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!