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May 17th, 2012 No Comments

Network Externalities and Facebook

Robert Wright has a great piece in today’s Atlantic on Facebook and network externalities.

The bottom line – once you’re in, you’re probably never going to leave. You might get bored with Facebook, you might get annoyed with Facebook, but once they’ve got you signed up, they’ve got you for the long haul.

Why? Because the whole point of a social network is to connect to other people, and everyone (900m+ at last count) is already on Facebook.

It would take a lot to get those people to leave. And that’s why the market will be very forgiving as Facebook grows up, go public, and figure out the challenges ahead of them (how to monetize mobile users, and local commerce).

Check out the article here.

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May 16th, 2012 No Comments

Youtoo puts you on TV

We’re already seeing increasing integration with social media in reality competition shows. Undoubtedly, we’re only a few months away from seeing viewers interact with these shows in real time using technology like this.

Check out the link here.

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May 7th, 2012 No Comments

The iPanel – latest rumors

There’s another round of rumors about the soon-to-be announced iPanel, and they keep getting more and more interesting. I wonder whether people realize what a game-changer this will be.

We’re literally swimming in hundreds (thousands) of hours of compelling long form video content, which drifts by us because the interface we use to control our televisions is start of the art circa 1992. Take a minute to compare your iPhone to the Motorola Star-Tac you were using a few years ago, and you’re beginning to get the idea.

An iSight-enabled, Siri-powered iPanel not only makes high definition video chats with friends and family a reality, but will allow you to find compelling television content with words and with simple gestures.

No one knows exactly what’s about to happen but, I promise, it will be (very) big.

Check out the link here.

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May 4th, 2012 No Comments

Bloomberg Businessweek on the iPanel

An interesting prediction from Ben Kunz at Mediaassociates.

In a nutshell, Ben thinks the soon-to-be iPanel won’t be a big screen TV designed to replace the one you’ve currently got on your wall, but a smaller, cheaper glass panel we’ll want in every room in our house.

Check it out here.

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May 4th, 2012 No Comments

Oprah’s Thank You Game

This may be too little, too late, but it’s exactly the kind of project we spoke about last year.

Oprah’s Thank You game does three very important things:

(1) teaches viewers to interact with the content OWN is distributing online,

(2) creates a potential feedback loop for small,meaningful positive interactions, encouraging additional action, and

(3) lets viewers see “Oprah” see them.

Congrats to Jane McGonigal for getting this off the ground.

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May 3rd, 2012 No Comments

India: Empire of the Spirit

Couldn’t sleep last night. Watched a cool documentary on India, and the tradition of renunciation of material things and a focus on inner, spiritual life. Loved the bit about Ashoka, a 3rd century BC emperor who left massive stone columns all around the country emphasizing kindness, generosity, truthfulness, purity, gentleness and goodness. Social media, circa 250B.C.

Check it out here.

May 1st, 2012 No Comments

From the Sky Down: Birth of ‘One’, Live on Tape

Inspiration is all around.

Sometimes we’re able to reach out and grab it.

Sometimes we’re able to record it.

I love the look of recognition on Bono’s face.

May 1st, 2012 No Comments

Facebook as an Agent for Social Change

According to today’s New York Times, Facebook is urging members to add organ donation status to their profile pages. Presumably, this isn’t going to be legally binding anywhere, but it will definitely be an interesting experiment in social media’s ability to drive incremental social change.

We’ve known for years that if we can make it easier for you to something good for you (or others), that we can make it incrementally more likely that you’ll do that thing. In the process, Facebook has enlisted the help of B.J. Fogg, one of the most interesting guys in this space.

It’ll be interesting to see whether Facebook can take it this far.

Link to the New York Times article here.

April 26th, 2012 No Comments

Hashtag Activism

We’ve been using online content to generate interest in compelling causes for years. Still, we are just beginning to learn how new technology to help audiences understand that the viewing and sharing of inspiring content is only the first step in a sometimes long but often rewarding path to political and social change. If you’ve issued a call for social activism without including a clear, discrete call to action for your viewers, shame on you. But when we hear these calls, tweet or ‘like’ what we’ve seen, and still do nothing else to follow up on our shared beliefs about what we might fix or one day be, shame on us.

Link to a great NY Times article by David Carr here.

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April 17th, 2012 No Comments

The Eclipse, Eugene Atget (Paris 1912)