Surveying Our Landscape From Top to Bottom

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Metrics and Social Web Services: Quantitative Evidence for their Use & Impact

Surveying Our Landscape From Top To Bottom

Brian Kelly

University of Bath

Bath, UK

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/eim-2011-07/http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/eim-2011-07/

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Evidence & comments

Services being considered: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, iTunes, Technorati, Wikio & Slideshare

Twitter: Personal Trends

I thought I used Twitter regularly ever since signing up in March 2007.

Evidence from Tweetstats:• Significant use began in

Jan 2008 (100+ tweets)• No use in Mar-Jun 2008

Reality:• Significant use began in Apr 2008 at MW 2008 conf• Needed community in order to gain benefits

Implications:• Our memories may be incorrect• Data may be wrong (due to Twitter downtime??)

Institutional Use of Twitter

Questions:• What can commercial social media

analytics services tell us about institutional Use of Twitter?

• What can we learn from the approaches the services take?

• What are their strengths and weaknesses?

• Can we / should we develop alternatives?

Social Media Analytic Summaries

Social media analytic summaries for Russell Group Universities

Outliers may be interesting

Peerindex Comparisons (1)

Peerindex’s ‘topic fingerprint’ for Oxford / Cambridge:• Similar profiles• Oxford covers

news, politics & history

• Cambridge covers technologies

Peerindex and Klout group comparisons for Russell Group Unis available(data used in this talk is available freely for reuse under CC0 licence)

Peerindex Comparisons (2)

Peerindex’s ‘topic fingerprint’ for:

@psychemedia (blue blob) & @mweller (grey outline)

Do such comparisons tell us anything useful?

Example used of four established bloggers / Twitterers

Peerindex For ParticipantsPeerindex table of rankings for attendees. Is this:

• A self-fulfilling echo-chamber / a clique?

• Easily gamed (e.g. by signing up to service)?

Scenario 1: Research funding determined by flawed metrics but Unis still headhunt researchers with valuable RAE scores

Scenario 2: Social Media metrics flawed but Unis headhunt marketing / outreach people with valuable scores

Scenario 3: “IMAGINE a world in which we are assigned a number that indicates how influential we are. This number would help determine whether you receive a job …It’s not science fiction. It’s happening to millions”

Slideshare: Personal UseSteve Wheeler tweet on Aug 2010:

Ironically there were 15 people in my audience for this Web 3.0 slideshow but >12,000 people have since viewed it http://bit.ly/cPfjjP

In Dec 2010 blog post reported:•~16K views &1.5K embedded views

Blog post suggested:•Value of embeddable resources (Slideshare sets OERs free)•Ways of comparing value of experiences of 15 local audience & 22.8K (now) remote viewers

Slideshare at Events (1 of 2)IWMW events used Slideshare since 2006.

Statistics show:• Overall nos of

views (<1,000 live audience)

and suggest:• Potential for

amplification of parallel sessions

• Potential value of aggregation of slides

But does decline since 2008 peak indicate:• Slideshare is past it (use Slideboom,

…)?• Viewing slides is passe• Benefits of longstanding availability?

Slideshare at Events (2 of 2)

Statistics of most popular slides suggest:• Popularity of

non-HE speakers’ slides

• Popularity of slides not in corporate house style

This has some positive correlation with experiences of local audienceCould this inform selection of speakers in future?

Slideshare: LessonsLessons:

• Benefits of providing embeddable resources to enhance access

• Informing policy: encouraging workshop facilitators to upload their slides

• Challenging orthodoxy: value of house style• Apparent decline in numbers may reflect longevity

of availability of resources

Implications:• What can the evidence and reflections tell us

about teaching and learning repositories?

Slideshare Premium account provides richer statistics (trend analysis?) indicates value of business intelligence for $19/month.

Metrics For Personal BlogsTechnorati gives authority & ranking for 1.2 M blogs

Authority measures blog's standing & influence on scale of 0-1000 (high good).Ranking given for Technorati Authority of all sites (low good)

Rank of 3,045 means top 0.2% of all blogs.

Technology rank of 376 (of 30,133) means top 1.2%

Metadata for use in comparison with similar blogs

Top 3% of all blogsTop 13% of technology blogsOr top 0.2% of all blogsTop 1.3% of technology blogs

Or blogs.ouseful.info

Metrics For Personal BlogsFor blogs with a “JISC” keyword:

MASHe:

Top 0.8%

Top 2% technology

JISC AM Team:

Top 6%

May be value in:• Comparisons

(learning)• Aggregation

(value of HE)

But …

15Note usefulness of keywords

Why the drop?

WikioWikio also provides metrics for (registered) blogs

List of top technology blogs shown

MASHe also ranked highly but not listed as Technology blog (so 4 of top 100 blogs here!)

Together with display of trends for ranking, nos. of posts, links and backlinks,

OUseful had peak at #18 in Nov 2008

What happened from Jun-Sep 2010?

DiscussionCriticisms: Flawed Approaches

• Blogs have variety of purposes so inappropriate to reduce to 1 dimension

Response:• A degree can be seen as I/2.1/2.2 or 3• Some blogs have similar purpose and can be

compared

Criticisms: Technical• Results can be volatile & may be skewed by blog

technologies; migration of blogs; …

Response:• Could improve• Not significantly different from University rating?

Facebook Trends in UK HEDevelopment since 2007:•Blog post in 2007 reported 7 UK Unis on Facebook: Aston, Cardiff, Kent and the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan)•Jun 2008 survey reported on 8 most popular UK HE pages: OU top with 7,539 fans•Aug 2010 survey showed growth over 2 years (OU 380%; Cardiff 13,000% and others from 400-700%)

Result of decision to be pro-active in Fb marketing? If so, did it provide an ROI?

FacebookSurvey of Russell Group Unis Fb use:•Branded Fb URL: 7

•Fb page: 7

•Fb group: 1

•No easily found Fb presence: 5

•Neglected or unofficial Fb presence: 1

•Range of ‘likes’: 2,047 – 137,395

Recent report on ‘ROI of Fb advertising’ suggested “1 Facebook fan = 20 additional visits to your website”

19How would we know if Cardiff‘s 20,035 Likes have provided an ROI?

YouTube EduSurvey of YouTube Edu accounts:• 1M+ views at

Coventry Uni • Lack of comments

20Example of stats available

iTunes Edu

Numeric data not readily obtained from iTunes Edu

Is this:• To be welcomed as an

escape from bean-counting?

• Of concern since gathering qualitative evidence can be costly?

Blog post analysed how services marketed: “lots of content”; “free content”; “available on iPods”; …

ConclusionsTo conclude quantitative evidence:

• Can inform policy decisions• Can influence individual decision-making

The data:• Needs to be gathered!• May be flawed and should be questioned

The data analysis:• May inform (and surprise)• May be flawed

But:• Links with value & financial ROI not yet

established

Questions

Any questions or comments?

Surveying Our Landscape From Top to Bottom

Education