Each year, during the month of Movember, gents around the world embark on fabulous facial hair adventures and fundraising in support of prostate cancer research. This year the PostRank team joined in, Team Smoove and managed to raise a whopping $1386!
Many thanks to our friends, families, and fans for their support. (And to partners for putting up with 30 days of living with guys who looked like the Village People or 70s porn stars…)
And the winner of one of Melle’s very fine custom-made sockmonkeys is… Tim Jackson! Seems we sparked a bit of competition at Tech Capital, and Tim’s sneaky one dollar oneupmanship won the day. Congratulations! 
And for a taste of what it’s looked like around the office lately… (Though today they all look years younger. Heh.)
The 2009 Crunchies are upon us, courtesy of TechCrunch, GigaOm, and VentureBeat, and I have been instructed to snag us one. But I can’t do it alone. We need your votes!
If you love PostRank as much as we do (or, y’know, want a break from whatever you’re doing for a few seconds), head over The Crunchies’ website, scroll down to Best International Startup, type in PostRank, and click nominate. That’s all there is to it! We really appreciate the support, and we’ll be sure to include you in our teary acceptance speech… (Voting is open until midnight PST on Friday, December 4th.)
Public exposure and recognition mean a lot to little startups like ours. And when you come to work in jeans and t-shirts most of the time, a chance to get all dolled up and hang out with fancy people is exciting stuff. Thank you for your votes, and thanks for being part of our community and helping us build great stuff.
Update: Since the voting started, a company called Postini has been added to the nominations as well. So be careful when you vote, because if you’re not careful, the field will resolve to “PostiniRank”.
A recently released report by the JRC-IPTS (Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Institute for Prospective Technological Services) offers an interesting view on the rise and societal impact of “Social Computing” in Europe. As the researchers point out, the emergence of open, web-based and user-friendly applications that enable users to network, share data, collaborate and co-produce content all have the potential to contribute to positive social trends, education, health, governance and social inclusion.
In fact, the main finding of the study is that Social Computing is already mainstream! Not surprisingly, the trends they discover fall directly in line with data we see at PostRank (Measuring Engagement of Social Web): 30% year over year growth in user engagement for the past 3 years, and a shift towards user curation and strengthening of the weak ties.
Key trends observed by the JRC-IPTS researches:
- 41% of all EU Internet users, and 64% of those aged under 24, were engaged in Social Computing activities
- 38% of people aged 15-25 in Europe had profiles on Social Computing sites
- 32% of European Internet users had crated a Social Networking Site profile
- 30% of internet users make use of Social Computing content created by others, e.g. they read blogs or wiki sites, watch videos on YouTube or use social networking sites
- 10% (included in above 30%) provide feedback or comments
- 3% are content producers, e.g. they create blogs or Wikipedia articles, upload user-generated video onto YouTube or photos onto Flickr
Societal change and Social Computing
A good sign that Social Computing is mainstream is also the fact that older audiences (aged 55 and above – 25% of internet population in Europe) are joining in on the fun.
Collaborative learning models, alternative learning channels (social computing has been shown to have negative impact on TV viewing and reading of newspapers, by substituting online content instead), ability to connect learners to experts and researches to practitioners in field under study are all contributing to profound positive change on our society:
Overall, we expect that Social Computing will foster social change in the next 10-20 years. At the societal level, there could be more efficient, interconnected and transparent markets, more participatory processes of governance and new forms of economic and social innovation.
Read the full report here, and also take a look at the recent trends we identified at PostRank: Measuring Engagement of Social Web.
Now track multiple sites from your account!
We’ve had a number of folks request the ability to track Analytics for more than one site, so now all Analytics users can add and analyze their social web metrics for up to five sites.
Users who are currently tracking one site can add up to four more, and users who have more than one account can amalgamate their site tracking. (I’ll be getting in touch with them to let them know exactly how to accomplish that.)
What will you be discovering, tracking, and engaging with next?
Change the sites you’re tracking
Analytics users can now change which websites they’re tracking in their account (in addition to adding up to a maximum of five). You can also track separate Twitter accounts and Google Analytics for each of your sites.
Change your email address
On the Account Details page, you can now change the email address associated with your account. Sometimes the little things are the handiest.
Change your account subscription type
Now you can change from a monthly subscription to an annual one, or from an annual subscription to a monthly one.
How that works is, if you have a monthly subscription and switch to annual, once your current billing month ends, then you will be billed for a year (and get an extra free month!)
If you have an annual subscription and switch to monthly, once your current billing year ends, then you will be billed for a month, and then subsequently billed monthly after that.
As always, we want to hear from you about how we can make PostRank Analytics even more useful and valuable. Send us your questions, feedback, or issues any time.
We’re excited to announce the availability of our latest case study: Using Engagement to Find Opinion Makers for The Atlantic 50. This case study describes how The Atlantic Media Company used PostRank Data Services to create the list of and rank the top 50 opinion makers in US politics.
It’s great to work with such a well-known publisher and see PostRank engagement data used to bolster offline traditional media analysis in such an important way. We think it’s a great example of how traditional media is looking forward and seeing how the social web can be valuable in performing research, expanding reach, and keeping relevant to their audiences.
From the case study, a bit more about Atlantic Wire’s goals and intentions with The Atlantic 50 project:
With the Atlantic 50, The Atlantic Wire intends to be the go-to op-ed page by aggregating the latest opinions from a defined set of opinion makers, found across the web. There is so much opinion out there, in blogs and on mainstream media sites like newspapers’ and magazines’ online properties. The Atlantic 50 is intended to appeal to an educated, media literate audience who read the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, and similar publications, but simply don’t have time for thorough reading, including the op-ed page, every day.
The Atlantic Wire team has framed current political commentary in two ways, as a result. Readers can browse by topic and see what’s currently “hot” among pundits and their audiences. These are stories on the topics currently getting the most engagement from online information consumers like themselves. From healthcare to the economy, it’s to find out what’s being talked about, and what different folks’ take on the issues are.
Additionally, the opinion makers of The Atlantic 50 are ranked by the amount of engagement their content is currently receiving. The list is updated regularly, so where they fall in the rankings in a result of how their audiences are reading, organizing, sharing, and responding to their commentary, rather than being based on editorial judgment or assessment of political leanings.
Keep your eye on The Atlantic Wire and, whether you lean left, right, or just love great online news and opinion coverage, let us know what you think of The Atlantic 50.
