Meanderings about "where we are" and "where we're headed" - with a focus on technology and how we use it.
The uses for augmented reality keep piling up, but this is the first actual new "device" I have seen - as in new hardware vs just a phone app. Wow! Right out of Minority Report!
The demo is awe-inspiring, and the fact that MIT has made it Open Source means that it will quickly become a commercial product. And the price point shouldn't be that bad either. The total cost of the demo version is under $350.
Exciting stuff indeed!
For those who think social media is a fad, a fast-forward overview of thirty years of social media history should provide some perspective. The article takes us through the ever-shifting ways we have used social media tools to connect with each other through several decades. I think it provides ample evidence that we are evolving ever newer ways of connecting and communicating.
As Clay Shirky pointed out in the book Here Comes Everybody,
"Every webpage is a latent community. Each page collects the attention of people interested in its contents, and those people might well be interested in conversing with one another too. In almost all cases the community will remain latent, either because the potential ties are too weak, or because the people looking at the page are separated by too wide a gulf of time, and so on."
In several ways I think that Google's Sidewiki is a step toward recognizing the potential of "community" in every web page.
As Shirky indicated, we are continuing to experiment with various ways to use these new communication tools. And they will continue to evolve. The article from Cameron Chapman at WebDesignerDepot is a real help in providing perspective.
A week ago Google announced Sidewiki, a free toolbar service that lets anyone (anyone registered with Google, that is) add comments to any web page... yes, ANY web page. This raises all sort of questions about who can and will monitor such comments. Of course there are usage policies that you agree to follow, but the real question -- for the owner of the web page -- is who (and how) will these policies be monitored and enforced?
Shifting Power to Consumers
Jeremiah Owyang writes in his blog (http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2009/09/24/googles-sidewiki-shifts-power-to-consumers-away-from-corporate-web-teams/) about shifting power to consumers and away from corporate website publishers. Others have written about this being a field day for the lawyers. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out. Adoption will be very much based on the ease of access and the value-add that the service provides.
In a July 17th post (http://blog.niccllc.net/where-is-search-headed) I wrote about the increasing need for "social relevancy" ranking. In that post I said, "... the folks who thunk up the PageRank algorithms we all use today are likely focused on it." I didn't know how prescient that statement was.
Social Relevancy Ranking
It seems that Sidewiki is already demonstrating that it intends to sort the page comments based on who provided them and their "voted upon", perceived value. If they then use your Google profile to start adding additional levels of social "relevancy" ranking to these comments, things could get very interesting.
So, proceed with caution if you don't mind Google knowing the Web pages you peruse, though if you're using PageRank as part of Google Toolbar's "enhanced features," you're already doing this. For Sidewiki, Google warns:
When you use Sidewiki to write, edit, or rate an entry, the URL of the relevant page, the type of action you performed, and the text related to that action are sent to Google and stored with your Google Account.Sounds like something Google could use for nice contextual advertising in the future.This seems to me to represent a HUGE step toward merging "content providers" and "content consumers" into one level playing field. Lets keep watching to see where it goes!
The latest update on Augmented Times (artimes.rouli.net) has some cool new videos and this wonderful mockup by Matthew Buckland and Philip Langley of possible future AR social networking apps. The technology is largely all available and is waiting for the right "spark" to make it all come together.
Combining AR with facial recognition, social engagement & networking, mobile & GPS features - the times are ripe to see some big new launches. It will happen faster than we can imagine.
...with, of course, self-improvement and real estate ads liberally sprinkled in.
I am amazed by the flurry of augmented reality "personal" applications being introduced lately. While the technology has been around for a while, people figuring out different ways of layering real-world views with data is simply phenomenal.
One of the most engaging and exciting to watch, however, is the gaming interface shown in this video. More about the game can be found at http://julianoliver.com/levelhead
Now here is an app that is immediately usable and meaningful. I love that it doesn't require web or wi-fi connection. Sure it requires 3GS, but it is great to see this kind of app in the store! Now if it could just tell me where I left my keys.
Good post on this at http://mashable.com/2009/09/24/bionic-eye/ and keep those augmented reality apps coming.
The growing tsunami of digital content continues, as our mobile devices evolve into wireless leashes that keep us tethered to the online content we seem to crave and the social tweets that stroke our collective ego. The sudden commercial flurry of "augmented reality" mobile apps and the patent on adding AR to contact lenses... where is it all headed? No one seems to know, but in the near term it means that lots of advertising dollars will be headed to the wireless mobile world. How about tweet ads and RSS feed ads? Special personalized coupon discounts that project on your AR contact lenses as you walk down the store aisle. The technology all exists today. Shift happens.
Update: Cablevision Rools Out Interactive Ads
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE58E89W20090915
Wow! New to me, but it seems that startups Dexrex.com and Silentale.com are both aiming to "store all your digital conversations in one place and allow you to access them (and search them) from anywhere." As our various social conversations start to bleed over from one service to another, it is increasingly difficult to track them. Google's Wave product seems to offer promise of pulling our "conversations" into it's interface. The above-mentioned offerings combine various instant messaging client conversations and mobile SNS texting and Silentale (just launching in beta) aims to consolidate your conversations and contacts from all platforms that you use: your webmail, your social networks, and your mobile phone. By “digital conversations”, Silentale means literally anything you say to someone privately (email, chat, sms, dm) or publicly (twitter, @replies etc). Tools like these will become more necessary as new social media services attract each of us and encourage us to venture outside the social sites we started in. |
Steve Rubel's post on the changing model of how we interact with social media is right on. As we drown in increasing levels of digital noise, we each struggle with how best to interact with it. I sold office automation software in the early days of email. There was a predictable adoption curve within companies. Once folks got used to an electronic inbox, they soon wondered why they weren't getting as much email as others around them. It didn't take long for the novelty to wear thin and they were eventually deluged with so many NEW messages that they struggled to keep it all organized. Nowadays each new popular social media tool seems to be going through a similar track. Hub and Spokes While Steve's "Hub abd Spokes" model seems attractive, I feel we use the different social sites much like the various roles we play in society... parent, student, friend, provider, spouse, lover, child, co-worker, neighbor. And we change "hats" frequently throughout the day. Likewise, we use different social sites to meet different needs, to connect us to different communities, and gather/share different opinions. I really like Posterous, and I think the hub and spoke model may be the best way to stay connected to all of my different online social "spaces" - today. But that is more because it lets me maintain my presence in each of them with less overall effort. But it doesn't really help me aggregate or visit each of these neighborhoods. I am still looking for a good solution there, as the models evolve. Re: Personal organization - I know I need to start organizing things when I can't see the top of my desk. Unfortunately, the same isn't true of the electronic counterparts. Your electronic inbox (or feed reader) doesn't fall over when it gets too full! |
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When I posted just a month ago that Whole Foods Market had just become the first consumer brand to pass one million followers on Twitter, I didn't foresee how great a lesson they would become for brands just starting to use social media. Of course, Whole Foods Market is a company with a Facebook presence, a CEO blog, a Twitter presence and RSS feeds, and seems very focused on using tools of the times.
Therefore I guess it shouldn't have come as a surprise that when the CEO contributes an Op Ed piece on the hotly-contested Healthcare debate, the social media spaces where they have a presence reacted - well, strongly! It is not ever clear whether you're speaking as an individual or as the leader of a company (or as an elected representative, or professional association, etc.) when you make public pronouncements. It is even more open to interpretation in today's world of digital sound-bytes, that get quickly cropped of context, then instantly broadcast, copied, re-tweeted to an eager-to-jump-to-conclusions hungry audience.
I think at least one lesson for the newbie-in-charge of social media for any brand today is that social media is a two-edged sword that can help you clear a space and stake a claim for your brand, but can quickly and easily be turned against you. Yes, use it. But as with any tool - "With great power comes great responsibility." So be prepared to monitor that same social media space closely.
Update: Lessons Learned
I just saw an interview written by Soren Gordharner about Social Media Lessons Learned at Whole Foods. Several interesting points. Certainly worthwhile reading for any brick-and-mortar operation starting to dabble in social media. And if you aren't there yet, you should be.
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