The Next Big Thing. Strange Cooking Shows.

Januar 15th, 2012 • Ideas, Trends
Tags: Cooking, Cool, Creativity, Funny, Memes, Videos, youtube

The world of Meme patterns is a rich one. My trusted helper to find out what’s so funny about advice dog or Tim Tebow is knowyourmeme.com. Not yet on the list is the apparent new trend stage really really niche topical cooking shows on Youtube. The following shows are highly recommened.

Vegan Black Metal Chef – Seriously funny. Brian Manowitz from Norway mixes Vegan food and Black Metal. What could go wrong?

Here is the link to more recipes and here is an interview with Brian himself.

Culinary Propaganda Chef – Szef Bartek is a new competitor of Vegan Black Metal Chef and obviously not yet quite decided if he wants to be rather Stalin or Batman. Check it out here.

Depression Cooking – Depression cooking is not quite what you think: Clara is 94 and she gives advice on how to cook like back during the Great Depression. The lovely elderly Lady has started quite a successful concept with Depression Cooking. She sells her own DVD and I am quite sure she sells here cook book somewhere on amazon.

Did I miss a strange cooking show on Youtube that must be on the list? Let me know.

Facebook’s 1 Billion. Right Before the Mayan Apocalypse.

Januar 13th, 2012 • Trends
Tags: chart, Facebook, Social Networks, Strategy, World

Silicon Alley Insider’s Chart of the Day. iCrossings says Facebook will probably reach 1 billion users sometime in August 2012. Hardcore.

 
Read more at http://ghen.sl/yz6v84

Trends. 100 Things to Watch in 2012.

Dezember 30th, 2011 • Trends
Tags: 2012, Agencies, Future, jwt, Report, Reports, Study, Trends

JWT‘s PR department has – again – done a great job by creating this annual gallery of things to watch in 2012. Interesting (particularly from an American perspective): We definitely see more sustainable business concepts, travel and commuting models and there seems to be more focus on a more healthy lifestyle and your inner self. If we now even avoid nuking ourselves via Iran, North Korea or Pakistan then hey: This could be a good year.

Key trends according to this report:
- Navigation for cost-sensitive customers
- Food becomes the key eco-issue
- Screened interactions everywhere
- Physical objects get digital counterparts

Thanks to @jkleske for the link.

google Zeitgeist. What the World searched for in 2011.

Dezember 15th, 2011 • 1 comment Trends
Tags: data, google, history, People, Politics, search, seo, Trends, World, Zeitgeist

As the year 2011 ends google has once again collated the world’s searches into one platform about the last 12 months. Nothing says as much about what people are really interested in than search data. And google really did a great job to stage Zeitgeist 2011 with a lot of interesting information on what this horrible great exciting year was all about for people all over the world: http://www.googlezeitgeist.com

Social UX. My Article for Page Magazine.

November 16th, 2011 • Social, Trends
Tags: Article, Page, People, personal, Social Influence Marketing, Usability, UX

Just a quick update: German creative magazine Page has once again published an article from me. If you are a subscriber of Page and if you have issue 12.2011 on the desk please just go to page 90 where I (try to) give five tips for a more UX-focused approach to social media.

To cut a long story short: My perspective on social media (does anyone still use this term???) in this article is that all too often brands/agencies still focus too much on staging social campaigns instead on getting their house in order. Activation – and only activation – via social influence marketing should first and foremost enable consumers to profit more from using social functionalities than from not using it. The answer to a brief in the social realm must always revolve around solving a given problem, not to just drive people to a Facebook page. Form follows function, not vice versa.

The article is in German. And if you don’t have the magazine at home: here is a PDF. But don’t tell anyone.

google Plus. Why it’s not about becoming another Facebook.

Juli 2nd, 2011 • 6 comments Social, Strategy, Tools, Trends
Tags: Facebook, Foursquare, google, Social, Social Networks, Strategy, Tools, Twitter

Unless you have been hiding under a rock you probably have heard about google+ or you are already registered user. And just in case you hid under a rock, I let the guys from NMA News explain what google+ is…simply because I love their videos.

So after testing google Plus for two days I am as positive about it as most others I talked to. google simply built a platform with more Pros than Cons. Something you can imagine to use in the future because it combines some of the best features of everything you already use and wraps them in one platform. Ooooh…and a couple of nice new concepts come with the package: google hangout for example (definitely a winner). And I guess Facebook really jumpstarts now to get the Skype cooperation up and running. Among other things.

Stupid debates usually start with terms like (fill blank) killer. Can you remember one game changing product that was announced as the iPhone/Facebook/whatever killer and lived up to it? Not one product out there. And I think the industry has become smart enough not to put this into the focus of discussions around google+ too much. Simply because it is pointless.

Read more »

OMFG. Facebook Eats the Web.

Juni 27th, 2011 • Social, Trends
Tags: Diagram, Facebook, Future, Media, Prediction, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks, Tech, Trends, Truth, World

About two weeks after the world almost ended Inside Facebook reported about a couple of people enjoying summertime instead of staring at their computer monitors 24/7 traffic drop on Facebook the opposite seems to be true. Facebook in fact eats the Internet.

Ben Ellowitz, Founder and SEO of Wetpaint writes:

When you exclude just Facebook from the rest of the Web, consumption in terms of minutes of use shrank by nearly nine percent between March 2010 and March 2011, according to data from comScore. And, even when you include Facebook usage, total non-mobile Internet consumption still dropped three percent over the same period.

Technically he separates between two different webs: The dominating Facebook-driven web and the web of documents. And the web of documents is under sever pressure. “The illusion of the growth of the internet is just that – a mirage caused by Facebook posting 69% growth over the last year.” (We are Social). Ellowitz’ conclusion: future companies will need to spend less time on SEO, and more time on optimizing for Facebook – the web inside the web.

Read the full article here. I don’t think Facebook can replace the document web. But to be honest, I don’t want to find out. It seems we are currently handing over the greatest invention of mankind to Goldman Sachs and Mister Zuckerberg. Doesn’t feel right.

Copycats. Intel and Deutsche Post celebrate Me, Me, Me.

Juni 1st, 2011 • 4 comments Brands, Ideas, Social, Trends
Tags: Bouygues Telecom, Brands, Campaign, Copycats, Creativity, DHL, Documentation, Facebook, Ideas, Intel, Life, People, Social Networking, Tools, Trends, visual, World

Sometimes you see a good digital marketing idea and you can bet your ass off that dozens of copycats will pop up a couple of months later. In November 2010 the (then) team around my friend (and new colleague) Branislav launched a (then) new idea for Bouygues Telecom in France: an app that turned your Facebook profile into a real book. 1,000 personalized books were gone within an hour of the promotion’s launch even though the campaign never really became as viral as Old Spice or Shoot the Bear.

Fast Forward 6 months. Deutsche Post DHL launches Social Memories, an application that turns your Facebook Profile into a (surprise, surprise) book. This is how it goes…

The app is here.

Read more »

Quora. Twitter gets a Jeopardy Update.

Januar 6th, 2011 • 9 comments Social, Tech, Trends, Twitter
Tags: buzz, Quora, Social, Tech, Tools, Trends, Twitter, Viral, World

Quora. Currently my favourite example of an overbuzzed platform and I strongly recommend to follow the bizarre network effects that are taking place these days.

Quora is a knowledge platform that was founded in summer 2009 by Facebook’s former CTO Adam D’Angelo and Charlie Cheever. Quora received some funding in March 2010 and is in closed beta since summer 2010. Quora basically is a polished version of a forum. It merges forum functionalities with social platforms such as twitter or Facebook to generate a new type of Q&A platform. That’s not dramatically new but it’s a nice, well presented concept.

Quora turned red hot in late December 2010 and early January 2011. And it seems everyone tries to get on board asap. On January 2nd Techcrunch mentioned Quora as one of the 7 technologies that will rock 2011. Quote: ‘Quora will have its twitter moment’:

…2011, which I believe will be the year Quora has its Twitter moment and start to really take off. Quora represents a bigger technology trend, which is the layering of an interest graph on top of people’s social graph. On Quora, you can follow not only people, but topics and questions. It defines the world by your interests, not just the people you may know or admire. This is a powerful concept and is not limited to Quora (both Twitter and Facebook also want to own the interest graph), but Quora is designed from the ground up to expose and help you explore your interests.

I agree that Quora is a great platform. It nevertheless is not the reinvention of earned media. And I don’t see how a Forum 2.0 + Digg functionalities should come close to a general, broad interaction platform. Anyway for a couple of days the tech press keeps on posting about Quora day in and out. Did you for example know that the former AOL chairman is posting on Quora as if there was no tomorrow? No? I didn’t as well. And I don’t care.

The reason why Quora is so successful is definitely related to it being a helpful, well set up platform. But the momentum behind the current craziness is based on some superstars of the scene pretending Friendfeed, Plancast, Foursquare Quora is the reinvention of anything digital. Oh, and if David Armano and Jeremiah Owyang are posting there as well…we all follow, right?

Read more »

2010. The Mobile Year in Review.

Dezember 21st, 2010 • Mobile, Trends
Tags: 2010, Business, Diagram, Media, Mobile, predictions, Tech, Trends, visual, World

One thing that hopefully stops in 2011 – info visuals that explain digital media. To finally celebrate this marketing meme of 2010 I’d like to post mobilefuture‘s Mobile Year 2010 in Review. Enjoy.