The Blog.

As a leading Digital Media Agency we’re obviously techno addicts: Macs, iPhones, Facebook and Blogs are our daily bread and without them we would surely starve! But shouldn’t we occasionally try to take a critical look at ourselves and the world we are creating? Whose running this brave new digital era - us or the technology that we’re developing? Here’s an alternative vision of the future for those of us who are currently in need of caffeine so on a bit of a downer.

After all, Technology; what’s it done for us? Sure, it may have saved a few million lives and advanced our civilisation in the short term, but has it been worth it for what we’ve turned us in to? We’re slaves to gadgets, worshipping at the altar of Blackberry, pawning vital organs for 3D televisions; it’s only a matter of time before we begin sacrificing virgins to Apple, lest they not release the next iPhone.

Now technology demands we speak its language, distilling the most powerful of human emotions to a parade of dreadful abbreviations and phrases. I know, I know, it saves you the arduous task of meticulously spelling out exactly what you’re doing with your Saturday afternoon, but it bugs me that we’ve been blessed with the rich and diverse English language, and we choose to mutilate it in the most uncouth ways. It’s not right, it’s not English and it’s not fair.

‘Web 2.0’ is officially the one millionth word in the Oxford English Dictionary. While some balk at this kind of grammatical sacrilege, Jonathon Green embraces the change. The so-called slang lexicographer believes that ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ will be dead in fifty years – presumably by which point we’ll communicate entirely in numbers and misplaced punctuation.

Text speak is, apparently, nothing new according...

The political potential of Twitter.

Among the mass of the mundane from the throng of seemingly disparate, unrelated people using Twitter, a minority of individuals, from Barak Obama to Stephen Fry are amassing huge numbers of followers who hang on their every “tweet.”

Social networks such as Twitter are real communities with intimate relations, that collectively, have the potential and power to organise and politicise. Twitter’s potential as a force for social change and the means that both the web industry and users share a social responsibility to ensure the “power of the tweet” is used responsibly.

Twitter and such similar social networks are already beginning to shift power concentrations away from institutions and corporates.  For example, Live Earth tweets are closely followed by 96,391 individuals and follow 88,518 users themselves who have environment interests (September 2011@liveearth, Twitter). The combined political power, should these communities decide lobby for environmental causes, demonstrates that political change can be driven from the bottom up. Such communities also have the ability to access both celebrities and experts to support their cause.

Twitter’s political potential is already being realised. A CNN blog article (Elise Labott, 2009) carried the story of the YouTube and Twitter cries for help and video footage from the anti Ahmadinejad demonstrations in Iran. At the time, Barak Obama and his administration requested that Twitter reschedule scheduled maintenance to the site to enable peak-time traffic from Iran to continue tweeting to the outside world. This helped to ensure the free flow of information out of a country where journalists have been banned and which has no embassy connections with the US. Freedom of information is essential to democracy and social networks are helping to ensure that information is still reaching large numbers of people. Such efforts by the US Government simply...

Google Panda

With the announcement of Google Panda, the new change is Google’s algorithm, the topic of conversation at flavr this week has been how Social Media has become even more important in the world of SEO.

Sure, SEO is without doubt one of the best methods to increase your page rank and positioning in search results: And Social Media in an invaluable resource to harness when using your brand to reach out and engage with customers, but now it’s even more important that the two be used together for the ultimate results.

It’s a well known fact that search engines such as Google are always changing and evolving the methods used to establish the most relevant results for their users. But, what makes this change so revolutionary is how Google now takes your Social Activity into account.

Never before has the need for good quality content been so high: Sites that already provide their users with good, quality, plentiful content would have already noticed an immediate improvement in their rank.

Content has always been King

Now there’s more to it:

One new way that Google is using to determine your relevancy is your Facebook Activity: Sites that are shared on Facebook more frequently will now appear above those which are shared less often or not at all.

• Make sure that your website and blog content is easy for users to share, add social widgets if necessary.
• Make sure you have a Facebook presence and encourage your fans to share your content amongst friends.
• Update your Facebook and Twitter status when you update or add new content.

Told You So

This is one more example of the power and influence that Social Media possesses: Something we’ve been advocating from the very beginning.

Google Panda is ongoing, and...

Smartphones

These babies will be in the hands of nearly 50% of the US population by years end. And with Verizon adding the iPhone, and tablets taking, everyone you know, and everyone they know will be walking, talking, emailing, playing, and sharing on the go. So make sure that you add mobile social marketing to your mix and optimize your messaging for iPhone, iPad, Galaxy, Blackberry, Droid… you get the idea.

Companies That Care

At least that’s how you need to be perceived if you want to be ‘liked’ in 2011. A growing number of companies will finally go beyond using social channels merely for building awareness and providing IM customer service. You’ll see a rise in companies who, by end of year, will be recognized for socially-informed innovation, customer focus and work environment – think Zappos’ super-cool customer service agents and Google’s free food and laundry for their employees. It makes even me want to get a job, well… maybe.

Social Shopping

People love Facebook and spend so much time on social media that Facebook now wants you to shop there as well.  You can buy jeans from JC Penney, tickets from Delta Airlines and ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery. So definitely watch out for more transactional business directly on Facebook this year and soon after on other social platforms, not to mention, our phones.

Websites 2.0

Websites will become more and more social. Make your website social by adding a revved up Facebook business page plus add LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, WordPress/Tumblr… you get the idea. And, allow people to “like” and rate the content on your website. Add interesting content, informative video, useful information and give people a reason to return or they won’t come back. Really.

Get Discovered

Talent scouts and media outlets will find future...