Yourality - Presentation Outline

A big THANK YOU to Seth “Guruji” Godin (author of LINCHPIN, TRIBES), Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of THE BLACK SWAN and FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS), Tom Hayes (author of JUMP POINT), Sheena Iyengar (author of THE ART OF CHOOSING), Raj Patel (author of THE VALUE OF NOTHING), Malcolm Gladwell (author of BLINK and OUTLIERS), Sam Horn (author of POP!) living legend Robin Sharma (author of THE MONK WHO SOLD HIS FERRARI and THE LEADER WITHOUT A TITLE), Tom Chatfield (author of FUN INC), Charles Leadbetter (author of WE-THINK), Mira Kamdar (author of PLANET INDIA), Mitch Joel (SIX PIXELS OF SEPARATION), Futurist Mike Walsh (author of FUTURETAINMENT and personal coach/mentor), Walter Isaacson (author of the Steve Jobs biography), William Kilpatrick (author of THE FACEBOOK EFFECT), Jeff Jarvis (author of WHAT WOULD GOOGLE DO) Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s FREAKONOMICS, Peter Nowak (author of SEX BOMBS AND BURGERS) who’ve all helped or shaped my views about the new digital age and its effects on the modern world - whether it be personal, commercial or political. Please note the thoughts in this book are inspired by a series of authors who operate on a global level from all over the world and I’ve spent an extensive amount of time looking into this, combining 16 years of experience with a lot of hours of extensive research, trends and insights.

Also a special thank you to Enhanced Editing Services and my wonderful editor Cheryl Fehlberg for the countless edits and your patience.

Alan Horn Thomas from Colmar Brunton for the design.

Thank you Colmar Brunton for constantly growing and evolving my knowledge on Research and the value of data.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Prashant is a Technology Visionary & Philosopher, Trend-Hunter, Futurist, Keynote speaker, Innovation Specialist & Consultant, Digital Artist, New Media Aficionado, Brand Geek, in love with mass communication, popular taste, cinema & TV, psychology and history.

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” – Lao Tzu

Change is NEVER sudden; it’s always countless years of effort on a large-scale collaborative level working towards “something” at the one moment. It’s a connection which happens on a massive level, however, it’s effects show over a longitudinal period of time whether it’s months, weeks or years. Change in the digital era is constant, it’s daily and it’s up to us as to when we decide to embrace it. The misconception that change “just occurs” is incorrect, change is ALWAYS around us. In today’s digital age you create your own digital reality. The concept may sound absolutely bizarre or alien to some people but it’s slowly becoming a reality as the Internet goes to the next level (after 21 years the internet has evolved as you would expect it to) and how you represent yourself online is a reflection to the public eye as to who you are as a person. In other words, you’re IN CONTROL of your own digital reality. Fuelled by passion, conviction and belief, regardless of a “title” or “position”, you now have the ability to raise yourself to the next level and build a lasting imprint of who you are as a person (or brand or service), globally harnessing the power of collaboration, conversation and creative passion.

This book is my attempt to show you how the world has changed due to advances in technology and pin point a series of trends occurring within this fast moving space and what you can do to adapt (quickly) to the changing world and what businesses can do to truly understand this fast moving space. And finally, in the words of modern day philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb “I was asked to “back-up claims” in the book with the “supply of data, graphs, charts, diagrams, plots, tables, numbers, recommendations, time series etc. This text is a series of logical thought experiments, not an economics or marketing paper; logic does not require empirical verification, It is a mistake to usee , as journalists and some economists do, statistics without logic, but the reverse does not hold; it is not a mistake to use logic without statistics”.

As someone who has worked in Market Research for over 13 years and on the internet over 16 years, I have a huge deal of respect that comes with the power of data as well as the amazing insights it can provide and the stories data can tell, however, the inner details and processes that go with that is a book that book is for someone else to write though I have used data and statistics where appropriate to pinpoint and hone in on certain trends..

This book was a hybrid of research and data, experience, and instinct and intuition.

Yourality is my first E-Book and I will be expanding further on the trends, thoughts and predictions made in this book as they evolve in the digital space on my site Socialwizz.com as well as consecutive books which dive deeper into the internet. I hope you enjoy the first 5 chapters, and whilst I’m giving the book away 100% free, there is a place for people to give for sponsorship, gifts and donations. The gifts will do 2 things. Firstly, it’ll help recover the costs associated with the domain, editing and minimum costs to get this book to you and my time in writing this book, and secondly, help fund the additional additions (a sequel and prequel) to this book.

And secondly, allow me to present at the Global Outsourcing Summit 2012 held in China and attend the International Start-up Festival. If you’re unable to make a financial contribution, a recommendation would be greatly appreciated. If you would like to make a contribution or would like to continue a further discussion please contact me at prazhari@socialwizz.com or prazhari@gmail.com

Welcome to the blurred, exciting, fast-paced and ever-changing and evolving world of Yourality...

The next billionth to enter the internet; web 3.0 and the personalized web; Social Karma, Value of passion

“The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.”-Eric Schmidt

The 3rd billionth to enter the internet economy

The internet for the most part has been a privilege for most, and despite its use on so many levels, it’s never reached a mainstream point where it’s readily and accessible available for everyone, everywhere... GLOBALLY... .until now.

Tom Hayes in his remarkably insightful book JUMP POINT, remarks that the “third billionth” to enter the internet economy will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Characteristics like “watched television but never owned one”, and “Never used money” itself indicate that this is very much the next big level change on the internet.

This point on JUMP POINT forced me to think further, and upon countless discussions with friends and colleagues one idea fascinated me the most. It would be hard to argue that most underprivileged children in countries like Africa and India are already “street level entrepreneurs” starting as young as the age of 5. WHAT IF these kids were given access to the internet? How would they use it? How would they interact and connect with people?

The 3rd billionth to enter the internet economy

What would they use it for most? What new business models would they start? How would they network and how could they bring positive change and new ideas? Being new to the internet 10 years ago would be resounding differently to being on the internet right now. Yes, I realize this would take up a lot of training and resources, however, as Mira Kamdar points out in her incisive book PLANET INDIA, “the collective call for cheaper solutions to global problems means that devices that can access the internet at affordable prices can, and eventually will reach the underprivileged and uneducated”.

The 3rd billionth to enter the internet economy

This means large-scale changes to the way the internet currently functions. We’ve already seen the emerging affect effect Asia (namely China and India) has had on the technology, call-centre and data collection industry in the past decade, however, with the indication now that the internet will now go on to become “fully mainstream” with global access and the next billion people to join the internet will be unlike what we’ve ever seen before, change is no doubt, inevitable.

The 3rd billionth to enter the internet economy

As Seth Godin and Jeff Jarvis both ask readers (in one way or another), to imagine a world where the Internet was the only economy, the only way to make money was through transactions on the internet, and buying and selling on the internet.? Everything from banking to your paperwork was all done Online, and lastly, but most importantly, your entire customer database, and means to attract and embrace new customers was only Online too? Would you change the way your business operates? If so, how? With the change in tide this might one day become a reality. The Online arena allows people to rise to their entrepreneurial best, and whether it’s the Annoying Orange or Blendtec on YouTube (you HAVE to check this out) or the crowd-sourcing site Pozible.com (have your creative project crowd-funded), the internet and your reality may never be the same again.

The 3rd billionth to enter the internet economy

When one takes into account how many transactions happen across gaming, social gaming, in-app transactions and general transactions across the digital economy, this is already happening for the most part and has been for a long time.

To take this idea one step further, what if the Global stock market continues to under perform and doesn't improve? What if the next crash is bigger than this one?

Raj Patel in his book THE VALUE OF NOTHING powerfully argues that the world economy may never rise again and how the current world is defined is well due for a big change. Patel writes “There’s a widely shared opinion that normality will ultimately return to the world economy,” a renowned economist who divides his time among several institutions. Patel argues that our problem isn’t just the size of our stimulus package, but a deep misapprehension about the relationship between society and economy that pre dates

The 3rd billionth to enter the internet economy

the great crash of 2008. And, more to the point, it is our propensity to over-value destructive things – such as financial derivatives and crude oil – and under-value truly valuable things – such as sustainable food production, our global climate and other so-called externalities that market society has often neglected.

Keeping this notion in mind, there is a chance that the “Economy of the Internet” with the 3rd Bllionth could truly revolutionize or evolutionize the way the world is right now and alter the course of Yourality (Your Reality).

India recently released its first ever Web Browser EPIC the other week, the world’s cheapest device to access the internet priced at $35 (and likely to drop down to $20 and later possibly $10) came out the other day. Accessibility and connectivity is growing globally daily and prices only bound to get cheaper the adoption will be yet another "tipping point"

What next? The volume of innovation coming out of Asia and the urgency to make it cheaper, scalable, mobilized and more accessible from grassroots level up is becoming the urgency of the hour, with these initiatives under way at a rapid pace, what does the future of the internet look like?

The 3rd billionth to enter the internet economy

The recent Hindi film AARAKSHAN touched on the idea of providing free education to the underprivileged countries underprivileged (in this instance India), furthermore, with networks like Educaze.com (online tutoring social network) or initiatives like OLPC (One laptop per child now the One Education programme) emerging, the ability to globally crowd-source tutoring could mean that getting people trained ion the Online space for a fraction of the price, cheaper access to devices and the internet could be a progressive movement in this space. I thoroughly believe that education marred with technology could truly change how we distribute the basics of modern technology education and get people access to this information as well as the ability to understand it.

The 3rd billionth to enter the internet economy

Futurist Mike Walsh mentions that the US won’t be the No.1 consumer of the internet moving forward, which again raises a pertinent question, which country will lead the way as the No.1 consumer of the internet? He has termed an ancronym BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) which he believes will have a profound impact on the future of the internet. With over 900M+ people on Facebook and worth over 100B, and Apple having more money than the US Government, it will certainly be interesting to see how these emerging markets utilize and adopt Social Media

Web 3.0? You serious?

Very much so, it’s not always certain that a certain paradigm shift in this sphere will last for a “X” amount of time, if Social Media (the pinnacle of what Web 2.0 is) took lightning fast time to reach mass media, it’s evident that the next “big” thing in this space will almost certainly take a lot less time than Web 2.0. If Web 2.0 is now “mainstream”, then Web 3.0 is a definitive reality which is already here. What exactly Web 3.0 is, will be defined over the next few months and years, until there is a clear and definitive take. Below is what I perceive one of the major angles of Web 3.0 will be.

What is “Web 2.0”? Wikipedia defines it as “The term "Web 2.0" (2004-present) is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web”, Web Trends says

Web 3.0? You serious?

“While there is no set definition of Web 2.0, it generally refers to the use of the web as a more social platform where users participate by generating their own content alongside the content provided by the websites”. Co-creation, collaboration, and all those other words we associate with Social Networking is Web 2.0.

Web 3.0 so far has been defined by Jason Calcani as “ .... the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform. Web 2.0 services like digg and YouTube evolve into Web 3.0 services with an additional layer of individual excellence and focus. Web 3.0 has also been defined as highly specialized information silos, moderated by a cult of personality, validated by the community, and put into context with the inclusion of meta-data through widgets”

Web 3.0? You serious?

I find this definition fascinating and tend to agree with it, and I take it that the key emphasis here is on “high quality” and the wording “cult of personality” which defines almost “cult-like” followings around digital personalities who a’re able to create, and market themselves as a “digital brand”.

I would take this idea one step further and say one of the aspects Web 3.0=Yourality (or your reality). Personalizing the internet, completely to yourself? Branding yourself digitally in an artistic form? Painting yourself digitally on celluloid out of passion? Having a digital identity that works as an authentic “form” for who you are as a person.

Web 3.0? You serious?

The C.V. of the future won’t might not be a piece of paper with all the information about where you’ve studied, where you’ve worked in the past, and all the usual spiel, but a living, organic and very accessible site where everything you’ve worked on is available for the world to see including your future employers (most employers now already check future employees Social Networks as a part of their recruitment method). Furthermore, it will be dynamic and created out of passion as people realized the importance of their digital image. To give an example, www.prashant.hari, though at the moment this isn’t a properly registered domain, moving forward, I believe (though I’ve been told the Domain Board may take a lot of convincing) people will be able to customize domain names to themselves. The obvious positive impact this has against crimes like identity theft I won’t delve into too much, but what this means that for you, as a person I will go into further.

Web 3.0? You serious?

Imagine if (because they can) an employer was simply able to type your name into his browser and he’s re-directed to a page which (stylishly) lists all your achievements for the world to see. This includes personal and professional achievements whether it’s in your “working” life or your “sports” life or any other areas of passion you have. So if you work in the Finance Industry and have years of experience and positive feedback, you’d display this on your site, furthermore, if you’re a passionate camera enthusiast who takes photos as a hobby, you’d also have an area to display your works, and say you also love writing about cinema, then you’d have an area where you showcase your writing around that. Your personalized digital C.V. in essence, is a website, which has been personally crafted to your satisfaction, maintained by you, and totally up-to-date with information relating to who you are as a person. A bit like www.about.me.

Web 3.0? You serious?

Within a few moments, as an employer, I can type in your name into a domain and see what you’re REALLY like before the interview process with a much better idea on your skills, expertise and achievements in a business sense. Yes, this does raise the bar for those who still haven’t fully embraced this new change, however, it’s only a matter of time. If things did go down this path, I believe that there should be an area where people can also list their weaknesses as well as strengths so the picture painted is authentic to any potential employers. Employers should be able to see what an individual’s strengths are as well as weaknesses in the work environment to paint a full picture. Perhaps even an area of “what I would like to get better at” and “what I don’t really see as an area of improvemet because other people do it so well already and I’m not passionate about it”. LinkedIN to a large extent already does this and it does it really well. It’s an authentic business network designed for the corporate world and is used in a very different way to other networks.

Web 3.0? You serious?

While the “social” element of Facebook by, it’s very nature may mean it’s sometimes questionable from a B2B perspective, LinkedIN works within this space really well.

Personalizing the Web is just one aspect of the Web 3.0 , and there are a number of other factors which too also play an equally important part in shaping what will go on to become Web 3.0 which includes social gaming, iPads and Tablets, Virtual worlds, location based networking, social shopping, Smart TV’s, Smart Windows and a plethora of other “smart” devices, and the changing face of consumer behaviour with Smartphone Smart device Innovation, which I will touch on in the following chapters. However, I do believe the personalizing, filtering through the noise, and having only relevant content come to you that you want to see, read and hear is going to be the driving factor behind a lot of these changes. People will realize that their attention IS a currency.

The Personalized Web

What are blogzines? I see the concept of a blogzines as being highly creative and personally designed blogs which have the look and feel of a magazine, in a blog style concept as far as content, interaction and commenting goes. The key focus here is that these will be highly original in content and design and fuelled by passion. This will be designed and run by people who want to be leaders, who have relevant content to share regardless of whether it’s , videos, photos as well as being able to and everything else and share, connect and create. Individuals who want to leave their mark digitally and prove themselves to be leaders in their area of thought-leadership. People who believe themselves to be the brand and see the rules of the new world exactly for what they are and how they are. These would be accessible across all modes of devices and screens.

It’s these people Freelancers and consultants that the publications publishing houses, media and entertainment companies and social and technology companies and consumer electronics companies will be after because these are the types of freelancers who will have a much better idea as far as being experts and thought-leaders in an individual niche or group of areas is concerned.

Chances are that these people will end up getting a bigger following than even the so-called renowned publications on Social Networks. Authentic and real voices who report and write in transparency and honesty not burdened by corporate firewalls, ridiculous timelines and blocking authority figures will shine like never before. Essentially, a blogzine is the evolution of what a blog is, however, keeping in sync with Web 3.0, a blogzine is more focussed around personalization and design and allows the individual to have their own independent media channel or outlet with multiple contributors. Essentially 2.0 amplified like Jason Statham in the movie CRANK!

The Personalized Web

Taking a step back , historically, we would rarely be able to have our own magazine completely branded to how we want it with only content we want to share. The costs and structure simply wasn’t designed for this. The initial digital revolution flipped the paradigm to a large extent with anyone having the power to start their own blog (some platforms auto-formating across mobile devices instantly for reading and writing/publishing) and a blogzine is an evolutionary tool for human beings to share and connect.

The Personalized Web

Flipboard is a potential game-changer (or the concept anyway) for the iPad which released the other weeka while back. Within a matter of a few hours they underwent countless server changes, only later to revert to a “case-by-case basis” model (much like Google did with Gmail in the early days). Flipboard renders links from your Twitter feed and favourite sites in a beautiful, media rich, sound incorporated, magazine-style layout, has a problem: it scrapes websites directly rather than using public RSS feeds. The biggest hurdle Flipboard will face is Copyright, but once it gets past that, we will see the emergence of a new kind of a magazine.

A Social Magazine will let you customize your news and entertainment screens exactly as you need them. Channelling through the noise, and having only content and information that YOU want to see and that interests you is going to be one of the biggest “jumps” as the iPad, E-Reader and Tablet revolution continues. With a tool like Flipboard, you’re able to customize the internet to yourself (the next step further from this will be having bank details, flight bookings/details etc all tie in as well).

The Personalized Web

PC World says “One of the best things about the iPad as a platform is the flexibility developers have to aggregate media and other Web content in an interface that looks attractive and feels natural when you interact with it. Most Web services and content aggregators that have developed apps for the iPad look great, but none of them really captures the magazine-like feel of Flipboard, a new iPad app that aggregates social media in a unique and attractive way"

Flipboard allows you to create your own channels based on what you want to see i.e. FlipStyle (Fashion), FlipRead (Books), FlipTech (technology) as well as allowing you to be logged in to your Facebook and Twitter at the same time.

The Personalized Web

However, unlike say the Twitter apps or the Facebook app, Flipboard brings up the content in a magazine format for even these networks instead of 140 microblog+ the link, you’ll see the actual article. Lastly, Flipboard is the ONLY iPad app (there are others but one that does it perfectly). The one which truly captures the sentiment of a “magazine”... a “Social Magazine”.

There are two key aspects here, apart from being able to filter information that is relevant to you only, the makers of FlipBoard have really taken the design aspect of an “Online Magazine” seriously, and the user intuitiveness of the product is what stands out so far. Also the ability to read content, LIVE, and be able to instantly retweet and share it with people all within the same platform (combined with the design) is what makes this one a real potential category killer.

The Personalized Web

Whether someone overtakes Flipboard (Pulse has a different concept but still essentially does the same thing but aggregating information, allowing you to choose the streams you want to see and making social sharing instantaneous and a visually attractive and intuitive format though this hasn’t taken off like Flipboard) in the long-run is irrelevant, the concept of being able to collect and present streams of information in a highly organized, personalized and more importantly, “designer” manner is what counts and Flipboard currently does this best. Live, streaming data straight to an easy-to-access and use device fully customized as you want it, will underpin one of the biggest growths in the online sphere.

The Personalized Web

The future of digital magazines and newspapers lie in a model similar to Flipboard I believe, and, while broadcasting random ads in the hope it will reach a target consumer is dying out, advertising itself will still remain critically important, however, with the abundance of data in the next 5 years, we’re entering an era of contextualized, personalized, and customized (ultimately relevant) advertising (finally). An idea like Flipboard really paves the way for what the future of the newspaper and magazine reading could look like. It’s media rich, interactive, real time, social and friendly with exceptional content from a variety of top publications.

The Personalized Web

Video based apps like ShowYou and Deja are doing the same thing for the video space (a video powered social magazine per se) however, in the end it will converge into an area where it’s a combination of media rich mediums. A social magazine which allows you to firstly choose what type of content you want to see first (images, video, text) followed by from whichthe publications and then allows you to fully customize it would be a winner. I’ve always maintained that professional content will converge more and more with social media content and with a network like Pinterest and apps like Viddy, Instagram and SocialCAM it’s essentially just happening.

The Personalized Web

However, Pinterest focusses on high-quality content with more of an image focus. Facebook as a utility, connects us with everything (and everything with us), but what I’m suggesting here is a social magazine which customizes on every aspect from the get-go. Like with Flipboard, this would need to rely on a syndicated network of professional publications who have to buy in to it. You could either have it so it focusses in on one area e.g a number of car publications feeding into one social magazine, a number of mens magazines feeding into one social magazine and so forth. Advertising on these mediums would also be a mix of media and would need to be backed by a coherent revenue model with equivalent and commercially viable price points for this to work properly.

The Personalized Web

The world of digital and E-readers also opens up the potential to launch books in countless creative and innovative ways which don’t involve print or paper (unless it’s on-demand). First the Kindle, and now Kindle FIRE, reading and publishing will never be the same again. The signs were clear with the demise of the giant Borders, and with the shift in the way we consume information and entertainment, there will be a divide amongst readers across platforms and technologies. Not everyone will shift to digital right away, but large proportions of people will learn to get their daily news from the Internet, and it could be from multiple personalized sources which they value and trust. This isn’t to say people will stop reading paper books at all, it’ll mean there will be a divide in terms of those who prefer to read digitally (and down to what sort of content they prefer to read digitally) VS content that they prefer to read in paper.

The Personalized Web

The movement int he book publishing space with Amazon (and Seth Godin’s The Domino Project) is immense. There has never been a better chance for writers to get their word out there than now as the ability to create, deploy and market for writers is easier now than ever before (hence me writing this book).

Also, take a look at what Facebook is doing.? It’s constantly evolving, refining and re-defining it’s algorithm to bring you the most personalized and relevant information to you. Not only that, it’s making you feel like a “celebrity”. The newer features all seem to point to the fact that Facebook is attempting some sort of spin on “reality TV” where you are the star, whether it’s their latest SUBSCRIBE feature (which allows people to effectively SUBSCRIBE to your life) or the TIMELINE feature. The TIMELINE feature is something I predicted over 2 years ago. Facebook is essentially capturing your life day-by-day digitally, and TIMELINE now allows viewers to view their life in a chronological order and published with the dates.

The Personalized Web

Our kids and grand-kids will be able to pin-point an exact day in time (down to the minute, hour and second) and be able to see what exactly what it was we were doing on Facebook and what our “point in life” was. It also allows viewers to see what other people in their network are doing real-time (which photos they are LIKING, who they are commenting on etc). This this breaks down the walls of secrecy and makes the network all that more transparent, but also all that more voyeuristic. But this idea goes beyond that. A personalized system or machine that “knows” things you like, when you like them, and how you like them may sound something out of a sci-fi movie like The Matrix, but I believe that’s essentially where we’re heading with the digital wave

The Personalized Web

In return for people giving away more information for free on the internet, the messages and targeting people get are much MUCH more defined, relevant, contextualized and refined (and real time) with greater transparency (and a more globalized world) .

The psychological effects which the brain has on the internet should also be monitored closely from here on. As advances in technology and innovation happen faster than humans’ ability to deal with them, the study of exactly how computers and social networks are rewiring our brain should have have decent resource allocation.

What is the value of passion?

A lot of what goes on in “Social Media” relies heavily on passion. It’s the key and common driver, and while trust is the absolute currency moving forward, attention is our most scarcest resource. I asked the question a while ago in a blog post on what is the VALUE of passion?

What is the Value of Passion? Google defines value as “the amount (of money or goods or services) that is considered to be a fair equivalent for something else….” and defines passion as “a strong feeling or emotion...”.

We need to automatically equate “value” with something related to money or goods, however, how do we truly value passion? I would envisage in a share market and investor driven world, the word probably has little to no meaning unless it’s backed up by some sort of results. However moving forward, I believe “passion” is integral to how the world is changing and will become a critical factor.

What is the value of passion?

The most exciting brands and products in the market (whether it be Apple or Sony) successfully utilize passion to their benefit, both internally and externally. Anyone Consumer Electronics company create a smartphone, E-reader or state-of-the-art laptop, however, what sets apart the biggest from the most successful apart is passion and design.

Steve Jobs is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our generation. An iconic legend who changed the map of the world forever time and time again with the design and passion of his products. Walter Isaacson’s recent biography paints an illuminating picture of Jobs which truly brings to light how the digital world has really risen and what impact it’s having across countless industries.

What is the value of passion?

His success story is legendary and Jobs himself goes from strength to strength. Put up for adoption at an early age, dropped out of college after 6 months, slept on friends’ floors, returned coke bottles for 5 cent deposits to buy food, then went on to start Apple Computers and Pixar Animation Studios. In one of his famous speeches Jobs clearly says “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love.”

What is the value of passion?

Wikipedia states “Passion can be expressed as a feeling of unusual excitement, enthusiasm or compelling emotion towards a subject, idea, person, or object. A person is said to have a passion for something when they have a strong positive affinity for it. A love for something and a passion for something are very similar feelings”. Keeping this in mind, doesn’t it make sense to chase what you are passionate about in life rather than “doing something for the sake of it”? Once your passion starts showing results you will find people flocking to your doorstep (or blog you back or RT you). For every passionate person who succeeds there are ten who fail. But the one thing they rarely do is give up. And that is how great companies are ultimately built.

What is the value of passion?

Aside from the obvious benefits of online and digital, a large part of the growth of the internet in this social phase is driven by passion (aside from technology advances). As of 2011 there is now 2.1 billion internet users in the world of which 922.2 million are from Asia, 476 million from Europe, 271 million from North America, 215 million from North America and the Caribbean, 118 million from Africa, 68 million from the Middle East, and 21 million from Oceania and Australia.

What is the value of passion?

As of 2011, the average Facebook session lasted 37 minutes and Twitter lasts 23 minutes. More than 400M people are logging into Facebook daily and 350M of those log -in via their smartphones. There are now 225 million Twitter accounts worldwide, 70 million blogs on Wordpress alone, there is 48 hours of video footage uploaded on YouTube daily and 1 trillion video playbacks. There were 14 million Instagram accounts created in 2011 alone with 30 million collective users all together, 60 is the average number of photos uploaded on to Instagram alone per second, 100 billion+ photos on Facebook alone, 51 million registered users on Flickr with 4.5 million photos uploaded every day. The staggering growth of mobile and apps is a whole new arena with now 1.2 billion mobile broadband subscriptions in the world globally.

What is the value of passion?

As the world changes again with the next level of the Digital Age, traditional business models will either evolve or collapse or need to go through a very defining process which, in some way, shape or form takes in to account “passion” as a critical contributing factor for both their customers and consumers as well their employees.

Social Media corrected is Social Karma

Social Media is defined by Wiktionary as “media that is created to be shared freely”. When I think of “Media” I think tons of advertising, SPAM and more junk/noise taking over the medium. This isn’t what the medium is all about, and I think the word “Social Media” itself is misleading in many ways, as it gives the idea that it’s another form of “Media”, and being brutally honest, it’s NOT. Social Karma is the better word. “Karma is a concept in Hinduism which explains causality through a system where beneficial effects are derived from past beneficial actions and harmful effects from past harmful actions, creating a system of actions and reactions throughout a person’s reincarnated lives”

Social Media corrected is Social Karma

Now applying that to Social Media as it currently stands. WHY do people log-in to Facebook? Twitter? When we switch on the Television or the Radio or purchase the latest glossy magazine, we KNOW to expect ads, and it’s something we’ve accepted over time. But in Social Media you’re there to connect freely with people, give gifts, give compliments, share photos (and everything else)… it’s there to create a fully circular motion of Social Karma.

However, with both Facebook and Twitter now actively pursuing the avenue of advertising, it’s made me question the true reasoning behind the medium and whether advertising is the way to go. Granted, if advertising is going to keep it free, then there is no harm in having tons of ads on the side, however how effective are these ads? In general, the ads are basically treating it like the old advertising/marketing medium of “shouting” (1-way) to recruit people in to other various access panels etc OR to simply get your message across. This may work (providing you have a good strong budget, targeted key words and something VERY catchy to get peoples’ attention (remember with the ads down the side of Facebook pages you have a matter of micro-seconds to get peoples’ attention)…

Social Media corrected is Social Karma

…BUT this isn’t really using the spirit of “Social Karma” properly or to its fullest potential. Multi-way dialogues, co-creation, connecting people to brands and brands to people and bringing them closer, bringing PEOPLE closer in general and adding REAL value via conversation is what the medium is about in my view.

A Facebook page which has an on going narrative with a story to tell and constantly involves users of the group is likely to get much more authentic and holistic interaction and results.

Social Media corrected is Social Karma

When you connect with people on a mass-scale going in to the millions, the key is to have a group which connects because of a human emotion, habit, or sentiment which generically “everyone” identifies with (or lovers of a particular brand identifies with) whether it’s funny, uplifting or emotional. The laugh is critical for getting people’s’ attention and identifying with them but for long term interaction and engagement you’ll need a constant narrative to engage people and for them to care.

Social Media corrected is Social Karma

In a lot of my presentations the key question comes up from big corporations and brands about the potential flak they may receive once they step into the social media space. Back in the day, we only had limited means to communicate to a big brand what we thought about them. We could try visit them in one of their outlets and probably get a standardized answer, try telephoning them to get through to someone to leave your feedback or write a letter. The new mediums have enabled conversations at an accelerated, real-time space where conversations have started to take place in the strangest of corners. If people are eating in your restaurant, there is a high chance they may have also checked-in to your Facebook places or Foursquare, left a comment about the venue, taken photos of the food and left their ratings about that too.

Social Media corrected is Social Karma

The consumer now has a voice and a choice on the service they are getting and the product they are buying and have the ability to spread that word, influence their immediate friends and try to connect with the brand itself. In the initial run, there may be a barrage of negative criticism. Some may be relevant, and others may be irrelevant, however, the best thing you can do as a brand is be human, acknowledge the feedback rather than try and hide from it, and see if you can leverage that to make the customer happy. What starts out initially as a negative feedback loop can quickly turn into a positive one depending on how the person interacts with the customer and handles their query. Just like in real-life, in the new media space it’s again all about being transparent and human.

Social Media corrected is Social Karma

I wrote a theory as part of a paper a long time ago which I called The Human Brand Advocacy Model. The core philosophy behind it was “On average a human being can represent more than 100 brands. Some brands they consciously represent (and these are the brands they are likely to “show off” on Social Networks or down the road at the pub) while others are subconsciously represented i.e. bought as a non-emotional notion. Depending on the person’s lifestyle they could represent over 500 brands (if not more)…”

...in a nutshell... ….it’s a conscious realization that, as an individual you represent a number of brands and have the ability to promote them via your Networks (or have it tattoo’d on you) and that as a consumer… ..you have the ability to talk about your favourite brands, promote them and have a say and interact.

Social Media corrected is Social Karma

More and more people are starting to realize that with a little influence and conviction, they are able to connect with the brands. For most people this is about being able to connect with something they really like/love and want a direct connection with (feel special) given they are spending money to buy the product. If negative criticism can go viral quickly, so can enthusiasm and passion toward a brand. And, just like in real life, you can’t please “everybody”, with Social media you at least have an opportunity to make your loyal customers more loyal and try and turn around your disgruntled customers.

Social Media corrected is Social Karma

New networks have started to emergeing which are starting to look into this with a lot more depth. Introducing one of these is Brand Karma. I coined a term called Corporate Spiritualism. What is Corporate Spiritualism? Corporate spiritualism refers to the elements of life that invigorates one’s soul and spirit. Corporate Spiritualism is therefore the activity undertaken through work that restores, invigorates, and satiates the inner self, leaving one with a sense of meaning and purpose in connection with their work... In short, what Karma do certain brands create with their consumers? Brandkarma is looking at brands in a whole new light. How good are their Products? How well do they treat People? How well do they look after the Planet?

Social Media corrected is Social Karma

So what is Brand Karma? BrandkKarma is the world’s first brand-centric social media platform.

It’s designed to bring together important information about how brands behave, so that people can easily evaluate and rate them.

The goal is to make brand owners more accountable to all their stakeholders – Customers, Employees, Suppliers, Investors and the Planet.

You can check out www.brandkarma.com to have a say about the Karma of a brand you’re interested in. This kind of site is just the beginning as people become more conscious and aware of the brands they represent.

Social Media corrected is Social Karma

So what is Brand Karma? BrandkKarma is the world’s first brand-centric social media platform.

It’s designed to bring together important information about how brands behave, so that people can easily evaluate and rate them.

The goal is to make brand owners more accountable to all their stakeholders – Customers, Employees, Suppliers, Investors and the Planet.

You can check out www.brandkarma.com to have a say about the Karma of a brand you’re interested in. This kind of site is just the beginning as people become more conscious and aware of the brands they represent.

Social Media corrected is Social Karma

So what is Brand Karma? BrandkKarma is the world’s first brand-centric social media platform.

It’s designed to bring together important information about how brands behave, so that people can easily evaluate and rate them.

The goal is to make brand owners more accountable to all their stakeholders – Customers, Employees, Suppliers, Investors and the Planet.

You can check out www.brandkarma.com to have a say about the Karma of a brand you’re interested in. This kind of site is just the beginning as people become more conscious and aware of the brands they represent.

Old media versus new media and changes in the Smart TV space, Social Media and the Black Swan theory

"My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves and the quality of their knowledge too seriously and those who don’t have the courage to sometimes say: I don’t know...." Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Old Media VS New Media

By now it’s no secret that old media whether it’s Television, Radio or Newspaper is somewhat struggling and the same impact and results we got in the 70’s 80’s and 90’s is nowhere near what it used to be.

Television ratings have dropped and the live-span of Television serials having the sort of run we saw with say FRIENDS or THE SIMPSONS is now rarely seen at absolute critical mass level (American TV seems to be doing remarkably on this front with still more frequent blockbusters and a thriving Television scene with amazing content with channels like HBO)

The same applies to radio and Newspaper figures have been a sad state of affairs for quite some time. In the meantime, we’ve seen the rise of a new “media” which is Social Media.

Old Media VS New Media

User generated content which isn’t done on a professional scale, works best when it’s amateurish and unpredictable, is made for collaboration and conversation allowing multi-way dialog. The key thing to note with Television or Newspapers was that they were both traditional broadcasting systems which didn’t really rely on user feedback and it’s pre-dominant revenue stream was advertising. People took what News on the TV or the headline in the Newspaper said as being the absolute truth, however, we all know that’s not how the world really works. This, in many ways explains the sudden emergence and super-quick acceptance of Social Media across the board which essentially provides multi points-of-view.

Old Media VS New Media

The ability for people to write their own movie review to sit in the same sphere as a “noted critic”, the ability to create your own viral video ad which competes for attention from the same people who would usually watch an ad created by the actual brand, the ability to read an article, post, or point-of-view by someone else and then being able to explain your views on the same page. The online sphere allows and requires the ultimate form of leadership and the biggest mistake people can make is to underestimate their power.

But before I get in to that, does that mean all is over for “old media”? No, far from it, and as we move forward we’ll see an odd(r)evolution. As Social Media goes mainstream, we may see the likes of Google, YouTube and Apple make their debut on the television scene at an advanced level as well as established players (like Samsung, Sony, Sharp) go "connected".

Old Media VS New Media

The change in dynamics in TV has been due to a number of factors:

1)Peoples’ attention spans are decreasing. With TV, we’re reliant on the medium telling us what time the show will play, and it’ll be littered with adverts which we have no say over. Granted, things like Tivo made an impact whereby people could record TV, pause, fast-forward and rewind, however, the impact from that didn’t last too long. And since then we’ve got a number of imitations coming up.

2)It was only going to be a matter of time before people got sick of TV as it is. With YouTube having over 2 million uploads per day, people are far more interested in watching and creating user-created content, despite the amateur quality though again professional content is making heavy inroads into the social media scene now..

Old Media VS New Media

3)If you really liked a TV series, you could just wait a few weeks and either rent the series off the net, stream it, download it or buy the legit DVD box set. People more and more like to watch what they want, then they want, how they want.

So what are the three changes happening in Connected TV, broadcast and distribution?

Old Media VS New Media

1)On-the-go watching: People watching more and more content via their smartphones and tablet devices like the iPad. In these instances, the items to be viewed are either purchased or rented and these viewers tend to watch the content while they’re “on-the-go”. Services like Hulu, Netflix (US only), Vudu and apps like ShowYou are some of the newer models emerging in this space. Networks like YouTube have also taken the video space seriously, and with over 24 hours of content being uploaded every 60 seconds we’re entering a new era of video abundance where EVERYONE wants to be a star. However, the key trend will be more and more professional content coming to social media. They may not be your Michael Bay style blockbusters, but there may be a rise on web TV series and streaming content, Web Movies and content that is specifically designed for the web.

Old Media VS New Media

2)Social TV apps: Apps like GetGlue (recently acquired by Warner Bros) and Miso (acquired by Yahoo) allow users to interact with their favourite TV show by “checking in” (same mindset as Foursquare except here instead of a location you’re checking in to a TV show, Movie, or book etc). Once checked-in, viewers can leave comments on the show, rate it, do a review, and start interacting with other members who are also either fans of the show or checked in at the same time as you are.

Viewers want to do multiple activities and interact in multiple ways whilst watching TV.

Old Media VS New Media

3)Last is Smart/Connected TV’s. These are creating the biggest buzz right now as LG and Samsung start rolling out their new televisions. These are powered by the internet, and the ability to view exactly what the viewer wants on-demand is what these stations really rely on. Rather than channels which are subscription based, I see a model where viewers sign into a certain channel (comedy channel) and are then able to download (at a reasonable price) any comedy content that he or she wants to watch on-demand. Apple has recently shifted it’s i-Tunes rental model to purchasing and was quoted saying “iTunes in the Cloud lets customers download and watch their past TV purchases from their iOS devices, Apple TV, Mac or PC allowing them to enjoy their programming whenever and however they choose.”

A fusion of professional content, amateur content, social and gaming fused together is what these TV's offer.

Old Media VS New Media

This changes the landscape for consumers, marketers and advertisers alike as it gives connectivity and expands a plethora of data which means smarter marketing and advertising.

Even consoles like PS3 and Xbox have started offering multi-player internet enabled gaming, access to social networks, online shopping and the ability to view content, all via the console.

However now the paradigm is really shifting and Television as it stands, will never be the same again.

Google TV, plans to bring the entire “index” mentality to Television, i.e. you type in what show, movie, or programme you want to watch and BANG it’s there?! PLUS given YouTube is owned by Google, this means you can watch traditional “TV” programmes PLUS anything on YouTube all at the clicks of your fingers?

Old Media VS New Media

This does raise further questions, like “can’t I just hook-up my computer to my large screen TV and watch YouTube on that”?, however the luxury here lies in just being able to type in what you want and BANG - you can watch it live, instantly. However the main point is: “a lot less time finding what you want and a lot more time watching what you want” - no waiting around."

Old Media VS New Media

Google seems to be intent on integration. They’ve already consolidated all of their services whether it be search, Google Play, Google Plus, Gmail, YouTube, analytics, apps and countless others. The ability to store things in the Cloud, and to be able to access them via any device is something I believe, may proliferate and grow further from 2012 onwards.

Whether it’s Google which finally flips the model for Television or Apple or any of the other countless electronic manufacturers from Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, LG, Sharp and many more, it’s evident that it’s now only a matter of time before the lines are blurred between the two. Google’s style indexing coming to TV also means that you control what you watch and there is no waiting around for the shows to come on at designated times (will be interesting to see how Google gets content).

Old Media VS New Media

How will people cope with this choice? Does a little part of us not like NOT having to choose what we have to watch on TV? After all, the people behind TV at the moment do a pretty extensive job at ensuring they are pleasing “everyone”. What will happen in my view is that people will start creating denser versions of their inbound “media” channels. This includes “everything” that an individual may like watching whether it's a movie, TV show or documentary. If someone likes a particular show, they’ll need to subscribe to that particular channel for all previous episodes (and any new and upcoming ones) to be accessed. Individual and customized subscription channels maybe the path they head down. E.g. If I’m a fan of the TV Series Two and a Half Men, I’ll subscribe to it’s channel in my overall “media channel” to be able to access all of it’s previous episodes and also be allowed instant access to new ones as they are released.

Old Media VS New Media

In essence, TV programmes will be individual widgets which you pull in to your own TV reality to create a list of shows, programmes, movies, YouTube videos and any other form of video media.

Countless devices are now entering the market where the key difference is individuals being able to choose only the programmes they want to see, and also have access to the internet (Facebook, YouTube) alongside their favourite TV Channels. How far off are we until viewers are able to rate TV shows LIVE while they’re watching them, leave comments at their favourite parts which all effectively stream live into their Social Networks as well?

The price one gets to pay for such a luxury and such power as a consumer? This is already happening in the reality TV space as people interact with a show more and more while viewing it and get to vote on the winners etc.

Old Media VS New Media

The range, functionality and variety the latest waves of TV offer are simply incredible. Integration and interactivity seem to be the way technology is currently evolving Television. Ubiquity across devices and being able to access your content from one centralized server as you want to watch it is where it’s heading. The opportunities this has for content creators is immense, and one just has to look at the latest changes happening with Google PLAY, Samsung, Sharp, LG, Panasonic, Apple TV and others to get an idea of where this space is heading.

Old Media VS New Media

Subscriptions will be bundled on channels will be a mix of content that range from TV, Movies and many other forms of interactive content not to forget Social Media itself which has become a form of entertainment on it’s own. Pick and choose, split screen, on-demand viewing, will once again proliferate not only change, but also change consumer behaviour. With additions like heavily defined screens, superior quality and enhanced sound, 3D, it comes down to the “experience” now more than anything as the experience of viewing will have a profound shift in coming years with these technological advances. And again, these shifts impact across not only consumer behaviour and technology, but also marketing, advertising and entertainment.

Old Media VS New Media

This also allows room for thriving content as professional content and amateur content fluidly merge into one. In my humble opinion, paves the way for a very exciting future for advertisers and marketers to create content which is interactive, personalized, customized and contextualized with the viewer. Connectivity across all Smart TV’s may well be one of the final tipping points in this digital phase alongside smartphones, smart tablets and cloud storage.

Old Media VS New Media

Newspapers seem to be given a new lease of life with Apple’s new innovation the iPad and the subsequent release of a variety of tablet devices with every consumer electronics manufacturer having their own tablet device with varying points of differences and not to forget the Kindle, Kindle Fire and countless other E-Readers making their way into the space (more on how some might be missing the point a bit later). Countless newspapers have already created an iPhone app and charging varying amounts to access information on their Newspapers. In one example I saw recently, the newspaper publication was using the app to promote to people to buy the print version of the newspaper. The Digital jump for newspapers means that they get to retain a part of their original format in look and feel and be interactive, digital and exciting all at the same time but only if the technology is harnessed properly.

Old Media VS New Media

The smarter publications I have seen allow user comments and feedback, Social sharing, and not to forget the absolute key aspect, some seriously kick-ass design. The future for magazines and newspapers with core readership has never looked brighter in the digital space, but the key here is adapting rather than fully replicating.

Publications are better off adapting faster to the new paradigm, focussing more on user experience, design and technology by jumping on (and getting it right) now rather than later. This can be a scary process and of course always larger for large-scale organizations however nothing is impossible with the right planning around the transition process. Sometimes all it takes is a freelancer who lives in the “new” world and knows the risks rather than relying on the internal team only.

Old Media VS New Media

The shift here won’t be overnight (just like none of these changes so far have been) and those who love to read in their existing and established format whether it’s a newspaper or a magazine will retain their existing methods, however, with each subsequent generation this change, I believe, will be a change-over. The potential for existing publications is immense to retain their core user-base as at this exact point in time, this proliferation of smart devices opens up another avenue of revenue for publishers and future proofs their business for subsequent generations to come. The trick is in getting the right model for that line of business. The experience of reading a magazine (say Playboy) is very different in it’s magazine format than it would be on a HD screen designed for reading.

Old Media VS New Media

For comic books, this is again one of the most exciting times. Comic books are a combination of art-work and story-telling in one of it’s purest forms. The experience of reading a comic book will change, dramatically driven not only by the user-end experience of reading comic books, but also in the way they are designed as dedicated design slates which allow artists and story-tellers to create an interactive experience from the get-go will continue to increase with further advances in technology. The early comic book publishers were a direct translation of the print version, with subsequent releases’ interactive elements, as well as the ability to read and experience a comic by being able to view it pane-by-pane became a hallmark.

Old Media VS New Media

Across Smartphones and smart devices the experience of reading a comic has definetely been increasing. With advances in Smart TV devices, we will start seeing interactive comics bundled up into a channel with comics being available “on-demand”. The more interactive comic books will bring to the screen a whole new experience as readers will be able to experience and interact with all of their favourite comics across a plethora of devices, which again leads me to believe that we may see more comic book to—movie translations, both from the mainstream and independent scene come to the fore.

Old Media VS New Media

The key question is whether the Social Media revolution will create an evolution for these existing channels, or will this just be a temporary fix before the revolution is a take over? I would say the latter to some extent, though in the absolute interim, contrary to what you may think, free-to-air stations are increasing rather than decreasing but with lower price points for TV advertising spots which means that businesses that traditionally didn’t have it in their budgets to advertise via a mainstream channel now probably can. The digital wave, in my view, provides a potentially more holistic channel, but whether people choose it (or choose to ignore it) is yet to be seen, although initial research indicates that digital TV and TV sets are set to increase exponentially over the next 5 years and most new television sets coming out are internet and connectivity enabled than not.

Old Media VS New Media

I speak about the global technology convergence. It was a simple world when Televisions and Newspapers were the pre-dominant form of information and entertainment. It was still a simple world even with the evolution of technology when the iPod just played music, your mobile phone just took calls and had an SMS service, and your computer did a lot of word processing and excel. Moving forward, every device will do everything and it will continue to evolve the way we consume media and entertainment. Rapid innovation means the convergence is taking place faster than ever now, and the future of content (content is after all king) seems to be increasingly focussed on the VOD (video-on-demand) and essentially COD (content-on-demand) model.

Old Media VS New Media

Google TV is already back on the radar despite it’s failure last time. “Schmidt said this adoption of Google TV would occur within five years. That certainly is big talk, but is there anything to back it up?

Google TV is software that places a Web browser on TV sets. With Google TV, owners are supposed to be enabled to access all manner of online video.

But that’s not how it’s worked out. One of the software’s biggest drawbacks has been the lack of content available on the software. All four of the major TV networks (US) have refused to allow Google TV access to their Web content. Schmidt said that Google continues to try to convince them to change their minds”.

Again with Google and YouTube both falling under the same banner (as well as the power of search meaning Google probably already knows a lot of your taste in TV, movies and music) and not to forget Google’s algorithm which essentially means you type into the “search box” what you want to watch and voila - there it is.

Old Media VS New Media

Will it be that easy to make it work especially if Google isn’t able to access content? With Google focussing on taking YouTube to the next level, the real winner for Google may lie in allowing artists create more and more professional content on YouTube, which then itself becomes a channel (with fragmented sub-channels) on every Smart TV. As I pointed out above, the latest changes with Google PLAY means that they have evolved into one integrated area where people can access all their favourite content (TV Shows, Books etc) from one centralized area and this is the model that a lot of web driven tech companies coming into the TV space will pursue. Companies like LG, Samsung, Sharp, Panasonic etc seem to include a mix of free-to-air, on demand content and subscription based niche-channel content as well as web driven content.

Apple on the other hand has dumped rental and seems to have one of the best shots at making huge inroads into the Web TV space (this is no surprise). By allowing users to directly purchase TV series, Music, Movies (and hopefully an “indie” scene for each one) and being able to cover off all devices and core forms of media the potential is huge here.

Old Media VS New Media

Fast Company reports here: “There’s some evidence the TV networks themselves were uneasy with the $0.99 rental price but are happier with the $1.99 purchase price (implying users weren’t watching many shows more than once – resulting in lower than expected revenues). But really this is all about the cloud, and how Apple’s future in content providing will play out. The company just updated its Apple TV code so that you can stream purchased TV content directly from Apple’s server farms instead of having to download a show you’ve bought recently on your PC to your iPhone –, it frees up your storage space and lets you avoid having iTunes constantly open on your home PC”.

Old Media VS New Media

SBS and consoles like the Xbox are already making inroads into similar areas.

Piracy has been an issue for a long time, however, with these legitimate changes happening in technology, one may finally see a convergence of a solution which may potentially reduce this problem rather than proliferate it finally. Customized, personalized and contextualized subscription channels across a variety of channels independent and digital as well as mainstream, right down to a granular level will give viewers the ability to watch what they want at designated price points.

Old Media VS New Media

I think, that at the “right price” consumers would be more likely to pay for content they genuinely want to see, rather than download for free illegally. The experience of a “big” film like INCEPTION or a SFX driven blockbuster, or a multi-cast epic is always going to be for the cinema first, but the long-tail end means there are consumers willing to pay for all sorts of content at a number of varying price points rather than one “standard” price or “fixed model” which it has essentially been for so long. There are two ways to look at a faster internet system and both have their advantages. Faster broadband means quicker access to content, and also more ability to create things from a technical programming perspective as far as creation on the web is concerned,. Faster Wifi on the other hand, means more connectivity “on-the-go” for consumption of content goes. Where will people watch more content in the future? In the comfort of their own home or elsewhere? And what device will people watch more content on in the future? Key understanding of these two precise questions becomes absolutely crucial. The experience of viewing something on a smartphone is very different to watching a full length feature film on a big screen. The type of content viewed across devices will also vary from device to device.

Old Media VS New Media

If people want to watch the content (of any kind) at a lower price point, you’ve still got the “attention”, the revenue probably lies elsewhere. And a large part of the growth on the internet in the last year has been driven by video creativity due to the acceleration in device+increased rate of adoption+convergence as well as the rise of videos via social networks. We’re heading towards the proliferation of the screen where every device - whether it be desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablets or essentially TV’s (and we’ll see more smart devices coming out) will want to do everything from play movies, TV series, music, gaming, be able to socially connect with other people, share, co-create and collaborate in one. The days of the iPod JUST playing music, and the smartphone JUST taking SMS’s and phone calls are over. And all of this has an impact on data.

The exciting part will be in the explosion of creativity as we see more independent content with professional make-over come to the screen.

"Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy" - Tim O’Reilly

Social Media and the Black Swan theory

The BLACK SWAN theory was invented by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. To explain:

1)     The disproportionate role of high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, and technology, and

2) The psychological biases that make people individually and collectively blind to uncertainty and unaware of the role of the rare event.

Social Media and the Black Swan theory

Adam Sefton on his blog, put up a wonderful set of thoughts around this where he used an example of an individual who is able to capture and publish a photograph as of an plane crash and it’s survivor victim long before the mainstream media got there simply because the person had an iPhone and Twitter account. As Sefton deftly points out “You as an individual with your camera phone are relevant only until the mainstream media gets to the event, so to stay relevant, you need to be able to act quickly. And of course, this is what digital lets us do - write, photograph, publish and broadcast quickly”

This notion indicates to me that Social Media can CREATE “black swans” and I do agree with this to some extent.

Social Media and the Black Swan theory

As Godin pointed out deftly in one of his blog posts “And email is not a faster fax. And online project management is not a bigger whiteboard. And Facebook is not an electronic rolodex. Play a new game, not the older game but faster.”

What Social Networks and “Web 2.0” has allowed us to do is capture, print, publish and distribute quickly to the entire world and then analyse reach and aggregate results. With this shift of power and change in the paradigm, this indeed allows more control to an individual to beat the mainstream media at their game (until journalists completely change the way part of what they do work). Someone who happens to be in the right place at the right time, with hands on access to Twitter can get out real-time, LIVE news much faster than the traditional big channels.

Social Media and the Black Swan theory

We already know that people trust peer-to-peer recommendations and news more than they trust other channels. What this potentially means is that the face of consumer journalism may change for ever.

However, I would argue that the “Black swans” created by Social Media have a very short shelf-life hence doesn’t fit the complete bill and some of the events don’t have “major impact”.

I would use the infamous example of Sydney’s CHK CHK BOOM girl Clare Werbeloff who shot to “Online stardom” after a false eyewitness account and statement to the Media that she saw a shoot-out at Sydney’s infamous Kings Cross. Despite Facebook pages with over 13,000 people and countless marketing tactics including T-shirts and Mugs with CHK CHK BOOM written on it, her “shelf-life” wasn’t very long, mainly because her contribution wasn’t anything to remember. Granted, she shot to fame in the Online space and generated a lot of conversation online, but it didn’t eventuate into anything great. These kinds of “black swans” are “mini swans” as they’ll come and go without much impact, but generate a lot of conversations for a short period of time.

Social Media and the Black Swan theory

Another key example is the Macquarie Bank worker who got caught on National Television looking at naked photos of Miranda Kerr in the background or New Zealands overnight NEK MINNIT sensation. Again in these instances, it generated large volumes of conversation for a few weeks and months, however, it was erased from the public memory fast though did leave a cultural mark in some cases. The other thing to note is that all instances have been accused of potentially being staged. Media blog Mumbrella has suggested that Werbeloff was part of a niche advertising campaign for Toohey's Extra Dry 6 Beers Of Separation campaign while the Miranda Kerr pictures being looked at was actually staged by Macquarie Bank itself. We will continue to see these sorts of “mini swans” come and go in short spans of time over the next few years. However, will people remember a lot of these mini Social Media “black swans”? I suspect not! They will come in quicker succession, some parts of them will remain in our memory, but their impact may be diluted over a period of time for the most. The ones with genuine talent, though, I believe will go onto become bigger successes.

Social Media and the Black Swan theory

Another potential example is the Old Spice campaign, however, the key difference here is that this is an intentional campaign, and rather than not having any form of follow-up, the creatives behind this campaign have completed a full circle of Social Karma whereby they reply back to people individually via video postings. When you consider that some of the videos have over 14 million views, this has to be one of the most successful (and random) campaigns to hit the marquee this year. Again though, the key question is how long will it stay in the viewers’ minds, and how does it directly affect their ROI?

The other (and more interesting) case is that Social Media itself is THE Black Swan. This is something I believe is the real game-changer. A hard-to-predict rare event which very quickly transforms the way we and the world works and operates and also leaving an impact so severe that things will never be the same again. Social Media as an event, is both a surprise (especially given the type of growth it has had) and the event has had major impact in every sphere of your reality whether it’s your personal life professional life.

Social Media and the Black Swan theory

In 2007, many people labelled “Social Media” at the next “fad” which will grow out with time. I thoroughly reject that notion, and while “media” (as I’ve argued earlier) isn’t the right word for it, the notion of people co-creating, collaborating, sharing and moving forward, personalizing the internet will only grow more. As with all Black Swan events, we’re now trying to “rationalize” Social Media by trying to put it into various slots with varying degrees of success, however, this realm and space moves so fast that, by the time we’ve created a new “slot” to put it into, everything changes again. I believe this kind of rapid change and pace in technology and consumer behaviour hasn’t happened anywhere else before in history.

Microsoft and even the likes of ICQ and Netscape Navigator etc in their early days harnessed the power of conversation by allowing users to connect and share files. This was on a low-key basis but the seeds of thoughts (and popularity) for it werewas evident. Cut to a few years down the track, seemingly overnight, a few University students had created an internal networking system for a college, however NO ONE saw the eventual impact of Facebook to the point where it would be integrated into the very Social fabric of our day-to-day lives and also have significant control over online conversations happening about brands, products and businesses.

Social Media and the Black Swan theory

We never thought Facebook, LinkedIN, Twitter, Skype, and anything where you essentially use an app on your smart device etc would have such a rapid growth with the older generation such as it has. We never thought the masses would have the power to directly overpower a brand, and in short, we never quite saw, or correctly predicted (and no one can as Social Media is a Black Swan in it’s truest sense) the impact Facebook would have on day-to-day life. AND once again, regardless of how we try and rationalize it now, it’s a change, which, for the most part, no one saw coming nor could anyone have predicted the path it’s going to take moving forward. Both Facebook and Twitter have had profound effects on our consumer journey as well as individual journey as technology adoption and consumption on a conscious or subconscious level changes behaviours. A lot of these networks are now over 5 years and as I stated earlier the Internet itself is a full blown adult at 21 years old which means the graph of the net has also changed significantly.

Moving forward, if you don’t allow people to talk about your brand, you won’t exist.

Social Media and the Black Swan theory

The event of the iPad 2 being brought forward a year ahead of time may also be categorized as another black swan moment. again, this was an event that no one saw coming, which will potentially change the world in regards to how we consume gaming, information and entertainment. It also benchmarks other tablets to come and we’ll try to rationalize it as “we all saw that coming” (racing ahead of all competitors). However, even that’s a phrase you’ll hear less and less of, as events will happen a lot faster which no one will have a chance to see coming.

Social Media and the Black Swan theory

Taleb has been shown to have a rather cynical attitude towards “knowledge”. His key argument is that, when we focus only on knowledge, things that are “known” rather than saying “I don’t know” that we’re being egotistical. The chances of “knowing” all the variables are literally 0% and sometimes, we’re better off asking “what DON’T we know” rather than “what DO we know”. Applying that to the digital world, I strongly believe that sometimes it’s not about studying the past to retrieve trends that reflect the future, but asking ourselves “what DON’T we know”? Whether it’s the next guy creating CHATROULETTE or http://pleaserobme.com/, we just don’t know. The Online arena is an open field where the only thing that has no limits is creativity, innovation and imagination but it also comes with a new set of dangers and risks as well as raises the on-going question of privacy but more on that later.

What is Yourality Online and how does it affect you? Do you control your own media?

“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination”-John Lennon

What is Yourality Online and how does it affect you? Do you control your own media?

Who do you expect will tell you when the world changes? What if the change is so significant that the rules aren’t defined clearly? What if there is no one to tell you what the changes are and how they impact yourality? What if your create your own rules and your own map and all the tools for you to do this (and make an impact for a consistent period) was all on the internet for free?

The first question I ask people is “what happens when you Google your name”? Do you have an online presence? I’d recommend you do just that to see where you’re placed and what your “online presence” looks like (heck, Google your friends or the people you work with and see what theirs look like?).

Whether one accepts this or not, your digital presence (in a business context) and image now does, in fact affect your reality and it’s absolutely critical in this time of change and uncertainty, and preferable that you have a digital presence (and a great one at that) than to have none at all.

it doesn’t have to be at all complex. As Albert Einstein perfectly put it “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction” and the key to creating a successful Online reality lies in the art of keeping things simple, yet real authentic.

What is Yourality Online and how does it affect you? Do you control your own media?

As I’ve mentioned, Social Media is fuelled by passion. Regardless of what you do in your “full time” job, you have the ability now to reach out, connect, create, and leave an impact in an area which you either love or feel you’re able to “lead in”. This can be something very simple like starting a cooking or a car blog, sharing YouTube videos, taking and uploading pictures of things. However, that’s the “basic” level which anyone can do.

However if you’re REALLY and TRULY passionate about something, why not blur the lines and use the appropriate media channels to REALLY act like a thought-leader in that space? If you’re passionate about Vegetarian cooking, why not purchase a domain like “Katesculinarycorner.com” and start a “blog-site” (I believe that static 1-way “Websites” might become somewhat redundant in the future and what I refer to as “blog-sites” or blogozines or Social driven sites or Social Magazines) will become the way of the future.

Back to www.katesculinarycorner.com, once the domain is purchased, start taking photos of when you’re cooking your next spectacular recipe and keeping those aside, maybe even take a quick, few second video to upload to YouTube. Then when you sit down to write your post about your “Eggplant Extravaganza” you’re able to write the recipe, do a food review, share pictures of the various stages of cooking AND easily embed the YouTube video of what the final meal looks like as well.

What is Yourality Online and how does it affect you? Do you control your own media?

Then share it! Whether it’s via your Facebook or your Twitter or any other channel, share what you’ve created with others. And share it because you WANT to, NOT because you’re wanting “something” back in return (though it becomes easier to include a business model into your proceedings, especially when you’re genuine and honest in your approach). Over time (weeks or months), people who are interested in what you have to say will naturally start either contacting you or following you. It’ll happen when you least expect it, however, the key mistake that almost everyone I know who enters this space makes, is they completely disregard two things -; time and consistency.

Ultimately, what you’re after here is peoples’ attention and you’ll only capture that in the long-term with authenticity and trust. If people see you as’re authentic and trust-worthy they’ll continue to not only read and look at what you have to share, but they will also share it with others. Over time, this could lead onto discussion where you connect with like-minded people and who knows? I guess I would ask the question -, what would be the worth of say “The Number One Vegetarian cooking blog in Australia or Mumbai”? Keep it simple AND you don’t need to spend 100’s of hours on it as seems to be the pre-conceived notion by a lot of people.

What is Yourality Online and how does it affect you? Do you control your own media?

For existing businesses no matter how large or small, this opens up a world of opportunities as far as trying creative ways to engage with your customers and brands and make their “experience” all the more enhanced. Social Media in it’s current form is about integrating into your existing marketing mix and still telling an engaging, authentic story with a proper narrative across a period of time. What stops people? Fear!

For individuals, the time to cultivate their passion across a range of mediums has never been more exciting. The ability to create a portfolio of photographs and spread a story, the ability to create and edit a series of videos, the ability to write and publish a series of stories (or whatever it maybe) has never been easier than it is now.

“The resistance leads people to make suggestions that slow you down, suggestions that water down your idea, suggestions that lead to compromises”- Seth Godin.

What is Yourality Online and how does it affect you? Do you control your own media?

For existing businesses no matter how large or small, this opens up a world of opportunities as far as trying creative ways to engage with your customers and brands and make their “experience” all the more enhanced. Social Media in it’s current form is about integrating into your existing marketing mix and still telling an engaging, authentic story with a proper narrative across a period of time. What stops people? Fear!

For individuals, the time to cultivate their passion across a range of mediums has never been more exciting. The ability to create a portfolio of photographs and spread a story, the ability to create and edit a series of videos, the ability to write and publish a series of stories (or whatever it maybe) has never been easier than it is now.

“The resistance leads people to make suggestions that slow you down, suggestions that water down your idea, suggestions that lead to compromises”- Seth Godin.

Are you your own media?

The first time I made this statement was about a year ago, and it was in relation to Indian Superstar Amitabh Bachchan. (In my view Amitabh Bachchan is the biggest Superstar the world has ever seen in any cinematic arena...due to his sheer Boxoffice record, cultural impact and significance and stardom in his prime…Google him)

A few years back the Indian Media turned against Bachchan, numerous comments were thrown around by the media which weren’t factual, and even his own statements were presented in a fabricated manner which wasn’t entirely true. Bachchan has always been the man of the masses, a person for the people. It wasn’t the first time the Media had turned against him, nor was it the first time that incredibly stupid statements were thrown around to drag his reputation through the mud.

What did the megastar do to reconnect with his core audience - the masses, to ensure that they’re hearing his version of the story as accurately as possible? Start his own blog of course!

What happens next? Well firstly Bachchan is quite easily the most prolific and Social Media savvy blogger in Indian Cinema today (not bad for a 69 year-old). The comments on the blog range from a few hundred (absolute minimum) to a few thousand daily.

Are you your own media?

Secondly, the media itself quite often has to refer to Bachchan’s blog and the figures Bachchan revealed in 2008 were mind-blowing to say the least (and one can only imagine what they are like in 2012). Any news, rumous and scandals revealed by other Media is instantly cleared up on his own blog in his own words… which source are people likely to believe now?

Even the biggest of news, Bachchan now reveals to the media himself via his blog.

Not only that, Bachchan’s discipline (like other parts of his life) is simply incredible, and as a friend of mine Sharmila, mentioned in a piece she wrote earlier, "Mr Bachchan has a keen eye. He makes it a point to answer questions which he regards to be pertinent and graciously acknowledges appreciative comments as well as addresses criticism".

From a communications and PR perspective, Social Media has always been a phenomenal tool for celebrities because it allows a level of authenticity and clarity to rumours in some cases.

Are you your own media?

Wait a minute, did I read that right? Established media now gets information FROM Amitabh’s blog, then recreates the story for their own site/show from those facts? ABSOLUTELY CORRECT! Folks, as I repeatedly say every day, the world has changed, the old rules do NOT apply anymore, and the Digital Revolution has given the common man (not only Superstars), the ability to share their thoughts, voice their opinions, engage with like-minded people, and harness your own PR.

Ofcourse he still continues to give interviews to the Media itself as well, but this goes to show that your online presence matters. This trend also proves true for a number of celebrities and elsewhere as more and more Social Media stories makes headlines across mainstream media and vice versa. Mainstream media is currently looked at as a form of validation and verification for stories that happen on the internet, and the internet itself is a dissection of stories that happen in the mainstream media.

Are you your own media?

Think about these traditional mediums for a second like Television, Radio, Newspaper, Magazines for a minute in relation now to brands, companies, products and services. As the end user, we’ve always had to listen, watch and read what “so-called” experts have wanted to show us. These mediums are for the big boys, and the chances of being a director, writer or radio presenter wasn’t for everyone, e…however, in today’s day and age it IS possible! Before, you might have been an accountant all your life but your hidden passion has always been becoming a movie director… a dream that would probably end up being just that.

Do you own a digital video camera? You’re already a “movie director” of sorts who has the power and freedom to create an ad, a clip, a jingle or even a full length movie AND market it yourself to get it to an audience via YouTube.

Do you own a digital camera? Do you have your own blog? Do you have a Twitter account? Do you have a Skype account? Business models started online now operate on youron your passion. Companies which were built in the 20th century and those in the 21st century will have a remarkably different mantra, ethos and manner -of -operating which will become more apparent as time goes on.

Are you your own media?

Think about these traditional mediums for a second like Television, Radio, Newspaper, Magazines for a minute in relation now to brands, companies, products and services. As the end user, we’ve always had to listen, watch and read what “so-called” experts have wanted to show us. These mediums are for the big boys, and the chances of being a director, writer or radio presenter wasn’t for everyone, e…however, in today’s day and age it IS possible! Before, you might have been an accountant all your life but your hidden passion has always been becoming a movie director… a dream that would probably end up being just that.

Do you own a digital video camera? You’re already a “movie director” of sorts who has the power and freedom to create an ad, a clip, a jingle or even a full length movie AND market it yourself to get it to an audience via YouTube.

Do you own a digital camera? Do you have your own blog? Do you have a Twitter account? Do you have a Skype account? Business models started online now operate on youron your passion. Companies which were built in the 20th century and those in the 21st century will have a remarkably different mantra, ethos and manner -of -operating which will become more apparent as time goes on.

GPS and Location

"With great power comes great responsibility"-Spiderman

GPS and Location

Location based networks are gaining more and more traction and moving forward these will certainly come under the spot light (along with privacy) a lot more. Essentially every smartphone or smart device has GPS enabled in it so this isn’t going away anytime soon, though the nature of how it’s used may certainly change and evolve with time as will the benefit for the user

Foursquare is a location based networking site/app which allows you to share your location with friends. So, when you walk into a bar or restaurant or mall, you "check-in" (Foursquare's term) on your cellphone or mobile device, and your friends will see where you are on a Foursquare map. Foursquare is also a Social Game in many ways, as you can earn points and "badges" for checking-in frequently, or at a certain time. If you raise enough points you become "mayor" of a certain area. Apart from just that, it also allows users to leave comments behind about the particular location they’ve been to for others users to look at.

GPS and Location

I visited a particular bakery (for this story we’ll call it Betty’s Bakery) and I liked something which I purchased there, I could leave a comment along the lines of “the chocolate croissants are absolutely killer” and that comment is visible to the next person who “checks-in” to Betty’s Bakery at Foursquare. Foursquare also lets you see who is tweeting around your area as well as fusing your Tweets with your location “check-ins”.

The biggest pitfall with Foursquare was the constant privacy scares. Firstly the website pleaserobme.com which effectively took peoples’ Foursquare check-ins and tweets and posted them on this particular site with a different twist. The maker of pleaserobme.com had a simple message to deliver, that effectively each time you “check-in” to a place, you’re telling the world you’re not at home. The tagline itself was scary (and cheeky) “Showing you a list of all those empty homes out there”. As the site clearly states “The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you're definitely not... home.

GPS and Location

So here we are; on one side we're leaving the lights on when we're going on a holiday, and on the other we're telling everybody on the internet we're not home. It gets even worse if you have "friends" who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address..... on the internet..... Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That's right, slap them across the face.

The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare.

Because alll this site is, is a dressed up Twitter search page. Everybody can get this information.”

Eventually pleaserobme.com was recognized by the government and since then the site has closed down. However initial scares like this were detrimental to the location and GPS space.

GPS and Location

One of the earlier networks had the concept.. Dopplr is a free social networking service, launched in 2007, that allows users to create itineraries of their travel plans and spot correlations with their contacts’ travel plans in order to arrange meetings at any point on their journey as well as find and share unique tips from other travellers.

Shopkick is another interesting concept again. This one is an application that detects when you walk into a store. For the time being, Best Buy offers you rewards on entry. The signal for the app cannot cross the retailer’s walls, hence eliminating all potential for fraudulent checkins. The app also goes deeper in its reward system, offering “Kickbucks” which people can then redeem for real-life prizes like gift cards and music.

As the site clearly states “Love shopping? Don't love shopping? Ok, then we have something for both of you. We thought that shopping in the offline world can be done much better than it’s been done for so many years. Why does no one reward you for visiting their stores, only for buying something? Why does nobody make shopping more individual and give you offers that matter to you? Why is there no fun social sharing and other stuff when you go to your favorite store? And where are offers that really matter to you, especially if you don’t read the Sunday paper?

GPS and Location

So… what if you could flip on a switch and turn offline stores into interactive worlds, using your smart phone? That’s ShopKkick. We founded ShopKick in the summer of 2009. Many of us have been creating mobile apps, mobile companies and e-commerce companies before, or worked at internet companies (CBS Mobile, Loopt, 12snap, GoldPocket Wireless, CommerceFlow, Rojo, Google, TellMe/Microsoft, LindenLab etc.). All of us believe that shopping can be a much better experience than it is today. So we came together to improve shopping for you in the physical world.....”

Future Check-in on the other hand is an app that allows you to check-in to your favorite Foursquare venues automatically when you’re near them. You don’t have to do a thing besides simply have your phone on you and this app will check you in while running in the background.

GPS and Location

Lastly, Facebook now has location based service as well and they’ve kept similar options to Foursquare with their “check-in” mentality. The key thing to note with all of these is that they are “interruption” based and often there is no logical order or sequence to the “check-ins”. Like Social Media itself which is permission based, location and GPS networking sites need to harness the potential of being permission based. Shops and shop owners need to understand and realize the potential and potential benefits of being a regular at a particular shop and have an actual incentive to check-in. Twitter has also introduced geo-location based tweets and it may just be a matter of time until we see tweets merged with geo-location “check-ins”. As Mashable recently said “The part of the equation that could help both Google and Facebook (with the help of their Microsoft partnership) change the geosocial game is the use of content-rich maps. Google had the right idea with Latitude, although it was certainly ahead of its time. Maps are an important part of the war and will be a key weapon in the arsenal of whichever geosocial model comes out on top.” With this, the location and GPS world is lawless to a large extent right now and will no doubt continue to evolve.” (And 3D maps are around the corner)

GPS and Location

The more I think about it now, it seems like we’ve overlooked a huge opportunity with location and GPS. Again using Betty’s Bakery as an example, being part of a location based networking site, I should have to register and ask Betty’s Bakery permission to be a regular “check-iner” into their virtual store. The model could be, that after a certain number of check-ins the shop offers me a discount, or something special in return for my loyalty. If I tweet about the service or product to my followers, I’ll then receive further rewards. In essence, shops need to leverage the medium, build a permission based network of advocates and then leverage them to do their own consumer based viral marketing.

On the common scares and misconceptions about location based networks, a lot of what people are potentially scared of is nothing more than myths and rumors. A common misconception is that, by using geo-location services such as Foursquare, your every movement will be tracked, recorded and publically available to the world.

GPS and Location

That's not necessarily true. Foursquare, for example, only shares your location when you proactively decide to check in to tell the service you're at a particular place. Even when you check in, you have the choice each time to share your particular location or to check in "off the grid” which a lot of people tend to overlook. Rather than believing hype, I would recommend that people try the service for themselves and make up their own minds.

And you’re probably thinking “there’s no reason for me to use a geo-location based networking service... there’s no benefits for me”?

GPS and Location

Sharing your location to your friends may seem inane, but then again so did sending 140-character messages when Twitter first launched, or updating your “status” on Facebook when it first came out.

Location-based services are more than just a way to say where you are. Discounts and free sample offers are popular. Clothing retailer Gap, for example, offered Foursquare users 25 percent off if they checked into the store's location. Ann Taylor offered a similar deal, too: 25 percent off for Foursquare mayors (users with the most check-ins to that venue in the last 60 days) and 15 percent off to each customer after their fifth check-in.

However, location may just be a part of your Web 3.0 Social eco-system.

The arguments against GPS and location based services and how they are dying out have been immense. I’ve always said on some level, the value is missing with just a “badge” virtual currency system.

GPS and Location

However auto deals much like how Shazam works with music (it automatically picks up the song via waves and brings it up on your screen) is where we might be heading with GPS and location. Mo-cal (mobile and local) GPS whereby if you’re walking past a particular store, it might bring up a special, at that exact point-in-time with a lucrative sale which wouldn’t exist otherwise. Retail stores have been having a tough time for a while with advances in the E-tailing sector.

More and more people are going into the store to look at items, then compare them online, either when they get home, or sometimes while they are in the store. One of my friends, Lakun, suggested that perhaps in the long-run retail assistants may start charging for their consultancy time while in the store, rather than based on sales which is one model that could work to an extent tough sustainability and scalability would have to be worked out. On the other hand, with real-time, GPS enabled sales (specially with longer opening hours) stores that offer lucrative sales to people as they are in the vicinity, may prove to be a winner for bricks and mortar retail store as far as having an competitive edge goes. This area is one of the fastest evolving sectors with the advances in technology, and a combination of solutions will provide the right answer.

GPS and Location

GPS and location may be part of the integrated eco-system in the long-run as a large number of your apps utilized on your smart device use GPS. Whether it remains an active function or becomes something which is seamlessly integrated into the background, remains to be seen.

Social Gaming, Social Movements, the explosion of data

“Games give us something to do when there is nothing to do. We thus call games “pastimes” and regard them as trifling fillers of their interstices of our lives. But they are much more important than that. They are clues to the future. And their serious cultivation now is perhaps our only salvation”- Bernard Suits

Gaming and Social Gaming

It's a curious fact that, although videogames are now the world's largest entertainment industry in financial terms, they are rarely reviewed in mainstream media. The concept that a video game is effectively something that causes our kids to become more violent, less sociable, are pointless, mindless, purposeless, has quickly turned out to be a huge myth. The mere concept that video games are ONLY Sega Master Systems with Alex the Kidd and Sonic the Hedgehog and Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong played by young teen males, has been turned completely on it’s head. The Video game industry is now worth $40 billion a year and rising rapidly and, in one form or another, occupiesy thousands of hours of our children’s time. Actually, as Tom Chatfield points out in his brilliant book FUN INC, it’s not just children. The average American player is 35, has been at it for 12 years, and 40% of them are women.

Gaming and Social Gaming

It's a curious fact that, although videogames are now the world's largest entertainment industry in financial terms, they are rarely reviewed in mainstream media. The concept that a video game is effectively something that causes our kids to become more violent, less sociable, are pointless, mindless, purposeless, has quickly turned out to be a huge myth. The mere concept that video games are ONLY Sega Master Systems with Alex the Kidd and Sonic the Hedgehog and Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong played by young teen males, has been turned completely on it’s head. The Video game industry is now worth $40 billion a year and rising rapidly and, in one form or another, occupies thousands of hours of our children’s time. Actually, as Tom Chatfield points out in his brilliant book FUN INC, it’s not just children. The average American player is 35, has been at it for 12 years, and 40% are women.

Gaming and Social Gaming

The global investment into video games is 3 billion hours of weekly game playing with 5.93 million years of it to date being invested into The World of Warcraft alone. Gaming now and moving forward is Serious Business. New gaming experiences and Casual gaming & Social Gaming has, in effect changed the gamer demographic forever and thrown it into the mainstream.

Gaming and Social Gaming

By now, people who, like Chatfield himself, grew up playing SuperMario are having second-generation gamer children. Plus, Wii Fit and other 'respectable' titles are bringing games to the mainstream. Contrary to the mass media's depiction of games as isolating experiences, Chatfield has always experienced them as social; even before the complex guilds required to succeed at World of Warcraft, text-only puzzle games like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy were sufficiently complicated as to require strategy discussion with equally frustrated friends. Yes, titles like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat from the early days, have evolved into more violent video games like Grand Theft Auto, however, Video Games (or Gaming precisely) isn’t just limited to these types of games. In fact, the most popular games right from the start, have been ones which requires a high level of skill and intellect from the viewer to create or solve a problem or issue, which is a reflection of real life, which we can see right from the early days of SIM CITY.

Gaming and Social Gaming

The new evolution in gaming refers to, in particular Social Network Gaming. Social Games in general aren’t new – they’re just games you play with other people and have been around for over 5000 years. Whether it’s the ancient Gladiator Games, Chess (originally thought of as an abstraction of military conflict, used to teach military strategy to generals, however over the years grew dramatically in popularity as a game of skill and strategy), Dungeons and Dragons (one of the first games which played around with abstracting tactical combat along with storytelling and a unique social aspect, in which individual players used their imagination and creativity to contribute to the ongoing game) , the intellectual SIM CITY type games to the RPG games... .Social Games have been around for a long time, however the explosion in Social Networking has evolved into a new type of game which is the Social Networking Games. These games effectively aren’t your million dollar investments with state-of-the-art CGI and SFX, high levels of visual art-work and total freedom over control and play. So what are they?

Gaming and Social Gaming

The current social network game market is the result of several big trends: social gameplay, along with asynchronous play patterns and a virtual-goods business model that has been shaped by market forces. We’re only at the beginning of seeing how far we can take the genre. It’s my belief that the next wave of games will draw upon many of the elements we’ve seen work in the past: great storytelling, challenging decision-making and a sense of tribal belongingness that surrounds popular games.

To keep it simple, Social Network Games are games which effectively allow you to play a simple, tactical based game against other members of your Social Network. The best examples of these are the likes of Mafia Wars and Farmville which have been catapulted to another level of popularity.

Gaming and Social Gaming

Farmville has 90 million players and growing, and 1 in 75 people globally are playing it daily. These games are very very simple (simplicity is key) in design, allow viewers to be engaged and unengaged as they choose and to start off at the point where they last left off, but also to play either with or against other players within their own Social Networks. The ability to have a gaming experience which is completely customized and interactive is becoming dramatically popular. Users want to play a game where they’re actively engaged and the actual experience of the game is personalized to the individual involving their social networks in some ways.

Gaming and Social Gaming

Where previous games were made in mind with the “blockbuster” model (whether it’s movies, music or books, essentially the “blockbuster” model has been the same for all of these industries) the new mantra is multiple revenue streams to monetize games. Virtual currency within these communities is a huge thing, and items which reflect value in the virtual world is, in fact, being bought with currency with real money from the non-virtual world. Users are understanding and realizing the power and potential of gaming as a beneficial and healthy exercise rather than something harmful. Games today are universal, fun, intellectual, interactive, build relationships and help people in real life.

Gaming and Social Gaming

Where previously games were looked at as “anti-social”, one would be hard-pressed to call an active World of Warcraft player who has the ability to connect, co-ordinate and collaborate on a mass scale, as well as being incredibly organized towards one common goal to be something, to be “anti-social”. Gamers in fact, understand the art of collaboration better than most non-gamers. It’s certainly a pity that “gaming experience” doesn’t feature in peoples resume, as one could get a fairly good indication, based on someone’s gaming experience and what types of games they play, as to what sort of individual they are with what sort of skill set.

Gaming and Social Gaming

Social Gaming can also help build a strong sense of community culture and communities, which, in essence is stronger than the culture within a Social Network. X-Box has the right concept, with an in-built calendar which offers game nights for specific audiences as well as hosting games nights where you can play against celebrities and musicians. Gamers are passionate and pro-active to then blog about their gaming experience via their other social networks and blogs. There is no tighter community out there in the world right now than the gaming community itself and anyone who has anything to do with “engagement in communities” should quickly understand gaming culture and how it impacts on social networking. To take this one step further, a brand could potentially build a super tightly -knit community around a Social Network Game to really engage people.

Gaming and Social Gaming

One of the key drivers behind the gaming revolution is customization. Users want the ability to influence and create their own story-line. Small things like creating your own characters, environment, avatars and naming them may sound like something simple, but psychologically these small things are essentially the driving force behind the revolution. www.Kongregate.com is essentially becoming the YouTube of gaming. The concept behind this is simple, users upload games they have created. Users and members of the community then rate and rank and give feedback. If the game gets more than 3 stars it will feature on the list of games to see. Further to that, a weekly or monthly cash prize will go to the best game as decided by the community. Essentially, Kongregate functions as a Social Network with in-game chat features, profiles, and real time user rankings. And finally there’s also a built-in rewards system which rewards users with points for reviewing games and referring friends. This model in particular is quite lethal as it allows games to be co-created and again flips the power of design to the users much in context with the core rationale of “Web 2.0”.

Gaming and Social Gaming

We will start to see more OpenID games where a simple “CONNECT WITH FACEBOOK” will allow the user to log -in to a game with their Facebook account. The beauty of these games is that it enables these games to go viral as users have the ability to grow/invite other users into the game. The games are embedded into the viewers’ Social Network Fabric within their user profiles offering stats and rankings to be posted to their main network wall. Social Gaming developer ZYNGA (responsible for the addictive Mafia Wars and Farmville) made over $100M-$200M a year in revenue as at 2012 alone. This also allows new users to easily connect with existing friends within their network as well as bring across various pieces of profile information from the network into the game, thereby personalizing the content even more.

Social Networking games allow users to have in-game advertising within the game (which in turn opens up revenue possibilities). Subscription services, offer incentives to you to play and earn virtual currency which add up as real currency via PayPal accounts, as well as allowing you to make in-game micro-transactions. Key words like Gamer Social Capital, as well as Social Gaming, Social Network Gaming, and Mobile Gaming will start becoming more frequent. However, it doesn’t just stop there, the smarter games will also develop individual apps for their games for Smartphones and Digital tabs/E-Readers as well.

Gaming and Social Gaming

For companies a Social Network Game is one of the best ways moving forward to not only engage their consumers, but to also grow sales. A game designed for your company as a smartphone or iPad app can not only act as a fun marketing tool, but a smart designed game could also work as an educational tool to help people connect more with your brand and to spread the word more.

For brands, partnering with a popular Social Networking game can also have multiple benefits. The most impressive is the ability to place subliminal advertising in to a Social Networking game, or to be even riskier, to turn your actual brand or product into the actual virtual currency of the game. The ability to bring real life products and merchandise into the virtual world is largely an untapped market at this stage. For other brands, simply having a poster of their brand or product will work as a great piece of marketing.

Social Movements

What if groups of powerfully connected individuals with a high internet profile, popularity and “internet power” via their Social Networks and Digital Art, came together for giant collective movements to make real positive change? What if small internet movements via networks go on to reflect larger movements in real life? I’m a true believer that one man can ALWAYS make a difference, and I’m also a great believer in the “wisdom of crowds”. What if giant hordes of people came together on mass scales and levels for humanity’s greater good? For greater social causes or to contribute to solve global issues affecting all of us? Slowly, I’ve started seeing “Social Movements” taking place on the internet (currently on a very small scale) and I suspect these movements will eventually grow into becoming much bigger legacies of greatness. Seth Godin is a perfect example of this. A marketer who over time, has gone on to become a leadership guru is Seth Godin. Without a doubt, one of the most influential figures on the internet today. A while back he sold his Birthday for charity and also recently vowed never to publish a book via the traditional methods of print publishing again.

Social Movements

With the recent spate of riots happening in the world, and Social Media being blamed partially for a lot of them, the key question is CAN/IS Social Media to be blamed for the riots? The web is, without a doubt, one of our biggest hopes for the future, but with that arises a dark side too. Essentially, social media allows communities of people to congregate and organize themselves around areas that interest them, however, the scary thing is the use of social media for acts of terrorism and violence like we’ve just witnessed in the UK.

Would banning Social Media mean that riots won’t recur?

Social Movements

PM David Cameron was looking to ban networks like Facebook and Twitter as a result of the riots, however, I think this isn’t the right move at all. If these types of organizing and conversation have started happening, then being able to leverage these towards a positive outcome is a far smarter move than banning them all together, which means the users are just as likely to create these conversations somewhere else.

The Huffington Post states “The suspension of social networks is completely unfeasible. It is a knee-jerk reaction; a hastily constructed soundbite that the Government used to show that they were still capable of control over what was a senseless few days. The fact that this was even considered shows that those in authority have still not seen the merits of technology. Kevin Hoy, web manager at Greater Manchester Police, said to the Guardian that Twitter allowed his force to give “direct reassurance” and “dispel rumours… in a way that we could never have achieved previously.” He is one of the few to understand that power in today’s technology-connected world is the ability to converse. Many police forces have been using Twitter and Facebook in the last week to urge people to help identify looters from CCTV images and show that order is being restored. Greater Manchester Police did have one blip in this, tweeting a tweet about someone’s conviction that felt to many followers as gloating by the force, but their apology and subsequent tweets showed an authority that is willing to listen and engage – something that many members of society have accused police and politicians of lacking and a possible reason as to why what happened happened”

Social Movements

In recent times we’ve heard about this happening in Libya, Syria, Burma, and Egypt. , Iit was undoubtedly horrible and those who live in the Western world thought “imagine a country where this could happen”. Digital freedoms seem to be getting challenged more by Governments and the challenge, in my view isn’t unwarranted either.

The internet has something which has never been able to be controlled. Banning as few sites may do the trick, but there are thousands of Social Networks… will the conversation simply shift elsewhere? Aren’t you better off knowing that these conversations do take place in networks like Twitter and Facebook rather than them taking place in a network unknown all together? Which is scarier?

Social Movements

This brings me back to what Malcolm Gladwell said a while back in the New Yorker.

“The world, we are told, is in the midst of a revolution. The new tools of social media have reinvented social activism. With Facebook and Twitter and the like, the traditional relationship between political authority and popular will has been upended, making it easier for the powerless to collaborate, coordinate, and give voice to their concerns. When ten thousand protesters took to the streets in Moldova in the spring of 2009 to protest against their country’s Communist government, the action was dubbed the Twitter Revolution, because of the means by which the demonstrators had been brought together. A few months after that, when student protests rocked Tehran, the State Department took the unusual step of asking Twitter to suspend scheduled maintenance of its wWeb site, because the Administration didn’t want such a critical organizing tool out of service at the height of the demonstrations. “Without Twitter the people of Iran would not have felt empowered and confident to stand up for freedom and democracy,” Mark Pfeifle, a former national-security adviser, later wrote, calling for Twitter to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Where activists were once defined by their causes, they are now defined by their tools. Facebook warriors go online to push for change. “You are the best hope for us all,” James K. Glassman, a former senior State Department official, told a crowd of cyber activists at a recent conference sponsored by Facebook, A. T. & T., Howcast, MTV, and Google.

Social Movements

These are strong, and puzzling, claims. Why does it matter who is eating whose lunch on the Internet? Are people who log in to their Facebook page really the best hope for us all? As for Moldova’s so-called Twitter Revolution, Evgeny Morozov, a scholar at Stanford who has been the most persistent of digital evangelism’s critics, points out that Twitter had scant internal significance in Moldova, a country where very few Twitter accounts exist. Nor does it seem to have been a revolution, not least because the protests, —as Anne Applebaum suggested in the Washington Post, —may well have been a bit of stagecraft cooked up by the government. (In a country paranoid about Romanian revanchism, the protesters flew a Romanian flag over the Parliament building.) In the Iranian case, meanwhile, the people tweeting about the demonstrations were almost all in the West. “It is time to get Twitter’s role in the events in Iran right,” Golnaz Esfandiari wrote, this past summer, in Foreign Policy. “Simply put: There was no Twitter Revolution inside Iran.” The cadre of prominent bloggers, like Andrew Sullivan, who championed the role of social media in Iran, Esfandiari continued, misunderstood the situation. “Western journalists who couldn’t reach—or didn’t bother reaching?—people on the ground in Iran simply scrolled through the English-language tweets post with tag #iranelection,” she wrote. “Through it all, no one seemed to wonder why people trying to coordinate protests in Iran would be writing in any language other than Farsi.”

Social Movements

Gladwell says Twitter and Facebook may have been used by demonstrators to communicate during the recent uprisings in countries like Tunisia and Egypt, but it isn’t clear they were crucial in any way to the revolutions there. Gladwell goes on to argue that other similar events have taken place in the past — including the demonstrations in East Germany that eventually led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall — and they didn’t require any such tools:

I mean, in cases where there are no tools of communication, people still get together. So I don’t see that as being… in looking at history, I don’t see the absence of efficient tools of communication as being a limiting factor on the ability of people to socially organize.

This is the same point Gladwell made in a short note about Egypt he posted at the New Yorker site in February, in which he wrote, “people protested and brought down governments before Facebook was invented. They did it before the Internet came along.” As more than one observer has pointed out, this isn’t much of an argument. There were political uprisings before guns and tanks came along too, but no one would deny that guns and tanks changed the nature of social revolutions considerably. In a message posted on Twitter, sociologist Zeynep Tufekci called arguments about how revolutions occurred before X or Y was invented “intellectually lazy.”

Social Movements

In the CNN interview, Gladwell also argues that social media and other such tools can just as easily be used dictators and governments to crack down on revolutions:

[Y]ou could also make the opposite argument that some of these new technologies offer dictators a … give them the potential to crackdown in ways they couldn’t crackdown before. So, my point is that for everything that looks like it’s a step forward, there’s another thing which says, well, actually, you know, there was a cost involved.

I must say I have to agree with this to a large extent. If there have been uprisings in some countries, then Social Media alone cannot be blamed for it. Yes, organizing social movements (of the anti kind), can be made easier at times via networks, but then again, social movements used to happen before the internet too.

Social Movements

Also, the positive use of Social Media during this critical phase cannot be understated either.

As Charles Leadbetter states in his book WE-THINK, “… the web is the source of our most ambitious hopes for spreading democracy, knowledge and creativity... ……..but on the other hand the web is also the source of some of our most lurid fears: it has already become a tool for stalkers, paedophiles, terrorists and criminals...…..”

I’ve always said the Internet for the most, is a reflection of modern society. If something exists on the net, it’s usually a mirror reflection of real life

Social Movements

I believe there is something more at play here. Tunisia, Egypt, UK, India (I would include the Anna Hazare movement here which has had huge Social Media support amongst a lot of other ones which have happened since then including ) and now New York (if one decides to categorize all riots together) show that “movements” (“Social” Movements) have started taking place in parts of the world which utilize social media, however, I don’t think this is the catalyst for them, though in some cases may amplify them. It’s about dealing with these issues with transparency to resolve them properly. And the same Networks can be used to deal with the issues as well.

The Explosion of Data

Data has been a scarce commodity in the past, however with the growth of Social Networking and the boom in devices and the rise of the new digital and app economy people have started to give away large parts of their lives via status updates, photos, videos, LIKE’s, and the countless other apps and Social Networks people use to share and connect. Each time you LIKE a group, it’s also giving away a certain piece of “information” about yourself in the digital narrative. Privacy settings have been made very easy by both Facebook and Google, however it’s evident that people seem less worried about privacy then they make out to be. Essentially what we give away about ourselves, what people see about us online, how much data we make publiclly available, is all up to us, as it always has been. Sharing is a natural human behaviour and throughout the eons of time, different people have had different levels of comfort about how much we exactly give away about ourselves whether in real life, or in the digital world. These advances are simply a reflection of natural human behaviour in my opinion.

The Explosion of Data

Big banks of data have always been there whether it’s Google and its Search algorithm, YouTube and it’s video algorithm or any of the networks you’ve joined earlier like MySpace and Bebo etc. However, the ability to store the data, and then re-use it with a sharply defined algorithm is what Facebook and other networks seem to be doing. For brands and people, it’s all cross-platform, trans-media story-telling experience, rather than about marketing and advertising. If people like what you have to offer and the story you tell and how you tell it… .they’ll want to have a chat with you about what you have to offer and their thoughts about all aspects of it (not too different from the old model except that the conversation is 2-way).

Look at all the websites where the CONNECT WITH FACEBOOK button is now standard? Again something to remember is that any site that has the CONNECT WITH FACEBOOK or CONNECT WITH TWITTER buttons, are also in all probability, collecting some level of data behind you. Each time you “check-in” somewhere with Foursquare, you’re leaving trails of meta-data behind you.

It may even get to a stage where social networks come out which allow us to see what data we have where and what the “value” associated with it is The systems to create data has always been the core focus, however platforms and systems which help us understand and visualize this data will start to come to the fore.

The Explosion of Data

Doesn’t the world feel closer together!? Before mobile phones came out and it was just landlines, we’d be lucky to make 6 phone-calls a day, now we can make 100’s if not more connections in one day. Each piece of information, which was earlier just a few second snippet on TV and a small headline in the papers, feels like a much closer “connection” with the world whether it’s natural disasters or sports games.

With Social Networks like Google+ and Facebook focussed on keeping the social networking experience more personalized and more exciting, as we continue to share more information about ourselves online, and continue to watch, read and buy more online, one wonders when the next “jump” will happen in the digital space.

The Explosion of Data

The importance of data as we move forward, further increases as the volume of data increases. For businesses, more data means more intelligence, smarter decisions, more effective marketing and advertising campaigns and giving relevancy to exactly what their customers want. More data also means the ability to integrate various forms of data to tell a more holistic story with far more advanced correlations than we’ve seen before in the field of consumer behaviour and trends is concerned.

I’d blogged about Brian Solis’s theory on Digital Darwinism a while back (in short: Evolution of consumer behavior when society and technology evolve faster than your ability to adapt)

Devices are being released globally, and connectivity is increasing globally, which means that these changes affect us, for the most, on a global scale.

The Explosion of Data

Since then we’ve had a few changes like the iPhone 4S with Siri (and it’s flaws) as well as Google creating a Siri rival. Not to forget the unveiling of Samsung’s Smart Window as well as other devices getting the “smart” touch (like Smart Watches, however, in the last few days and weeks there has been a significant number of other changes happening…again at a very quick pace.

Google X has announced the first “Google-made glasses that will be able to stream information to the wearer’s eyeballs in real time. This raises a lot of questions around privacy, the strangeness of having a pair of glasses which is streaming real-time digital information into your brain and much more.

The Explosion of Data

I remember reading ages ago that there may come a time where we walk past someone, look at them, and be able to see that person’s data based on what they have revealed about themselves online right away (e.g Male/Female, Single/Married, Suburb, etc etc etc). The idea has later been replicated in many movies since then too. Something like this opens up that opportunity, and while it sounds exciting in principle, it does raise a number of questions around the angle of privacy yet again. Also, as I mentioned a while back, someone who isn’t on any Social Networks is likely to be “off the radar” in some sense than those who are (a Matrixed/Networked society)? But again, the ability to control what information one is able to see (or how much the user reveals about themselves) is ultimately up to the user, like with all Social Networks.

The Explosion of Data

The iPad 3 has launched with a lot of hu-ha. The reviews for the most seem positive, and despite an increase in the width of the device itself, it seems that the tablet is ahead of most of it’s competitors in terms of specs. The key differences here is the HD screen and most importantly, the retina display. HD screens again turns the device into a far more compelling entertainment device (movies, TV, gaming, music, creatvity, growth and opportunities). Retina opens up a world of opportunities as far as development of apps within the space go. Combine that with the advances that have been made already in the voice activation space with Siri and the concept of an “smart tablet” evolves again. “And then you add in the gestures, which are just so intuitive to begin with, but when you add a crystal clear screen with these intuitive gestures, it really does feel like you are touching the Internet. And your notes. And your videos. It’s a great sensation. With the kind of inroads the smart device across the spectrum is making in industries like the military, airlines, government and so many other facets of everyday life, this change again elevates the experience.

The Explosion of Data

When I first used Siri I commented that this was one of the first steps into “robotics”. The concept itself wasn’t that new (hey remember those lights where you clap your hands and the lights come on and off)? Siri was really taking that concept of “activation via a gesture” a step further. But the ability to not just say a command and it does it, but somewhat have a “conversation” (smart programming that had gone into it) is what took me off guard (Google is already developing it’s own equivalent as we speak). And just as I get my head around that, Samsung introduces emotion sensing. "The technology behind the emotion-sensing smartphone is surprisingly simple: It infers your state of mind from how you use your phone. By analyzing how fast you type, how much the phone shakes, how often you backspace mistakes, and how many special symbols are used, the special Galaxy S II can work out whether you’re angry, surprised, happy, sad, fearful, or disgusted, with an accuracy of 67.5%”.

The Explosion of Data

Again this kind of advancement is entering another level of “robotics” where machines can instantly recognize human behaviour (providing that the human is giving off the right behavioural signals). The software then correlates you’re “angry” with your actions during that period (your typing speed, phone shakiness, etc.). This is a very new concept in my view, and something that I will have to try myself before commenting on further. If I reflect on films like Minority Report (which took 10 years to write), is this the first early stages of something like this? Again, what is the impact on consumer behaviour and the brain with these advances? I have purposely left Smart Televisions out here though again, from what I have seen in this space from ALL of the suppliers, seems to be cutting edge, and quiete a revolution as far as the concept of a “Television” is concerned.

The Explosion of Data

And finally, the driverless car (been in the background for a long time) gets more advances. “I imagine a lot of people think of a self-driving car as science fiction or something out of The Jetsons and something that may not be available for a long time,” . This kind of change I believe, is absolutely huge on many levels. Without the right level of testing and understanding, rushing this kind of an advancement could be detrimental on many levels. Of course I see the benefits too, but the impact this has on a much larger scale economically, as well as the kind of disruption it brings, is significant. How far off is this? Are we talking 1-3 years or 10-30?

The Explosion of Data

Keeping in mind all of these particular changes, I can only ask, what this means for us, consumers, humans? While I see a lot of positive and exciting changes which would enhance the quality of a lot of things we do in everyday life, does this kind of a networked/matrixed society have another side we have not yet seen? The need to have “getaways” which replicate an older and more simple way of life will become all the more significant for the connected consumer/businessperson to get away from the connected life. The rise of resorts, villas and just magnificiently and lavishly mounted hotels providing an escapsism like no other (at a range of price points), makes me think that for one to proceed and advance so quickly, the rise of the other seems somewhat logical?

The Explosion of Data

Keeping in mind all of these particular changes, I can only ask, what this means for us, consumers, humans? While I see a lot of positive and exciting changes which would enhance the quality of a lot of things we do in everyday life, does this kind of a networked/matrixed society have another side we have not yet seen? The need to have “getaways” which replicate an older and more simple way of life will become all the more significant for the connected consumer/businessperson to get away from the connected life. The rise of resorts, villas and just magnificiently and lavishly mounted hotels providing an escapsism like no other (at a range of price points), makes me think that for one to proceed and advance so quickly, the rise of the other seems somewhat logical?

The Explosion of Data

For the older generation a lot of this may still sound like things which aren’t yet a reality or something that may not want to see as a reality in this lifetime (this could be vast generationalization as I know a number of older people who love technological changes and keeping up with the “shiny new stuff”), but for the Generation which is growing up with it now (as well as the Generation to come) this will be second nature. Right from the telephone to the radio, from Television to the early days of the internet. To the early days of Social Networking to the proliferation of the screen and where we’re heading now ……..technology has always affected some industries for the worst, yet at the same time created vast opportunities.

Furthermore, as Smart TV’s go further mainstream, the level of data again increases. This will be the first time in history that we’ve ever seen this level of data come to the fore, and as Google said in a conference in 2010 “data is the new black”.

This quote may indeed sound like a cliche at the best of times, but once again, as William Gibson once said: “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed”

Adam Seftons Site: http://www.wayoutwhere.com/

Jason Calcanis Site: http://calacanis.com/

Seth Godin

Tribes: http://www.amazon.com/Tribes-We-Need-You-Lead/dp/1591842336

Linchpin: http://www.amazon.com/Linchpin-Are-Indispensable-Seth-Godin/dp/1591843162

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Fooled by Randomness: http://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Chance-Markets/dp/1587990717

The Black Swan: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Nassim-Nicholas-Taleb/dp/1400063515

Tom Hayes

Jump Point: http://www.amazon.com/Jump-Point-Network-Revolutionizing-Business/dp/007154562X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338801702&sr=1-1

Sheena Iyengar

The Art of Choosing: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Choosing-Sheena-Iyengar/dp/0446504114/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338801777&sr=1-1

Raj Patel

The Value of Nothing: http://www.amazon.com/The-Value-Nothing-Redefine-Democracy/dp/031242924X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338801848&sr=1-1

Malcolm Gladwell

Blink: http://www.amazon.com/Blink-The-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0316010669/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338801904&sr=1-1

Outliers: http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017930/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338801954&sr=1-1

Robin Sharma

The Monk Who Sold his Ferrari: http://www.amazon.com/The-Monk-Who-Sold-Ferrari/dp/0062515675/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338802029&sr=1-1

The Leader Who Had No Title: http://www.amazon.com/The-Leader-Who-Had-Title/dp/1439109133/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338802099&sr=1-1

Tom Chatfield

Fun Inc.: http://www.amazon.com/Fun-Inc-Dominate-Twenty-First-Century/dp/B006CDDMFO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338802165&sr=1-1

Charles Leadbetter

We-Think: http://www.amazon.com/We-Think-Mass-innovation-mass-production/dp/1861978375/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338802219&sr=1-1

Mitch Joel

Six Pixels of Separation: http://www.amazon.com/Six-Pixels-Separation-Connected-Everyone/dp/B005MWKCEK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338802329&sr=1-1

Mike Walsh

Futuretainment: http://www.amazon.com/Futuretainment-Yesterday-World-Changed-Your/dp/0714848751/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338802404&sr=1-1

David Kirkpatrick

The Facebook Effect: http://www.amazon.com/The-Facebook-Effect-Company-Connecting/dp/1439102120/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338802474&sr=1-1

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Freakonomics: http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden-Everything/dp/0060731338/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338802520&sr=1-1

Peter Nowak

Sex, Bombs and Burgers: http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Bombs-Burgers-Pornography-Technology/dp/0762772743/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338802575&sr=1-1