Feeding the Puppy

You're only committed if you're wearing the special suit...

As Emma said when she forwarded this, hee hee :)

The Ghost Twitterer

I was just reading this on ReadWriteWeb about companies & celebrities that have people to tweet for them (based on a New York Times article)...

"Wasn't the whole point of "social media" to enable companies to come out from behind the marketing and PR babble and engage in "real" conversations with their customers?

By allowing teams and ghost writers to "fake tweet" for celebs, it seems as if we're going back to the old ways of marketing, albeit on a new platform. That's not social media, that's the PR department hijacking a new media tool."

It's a great point.  I very much believe that, as a principle, social media is a place for people to be social, not entities like brands or celebrities.  Because entities have to be looked after by someone else.

Whoever you are, what you do, who you work for is all intrinsically interlinked with your profile... but you lose that as soon as you start using a 'ghost twitterer'.

Come on, people, it's not that hard. 

As famed twitter-user Shaquille O'Neal said in the original NYT article, “It’s 140 characters. It’s so few characters. If you need a ghostwriter for that, I feel sorry for you.”

The Future of Newspapers is in YOUR hands

Given the stramash (a Scottish word, definition here...) of things that have cropped up in the last few weeks on The Future of Newspapers, I thought it'd be good to collate and share a few here.

Especially since, it turns out, it's not newspapers who will determine their own future, but us, the readers... read on to see what I mean.

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First up, Clay Shirky wrote a piece called 'Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable' which is a great, thought provoking read...

I've copied the first couple of paragraphs to get you interested...

"Back in 1993, the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain began investigating piracy of Dave Barry’s popular column, which was published by the Miami Herald and syndicated widely. In the course of tracking down the sources of unlicensed distribution, they found many things, including the copying of his column to alt.fan.dave_barry on usenet; a 2000-person strong mailing list also reading pirated versions; and a teenager in the Midwest who was doing some of the copying himself, because he loved Barry’s work so much he wanted everybody to be able to read it.

One of the people I was hanging around with online back then was Gordy Thompson, who managed internet services at the New York Times. I remember Thompson saying something to the effect of “When a 14 year old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he hates you but because he loves you, then you got a problem.” I think about that conversation a lot these days..."

Anyway, go read the whole thing here, it's brilliant.  It concludes that what we, as a society, need journalism. 

It used to be that newspapers were the best business model to deliver journalism.  Now that this is not the case, there is a real need to create a new business model that works.

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So where are these new business models going to come from?

Well, The Guardian have very recently launched what they call Open Platform, a service which will (as Emily Bell put it) allow Guardian content "to be woven into the fabric of the internet". 

[disclosure - we work with The Guardian].

Open Platform is basically two things:

The first is an API (application programme interface) which will allow people to take any Guardian content they wish from the site, and interweave it with anything they wish to create. 

So, for instance, say you ran a Hamilton Academicals fan site...

You could take the Guardian content stream, filter it for articles and reports on the team, and stream relevant Guardian content onto your site, in exchange for carrying Guardian advertising.

The second part of Open Platform is the Data Store, which basically frees up all of the Guardian-curated stats and figures that they use, and have used, in the newspaper and online, and allows you to take that data and create something with it.

Going back to the Hamilton Academicals example, you might wish to create something that correlates the Accies performance with the unemployment rate over the years (yes, I know, I'm stretching the point a little...).  The Data Store will give you easy access to all of the necessary data.

What's interesting here for the Guardian is that they are responding to the increasing desire amongst people to gather around 'niche' communities of interest.  They're letting the people themselves decide how best to use the Guardian's content.

How can this help secure the future of newspapers?

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To help answer that question, I'll refer you to something found this yesterday on David Cushman's blog, which is an interview with Dr Chris Thorpe who consulted on the Guardian's Open Platform:

As he says, "what [The Guardian] really want people to do is invent new business models [based] on our content, and we'll then partake in those business models with them".

It's something that we've heard people talking a lot of late; crowdsourcing.  Things like Walker's 'Do Us A Flavour'.

By opening up the expertise that they have in a particular area, and allowing people to use their own ingenuity to create new things based on that expertise, both the company and the customers can share in that success. 

The best analogy is perhaps that it's like a box of Lego; if you're sitting in a company that's used to building things in a certain way, you'll always build the same sort of things. 

If you let other people play with your box of Lego, you'll be surprised and delighted with what they come up with...

...and quite fittingly, it's an approach that Lego themselves have taken to heart (which might have something to do with 'community guy' Jake McKee):

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So, in conclusion; is this the model that's going to protect the 'organs of journalism' into the future?  By letting folk like you and me not just decide which news to receive, but by creating precisely the news we wish to re-transmit too? 

It's too early to tell, of course, but it certainly feels like something that's a lot more fit for purpose in the future... what do you reckon?

E-Book readers - excite us, please!

Nice comparison article from Wired here on the seven (yes, seven, where did they all come from?!!?) different competing E-Books that are now available to buy (though not all of them have hit this side of the pond so far).

Glancing through the specs though, not many feature colour screens.  The producers seem focussed on making the experience as similar to the look and feel of the printed page as possible.

Which yes, I can see why they'd do that; people are used to it, it's what probably they ask for in research groups - "can it look like a book please?".  Because that's what people they expect.

But as Akio Morita (Sony Founder) said about the first Walkman, 'I don't think any amount of market research could have told us that our product will be successful'. 

If you think about everything that's possible with a screen nowadays, making it replicate 'the printed page' is just a bit lame.  Why the hell would I want a £300 device that manages to look like a £5 book?

Come on, E-Book people, impress us a bit more... and excite us.

Pedigree Chunks!

Welcome to Pedigree Chunks! The Friday afternoon update feeding you with fresh meaty morsels from the world of media, created and collated by the litter of new grads here at PHD. Every Friday we will be bringing you innovative, entertaining and pioneering creative work we have encountered during the week.

The Grads! X

• In-game advertising more effective than TV?

The preliminary results from the Online Video Advertising Effectiveness study suggests that in-game advertising is more effective than TV marketing, delivering a 500% increase in consumer brand awareness. Over 2,000 consumers have participated in the study so far and over one million ad impressions have been used. The study is expected to conclude on 31st March.

Sounds great right? Well, the study has been conducted by NeoEdge Networks based in L.A, who are a digital media company who specialise in this type of computer game advertising.

 

• Wired UK launches time-sensitive digital campaign

Condé Nast has embarked on a digitally focused launch campaign for its new magazine Wired UK. The outdoor campaign will launch on the 30th March and use animated digital escalator panels, transvision LCD screens at British Rail stations nationwide and digital six-sheets in the London Underground.

The ad strapline changes according to the time of day: "The future is wide awake", "The future never sleeps".

The online campaign for the magazine includes RSS feed banners with live news content from the wired.co.uk website and a 3D MPU and expandable MPU. The Times, Evening Standard and GQ magazine will carry a 36-page sampler of the launch issue of Wired on Saturday 28 March.

• Iris Digital tries no advertising strategy

Iris Digital is experimenting with bypassing traditional media buying and using only social media conversations to promote a competition for football fans to win tickets to a Sony Ericsson VIP party. The Kiss The Cup competition will involve 25 people pressing their lips to a World Cup for as long as they can.

The strategy involves the agency seeking people out on Facebook, Twitter and football forums and blogs instead of buying targeted media. Tickets to the party can be won at a competition taking place at Lakeside shopping centre in Essex on Saturday.

• Bubblino!

Basically its a bubble machine that is synced to Twitter. Whenever your chosen word or phrase is mentioned...it blows bubbles! Genius. And serious contender for must have Christmas gift of 2009 if it ever gets sold commercially.

 

• Weekend ideas for visitors to London....

   

Amazon... innovation after innovation

Thanks to soundamus (which I talked about before here) I'm getting lots of nice upcoming release ideas in my RSS feed, based on things I've listened to and scrobbled on last.fm...

....if there's something I think looks interesting, it takes me through to Amazon to buy it.

So, looking at the new Iron and Wine album today (19th May, double album, click here to see), I noticed this promise from Amazon:

Pre-order Price Guarantee: order now and if the Amazon.co.uk price decreases between the time you place your order and the release date, you'll be charged the lowest price...

Wow.  That's great, such a simple promise to make, but it makes you trust them even more.  And of course, you're now more likely to buy...

It's yet another example of an Amazon innovation that keeps people loyal. 

So, going back to the function loyalty/brand loyalty question from before, am I loyal to the Amazon brand, or just simply to constant great innovations they keep coming up with?

(and yeah, I pre-ordered the CD...)

Trust me, this is excellent...

Trust.  It's a funny thing, trust. 

Do you trust me?  I'm just a Scottish bloke that works at PHD, writes some things on here, has ideas every so often. 

But you might work with me, know me socially, we might have had little online conversations here and there, or you might just see that I am having conversations with other folk, and trust me a little because of it. 

So, whatever trust you do have in me, I'd like to use it to get you to watch this, by Lawrence Lessig, which is what I think is a brilliant presentation on the nature of 'trust' in this brave new world...

(HT to someone I don't really know, but do trust when he says something's great - thx Huey)

Nokia LifeVine... weaving your data together

This is a really interesting thing from Nokia that I had no idea existed until Paul replied to yesterday's post on visual data trails...

It's an application from Nokia called LifeVine.  It works with any Nokia GPS phone, and what it does is grab your position, and marry it to any photos you take or music you listen to as you travel around.  You can then review your journeys either on the phone, or on the LifeVine website...

There's a great, full explanations from Clinton @ Darla Mack here. 

Without having  a Nokia to play with it on, I can't make any real judgement calls on it, but it occurs if I did have a service like like, I'd actually want it to do these things:

i) be on all the time, and switch it off when I want, rather than the other way around which it looks like it might be at the moment.  So not just for journeys, for everyday.

ii) easily upload to something like the Microsoft Photosynth stuff from the previous post, so that by the simple act of taking photos, I'm joining in with a much larger community who're documenting tghe world visually

iii) easily hook up to any map system that I choose (for instance, Google maps obviously) rather than be solely in a propriatory map system like the one shown above

But anyway, it looks great.

It's another point to Nokia in the three way battle for my summer upgrade money - my contract's up in July, by which time I expect I'll have the choice of the N97, iPhone 3rd Gen, and maybe even the Palm Pre.

Let battle commence...

Weirdos with camera phones

I was passing this Wolverine poster in Brighton at the weekend, and took a snap of it.  I was interested by the concept of trying to create an 'appointment to view' advert, at a time when TV folk are struggling to create 'appointment to view' TV programmes... but in hindsight, that's not now the interesting thing in the photo.

Check out the guy staring at me taking the picture.  Clearly wondering who this weirdo is...

It reminded me of something Matt Jones of Dopplr said at the PSFK conference in January.  He likened his phone to a talking, pocket remembering device, which whispers to him as he walks down the street... "Look, over there... that's REALLY interesting... you could take a picture of that..."

As we all move through our lives with these 'remembering devices', we're capturing a hell of a lot of data, in visual form.  And currently, some of it sits on our PCs, or we send some to Flickr, Twitpic, wherever... but I think there's something greater coming round the corner.

Imagine a future where things like Microsoft's Photosynth automatically uploads or your photos, slotting them into everyone else's into a real 3D environment...

...or even better, some image recognition stuff which takes a look at all of your photos on flickr, works out the sorts of activities you like doing, and serves relevant offers from companies.

e.g. it spots lots of food pics, and sends you restaurant discounts, or sees lots of landmarks in capital cities, and sends you offers on city-breaks.  Or sees my Wolverine picture, and asks if I want tickets at my local cinema (which it works out from the GPS stamp).

I can really see this stuff fitting snugly into the data comet... but whilst people don't mind giving up data of things they do, will they be as happy to let machines crawl through their personal photographic memories?

More Twitter satire...

...after the Daily Show skit, now a lovely thing on Current TV, courtesy of Barty (cheers fella). 

I'd never heard of Supernews! before, but may well check more out...

...which again shows the power of being very timely in what you put out into the world; if you can react quickly to the zeitgeist, you stand a better chance of being swept up into it...