#ULRNM
URBAN LIFESTYLE REPORT NEW MEDIA
free no. 1
new media january
trend report 2009
for marketers

editorial staff
TOMAS NIHLÉN - EDITOR IN CHIEF LINDA PIERRE - EDITOR
THE HASHTAG ISSUE!
You might wonder what the hell the weird sign on the front cover means. Or you
might recognise it from numerous places like for instance from Twitter. In fact you are
completely right if you thought about Twitter. This might seem like a worn out topic,
but it has become such an important part of the current media landscape that it would
be impossible to write a new media trend report without giving this topic the proper
attention. Many bloggers out their write tons of great advice on different Twitter apps,
we are in this issue focusing mostly on how Twitter is actually used by people and
how it can create value for brands.
Tomas Nihlén, Editor in Chief and Linda Pierre, Editor and responsible
writer. Co-founder of Urban Lifestyle. for layout & design. Co-founder and co- Since this is the first issue of 2009 I felt it was almost necessary to start off this issue
Holds a very strong interest in new owner of Urban Lifestyle. She is also with a glance into the crystal ball in the first article. But since you probably already have
media and how Internet is changing the marketing director for an e-commerce read quite a few of these already I only choose a few of the trends that I personally
fundamentals of the whole marketing site in the travel accessories category.
think are important in media production and gadget consumption. Convergence and
arena. He particularly keeps an eye on Linda enjoys actually using social
the evolving Internet video scene. Also media in her daily work instead of just divergence are two key words here. But this issue is so packed full of information
loves podcasting both as a viewer and talking about it. She loves podcasting, and insights that you really need to poor yourself a cup of tea, or coffee, and start
a creator. both practicing and consuming. cracking at this bad boy. First a few words about the future of this report though.
E-mail: tomas@urban-lifestyle.se E-mail: linda@urban-lifestyle.se We are proud to present some new writers in this issue and we would love to
find more and more writers out there who can help improve this report. So please let
us know if you want to write an article or become a regular writer.
INFORMATION - WHAT IS ”URBAN LIFSTYLE REPORT - NEW MEDIA”?
It feels exciting to take this product from a walled garden out into the world
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”Beyond buzz words and corporate bullshit. We write about what’s actually going
on in new media and how it’s changing the marketing game. And we are always on can send our reports to friends but it would be great if you
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Editor in Chief Tomas Nihlén
tomas@urban-lifestyle.se +46 8 501 64 377 www.UrbanLifestyleReport.com and you’ll get an commenting on our reports on Twitter.
Editor & Creative Director Linda Pierre email to download the reports.
linda@urban-lifestyle.se +46 8 501 64 376 How often? 4-5 times per year. Now, I know you can’t wait any more so just turn the page
Company behind the report: Images & illustrations: If not taken by any of our and get started already! :)
Urban Lifestyle AB writers, been approved by the copy holder or free
of use from Flickr Creative Commons.

writers
TOMAS NIHLÉN - STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN OLLE AHNVE - STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
Obsessed with new media but even more so if it is related to A curiosity geek at a Stockholm based PR agency who thinks ”social”
moving images on a digital screen. Wanted to become a movie is the most important part of social media and enjoys diving into
director in high school, and now enjoys every second spent this digital ocean every day. He thinks everybody should try Twitter
in Final Cut editing video podcasts or short documentaries. at least once in their lifetime and not be afraid to try new things.
Web: Urban Lifestyle Report Twitter: @tomasnihlen Web: http://jungrelations.com/blog Twitter: @oahnve
LINDA PIERRE - STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN ANDERS ABRAHAMSSON - NORRKÖPING, SWEDEN
A perfectionist who is addicted to keeping up to date to Sustainopreneurship facilitator and global knowledge nomad
everything new, but in particular everything digital. Relives an old networking with intention and quality who runs/develops six
dream to become a radio host by keeping a mic close to her at all ventures.
times so that she can start a podcast episode at any given time.
Web: Urban Lifestyle Report Twitter: @lindapierre Web: http://www.sustainopreneurship.biz/Twitter: @sliceonline
HJÖRTUR SMÁRASON - REYKJAVIK, ICELAND NICHOLAS GILL - LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Anthropologist who went practical. Writes, speaks and Planner with a love for digital at Lawton Communications
consults on Internet marketing. He is also owner and Group but also a blogger, podcaster and general evangelist for
director of a marketing consultancy in Reykjavik, Iceland innovative marketing strategies. Has previously worked as a client
specializing in branding, social media and Internet marketing. partner and strategic leader for a wide range of blue chip clients.
Web: http://blog.scope.is/ Twitter: @hjortur Web: http://bluurb.wordpress.com Twitter: @nicholasgill
LIA DUTRA - SAO PAULO, BRAZIL DAN THORNTON - PETERBOROUGH, UNITED KINGDOM
Passionate strategic planner at the Brazilian agency Africa 30-something Community Marketing Manager at Bauer
Propaganda who believes that in hard times creativity blossoms. Media, specializing in creating content, conversation and
Her thirst for knowledge never stops and her blog and articles here communities. Also experienced blogger (www.thewayoftheweb.
are two outlets for her thoughts on marketing and related topics. net and www.140char.com), journalist and social media addict.
Web: http://liadutra.blogspot.com/ Twitter: @liadutra Web: http://www.thewayoftheweb.net Twitter: @badgergravling

in this issue 2009.01
5. First some mandatory crystal ball predictions
41. A crisis of convergence Music 3.0
8. A year of Value, not wealth
9. One day at a time 45. Liar liar pants on fire!
11. The New Media (and people) scenario 47. Opinion: STOP bugging us!
14. Curiosity Geek - the marketing pro of tomorrow 48. Connect with us!
16. The next phase of social networking online 49. Donations & ”Looking for Indesign Guru!”
19. Micro-blogging? All know what it is, no one knows what it is
25. Hashtags & Retweets - more than just fancy words?
30. The live web - at first glance
34. A different kind of Internet Buzz - the one that comes from drinking
36. It’s all about the brand experience - seamless but not standardised
40. Death of the anonymous web? COVER IMAGE BY:
respres

5
First some
mandatory
crystal ball
predictions
TOMAS NIHLÉN
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Blog: http://tomasnihlen.tumblr.com/
Picture: swanksalot
S ince this is the first issue of 2009 it would be
almost unheard of not to do some predictions
for this year. But I will keep it short and
The two hottest gadgets right now seem to be smartphones
and netbooks. And related to netbooks we see ultra
portable laptops like MacBook Air. In fact, no matter if you
are rocking a small laptop, netbook or even smartphone it’s
(hopefully) sweet. Basically just some of the things cheaper and easier than ever to bring your office wherever
I’m contemplating right now, in regards to new you go.
media and consumer trends. But just focus on a Apple revolutionised the smartphone industry when iPhone
couple of interesting things rather than everything hit the market. No doubt about that. They focused on
making a great product instead of copying the competition
going on right now in this field.
or sticking to industry standards.

6
Not smart at all if my SonyEricsson P1 can claim that title. It’s the dumbest phone
I have ever had the misfortune to use.
Speaking of convergence, another interesting field with great convergence is
between digital still cameras and digital video cameras. Canon Mark II for instance
is a digital SLR that also shoots full HD video and has even been used to shoot this
short film.
These two types of products will no doubt grow into one in the future, but it will
be interesting to see what the winning form factor will look like. Will it be a video
Picture: P/\\UL camera that shoots great still images or a still camera that shoots great video? At
the moment it looks like the latter alternative, but I guess time will tell.
Now the other manufacturers are doing what they usually
do; playing copycat and building iPhone like products. It’s We do not only see convergence in the field of
obvious that the strategies vary between Apple and the digital video capturing though, we actually
rest of the brands in this space. But that’s all I’m going to see both convergence and divergence
say in this fanboy maner. at the same time. Let me explain
what I mean. My example is the Flip
My prediction here is that we will see continued growth
camera, a small and super easy to
in the netbook sector and we will also see more and
use digital video camera. The first
more netbooks running OS X, something that Apple
model focused on two things; easy
will need to address. Microsoft needs to watch out,
to use and cheap. So it was different
because I think both Linux and OS X are really attractive
from many other cameras going for
operating systems for these netbooks.
the top end or middle range. But
In the cell phone corner we will see a convergence with the new model of the Flip Mino
between regular phones and smartphones. In the future HD you actually get HD in a very small
this categorisation will not make sense anymore, and I’m and cheap little box. I think this type of
not sure it even does at the moment. How smart does a cameras will flood the market and replace
smartphone need to be, eh well to be called a ”smartphone”? regular users’ old DV cameras.
Picture: Steve Keys

7
This should in fact become the top choice for both regular
consumers and average Internet users who need a cheap
and easy way to shoot and publish videos to the Internet. I
also see great corporate uses for these type of cameras, just
send me and e-mail and I would love to talk more about this
topic. I love almost everything about digital video online.
So here is a summary of what I will (and you should?) keep
an extra eye on during 2009:
1 Laptops; cheaper and cheaper + faster and faster
2 Netbooks; shooting for the stars
3 Microsoft getting competition in the netbook sector
4 Convergence between digital still cameras and digital
video cameras
5 HD video cameras that disappears in your pocket
Well that's my two cents anyway, when it comes to articles
in the “new year predictions” style. At least for now.
Picture: JOE M500

8
A YEAR OF VALUE,
not wealth
HJÖRTUR SMÁRASON
Location: Reykjavik, Iceland
Blog: Marketing Safari
With the slow economy, declining ad budgets and tougher markets, or followers you have
marketers are going to be seeking new ways to market their products. and can spam with your Picture:
buggolo
Traditional opinion makers, newspapers, TV channels and other traditional ads, offers or messages. It’s
media outlets are losing out while new influencers are taking over. measured in the value your words have, the value you provide
Influencers in social media. Average Joes who become powerful opinion to your listeners and the quality of your network. For your
makers online. Seeing the success some marketers are getting via social words to have some value for people you need to establish a
media, many advertisers will try their luck using social media as a marketingrelationship with people. And to get these people to listen, you
channel. So we will be looking at a lot of noise later in have to build up trust. That is a process where
the year in social media. you need to invest time, energy and
creativity. Don’t think you can get
“Try not to be a man of success, but your way with people with your
Next year, those same marketers rather try to become a man of value” first tweet.
will say that social media marketing Albert Einstein
doesn’t work, that it’s a waste of time.
That’s because they don’t get it. They’ll never be The year 2009 will be a year of change. Change
influencers. They’ll just be spammers. driven by a different economic environment, new markets and
new opportunities. Let’s embrace the opportunities those
changes bring. Let’s build new relationships, strengthen our
You see, being an influencer is not measured by the number of friends networks and bring value to our friends and followers.

9
One day at a time
LINDA PIERRE
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Blog: http://lindapierre.tumblr.com/
the enormous universe called the Internet is not
showing any signs of running out of space due to
too much information, not yet anyway.
Every day thousands of pictures are being uploaded to sites like Flickr,
Photobucket and not to forget the biggest ones of them all Facebook.
People don’t seem to get enough of the attention a photo can give. Some
do it to archive their photos, some to show their friends and family and
others seek the stardom a perfect photo can give you.
Back in 2004 Taylor McKnight started taking photos of himself and called
it “Project 365”. We’ve seen many similar projects since then, like this girl
taking a photo of herself every day for three years and then she made a
video out of it. Noah Kalina took it a bit further taking a photo of himself
during eight years and of course also made a viral video hit out of it with
over 11 million views so far on YouTube and 49 000 on Vimeo. A few things
hits me, there’s is no way you can have the exact same hairstyle two times
in your life and why do they have to look so bored, isn’t this supposed to
be a fun thing, right? And it seems like men tend to grow their hair longer
as they get older. Middle age crises or what?
Picture: erin MC hammer

10
Anyway let me get back on the path I intended to go with this
article. The phenomenon of taking your own picture everyday
Picture: Noah Kalina
wasn’t just a hype that went away. The photo site Photojojo
urges everyone to create their own “Project 365”. You might
wonder why. Well if not for your own sake, like a diary, you
could do it to be able to show your kids what you did and how
you looked during this period of time. There are many different
ways in which you can do this, it doesn’t have to be a (boring)
facial picture. You could choose to take a photo of your shoes
or why not do as this Canadian photographer did and take a
photo of people in your neighbourhood? People all over the
world already upload their pictures to different Flickr groups
doing similar things like that.
EpicFu has got the list of people taking the challenge at the
moment. There’s no limit to where your imagination can bring
you, or your company for that matter. I mean if people like seeing
things grow (like beards) or decrease (beach season closing in
on us) it doesn’t have to be something on a human being...
Picture: erin MC hammer
Think about that all you marketers out there! And let me know
if you come up with a neat idea. Also check out Photojojo’s Time
Capsule, a cool way of reminding yourself what you did at the
same time last year. Oh time for my daily time saver...
Click!

1
1
The
new
media
(and people)
scenario
Through a world crisis
LIA DUTRA
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Blog: http://liadutra.blogspot.com/
Most bloggers enjoy lists – of all kinds. They love
lists of websites on certain topics, lists of the top
things of several issues, lists of other bloggers and
so on. They enjoy lists even more if they’re on them.
Since I am a blogger myself, I considered making
Illustration: Wesley Fryer
a list for this article, mainly due to how I wanted to
write about this subject – in the predictions form. But
I have to admit I find it hard writing lists of any kind,
so instead, I chose a mix of a list with something of a
narrative, discursive way. Hope you enjoy it.

12
I have seen lots of people making bad predictions about how this will be a tough year – and I
do agree with that in a certain way - but I also do believe it’s time for us to try to recover and
stop complaining about how we won’t be able to justify not even the costs of the company
paper. (As if the lack of money were an excuse for not doing good things). The thing is all
about the money, as usual, but that’s not enough of a reason. Creativity does not require huge
investments. I guess the money issue now can be quite a standard for not allowing bad moves
– since there’ll only be a certain amount money available and that cannot be wasted.
I’m very optimistic about this year. For those who haven’t been going through a good way,
there’s a chance to try to do their best. It’s a brand new beginning, a lifetime chance to start
over – without further explanation.
As this whole crisis started, the worries concerning the global economic scene have been
making companies re-think their investments in communication. But as you might have read
in some publications, this is exactly the time we shouldn’t stop communicating, advertising.
And I truly support that cause.
Picture: miss_rogue
It’s said that in a moment of crisis a lot falls apart. But also, some I guess now it’s time for brands to be clear, transparent and simple. It’s time to
great things rise. And these are the ones that shine and gets highlighted in take complexity aside since no one needs it and keep it all simple without losing the spark
comparison to others, especially because they have a different way of moving and the poetry. It’s time to engage people, even more than how we did in prosperous times.
when compared to the rest. So I believe the key now the marketing investments have decreased is to find other ways that
allow a major return. In this aspect, new media has a great opportunity to grow even more.
What I like the most about these different things is that sometimes it is pretty
clear that they are not just something new coming up. They are not a new
rule, a new innovative practice. But yes, they’re the exception indeed. They
1
are different because they do things differently. And this is what’s related to Here’s what I believe will happen:
the positive side of the crisis. They bring fresh new perspectives. One thing is for sure, despite companies' and brands' positions and their decisions in
Last year I read some of the Senior Vice President and Worldwide Publisher this situation, and even if the market itself does not grow as expected, people won’t
2
for BusinessWeek, Jessica Sibley’s, predictions on the magazine market stop spending time online, nor do it less than they used to.
for 2009. After reading it I realized we strongly have a common ground. In this new scenario it’ll be all about people and what (and most important, HOW)
Crisis are worthy somehow, they provide an environment with room for they relate to brands. People who act and do different things will show up on stage
inspiration and for motivated people who want to make a difference in these inside their professional environments. It’s their time to shine, which is why we are
times – times that actually need a new attitude – and from there new things probably going to say the ‘cool’ will be growing more than ever. Talented people will
with new approaches come up. Turns out, this seems to be true not only in keep hanging there, but new talents will show up. It’s time for innovation.
3
publishing, but in several – if not all – markets.
In 2009 we’re still about to see great campaigns using social media - including Internet,
The world is changing, in every single possible way. The economy is mobile, video (a lot of video), content generation and lots of other tools, maybe even
changing, politics are changing, people are having to change. Anything could greater campaigns than some of the best we had in 2008.
happen.

13
4 I believe we’ll have both interesting and successful initiatives on social media, on
multi-platform initiatives. Exploring all possibilities that multi-media can bring.
5
We’ll do even better once we start realizing that it is not all about the technologies
themselves nor just about the mediums themselves, but also about the content
they carry within. As Cam Brown, the King Fish Media President, wisely said:
“2009 will feature the greatest redirect in marketing approach that the media
industry has seen”. I believe it’ll be time to identify and guide new practices for
the usage of media in a more strategic way. It’s time to notice and realize (for
6
those who still haven’t) that mediums are more than just mediums.
I believe the big open television will become even less relevant for people.
Traditional media will keep dropping as content and social media grow (and I
7
am not saying that just because this is a New Media Report).
The whole new media growth won’t happen only for big brands and their
consumers (as in the way we’re used to name them). On last June’s report Lisa
Sculati wrote about the companies engagement and use of Wikis, and somehow
now it suddenly bumped into my head once I strongly believe companies will
10
start making more usage of social media and networking tools for themselves
internally as well as to communicate externally even more – that includes the
B2B market. Picture: altemark
It’s highly likely that big traditional companies that crawl mostly through big I just saw Scholz & Friends’ video the other day, describing how we came to “the
traditional media will give a shot to social media efforts. In lots of the beloved social world” where everything is a dialogue and it’s more about people than the
blogs’ lists with predictions for 2009 we can see people talking about the companies themselves. It was called a “dramatic shift in marketing reality”. Simple as
traditional merging with the digital age, whether they are print magazines that it is, it doesn’t say anything actually new to any of us – especially to those who live
will disappear or go online, television channels that will broadcast their shows and breathe the 2.0 and even 3.0 world. But it reminds us of the basics we should be
2
online, bigger media companies that will more and more work with online/social reminded of from time to time.
media provider companies or even make alliances with companies or individuals
9
who offer this nature of services to build that kind of environment. Now is the time to engage. More than that, I believe there’s a great room for
interaction we should not loose, concerning the philosophical and practical
One of the recent moves concerning this topic is the Printed Blog, the new terms I just mentioned before.
Chicago newspaper made from posts of several blogs, which WILL have local
8
advertisement and WILL be distributed for free. I’m sure I’ve missed a lot to talk about here, in details and all, but I guess the whole
thing is that this crisis will leave a lot of room for social media to act.
I do believe major brands will keep trying to fit and interact the best way with
12
social media. That’s why I’m so optimistic, even though I am not even a digital strategist, but am in
fact passionate for it.
Mostly I believe all that will happen not only in advertising and marketing itself
(considering strictly the dialogue between people and brands). I think even the After our recovery, the world will not be back where it was. We’ll be OK again, but
way of shopping (eCommerce) will change with more aggregating services and different from before.
integrating people. All we’re going to have to do is adapt. Learn and adapt.

Picture: Kapungo
14
Curiosity
Geek The marketing pro of tomorrow
OLLE AHNVE
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Blog: Jung Relations Blog
Social media is fundamentally changing the work life of the com-
munications professional. While change is nothing new to the commu-
nications industry, this time is different – it’s a fundamental shift both
in style and direction. And it is happening faster than ever before. So
how do you keep up?
I have one humble advice for the communicator of tomorrow: you must be curious
to learn new things. All. The. Time.
Do you converse or broadcast?
You know the modern way of communication is conversational style. You know it
is all about two-way communication, listening and engaging by contributing to the
community. But do you actually do this? Do you listen to find out what your community
is interested in and engage by adding value to the community? Or do you use the same

15
old one-way communication that has done the job historically? learn, and you must be willing to leave your zone of confidence
Do you communicate with a personal voice or do you use the and try new communication styles and new tools. Sure, you
old corporate kind? will display your weakness, but you will learn from experience
and your mistakes.
If you communicate one-way with a corporate voice – is it
because you think it is the best style of communication for Are you afraid that some social media “expert” will tell you
your organization? Or is it because you know the old way of that what you are doing is wrong? Don’t be!
communication and that makes you feel secure?
Picture: aturkus
Do you dare trying?
You know there is a whole new line of web technology that As long as you are transparent in all your actions and respect
can help you in your communication. Blogging and micro- your community, they will guide you rather than attack you.
blogging platforms, RSS reading/filtering/mixing, podcasting,
vodcasting. The list of new and incredibly useful information How do I get started?
technology goes on, but have you tried it? Or do you still use
Being curious will get you a long way, and most of all – it will
the same clipping service and report the same kind of results
get you started. So, go dive into the social media sphere by
that have been successful historically?
trying out Twitter, blogs, RSS, social networks. Ask for help
What does the future communication professional look like? when you need it, but don’t fear trying.
Rest assured – you don’t need to become a tech geek. But you Trying is being curious. Being curious is good.
do need to become a curiosity geek. You have to be eager to

16
The Next Phase of
social networking
online
TOMAS NIHLÉN
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Blog: http://tomasnihlen.tumblr.com/
Picture: luc legay
Facebook started as a small roots movement in an American What does the
dorm room a couple of years ago. It was the “David” to the status message say on
MySpace phenomena that was Goliath. No CEO, CMO, CTO, Facebook right now?
marketing consultant or whoever would ever predict that this
little web project would ever be a catalyst in a trend that is Let’s start by checking the status
transforming not just marketing, but the way businesses will be of the new social networking king,
built in the future. what’s really going on with Facebook. Have
Facebook passed its peak and soon to be meeting the same destiny as MySpace?
But today Facebook is the reigning champion and MySpace is, well Many people would like to think so, it seems to be a constant drive for many people to pass off fads
more like the old heavy weight boxer struggling with health issues and to be able to be the first one to proclaim the next big thing. But the truth is that Facebook still has
and possible brain damage.You don’t buy what I’m saying? Well let the magic which translates to 140 million users according to InsideFacebook.com with a growth rate of
me paint out a picture of what I’m seeing as the future of social 600 000 more users per day, which is hard to beat. And it’s not like the network is losing traction, like
networking, or rather the future of social businesses. Let’s use in Argentina for instance, last year can definitely be summed up as a great year for Facebook. How does
Facebook as an example since I think for the foreseeable future a 2 000 per cent increase in a year sound? At the beginning of 2008 there were 100 000 registered
it will be the dominating service in this area, even though many Facebook users in Argentina, but when Santa Clause was climbing down the chimney at the end of the
marketers might think it has lost its coolness. year, this number had in turn climbed up to 2 000 000 users. Neighbouring countries Chile, Venezuela,
and Peru have also seen impressive growth during the last time. 3768 per cent, 1277 per cent, and 328
per cent respectively to be exact. Quite impressive if you ask me.

17
Speaking of Christmas, Facebook certainly had a merry one this year and not
Illustration: Inside Facebook
only in Latin America. According to CNET Hitwise it saw a big peak in traffic
during the holidays. Heather Hopkins of Hitwise lists some possible theories
like crediting the peak to boredom, heavy snow in key cities and/or season
greetings. Maybe Facebook is just a part of peoples lives and these lives circle
around some important events each year like Christmas and therefor Facebook
becomes a must for all big holidays. Anyway, no matter what the real reason is,
these stats provides more proof that Facebook is here to stay, at least for quite
some time. And it is not just a site but rather a way to communicate.
Problems on the horizon?
Maybe becoming a giant makes some of the cool factor and buzz worthiness FriendFeed and similar services collect all your activity from the social web in
fade? Some people think so and maybe that was the reason why Facebook tried one place and generate a “master flow” of all your public activity. Sort of what
to buy the new wonder kid on the block;Twitter, late last year. According to Kara Facebook wants to do but with a totally different approach. Then there are
Swisher that is what some insiders at Facebook are claiming.Twitter was offered services like Power.com that wants to collect your social networking services in
$500 million worth of Facebook stock, i.e. potential value, which in all fairness one place. But wait, didn’t Facebook sue them? Yes they did, claiming it is all about
might be a good deal since Twitter has yet to generate any revenue. But Twitter “copyright and trademark infringement; unlawful competition; and violation of
stuck to its guns and rejected the offer, keeping to a strategy that focuses on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, CAN-SPAM Act, and the Computer Fraud
growth rather than profit, at least for now. For Facebook the deal might have and Abuse Act, among other charges”, according to CNET. Power.com lets you
insured a massive coolness injection and some more cred among the early- access friends and other data from multiple social networking services in one
adopters growing tired of Facebook. place. For Facebook this means that it wouldn’t matter as much for the users
of services like Power.com which friends are on Facebook and which are only
Another area that social networking sites need to keep an eye on is all the new
on other sites like MySpace and Hi5 etc. This could definitely put a dent in the
aggregating sites that wants to be the hub of your social web experience. The
Facebook brand since its core offer and strength is collecting and maintaining
most buzzed about of these services is probably FriendFeed, which if Twitter is
your social graph for you.
approaching the middle of the long tail, is located at the far right of that curve.

18
Capitalising on the social graph The future of social networking
In the time up until now the whole focus and point of Facebook As I started in the paragraph to the left I think Facebook Connect is a look into the future of social
has been this precious social graph, which is basically just a networking online. It’s not the only example, and it has got competition from Google. By the way
fancier name for your “friend list.” But now the site enters a guess what Google calls its own service? Yes that’s right; Google Connect. Go figure... And it would
phase when it need to start doing something with this graph, be a big surprise if Google wouldn’t do anything in their power to try to beat Facebook in this
and something more than just being a playground for viral area.
marketing, annoying games and endless invites to causes or
events. Facebook Connect is an example of the future of In 2009 I predict we will see several new initiatives in this area but it remains to see which ones
social networking online; bring your social graph wherever will prove to be sticky. They also have some competition in theory by an open source alternative
you go online. Letting websites all over the world implement called OpenID. But the truth is that it’s not about the best alternative, the best integrity or anything
this service means for instance that comment functions on else, but a matter of what service the masses will adopt. Will you want to use your already existing
blogs can be integrated with Facebook. This is the first step, Facebook account or would you rather get yet another one from for instance OpenID? At this time
but going forward I think we will see whole sites just build I would bet my money on Facebook and put Google as a potential runner-up, but it could end up
on common interests and Facebook Connect. This is a great the other way around as well.
service to website builders and a great move for Facebook So now to my prediction. I think that 2009 is all about phase two of social networking online. And
strengthening loyalty and increasing its reach. in my book that means making the social graph portable and going from destination sites to an
Also by integrating the service with media companies to important part of the infrastructure of the social web. This phase will also start changing the way
connect news and media in general with Facebook they businesses act on the market. Smart companies will find endless new opportunities and remember
can create new revenue streams. For instance there is an Urban Lifestyle’s three golden rules of social media:
interesting initiative between Facebook and the social media
1. Don't suck
platform Pluck. An example of this collaboration is that visitors
to SFGate (the digital home of The San Francisco Chronicle) 2. Create good content
who comment on articles via Facebook Connect also get their
comments automatically imported into their News Flows in 3. Be a part of the conversation
Facebook. This is a great service to SFGate’s visitors, drives
traffic to SFGate.com and also a smart move for Facebook. It's not harder than that, no matter what so called “social media experts” will tell you. The principals
This is an examples of how companies are becoming far more are easy, it's the execution that is a bit tricky.
social than before and it is also a part of an increasing demand
But at the end of 2009, if I was wrong about my predictions and our golden rules of social media,
for transparency.
you can hate all over me on Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed...

19
Micro-blogging?
All know what it is,
Illustration: HubSpot Inblund Marketing Blog
no one knows what it is
ANDERS ABRAHAMSSON
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Blog: http://sliceonline.tumblr.com/
One blog post that went up for the 24 hour-of-fame buzz on the #1
position on Twitturly (a service that tracks what is linked the most in
twitterverse) a day in January 2009 was called ”Social Media ‘Experts’ are to serve and lead your life better. Yes, someone that adds value to your life,
the Cancer of Twitter (and Must Be Stopped)”. A sign of the times. Yes, and thus worth your attention, and adding value back, unconditionally.
I do agree that they who start to follow me and introduce themselves
as such in their micro-bios at their Twitter profiles by default is an auto- Coming this far, I claim no expertise, more than applied common sense
nonfollow for me – usually just another one who tries to surf the wave and humbly learning from and reflecting around my experiences as a social
of a recent phenomenon, and seldom adds value beyond acting as a part media ‘learner’. Quoting the media guru, for true - Marshall McLuhan -
of a big echo-chamber with few spots of original thinking. ”I don’t necessarily agree with everything I say”. In this article I want to
share some short notes and noteworthy on the phenomenon of ”micro-
One core aspect of the twitterverse is illustrated by this in a nutshell, blogging”, with a special focus on how to approach this conversational buzz
emphasizing the social in ‘social media’ – follow or be followed. Or most bubble as a marketer for a brand or a business. Sharing is caring!
preferrably, excluding “or”; the mutual follow – where some of these
couples of people following their respective streams of sms-lengthy
snippets in their micro-blogging actually call themselves “friends”. You Social media and the market conversation
know, what it meant in LBF – Life Before Facebook: Actually someone
you even happen to meet offline, and share both dinners and potentially Micro-blogging is a part of the wider game related to social media,
your innermost thoughts and private secrets in hope for an honest advice concluded so far. One of the many attempts to grasp what social media

20
Illustration: Gapingvoid
”is” has been done by Social Media Club co-founder Brian Solis through
the ”Conversation Prism”. As he says; ”The conversation map is a living,
breathing representation of Social Media and will evolve as services and
conversation channels emerge, fuse, and dissipate.”. It is exactly of this reason
there is no collected ”expertise” to find - it’s all about interpretations of a
domain in constant flux and knowledge distributed among all stakeholders.
So, if I choose only one thing that I want you to bring with you from this
article, is this: take part of the conversation about ‘social media’ by actually
joining the conversation using one of the social media services – where Micro-blogging, defined?
micro-blogging would be on my number one recommendation! It is as a social
media user you can have a chance to understand what it ”is”. And micro-blogging A definition is no proof, but if we turn to Wikipedia, micro-blogging is ”a
in a sense actually is the lowest barrier of entry in the many arts of ‘DIY publishing form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates (say,
on the web’ – posting 140 characters or less at a time. 140 characters or fewer) or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and
publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which
The rest of the ‘barrier of entry’ is actually inside your forehead, and that is the can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety
greatest sometimes, isn’t it? By being an active user, you take part of and influence of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, digital audio or
the evolving dynamic landscape that actively gets co-developed by its users, creators the web.” It’s a story that started in July 2006 with the launch of Twitter, and
and producers – and thus co-discovered, applying collective and collaborative emerged from the question answered; ”What are you doing right now?”, with
intelligence. Since the Cluetrain Manifesto, celebrating its ten year anniversary in the breakthrough and rapid growth when winning a web award in SXSW07,
april 2009, we have learned that ”markets are conversations”, with human spirits, March 2007. If you’re first and succeed in your new niche, you define and rule
brains, hearts and emotions. With the last of the 95 Theses formulated back in the game. And they sure do. Many other services have been trying to get
1999 in response to the evolvement of Internet and its impact on markets and into the sphere of micro-blogging (these were covered in the Urban Lifestyle
marketing; ”We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we Report in August 2008), but Twitter is the biggest with far beyond 3 million
are not waiting.”. If you’re not micro-blogging yet, what are you waiting for? Listen, users, with somewhat around half a million messages sent per day. Twitter has
participate, play, try. And learn with me (http://twitter.com/sliceonline – or more grown in traffic by 422% from August 07 to August 08 - no other social media
commonly expressed nowadays, the Twitter ID format that goes with your next service has had this kind of growth. And, paradoxically, still, they actually lack a
deck of business cards printed; @sliceonline) and all others in the conversation. business model soon three years after its inception, but is about to get one.

21
Who microblogs?
To get into this hive with your message, you need to know your population.
Users are - among many kinds - first and foremost individuals, brands,
companies and organisations, where you usually introduce yourself with
your ‘@name’ – linking to http://twitter.com/’name’. Individuals range
from the neighbour-around-the-corner to the super celebrity (either
celebrity ‘before Twitter’ such as @BritneySpears and @BarackObama,
or the new breed of ‘Top Twitterati’, the ‘Twitter Elite’ famed on the
platform in itself such as Guy Kawasaki (@GuyKawasaki) or Michael
Arrington (@Techcrunch). There are some fictive characters as well –
early on users were Borat and Darth Vader, and all fake tweets delivered
by @historicaltweets blog lately, just for fun.
Brands and companies constitute an increasing number, and a sample
of them are listed in two blog posts (Mashable and Buzz Marketing for
Tech postings). Maybe one of the most travelled stories on proactive
usage to boost your brand through engaging in your customers is @
ComcastCares. And, actually a washing machine (@PIMPY3WASH
– created to tell its first geeky follower and account creator when the
washing machine is finished, and clothes ready to dry via an auto-sms
to its Twitter account). If you compare followers vs follows numbers,
you could conclude that one who follows many, but have few followers One exceptional case of excessive numbers in both follows and followers is
probably is a ”twammer” or ”spitter” - a Twitter spammer – who have newly installed president Barack Obama, beyond 160 000 in numbers in both
tried to get a lot of attention by random mass-quantitative following. ends. The new presidential administration in the USA is worth a separate
And vice versa – a ‘guru’ profile maybe shows up to be someone who coverage and case story article in itself with an ongoing development of a
follows a selected few, but is followed by many, a pattern also found with very proactive web strategy, where Twitter has a central place in the quest
mainstream media news services twitter accounts, and e. g. web apps/ to be the most transparent governmental administration in US history, see
services update streams/status reports. e. g. the new http://whitehouse.gov, revamped beyond inauguration.

22
What do they blog about?
It started out by the trivia following the original question of everydayness in
real-time, but since then it has evolved significantly in a whole new ecosystem
of communication. There is little formal academic research on the subject,
but the first formal academic research covered usage patterns, with daily
chatter, conversations, sharing links and commenting on news as the most
frequent activities going on. A bit outdated, but the findings still apply. Some
are just ”dumping” content from other places using e. g. Twitterfeed to
notify when new blog posts are out, some shares more actively other stuff
like media (music through Blip.FM, pictures through Twitpic, videos through
TweeTube) and recent discoveries with one of the flourishing numbers
of URL shorteners – where TinyURL.com was quite alone and dominant
before the brief 140 character messages were common, and now you have
this space filled with new services, like snURL, bit.ly, is.gd, ow.ly and tr.im to
mention just a few.
Notably is that Twitter works multi-purpose – some have e. g. abandoned
Instant Messaging chats altogether, with the use of Direct Messages, ‘D
user message’. In that sense, micro-blogging is a convergence of different
communication evolution tracks. One is the ”distant communication 1x1”
- roughly following a development of telegraph > telephone > telefax >
email > mobile phone > instant messaging > direct messages through
Twitter. One other trace is ”news dissemination” through the centuries: the
Marathon Runner or Horse Courier > the priest in the church on Sundays
> newspapers > radio > tv > Internet > blogs > Twitter, where news can
show up before even regular news services catch them.
One Twitpic from the Hudson River Plane emergency landing by an iPhone
photographer from a ferry even ended up as an official AP newsdesk
syndicated picture, which actually crashed the Twitpic server from
the traffic at the time. We can thus talk about a special kind of ”media
convergence”, where all communication, direct one to one, side by side
with the one-to-many, is shared on the same platform. And you better
be there – the conversation goes on, with or without you (to define your
”Twitter Acceptance” 5-stage, check Rohit Bhargavas blog on the subject)!
Imagine your company getting the viral buzz that Hudson River picture had
– it happens in seconds on Twitter, where it used to be hours through email
before. Positive, or negative. You better let it to be positive news spreading,
right? In that sense, being there with your own voice also works great for
‘crisis communication management’. Picture: jkrums

23
How to approach the micro-blogging tweeters?
For a PR/Marketing department to formulate a strategy, it is wise not to strategize care about your most valuable asset beyond your own value-creation means – the
too much. In fact, it’s better to ‘get on with it’, in small scale as a pilot project, customer. Now you have naked direct contact, and if someone converses you
with some individual users tweeting with their personal brands, in order to through an @reply in the public stream, be sure to respond! Remember that
learn from the medium. Beyond that, a formal brand or company tweet can be an @reply in your followers stream also gets visible through their followers. To
established. Mainly it is an endless loop (I owe this basic, simple outline of the simplify this procedure and making it manageable for your customer service team,
Twitter Marketing and PR interactive loop to HubSpot, where I have spiced it up use applications such as TweetDeck that maximises your tracking and control.
with some own references and learning bits) - 1. Building your network, 2. Engage And, you keep your followers by conversation and adding value, not to push your
in your community and 3. Track and analyze, and then start all over from 1. product/service in every tweet. They can check you through Followcost to see if
following you is worth the effort ;). And be sure that you have an activity in your
1. Build your network - attract qualitative followers company that actually gets tweeted beyond your own tweets and without your
own prompts, from other tweeters than you!
First of all, after establishing a Twitter account, important is to juice up your profile
to be attractive – the first glance could be your only chance to attract a subscriber, 3. Track and analyze - monitor your brand and your core tags and keywords
since many people who use Twitter only judge once by the Twitter page, and then
beyond follow-click get your stream through other means (popular are client-side With TweetDeck and other tools, you can evaluate and search what’s going
applications such as TweetDeck or Twhirl – see a comparison with Mashables on with buzz around your company, brand and offerings in real time, e. g. by
blogpost and review on the subject). As a brand, you should let it glow in a adding a column with your tag search and get notified directly as it’s happening.
nice setting with a customized background (for inspiration and how-to, see e. g. Beyond searching your own brand name, you can also trace your most important
Twitter Backgrounds Gallery). Add your location. Add short bio with your tagline keywords to see if your brand is mentioned in conjunction. Check your ”status”
and preferably also what to expect from the tweet stream – in two sentences or through Twitter-Grader and various stats tools, such as TweetStats, Twinfluence,
less. Link maybe to your company site, but preferably if you have a company or Twitterholic and Twitter-Friends. Those who talk about you, approach them by
brand blog. If it is an individual representing the company direct, add that person’s following them – they get notified when you start to follow, and thus have that
avatar – otherwise use the company logo as avatar – but do add an avatar! For once-in-a-lifetime chance to have them to follow you back (for really good advice,
startups it is important maybe to have both – one stream for the company/brand, check ”Twitter Follow Fail” - @ABartelby guest blog at Mashable blog). But be
and separate streams for the individual team members to engage in community sure to be worth the effort to be followed. Which leads us back to one!
building and sharing their stories in real-time. See e. g. Ki-work and Twingly, as two
interesting startups (@kiwork ‘enabling agile businesses’ and @twingly, a blog and
micro-blog search engine with Ki-work core team members father and son @ In short: Be personal. Be interesting. Be valuable. Be nice. Be
michaelwolff (CEO) and @jimwolffman (COO) check their different tweet styles; colourful!
Twingly CEO Martin Källström is @martinkallstrom). A strategy also applicable
for established companies, such as Virgin (@virgindotcom) and Richard Branson
(@RichardBranson).
Now, go on register - or tweet this report and mention the articles on Twitter if
2. Engage in your community - remember, it’s a conversation, not a broadcast you’re already are a Tweet-a-holic :) - here’s the retweet copy: ‘RT @urbanlifestyle
#ULRNM Urban Lifestyle Report: great Freemium Content PDF – latest issue
A conversational and personal tone, with the @replies showing that you actually with micro-blogging features!’. See you there!

24
Resources: Recommended Selected Apps and Services (linked):
- On the web – directories, portals and collections; • Twitter management: TweetDeck, Twhirl, BrightKit, Twitteriffic, Ping.fm,
HelloTXT, Tweetie (iPhone, paid)
• A twitter wiki library – the ultimate resource base: http://twitter.pbwiki.
com • Twitter mobile apps: Twitter Mobile (updates, browser), Twapper (monitoring,
browser), Twitterfon (iPhone, free)
• A database of twitter applications: http://twitdom.com
• Twitter stats: Twitter Grader, TweetStats, Twinfluence, Twitterholic,
• List of twitter tools: http://mashable.com/2007/09/29/twitter-toolbox/ TwitterFriends
and follow up list http://mashable.com/2008/05/24/14-more-twitter-tools/
• Feeding your Twitter elsewhere: FeedInformer, Twitter’s own widgets and
• Squidoo page on Twitter applications: http://www.squidoo.com/ badges, SpringWidget Twitter Widget, TwitStamp
twitterapps
• Sharing media (pictures, video, music, web quotes): TwitPic, TweeTube, BlipFM,
• Twitter tools for Community and Communication Professionals: http:// TwitSnip
www.briansolis.com/2008/10/twitter-tools-for-community-and.html
• Shortening links: Tr.im, budURL, TinyURL, SnURL, bit.ly, is.gd, ow.ly, TwitSnip
• 181 Free Twitter Buttons, Badges, Widget and Counters to Help You Find
Followers: http://www.twitip.com/181-twitter-buttons-badges-widget-and- • Tracking twitter buzz: Twitturly, TweetDeck (note: add search column with
counters-to-help-you-find-followers/ fixed tag and get update notification popup), Advanced Search in Twitter,
Twingly Microblog Search, TweetScan, Twellow, Twittervision, Twistori, Twitscoop
• Twitter groups/recommendations: MrTweet, TwittGroups
• Follow Fail (to check when someone unfollows you): Qwitter
Design: • Evaluating Twitters – follow or not to follow? FollowCost, Twitter Grader,
• Twitter Backgrounds Gallery: http://twitterbackgroundsgallery.com Twitterholic
• Creating a Twitter Background using PowerPoint: http://
theclosetentrepreneur.com/create-a-twitter-background-using-powerpoint
• Creating a Twitter Background using PhotoShop: http://www.elasticmind.
ca/innerpreneur/index.php/2008/09/25/download-my-twitter-background-
design-psd-template/
Blog Coverage:
• Directories at Alltop.com with live update headlines/feeds:
Books: - GoodTweets
• An updated list is found at http://books.twitdom.com/ - Twitter News:
- Twitterati

25
Hashtags (#) & retweetS (RT)
MORE THAN JUST FANCY WORDS?
LINDA PIERRE
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Blog: http://lindapierre.tumblr.com/
Twitter is the micro-blogging tool I use the most out of the ones available right now. It may not be the
best one if you look at functions but for me it’s the obvious choice, not only because it has most users
but also because of the climate within. At this party everyone is invited and no one (well except for
spammers) are left out in the cold. It’s also a fascinating environment to walk around in. People from all
over the world are constantly telling each other what they read, watch, like and dislike.
There are so many different ways to use Twitter (and other everybody was saying at, or about, that particular event. Since
micro-blogging tools for that matter) that it would definitely Twitter isn’t famous for its structure that made sense. This was
take up all the space in this report if I would let it. There are tons a way to make it easier to gather information and to see what a
of applications that let you use the service in a number of ways. large amount of people were saying about a particular subject.
This time though I have chosen to put the magnifying glass on
two different ways of using Twitter, namely “hashtags” and The past few months the use of hashtags have grown to be much
“retweets.” more than just a way to structure and/or gather information.
We saw how the Twitter crowd used it at tragical events such
Recently I discovered a flow, or should I say “stream”, of people as the one in Mumbai back in November for instance by using
on Twitter using hashtags (#) in front of a word or, more often, an #mumbai when tweeting. The voices from within the disaster
abbreviation. At first it seemed like it was mostly used related to were being heard through the megaphone of Twitter.
different conferences and other events. A way to organise what

26
News about what was going on in and around the area Not more than a few weeks ago, while there were still
of Mumbai spread faster than traditional media ever a few slices of the Christmas ham left, many Swedes
could catch up with. What I think is most interesting started to look for a new puppy to cuddle with in the
about the use of hashtags in this way is that it’s the big world wide web. Before Christmas the choice had
people, not the media, who create the news. When been the Finnish micro-blogging service Jaiku and
this becomes a tool in every mans mobile phone we those of us in Sweden that preferred Twitter weren’t
have a new journalist in every corner of the world, that many. Overall we were still talking about a fairly
telling and showing the rest of the population what small amount of people using both these services,
is going on in real time. until something happened a couple of weeks ago.
All of a sudden Swedish mainstream media opened
Using hashtags as a way to collaborate on a story up their eyes to this treasure of information and
was exactly what these journalists did to gather registered accounts on Twitter. At the same time
information about the flood in southern Washington Swedish politicians also joined and the beginning of
a few weeks ago. Instead of working in their own using micro-blogging as a tool might have taken an
chambers separated from each other, they chose important step towards going mainstream almost
to use the hashtag #waflood. This way they could over night here in Sweden. The use of hashtags
aggregate both what they as different newspapers while tweeting didn’t come far behind. Soon there
were tweeting about, and what other people in the were hashtags such as #svpt (Swedes on Twitter)
area could update them and the rest of the world in and #svbloggen which aggregates different types
real time. One of the journalists took it a bit further of Swedish blog posts. Two Swedes took the
by creating a widget to put on his website, which all opportunity to put together a site that made it even
of the others also did after a while. This way their easier for you to follow everything being tagged
readers could easy follow the news without having with #svpt. Hans Kullin, a Swedish blogger and PR
to go elsewhere than to their favourite news site. consultant, put together a widget that aggregates
Collaborative journalism became a fact. The scoop all tweets including the hashtag #svpt. By putting
was no longer the main goal but to get as much this widget on your blog, you and everybody else
and accurate information as possible. Then it was using that particular tag can reach out to people not
up to the readers to choose where they wanted to yet using Twitter.
consume the whole story.

27
I’m not sure I think it’s such a good idea to put such a broad tag like 10 updates) this account has attracted over 25 000 followers. They are
#svpt next to everything you tweet about though. For me the purpose also the ones who created the social network I mentioned earlier called
of that tag was simply to show others that you exist and I don’t think hashtags.org. That number is probably that high because if you follow
you should do that in every message you put out there. The more people this account, it will automatically follow you back and can then index
are using any hashtag in the wrong way the more it’s destroying its your hashtags into their statistics at hashtags.org.
value and going against its purpose. At least that’s what I think.
Not only about news
Hopefully though this will contribute to make micro-blogs more
mainstream and that is something I definitely encourage. If you are There are other ways to use hashtags than just categorising news,
Swedish and want to see which hashtags that are most active at the more relaxed and fun ways. One of those is when hashtags are being
moment, check out this page. If you prefer keeping a wider perspective to integrated with Google Maps to for instance find fellow tweeters. Say
what conversations to take part in within the Twittersphere, hashtags. you are at the airport waiting for boarding, just tweet #boarding and
org is the site for you. There’s even a twitter account that is all about your tweet will appear at this Twitter Google maps mashup called
hashtags simply called @hashtags. In just a month (and not more than Boarding. The idea behind the application is to find fellow stranded

28
travellers, but to do so you must add the three letter airport code
after the hashtag or no one will be able to find you and vice versa.
Another way people use hashtags are to see what other people’s year
resolutions are by tagging them with #resolutions. You can also find
new interesting Twitter users to follow by looking up the hashtag
#followfriday. Its purpose is to tip other fellow tweeters about that
certain somebody you are following and think
should get more attention and more followers.
The list of ways to use hashtags could go on
but if we stop here and think for a while. Is this
fairly new way of trying to structure messages
on different micro-blogging services only a good
thing? Absolutely not. Almost nothing comes in
just one flavour. There’s of course both good tastes
and more bitter ones. An over usage of hashtags
not only takes space away from those poor 140
signs you have to express yourself with, but also
makes it less spontaneous and more database
alike. How often you should use hashtags (if at all)
and how many at the same time is of course totally up to you. Even
though I think there are great potential to make good things out of
this new phenomena you should think before you automatically put a
hashtag next to your message. Ask yourself is this really something
that would add value to that certain conversation or topic?
The enormous amount of attention and the massive growth in usage
of hashtags tells me though that this is here to stay, well at least for
a while until something better comes along.

Picture: bitterlysweet
29
What about Retweets?
Well I guess this trend suffers from the same syndrome as the usage of
hashtags. It’s becoming more and more common, which means people might
be clicking on that “retweet-button” a bit too much. What is a retweet you
might wonder? Think about the way we use forwarding to pass on an
email to others you think might be interested as well. This is kind of
the same thing but with Twitter messages instead and it’s open for
every one to see. If you choose to retweet somebody’s message
everybody that follows you are the receivers you could say. It’s like
giving props to a message you want to help spread.
Sometimes it could be a good thing. You easily see what a lot of
people find important right now. But mostly I think it’s a way to
clap on each others shoulders (and we all need that ones and a
while) and to suck up to someone you follow. I’m not saying I
haven’t done this myself but it’s important I think not only to
pass along what others say but to contribute with your own
opinions. As long as you do that a retweet now and then is a
good thing, at least in my opinion.
The worst symptom due to too many retweets is that it can
send the Twittersphere into a loop, just going round and
round. Like a giant eco chamber, and that is something we
do not want right? We have already seen it happen in the
blogosphere, please do not make the world of micro-blogs
another puddle in which only a few pieces of information
makes it to the surface! Most important to remember is
that you can use hashtags for a good cause as well, and
not only to be a part of a certain group of people. If more
people would gather up and use hashtags and retweets If you want to dig deaper into the world of hashtags and retweets:
for new ideas and solutions within different areas this
Twitter Fan Wiki
might actually make a difference. Jim Carlberg created the
hashtag #peace so that you could say that you “Twitter Hashtags – open source grouping
for peace”, a good start but what if that could evolve and
actually mean that people around the globe would join in Why I unfollow people who use hashtags on Twitter
and do something concrete instead of just talking about it. The microblogging phenomenon Retweet
Think about that all you tweeters out there!

30
The live web
- at first glance
TOMAS NIHLÉN
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Blog: http://tomasnihlen.tumblr.com/
Picture: David Jones
Late 2008 tickets for Barack Obama’s inauguration
were reaching insane levels online a few weeks before
the historical event took place. CNN reported that one ticket vendor wanted over $20,000 for a
single ticket! This is indeed an historical event, but why cough up 20 grand when you can watch the
whole thing online I wonder? I mean we are living in the era of the live web and our choices for
what to watch at the click of a button is growing faster than algees in a summer lake.

31
Picture: ralphbijker
The principals
First let’s break it down, what do I mean by “the live web”?
This is a trend that started way back in the days of the
Internet adolescence but we are now at a point where
both the technology is there and the consumer behaviours
as well. These to factors are of course the most important A new way to create collaborative spaces for covering things in real time is by
ones for a trend like this to gain momentum. using FriendFeed (an aggregator of your social services) and to start a “Room”
Live information or entertainment can come in many forms, there where other people can add text, links and photos. These rooms can
but basically it’s all about the components of the web: then be watched in real time to get an overview of these events. But somebody
needs to create an event quickly for it to be relevant. For instance web profile
1 Text Robert Scoble regrets deeply that he didn't create a room after a plane crash
recently, the comments give a good motivation to the benefits of creating such
2 Images a room on FriendFeed.
3 Audio Video
4 Video We have in the past written about “life casting” where more or less insane
people bring along broadcasting equipment of some sort to let the world peek
5 Other file formats into their everyday lives. These could be seen as catalysts and role-models for
In this article I will focus on text, audio and video. other people to open up to the idea of starring in their own Internet soap of
sorts. Justin Kan of Justin.tv and iJustine are two people who attracted massive
Text attention for their life casting projects. They have both moved on and Justin.
tv is now one of several services that let you put yourself out there using your
Live text might not sound that exciting, but in many cases it can in fact prove computer and/or cellphone.
to be very interesting. And I would actually claim that text has led the way for
many consumers on the path to adapting the live web. Most important might If life casting is a more continuos project or reality show online, there are also
be the Facebook mass adoption that seemed to sweep over the globe last a lot of people who just broadcast snippets of their lives at certain moments.
year. One of Facebooks success factors was their news feed that presents the If you want to try some webcam/computer broadcasting I would recommend
activity in your network in more or less a real time feed. At first the only way taking a look at Mogulus, Ustream and Stickam. For mobile live broadcasting I
to get the real time experience was to constantly hit “Refresh” but now there recommend Qik or kyte (both mobile and computer), but you can also check
is the option to watch the live feed. out Bambuser (a Swedish service).

Picture: Brian ”DoctaBu” Moore

33
Audio
What is happening in the Internet audio scene is really exciting right now. We update your Facebook status it will show up beside the video. It’s similar to what
are seeing round two of digital broadcasting. In round one it was all about “on many news sites did with Twitter for the US election last year. One interesting
demand” or rather record-publish-download, i.e. podcasting was king. thing is that Facebook is so much more widely adopted by regular consumers
which might make it a different experience than it would by using Twitter.
It was relatively easy to get going with podcasting, the listeners took to the
format and some podcasting superstars were born like Leo Laporte. Laporte was Another interesting event taking place live online recently was the Sundance Film
trained in the old school type of radio and even TV journalism. But his passion Festival. Sure, not at all as big a thing as the inauguration, still a pretty well-known
for technology and curiosity got him hooked on podcasting. He is now the man event. This time you could follow the festival live at 24HoursAtSundance.com.
behind the podcasting power house twit.tv which can take credit for popular It might not be your typical live coverage though. Ashton Kutcher and Internet
shows like “This Week In Tech”, “MacBreak Weekly” and “net@night”. But what superstar Kevin Rose were hosting this extravaganza and four different reporters
makes Laporte extra interesting right now is the move towards both the live and were competing during these 24 hour which means trying to complete a number
video trend. Now you can listen to the recordings in his studio live, watch a video of tasks, which might not be that easy.
stream of them recording, listen to recorded episodes on their blog, download
separate episodes or get them automatically as a podcast in for instance iTunes. Catching everything live or later
Me and Linda, the other part of Urban Lifestyle, were totally inspired by this The point to this article is that content needs to be, and more often is, available
and decided to use the same philosophy when we record one of our podcasts both in some sort of live stream and for downloading afterwards. For brands
on a Swedish blog/podcast about innovation and entrepreneurship called and marketers this is a new thing, they are typically used to just figuring out
Innovationsbloggen.se (The Innovation Blog). We record episodes for our podcast, which channels to use for a campaign, what message etc and then blasting out the
but we also broadcast them live while recording and make sure there are multiple message. Now you need to realise that it’s now all about the consumers and how
ways to listen, download and participate in different ways. they want to consume content. They are picky and used to getting what they want
if not they will go out and get it somewhere else.
Events live forever online
Sum up
One consequence of these trends; live and on demand combined, means that
basically all big events are recorded and published online or sometimes both We will return to this topic in future reports. But for now just remember these
streamed live and published for later viewing/listening. Barack Obama’s inauguration two things if you are about to create content for the web:
for instance will be (or have been when you are reading this) probably the − Go live, but only if live is relevant
most heavily covered event when it comes to streaming video online. All media
destination sites are working hard to get all the traffic, including CNN which is the − It must be available afterwards, and in multiple ways
only news site delivering live video news broadcasting 24/7. CNN now has teamed
up with Facebook to let you look at the live stream and at the same time if you

34
Picture: Richard Mackney
a different kind of
internet buzz -
the one that comes
from drinking wine...
LINDA PIERRE
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Blog: http://lindapierre.tumblr.com/
As the Internet population keeps on
growing the national boarders looses
their value, it might sound like a cliché but that doesn’t make it any less true. I’m talking about the power of
communication across the world, no matter in which country you hook up your laptop.
Services like Skype makes it easy for people to stay in touch across boarders Anyway it was on Twitter I first heard about Twitter Taste Live, a community for
without spending a fortune on phone bills. We use blogging tools to speak our fellow tweeters that are very interested in wine, beer or cigars. The part that got
mind about political issues, share links or just upload photos. If you feel like you my attention was not that it was a niche social network, because there are plenty
need an instant response to a thought or a question, try using video services like of those, but that it actually gathers people around the globe at joint tastings.
12seconds.tv or seesmic, or micro-blogging services like Twitter or Jaiku. Not the traditional wine-, beer- or cigar tastings of course but by using Twitter
instead.
I recently came across an interesting site called Twitter Taste Live . Yes I admit, I
am a Twitter freak and should probably need to check into “twitter rehab” one of
these days. But for taking the temperature on what’s going on in the world of the
web at this very moment it’s just so much fun to use. And addictive.

35
All of a sudden I saw the hashtag #ttl frequently used in my Twitter-stream. At first
I didn’t get it, what was I missing (you know I just can’t handle not knowing all about
these things)? Then it hit me that a live tasting event had begun and people where
participating and showing it by using the same hashtag. The people over at Wine
Conversation had listed three wines to the tasting called “Beyond the Trade” and
the British Twittersphere eagerly participated. Normally you don’t have to be in a
certain country to participate, all you have to do is to buy the wine bottles, beers or
cigars listed for the tasting and just go nuts. With the glass or cigar in one hand and
the other hand typing away at the keyboard. Maybe nuts is the keyword here, but
you got to love people who are passionate about these things.
This event though was a bit different. It is actually a physical event taking place in
London and now also for the first time live on the web using social media as the
tool of choice. For those sitting at home alone, or in groups, a box with all the wine
bottles were home delivered so that they could participate. Richard Mackney was
Picture: jpcolasso
one of the eager ones trying the later version and filming it for us to see afterwards
as well. What did we do for fun before the Internet I wonder...
What if we could collaborate like this more?
There’s no limit to what that could help people (and companies) to achieve don’t you
think? World peace might be taking it a bit too far I guess, but solving problems and
helping each other out in difficult times are something we see more and more of.
Hm, I’m gonna think some more about this for future issues of this report. I have to
wrap this up since I just spilled some red wine on my Macbook Pro and @garyvee
just dissed my favourite Syrah on Twitter!

36
Picture: katmere
It’s all about the brand experience
- seamless but not standardised
NICHOLAS GILL
Location: London, United Kingdom
Blog: bluurb.wordpress.com
The way users consume digital content has changed the way brands need to behave in the digital
space. Where traditional media (web 1.0) is shouting, web 2.0 is about conversations. Consumers
expect to be involved, engaged and invited to collaborate. They have on-demand expectations;
they expect real-time dialogue and want personalised experiences. This is where digital has the
advantages of relevance and context, enabling consumers to immerse as much or as little as they
want, when they want, how they want.

37
Social networks are now culturally assimilated into the psyche
People are spending less time on communication and content sites and
more on consumer generated media (+47%) and entertainment (+8%)
sites which has seen the huge rise of social networks leading to the
ubiquitous Facebook app in every creative presentation in the last 18
months. To dramatise the impact social networks have had; Christmas
Day 2007 was the busiest ever day for social networks in the UK.
Facebook was the 3rd most visited website pushing eBay to 4th for the
first time.
Social search on social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Linked
In etc. will become more valuable to users because of relevancy and
their inherent higher trust in consumer, particularly peer, reviews of
places, people and companies than from brands themselves. 90% of
consumers trust recommendations from other consumers compared
to 45% from a TV ad. Augment this with the fact that 51% of users
would abandon a consumer electronics purchase due to negative user
generated comments and positive opinion and increased use of social
search become increasingly important. Combining search and peer
advice will become more important than contextual listings and vertical
search.
Gaming has shifted our notion of entertainment
A huge shift in consumer attitudes has turned video games into the UK’s
most popular form of entertainment with UK sales of games outstripping
music and video for the first time in 2008. As CD sales continue to decline,
the traditional high street music retailers are diversifying and changing
store layouts to focus on more lucrative areas such as gaming.
Gaming is clearly no longer confined to the traditional Generation Y
and younger audiences. Social gaming platforms, like the Nintendo Wii,
have been shown to have a positive influence in the home changing Picture: ecodallaluna

38
the traditional view of gaming by families: facilitating peer
bonding and encouraging child exercise. 25% of all UK
homes now have a Nintendo Wii.
As much as consumers don’t experience brands in silo
channels these days, increasingly they will want to continue
their gaming experience across channels. Already this
is happening in nascent territory such as downloadable
content to enhance the gaming experience. Online gaming
shifted from niche to mainstream with the advent of games
such as Call of Duty to the point where Radio 1 DJ’s Chris
Moyles and Vernon Kay talk about their gamer tags and
gaming activities. You can’t get more mainstream than
Radio 1.
Picture: edans
Extending the gaming across channels will become expected.
From console to PC to mobile, porting your stats and chat
systems will become the norm. The communications activity
a brand produces must also replicate this experience.
Digital enables deeper immersion than any other channel. Fan boys will want
more than just the official web site and the occasional developer diary. Taking
Community learnings from some of the major theatrical releases in modern times, Batman:
Enabling the brand in the social networks these consumers The Dark Knight and Cloverfield, brands need to extend their digital presence
operate in is no longer an option. This does encompass the to involve, inspire and create talkability.
ubiquitous Facebook Group and Application but it needs to
go beyond this. Being a fan of a new product is only part
of the story. Enabling true consumer engagement through Device convergence
releasing the brand and content into the hands of the
passionate consumers, let them co-create and collaborate Today we carry many pieces of equipment, tomorrow one. And it won’t be the
with you to take the product to new levels. Participation is laptop. Witness the rapid growth in mobile internet usage today, fuelled by
not just a buzz word, it’s an expectation. the accessible interface of the Apple iPhone and new Google Android mobile
platform. 38% of users will access the Internet via a mobile device by the time
This extends to online advertising where it’s about the Olympics comes to this country in 2012. The pace of development in mobiles
engagement and interaction. Advertising static content gets will leave other devices in their wake. If you can get an 8 mega pixel camera
lost. Deeper engagement and immersion delivers results. phone today, why buy a separate camera tomorrow?

39
Is it the death of TV?
164 minutes online everyday versus 148 minutes watching TV A brand is the sum of all perceptions resulting from every point of
everyday suggest TV is dead. Well, not quite. It’s where and how contact a person has with a company, either directly or indirectly,
consumers are watching their TV that matters. over time. Different people have different ways of performing a task.
People are now accessing TV online, shifting There is no need to limit to a single way of doing
their media and increasingly mashing it (the things. Be non-linear. Don’t force users to follow
youth demographic mash 44 hours of activity a specific path: brands can create and users will
into a 24 hour day) meaning they watch TV find multiple paths to same content. Consumer
and are online at the same time. A massive interactions are not aligned vertically with the
engagement and relationship deepening corporate structure. They cut across multiple
opportunity for digital. departments of a company.
The notion of time-shifting means PVRs
This means it’s about creating a brand experience,
change viewing habits to when consumers
not a channel led approach.
are ready to watch it and over 70% of PVR
owners fast forward through advertising.
Innovations such as BBC iPlayer and Channel Think of experiences rather than channels. A
4 On Demand are place-shifting where channel can provide multiple experiences.
consumers watch. They’re still watching TV
Adopt a more integrated and customer-centric
but on their own terms. And often on multiple devices. In a straight
approach to communications. Consider the moments of interaction
choice between the TV and their PC 80% of younger consumers
between people and brands, and seek to generate as much value
wouldn’t lose their PC because it’s more versatile at delivering the
as possible from these interactions. The experience needs to be
content they want.
consistent and seamless across all points of interaction. This
There is a symbiotic relationship between TV and digital. Far from doesn’t necessarily mean matching luggage creatively but must
being separate channels, the two work in solid combination to drive absolutely be aligned from a strategic perspective and applying
relevance, association with brand values and importantly intent to that to understand the role that each channel plays in the complete
purchase and talkability. Digital amplifies this through the innate experience.
social aspects of the medium.
In a nutshell, multiple ways to access the content and having great
Implications of a digital future content that is informative, entertaining and engaging in the first
place.
The single biggest implication is that consumers do not think in
Picture: Spencer E Holtaway
terms off or online. For them this is antiquated. There is no line. They
don’t experience a brand or product the way brands are organised Sources:
into departments and responsibilities. They experience it the way eMarketer, Forrester, Google, Yahoo!/OMD, OfCom, Advertising: It’s Everywhere, Me-
they want to. On their terms. dia Awareness Network, Forrester/Intelliseek Research, Yankelovich Monitor, BBC.

40
Death of the
anonymous web?
TOMAS NIHLÉN
Picture: Whatsername?
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Blog: http://tomasnihlen.tumblr.com/
One of the old and much appreciated principals of the Internet is that
everybody can be anonymous.The upside is for instance free speech without Another factor in the possible death of the anonymous web is a move from the EU and this has
fear of repercussions, which in some countries or situations is crucial. The also created massive discussions in the European blogosphere. This takes away one of the things
downside is flaming wars, racist remarks, and comment sections just generally that drove many of the original bloggers into this arena in the first place; the opportunity to share
turning into anarchistic havens for straight-out foul-mouthed little devils. intimate details of their lives but not giving away they names.
We might see the end of “the wild west” of the web or “the wild web” So we are seeing two trends right now working against the idea of the anonymous web:
as you might call it. More and more governments are listening into what
people are doing and saying online and initiatives as Facebook Connect − Users willingly giving away lots of information about themselves.
holds us personally accountable when we comment on blogs using our − Governments listening into everything we say online and building huge databases with our
Facebook account. social graphs.
Starting this year the Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment will The first trend could be used as an argument for letting governments store and analyse this data,
listen in to all Internet traffic crossing the Swedish boarders. We have written and while they're at it also gather a whole lot of other data about us. But there is a huge difference
about this before (in the October issue, only available for our former paid- between opening your front door to invite a stranger in for coffee rather than that very stranger
for subscribers), we even made a web documentary about the blog storm deciding to sneak in through the backdoor and copy all your personal documents.
caused by this law last year called Wiretapping Sweden (a must see if you
are not familiar with this issue). Sweden is by now means first in line when The debates about personal integrity and the rights to data about specific people have already
it comes to keeping a tap on Internet communication but this controversial started but I think they will grow even louder in the years to come. Surely we will get back to this
law contributed to putting the topic on the Internet agenda. topic in future issues.

41
A crisis of convergence
Music 3.0
Picture: netdog2
DAN THORNTON
Location: Peterborough, United Kingdom
Blog: http://www.thewayoftheweb.net
If you want an example of music industry panic, consider this; the band Death Cab for Cutie has been forced to remove
videos from its own website due to a copyright claim – by its own record label, Warner Music Group.
Yet despite the challenge faced by digital distribution and the perception by consumers of content as free, industry
events such as the recent Midem still feature lots of talk about the problem, but no real solutions.

42
Music sales actually rose in 2008 – digital music sales grew
25 per cent to $3.7 billion, and made up 20 per cent of recorded
music sales. Meanwhile vinyl album sales grew by 89% in the
U.S. in 2008 – albeit to just 1.88 million sales compared to the
65.8 million digital albums.
So with digital music growing, and even vinyl making a comeback – why is the
music industry sailing into the perfect storm?
• Albums sales overall have dropped, and the CD format is being hit hard.
• Industry organisation IFPI puts the number of illegal downloads at 95% of
all music downloads (40 billion tracks) Individual bands are going direct
to their fans and making bigger profits by doing so.
• And music streaming services are leading towards fans essentially renting
their content.
The current industry- favoured approach is to pursue illegal downloading by
forcing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to track and notify individuals, before
disconnecting repeat offenders. And two surveys have suggested this would stop
64-70% of internet users from illegal downloads – but when you actually ask the
18 per cent of Europeans who are actually using Peer-2-Peer sharing to swap
music, only 41% would respond to a warning, and 37% admitted they would
continue to share music even when threatened with imminent disconnection.
Picture: NightRPStar
But many people don’t believe legal downloads will ever succeed in tackling
piracy, or replacing enough of the revenue lost from CD sales. The tipping point
is predicted for 2013 when the majority of sales will be from online, mobile and
ringtones for the first time – but total music industry revenues will be about half
of the peak amount of just under Euro 12 billion in 2001.

43
Picture: western dave
One alternative is shown by oft-quoted examples of Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead The other alternative which is viable, if complex, is offering music in a ‘permission
making their music available either for free, or for a price set by consumers. The model’ – for example, a current proposal for the 80,000 residents of the Isle of
best-selling MP3 album at Amazon in 2008 was Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV which Man to pay an extra £1 per month for broadband to cover the costs of them
was released for free under a Creative Commons licence – but made $1.6 million downloading as much music as they like. And despite being dismissed by trade
in revenue in its first week and hit #1 on the Billboard Electronic chart. Making bosses for suggesting authorised ISPs should let P2P downloads occur in exchange
music available in this way is definitely successful for bands with a certain level of for payment, Media Futurist Gerd Leonhard found support from band manager
success – but the jury is out on how many musicians would be successful enough to Peter Jenner.
maintain a living, even when attempting to monetise their work through additional
physical releases, merchandise and live events.

44
‘The reality is we’ve got to compete with free’
Stanford professor and lawyer Lawrence Lessig prominently asserts And there’s one final, and totally legal threat in the shape of streaming music
that ‘prosecuting online file sharing turns a generation [into] criminal’. content via Myspace, BBC iPlayer, and dedicated services such as last.fm,
He doesn’t support piracy but calls for a reform of copyright law and Pandora, imeem, Spotify etc. Research by Forrester’s Mark Mulligan have
tactics which has seen the Record Industry Association of America shown that only 9% of UK internet users purchase paid downloads, while
sue tens of thousands of individuals and allege millions of dollars 24% listen to streaming music. One example of a payment model is Nokia’s
in damages without reducing the amount of peer-to-peer Comes With Music, with unlimited streaming and downloads for 12 months
sharing, or collecting additional revenues for musicians rather with your mobile – Orange have a flat rate service in France, whilst Sony-
than the lawyers. He adds his voice exploring ideas such as Ericsson run a similar scheme in Sweden. Danish ISP TDC offers music with their
a voluntary collective licence, and a more expansive ‘non- internet packages, and even Google offers a free music in China.
commercial use levy’ His latest book, Remix, explores
the culture of digital media as something to be remixed Streaming music, bundled music, legal peer-to-peer, monetising amateur remixes
and mashed-up. and offering physical objects as added value – they’re all available – but it remains
to be seen whether the industry can change radically enough to grasp them. Or
Despite all the evidence pointing towards a radical whether more established artists will seek freedom from the industry to grab
shake-up, Warner Music Group is in the midst of a new life for themselves.
backlash over a royalty disagreement with Youtube.
WMG forced the video site to remove all clips by its artists, Further reading:
removing official videos and unofficial soundtracks to amateur www.ifpi.org – International Federation of the Phonographic Industry
content which has left many hours of content eerily muted.
Other content owners are allowing their content to be used www.riaa.com – Recording Industry Association of America
and monetising it via Youtube’s Content ID technology.
http://www.paidcontent.org/channel/name/midem/ - Comprehensive
And the RIAA is in the midst of an increasing surreal case coverage of Midem by PaidContent,org
against Joel Tenenbaum, accused of downloading at least
http://www.mediafuturist.com – Gerd Leonhard on the future of music
seven songs and making 816 music files available via the
and subscription services.
Kazaa file-sharing network in 2004. Tenenbaum offered
to settle for $500, but the music companies demanded http://www.lessig.org/ - Lawrence Lessig
$12,000. Now Harvard Law School professor, Charles
Nesson, and his students have taken up the case to http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/cyberone/riaa/ The Harvard Law Blog for Charles
launch a constitutional attack on the copyright law Nesson and students.
which has allowed the industry to pursue file-sharers
http://musicindustrymanifesto.com/ - A manifesto for change in the music
in the U.S. Nesson and team had an order granted
industry and collecting relevant articles and links.
to narrowcast the trial over the web, which is being
appealed by the RIAA despite the fact they seek to http://musicindustryblog.wordpress.com/ - Music Industry articles and data by
publicise the risks of copyright infringement. Picture: ooOJasonOoo
Mark Mulligan (Forrester)

45
Liar liar
pants on
fire!
LINDA PIERRE
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Blog: http://lindapierre.tumblr.com/
Picture: ktylerconk
It is amazing that we still keep reading about You’ve probably read about the infamous families playing the role
of satisfied Walmart customers back in 2006 and the so-called Sony
brands trying to lie their way to the top. When PSP fan blog “All I want for Christmas is a PSP” that was exposed
as Sony themselves. You might think that more than 2 years later
will they ever learn that you can’t lie and get these two examples may have discouraged brands to try and fool
their customers. Unfortunately we still see these type of mistakes
away with it any more. The truth always finds being made. The only difference is that today companies know that if
its way out somehow, especially in these days they make a mess they have to clean it up in public.
The latest brand to be put in the naughty corner is Belkin. One of the
when information spreads as fast as a wildfire company’s employees didn’t trust enough in the quality of its products
and people are ready to expose the truth to and hired people to write reviews on Amazon, reviews of products
they had never used. For every 5 star rating and good comment these
the world in heartbeat. people got paid. Not only did he urge you to do this on new products
but on old ones as well, so that the products’ former bad reviews
would appear less dominant.

46
People where even told to mark bad reviews as “not helping”. has got a hard time getting? Songsmith only works on PC’s and since you can
The request was posted by a man called Michael Bayard. turn your Mac into a PC using for instance Parallels it can actually run on a Mac
According to LinkedIn there’s is a man by that name who is as well. But still, it just doesn’t make any sense to me why Microsoft couldn’t use
Business Development Representative at Belkin International one of “its own” laptops running their operating systems without middleware.
and he works with Belkin sales via Amazon.com. They should have know someone would pick it up and write about it anyhow.
Ouch Belkin, this is not looking so good... Belkin’s CEO later There has been a lot of discussions lately both in the Swedish blogosphere
said it was “with great surprise and dismay when [they] and mainstream media about the Swedish writer Liza Marklund and her most
discovered that one of [their] employees may have famous book “Hidden”. When the degree of truth was questioned for her
posted a number of queries on the Amazon Mechanical book that is supposed to be “a true story” she chose not to answer
Turk website inviting users to post positive reviews the accusations right away but to keep a low profile. If you google
of Belkin products in exchange for payment”. He her name a few weeks after the “blogger riots” began, lots of
also said that they have “the highest standards angry voices from the blogosphere appear on the first page.
of corporate ethics” and do not accept this The same thing happened to the Swedish company Hewal
type of behaviour from their employees. a few weeks earlier. Instead of trying to answer a very
I must say they did act rather quickly, upset customer they chose to try to sue him and make
only two days after the first blog post him take down the blog post he had written. This
appeared which by the way happened of course only made things even worse and Hewal
to be on a weekend. They also removed got a mob of angry bloggers attacking them.
all reviews related to the link this Bayard
character had put up on the help site Once again people have proved that companies
Amazon Mechanical Turk. This has turned can’t fool or treat us badly any more. If we don’t
into quite a mess though and I my eyes it like it, we will say it. That is kind of scary for a lot of
wasn’t even a clever attempt to fool us but, executives, I know. But put your self into the shoes
actually a really stupid move. Not only the hole of the consumers. Why should we keep our mouth
idea to try to fool consumers but also in regards closed when there are so many ways to speak the
to the execution of the plan. truth, and to do so in public? No there is no way
back from this, now it’s up to you marketers and
Microsoft also recently made a quite fool out of brand owners to listen to the consumers instead of
themselves. In this promo video for Microsoft’s ignoring them and try to make your products look
Songsmith, an application for recording songs, a good behind the mask that is called advertising.
girl is featured singing in front of a laptop. Nothing That good old trick won’t work any more. It’s time for
strange about that, only that the laptop she is companies to stop fooling themselves that they can
using is a Mac covered with flower-stickers. Did sell a product no matter the quality. Ads are only skin
the makers behind the video really think that deep and in the long run it’s impossible to hide products
people wouldn’t see it was a Mac or was this just that suck, under layers of clever advertising. So be aware,
a trick to get some attention Microsoft otherwise Picture: Okko Pyykkö
be very aware and don’t try to fool us!

47
STOP
bugging
us!
Ok, time for my opinion. Where to start,
I wondered, when I sat down to write this
OPINion
ads are a gift to the public, because they are
clever, or funny or generally nice looking.
in the future need to think about this. The
other marketers could possibly keep going
piece. There are so many things right now But the truth is: it’s still, for the consumers, in old footsteps at least a couple of years
that are more or less bugging me. But I’ll mostly just an annoying part of the TV more before they go out of business.
have to save some of them and go for the experience. And when these people, who
most important one of them all... Obama has are actually still watching old school TV, So what do you think? Will you be a dinosaur,
set out to change the US, and it’s time for understand that there is a whole world out just before the meteor hits the earth’s
all marketers to start a process of real and there without advertising, they just might surface, or an adaptive mammal which finds
profound change in the field of marketing. turn away from that same TV, like many new ways to stay relevant?
No more excuses. people I know already have. Do you really And please, keep the consumers best interest
want to chase them away? in mind and don’t try to brainwash them with
The days of interruptive advertising are
about to run out. And it must stop really. Just Marketing hasn’t really changed that much in irrelevant and repetitive advertising until
think about it, don’t you often change the the last 100 years or so. Evolutionary changes they turn away from you...
channel on the TV when you are interrupted mostly. And up until now there wasn’t much And oh, I have to say three more thing
by advertising? Go to the bathroom or point to change a winning formula. But the before I let you go; DRM is stupid and must
maybe put on a kettle of tea or coffee? Of last few years the consumers have changed, stop all together, all companies should stop
course you do, because the ad spots are and the competition and divergence in the treating the world as separate markets and
interrupting you from watching the TV show media space is punching holes in the current the Swedes who put #svpt i ALL their tweets
or movie you sat down to watch. It’s getting marketing paradigm. It’s just a matter of should stop. Ok, that’s it. Feel free to protest
in the way of your experience. It’s not adding time until all marketers MUST rethink the against all my opinions in this blog post.
to it but rather destroying it. Even though whole marketing game. At the moment only
many advertising agencies might think their the marketers that want to stay in business //Tomas Nihlén, Editor in Chief

48
CONNECT with us!
We at Urban Lifestyle also use a number of web 2.0-services,
not that suprisingly, both in our work and away from work.
Here we have listed some of our most important tools
information, inspiration and integrating with others.
Add us as friends on any of these services (or all of them
if you like). We would love to know a bit more about our
readers and what you think about this report.
To keep track of what’s going on at Urban Lifestyle also
check out our company Twitter account, the report website
and the blog:
Tomas NIHLEN Linda PIERRE
(tomas@urban-lifestyle.se) twitter.com/urbanlifestyle (linda@urban-lifestyle.se)
Connect with me on: www.UrbanLifestyleReport.com Connect with me on:
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Photo: BotheredByBees
Illustrations from: Face Your Manga

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DONATIONS looking for
indesign guru!
Since “Urban Lifestyle Report – New Media” went from a payed-for
trend report to a “free for all product”, some of our subscribers were
“caught in the middle”. This means that they had already paid for a few future
issues that now will be free. These companies were offered the remaining amount
of money in research time but chose to see this money as a donation so that we
can keep producing this report.
So we thank the companies below for their support, and if your company should You get no pay but lots of cred if you want to design a future
be on that list please let us now and we will give you all the credit in the next issue. If think you’re good enough to design a trend report for cutting
issue. edge marketers around the world, send us an email with a few samples
or link to a portfolio.
802 Kommunikation JMW
You design the hole issue and in return we offer you two pages to
Coop Mindshare promote your talant to the world.
Dist Nilfisk Advance Looking forward hearing from you! :)
Forsman Bodenfors PAR /The editorial staff
Futurniture Qbranch
Garbergs Ryter kommunikationsbyrå
Great Works Scholz & Friends
Gröna Lund Sigma Solutions
Helsingborgs Dagblad Statens Fastighetsverk
Herlin Widerberg WDO
Holy Diver Volt
Jerlov Åkestam Holst