Best quote from this blog in 2007: Twitter asks one question: "What are you doing?" At some point in the next five years, investors will ask Twitter co-founder Biz Stone one question: "What are you doing?"
I wouldn't dare to give a "best of advertising" for 2007, so I'll let Johnny Vulkan of Anomaly give the view from the U.S. and Simon Waterfall, co-founder of London ad agency Poke shares the view from the U.K.
All in all, it was an excellent year for music and a shitty year for the music business. Expect more of the same in 2008. Most of the links below lead to posts I've written this year.
According to a new Pew/Internet study, 59% of all American teenagers engage in at least one form of online content creation. Of those 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys, and 54% of girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys. Boys however like their video, with 19% of boys posting video online vs. 10% of girls.
Other figures from the study:
39% of online teens share their own artistic creations online, such as artwork, photos, stories, or videos
33% create or work on webpages or blogs for others, including those for groups they belong to, friends, or school assignments
28% have created their own online journal or blog, up from 19% in 2004.
27% maintain their own personal webpage
26% remix content they find online into their own creations
The survey found that content creation is not just about sharing creative output; it is also about participating in conversations fueled by that content. Nearly half (47%) of online teens have posted photos where others can see them, and 89% of those teens who post photos say that people comment on the images at least "some of the time."
The argument between Will Ferrell and Pearl, has been viewed close to 50 million times on FunnyorDie.com. As AdAge wrote, "That was enough to prompt Sequoia Capital, the same firm that funded YouTube, to invest."
The music lover's guide to the net - Independent Online Edition There's a whole lot more to music on the internet than iTunes and MySpace. Whether you want to remix Radiohead's latest release, watch Arcade Fire play in a freight elevator, or find out what's hot in Harare, there's a site to cater for you. Tim Walker so ...
Yep, thanks to recent, incredible developments in PageTurn(tm) technology, there’s now an exciting new way to browse the Internet on the move. By book! So dump that PDA grandpa. Drown your mouse. Dropkick your iPhone into a nearby pond. Get The Internet Now In Handy Book Form! TODAY!
David's own site is here. He told me that he wrote the book in an attempt to pick up girls. Given the company he kept when I met him at the Webby 5s event over at the ICA, I think he may be on to something ...
Buy it now, before the internet goes out of print.
We (and not just the big fat we, mind you) would realllly miss burgers if they were taken away.
Big time.
Add a brand name and a well-known burger (BK Whopper, in this case) and you'll get "shock and awe" on a scale not seen since there were bombs over Baghdad.
If it were a Big Mac, you'd have rioting in the streets. You see, the French don't have a corner on the protest/riot market. Yanks just need a good enough reason.
Mmmm... This could take me all day, but here's a couple of things worth bearing in mind.
1: Don't take yourself so bloody seriously. Ad people in Britain still think you can do good work and enjoy yourself at the same time. Even if they're a bloody MBA.
2: If you get invited out for a pint after work... Go. You might even enjoy it. And if you don't... Pretend you do.
3: Don't make jokes about the weather, British food, or lack of personal or dental hygiene. Even though your parents spent a fortune on braces and corrective dental surgery, when you probably didn't need it, but 'cos everyone else in your school had a mouthful of tin you had to conform... It isn't such a big deal here.
4: Don't get upset when everyone around you swears like a trooper, even when they now use words that would have caused a trooper to blush ten years ago.
5: Don't defend Bush in particular or American politics in general. Both are indefensible and you'll only get an earful of the previously mentioned language.
6: Be prepared to accept that in general, British women are better looking and much more sexy than American women.
That'll do for starters. I'm sure I'll have more to say later.
Here are two of my favourite videos of this year. If you want a simple, easy-to-understand way of learning about "web 2.0" and the associated impact on the information economy, you won't find anything better.
The Machine is Us/ing Us by Michael Wesch First Released on January 31st 2007 "Web 2.0" in just under 5 minutes. I was inspired to make this video while writing a paper about web 2.0. Struggling to find a way to put it into words, I decided to make this video to show it rather than tell it.
Information R/evolution by Michael Wesch First Released on October 12th 2007 This video explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video serves well as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively.
It is a nice exercise in buzzword bingo, and it has a very catchy title. That said, a few of the charts (like the one above) make for nice PPT slides.
By 2012, the landscape of the industry will change so profoundly that to survive, advertising industry players need to take aggressive steps to innovate in three key areas:
Consumers: making micro-segmentation and personalization paramount in marketing
Business models: how and where advertising inventory is sold, the structure and forms of partnerships, revenue models and advertising formats
Business design and infrastructure: All players need to redesign organizational and operating capabilities across the advertising lifecycle to support consumer and business model innovation: consumer analytics, channel planning, buying/selling, creation, delivery and impact reporting.
On a Sunday much like this one back in 2001, I started blogging in NYC. Over 1300 posts later and from the other side of the Atlantic, I'm still sailing. Hope you're enjoying the ride as much as I am.
The Jim White track is cool, as is one from The Walkmen. Arcade Fire's "Chestnuts Roasting" is hilarious.
In fact, they're all pretty good.
Belle and Sebastian's cover of the Peanut's tune is a nice compliment to the much more offbeat Califone version of "Welcome Christmas" ... originally sung by the Whos of Whoville. Remember them? One of the few up-tempo tracks, Zumpano's "The Mods of Christmastown" is excellent.
It's December, so you know what that means. Digital predictions.
There are too many of 'em, too often, but this set compiled by Vint Cerf and published in The Guardian is pretty good. Since I'm feeling particularly snarky today, I'm going to make some Copredictions right along side of the "real ones" below. Tell me the future The Guardian, Monday December 3 2007
When we asked Vint Cerf, chief evangelist at Google, to guest edit MediaGuardian, we expected him to bring us some luminaries of the web who we don't often get to hear from. His choices transform an often-asked question ("what's the future?"), into an insight into the thinking of innovators and pioneers. It's no coincidence that three of them are founders of some of the biggest web names.
Cerf must be so proud to have invented the internet with Al Gore. If anything, it gives him access to everyone.
Chris De Wolfe: Social networking CEO, co-founder MySpace
First, as we expand these social destinations to all corners of the world, we must always think in terms of the individual. With millions of people using social websites, there's an increasing demand to make everyone's web experience personal.
His first prediction is global personalization. Write me when that's live, ok?
In the same way a home or office is your physical address, we expect your personal, online social profile to become your internet address. When I give out www.myspace.com/chrisdewolfe to friends and colleagues, everyone knows where to find me online.
i-boy Copredicton #1: An increasingly smaller number of people will be giving out their myspace page address to friends and colleagues in the future.
We expect aspects of all socially-based sites to become increasingly portable. In terms of mobile, we expect to have relationships with every carrier and device-maker in the world and we expect that half of our future traffic will come from non-PC users.
i-boy Copredicton #2: Whatever MySpace manages to do on mobile will not make enough money to break even for at least the next 5 years, if ever. Bonus: The "50 percent of traffic from mobile" estimate is absurd in the short to medium term.
Moving right along ...
Chad Hurley: Video CEO, co-founder YouTube
I agree with every prediction Chad makes ... They're not daring by any means, but they'll all come true.
In five years, video broadcasting will be the most ubiquitous and accessible form of communication. The tools for video recording will continue to become smaller and more affordable. Personal media devices will be universal and interconnected. People will have the opportunity to record and share video with a small group of friends or everyone around the world.
Today, eight hours of new video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. This will grow exponentially over the next five years. This new video content will be available on any screen.
In the next five years, users will be at the centre of their video experience, you will have more access to more information, and the world will be a smaller place.
Next up, let's see what one of the titans of the ad biz has to say. Maurice Lévy: Advertising Chairman and CEO, Publicis Groupe
Virtually all media will be digital, and digital will enable almost all kinds of advertising.
Ok, I'm down with that, Mau.
Online advertising will depend more than ever on the one element which has always been at the heart of impactful advertising, both analogue and digital: creativity.
I love how big bosses think their agencies are the guardians of creativity. The best part is that the press eats this up.
The explosion of media channels means this is a glorious time to think and act creatively. In art history terms, we are at the dawn of the Renaissance after the Dark Ages.
i-boy Copredicton #3: Well, the funny thing for Publicis is that there really aren't that many truly creative French Renaissance artists. Faites-vous attention Monsieur Maurice, c'est un météore qui approach!!! Non, non, du calme mon ami le dinosaur. Je ne fais qu'une blague. C'est seulement l'arrivée de l'integrated marketing from smaller more focused and determined agencies. Et ca, c'est pire!
Was that over the top? It was, wasn't it. Ok, let's move on to mobile then, shall we? Biz Stone: Mobile Co-founder, Twitter
Twitter has emerged to create a seamless layer of social connectivity across SMS, IM, and the web. Twitter asks one question: "What are you doing?"
i-boy Copredicton #4: At some point in the next five years, investors will ask Biz Stone one question: "What are you doing?"
That's my favourite Coprediction, in case you're wondering.
There's more to Stone's predictions, but since they all involve Twitter I'm skipping them.
Peter Norvig: Search Director of research, Google
The internet is an ocean of information and in the near future we'll speed through it effortlessly and intuitively, like a tuna.
Google shows signs of irreverence. Nice. He goes on to predict that Google will help us all grow dorsal fins and swim to Hawaii. No, not really.
We will get back web pages, yes, along with existing books and videos, but also custom tables, charts, animations, databases, and summarisations created on-the-fly in response to our specific needs.
But unlike John Arlidge over in The Guardian (back in 2002!), or this, or this, Norvig forgets to mention on of the key drivers of all that happens online: PORN ... And that brings us nicely to some bonus coverage: i-boy Copredicton #5: Video of the Year 2007
Bruce Cole: Archive Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities (US)
Steven Huter and Adiel Akplogan: Developing world Research associate, University of Oregon Network Startup Resource Center; CEO, Regional Registry for Internet Number Resources for Africa
I agree with much of what they have to say because I am an optimist and believe that with our help Africa can overcome war and disease.
Overall progress will occur, but realistically, the limited or unavailable national infrastructure (power and fibre) will make it difficult to attain economies of scale, which will limit pan-African internet development between now and 2012.
The explosion in mobile telephony that has turned Africa into the fastest-growing market in the world, at more than twice the international average growth in subscriber numbers, will continue to drive locally-fuelled innovations.
i-boy Copredicton #6: The "One Laptop per Child" will pave the way for much more significant and far-reaching initiatives who will owe a debt of gratitude to a small, cluncky, battery-powered cheap green plastic laptop.
Our wonderful cat, a small black furbag named Niko, died today.
He made more moves and logged more air miles than most people we know. He lived in New Brunswick, NYC, Princeton, Philadelphia, Vienna and London. He was 14 and will be missed by a lot of people. As K pointed out, ironically today is Saint Nicholas Day.
There's plenty of stuff worth blogging about, but it's late, I'm in the office, the cat is really not well, and I'm having "a bit of a moment", as they say. In that moment, I thought of New Slang. It sums it up.
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