#ULRNMURBAN LIFESTYLE REPORT NEW MEDIA

free new media

trend report for marketers

no. 1january

2009

You might wonder what the hell the weird sign on the front cover means. Or you might recognise it from numerous places like for instance from Twitter. In fact you are completely right if you thought about Twitter. This might seem like a worn out topic, but it has become such an important part of the current media landscape that it would be impossible to write a new media trend report without giving this topic the proper attention. Many bloggers out their write tons of great advice on different Twitter apps, we are in this issue focusing mostly on how Twitter is actually used by people and how it can create value for brands.

Since this is the first issue of 2009 I felt it was almost necessary to start off this issue with a glance into the crystal ball in the first article. But since you probably already have read quite a few of these already I only choose a few of the trends that I personally think are important in media production and gadget consumption. Convergence and divergence are two key words here. But this issue is so packed full of information and insights that you really need to poor yourself a cup of tea, or coffee, and start cracking at this bad boy. First a few words about the future of this report though.

We are proud to present some new writers in this issue and we would love to find more and more writers out there who can help improve this report. So please let us know if you want to write an article or become a regular writer.

It feels exciting to take this product from a walled garden out into the world of free content. And it is much appreciated if you help us spread the word. You can send our reports to friends but it would be great if you would ask them to register their own accounts on www.UrbanLifestyleReport.com so that they get all the latest information directly. This also gives us an idea of our reader base. Another way to spread the word and make this report better is to use the hashtag #ulrnm when promoting or commenting on our reports on Twitter.

Now, I know you can’t wait any more so just turn the page and get started already! :)

THE HASHTAG ISSUE!

Tomas Nihlén, Editor in Chief and writer. Co-founder of Urban Lifestyle. Holds a very strong interest in new media and how Internet is changing the fundamentals of the whole marketing arena. He particularly keeps an eye on the evolving Internet video scene. Also loves podcasting both as a viewer and a creator.

E-mail: tomas@urban-lifestyle.se

Linda Pierre, Editor and responsible for layout & design. Co-founder and co-owner of Urban Lifestyle. She is also marketing director for an e-commerce site in the travel accessories category. Linda enjoys actually using social media in her daily work instead of just talking about it. She loves podcasting, both practicing and consuming. E-mail: linda@urban-lifestyle.se

editorial staff

TOMAS NIHLÉN - EDITOR IN CHIEF LINDA PIERRE - EDITOR

Editor in Chief Tomas Nihlén tomas@urban-lifestyle.se +46 8 501 64 377 Editor & Creative Director Linda Pierre linda@urban-lifestyle.se +46 8 501 64 376 Company behind the report: Urban Lifestyle AB

INFORMATION - WHAT IS ”URBAN LIFSTYLE REPORT - NEW MEDIA”?

”Beyond buzz words and corporate bullshit. We write about what’s actually going on in new media and how it’s changing the marketing game. And we are always on the look for talented and passionate people who want to write for us. So if you think you have what it takes, don’t hesitate to shoot us an email to info@urban-lifestyle.se and tell us more about who you are and what you want to write about.”

How do I get free issues? Create an account at www.UrbanLifestyleReport.com and you’ll get an email to download the reports. How often? 4-5 times per year. Images & illustrations: If not taken by any of our writers, been approved by the copy holder or free of use from Flickr Creative Commons.

TOMAS NIHLÉN - STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN

writers

Obsessed with new media but even more so if it is related to moving images on a digital screen. Wanted to become a movie director in high school, and now enjoys every second spent in Final Cut editing video podcasts or short documentaries. Web: Urban Lifestyle Report Twitter: @tomasnihlen

LINDA PIERRE - STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN

HJÖRTUR SMÁRASON - REYKJAVIK, ICELAND

LIA DUTRA - SAO PAULO, BRAZIL

A perfectionist who is addicted to keeping up to date to everything new, but in particular everything digital. Relives an old dream to become a radio host by keeping a mic close to her at all times so that she can start a podcast episode at any given time. Web: Urban Lifestyle Report Twitter: @lindapierre

Anthropologist who went practical. Writes, speaks and consults on Internet marketing. He is also owner and director of a marketing consultancy in Reykjavik, Iceland specializing in branding, social media and Internet marketing. Web: http://blog.scope.is/ Twitter: @hjortur

Passionate strategic planner at the Brazilian agency Africa Propaganda who believes that in hard times creativity blossoms. Her thirst for knowledge never stops and her blog and articles here are two outlets for her thoughts on marketing and related topics. Web: http://liadutra.blogspot.com/ Twitter: @liadutra

A curiosity geek at a Stockholm based PR agency who thinks ”social” is the most important part of social media and enjoys diving into this digital ocean every day. He thinks everybody should try Twitter at least once in their lifetime and not be afraid to try new things. Web: http://jungrelations.com/blog Twitter: @oahnve

Sustainopreneurship facilitator and global knowledge nomad networking with intention and quality who runs/develops six ventures.

Web: http://www.sustainopreneurship.biz/Twitter: @sliceonline

Planner with a love for digital at Lawton Communications Group but also a blogger, podcaster and general evangelist for innovative marketing strategies. Has previously worked as a client partner and strategic leader for a wide range of blue chip clients. Web: http://bluurb.wordpress.com Twitter: @nicholasgill

30-something Community Marketing Manager at Bauer Media, specializing in creating content, conversation and communities. Also experienced blogger (www.thewayoftheweb.net and www.140char.com), journalist and social media addict. Web: http://www.thewayoftheweb.net Twitter: @badgergravling

OLLE AHNVE - STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN

ANDERS ABRAHAMSSON - NORRKÖPING, SWEDEN

NICHOLAS GILL - LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

DAN THORNTON - PETERBOROUGH, UNITED KINGDOM

in this issue 2009.01

5. First some mandatory crystal ball predictions

COVER IMAGE BY:

respres

8. A year of Value, not wealth

9. One day at a time

11. The New Media (and people) scenario

14. Curiosity Geek - the marketing pro of tomorrow

16. The next phase of social networking online

19. Micro-blogging? All know what it is, no one knows what it is

25. Hashtags & Retweets - more than just fancy words?

30. The live web - at first glance

34. A different kind of Internet Buzz - the one that comes from drinking

36. It’s all about the brand experience - seamless but not standardised

40. Death of the anonymous web?

41. A crisis of convergence Music 3.0

45. Liar liar pants on fire!

47. Opinion: STOP bugging us!

48. Connect with us!

49. Donations & ”Looking for Indesign Guru!”

ince this is the first issue of 2009 it would be almost unheard of not to do some predictions for this year. But I will keep it short and

(hopefully) sweet. Basically just some of the things I’m contemplating right now, in regards to new media and consumer trends. But just focus on a couple of interesting things rather than everything going on right now in this field.

S

First some mandatory crystal ball predictions

TOMAS NIHLÉNLocation: Stockholm, SwedenBlog: http://tomasnihlen.tumblr.com/

The two hottest gadgets right now seem to be smartphones and netbooks. And related to netbooks we see ultra portable laptops like MacBook Air. In fact, no matter if you are rocking a small laptop, netbook or even smartphone it’s cheaper and easier than ever to bring your office wherever you go.

Apple revolutionised the smartphone industry when iPhone hit the market. No doubt about that. They focused on making a great product instead of copying the competition or sticking to industry standards.

in this issue 2009.01

5

Picture: swanksalot

41. A crisis of convergence Music 3.0

45. Liar liar pants on fire!

47. Opinion: STOP bugging us!

48. Connect with us!

49. Donations & ”Looking for Indesign Guru!”

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Now the other manufacturers are doing what they usually do; playing copycat and building iPhone like products. It’s obvious that the strategies vary between Apple and the rest of the brands in this space. But that’s all I’m going to say in this fanboy maner.

My prediction here is that we will see continued growth in the netbook sector and we will also see more and more netbooks running OS X, something that Apple will need to address. Microsoft needs to watch out, because I think both Linux and OS X are really attractive operating systems for these netbooks.

In the cell phone corner we will see a convergence between regular phones and smartphones. In the future this categorisation will not make sense anymore, and I’m not sure it even does at the moment. How smart does a smartphone need to be, eh well to be called a ”smartphone”?

Not smart at all if my SonyEricsson P1 can claim that title. It’s the dumbest phone I have ever had the misfortune to use.

Speaking of convergence, another interesting field with great convergence is between digital still cameras and digital video cameras. Canon Mark II for instance is a digital SLR that also shoots full HD video and has even been used to shoot this short film.

These two types of products will no doubt grow into one in the future, but it will be interesting to see what the winning form factor will look like. Will it be a video camera that shoots great still images or a still camera that shoots great video? At the moment it looks like the latter alternative, but I guess time will tell.

We do not only see convergence in the field of digital video capturing though, we actually

see both convergence and divergence at the same time. Let me explain

what I mean. My example is the Flip camera, a small and super easy to use digital video camera. The first model focused on two things; easy to use and cheap. So it was different from many other cameras going for the top end or middle range. But

with the new model of the Flip Mino HD you actually get HD in a very small

and cheap little box. I think this type of cameras will flood the market and replace

regular users’ old DV cameras.

Picture: P/\UL

Picture: Steve Keys

This should in fact become the top choice for both regular consumers and average Internet users who need a cheap and easy way to shoot and publish videos to the Internet. I also see great corporate uses for these type of cameras, just send me and e-mail and I would love to talk more about this topic. I love almost everything about digital video online.

So here is a summary of what I will (and you should?) keep an extra eye on during 2009:

Laptops; cheaper and cheaper + faster and faster

Netbooks; shooting for the stars

Microsoft getting competition in the netbook sector

Convergence between digital still cameras and digital video cameras

HD video cameras that disappears in your pocket

Well that's my two cents anyway, when it comes to articles in the “new year predictions” style. At least for now.

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With the slow economy, declining ad budgets and tougher markets, marketers are going to be seeking new ways to market their products. Traditional opinion makers, newspapers, TV channels and other traditional media outlets are losing out while new influencers are taking over. Influencers in social media. Average Joes who become powerful opinion makers online. Seeing the success some marketers are getting via social media, many advertisers will try their luck using social media as a marketing channel. So we will be looking at a lot of noise later in the year in social media.

Next year, those same marketers will say that social media marketing doesn’t work, that it’s a waste of time. That’s because they don’t get it. They’ll never be influencers. They’ll just be spammers.

You see, being an influencer is not measured by the number of friends

or followers you have and can spam with your ads, offers or messages. It’s measured in the value your words have, the value you provide to your listeners and the quality of your network. For your words to have some value for people you need to establish a relationship with people. And to get these people to listen, you

have to build up trust. That is a process where you need to invest time, energy and

creativity. Don’t think you can get your way with people with your first tweet.

The year 2009 will be a year of change. Change driven by a different economic environment, new markets and new opportunities. Let’s embrace the opportunities those changes bring. Let’s build new relationships, strengthen our networks and bring value to our friends and followers.

A YEAR OF VALUE, not wealth

HJÖRTUR SMÁRASONLocation: Reykjavik, IcelandBlog: Marketing Safari

“Try not to be a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value”

Albert Einstein

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Every day thousands of pictures are being uploaded to sites like Flickr, Photobucket and not to forget the biggest ones of them all Facebook. People don’t seem to get enough of the attention a photo can give. Some do it to archive their photos, some to show their friends and family and others seek the stardom a perfect photo can give you.

Back in 2004 Taylor McKnight started taking photos of himself and called it “Project 365”. We’ve seen many similar projects since then, like this girl taking a photo of herself every day for three years and then she made a video out of it. Noah Kalina took it a bit further taking a photo of himself during eight years and of course also made a viral video hit out of it with over 11 million views so far on YouTube and 49 000 on Vimeo. A few things hits me, there’s is no way you can have the exact same hairstyle two times in your life and why do they have to look so bored, isn’t this supposed to be a fun thing, right? And it seems like men tend to grow their hair longer as they get older. Middle age crises or what?

One day at a time

the enormous universe called the Internet is not showing any signs of running out of space due to too much information, not yet anyway.

LINDA PIERRELocation: Stockholm, Sweden

Blog: http://lindapierre.tumblr.com/

Picture: erin MC hammer

Anyway let me get back on the path I intended to go with this article. The phenomenon of taking your own picture everyday wasn’t just a hype that went away. The photo site Photojojo urges everyone to create their own “Project 365”. You might wonder why. Well if not for your own sake, like a diary, you could do it to be able to show your kids what you did and how you looked during this period of time. There are many different ways in which you can do this, it doesn’t have to be a (boring) facial picture. You could choose to take a photo of your shoes or why not do as this Canadian photographer did and take a photo of people in your neighbourhood? People all over the world already upload their pictures to different Flickr groups doing similar things like that.

EpicFu has got the list of people taking the challenge at the moment. There’s no limit to where your imagination can bring you, or your company for that matter. I mean if people like seeing things grow (like beards) or decrease (beach season closing in on us) it doesn’t have to be something on a human being...

Think about that all you marketers out there! And let me know if you come up with a neat idea. Also check out Photojojo’s Time Capsule, a cool way of reminding yourself what you did at the same time last year. Oh time for my daily time saver...

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Most bloggers enjoy lists – of all kinds. They love lists of websites on certain topics, lists of the top things of several issues, lists of other bloggers and so on. They enjoy lists even more if they’re on them. Since I am a blogger myself, I considered making a list for this article, mainly due to how I wanted to write about this subject – in the predictions form. But I have to admit I find it hard writing lists of any kind, so instead, I chose a mix of a list with something of a narrative, discursive way. Hope you enjoy it.

The new media (and people)

scenarioThrough a world crisis

LIA DUTRALocation: São Paulo, Brazil Blog: http://liadutra.blogspot.com/

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It’s said that in a moment of crisis a lot falls apart. But also, some great things rise. And these are the ones that shine and gets highlighted in comparison to others, especially because they have a different way of moving when compared to the rest.

What I like the most about these different things is that sometimes it is pretty clear that they are not just something new coming up. They are not a new rule, a new innovative practice. But yes, they’re the exception indeed. They are different because they do things differently. And this is what’s related to the positive side of the crisis. They bring fresh new perspectives.

Last year I read some of the Senior Vice President and Worldwide Publisher for BusinessWeek, Jessica Sibley’s, predictions on the magazine market for 2009. After reading it I realized we strongly have a common ground. Crisis are worthy somehow, they provide an environment with room for inspiration and for motivated people who want to make a difference in these times – times that actually need a new attitude – and from there new things with new approaches come up. Turns out, this seems to be true not only in publishing, but in several – if not all – markets.

The world is changing, in every single possible way. The economy is changing, politics are changing, people are having to change. Anything could happen.

I have seen lots of people making bad predictions about how this will be a tough year – and I do agree with that in a certain way - but I also do believe it’s time for us to try to recover and stop complaining about how we won’t be able to justify not even the costs of the company paper. (As if the lack of money were an excuse for not doing good things). The thing is all about the money, as usual, but that’s not enough of a reason. Creativity does not require huge investments. I guess the money issue now can be quite a standard for not allowing bad moves – since there’ll only be a certain amount money available and that cannot be wasted.

I’m very optimistic about this year. For those who haven’t been going through a good way, there’s a chance to try to do their best. It’s a brand new beginning, a lifetime chance to start over – without further explanation.

As this whole crisis started, the worries concerning the global economic scene have been making companies re-think their investments in communication. But as you might have read in some publications, this is exactly the time we shouldn’t stop communicating, advertising. And I truly support that cause.

I guess now it’s time for brands to be clear, transparent and simple. It’s time to take complexity aside since no one needs it and keep it all simple without losing the spark and the poetry. It’s time to engage people, even more than how we did in prosperous times. So I believe the key now the marketing investments have decreased is to find other ways that allow a major return. In this aspect, new media has a great opportunity to grow even more.

Here’s what I believe will happen:

One thing is for sure, despite companies' and brands' positions and their decisions in this situation, and even if the market itself does not grow as expected, people won’t stop spending time online, nor do it less than they used to.

In this new scenario it’ll be all about people and what (and most important, HOW) they relate to brands. People who act and do different things will show up on stage inside their professional environments. It’s their time to shine, which is why we are probably going to say the ‘cool’ will be growing more than ever. Talented people will keep hanging there, but new talents will show up. It’s time for innovation.

In 2009 we’re still about to see great campaigns using social media - including Internet, mobile, video (a lot of video), content generation and lots of other tools, maybe even greater campaigns than some of the best we had in 2008.

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I believe we’ll have both interesting and successful initiatives on social media, on multi-platform initiatives. Exploring all possibilities that multi-media can bring.

We’ll do even better once we start realizing that it is not all about the technologies themselves nor just about the mediums themselves, but also about the content they carry within. As Cam Brown, the King Fish Media President, wisely said: “2009 will feature the greatest redirect in marketing approach that the media industry has seen”. I believe it’ll be time to identify and guide new practices for the usage of media in a more strategic way. It’s time to notice and realize (for those who still haven’t) that mediums are more than just mediums.

I believe the big open television will become even less relevant for people. Traditional media will keep dropping as content and social media grow (and I am not saying that just because this is a New Media Report).

The whole new media growth won’t happen only for big brands and their consumers (as in the way we’re used to name them). On last June’s report Lisa Sculati wrote about the companies engagement and use of Wikis, and somehow now it suddenly bumped into my head once I strongly believe companies will start making more usage of social media and networking tools for themselves internally as well as to communicate externally even more – that includes the B2B market.

It’s highly likely that big traditional companies that crawl mostly through big traditional media will give a shot to social media efforts. In lots of the beloved blogs’ lists with predictions for 2009 we can see people talking about the traditional merging with the digital age, whether they are print magazines that will disappear or go online, television channels that will broadcast their shows online, bigger media companies that will more and more work with online/social media provider companies or even make alliances with companies or individuals who offer this nature of services to build that kind of environment.

One of the recent moves concerning this topic is the Printed Blog, the new Chicago newspaper made from posts of several blogs, which WILL have local advertisement and WILL be distributed for free.

I do believe major brands will keep trying to fit and interact the best way with social media.

Mostly I believe all that will happen not only in advertising and marketing itself (considering strictly the dialogue between people and brands). I think even the way of shopping (eCommerce) will change with more aggregating services and integrating people.

I just saw Scholz & Friends’ video the other day, describing how we came to “the social world” where everything is a dialogue and it’s more about people than the companies themselves. It was called a “dramatic shift in marketing reality”. Simple as it is, it doesn’t say anything actually new to any of us – especially to those who live and breathe the 2.0 and even 3.0 world. But it reminds us of the basics we should be reminded of from time to time.

Now is the time to engage. More than that, I believe there’s a great room for interaction we should not loose, concerning the philosophical and practical terms I just mentioned before.

I’m sure I’ve missed a lot to talk about here, in details and all, but I guess the whole thing is that this crisis will leave a lot of room for social media to act.

That’s why I’m so optimistic, even though I am not even a digital strategist, but am in fact passionate for it.

After our recovery, the world will not be back where it was. We’ll be OK again, but different from before.

All we’re going to have to do is adapt. Learn and adapt.

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Curiosity

I have one humble advice for the communicator of tomorrow: you must be curious to learn new things. All. The. Time.

Do you converse or broadcast?

You know the modern way of communication is conversational style. You know it is all about two-way communication, listening and engaging by contributing to the community. But do you actually do this? Do you listen to find out what your community is interested in and engage by adding value to the community? Or do you use the same

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The marketing pro of tomorrow

Geek OLLE AHNVELocation: Stockholm, Sweden Blog: Jung Relations Blog

Social media is fundamentally changing the work life of the com-munications professional. While change is nothing new to the commu-nications industry, this time is different – it’s a fundamental shift both in style and direction. And it is happening faster than ever before. So how do you keep up?

Picture: Kapungo

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old one-way communication that has done the job historically? Do you communicate with a personal voice or do you use the old corporate kind?

If you communicate one-way with a corporate voice – is it because you think it is the best style of communication for your organization? Or is it because you know the old way of communication and that makes you feel secure?

Do you dare trying?

You know there is a whole new line of web technology that can help you in your communication. Blogging and micro-blogging platforms, RSS reading/filtering/mixing, podcasting, vodcasting. The list of new and incredibly useful information technology goes on, but have you tried it? Or do you still use the same clipping service and report the same kind of results that have been successful historically?

What does the future communication professional look like?

Rest assured – you don’t need to become a tech geek. But you do need to become a curiosity geek. You have to be eager to

learn, and you must be willing to leave your zone of confidence and try new communication styles and new tools. Sure, you will display your weakness, but you will learn from experience and your mistakes.

Are you afraid that some social media “expert” will tell you that what you are doing is wrong? Don’t be!

As long as you are transparent in all your actions and respect your community, they will guide you rather than attack you.

How do I get started?

Being curious will get you a long way, and most of all – it will get you started. So, go dive into the social media sphere by trying out Twitter, blogs, RSS, social networks. Ask for help when you need it, but don’t fear trying.

Trying is being curious. Being curious is good.

Picture: Kapungo

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Facebook started as a small roots movement in an American dorm room a couple of years ago. It was the “David” to the MySpace phenomena that was Goliath. No CEO, CMO, CTO, marketing consultant or whoever would ever predict that this little web project would ever be a catalyst in a trend that is transforming not just marketing, but the way businesses will be built in the future.

But today Facebook is the reigning champion and MySpace is, well more like the old heavy weight boxer struggling with health issues and possible brain damage. You don’t buy what I’m saying? Well let me paint out a picture of what I’m seeing as the future of social networking, or rather the future of social businesses. Let’s use Facebook as an example since I think for the foreseeable future it will be the dominating service in this area, even though many marketers might think it has lost its coolness.

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The Next Phase of social networking online

What does the status message say on Facebook right now?

Let’s start by checking the status of the new social networking king, what’s really going on with Facebook. Have Facebook passed its peak and soon to be meeting the same destiny as MySpace? Many people would like to think so, it seems to be a constant drive for many people to pass off fads and to be able to be the first one to proclaim the next big thing. But the truth is that Facebook still has the magic which translates to 140 million users according to InsideFacebook.com with a growth rate of 600 000 more users per day, which is hard to beat. And it’s not like the network is losing traction, like in Argentina for instance, last year can definitely be summed up as a great year for Facebook. How does a 2 000 per cent increase in a year sound? At the beginning of 2008 there were 100 000 registered Facebook users in Argentina, but when Santa Clause was climbing down the chimney at the end of the year, this number had in turn climbed up to 2 000 000 users. Neighbouring countries Chile, Venezuela, and Peru have also seen impressive growth during the last time. 3768 per cent, 1277 per cent, and 328 per cent respectively to be exact. Quite impressive if you ask me.

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TOMAS NIHLÉNLocation: Stockholm, SwedenBlog: http://tomasnihlen.tumblr.com/

Speaking of Christmas, Facebook certainly had a merry one this year and not only in Latin America. According to CNET Hitwise it saw a big peak in traffic during the holidays. Heather Hopkins of Hitwise lists some possible theories like crediting the peak to boredom, heavy snow in key cities and/or season greetings. Maybe Facebook is just a part of peoples lives and these lives circle around some important events each year like Christmas and therefor Facebook becomes a must for all big holidays. Anyway, no matter what the real reason is, these stats provides more proof that Facebook is here to stay, at least for quite some time. And it is not just a site but rather a way to communicate.

Problems on the horizon?

Maybe becoming a giant makes some of the cool factor and buzz worthiness fade? Some people think so and maybe that was the reason why Facebook tried to buy the new wonder kid on the block; Twitter, late last year. According to Kara Swisher that is what some insiders at Facebook are claiming. Twitter was offered $500 million worth of Facebook stock, i.e. potential value, which in all fairness might be a good deal since Twitter has yet to generate any revenue. But Twitter stuck to its guns and rejected the offer, keeping to a strategy that focuses on growth rather than profit, at least for now. For Facebook the deal might have insured a massive coolness injection and some more cred among the early-adopters growing tired of Facebook.

Another area that social networking sites need to keep an eye on is all the new aggregating sites that wants to be the hub of your social web experience. The most buzzed about of these services is probably FriendFeed, which if Twitter is approaching the middle of the long tail, is located at the far right of that curve.

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FriendFeed and similar services collect all your activity from the social web in one place and generate a “master flow” of all your public activity. Sort of what Facebook wants to do but with a totally different approach. Then there are services like Power.com that wants to collect your social networking services in one place. But wait, didn’t Facebook sue them? Yes they did, claiming it is all about “copyright and trademark infringement; unlawful competition; and violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, CAN-SPAM Act, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, among other charges”, according to CNET. Power.com lets you access friends and other data from multiple social networking services in one place. For Facebook this means that it wouldn’t matter as much for the users of services like Power.com which friends are on Facebook and which are only on other sites like MySpace and Hi5 etc. This could definitely put a dent in the Facebook brand since its core offer and strength is collecting and maintaining your social graph for you.

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Capitalising on the social graph

In the time up until now the whole focus and point of Facebook has been this precious social graph, which is basically just a fancier name for your “friend list.” But now the site enters a phase when it need to start doing something with this graph, and something more than just being a playground for viral marketing, annoying games and endless invites to causes or events. Facebook Connect is an example of the future of social networking online; bring your social graph wherever you go online. Letting websites all over the world implement this service means for instance that comment functions on blogs can be integrated with Facebook. This is the first step, but going forward I think we will see whole sites just build on common interests and Facebook Connect. This is a great service to website builders and a great move for Facebook strengthening loyalty and increasing its reach.

Also by integrating the service with media companies to connect news and media in general with Facebook they can create new revenue streams. For instance there is an interesting initiative between Facebook and the social media platform Pluck. An example of this collaboration is that visitors to SFGate (the digital home of The San Francisco Chronicle) who comment on articles via Facebook Connect also get their comments automatically imported into their News Flows in Facebook. This is a great service to SFGate’s visitors, drives traffic to SFGate.com and also a smart move for Facebook. This is an examples of how companies are becoming far more social than before and it is also a part of an increasing demand for transparency.

The future of social networking

As I started in the paragraph to the left I think Facebook Connect is a look into the future of social networking online. It’s not the only example, and it has got competition from Google. By the way guess what Google calls its own service? Yes that’s right; Google Connect. Go figure... And it would be a big surprise if Google wouldn’t do anything in their power to try to beat Facebook in this area.

In 2009 I predict we will see several new initiatives in this area but it remains to see which ones will prove to be sticky. They also have some competition in theory by an open source alternative called OpenID. But the truth is that it’s not about the best alternative, the best integrity or anything else, but a matter of what service the masses will adopt. Will you want to use your already existing Facebook account or would you rather get yet another one from for instance OpenID? At this time I would bet my money on Facebook and put Google as a potential runner-up, but it could end up the other way around as well.

So now to my prediction. I think that 2009 is all about phase two of social networking online. And in my book that means making the social graph portable and going from destination sites to an important part of the infrastructure of the social web. This phase will also start changing the way businesses act on the market. Smart companies will find endless new opportunities and remember Urban Lifestyle’s three golden rules of social media:

1. Don't suck

2. Create good content

3. Be a part of the conversation

It's not harder than that, no matter what so called “social media experts” will tell you. The principals are easy, it's the execution that is a bit tricky.

But at the end of 2009, if I was wrong about my predictions and our golden rules of social media, you can hate all over me on Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed...

One blog post that went up for the 24 hour-of-fame buzz on the #1 position on Twitturly (a service that tracks what is linked the most in twitterverse) a day in January 2009 was called ”Social Media ‘Experts’ are the Cancer of Twitter (and Must Be Stopped)”. A sign of the times. Yes, I do agree that they who start to follow me and introduce themselves as such in their micro-bios at their Twitter profiles by default is an auto-nonfollow for me – usually just another one who tries to surf the wave of a recent phenomenon, and seldom adds value beyond acting as a part of a big echo-chamber with few spots of original thinking.

One core aspect of the twitterverse is illustrated by this in a nutshell, emphasizing the social in ‘social media’ – follow or be followed. Or most preferrably, excluding “or”; the mutual follow – where some of these couples of people following their respective streams of sms-lengthy snippets in their micro-blogging actually call themselves “friends”. You know, what it meant in LBF – Life Before Facebook: Actually someone you even happen to meet offline, and share both dinners and potentially your innermost thoughts and private secrets in hope for an honest advice

to serve and lead your life better. Yes, someone that adds value to your life, and thus worth your attention, and adding value back, unconditionally.

Coming this far, I claim no expertise, more than applied common sense and humbly learning from and reflecting around my experiences as a social media ‘learner’. Quoting the media guru, for true - Marshall McLuhan - ”I don’t necessarily agree with everything I say”. In this article I want to share some short notes and noteworthy on the phenomenon of ”micro-blogging”, with a special focus on how to approach this conversational buzz bubble as a marketer for a brand or a business. Sharing is caring!

Social media and the market conversation

Micro-blogging is a part of the wider game related to social media, concluded so far. One of the many attempts to grasp what social media

Micro-blogging?

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All know what it is, no one knows what it is

ANDERS ABRAHAMSSON Location: Norrköping, SwedenBlog: http://sliceonline.tumblr.com/

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”is” has been done by Social Media Club co-founder Brian Solis through the ”Conversation Prism”. As he says; ”The conversation map is a living, breathing representation of Social Media and will evolve as services and conversation channels emerge, fuse, and dissipate.”. It is exactly of this reason there is no collected ”expertise” to find - it’s all about interpretations of a domain in constant flux and knowledge distributed among all stakeholders. So, if I choose only one thing that I want you to bring with you from this article, is this: take part of the conversation about ‘social media’ by actually joining the conversation using one of the social media services – where micro-blogging would be on my number one recommendation! It is as a social media user you can have a chance to understand what it ”is”. And micro-blogging in a sense actually is the lowest barrier of entry in the many arts of ‘DIY publishing on the web’ – posting 140 characters or less at a time.

The rest of the ‘barrier of entry’ is actually inside your forehead, and that is the greatest sometimes, isn’t it? By being an active user, you take part of and influence the evolving dynamic landscape that actively gets co-developed by its users, creators and producers – and thus co-discovered, applying collective and collaborative intelligence. Since the Cluetrain Manifesto, celebrating its ten year anniversary in april 2009, we have learned that ”markets are conversations”, with human spirits, brains, hearts and emotions. With the last of the 95 Theses formulated back in 1999 in response to the evolvement of Internet and its impact on markets and marketing; ”We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.”. If you’re not micro-blogging yet, what are you waiting for? Listen, participate, play, try. And learn with me (http://twitter.com/sliceonline – or more commonly expressed nowadays, the Twitter ID format that goes with your next deck of business cards printed; @sliceonline) and all others in the conversation.

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Micro-blogging, defined?

A definition is no proof, but if we turn to Wikipedia, micro-blogging is ”a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates (say, 140 characters or fewer) or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, digital audio or the web.” It’s a story that started in July 2006 with the launch of Twitter, and emerged from the question answered; ”What are you doing right now?”, with the breakthrough and rapid growth when winning a web award in SXSW07, March 2007. If you’re first and succeed in your new niche, you define and rule the game. And they sure do. Many other services have been trying to get into the sphere of micro-blogging (these were covered in the Urban Lifestyle Report in August 2008), but Twitter is the biggest with far beyond 3 million users, with somewhat around half a million messages sent per day. Twitter has grown in traffic by 422% from August 07 to August 08 - no other social media service has had this kind of growth. And, paradoxically, still, they actually lack a business model soon three years after its inception, but is about to get one.

Illustration: Gapingvoid

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Who microblogs?

To get into this hive with your message, you need to know your population. Users are - among many kinds - first and foremost individuals, brands, companies and organisations, where you usually introduce yourself with your ‘@name’ – linking to http://twitter.com/’name’. Individuals range from the neighbour-around-the-corner to the super celebrity (either celebrity ‘before Twitter’ such as @BritneySpears and @BarackObama, or the new breed of ‘Top Twitterati’, the ‘Twitter Elite’ famed on the platform in itself such as Guy Kawasaki (@GuyKawasaki) or Michael Arrington (@Techcrunch). There are some fictive characters as well – early on users were Borat and Darth Vader, and all fake tweets delivered by @historicaltweets blog lately, just for fun.

Brands and companies constitute an increasing number, and a sample of them are listed in two blog posts (Mashable and Buzz Marketing for Tech postings). Maybe one of the most travelled stories on proactive usage to boost your brand through engaging in your customers is @ComcastCares. And, actually a washing machine (@PIMPY3WASH – created to tell its first geeky follower and account creator when the washing machine is finished, and clothes ready to dry via an auto-sms to its Twitter account). If you compare followers vs follows numbers, you could conclude that one who follows many, but have few followers probably is a ”twammer” or ”spitter” - a Twitter spammer – who have tried to get a lot of attention by random mass-quantitative following. And vice versa – a ‘guru’ profile maybe shows up to be someone who follows a selected few, but is followed by many, a pattern also found with mainstream media news services twitter accounts, and e. g. web apps/services update streams/status reports.

One exceptional case of excessive numbers in both follows and followers is newly installed president Barack Obama, beyond 160 000 in numbers in both ends. The new presidential administration in the USA is worth a separate coverage and case story article in itself with an ongoing development of a very proactive web strategy, where Twitter has a central place in the quest to be the most transparent governmental administration in US history, see e. g. the new http://whitehouse.gov, revamped beyond inauguration.

22What do they blog about?

It started out by the trivia following the original question of everydayness in real-time, but since then it has evolved significantly in a whole new ecosystem of communication. There is little formal academic research on the subject, but the first formal academic research covered usage patterns, with daily chatter, conversations, sharing links and commenting on news as the most frequent activities going on. A bit outdated, but the findings still apply. Some are just ”dumping” content from other places using e. g. Twitterfeed to notify when new blog posts are out, some shares more actively other stuff like media (music through Blip.FM, pictures through Twitpic, videos through TweeTube) and recent discoveries with one of the flourishing numbers of URL shorteners – where TinyURL.com was quite alone and dominant before the brief 140 character messages were common, and now you have this space filled with new services, like snURL, bit.ly, is.gd, ow.ly and tr.im to mention just a few.

Notably is that Twitter works multi-purpose – some have e. g. abandoned Instant Messaging chats altogether, with the use of Direct Messages, ‘D user message’. In that sense, micro-blogging is a convergence of different communication evolution tracks. One is the ”distant communication 1x1” - roughly following a development of telegraph > telephone > telefax > email > mobile phone > instant messaging > direct messages through Twitter. One other trace is ”news dissemination” through the centuries: the Marathon Runner or Horse Courier > the priest in the church on Sundays > newspapers > radio > tv > Internet > blogs > Twitter, where news can show up before even regular news services catch them.

One Twitpic from the Hudson River Plane emergency landing by an iPhone photographer from a ferry even ended up as an official AP newsdesk syndicated picture, which actually crashed the Twitpic server from the traffic at the time. We can thus talk about a special kind of ”media convergence”, where all communication, direct one to one, side by side with the one-to-many, is shared on the same platform. And you better be there – the conversation goes on, with or without you (to define your ”Twitter Acceptance” 5-stage, check Rohit Bhargavas blog on the subject)! Imagine your company getting the viral buzz that Hudson River picture had – it happens in seconds on Twitter, where it used to be hours through email before. Positive, or negative. You better let it to be positive news spreading, right? In that sense, being there with your own voice also works great for ‘crisis communication management’. Picture: jkrums

How to approach the micro-blogging tweeters?

For a PR/Marketing department to formulate a strategy, it is wise not to strategize too much. In fact, it’s better to ‘get on with it’, in small scale as a pilot project, with some individual users tweeting with their personal brands, in order to learn from the medium. Beyond that, a formal brand or company tweet can be established. Mainly it is an endless loop (I owe this basic, simple outline of the Twitter Marketing and PR interactive loop to HubSpot, where I have spiced it up with some own references and learning bits) - 1. Building your network, 2. Engage in your community and 3. Track and analyze, and then start all over from 1.

1. Build your network - attract qualitative followers

First of all, after establishing a Twitter account, important is to juice up your profile to be attractive – the first glance could be your only chance to attract a subscriber, since many people who use Twitter only judge once by the Twitter page, and then beyond follow-click get your stream through other means (popular are client-side applications such as TweetDeck or Twhirl – see a comparison with Mashables blogpost and review on the subject). As a brand, you should let it glow in a nice setting with a customized background (for inspiration and how-to, see e. g. Twitter Backgrounds Gallery). Add your location. Add short bio with your tagline and preferably also what to expect from the tweet stream – in two sentences or less. Link maybe to your company site, but preferably if you have a company or brand blog. If it is an individual representing the company direct, add that person’s avatar – otherwise use the company logo as avatar – but do add an avatar! For startups it is important maybe to have both – one stream for the company/brand, and separate streams for the individual team members to engage in community building and sharing their stories in real-time. See e. g. Ki-work and Twingly, as two interesting startups (@kiwork ‘enabling agile businesses’ and @twingly, a blog and micro-blog search engine with Ki-work core team members father and son @michaelwolff (CEO) and @jimwolffman (COO) check their different tweet styles; Twingly CEO Martin Källström is @martinkallstrom). A strategy also applicable for established companies, such as Virgin (@virgindotcom) and Richard Branson (@RichardBranson).

2. Engage in your community - remember, it’s a conversation, not a broadcast

A conversational and personal tone, with the @replies showing that you actually Picture: jkrums

care about your most valuable asset beyond your own value-creation means – the customer. Now you have naked direct contact, and if someone converses you through an @reply in the public stream, be sure to respond! Remember that an @reply in your followers stream also gets visible through their followers. To simplify this procedure and making it manageable for your customer service team, use applications such as TweetDeck that maximises your tracking and control. And, you keep your followers by conversation and adding value, not to push your product/service in every tweet. They can check you through Followcost to see if following you is worth the effort ;). And be sure that you have an activity in your company that actually gets tweeted beyond your own tweets and without your own prompts, from other tweeters than you!

3. Track and analyze - monitor your brand and your core tags and keywords

With TweetDeck and other tools, you can evaluate and search what’s going on with buzz around your company, brand and offerings in real time, e. g. by adding a column with your tag search and get notified directly as it’s happening. Beyond searching your own brand name, you can also trace your most important keywords to see if your brand is mentioned in conjunction. Check your ”status” through Twitter-Grader and various stats tools, such as TweetStats, Twinfluence, Twitterholic and Twitter-Friends. Those who talk about you, approach them by following them – they get notified when you start to follow, and thus have that once-in-a-lifetime chance to have them to follow you back (for really good advice, check ”Twitter Follow Fail” - @ABartelby guest blog at Mashable blog). But be sure to be worth the effort to be followed. Which leads us back to one!

In short: Be personal. Be interesting. Be valuable. Be nice. Be colourful!

Now, go on register - or tweet this report and mention the articles on Twitter if you’re already are a Tweet-a-holic :) - here’s the retweet copy: ‘RT @urbanlifestyle #ULRNM Urban Lifestyle Report: great Freemium Content PDF – latest issue with micro-blogging features! ’. See you there!

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Resources:

- On the web – directories, portals and collections;

• A twitter wiki library – the ultimate resource base: http://twitter.pbwiki.com

• A database of twitter applications: http://twitdom.com

• List of twitter tools: http://mashable.com/2007/09/29/twitter-toolbox/ and follow up list http://mashable.com/2008/05/24/14-more-twitter-tools/

• Squidoo page on Twitter applications: http://www.squidoo.com/twitterapps

• Twitter tools for Community and Communication Professionals: http://www.briansolis.com/2008/10/twitter-tools-for-community-and.html

• 181 Free Twitter Buttons, Badges, Widget and Counters to Help You Find Followers: http://www.twitip.com/181-twitter-buttons-badges-widget-and-counters-to-help-you-find-followers/

Design:

• Twitter Backgrounds Gallery: http://twitterbackgroundsgallery.com

• Creating a Twitter Background using PowerPoint: http://theclosetentrepreneur.com/create-a-twitter-background-using-powerpoint

• Creating a Twitter Background using PhotoShop: http://www.elasticmind.ca/innerpreneur/index.php/2008/09/25/download-my-twitter-background-design-psd-template/

Books:

• An updated list is found at http://books.twitdom.com/

Recommended Selected Apps and Services (linked):

• Twitter management: TweetDeck, Twhirl, BrightKit, Twitteriffic, Ping.fm, HelloTXT, Tweetie (iPhone, paid)

• Twitter mobile apps: Twitter Mobile (updates, browser), Twapper (monitoring, browser), Twitterfon (iPhone, free)

• Twitter stats: Twitter Grader, TweetStats, Twinfluence, Twitterholic, TwitterFriends

• Feeding your Twitter elsewhere: FeedInformer, Twitter’s own widgets and badges, SpringWidget Twitter Widget, TwitStamp

• Sharing media (pictures, video, music, web quotes): TwitPic, TweeTube, BlipFM, TwitSnip

• Shortening links: Tr.im, budURL, TinyURL, SnURL, bit.ly, is.gd, ow.ly, TwitSnip

• Tracking twitter buzz: Twitturly, TweetDeck (note: add search column with fixed tag and get update notification popup), Advanced Search in Twitter, Twingly Microblog Search, TweetScan, Twellow, Twittervision, Twistori, Twitscoop

• Twitter groups/recommendations: MrTweet, TwittGroups

• Follow Fail (to check when someone unfollows you): Qwitter

• Evaluating Twitters – follow or not to follow? FollowCost, Twitter Grader,

Twitterholic

Blog Coverage:

• Directories at Alltop.com with live update headlines/feeds:

- GoodTweets

- Twitter News:

- Twitterati

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Twitter is the micro-blogging tool I use the most out of the ones available right now. It may not be the best one if you look at functions but for me it’s the obvious choice, not only because it has most users but also because of the climate within. At this party everyone is invited and no one (well except for spammers) are left out in the cold. It’s also a fascinating environment to walk around in. People from all over the world are constantly telling each other what they read, watch, like and dislike.

There are so many different ways to use Twitter (and other micro-blogging tools for that matter) that it would definitely take up all the space in this report if I would let it. There are tons of applications that let you use the service in a number of ways. This time though I have chosen to put the magnifying glass on two different ways of using Twitter, namely “hashtags” and “retweets.”

Recently I discovered a flow, or should I say “stream”, of people on Twitter using hashtags (#) in front of a word or, more often, an abbreviation. At first it seemed like it was mostly used related to different conferences and other events. A way to organise what

everybody was saying at, or about, that particular event. Since Twitter isn’t famous for its structure that made sense. This was a way to make it easier to gather information and to see what a large amount of people were saying about a particular subject.

The past few months the use of hashtags have grown to be much more than just a way to structure and/or gather information. We saw how the Twitter crowd used it at tragical events such as the one in Mumbai back in November for instance by using #mumbai when tweeting. The voices from within the disaster were being heard through the megaphone of Twitter.

Hashtags (#) & retweetS (RT)

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MORE THAN JUST FANCY WORDS?LINDA PIERRELocation: Stockholm, Sweden Blog: http://lindapierre.tumblr.com/

News about what was going on in and around the area of Mumbai spread faster than traditional media ever could catch up with. What I think is most interesting about the use of hashtags in this way is that it’s the people, not the media, who create the news. When this becomes a tool in every mans mobile phone we have a new journalist in every corner of the world, telling and showing the rest of the population what is going on in real time.

Using hashtags as a way to collaborate on a story was exactly what these journalists did to gather information about the flood in southern Washington a few weeks ago. Instead of working in their own chambers separated from each other, they chose to use the hashtag #waflood. This way they could aggregate both what they as different newspapers were tweeting about, and what other people in the area could update them and the rest of the world in real time. One of the journalists took it a bit further by creating a widget to put on his website, which all of the others also did after a while. This way their readers could easy follow the news without having to go elsewhere than to their favourite news site. Collaborative journalism became a fact. The scoop was no longer the main goal but to get as much and accurate information as possible. Then it was up to the readers to choose where they wanted to consume the whole story.

Not more than a few weeks ago, while there were still a few slices of the Christmas ham left, many Swedes started to look for a new puppy to cuddle with in the big world wide web. Before Christmas the choice had been the Finnish micro-blogging service Jaiku and those of us in Sweden that preferred Twitter weren’t that many. Overall we were still talking about a fairly small amount of people using both these services, until something happened a couple of weeks ago. All of a sudden Swedish mainstream media opened up their eyes to this treasure of information and registered accounts on Twitter. At the same time Swedish politicians also joined and the beginning of using micro-blogging as a tool might have taken an important step towards going mainstream almost over night here in Sweden. The use of hashtags while tweeting didn’t come far behind. Soon there were hashtags such as #svpt (Swedes on Twitter) and #svbloggen which aggregates different types of Swedish blog posts. Two Swedes took the opportunity to put together a site that made it even easier for you to follow everything being tagged with #svpt. Hans Kullin, a Swedish blogger and PR consultant, put together a widget that aggregates all tweets including the hashtag #svpt. By putting this widget on your blog, you and everybody else using that particular tag can reach out to people not yet using Twitter.

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I’m not sure I think it’s such a good idea to put such a broad tag like #svpt next to everything you tweet about though. For me the purpose of that tag was simply to show others that you exist and I don’t think you should do that in every message you put out there. The more people are using any hashtag in the wrong way the more it’s destroying its value and going against its purpose. At least that’s what I think.

Hopefully though this will contribute to make micro-blogs more mainstream and that is something I definitely encourage. If you are Swedish and want to see which hashtags that are most active at the moment, check out this page. If you prefer keeping a wider perspective to what conversations to take part in within the Twittersphere, hashtags.org is the site for you. There’s even a twitter account that is all about hashtags simply called @hashtags. In just a month (and not more than

10 updates) this account has attracted over 25 000 followers. They are also the ones who created the social network I mentioned earlier called hashtags.org. That number is probably that high because if you follow this account, it will automatically follow you back and can then index your hashtags into their statistics at hashtags.org.

Not only about news

There are other ways to use hashtags than just categorising news, more relaxed and fun ways. One of those is when hashtags are being integrated with Google Maps to for instance find fellow tweeters. Say you are at the airport waiting for boarding, just tweet #boarding and your tweet will appear at this Twitter Google maps mashup called Boarding. The idea behind the application is to find fellow stranded

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travellers, but to do so you must add the three letter airport code after the hashtag or no one will be able to find you and vice versa.

Another way people use hashtags are to see what other people’s year resolutions are by tagging them with #resolutions. You can also find new interesting Twitter users to follow by looking up the hashtag #followfriday. Its purpose is to tip other fellow tweeters about that certain somebody you are following and think should get more attention and more followers.

The list of ways to use hashtags could go on but if we stop here and think for a while. Is this fairly new way of trying to structure messages on different micro-blogging services only a good thing? Absolutely not. Almost nothing comes in just one flavour. There’s of course both good tastes and more bitter ones. An over usage of hashtags not only takes space away from those poor 140 signs you have to express yourself with, but also makes it less spontaneous and more database alike. How often you should use hashtags (if at all) and how many at the same time is of course totally up to you. Even though I think there are great potential to make good things out of this new phenomena you should think before you automatically put a hashtag next to your message. Ask yourself is this really something that would add value to that certain conversation or topic?

The enormous amount of attention and the massive growth in usage of hashtags tells me though that this is here to stay, well at least for a while until something better comes along.

What about Retweets?

Well I guess this trend suffers from the same syndrome as the usage of hashtags. It’s becoming more and more common, which means people might be clicking on that “retweet-button” a bit too much. What is a retweet you might wonder? Think about the way we use forwarding to pass on an email to others you think might be interested as well. This is kind of the same thing but with Twitter messages instead and it’s open for every one to see. If you choose to retweet somebody’s message everybody that follows you are the receivers you could say. It’s like giving props to a message you want to help spread.

Sometimes it could be a good thing. You easily see what a lot of people find important right now. But mostly I think it’s a way to clap on each others shoulders (and we all need that ones and a while) and to suck up to someone you follow. I’m not saying I haven’t done this myself but it’s important I think not only to pass along what others say but to contribute with your own opinions. As long as you do that a retweet now and then is a good thing, at least in my opinion.

The worst symptom due to too many retweets is that it can send the Twittersphere into a loop, just going round and round. Like a giant eco chamber, and that is something we do not want right? We have already seen it happen in the blogosphere, please do not make the world of micro-blogs another puddle in which only a few pieces of information makes it to the surface! Most important to remember is that you can use hashtags for a good cause as well, and not only to be a part of a certain group of people. If more people would gather up and use hashtags and retweets for new ideas and solutions within different areas this might actually make a difference. Jim Carlberg created the hashtag #peace so that you could say that you “Twitter for peace”, a good start but what if that could evolve and actually mean that people around the globe would join in and do something concrete instead of just talking about it. Think about that all you tweeters out there!

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If you want to dig deaper into the world of hashtags and retweets:

Twitter Fan Wiki

Hashtags – open source grouping

Why I unfollow people who use hashtags on Twitter

The microblogging phenomenon Retweet

Picture: bitterlysweet

Late 2008 tickets for Barack Obama’s inauguration were reaching insane levels online a few weeks before the historical event took place. CNN reported that one ticket vendor wanted over $20,000 for a single ticket! This is indeed an historical event, but why cough up 20 grand when you can watch the whole thing online I wonder? I mean we are living in the era of the live web and our choices for what to watch at the click of a button is growing faster than algees in a summer lake.

The live web- at first glance

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TOMAS NIHLÉNLocation: Stockholm, SwedenBlog: http://tomasnihlen.tumblr.com/

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The principals

First let’s break it down, what do I mean by “the live web”? This is a trend that started way back in the days of the Internet adolescence but we are now at a point where both the technology is there and the consumer behaviours as well. These to factors are of course the most important ones for a trend like this to gain momentum.

Live information or entertainment can come in many forms, but basically it’s all about the components of the web:

Text

Images

Audio

Video

Other file formats

In this article I will focus on text, audio and video.

Text

Live text might not sound that exciting, but in many cases it can in fact prove to be very interesting. And I would actually claim that text has led the way for many consumers on the path to adapting the live web. Most important might be the Facebook mass adoption that seemed to sweep over the globe last year. One of Facebooks success factors was their news feed that presents the activity in your network in more or less a real time feed. At first the only way to get the real time experience was to constantly hit “Refresh” but now there is the option to watch the live feed.

A new way to create collaborative spaces for covering things in real time is by using FriendFeed (an aggregator of your social services) and to start a “Room” there where other people can add text, links and photos. These rooms can then be watched in real time to get an overview of these events. But somebody needs to create an event quickly for it to be relevant. For instance web profile Robert Scoble regrets deeply that he didn't create a room after a plane crash recently, the comments give a good motivation to the benefits of creating such a room on FriendFeed.

Video

We have in the past written about “life casting” where more or less insane people bring along broadcasting equipment of some sort to let the world peek into their everyday lives. These could be seen as catalysts and role-models for other people to open up to the idea of starring in their own Internet soap of sorts. Justin Kan of Justin.tv and iJustine are two people who attracted massive attention for their life casting projects. They have both moved on and Justin.tv is now one of several services that let you put yourself out there using your computer and/or cellphone.

If life casting is a more continuos project or reality show online, there are also a lot of people who just broadcast snippets of their lives at certain moments. If you want to try some webcam/computer broadcasting I would recommend taking a look at Mogulus, Ustream and Stickam. For mobile live broadcasting I recommend Qik or kyte (both mobile and computer), but you can also check out Bambuser (a Swedish service).

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Picture: ralphbijker

Picture: Brian ”DoctaBu” Moore

Audio

What is happening in the Internet audio scene is really exciting right now. We are seeing round two of digital broadcasting. In round one it was all about “on demand” or rather record-publish-download, i.e. podcasting was king.

It was relatively easy to get going with podcasting, the listeners took to the format and some podcasting superstars were born like Leo Laporte. Laporte was trained in the old school type of radio and even TV journalism. But his passion for technology and curiosity got him hooked on podcasting. He is now the man behind the podcasting power house twit.tv which can take credit for popular shows like “This Week In Tech”, “MacBreak Weekly” and “net@night”. But what makes Laporte extra interesting right now is the move towards both the live and video trend. Now you can listen to the recordings in his studio live, watch a video stream of them recording, listen to recorded episodes on their blog, download separate episodes or get them automatically as a podcast in for instance iTunes.

Me and Linda, the other part of Urban Lifestyle, were totally inspired by this and decided to use the same philosophy when we record one of our podcasts on a Swedish blog/podcast about innovation and entrepreneurship called Innovationsbloggen.se (The Innovation Blog). We record episodes for our podcast, but we also broadcast them live while recording and make sure there are multiple ways to listen, download and participate in different ways.

Events live forever online

One consequence of these trends; live and on demand combined, means that basically all big events are recorded and published online or sometimes both streamed live and published for later viewing/listening. Barack Obama’s inauguration for instance will be (or have been when you are reading this) probably the most heavily covered event when it comes to streaming video online. All media destination sites are working hard to get all the traffic, including CNN which is the only news site delivering live video news broadcasting 24/7. CNN now has teamed up with Facebook to let you look at the live stream and at the same time if you

update your Facebook status it will show up beside the video. It’s similar to what many news sites did with Twitter for the US election last year. One interesting thing is that Facebook is so much more widely adopted by regular consumers which might make it a different experience than it would by using Twitter.

Another interesting event taking place live online recently was the Sundance Film Festival. Sure, not at all as big a thing as the inauguration, still a pretty well-known event. This time you could follow the festival live at 24HoursAtSundance.com. It might not be your typical live coverage though. Ashton Kutcher and Internet superstar Kevin Rose were hosting this extravaganza and four different reporters were competing during these 24 hour which means trying to complete a number of tasks, which might not be that easy.

Catching everything live or later

The point to this article is that content needs to be, and more often is, available both in some sort of live stream and for downloading afterwards. For brands and marketers this is a new thing, they are typically used to just figuring out which channels to use for a campaign, what message etc and then blasting out the message. Now you need to realise that it’s now all about the consumers and how they want to consume content. They are picky and used to getting what they want if not they will go out and get it somewhere else.

Sum up

We will return to this topic in future reports. But for now just remember these two things if you are about to create content for the web:

− Go live, but only if live is relevant

− It must be available afterwards, and in multiple ways

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As the Internet population keeps on growing the national boarders looses their value, it might sound like a cliché but that doesn’t make it any less true. I’m talking about the power of communication across the world, no matter in which country you hook up your laptop.

a different kind of internet buzz -the one that comes from drinking wine...

Services like Skype makes it easy for people to stay in touch across boarders without spending a fortune on phone bills. We use blogging tools to speak our mind about political issues, share links or just upload photos. If you feel like you need an instant response to a thought or a question, try using video services like 12seconds.tv or seesmic, or micro-blogging services like Twitter or Jaiku.

I recently came across an interesting site called Twitter Taste Live . Yes I admit, I am a Twitter freak and should probably need to check into “twitter rehab” one of these days. But for taking the temperature on what’s going on in the world of the web at this very moment it’s just so much fun to use. And addictive.

Anyway it was on Twitter I first heard about Twitter Taste Live, a community for fellow tweeters that are very interested in wine, beer or cigars. The part that got my attention was not that it was a niche social network, because there are plenty of those, but that it actually gathers people around the globe at joint tastings. Not the traditional wine-, beer- or cigar tastings of course but by using Twitter instead.

LINDA PIERRELocation: Stockholm, Sweden Blog: http://lindapierre.tumblr.com/

Picture: Richard Mackney

All of a sudden I saw the hashtag #ttl frequently used in my Twitter-stream. At first I didn’t get it, what was I missing (you know I just can’t handle not knowing all about these things)? Then it hit me that a live tasting event had begun and people where participating and showing it by using the same hashtag. The people over at Wine Conversation had listed three wines to the tasting called “Beyond the Trade” and the British Twittersphere eagerly participated. Normally you don’t have to be in a certain country to participate, all you have to do is to buy the wine bottles, beers or cigars listed for the tasting and just go nuts. With the glass or cigar in one hand and the other hand typing away at the keyboard. Maybe nuts is the keyword here, but you got to love people who are passionate about these things.

This event though was a bit different. It is actually a physical event taking place in London and now also for the first time live on the web using social media as the tool of choice. For those sitting at home alone, or in groups, a box with all the wine bottles were home delivered so that they could participate. Richard Mackney was one of the eager ones trying the later version and filming it for us to see afterwards as well. What did we do for fun before the Internet I wonder...

What if we could collaborate like this more?

There’s no limit to what that could help people (and companies) to achieve don’t you think? World peace might be taking it a bit too far I guess, but solving problems and helping each other out in difficult times are something we see more and more of.

Hm, I’m gonna think some more about this for future issues of this report. I have to wrap this up since I just spilled some red wine on my Macbook Pro and @garyvee just dissed my favourite Syrah on Twitter!

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The way users consume digital content has changed the way brands need to behave in the digital space. Where traditional media (web 1.0) is shouting, web 2.0 is about conversations. Consumers expect to be involved, engaged and invited to collaborate. They have on-demand expectations; they expect real-time dialogue and want personalised experiences. This is where digital has the advantages of relevance and context, enabling consumers to immerse as much or as little as they want, when they want, how they want.

It’s all about the brand experience- seamless but not standardised

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NICHOLAS GILLLocation: London, United KingdomBlog: bluurb.wordpress.com

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Social networks are now culturally assimilated into the psyche

People are spending less time on communication and content sites and more on consumer generated media (+47%) and entertainment (+8%) sites which has seen the huge rise of social networks leading to the ubiquitous Facebook app in every creative presentation in the last 18 months. To dramatise the impact social networks have had; Christmas Day 2007 was the busiest ever day for social networks in the UK. Facebook was the 3rd most visited website pushing eBay to 4th for the first time.

Social search on social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Linked In etc. will become more valuable to users because of relevancy and their inherent higher trust in consumer, particularly peer, reviews of places, people and companies than from brands themselves. 90% of consumers trust recommendations from other consumers compared to 45% from a TV ad. Augment this with the fact that 51% of users would abandon a consumer electronics purchase due to negative user generated comments and positive opinion and increased use of social search become increasingly important. Combining search and peer advice will become more important than contextual listings and vertical search.

Gaming has shifted our notion of entertainment

A huge shift in consumer attitudes has turned video games into the UK’s most popular form of entertainment with UK sales of games outstripping music and video for the first time in 2008. As CD sales continue to decline, the traditional high street music retailers are diversifying and changing store layouts to focus on more lucrative areas such as gaming.

Gaming is clearly no longer confined to the traditional Generation Y and younger audiences. Social gaming platforms, like the Nintendo Wii, have been shown to have a positive influence in the home changing

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the traditional view of gaming by families: facilitating peer bonding and encouraging child exercise. 25% of all UK homes now have a Nintendo Wii.

As much as consumers don’t experience brands in silo channels these days, increasingly they will want to continue their gaming experience across channels. Already this is happening in nascent territory such as downloadable content to enhance the gaming experience. Online gaming shifted from niche to mainstream with the advent of games such as Call of Duty to the point where Radio 1 DJ’s Chris Moyles and Vernon Kay talk about their gamer tags and gaming activities. You can’t get more mainstream than Radio 1.

Extending the gaming across channels will become expected. From console to PC to mobile, porting your stats and chat systems will become the norm. The communications activity a brand produces must also replicate this experience.

Community

Enabling the brand in the social networks these consumers operate in is no longer an option. This does encompass the ubiquitous Facebook Group and Application but it needs to go beyond this. Being a fan of a new product is only part of the story. Enabling true consumer engagement through releasing the brand and content into the hands of the passionate consumers, let them co-create and collaborate with you to take the product to new levels. Participation is not just a buzz word, it’s an expectation.

This extends to online advertising where it’s about engagement and interaction. Advertising static content gets lost. Deeper engagement and immersion delivers results.

Digital enables deeper immersion than any other channel. Fan boys will want more than just the official web site and the occasional developer diary. Taking learnings from some of the major theatrical releases in modern times, Batman: The Dark Knight and Cloverfield, brands need to extend their digital presence to involve, inspire and create talkability.

Device convergence

Today we carry many pieces of equipment, tomorrow one. And it won’t be the laptop. Witness the rapid growth in mobile internet usage today, fuelled by the accessible interface of the Apple iPhone and new Google Android mobile platform. 38% of users will access the Internet via a mobile device by the time the Olympics comes to this country in 2012. The pace of development in mobiles will leave other devices in their wake. If you can get an 8 mega pixel camera phone today, why buy a separate camera tomorrow?

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Is it the death of TV?

164 minutes online everyday versus 148 minutes watching TV everyday suggest TV is dead. Well, not quite. It’s where and how consumers are watching their TV that matters. People are now accessing TV online, shifting their media and increasingly mashing it (the youth demographic mash 44 hours of activity into a 24 hour day) meaning they watch TV and are online at the same time. A massive engagement and relationship deepening opportunity for digital.

The notion of time-shifting means PVRs change viewing habits to when consumers are ready to watch it and over 70% of PVR owners fast forward through advertising. Innovations such as BBC iPlayer and Channel 4 On Demand are place-shifting where consumers watch. They’re still watching TV but on their own terms. And often on multiple devices. In a straight choice between the TV and their PC 80% of younger consumers wouldn’t lose their PC because it’s more versatile at delivering the content they want.

There is a symbiotic relationship between TV and digital. Far from being separate channels, the two work in solid combination to drive relevance, association with brand values and importantly intent to purchase and talkability. Digital amplifies this through the innate social aspects of the medium.

Implications of a digital future

The single biggest implication is that consumers do not think in terms off or online. For them this is antiquated. There is no line. They don’t experience a brand or product the way brands are organised into departments and responsibilities. They experience it the way they want to. On their terms.

A brand is the sum of all perceptions resulting from every point of contact a person has with a company, either directly or indirectly, over time. Different people have different ways of performing a task.

There is no need to limit to a single way of doing things. Be non-linear. Don’t force users to follow a specific path: brands can create and users will find multiple paths to same content. Consumer interactions are not aligned vertically with the corporate structure. They cut across multiple departments of a company.

This means it’s about creating a brand experience, not a channel led approach.

Think of experiences rather than channels. A channel can provide multiple experiences.

Adopt a more integrated and customer-centric approach to communications. Consider the moments of interaction between people and brands, and seek to generate as much value as possible from these interactions. The experience needs to be consistent and seamless across all points of interaction. This doesn’t necessarily mean matching luggage creatively but must absolutely be aligned from a strategic perspective and applying that to understand the role that each channel plays in the complete experience.

In a nutshell, multiple ways to access the content and having great content that is informative, entertaining and engaging in the first place.

Sources:eMarketer, Forrester, Google, Yahoo!/OMD, OfCom, Advertising: It’s Everywhere, Me-dia Awareness Network, Forrester/Intelliseek Research, Yankelovich Monitor, BBC.

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Picture: Spencer E Holtaway

One of the old and much appreciated principals of the Internet is that everybody can be anonymous. The upside is for instance free speech without fear of repercussions, which in some countries or situations is crucial. The downside is flaming wars, racist remarks, and comment sections just generally turning into anarchistic havens for straight-out foul-mouthed little devils.

We might see the end of “the wild west” of the web or “the wild web” as you might call it. More and more governments are listening into what people are doing and saying online and initiatives as Facebook Connect holds us personally accountable when we comment on blogs using our Facebook account.

Starting this year the Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment will listen in to all Internet traffic crossing the Swedish boarders. We have written about this before (in the October issue, only available for our former paid-for subscribers), we even made a web documentary about the blog storm caused by this law last year called Wiretapping Sweden (a must see if you are not familiar with this issue). Sweden is by now means first in line when it comes to keeping a tap on Internet communication but this controversial law contributed to putting the topic on the Internet agenda.

Death of the

anonymous web?

Another factor in the possible death of the anonymous web is a move from the EU and this has also created massive discussions in the European blogosphere. This takes away one of the things that drove many of the original bloggers into this arena in the first place; the opportunity to share intimate details of their lives but not giving away they names.

So we are seeing two trends right now working against the idea of the anonymous web:

− Users willingly giving away lots of information about themselves.

− Governments listening into everything we say online and building huge databases with our social graphs.

The first trend could be used as an argument for letting governments store and analyse this data, and while they're at it also gather a whole lot of other data about us. But there is a huge difference between opening your front door to invite a stranger in for coffee rather than that very stranger deciding to sneak in through the backdoor and copy all your personal documents.

The debates about personal integrity and the rights to data about specific people have already started but I think they will grow even louder in the years to come. Surely we will get back to this topic in future issues.

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TOMAS NIHLÉNLocation: Stockholm, SwedenBlog: http://tomasnihlen.tumblr.com/

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A crisis of convergence Music 3.0

If you want an example of music industry panic, consider this; the band Death Cab for Cutie has been forced to remove videos from its own website due to a copyright claim – by its own record label, Warner Music Group.

Yet despite the challenge faced by digital distribution and the perception by consumers of content as free, industry events such as the recent Midem still feature lots of talk about the problem, but no real solutions.

DAN THORNTONLocation: Peterborough, United Kingdom Blog: http://www.thewayoftheweb.net

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Music sales actually rose in 2008 – digital music sales grew 25 per cent to $3.7 billion, and made up 20 per cent of recorded music sales. Meanwhile vinyl album sales grew by 89% in the U.S. in 2008 – albeit to just 1.88 million sales compared to the 65.8 million digital albums.

So with digital music growing, and even vinyl making a comeback – why is the music industry sailing into the perfect storm?

• Albums sales overall have dropped, and the CD format is being hit hard.

• Industry organisation IFPI puts the number of illegal downloads at 95% of all music downloads (40 billion tracks) Individual bands are going direct to their fans and making bigger profits by doing so.

• And music streaming services are leading towards fans essentially renting their content.

The current industry- favoured approach is to pursue illegal downloading by forcing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to track and notify individuals, before disconnecting repeat offenders. And two surveys have suggested this would stop 64-70% of internet users from illegal downloads – but when you actually ask the 18 per cent of Europeans who are actually using Peer-2-Peer sharing to swap music, only 41% would respond to a warning, and 37% admitted they would continue to share music even when threatened with imminent disconnection.

But many people don’t believe legal downloads will ever succeed in tackling piracy, or replacing enough of the revenue lost from CD sales. The tipping point is predicted for 2013 when the majority of sales will be from online, mobile and ringtones for the first time – but total music industry revenues will be about half of the peak amount of just under Euro 12 billion in 2001. Pict

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One alternative is shown by oft-quoted examples of Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead making their music available either for free, or for a price set by consumers. The best-selling MP3 album at Amazon in 2008 was Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV which was released for free under a Creative Commons licence – but made $1.6 million in revenue in its first week and hit #1 on the Billboard Electronic chart. Making music available in this way is definitely successful for bands with a certain level of success – but the jury is out on how many musicians would be successful enough to maintain a living, even when attempting to monetise their work through additional physical releases, merchandise and live events.

The other alternative which is viable, if complex, is offering music in a ‘permission model’ – for example, a current proposal for the 80,000 residents of the Isle of Man to pay an extra £1 per month for broadband to cover the costs of them downloading as much music as they like. And despite being dismissed by trade bosses for suggesting authorised ISPs should let P2P downloads occur in exchange for payment, Media Futurist Gerd Leonhard found support from band manager Peter Jenner.

Picture: western dave

‘The reality is we’ve got to compete with free’

Stanford professor and lawyer Lawrence Lessig prominently asserts that ‘prosecuting online file sharing turns a generation [into] criminal’. He doesn’t support piracy but calls for a reform of copyright law and tactics which has seen the Record Industry Association of America sue tens of thousands of individuals and allege millions of dollars in damages without reducing the amount of peer-to-peer sharing, or collecting additional revenues for musicians rather than the lawyers. He adds his voice exploring ideas such as a voluntary collective licence, and a more expansive ‘non-commercial use levy’ His latest book, Remix, explores the culture of digital media as something to be remixed and mashed-up.

Despite all the evidence pointing towards a radical shake-up, Warner Music Group is in the midst of a backlash over a royalty disagreement with Youtube. WMG forced the video site to remove all clips by its artists, removing official videos and unofficial soundtracks to amateur content which has left many hours of content eerily muted. Other content owners are allowing their content to be used and monetising it via Youtube’s Content ID technology.

And the RIAA is in the midst of an increasing surreal case against Joel Tenenbaum, accused of downloading at least seven songs and making 816 music files available via the Kazaa file-sharing network in 2004. Tenenbaum offered to settle for $500, but the music companies demanded $12,000. Now Harvard Law School professor, Charles Nesson, and his students have taken up the case to launch a constitutional attack on the copyright law which has allowed the industry to pursue file-sharers in the U.S. Nesson and team had an order granted to narrowcast the trial over the web, which is being appealed by the RIAA despite the fact they seek to publicise the risks of copyright infringement.

And there’s one final, and totally legal threat in the shape of streaming music content via Myspace, BBC iPlayer, and dedicated services such as last.fm, Pandora, imeem, Spotify etc. Research by Forrester’s Mark Mulligan have shown that only 9% of UK internet users purchase paid downloads, while 24% listen to streaming music. One example of a payment model is Nokia’s Comes With Music, with unlimited streaming and downloads for 12 months

with your mobile – Orange have a flat rate service in France, whilst Sony-Ericsson run a similar scheme in Sweden. Danish ISP TDC offers music with their internet packages, and even Google offers a free music in China.

Streaming music, bundled music, legal peer-to-peer, monetising amateur remixes and offering physical objects as added value – they’re all available – but it remains to be seen whether the industry can change radically enough to grasp them. Or whether more established artists will seek freedom from the industry to grab new life for themselves.

Further reading:

www.ifpi.org – International Federation of the Phonographic Industry

www.riaa.com – Recording Industry Association of America

http://www.paidcontent.org/channel/name/midem/ - Comprehensive coverage of Midem by PaidContent,org

http://www.mediafuturist.com – Gerd Leonhard on the future of music and subscription services.

http://www.lessig.org/ - Lawrence Lessig

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/cyberone/riaa/ The Harvard Law Blog for Charles Nesson and students.

http://musicindustrymanifesto.com/ - A manifesto for change in the music industry and collecting relevant articles and links.

http://musicindustryblog.wordpress.com/ - Music Industry articles and data by Mark Mulligan (Forrester)

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You’ve probably read about the infamous families playing the role of satisfied Walmart customers back in 2006 and the so-called Sony PSP fan blog “All I want for Christmas is a PSP” that was exposed as Sony themselves. You might think that more than 2 years later these two examples may have discouraged brands to try and fool their customers. Unfortunately we still see these type of mistakes being made. The only difference is that today companies know that if they make a mess they have to clean it up in public.

The latest brand to be put in the naughty corner is Belkin. One of the company’s employees didn’t trust enough in the quality of its products and hired people to write reviews on Amazon, reviews of products they had never used. For every 5 star rating and good comment these people got paid. Not only did he urge you to do this on new products but on old ones as well, so that the products’ former bad reviews would appear less dominant.

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Liar liar pants on

fire!

It is amazing that we still keep reading about brands trying to lie their way to the top. When will they ever learn that you can’t lie and get away with it any more. The truth always finds its way out somehow, especially in these days when information spreads as fast as a wildfire and people are ready to expose the truth to the world in heartbeat.

LINDA PIERRELocation: Stockholm, Sweden Blog: http://lindapierre.tumblr.com/

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People where even told to mark bad reviews as “not helping”. The request was posted by a man called Michael Bayard. According to LinkedIn there’s is a man by that name who is Business Development Representative at Belkin International and he works with Belkin sales via Amazon.com.

Ouch Belkin, this is not looking so good... Belkin’s CEO later said it was “with great surprise and dismay when [they] discovered that one of [their] employees may have posted a number of queries on the Amazon Mechanical Turk website inviting users to post positive reviews of Belkin products in exchange for payment”. He also said that they have “the highest standards of corporate ethics” and do not accept this type of behaviour from their employees. I must say they did act rather quickly, only two days after the first blog post appeared which by the way happened to be on a weekend. They also removed all reviews related to the link this Bayard character had put up on the help site Amazon Mechanical Turk. This has turned into quite a mess though and I my eyes it wasn’t even a clever attempt to fool us but, actually a really stupid move. Not only the hole idea to try to fool consumers but also in regards to the execution of the plan.

Microsoft also recently made a quite fool out of themselves. In this promo video for Microsoft’s Songsmith, an application for recording songs, a girl is featured singing in front of a laptop. Nothing strange about that, only that the laptop she is using is a Mac covered with flower-stickers. Did the makers behind the video really think that people wouldn’t see it was a Mac or was this just a trick to get some attention Microsoft otherwise

has got a hard time getting? Songsmith only works on PC’s and since you can turn your Mac into a PC using for instance Parallels it can actually run on a Mac as well. But still, it just doesn’t make any sense to me why Microsoft couldn’t use one of “its own” laptops running their operating systems without middleware. They should have know someone would pick it up and write about it anyhow.

There has been a lot of discussions lately both in the Swedish blogosphere and mainstream media about the Swedish writer Liza Marklund and her most

famous book “Hidden”. When the degree of truth was questioned for her book that is supposed to be “a true story” she chose not to answer

the accusations right away but to keep a low profile. If you google her name a few weeks after the “blogger riots” began, lots of

angry voices from the blogosphere appear on the first page. The same thing happened to the Swedish company Hewal

a few weeks earlier. Instead of trying to answer a very upset customer they chose to try to sue him and make

him take down the blog post he had written. This of course only made things even worse and Hewal got a mob of angry bloggers attacking them.

Once again people have proved that companies can’t fool or treat us badly any more. If we don’t like it, we will say it. That is kind of scary for a lot of executives, I know. But put your self into the shoes of the consumers. Why should we keep our mouth closed when there are so many ways to speak the truth, and to do so in public? No there is no way back from this, now it’s up to you marketers and brand owners to listen to the consumers instead of

ignoring them and try to make your products look good behind the mask that is called advertising.

That good old trick won’t work any more. It’s time for companies to stop fooling themselves that they can

sell a product no matter the quality. Ads are only skin deep and in the long run it’s impossible to hide products

that suck, under layers of clever advertising. So be aware, be very aware and don’t try to fool us!

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Picture: Okko Pyykkö

Ok, time for my opinion. Where to start, I wondered, when I sat down to write this piece. There are so many things right now that are more or less bugging me. But I’ll have to save some of them and go for the most important one of them all... Obama has set out to change the US, and it’s time for all marketers to start a process of real and profound change in the field of marketing. No more excuses.

The days of interruptive advertising are about to run out. And it must stop really. Just think about it, don’t you often change the channel on the TV when you are interrupted by advertising? Go to the bathroom or maybe put on a kettle of tea or coffee? Of course you do, because the ad spots are interrupting you from watching the TV show or movie you sat down to watch. It’s getting in the way of your experience. It’s not adding to it but rather destroying it. Even though many advertising agencies might think their

STOP bugging us!

ads are a gift to the public, because they are clever, or funny or generally nice looking. But the truth is: it’s still, for the consumers, mostly just an annoying part of the TV experience. And when these people, who are actually still watching old school TV, understand that there is a whole world out there without advertising, they just might turn away from that same TV, like many people I know already have. Do you really want to chase them away?

Marketing hasn’t really changed that much in the last 100 years or so. Evolutionary changes mostly. And up until now there wasn’t much point to change a winning formula. But the last few years the consumers have changed, and the competition and divergence in the media space is punching holes in the current marketing paradigm. It’s just a matter of time until all marketers MUST rethink the whole marketing game. At the moment only the marketers that want to stay in business

OPINion47

in the future need to think about this. The other marketers could possibly keep going in old footsteps at least a couple of years more before they go out of business.

So what do you think? Will you be a dinosaur, just before the meteor hits the earth’s surface, or an adaptive mammal which finds new ways to stay relevant?

And please, keep the consumers best interest in mind and don’t try to brainwash them with irrelevant and repetitive advertising until they turn away from you...

And oh, I have to say three more thing before I let you go; DRM is stupid and must stop all together, all companies should stop treating the world as separate markets and the Swedes who put #svpt i ALL their tweets should stop. Ok, that’s it. Feel free to protest against all my opinions in this blog post.

//Tomas Nihlén, Editor in Chief

CONNECT with us!We at Urban Lifestyle also use a number of web 2.0-services, not that suprisingly, both in our work and away from work. Here we have listed some of our most important tools information, inspiration and integrating with others.

Add us as friends on any of these services (or all of them if you like). We would love to know a bit more about our readers and what you think about this report.

To keep track of what’s going on at Urban Lifestyle also check out our company Twitter account, the report website and the blog:

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Tomas NIHLEN (tomas@urban-lifestyle.se)

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