The link between social media, crowdsourcing, creating targeted audiences, generating buzz, and greater online distribution of media assets is beginning to transform the PR and Media Relations industry. While this has been in a growth mode in the US, its rare to see it being acted upon in Europe.

Yesterday, Usain Bolt the fastest man in the world, took part in a charity event on the organised by watchmaking brand Hublot, for whom he is an ambassador. He was on the starting line in front of the Hublot’s Headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland pitting himself against 10 child athletes. Hublot had agreed to donate 10,000 US dollars for each child who reached the finish line before “Lightning Bolt”, and ended up paying $100,000 USD to the Usain Bolt Foundation. LABEL vigorously supported the event in creating new channels and online communications through social media channels, assisting the WorldTelevision ENG, video streaming and media relations team to further the reach and awareness event.

LABEL spent time ahead of the event researching and connecting with influencers, Usain Bolt fans, track and field bloggers , watch bloggers and developing the links to existing fan groups on Facebook for track and field , Usain Bolt and Hublot.

In support of the live event a rigourous set of twitter streams were targeted at influencers and media so they were aware of the event on a day when three seperate news items involving Usain Bolt were reported in the world’s media. One of the basic stratgeies employed is that of frequency and consistency of messaging in both buildup, during and post period of an event. This prolongs the news and captures a long tail audience who is both interested in Usain Bolt and Hublot, while delivering and distributing a set of compelling media assets. While everybody may not see it on the day or tune into a live event, the residual effects of well executed tagging and referencing  will ensure that search results will give it greater audience overtime.

Check out some of the videos from Usain Bolt’s charity race against 10 children at Hublot’s HQ in Nyon, Switzerland.
The Race - http://ow.ly/27xrY
Event Highlights with Hublot’s Ambassador Usain Bolt  http://ow.ly/27xt6
General views from Usain Bolt’s charity race at Hublot  http://ow.ly/27xub
Usain Bolt interview http://ow.ly/27xvH
Interview with Hublot CEO, Jean-Claude Biver http://ow.ly/27xxh

On the eve of the opening of Lift 10, LABEL, as a partner and sponsor of the event, organized in its premises an apero, during which Etienne Mineur, designer at Editions Volumiques, and Hubert Guillaud, journalist at InternetActu.net and blogger on La feuille, with Arnaud Grobet from LABEL, animated an open talk with the participants on the subject: “From Newton to iPad: how will we interact with information?”.

Mixing French and English, the talk encountered a great interest among the fiftyish participants at this opening even to Lift 10. Between the speakers’ arguments, supported by videos about new and incredible ongoing projects, as well as demonstrations on Microsoft Surface, iPad and Newton, LABEL’s guests had a taste of what’s expecting them in their relationship with information tomorrow.

Among the videos shown, we’d like to draw to your attention on Mag +, an digital magazine project developed by Bonnier and Björn Jeffery, before the iPad was even launched.

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Since this first video, Bonnier, in partnership with the London-based design studio BERG, has launched Popular Science +, the iPad app of the Popular Science review, Mag + project’s first application.

Mag+ live with Popular Science+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

In attendance at Lift 10, Björn Jeffery introduced four of the ten design principles behind Mag+.

An other fascinating project, which Hubert Guillaud introduced to the guests at LABEL’s apero, was Text 2.0, a projet led by a team of German scientists. Based on oculometry, the measure of eye movements and using an eye tracker, Text 2.0 allows for the just in time presentation of desired effects, such as image display. It also enables readers to retrieve the last word they were reading, to get a definition of words they don’t understand. They can also speak to their compted and ask it for help regarding pronunciation! Text 2.0 also recognizes when readers are skimming through a text and fades ou irrelevant information to enhance key words. Pretty amazing, isn’t it?

However admiring are those technologies, some questions remain. Between the digital technology with which people can interact and the intelligent eye technology anticipating our requests, will one take over the other or will they find a compatibility level? Will the sharing and multi-users interaction allowed by the digital technology (like with Microsoft Surface for instance) be possible with the eye technology? Or will the latter remain reserved for individual use?

“One of the points Mr Zuckerberg was making was that the web has become a lot less anonymous and Facebook is definitely positioning itself as wanting to be the owner of that information,” said Maya Baratz of the Huffington Post. (Given Facebook’s growing and highly influential size the Huffington Post online publication has dedicated a whole section of its site to news surrounding Facebook which you can read by clicking here.)

Zuckerberg told developers at the f8 conference that the experience will mean a more personalized, social, smarter Web. As quoted from an another article on Huffington Post “Facebook is spreading its wings to the broader Web with new tools that will allow users to see personalized versions of websites they visit elsewhere.

The move could change the way people experience the online world, though it could come with deeper privacy implications. By accessing Facebook’s tools, websites will be able to customize the experience based on the list of friends, favorite bands and other things users have shared on their Facebook profiles.

“The Web is at a really important turning point now,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the F8 conference for Web and software developers in San Francisco. “Most things aren’t social and they don’t use your real identity. This is really starting to change.”

In its first steps Facebook has changed the semantics surrounding fans “people who like this” – has replaced the former term of “fans.” Facebook has added these new features to its site,

If you haven’t noticed these changes in the past few days take look.

In conjunction with this step it also launched the concept of what it calls Community pages. The concept of Community pages is to revamp users’ profiles to emphasize the pages for bands, books and businesses that users have become fans of. Facebook has started prompting users to essentially combine the two ( a users “Faned” page , and their profile page ) So if you listed The Clash in the “favorite music” section of your profile, Facebook will now ask you to join his page, if you haven’t become a fan of it already.

Facebook has also announced its working to eliminate the FB Connect ‘brand and replacing it with OAUTH – OAuth (Open Authorization) is an open standard that allows users to share their private resources (e.g. photos, videos, contact lists) stored on one site with another site without having to hand out their username and password.

Its also working on projects such as social plugins whch they call GDP (granular data permissions) and continuing to work on user privacy settings.
Zuckerberg said Facebook made sure that its new tools don’t intrude on their privacy. Users’ preferences won’t be logged unless they choose to press the “like” button on websites. If anything, Zuckerberg expects the “like” tools to give people more control over what they want to share with their online entourages.

If users embrace it, Facebook could gain valuable insights that could help it sell more advertising, potentially rivaling online ad leader Google Inc., which typically tailors ads based on keywords in search terms and Web content.

“If I were Google I would be really scared because Facebook might end up with a lot more intelligence than them,” said Alain Chuard, Founder of social marketing firm Wildfire. “Google is just an algorithm, but Facebook could rule the Web.”

So there’s obviously and lot more planned for the near future as the battle for social dominance increases. I wonder what Google will do now since its Buzz launch looks like a knee jerk re action to Facebook’s growing importance and it incremental loses in market share of audience time and visitation online?

Monkeys with Typewriters – Myths and realities of social media at work.

There seems to be a lot of books that are be published about social media, the new digital marketing paradigm, and they are  propagating as fast that the exponential growth of social media and networking. Most are, unfortunately, the non-descript how to do, or dummies guide to social media or how to use particular tool or a book rushed to print on hype. For the most part these serve their purpose but will be outdated by the time they publish or contain nothing more that are dry set of repetitive studies presented as a mind numbing, blunt string of wide eyed testimonies that say the “times are a changing”.  I must say, save the print and spare me the drudgery please.   Then I also must concede, I am not the target audience or buyer of such books.

Jemima Gibbons recently published book, Monkeys with Typewriters is quite different to those aforementioned book types. Its a new and refreshing read, a sparkling gem in a field of proliferating drudgery of “read this now and it will change your life” books. It also poignantly marks the period we are experiencing.

I must admit I do have a few books about digital convergence, digital economies and communications on my bookshelf . These are time markers that articulate what they see as present behaviours and guide future directions,: Being Digital,  The Cluetrain Manifesto, Convergence Culture, Groundswell, and Secrets Of Social Media Marketing to name them. Monkeys with Typewriters is potentially another time marker, intelligently drawing upon history, the present and piecing together a jigsaw picture of trends. At it’s centre lies numerous informative and insightful conversations and stories. What’s profoundly different about his book is that is a narrative woven out of these conversations with about 50 thought leaders and practitioners the world of social computing ( and I must confess that I am one of the interviewees), written around their personal situations and personalities , their thoughts and experiences almost like investigative reportage. The actors in the narrative are drawn from a cast of influencers; startup CEO’s, corporate executives, academics, specialists, and noted pioneers in web 2.0. The narrative is structured into a framework of six defining trends or behaviors that mark the change in communications, information and the psychologies that are driving the flow of change.  What it presents is a rich tapestry of current thinking and practices that harness the power of open information flow in the realtime web.

There’s no doubt, we do live in a time of somewhat profound and chaotic change in communications, knowledge and information flows. Borders are increasingly only geographical, businesses and countries are transforming and we are more connected than we ever have been before. Making sense of chaos and change is often quite hard as there are many factors at play. Monkeys with Typewriters is a must read if you want to make sense of the inter connectedness and how to behave in this new brave world.

As Jemima concludes in her wrapup  about Wise Monkeys “Social media is not about technology. It’s about people, relationships, and conversations. The web is the enabler. If you can engage with and value this network and incorporate its collaborative properties.. then you are one step closer to business zen : an intuitive, harmonious and enlightened working environment.” I couldn’t phrase it better myself.

Here are some links to buy the book and Jemima’s Monkeys with Typewriters blog

The most important reason for the meteoric growth of Social Networks is something called “The Network Effect”.  This equates to a tipping point when the value of a communications network to its users rises exponentially with the number of people connected to it. In the past year,  we have witnessed one such rising star, Facebook ( but it begs the question is it the only one? ). It took 5 years for Facebook to reach 150 million users and then a further 8 months to double that number. Today, according to Facebook Statistics,  it has 400 million users. In 2009 we saw Facebook become almost ubiquitous in every conversation swirling around Social Media and social networks. It was the year in which Facebook exploded into a  global phenomena, dominating the Social Networking market worldwide as it became an international social network giant. While its dominated the english speaking press and displaced MySpace its not the only Social Network in the world.

To believe that Facebook or english speaking social networks are the only “players in Social networks” worldwide would be nothing short of one sided owed to very narrow perspective of the hyper connected world we live in. According to Wikipedia, there are some 1.5 billion members worldwide. Across the world there a number of  culturally, language, local and regionally driven social networks , that both singularly and accumulatively pose the question whether Facebook can dominate the world in Social Networking. As  startling as it is, the ” Facebook Network Effect” is not only a Facebook phenomena and  its also occurring across other Social Networks in the world , albeit with different speeds.

So lets look at some of the Facebook statistics and the insights they bring.

Facebook Top growth by country – Dec 31st 2009

Facebook usage by % population of  country – Dec 31st 2009

Demark and Norway while not in the top 25 countries reveal even high % population penetration

Norway             Facebook users =  2,256,080                        % population = 48.5%

Denmark          Facebook users = 2,262,260                          % population = 42   %

Some of the insights coming out of Facebook’s 2009 growth are :

• The 35+ demographic now represents more than 30% of the entire user base
• The 55+ audience grew enormously at 922.7% in 2009
• Facebook’s largest user base, US, grew from 42 m to 103 m in 2009, a 144.9% growth rate
• SE Asia reprsents and huge growth potential – Indonesia grew to 14.1 m a 1536.7% growth rate , Philippines grew to 8.4 m a 2046.8% growth rate in 2009
• Taiwan’s user base grew to 5,490,300 a 4763% growth rate in 2009
• Facebook accounts for 7% of all time spent online in the U.S, 111.9 million US  visitors in December 2009 double that of December 2008
• In Orkut’s biggest markets (Brazil, India ) Facebook saw growth ( number of users  and number of  users relative to population, however, is still very low )
• Facebook has almost colonized Europe and it is extending its domination with more than 80 millions users at the start of 2010
• Facebook is growing well in Africa amongst the internet connected population

A review of  State of Social Media World from the international perspective shows some other great observations of the growth and importance of Social Networks across the globe.

Italian Vincenzo Cosenza’s  blog , Vinco,  publishes a visual map of the worlds social networks upon which can see the changing  geographical spread of social networks. Facebook in the past nine months has seemingly homogenised the map somewhat. However,  our research indicates that in some countries the map may not be correct and it hard to get an accurate number of the exact numbers. In  India , Orkut still ranks as the number one social network , and while Facebook enjoyed good growth and made inroads into the Philippines and Indonesia, Friendster still dominates the SE Asia region. So the light green spread of Facebook indicated on Vincenzo’s map remains relevant in the Americas, Europe, Australia and Africa. It is worthwhile noting that in the South East African countries there are new social networks being created that we predict will compete significantly against Facebook in countries outside of South Africa.

“South Africa has shown for years that social networks in Africa will be run over mobile phones in the future. Mxit in South Africa, a mobile social network application with more than 5 million members, lets one engage in a community independently from location and time.

According to Appfrica, South Africa has 1.1 million Facebook members, Morocco 369,000, Tunisia 279,000, Nigeria 220,000, Kenya 150,000,and Mauritius 60,000. It is also Appfrica who presents an interesting little project, where Ugandans can interact Facebook through their mobile phones: Status.ug is a completely mobile gateway for Ugandans to also interact on Facebook. Appfrica estimates around 60,000 Facebook registered members in the Kampala area. Erik Hersman wrote on his blog about Sembuse, East Africa’s first mobile social network “Sembuse is a mobile social network. It’s a way for East Africans to connect with each other via short messaging, cheaper than normal SMS messages (much like it’s counterpart Mxit in South Africa).” # extract taken from The Next Billion – The Rise of Social Network Sites in Developing countries by Christian Kreutz

In other parts of Africa Facebook continues to grow the following table showing user numbers in Africa was complied by Possicon from the  Webtrends Nigeria blog

Around Africa

” Egypt has overtaken South Africa as the largest country with Facebook users in Africa, though Facebook penetration in Egypt is much lower than south Africa, it show that there is room for more growth. For now, South Africa’s Facebook users seem to have reach climax as the growth rate is almost flattened. With the table above, Tunisia has the highest penetration up 11% from last November of 45%, given the number of internet users in Tunisia, the growth might not last for too long before it stops. Egypt, Morocco and Nigeria are the top countries in terms of Internet users and as such, we should expect growth from these countries. Morocco has just 12.4% of its internet population on Facebook while Nigeria with 9.4%. Ghana also shows a good Facebook penetration but insignificant as its internet users are still hinging below 1 million mark.” # extract taken from Web Trends Nigeria

Using this map and a number of other sources LABEL .THE Brand.intelligence company came up with a conclusive picture of what the regional and local competition is for Facebook around the world.

Facebook’s Regional and Cultural Competition as of 31st Dec 2009

• Qzone – 200 m users as of 31.01.09 , reportedly 300m as Dec 2009 , Main land China- more that 150 m monthly active users
• Myspace – 130 m users – 115 m monthly active users, 15 languages  has some 5 million artists and bands on MySpace Music and has plans to increase the development as a entertainment content network
• Friendster - 115 m users – 61m unique users per month and 19 billion pages views per month  predominantly SE Asia Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India
• Orkut - *100 m users – 48 languages – 51.09 m user Brazil , 20.02m users in India , 17.28m user in US.
• hi5 - 80m users – 50 languages, main demographics 18 – 34 ( 67% of users )  *15m Mexico, *10.5m Thailand, *7m Peru, *7m Portugal, India, Latam , big interest in developing social games and entertainment content
• Vkontakte - 61 m users- Russian (cyrillic ) speaking world inc. Eastern Europe , is a Facebook clone.
• Cyworld -  *16.2 m  users – 33% of total population of Sth Korea , 90% of Sth Koreans in their 20’s are members of Cyworld.
• Bebo - 40 m users – languages  English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Polish
• Maktoob- 36 m users, Middle East,  bought by Yahoo , Aug 2009 combining 16m Maktoob users with 20m Yahoo users, originally an email service that has extended into social network and news content
• Hyves – 9m users , The Netherlands only , 53% of total population of The Netherlands are registered users
• iWiW – 4m users, Hunagry only, 40% of total population of Hungary are registered user through invite only

Sources : Alexa, Google,Kohl, Orkut, hi5, NYtimes, Techcrunch, iwiw blog vkontakte.ru, Maktoob
* Estimated user numbers

The numbers are significant and tell us that language, culture, location are strong determinants in the Social Network world. What is obvious is that while MySpace lost its dominance in the english speaking world it has a very special offering in music and youth culture that means its still a powerful force in social networks.

• QQ, leader in China, is possibly the largest social network of the world (300 millions active accounts)
• MySpace has lost its leadership everywhere (except in Guam)
• VKontakte is the most popular in Russian (Cyrillic language) territories
• Friendster still dominates SE Asia , while Facebook has seen high growth in this region in 2009
• Orkut ( owned by Google)  remains dominant  in India and Brazil with Facebook making small and growing progress
• Hi5 is still leading in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and other scattered countries such as Portugal, Mongolia, Romania
• Maktoob ( bought by Yahoo in 2009) is the most important Arab community/portal and growing very fast , 6 million unique visitors in June 2008 to 21.8 million a year later
• Cyworld, Hyves, iWiW, One, and other language or country specific social networks have user numbers that are very high % of population and maybe hard to compete with

The following chart is a ranking provided by Vinco on what  social networks dominate in , what are arguably, the top ten Social media markets worldwide. The interesting note we have here is on the emergence of Twitter. It still has a long way to go for worldwide acceptance , however, it is important to note Twitter has spawned over 50,000 apps that tie into the service.

When in logged into my Gmail a few nights ago I got a screen that introduced me to Google’s Buzz. At a first glance I skipped over it not wanting to go to deep into a distracting setup that stopped me from doing what I had originally set out to do : check my email . In hindsight I am left questioning whether Google’s BUZZ has any buzz? Buzz will probably have impact on the digital marketing world overtime but its not that apparent at the moment. However, we should take notice of this change.  Buzz is a service that aims to compete in the social networking space not unlike the services of Bebo, Orkut ( owned by Google) Facebook, Twitter to take on the likes of Facebook and Twitter, across devices like the PC and mobile phone.

What Buzz is attempting to do is add the social networking features in the burgeoning number of Google’s services, over the top of the existing number of contacts a person has in their Gmail accounts. It has 97million users at its disposal to do this but it does pale in consideration of Facebook’s 400 million users, Myspace’s 130 million user and Friendster’s 115 million users. Google’s published rationale for Buzz is to work a more centralised and sorted approach to social services, sorting out the noise and organising information into a a relevant experience for users.  On its blog it says  ” With more and more communication happening online, the social web has exploded as the primary way to share interesting stuff, tell the world what you’re up to in real-time and stay more connected to more people. In today’s world of status messages, tweets and update streams, it’s increasingly tough to sort through it all, much less engage in meaningful conversations. ”

At the moment all the sentiment on the airwaves of the net, is that people have invested alot of time in developing their Facebook profiles and friends and their Twitter profiles to want to pull out of these platforms. Here is one observation I had of myself and one that I think is also being spoken about by Buzz critics. I am used to using Gmail for email, behaviourially I go there just to do that : email. I go to Facebook for other reasons , I rarely actually go to Twitter, but access it via another platform . I think changing these behaviours will be hard for Google to do unless it provides a real efficiency. It has said that Buzz is built on all the open API’s so there’s nothing to stop it creating Twitter and FB connections and adding them as services overtime too. The question is will it work? Can Buzz change people’s behaviours ?

The other side to this is its business case. It obvious that Google is trying to hedge into social search to monetize social networking in terms of semantic and geo targeted advertising . It has long been locked out of Facebook and not privvy to the masses of consumer behavioural data that Facebook has been accumulating and only recently coming to terms with and being able to create some intelligence out of it.  This is potentially a huge market. Google can calculate  and index underlying semantics and intelligence surrounding peoples conversations, interests, geo location using this information for a more targeted  and semantically driven array of advertising services.

Google is also well aware  of the mobile advertising potential surrounding both mobile use and geo location. There are critical statistics surrounding mobile use and social networks ( lets look specifically at Facebook )

• There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.

• People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are almost 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.

• There are more than 180 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products

The Buzz service is only open to or limited to Gmail users or through Google’s mobile phone , but knowing Google this will not stop just at Gmail. Remember Google got into the consumer electronic space via moblies , why ? Not to build devices but to protect it revenues into the future.  People are moving away or adding a smart phone in addition to their PC, and in the developing world the PC isn’t the connection to a digital world, the smart phone is. So mobile advertising is critical for Google’s growth or maintenance of its business revenues in the mid to long term.

We have seen social media destinations like Facebook or Qzone , Hi 5, Twitter grow at exponential rates in the past few years and take of the form of the new giants and the “Colossus”, Google, is now stepping in with a bid to compete for the consumer attention in social media. Google is no small player and has in recently shown it will flex it muscle and take on the giants or Microsoft and Apple. Buzz possibly has the potential to be a ” Game Changer” if they get the adoption equation right. The game change will not only be for the established Social networks  but for many small startup companies. Take for instance Foursquare or Brightkite who are rapidly gaining popularity these maybe shadowed and pushed into the margins very quickly or get bought as Android and if Google’s phone gains greater market traction. As Google says on the Google phone , “Google Buzz is much more than just a small screen version of the desktop experience. Mobile devices add an important component to sharing: location. Posts tagged with geographical information have an extra dimension of context — the answer to the question “where were you when you shared this?” can communicate so much. And when viewed in aggregate, the posts about a particular location can paint an extremely rich picture of that place” with a Buzz overlay on Google maps.

Sadly Google Buzz on the iPhone is a clunky experience.
My thoughts. Buzz will take a long time to take off. Its hard for people to change old habits if there is no significant increase in efficiency or simplicity.Its a play for social search for targeted advertising tat will become increasingly important, and  Buzz mobile may be the real mid to long term winner.

To view the Buzz offer you should take a look at the Google Blog.

1. By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.

“Greater availability of social networking services both inside and outside the firewall, coupled with changing demographics and work styles will lead 20 percent of users to make a social network the hub of their business communications. During the next several years, most companies will be building out internal social networks and/or allowing business use of personal social network accounts. Social networking will prove to be more effective than e-mail for certain business activities such as status updates and expertise location.”

As in the social network space direct emailing between people has dropped as people prefer to message each other as static email type messages or as IM working directly within the social network interface. The broadcast of messages appears as news feeds either to all persons in a network or as news specifically based upon an individuals interests, affinitities, or information needs has eaten into email’s dominance of electronic messaging and communication in the consumer world and will continue to do so. Interestingly, one enterprise social networking system we recommend from Telligent has a email client bridge at the moment that allows a “cross function”  between an email client and the an enterprise community/or social platform. It integrates to the MS exchange  email client allowing it to  act as social publishing interface when the enterprise user prefers not to enter the social network but still have its postings and interactions visible.

“Gartner recommends that organizations develop a long-term strategy for provisioning and consuming a rich set of collaboration and social software services, and develop policies governing the use of consumer services for business purposes. Companies should also solicit input from the business community on what collaboration tools would be most helpful.”

2. By 2012, over 50 percent of enterprises will use activity streams that include microblogging, but stand-alone enterprise microblogging will have less than 5 percent penetration.

The huge popularity of the consumer-microblogging service Twitter, has led many organizations to look for an “enterprise Twitter,” that provides microblogging functionality with more control and security features to support internal use between employees. Enterprise users want to use microblogging for many of the same reasons that consumers do to share quick insights, to keep up with what colleagues are doing, to get quick answers to questions and so on.

One such enterprise Twitter like microblogging  stream is Yammer, which at LABEL, we use as insight, research, and broadcast channel that doesn’t spam through our email system and allows for quick response and interaction between interested parties.

“However, it will be very difficult for microblogging as a stand-alone function to achieve widespread adoption within the enterprise. Twitter’s scale is one of the reasons for its popularity,” said Jeffrey Mann, research vice president for Gartner. “When limited to a single enterprise, that same scale is unachievable, reducing the number of users who will find it valuable. Mainstream enterprises are unlikely to adopt standalone, single-purpose microblogging products.”

We do differ to Gartner in our thinking. Where we see their use is in smaller defined interest groups inside of large enterprises. The enterprise microblogging services  will be picked up as quick information exchange platforms between collaborating and social groups within an enterprise. This is clearly illustrated by the growth of groups within communities and networks as centres of specific interests or needs.

3. Through 2012, over 70 percent of IT-dominated social media initiatives will fail.

I think this supports the adage we often adopt in recommending social media activities with clients be they consumer facing or in the enterprise. It not about the technology , but about how people use the technology. Start with the people equation first, not the technology equation and the adoption of these tools will ultimately succeed. We advise our clients to stop, listen and learn, create an engagement strategy that supports the business and communication objectives of before concentrating on the what and how of the technology. The answer is clearly underscored by the observation we have of IT companies making consumer facing websites or working out consumer engagement strategies in terms of digital marketing they just don’t do it very well, they deliver a platform not a communications solution and a strategy.

“When it comes to collaboration, IT organizations are accustomed to providing a technology platform (such as, e-mail, IM, Web conferencing) rather than delivering a social solution that targets specific business value. Through 2013, IT organizations will struggle with shifting from providing a platform to delivering a solution. This will result in over a 70 percent failure rate in IT-driven social media initiatives. Fifty percent of business-led social media initiatives will succeed, versus 20 percent of IT-driven initiatives.”

“Enterprises will need to develop entirely new skill sets around designing and delivering social media solutions. Until this happens, failure rates will remain high. A dearth of methods, technologies and tools will impede the design and delivery of social media solutions in the near term. But long term, enterprises will realize that social media is not a “hit or miss” activity naturally prone to high failure rates, and that a calculated approach to social media solution delivery must be an IT competency.”

4. Within five years, 70 percent of collaboration and communications applications designed on PCs will be modeled after user experience lessons from smartphone collaboration applications.

” As we move toward three billion phones in the world serving the main purpose of providing communications and collaboration anytime anywhere, Gartner expects more end users to spend significant time experiencing the collaborative tools on these devices. For some of the world, these will be the first or the only applications they use. The experience with these tools for all who use them will enable the user to handle far more conversations within a given amount of time than their PCs simply because they are easier to use. Just as the iPhone impacted user interface design on the desktop, the lessons in the mobile phone collaboration space will dramatically affect PC applications, many of which are derivatives of decades-old platforms based on the PBX or other older collaboration paradigm.”

5. Through 2015, only 25 percent of enterprises will routinely utilize social network analysis to improve performance and productivity.

The practices of Social Media analysis and the growing number of tools that are examining dialogue, sentiment, and the semantics surrounding consumer expression in participatory media can be applied as useful methodology for examining the interaction patterns and information flows that occur among the people and groups in an organisation or company. Gartner says “However, when surveys are used for data collection, users may be reluctant to provide accurate responses. When automated tools perform the analysis, users may resent knowing that software is analyzing their behavior. For these reasons, social network analysis will remain an untapped source of insight in most organizations.”

“Before undertaking a social network analysis, Gartner recommends that the organization ensure that it has the trust and buy-in of the people it hopes to include in the analysis in advance. Issues of privacy and confidentiality must be addressed and a determination needs to be made regarding how the information will be used and communicated. Establishing the ground rules upfront will encourage more open and honest participation and reduce the resistance to ongoing relationship monitoring.”

Here I could discuss a never-ending quantity of books a good webdesigner, creative, strategic planner and any other person whose job is related to the Web and social media could purchase. No way! However I can share with you a few very interesting publications, which will bring you happiness and inspiration over the long winter nights.

I chose to build various themes, so that any one of you can quickly find one or more books to purchase or to offer.

The Great Masters, those worth reading once a year

BOB GILL

Buy on Amazon

BOB GILL - Graphic Design as a Second Language

BOB GILL - Graphic Design as a Second Language

PAUL ARDEN

Buy on Amazon

PAUL ARDEN - any book you find

PAUL ARDEN - any book you find

SAUL BASS

It is very difficult to find publications specially dedicated to Saul BASS. Even his mythical DVD, in which he talks about his art of Title Design seems impossible to find. YouTube withdrew it for infringement of copyrights. Check out books compiling some of his works or the site listing his work on Title Design. The uncontested initiator of contemporary graphic design.

SAUL BASS

MARTIN PARR

For the creative mind, it is normal to get inspiration in every form of art – well that’s my point of view. Before even touching a computer (or before computers invaded our homes), I used to use miles and miles of film with a Kodak Instamatic and other cameras. Take your inspiration from photography! Martin PARR is one of those photographers you can’t get enough of!
Buy on Amazon

MARTIN PARR - by Val Williams

MARTIN PARR - by Val Williams

PAUL RAND

Buy on Amazon

PAUL RAND - by Steven Heller

PAUL RAND - by Steven Heller

Study cases, campaign cases

Looking at how others work is awe-inspiring. Looking at their creative processes, their briefs, their results… Here are three books, two of them being updated every year, which are real mines of information.

2 KILO – KESSELS KRAMMER

Buy on Amazon

2 KILO - Kessels Krammer

2 KILO - Kessels Krammer

ART DIRECTORS ANNUAL

Buy on Art Directors Club

ART DIRECTORS ANNUAL

ART DIRECTORS ANNUAL

DESIGN IN EUROPE

Buy on Design in Europe

DESIGN IN EUROPE

DESIGN IN EUROPE

Social Media and Marketing

Since everything is social now and we have the opportunity to get to read the marketing secrets of some of the biggest specialists, here is a sample of the huge amount of publications available.

THE TWITTER BOOK

Buy on O’Reilly

THE TWITTER BOOK - Tim O'Reilly, Sarah Milstein

THE TWITTER BOOK - Tim O'Reilly, Sarah Milstein

PURPLE COW, THE BIG MOO

Buy on Amazon

PURPLE COW and others - Seth Godin

PURPLE COW and others - Seth Godin

THE LONG TAIL

Buy on Amazon

THE LONG TAIL - Chris Anderson

THE LONG TAIL - Chris Anderson

THE TIPPING POINT

Buy on Amazon

THE TIPPING POINT - Malcolm Gladwell

The creative’s inspiration and reference

There’s always a need for a breeze of novelty and inspiration. Often looking at a combination of colors, a shape or an illustration is enough to get back into motion. Get inspired. Improve. Give a new interprétation. Innovate. All these images surrounding us nourish us in the end. Don’t forget : you are the sole master of your own style. Know how to work it without copying.

SERIALIZE

Buy on Amazon

SERIALIZE: Family Faces and Variety in Graphic Design

SERIALIZE: Family Faces and Variety in Graphic Design

AN EYE FOR COLOR

Buy on Amazon

AN EYE FOR COLOR - Olga Gutierrez De La Roza

AN EYE FOR COLOR - Olga Gutierrez De La Roza

LOS LOGOS 1, 2, 3, 4

The logo bible in 4 volumes heavy as a ton of bricks. Compiled by Büro Destruct. A must have.
Buy on Gestalten

LOS LOGOS - Büro Destruct

LOS LOGOS - Büro Destruct

OBEY

Let those who have never seen the world-famous red, white and blue portrait of Barak Obama cast the first stone at themselves ! Here is an essential book by Shepard Fairy, a brilliant illustrator, an inimitable style, a treat for the eyes.
Buy on Obey Giant

OBEY - Shepard Fairey

OBEY - Shepard Fairey

THE ART OF REBELLION 2

Buy on The Art of Rebellion

The Art of Rebellion 2 - Christian Hundertmark

The Art of Rebellion 2 - Christian Hundertmark

From theory to practice

Here are a few books explaining the jobs in communications, advertising, graphic design and how to go from theory to practice. How to conceptualize, think, learn tricks, jargon and eventually become the 21st century’s Paul Arden. One important thing : follow the rules but think out of the box.

THE ADVERTISING CONCEPT BOOK

Buy on Advertising Concept Book

THE ADVERTISING CONCEPT BOOK - Pete Barry

THE ADVERTISING CONCEPT BOOK - Pete Barry

THE BACK OF THE NAPKIN

Buy on Amazon

THE BACK OF THE NAPKIN - Dan Roam

THE BACK OF THE NAPKIN - Dan Roam

HOW TO BE A GRAPHIC DESIGNER WITHOUT LOSING YOUR SOUL

Buy on Amazon

HOW TO BE A GRAPHIC DESIGNER WITHOUT LOSING YOUR SOUL - Adrian Shaughnessy

HOW TO BE A GRAPHIC DESIGNER WITHOUT LOSING YOUR SOUL - Adrian Shaughnessy

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CREATIVE ADVERTISING

AVA Academia, publishing house, has many other titles that could be of interest to you. Don’t hesitate to have a look at all their publications.
Buy on AVA Academia

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CREATIVE ADVERTISING - Ken Burtenshaw

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CREATIVE ADVERTISING - Ken Burtenshaw

THE ART OF LOOKING SIDEWAYS

Phaidon Editions publish magnificent, unique books. I recommand another one further down : A smile in the mind.
Buy on Phaidon

THE ART OF LOOKING SIDEWAYS - Alan Fletcher

THE ART OF LOOKING SIDEWAYS - Alan Fletcher

DESIGNING UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE

I strongly recommend this book. To tempt you, here is a description in English : These questions formed the starting point of the research, which resulted in a report exploring the meaning of ‘universal knowledge’ as well as the process of collecting, structuring, designing, and publishing it. Designers and researchers from different fields have set standards for the classification and design of complex data collections and have thus exerted an enormous influence on how knowledge is communicated.
The report explores this topic as well as the possibilities of ‘universal design’ and presents new approaches to visualize complex information.
Buy on The world as flat land

DESIGNING UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE - Gerlinde Schuller

DESIGNING UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE - Gerlinde Schuller

A SMILE IN THE MIND

Achat sur Phaidon

A SMILE IN THE MIND - Beryl McAlhone

A SMILE IN THE MIND - Beryl McAlhone

We like the web from every angle

I’m really into webdesign. I’m also into ergonomy and usability. Books on theory are important but nothing is better than experience and online resources …

ERGONOMIE WEB

Buy on Eyrolles

ERGONOMIE WEB - Amélie Boucher

ERGONOMIE WEB - Amélie Boucher

ONLINE SUCCESS : instructions for use

Buy on Taschen

ONLINE SUCCESS : instructions for use - Julius Wiedemann

ONLINE SUCCESS : instructions for use - Julius Wiedemann

TASCHEN WEB COLLECTION

Buy on Taschen

the TASCHEN

the TASCHEN

In brief…

If you don’t find a book to offer yourself or someone else on this list, come back next year. By then, I will have prepared another collection for your shelves… or to please your nephew.

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Coca-Cola has launched it first viral video , and in getting a rare success in this type of media play. There is no proven method that ensures a success in viral video marketing other than it has to be entertaining. Funny always seem to work well as a formula, shocking as well, bad taste ( but that could seen as bad for a brand) , unreal or just unbelievable also works. Coke’s Happiness Machine, while only no more than a week old , has close to 800,000 views.

In what seems to be too incredible to be true a Coke machine setup in a university or college campus delivers more than just bottle of Coke . Flowers, balloon animals, a huge sandwich, and an endless supply Coke bring delight and happiness to the students.
As reported by iMedia Connection this is Coke’s first official experiment in viral video following on from another teen connection campaign the “Happiness Factory”.