The Future of the Book

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More chatter on where the book experience is headed. This one from IDEO.

Posted via email from the minidisco

Back to the now: Ads in Marty McFly's 2015

I used to think of the future of advertising as the one portrayed in Back to the Future Part II.  Y'know, the part where Marty McFly is in the futuristic downtown area of Hill Valley, bombarded by ads and startled by a 3D hologram of Jaws 19.  Advertising was satirically presented to be omnipresent and intrusive.  We thought it was funny, but in reality, we knew it would probably be annoying if it ever actually went down that way.

Fortunately, we haven't quite reached that saturation point.  (Although with the average person viewing up to XXX ads per day, it's easy to make a counter argument that we are already annoyed.)  But as we approach Marty's future, this post from Justin Foster reminded me we aren't too far off:

Think about this ... a single person with a camera phone can post video, photos, and written content to a blog, Facebook, Twitter, and hundreds of other web platforms.  This content, depending how viral it is, can spread to hundreds or thousands of other people. Now combine that times billions.  What happens to the influence and reach of traditional media when The People become The Media?  It profoundly effects the way We the People consume information and entertainment.  This is not just disruptive to media business models such as selling ad space based on eye-balls.  It changes the rules for what "news" is, what a brand is, message control, the roles of government, and more.  Properly harnessed, it can make a young company the world's #1 brand without spending a dime on advertising (Google) or it can lead to the demise of established brands and traditions.

For those versed in the evolution of social media, this should sound pretty familiar.  People embracing brands, becoming advocates and spreading the word through new media, etc.  But for the first time, I had a bizarre futuristic vision of people driving the saturation, vs. the brands themselves.

The Most Exclusive Content is not Online

With the help of mobile phones, more public wireless and services like Facebook, twitter and Foursquare, more people are lifestreaming than ever before (whether they realize it or not).  The New York Times brings us this piece: Party On, but No Tweets.  An excerpt:

In an era, when a stray gripe about your boss can land you on an industry blog, when waking up hung over can frantically send you to Facebook to untag your name from photos of the previous night’s frosting-wrestling contest, when shots of you in unflattering jeans become part of your permanent Google search results, there are signs that some are tired of living their lives on the Web.

Social technologies are changing the way people communicate online, but they are also changing the way that people communicate offline.  And, not surprisingly, there's a bit of a backlash and a desire to get back to the basics of face-to-face communication.  There's an increasing need for people to unplug from the web, and even a movement in from cafes in New York to limit wireless access for laptop users.

I have written before about the brands differentiating themselves by not being social.  We're starting to see both businesses and individuals striving to create their own self-contained social environments -- one that doesn't spill out onto the web.  This doesn't make them anti-social.  It just a realignment of priorities: not everyone should have online access to your offline experiences, just as your offline friends shouldn't be subjected to lulls in conversation while you tweet about your meal.

The most exclusive content doesn't exist online to top-tier members of your community or social graph.  In fact, the most exclusive content doesn't exist online at all.

Interview on Gen Y

While doing the mingling and socializing I am universally lauded for at the MarketingProfs B2B Conference TweetUp, I met Judy Martin of WorkLifeNation.com.  We struck up a conversation that gravitated towards the topic of Gen Y.  I have an opinion on Gen Y and Millennials, and I've posted it on this blog a few times -- here and here.  I think what most fascinates me about Gen Y (and being part of it) is that it is a changing of the guard -- a new generation with a different expectations is invading the workforce and ushering out the Boomers.

Basically, Judy hit a topic right in my wheelhouse.  Fortunately it was also in hers, and she asked if I would answer a few questions via email for her blog.  Here's the post with our Q&A: "All Gen Y are not created equal when it comes to work flex".

Take a read and let us (Judy or myself) know what you think.

"You've changed, man" (on twitter)

Of all the social networks that I participate in, I actually KNOW the fewest on twitter.  And I'm guessing if you follow/are followed by more than a few hundred people, you are in the same situation. twitter is one of the few social networks where it is completely acceptable to follow people you don't know, and want them to follow you back.  It is one of the things that makes twitter unique.

I am following marketers, technologists, designers, news services and a slew of early adopters, and I am followed by many of the same.  As twitter has grown over the last few months, the one group I have now added is friends.  As in, people I know personally -- relationships were constructed offline and are now seeping onto twitter.

I joined twitter as a digital marketer wanting to learn more about a tool that has now become essential to maintaining a social media presence, and ended up talking to people doing the same.  My real friends weren't there, so the people I talked to the most we like me: early adopters, marketers, people interested in new media.  Now that my friends have rolled into twittertown, my twitter personality is changing.  The people listening and talking back to me on twitter are no longer early adopters and marketers -- they are people I grew up with and had beers with long before twitter existed.

It is unusual for a social media service to become more social, but that's what twitter has become for me.  I'd rather tweet to and for friends I know than hope for a retweet from early adopters.  That doesn't mean it's one or the other, but the presence of my friends has changed the way I converse on twitter.

If I really want to maintain a certain personality on twitter, the obvious answer is to have a couple different twitter handles, but that defeats the purpose of social media.  Social media is about relationships - the new ones and the old - and one of the things that makes social media interesting to me is the fusing of the those relationships and the information/interactions that result.  As more of my friends join twitter, it becomes better (and more social) for me.  And to be honest, I think it makes the conversation on twitter better as well.  So I'll be sticking with my current twitter handle and look forward to more friends rolling into town.