May 15, 2010

Web 3.0. A Story About the Semantic Web.

Interviews with Tim Berners-Lee, Clay Shirky, Chris Dixon, David Weinberger, Nova Spivack, Jason Shellen, Lee Feigenbaum, John Hebeler, Alon Halevy, David Karger and Abraham Bernstein.

March 17, 2010

The Internet of Things: A Sea of Data.

via youtube.com

A provocative video from IBM talking about the amount of data and system connection on the internet.

I've been reading a bit about the dark internet - the massive underbelly of mostly unreachable network hosts. Common search engines only skim the top, for example.

The video, as described by IBM:

Video from IBM, featuring: Mike Wing, Andy Stanford-Clark and John Tolva.

Over the past century but accelerating over the past couple of decades, we have seen the emergence of a kind of global data field. The planet itself - natural systems, human systems, physical objects - have always generated an enormous amount of data, but we didnt used to be able to hear it, to see it, to capture it. Now we can because all of this stuff is now instrumented. And its all interconnected, so now we can actually have access to it. So, in effect, the planet has grown a central nervous system.

Look at that complex set of relationships among all of these complex systems. If we can actually begin to see the patterns in the data, then we have a much better chance of getting our arms around this. Thats where societies become more efficient, thats where more innovation is sparked.

When we talk about a smarter planet, you can say that it has two dimensions. One is to be more efficient, be less destructive, to connect different aspects of life which do affect each other in more conscience and deliberate and intelligent ways. But the other is also to generate fundamentally new insights, new activity, new forms of social relations. So you could look at the planet as an information, creation and transmission system, and the universe was hearing its information but we werent. But increasingly now we can, early days, baby steps days, but we can actually begin to hear the planet talking to us.Video featuring, from IBM: Mike Wing, Andy Stanford-Clark and John Tolva.

Over the past century but accelerating over the past couple of decades, we have seen the emergence of a kind of global data field. The planet itself - natural systems, human systems, physical objects - have always generated an enormous amount of data, but we didnt used to be able to hear it, to see it, to capture it. Now we can because all of this stuff is now instrumented. And its all interconnected, so now we can actually have access to it. So, in effect, the planet has grown a central nervous system.

Look at that complex set of relationships among all of these complex systems. If we can actually begin to see the patterns in the data, then we have a much better chance of getting our arms around this. Thats where societies become more efficient, thats where more innovation is sparked.

When we talk about a smarter planet, you can say that it has two dimensions. One is to be more efficient, be less destructive, to connect different aspects of life which do affect each other in more conscience and deliberate and intelligent ways. But the other is also to generate fundamentally new insights, new activity, new forms of social relations. So you could look at the planet as an information, creation and transmission system, and the universe was hearing its information but we werent. But increasingly now we can, early days, baby steps days, but we can actually begin to hear the planet talking to us.

March 2, 2010

Video: The State of The Internet.

via vimeo.com

This video by Jesse Thomas provides the most recent stats on the internet. Enjoy.

February 27, 2010

One of the Strangest Current Phenomenons on the Web: ChatRoulette, "Nexting" by the Numbers.

via fastcompany.com

An informative and well thought out film on the ins, outs as well as home-made stats on Chat Roulette.

What is it? Weird. Strange. Scary. And according to some people who've tried it, addictive.

New York Magazine had this to say:

"The first time I entered ChatRoulette—a new website that brings you face-to-face, via webcam, with an endless stream of random strangers all over the world—I was primed for a full-on Walt Whitman experience: an ecstatic surrender to the miraculous variety and abundance of humankind. The site was only a few months old, but its population was beginning to explode in a way that suggested serious viral potential: 300 users in December had grown to 10,000 by the beginning of February. Although big media outlets had yet to cover it, smallish blogs were full of huzzahs. The blog Asylum called ChatRoulette its favorite site since YouTube; another, The Frisky, called it “the Holy Grail of all Internet fun.” Everyone seemed to agree that it was intensely addictive—one of those gloriously simple ideas that manages to harness the crazy power of the Internet in a potentially revolutionary way.

The site activates your webcam automatically; when you click “start” you’re suddenly staring at another human on your screen and they’re staring back at you, at which point you can either choose to chat (via text or voice) or just click “next,” instantly calling up someone else."

The NYTimes said:

"Nothing can really prepare you for the latest online phenomenon, Chatroulette.

The social Web site, created just three months ago by a 17-year-old Russian named Andrey Ternovskiy, drops you into an unnerving world where you are connected through webcams to a random, fathomless succession of strangers from across the globe. You see them, they see you. You talk to them, they talk to you. Or not. The site, which is gaining thousands of users a day and lately some news coverage, has a faddish feel, but those who study online vagaries see a glimpse into a surreal future, a turn in the direction of the Internet.

Before you rush off to your computer to try Chatroulette, it is only fair to let you know what you’re getting into. Entering Chatroulette is akin to speed-dating tens of thousands of perfect strangers — some clothed, some not.

The home page is sparse, with two empty boxes — one labeled Stranger, the other, aptly, You. When you press the Play button, your webcam is activated and you are told that Chatroulette is “Looking for a random stranger.” Up pops a live video and you can chat with the person on the other end. Hit Next and you are confronted with a new stranger.

In its simplest form, the site does exactly what its name says — it pulls you into a game of roulette. I used the service for the first time a few weeks ago, and I found it both enthralling and distasteful, yet I kept going back for more."

Given the evidence of most males being "nexted," it might be a fun thing to observe off camera, while getting a good looking female to try.

Though, maybe not.

February 15, 2010

A Marketing Era of False Prophets and Failing Results.

It seems that we’ve fallen into an age of technicians. Or worse, an age of technocrats. The focus of marketing is increasingly about technology, with few hat tips left to creativity. Rather, marketing is now the domain of those who create and promote platforms and apps. It’s the domain of those who herald a new age of conversation and giving goods away free.

These are today’s marketing rock stars. Even though many of them don’t believe in good old fashioned marketing. According to many of them, any prior form of marketing is dead, along with brands and advertising.

The funny thing is the majority of consumers couldn’t care less. Sure, they flock to facebook, use gmail and view videos on YouTube. But to them it doesn’t represent anything other than convenient and free entertainment and communication.

In fact, I’ve never heard anybody outside the hallowed echo chamber of social media actually call it social media. “What are you doing tonight?” “Oh, participating in a little social media, how about you?”

Social media is just another form of media added to the palette. Not the promised land. Neither does it represent the destruction, or replacement of marketing and advertising.

The problem is the barn doors have been kicked open allowing anybody with a social media opinion in. Now everybody is a self-proclaimed marketing expert, guru, or maven. (Oddly enough, ‘maven’ is a word coined by an ad guy in the 1960’s. But like so many things in marketing, you’d have to believe much of the history was invented yesterday).

Over at a blog called The Ad Contrarian, Bob Hoffman says, “The advertising industry, in fact the whole of marketing, is now sinking in the quicksand of complicators. They are in charge. This is the era of the complicator.

He’s right. The influx of complicators has caused confusion, inertia and as a result, some very bad marketing efforts and advertising lately. But, like most things, it’s probably cyclical.

Back in 1947, prior to opening up Doyle Dane Bernbach, Bill Bernbach wrote a letter to his then employer, Grey Advertising. In the letter he expounded on a topic that reflects much of what we’re dealing with today:

I’m worried that we’re going to fall into the trap…that we’re going to worship techniques instead of substance, that we’re going to follow history instead of making it, that we’re going to be drowned by superficialities instead of buoyed up by solid fundamentals. I’m worried lest hardening of the creative arteries begin to set in.
There are a lot of great technicians in advertising. And unfortunately they talk the best game. They know all the rules. They can tell you that people in an ad will get you greater readership. They can tell you that a sentence should be this sort or that long. They can tell you that body copy should be broken up for easier reading. They can give you fact after fact after fact. They are the scientists of advertising. But there’s one little rub. Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art.
It’s that creative spark that I’m so jealous of for our agency and that I am so desperately fearful of losing. I don’t want academicians. I don’t want scientists. I don’t want people who do the right things. I want people who do inspiring things.
In the past year I must have interviewed about 80 people – writers and artists. Many of them were from the so-called giants of the agency field. It was appalling to see how few of these people were genuinely creative. Sure, they had advertising know-how. Yes, they were up on advertising technique.
But look beneath the technique and what did you find? A sameness, a mental weariness, a mediocrity of ideas. But they could defend every ad on the basis that it obeyed the rules of advertising. It was like worshiping a ritual instead of the God.
All this is not to say that technique is unimportant. Superior technical skill will man a good man better. But the danger is a preoccupation with technical skill or the mistaking of technical skill for creative ability.
The danger lies in the temptation to buy routinized men who have a formula for advertising. The danger lies In the natural tendency to go after tried-and-true talent that will not make us stand out in competition but rather make us look like all the others.
If we are to advance we must emerge as a distinctive personality. We must develop our own philosophy and not have the advertising philosophy of others imposed on us.
Let us blaze new trails. Let us prove to the world that good taste, good art, and good writing can be good selling.

Jeremiah Owyang, a partner at Altimeter Group (specializing in research and consulting on digital strategies), wrote a post on his blog, titled: “Scorecard: Does Your Agency Fondle The Hammer?” He too cautions clients away from agencies focused on tools and techniques:

Caution. Agency partners that are focused on technologies –not business needs, can destroy your brand. Although new technologies are emerging at an ever-increasing speed, creating a strategy based on tools will leave you in a churn of change, without anyway to escape. Agency partners that jump from one shiny tool to the next (hammer fondlers) risk poor implementation, not tying efforts to business goals and worst of all confusing your customers as you over-deploy.
Rather than developing a strategy based on the latest tool –focus on the end goal of building a place for your customers to come interact with each other, and your brand. Look for agency partners that focus on customer behaviors, and business goals as the over-arching goal.

All of this is not to say digital tools and technology are bad.

Social media, is a great and promising new development that requires skill in getting to know how to use it and integrate it into a broader business purpose.

Rather, as science fiction writer, Theodore Sturgeon, so eloquently put it, “Ninety percent of everything is crap.”

Given the ubiquity of communications, hype and along with it - expert opinion – Sturgeon’s law is more true today than ever.