With some time on my hands i’ve been discovering some cool new music, there’s lots of good stuff coming out lately but none has blown me away for originality as much as ‘Hot Chip’. They’ve been around for a while but not really surfaced in the UK until their latest album. They’re a cross between Daft Punk and Erasure (classic!) especially in their new tune ‘Ready for the Floor’ which is brilliant, anyway decide for youselves here’s the video:
Ugh it’s been a while, with some general shenanigans going on for me personally (i’ll fill you in in due course) i’ve neglected this badboy somewhat, however i’m back and with more content than you can shake a stick at.
I got a notification that i had been ‘bought’ the other day in my facebook newsfeed by one of my friends…. really? To find out who had bought me i had to add the ‘Owned’ application which i duly did as i was obviously wanting to find out who i was now a skivvy for. Thats where the fun ended, it asked me to spam my friends and let them add the app as usual which i always skip to just give me the good stuff i want to see.
Hmmm, was it broken? as it wouldn’t let me skip the invite step, so i spammed a few friends which i didn’t like and when i got to it no-one had bought me at all. Blatent bait and switch (seems to be happening a lot lately). I was so annoyed i removed it immediately. Not only had it wasted my time, wasn’t any fun when i got it but also made me annoy my friends with the invites grrrrrrr. ‘Owned’ is not the only app doing this, there’s a fair few more out there. We need some quality control over this crap, otherwise we will just continue to annoy our friends with spam and thats the end of social networking right?
Remember i posted that January was all about verticals? So… this week i’ll be mostly talking about travel and social media… to be more precise, tomorrow in Austria at the ENTER 2008 conference. The pain is that there only seems to be one flight in and out each day according to BA, oh well a bit of snow and fresh air never hurt anyone although i might cough up a London air-filled lung.
Travel is probably one of the most advanced areas when it comes to social media; review sites, communities, weather checks, and videos of shabby hotels in Greece all help us make judgement on where we end up heading on holiday.
So with a keynote from Eric Basha at Microsoft with a focus on the future, i’ve decided try and get people thinking about the future possibilities if you get just a little creative and use the technology we already have available.
I presented yesterday at this conference on Mobile Social Networks and how i thought things might progress this year. I only had 40 minutes (including questions!) and i know sometimes i can get carried away and run out of time…. So for those of you who were there and even if you weren’t here’s a short recap on what i wanted to get across:
Why Mobile Social?
With the iPhone, WiFi and 3G on handsets, mobile browsing is becoming a more engaging experience, moving away from walled gardens and into our regular browser applications. Mobile social applications allow for easy portability, instant content generation and a genuine ability to become really social (meeting face-to-face? Shock horror!) with location based services.
Facebook still leads the way with an easy mobile experience to allow slick crossover from your computer and have a great interface for the iPhone. Myspace and Bebo are way behind with MySpace mobile being an awful experience and reminds me of playing on the Spectrum ZX81; great in the old days but now massively outdated and unbelievably slow to load. Bebo are still beta testing…….
Consolidation
There are far too many social networks and applications to keep up with, updating facebook/myspace/bebo/twitter/flickr/youtube etc etc so what i think we will see this year are more and more piggy-back applications that allow consolidation (just like those loan ads) into one easy monthly payment application. Check out Fring which is a great mobile service offering free VOIP calling across all your messenger services. You can already see this happening successfully online with a browser i’ve been using called Flock which integrates my facebook/flickr/youtube/twitter and media all into my browser window
Content
Instant content generation and consumption is something we all seem to want whether good or bad (i’m thinking Big Brother) and mobile video and cameras are all continuing this with easy to use upload platforms being provided by youtube, flickr and facebook. Yeah yeah that’s all fine but that’s not really using mobile effectively.
Instead take a look at two new things from Yahoo! labs - Zonetag and Zurfer. I like these! With zonetag you take a picture on you’re phone and when you upload the image it suggests relevant tags based on your location and the phone you’re using etc. Then if you’re out and about, zurfer allows you to view photos on your mobile taken by other users based on your location and places of interest around that area, such as restaurants, museums etc. Also take a look at Qik (courtesy of the legend that is Jackie Danicki) which is taking off in a big way in the US right now. Qik allows you to stream live video from your phone to the web. Sweet!
Applications
Current options for mainstream social network application dev are either for the iPhone, facebook (FBML) or Opensocial. For mobile i’ve watched the rapid takeup of app development for the iPhone with everything from games to weather to recipes. Most come out reasonably well and others i think are completely useless! The dev guidelines are over on apples site.
I think that’s the topline but i’m sure i talked for longer than that…..
So….. it seems there’s a lot of predictions flying around as to how social media will develop in 2008, Bah! The truth is, no-one has really cracked it yet. Social media, lets not forget is all about being social right?
People are so hung up on how to make money out of it immediately, they’re missing the bigger picture of what this is all about….. Sharing. You need to really understand how communities interact and what you can really offer that will give value to both them and you.
So, in terms of growth this year, my stab is that it will be technology and sector reliant as people start to verticalise (is that a word?!) not only their friends but also how they use and interact with social media. Now this is handy as i’m speaking on two such topics this month; mobile and travel.
I have to admit. I’ve avoided mobile web for years as the experience has been too lethargic and non-engaging due to speed/data restriction and walled garden browsers. However i think this could be the year of the mobile due to two things: iPhone (obviously) and social networks. The iPhone has changed the game in mobile web experience massively, utilising the safari browser we’re all used to, wi-fi and a decent size screen. Add to this a new generation of social networks that are location-based and you can now be truly social and catch up with friends in the same vicinity when you’re out and about. What am i on about? Check out loopt to see what i mean. I’ve also been using facebook mobile for a while now and am finding it very useful, especially for micro-blogging so it’s taken over from Twitter for me! I’ll be covering this and other things at the Mobile Search conference this Thursday the 17th January over at BSG House in London.
Next week, Travel and Social Media in Austria. More on that and snowboarding later….
Yep, we all know it’s crazytime for investors in 2.0 businesses. Is this bubble gonna burst like last time and leave everyone high and dry? I can’t tell you that but all the signs are there like investing in companies with weak revenue models or based on a platform that requires people to be social…. Anyway here’s a great video which sums it all up in a quirky 3-minute ditty by the Richter Scales to the backing of Billy Joel.
This only leaves the question; what’s your web 2.0 company name and when are you gonna IPO?
I’ve been testing the new QDOS Beta, which attempts to measure your digital status based on an algorithm presented in 4 factors as you can see in the pic here. You can then compare yourself against various celebrities/personalities, so i did…. and i have a higher QDOS score than Eamonn Holmes whatever that means.
To do this you need to let the system know your profile names for facebook/linkedin/your own site etc. Based on the amount of friends, incoming links, how often you blog etc, this will be refined over time after you first claim your profile.
At first i thought this was a bit of a waste of time, but i was intrigued as it comes from Garlik, the creators of Egg and first direct….. I think this could be a glimpse at the future in terms of a new type of ‘credit score’. How you control the information portrayed about you online and your resulting ‘QDOS’ score, can be controlled with a degree of knowledge due to this system and essentially this aids you becoming your own reputation manager. Hopefully it will be a good wake up call to all those people who publish crazy amounts of personal information online only to be a victim of fraud or rejected for that next job….
My new iPod touch hasn’t had much video action as i’m generally lazy when it comes to converting video formats, but its now alive with the full second series of Rob & Big. Who? C’mon! This is one of the funniest shows on MTV!
This reality show follows pro-skater Rob Dyrdek and his bodyguard Christopher ‘Big Black’ Boykin. These guys have coined new catchphrases including “do work son”, “make it rain” and “it’s tough on the streets” If you haven’t seen it - check it out on iTunes.
Favourite episode has to be Rob’s incarnation of 80’s Rn’B sensation Bobby Light, i’ve annoyed the hell out of the office singing that tune.
Another $60 million to be exact from a Hong Kong Billionaire called Li Ka-shing. With a name like that it sounds likes it’s April Fools…. apparently not.
He is the 9th richest man in the world and has an estimated wealth of $23 billion, so this is like loose change. Here’s the fella on the right, although i cant’ work out what his expression is; strained or happy? and check out those gigs, thats real old school.
My question is why has he done this? I’m still struggling to see how he and Microsoft can make their money back before the cycle of people jumping networks every 18 months kicks in.
Initial testing of the new facebook SocialAds system has showed great targeting potential but low interaction from users, add to that the amount of porn spam that i’ve been seeing lately and it’s a shaky start.
Perhaps i’m completely missing the point and he just wants to make more friends, can’t wait to see his status update “Li Ka-shing is hoping facebook makes some money after dropping $60m on it”. Searches for his facebook profile are through the roof right now, so he’ll be getting spammed to high heaven with friend requests (if it really is him) and i vote he uses this as his profile picture.
Just click on each of the Kylie thumbnails to hear a different track in full. I think this kind of move and her new social network which has just launched proves that she moves with the times and always gives her fans what they want. Go on Kylie!
Why Mobile Social?
interact with social media. Now this is handy as i’m speaking on two such topics this month; mobile and travel.
I’ve been testing the new 
My new iPod touch hasn’t had much video action as i’m generally lazy when it comes to converting video formats, but its now alive with the full second series of Rob & Big. Who? C’mon! This is one of the funniest shows on MTV!
Another $60 million to be exact from a Hong Kong Billionaire called 
Seems to be a growing trend with artists giving away free music, i’ve just stumbled across 
