The world has changed significantly in the last 12 months. 2011 was the year the media really woke up to the power of social and mobile networks.
The ‘Arab Spring’, the global ‘Occupy’ movement, and the UK riots all demonstrated how technology could be used to connect and coordinate disparate groups of people in ways that made it almost impossible for security forces and governments to keep up.
This phenomenon was by no means new, but it was unexpected. As more and more people became digitally connected, and mobile technology became almost ubiquitous, Clay Shirky’s adage that communications tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring, proved to be right on the money.
While MySpace continued its steady decline, other social networks such as Tumblr, Instagram, and Google+ grew rapidly, each vying for our attention. But as RIM (makers of BlackBerry) discovered this year, attention isn’t always such a good thing.
The hackers behind Anonymous and LulzSec figured this out too. Niche social networks such as Path have emerged to enable sharing of information among small groups of people. Other platforms like Silk Road are designed to be invisible to those not in the know.
Unsurprisingly, the techies involved in the Occupy movement are trying to build these types of private networks. This trend has led some to speculate that there will never be another network the size of Facebook. I’m not so sure.
What is beyond question is that mass disruption has been a recurring theme across the globe these past 12 months. We’re also seeing an increase in a consumer trend that has been dubbed “SoMoLo” – Social, Mobile, Local.
Observe the modern shopping experience and you’ll see this being played out. Customers in stores are using their smart phones to check prices, compare products, identify other local shops and consult with friends before purchasing. Soon they’ll be paying for items with their phones too.
This year has also seen the rise of the Urban Mashup. Oglivy Culture launched in the US and Steve Stoute chronicled ‘The Tanning of America’ – highlighting the growing influence of urban culture on the mainstream.
The Kiss
In June, Canadian photographer Richard Lam took one of the most striking images of the year during riots that erupted in Vancouver.
The image of a couple kissing in the midst of the chaos and riot police became an internet viral sensation. Many saw it as a 21st Century reimaging of the famous photo of ‘The Kiss’ that took place in Times Square on V-J day in 1945.
For all the momentous changes that took place in 2011, I can’t help but feel that we ain’t seen nothing yet.
The brands that are missing out on the emerging social network
October 21st 2011 was a big day for Tumblr. It became the first blogging platform to host President Obama’s blog, launching his social media campaign for re-election in 2012.
Obama’s choice (clearly influenced by socially savvy members of his campaign team) brought Tumblr to the attention of the world’s media, including those who had not previously come across the network or had assumed it was only a place to share funny photos of cats. However this attention is long overdue.
In June of this year the network founded in 2007 by David Karp surpassed WordPress in the total number of blogs, breaking through the 20 million mark. It now has over 33 million and rising.
Nielsen’s State of the Media report on Social Media for Q3 2011 highlights Tumblr as the ‘Emerging Social Network’ citing the trebling of its US audience over the last year.
In the UK its growth has been impressive too with 7.5m unique visitors, 5.4m of whom visit in an average month. London in particular seems to be in love with Tumblr. Its residents make 1.6m visits to sites in the network. Only San Paulo in Brazil has more Tumblr fans.
Given that Tumblr’s UK audience is more female (52%) than male (48%) and many of its users are in the much coveted demographic of 18-24 year olds, it’s not hard to see why some brands, particularly in fashion and publishing, have been quick to jump onto the network.
Vogue, Life and Vice have all developed Tumblr sites as have many fashion brands. DKNY is a notable example having recently ported their ‘Notes on a City’ to Tumblr following on from the success of their ‘DKNY PR Girl’ site.
The Economist, The Washington Post and IBM have set up Tumblr blogs too, presumably hoping to earn kudos from a younger ‘edgier’ audience than they might usually attract. I’ve even set one up (for much the same reasons).
What is more surprising is the number of brands that haven’t caught on to it yet. I was pleased to see that Bing (a client of mine) has a fully functional Tumblr site, but was amazed to find that Google.tumblr.com is a blank holding page that appears to have nothing to do with the company itself.
Google is by no means alone. A search for many of the world’s top brands using their .Tumblr.com addresses brings up some surprising and sometimes shocking results. Nike, Adidas, Microsoft, Samsung, and Apple all appear to have people sleeping on their Tumblr’s. I find it hard to believe that any of the brand custodians or legal departments would be pleased about this. In the case of Coca-Cola, I imagine they would be horrified to see what is being displayed in their name. I can therefore only assume that these brands haven’t woken up to Tumblr yet. Like the proverbial bears in the story of Goldilocks, I don’t think they’ll be too happy when they do.
Although some brands are rushing to snap up their own top level brand domain names despite the costs involved, it seems extraordinary that so many have failed to register their own name on Tumblr, which is free and is fast becoming the social network to watch.
I expect this will change in the coming months, particularly if Tumblr continues its growth trajectory and builds insight tools for brands and marketers. When this happens, I imagine a few heads will tumble.
In a few hours time Europe’s largest Carnival will take to the streets of Notting Hill for the 45th time. However it’s not just the poor weather forecast that has worried people this year. Coming so soon after the UK riots, some local residents and businesses in Notting Hill are preparing for the worst by boarding up their houses and shop fronts.
They’re not the only ones who don’t want to get caught out. During the widespread looting that followed the riots, there was some criticism of the police for not keeping up with how rioters were using communication technology such as BlackBerry’s BBM network to coordinate attacks. This time around the police refuse to be caught napping and have already made preemptive arrests, based in part on their monitoring of social media.
While the Mayor Boris Johnson’s call for the Carnival to ‘help heal wounds’ caused by the riots was lampooned by some on Twitter, many of the comments last night were from people hoping that the event will pass off peacefully, or those too worried to attend because they feared trouble themselves.
Google turns to Grime
Meanwhile last week Google released an advert for its Chrome browser featuring Jamal Edwards, the just turned 21 year old rising star of the UK Grime scene who launched his own TV channel, SB.TV and has his sights set on becoming a future media mogul.
The ad, made by the London agency BBH, was apparently produced ‘way before the trouble’ started on the streets of Tottenham, but nonetheless it must have made a few Google Executives nervous given its focus on the UK’s black urban culture, which has been blamed for causing the riots, most notoriously by Historian David Starkey. In my view, Google’s potentially controversial choice of subject matter was no accident.
In Search of Street Cred
One of the loudest advocates for Google’s new social networking platform Google+ is the founder and former President of MySpace, Tom Anderson. In a recent article, he argues that Google+ is destined for success, and draws parallels between its launch and that of other social networks such as MySpace and Facebook.
Of Twitter he writes:
“When the 140 character wunderkind launched in 2006, it was only used by tech nerds. Just one community, that knew each other by name, if not in person. Then John Mayer signed up. Now there was two communities. The tech nerds, and the John Mayer fan club. Then there was Diddy. Suddenly Twitter was of interest to people who liked hiphop & rap. One celebrity at a time started to build sub-communities on Twitter. And make no mistake, Twitter went out and recruited them. Like Facebook, they realized that to gain scale in the social networking space and take mind share from others, they needed to target sub-communities.”
It would seem that Google has learnt that lesson. By making a hero of a young, black, up and coming entrepreneur, they are following in the footsteps of brands like Nike and Adidas who have long understood the benefits to be gained by associating with urban cool.
Google+ “not broadcasted enuff for us cool kids”
I did a bit of digging around to try and try out what types of people have been joining Google+. Perhaps unsurprisingly the early adopters were largely male geeks from the US. There is an Urban Technorati Google+ group and the odd Hip-Hop celebrity (Snoop Dogg and the UK’s Tinie Tempah). But from what I could tell, the cool urban kids aren’t flocking to the service in droves just yet.
Using my own connections, I also did a bit of primary research via BBM to see how many young people on that network had opened a Google+ account. Only one person responded positively, suggesting that Google has some work to do. Google+ is “not broadcasted enuff for us cool kids lol to no about it” was one response I received. If the latest advert for Chrome is anything to go by, it looks like Google plans to change that.
However, engaging with an urban audience can be tricky. As BlackBerry makers RIM discovered during the riots, being the brand of choice within this demographic could land you in hot water on occasion. But to ignore them is to risk being left out in the cold entirely.
As this year’s Notting Hill Carnival hits the streets, the eyes of the media will be watching closely to see whether urban youth culture is still too hot to handle.
31/08/11 UPDATE: Fortunately, this year’s Carnival came and went without a major outbreak of violence. The Guardian reports that arrests were only slightly up at 245 compared to 243 at last year’s event. Considering that around 1 million people were expected to attend the festival, this figure is remarkably low. For comparison, 138,000 attended this year’s Glastonbury music festival but there were 123 arrests made – a significantly higher ratio.
It seems that the massive police presence played a role in keeping the crime figures down. But the remarkable photograph of a youth fleeing the scene having stabbed someone in front of a line of police officers shows that for some, the threat of arrest is no deterrent.
This kind of behaviour is almost impossible to comprehend without understanding the mentality of some of the youths on the streets today. It is described in gripping detail in the book Hood Rat by Gavin Knight, and may well be the topic of a future post.
However, like many people, I’m relieved that the Carnival on the whole brought out the best of London.
If a week is a long time in politics, a year in social media must be close to eternity. During this time the world of social media has changed considerably. Questions about whether it can really generate ROI have been replaced by brands scrambling to be part of the Facebook gold rush.
Personally, I’ve gone from being something of a social media outsider to an inside man by joining Jam earlier this year. In some ways this has been a natural progression, but it’s not one I saw coming.
I was reminded of the strange career path I’ve taken when I read this blog post by Dave Coplin. Dave is now my client at Bing, but it turns out that he’s a fellow comic geek. When I saw the Forbidden Planet image by Brian Bolland, memories came flooding back of weekend trips up to that store and many of the surrounding ones such as Comic Showcase, Gosh, and LTS – the tiny upstairs shop tucked away around the corner of Denmark Street that broke almost every rule of retail by being nearly impossible to find and cramped inside.
Since I read my first Spider Man book the age of 10, comics had dominated my life. They inspired my passion for illustration, graphic design and reading. Authors such as Alan Moore, Chris Claremont, and Frank Miller informed and challenged me, while artists such as Simon Bisley, Jamie Hewlitt and Frank Miller (again) were my heroes.
The only other cultural force that occupied such as central role in my life was Hip-Hop. But if you’d have asked me what I wanted to be during this period, the answer was simple – a comic artist.
Through my Secondary School years, I spent every spare moment I had drawing, and after Art college I enrolled at the London Cartoon Centre where my tutors included ‘V for Vendetta’ artist David Lloyd and colourist Steve Whitaker among others.
Up until this point my career path into that of a comic artist was on track. Hanging out at ACME Comics in Brixton I met Alan Mitchell, a comic writer who worked on Third World War with Pat Mills, published in Crisis.
This led to our collaborating on a comic called the “Scrolls of Imhotep” that was published in an Africentric magazine called The Alarm. Eventually, I got to meet the editor of 2000AD, who – when he saw my work – promised me a try out in the magazine. I was at the cusp of fulfilling my schoolboy dream, so what happened?
Two things changed my plans: technology and the need to be ‘social’.
Technology began to play an increasing role when I was introduced to Apple Macs and Desk Top Publishing at Art College. This spurred a growing interest in design and communications more generally, influenced in part by the work of Neville Brody and the design aesthetic of groups like Public Enemy.
It wasn’t long after this that I was encouraged to start my own design agency and my career began to head in a different path.
The other more fundamental reason was social – or rather the lack of it. One of the notable features of my life as a comic geek is that it was often an isolated one. Although comics provided stories that fuelled my imagination, in the real world, comic collecting was often an individual and competitive pursuit.
Being a comic artist in many ways was worse. I would sit by my drawing easel into the early hours of the morning, not interacting with anyone outside of my pen and paper. After a while I started to go stir crazy, and it began to dawn on me that the life I had dreamed of may not be the one I wanted to live.
Looking back then, it’s no surprise to find myself immersed in the world of social technology as it connects to my passions and reflects my personality in a way that comics in isolation couldn’t.
Is there still a part of me that wonders what would have happened if I’d stuck to my original vocation? Of course there is. But I believe that The Creator has a Master Plan, and so far it seems to be working out.
A couple of weeks ago I launched the BNPC (Buy Normal Personal Computers) campaign to try and stop the flood of PC users switching to Apple. However, I’ve got to admit that so far things haven’t been going well. In fact it seems that more and more people are switching over to Apple products and the company is reporting record-breaking sales.
The new iPad hasn’t helped. On Monday Apple announced that 1 million had been sold in just 28 days. Less than half the time it took to shift the first million iPhones.
Although the iPad is not yet available in the UK, my company had one sent over from the US, and I got the chance to take it home over the Bank Holiday weekend to see what all the fuss is about.
Make no mistake, as with many first release products from Apple, it’s not perfect. Steve Jobs argument against Adobe’s Flash may be well founded, but not having Flash compatibility did limit my experience of the web.
The iPad lacks other features too, most notably a camera. While this was no great loss to me over the weekend, the absence of a viewfinder means that cool Augmented Reality apps such as Layar, will not work on an iPad, which seems a shame.
Another minor quibble is that the iPad feels surprisingly heavy when you’ve been holding it for a while, although this didn’t seem to bother any of my kids – even my two year old – it was noticeable to me as I spent hours playing Angry Birds (for research purposes of course).
More significant for me was the real sense of being in an Apple controlled ‘walled garden’ when using an iPad, with access to Music, Films, Apps, and e-books controlled by iTunes, the App store, and the new online Book Store. As a veteran Apple user I should have been used to this, but somehow the lack of other input devices made the iPad feel far more cut off than say a MacBook Pro.
None of this mattered to my children, who immediately fell in love with the iPad and enjoyed playing games and interacting with its large screen high quality display. As a parent, I was really impressed by the animated e-books such as Toy Story. These brought familiar content to life in creative and engaging ways, and showed what the future of children’s publishing could (and should) be about.
Ironically, although the book reader worked well – it felt a bit dull in comparison to the other applications. I did like some of the magazine and comic book apps, but whether these would get me to start buying magazines again as opposed to simply accessing content on the web remains to be seen.
So, is it an overblown iPod Touch? Well, yes.
Is it another industry game changer? I think so.
Did it lead to near death battles for possession within my family that lasted all weekend? You’d better believe it.
The iPad is made for families. To compare an iPad to a Kindle or a Nook seems unfair – it simply blows them away. Whether it emerges as the industry leader in this new product category remains to be seen. But I’m pretty sure that Apple has once again created a new genre of devices that will in time transform the ways in which we engage with books, newspapers and magazines.
What does all this mean for my campaign to stop people switching to Apple products? I concede it’s a major blow. The fact that Microsoft has dropped its plans to launch a tablet PC is another set back. But, it’s not too late. Google is rumoured to be working on an iPad killer, in the same way they designed the Nexus One to take out the iPhone, but we all know how well that turned out…
Last week the editor of Gizmodo, Jason Chen was boasting about scooping the biggest tech story of the year – getting hold of what is very likely to be the next generation iPhone. Yesterday, California police raided Chen’s house, removing his computers and servers. Serves him right.
Why the hard line? Three reasons:
Gizmodo felt no sense of regret about exposing the hapless Apple Software Engineer Gray Powell who left the prototype in the now infamous German beer garden in Redwood City. The Gizmodo piece not only revealed his name, but also included his photo and Facebook profile. Given that Gray had made the most serious error of his short professional career, did he really need to be exposed in this way?
Gizmodo admitted paying $5,000 for the device. They claim that they didn’t know it was stolen, but is this a credible defence? They knew that if genuine, the device would not have been released with Apple’s blessing. Whether it was mislaid or stolen, Gizmodo choose to pay the person that took the phone, and keep their source anonymous, while at the same time exposing all the details they could find about the victim.
The third and most serious reason is that their scoop has actually increased the hype around the new iPhone. Apple could not have paid for this level of PR coverage. Gizmodo admitted that their page views went through the roof, potentially earning them millions in ad revenue. Chen stated last week that his only regret was the fact that they didn’t milk the story longer.
All this means that more people are likely to buy the new iPhone when it arrives. The raid by the police provides some reassurance that Apple is still the secretive, paranoid, protectionist company that we know so well.
So don’t cry for Chen, he has showed no remorse, and perversely this latest twist in the tale is keeping the story alive, generating even more hype around the iPhone release.
