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Whether or not this video in fact is part of the marketing campaign for this amazingly titled movie “The Women“, it succeeds firstly in criticising the viral medium and secondly in suggesting new settings for the future of virals: The personal, intimate and familiar.
In connection with the release of the iPhone, Erik Spillman from KTLA reported from a queue in Burbank:
Shortly after, he receives loads of hate mails, is widely covered by blogs and is seen more than 300.000 times on YouTube. Eric then posts up an apology to YouTube viewers to control the damage.
It seems Erik Spillman is living in an 80’s loop and hasn’t caught on to the current agenda set by high-achievers such Bill Gates and Steve Jobs – and repeated by visionaries such as Janus Friis and Mark Zuckerberg – all have managed to merge their unquestionable geeky persona with a superstar status.
“Nyhedsavisen will be a revolution!“
Such wrote editor-in-chief David Trads courageously on his blog in the Summer of 2006, when announcing the three objectives of Nyhedsavisen, among which he aimed at publishing award-winning articles. In the autumn of 2006, the Danish “newspaper war” broke loose with the market launch of dato (Berlingske Officin), 24timer (JP/Politikens Hus) and Nyhedsavisen (investors). The concept that shook the entire media industry was thought out by the entrepreneurs behind Nyhedsavisen – and was quite simply “free”: Produce quality content and distribute it to nation-wide households. For Free.
Today, dato has closed down, 24timer is running with a considerable loss, and up until the recent round of layoffs Nyhedsavisen – now without David Trads – had a daily loss of DKK 1 million. Despite their ongoing losses, Nyhedsavisen can flaunt an impressive position as the country’s newspaper with the most readers. Whether their readership is established as a consequence of fine editiorial skills or thanks to the vast money tank supporting the paper’s yet inadequate business model is debatable. I would point to the last option.
The ‘Nyhedsavisen concept’ has failed massively. Journalistically, the newspaper is poorly regarded in the industry. Societally, Nyhedsavisen never became a clear voice as the scope of content decreased along with the size of staff. Technologically, developments never corresponded to the ambitions and the news media is still stuck with a disappointing website (far from living up to the goal of being the most read online news service). Financially, the newspaper is only alive because of the blind optimism being injected by the owners.
Regretfully, the private equity fund behind Nyhedsavisen has left indelible traces in Danish media – well illustrated by today’s speculations concerning the next editor-in-chief of the giant Jyllands-Posten: “The classical editor-in-chief we have seen so far… will be replaced by some more business-oriented types, concurrently with the industry changing from the classical newspaper production to distinct media conglomerates“, says Poul Madsen, editor-in-chief from Ekstra Bladet.
I’m not arguing against the fundamental competitive terms of modern society – as we are all surrounded and governed by the common rules of capitalism. I’m mourning for the real victim in this case: Journalism.
If the person at the end of the newsroom table is a capitalist – allowed to overrule the journalist – then we only have to look at the case of Rupert Murdoch and his take on objectivity to realize the appaling result.
The small break in my postings is directly linked to the poor production of these:
When the harddrive on my first HP laptop gave up and went to rest on my attic, I thought I had been unlucky. “Surely a company in the range of HP couldn’t produce poor laptops!“. Shortly afterwards I was given a good offer on a new laptop – ironically also from HP – and I bought.
One month passed and the “N” button started falling off. Two months passed and the charger had to be renewed. Three months passed and it started cracking. Lack of luck proved to be lack of quality.
For now, the newly installed RAM has given this 1-year old device an extended life. I doubt it will last for long, before I will have to deal with another round of repair. Surely, I will never buy HP again!
In a recent post I described how knowing, combining, testing and releasing is the proven path to sustainable ideas. PlayPumps is an excellent example of just this. They knew two things:
1) African villages need clean water.
2) Kids like to play.
They combined these two facts, tested a number of solutions and released this:
It happens constantly. People stuck in situations with only one way out: The idea. It can be the genious path out of the woods, the crucial solution to a medical cure, the vital plan to beat the competitors, the touching ending to a script or the paramount saxophone solo in a jazz act. And if it doesn’t come? If the adventurer, the scientist, the entrepreneur, the writer or the musician realizes his or her crisis and is further frozen into their non-creative state, then what?
This is my effort to draft a minuscule framework consisting of four stages.
KNOWING
Knowledge is indeed power, as Foucault pointed out, and without this personal library to draw from, the creator is given a smaller room to manoeuvre within. Hence, the possibility of recognizing the “big idea” is minimized. The act of gaining new knowledge also trains the ability to see things from new angles and independently go against established codes of practice.
COMBINING
Ideas are new combinations of old elements. Pareto distinguished between the speculator, constantly pre-occupied withe the possibilities of new combinations, and the rentier, routine, steady-going and unimaginative. What essentially distinguishes these two “types” – the creative and non-creative – from each other is the ability to link new relationships from existing conditions.
TESTING
A new combination is not necessarily a viable idea. The “speculator” needs to digest the idea and examine it from all possible angles. Is it doable? Is it ethically justifiable? Is it interesting enough? Has it been done before? Will it have the sufficient impact? Depending on the nature of the idea, this testing phase may take from a few reflective seconds up to months of re-modelling.
RELEASING
For the first time in the process the idea must be run by other individuals in actual settings. Now, the idea goes from being an internal play with scenarios to an external formulation of concepts and the “ideas man” is finally running a social risk in being the originator of the thought. An exhaustive advocacy is required: The idea either prevails through dialogue into realization or it joins the bleak future of the “idea bank”.
In a time when consultants and companies are engaging in an all-encompassing hurdle race with the objective to come up with the most seductive new buzz word – or adapt an entire buzz strategy to the organization – this “innovation man” campaign is a very easy (too easy?) yet refreshing comment from IBM.
Go to ibm.com/do and read their interpretation of the latest buzz out there.
So, the “new year” is basically just a huge agreement signed many years back by the entire mankind – a construction forcing all to reflect back on the last 365 days and set goals for the coming 365 days. Some get emotional (“time passes by so fast“), others grab the momentum and use the occasion – opportunistically, arrogantly, egoistically or just wisely. Either way, it’s always interesting.
John Batelle (new media expert)
“So what are the trends in 2008? Well, everyone I speak to is very worried that we’re in for a major economic downturn, and we all know that a key lagging indicator of a recession is a serious downturn in the advertising markets. I’m going to buck all my colleagues fears, however, and predict that web-based advertising businesses will in fact enjoy significant gains in 2008. These gains, however, will not be evenly distributed. The markets will reward innovation and growth in new forms of advertising, and punish those who are seen as not having a strategy. (Recall that Google took off as an advertising business in the doldrums of 2002-2003).”
Seth Godin (“agent of change”)
“The first thing to do this year: Google yourself. If you’re a salesperson, your prospects already do. If you’re looking for a job, your prospective employers already do. If you’ve got a job, your co-workers already do.What do they see? Do you know?
If you don’t like it, you can fix it. Start a blog, even if it’s just a few pages worth. Have some colleagues suggest you for wikipedia (if the powers that be think you’re notable enough) or make sure you’re represented on HubPages or Squidwho or write an article for ChangeThis.
You can be finished by tonight. It’s worth it.”
Morten Lund (entrepreneur):
“I love recession! And all turbulence in the financial markets is great fun to look at for at man with NO PUBLIC STOCK. I see people on TV with stress spots in they faces and the pain from wearing tie seems to be reverse increasing with the stocks. But hey – these supersmart analysts are just hired to speak mumbo jumbo – and have no clue about whats happening behind the scenes in the real world (think Enron).”
Bruce Nussbaum (ass. managing director @ BusinessWeek):
“What’s up for 2008? Keep an eye on the business schools. Companies are demanding that their managers be more creative and less obsessed with cost and efficiency. The last revolution within executive education was the introduction of Management Science in the 1950s. Will we see the spread of IM—Innovation Management—in “exec ed”? And expect the whole realm of social networking to change in 2008. Just when you “got it” and thought it was all about open, personal, and casual online relationships, social media will morph into another ecosystem—one with lots of gates. Who your friends are is becoming far more important than how many friends you have. We can probably thank our advertising friends for this. The drive to monetize Facebook and MySpace (NWS) by using members’ personal information is alienating many people, driving them to more private networks. Stay tuned, and watch Europe and Brazil for future trends. Social networks are beginning to feel a lot like hot nightclubs—with velvet rope barriers.”
I’ve found that the majority – even of daily Internet users – still haven’t discovered how a “reader” can revolutionize their approach to online information – and seriously save them time.
While researching for a seminar recently, my colleague found this short film (3:43), which shortly and precisely explains the hype:
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