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The problems associated with a saturated media landscape is something I have talked about for years on this blog. As media expands especially in the digital space, this problem has the potential to get out of control. Media owners are hungry to expand into the mobile ad space, but appear to be using a degree of judgement before moving to fast into one of the most personal and intimate of all media environment.

However, Keiichi Matsudafor appears to be pretty concerned about the potential for things to spill dangerously out of control and express this brilliantly in a video that imagines a typical early morning kitchen experience in the not too distant future.

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.

Posted by Ed Cotton The Kevin Smith debacle on Southwest gives us a glimpse into a new future of customer relationship management. In the past, companies would have had procedures to cope and manage the treatment of VIPs.

Obviously, whatever processes Southwest had in place clearly failed, but given their positioning, it's possible they did not have such a thing. It's also likely that if another VIP had the same experience, the impact might not have been as strong.

Kevin Smith's social media savvy and 1.6 million Twitter followers made him a dangerous person to mess with.

While much has been stated about social media strategy and policy and how to deal with crisis, I haven't seen a single example and suggestion for how do to deal with a situation like Kevin Smith's.

Apparently, it's not in the social media expert's playbook.

Could this signal a new era in customer relationship management as the S.I.P. (Socially Influential Person) becomes just as important as the V.I.P.?

This leads to whole load of challenges.

How would companies identify S.I.P.s?

How would you know if S.I.P.s are your customers?

How would measure the influence of S.I.P.s?

How would you try to keep S.I.P.s happy?

Would you worry about the balance of power?

Expect to see lots of presentations on Slideshare about this topic in coming months.






Posted by Ed Cotton Foursquare just announced a partnership with Bravo Television  for a few seconds it did not compute, but I went deeper to see what the deal was all about. It's really smart as it offers Bravo a chance for deeper engagement with its audience.

"Of course Bravo is going to put the full power of their network behind the partnership, promoting Bravo’s Foursquare hooks in TV spots. The NBC-owned cable network also plans to use Foursquare for sweepstakes, awards, and other viewer incentives. They’ll even offer Foursquare tie-ins to Bravo advertisers, which will likely come in the form of coupons for viewers to cash in at the advertisers’ venues."

Bravo is keen to be part of the next big thing to go mass, but the communication opportunities here are impressive. Fans of shows will have the chance to follow in the footsteps of their television heroes and get to participate in branded contests.

It's a great example where the virtual world is being unleashed out into our geography thanks to the mobile internet.

On the other side of the coin lies the physical screen and the opportunities that it offers for interaction. Here we've yet to scratch the surface with the possibilities that exist for layered communication on high tech out of home panels and the opportunity for play.

Last month I was fortunate enough to attend the Decode exhibit at London's Victoria and Albert where I saw artists experimenting with this technology. As you can see from this short video of Body Paint by Turkish designer Mehmet Akten, it shows how a very simple idea can be deeply engaging.



The growing physicality of technology and the merging of digital and physical spaces will be a key communication theme for 2010 and some of the best ideas this year will be in these spaces.


Posted by Ed Cotton While Apple's iPad has been the subject of a lot of attention ranging, from ridicule and mixed reviews. The spin suggested the iPad would usher in a new era for those in the publishing business by creating another medium for consumers to experience print.

However, the promise suggested by Apple's demos and a number of flashy publisher initiatives is that this new experience is going to be better than a web site, and more satisfying than reading a newspaper or a magazine.

The dream being sold is how our magazines are going to be turned into immersive multimedia experiences (see the Sports Illustrated demo below) where the user takes a joyride through a stream of beautifully designed content and can dig deeper on topics and experience multimedia to their hearts content. While all these seems technically feasible, the big question is who are the publishers who can afford to develop this content on a daily, weekly or even a monthly basis?



It's easy to imagine a scenario where excitement drives the creation of great first iPad editions that succeed in seducing new subscribers into magazine franchises at significant premiums to current subscription rates. However this will not be sustainable because the economics won't map out and the result will be falling quality standards and subscriber discontent. 

The other way of looking at this is through the application lens, where new entrants will come into the publishing space from a completely different direction.These new entrants might find better and more interesting ways of serving up content than the publishing incumbents.

It's likely magazines will never be able to afford to realize the "Sports Ilustrated" dream and instead be forced to fight it out in the App Store with hundreds of thousands of competitors.

The future for traditional publications on tablets has to be more "application like", than "issue like".

I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but I don't believe we are going to get the sizzle of the Sports Ilustrated demo, it's much more likely we will be looking at something like the latest GQ iPhone application.



Posted by Ed Cotton The BBC has decided the web is now worthy and has made it the subject of a detailed documentary series, The Virtual Revolution, that explores its origins, evolution and examines the implications of the technology for society.

It's a highly ambitious, well-researched and thoughtful look at what 20 years of the web means for humanity. This is the perfect time to take a look back and project forward because we are on the cusp of massive expansion as the developing world comes on board in leaps and bounds.

The series is narrated by Dr. Aleks Krotoski, who aside from studying the implications of the internet for the past 10 years, is also a member of The Guardian's crack team of technology journalists.

The first program in the series examines the idea of the web as the great leveler and leaves no stone unturned in it's quest for answers. Most of the program is filmed in the Bay Area and includes interviews with local luminaries-Stewart Brand, Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Keen, Chad Hurley and John Perry Barlow.

The big theme here is one of revolution and counter-revolution which is explained by the adoption of the internet by late 1960s and early 70s Bay Area radicals, fueled by hope from the Summer of Love and looking for a space where their ideals could be realized, a space that turned out to be The Well.

The program concludes that despite all the hippie driven hope for true openness and utopia, the reality today is very different with a handful of new media brands that have taken and co-opted control.

Krotoski finds an interesting contrast from the ideals of 60s radicals to 2010, where there is basically one online store, one social network, one search engine and one online video network.

Despite the potential doomsday scenario of limited control, Krotoski hopeful thesis is that the beauty of the internet is its state of constant flux, which simply put, means those who are in control today, are very likely not to be in control forever.



Posted by Ed Cotton Twitter might be the brand with optimum buzz at the moment, but it's not enough to take the brand to the next level.

With Twittergate last July, a number of sensitive documents were "stolen" including one that defined the company's mission which is "to be the pulse of the planet".

Judging by some of the latest data, the brand is some ways away from this mission and from capitalizing on its potentially giant valuation-

40% of accounts have never sent a Tweet

80% of Twitter users have Tweeted fewer than 10 times

Only 17% of accounts sent a Tweet in December 2009

It's obvious that you don't need to send Tweets to be able to experience and enjoy Twitter, but it certainly adds another layer of engagement.

Perhaps developers can take the API and create dumbed down clients that encourage more participation, but I would suggest Twitter now needs to start communicating.

Given that Square has the same founder and this is a brand that's currently not just generating buzz, but it's also using web celebs/angel investors, like Kevin Rose to tell a deeper story (240k views on YouTube), it would be smart for Twitter to do the same.

I am not suggesting a multi-million dollar ad campaign, but some content that helps dimensionalize the power and fun of Twitter to a broader audience.


Posted by Ed Cotton