webponce rants

I was asked to speak at last night’s “An apple a day” talk, held by the D&AD at the Hoxton Pony. The speakers were asked to consider ‘what piece of technology has truly changed the way you work’. You can see my response in slideshow form over at Slideshare, and preceeding my ramblings were Alex from de-construct, Ranzie from Tonic, Flo from Dare, Clare from The Partners, and a handful of other people with really interesting perspectives on the question.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, everyone pretty much had the same thing to say – remember the human element, interaction and connection within everything you do.

I have an old paperback copy of Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach sitting on my bookshelf that’s torn to bits. It’s missing its cover and the spine is falling apart. When the spine finally disintegrates, I’ll probably just use a rubber band to hold it together. Trying to read the book in this state would be impossible, yet it’s one of my prized possessions because of its connection to a point in my life, like a tattoo made of wood pulp.

I still have this same attachment to offline, in fact, it seems to increase the more and more i spend online. I wonder if its a generational thing, as we maybe the last batch of humans who will make a distinction between offline and online. Can you build the same emotional attachment to a tatty Kindle from your university years? Does content and container seperate? Focus on the story and its meaning, more than the object which contains the words? If we lose the emotional connection to the tactile, will we lose feeling in our fingers? Why hasn’t my coffee cooled enough for me to drink it yet?

Read “The Transient, Digital Fetish”

So, my thoughts on the new skittles.com.

From a technology perspective, its a VERY cheap way of aggregating your content or spaces in which your content exists. They’ve provided a navigation tool to show you around their activity in social spaces (flickr, facebook, youtube) as well as other people activity or conversations around skittles (twitter search).
The stand out piece is the twitter element – they’ve effectively just put a navigation on top of search.twitter.com for the keyword ’skittles’. In doing this, they show you any conversation with the word skittles that appears on twitter.

Now, when people started noticing this, they posted the word skittles and upon seeing their tweet appear, realisation that you could subvert the channel to make anti-skittle sentiment, or just down right nasty commenting (http://twitter.com/alexjohnwood/statuses/1269197448 for instance, NSFW), appear in a pseudo-endorsed way, this delighted/angered people in equal measure.

Of course, there is no way of moderating this conversation, and already other memes (skittlefisting for instance) have sprung up. The network effect of people talking about skittles made the word ’skittles’ start trending, and the growth became exponential, through a wonderful form of social feedback. The more people get annoyed/excited about it, the more people see it and do the same.

Skittles have made an interesting, brave play. On the one hand, they have first mover advantage. Whilst I’ve seen this ‘navigate over sites’ technique before (I seem to remember an agency who basically just showed you their wikipedia page, of course again ripe for editing), anyone who does something similar to this in the future will immediately be compared to (or worse, accused of stealing from) Skittles – never can this be done again in this direct model (at least until someone work out a spin on the concept). On the other hand the team at skittles must have known that it would have generated derision and swearing as well as just ‘general chit chat’ about skittles. Fortunately, the massive negative commentary will eventually subside, as people forget about the site, and generally people mentioning skittles in conversation will fall back to its normal non-influenced form, but by then, the site will have been seen by many, and its novelty/concept might have worn off.

It has, without doubt, brought Skittles to the front of many people’s minds though, and this is clearly at the heart of advertising – creating a spark of thought about a brand. Those who hate the idea of what Skittles have done are unlikely to specifically stop buying Skittles as a result. Those who haven’t had Skittles in the past few years might in the next couple of weeks be in a shop and think ‘Ooh Skittles, I just fancy some’, as a dormant memory of eating them in the past has been fattened by this activity. In rare cases, someone might even run out and buy bags and bags of the sugary beans right now.

In any case, it has already created gigabytes of conversation on blogs and twitter itself. I pretty much reckon we’ll be talking about it as an industry for a few more months yet too.

So, is it successful? Good? Rubbish?

Maybe only Skittles/Mars can answer that regarding their own commerical objectives for the project.
I’d imagine that a major KPI of the site would be to generate content and conversation.

Tick.

Update: I didn’t really write any personal opinion about the site, nor from a user’s perspective. Personally, I think the idea is quite simple and throwaway, and created a great deal of buzz – which in itself is excellent, however, did they create any social value for their users? No, probably not. But I’d also say it wasn’t a social media strategy – it was simply leveraging existing chatter channels about the brand, it is really a campaign idea, not a long term position on social media or interaction with their users. It isn’t interaction, its open backchannel broadcasting, its having a forum on your website, but not paying attention to it (nor moderating it). It falls short of really engaging WITH an audience, it is just making use OF an audience, hence missing the point of social media, but again, it comes back down to their objectives. If they wanted to engage their audience, they’ve missed a trick, but if it was about creating press and conversation – they’ve absolutely done wonders.

With my commercial hat on: Bravo!
With my user hat on: Eh?

Don’t worry if you don’t understand the indepth technical aspects of the internets, here are a couple of videos which will help you get surfing in time:

If that’s a little advanced, here’s a primer:

Happy Webbings!

Flooded McDonald’s from Superflex on Vimeo.

Danish art collective Superflex built a life-size replica of a McDonald’s and then filmed it being flooded. The film work is currently on display at the at the South London Gallery. via [Laughing Squid]

Prostitutes do well in a recession – slate.com/id/2200640/
Branded snow – honestly, some people have no limits: springwise.com/…/snowtagging/
Agile vs UX – adaptivepath.com/…/burndowns-and-flareups-in-agile-design/
Shiny Stuff - openpeak.com/
Emergency Yodel – emergencyyodel.com/
Christian Bale – a method actor beyond the point of social acceptance? and the social media which propels the stories around it mashable.com/…/christian-bale-tirade/
Youtube deleting kids singing cover songs – seems a little overzealous readwriteweb.com/…/youtube_copyright_system_eff_action.php

Nice little widgety badges from Child’s i Foundation.

Lucky Voice sent out a timely email this afternoon to capitalise on the capital’s snowy wasteland feeling.

I like this sort of marketing – it puts a smile on my face, and I’m far more likely to click through and buy something. Oh, and if you’re tempted too – register at www.luckyvoice.com/home, click the ‘buy premium sing’ button at the top of the page and enter the following voucher code: SNOWMAN

I’m sure they won’t mind me spreading the winter warmth.

if you have half an hour today – spend it reading this delightful interactive narrative, which takes you on a journey through a massive number of digital environments. it is worth the effort.

http://blueful.com/

Loving this.

Through my work at Yarned, I’m involved in a new charity – Child’s i Foundation, which is building a babies’ home in Uganda on the outskirts of Kampala for 50 infants, from newborn babies to five years-olds. The home will have medical facilities to help with premature and sick babies and children with special needs.

This is happening in two ways:

1. To build a “transitional orphanage” with full medical and educational facilities that provides a safe haven for babies and young children.
2. To place these children into secure and happy families, giving them something we believe every child has a right to – a loving home.

Child’s i Foundation will connect supporters to our work in Uganda in real time. Through emails, blogs and videos, people will be able to see exactly where their money is going, and we will have the opportunity to appeal directly for additional help should we need it.

Members of the community can be involved on many levels, from community fundraising, making donations and suggestions to actively volunteering at the Home in Uganda.

Interaction and mass collaboration are the keys to building the charity and achieving our goals.

We are creating a Web 2.0 version of a letter from a sponsored child and creating a new way of giving.

I’ll write more about the approach we’re taking from a technical perspective over the next weeks, but in the meantime, please go and visit the website:

http://childsifoundation.org
Also, follow us on twitter and flickr.

Forrester’s Social Technographics surveys show that when it comes to social content 21% of online US consumers are Creators, 37% are Critics (those who react to content created by others), and 69% are Spectators.

The 90-9-1 principle, recently publicized by Community Guy Jake McKee at 90-9-1.com, says that in a community, the rule of thumb is that 90% of visitors only view the content, 9% only comment or react to it, and 1% create it.

I’m always involved in conversations where whipping out backed up stats like these would be useful, but I never remember where I can find evidence for my generally anecdotal sounding opinions. I keep meaning to write up some sort of cheatsheet where I pour in recent facts, figures and insights from various sources, such as the excellent Groundswell blog, but it would be a full time job – and often, anecdotes seem to do the job. Even if i did store them somewhere, i’d probably not remember where i’d put them.

In any case, all things seems to relate back to either a “power law distribution” or “kittens on skateboards”. Maybe i should get a tattoo of a kitten on a power law curve.

This post is from my blog over at Turn Off, Tune On, which discusses innovation in the online video space, as part of my work for Endemol.

You can’t have failed to miss the Youtube Live event which is taking place today. If you read even one single tech blog, or use Youtube, you’ll have seen the chatter everywhere.

Celebrities, Web celebs and major artists, including the mad scientists from the Mythbusters crew, will.i.am, Lisa Nova, Michael Buckley, and Joe Satriani will be joining the celebrations, and YouTube will be offering three live streams direct from its Live channel.

Why blog this? Youtube moving into live streaming is an additional string to the monetisation bow, something they’ve yet struggled to really find models beyond simple adserving and partnership deals. It also puts Youtube into the broadcaster space, allowing them to compete with a wider range of other services. It will be interesting to see the next steps they take to push this service with commercial partners.

I love pie – especially when they’re data visualisations. This is the range of colours from the Back to the Future triliogy (and the Godfather oddly enough).

It reminds me of this pie chart pie:

and this pizza pie:

mmmm 3.141

Perspectives – Andrea from BaseMOTION on Vimeo.

Really nice video project from the lovely people at Base Motion. Sometimes the pauses, ponderings, ahems, erms, hesitations and ruminations between the words we say are more loaded with meaning than the comment itself. The body language of thought presented in its raw beautiful form.

I’ve just started posting at excellent creative spotting blog No Legacy, setup by a bunch of the guys at de-construct, and contains the thoughts and braindumps of many very talented designers, including Jakob Nylund from Frost and Joel Corneer from The Apartment.

P1020802Originally uploaded by lilmida

Nokia are running a project comparing things from around the world which all cost five dollars. Its an interesting look at how monetary value differs so much from market to market, and potentially interesting culturally what items will be selected.

http://fivedollarcomparison.org/

I was out with CG last night, and we were talking podcasts. I’ve recently become the vaguely proud owner of a new iPhone (in fact, we’re now a two iPhone house, as my wife has also just acquired one), and never really having an mp3 player in my pocket before (I’ve owned them, but always forget to take them out; being my phone however, i have to take it out), i’ve not listened to podcasts that much. Now, however, is a different case. I have lots and lots of time on my hands, and lots and lots of storage on my phone. So, we were discussing good sources. As if by internet magic, Laughing Squid also posted a video of one of the shows we talked about, featuring Ze Frank, The Sound of Young America. I’m hoping they’re not all visually hilarious, as radio isn’t a media for the mime, but its been duly added to my feedlist.

I’m also starting to plan a trip to San Francisco. I’ve always wanted to visit, mostly to see if it really is that hilly; possibly to stalk this guy; but mostly to go visit some interesting people.

I blogged this over at the Disposable Memory Project, but I think its neat idea, and I know the founders of the festival would love as much coverage as possible, so I’m reblogging with a bit more gusto this time. Eric Slatkin and Carlton Evans started the Disposable Film Festival in 2007 to celebrate the ‘artistic potential of disposable video’:

“Everyone has become a Disposable Filmmaker: directors of Saturday night cell phone videos, actors under the eyes of security cameras, and narrators before their webcams. Let’s face it – we live in an age of disposable film. Now it’s time to do something creative with it.”

I couldn’t agree more, and I love it! This new world in which we live of such throw-away-able technology is truly awful – I can’t remember the last time i got something repaired over just buying a replacement, but the low cost of these devices (and increasing quality) also brings with it a generative side which is wonderful, and projects like the Disposable Film Festival bring the more talented homebrew film-makers to light. Being disposable and often low quality (in terms of their technical capability: grainy, blocky, jerky, poor zoom, poor focusing) often forces the producer to abandon all hope of making their work glossy and polished, and focus on the content and narrative. Whilst the ‘realness’ of the format has always given this sort of content a voyeuristic feel, which often seems to engender a certain type of story to be portrayed, increasingly talented people with nothing more than just a great idea or narrative they want to capture are doing just that. I think it helps bring forward the soul of the story. Surprise surprise, simplicity creates something special, yet again!

I went to listen to Clay Shirky yesterday afternoon, who very kindly signed my copy of ‘Here Comes Everybody‘ and I managed to have a brief chat with until Bill Thompson careered in and gave Shirky a bearhug. The majority of his discussions were over topics covered in the book, of how the cost (in pure economic terms) of creating groups or group activity has been so substantially lowered in recent years, that projects like this are bound to spring up. The rule for most is failure, perhaps only a half baked idea, or even just a great idea which doesn’t reach the audience it deserves, following a rough power law that only a tiny percentage of these generative and collaborative projects will succeed. Well, here’s hoping for success for the Disposable Film Festival, and any of its film-makers.

In other news, its the second week of my underemployableness. Last week was intentionally empty and devoid of activity. I took delivery of my new coffee machine (yom), played hours of XBox, watched all of the first season of Arrested Development, even went for a swim and ate copious amounts of food (in that order). This week, I shall mostly be doing ’stuff’. I was planning on taking a trip to Brighton (ice-cream, The Werks, the beach, and I like being on trains) this morning, but the weather is looking a bit crappy. Oh, and my iPhone needs charging after only a day of use. Lame.

Yes, i’ve checked the date, no it is not an april fool:

Publisher plans printed version of Wikipedia

As twitter increases in users and awareness in the mainstream, more and more people are asking ‘yeah, but why?‘, more so than many other arguably less useful services. I’m not sure why so many people need a definitive answer to use what is such a simple service to join. The Guardian’s Jemima Kiss sums it up best I think:

There are so many possible uses for Twitter. It’s a very functional group messaging service – if your ten closest mates were signed up you could say ‘I’m in the pub’ and would only have to send one message instead of paying for ten. And you could also use it for more creative projects, something I’d like to explore when I clone myself and have some time to do ‘art’ outside of all-consuming work time.

The real point, though, is that we should all be a little more willing to explore these tools without feeling the need to classify it or nail it down to some definite function when it is still so young. So many inventions were born out of a completely different idea; vinyl records were a spin-off (no pun intended) from a project for talking dolls or some such… It’s far easier to dismiss something out of hand than to be open-minded, creative and playful.