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.
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!
I just ran across some nice research from Nielsen called the Global Online Media Landscape - download their free PDF - (yes, I know, it's from April 2009... so I am a bit late to the party...sorry) shows that as of February 2009 the use of eMail is paralled by the use of social networks as far as the frequency of communication is concerned; so-called member communities and social networks are now an equally preferred method of conversation. This trend will continue and I predict that eMail will remain popular mostly for business communications but will otherwise decline drastically, within the next 3 years. I kind of pointed in this direction in a blog post in October 2008 "eMail is for old people'. Now just wait until the Google Wave hits!
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 ;)
"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"
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.
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)
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.
"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.
"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?
Speakers: Gerd Leonhard, media futurist, author and blogger; Richard Titus, Controller of Future Media, Audio, Music & Mobile, BBC; David A. Smith, chief executive of Global Futures and Foresight (GFF). Chair: Ralph Simon, CEO, The Mobilium Advisory Group and Chairman Emeritus & Founder, Mobile Entertainment Forum - Americas.
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
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).
Here is the video with my presentation, below (scroll the icons under the player to get to my image, then click... or listen to all of it). Vimeo file for my speech only.
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?
"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"
Sander Duivestein, senior analyst at Sogeti's VINT, and one of the co-writers of this powerful ebook that provides a huge amount of both information and inspiration for anyone pondering the Future of Media, just send me the link to where his great book can be downloaded as a free PDF. Go get it before they run out of server juice;)
The full title is: Me the Media: Rise of the Conversation Society - Past, Present and Future of the Third Media Revolution
The authors are Jaap Bloem, Menno van Doorn, Sander Duivestein. There are some pretty cool illustrations in the book as well (see below).
I will be chewing my way through this during the next few weeks - hey, I may even take advantage of this opportunity and start using my new Sony Reader, i.e. without printing all 292 pages.
The main topic of the book (as far as I have read it, at the time of this blog post) is how drastically things have changed because WE 'the people formerly known as consumers' are becoming more empowered by the minute, i.e. it's increasingly more about MEMedia than about THEIRMedia; about conversation and engagement not (you guessed it) about Control. The video below provides a nice intro as well, more vids are
here. This is a must-read, imho! Be sure to pass on the news of the release.
Incidentally, I have found a few slideshows on Slideshare that are also a very good fit with this book, including this one (not mine:), and, naturally quite a few of these PDFs might also make a good fit (yes, they're mine;). Enjoy. Don't print.
As promised, here is the PDF with the slides from my presentation at today's eComm Conference in San Francisco (sorry for the delay in posting this - had to have dinner first;)
Summary:
" Imagine a world where unfiltered and limitless access to content is
bundled directly into your access to the networks. A world where 'your
cloud' holds all kinds of content, your social network connections,
your community, and your context (i.e. meta-content), your meta-data
and your interaction-trails, and where access to all of this is
feels-like-free, legal, always-on and fully mobile, on any and all
platforms. This is the future we are heading into, and telecoms,
content-owners and brands / advertisers must forge entirely new
partnerships. We are starting to see content creators and
rights-owners aborting their long-standing quests for total control,
and instead looking to build their audiences and share revenues. So
where is this trend going to take us, what do we need to do in order to
turn content (music, video, TV, news, games, books...) into a new and
truly growing business that is really web-native, where are the
big opportunities for telecoms, operators, social networks and
rights-holders, and what will the new business models look like? In
this context, Gerd will also address topics such as the flat rate for
digital music, ISP/Operator + Content bundling examples in Europe and
Asia, copyright 2.0 and the future of content commerce, the shift from
control-economy to attention & trust economy, the latest
developments in next generation advertising, and the growing economic
power of those 'new generatives' (> Kevin Kelly)..."
Read Zuck's post: Facebook | Governing the Facebook Service in an Open and Transparent Way. When Facebook changed their Terms of Use last week, making it look a lot more 'controlling', all hell broke loose. Even in Switzerland (where I live), the national TV news reported on the uproar that followed. Everyone hated Facebook's new ToUs and lots of
people were considering ditching their accounts. Even though their new ToUs did not surprise me, and I already consider everything I do on Facebook to be kind of 'in public domain' (under the Creative Commons license I use for pretty much anything), I do think that they way they have gone about this left a lot to be desired. Their brilliant and decidedly Web2.0 move was to immediately back-paddle and return to the old ToU - very smart, and something that probably got them extensive media coverage all over the world (hey - there's a lot more room to grow, from their measly 160 Million or so users;).
So Zuck wrote in this blog-post: "Our main goal at Facebook is to help make the world more open and
transparent. We believe that if we want to lead the world in this
direction, then we must set an example by running our service in this
way. And... we came to an interesting realization—that the conventional
business practices around a Terms of Use document are just too
restrictive to achieve these goals. We decided we needed to do things
differently and so we're going to develop new policies that will govern
our system from the ground up in an open and transparent way. Beginning today, we are giving you a greater opportunity to voice your opinion over how Facebook is governed"
Well-done. Sure sounds a lot like Facebook will be more like a 'Public Utility' ... kind of like the BBC, maybe? Now, there's another blog-post, right here!
But here is the key point, for me: It is now abundantly clear that the WE-THE USERS can control and influence what happens - not (just) the 'Network Owner' or 'Provider' or 'Media Company' or 'Studio' or 'Label' or "TV / Radio Network". If we-the-users, the people formerly known as consumers, don't like it, we'll leave, taking all our friends with us, deflating the platform's value very quickly - just imagine what would happen to Google if we pulled our trust from them. Control has now shifted to the Users - and that's a good thing.
This is,
of course, the topic of my next book (download some previews, here). More soon. Facebook ToU tag cloud by Flickr, AuntieP
I sure hope I am not telling you anything really new here, but in any case: to everyone out there - if you have not yet claimed the perfect twitter user name for your venture, company, location, service or blog yet - such as, in my case, twitter.com/gleonhard - you should do so now. Yes, like, right now. It's already happening but I predict that very soon this trend will really explode, and Twitter names will be registered, squatted, bought and sold like domains used to be, not so long ago. I myself own about 10 or so names that I am using or plan to use, such as Dailywisdoms and FutureFeed. Unfortunately I was asleep at the wheel for a while, myself, as far as Twitter is concerned, and missed the unique chance to get about another dozen or so names that I really should own such as 'thefuture' ;) - so much for successfully predicting the future (or, rather, acting on it;) So, get to it! Note: you need a new email address for each twitter account that you want to register.
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