February 2nd, 2010 by PhilBaumannRN in Better Health Network, Opinion
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Do “normal” people – patients, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, life scientists, etc – follow Big Pharma on Twitter? I’ve long had a hunch that most of the followers (and by followers I mean people who are actually paying attention) of Pharma accounts are primarily consultants, marketers, PR pros, social media evangelists and others interested in Pharma’s use of the Web (including myself).
So I decided to gather the key words in the profiles of a select group of Pharma companies. I used the service TwitterSheep to generate tag clouds of these profiles. This isn’t a purely scientific approach, but it’s reasonable enough to provide some insight into whose following Pharma. My friends Silja Chouquet (@Whydotpharma) and Andrew Spong (@AndrewSpong) each provided great insight into Pharma and Twitter. You can read their posts here and here, respectively.
Based on the tag clouds, here are the top ten key words in the profiles of followers of selected Pharma companies: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Phil Baumann*
January 26th, 2010 by PhilBaumannRN in Better Health Network, Expert Interviews, Opinion
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Do you advertise on your social networks? You might not think that you do, but every time you tweet or update your status on Facebook or post a picture to Flickr, you’re advertising – perhaps not with commercial or self-promotional intent, but you are advertising something: an item of news, a humorous post or a moment from your vacation. I don’t believe that Advertising is bad; but there is bad advertising, the kind that pointlessly interrupts and annoys and leads to no action.
As the Web expands and evolves from a tangle of static web pages towards social and real time streams, Advertising will need to evolve into a suppler and friendlier animal. Google may have perfected Advertising on the traditional web platform, but the door is open to new players who can socialize advertising. It’s not an easy task: the bull’s eye of targeting customers is getting tinier everyday. Enter MyLikes, a start up which has taken on the task of helping advertisers reach their base. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Phil Baumann*
January 21st, 2010 by PhilBaumannRN in Better Health Network, Opinion
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- Image via CrunchBase
After returning to Twitter after a week-long break, I’ve had the chance to look at the service with a freshened perspective. Twitter needs to stay simple – that’s what drives its success. Nevertheless, I believe Twitter needs to mature and provide exploits of its service. While the basics of Twitter aught to remain, Twitter, Inc. can build a wider ecosystem around those basics which could make it a true contender as an important part of the Web.
Services like Posterous and Friendfeed offer features such as replying via email. Although third-parties could develop similar features via Twitter’s API, it’s time that Twitter mature a bit. If Twitter plays its cards right, it could offer itself as much more than just as the modern equivalent of a telecommunications utility (which it is).
- Email content, replies, DMs. We should have an option to respond to replies & DMs via email. There are services out there such as Topify but they don’t provide the most secure methods. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Phil Baumann*
January 5th, 2010 by PhilBaumannRN in Better Health Network, Opinion
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- Image by sirwiseowl via Flickr
Disclosure: I’m fascinated with Technology in general and social software and communities in particular. I’m one of Twitter’s biggest fanboys (here’s proof). I blog and tweet often about these media because I believe it’s important that we understand our relationship with Technology (and for me, Technology is more than just gadgets – for instance: I consider Law, Democracy, Religion and Capitalism technologies – but that’s another post).
I also believe that we need better or more original conversations about the Web and its deepening influences on our lives, our businesses, our sciences and our health care. Social Media pundits (or however they refer to themselves: gurus, evangelists, mavens) for too long have held the dominant voice in these discussions.
One phenomenon which our Web has engendered is the ability for virtually anyone to express their opinions and experiences and perspectives in accordance with their mastery of media. And therein lies a pesky issue: one’s accumulation of social attention for a particular field doesn’t always correlate with their expertise.
Over the last decade, many brilliant contributors have offered important and refreshing perspectives on the promises of the web. But some of these ideas have yet to be vetted and validated by closer scrutiny and scientific inquiry. The truth is not always intuitive. It’s easy, therefore, for appealing ideas to have fundamental flaws. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at phil baumann online*
December 21st, 2009 by PhilBaumannRN in Better Health Network, Opinion
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- Image by pomarc via Flickr
When status quos collapse, for whatever reasons, are their replacements necessarily better? Does the demise of traditional media powers mean that new media powers will lead to more Democracy? Will cultivated professions which require years of training and mistakes and experience – such as Medicine – give way to amateurs who can succeed in creating appearances of Authenticity?
Last century, not everybody could publish their thoughts without expending some form of considerable energy. Now, with Twitter, anyone can tell the world what s/he thinks at virtually zero expense (save the time value of their tweets). This is no doubt a radical shift in communications and publishing and connecting.
It’s easy to call this democratizing. But is it? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at phil baumann online*
Do “normal” people – patients, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, life scientists, etc – follow Big Pharma on Twitter? I’ve long had a hunch that most of the followers (and by followers I mean people who are actually paying attention) of Pharma accounts are primarily consultants, marketers, PR pros, social media evangelists and others interested in Pharma’s use of the Web (including myself).
