Announcing Futerati: my favorite Twitter people all in one place (Futurists, Thinkers, Authors, Startups...)

I think you may have noticed by now - I really like Twitter. Twitter and my tweeps have been a huge influence on my work. 

One of the  most important realizations that has recently transpired via my Twitter pipeline is how much I am gaining from the ever increasing Sharism i.e. by what others are sharing with me. I am indeed very, very lucky to be connected to so many brilliant and like-minded people that are publishing their thoughts freely and openly, using platforms such as Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, Slideshare and of course, their blogs. All of you deserve a big THANK YOU.

The increasing scope of the 'Proudly Found Elsewhere' approach (PFE) has become a very important component of my work; and vice versa I am hoping that my output is also PFE'd by others; the social web's "give and you will receive" approach has indeed worked out great for me.

So I figured it's time to give some more explicit credit to all those great people that have influenced me, and I maybe a good way to do that is to list them on a special, Twitter-API-based site such as Futerati; and maybe send some attention their way, in return. Futerati went online a few days ago, and much like Electric Artists' cool TrackingTwitter site (but a lot more personal) Futerati is presenting 6 constantly updated categories (Futurists, Thought Leaders Authors, Activists, StartUps and Others) with people that I follow, their latest tweets, the current number of followers, and with some brief comments on why I like them. With each featured twitter user, you can click straight through to their tweets or their profiles and easily connect with them, as well.

Please note that Futerati is a constant work in progress and therefore not complete at this time; I will be adding a lot more people as I dig through my 7400 network connections, during the next 4-6 weeks.  So, if I should have listed you but have not done so yet please post something on Twitter (use @gleonhard) or use the hashtag #futerati or DM me via Twitter, or email, or comment on this blog. If we haven't 'met' yet but if you still want to be listed please ping me with your details so that I can take a look at you; in any case please note that every single connection I list on Futerati is personally selected by me. Enjoy - and RT!

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"Where Is It Going": new Twitter-based video show with Futurist Glen Hiemstra: ready for your questions

I recently started a brand-new project with my friend and fellow futurist Glen Hiemstra, entitled Where Is It Going (WiiG). The concept is simple: we are taking questions from anyone, via Twitter, on any future-related topic, and we will record 5-8 minute long videos of Glen and myself attempting to answer as many questions as we can, on a weekly basis. We will also add a few other futurists from our network once we have solved a few technical issues. We have also started discussions with a potential partner that will help us with producing better videos -stay tuned.

 This is how you can participate in WhereIsItGoing (WiiG):

1. Be sure to follow @gleonhard and @glenhiemstra on Twitter
2. Tweet your futuristic questions to us, anytime, but be sure to use the hashtag #wiig (this way we can find your questions via Twitter Search, no matter if you addressed them to us or not)
3. If you want your tweets to be included on the live video of the twitter stream (#wiig) please be sure to tweet at 9 am PST / 12 noon EST / 6pm CET /12 midnight Singapore, and follow the live tweets via twitter search; we will publish the finished video on WhereIsItGoing.com soon afterwards. We will be on the tweet streams for at least 20 minutes.

Spread the word!

 

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The Future of Mobile Content (presentation at CMMA 09 in Singapore)

This is part 2 of my presentations at CommunicAsia 2009 in Singapore:
The Future of Mobile Content, TV & Entertainment
The content industries are seriously challenged by the Internet's disruptive forces - it may have taken longer but is really hitting home now. Many trusted business models are no longer working, copyright and value traditions are being challenged, and content consumption is drastically changing, everywhere. Now that Internet access is becoming a default part of just about every mobile phone, even more drastic changes are on the horizon. Who will pay for what kind of content on mobile phones, when, why, where and how? Will mobile TV and mobile music finally take off, and what will be the future business models? Where the opportunities are and where are the minefields and myths that need to be discarded....

CMMA Future of Mobile Content Singapore Gerd Leonhard Public (PDF 12.7MB)

Future of Mobile Content (CMMA 2009 Gerd Leonhard)

View more Microsoft Word documents from Gerd Leonhard.

Some recent Twitter-related wisdoms you should read for sure

Twitter is indeed a game-changer and is quickly becoming a major force in social media, news, search and mobile communications. I have written about Twitter quite a few times, already, so today I will just share some really important Twitter-related stuff that I just discovered, myself (via the people I follow on Twitter, naturally ;)

First, the always-seriously-cutting-edge Umair Haque just published a blog post on 'Twitter's 10 Rules for Radical Innovators' which is simply a must-read. Here are my favorites morsels: 

"Open beats closed. Anyone can use Twitter, make friends with anyone else on Twitter, and read anyone else's Tweets, unless they're locked. Here's Oprah, for example. Openness is important because it unlocks 21st Century economics — the new economics of interdependence"   The new economics of interdependence - that's a crucial term, in my view.  I like to think about this as Egosystem becoming Ecosystem...;)

"Connection beats transaction. In the 20th Century, what was viral was mostly the flu. Today, Twitter is the master of viral economies. I got this awesome link from you got it from he got it from them. In the 21st Century, virality can make many different kinds of value activities significantly more efficient and productive..."  Circuits beat channels. Twitter isn't building a new media channel. It's turning yesterday's channel into a circuit. ...Twitter has dropped a neutron bomb of real-time feedback into the heart of media: yesterday's inert, rigid channel becomes a flexible, ever-shifting, reconfigurable set of circuits instead. Efficiency is gained — and monopoly is vaporized — as demand coalesces around supply, and vice versa"

No comments required here;)

Second, be sure to read TIME's recent ode to Twitter: how Twitter will change the way we live. The goodies, quoted, my comments are [...]

• In short, the most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it's doing to us. It's what we're doing to it.
• For as long as we've had the Internet in our homes, critics have bemoaned the demise of shared national experiences, like moon landings ...But watch a live mass-media event with Twitter open on your laptop and you'll see that the futurists had it wrong. We still have national events, but now when we have them, we're actually having a genuine, public conversation with a group that extends far beyond our nuclear family and our next-door neighbors
• Put those three elements together — social networks, live searching and link-sharing — and you have a cocktail that poses what may amount to the most interesting alternative to Google's near monopoly in searching
• One of the most telling facts about the Twitter platform is that the vast majority of its users interact with the service via software created by third parties [I call this the Rise of the API Culture - and it's a crucial driver of 21st century content economics]
• As the archive of links shared by Twitter users grows, the value of searching for information via your extended social network will start to rival Google's approach to the search [This is often called Social Search - and imho, it will beat the pants of Search 1.0 within 9 months. Another reason why Google will buy Twitter, for sure]
• Today the language of advertising is dominated by the notion of impressions: how many times an advertiser can get its brand in front of a potential customer's eyeballs...but impressions are fleeting things, especially compared with the enduring relationships of followers. Successful businesses will have millions of Twitter followers (and will pay good money to attract them), and a whole new language of tweet-based customer interaction will evolve to keep those followers engaged: early access to new products or deals, live customer service, customer involvement in brainstorming for new products.
• In its short life, Twitter has been a hothouse of end-user innovation: the hashtag; searching; its 11,000 third-party applications; all those creative new uses of Twitter — some of them banal, some of them spam and some of them sublime. Think about the community invention of the @ reply. It took a service that was essentially a series of isolated microbroadcasts, each individual tweet an island, and turned Twitter into a truly conversational medium.

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Content to Context: The Future of Media (short video)

Content to Context: The Future of Media (Gerd Leonhard)
Originally uploaded by gleonhard

As the web becomes ubiquitous, everywhere, and mobile access dwarfs computers, we are seeing a key shift in the way that people use (fka consume) content. While it used to be good enough to present high-quality and professional content (think traditional TV, Radio etc) now people aka USERS want and really value good CONTEXT, too, i.e. links, recommendations, ratings, comments... and the conversation around the content. Social media brings this into sharp focus: all the stuff around content (I like to call this meta-content) is now just as important as the content itself. This has significant impact on every player in the content industries.   Download the MP4 file: Download Content to Context shift MP4 (35MB)

More videos on my Youtube channel, iTunes video downloads via Blip.tv

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Picnic Interview: Gerd on Social Media Marketing

This is from the Picnic Conference blog, taken from a telephone interview with me, last week. Please note that I am firm believer that there is NO COOKBOOK for success in social media (whatever that means!), at least as far as I can tell. And there is no certainly not a definitive correlation between your mere numbers of followers or friends, and the quality or merit of your work. We are still very much in the very first, embryonic phase of social media marketing (and the related personal branding options), and it would be very premature to equal success in numbers with success in business or even any real degree of influence.  I am experimenting with this just as much as everyone else... so, read this below, in that spirit! 

Btw - the Picnic conference in Amsterdam (Sept 23-25, 2009) will be well worth attending (and not just because I'll be speaking ;). Last year's event was thoroughly entertaining as well as inspirational, if sometimes a bit overwhelming due to the sheer number of topics and attendees.  Check out my 2008 Picnic presentation on The New Music Ecosystem, here.

From the Picnic site (comments by me are in[...])

"Last Friday, the team at PICNIC had the opportunity to pick Gerd Leonhard’s brain about social media marketing and what has made him successful. Gerd is a well-known media futurist and a regular PICNIC participant. He travels the world speaking about the future of media, content, technology, communication, business and entertainment.

In less than six months Gerd accumulated over 5000 followers on Twitter and his website traffic [and RSS feed users] increased by 300% (60% of which comes from Twitter). As a result he decided to completely stop communicating with his 17,000-strong database by email and his business has continued to thrive. It was a pleasure to chat with Gerd on the subject of social media marketing and we are excited to share some of his top tips with you.

Pull, don’t push: Get people’s attention by providing value and earn their love by engaging with them. This will naturally lead to increased website traffic and increased sales.

Getting started

• Choose a plausible position and objectives you want to achieve
• Find out where your target audience is, i.e. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube…
• Listen to others and decide carefully who you want to follow and get feedback from
• Track replies and keywords to help you actively participate in the conversation
• Set up multiple accounts if necessary (by topic, employee, etc)

Building momentum

• Jump in: don’t be afraid to start, there is no right or wrong way to use social media for marketing
• Provide value: link to content on your website or blog like videos, slideshows, tips, interviews; provide useful resources from other sites; don’t be afraid to re-package existing content by putting a new spin on the story.
• Avoid sales pitches: but do offer special offers or rewards to members of your network
• Participate: develop conversations with members of your network; ask for feedback or advice
• Be transparent: people will feel more connected with your brand when they know what is going on behind the scenes
• Establish yourself as a thought leader or authority: dialogue with the right people

Measuring success

• Social media marketing is not a replacement for other marketing tactics. Success with social media tools requires time and effort, not money. Success has to be defined by the individual or company.
• The number of followers or members is important, but not the only measurement of success. You can also track traffic to your website generated by social media sites, number of RSS subscribers, and increase in comments or leads.

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The Future of Content & Creativity: Video of my speech at the RSA in London (April 8, 2009)

Finally, here's the video of my speech at the RSA. The lighting did not work out so well so it's not the best quality, but still, I think you'll like it.  Please visit my GerdTube.net site for more videos (this URL is just a door to my Blip.tv channel), or subscribe to my videos via iTunes (great for offline / iPod viewing).  And... please retweet!! 

This is a video of my speech I held at the RSA as part of an event on April 8 2009, entitled "New Media Futures: what next for content and creativity" Topics: The internet is radically disrupting most of the traditional content distribution and selling models, starting with music and games, followed by TV, film, books and print publishing. Once everyone is always-on, mobile and hyper-connected, and everything is available everywhere, how will content be created, distributed, marketed, consumed, and paid for? Who will do what, for whom, and how will the traditional players such as broadcasters, record labels, publishers and distributors adapt? If new players, starting with telecoms, device makers, advertisers and brands, indeed move into the content business, what will be their challenges and opportunities? Given the challenging financial climate, how do we reconcile the need to reward enterprise and secure sustainable revenue streams, with the expectations and demands of the “freeconomics” generation? What kind of legal, regulatory and cultural framework do we need to ensure that this new eco-system of creators, consumers and intermediaries generates more benefits for all involved?

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The Future of Selling - my presentations at the eCom Berlin Conference

On Tuesday March 5 09 I was invited to hold the Leaders Lecture at the inaugural eCom Berlin event; on Wednesday March 6 I had the pleasure of delivering the closing keynote on "The Future of Retail".

Here is are PDFs, below (provided under the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, Attribution License, as usual)

Wed closing keynote Download Future of Retail eCom Gerd Leonhard(10MB PDF)
15MB PDF Future of Selling Ecom Berlin Gerd Leonhard (Tues)

This work by Gerd Leonhard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

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A key topic for 2009: EGOsystem becomes ECOsystem, yelling becomes talking, traditional Marketing...dies!

Image by gleonhard via Flickr

I touched upon this in my presentation at the Mobile Monday event in Amsterdam: I think we are going through a totally amazing and very challenging paradigm shift, right now (and this may still be a somewhat delayed consequence of the Internet (r)evolution and the first .com bubble): From EGO to ECO, from Control to Openness, from Domination to Collaboration. A few examples:

• The amazing shifts in U.S. policy and America's new global role: when President Obama implements his far-reaching plans to rewire how America works we will see this new trend towards win-win solutions rub-off everywhere else, too, and kick off chain-reactions in many other, traditionally more dominance-focused countries such as Russia, as well (and the reverse is also true). The old Bushinator mantra 'You lose - we win' has simply become unsustainable in today's networked economy, and America will doubtlessly struggle with this shift from domination to partnering for quite some time. However, I definitely anticipate a strong trend towards open systems and open platforms in the global economic and political spheres - as well as in technology and content / media - with utter transparency and TRUST becoming the key requirements for success, everywhere. There will no doubt be considerable debate on what this trend means for copyright and patent laws, globally, too, since these laws have traditionally been used for shoring up market-shares and protecting the interests of the large, dominant players in many industries.
• The music industry: the decline - or shall we say gradual vaporization - of most major record industry players due to their amazingly persistent obsession with control, makes a great case study. Rather than to finally permit new revenues to be co-developed via collaborating on win-win scenarios, the IFPI and RIAA are still looking for new enforcement and protection mechanisms such as the now flamed-out '3 strikes & out' legislation - it does make you wonder if their 'leaders' have lived under a rock for the past 5 years!  In any case, the music industry is the prime example why monopolistic and totally centralized structures will simply not work in the future, and why we need governme

  I

  nt intervention when a market place is clearly dysfunctional. Many of my readers know that I have been talking about this for a looooong time, but now we are finally seeing it take shape: the music rights organizations and their related content licensing processes will undergo significant and sweeping changes in the next 2-3 years; everything is moving from a 'not allowed / not possible' default mindset to a more collaborative, open, flexible, transparent and public rights licensing logic - and they must adapt or get out of the way. The bottom line: If it's not based on a web-centric and connected logic it will cease to exist. As an example, the current conflict between the Music Performing Rights Organizations (PROs and MROs) such as PRS, GEMA and Youtube is based on this basic paradigm disparity: PRS and GEMA are thinking of the music rights still being firmly and exclusively their business (i.e. an EgoSystem), and Youtube/Google think of music rights as being a crucial component of a new, 21st century content ecosystem that concerns everyone and should not be governed by monopolies and cartels.  Therefore, for Google I reckon that the music rights issue is  something that must go far beyond the traditional structure that's based on 'I own the rights, exclusively, and you'll need to pay whatever I ask for'. My prediction is that if the traditional rights-holders and the many societies that represent them don't materially change their thinking on this very soon, they may wall see a wide-spread revolt of their younger, more progressive members, because they know that not permitting the use of music on Youtube (and Google!) is simply a suicidal move, in terms of getting attention and building your brand. Get off the Ego and think Eco!
  

  Image by gleonhard via Flickr

• Microsoft's Windows OS is becoming less and less dominant (and relevant, too) as 'free' and cloud-based operating systems are gaining ground everywhere (Linux, Google)
• Most telcos, mobile operators and ICT companies are trying to switch from the traditional 'total control of the network, the infrastructure and the users' to open platforms as fast as they can (e.g. AT&T's open source plans, Skype's open Silk codec, Nokia's Open Symbian Foundation, Google's Android Mobile OS)
• In software, the continuing trend towards open-source and crowd-sourcing is clearly visible everywhere (e.g. the huge success of Firefox vs IE, and the rise of open-source DMBS)
• Many large corporations are starting to move into crowd-sourcing, wanting to pursue increased openness in return for a chance to realize network-economy benefits. E.g. Glaxo Smith Kline's recent move to release a huge amount of cancer research data into public domain (Note: in this context, I highly recommend Yochai Benkler's fantastic book "The Weath of Networks")
• The mind-boggling popularity and global success of API-driven web portals and platforms (Twitter's amazing growth, Friendfeed, the new Facebook 'River', widgets, the UK Guardian's open API etc)
• For many large companies as well as for SMEs (small medium size enterprises),  Social Media is quickly becoming CRM (customer relationship management) - rather than running expensive ads that talk about 'Me' and how great the new product is (i.e. Ego), the switch to 'having conversations with the customers aka users' is visible everywhere: Ford's new Fiesta campaign, Kraft's cool iPhone app. Brands can no longer be just BIG EGOs - they are part of Ecosystems, too.
• In Advertising, the entire paradigm of 'we'll yell until you listen' is finished - this concept was all about the Ego of the brands, and about us, the people formerly known as consumers, listening. Now it's all about the Ecosystem: Do you come recommended?  Who trusts you? What makes you worthy of my consideration? Why should I pay attention to you? Who vouches for you? Who has told me about you? Are you open and transparent? Here, too, Egosystem has become Ecosystem, and a Trillion $ industry is changing as a consequence - from Push to Pull, from Yelling to Talking / Listening. Tough gig but... a gold mine if you can make it  ;)

 

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8 key trends and some foresights for the next 5 years

Every now and then I get tempted into actually formulating some fore-sights. This time, the preparations for my upcoming speech on "New Media Futures" at the RSA in London have egged me on to share a few key points with you:

1) We will soon see the emergence of many different kinds of iPhone-influenced Netbook-like devices; some will be Apple-made but most will not. These devices may be 2-3 times the size of an iPhone and will connect to the Internet in every conceivable way, i.e. 3G/4G, LTE, Wimax, Wifi etc.  They will be touchscreen, zoom-interface enabled, cloud-computing, speech-controlled, location-aware, mobile-money equipped, socially hyper-networked, always-everywhere-on, HD-camera equipped and possibly project images and audio or even support basic holography.

In addition to the high-end, fully-loaded and perhaps still rather expensive versions that many of us in the so-called developed countries will gobble up, low cost and more basic editions for the developing markets will be sold in the 100s of millions (think India, China, Indonesia...). These smart gadgets will have very low energy consumption and therefore extremely long battery life, may even sport basic solar-power options, and may ultimately cost less than 30 USD, or even be 'free' (why bother to sell the box if you can make a lot more $ with selling services.... Nokia?).

It is these mass-market yet very smart and networked devices, together with cheap or free wireless broadband that will really revolutionize reading, newspapers, books and education; not to mention our music, TV and film consumption habits. Content commerce will be completely redefined as a consequence. As BTO told us a loooong time ago: "You ain't seen nothin' yet"

2) Very cheap or free wireless broadband - at fairly high speeds, i.e. at least 2MB / sec - will be available in most places, particularly in the booming new economies of Asia, India, Russia and South-America, and a bit later, in Africa. Funded by the likes of Google and by the future 'telemedia' conglomerates, governments, cities and states, wireless broadband will probably reach 3-4 out of 5 people on the globe within 5-8 years. User-generated & derived content (UGDC for those of you that must have an acronym ;), virtual co-production, mobile editing and instant network sharing will explode by a factor of 1000, making control of distribution a very distant concept of the past. UGC or UGDC may make up to 50% of the global content consumption by 2015. Consumers will be (co)-creators, marketers, sellers and buyers, and come in a hundred variations, from totally passive to totally active. Then, indeed, filtering, culling and curation will be the key to success.

3) Collective blanket licenses that legalize and unlock legitimate access to basic content services via any digital network will emerge, and are likely to take over as the primary way of content consumption, around the world (but in Asia, first). Just like water or electricity which is readily available when moving into a new home, the basic access to content will be bundled into access to digital networks, i.e. via ISPs, operators, telecoms, portals etc. This shift is starting with music (as already done by TDC in Denmark, and Google in China), and will be quickly followed by films, TV, books and newspapers. Access may often - but in local variations - 'feel like free' to the user but will in fact generate 10s of Billions of $$ via blanket licensing fees (yes... those pools of money), next-generation advertising and branding, data-mining & sharing, up-selling, re-packaging and many other new generatives. This topic will, btw, be the gist of my RSA presentation tomorrow - if you can't be there in person, you may want to listen to the live audio, via this link.

I think that governments around the world will call for and / or support the implementation of collective content licenses that wil finally legalize content usage on the Internet, similar to how governments pushed for the radio and broadcasting licenses  approx. 100 years ago. Whether these blanket licenses will be voluntary or compulsory remains to be seen - in any case the only alternative is to perpetuate a severely dysfunctional telemedia ecosystem that criminalizes almost all users and stifles innovation while generating virtually zero new revenues for the creators.

4) Fuel-cells and other next-generation mobile energy sources are a certainty. A serious increase in mobile device power (and therefore, its use) will be achieved by employing next-generation technologies such as fuel cells that could provide for up to 500x the usage time that we have today. This is likely to become a reality in 3-5 years and will revolutionize how we use - and how much we rely on - our mobile devices, especially in countries where there the fixed-line power infrastructure is much less developed or non-existent.

5) Completely targeted and personalized advertising, delivered largely on totally customized mobile computing & communication devices, will turn the the $ 1 Trillion USD advertising and marketing services economy upside down. Behavioral targeting and user-controlled advertising will, of course, become an even hotter potato and a much discussed challenge, but the good old deal of 'I give you attention & personal data and you give me value e.g. content' will be even more pronounced on the Net. In fact, advertising as we knew it is already more or less outmoded and will, during the next 2-3 years, be completely reinvented. Privacy and Trust are the #1 issues here.

The implication is that if your data (within your specific sets of permissions and opt-ins)  is used to bring you perfectly synchronized advertising, than advertising really becomes more like content, too. Watch this play out in the mobile advertising space, starting this year, and quite possible boost the global value of advertising-content by more than 100% by 2015. Google will be the main driver here, plus Facebook, Nokia and yes... Twitter (soon to be = Google).

6) We will witness the more or less complete decline of most forms of physical media within 7-10 years. The very definition - and thus the core economic business models - of newspapers, magazines, CDs, DVDs and books will be completely re-written, and new forms of content packaging will rapidly emerge. We can already see a preview of how this may work in the current mobile applications boom: content as part of software packages; paying for the packaging, the curation, the bundling, the personalization - not just for the zeros and ones that are 'the copy'. This trend is important not just because it will reflect the users' (or better... followers') new consumption habits but also because because of the increasing need to save energy and material costs - and moving from content products to content services will certainly go a long way in this regard. The total decline of printing in people's homes, and for personal use, will commence, as well.

7) Paying for privacy will become a distinct option. Today we pay to go online and connect; in the future we may end up paying for the luxury to go offline, disconnect, enjoy the quiet, and give our brain some rest. Maybe if we don't want to share our click-trails and usage data, we will be able to make cash payments instead - and the more you pay, the more private you can be..?

8) Travel 2.0: alternatives to 'actually going there' will explode: immersive, 3D video, virtual rooms, holography. This is a key development that will nurture new forms of entrepreneurship, education and group working.

Please talk back!

Mobile Content Futures: a narrated slideshow (video). From EGOsystem to ECOsystem.

I just uploaded this new video (below) to my video channel on GerdTube.net (Blip.tv); it's somewhat similar to what I presented at Mobile Monday Amsterdam on March 30, 2009.  Topics:  A drastically different Broadband Culture is imminent - total mobility, always-on, low-cost Internet access, constant peering and pervasive social media, rivers of news and oceans of content. Developing nations will go straight to digital content-access, straight to mobile EVERYTHING and straight to next generation advertising and marketing. Control, Domination and Push / Monolog is out; Openness, Collaboration and Conversation is in. From EGOsystem to ECOsystem.  More: check out the GerdTube RSS feed (download all shows via iTunes)

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Mobile Content Futures: my presentation at Mobile Monday Amsterdam (March 30)

Download Mobile Content Future Gerd Leonhard Momo Amsterdam Public 15 MB PDF

Great event in Amsterdam today - Mobile Monday rocks! Event details here. Twitter back-channel here.  New: the Video is here!

Some predictions: the next 18 months
• Twitter will reach 50 Million + Users  • Facebook will become the default social utility - and the biggest global Content Broadcaster  • Google will double it’s Advertising revenues  • The RIAA and the IFPI will run out of cash  • Telecoms will get flat-rate content licenses  • Skype will re-emerge as content player

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Mobile Content Futures: Gerd Leonhard at Mobile Monday Amsterdam March 30 2009

View more presentations from Gerd Leonhard.

Some Internet companies are becoming more like Public Utilities and integral parts of our Social Infrastructure

I have observed a recent trend that I want to share and get your feedback on: some Internet companies and platforms such as Google / Youtube, Facebook, Nokia, Slideshare and Twitter are becoming so important to many of us that we would be severely challenged if they went away or materially changed their services. This makes them both very powerful but also very vulnerable - for if we chose to no longer trust them, they would quickly face their demise. Some examples:

• Google already provides the digital toolbox and 'cloud computing' infrastructure for a 100s of Millions of people: free email, domain services, calendars, docs, widgets, blogging, videos, voice (soon!) - and of course: search and advertising services. Youtube has become the de-facto next-generation TV for a lot of people, already. My slightly futuristic view is that pretty soon Youtub

  

  e and the many other video sites (and of course the 100s yet unlicensed video download services) may start replacing Cable TV as the prime source of entertainment for a lot of digital natives. A fast net connection + AppleTv + Boxee + Miro ...pretty soon, that should do it!
• Facebook provides a key social platform that, for many users, has already substituted email or phone calls,

  

  and is well on the way of becoming a cyberspace 'home' for many of us, a digital meeting place and key part of our social lives. My prediction is that Facebook will become as important as Google - and they will reinvent advertising in the process, just like Google did.
• Nokia is heading in the same direction: Comes with Music is looking to provide a seamless, all-inclusive music experience

  

  that is build-in or shall we say hard-wired into our mobile lifes, Nokia's OVI is gearing up to compete as the preferred destination for sharing things, and their handsets i.e. mobile computers are well on the way of becoming remote controls for our lives.
• Flickr, Slideshare and Twitter - to a lesser degree, for now, compared to Google and Facebook - have become crucially important to Millions of people

  

  already (I can attest to that) because they are great platforms to share stuff; and shar

  

  ing seems to be what gets a lot of people excited - not a surprise but certainly an important realization.

A bit like the good old BBC, these companies may soon face a double duty and somewhat of a conundrum: 100s of Million of people have grown accustomed to using them, and their services have become so crucial that they have become not only valuable businesses but also public utilities that we are increasingly depending on. My feeling is that once a company has reached this position, its value is much higher than the actual revenues could ever warrant, since it's no longer just about monetary value but also the social capital they have accrued, and the corresponding TRUST that we put into them.  So this is, as a result, the most important mission for those companies that make it to this point: Earn and keep my trust, every single day, with everything you do. And then, I will keep paying attention to you, give you my data to use, send my friends to you. Don't mess with the terms of use without asking me (>Facebook), ask for permission to use my clickstreams and cookies (see Google's approach to behavioral targeting), and don't ask me for $ too early (see Twitter's yet to be defined revenue strategy).

The tools of constant distraction - Friendfeed gets new desktop app

Friendfeed just launched a cool new adobe air app that let's you see the latest posts from your 'river' of friendfeed buddies in the lower right hand corner of your screen, giving you a constant update on what's happening in your network, similar to some twitter apps, RSS readers or stock market tickers.

My problem with all these apps is that a lot of what I see in my river is actually quite interesting, constantly tempting me to 'go fishing' when I see them pop-up. This kind of ambient awareness can be an interesting juggling exercise but by and large I find that the distraction is just too much, unless you're 17, maybe;). Constantly getting new pings with interesting new things is a seriously tough challenge when you're trying to a one tiny slice of a job done - so my FF app stays off until I want the river.  Yours?

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Meet me at The Digital Marketing Briefing - Conference in London, March 19

Image by gleonhard via Flickr

The Digital Marketing Briefing - Conference. I will be holding a keynote speech on Social Media & the Future of Marketing and Advertising.

"Marketers are looking at the exploding social media and online networking services with a mixture of excitement and bewilderment. How can, and should, a brand control the message in this environment where the users are in charge? What will marketing look like as this phenomena spreads out to 2 Billion people on mobile networks rather than computers? Will advertising need to be completely reinvented and if so what will it look like? What marketing strategies are working in this environment? These and other questions will be examined by Media Futurist and Author Gerd Leonhard"

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