It's not what we do, it's who we are.

...or, "My take on social media, pt II".

See, it occured me the other day, that people have been for a very very long time defined by what they do. Sure, there have been royalties and icons, celebrities and famous people, who have reached a pinnacle where what they did didn't really matter anymore, just THAT they did it, whatever it was.

Most other people were, to a large extent, defined by what they did. Not to their family and friends, of course, who knew them intimately, but to any stranger they met on the street, at a convention, at a party or wherever. "Hi, I'm a manager at the Bank of XYZ!" "Oh, ok, I'm actually one of the janitors at Bank of XYZ".

Or "Hi, I develop cross media formats!" "Yeah, me too!".

I think you can see where the discussion would flourish and where it would probably end with a quick "cheers!" and parted ways.

I know, I'm being a bit stereotypical, just bare with me for a second... :)

But now, eh? Twitter being the most obvious example at the moment. What got me thinking was that the other day I commented on a friend of mine doing a speech at a conference. He referred to a policy of an online web shop service, saying it gave bad experiences. I tweeted that, with the name of the service. A couple of hours later, the CEO of that service tweets me, asking about what had been said. In this particular case it didn't matter what profession I had, not at all. Same goes for most of my followers at the moment. Some follow 'cause they are friends. Some follow because I've followed them. Most follow because of who I am - someone who likes to fish, someone who's interested in media, someone who tweets silly links every now and then, someone who goes to conferences once in a while and tweets eagerly from them, some follow because we all like writing... Yes, some follow because I've got "format developer" as a job title, but to me that's more of an interest than a profession.

Can I draw a conclusion here? I'll try. See - anyone has the opportunity to be themselves online. They can even be the better parts of themselves, should they wish to. There's no need to define oneself along the lines of ones profession, if one does not want to. So now, finally, people can be interested in YOU. Or not interested, which also might be the case. Just don't take it personally :)

PS. I should also add that the "what we do"-tag, when it comes to social media, is a lot more about how we use different social media, than what we have as a profession. For instance, someone who just uses Facebook gives a different initial impression of him-/herself than someone who is on Twitter exclusively. Or a Blogger/Waver (if Google Wave can be called a social media? I'd argue yes) is a totally different person than a Twitterer/Beboer. I'll delve into that argument later on. DS.

Conference AHOY!

The Eyes on UX conference will kick off tomorrow in Vasa, Finland, with quite a renowned lineup of speaker (including your humble servant, myself that is). Read more about it at the conference pages.

Dr Jeffrey Cole promises to be quite interesting tomorrow morning. Looking forward to that.

Not only will I do a small presentation (and unless you're already using Prezi to make your presentations, you should start NOW), I'll also be mr DJ at the dinner party! Been a while, let's see if I still got it... :)

NaNoWriMo

With all things going on in economics, with the world ending in 2012 or so... it's good to do something completely different once in a while. Spurred on by how fun it was to do the #BBCAWDIO writing thing on Twitter, I decided to try my hand at NaNoWriMo, the annual writing effort where you win if you create a 50.000 word novel during the month of November. Doesn't matter how well you write, doesn't matter what you write... that you put down that many words, that's the key.

So, I'm now 2000+ words into my novel, and I'm happily following the main character - Adam - on his trip to... well, wherever he's going. I have a slight inkling of where it might be, but really, I do not know yet.

Here are the first two paragraph of the story:

He could never quite shake the feeling that there was something wrong with him. Something that was a bit odd, an out-of-the-way, not-really-as-it-should-be kind of thing.

It didn’t matter if he was riding his bike to work – and it sure was not his bike’s fault, even though it was an age-old bike, a pre-historical bike with wide tires and a weight like a full-grown buffalo, a precious bike inherited from his grandfather who had ridden it during the War – or painting his part of the fence at home, or preparing what would pass for dinner when it was his turn to cook the food… it didn’t matter what he did, he always had the feeling that people passing him or people that he passed looked at him much like you would look at an unfortunate flamingo without any sense for balance, or a recent, fairly harmless car crash. Like he was… not really proper.

So, we'll see what happens! :)

BBCAWDIO thoughts

(Another slightly off topic post)

#BBCAWDIO musings

What if…

What we are seeing is a power struggle in another universe, the mirror world. The key to the power struggle – which could be between a) the Queen, the Prince and their cohorts and b) the Resistance, fronted by Finnegan, perhaps the original Puppet, perhaps Pinman etc – is one person from our world, i.e. Sam.

The struggle begun ages ago when the siblings – toymaker sister and prince brother, who incidentally were not nice persons at all – found out that they were, in fact, siblings. This they found out when she was commissioned to make him a puppet.

Through magic means (I think the magpie is sort of the fairy of this tale, granting wishes or making things happen) the toymaker is given the opportunity to bring the puppet to life. Still, bad person as she is, she tries to trick the magic. She ends up in the Mirror World, and finds that some of the things she has brought there – items and skills – give her power over the things residing there. At last she has a chance to be a queen in her own right! Eager to bring her brother along and rule this domain together, she struggles to find a way to do so. She realizes the only way is to bring him through the mirror, which she manages to do.

The original people of the mirror world take up the fight against the Queen, who manufactures armies. But the longer she’s in the other world, the more diminished her powers become. What she would need to finish the fight is the powers of one special person in the real world – Sam.

The Queen tries to ensnare her by her love of her brother. But, even though she made the promise, Sam recoils and runs from the fate she sees beckoning. The Queen is furious and traps her unfortunate Brother in the body of a magpie, but doing it so clumsily she left parts of him out, like the voice Pinman now has – perhaps mocking the original magpie, perhaps “on top of” the original magpie’s personality? – until she’ll get a chance to get her hands on Sam again.

Now, the Resistance is in trouble, as the Queens armies are overwhelming them. They see that the only way to get to the queen is through Sam, so they arrange, through the first puppet and through Finnegan, to have her transported into the mirror world. One last throw of the dice, so to speak. The mirror-Sam is a doll who became alive when she entered the real world. She’s not evil per say, just to keep Sam on the right track, worrying about her family.

Incidentally, I think Badger is the one who will turn out to be a traitor in the Resistance. Never quite trusted that fellow, much too quiet.

So – evil people are the Queen, the Prince and their cohorts. Good people are Finnegan, Pinman, the original Puppet, the magpie, mirror-Sam. I think the whispering voice could be the original Puppet, driving her along, trying to get her on the right track.

So now, just get rid of the evil people, get Sam back, wrap things up?

BBCAWDIO loose threads

(first of all, this is a kind of off topic post, since I'm involved in the #bbcawdio venture on Twitter - look it up, it's great fun! This is just a place to put loose threads and I'll delete this and coming posts later. You probably won't make much of what is written here unless you're involved, so feel free to ignore)


Here we go, the loose threads for the first four chapters, at least the ones I found. Could be that some were tied up later on, let me know! (my comments are in italic)

Scene One

"You've been a disappointment to us, Sam. We always thought you were the one." via (paulcrilley) (“The one” meaning what exactly?)

The woman looking across the divide certainly resembled her, yet the lines of her face told a far older story (so Sam in the mirror is much older? How come? Is it a future Sam?)

"It's our turn. You promised." (said by the Sam in the mirror – what promise was this? The same as is referred to later?)

(then, her brother “went away”, “they had taken him” and she “begged to follow” and “had promised”)

Scene Two

Where Sam sees her mirror-self, “the imposter”, cuddling with her mother.
“remember your promise”, the mirror-Sam says, again referring to the promise.

(Upon meeting the puppet) The puppet raised its hand and twitched a finger. As it did so, Sam was horrified to feel her own arm respond. (how come? Does someone have that power over here in this mirror world? And will this puppet make a comeback? Perhaps Sam will falter in her resolve later on, NOT annihilating the Queen, but the puppet appears and takes control over her limbs, making her do it?)

Scene Three

Sam stared at the city that seemed to be made out of wood and wax. (made of wax? Why? Perhaps it’ll melt at some point?)

(Someone started to sing the “heart of stone” song, after which..) "Shut up!" Sam screamed and she started to run towards the city, hoping to leave the whispering voice behind (so, who was singing that song? It’s been coming back a lot, that invisible singer should be back at some point methinks)

Scene Four

(introducing Finnegan, who has this line) "Her Most Excellent Collector of Things requires a trinket from all that attend," he said as he stepped from the carriage. (so, a Collector of Things? Does she collect any which ever things? Like hearts, brothers etc?)

(Sam finds the egg in her pocket when asked for a trinket) Where had that come from, Sam wondered. (yes, where HAD it come from? Was it the same mysterious voice? Was it the first puppet that put it there to get her on her way?)

(a bit of a strange line from Finnegan to Sam) Aye. You're not more than two hundred, if that." Finnegan replied. "And didn't I tell you to say nothing?" (now, why would he think she’s 200 years old? Is this an old world? A slow world? Or does he need new glasses?)

(Also: ) "She collects all sorts of things. Doors too, and memories, and dropped intentions." He sighed. "This is all I can do." (so she is really a Collector, right? How can we weave this into the equation?)

When developing cross media content...

....remember that the story that is being told is the single most important ingredient in the whole of the project. It MUST be compelling, nice, engaging, entertaining... and suitable for 360 exploitation.

Now "exploitation" is not a nice word in itself, but exploitation is exactly what a cross media concept needs to be just that - cross media, engaging, entertaining etc. Just as long as the exploitation is done in the right way!

THe story told must in and of itself be strong enough to withstand the tear and wear of different storylines or parts of the story pulling it towards different platforms - be it television, the Internet, social media or whatever.

If the story turns out to not be strong enough, it is perhaps kindest to just put it out of its misery right away.

Mu two cents for the day.

Required reading, and some other stuff

With a lot of people going on about "GREEN SHOTS" and a recovery in the financial industry, please read the following article by Karl Denninger which pretty much sums up the situation.

If you can't be bothered to read it, please just take this advice - exit the stock market you're in, NOW. There's no point playing in a rigged game.

On a side note, this might be one of the funniest things I've seen in a while:


until next time, be well

If you read anything today...

...read this, required reading for anyone interested in a) the economical collapse, b) their own strategies for the future and c) getting themselves fired up with righteous anger a little bit. Read Karl Denningers ticker from yesterday here.

Hedge your positions, plan for the future. Be safe.

Not the easiest of times for a format developer...

...seeing as I was, before vacation, wondering why Distraction Formats hadn't returned any of my previous mails. The last exchange was them explaining how we could proceed, with them distributing some of our formats - especially a football quiz show, GAME ON, that some of their clients were interested in.

I had replied and was awaiting a response with a more concrete offer, when the news broke, in late June, that Distraction had gone bust. Shocking news, as they had always been extremely present at the MIPTV:s and MIPCOM:s etc, giving a very solid impression.

Well, best of luck to all the people formerly of Distraction. I am pretty convinced that I'll see them again in the not to distant future, in some fairly similar capacity...

Back from vacation + Miniwebs new effort

So, back at the desk then, quite a lot of projects in the air at the moment (and one of them going to be ON air as well, next month, more about that one when I have some links to post).

Trying to get to grips with how the economy is affecting the tv and media industries at the moment. It's quite clear that revenues are way down. Still, channels and broadcasters must fill the schedules with SOMETHING. Some shows are being extended (Dancing with stars nowadays 2h show for instance, in the US that is), also reruns, and non-scripted (cheap) formats. The latter category is where we fit in, I believe.

Just read a bit about Miniweb and their partnership with Metrological, bringing yet another new effort in the field of interactive television to the market. What differs this time around is the fact that their effort is looking pretty good... :) TO quote their press release:

"The combination of the Miniweb platform, Metrological’s middleware and hardware platform with the Intel CE 3100 provides, for the first time, an end-to-end platform for the delivery of a fully converged high-quality broadband and broadcast experience. This platform will be as equally attractive to Internet Service Providers looking to converge broadcast content with their existing broadband offering as it will be with cable, satellite and DTV operators that want to combine broadband enabled OTT video with their existing broadcast services. This platform includes support for web-style interaction; centralized video search & recommendations, community functionality as well as advertising and payments services. The platform is now integrated and ready to order now on a 2 month delivery."

The key might be that this works, looks good, is (hopefully) easy to use and possible to produce for. I'd dearly like to try it out, so any Miniwebpeople out there, gimme a shout :)

Humanity and social media

These thoughts have been in my head for a while now. I thought it best to write them down, before they disappear :)


Humanity and social media

When I was ten years old I, for a brief moment, regained my faith in Santa Claus. See, it’d been a Christmas Eve like all others, with family and dinner and pestering siblings and watching traditional Christmas shows on TV, when there came a knock on the door. In stepped Santa – well, it was a neighbor in a Santa costume, but I did not pay any notice. My eyes were glued to the big Christmas present jutting up from the bag slung over his shoulder. As the presents were being handed out, I could barely contain myself. When the turn came to me, I tugged it from the hands of the Santa-wannabe and frenetically began to tear the paper wrapping off. Finally, there it was.

64K of raw processing power, a CPU of a stunning 1MHz, three (3!) channels of sound, it was the ultimate computer. This Commodore 64 would be my entrance to the world of computers. I wanted to shout my joy to the rooftops… or at least to my closest friends. I did not, however, call them on my iPhone. Nor did I send an sms via a battered Nokia. I didn’t open Skype or MSN Messenger or Gmail chat or even an IRC channel. I had no way of letting the humanverse know my excitement through Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, MySpace, Bebo or any other forum. I couldn’t take a picture of the shiny new toy with my mobile phone and upload it to Flickr. What did I do? I ran over to my friend and asked him to come over, of course.

Now, 25 years later, it is hard to grasp just what changes have happened during a quarter of a century. The birth and growth of the Internet, the development of faster-than-fast processors, graphic cards and hard drives, a quality we couldn’t dream of back then… Not to mention all the programs, all the social media and the goatxe hype, for instance.

A question that is constantly raised as humanity becomes more and more of an online race and less and less of a face-to-face race, is a simple one. Is it good or bad? Many have pointed out the obvious – with less “real” interaction, there is less of that which makes us human involved; touch, smell, facial expressions, closeness, social interaction. Others, on the other hand, point out the equally obvious; we now have possibilities previously unheard of, to connect with people around the globe who share the same interests, beliefs or goals as we ourselves.

So, it’s good in some ways, and bad in some ways. As life in general is, I’d argue.
One of the fastest rising social media forums, Facebook, has allowed us to get in touch with old friends, has let us be constantly updated with info, photos, thoughts and silly links, keeping us in contact with our friends (yes, and also our “friends” of course), which in most ways is a good thing. Another social media, Twitter, brings the matter even closer. Within a space of 140 characters anyone, from Britney Spears to a 12-year old in Kuala Lumpur can say whatever they want to say, to anyone who cares to listen.

As I’ve been following and engaging in Twitter, and gotten in touch with wonderful ideas like Twistori, I’ve started to lean more and more towards this being a good thing. No, it’s not good that people communicate only via computers and mobile platforms. No, it’s not good that there is so much noise that the few clear notes are hard to hear. No, it’s not good that anonymity gives spiteful and angry people the chance to spew venom at unfortunate victims. But there are upsides as well.

See, I believe that Twitter, in all its’ simplicity, is the first step towards the great equalization of the species. Twitter is the first media that lets everyone compete on next-to equal terms, where ideas and thoughts, art and prose, genius and creativity is given the exact same amount of space to thrive, and via ReTweets find bigger and bigger audiences.

Agreed, a simple Tweet is a scream for recognition in a sea of screams. But at least all the screams are 140 characters long, and in the same font and layout!
Furthermore, I believe that Twitter is a great possibility to promote understanding between nations, people, genders, religion and races. For every spiteful xenophobic, there are thousands of normal, loving, caring people. For every rash thought and provocative comment, there are many more thoughtful and considerate tweets. And when you look at any given hot Twitter topic, what strikes me the most is how similar we all are. We’re all the same, at least when constricted to 140 characters.

Such a realization can only be a good thing. Right now, I’m looking forward to seeing what the next step will be. I sincerely hope for a step in an even more equal and thought-provoking direction. I hope my hopes won’t be dashed.

Have a good summer everyone, see you in Twitterverse – or somewhere else!

Workshop at EuroITV 2009

Talking about experiences the whole day, which is interesting. No matter if you're a designer, a developer, a researcher or a producer, what you are aiming for and looking to research into is a desired experience amongst the users.

To put it briefly, what we've come up with so far is that you have a content accessible via an interface. Accessing this is an action that causes a reaction in or even an interaction from the viewer / user. This reaction or interaction is then influenced by all the personal aspects - preferences, gender, needs etc. All in all, this generates the experience - good, bad or neutral. Then we also of course have all the external factors, from the world around. And the key question, at least for us as developers, would then be how to make money (or rather a viable business / revenue plan) from all of this.

Let's see what the afternoon brings :)

Meanwhile, in Germany...

...visiting my sister in a small village in western Germany called Dornholzhausen. Funny, the village has some 1000-1500 inhabitants, but there is absolutely NOTHING here. Well, a local butcher, and someone repairing computers. That's it. Anything else, you have to get your car out and drive to the next village (which admittedly is only a few kilometers away, but still). And absolutely NO ONE uses a bicycle around these parts. Small differences, but still.

Thought I was going to have a day off, but alas, no. Hours of work still to be done, I think. Phew.

EuroITV 2009 on wednesday, which should be interesting.

Google Wave, looks promising

Check out this presentation of Google Wave. It looks like it will be something really nice... Looking forward to testing it!



Also, another interesting projekt is MyHandle. Have a look!

Updates? What updates?

Been a month or more since I've updated anything here. I'll try to get on to it, but Twitter / Facebook are my social media of choice at the moment.

I've just finished a report on the development and marketing of television and cross media formats, which will be published shortly. I'll link to it as soon as it is available.

If you haven't got much else to do next week, why not show up at EuroITV in Leuven, Belgium? We'll be hosting a workshop there on Wednesday, and the conference itself is on Thursday and Friday. There should be some interesting stuff - I'll blog about that as well, hopefully.

A story

This one came into my head the night before last. Hmm, shall I continue on it or let it slide?

THE GIRL WHO BROKE THE WORLD
There was nothing out of the ordinary this day. It was a fine day, with high clouds, a shining warm sun and larks practicing their aerial skills hundreds of meters above my head, small specks against the blueness of the sky.
How can you do this? He asked, concern in his voice as I felt his gaze on me.
How can I not? I answered, trying to sound as cool and uncaring as I believed a girl of the world would have to sound like, or boys as handsome as him would never ever dream of talking to her, much less agree to climb the highest tree in the yard and sway lightly in the breeze while watching the sky.
Now, what I hadn’t counted on was his severe vertigo, which had almost hindered him from climbing the tree with me, and now forced his arms into cramps as he held tightly on to the branch beneath him.

....to be continued?

OK, now this is interesting

... I'd REALLY like to see this documentary - "We Live In Public" by director Ondi Timoner. "We will be trapped in virtual boxes..."

Scary. Best shut this computer now and go have some real interaction with some real people :)

Quite right

Mish Shedlock puts it to us quite nicely in his latest blogpost. "...the current generation now in high school is likely going to be the first generation in America's history with a lower standard of living than their parents for quite some time to come."

Please have a read. Over in other areas the situation might be worse, or better. Still, it's going to be a new brave world, and you'd best better prepare.

So little time...

... so no time to write any blogs. Will do though, as soon as I get some time to spare.

News - The Space Trainees is in production as we speak, which is nice. Game On, the football quiz show with cross media aspects, is gaining momentum, hoping to get it into productions soonishly. And we'll shoot a pilot on the cross media celebrity personality testing show The Naked Truth later on this spring - it's all happening! :)

Some other projects going on as well - along with our paper being accepted for the Edutainment 2009 conference in Banff, Canada... so the Rockies, here I come!

Until later

MIPTV Day One

I always forget the feeling of gearing up to MIPTV mode. It's meetings meetings meetings pitches pitches pitches, a rumbling stomach and too much coffee. Still, a lot of fun.

Weather slightly off, lots of rain - not at the moment though - but more on it's way I've heard.

A mere couple of dozen of Twitterers so far, seems like the TV industry isn't quite up to scratch yet. And the question everyone is asking - how can we make money in new ways, with ad revenues shrinking... If I hear a good solution, I'll post it here.

Still, people are interested in our formats. All good, next meeting in 15 minutes.

Jam

I must admit, this is a TV show I am not really sure if I could watch. I'd LIKE to watch it, but could I? Time will tell...

GAME - a pretty cool-looking movie

Well, this here looks interesting. Filmstalker talks about the new Gerald Butler movie GAME, this time with a leaked trailer.

It's about a future where people control other people in MMORPGS. Only thing is that the people they control are REAL people... and one of them is about to realize what's going on.

Pretty neat, check out what there is to check out here.

Hectic spring

...or, spring is perhaps not the correct term, seeing it was -12C when I woke up this morning. Still, hectic is the right adjective methinks.

The Space Trainees will go into production in some weeks, lots to do before that (and during that). MIPTV 2009 in Cannes is up next week, much to do before that as well. Then there are other projects - interactive cross media quiz shows, a green media social web thing for young people that should be initiated ASAP, a workshop in Belgium on it's way... Looks like it'll slow down sometime in July. I hope.

Will try to update this blog with interesting stuff, not promising anything though. But will probably Twitter from MIPTV, when I find the time to go to something interesting...

/S

Down, down, down....

Buy and hold, the callsign for generations of investors who couldn't be bothered with the day-to-day trade of stocks, futures, bonds etc, is definitely not the thing anymore.

Everyone, from Warren Buffett to my mother, is saying that this recession is going to last, last and last some more. This is what the ones I believe in - Mish Shedlock, Karl Denninger, Barry Ritholz et al - have been saying for the last 2 years as well.

Well, here we are. With the dismal news of the biggest banks in the US and their economic state of affairs coming out late last week, the Asian markets are at this moment some 3-4% down, Europe is opening in the red and I do not believe the bailouts of AIG and the banks by the US government will do much to help US confidence and the Dow Jones later on today.

We're looking at a stock market that has lost more than 50% of it's value in 1½ years. It's going to lose a lot more. the S%P 500 is projected to land at about 250, from the 700+ it's now on. If you have stocks, either you're in for the LOOOOOOONG haul (2015-16 or something) or you should cut your losses now.

These are interesting times. I do hope we'll all get out unscatched in the end - singed, but not burnt, hopefully. Although I'm not betting on it. The last time the outlooks were this bleak, a chap named Adolf saw hos opportunity...

The Twestival

If you're on Twitter, you could do worse today than follow the Twestival. All good, all fun, all for charity... and all bringing together the Twittersphere in a whole new way (I think :)

(is it just me, or is anyone else already looking for the next thing - what will happen after Twitter?)

Interactive music videos ... well...

hat tip Ms Paeonia :)

So, the interactive music video is finally here. The music video that - as interactive television was hailed as - allows you to watch a video and click your way to all the products you see in the video, be they cars, clothes, sunglasses or whatever.

First out is the Irish band The Script - here's their MySpace page - where you during 255 seconds can click on 242 different articles. From a marketing point of view, it is a bit interesting. But to call it "enriched music video"... well, let's just say it might be "annoyingly distracting music video".

As with all new technology, it's all in how you use it. There's no point just slapping on these clickable things (well, for The Script there was a point, seeing as they were first and got their fair amount of publicity) as they don't contribute to the whole, instead just act as a distraction. Once the novelty wears off, it's no use.

My suggestion would be to carefully develop a music video where this marketing tool is a natural way of the story in the video, supporting the music, supporting the visuals, and in turn being supported by them. THAT'S something that would keep them coming back, methinks.

Anyone want to hire me to do it, gimme a pm :)

Interactive television breakthrough?

Well well well, what do we have here?

InformiTV informs us that this will be the year for interactive television to make it's big breakthrough in the US. Why is that then, when this breakthrough was promised some 7-8 years ago the first time? Well, apparently television networks are now feeling the pressure from online and telcom competition, and have decided to embrace interactive television offerings, and the estimated amount of iTV-connected people is somewhere close to 50 million, by the end of the year. This, then, really could be it.... or can it?

We still have the problem of different standards available - Tru2way and EBIF being a couple of them - and the question of what kind of content can be offered that would be good enough to lure the consumers to interact.

As William Cooper on InformiTV states - "Despite, or perhaps as a result of, the dominance of cable television in America, interactive services are around five years behind those in Britain, where ironically most of the action has now moved on to the web."

Quite :)

Well, I suspect we'll see. I, as a developer, will not yet go rushing off trying to create formats for iTV in the US. I would dearly like to see a sound market and some ratings first...

Some stuff about the global economic crisis

Today, Monday, Geithner of the US Treasury will put forth the "rescue plan" that will "save the US economy". Problem is, there really is no way to save the economy - not as such an economy as it has been for the past 20 years at least.

This housing based credit bubble has been the largest credit bubble ever. The crash in the economy will therefore be, and actually IS already, the largest crash ever. To try to prop it all up with hundreds of billions of US taxpayer money is just plain silly.

The reason I'm interested - and you too should be interested - is that the theory of decoupling (the theory that it doesn't matter what happens in the US, the rest of the world will continue to trade with each other or internally and will not be affected) has been proven utterly wrong. Everything is connected, and the better I, and YOU, know the real deal, the better we can prepare for what will come.

Here are some links to my favourite pages to keep track of what's happening. Have a look, have a loooong good read, and make your choice.

Ticker Forum, Mish's Pages, The Big Picture, Calculated Risk.

Well.

This blog might be a bit hard to keep updated regularly (which you may have noticed) this coming month. This due to a LOT of deadlines approaching FAST. Trying to evade them is to no avail, as I've realized.

Be getting back, but infrequently, as I said.

Be well! Hope the Credit Crunch don't hit you too hard.

Power up Ideas, captain!

Ah, almost forgot to mention this one - the annual Content 360 competition, to be held at this years MIPTV festival in Cannes on the 30.3 - 3.4. This year the people holding the competition - the BBC, the KCC, MSN, NFB, Ogilvy and OpenAd.net are looking for ideas on some interesting topics.

The BBC are looking for ideas like "TV Entertainment over Broadband" and "Factual content via your mobile" whereas MSN wants "Original Comedy for Multiple Platform" and the KCC wants an "Interactive Educational format for Cross Media", amongst others.

Deadline is 19th of January for the BBC categories (that's next Monday! Get going!) and for the others 2nd February...

Best of luck!

The future of Interactive Television??

...or, rather, one POSSIBLE future for iTV.

This year it looks like it's all about forgetting tv to PC:s and laptops, or digital interactive set-top-boxes. No, what you want to do now is connect your 42" flat screen full HD television directly to the Internet. By then offering a host of widgets you're on your way to real real interactive television.

But, of course, this would be just too easy. So instead we have as many solutions as there are tv-manufacturers - "Sony announced support for widgets in its latest Bravia displays, referring to them as Bravia Internet Widgets. Samsung refers to its version as the Internet@TV Content Service. Vizio calls it Connected HDTV."

Good for them. Can't you all just gather around ONE solution and then us contentmakers could do great content for THAT solution, not a hundred different versions of the content for hundreds of different technical solutions.

Still, it sounds kinda neat. I don't have the time to delve into it atm, but it sounds like something that could have potential. We'll see.

Long Tail Fail Alert!

I've been an advocate of the Long Tail-theory - you know, Chris Andersons theory that if you have a near unlimited amount of virtual shelf space, you can offer all sorts of niched content, and the amount of niched content sold will exceed the amount of the most popular items sold. I.e., you can make money out of obscure stuff, as long as you have enough of it. This, to me, sounded entirely plausible.

Now, though, recent studies from the UK show that this just might not be the case. InformITV reports that the studies, conducted by the MCPS-PRS Alliance, showed that of all music sold in the UK, 0.4% of the songs made up 80% of the revenues. That's totally contradictionary to the long tail theory... On the other hand, might music be a species apart in this, seeing as people download, LastFM-listens etc, to the music they like? I don't know.. but read up on the report here, and be prepared to ditch the Long Tail from your next marketing-powerpoint, ok? :)

Have a good 2009!

..unlike the Palestine people of Ghaza, that is. Now, I do not have anything against Israel, and definitely no prejudices against anyone of Jewish heritage. But goddamit, that lunacy HAS TO STOP.

Now a whole world is clamoring for Hamas to stop firing rockets at Israel, injuring two people at the last instant - while Israel is carpetbombing the Ghaza strip killing hundreds... anyone else see a slight discrepancy here? Or is it just because the Palesine people are "terrorists"?

Dear me, someone talk some sense into these people. Here's hoping... and hope no more children have to die. Foolish hope, I know.

Happy 2009 everyone.