Amazon reviews are just as likely to give an accurate summary of a book's quality as those of professional newspapers, according to a study from Harvard Business School.

Professor Michael Luca and his co-authors analysed the top 100 reviews from 40 media outlets, including the New York Times, and the Washington Post, between 2004 and 2007 for their paper. The academics used data from reviews aggregator metacritic.com, which summarises professional reviews and then awards ratings, if not given, based on content. They also looked at Amazon reviews for each title.

Although the study points out that there is "virtually no quality assurance" in Amazon's consumer reviews, which can also be "gamed" by publishers or competitors submitting false reviews, they found that, nevertheless, experts and consumers agreed in aggregate about the quality of a book.

Another piece of research looking at the reliability of information shared through social media. Earlier in the year, a report was published of researchers who looked at mining Twitter to predict the success of movies. The study was not so positive in this case:

Overall, the study found no clear evidence that shows a direct link between Twitter hype, ratings and box office sales.
“The most surprising finding was that Twitter data may not be representative enough of the total population, so it is somewhat risky to use the site for forecasting,” Sen said. “More sophisticated techniques may be needed to understand the applicability of such data sets, such as the metrics we developed to understand the extent of the difference between Twitter users and other online rating side users.”

search-volume forecasts will help spot consumer trends of this sort with increased precision. But the improvements they bring will be incremental. Sophisticated methods based on natural-language analysis of tweets, blogs, or Facebook pages, by contrast, hold greater disruptive potential. As users of social media grow accustomed to sharing highly personal information, apparently unfazed by market-research outfits like WiseWindow watching their every step, the feelings and intentions of hundreds of millions of people are there for data-hungry computers to see.

BBC research shows that 77% of the UK's online population is now actively participating in some way. We have been aware for some time that the 1-9-90 percent rule (or 1% rule) of interaction is too simplistic and this research adds more insight in understanding this dynamic. The BBC's model of Participation Choice identifies four key forms: passive, easy reaction, easy initiation and intense participation.

Thousands of derailed Sydney-siders took to the airwaves and Twitter last Thursday, not just to moan about having their travel plans hi-jacked by the delays, track closures and diversions – but to complain that train operator RailCorp was slow to let them know what was going on.

RailCorp responded to some customers' Tweets about the problems but in a follow-up interview with ABC Radio Sydney chief operating officer Tony Eid admitted the medium had been used "reactively"...

Partner at social media consultancy SR7 James Griffin said a whole-of-government strategy was well overdue.

RailCorp's communications problems last week illustrated one of the ways in which social media was not being used correctly by the public sector, Griffin said.

NSW agencies currently had over 100 different Facebook pages – some of them set up incorrectly as profiles and others with questionable purpose, he claimed.

...

"I can't understand why they haven't started already – it's a quick win and would generate political capital."

There is definitely more that many organisations could be doing in terms of delivering better customer service online - and its not just government agencies that ignore or fail to engage their "customers" well through social media.

But I disagree that this is something that can be easily fixed in complex service delivery environments like public transport, as James Griffin from SR7 appears to be suggesting.

Even Queensland Rail who are a leading example of good social customer service using Twitter, only operate during business hours.

Sure, you can tidy up all your Facebook accounts and plaster a veneer of social customer service over your organisation, but if the staff, systems and processes aren't able to support it then eventually you are going to fail.

It is important that delivering social customer service is scalable and maintainable over the long term - I mean, what happens when your internal social media expert goes on holiday, is sick or simply moves on to a new role? And as customer expectations rise, do you have the tools to track and respond to questions, meet information needs at the speed social media demands and also track individual issues to completion? Do you have processes for collecting and taking action on broader feedback gathered through social media monitoring?

This doesn't mean I don't also detect a hint of hesitation by Transport for NSW to utilise social media more effectively, but I understand in part why this is the case. I suspect like many large organisations, Transport for NSW need to focus internally before it can really deliver outstanding customer service online. Because if they then fail, the SMEGs are going to have a real field day with Transport for NSW.

'Social Media in Government: Hands-on Toolbox' has been written to help practitioners who are setting up social media profiles and using the tools on a daily basis.  It has been written for public servants with limited experience using social media, but also offers tools and tips that will be useful for those practitioners who have been using social media for some time.

Along with a High-level Guidance document, the New Zealand government has released a toolbox guide to help their pubic servants use social media. Apparently they reused content from the UK (although not Australia?) and Gartner analyst, Andrea Di Maio, thinks its a pretty good guide.

Highlights in the toolbox for me are:

• I like the distinction made between 'Social networks' and 'Media-sharing networks' (although IMHO, Flickr can be both). 
• They attempt a balanced look at the Strengths and Weaknesses of the five types of social media addresses in the guide, rather than focusing on risk or over evangelising the benefits. 
• The methodology of Finding, Assessing, Contributing and Tracking as a way to develop they approach to a particular tool.

Now they are quite upfront that this guide is for people with limited experience and it is impossible to distil knowledge of this medium into a single, static document. I know that, because I co-authored a Toolkit, for the Australia Government Gov 2.0 Taskforce in 2009.

Personally I think this kind of guide remains a double-edged sword. On one hand, we need to encourage people in government to get online. However, I don't think the patterns of online engagement, tools or methods described in basic guides like this really help to create a deeper and more sustainable engagement with the concepts of open government, Government 2.0 or social media either. To quote Dominic Campbell, who said recently:

There aren't enough of us working to transform, challenge and change the inside of government. Not enough taking on the really sticky issues beyond relatively quick and easy wins, such as transit data or street-scene related apps. This needs to change before anything can be said to have gone mainstream. Disclaimer: this is exactly what we're looking to do with apps like PatchWorkHQ and CasseroleHQ, starting to hone in on priority, challenging, socially important and costly areas of government, such as child protection and supporting older people to live better independent lives. The journey is far longer and harder, but (we're hoping) even more rewarding.

Lets stop focusing on examples of Government using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Instead, lets spread ideas that can really have impact.

This is something Dominic and I discussed at GovCampNSW a few weeks ago. Really, understanding the technology isn't the barrier and publishing more and more basic guides won't change that.

Social computing has to do with digital systems that support online social interaction. Some online interactions are obviously social – exchanging email with a family member, sharing photos with friends, instant messaging with coworkers. These interactions are prototypically social because they are about communicating with people we know. But other sorts of online activity also count as social – creating a web page, bidding for something on eBay™, following someone on Twitter™, making an edit to Wikipedia¹. These actions may not involve people we know, and may not lead to interactions, but nevertheless they are social because we do them with other people in mind: the belief that we have an audience – even if it is composed of strangers we will never meet – shapes what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Thus when we speak of social computing we are concerned with how digital systems go about supporting the social interaction that is fundamental to how we live, work and play. They do this by providing communication mechanisms through which we can interact by talking and sharing information with one another, and by capturing, processing and displaying traces of our online actions and interactions that then serve as grist for further interaction.

An academic deep dive into the topic from Thomas Erickson, a researcher in the Social Computing Group at IBM's Watson Labs in New York. It includes video interview and commentary from other academics. No, I haven't read/listened to all this content yet, but bookmarking it for later.

Watch the videos. Then read my post over on the Headshift | Dachis Group Asia Pacific blog.

the challenge for advertisers and marketers is to stand out above the general internet noise and create what the industry calls a value proposition for their brands. In this, Facebook has emerged as a crucial platform for social interaction with 750 million users worldwide, as has Twitter with 250 million. But simply having a Twitter "hashtag", which more easily identifies subjects being discussed, or "liking" something on Facebook are no longer enough.

"We are starting to move away from the mad arms race of [increasing] fans on Facebook,"

Timely article from the Guardian. There is a school of thought around social media marketing that basically calls for business and organisations to get online and then follow a strategy of what I call, "getting loud with social media". Success will follow if you can overcome your fears of the medium - you just need to be on it for this to happen.

Today I've been browsing around looking at some major Australian brands and organisations that have an active presence on Facebook. Its pretty a disappointing picture to be honest.

For one well known consumer brand, a recent Facebook post attracted well over a hundred "Likes" and about 50 comments. Sounds like a great reaction? When you look at the actual comments, the largest categories were complaints (6%) and wants (14%). The brand itself was absent in the conversation, but at least some of their fans (3.4%) did at least bother to reply to questions and comments from other people. As a potential customer looking in, there is no evidence that the brand actually cares or is listening to feedback - a missed opportunity.

Another well known and family-friendly brand has a wall full of spam posts and in appropriate comments (e.g. mentioning alcohol) in breach of their own community rules, mixed in with genuine fans/customers. However, there is evidence at least of that brand engaging with people on customer service issues. That good work in customer service and the promotions on their page is being undone by poor community management and moderation.

In another example, a major industry association has attracted about 130 "likes" in about 6 months for their page. Sure, its not harming them but its not adding much value in its current form either.

Personally, in Australia at least, I see smaller consumer-orientated companies doing a much better job of engaging but with a smaller audience. Like Frisk Espresso, who I discovered in Perth recently. They only have about 1,500 fans but the engagement is better at that scale. Its important to recognise that their fan base is probably built on an excellent customer experience in the real world and through promotion at their shop front (that's how I found them). Rather than faking it and expecting noise on social media to make their online engagement successful, they are working social media more smartly than many large (and well resourced) brands. And I'll be back at Frisk when I'm next in Perth.

However, I'm prepared to be corrected. Have you got an Australian example where getting loud with social media (i.e. getting lots of followers or likes) has worked? Or maybe you've got a horror story of where this strategy has crashed and burned?

Basically, about.me enables you to create a centralized personal profile page that links to your content around the web. Sound like a Google+ profile page? It's different for quite a few reasons, but mostly so due to the "splash page" look of the site (where I usually choose to show a large picture of what I look like).

In addition to the slick front end content management tools, about.me also provides analytics so you can see who viewed your profile, where they came from, and where they've gone afterwards (your facebook, linkedin, flickr, twitter, blog etc). The only thing that's missing right now is domain mapping, so I can use my domain name.

They also have a partnership with moo.com (the business card and sticker folks) that let's you get free business cards that feature a QR code that will link to your about.me profile.

Highly recommended.

I'm a fan of about.me and also flavors.me too. Google isn't know for the visual aspects of its user experience and I really think they could learn something from the visual design and ease of use of these profile sites.

The wonderful thing about news in the Internet age is that we have unfiltered access to both first hand reports and the perspective of overseas news channels. In this panel interview, Guardian journalist Paul Lewis emphasises that he feels the use of social media and Blackberry Messenger in particular to orchestrate the riots should be considered in the loosest terms, rather than it being a defining factor.

The comments from the panel also reflect some of my own experiences of watching the riots unfold online - the positives far outweighed the bad.

Its also interesting to reflect on the evolving relationship between the traditional media and social media. Lewis immersed himself in the medium, like photojournalist, adding credibility and insight into his reporting in parallel to user generated content. The Guardian newspaper also leads the way in using open data to share facts, so we can judge for ourselves. The public record of social media also means we can check quotes for the original context too (scroll down to Misquoted).

The UK Police are also using social media to track down offenders, although perhaps they should have read from Queenland Police's book for their approach to #mythbusting during an emergency (PDF).

Such is the ever tightening relationship between our every days lives, the delivery of community and government services, professional media reporters and social media I can't see how in reality we can really untangle the technology without unintended consequences.