Filed under: Digital culture, Future of Media, geek, Geek stuff, Innovative stimulus, Social media
Remember the good old days when an online company didn’t need a revenue model because simply being an entrepreneurial innovative online business was enough? I remember those days well because very early in my advertising career we wrote strategies for many of those businesses who never ever got it together thanks to the dot com crash and a swift return to reason. As the market re-settles and new revenue models emerge, one thing remains true: like any business, you have to find a way to charge for what you do. Yes content is still super important and many sites still rely on advertising or lead generation rather than content to fund their models but as categories become more sophisticated, so too do their revenue models.
Anyhoo i found this site which offers an overview of top tech companies and their revenue models across ads, subscriptions, affiliates, data, freemium, and royalties. For those of you looking for an little innovation stimulation or just to feed your inner geek, have a gander – it’s a fun way to get a quick sense of how the bigger brands are tackling the market.
Filed under: Digital culture, Emergent media, Future of Media, Geek stuff, Google, Looking for insights | Tags: Bill Gates, Google, Lynette Webb
The future of search is verbs
I like the simplicity of this statement. It’s a catchphrase for the concept that most of the time people aren’t searching for information just for the sake of it, but because they want help in making a decision or carrying out some action.
Here’s the quote in full, as reported by Esther Dyson:
“Bill Gates uttered one of the smartest things he has ever said: “The future of search is verbs.” But he said it at a private dinner and it never spread. To me, the meaning was clear: when people search, they aren’t just looking for nouns or information; they are looking for action. They want to book a flight, reserve a table, buy a product, cure a hangover, take a class, fix a leak, resolve an argument, or occasionally find a person, for which Facebook is very handy. They mostly want to find something in order to do something.”
Via www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dyson23/English
Image via Flickr CC thanks to Andrew Hefter www.flickr.com/photos/andross/3353830887/
I have borrowed the above little post from Lynette Webb the Google Insights Manager who I have posted about before here and here. For those of you who don’t follow her on Flickr, get on it. She’s got some great pithy one liners from smarty pants peeps and pairs them with poignant pics [not sure why the alliteration but run with me on this one]. Anyway, she’s worth a look in.
Filed under: Advertising, creativity, Emergent media, Geek stuff, Innovative advertising, Nike | Tags: Nike
Speaking of Nike [see James Jarvis post below] and newfound blogger Bud [see post below], here’s another great example of Nike digital advertising. If other companies took a more considered thoughtful approach to digital conversation rather than literally attempting to “take over” our pages while we’re surfing [hands up who thought the page takeover was ever going to be a positive consumer interaction?] the digital advertising world might just move towards the personal, interactive, conversational medium it promised to be. Check it out. Bloody great. ps. thanks Bud.
Filed under: Emergent media, Geek stuff, Social media, Work Futures | Tags: P&G digital hack, Social media, Tide t-shirt
It seems that the peeps at P&G realised that this whole ‘social media’ thing was something they needed to get their heads across. What better way to do it than invite 40 of the best geeks from the Valley and stage a 4 hour social-media hack-a-thon exercise for charity.
40 executives from the Valley were invited down to meet with a hundred P&G marketers to help them get their heads around social media. They played in teams and competed to see which group could sell the most Tide t-shirts using only a thousand bucks and any social media tool they could get their hands on. All proceeds went to charity.
For those of you who haven’t yet read the story on P&G’s Digital Hack Night here’s a couple of links:
Filed under: Futures, Futurists, Geek stuff, Innovative stimulus | Tags: Accelerated Studies Foundation, augmented reality, future of the metaverse, futurist, Gerontology Research Group, jazz diet pepsi, lifelogging, midwest airlines, mirror worlds, scent marketing, sensory marketing, supercentenarians, The Singularity, thomson holidays, virtual worlds
I’m just flicking through the latest issue of The Futurist Magazine which arrived this morning and I thought I’d share with you the highlights of this latest treasure:
* Scent of Success
Apparently Jazz Diet Pepsi was promoted via black cherry scent strips in magazines, Thomson Holidays put smell strips of suntan lotion on their windows to remind people they could escape the cold weather and Midwest Airlines put cookies in the oven after take off to calm nervous passengers so that the smell of cookies wafts through the cabin as the plan reaches altitude. Did you know that unlike other senses, scent travels directly to the brain’s emotional centres and produces automatic feelings in the receiver? Whereas perceptions registered by other senses travel first through interpretive brains centres before they reach the emotional centres. So the quickest way to reach emotions is through smell . . . So what would a successful agency smell like? Or a good doctor? Will the next widget on the market be customisable Glade plug ins? I wonder…
* Supercentenarians – The secret to a long life
There’s just been a study done on predicting which of us will make it to triple figures and why . . The good news is that women make it to the top of the list, women are much more likely to outlive men when it comes to supercentenarians and can I just include this quote from robert Young of the Gerontology Research Group who says “Women are statistically more likely to survive . . women are designed for endurance whereas men are designed for peak strength . . “. Anyway the big news is that you’re more likely to live longer if you…
1. Social Support - . . have social interaction, chat on the phone and keep in touch
2. Anthropometrics - . . have a lower body to fat ratio and higher waist to hip ratio
3. Cognition – . . keep your mind active & keep working on your cognitive abilities
4. Eating Habits – . . eat breakfast regularly & consume substantial amounts of vitamin A & carotenoids
So there you go, you can throw out your overpriced Goiji berries, get back on the treadmill and make the crossword part of your daily routine. Having said that, Jeanne Calment (122 in the Guiness Book of Records) smoked until her 120th birthday so go figure…
Credit for this image to Vermin Inc@ Flickr
* The Singularity
Many scientists , researchers, culture watchers and futurists believe that in the next 4 decades we will enter a phase of rapid & unprecedented technological progress, caused in part by the use of machines to improve themselves using artificial intelligence. The Acceleration Studies Foundation refers to this future period as The Singularity. It will be exciting and absolutely unlike anything humanity has experienced before.
Ok admittedly this sounds a little Matrix-like but it’s a fascinating overview of the future scenarios which may play out in the metaverse space. It basically explores 4 possible scenarios [not dissimilar to the traditional 4 box method of scenario planning - forcing yourself to think through four distinct scenarios based around key themes of impact].
The article explores:
1. Virtual worlds -where humanity spends more time in virtual settings because digital worlds are supremely compelling & seductive or because the real world has suffered widespread collapse.
2. Mirror Worlds – readily accessible data about places and objects creates an ever more sophisticated digital world that mirrors our own.
3. Augmented reality – The tools & technologies of the Mirror World become more personal. Up-to-minute data about people, places and objects enhances our perceptions and deepens our understanding about what’s going on around us.
4. Lifelogging – Digital surveillance, info technology and sensing technology combine to record almost every moment of our lives in a variety of ways. This info is either helpful or hurtful depending on who controls it.
Check out the Accelerated Studies Foundation for more geek treats
Filed under: Digital culture, Geek stuff | Tags: Kevin Kelly, Mike Walsh, San Francisco, The digital future, The Fourth Estate, Tim Berners Lee, web 2.0, Web 2.0 Summit, Web trends, Wired Magazine
An interesting post here from Mike Walsh who writes The Digital Future that’s definitely worth a read if like me, you’re wondering where to next…
So what’s next for the Web?
[Mike's post starts here]
Another 'interesting snippet' from Google's Insights Manager Lynette
It was the unspoken question of many who gathered at the Web2.0 Summit in San Francisco this week. For Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired magazine, it all came down to a number – 6,527. Or, the exact number of days until now since Tim Berners Lee made the first webpage. All the innovation, the new wealth, disruptions in traditional media and the millions of Wikipedia entries – a seemingly impossible scale of human endeavor – had been created in that relatively short span. So, what are we likely to see in the next 6500 days?
For a start, it’s becoming clear that 2008 will be an inflection point for the industry. In her annual high altitude scan of the new media landscape, Morgan Stanley internet analyst Mary Meeker pointed out that relative amount of time that consumers spent on websites has changed dramatically. When you look at the metric of global minutes, over the last two years YouTube and Facebook have gained over 500 basis points of relative share, at the expense of traditional portal incumbents Yahoo! and MSN. (more…)
Filed under: creativity, Geek stuff, Innovation, Innovative gaming, Second Life, social entrepreneurs, Social media, USA, virtual worlds | Tags: Burning Life, Festival, Second Life, virtual worlds
Burning Life
I see that SL has held it’s first ever Burning Life festival in world. For those of you who are not familiar, Burning Life is the Second Life version of a real Art, Fire and Community festival called Burning Man. Both Burning Man and Second Life began in San Francisco, California, USA, on planet Earth. Check it out here
Filed under: geek, Geek stuff, girlgeek, Social, technorati | Tags: Advertising, Advertising age, Australian Bloggers, blogasphere, bloggerati, Community, laurel papworth, Marketing, media, power 150, ranking, social networks, technorati, todd andrlik, top bloggers
I’ve just been reading Laurel Papworth’s post on Advertising Age’s top Media and Marketing blogs listing – Ad Age ranks Laurel’s blog at 156 and if you haven’t checked it out I recommend you do so, it’s worth a peep. I see that Innovation Feeder has scored a mention as one of the blogs Advertising Age is monitoring for their Top 150 list which is amazing because I also blog rather erratically and there must be loads of other Australian blogs which are doing fabulous things under the radar. So if you are one of those bloggers, get onto the Advertising Age site and submit your blog.
Advertising Age are currently monitoring a bunch of blogs, here Laurel has dug out the Australian entrants for us: [thanks Laurel]
10. ProBlogger (uber blogger Darren Rowse)
66. Bannerblog (Ashley Ringrose, Ashadi Hopper)
123. Young PR (oi! Paull Young is in NY now!)
131. Duncan’s TV Ad Land (Duncan Macleod)
145. Servant of Chaos (probably my favourite Aussie blogger, Gavin Heaton)
156. Social Network Marketing (this blog! Laurel Papworth)
190. Better Communication Results (fellow Adelaidean, Lee Hopkins)
295. Get Shouty (cheers Katie Chatfield!)
343. Media Hunter (Craig Wilson)
347. Corporate Engagement (hi Trevor Cook! )
365. The Marketer (Gordon ‘Dangerous’ Whitehead)
382. Business of Marketing and Branding (David Koopmans)
388. PR Disasters Gerry McCusker
391. PersonalizeMedia (my cutie, Gary Hayes)
465. Adspace Pioneers (Greetings Julian Cole)
474. ineedhits Search Marketing Blog (cute name) (Clay Cook, Rachel Cook)
618. Jax Rant ( Jacqueline Weschler)
623 Shifted Pixels (Nick Holmes a’Court)
638. Ryan’s View (Ryan Peal)
640. The Jason Recliner (Vando, from his armchair)
692. Igloo/Ignite (agency blog)
702. Pigs Don’t Fly (Zac Martin)
731. Increase Web Traffic @ Traffic2MyPage.com
752. Innovation Feeder (Jen Stumbles)
796. Slice Media ( Kylie Lewis)
Filed under: Gaming, Geek stuff, Get another life, Innovative gaming, Looking for insights, Machinima, Second Life, virtual worlds | Tags: Clive Thompson, Collision Detection, CollisionDetection, gamers, Gaming, Halo, MIND Labs, MMORPG
In his blog CollisionDetection, Clive Thompson who writes for Wired and the NY Times has posted a great piece about about the pleasure and release MMORPG [massive multiplayer online role playing gamers] feel when they get killed [as opposed to when they kill others]. His findings are based on a study by Niklas Ravaja at MIND Labs, who wired up a bunch of gamers with biosensors and found that they gave off strong pleasure signals whenever they died in the game Super Monkey Ball.
The rest of his post is here and if you haven’t checked out his blog, it’s worth a look in:
