middledigit.net | jonathan hopkins

Nice interview by Shel Israel with Hugh Macleod about social objects, social markers, social marketers, social marketing and other interesting stuff. Some old stuff covered but still really nice to see Hugh talking about it himself. (Hugh, you rock BTW)

No embed (boo!), click through to watch at Fast Company.

Having worked with Yahoo! at two agencies across pretty much all of its products (including Search with Ged as a client!), I was a bit sad to hear about the job cuts in the pipeline and read some of the more cutting articles that appeared after the financial results. A lot of people have pointed to the fact that Yahoo! lacks any sort of vision and has yet to deliver a solid product roadmap that gets people all excited about its future again.

Now, I know that really recently Yahoo! revealed it is testing Del.icio.us results being incorporated into Yahoo! Search, but I’m still left with that nagging feeling that I’ve had for months that they are failing to make the most out of what is one of the most essential things on the web for me today - Del.icio.us. Now I didn’t get on board with Del.icio.us until 2006, March 18th to be precise - when I saved my first bookmark, a guide to free open source software on Open Source Mac. But, since then I’ve fed it like a beast and have saved over 2000 links to valuable, interesting stuff. If I lost all of those links I would be really rather unhappy indeed. In fact, I regularly back them up. Not that it would be the same but at least I’d have some record of all those amazing things I’ve found on the net.

Anyway, I’ve digressed a bit. My point is that even though I’d consider myself a fairly heavy user, I never really use any of the other features like saving links for other people or using the delicious network to find links from other people. Instead, I either stumble into someone’s bookmarks after they pop up in search results or go on a bit of a bookmark Safari after checking out someone’s blog that includes a link to their del.icio.us profile. I also think that the only person whose delicious master feed I get over RSS is Lynette Webb at Google (more on Lynette here). Surely that’s a bit odd - am I alone in this?

So the big question. Why doesn’t Yahoo! work more closely with Del.icio.us and integrate it FULLY into the Yahoo! Search experience? Surely, it’s sitting on a goldmine of filtered information - hand selected and saved information from human beings across the planet. Even just a custom simplified big search box start page (crude mock-up above!) that defaulted to searching the del.icio.us network and a better UI for the results would be a start. Just like we’ve learnt with Twitter, the Google homepage and countless other examples (very recently Instapaper too) - simple is best when it comes to the tools used to manage information. Sometimes it’s better to strip back features than serve everything up in one go.

Now that’s just one thing that could be done. There’s heaps of other stuff that I’m sure is possible. I just don’t see whay it’s taking Yahoo! so long. Remember - it was December 2005 that Yahoo! bought Del.icio.us - over 2 years ago. That’s ages in web-time, especially at a time when Yahoo! needs to pull a rabbit out the hat more than ever before.

Branded utility from ESPN coming in 2008. Like it. Give people stuff they want because it’s useful.

[via]

[UPDATED - I’d called it the wrong name in the title. Doh.]

Updated version of What is social media? unleashed by Anthony over at Spannerworks. Nice to give away something for free, safe in the knowledge that it will help drive new business leads (and you can use bits under Creative Commons Copyright). And ironic given my previous post.

Great one from Hugh today re “the annoying buzzword social media”. Made me laugh out loud.

BBC is reporting that the website MyFootballClub, set up to buy a stake in Ebbsfleet United and help run it, has been given the go ahead and a deal struck. Great idea that I’m sure you’ve heard about already. This is surely the start of a lot more exciting things like this. Maybe we could all have a say in how our country is ran? With advances in technology and the rise of the mobile, it’s now technically possible. Bring it on.

The 20,000 MyFootballClub members have each paid £35 to provide a £700,000 takeover pot and they will all own an equal share in the club. Members will have a vote on transfers as well as player selection and all major decisions.

Well it’s not that bad really is it? But, I do think this is worth reading. Found via the good people at neoco, it might be old (really not sure) but definitely still makes you think. Was 1.0 the creation of it, 2.0 the realisation and quick-fix of it and 3.0 will be the creation of something completely different? I don’t know. But I do know that the internet isn’t all that sh*t right now and in the future (say, inside 5 years), think it’s gonna do stuff we haven’t even thought of.

Amidst all the rugby fever and wax statues of JW appearing in Trafalgar square, Bite client Blinkx has created a special rugby wall which pulls in the latest commentary, pre-match interviews and random user generated rugby content. Looks great and I think that we’ll be seeing a lot more visually-led interfaces like this about town in the future.

PS - show your support on Facebook (another Bite client) today by changing your profile picture to the one below. Just grab it and upload it.

Wow. A bit of a radio silence there. Sorry about that. I blame the perfect storm of being hugely busy at work, being away at the weekends and having a lot of other stuff to do and on my mind.

So, as by means of a bit of a catch up - here’s some stuff I’ve been doing and thinking.

1. Bite won the Facebook pitch. I’m on the team and am delighted to be working with the guys at Facebook. Especially when you read stuff like this. PR Week said it was “arguably the most sought-after retainer of the year” and that “Tech PR insiders agree that this was one of the most competitive pitches in recent memory”. Enough said. Very chuffed. Hugely excited.

2. We bought a car, our first (nearly) new one. One a bit like this. After polling my mates and colleagues before buying it, I already know that some people hate it. I liked it and then I drove it - just plain fun and reminded me of my 1972 VW Beetle that’s still waiting for me in a garage back home.

3. I met with Lloyd and talked about the Social Media Cafe he’s currently planning. Nice cup of tea and a pleasure to have a chat about something so completely logical.

4. I’ve been watching a lot of TED talks. Can’t get enough of people talking about stuff they are so incredibly passionate about. Here’s a directory of them all.

5. I’ve discovered MarsEdit via Chris Green. Looks like it’s going to be very, very useful indeed to write this blog (need all the help I can get right now as I’m struggling a bit to find my inner-blog-strength).

6. I’ve still been enjoying the constant feed of amusing cat photos from Esaba. This is where I found my Facebook profile pic that seems to get a lot of comment. There’s a little widget you can add to iGoogle that generates a new pic with every refresh. (see example below)

7. I’ve saved another 100 links or so to del.icio.us since my last post. All manner of stuff in there. I just can’t get enough of del.icio.us and am finding it increasingly hard to see how people who spend a lot of time on the web can manage without it. If I ever have to use a PC/Mac that isn’t one of mine I feel very, very wrong.

8. I’ve been drafting a monster post about “being digital”. One day I look at it and think it’s shite and another I can’t stop writing it. Hmmmmm, we’ll see.

9. I went to my Grandma’s funeral. Nothing more to be said on that other than this.

10. Sam at Glide told me about journa-list.com - a really useful site that allows you to track what different national and BBC journos are writing about and track their output as feeds. Much time saved. Nice simple tool that needs to be expanded upon.

It’s all getting a bit cosy isn’t it? The predictable consolidation is in full swing. Via Jaiku blog.