Qua’s Social Computing Digest

Below is an excerpt of an article posted today at http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=51089.   Note that Charlene Li, fomerly of Forrester Research, is now with Altimeter Group.    Other notable Forrester Researcher, Peter Kim has also left recently to start a new company with Jeff Dachus (of Razor Fish) .

As part of the Eloqua Experience 2008 conference here this week, one presentation — “Turning the Social Technology Groundswell to Your Advantage”, by Charlene Li, former Forrester Research analyst, co-author of the book Groundswell, and now founder of the new consultancy The Altimeter Group — explained that social media isn’t about the technology at all; rather, it’s a focus on the relationships you want to build with your prospects, customers, and employees.

Prediction Markets use market simulations (like a stock exchange) to capture the wisdom of the crowd about particular topics.  They have proven to be very accurate when properly managed.   For example,  prediction markets have been found to work best when the investors have some skin in the game, and when the diversity of the participants is very high.   One of the best examples of a successful prediction market is the Iowa Electronic Market.   

http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/markets/.  Over the years, their market has predicted election outcomes with much higher success rate than polling.    Check their site to see the current quotes on the US Presidential Election.,   and the graphs of the market quotes.

Learn more about prediction markets in Crowd Sourcing , a great book by Jeff Howe.

Just became aware of Peter Kim’s interesting blog.  http://www.beingpeterkim.com/  Here are his recommendations for tools that make Twitter more valuable.

“… tools help drive relevance by filtering noise.  Here are the ones that I find most helpful:

1. Twitter Search.  I’m reading as many tweets today via RSS to Google Reader as I am at Twitter.com.  How?  By searching for relevant topics and subscribing to the feeds.
2. Tweetdeck.  Useful for segmenting people – and companies – into groups, e.g. Bostonians, Austinites, Personal Friends, etc.
3. Mobile alerts.  Direct messages act like text messages and you can get alerts pushed to you whenever important people update.
4. Twinkle.  Provides proximity search for mobile and crashes less than Twitterific.
5. Twitter Karma.  Only tool I know that lets you manage relationships in bulk.

Other tools like TwitterCounter and Twitter Grader provide statistics, but aren’t incredibly helpful…unlike utilities, I see these going the way of Tweeterboard.

By following more people, I’m hearing more chatter, geting answers to the most random questions, and feedback on social media topics.

I’m on Twitter as @peterkim.