The advertising industry – delusional in the face of adversity

The IPA and the Future Foundation has just released a report of the future of advertising in the light of the growth of social media.  The summary is worth a read not so much for what it says, but the way it reveals the essentially delusional assumption that there is even a remote possibility  that the advertising industry could ever get to grips with social media.  An assumption presumably endorsed by the IPA and shared by the industry as a whole. Continue reading →

Who says the web is wild?

I recently received an invite to this event organised by the Westminster eForum – a group within the UK House of Parliament.  It describes its agenda thus:

This seminar will offer a platform for debate on how best to approach internet regulation.

Earlier this year the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP described the internet as ‘lawless’.

The internet is often over shadowed by its ‘darker side’. The ability of users to post content online has led to some of the most innovative and popular services such as Facebook, eBay and YouTube but also to inappropriate images, internet scams and illegal file-sharing. How can the UK protect internet users without stifling their creativity?

I want to challenge the fundamental assumption that lies behind this (and that frequently goes unchallenged) – that the internet is wild and lawless.  Continue reading →

The twitterings of a wit or the witterings of a twit – its all social media to me

I think it is time to celebrate the nonsense in social media.

Just recently there have been a few posts flying around where people have been moaning about mess and noise and pointless twittering. See this rather curmudgeonly rant from Jerry Bowles and this from OmMalik and this from Steve Hodson.

I think they are missing the point. Continue reading →

Social media – evolution or revolution (that thorny subject)

I spoke last week in Budapest at Kreative magazine’s Digital PR conference. It was interesting for a couple of reasons. First, to visit a country where everyone seems to think they are some years behind the US or UK in adopting social media. I actually think Hungarians are being a little hard on themselves here. Everyone was pretty familiar with all the tools and latest ‘bright shiny things’, there was simply a (small) lag in terms of understanding how to use them. I was also at pains to point out to everyone I talked to, that actually very few marketing / communications / PR people in the UK really understand social media – so there is not a huge mountain to climb. Continue reading →

Gutenberg and the social media revolution: an investigation of the world where it costs nothing to distribute information

Here is the full text of an article I wrote for the Capco Journal of Financial Transformation.  Unfortunately the original is no longer available online – only as published by myself here on this blog.  If you like this article you may want to take a look at what I have written here, which in the most part are pieces which expand on some of the themes outlined in the article below.

Abstract

This article exposes the impact of a fundamental shift in the way information moves within our society which is generating creeping obsolescence for the business models of organisations involved in the institutionalised provision or mediation of information, be they newspapers or banks, as well as creating a new information space which is currently called social media. Continue reading →

Walled gardens versus plant nurseries – and the death of media agencies

A couple of weeks ago I had a meeting with a very large media (buying) agency.  The agency was proposing an idea for a client which involved creating a place within MySpace.  The logic for this was two-fold.  The client’s target demographic was 18-25 and a MySpace place would represent a walled garden that this group would feel comfortable within.  The term ‘walled garden’ was presented, by their digital expert, as being a good thing. Continue reading →

Antony Mayfield is right – for now

Across on my link blog recently I drew attention to an excellent e-book that has recently been published by Antony Mayfield and iCrossing. One of the predictions that Antony makes is that digital agencies will become clients’ agency of record in the near future – a prediction I took issue with in a comment on Antony’s blog. I felt that PR agencies were better placed to assume this role because they are more accustomed to operating across media channels or through channels which you can’t own or control – but since I am essentially still a PR and Anthony works for a digital agency, you could understand the difference of opinion. Continue reading →

The Gutenberg Principle

I have long been talking about the social media revolution in the context of the invention of the printing press and moveable type and the fact that Gutenberg cemented a marriage between content and distribution which the phenomenon called social media is now separating – allowing content to free itself from its means of distribution. I think this dates back to an excellent Economist feature back in April 2006 – which used Gutenberg’s moveable type and the moveable type blogging platfrom as illustrations of the book-ends to the era of mass media, but didn’t take the analogy much further than that. Continue reading →

This Social Media Thing – why be bothered?

I have been engaged on a quest to distill, as concisely as possible, what ‘This Social Media Thing’ is all about and why it is important.  This is my latest offering – three reasons why it is important and four things you should do about it.  Presented as a ‘one-off blog’ and also available as a pdf so it can travel on the email train.

What gastronomy tells us about the future of newspapers

I was recently looking for information on the decline of newspapers in the US when a Google search turned up a piece by Russell Baker from the 16 August 2007 edition of the New York Review of Books.

A quick scan revealed that it didn’t contain the information I was looking for but a comment caught my eye. The author made the following assertion. “How the internet might replace the newspaper as a source of information is never explained by those who assure you it will”. Continue reading →