Inspire

Future of Mobile Phones: 3D Images and More...

We are entering the 3D world in many ways. 2D will be archaic soon. Images, film, tv, holographics, games, printers, web (GE, 2L) etc. Now mobile phones will be entering this migration as well encompassing the content types in our near future. I guess this will bring new avenues for marketing, entertainment, networking as well as learning. More in this link on 3D images on mobile phones.

"Japanese mobile phones already let users shoot films and share them with friends. It may not be long before the images go another step -- becoming completely three-dimensional. Japan's Hitachi, Ltd. has developed a lightweight 3D display that can potentially be adapted for mobile devices such as telephones. The gadget, using what is known as stereoscopic vision display, weighs only one kilogram (2.2 pounds) and resembles an upside-down, multiangular pyramid full of mirrors on top of a liquid crystal display.

Taking advantage of the portability of the display, the company expects it can be put to use to show museum pieces at schools so they will appear as if they are standing up right in front of students."

My Own Presentation on Trends, Digital Media, Marketing, Digital Marketing and Communication: Why Identity, Authenticity and Creativity Will Dominate Our Lives

Here is my presentation on different trends, digital media, web 2.0, web 3.0, marketing, digital marketing and communication/branding. Dutch only as yet, English one will follow soon. Focus is on different technological, environmental, economic and political views (macro perspective) as well as psychological, social and cultural views (micro perspective) and how they intersect, converge and reinforce in many different ways on different levels of analysis.

Key take away: Identity (knowing your intrinsic motivation, purpose and talents), Authenticity (being) and Creativity (doing) as reinforcing themes and values in the emerging and increasingly open space of the next web(s), biotech and ubiquitous computing where the all-encompassing and increasing availability of more granular and personal data of all sorts make the invisible visible and explicit to the benefit of ourselves, our social network, our peers and the market/global brain/humanity as a whole. The essential used to be invisible to the eye....until now and it will bring about massive transformations for the benefit of us all.

Hope you'll enjoy it.

Director of Google Research on the Future of the Google Search Engine

Peter Norvig - Director of Google Research - is interviewed in this post on Technology Review focusing on some key future features of the Google search engine. Machine translation and voice recognition seem to be pivotal according to Norvig. Below we can see some business rationale behind the Google-YouTube deal. For marketers these developments seem to be important as multimedia content on the (mobile) web will be indexed more accurately over time.

"TR: And speech recognition can also be important for video search, isn't it? Blinkx and Everyzing are two examples of startups that are using the technology to search inside video. Is Google working on something similar?

PN: Right now, people aren't searching for video much. If they are, they have a very specific thing in mind like "Coke" and "Mentos." People don't search for things like "Show me the speech where so-and-so talks about this aspect of Middle East history." But all of that information is there, and with speech recognition, we can access it. We wanted speech technology that could serve as an interface for phones and also index audio text.

Currently, we are up to state-of-the-art with what we built on our own, and we have the computational infrastructure to improve further. As we get more data from more interaction with users and from uploaded videos, our systems will improve because the data trains the algorithms over time."

On Publicis and Other Classic Ad Agencies and Their Positioning Within The Digital Marketing Ecosystem

The New York Times has some news on Publicis (a.o. Digitas) and how they envision the evolution of digital marketing. In my former posts on this blog (see the eMarketing tag on the right side of this blog) I shared my view on how Marketing 2.0 might be look like on a tool level, the impact of the Google-Doubleclick merger and the evolution of digital marketing and the key underlying principles of Marketing 2.0 and the meltdown of old media and their outdated ad models. Below some quotes from the NYT post.

My 2 cents:

• I like the idea of personalizing ads with ad variants, this clearly is one of the ways digital marketing will move forward as this will boost online ad ROI. As I wrote on my analysis of the Google-Doubleclick merger, I believe we will soon witness automated integration of clickstream data of users in different digital marketing tools like banners and e-mails.
• I wonder how Publicis can integratie advertisers' consumer data in their solution
• If you have the pull (not push) data from consumers, you are in the driver seat in the evolving digital marketing space. Clickstream data on search engines - my take-away from the outstanding book The Search by John Battelle - (albeit PC-based, mobile, iTV, Augmented Reality apps, 3D Web or gaming) are key in this respect in my view. So the question looms how Publicis will compete on this level with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. In my view, Google clearly is in the lead on most fields at this point in time
  
• Publicis assumes there will be a separation between online media and online ad agencies. In my view Google, Yahoo and Microsoft see this differently. Search engines are a key connector of consumer purchase intentions and online media, connecting content and commerce.
• Unfortunately, the vision of Publicis doesn't seem to take the impact of social networks and social networking on the digital marketing space into account (this is pull advertising as well like buzz marketing and open source marketing). Same applies for user generated online ads (and its variants). Their vision doesn't resonate enough in my view with the Wikinomics principles: openness, peering and sharing. They do dig the Global Operations part though
• What is the impact of open source ad networks and what is the role of Publicis in this respect ?

Looking forward to seeing your views on this topic. Thanks.

"Digitas uses data from companies like Google and Yahoo and customer data from each advertiser to develop proprietary models about which ads should be shown the first time someone sees an ad, the second time, after a purchase is made, and so on. The ads vary, depending on a customer’s age, location and past exposure to the ads.

Digitas executives say that consumers end up with a better experience — even a service — if the ads they are shown are relevant and new. “We now know how many times they’ve seen this ad, so stop annoying them,” said Mark Beeching, executive vice president and worldwide chief creative officer of Digitas. “The more you can standardize and automate in terms of making different versions, hallelujah. That money should be spent creating more content.” Along with automation, low-cost workers abroad will help create more versions of ads."

Prometeus Media Revolution: Future Vision on Digital Media in 2050: A Critical Analysis

The video below called Prometeus Media Revolution is a thought-provoking vision on the future of digital media until 2050. There are some powerful ideas in here. Here are my comments and musings based on this 5 minute video:

• Be all you can be (Man = God); here I miss the strong interrelationships between digital media, biotech, nanotech and cognitive neuroscience. More importantly, I miss (the importance of) the notion of Augmented Reality/Mixed Reality/Google Earth in this video
• Multiple identities and avatars -> more empathy & more effective communication as well as more self awareness/identity awareness (intrinsic motivation and unique capabilities)
• Sharing of memories and processes -> more productivity and more empathy. We already see this happening right now with partial solutions like Clutzr
• The movie Abre Los Ojos / Vanilla Sky resonates strongly with the latter part in the video (virtual dreaming versus your real life)
• The vid is about the rise of the Gift Economy (Kevin Kelly) and rise of Creative Commons (Lessig)
• Advertisement becomes information (not propaganda), comparison and experience. Here I miss key concepts like attention, relevancy, intention(s), trust and permission based/opt-in. I do really like the idea of Content Creators producing their own advertising/commercials. Powerful but inside-out, not recipient driven !
• I like the idea of Personal Agents delivered by Google due to its link with Web 3.0/Semantic Web
• I also love the idea of reliving history episodes as a participant/active agent -> very high impact and emotional as well as educational value due to its immersiveness
• Furthermore, the Spirit theme resonates with me strongly as a result of my posts on Transformation, Spirituality, Identity and Authenticity (Identity, Authenticity and Creativity as reinforcing forces in Web 2.0 and Web 3.0). However, I wonder if it will be possible in any time to convey and transfer feelings based on lifelogging materials like in Spirit in this video. What I miss is the value and possibility of Dreaming as a source of new virtual worlds and experiences. I believe we don't have to travel outer space as they increase our Places repetoire in virtuality. We have our hands full living out our continuously evolving personal dreams in my view. That is endless
• I don't believe in 'Totems' on the street for printing purposes. This will be personal/mobile/integrated, if any ;-) Papers can get lost, digital stuff can't
• Digital terrestial won't be abandoned due to the implications for the mobile TV revolution (e.g., the impact of technologies like DVB-H and DMB)
• "The media arena will consolidate"; hmmm, yes and no. The Long Tail will always be active, especially since the user generated content craze will intensify and broaden to collective peer production results. With the advent of LIVE mobile webcasting (ComVu, Kyte, Mogulus) we will witness an increase social content consumption relative to the market content consumption. Additionally, I don't buy evil scenarios with 1 company dominating the whole internet (like Google). Why ? Companies with too much power have always been dethroned by the masses as they embrace more benign competitors or develop their own (open source peer produced) alternatives. However, the current huge investments by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Amazon data centers point in the direction as shown in the video below.
• I totally agree with the idea of Knowledge Flow instead of statis output(s)

Beautiful and Innovative Website from Jonathan Yuen

Jonathan Yuen won different Webby Awards this week with his outstanding website. Just beautiful. Emotionally immersive and inspiring. Visually powerful. Relevant flow. Creative minds are a joy forever !

Terrific Presentation on Second Life and Virtual Worlds

Just saw by far the best presentation and discussion I have seen yet on Second Life, virtual worlds and its future. Philip Rosedale - CEO of Second Life - elaborates on a lot of key topics like copyrights, imagination, dreams, identity, transformation and the rise of the immaterial values, Burning Man Festival, 3D interfaces, open source clients, decentralization and emergence, virtual corporation and cooperation, skyscrapers as museum pieces, creativity, community, authenticity, learning, the time accelleration within Second Life and the importance, nature and meaning of the mindset (and its expectations) of virtual worlds in relation to the real world. The Q&A is even better than the presentation of Rosedale, among others with Steward Brand and Kevin Kelly. There are so many stunning insights in this Q&A to mention them all in this spot. What I expect personally is that the rise of 3D printers will increase the importance of virtual world objects in the real world.  Strongly recommended (just like the Metaverse Roadmap Report I mentioned earlier). It is not an accident this presentation from the Long Now Foundation on Fora.tv has 5 (out of 5) stars ;-)

Cluztr: Next Generation Social Networking Web App

Thanks to Yme Bosma for this great web app on real-monitoring the clickstream data of your friends and all others. It is called Cluztr. Fits nicely with trends like Lifelogging, Lifestreams, Smart Mobs and Subscribe-to-a-friend-trend. What do you think : is this complementary to Twitter and Jaiku or a substitute ? My take it is complementary. Cluztr is about clickstream data only, not about sharing other parts of your (offline and online) life with your social network like in Twitter. And to Yme, I believe privacy is not an issue in this respect. I think this is a valuable extension.

"Cluztr builds a detailed profile of each user’s surfing habits by tagging the sites and pages a user visits. This “attention data” is displayed live as a clickstream on each user’s profile page as well as aggregated with other users and shown in a public clickstream. The site uses this information to recommend webpages and people which may be of interest to the user. Users can also subscribe to other users’ clickstreams, to track what their friends are looking at.

"Cluztr is a collection of browser histories - yours, your friends’ and everyone else’s", said Jon Cianciullo, the founder of Cluztr. “This tells users what people, including their friends, are paying attention to right at that moment, so there’s a good chance you will want to check it out for yourself. There are other programs out there that offer a similar mechanism of social discovery - Digg, del.icio.us and StumbleUpon, for example, but what makes Cluztr different is the unique element of real-time.”

eMarketing 2.0: A Case Study Using SlideShare

How can you use SlideShare (PowerPoint combined with web 2.0) for eMarketing and branding purposes ? Basically, the same question is in my view relevant for Yahoo Answers, LinkedIn Answers, Scribd (Word 2.0), Twitter, Jaiku, YouTube, Flickr and even Joost in my view.

Meet Henry (see above) is a fascinating and effective example and answer to the question above. Why is this presentation in particular effective ?

1. Sequencing of words and images
2. Speed
3. Font size
4. Few words
5. Great storytelling and script / entertainment
6. Balance of fun and relevant content

Why is SlideShare in general important for corporations and personal branding ?

1. Promoting your proposition in an entertaining, engaging yet relevant way (and even having the option of e-mailing your participating audience)
2. Become the most active reviewer/viewer/rater on SlideShare, establish your brand based on you in-depth expertise and your activity level within your specific domain
3. Testing concepts, products and campaigns
4. Backlinks (SEO + SMO) -> higher PageRank -> more visitors to your website
5. Valuable feedback from viewers
6. Tell-a-friend / social networking / viral features and benefits
7. Optional: using buzz marketing for special open source marketing purposes

SlideShare can even be more beneficial for companies if this web app will integrate some of the web 3.0 metadata/RDF features from Joost. This would mean that SlideShare viewers could annotate particular slides within a presentation and share it in their social network (similar to the functionality of Fleck).

The Metaverse Roadmap : The Future of Web 3.0, Virtual Worlds, Augmented Reality, MMORPGs, Lifelogging, Google Earth and All Other Key Trends in Digital Media

Finally, the Metaverse Roadmap 2006-2016 has been published with over 72 pages of very valuable content related to all subjects/tags from my blog and even much more. The section on Predictions (9) is just stunning and breathtaking, so much highly interesting insights. The coming months I will pick some topics from this report to give you my perspective on them.

This is probably one of the most important reports on the future of digital media as a whole. It covers all aspects: economic, social, cultural, legal, political, technological and psychological. To me, this Metaverse Roadmap report is the absolute number 1 resource at this moment. It's just incredible. Thanks to all who contributed.

Very highly recommended to all my readers !