Re-entering 1970

The 1960′s were wildly heralded as a golden age for freedom, free thinking and approaching life with heart rather than head. This is especially true when considering the hippie movement and swinging London.

What followed was a realisation in the 1970′s that the idealism and hope of that halcyon period essentially came to nothing, and a scaling back of opportunity and an era of austerity beckoned.

With the increasing discussion and controversy over Facebook privacy settings, availability of data and control over content and conversations on the Internet, I believe we are following a similar path in the evolution of the Internet.

1969 is the equivalent of the great opening up of data and elimination of boundaries, with 1970 echoing the increasing concern over Facebook’s use and sharing of user data and increasing control from large companies over what content can and cannot be published, shared and consumed.

We are entering a crucial time for the Internet.

Will increased regulation put an end to the free-for-all that we’ve seen to date, or will we see a backlash against the control and a second digital revolution?

Let me know what you think.

Mainstream Media Rules Social Media

A Pew study claims that “More than 99% of the stories linked to in blogs came from legacy outlets such as newspapers and broadcast networks. And just four – the BBC, CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post accounted for fully 80% of all links.” reported Read Write Web on Monday.

There are questions over the sample of blogs that the study looked at, but this to me isn’t the crux of the matter.

Communities in social media can be identified through patterns – shared links, common interests, a flow of thought that passes from one blog to another and cascades like a slinky until a finite point is reached.

What this study says to me is that there are no tangible blogging communities emerging, but my gut instinct and knowledge (!) of the space says otherwise. We know the foodie bloggers operate as a community, and we know the mummy bloggers operate as a community – are their links as communities not formed as a result of their common interests, idea flows and shared links?

Is social media, media where we are social, as opposed to media that is social?

It could be argued that a forum community bound by interest that sits on a common platform is a far more active example of social media, than a group of hyperlinked bloggers whose content is similar but ultimately not bound by anything.

This is the difference to me at any rate, between platforms and spheres.

A platform is tangible, a sphere isn’t.

Social media is often thought of as platform based – Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare; content here is very rigid, formed by the platform it’s being published on.

Blogs are based on a platform, but content doesn’t happen as a result of the platform, the platform facilitates it’s publication – nothing more, it’s very fluid.

When we’re looking at engaging communities, I would argue that it works best where there is a tangible object for that group of people to be holding onto – a forum, a discussion topic on a Facebook page.

Does this research essentially say, if you, as a marketer are looking to focus on developing the grass roots of a brand, don’t go to blogs, but social media?

Computer Says “Oh Really?”

A post on Popsci tells of how an Israeli team have created an algorithm that will allow computers to detect sarcasm amongst the wider patterns of normal speech.

SASI, a Semi-supervised Algorithm for Sarcasm Identification, can recognize sarcastic sentences in product reviews online with pretty astounding 77 percent precision. To create such an algorithm, the team scanned 66,000 Amazon.com product reviews, with three different human annotators tagging sentences for sarcasm. The team then identified certain sarcastic patterns that emerged in the reviews and created a classification algorithm that puts each statement into a sarcastic class.

The recognition of language formation is one of the key barriers to fully automated monitoring tools, especially in the social media space. You always need a human to sense check any sort of content and sentiment analysis.

Despite the flippant comments below the post, this is a hugely fascinating development. It is easy enough to associate the word ‘great’ with something positive, it is also sensible to associate ‘bad’ with something negative.

But, what if you switch the established meanings of those two words around?

The sentence “The storm was just great, I got caught in it.” could be read both positively and negatively. Likewise with “I went to see that film, it was well bad“.

It’s the context around the phrase that defines it’s meaning and use in the sentence. This is something that so far, our friends ‘the programmers’ haven’t yet quite mastered.

If a technology can get within 10% of the overall sentiment of a set of linguistic data, that’s cause for alarm for those in the online monitoring space.

Here’s what they might think:

1) Blimey, we might be out of a job
2) How can we better that?
3) How much is it and can we integrate it?

How much time is spent collating social media data and assessing tone and sentiment in digital agencies? Probably a lot.

If you’ve got a computer to do that for you, AND it’s reliable, it’s another nail in the coffin for the traditional AE job of monitoring and reporting, something I think many would look forward to.

Take Back Parliament

The Take Back Parliament movement was all over the news yesterday following the demonstration which culminated in a speech from Nick Clegg.

An online petition which has gathered th support of ‘tens of thousands’ of people has led to widespreasd news coverage and online conversation through Twitter and in the blogosphere.

The movement is driven by the desire of disillusioned voters to change the electoral system to be more representative of the popular vote.

Here’s what Nick Clegg said to the demonstrators yesterday:

This is yet another example of digital culture in action offline.

NME and Webjam want new bands

Webjam and the NME have teamed up to “to give bands the opportunity to get exposure not only online, but also in the magazine and at events throughout the year.”

The NME has a tradition for ‘breaking’ new bands, with it’s Radar section a particularly useful way to spot what’s hot, and this partnership would seem to be a natural extension to this area of the magazine’s niterests.

Webjam is a…

“social publishing and engagement solutions provider enabling you to connect with your customers and employees. Webjam allows companies to manage their online reputation into a single branded environment, in which content is created and shared easily, communities grow naturally and social media networks integrate seamlessly.”

The press release says:

NME has teamed up with Webjam to design, build and host a fully interactive online community for more than 4.2 million unique users from NME.com. NME Breakthrough provides a bespoke platform for artists to upload music, embed video content from other social networking sites such as YouTube, and grow their own fan-bases through community engagement.

Through NME Breakthrough, users can listen to their favourite bands, become fans and most importantly are able to rate their favourite songs and videos online. Based on Webjam’s ratings system and voted completely by users, the best artists and tracks are featured on the site the best artists and music receive coverage in the magazine and will perform at upcoming events. Live news feeds are also available all from one website, providing a complete platform for music fans.

The NME have tried to host this sort of initiative before, but it’s interesting that they’ve decided to give their control over hosting and sharing new music to a third party, allowing them to concentrate on the music side of the offering.

It’s another interesting development in the online music arena and it’s bound to be popular what with the NME’s huge pull for new bands.

Elephant Parade London

The Elephant London Parade is a project by www.elephantfamily.org which sees 250 elephants individually designed and handpainted, dotted all across the capital.

Running until June 23, the arrival of the colourful quadrupeds is designed to highlight the plight of the Asian elephant which is potentially 30 years away from extinction.

There’s a whole bunch of artists involved, all of whom have created the colour schemes which adorn the elephants, giving each one a unique character and personality.

You can buy replicas of each scuplture in three different sizes, coming in at around £20, £35 and £50, from a store in Carnaby Street.

You can follow Elephant Family on Twitter, or get news and updates on their Facebook page.

The Londonist have a great video looking at one of the more unusual elephants which also definitely worth having a watch of.

It’s a great installation and really captures the spirit of the pre-summer, nay spring, months.

The Power of a Political Propaganda Picture

Imagery in politics is hugely important. It communicates values, shifts perceptions and can be the downfall of a political career. The UK General Election of 2010 has, with four days left until the polls open, seen a seismic shift in the UK political landscape as a result of the national TV broadcasts of the leader debates.

Substance aside, it is the first time many people will have heard of Nick Clegg, letalone seen him or heard him speak.

The TV stations which have screened the debates have done their best to remain impartial. Our newspapers however, have declared their allegiances and are now in a propaganda war against each other and the support of their rival organisations.

Can you guess which party a leading national newspaper is supporting, from the image below?

The Observer has follwed in the steps of it’s sister paper the Guardian by openly declaring it’s support for the Liberal Democrats – can you tell?

The image of Gordon Brown makes him look tired but prepared to fight on, David Cameron as if he’s going to jump out of the page and sink his teeth into your neck, whilst Nick Clegg has a humble smile, eyes open and engaging.

This bias is of course an old art and something that any good history or journalism student is aware of. It’s also something that, no joke, people outside of the media are aware of. Really? Yes…. i’m afraid so.

People can see through the specific use of specific images identified for a specific agenda.

Political preferences aside, the use of imagery over the past three weeks has been a guide to the way that people perceive the politicians in front of them. As we move into the final hurdle, this will intensify, but what is important is the context within which these pictures will sit.

Gameloft Sales Up 7%, Liberal Democrats Support Gaming Tax Relief

Gameloft, one of the largest games developers in the world, posted consolidated sales of €33.0 million during the first quarter of 2010, up by 7% from the previous year. Europe represented 37% of the company’s sales, North America 34% and the rest of the world 29%. By comparison, Europe accounted for 39% of full-year 2009 sales, North America for 32% and the rest of the world for 29%.

The success is down to releases of high-performance Smartphones from Apple, Palm, Samsung, Nokia and Google, which means that the company is expecting further growth over the next few quarters.

The company are also confident that the impending European release of the iPad will provide an opportunity with other avenues to explore, giving them yet more room to expand their revenue.

Sales for the second quarter of 2010 will be published on July 28, 2010.

This is particularly interesting given the upcoming UK General Election, and comments from Don Foster, Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, who in a statement to TIGA said:

“Liberal Democrats support the introduction of a Games Tax Relief. Following consultation on the details, we would implement the Relief as soon as possible.”

Such a move would be a really interesting opportunity for the gaming industry. This would allow startups to keep more of the revenue they generate and to invest this in other areas, as well as allowing the big guns to allocate cash into other projects.

Dr Richard Wilson, CEO of TIGA, was unsurprisingly receptive:

“TIGA welcomes the Liberal Democrats’ commitment to support Games Tax Relief and to enact this tax measure as quickly as possible. There is a growing cross party consensus that Games Tax Relief is good for the UK development sector, good for the UK games industry, and good for the UK economy.”

Any move to help stimulate the flow of money in the games industry has to be a welcome move, and the fact that this is coming from a party who may be a in a real position to make a difference over the next five years in an exciting development.

Getting Back to Blogging

It feels good to blog. It’s a very cathartic process, getting ideas written down, sharing cool stuff that will hopefully be of interest to others, it’s great and I enjoy it.

Back in the bit after uni but before full time employment I had a grand plan to blog about music, which I did, and to get my writing noticed and hopefully picked up by a magazine, riding off into the sunset in a journalistic balze of glory, which I didn’t.

When I wasn’t doing my part time job i’d be writing missives about bands i’d never heard of, going to gigs and coming up with reviews and sharing thoughts, news and opining about the scene.

I did this a lot, writing perhaps 10-15 pieces a week for various blogs. Unfortunately the dream never came true and I switched my focus from unpaid content producing to paid content pushing.

Three years on and the digital landsacape has shifted and changed dramatically, so much so that the offline content pushing I was doing in 2007 is now online content sharing and strategy.

I’ve found myself a little recently when coming up with content for Seldom Seen Kid, so I decided to re-visit my roots to try and re-capture that burning enthusiasm I’ve always felt for blogging.

As such i’m now contributing to several blogs, all covering topics that I only touch upon here. I’m writing the odd piece now for Space Junkie, a gaming blog run by my colleague and co-social media conspirator Dan Lazarides.

I’m doing the odd piece on technology for Simon Barker‘s Zath, now 12th in the Wikio rankings of UK tech blogs.

And i’m finally back into writing for someone else’s music blog, Muso’s Guide founded by Natalie Shaw, which is re-igniting my passion for writing about music.

Why the self-indulgent post?

I think that what i’m trying to relay is that if you find yourself struggling to think of what to write, or considering quitting blogging, think about what made you start in the first place. What really stokes your fires?

You might be writing about a completely different topic now, than you were say, three years ago when you started blogging.

Take a look back at what you were writing at the start, look at how far you’ve come and how you’ve developed.

Work out what made you want to write in the first place and try doing it again, only this time, using your existing experience, skills and knowledge to be better.