I’ve seen two videos that I like:
The Day The LOLcats Died
and
@Google: Lawrence Lessig: Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It
I know this second video isn’t specifically about SOPA / PIPA, but once you’ve watched it I have no doubt you’ll understand why I like it.
Source: Farhan Rehman’s ConsciousComms.co.uk
Usually, when it comes to this time of year, I like to look into a crystal ball, and start thinking about what I think is going to be up and coming in the year to come.
Most times, those posts get stuck as drafts, and become a constant reminder of how there’s never enough time to synthesise my thinking, other times, I end up choosing not to publicly share my views, and opinions (there’s something about having your own personal take on things, which sometimes it’s nice to keep personal
This year, I’ve decided to try a different approach. I want to talk to as many people as possible about what they think has been the big trends of 2011, and where they think 2012 is headed.. In the spirit of collective wisdom being smarter than any one individual, I’m curious to see what a ‘collaborative’ vision of 2012 looks like, and how 2011 looked, through the eyes of peers, and colleagues old and new..
So if you’re interested in sharing your two cents, please feel free to chime in below, in the comments, or to get in touch, if you’d be up for a short 5 minute interview. I want to get a much more granular view of the Social Landscape across Europe, for 2012, as it looks like a much more interesting tapestry of changing user behaviour, than has been in recent years past, so I’ll be reaching out to folks individually, as well as collectively, to piece together a collective vision of what 2011 was, and what 2012 could be, from the eyes of the “Social Media” Professional community.
If you want to get involved, drop me a line on farhan [at] consciouscomms [dot] co [dot] uk.
Hopefully, the effort will produce something that’s of as much value to the community as it is to me
Here’s to a fantastic end of 2011, and a great 2012!
I responded to Farhan via email with this:
Two thoughts I have on trends for 2012:
1) Social in enterprise (Google+ for Google Apps)
I reckon Google will drop the final pieces of the + puzzle into place. Already we’ve got Circles in our Gmail, I reckon it’ll take over Sites as we’ve already seen it start to with Blogger; but who cares – the best part will be when it arrives in Google Docs. Imagine being able to set up a project Circle for the team members inside and external to your enterprise, then drop docs into the Circle as the sharing/permissions mechanism.2) Social events (Twitter)
Spode and I started ThinkWall because we believe that Twitter is the ideal platform for enhancing events. The problem throughout 2011 has been that most event organisers we have spoken to have seen Twitter as something that is bolted-on to their event. It’s a “nice-to-have” feature and often a last minute consideration. My prediction for 2012 here is that Twitter becomes integrated and inbuilt, so that social is the backbone to all marketing efforts – before, during and after the event. This will become so much easier for event organisers to piece together when the event dashboard startups really begin to make an impression.
I look forward to seeing if I was accurate this time next year!
Terrible idea – whoever first decided to make a list of bad habits and life changes certainly did NOT see all of them through.
That’s the point, isn’t it? Make a list, feel better for having made the list, then two weeks later – pretend the list never existed.
I made a list last year. Conveniently, I’ve lost it. Lesson learned there: don’t write anything down on paper that isn’t part of a notebook. Scraps of paper will always go missing.
I do remember some of the points from it:
Why do I remember these points? Because I actually completed these three. Woo!
The first one is most interesting to me because I didn’t blog more as a result of making it a New Year’s Resolution.
I purchased this domain, hosting it on more expensive servers than was logical or justifiable. This meant that I had to write blog posts because otherwise I’d see my credit card statement each month and kick myself for wasting that money.
One year later I’m still writing here. In fact my method has refined – I now also use Evernote Premium to clip articles and organise my thoughts as part of the writing process.
Having a private pad on which I could pen thoughts became an important part of my life this year. I wouldn’t say my decision-making has improved much as a result of note taking, but I certainly understand what’s been happening better than before.
That’s the key. Pie frequently writes “I blog for me” – he’s spot on. It’s not about the pageviews. No one reads this blog, but for a year I put the cash and the time into writing for it. I’m proud of everything I’ve written and I feel like I’ve grown.
Today I scaled this hosting package down. But what I’ll take away from the last year’s experience is this:
If I want to make a real difference and a change to my behaviour, I need to find a way to alter my perception of an activity’s value – such as spending a lot of money on it.
‘Tis the season!
I am rather pleased – this year’s Christmas shopping went very smoothly. I managed to buy all the necessary gifts over two weekends.
But for the second year running, I’ve had to answer the question – “Why don’t you give iTunes vouchers as gifts?”
So glad you asked.
Never mind the opinion I’m about to express (about a hell of DRM) if I can’t come up with a great gift idea then that tells me I don’t know the person I am gifting well enough to bother at all.
If you don’t know what someone likes, why not just give them cash?
My stance on open versus proprietary is simple – I don’t like the latter. I’m a Linux guy.
If I buy something from Apple then I’m tied into that ecosystem for life. I’ve heard all the arguments and I know the products are well designed.
I have spent the last two years in an IT role where “this won’t connect to…” was a daily battle.
Content is completely different to the hardware and software that Apple sells, yet the company has successfully developed an extraordinarily profitable store utilising the same school of thought.
The movies, music, books – the content – that I purchase should be just that: a purchase.
I do not want a rental, or something that can be taken back from me or edited once I’ve handed the cash over.
It is mine. I paid for it. Let me do with it whatever I wish.
Louis CK has made headlines recently for publishing his content under his own terms, free of DRM, direct to consumers, and priced at just $5. If you haven’t already, read Fred Wilson’s blog post on the subject.
In it he quotes Louis CK:
First of all, this was a premium video production, shot with six cameras over two performances at the Beacon Theater, which is a high-priced elite Manhattan venue. I directed this video myself and the production of the video cost around $170,000. (This was largely paid for by the tickets bought by the audiences at both shows). The material in the video was developed over months on the road and has never been seen on my show (LOUIE) or on any other special. The risks were thus: every new generation of material I create is my income, it’s like a farmer’s annual crop. The time and effort on my part was far more than if I’d done it with a big company. If I’d done it with a big company, I would have a guarantee of a sizable fee, as opposed to this way, where I’m actually investing my own money.
The development of the website, which needed to be a very robust, reliable and carefully constructed website, was around $32,000. We worked for a number of weeks poring over the site to make sure every detail would give buyers a simple, optimal and humane experience for buying the video. I edited the video around the clock for the weeks between the show and the launch.
The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As of Today, we’ve sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video. They would have given you an encrypted and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would have owned your private information for their own use. They would have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you can watch it in Dublin, whatever the city is in Belgium, or Dubai. I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you). You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from us again.
Kudos.
I came across something odd this week with Facebook advertising.
Facebook Insights reported that the sponsored stories I’ve been running received a few hundred clicks.
Google Analytics showed less than half that number of visits to the landing page.
After a little searching around, I found that others have experienced similar issues.
It seems that if the landing page contains a few swf video files then there is a chance that the page won’t fully load before the visitor leaves.
As a result the Google Analytics tracker, if placed at the bottom of the page, might not load and report back to your dashboard.
To overcome this problem, you just have to insert the Google Analytics embed code into the header so that it’s used instantly.
Next week I should see if this has solved my problem.