Only a fool would predict the future of the web – so here’s my presentation from an iCrossing client event a week or so back talking about what (might) be coming up in 2010… It’s got the audio, too.”
Really great stuff from @amayfield
Monthly Archives: October 2009
Social Media in 2010: the presentation
Economy and internet trends 2009
There’s some really get stuff here, worth a read.
Principles of Visualization
Data visualization is a hot technique.
Information is beautiful and you see it more and more across the blogsosphere
Christian Chabot presented five flawed principles of data visualization in his keynote address at InfoVis 2008.
People adopt visual analytics primarily to help them see and understand complex data.
People adopt visual analytics primarily to help them see and understand massive data.
People adopt visual analytics primarily to help them see and understand new visual paradigms.
People adopt visual analytics primarily to help them see and understand hidden insights.
People adopt visual analytics primarily to help analysts save time.
And Dan Roam’s work in The Back of the Napkin introduces a simple and straightforward methodology for visual thinking and problem solving.
What I like about this “flawed” principles is that how at the core of every info-graphic there is a strong need by one person to understand data, so “analysts save time.”
Was there ever a more noble motive?
Google Reader sneaks in a couple of awesome updates
If you haven’t already noticed, and frankly I couldn’t find the new features even after I’d been told, Google has added a couple of very useful little updates to the web’s leading RSS app, Google Reader
Let’s crack on, first up:
Explore section: Above your folders and sites sidebar, you’ll notice “Popular items” and “Recommended sources”, Google’s way of helping you find “interesting content from all over the Internet”.
Their algorithm finds cool stuff from across the world wide web and orders them in the order they think you’ll want them in. Google Reader uses your reading Trends and Web History to generate a list of feeds they think you’ll like.
Personalized ranking: This is “magic” and I’ve discovered it works remarkably well. Hovering over a feed or folder you’ll notice a drop down menu option to the right. Along with ordering your stories by date posted, you can re-order them in “magic mode”. Unlike the old “auto” ranking, this new ranking is personalized for you, and gets better with time as we learn what you like best — the more you “like” and “share” stuff, the better your magic sort will be.
After testing out both features over the last couple of hours, I feel inclined to give the Google Reader a respectful hat tip here. Explore has already proven to be a great way of discovering hot stories and new sites, and with as someone who travels frequently, often misses a day or two of stories, “Magic” ordering is a blessing.
via thenextweb.com
Xbox Live Preview Programme
Clever idea this. Get the early adopters going crazy for it which in turn empowers them to become advocates for the brand and at the same time extends the reach to places Microsoft may not be able to touch.
Do Blogs Naturally Run Out of Gas?
The New York Times has been publishing since 1851 – nine years before the start of the Civil War. The Boston Globe has been cranking out newspapers since 1872 – seven years before the invention of the cash register. And BusinessWeek began publishing when Herbert Hoover was president.Blogs have been around since 1996 (the term “blog” was coined in 1997). The challenge with blogging is that most blogs are written by a single person (occasionally by a team). And most bloggers do it part time or as a hobby.
And most blogs don’t make money (or if they do – very low amounts). There are exceptions, of course. Blogs like TechCrunch, Mashable, and the Huffington Post have become runaway successes – and extremely popular money-making ventures.
But most blogs are not professional enterprises (Technorati says only 4 percent of bloggers are full-time professionals in its 2009 State of the Blogosphere report).
There’s little doubt that blogs are a powerful medium. They have become the communications engine of the internet; changing the way businesses, organizations, and people interact. But the question remains: Do blogs have a shorter shelf life than magazines and newspapers? Do they just naturally just run out of gas? And will they be replaced by other platforms?
The answer appears to be yes for all three.
The evidence can be found at Technorati in it’s two reports on the state of blogging for 2008 and 2009 (the 2009 report is being released in segments this week). In its 2008 State of the Blogosphere report, Technorati provided the numbers that point to the short life span of blogs:
- Technorati tracks 133 million blogs
- 74 million posted within the last 120 days
- 1.5 million posted within the last 7 days
- 900,000 posted within the last 24 hours
There is a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon between the number of blogs created and number of blogs that post on a weekly and daily basis. And fully 59 million blogs haven’t posted anything in more than four months. That’s an awful lot of defunct blogs collecting dust in cyberspace.
In its latest 2009 report(being rolled out this week), Technorati reports that fewer than 13 percent of bloggers have been at it for six or more years and that 64 percent of bloggers started less than four years ago. The report found that 66 percent of bloggers are blogging about the same or less in 2009 than they did in 2008 compared with 34 percent who now blog more frequently.
There is also anecdotal evidence that even popular blogs that have just ran out of gas or that the author has moved on to other communications platforms:
- Jason Calacanis, CEO of Mahalo, a once prolific blogger quit blogging in favor of an email “newsletter,” although he occasionally updates his blog with material from the newsletter.
- Robert Scoble from Scobleizer, once the poster child for blogging, has only posted four blog entries this month (the last one nearly 10 days ago). Last month wasn’t much better as Scoble posted only six times. This from a blogger that once posted nearly every day (although Scoble is still very active on other social media channels).
- Steve Rubel who once blogged at the popular Micro Persuasion bid farewell to blogging in order to focus on lifestreaming – a combination of micro-blogging and blogging at Posterous.
So what do you think? Is blogging sustainable? Or is it a temporary medium? Will there be blogs around in 10 or 20 years? Will we be celebrating the centennial of blogs in 2097?
via hightalk.net
Verizon lets viewers tweet & update their status on TV
This could be pretty huge. Twitter on every TV.
When we recently reported on Verizon’s sponsorship of the New York Mets’ interactive big screen, we noticed that the telecom giant is also bringing social media to the small screen, with a Twitter widget for its FiOS fiber optic TV service. The widget, freely available to all FiOS subscribers, is displayed on one half of the TV screen, allowing viewers to continue watching their favourite show while following a related feed or discussing it with their followers on Twitter.
The Twitter widget, available to the approximately 2.5 million households with FiOS TV, has been very successful so far, with some 1 million users in the first few days. It’s part of a suite of applications available to FiOS customers through the service’s ‘Widget Bazaar’, which also includes a Facebook app—proving popular for picture sharing—and Blip.tv, which hosts user-produced video content. Following in the footsteps of Apple’s trendsetting App Store, Verizon has announced that it will also be opening the Widget Bazaar to third-party developers.
Older technologies that have sought to integrate the web and TV have failed to make much of an impact, and it remains to be seen whether new television interfaces will be able to compete with the laptops, netbooks and smartphones that have already joined their owners on the living room couch. The larger implications are less uncertain: by giving viewers real-time connectivity as they watch, Verizon is tapping into a growing consumer trend. More about that in our sister-site’s latest briefing on nowism.
Website: www.verizon.com/fios
Contact: www22.verizon.com/content/ContactUsSpotted by: Duncan Rickelton
via springwise.com
25 Interesting Facebook Statistics And Facts
Lets put the spotlight on Facebook for a while.
We have gathered 25 interesting Facebook statistics and facts to help us learn more about this social networking giant.
Most of these statistics are taken from Facebook and independent studies that we have written on.
Catch the list below!
Statistics
1. It has 300 million users: Yes! Facebook has that many users. On average, 50% of its active users log on to Facebook everyday. The fastest growing demographic is the 35 years and older age group.
2. Fans: Everyday, more than 10 million users become fans of Pages. Join us here
3. Average number of friends: An average user has 130 friends on Facebook.
4. Time wasted spent: Alright.. more than 6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide). That is twice as much as the time spent on Google.
5. Status Updates: There are more than 40 million status updates daily. (I bet Twitter has more!)
6. Photos: More than 2 billion photos are uploaded to the site each month
7. Videos: 14 million videos are uploaded each month
8. Content: More than 2 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared each week
9. Events: More than 3 million events are created each month
10. Groups: More than 45 million active user groups exist on the site currently
11. Multinational: More than 70 translations are available on the site and about 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States
12. Applications engagement: Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage in Platform applications
13. Active Applications: More than 350,000 active applications are on Facebook’s Platform
14. Applications with more than 1 million users: More than 250 applications have more than one million monthly active users
15. Facebook connect: More than 15,000 websites, devices and applications have integrated Facebook Connect since its general availability in December 2008
16. Facebook mobile addicts: There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices. People who use Facebook on their mobile devices are almost 50% more active than non-mobile users!
Facts
17. Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire: That’s according to the latest Forbes list.
18. Mark’s settlement: In June 2008, Mark Zuckerberg paid a 65 million dollar settlement to close a long-running legal battle, concerning whether Mark stole the Facebook idea from his former room mate.
19. Offices: Headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif. U.S. offices: Atlanta; Chicago; Dallas; Detroit; New York; Venice Beach, Calif. International offices: Dublin, Ireland; London; Paris; Sydney; Toronto.
20. Facebook Disease: Psychologists have introduced the diagnosis FAD (Facebook Addiction Disorder), as a new kind of addiction disorder. Perhaps SMAA can help.
21. Facebookers are Tech lovers: Yeap, most Facebook users are attracted to tech related updates and links.
22. Facebook helps to nap criminals: Here is a burglar example.
23. Facebook Twitter background: It has a Twitter bird on it.
24. Facebook can cause jealousy: Research says.
25. Facebook has more men than women: This is according to Brian Solis’ data, an original thought leader of social media.
via penn-olson.com
Building A Presentation That Doesn???t Suck
Alpha Presenter Steve Jobs
I have a fear. My fear is that my presentations will suck.
You may suffer from the same fear, but I know I’ve sat through lots of presenters that do not suffer from such a fear. How many times have you sat through a PowerPoint slide show that consisted of 40 slides stuffed with bullet points and bad graphs?
I’m presenting a simple “Social Media for Business” talk. It’s a talk I’ve given before, but the social media landscape moves so fast, you can only hold on to data and stories for about 2 months. I try to stick to a couple of rules when building a new presentation.
- Plan on spending roughly 10 times as long preparing as you will speak.
- Try to stick to Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule.
- Use entertaining photos or graphics to gain and keep people’s attention.
- Ask yourself if people would pay $2,500 to see you present this information, if no, get back to work.
Not every presentation will be a home run, but it doesn’t mean you can’t swing for the fences.
via 1918.com
Tom Fishburne: The viral video bandwagon
Back in 2001, BMW created an internet-only series of short films called The Hire directed by big name directors like Guy Ritchie and John Woo. All of the films featured a pre-famous Clive Owen driving a BMW in different assignments around the world (my favorite involved Clive driving around Madonna).
Over four months, the films were seen 11 million times and spiked BMW sales by 12% (and helped launch Clive’s career). They effectively pioneered viral video marketing. I remember seeing these films in 2002 and marveling at how a brand could create content that interesting and compelling.
Viral video marketing has exploded in the years since (and you no longer need Guy Ritchie to direct them). Along the way, there have been some great standouts like Smirnoff’s Tea Partay, but also a lot of complete rubbish.
This year, it feels like every marketing plan features viral video as a tactic. Yet, many brands treat these videos in the same dull way as placing a grocery cart ad or staging an on-pack promotion. They feel like infomercials. These brands assume that if they build it, viewers will come (and watch, and share).
Brands sometimes forget that videos become viral, not by how interesting the content is for the brand, but by how interesting the content is to the viewers. They also forget that “viral” is, by nature, unpredictable.
I thought that Volkswagen struck the right chord with its launch of The Fun Theory last week. VW created a clever series of videos around the simple principle of creating change for the better by making them more fun. They communicate a lot about VW and their environmental approach, but in a way that is not heavy-handed.
Another personal favorite is David Mitchell’s Soap Box series, put on by Bulldog, a young 5-person brand of men’s natural grooming products in the UK. I had lunch with Simon and Rhodri, the two Bulldog founders, last week. They compete against the largest CPG businesses on the planet, and need to find ways to break through the clutter and level the playing field. In this video series, they commissioned David Mitchell, a well-known British comedian, to riff on a variety of 3-minute topics. Here’s one I enjoyed that pokes fun at some of the language in traditional marketing.
via tomfishburne.com
Truly brilliant. Continuously.
ABSOLUT Vodka Goes Logoless for a New Campaign – PSFK
ABSOLUT is going with the ever popular brandless branding for a new limited edition series of bottles. The Swedish vodka maker is going nearly labelless for new campaign against sexual prejudice. The bottles maintain their signature shape, with only a tiny removable sticker at the bottom to identifying alcohol content and volume.
[via Yatzer]
via psfk.com
The State of the 2009 Blogosphere? Turning it up to 11!
This morning’s State of the Blogosphere presentation by Technorati was mostly focused on “Professional” bloggers. This segment is the key group driving our industry. Bellow is how they categorize ”Professional.”
via techcrunch.comMy highlights I noted on Twitter:
- 40% of professional bloggers have a masters degree
- Professional bloggers are least interested in following celebrities and politicians.
- 30% of professional bloggers spend 10 hours a week blogging.
- I find it highly ironic that #3 goal for professional bloggers in 2010 is to write a book. That’s so 2009
There was also a lot of stats on how often professional bloggers post. Basically in 2009, the changes brought about by Twitter and Facebook filtered out the serious bloggers from the people who just wanted to publish some stuff online. Professional bloggers posted much more frequently and consistently in 2009 and plan to post even more frequently in 2010.
I think professional bloggers put their stake in the ground in 2009 and are looking to take it to the next level in 2010.
Here’s the full report:
Technorati SOTB 2009 -
via newcommbiz.com
Do Something To Get Noticed
Meet Chris Kahle, who Tweeted his way into Crispin.
So there you have it. Blogs and twitter picked it up, over 80 tweets were sent, and he got the cut through.
It’s not something that anyone can do again. But he get their attention and seems to have the skills to back it all up.
Fair play.
Interview with Alex Bogusky.
Bit more about his effort here – http://thisischriskahle.com/projects/cpbtweet/
via andykinsella.com
litmanlive Posterous Backup 
Recent Comments