An analysis of twitter and facebook use by the archival community

Archivaria

Volumn 70, Issue , 2010, Pages 125-151

  Crymble, Adam ^a  

^a KING'S COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 82055207599     PISSN: 03186954     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. Gabrielle Blais and David Enns, "From Paper to People Archives: Public Programming in the Management of Archives, " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990-91), p. 110.
2. Terry Cook, "Viewing the World Upside Down: Reflections on the Theoretical Underpinnings of Archival Public Programming, " Archivaria 31 (Winter 1990-91), pp. 123-26.
3. Barbara L. Craig, "Old Myths in New Clothes: Expectations of Archives Users, " Archivaria 45 (Spring 1998), p. 118.
4. Wendy Duff, Barbara Craig, and Joan Cherry, "Historians' Use of Archival Sources: Promises and Pitfalls of the Digital Age, " The Public Historian, vol. 26, no. 2 (Spring 2004), pp. 7-22.
5. Christopher Barth, "Archives, Genealogists, Access, and Automation: Past and Present Trends in Archival Access Technologies and their Implications for the Future of Genealogical Research in Archives, " Arcticwind. com (8 May 1997), available via the Internet Archive, http://web.archive.org/web/20030610081010/http://arcticwind.com/cdb/writings/archives1. shtml (accessed on 3 March 2010).
6. Elizabeth Hallam Smith, "Customer Focus and Marketing in Archive Service Delivery: Theory and Practice, " Journal of the Society of Archivists, vol. 24, no. 1 (2003), p. 47.
7. Tim O'Reilly, "What Is Web 2.0? Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software, " O'Reilly (30 September 2005), http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/ what-is-web-20.html (accessed on 3 March 2010).
8. Mary Samouelian, "Embracing Web 2.0: Archives and the Newest Generation of Web Applications, " The American Archivist, vol. 72, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2009), p. 64.
9. See also Todd J. Burke and Glenn Smith, "A Survey of E-Discovery Case Law in Canada, " in E-Discovery in Canada, pp. 23-27.
10. Elizabeth Yakel, "Inviting the User into the Virtual Archives, " OCLC Systems and Services; International Digital Library Perspectives, vol. 22, no. 3 (2007), pp. 159-63.
11. The popular instant messaging tool ICQ is a good example of this ebb and flow in popularity. It became popular in the 1990s as one of the first instant messaging systems to gain widespread use, but is now all but a memory; http://icq.com (accessed on 3 March 2010).
12. Broadcasting itself is not a Web 2.0 concept, as it does not directly involve interaction between the broadcaster and the website user. However, the tools discussed in detail in this paper are Web 2.0 applications with which it is still possible to perform some activities that may traditionally fall under a Web 1.0 definition. This distinction between Web 1.0 and 2.0 should not be misconstrued as meaning "outdated" and "relevant" respectively; rather the terms describe different types of online experiences based on the level of interaction the website or service offers a user.
13. Both Facebook and Twitter are dynamic, evolving services that have and will continue to evolve since the study was conducted. The descriptions of Facebook and Twitter should not be considered an up-to-date manual; rather, they provide enough background information to understand the services as they existed when this study was conducted.
14. "Facebook Statistics, " http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics (accessed on 23 January 2010).
15. "16 million Canadians on Facebook, " The Globe and Mail (2 June 2010), (accessed on 19 June 2010).
16. Justin Smith, "December Data on Facebook's US Growth by Age and Gender: Beyond 100 Million, " Inside Facebook (4 January 2010), http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/01/04/ december-data-on-facebook's-us-growth-by-age-and-gender-beyond-100-million/ (accessed on 6 June 2010).
17. "Facebook Statistics, " http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics (accessed on 2 September 2009); Smith.
18. Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, "Facebook Needs to Improve Privacy Practices, Investigation Finds" (19 July 2009), http://www.priv.gc.ca/media/nr-c/2009/nrc_ 090716_e.cfm (accessed on 23 March 2010).
19. Gillian Shaw, "Facebook, Privacy Advocates Square Off Over What's Public and What's Protected, " The National Post (5 May 2010), http://www.nationalpost.com/related/topics/Facebook+privacy+advocates+square+over+wh at+public+what+protected/2989814/story.html (accessed on 19 June 2010).
20. Measuring audience is not quite this simple. Some users may block certain updates in their news feed by adjusting their user settings. Conversely, a particularly engaged community of friends might increase the audience of a Facebook page because comments posted by a fan on an organization's wall will also be sent to the news feed of all of his or her friends, thereby alerting more people of the existence of an organiation's page. "Facebook Pages Product Guide March 2009, " http://www.facebook.com/advertising/FacebookPagesProductGuide.pdf (accessed on 3 March 2010).
21. Jason Kincaid, "Twitter has 105,779,710 Registered Users, Adding 300K A Day, " TechCrunch (14 April 2010), http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/04/14/twitter-has-105779710-registered-users-adding-300k-a-day/ (accessed on 6 June 2010).
22. Twitter users have the option of making their tweets private or visible only to their followers; private accounts are used for personal communication, rather than broadcasting. For unprotected (open) accounts, anyone, including non-Twitter users, can read the tweets by visiting http://twitter.com/xyz where "xyz" is the username of the Twitter user in question.
23. Andrew Lipsman, "What Ashton vs. CNN Foretold About the Changing Demographics of Twitter, " comScore Voices (2 September 2009), http://blog.comscore.com/2009/09/ changing_demographics_of_twitter.html (accessed on 3 March 2010). Study data via "comScore Media Metrix."
24. Jeff Bertolucci, "Why Do Teens Shun Twitter?" PC World Magazine (26 August 2009), http://www.pcworld.com/article/170875/why_do_teens_shun_twitter.html (accessed on 3 March 2010).
25. Geoff Cook, "Why Don't Teens Tweet? We Asked Over 10,000 of Them, " TechCrunch (30 August 2009), http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/30/why-dont-teens-tweet-we-askedover-10000-of-them/ (accessed on 2 September 2009).
26. According to a 2009 sampling of tweets by marketing analytics firm Pear Analytics, 38% of messages are "conversational" and 41% are "pointless babble. " Pear Analytics, "Twitter Study-August 2009, " http://www.pearanalytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Twitter-Study-August-2009.pdf (accessed on 3 March 2010).
27. "Facebook Statistics, " http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics (accessed on 2 September 2009).
28. Jason Kincaid, "Twitter has 105,779,710 Registered Users, Adding 300K A Day, " TechCrunch (14 April 2010), http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/04/14/twitter-has-105779710-registered-users-adding-300k-a-day/ (accessed on 6 June 2010).
29. "Facebook Statistics, " http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics (accessed on 2 September 2009).
30. Smith, "December Data on Facebook's US Growth by Age and Gender: Beyond 100 Million. "
31. Andrew Lipsman, "What Ashton vs. CNN Foretold About the Changing Demographics of Twitter, " comScore Voices (2 September 2009), http://blog.comscore.com/2009/09/ changing_demographics_of_twitter.html (accessed on 3 March 2010). Study data via "comScore Media Metrix."
32. Users have the option of protecting their tweets by keeping them hidden from strangers, but by default an account is open to all Internet users.
33. See for example Lon Safko and David K. Brake, The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success (Hoboken, 2009).
34. These platforms include blogs hosted by "Blogger" (http://blogger.com) or using "WordPress" (http://wordpress.com).
35. Martin Kalfatovic et al., "Smithsonian Team Flickr: A Library, Archives, and Museums Collaboration in Web 2.0 Space, " Archival Science, vol. 8, no. 4 (December 2008).
36. These other countries included Australia, Bangladesh, France, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and South Africa.
37. Certainly, the Library of Congress's reputation would not be the only reason someone would become a fan. Other possibilities include being recommended by a friend, or having visited on a trip to Washington.
38. The data collection period, 20 August-21 September 2010, fell within a traditionally slow business period for many archives. The author acknowledges that some archivists responsible for maintaining organizational Facebook and Twitter accounts may have been on vacation, thereby making it seem that archivists are more prolific users compared to organizations than they actually are. However, if this were the case, archives using Facebook appear far more likely to take time away from their social media outreach than those using Twitter. The data collection period should not affect results when comparing archival organizations using Facebook to archival organizations using Twitter.
39. Statistical comparisons were performed using a Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test. A non-parametric test was chosen due to the large ranges in posting patterns of individual users. The results of these tests appear in the text as (p < x or p = x) where x represents the test result and p represents the p-value. A p-value of 0.001 means there is a 99.9 per cent chance that the data from the groups were different.
40. Justin Smith, "December Data on Facebook's US Growth by Age and Gender: Beyond 100 Million, " Inside Facebook (4 January 2010), http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/01/04/ december-data-on-facebook's-us-growth-by-age-and-gender-beyond-100-million/ (accessed on 6 June 2010).
41. The feeds this author found the most interesting to read were those that consistently showcased interesting items from an archival collection (for example, a video from that day in history), or those that posted links to a variety of different websites (including both selfpromotional and material of general interest to archivists), and who engaged in dialogue with others. Some of the most engaging examples include the Coca-Cola Archives on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/search/CokeArchives), the CBC Digital Archives on Twitter (http://twitter.com/cbc_archives), and the Nova Scotia Archives on Twitter (http://twitter. com/NS_Archives) (last accessed on 19 June 2010).