory. Media Richness is a framework to describe a communications medium by its ability to reproduce the information sent over it. It suggests that CMC has a narrower bandwidth and less information richness than FTF communication. They argue that different communication channels have different capabilities of processing information; "rich" media is more suitable than "lean" media for socially sensitive or intellectually difficult information, and for persuading, or getting to know someone.

Liberated perspective

Social Information Processing Theory
The Social Information Processing (SIP) Theory is an interpersonal communication theory that suggests that online interpersonal relationship development might require more time to develop than traditional face-to-face relationships. This will not result in lack of cues.

Hyper personal framework
The hyperpersonal framework suggests that computer mediated communication is more friendly, more social, more personal and more intimate than face-to-face communication. We are curious about the methods which are used in this type of research.

For more bakcground information on this intresting topic, please take a look at the following video. Enjoy!

Important questions answered about Facebook Marketing

Facebook is hot. There’s no question that Facbeook has a large audience. But what does this mean for marketers and business owners?

Here are three recent Facebook-related studies that answer these very questions by examining how much time Facebook users invest in the platform.

#1: One-Third of Online Time Spent on Facebook Among U.S. Users
According to recent findings by market researcher Morpace, U.S. Facebook users are on the site for 1 of every 3 minutes of time spent online.  Users 18 to 34 years old spend the most time on the site per week (8.5 hours out of 22.4 spent online). Users 55 and older spend an average of 4.6 hours per week on Facebook.

The study also explored Facebook activity by ethnicity. According to the results, Asians were the heaviest users of Facebook.  As a group, they devoted the most of their Internet time per week to Facebook (39.6%).  African Americans were the second heaviest users at 35.1%.  Hispanics spent the least amount of time on Facebook (31.7%).


#2: Facebook Ads Most Effective On User Profile Pages
Facebook users spend more time looking at ads on their own Facebook profiles than they do on news feed pages (their homepages), found a new report by Mulley Communications.  Specifically, the study found that 71% of users looked at advertisements on their profile pages, while only 31% of users looked at advertisements on the news feed page.

In addition, 53% of users pay attention to page updates in their news feed wall, which may explain why they mostly ignore ads on their pages.

Here’s a short video to show the heat map of the news feed from the study.  Notice how there’s little activity in the right-hand side of the wall.

#3: Online Merchants Loving Facebook ‘Likes’
There’s been a lot of discussion about retailers extending the power of Facebook to their sites. Website conversion company SeeWhy found that 35% of ecommerce online marketers have implemented Facebook’s “Like” plugin, while 33% plan to do so in the near future.

The second most popular Facebook social plugin was the login application, as 18% reported they had implemented it and 15% said they plan to do so in the future. The login plugin allows consumers to skip the registration step and login directly from the merchant’s site.  This allows conversion to be simple and quick, which is a huge advantage for the merchant.

How to use your web analytics data for marketing purposes?

Strategic marketers are continually collecting data and web analytics on their website, but what should they do with all this information? 

As a marketer, data gathered online can be a valuable tool for improving strategies and adjusting budgets. In the message below I will describe web analytics and how it can work to become a better marketeer. 

1)  Measure offline data – All offline marketing campaigns should be tracked and measured as well as online campaigns. Having clear tracking for offline marketing like tradeshows is an important way to compare the results of your entire marketing strategy.

2) Measure traffic sources. Find out how your visitors are finding you.  Finding out which sources are driving the most traffic to the website will allow you to determine how well the search engines index the content on your website. 

3)  Measure conversion rates. Getting visitors to the website is the first step, getting them to convert into a lead or business is the next. Offering compelling content and clear calls-to-action will help to convert more of this traffic into leads for the business. Determine which keywords are giving you the best top, middle, and bottom of the funnel leads.

4) Ensure the data is clear. Don’t focus on one metric.  For example you notice an increase in traffic one week, what was the cause of this increase?  First you notice there was a large increase of traffic from the blog, then after drilling down further you find that it was a specific article. This shows you that this specific content is compelling to your audience, and it would be a great idea to create more content on this topic.  

5) Close the loop – Most marketers are concerned about their marketing ROI, knowing where to devote more time, energy, and resources are important.  Closed loop marketing or finding out which campaigns are driving the most traffic, leads, and most importantly customers. 

Interactive 3D experience: Panasonic D-IMager, a gesture control system

The development of 3D products is enormous. Every day we see new techniques to watch the world we live in in 3 dimensional views. One of these techniques/products is the Panasonic D-IMager.

This evolutionary product contains a sensor which can offer the user a complete interactive experience, a controller-free computer interface. It uses a CCD in conjunction with near infrared LEDs for superior three dimensional accuracy that can be used to detect human movement and hand gestures.

Watch the video to see the variety in applications. 

Furthermore, the D-IMager can be used in various security applications such as anti-tailgating systems and people counting and also allows consumers to control in-store electronic displays, play games and interact with advertising and information screens, all without the need to touch a screen or press a button.

This form of communication opens new doors for marketeers and communication specialists. 

Role of emotions in decision making

We make a huge number of choices every day. Generally these choices have an positive or a negative effect. We all want to make rational decisions, but often we are loaded with emotion that influences this decision. Events like whom to marry, which house to buy or whether to quit smoking are important choices which are based on emotion. 


Decision-making is a process where both cognitions and emotions play an important role. If cognition help us generating ideas, emotions allow us to decide what is worth thinking about and what is not. Emotions also help us in deciding what is relevant and irrelevant, what is wrong and what is right. 


Emotions have been categorized into two types: the positive emotions and the negative emotions. Negative emotions such as anger, serve to enhance credibility of threat, while positive emotions such as happiness ensure credibility of cooperation in decision process. Negative emotions can result in a limited search for new alternatives and less vigilant use of information, while positive emotions can increase or enhance active generation of ideas such as inference making, productive thinking  and facilitate the integration of information in decision-making process.


In contrast to the negative emotions, positive emotions help individuals in decision making and because of this decision makers arrive at a decision more quickly than people who experience negative emotions. People who are made to feel happy were better able to eliminate unimportant information and processed information in a creative way. 


A short but interesting interview with Antonio Damasio, researcher and professor of neuroscience at USC, about the influence of emotion on our daily lives.  

The perfect mouse?

Apple would not be Apple if they came up with something totally new. This time it is not a laptop, it is not a mp3-player, it is not a new iPad or iPhone.... Apple created their Magic Mouse.

This perfectly designed mouse doesn't have any buttons or a scroll-wheel anymore, only one multi-touch square on top. It doesn't need any further explanation, just see for yourself..

Social media, Pepsi and the Super Bowl

This year is the year that social media and the Super Bowl are finally going through the same path. Everyone from the advertisers and the NFL to fans and athletes are getting in on the social media like never before. It is not only the 3 million dollar commercial in the breaks during  this amazing sportevent, but several huge companies and brands have created an enormous (social) campaign before, during and after the game. This campaign has become very important to create 'buzz' around the message you want to deliver.

There are five things that affect the buzz:

1. Create a story
2. Turn your advertisement into a game
3. Release an app
4. Advertise the ad
5. Use Youtube

Pepsi

As a company it is also possible to avoid the commercial breaks during the Super Bowl and go totally online, Pepsi is the perfect example. For the first time in 23 years, Pepsi did not have a Super Bowl ad. Instead of the commercial, Pepsi spend $20 million on a social media campaign, called: The Pepsi Refresh Project.

The idea behind the campaign was to encourage people to submit ideas to refresh their communities, and site visitors can vote on the ideas they like best. Ultimately, Pepsi will select and fund the most popular crowd-sourced ideas. 

The start: an online tool for usability and evaluation.

My name is Rob Wilbers and I am an undergraduate student of Business Communication and Digital Media on Tilburg University, The Netherlands. Starting today, I'll be writing on this blog about things that are related to business communication, social media, cognition and other interesting subjects which influence my daily life at Tilburg University. The subject of this week is: "An interesting tool to evaluate your corporate website".

When your company has an complex website, it is important that visitors can find their way through your website easily. What is good about your website and what can be improved? Is my website clearly organized or do the visitors experience problems while they are searching for information? Which aspects of my website are getting the attention of my visitors and which aren't? This seems very obvious to most of you but in a number of cases is isn't. 

Usabilla developed a very interesting tool to evaluate your website. Usabilla provides an online tool which visualizes the attention/feedback points of the visitors on your website. With the help of this simple tool, your are just a few steps away from a nice overview of the weak and strong points on your corporate website. The results will be presented in a 'heat-map'.

This heat-map gives you a nice overview of the attention points that your visitors have on your webpage (red is important, green is less important). What they find good or bad about your product and they can also add useful comments. This tool isn't only developed for your homepage, but can be useful for any webpage, mock-up or other concept that you want to analyze and get feedback from, given by your visitors. With this information it will become easier to improve your webpage and get better results and more happy visitors. 

Video: How does it work? 

More info and ideas of the possibilities of this online tool at www.usabilla.com. For more interesting reviews about Usabilla. 

• Mashable
• Frankwatching (dutch)