Altacircle

There is a lot of talk of Digital Media these days. 

Urban trend spotters call out the growth of iPads and smart phones and Minority Report outdoor displays that great you by name.  Newspaper owners and TV networks are in a panic about digital pennies replacing traditional ad dollars as their viewship numbers decline.  Parents are convinced their children are turning into twitchers because they spend so much time with their game controllers. 

All of this misses the point:  It isn’t about media, it is about culture.  Digital Culture replacing traditional ways of doing things. 

Once someone learns how to e-mail, Facebook and IM, we shouldn’t be surprised they don’t want a landline anymore.  It’s human nature not to like to wait, so why expect people to be happy waiting for the news or their comedy show, and as much fun as Monopoly really is, with The Sims you are really building something.

The point is there have been a number of books and articles written about Digital Culture and it is probably time we went back to them.  The Cluetrain Manifesto from 1999 to the Economist cover article quoting “Power at Last” to Microsoft’s recent campaign about “The New Busy.” 

It isn’t about marketing needing to have digital extensions or coming up with a new banner ad format — it is about understanding how our culture has picked up hacker culture, embraced it and that changes everything.

Looking for something to make you next big event or product launch memorable?  Don’t hire jugglers or Elvis impersonators, hire this guy.
Amazing use of robotics as body enhancement prosthetics or near reality demonstrations.  Or leave the works exposed and get amazement for the Di Vinci-like coolness of the machinery.
Great for a big event — or if you’re making an ad or a movie of course.

http://www.johnnolanfilms.com/animatronics/showreel-flash.php

Just came across a great posting on Cap Gemini’s Technology blog by Gaurav Sharma.  Yes, Twitter is catching in India and yes this post looks exactly like how it caught in the UK and the US.  Ironically, mainstream celebrity driving mainstream media to build digital properties.  It is right out of the Integration Triangle.

Love the writing and love globalization.  Ye twitter kya cheej hai!

Ye twitter kya cheej hai! What thing is this twitter !

During a recent backpacking trip in Indian hinterland, one of the
evenings as I watched TV placed in corner of tea shop in a small town,
news of an acrimonious war of words between a famous Indian movie star
and a political party was playing on. News channel was reporting what
the star had to say on controversy, not through interview given to news
agency or channel but through tweets on his twitter account. As the
saga was unfolding on twitter the new channel was merely picking it up
and broadcasting. Someone seated nearby exclaimed “Ye twitter kya cheej
hai (what thing is this twitter)” . And this could have summarized
what many people in India have wondered for past few months. Twitter
has been in constant news. If it is not a political leader who is fast
building a reputation of getting into trouble in parliament because of
his tweets ,then it is news about what some Hindi movie star has posted
on his/her twitter account. In a way it is ironical that mainstream
media that had labeled twitter as flippant when it was gaining traction
with geeky crowd and early adopters, is now doing more for twitter’s
promotion.

More

The UK story:
The Telegraph’s article:Stephen Fry posts Twitter updates while trapped in lift
Analysis in a business article in The Independent and new media industry magazines like eConsultancy.

A few months ago I posted and circulated some work out of Sweden (Bonnier) and the UK (BERG) that was presented as a prototype for the next generation of magazines. 

Then everyone went tablet crazy at CES, the iPad launched and now Wired has released their new format. 

What is not surprising is that it is picking up a lot of the same design metaphores.  It isn't surprising because they make sense. 

My question is why is this limited to tablet devices?  We can replicate this on the web and it would be a big step forward for magazine content.  Especially when you consdier multi-touch track pads replacing mice as the primary pointing device.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/02/the-wired-ipad-app-a-video-demonstration

Love what gets forwarded around a good digital team.  This one goes to Ume for forwarding around an interesting YouTube link. 

This actually is a related video — a well presented and well thougt-out approach to spatial computing.  What is also really interesting is the quick intro into why our computers are the way they are:

–Command Line – the earliest interface relying on text commands – type in and it responds (1:20)
–Paper Paradigm – Current windows / mac desktop approaches where the computer manages 2D spaces (1:40)
–Spatial Computing – Current thinking about allowing computers to work in 3D space (2:45)

CES is awash with people talking tablets and slates, and e-readers are finally getting traction.  That is fine and exciting from a hardware point of view, but what about design?

Ever since Jakob Neilson gained popularity and promoted usability (often with top-left nav approaches), the web has been wrestling with usability versus design.  I've been looking for a good visual summary of web page design from single column early sites, to top-left, to innovations like flash navigation, cover-flow, panel-driven interfaces and tabbed content elements (yahoo) but haven't found one yet.

Regardless, there is some really exciting work going on for electronic delivery of magazine.

This video from Bonnier, a Swedish media group, shows some amazing thinking and a great prototype. 

It demonstrates what we all feel:  that electronic delivery of magazine content can improve the user experience and that magazines online are not just about putting their content on websites. 
 
 

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Or if you would only like to see the prototype in action from the video:

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Seem funny?  Actually this is the post from migrating my blog to a self-hosted environment.  Watch out developers, getting serious.  Seems only fair that I should understand a bit about plugins, CSS and social networking tools since I talk about it endlessly.

Only 3 hours in at this point, probably another 3 and I’ll be just where I was with WordPress.com!

As my brother used to say when starting my truck and hearing a solid crunch, “nice starter motor, change it yourself?”

If anyone tells you digital marketing isn’t technical, tell them they are crazy.  It is true that you don’t need to understand compression ratios to drive a car, but you better have hand-eye coordination!

Many companies out there are researching digital usage and trying to undersand how we are all using digital technology in our daily lives — but few publish their findings as part of their marketing and brand building effort.  Talk Talk has.

The Digital Anthropology Report 2009 is a well thought out and easy to digest publication. 

Interestingly it also proves an point we’ve all intrinsically believed and is typically referred to by some variant of the pareto rule:  E-ager Beavers that love downloading and reading and searching but can’t be bothered to upload, run a blog or comment heavily like Digital Extroverts are the largest tribe.  And the lurkers outnumber the publishers 3 to 1. 

One of my favourite topics is the increasing complexity of media planning and how it is moving towards a search model where it literally is no longer planned in campaigns.  Basically the sophistication of what ad is served where gets so complicated it can only be managed by a computer. 

Automated Media-Buying Platforms Gaining Traction by Mark Walsh, Yesterday, 3:12 PM

As agencies increasingly turn to automated systems to buy media and manage online ad campaigns, more money is flowing to startups that provide that technology. In that vein, digital media-buying platforms MediaMath and Traffiq both announced new venture capital funding Monday.

New York-based MediaMath secured $12.5 million in venture capital and debt financing, with the $10 million venture investment led by Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. and including QED Investors and European Founders Fund. The $2.5 million in debt financing came from Silicon Valley Bank.

Started in 2007, MediaMath says it serves billions of ads per month through its platform on behalf of 20 agencies, including the major holding companies.

Online ad marketplace Traffiq, meanwhile, has raised $10 million in a second-round venture financing led by Grotech Ventures and Greenhill SAVP and including prior investor Court Square Ventures. In connection with the investment, Grotech general partner Steve Fredrick and Greenhill managing director Brian Hirsch have joined the New York-based company’s board of directors.

Last month, New York-based Traffiq announced partnering with Havas Digital to automate online media planning and buying in the agency’s New York, Boston and Chicago offices. Both companies’ systems are designed to help streamline the notoriously outdated process for online media planning and buying that includes faxes and paper notes. The startups are also competing with established players such as Donovan Data Systems and MediaBank in pushing to develop state-of-the-art media-buying systems.

The latest announcements on the tech front are almost like watching a tennis game.  Just when you thought it was safe to forget about Technology for a day or two, it keeps coming.

Start a week ago. Microsoft launches Bing — a search engine that has some interesting new features but got people more excited because it launched using its name as a verb in its tag line — "Bing & Decide." 

The question that came to mind was Bing and decide if Bing is better?  Like Avis' famous "We try harder," it is just asking us to give poor newcomer Bing a chance. 

No question the "stop searching and start deciding" is a real insight and I'm sure we'll see more of it across clients.

Then Google shows off truly mindblowing innovation across a host of areas with Google Wave. 

Touted as e-mail had it been designed today, it covers a range of innovations from real-time IM to real-time translation and e-mail thread playback.  As has been noted, could be too big.

Now it is Microsoft's turn. Project Natal for the XBox.

Aside from controller-less gaming, this puts XBox exactly where Microsoft has always wanted it — the center of the home as the living room computer.  Video chat, connections to e-commerce, media choosing and playing.

Hold on to your laptops, the next year is going to very interesting.