I’ve been more preoccupied with work recently and have only had the chance to keep up to date on what others have written about the subject, but there’s been a post rattling around in me for a while on this topic, and it’s gained more clarity through projects I’ve been working on. Whilst I won’t be going into any detail about the specific projects, I’m going to touch on some of the themes and trends that have been buzzing around in my day to day discussions and I hope it’s thought provoking. There are 3 trends I want to highlight:

Firstly, Mike Arauz wrote a great thought piece the other week on “One-to-Some” Communication, which I thoroughly recommend. The whole team over at Undercurrent continue to churn out some brilliant thinking and Mike’s post is just another great example.

Secondly, another theme that took off at roughly the same time was funding for a little known start-up called Diaspora over on KickStarter. Within a matter of days the 4 guys from Diaspora had been funded to the tune of $100,000 – great by anyone’s standards – It’s also worth noting (especially for the purpose of this post) that Mark Zuckerberg is one of the loudest voices for Diaspora and was one of the earliest investors. Lastly, was an interview Robert Scoble recorded with the guys from Wave Market. Here, the conversation centred around geo-fencing and location-based notifications, amongst many other topics. It’s well wroth a watch when you find the time.

What all 3 of the above trends are pointing to is a group of individuals within your social graph which naturally ebbs and flows based on the context (time & place), the topic and the interest of the content you are sharing. Such relationships can get complicated quickly, so it’s important to rationalise this thinking by starting small.

Maybe Google Me, Google’s worst kept secret is trying to solve this problem…

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This is Donk-tastic! Watch the full documentary.

At first I thought it was a spoof in a classic Chris Morris kind of way, but then I realised there are just too many good bits for it to be fake.

This is totally genuine.

The Blackout crew have 4million hits on YouTube with ‘Put a Donk On It’:

The scene is focused around Fandom & a strong DIY UGC ethic. In some ways it’s more digital than Digital and others are copying the style:

Newham Generals feat. Dizzee Rascal – Violence:

It’s affronting, cheap, sexist and refines the lowest common denominator…It’s totally Donk…

Philip Schofield – http://twitter.com/schofe (2,366 followers in a week after that little piece to camera on This Morning)
Jonathan Ross – https://twitter.com/Wossy (13,933 followers)
Stephen Fry – https://twitter.com/stephenfry (51,000 followers)
Alan Carr – https://twitter.com/AlanCarr (4,018 followers)

And Dancing On Ice (wtf?!?!?) – http://twitter.com/dancingonice – In fact everything to do with Dancing on Ice has gone completely Social Meedja. They’ve got a Facebook page ( http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dancing-on-Ice/49073635635) and they’ve even given Schofield a Flip camera (!?!?!) to create impromptu pieces to camera and behind the scenes footage. I digress….
Twitter’s good for celebrities because it can be done on the go from your phone.
Twitter’s good for Brands because they can announce offers. Dell has achieved over $1million sales directly from Twitter: http://tinyurl.com/6hxk7d
Twitter’s good for fictional characters – as long as there’s buy-in from the studios – see the ‘Becoming a Mad Man’ article.

Twitter’s got some real legs when it comes to TV in general. or Dr. Who…What if you could follow the Doctor and get his thoughts whenever he’s not in a scene – The thoughts & emotions of the Doctor when he’s not in the scene; after a big argument for example or by adding a quick retort out of ear shot?? You could get the Doctor to ask for advice and get the audience to reference material online that could help him…Good for spin-offs or integrated two-way ARGs. Some fool out there is calling this Transmedia, but essentially it’s just a different way of telling a story….

We’re on the cusp of a sea change in the way we interact with the Internet. More and more often the problems I’m asked to solve aren’t concerned with an experience in which you’re in front of your computer screen. It involves a store front or a mobile or an outdoor space or a physical object…

Timo Arnall is a designer working with interactive products and media. He runs a design research project that looks at emerging technologies at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. Recently he gave the following presentation:

The web in the world:

Timo Arnall has a couple of blogs with some equally interesting insights:

ElasticSpace – http://www.elasticspace.com
Nearfield – http://www.nearfield.org/

Thanks Timo for making this available.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting Iain Richardson, an expert in the field of video compression. Over lunch we were talking about the future of video and he described to me his 10yr old’s viewing habits.

First of all, his son has never asked him for a DVD for his birthday or Christmas – he just goes onto YouTube and watches clips of what he’s interested in – as far as he knows his son has never watched a full episode of anything from TV.

A case in point is his current fad for The Mighty Boosh. He and his friends recite sketches from the show to each other with perfect aplomb, yet they’ve never watched a full episode and he’s never asked for the DVD for Christmas or his birthday.

What’s important to him is finding and sourcing the next ‘sick’ clip or sequence and sharing his knowledge.

Nothing new, but it really hit home to me the reality of the every day and the mindset of 10yr olds – there is an immense cultural shift taking place that’s driven by technology and the internet and most people still don’t realise it.

Nike PhotoiD has been featured on the Guardian’s website and on Cscout as a new mobile marketing trend.

For those who haven’t heard about Nike PhotoiD it’s a piece of software which analyses the pixels colours within an image and generates a pair of Nike iDs for you based on those colours.

MMS your picture and the word DUNK to 88247.

Not only is it cool but it actually works. I tested it out about 6 weeks ago on some of my friends and they were really impressed.

CitySlikkers is one of a handful of mobile games that have been devised which integrate the real world with a virtual gaming world via the mobile.

What’s brilliant about CitySlikkers is that…

“…the playing community will always be a minority they hereby form some kind of elitist, secret society which is based on knowledge, but not financial or political power.”

This elitism is the basis on which William Gibson’s ‘Spook Country’ professes to “secrets [being] the very root of cool.”

The game combines elements of strategy, role-playing, sports, social and tactical games, but in contrast to popular MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games), the outcome of the actions as well as the new connections made between people, will affect normal life as the everyday city is no longer the same due to the players‘ experience.

CitySlikkers looks brilliant, but I’ve been thinking about games alot recently – more on that in future posts – but the lure of mobile and the additional dimension it opens up, is fascinating.

With Apple’s iPhone 2 offering 3G and GPS and Nokia’s N95 and upwards offering the same, being constantly connected and able to be pinpointed on a virtual map via GPS is becoming the norm and with it comes enormous opportunities in changing the game of Gaming.

MMTRG is a blog which documents a list of developers and the games they’ve dreamt up and news surrounding them – It’s worth a read…

Other avenues worth following include location based games, Alternate reality gaming and a couple of games that Blast Theory, based down in Brighton have already evolved:

Uncle Roy All Around You – more info here.
Can You See Me Now
iPerG
Participate
CivilAction – an urban code chase game.

What’s key to the last few examples is that at the heart of the games is storytelling. If the story isn’t convincing enough then people aren’t going to play. If it’s believable though then you’ve got a runaway hit on your hands…As always, making the technology invisible to the player is paramount to success.

Vintage / Retro Styles

Handwritten Notes and Paper Clips

Grungy

Splatter Ink

Watercolor

Collage

Sketches and Handwritten Fonts

Big Fonts

Script Fonts

Wood Pattern

You can be the judge as to whether they are or not, but nevertheless it’s a great list.

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Cut and Paste feels like the most obvious trend to me and the one in least doubt. Unless Digital Agencies begin to embrace the open-source nature of the internet on behalf of their clients, no one will appreciate the enormous benfits of what doing so are.