Some minor issues

Nokia viNe is going to be released This week, according to the website. It’s a very cool app (I did some beta tests) and I’m pleased it’s going to be out there. I’m curious about the amount of data that will be captured and the way it will be shared.

To learn what Nokia viNe is, watch this movie

Click and stick: $5

So what’s the thing with monetization? For starters: this blog is my playground and my hobby. It’s not my work. I don’t need it to make money here. It hardly cost me anything (hosting is provided by my buddy Serge .. and I guess I still need to pay him some domain name fees ) except a decent amount of time. The things I learn is what I earn and so are the people I connect to. My reputation, I guess ..
On the other hand, I don’t feel dirty if I make some bucks with blogging. Working in advertising myself I’m quite interested in how blogs can spread your message. And there are many models to that. Paying bloggers is only one way of doing things, and then there’s a difference between display ads or commercial content creation.

As far as I’m concerned, I don’t say no to anything .. by default. This means you can knock on my door as much as you like. I’ll listen. But I don’t guarantee I accept your offer anyway. There’s a big chance I might not.
(more…)

My attention was drawn to this little video

I was asked to post this, more about that here.

It shows a Microsoft Surface developer explaining some stuff he’s done, not too technical but quite passionate and understandable.
Well I absolutely love Surface and I’m quite fascinated every time I see it working on roadshows and stuff (last time on FOWA). I think it’s a truly innovative product, taking into account what technology can do for the user, and not for the sake of technology, so that’s great. In my mind, one of the best ways to innovate is this road: think about how good something could be, and then take little steps to make it happen, until it’s there.

At the end of the video you’ll find a link to www.ilivetocode.com. It’s a quite, well, dry website containing a bunch of links to similar video’s on youTube, and other project pages. It’s a Microsoft driven .. campaign (I guess I shall call it a campaign). They’re not trying to hide their identity, it’s there. You can participate yourself by mailing to a Microsoft email address and yes they even pay me indirectly to post the video.
I kind of like the approach, and see where this is going. They try to gain credibility to have developers explain in their words what they are doing and what it means for them. Microsoft is the company providing the tools, and yes they get criticized a lot, but on the other hand you have all these developers who just do what they love. And in the end that’s what its’ about. I try to avoid holy “what technology is better” wars myself. If you use what you love you’ll end up doing cooler things.

Here’s something from the ethos

Nuff said.

The only thing I’d like to see now is someone new, applying to the program with his/her project, and getting picked up. Al though it feels genuine to me this would prove the case it’s not clearly selected marketing talk, but an idea opened up (although initiated by Microsoft). Case 1 might be just good thinking, case 2 is definitely smart!
So if you got something, or know someone .. let me know.

Well, I guess we all come to a point where we kind of doubt whether it’s wise to share a certain piece of information. I just got forwarded an A-class example of how sharing too much might be a bad idea. I paste it in pictures to have the chronology right and because that’s the most lazy way (long live Windows Live Writer + Snipping Tool).

(more…)

That question is kind of the glue of this project I participated in: the age of conversation #2. The idea is to involve bloggers around the globe and write a book together. Yes it’s possible, this is the second edition. Last year about 100 bloggers wrote along, this year the counter stopped at 237. And this year I shared a page as well, titled "Bottom-up marketing".

Well first, this book couldn’t have happened without the excellent effort Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton have put in the project. Kudo’s guys and thank you so much!

I just ordered my copy at lulu, printing on demand baby! And of course I would be gratefull if you ordered a copy yourself. Not for making me any money, none of the writers earn a single dollar. We even pay out own copy. All profit is donated to a good cause: Variety, the international children’s charity. Last year the project raised nearly $15,000!

So obviously the book is about conversation, and it’s a pretty grassroot aproach so in my mind a very good way to learn about insights breeding inside de minds of people really deep into blogging, community .. organic conversations. But I can’t say to much about it since I haven’t received my copy yet. I’m very curious and excited and let you know what I think about it as soon as I’ve got it. You might want to follow me on twitter to pick my brain

Piet Wulleman spotted 5 Belgian participators so far: Piet Wulleman, Geert Desager, Luc Debaisieux, Yves van Landeghem and me. I think we should do a press release together, but I didn’t came to it so far ..

(more…)

I just got my hands on one of the most original virals I saw the last couple of years.

It’s an excel file with a AC/DC song and video, in ASCII (!), embedded. You can download it here and pass it trough to your friends, because that’s what you are supposed to do with a viral, right?

Why is it so good? Well check it out and see for yourself. It’s something new and unseen, and you want to share it instantly. At least that’s what I want.

So why is it a viral. To start, there’s a new album, and that’s exactly what’s promoted here. You are invited to watch the video at www.acdcrocks.com – AC/DC’s official site indeed. Then there are links to the tracks, 45 seconds (with a measurement counter). Add to that the direct links to amazon and play, and we have the whole package (measured as well).

If you look at the props of the excel file, you see it’s created by "Phil Clandillon" who seems to be the Digital Creative Manager at Sony BMG. The new album is released by Colombia Records, a Sony company indeed.
All tracking is done via the www.beingangus.com domain, a AC/DC fan site and registered by Sony BMG again.

Anyway, enough with the investigation. Enjoy the viral. Very good work Phil, keep it up!

Update: see the official page for this action: acdcrocks.com/excel

I promised myself I’d blog some thoughts I have after attending the FOWA conference earlier this month in London. Things I noticed, trends, ideas, .. Here’s the first: the search for relevance.

Personally, I believe this is going one of the big topics the following years. Content creation is growing massively, an thus the amount of content rises fast and steady. But not all content is interesting, not for everyone. So how can we make sure the right kind of content hits your screen, and equally important: as less as possible crap.

The subject was touched in a number of sessions and subjects. How can Digg filter out these results that matter the most? How can Amazon optimize the recommendations. What about Friendfeed and Facebook? Personal facts of our friends and people we know are growing every minute. We’re not interested in all of that! But in some things we are. How do we filter this out?

The 1 billion dollar question alright. But there is an evolution going on, at least that’s what I learned from Digg and Friendfeed. Especially the latter is doing an incredibly good job to deal with it. Mechanisms to calculate interest include looking at the people who you’re most close to and see what they like, and your own rating behavior of course. That way dynamic clusters can be calculated. First you have to define a person’s opinion leaders (in an algorithm: people you tend to agree with, or people who’s contributions are valuable for you). Second you track their actions and translate them to the person it’s all about. Dynamic because your opinion leaders differ from mine.

Interesting is that we’re going back to the classical theories of influence. I know this has never been gone, and online as well these influential theories are applied. However people always assumed that some people are opinion leaders / influencers, and some not. I know I’m cutting corners here, but it’s generally true.
The next refinement movement was introducing the niche concept. This way reach wasn’t the biggest factor anymore. The expertise somebody has on a given subject was getting more important. And sure, expertise is measured as reach again, though not in absolute figures

Next phase: the individual influencer. As in real live indeed. One doesn’t have to be an expert on the subject, the fact that he/she is a friend of you makes you listen. So social roles and individual connections are back in the equation.

Now, the big challenge is to filter these out. If you can identify someone’s prime opinion leaders, in a dynamic way as well because depending on the subject you trust a different person, defining relevance just got easier. And of course there are grades, people who’s opinion matter the most, people who’s opinion matter somewhat and people who’s opinion doesn’t matter at all. In a way this is related to David Armano‘s Influencer 2.0, illustrated with ripples. Except in an other way it’s the complete opposite as well, because in that model it’s all about reach.

I think there’s one principle that’s a bit underrated to define (dynamic) opinion leaders, and that’s behavioral targeting. The way influencers are defined now is usually action based: you subscribe, vote, comment. However, there’s more than that. Reading something for example, or hanging out a certain amount of time. Following a link. Following someone followed by somebody else. I know it’s hard, there’s lot’s of data mining and not easy to program the algorithms, but in my believe this still is a treasure to be discovered.

One last thought (Kevin Rose, are you listening?) timezone does matter! Being active in Europe I know Digging something throughout the day is killing your chances to have it picked up. There’s just to little people (too little opinion leaders?) at that moment to translate your submission into an instant hit. So in the end, this is about reach after all. No reach, no effect. Taking this time difference into account may change something. On Digg this could be a section on the upcoming feed that states: Dugg at this time in Europe .. meaning x hours earlier. Filtering is one thing, making sure the information passes trough the filter is something else.

How to predict the outcome of the next president elections in the USA. 7-eleven came up with a really clever way to have their go. People ordering a coffee are asked to choose between an Obama or a McCain cup.

The score so far makes Obama the winner with 60%
On the previous 2 elections the poll held this way turned out to predict the winner correctly.

I think this is a really great way to interfere in peoples everyday live, on a sympathetic way. Follow the results on 7-election.com

While cleaning up my desktop I discovered some treasures I want to share with you. It’s 2 books, at least the pdf of it.

The first is called "How to think digital" and is written by Simon Silvester, Executive Planning Director at Y&R/Wunderman. The book is distributed by Wundermann.
It’s about how to incorporate digital execution and thinking in your advertising strategy. In my mind a pretty decent read. Download it here.

The second book is called The Social Metropolis and is written by GoViral’s CEO Jimmy Maymann. It’s a very nice book, you gotta love it!

It’s about how different groups of people on the internet are becoming really strong, and really important to involve correctly in you marketing strategies. Beautifully illustrated, great cases, catching quotes, …

If I’m correct they handed out this book at the Cannes advertising festival this year. I’d love to have a paper version of this book (I’d like to pay for it) so I mailed the guy almost instantly but unfortunately never got a response. This is kind of not good for a viral company imho, but hey I still love them and the book is great. Download here or see it on their website.

Below are the sessions I attended on Future of Web Apps (FOWA) in London, and what I remembered from them. I’m going to write some posts about my idea’s about it as well, I’ll update this post with the links when it’s there. I must say that the quality of most presentation was very high. Beautiful slides with inspiring imagery and little words and trained speakers.

I twittered a lot on FOWA, see the archive here. I can now use this same twitterflow to construct my FOWA posts.

You can view most sessions online.

(more…)