thebluedoor pr: April 2009

Twitter Demystified - Internet World panel discussion

It was great to see the Twitter debate kick off at Internet World today. The hugely popular panel session saw visitors queuing for nearly an hour to get in, giving an indication of how Twitter's reach and popularity continues to grow.
Having negotiated the queue, I was keen to find our what kind of questions were going to be put forward - looking forward to a meaty debate on the future of Twitter and perhaps what the next big innovation might be.

The panel line up promised some great debate:

Guy Stephens @guy1067 - Knowledge and online help manager at Carphone Warehouse
Kai Turner @kaigani - Head of information architecture at agency.com
Ashley Friedlein @ashleyfriedlein - CEO at Econsultancy

Once a hash tag had been established the debate kicked off only to be stalled momentarily by the lack of Wi-fi at Internet World (can you believe it). With the aid of a dongle we were soon able to follow our Tweet stream on the big screen (not sure if this is a practise I would always welcome). For those of you interested in looking back at the Twitter feed it can be found at #iwtd.

The crowd at the debate was really diverse, with Twitter newcomers sitting alongside early adopters and with a couple of hundred people in the room, it soon became apparent that we were only scratching the surface. This could have kicked off into a really good debate given more time but for now, here are a few of the questions asked:

If one person in an organisation Tweets - who should it be?
Should Twitter expand?
Is 140 characters enough?
How might I use Twitter to drive traffic?
What if negative feedback spirals out of control?
Does the amount of followers I have increase my search ranking?

It was great to see so many people coming to find how they can improve their communications using Twitter as a channel. The session highlighted that although businesses know they should be using it, they are still not clear on how and when. And whilst some of this may be common sense, like any form of communication, it needs to part of an overall strategy.

As a footnote, one clear message came out of the session - if your business has not already registered its Twitter name, do it now, before anyone else does!

If you want to learn more about Twitter and how it can help your business please feel free to drop me an email.

Google II coming to a screen near you?

Known and respected as a truly entrepreneurial organisation, Google is used to being in the headlines. Innovative and with a focus on providing a wide range of online services to its users, Google has been well respected, receiving congratulations from politicians, companies and individuals alike.

However, recent news that Google has avoided a £100m UK tax bill may create a dimming of that positive glow.

Already people are turning to their crystal balls to predict who will be the ‘next Google’. But do they mean the next entrepreneurial team to become a commercial corporate entity or the next visionaries to improve our daily lives with enhanced communication and knowledge sharing?

The Sunday Times outlines some potential companies to watch in the online space, including:

* Admob – the world’s largest mobile advertising network (only 3 years old)

* Loopt – social mapping product

* Moshi Monsters – online children’s game

* Stardoll – an online world for adolescent girls (25m users)

But there are many more out there.

It wasn’t that long ago that the mobile phone was cited as the next big thing – allowing us to access the web from wherever we were in the world. However, small screens and restrictive mobile companies kept the dream small. Until now…

Researchers now predict that with the dawn of Smart Phones, more people will be accessing the web from their mobile phone than their desktop PC within 2 years! Next steps being localised content pushed to our phones, from restaurant reviews to places to visit.

So, could a future outlined in Sci Fi films like Blade Runner, with interactive billboard screens providing information relevant to us as we walk past, be just around the corner?

Science fiction style applications are continually being adopted into our modern world. And hopefully, future successes will focus on enhanced communication and information sharing to improve lives around the world.

I’m not sure anyone can predict the next big hit, but it will be interesting to see who will be the online stars of the big (mobile phone) screen!

Pirate Bay – is it so black and white?

Pirate Bay founders Peter Sunde and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, are off to spend a year in jail along with two employees Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundström – but what of the 22 million users who regularly download videos, music and more from Pirate Bay?

The battle between the entertainment business and file sharing sites has been raging for years and the argument is set to intensify, if this lunchtime debate on the Sky News website is any indication. By now, anyone who uses the internet with any frequency will have made a concious decision to either purchase content from legitimate online sites or download content for free. But for those who have been downloading files for free, the rules look like they are about to change.

New pressure on Internet Service Providers to change the way they operate and come down hard illegal downloaders may well change the face of the Internet. With the Pirate Bay four facing jail and heavy fines and companies like Google in the frame for linking to them, I think we're going to see some changes online.

If you are interested in finding out more about this, take a look at this video on ISP file sharing laws on YouTube.

Labels: business, filesharing, Pirate Bay

Second Life in need of fresh blood

The circle of life seems to be spinning more slowly now for the virtual world of Second Life. A transfusion of fresh blood might be the answer, but I fear the diagnosis comes too late for its initial followers.

As a fan of Geoffrey Moore’s book, Crossing the Chasm, I’m no stranger to the concept of Innovators, Early Adopters, Early then Late Majority, and finally Laggards. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to me then that the virtual world of Second Life is now entering the later phases of its life. What is interesting though is why now.

Large corporations jumped into the highly popular Second Life, seeing it as a way to market to a vast audience of potential customers - from car manufacturers through to the Government, even the Department of Work!

And following Mr Moore’s teachings, once the mainstay corporations move in, the influential and trendy types move on to find the next big thing – before it gets big!

David Rowan, editor of Wired magazine, summed it up beautifully in his article in The Times last week as “Second Life will be so mainstream as to be terminally uncool”. He predicts the same for the relatively new technology application, Twitter and probably whatever comes after that.

Early adopters will continue to identify the next big thing and support innovative thinking. Surely that can’t be bad?

With talks apparently underway between Twitter and Google however, it will be interesting to see what the lifespan will be for what had the potential to be an amazing tool for global minds to share ideas and knowledge for a long time to come.