What if +1 was named +Godzillion…

Google’s +1 has not been doing well in getting followers to click on that +1 Button. Just passed its half month mark, +1 is only managing single digits where right next to it, the rival buttons are getting 10s, 100s, 1000s of Likes, Tweets and so forth. I’ve written an article today on Bright Side of News looking at exactly how bad (or good) +1 is now. In short, not good. The news vine is also starting to write about this disappointing start. What’s wrong? Is it too harsh to start judging +1 now already?

It’s already tough enough to be doing catch up against the golden boys Facebook and Twitter, much less saddled with a bad start. Adding followers one at a time is not quite going to work. Just imagine how different it could be if only +1 was named +Godzillion right from the start…

Check out my +1 reporting on Bright Side of News here : Is Google +1 Yet Another Social Media Dud?

ps. remember to +1 the articles! Without the power of +Godzillion, Google needs every +1 of you…

Happy (belated) Birthday IBM : 100 Years Old

IBM, a name we don’t hear much anymore. Not in the feeds, not in the tweets. IBM, the mighty Apple-killer… I have fond memories of how I traded in my Apple II compatible for an IBM PC compatible. I wrote a blog post today about it - which is now published on BrightSideofNews.com (BSN*) - reflecting on its past glory, a gentle reminder that the movers and shakers of today - Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Nokia (this one might be on the way already) - could be the grandpa’s of tomorrow.

Have you also once had an IBM PC back then? Did you also totally miss this 100 year old birthday? Can’t be bothered? Feel free to share your thoughts, and memories about it. Comment here, or Twitter @AddLikeFollow

Happy (belated) Birthday IBM : 100 Years Old!
IBM had its 100th birthday yesterday, and I missed it. I did see the news flash by yesterday in by daily news watch, but I was just too busy to write about it. It wasn’t on my to-write list, not on my agenda and disappointingly not on my social media birthday calendars which I have come to rely on. Facebook, Skype, MSN, LinkedIn, iPhone, you name it… noone reminded me of his birthday, shame on you. In fact, probably the only reason it is being news’ed about is because a publisher is pimping the book IBM 100 Years! If IBM has become so off-center in our worlds today, why then do I feel compelled to write about it? And felt it was worth writing about a birthday a day late? … read more here …

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2011/6/17/happy-(belated)-birthday-ibm-100-years-old!.aspx

Lovers Spurned #1 : Facebook & Apple

Earlier this month, Apple announced and showed off “deep integration” of Twitter in the new iOS 5. Meaning wherever an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch goes, Twitter is there - the hot new celeb couple in town!

News (and gosh leaked photos too) is circulating in the feeds showing Apple’s ex-lover to be none-other than Facebook – Twitter’s archrival. The circulating pictures of unreleased betas are showing that same “deep integration” with Facebook, exactly where Twitter is now. After all Facebook is the undisputed king of social media, many times larger than Twitter.

How did that Apple and Facebook relationship run into the rocks? Is it a clash of egos? Jealousy? Who ditched whom? Some say the cracks started with the Apple’s Ping social music network which was supposed to be a service with “iTunes on Facebook”. Some say it’s because of Facebook being in bed already with Microsoft in Windows Phone 7.

Whatever it is, Apple’s jumping straight into bed with arch rival Twitter is surely not making things smoother. So, skip the “let’s be friends” politeness, and get straight into the cat fight of spurned lovers. meowwrrrrrr.

Facebook attacking Apple with HTML5 App Store for iOS devices
Coming soon Facebook’s very own App Store for your iPhone / iPad / iPod Touch. Seriously. Currently the only way to get apps are through Apple’s iTunes Apps. Facebook is determined to break that monopoly and shift Apple users onto Facebook’s own ecosystem. The project is still in development, a pure coincidence that it is being leaked now, right after the leaks of the Apple-Facebook integration.

Apple Game Center in iOS 5 mirrors Facebook gaming
An amazing 53% of Facebook users play games on Facebook. Based on the latest numbers of 700m Facebook users, it means Facebook Games has more than 350m gamers! Far far ahead of the last September launched Apple Game Center with 50m subscribers. So to compete, Apple is launching new look and new features in iOS 5 that makes Game Center more like Facebook’s Games page!

Actions of a spurned lover? Or root of the break-up? Watch out. Hell hath no fury like a lover scorned.

Xbox Live = Microsoft’s cloud ecosystem?

Microsoft recently showed a new Xbox Live dashboard that is very similar to the user interface of Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8. Add that to their confirmation that Windows 8 will feature “deep Xbox Live integration”.

The intention is to use Xbox Live as the center of entertainment where PCs, Notebooks, Tablets, Phones, Xboxes connect to. Users will be able to enjoy that same games, same content, same app services across different platforms, different devices. Sounds like a cloud to me!

Xbox Live + Windows 8 + Windows Phone 7 + Xbox360 = Cloud Ecosystem?

What’s going for Microsoft in this strategic move to use Xbox Live as the center of gravity is that Xbox Live already has a 35m userbase. The significance is that these are not just casual register-and-forget subscribers, but actually subscription-money paying users focused on consuming games and entertainment. That is a strong powerbase uniquely different from that of Google and Apple. Furthermore, Microsoft’s Xbox360 already has a place in the living room putting that TV screen in its ecosystem, while both Google’s GoogleTV and Apple’s Apple TV has flopped and not (yet) been able to gain any foothold on the TV.

In the war of ecosystem, the headlines have mainly been peppered with Apple vs Google. But do watch out for Microsoft, it´s moves with Bing + Social Media, this Xbox Live integration, shows Microsoft is hardly asleep. With it’s artillery room full of product weapons, all it needs is that right synergy and marketing to center itself again as the dominating cloud ecosystem.

Dumb and dumber is more numbers

Before you jump to conclusion, this post is not about the movie dumb and dumber, although it is in the field of entertainment – games, phone games, social games to be precise. We play games to entertain ourselves and sometimes to socialise – traditionally it would be a game of cards, chess, hide and seek, or even table tennis. That brings me to Pong, the forefather of electronic games. Since then computing power and hardware abilities has grown massively in one direction. Each new game machine delivered more, faster, higher def. With more processing power crunching more graphics, the games got more high definition, more realistic, more complex, more sensational. Games started to look and feel like Hollywood, and costs more to produce and even more to buy.

Well that is until Nintendo’s Wii came along a couple of years ago, totally reversing the trend. With less development resources and less money to risk, Nintendo could not take on Microsoft and Sony in the game of biggger badder hardware and epic game developments. Cleverly, Wii went back to the basics, simple, fun and enterta( ining. You don’t need to spend hours building up your character, or understanding the plot. Not only Pa and Ma can play, even Grandpa, Grandma and baby sis can play too! Now that´s numbers!

The runaway success of Wii has proven dumber is more numbers! More fun, simpler to play, more people can and will play.

So what’s next? What is dumber than Wii games… yup… phone games, social media games. Even shorter, even simpler, even more no-brainer so you can simply stop thinking and just play. Game over? Try again. Try again. I swear just one more time. The popularity of Angry Birds just knows no boundaries!

This is the article I came across last week that started me thinking about simple mindless games – Apple’s Game Center outnumbers Microsoft’s Xbox Live. Fact is, Apple’s Game Center (think iPhone/iPad app games) has hit 50m members in just NINE months, overtaking Xbox Live’s 35m members which has been running much longer. The picture used in this article is the introduction of Apple’s Game Center just September last year. 50m in just this 9 months!

iPhone/iPad games, Android games, Facebook games… even Skype has joined in with Skype game. I wonder what will a Twitter game look like (edit: hitting that ReTweet button 5ox a minute is NOT a game). The days of dumb and dumber games has just started. Well as the saying goes in marketing, Keep It Simple and Stupid. Watch the numbers grow!

Will you be Facebook-ing on dutch design Sofa?

The saying goes “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”. Everyone knows this. Apply this to company acquisitions, and this is exactly what Facebook has done in buying Sofa, a design-interface-software company based in (i.e. till now) Amsterdam, best known for Mac apps like Kaleidoscope and Versions.

“The Sofa team will be moving from Amsterdam to Palo Alto in the coming weeks – and we’ll make sure to infuse some of our particular flavor of Dutch culture at Facebook” – says Sofa on its blog

The news broke already late last week, especially the dutch media seems thrilled with this acknowledgment of dutch design prowess. I thought and wondered… here’s a team of design talents letting go of its past work, uprooting and shipping themselves across the oceans. There must be more than exciting opportunities, there must be creative space! At least I sure hope so for the Sofa team.

Indeed, the Facebook acquisition of Sofa is not about buying the software products in the company’s portfolio. Products are specifically left OUT of the deal. It’s all about buying the Sofa Team, the team that creates not only great working software, but also great looking software – it’s the experience they create. “Buy a great product; you have a product for today. Buy an awesome team; and you have awesome products for a lifetime.”

“The team will contribute to a wide selection of the products that the design team works on. Typically, each Facebook product has a designer who is a core part of the team.” – says Facebook in a statement

Take a look at Sofa’s past work Kaleidoscope, Versions, Checkout, Enstore and their website / blog. Check out their app/web design style and interface.

With social media as hot as it is, competition from Twitter following right on their heels and Google fuming green with envy, Facebook is upping their game with hyperactivity - changes and new features like Happening Now, FriendFeed, Facebook Lite etc. In a time where User Interface shapes user behavior, this is a truly timely acquisition.

Will Facebook start looking and feeling like Twitter? Will Twitter start looking and feeling like Facebook? Will I be Twittering from Facebook? Or Facebooking from Twitter? Or will I Facebook/Twitter in Google or iOS? The kettle is boiling as we speak and the landscape is about change.

Where will they put their brand new Sofa shipped in all the way from Amsterdam? Or will each and every programmer, developer, marketer and all get to rest their creativity bums on their very own dutch-flavored Sofa? Or will the Sofa simply be left in a corner in the recreation room? Time will tell how much Dutch user interface and design signature we will see.

As a user, I’ll be looking forward to enjoying a Facebook on my dutch Sofa.

Good luck, goede reis en veel succes!

What’s social hierarchy gotta do with marketing?

So you watched the video and had a laugh? Jokes aside, did you notice the pick order of the pack? The obvious ones, The Leader (Google), The Loser (MySpace), The Challenger (Facebook) and the rest.

In every group environment, there is a social hierarchy – there is always an unofficial leader and more often than not, also an unofficial loser who seems to be at the receiving end of jokes and yet still does his best to be part of the group. Some of the other common characters are the challenger, the clown, the worker-bee, the thinker etc, many of which I’m sure you recognise .

Now if you think of a particular market space and the various brands / companies in it as a group environment, then there must also be a social hierarchy since brand / company image do interact in the marketspace (press news, user comments, editorial etc). Social media undoubtedly put this interaction on speed.

In the video you see The Leader (Google) gathering his group in an attempt to put down The Challenger (Facebook). The Juniors (Twitter, Foursquare) take stage to sling mud at The Challenger, while the Seniors (Youtube, LinkedIn) watch quietly from the sidelines. Juniors have less to lose and thus are typically more vocal. Seniors because of the weight they carry, tend to remain silent and weigh each word carefully before publicly expressing them. Like in the human world, The Loser always still gets his airtime (oddly, everyone would have preferred otherwise), and predictively would clumsily solidify his position as The Loser. And common sense tells you, being associated with The Loser is not good news for your position - see Gizmodo wince when mentioned by MySpace : )

Every Brand / Company in a market space should take a good look at which position the brand / company has in the social hierarchy. In this way, the brand / company can actively take control of its interaction in the group dynamics. Without that understanding, any interaction would be passive following the group dynamics and seem out of control.

As a new comer into an existing market, it is even more important. The brand / company needs to know who the players and their positions are. Just like a new boy in the class, the newcomer’s position in the group is determined by the group. Played right and positioned right, the brand / company’s every move seem like social magic. Got put in the wrong corner and every action would just come out wrong, there would be just no doing right.

Instead of merely looking at how a brand / company is communicating with its users, we should engage group dynamics.

You might say the video is scripted by people so it mirrors people behaviour. True. But the video is merely a convenient way to illustrate the social hierarchy. Put the video aside, pick a marketspace (socialmedia, tablets, cola, fashion… )and look its social hierarchy. Tell me if you too see the various characters alive and kicking. Have fun.

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Video “The Roast of Facebook” at CollegeHumor
Appearing in the video (did you spot them all?): Google, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Foursquare, JDate, Youtube, Netflix, StumbleUpon, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Flickr, Tumblr, Paypal, Digg, Hulu, Pandora, Gizmodo, Reddit, Friendster, CollegeHumor

ps. did you wonder so where is Apple in all this? Remember in your class, wasn’t there this one guy, independent, walk-his-own-path, odd, aloof, seems too cool or too something to be part of the group, never showed up at the prom, and later in life turns out to be either a hugely successful billionaire or a wannabe cross between pink floyd and andy warhol.

MySpace troubles… It’s in the name, doh.

MySpace barely made the news recently and it ain’t good… Newscorp the owner who bought it for $580m is trying to offload it, hoping to get back $100m, but embarrassingly sources say there’s only 1 bidder (in all due respect that’s not bidding). MySpace was one of the earliest social media site and once was the place to be. But ever since the rise of Facebook, MySpace could do no right. Traffic tanked and continues to tank. A re-make, with facelift and new logo, to re-market itself as entertainment hub, a space for bands and musicians looks good visually, but is still not helping the numbers… traffic still continues to tank. Yes, there has been mistakes, and competition is formidable, but nobody can truly explain how the fortunes of the once almighty MySpace can sink like the Titanic. I guess that’s socialmedia, hot today cold tomorrow, you’re it or you’re not. At the rate traffic is leaving like a tsunami alert, the single bidder could end up being the new owners of his very very own uhm space, literally.

Facebook Real World: wife traps husband with fake profile, or so she thinks…

If you see this 17-year old girl Jessica Studebaker hooking up with you on Facebook, be warned, it’s too hot to be true. It’s the fake profile of an unhappy wife set up on Facebook to lure and trap her husband, as basis for divorce. Much to her joy, husband walks into trap, so it seems. They develop a friendship and husband starts talking about eloping, sharing information about putting a GPS tracker on the wife´s car and, and *you gotta sit down for this* wanting the wife to be “out of the picture” (aka kapish, zilch, wiped out). wow. This is the kind of stuff you see only on TV Soaps… it’s now gone onto Facebook. Does this also make Facebook an accessory to murder (in the event that the murder does happen)?

The soap elements continue… there’s a 360 degree twist. Husband knew all along and was playing to it, to catch the wife’s actions as (you guessed it) basis for divorce. geez. How can he prove it? He’s written an affidavit, stating his suspicion that it his wife and that he is merely going along with it, which he deposited with a notary at the bank, and also made a copy kept at a relative. Apparently he was not too dumb to disbelieve that a hot 17 year old girl would hit on him (37 years old).

What a mess. The whole case is now in court, we’ll have to see what the judge thinks of it all. Every week, every day, Facebook is showing up in very real world situations, very real life places, the good, the freakish as well as the ugly. I’m taking bets on when (not if) we’ll see reality shows (ala MTV Real World) on Facebook… I wonder which name it would be – a) Facebook Real World b) Facebook Raw c) Facebook The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Dutch girl tattooed 152 facebook friends [video]

Facebook photowall tatto

That Dutch girl with Facebook photowall tattoo story that was making the rounds on social medial - it came out today that it was a hoax, but for a couple of days (slightly more than a week actually), it was very believable.  Some were disgusted, some batted an eyelid, but a LOT of people found it believable enough. The way social media has entered our daily lives, it is not unimaginable. So, this one is a hoax, but the next one might not be now that the idea is out there for somebody nut enough to follow follow.

As a viral marketing campaign, it was pretty successful with more than a million views on Youtube and major press reporting on it. Whether it brought actual sales of the company´s products (you can buy products from this Dutch company with photowall of Facebook friends plastered all over it at PrettySocial.NL, the company who engineered the hoax), we’ll have to see. At least they got the free publicity that money couldn’t buy (such as me telling you about what they do, which I just did). The general opinion on Twitter sphere is rather positive, from beautiful to brilliant.

I actually found it amusing, and as the initial reaction to the viral marketing sunk in and went away, I thought about the product – gee, it could be rather cool to give as a gift, a Facebook photowall gift… hmmm…

ps. you can read more about the story here
http://mashable.com/2011/06/08/facebook-tattoo-hoax/

Battle of the Clouds Apple, Google & Microsoft

It’s raining Clouds. These recent days has seen the 3 major movers and shakers of technosumer world (Apple, Google, Microsoft) each busy stealing the thunder from the others’ clouds. Cloud computing is not new per se, it has been a key technology development shaping the professional computing world (data warehousing, corporate services etc). But now it has gone into a frenzy of world domination as each fights to be the cloud that is everything and everywhere for every of you… get ready for the Battle of the Clouds.

So what is this Cloud in the consumer world? It stores all data private and public in a huge common virtual space, where each person’s data is separated only by an ID and password. For common data (eg. music), there is only one copy of it in the cloud and you (and everyone else with access) co-share it with your ID/password access. And since it is in virtual space, any device would have access to that one data via the internet, and would update the same copy. So your phone, tablet, computer, netbook, office computer will all have the same content anywhere, everywhere.

Apple’s iCloud was officially announced on 6 June, coming to you this fall, built into iOS 5. With one sync update every single iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch could be iClouded in no time. Apple promises seamless integration of iCloud in all your existing and new apps since it is built right in the core of iOS 5. Take a photo with your iPhone and that photo will be everywhere in all your devices (Apple of course).

Google’s Cloud (or rather Clouds) is currently a 4-prong force = Google Cloud Music called Music Beta active trials in USA (for all your music everywhere), Google Cloud Print (print to your cloud printer from any device anywhere), Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office (to steal your office documents away from Microsoft’s Cloud), Google Apps Cloud Service (conveniently hip-ping Apps with Cloud). You don’t need to be a weather man to see more cloudy skies at Google – coming soon to ChromeOS for Chromebooks, Android 3.1 phones and tablets and Chrome 12 browser.

Microsoft Windows Cloud is Microsoft’s answer to its rivals. Having the most corporate footprint among the 3, it has already been actively clouding with its corporate clients – Microsoft Cloud Services, Microsoft Cloud Power, marketed with Microsoft Cloud Experience events. But those, as mentioned earlier, are the corporate clouds. In the hype to cloud the consumer world, Microsoft has been the least clear and and least vocal. Windows Cloud seems to be a hastily patched together marketing answer adding Cloud to existing services to [insert cloud icon] Create, [insert cloud icon] Connect, [insert cloud icon] Share with Windows 7 and Windows Live. Microsoft marketers also have to think of how to re-hip the un-hip Windows Live Mesh (seriously which non-tech consumer gets that name) which is essentially a cloud, just not hip. Or wait it out with Windows 8 (recently announced and demo’d), Windows Phone 7 (o dear) and Internet Explorer 10 browser.

Cloud, Cloud, Cloud and more Cloud coming your way. In the Battle of Clouds, music of thunder will roar and flashes of lightning will strike as advertisements, offers, online sentiment swaying and other tactics will come your way to convince and grab you into their cloud. Don’t be afraid, don’t let them cloud your judgment – just pick that one soft white fluffy cotton-like cloud and frolic in consumer content heaven… i.e. until one dominates and then changes the rules (don’t they always do? remember the nice Microsoft as an underdog?). Enjoy the coming happy clouds while you can  : ).

Facebook party 1500 guest & 100 police

Yet another Facebook party invitation gone wild, gone viral, gone out of hand – Thessa, German girl in Hamburg happily throws a Sweet 16 birthday party and puts her party invitation up on Facebook – as would any teen with any social (media) cred these days, pretty normal so far isn’t it? Problem is that with her privacy settings, the invitation went public, meaning everyone is invited. 15,000 signed up for the party! Uhm, she must have noticed that. Eventually 1500 actually turned up, and to keep the crowd in order, throw in 100 police – the power of social media!

She tried to cancel the party but it was too late – it’s already gone viral and there’s no stopping the crowd once it gets moving as you can see in the video. So what have we learnt? Not only can social media over throw governments, social media can also throw awesome parties, like it or not.

Interesting numbers actually : 15,000 confirmations, 1,500 shows up, that’s 10% show-up for a “public” event. No event marketing needed, no secretariat chasing RSVPs, not even invitation cards / postage costs, almost no cost involved in marketing and she’s got 1,500 guests!

China iPhone iPad iTouch users = 10 million

10,000,000 – that’s the number of iOS users according to sampling by a Chinese software company targetting iOS, as at end April 2011. They go on to further breakdown by the various models iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and data on type of apps and the most used apps in China. There has been little official data published about iOS in China. This report is one of the firsts I’ve seen stating numbers. Here’s some of the figures.

 

iPhone has the biggest share of the pie at 70.25%, that means a cool 7 million iPhone users in China! Given that they cost more than a month’s salary for your average grad with starting job in an office, that’s not a small number. But from another angle, with a population of 1.3b, that’s only 0.005%. Don’t you just love China numbers?

 

The take up of iPhone 4 went fast, already at 63.17%, 3x more than 3GS. Given its position as a status and trend icon, no wonder old models are ditched fast and hard like they are diseased. I myself have seen enough friends / acquaintances do the switch, it’s not so much an upgrade but more of a keepingup(up)grade. If your social circle switches to the 4, you can’t seriously not hurry and do the switch too, can you? or at least that’s how it goes in China. I must say the keepingup happens in Europe too, just not as pressure-cooked as in China – just my casual observation.

 

iPad 2 showed up in the numbers too, even though it is new, a month plus into its US launch, and not officially launched in China yet. So the iPad 2 numbers surely are “imports”. With iPad1+2 at a share of 16.45%, that’s 1.6m users.

 

What do all these numbers mean? That’s a good installed userbase of iOS in China  - currently 10m, translating to 0.007% which means awesome growth potential. Just imagine hitting 0.05% is already a 7x growth! You App developer, yes you… tempted? It seems to go quite unnoticed by everyone outside China and there is not much data on the internet. Which got me really thinking! Wanna think along? Anyway, there are more slides, if you are interested, do email, tweet, comment. Or simply questions? Love to talk/share/chat about app opportunities.

Bouncing balls and Yes-Set psychology

Sony Bravia (Bouncing Balls) – An example of the Yes-Set psychology

Remember the bouncing balls commercial from Sony (Bravia LCD TV)? Fun wasn’t it? watching all the balls bounce up and down and up and down. Well, subconsciously you would have been nodding your head up and down, and up and down as your eyes follow the balls, very minimally, very sublimely. Then Sony conveniently shows you their TV, and because you already in the “Yes-Set” mindset (from the gentle nodding), there is a very good chance that you will approve of the product and associate with it positively, yes yes yes. ah, the beauty of sublime influence. Bravo!

Well you can do it too, get people into the Yes-set first so they are more likely to agree with what you actually want to say! No, not throw a bunch of balls around, haha. First start by asking a set of very simple questions that gets a Yes answer… Is your name xxxx? Yes. Are you living in xxxx address? Yes. In xxx city? Yes. O well we have an exciting offer for you… uhm, Yes. ; Sound familiar? … Yes ; p

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Lawyer wants to see iPad 3 (o, and the iPhone 5 too)

Moral of Story: Lawyers are smart, smarter than 17-year old boys. After reading about the 17-year old boy selling his kidney for iPad 2, I came across this article about Samsung lawyers wanting to see iPad 3. The news is actually about a lawsuit between Apple and Samsung that Samsung designers are copying Apple (Phone / Pad).

In what ways is the lawyer smarter than the 17-year old?

1. He only wants to see it
   Doesn’t need to have it, doesn’t want to have it, just see it
2. He does not have to pay any body parts or money for it
   Samsung and Apple are paying for the court charade
3. He gets money for it
   Yea, not only does he not pay any body parts or money, he actually gets paid for it!
4. He wants 2 for the price of 1
   Yesss, seeing the iPad 3 isn’t enough, let’s see the iPhone 5 too, pretty smart if you ask me

Not only is the lawyer smarter, apparently also being smartypants about it. When he gets to see the iPad 3 / iPhone 5, he is not showing to us. Yes, you heard it right, we don’t get to see it. He (they) see it in private, damn! C’mon admit it, how many of you are thinking cool we’re gonna see the iPad 3 and iPhone 5. Not. Follow @addlikefollow

Online TV more and more popular

“Watching TV online (Catchup TV) is getting more and more popular, especially among the younger generation. From the age group 13- to 19-year olds, 36% watched a (Catchup) TV program online at least once a month, according to figures from Stichting KijkOnderzoek (organisation for viewership research)”

Saw this article in the Metro newspaper (Netherlands) a couple of days ago, just confirming a trend that’s been clearly visible already. Well my question is… so there’s this trend to watch TV on the internet, and then there’s this other trend to have TV with internet, does that mean trend + trend = I will be watching TV on the internet on a TV with internet? Food for thought, let me pause my internet TV and get a pizza.

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Boy sells kidney for iPad 2

http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2011/06/02/6772047-boy-sells-kidney-for-ipad-2

A 17 year old boy saw an internet ad to sell kidney, got in contact, negotiated the fee (about US$3500) because he wanted an iPad 2. Travelled alone to the hospital doing the surgery, got it done, got paid, and came home with an iPad 2 and a notebook. The cold shivering side of generation Like and Follow. sigh.

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Follow Follow

We all know how Facebook has single handedly reduced our complex world of “Loves” and “Hates” into “Like”. I used to Love some stuff, and Hate some others, and got all passionate about it, esp. with other similar or opposites. And in one couple of Facebook years it’s all been simplified to “Like”, not even dislike, just Like. One up for positivity! The popularity of “Like” is massive, was thought out to be. It’s simple, it’s positive, it spreads positivity, and most importantly I have to do nothing else – just one click, and nothing else, no typing, no thinking of what to say.

Following the footsteps of “Like”, comes “Follow” – equally simple, equally hip, equally just one click… follow. Why Subscribe (thinks of subscription forms) and why Add (yikes mathematics), when you can simply Follow.

So all the Google, Youtube subscribes and adds have turned into follow, and to complete the story, Twitter has too joined in and launched the “Follow” button. The king of 140-word simplification realised that even 140-word could be too much to ask, for the fact that there are so many non-active Twitter. Well, what’s simpler and more passive … Let’s Follow.

Well after all the active finger exercise typing this text, let me catch up on the simplicity of positive passiveness… Like Like Follow Follow Like Like Like

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A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words > Twitter goes Photos

How do you expand a company/service beyond 140 words? Well, how about a 1000 words! That's what Twitter is saying. Twitter goes photos (& videos). Already live now, your twitter search shows also photos and videos in addition to tweets. Soon, you will also be able to directly upload photos into your tweets, kindly powered by Photobucket. Funny to see if soon there will also be Twitter Apps and Twitter Games! How about a Twitter Like button too? ; p What we'll have then is a Facebook with lots of # @ RT and a happy tweety bird ; )

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