The birth of Wikipedia
Posted 14 August 2009 in Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Communication, Social Networking, TED Conference.
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Gordon Brown: Wiring a web for global good
UK Prime Minister delivers this inspiring talk at TED. He discusses how we can use today’s interconnectedness to develop our shared global ethic.
Posted 11 August 2009 in Internet, Market Trends, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Gordon Brown, Internet, Social Networking, Technology, TED, TED Conference, Twitter, web design melbourne.
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Seth Godin on marketing to tribes
A recent TED talk by Seth Godin
Posted 14 May 2009 in Advertising, Internet, Market Trends, Marketing, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Marketing, TED Conference.
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Standing Out : Seth Godin at TED
From the TED website :
“In a world of too many options and too little time, our obvious choice is to just ignore the ordinary stuff. Marketing guru Seth Godin spells out why, when it comes to getting our attention, bad or bizarre ideas are more successful than boring ones.”
Posted 13 May 2009 in Advertising, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Marketing, TED Conference.
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Is Twitter the start of Web 3.0?
The World Wide Web. You can find recipes, connect with old class mates and buy practically anything. There seems to be every bit of information available you could possibly want, and more. In fact there seems to be too much information. Web statistics seem to be showing that the number of failed searches, that is where someone types a term in a search engine and doesn’t find what they are looking for or gives up before they do, is on the increase. Fear not. The guys at the top of internet pecking order are already talking about, and planning, the Semantic Web, or Web 3.0, and it is meant to help us make sense of all of this data.
So what is Web 3.0 and what does it have to do with Twitter? To explain I’ll start back a few years…
Web 1.0
The beginning of the world wide web, which was really the internet for the masses, was all about links to pages. You would read a webpage and it would contain a link to another web page that you would then visit if you clicked on it. In this way you could “surf the web” and end up in all sorts of strange places. Very quickly this became pretty confusing as the amount of pages increased… until Google came along anyway.
Web 2.0
A few years ago social networking burst onto the scene. This evolution gave users the ability to connect to other users directly and edit the content of certain types of pages to create social networks. Today there are many types of social networking sites ranging from Facebook and MySpace to Digg and Delicious. People now have the power to connect with each other, vote on any topic in a myriad of ways and exercise freedom of speech in any way they desire.
Web 3.0
The next big evolution in the history of the web will be connecting data to like data or, put another way, ideas to ideas. The amount of data that exists is only going to get bigger. For our scientists, artists and thinkers to make use of this data they need to be able to connect concepts together quickly. This is the basic premise of the semantic web. Connecting semantics. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, recently gave a talk at a TED conference that explains it in more detail.
So what does this have to do with Twitter? Isn’t Twitter just another social network? “A lot” and “not really”.
Twitter is, in my view, the bridge between web 2.0 and web 3.0. Sure on the surface Twitter looks like a way to connect with people and for Ashton Kutcher to stroke his own ego in 140 characters or less but it is much, much more. The real difference between Twitter and say Facebook is that, on Twitter, you are not connecting with that old school friend who you quickly realise you have little in common with and will never message again, but you are connecting with people who share a common interest. You are connecting to ideas.
As Twitter has progressed the owners have made it easier to search the constant stream of information. Topics can be tagged with the # symbol and then become instantly searchable. If you are into gardening search for #gardening and find every person who is speaking about gardening everywhere in the world in real time. Try it out : http://search.twitter.com/ . That’s where the power and popularity of Twitter come from. That’s why brands around the world are finally learning how to get involved in customers conversations, breaking down the wall that a big brand can build, and talking to individuals on their own terms.
The guys who have been planning Web 3.0 have very big ideas. It will be amazing. Technically, of course it will be way beyond what Twitter can currently offer but still it’s strange how all of us, typing messages of less than 140 characters, seem to have kicked things off. Power to the people.
Posted 27 April 2009 in Features, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Communication, Social Networking, Social Networking Melbourne, TED Conference, Twitter, web design melbourne.
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David Carson at TED 2003
It’s a few years old but still one of the great TED talk.
From the TED website - ”Great design is a never-ending journey of discovery — for which it helps to pack a healthy sense of humor. Sociologist and surfer-turned-designer David Carson walks through a gorgeous (and often quite funny) slide deck of his work and found images.”
Posted 25 April 2009 in Creativity, Design, Typography, by
Mark
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Tags: Creative Advertising, Creative Process, Design, TED Conference.
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What the newspaper industry needs to do to survive.
We’re not going to pretend that we know everything about newspapers. Nor are we saying we can somehow magically see into the future. But some things just seem obvious to us. Let us know what you think.
He said that he was ‘mad as hell’ at what he saw as intellectual property theft.
News aggregators like The Huffington Post and Google News recently came under fire from Dean Singleton, the chairman of Associated Press. He said that he was ‘mad as hell’ at what he saw as intellectual property theft. From Mr Singleton’s point of view social networking and search engines are killing the newspaper industry. He sees a future where people pay to log on to their content and other sites pay to link to their articles. Unfortunately for him this attitude is going to put him off side with a large portion of his potential market.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently told the Newspaper Association of America that newspapers were very close to committing suicide by alienating their online customers, the fastest growing segment. What’s more a recent study showed that the generation who grew up with Google and Facebook love news aggregators and free news. The study says “Not only are teens not rushing to pay for content but they also struggle to envision in what realm they would need to pay for content…. Ask teens where they find news, and they typically say Yahoo!, Google, AOL or MSN”.
Frankly it sounds like newspapers struggle to understand the opportunities and rules that govern the online world. There is a whole generation that has grown up with the concept of freemium economics. Try to charge them for something they have always had for free and you’ll lose them altogether.
They need to remember that their main customers are advertisers.
Newspapers are in the business of collecting and delivering information. They have to be agnostic and flexible about the method of delivery if they are to avoid being trapped in outdated and inefficient channels. The old model of monetising this information is on the way out. Even the term “newspaper” is starting to sound like a relic. They need to remember that their main customers are advertisers. If they embrace the new mindset and employ direct marketing principles there is a world of new commercial opportunities out there.
Here’s what we think hold the most amount of promise:
1 – More engaging advertising
One of the most difficult transitions for newspapers going online has been understanding how to sell advertising space online. Banners are OK but many of them are just annoying and get ignored.
Newsprint was a simple platform that advertisers could use to get a message out. Online newspapers need to create a new advertising platform. Develop a collection of tools that not only track users behaviour but allow advertisers to sell their products more easily.
Currently many advertisers create landing pages for banner ads. These pages pass on detailed information, get users to sign up or even make a sale.
If the digital arm of a newspaper were to develop easy to manage tools that allowed advertisers to perform these tasks, thus reducing the overall campaign cost and timeframe, advertisers would be over the moon.
Not so long ago we developed an online application for the Herald Sun’s sponsorship of the Melbourne Marathon. This application, utilising RFID technology, allowed each and every runner to see a video of themselves. With a bit more development time could have added targeted advertising to this type of application and created a platform that could be used for multiple events.
It is this type of thinking that advertisers are looking for.
2 – Utilise the Twitternet
Micro-blogging is here to stay. Twitter is currently the market leader in this space but who knows what will happen in the coming years. What’s certain is that 2009 is going to see the tipping point for Twitter. Well worded headlines can easily drive traffic to the source of the news. Again, The New York Times is already doing this. When this article was written the Times had more than 500,000 followers and this number will keep rising.
There are huge opportunities here to increase overall traffic.
There are huge opportunities here to increase overall traffic. Twitter lets people connect with ideas and information, and ideas and information are what news sources are all about.
3 – Realise that the brand is a social centre
Newspapers are brands with a customer base that identifies with it like any other brand. More than ever newspapers need to remember that fact and learn to leverage it. Connecting with local communities and encouraging them to add content.
Currently many online newspapers are concerned about moderating any user generated content and create rules and dedicate resources to achieving that end. An alternative and much better approach is to get other members of that community to vote on comments or images. Sites like ‘Digg’ do this very well. If a user posts an abusive remark it is very quickly voted out of the time line. Recently President Obama launched a website that did just that. Read more about it here.
This influx of user generated content can then be monetised. The Cincinnati Enquirer has a site that does this. CaptureCincinnati.com is a user generated photo sharing site. They have been selling a coffee table book and a DVD of this content and expect it’s popularity to continue to be strong. There could even be the possibility of users ordering photos to make a customised book through the site.
An online community based around a newspaper brand is a fruit ripe for the picking.
An online community based around a newspaper brand is a fruit ripe for the picking. You only have to look at the comments on any news site to see how eager the audience is to get involved.
4 – Personalisation
Some websites get it right but many don’t. Personalisation on the web is huge and is only going to get bigger. Google has a product called ‘iGoogle‘ that let’s you personalise a page. Stuff.co.nz is a news site that lets you order some elements of the page. Underlying these examples is an understanding that the end user has specific interests that they want information about. News site are uniquely positioned to be able to deliver that information in a very targeted way. If they focus on user experience people will flock to their sites.
BBC.co.uk have made an admirable effort with their widgetised home page, taking more than a hint of inspiration from iGoogle. You can drag the sections around, customise them a little, and add more from other areas of the site. However it’s only skin deep. The big leap will be developing this idea to a point where users have control over the whole experience, not just what they find on the home page.
5 – Open up even more
APIs or application programming interfaces are driving the progress of the web, and newspapers need to embrace them. APIs allow third party developers to connect to websites and deliver customised content. I know this sounds counter-intuitive but it is already being done. The New York Times Developer Network allows developers to create applications that deliver their content to the end user.
What The Times has realised, that many other news sources have failed to do, is that what they really have is an information platform – rather than an online newspaper, or even a website. Giving third party developers access to this opens up opportunities to deliver advertisers messages in a more direct way, allowing them to increase the size and value of their user database and cut down the cost of developing their own applications by only partnering with developers that get the formula right.
6 – Change the printed material
The news media industry is in transition, one day printed newspapers will be history. The industry needs to think very carefully about how they structure and deliver printed matter now and in the future. Design is paramount. The customer now has a choice. It’s time to respect that choice.
I think this recent TED talk demonstrates the proposition very well.
Further reading:
http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/04/more-bad-news-f.html
Posted 23 April 2009 in Advertising, Design, Direct Marketing, Features, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, Newspapers, Social Networking, by
Mark
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Tags: Ad Spend, Advertising, Communication, Creative Advertising, Design, Facebook, Marketing, Newspapers, Recession, Social Networking, TED Conference, Twitter.
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Sagmeister’s Life lessons
Stefan Sagmeister delivers a short, witty talk on life lessons, expressed through surprising modes of design at the 2008 TEd conference.
Posted 10 October 2008 in Creativity, Design, by
Mark
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Tags: Creative Process, Design, Sagmeister, TED Conference.
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Amy Tan Talks About Creativity at TED
Amy Tan is the author of such beloved books as The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife and The Hundred Secret Senses.
She spoke at the TED conference in 2008 about the creative process.
Posted 11 June 2008 in Creativity, by
Jenn
Tags: Amy Tan, Creative Process, TED Conference, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife.
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Philippe Starck talks at TED
In the 2007 TED conference Philippe Starck gave an impressive talk. We think he has something to say to all designers. For everybody else it’s really entertaining and funny.
Posted 22 April 2008 in Design, by
Will
Tags: Conference, Culture, Design, Design Conference, Designers, Entertainment, Impressive, Inspired Talks, Phililppe Starck, Starck, Technology, TED, TED Conference.
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