Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
Hope you enjoyed yesterday’s rare political edition of Links For The Week, it’s back to the regular stuff.
Tribes
- There was an allusion to “Tribes” a couple of times in yesterday’s post, listen to Seth Godin talk about it for more than an hour in this special edition of the Marketing Over Coffee podcast. It took me a long time to finish it because my daily commute is five minutes, but so worth it.
Generation Y, Digital Natives & Millennials
- Workplace 2.0: Motivating and Managing Millennials - Very short (12 pages total, about 8 pages of content) PDF file on managing millennials (aka: us). It doesn’t actually give much of a “how to”, but it does lead you to understanding us more. I must say he is right on about fervour, hard work and tireless labour. I’d work overtime, for free, for a job that’s rewarding in an industry I’m passionate about.
- Digital Natives are here by Mitch Joel - Again, great post to help the people in management understand the digital natives. I feel a lot of people still aren’t ready to accept that our generation is a little bit different and that being constantly connected is more of an empowerment than a distraction. But those organisations who do grasp that, are going to be able to channel us much more efficiently.
Social Media Strategy
- The Strategist and Social Media by Kami Huyse - Great slides in there that you should read if you’re beginning to think of a social media strategy, especially points about risks of social media engagement, and the Sea World case study.
Plurk
Google Reader
Music & Social Media
- MTV to MySpace: Post Our Content, Please - you might remember in my review of the book/rant Cult Of The Amateur by Andrew Keen that he called Viacom (parent company of MTV) suing YouTube a “powerful message”. I say the partnership between MTV and MySpace is a) a more powerful message b) a sign that at least one player in the industry waking up to reality.
As always, share your links with me in the comments, or you can find me on delicious.
Tags: andrew keen, apple, beth harte, cult of the amateur, delicious, digital natives, generation y, google reader, itunes sucks, kami huyse, links for the week, marketing over coffee, millennials, mitch joel, mtv, myspace, obama, Plurk, read it later, risks of social media engagement, sea world, seth godin, social media strategy, tribes, viacom, youtube
Posted in Links | No Comments »
Sunday, September 28th, 2008
If needing to take notes is my personal benchmark for how good a book is (like Joseph Jaffe’s Join The Conversation), then Andrew Keen’s Cult Of The Amateur falls firmly in the opposite category. To be honest, for the first half of the book I was waiting for the “haha gotcha!” moment, because no one could be this blind towards the benefits of Web2.0 and community and collaboration.
But I soon discovered it would never come.
Keen fancies his book a polemic, but what it really is, is a rant. After reading the first chapter, every subsequent chapter was merely a repetition of what was said before, albeit with different examples and/or research.
Speaking of research, that is the one thing that Keen does well. I enjoyed reading the statistics, but not the conclusions drawn. for example he gives a timeline for the decline in music sales and says something to the effect that is no coincidence that this happened at around the time of the internet’s birth.
Keen loves the old world. He loves the “cultural gatekeepers” like reporters, news anchors, editors, movie reviewers and the like. Maybe crowdsourcing doesn’t always work, but I would almost always rather determine whether I want to watch a movie based on what people say online, than that one singular review in the newspapers by a “cultural gatekeeper”. In fact I’m working on a deck talking about “The New Gatekeepers”, so obviously I am in direct opposition with Keen here.
One thing Keen does do well, is highlight the problems the internet has brought. Online gambling addiction, pornography, plagarism, not watching one’s online identity. I’m in agreement with these social ills, but the way he writes the book, it sounds like these eclipse everything good about Web2.0 (democratisation of media, more choice than ever via the long tail, experiences that we’d otherwise never have, collaboration, discussion, community, the list goes on). And he makes it sound that these are so terrible that we should just get rid of the internet entirely, although he stops just short of saying that.
Keen also points to Viacom suing YouTube as a “powerful message”, but my bet is that Viacom (who owns MTV, VH1 and Nickleodeon) is wishing they had bought YouTube instead of Google. Just think of the possibilities if Viacom owned that media channel.
All in all, I did not enjoy reading this book at all. Not just because it goes against everything I believe in about social media and community, but because the arguments are one sided. He talks about the money lost by Frito-Lay choosing to go with an amateur advertising campaign, and makes it the fault of social media. But is it anyone’s fault that “professionals” failed to deliver better content and creativity than the “amateurs”? He simply takes one side of the coin and runs with it.
For people already in this space, I wouldn’t recommend reading this book because it isn’t going to change your mind. The arguments are just not strong and/or compelling enough, and your money will be much better spent going towards a book that will help improve your social media life.
But hey don’t take my word for it, check out visual bookshelf on Facebook for many similar reviews, or just check out at this user-generated content by another reviewer (which I found while looking for the cover image). I bet Mr. Keen hates all these “amateur” review and wishes it were all done by a “cultural gatekeeper” instead.
Tags: andrew keen, cult of the amateur, cultutal gatekeepers, facebook, frito-lay, join the conversation, joseph jaffe, polemic, rant, Research, the new gatekeepers, viacom, visual bookshelf, web2.0, youtube
Posted in Books, Singapore | 3 Comments »
Monday, March 17th, 2008
If you use social media in any way (blog/podcast/use Youtube/use Flickr/use Facebook/etc), come for Social Media Breakfast: Singapore next Saturday, 29th of March 2008!
This is a little experiment that Derrick Kwa (from Adventures in Social Media #1) thought of doing, and was generous enough to invite me along for the ride. The objective of the breakfast is simply to meet like-minded people who are into the social media scene, expand your network and of course have fun. It doesn’t matter whether you’re interested in social media from a business standpoint or a social standpoint, everyone’s invited because you never know who you’d meet!
Currently Derrick and I have two rules:
- Everyone’s equal. When it comes to Social Media Breakfast, there’s no difference if you’re a CEO or a student. Everyone has something of value to contribute and everyone should be treated that way
- Law of Two Feet applies. If a particular conversation or discussion is not getting you what you want, feel free to move on.
Both are nods to PodCamp rules and we’re sure they’re not hard to follow!
Finally, we will be borrowing an idea from Jeff Pulver regarding personal tagging. I’ll let the man explain it himself:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U1TfAJoVlo]
The venue we’re looking at is either going to be TCC at SMU or Frujch. Either way it will be in the SMU area, so it’s pretty convenient. Also, because it’s our first time trying this out there are no sponsors involved, so you have to pay for your own breakfast and we hope that’s not too big a problem! We’ll clarify the final date and time within the week.
So if you’re coming, leave me a comment or drop me an email: uniquefrequencyATgmailDOTcom or message me on Twitter and we’ll see you on the 29th!
Tags: adventures in social media, blog, derrick kwa, facebook, flickr, frujch, jeff pulver, like-minded people, personal tagging, podcamp, podcast, Singapore, SMU, social media, social media breakfast, twitter, youtube
Posted in Fun, SMU, Singapore, social media, social media breakfast | 24 Comments »
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
I kept these till the end because I was toying with the idea of creating something like this, but decided I simply didn’t have the time. Here are 2 video guides to using Twitter. Enjoy!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYHUOESHpVk&rel=1]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkd-Kft1xy8&rel=1]
Tags: epilogue, twitter, twitter 201, video, youtube, youtube twitter
Posted in social media, twitter | No Comments »
Friday, February 8th, 2008
I just got home and was clearing my Google Reader feeds, and Garr Reynolds over at Presentation Zen highlights words, music, images and the power of inspiration with this video featuring Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas with a video mashup with a Barack Obama speech. You might also recognise Common, Harrold Perrineau, Kate Walsh, Eric Balfour, Shoshannah Stern and Amaury Nolasco among others.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY&rel=1]
Now I don’t claim to be following US politics, and the political flavour of the video is not what gets me. It’s the fact that if you ignore the fact that people in the video are celebrities, we’re living in a world where a group of friends can get together, record a simple video like this on an issue they’re passionate about, upload it on youtube, and get it watched 2 million times in less than a week.
And let’s not forget that this transcends all geographical boundaries. Garr Reynolds was alerted to it by people in Japan, and of course, this post comes from Singapore. I just think it’s amazing we can do all this right now, which would’ve been close to impossible just a few years ago.
Edit: in case anyone thinks this is limited to celebrities, here is another example:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmKBjWg6PuY&rel=1]
Twenty One. Thousand. Views. In just four days.
Tags: amaury nolasco, barack obama, black eyed peas, celebrities, common, eric balfour, feeds, garr reynolds, google reader, harrold perrineau, japan, kate walsh, maship, obamaguy, politics, presentation zen, presidential race, shoshannah stern, Singapore, video, will.i.am, youtube
Posted in social media | 1 Comment »
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
As a follow up to my Twitter 101 post, I came upon 2 articles featuring Twitter this week:
Twitter is a way to record thoughts and ideas that you search - it’s a history
Twitter connects you to a larger world outside of the classroom and even the country
Students can follow people who do what they want to do or who they admire and get a sense for their job and life
Twitter can improve writing and punctuation
There’s some controversy about the classroom article because the students in question are 6th Graders, and I think that’s fine. Let them be exposed to Twitter at an early age and all that. But more importantly, who’s going to teach people like us? I think I have 2 friends (in the similar age group) on Twitter, and unless that number grows to reap substantial network externalities, it’s hard to see that catching on.
Similar sentiments regarding news. Running a Campus Radio station, sometimes it is hard to get the most updated news. Wouldn’t that all change with Twitter? However, again, it depends on whether sufficient people are using it to highlight news, for anything to be really gained out of it.
Next up, if you’re someone who is guilty of procrastination (as I am), here is a free ebook by Fruitful Time called Stop Procrastination Now and here’s a guide to Lazy Productivity. I found them both to be pretty helpful.
Finally, if you were too lazy to check out Jaffe Juice #102 for the Scrabulous jingle, Ariah was kind enough to provide the youtube link, so watch it right here. Trust me, you won’t regret it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtiaMifYmEs&rel=1]
Tags: campus radio, fruitful time, lazy productivity, marketing pilgrim, procrastination, readwriteweb, scrabulous, stop procrastination, twitter, twitter 101, twitter 102, youtube
Posted in Fun, Podcasts, Social Networks, social media, twitter | 4 Comments »
