The Age Of Artists Sans Middlemen

The age of the privileged middlemen is over. All along the artist has been at the mercy of that privileged middleman to get their work to the audience. Be it be a publisher, an art gallery or a music records company – for years they have controlled who and what reaches the market. But the times have changed and so has the role of the middleman – from the controller to the facilitator.

The artist is the privileged one now – they can opt for a facilitator but it’s not mandatory. They just need their art to be good enough to reach the market. They can paint, create music or have their own comic strip – and even if they choose to go with the middlemen they can do it at their own terms.

Social Media - Hype, Hoopla and Trends

There has been a lot of hype and hoopla about Social Media applications in recent times ..how their influence is increasing by the minute and how they are impacting what people think, buy, search or look for etc. So I thought of doing my own analysis about how each of these SM applications are doing.


The difficult part was where to start?? I relied on the experts to do it for me: Google. Google has an excellent feature called Google Trends which in my opinion can be an excellent indicator of the online popularity of anything searchable using a "keyword". You can find more information on how Google trends works @ http://bit.ly/9bvjCh.


So I used Google Trends to analyse the popularity of various SM channels and below are some interesting observations. But before I go in any further detail a small disclaimer: Please note that the below illustrations only depict the popularity standings of these SM apps on Google Search and may be completed unrelated to their financial and market standings. And second, I have included only those apps I am aware of , the rest, you need to get your act together :) [Bcos many people like myself still don't know you exist!!]

Note: You can click on each of these images to enlarge the image and have a better view.


Facebook
We all know the popularity of facebook is increasing by the day and as is obvious from the graph below. But what surprises me is that United States does not even feature in the Top10 regions and the list is lead by Turkey followed by Croatia. The popularity of facebook in these two countries is also evident if you look at the top cities and the languages list.

Google Buzz

It seems the popularity of Google Buzz was very short lived. There is only one spike probably around the time it was launched, the curiosity seems to have died there after. But it seems the Asian countries have taken a liking to it. The top four countries are Asian countries with India leading the pack. By language Indonesian is leading the pack.. looks like providing the app in the local language is doing the trick for Buzz in Indonesia 

Twitter

The Brazilians seem to have embraced Twitter quite well; as is evident from all three lists but what is surprising is Waterloo, Canada at the top of city list. A small search in Google Maps told me that it's a small town in Ontario. What is happening here?? Does the whole town every night sits and searches for Twitter on google..just for fun?? How come it left big cities like London and LA behind? Is google taking population vs per head searches into consideration for rank calculation?? I am not sure... Another strange thing is that although Indonesian features as the top language, none of the south east Asian countries feature in the list.

Foursquare
Foursquare featured in my earlier post - http://bit.ly/9SjFrG and I am happy to see it growing leaps and bounds :) Not many surprises here US and Canada lead the pack as does English in the languages list. The Northwestern states are taking the lead in using this location based SM app. Again Waterloo features prominently..this town seems to have a knack for mobile SM apps!!

Gowalla
Another location based mobile SM app which describes itself as "an app born in the heart of Texas" rules the heart of Texas :) if you take a look at the cities list. Although the popularity of the app seem to have taken a drastic dip in recent times, it seems to be quite popular in the western European countries with them taking 7 of the top 10 spots and Swedish, Dutch, German and English being the most popular languages.

Linkedin
Though it is more a professional networking site but it's popularity has been steadily growing over the years. Not surprising with the number of calls I frequently get these days from recruiters who have seen my linkedin profile :). I believe this is one of the most constructive uses of the SM concept. Also the way these guys have been constantly improving the site and making the experience better..they deserve the fan following :)

Loopt
This is another location based mobile SM and is extremely popular in Netherlands (all 10 spots in Cities) and the top language is Dutch. Shows the power of providing the Local content in the Local language. Also that you don't need always need a new idea to be successful, you can put the existing to a better use :) India features poorly in all these location based SM apps which indicates an opportunity here for the entrepreneurs. Any takers???

Myspace
Myspace was one of the most successful SMs and then became a big disaster. I am not sure about the reasons though you can clearly see a decline here ( probably you can find more here - http://bit.ly/9VpeaV. )But it is still quite popular in the US (Top 10 cities) and the top region.