Digital Digest, 18th August.

Here's some more digital bits y'all


DD w/c 17/08/02009

Hello there. This week’s DD is a mix of the usual new things – plus a few wonderful bits I’ve been meaning to show for a while now. Let’s have a look.

What exactly is happening about Augmented Reality/RFID/Wireless Power? Here’s your answer.
There’s a classic model that’s used to describe how far a technology has evolved from creation, refinement, experimental use and mainstream adoption – it’s called the Hype Cycle. With so many New Things popping up in the last few years, how to know which spangly technology is closest to being realistically used? Well, the analysts at tech firm Gartner have plotted all the Big New Things onto the Hype Cycle, and are sharing the results. The points at the ‘peak’ are the ones we read about in – well, newsletters like this. But perhaps the real slow burners are the points currently languishing in the ‘trough of disillusionment’. Jed, it’d be interesting to hear your thoughts on this!

Yum, charts.
Data visualisation is a big thing right now, and if you’ve had any decks or charts from me recently you’ll notice I’m trying to work it into my way of presenting info. Basically, the mainstream are finally shrugging off Powerpoint – not only that, but they’re starting to take serious notice of the ideas of a man called Edward Tufte, venerable chart theorist. Combine that with a healthy dose of design and you get the new wave of visualisation. There are many sources, but the two I most love are the Guardian Datablog (aggregator of all such efforts) and a blog called Information Is Beautiful. You’d be right to call it nerdy, but these will make you think – and they can help you communicate, too.

Wikipedia Reaches 3 Million Articles (citation needed – oh wait, here it is)
...and that’s just the English version. Worldwise, there’s a hefty 13 million. It’s a great victory for Wikipedia, and comes a few months after Microsoft admitted defeat and acknowledged they weren’t going to make any new editions of the previously popular (certainly great for school projects) Encarta. Wikipedia appears in pretty good financial nick and its reputation as a source has never been higher. I still wouldn’t trust it outright, but we may finally be in a position where we can see that happening within a span of years.
And for comparison, Encyclopaedia Britannica reaches a piddling 500,000 articles.

Another step for convergence – the GPS unit.
TomTom have just released their navigator software for the iPhone, priced at about $80. The big story here is that it means they now see a future where the separate GPS hardware unit is basically obsolete. This was coming anyway – new cars often had them built into the dash – but smartphones accelerate the demise. And why not? A GPS only needs to work to a certain standard to satisfy 95% of users, and that standard has been reached. If there’s no name for it, let’s called it the Mitchell Benchmark. We have also reached it for mp3 playing, for example, and possibly video. The interesting question is: how long before cameras pass this test and disappear?

Facebook for iPhone 3.0
Enough said. It’s an interesting demonstration of what facebook feels its users want – not depth of experience so much as ease of use. And the keypad interface is a lovely touch.

Facebook search is coming, edges closer than ever to twitter
Last week facebook purchased FriendFeed, a lovely site which aggregates all your different social streams of info into one place. The purchase was partly for acquisition, but also bound to be to access their technology, supplementing other moves such as the changing of status updates. This is all intended to occupy Twitter’s niche – and now, with the impending release of real-time search across the whole site, they’ve never been closer. It’ll be really interesting to see if people can find a use for search – and what it is.

How does the internet feel? Find out
Here’s a new attempt to evolve search: combining mentions of data with their immediate context, and trying to make sense of it. And by this, I mean sentiment search. The latest one is evri, who do quite good info-page based search anyway, but have now added emotional search. The other really fantastic contextual search tool (which, I think, works better) is the currently running EdTwinge, which uses twitter mentions and expressions of love/hate to rank the best shows on at the Fringe right now.

Your iPhone apps are spying on you
Here’s the problem/opportunity of the smartphone’s effortless connectivity – you could be sending more back than you realise. In fact, it’s just emerged that people using apps on Pinch Media have signed up to the sharing of age and name, phone number, jailbreak status, actual current location, among other things. Now for the most part, it’s reasonable to say that this stuff won’t be used in a malicious way. But how can you be sure?

We're none of us native

There is a phrase now: Digital Native. I think a simple indigenous would be better, but still - it's a funny one. It implies that you can somehow gain citizenry of the magical land called Internet. But think about it - the youngest person in the biz will be, what, 18 now, and if they're lucky they might have been introduced to the internet in 2000-ish, at about the age of 9.

That is not native. Childrens' dialect, accent etc. are often fully developed by then so that if they move countries, they will speak in much the same way. Neuroses, habits, tics and so on - it's very likely that they are set in stone by then. Jean Piaget thought so. To go back to media, most of us were introduced to books and TV by about 2. That is native. To be so fully acclimatised with the modes, methods, manners of speech in a space that you instantly understand what it's trying to tell you (and even then, I'd say it's not always true).

But we have all learned to use the net. We're still not in an age where working people are born into it, that's a fact. Yes, we soon will be - but that's the other thing, isn't it? Do you really think that a 2000 child, hidden away from computers for 15 years, would recognise the 2015 internet? I'm not even confident I would right now - assuming it's even on computers... Is it possible to be a native of a country that reinvents itself ever 5 years?

Oh yeah, and that is this big:


I am, while not native, well acquainted with corners of it. And in those corners, I don't always speak the language as well as I'd like. But this is all good news! What it means is that becoming a digital native or whatever the hell it is, is far, far easier than getting a Green Card. Because there's no one population, all it really entails is two things:
-a willingness to try/learn evershifting forms of communication, BUT,
-always, always keeping one and a half eyes on human nature. Talk changes, what they talk about, why and how to get them to talk about your thing will stay the same. Seems to me that the big booby trap for digital agencies is thinking that digital is any more than a means to an end. Trust me, it's not the end.

It's the beginning ;)

Words, words, words words, words I do adore

(anyone looking for the twitter offer, scroll to the bottom of this post!)
Just finished Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. That's the one where the main character is a Fireman. And Firemen burn books for a living. Now read this bit, and tell me if a man writing in 1953 didn't have just a slight inkling of where the media would be in 2009:

"When did it all start, you ask, this job of ours [Fireman], how did it come about, where, when? ...motion pictures in the early twentieth century. Radio. Television. Things began to have mass."
Montag sat in bed, not moving.
"And because they had mass, they became simpler," said Beatty [that's the fire-chief]. "Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population. Films and radios, magazines, books levelled down to a sort of paste pudding norm, do you follow me?"
"I think so."
Beatty peered at the smoke pattern he had put out on the air. "Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending."
"Snap ending." Mildred nodded.
"Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dictionaries were for reference. But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: now at last you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbours. Do you see?
...Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man's mind around so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters, that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!"

Twitter, anyone? That's another story though. Beatty's argument goes on to claim that because nobody has time or taste for deep thought, books only exist to make people feel stupid. What's more, they are frequently (self-) contradictory, full of nonsense, and socially divisive. Why have them, when people can get their news newer and their pleasure more pleasurable from the joys of modern technology?

Why indeed? Well, here's where a bit of pop-psychology comes in (doesn't it always). As well as direct, kinetic pleasure, the average human is looking for something they can dialogue with over a long period. A sort of one-sided companionship or relationship of commitment. We can see this in the watching of soap operas or time-vacuum dramas like Heroes. And it's why books, like meals, are a little less satisfying if you race through them as quickly as you can. Nevertheless, Bradbury's vision of the future might well have come to pass but what he thankfully didn't forsee was the way that we'd manage to tell stories - indeed, publish whole books - online. It's nice that marketers have in some cases led the charge, probably because we have the money to make it happen. But it's a classic example of taking new media, and instead of turning culture to a grey intravenous mush Bradbury-style, using it to challenge and stimulate human nature. 'Cause no matter how fast technology changes, I don't think that'll alter for another few thousand years.

(append: I shortened that passage so it would fit the internet. How's that for irony?)

SPECIAL BOOK OFFER THING
There is a book called The Book Of Gossage. It's a collection of writings by/about esteemed marketer and all-round brainbox Howard Luck Gossage, who was said to be one of the best in the biz. Steve Harrison likes him. Alex Bogusky likes him. I want to like him. But it's out of print, and I'd rather buy it from a colleague than www.rarebooksforanarmandaleg.com. So to put it simply:

-You give me a copy of The Book Of Gossage. Any condition is fine; it's what's inside that counts.
-In return, I give you thirty quid (or indeed it goes to a charity of your choosing), AND
-A special, utterly unique, THING, handmade by me. I don't know what it is but I promise it will be something I myself would be thrilled to receive.

If anyone want to pick up this thrown gauntlet, email me, tweet me, or leave a comment.

...and if anyone's got any other (good) books they wanna swap for money/favours... try me :)

Digital Digest, 3rd August.

I do a thing for my agency. Be nice to keep a record of it here :)

w/c 03/08/02009

Well, hello there. One big headline really dominated new media news this week, so forgive me if it looks like there’s a shortage of ‘proper’ news. Wouldn’t you rather just have a list of fun, inventive stuff for a week anyway? So without further nonsense, in order of importance...

The main one: Microsoft and yahoo! strike a deal, at last
Their takeover bid fell through 18 months ago, but it couldn’t keep MS down. Now it’s launched into a full partnership with yahoo! which will merge Microsoft’s Bing search engine (which is gaining ground; it’s now at 9% market share) with yahoo’s ad systems and sales force. The deal involved no money being paid to yahoo whatsoever, and they predict the move won’t become profitable for two years. So this is aimed squarely at taking google down a peg. Market analysts were underwhelmed though, as they were hoping for a little more cash involved. Ad industry worldwide, long fearful of how google might abuse its near-monopoly, has welcomed the news. A decent search competitor wouldn’t hurt, after all.

Apple snubs google. Is an embargo healthy for competition?
A few developers have found their iPhone applications rejected by apple. The reason – they offer things too close to what the iPhone does, but for free. What these recent apps have in common is the use of Google Voice, a skype-like technology that allows for international calls using the internet. The speculation is that apple have been pressured to do so by the US carrier, AT&T, so that customers don’t have a free alternative to burning those minutes. Compare that to 3, whose most recent (currently running) campaign highlights their status as the first operator to offer skype on the phone. Which approach will work? 3, let’s hope.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s friend list
The pundit we’ve all be waiting for: Archbishop Vincent Nichols, (head of the Catholic church round these parts, fact fans!) has weighed in on the social media debate – and he’s not sure he likes it.

“We’re losing social skills, the human interaction skills, how to read a person’s mood, to read their body language, how to be patient until the moment is right to make or press a point. Too much exclusive use of electronic information dehumanises what is a very, very important part of community life and living together.”

Worse, he sees it as a possible catalyst for suicide:

“Among young people often a key factor in them committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships. They throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they’re desolate.”

And we know that this is true. Who can forget those grisly “Bebo suicide pact” stories? Or the ‘horror’ expressed by Watchdog, MPs et al about the sudden discovery of the thousands of pro-ana (anorexia) websites out there? Social media’s great danger lies in the creation of uneven relationships between vulnerable people. And the breakdown of such relationships can lead to the breakdown of people. BUT, the transient, low-demand nature of these ‘thin networks’ (as someone on Thought For The Day called them) is their great boon. They may damage a percentage of young people, but far more see social networking as way to enter communities where they can, at last, reclaim some level of anonymity which doesn’t exist at school, at home, in their hometown. And more importantly, they get to play with their identity and experience a semblance of freedom.

This is quite interesting. Something for show and tell, fingers crossed.

An awesome thing/A terrible lesson in privacy
It’s the ever popular Shark Week on Discovery. To promote it, they’ve done a special flash site telling the stories of some famous shark attacks and disasters. With a twist. Go to the click, and click “My story”, the 4th button, to the right.

Do it now, I’ll wait.

...

How cool was that? Cool, but also really disturbing – because all of that info was given freely by you – or by others, and you have allowed it to remain on Facebook. Social ‘experts’ have been predicting a backlash against total freedom of personal information for a while now, and we may start to see the crest of the wave with products like SocialSafe, which creates an editable backup of all your facebook data for you to censor at leisure.

“What the fuck is social media? One year on”
A very nice, if irreverent, introduction to the importance of social media to the world – all courtesy of an agency called Brand Infiltration. What’s nice about this presentation is that there’s a fair minimum of editorialising (compared to some ‘evangelists’ anyway). Instead, it’s pretty numbers led. And funny, for a powerpoint.

Unclasses: after 15 years, the internet might teach us something
We’ve seen the democratisation of objective knowledge (Wikipedia), teaching (Wikihow), but there haven’t been so many attempts to bring the whole teaching-learning process online, in a subject-neutral way. Hopefully this will finally happen with Unclasses, a space for posting, joining and (soon) taking classes in the virtual space. Anyone can teach, anyone can learn, you just have to sign up and create/join a class. This has been done before – sort of – in Second Life, with limited success. What this will all hinge on is the power and ease-of-use of the supporting systems and materials. And, above all, the quality of the teachers.

I’ll let you know when I think of something to teach.

Mud, drugs come to spotify
There’s a thing called The Invisible Festival happening this weekend. All you need to do is download spotify, and then over the weekend some top international artists (their words, not mine), will be releasing playlists of the songs that truly inspired them, for 24 hours. You listen to them in your own time, and have a nice party to good music. Then, ideally, donate to Cancer Research UK, the IF’s chosen charity. The use of shared playlists has been catching on as a vehicle of social cohesion, but I don’t think I’ve seen a ‘celebrity playlist’ in this way before. It does open up the concept of curated playlists though.

Jackie Chan rides a Segway in Cyberworld for Kaspersky AntiVirus
I never thought I would type that sentence, but we finish off this week’s DD with possibly the best commercial ever. Remember how excited we used to be by attempts to bring computer worlds to life a la Tron, Reboot etc? The internet has found more presence in the physical world of late (smartphones and so on), and I believe this is triggering a renaissance of ‘the physical net’. Hopefully this ad paves the way that the upcoming Tron Legacy will walk.

That's that. Thought it'd be nice to have online... Any more fodder for the linkfest, leave below :)