A very funny video about social media and naming consultants...
Wireless warfare
Yesterday a group of us at work listened to the Akamai State of the Internet report. Akamai publish the report each quarter. Akamai probably has a wider view of the global Internet than any other company because they work at a transport and application layer, across multiple Internet providers, and serve so much of the Internet traffic all the way to end users.
One of the sections of yesterday's report showed that during the Egyptian and Libyan uprisings, the government switched off the Internet. Akamai showed their traffic patterns, and it showed a flat line during these 'outages'.
Back to my friend in the army. In past wars, aircraft used to drop leaflets over the countries they were invading (or rescuing, depending on your viewpoint) to explain to citizens what they were doing and why they were doing it (your government are the bad guys). In the recent Israel-Gaza war, both sides used voice mails and text messages (as well as the old fashioned leaflets) to warn citizens what was going on.
In the future though, when foreign governments see uprisings such as Egypt and Libya, expect them to deploy Internet hot spots for the public when the host government switch it off. With the amount of mobile and YouTube video content being shown on the news stations at the moment from current middle east uprisings, it's not unfeasible for the press to provide these hot spots.
Photo courtesy of Dunechaser on Flickr
The war on pirates
Photo courtesy of Scott Vandehey on Flickr
I've often said it's unfair that YouTube is a virtual broadcaster yet not held to account for hosting so many videos which would not be allowed on traditional (i.e. TV or radio) channels. With yesterday's news of YouTube (Google) acquiring one of the highest traffic (over 2.8 billion channel views) YouTube channels, perhaps YouTube will start to change their 'moderation' approach?
To further help YouTube in the war on pirates, I think Amazon and Facebook could soon join sides with Google.
Amazon (who recently acquired Netflix), Facebook (partnering with Warner Bros) and YouTube are all trying to promote video 'rentals' (they really need to change the term) at the $3-$5 price point. One major problem is that it's too easy to download a BitTorrent client and head to any of the very good BitTorrent search engines to download the movie for free.
Most of us know a number of people who do not work in the computer industry yet download movies illegally, then transfer them to a media player or stream to a device plugged into the TV.
What the three Internet giants need to do is compete with that ease-of-downloading-illegally - including getting the video on to the TV. They also need to ensure the price point is correct - Internet history has shown this is a difficult art rather than a science.
The giants also need to get together to ensure hosting a BitTorrent search engine (without which, by definition finding the torrent to download will be much more difficult) is as difficult as hosting Wikileaks. They need to get the payment partners on their side as well - just like the Wikileaks war.
To build an App or not to be build an App
We have a customer at Endava who is at the innovative end of the spectrum. I wouldn't describe them at 'bleeding edge', however they are willing to take some risks by prototyping new technologies and if the ideas succeed, a more rubust version will be built.
Last year they produced a number of prototypes for an annual event - a YouTube channel, the start of a social media implementation, and an iPhone app.
The iPhone app was more successful than a most expected, for a very simple reason. The web analytics from the website showed a low number of users were browsing their main website using an iPhone. So there was little evidence that an iPhone app would work.
However, as soon as the iPhone app was launched, it was downloaded in the tens of thousands within a week. The following year, a new version was released and downloaded 250,000 times in the same period.
What we're learnt from this experience is that iPhone apps are another route to market. They exist in parallel to your website rather than a promotional element of it. For this client, the app was hardly promoted on the main website.
It's ever been quicker or cheaper to produce prototypes such as the ones listed above as long as the core infrastructure is in place - specifically APIs and a decent Content Management System. 10 years ago, these types of prototypes would cost 10 times as much for equivalent first versions (a WAP site, a video portal and as for social media - it hardly existed!).
So the answer to the question in the title - try it.
Review of my 2010 predictions
Back in January I made 10 predictions for Digital Media for 2010. Being open and transparent, how did these predictions fair over the year?
- Reinvestment in Digital Media.
2010 was a great year for agencies. We have implemented a number of very large websites, both brand new brands and existing ones. In terms of reinvestment, clients are now looking into cloud computing and full disaster recovery.
Prediction rating: 10/10 - Lack of new products due to R&D being slashed in 2009.
Looking back at new applications and products - what was released that made a big impact? The iPad (at the beginning of the year before being launched it was referred to as the iSlate). I predicted that the end of the year would see some launches, and Kinect was released in November. Before you start commenting that 2010 was the year of 3D TV, they were in fact launched in 2009.
Prediction rating: 10/10 - A number of live events on YouTube.
Well, in September they launched live streaming. However I doubt most people really noticed. I'll knock some points off because I said "live is where the value is".
Prediction rating: 8/10 - More Flex applications, less Silverlight.
Hmmm - more site are using Flex (BBC iPlayer download for example). HTML 5 changed the landscape significantly, and due to the ongoing spat between Apple and Adobe, agencies are nervous about any single vendor, and will move to the latest version of HTML instead.
Prediction rating: 3/10 - SecondLife to further decline.Second-what? The LindenX has just flattened out for the last couple of years - which means no more money is coming into the platform.
Prediction rating: 9/10 - The UK to start accepting blogging at the same status as the US.
Absolutely. UK news programmes now interview blogging experts for their views and opinions. Blogs are quoted in the press (errr, but so is Twitter, so maybe it's just reporters' laziness).
Prediction rating: 10/10 - Offline browsers make a comeback.
Perhaps 12 months ahead of it's time, this prediction didn't materialise. Before you think there is a gap in the market, we have been approached by a number of vendors in this space.
Prediction rating: 2/10 - The FIFA World Cup sees huge use of video over mobile & broadband.
It's easy to forget the World Cup this year. If you were streaming it though, your view of the summer was probably very different to England supporters. Internet traffic reached a record peak (of almost 1Tb/sec) due to video over mobile and broadband.
Prediction rating: 10/10 - Expect ebooks to take off.
Ebooks have exceeded all expectations for booksellers, so I was correct there. However magazines, sports programmes and other paper publications have been slow to move to ebooks, mainly because Amazon and other ebook retailers want such a high slice of the revenue. So if you're a football club that sells a programme for £3 or £4, you really don't want a new middleman taking 20-30% of your revenue to sell the book electronically.
Prediction rating: 5/10 - 2010... the year of Web CRM
There is still a major opportunity for a cloud based platform with efficient pricing. I do not understand why there isn't a white label SSO platform out there. Let me know if you can recommend one.
Prediction rating: 0/10
Pretty good going overall. Any more accurate and I'd be an octopus.
I'll post an article on 2011 predictions next week.
Photo courtesy of Shine 2010 - 2010 World Cup good news.
Video clip #2
via youtube.com
Yesterday I promised to post a second video clip of someone supremely talented, following yesterday's Star Wars clip.
Danny MacAskill's stunts are quite breathtaking. It's worth watching this video with speaker on - loud.
Not so amateur Star Wars
via vimeo.com
One of the amazing things the Internet enables, is for talented gifted people to reach an audience that in previous ages, required the luck of a TV appearance.
The first is "The Solo Adventures", the winner of "Best Animation" from the Star Wars Fan Film Movie Challenge, sponsored by Lucasfilm.
As the title suggests, it was actually created in 3D, and this version on Vimeo (a far superior quality video hosting platform than YouTube) is the 2D version.
I'll post a video of another talented individual tomorrow.
Newport viral video review
via youtube.com
One of the most successful viral videos this year is the one above - Newport, which is a comical spin on the Jay Z Empire State of Mind song. To put into perspective, the video has had 1.97m views on YouTube alone, and was uploaded 10 days ago.
It's hilarious from beginning to end, so it's just too difficult to quote the funny lines - you need to watch the whole video.
The quality of the video production is superb. At the end of the song is a credits page, with a link to the production company who made the video - www.hellolove.tv. They clearly make better videos than websites (certainly on my laptop it was really difficult to navigate).
When content is this good, I wish the production company (and Newport) the best of success for the future. Apparently its got a new shopping centre.
Micro micro payments - the future of content
Image courtesy of Joe Shlabotnik
Last September I gave an opening speech to the English Premiership clubs discussing loyalty and the future economy of content.
On the latter subject, my personal view is that content cannot stay free for the long term. Our children will look back on the web and ask us what is was like living in a bubble of free video (iPlayer), free radio (any radio station's website/ iPhone app), free high quality music (Spotify), free text content (over 99% of websites), free storage (YouTube, Flickr, etc.), free search (Google, etc.) - it's all free free free. I think we will answer our children by saying "Yes, it was a pretty cheap time - companies advertised on these sites, and we thought that covered the costs" - at least, this is the public's perception.
So what will replace this massive amount of free content and free applications?
At the Premiership event I said that in the future we will have some sort of e-wallet, and each web page that you navigate to, and each search will take fractions of a penny out of your wallet. Listening to music might cost a little more, and video might cost a little more than video. The funds from your e-wallet will be redirected in part to your ISP and a part to the content owner. A bit like local and premium rate phone numbers - some money goes to the telco provider, and some to the company who picks up the phone. My gut feel is that a regular user will spend £10-20 (in today's money) per month on this e-wallet.
That was all last September, and this week there was an article on TechCrunch (thanks to James at Endava for pointing this out) which described a new service called Flattr, which will adopt a similar-ish model. Flattr's model is more proactive though - the content owner needs to install a Flattr button, and the user needs to press the button for funds to go to that owner. It's a start though.
Why YouTube is Not Like the Postal Service
What a ridiculous comment David Drummond, chief legal officer at Google made about the Italian verdict.
He told the BBC News "It is like prosecuting the post office for hate mail that is sent in the post". There's a fundamental difference here though - the Postal Service can't see what's inside each envelope and parcel. YouTube can see every video that is posted.
Until now, YouTube have been on a honeymoon period of ignoring all copyright infringements and legal requirements in becoming a broadcaster. This is changing very quickly.
I applaude the Italian courts for having the backbone to becoming the first country to stand up to the most powerful company on the Internet.
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