10-07-08

Joining up the dots: Part 1

So, the global economy is experiencing a spot of bother.

Yet online advertising spend in the UK is on the up.

But, advertising itself looks to be pretty doomed these days. So doomed that it’s even starting to point fun at itself.

And over half of social media campaigns implemented by Fortune 1000 companies will fail.

Press releases are starting to feel even more out of place in today’s world of real people and resistance to corporate speak. So much so, the industry is beginning to parody itself and the language we use.

Yet the web is growing all the time and brands want to be a part of it. So what do they do?

1. Make sure that any social media/digital campaign it implements matches the needs of its community as well as itself.

2. Don’t fall into the trap of letting perceptions of short term ‘results’ override longer term, more meaningful ROI from a whole load of effort.

3. Keep focused on innovation and making its products/services better, in all respects (eg customer service).

Just a quick thought as all the dots begin to join up in my mind. Anything to add?

09-23-08

Some thoughts on GPS, AR, magic and the technology adoption curve

[Image from tdub303 on Flickr - he uses these to make super cool photos]

Where have I been? What have I been doing? What have I been thinking about? Everywhere. Lots of things. Even more stuff. You could say I’ve had a bit of a blogging dry patch and you’d be right. I’ve been sharing loads of stuff on Twitter, perhaps a little too much, but as you’ll see, I just haven’t been bothered about blogging lately.

So, in order to kick things back off, I thought Id offer up a quick round-up of some stuff I’ve stumbled upon lately, things currently on my radar and just some thoughts I’ve been thinking.

1. Geo-Location/GPS stuff
I cracked and finally bought an iPhone last week. That’s meant I’ve been checking out loads of Apps and thinking much more about the potential of GPS and geo-locational goodies. So far, Vicinity, Twinkle, GPS Tracker and of course Google Maps are all on my homescreen. And I’m well up for trying out a load more. Killer thing that needs building . . . . GPS + Facebook App. Dangerous.

2. Augmented Reality
Iain posted a while back on AR and that rekindled my interest in the area. It kind of ties into GPS stuff of course, then there was that company at TC50 that blew everyone away. Then today I checked this out. Awesome stuff, can’t wait for more exciting things in this space.

Enkin from Enkin on Vimeo.

3. It’s good to be in the audience sometimes
Well not all of us, but most of us. We don’t appreciate what’s going on around us – we’re too close to it. Way too close to it to appreciate it. If we go with the magic analogy that forms the tagline of this blog, then we’re quite literally standing behind the magician and spoiling the illusion. I;ve been doing a fair bit of training recently with all different types of people and that’s been great for making me appreciate what’s going on in the technology world. It’s all happening very very quickly and sometimes I think it would be nice to be in the audience from time to time.

4. There’s still a massive chasm for technology to cross
The technology adoption curve is nothing new. In fact it may even lie behind the name of something I’m working on . Tied into the point above, the tip of the curve is moving super quick, but from what I can see it;s taking time to push things down the curve and gain more early/mid/late majority adoption. Twitter is of course something we geeks love. But has it gone mainstream yet? Nope. This is something (not just Twitter, for all technology products/services) I think about a lot. How do you cross that chasm? What factors need to be in place? Is it simply how good/relevant/magical the product/service is? Hmmm. I’m going to think even harder.

5. Give Twitter back its magic wand
I’m in there all the time and I’ve noticed the following things that have happened. I no longer visit Popurls to get some quick link fixes. I blog less *cough*. I miss outbound SMS so so much. That was the magical bit. Why oph why doesn’t an operator jump in there and basically score the biggest load of love with the early adopter/tech community by striking up a deal with Twitter and taking some of the slack? Just cut out some of those slick adverts or drop a celebrity . . . Orange, Vodafone, O2, 3 or T-Mobile. (And yes I have mentioned you by name in the hope that you’ll pick this up and add it to the nagging thoughts in your mind that it’s a really good idea)

09-08-08

Esquire E Ink front cover

Wow. This is pretty cool. Exciting and a bit scary – high “more adverts shouting at us from more places” potential.

[via Engadget so you;ve probably already seen it – and actually originally a guy at Poke called Will)

09-08-08

Home automation in the UK – frustrating

I spent a good chunk of Saturday evening (yes, I *am* approaching 30) looking for a solution to something I’ve been researching for absolutely ages. It’s like my backburner web research project that I treat as a proper research thing that I keep coming back to and building on (thank you delicious, I heart you big time)But, I still haven’ t cracked it.

Basically I want to try out some home automation. I want to be able to dial into my house. I want to be able to check on an IP cam, turn the lights off remotely and generally get all geeky and do lots of cool stuff in the house – control everything via Twitter?!. Maybe that’s just getting way too geeky, but I’m adamant that home automation is the future and I’d like to get in there early. Besides, now is a great time for me to install some of the infrastructure for it as I’m building an extension and have the opportunity to rewire and mess around with 4 rooms at the same time.

Anyway, I’ve narrowed my search down to using the Insteon system (it already appears to have a community – good early signs) , potentially Indigo to control it all and ideally this latest bit of kit from Insteaon that web enables the whole lot and is iPhone optimised. However – the Insteon kit is from the US, not available in the UK yet (but coming soon, yay). Oh and even if you do get hold of it over here right now (which to be fair is easy) then it operates on the wrong voltage/frequency. Grrrrr.

So, I’m still hoping that I’m find a way of making all my geeky home automation dreams happen. Until then – here’s what could be.

08-21-08

Surface DJ

After a tiny spot of Microsoft bashing earlier today – here’s a nice use of Surface as an audio sequencer with a rather nice UI from the guys at vectorform. Essentially though isn’t Surface just like a big iPhone? Multi-touch is the way forwards and if this patent is anything to go by – it’s going to be Apple versus Microsoft all the way, as usual.

[Via the mighty TC]

08-20-08

A tool to help fix PR?

Pitchspace is featured today on the Guardian Tech podcast and also over on pda in more detail. Over to Jemima to explain:

The idea is to offer a platform for PRs and journalists. PRs seed stories and releases, and journalists can pick up the stories they like and use Pitchspace to organise the material for that story. The system also ranks PRs (and, I assume, journalists!) according to the relationships they build up with journalists, so the more they work together the more contact details they get, and so on.

PR is definitely broken as is, so it’s good to get the debate going as to what the solution is. So get involved if you care about such things, which I suspect a lot of people don’t. They’re just excited about the prospect of all this ubiquitous invisible connected technology stuff.

PS – I think the wrong URL is used in the podcast – it’s space not base, so don’t fall into the ‘rant about not having a live website when you’re featured on the Guardian and wasting an opportunity’ trap I fell into this morning. But then again a bit more info on the site would be nice, but they are probably still very much in protective phase I imagine.

One to keep an eye on.

07-15-08

3G Airport Express?

Just a thought, but what if you could plug in your 3G USB dongle (Mine’s a Vodafone Pebble thingy) into an Apple Airport Express? Would be very useful indeed. Maybe you can do it already?! (Surely it’s all in the software, though I’m sure there is a really obvious reason why it couldn’t happen)

That also got me thinking about lots of other things that could, should and will happen. As hardware gets more and more connected and connectable, things like X10 get more mainstream and Maplin keeps on having sales – then who knows what we’re going to come up with. And I’m not just talking about brands/companies. I mean us, the geeks, the ones tinkering with things and doing all that stuff that voids warranties, infringes copyright and breaks new boundaries.

07-07-08

Hopes and fears for the future of the web

Update 7/7 – looks as though Sir TBL has already shared a few thoughts.

Sir Tim Berners Lee is in town tomorrow and ahead of his speech, the guys at Nesta have been asking people for their thoughts on hopes and fears for the web of the future. I’m sure Sir TBL will share some of his own tomorrow, but in the meantime here’s the results of what everyone said.

Hopes:

Fears:

If like me you didn’t sort out going in time (like me, grrrr), there will be a live webcast somewhere near here, which I’m hoping will be on a par with the 2gether08 one – which really was rather good indeed.

07-02-08

Touchscreen Turntable Action

Uh oh. So awesome, I just reached for my credit card of the future. Waiting for iPhones to be used as turntables at some point this Summer and loads more impossibly cool stuff like this. Bring. It. On.

Final Product // ATTIGO TT from Scott Hobbs on Vimeo.

UPDATE – Just looked more closely and it looks like Mac OS X in action, using touchscreens with the software action running on the side.

[Via here, source of much goodness]

06-26-08

We Think Therefore We Are

Hammer, meet nail. Just watched this and had one of those spine tingly moments. A short video on the We Think proposition from Charles Leadbetter A great little piece of video based communication about an amazing take on how the web has changed the world. Wow. Big stuff.

More here. Illustration by Debbie Powell. Audio by Something Non Descript. Via here.

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