Stritar's chronolog

The Web is becoming just another television

Tue, 11 Feb 2014 15:06:44 GMT

A few months ago, I managed to bookmark my 20.000th link. I always imagined I would be able to say something really inspiring when it would finally happen, but after years of collecting and tagging content on Delicious like mad, proud of the amount of information I've consumed, I ended up feeling a bit empty. Categorization schemes, mashups, systematic repeating of essays and articles, it seems nothing could help me grow anymore. What else can you expect from a passive observer of a world, overwhelmed with unlimited knowledge?

In February 2011, when I saved my 10.000th link, I felt great, full of power. This means I've made around 10 bookmarks per day on average since then, which translates into a lot of read material. But when I reflect on that, I can't bypass the feeling I haven't actually learned that much. Most online content seems recycled and without added value. The feeds I'm subscribed to are all the same, and I don't know how to break out of them. The amount of information out there is simply astounding, making me read everything diagonally. I feel like everybody is just trying to control my attention.

Then I noticed the (social) Web is becoming like television. We are all just drones, consuming unimportant information we are being fed on a daily basis. Passive readers actively choosing sources that lead us to the facts - but how is that different from choosing which television channels to watch? Not only that, we've become advocates of this situation by passing on "interesting stuff" on our timelines, a part of the infinite loop of content creation, curation and consumption.

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Almost half a year ago, when I wrote these words, I became so depressed I've decided not to publish them. Luckily, I've had enough time to think about the problem and came up with a plan to turn myself around. I decided I need to do everything I can to become a proactive consumer of information (again). Forget social, I'm returning back to search. Web 1.0 FTW!

Together with more in-depth studies of specific topics that I do these days, I managed to achieve something even more important. I started reading books, I've read about five in the past few months. Fiction and scientific. You won't believe the effect this has had on my concentration and habits. I noticed I don't spend that much time on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit anymore, becoming the master of my information intake. By taking time to read / watch more complex work, everyday news finally started to show itself as trivial as it really is.

What we have here now, is just another television, which we passively consume for amusement, without much mental effort. But to evolve personally and professionally (what the Web was invented for!), we'll need to do more. Read books, listen to podcasts, study specific fields, concentrate on individual subjects. Because it's that focus that is crucial for one's evolution. Nobody wants generalists anymore. And believe me, 20.000 "random" articles don't make you that smart anyways.

Daft Punk, Arrested Development, and how content is becoming an experience

Wed, 15 May 2013 07:32:28 GMT

What a great year for content! In October 2012, Red Bull Stratos set a benchmark for what can be done with branded content. The jump was watched live on YouTube by 8 million people. A few months later, Gangam style established a new standard for how far online virality can take you. It became the first video to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. Powered by the internet. These two extreme cases probably won't be topped for quite some time (internet time, that is) and are clear leaders in their categories. But lately, I've noticed two other great examples that clearly show something else - where commercial content (promotion) is headed. It's all about delivering experiences, which are created and amplified by digital marketing.

Daft Punk

I've never ever seen so much buzz about a release of a new album. Ok, my streams aren't filled with information about Biebers and Gagas, so I can't tell what's happening there, but I'm sure Daft Punk won big time. The crazy release that's been going on for months, with teaser videos, song loops, weird promotions and shitloads of publicity. Facebook, Twitter or Reddit, Daft Punk seem to be all over the place, and everybody was trying to be the first to publish the link to the stream or download of Random Access Memories. The first single from the album already received more than 23 million views on YouTube (in 6 weeks), and the song is number 1 in many countries, besides breaking Spotify streaming records. What a comeback!

Arrested Development

Some of you may have heard about Arrested Development. It's one of those shows that got cancelled after only a few seasons, but kept a strong fan base that was waiting for years for a movie to be made. Then, the mighty Netflix came around, and something even better than a movie happened. Season 4, with the original cast! The trailer that launched a few days ago already has more than a million views, which is a lot compared to the 3.5 million who watched season 3 finale. Awesome stuff, can't wait to see it.

So what

A music album with lots of supporting content and infinite publicity, a TV show with a loyal army of geeks? These two cases are more alike than it seems at first sight. They both offer more than the content itself, they offer experiences. They are both fueled by the internet. They are both children of online virality.

Google search trends for Daft Punk and Arrested Development peaked in the past days.

Daft Punk gave us a something that goes beyond an album, they gave us a complete story that's funky, appealing and mysterious (and filled with 80s revival and robots). Netflix will be fulfilling a fantasy that we've been having for years, and they will make us come like never before. The complete season (15 parts, 8.5 hours) will be available at once, so fans will be able to watch it in one peace! The US internet will surely be consumed by Netflix on May 26th.

Do you see what's happening? Everything, even (commercial) content, is becoming an experience. Otherwise, it's overlooked in the sea of information overload.

UPDATE (16.6.2013): It seems Arrested Development's transmedia experience is getting more interesting. Yesterday evening, one of the most fascinating characters in the series, dr. Tobias Fünke, got it's own sizzle reel and website, promoting his acting skills. Great stuff.

Sempl 14 key takeaways: top trends in (digital) marketing

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 07:35:00 GMT

The 14th media trends seminar Sempl took place last week in Portorož. This year, I had an opportunity to attend the conference, since Neolab provided the official Twitter wall. And I was glad I could, because Sempl proved itself as an event worth visiting, packed with high profile speakers and marketers not only from Slovenia, but from the entire region. Most lectures were very interesting, and the fascinating fact is that they all went into the same direction. It seems mobile, social and local are so mainstream, they are not even put into the spotlight anymore. But here are the things that were.

Content

Forget classic marketing, it doesn't work (online) anymore. Ads don't work with social, and they don't work with mobile. Advertisers now have to go beyond "YeDiLi" (Yell Disrupt Lie) concept and deliver better, more complete experiences wrapper around their brands. Content marketing within the right context is the what keeps the consumers engaged and loyal, and some brands are already removing their products from their web pages, replacing them with editorial and social content.

Storytelling

Content is crucial, but so is the experience for consumers, which can be delivered using storytelling. People want to be seduced, they need to have the feeling they are a part of a bigger picture, specially if they have the chance join the conversation and the ability to co-create the experience. Storytelling is what helps to keep them engaged with a brand and share their loyalty with their peers.

Futurist Gerd Leonhard delivering his lecture "The total reset of marketing, branding and media"

Second screen

While television still rules the media budgets, more and more people stick to their phones while watch it. Enter the age of the second screen, provided by tablets and smartphones. This is probably one of the biggest opportunities for marketers to deliver all of the above, since these little capable devices support so many things. The ads of the future will be multi-channel interactive experiences, watched on many screens at once. Transmedia FTW.

bonus: the new Shazam is awesome

The platform that fully embraces all of the mentioned concepts has to be the new Shazam. You know that app that recognizes the song you are listening to? Now it can also understand which TV show you are watching, and delivers additional content that comes with it. Cast, trivia, products on screen, etc. One of the best cases that were presented was by Red Bull, which enables watching a snowboard movie with multiple cameras. Crazy shit!

These are the most significant digital marketing trends presented on the conference. Are you already thinking about your next move? Here are the slides from the conference to help you on your way.

Targeting non-vegetarians with veggie food? Well played, Spar, well played.

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 20:04:44 GMT

I'm not vegetarian, and apparently I share this habit with more than 95% of other people. I generally don't buy vegetarian food, a steak works fine with me. I didn't even know I could/should buy vegetarian food - after all, vegetarian food is designated for vegetarians, which I'm not. I don't have anything agains them, but we're a different breed you know, like wolves and butterflies. To be honest, I wouldn't mind eating a vegetarian meal, if only I would feel it's something intended also for me. That's why I don't. But Spar told me I could and I should. And I think they might be on to something.

Spar's new Veggie products have an interesting twist. It's a vegetarian line, targeting non-vegetarians. When the lovely Gwyneth Paltrow, who is not a vegetarian, but likes veggie, tells you that, you might as well think, hmm, she might be right. Why should I be a vegetarian to eat a meatless meal? I like my vegetables, so eating vegetarian on few occasions actually isn't such a bad idea. Which is fucking genius. Spar just made their potential client pool 20x bigger than it was, and their original target group probably doesn't mind it at all. There's a chance they will actually feel proud that meat-eaters will be copying their lifestyle.

"I'm not a vegetarian, but I like veggie." Why haven't I thought of that?

I love to comment on simple and effective campaigns like this, even though I'm not a marketing expert. That's why I'm not sure if this type of approach has been used before or if it even has its own name from the Mad Men times. Anyways, I think it's brilliant, and I will definitely be thinking about how to use it in other scenarios. Taking a minor group with specific requirements, creating a product for them, and then selling it to a larger group with the "why not" approach. Infinite possibilities, while the one presented probably has the most potential of them all. Well played, Spar, well played.

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

How movies and television (almost) ruined my experience of traveling to American cities

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 05:08:16 GMT

In my life, I've traveled to two American cities on different occasions: New York and San Francisco. When I got there, a funny thing happened - it was nothing like I expected. Actually, it was a total buzzkill! I was filled with great expectations, but the cities displayed themselves in the plainest way possible. I can't believe how ridiculously common everything looked! When you travel to exotic places like Asia or Africa, you're in for a bit of a culture shock, and that's already fascinating enough. But cities in the United States, well, they're not that different from European cities, we're part of the same civilization anyways. Just cities like any other.

I blame Hollywood! Movies and television (even photographs on blogs and in magazines) have always been trying to present something in an idealistic, almost unreal way. Showing things that aren't there, hiding things that are, highlighting a specific point. And since a lot of films and shows are happening in New York and San Francisco, I was being fed with this idealistic image of great places with amazing detectives ever since I was a child. But these things aren't for real, for me, the experience was totally different than I imagined. What will happen if I manage to go to Miami one day? Will it feel like a tourist resort somewhere in Europe and not like a totally cool place, the way I think of it now?

Probably not. As it turns out in the case of New York and San Francisco, these cities do have something very special to offer. The churches may not be as old as in Europe, and the streets may not be as crooked, but it's the cosmopolitan vibe and fantastic atmosphere that makes them what they are. A few days after you get to know your way, you start to feel it. It's everywhere around you. You slowly go along, and you find yourself thinking: well, this actually wouldn't be such a bad place to live for a while. And you start to enjoy it, meet a few people, go to a few parties, start to love it, everything's great, but then your trip ends and you're back home. Sitting in your living room, watching a movie or a show happening there and all you can think is: man, New York and San Francisco are even more awesome than on TV.

The Silicon Valley tour, part 4: The streets of San Francisco

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 10:29:22 GMT

Even though San Francisco is technically not a part of Silicon Valley, it's still one of the biggest technology hubs of the area, besides being the place where I'm situated while I'm on my Silicon Valley tour. It's an interesting city that is slowly finding its way under my skin. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed at first, perhaps my expectations were too high, but that's becoming a thing of the past, I'm starting to like this place a lot. San Francisco is one of the most open, liberal and easy-going cities I've seen so far, which is something that probably had quite a bit of influence on the general development of this region.

I love visiting cities, since they are packed with people and various cultures, like enormous ant farms. While San Francisco may not be as big as you would've imagined (comparing it to New York which I've visited a few years ago), it's still very diverse and full of surprises. After a few days of getting used to it, I think I finally found just what I was looking for: a beautiful cosmopolitan metropolis that won't leave you indifferent.

Remember the TV show from the 70's, called The streets of San Francisco? I remember it existed, but can't really recall much of it. Nevertheless, it's still a very suitable title for one of the most fascinating things I've seen so far (no shit sherlock): the streets of San Francisco, ranging from wide avenues in the city center to cute little streets of Chinatown. Buzzing with shops, people, smell of marijuana, street artists and shouting preachers, it's almost weird you still feel safe pretty much everywhere. And to let you know what I'm talking about, I've prepared a special gallery focused just on the them. Enjoy the show.

A performer entertaining people on Market street, one of the main roads of San Francisco

Senior citizens playing chess. Right next to them, a game of street dice was taking place.

The peaceful South of Market, where I live. It kinda feels like the countryside.

The colorful scene of China Town

One of the few cable car lines still working. Looks familiar?

The busy downtown

Flashy nightlife in North Beach (Little Italy). You can see the Transamerica pyramid in the back.

Check out the complete The Silicon Valley tour series.

Television and Social media? How did my recommendation engine miss this connection?

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 14:58:20 GMT

November has been a great month for this blog. For the first time in history, I managed to get more than 1.000 unique users on two different blog posts in a single month. Which is awesome, thanks! The first post was about the TV show Dexter and its Facebook game Slice of life. The other was about Slovenian TV show Soočenje and its buzz on Twitter. Just two posts, nothing special, right? Wrong. It's really obvious, but I missed it somehow. Both posts are talking about combining television and social media, silly me! I can't believe I failed to see it, but I did, and so did my blog. Not that it really matters anymore. You know those fantastic coincidences that happen sometimes and put everything into place? This story is full of them.

Function

Some of you may know this blog has an internal recommendation engine that calculates the correlation between different posts based on shared tags and their frequency, offering related reading in the bottom. It missed the connection. Others may know I'm a bit obsessed with cross-referencing my posts, which I do manually. I missed it too. Perhaps Facebook and Twitter aren't as similar as I would like to believe, but I'm putting my bet mostly on the different concepts of combining television and social media. The Dexter case was about entertainment, gaming and story-telling. Pop TV's case was about politics, news and ordinary people co-creating content. Different problem, different tags, but still, the strong relation between the two is very much there.

Try

The first funny coincidence was a blog post by @anejmehadzic written a few days after mine, discussing the general possibilities of a symbiosis between television and social media (in Slovene). The post provided enough insight to make me see what I missed. TV shows using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to provide additional content to viewers was really something in between the two cases of mine. Revelation. At this point I knew I missed the connection myself, but how did my very smart algorithm also miss it?

Catch

The next lucky coincidence was a lecture on wwwh happening yet a few days later. @zbrchka was talking about transmedia, a term I haven't heard about before. I thought multi-platform or cross-platform could be concept that connected these two blog posts, but transmedia feels so much better. Transmedia is a technique for creating integrated content for different mediums, just the thing what I was looking for. Something that's becoming so important it deserves exposure on this blog too.

Finally

With the new gathered knowledge, I made a new tag Transmedia, putting it on both posts, besides the one about Šport TV tweeting about the basketball championship. It worked like a charm. Since this tag is used so rarely, it dominated the recommendation engine, and to my great relief, all three posts gained the correlation they require to be listed as related content one to another.

The blogosphere kicks ass, since bloggers are mutually inspiring each other and moving things forward. Wwwh is a great place to hang out and share knowledge and experience. My recommendation algorithm is awesome, fully working as expected. And those lucky coincidences are a thing that make this existence an interesting place to be visiting. Everything is just the way it should be.

* try-catch-finally is a an exception handling syntax used in some programming languages.

Supporting events on Twitter: how Pop TV and Soočenje owned the Slovenian Twitterverse

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 10:13:58 GMT

Supporting events on Twitter is becoming very popular, and it's a perfect case study of what Twitter can do. After all, this channel allows an additional layer for following things that are going on in real-life, in real-time. Coverage sometimes happens accidentally, if there are enough Twitterers around, but more and more often, it happens as a result of a carefully planned tactic of those behind the event. Only then it can fully work, enabling organizers, participants and observers a totally new type of involvement. Crowdsourcing event support can produce a better overview of what's happening than any well-trained team of journalists can provide, offering an experience that is broad, objective and subjective, interactive. And like using Twitter itself, some know how to do it, and some don't.

My experience

When I tried it out it myself, it was fun and rewarding, In May, Trkaj, Jacuzzy and our neighborhood Savska held a festival Blok Party, which attracted a lot of people. We were there, live-tweeting about it. We've also asked other Twitterers (thanks @loudandwicked!), who attended the festival, to use and amplify the same hashtag #savska, and in the end, more than 10 people tweeted about the event, producing over 50 tweets, most of them with pictures. Which isn't that bad on the Slovenian scale. My friend @jakasibicekaka did something similar, asking Trbovlje town councillors to tweet about a meeting with the #sejaOStrb hashtag, which attracted other people to participate as well (here's his blog post about it, in Slovene). Great results enabled by collaboration of many users.

It can work on a small scale. What about the major league, it should be even better? Let's analyze two nation-wide events that happened this week in Slovenia.

How to do it wrong

The first case mentioned was the Slovenia vs. USA friendly soccer match. At the stadium, the National soccer association (@nzs_si) promoted their Twitter account which does live coverage of matches. Which they did. But that doesn't mean they did the whole Twitter thing right. They forgot about the extremely witty journalist @IEBergant also tweeting about the match. They forgot about me, and they forgot about you and 8 other thousand people watching the game live, probably quite a few geeks included. While NZS used the hashtag #fuzbal (slang for soccer), some used the hashtag #nogomet (soccer), #slovenia, #slovenija, and the mentioned Igor Evgen Bergant used #soccerSI-US. The results: a scattered pool of tweets which didn't really offer users the complete picture. The event went mostly unnoticed on Twitter.

The Slovenian soccer association promoting their Twitter account on the match

How to do it right

On the other hand, Pop TV (@24ur), the biggest commercial television network in Slovenia, did it more than right. Their show "Predvolilna soočenja", which does political confrontations before the upcoming elections, won big time. And while using Twitter to support television has been done for ages abroad, this actually happened for the first time in Slovenia (at least so I think). And they did at least three smart things:

they've promoted the hashtag #soocenje, not minding about their Twitter profile
they've invited five influential Twitterers (@alivea, @had, @Lacn, @madpixel, @tamejhna) to the studio audience to generate the initial buzz on Twitter, besides live-tweeting from the studio. Here they are, appearing with @miharejc, who tweets for @24ur
they've broadcasted a selection of tweets with this hashtag live on television, and encouraged people to participate and ask questions on Twitter

The results were amazing. Hundreds, if not thousands of tweets all over place. Local trending topic. They owned the Slovenian Twitterverse like no one else before them. It worked like a charm. You can check out the partial report (which only displays 100 of #soocenje tweets, happening in 5 minutes!) on the following link or use the #soocenje Twitter search, if tweets are still available. Epic stuff, moving the Slovenian media sphere a few years forward.

Pop TV displaying and promoting #soocenje tweets live on television

#soocenje (besides various politicians and the show host) became a local trending topic in Slovenia according to sitweet.com

Conclusion

I'm only a level 26 27 social media ninja, but I know a few things. If you're organizing an event, the most important thing is: promote Twitter hashtags, not profiles. Even if they are nothing more than just clickable search queries, they simply work. Search Twitter in real-time and look for people who are talking about the event. Ask them and other people attending to amplify and use the same hashtag. Thank them if they do. Most of them will join you, since it'll make it more interesting for them too. Offer something more if you can (like displaying tweets on a website). Use multiple accounts (official, personal) with different wibes. Upload pictures. Retweet. Interact. Have fun.

Twitter, a funny service proving that a collective effort of many people will always provide a way more interesting picture than a single person can. More objective, more diversified, more everything. Perhaps even better than the original event itself. Real players are fully aware of that. Don't worry, even if you don't have the same power, publicity and followers, you can compensate with additional energy, time and mobile bandwidth. The results can be surprising. And if it does work, I promise you'll enjoy every little bit of it.

UPDATE (22.11.2011): I got contacted by @24ur, who told me this was already their second Soočenje show (I missed the first one - the irony - playing soccer), and the first one generated over 1800 #soocenje tweets. I also got feedback from @nzs_si and @IEBergant, they've agreed we should make a joint effort the next time Slovenia plays soccer, also involving the biggest Slovenian soccer portal Nogomania. Awesome stuff.

UPDATE (25.11.2011): Pop TV is on fire. Today, they've added another medium to support Soočenje on Twitter, their news portal 24ur.com, which is the most visited site in Slovenia.

Is Dexter and its social game Slice of Life the future of TV shows (but no one noticed)?

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 15:46:35 GMT

I don't know if you've noticed, but a few months ago the hit television show Dexter got it's own social game you can play on Facebook, named Slice of Life. Similar kinds of branded social games have been done before, but it's something else that's interesting this time. This game changes according to the plot of the television series each week. That's right, the show and the game are coexisting and evolving together to bring users a totally new type of experience. And while most technology blogs, obsessed with social, said Slice of Life is a revolutionary new type of a social game, I asked myself: is it rather a new revolutionary type of consuming television?

Television is static - not interactive the way the Web is. You can't do much. More or less, liking and commenting shows, besides tele voting, are the most interactive things you can do. But Slice of Life changes everything. A television show that you can watch, consume and play on multiple mediums, multiple channels, multiple platforms, online and offline. You're actually playing a game inside the show. Or watching a show inside the game. Pretty awesome stuff that didn't get as nearly much attention as it should, attention for bringing a new type of interactivity to television shows.

If the future of television as a medium will be defined by new types of business models (Netflix), physical architecture (Google?) and user experience (Apple?), the future of television content will definitely be defined by the level of interactivity it offers, imitating the Web. And until now, interactivity hasn't been solved in such a smart way than our favorite serial killer's social game. You must watch, you must play, you must do everything to be the biggest of the 10 million+ fans Dexter has on Facebook.

It looks like television is becoming more than just a medium. It's rather evolving into a cross-platform interactive content serving entertainment system. Some have already managed to successfully understand that fact, more will follow soon. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to see more.

Can you believe Watson got the question about Slovenia wrong on Jeopardy?

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 07:33:12 GMT

Slovenia made it to the spotlight again, for the first time after the soccer world cup (when Slovenia was trending topic on Twitter and top search on Google). This time, it happened because IBM's supercomputer Watson competed against human champions in the famous TV show Jeopardy. IBM's computers are known to destroy people in various challenges, Deep Blue beat the world champion Garry Kasparov in a chess tournament in 1997. But chess is simple for computers to play, because it is pure logic and mathematics – the capability of a player is determined by the number of operations and actions it can calculate in advance. But a quiz is a totally different story, where the biggest challenge is semantics – understanding the meaning of words.

In 1950, Alan Turing, one of the greatest pioneers of computing introduced the Turing test, a methodology that could separate humans from computers using a set of questions, some of them formed in such a way computer wouldn't be able to understand and answer them. There are many questions which can't be answered with pure logic, the one I remember from high school goes something like this:

"Jack attended Sally's party, bring a doll. What was the present?"

The catch is in the connection between party – (birthday) – present – doll, which can't be noticed without abstract thinking humans are capable of. And today's computers still face the same problem - even though Watson dominated Jeopardy, it failed miserably on the following question about Slovenia:

"As of 2010, Croatia & Macedonia are candidates but this is the only former Yugoslav republic in the EU"

Watson's computing capabilities and knowledge banks are huge, but a question and an answer so obvious to humans presented a huge problem. Watson surely knows which countries are EU members, but it obviously didn't understand the question, thinking it was asked about which country would be next to start negotiating for EU membership, answering Serbia. The right answer was, of course, Slovenia.

The video is also fascinating from the cultural point of view – and extremely creepy. Those who have watched (or read) "2001: A Space Odyssey" may have experienced a slight shiver and carefully waited if Watson would say it: "Hello Dave". Others might have enjoyed this science fiction presentation, but besides Watson's obvious advantage in being the fastest to answer the question, it's clear that computers are still far away from being intelligent. And hopefully they will stay that way.

Windows-branded computers on TV. Entering a new market or product placement fail?

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 18:02:11 GMT

Lately I've been noticing a lot of television shows that used computers with a Windows logo on their back. Classic product placement, where advertising blends with an event, movie or a TV show. The master of product placement in the mentioned segment is currently Apple, who also has suitable products for most occasions – beautiful and recognizable laptop and desktop computers. But Microsoft doesn't make computers at all. It does make some hardware (Xbox, Zune), but its focus is mostly on software (and lately on consumer electronics), so why the hell would they want to advertise something that doesn't even exist? Have they lost their mind or are they entering yet another market?

The past years have been hell for Microsoft. Bill Gates left, and current CEO Steve Ballmer sold a huge pile of shares a few weeks ago. Apple even managed to become more valuable than Microsoft, and Microsoft is obviously looking for different opportunities to stay in the game. Because I don't really believe they will start producing computers (tablets perhaps?), I can imagine these product placement efforts were created to gain lost ground on the OS market and targeted against Apple, but I think they could have come up with something more appropriate. In my opinion, Microsoft's greatest opportunity still lies in business environments (Office, SQL, asp.net, …), but while they're trying to focus on other segments, they are loosing that enterprise software market to other players such as Google.

Product placement in general makes sense for Microsoft, with Xbox, Windows 7, Windows Mobile 7, even Kinect and Surface as perfect candidates, because they look cool and Microsoft actually produces (or will produce) them. But advertising Windows computers, that's a bit ridiculous. Perhaps this type of marketing actually works on other target groups, but for more tech-savvy consumers such as myself, it looks desperate and fake, because we all know Microsoft doesn't even make computers. Worse, it looks like Microsoft is trying to position itself close to Apple (even the logo imitates Apple's), but doesn't stand a chance against the design perfection of a Mac. In the end, all this money spent perhaps made Apple look cooler and might have even helped them more than it helped Microsoft.

Microsoft should focus on the fields it masters and does best (or at least try to expose their know-how and advantages), because they have little chance to succeed competing on the markets that are dominated by other players (Apple in design, Google in search). And they should stop marketing fake branded computers, because they simply look silly. Perhaps this October campaign was a short experiment or even some sort of the ultimate innovative marketing strategy made by the greatest advertising agency in the world which I don't understand and appreciate, but I think it's actually quite ineffective and wrong. Or am I wrong?

How I Met Your Mother: Season 6, Episode 4. Aired October 11th, 2010 on CBS.

Lie To Me: Season 3, Episode 2. Aired October 11th, 2010 on FOX.

The Mentalist: Season 3, Episode 5 (also other episodes). Aired October 21st, 2010 on CBS.

UPDATE (26.2.2011): Here are a few more shows doing it. It looks like it's a CBS and FOX thing.

The Good Guys: Season 1, Episode 15 (also other episodes). Aired October 29th, 2010 on FOX.

Bones: Season 6, Episode 14. Aired February 17th, 2011 on FOX.

Apple's strategy of becoming a content provider might simply be ingenious

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 15:38:22 GMT

Apple is an interesting corporation. Some love it, some hate it, but the fact is, Apple has become the biggest technology company in the world. An interesting turn of events, from a company that nearly went bankrupt a few decades ago, to a player that we know today. Looks like Steve Jobs really is one of the greatest visionaries of our time, as his comeback in 1996 together with the introduction of the iMac and the iPod managed to turn things around for Apple. Looking at these facts in 2010, the iPod may turn out to be even more important than it seems, creating a digital music revolution and providing the foundation for Apple's strategy of becoming the world's dominant commercial content provider.

Apple was always known as the great innovator, and all of its products and services(!) strive towards perfection. This vision of making things people want and need (or don't need but still want anyways) has moved beyond hardware and software, towards a new direction – providing both free and payable content in any form. And because of the loyalty and fanaticism of their customers, they are one of the few that are actually able to make this work on a global scale. And be aware content is more than just actual news, it's multimedia (music, videos), it's software, it's books, it's just about everything, and Apple was the first to notice this potential and put it into action.

It all started with the iPod (2001) and its biggest sister, the iTunes. Today, iTunes is the largest music retailer in the US, with over 10 billion songs purchased. With the introduction of the iPhone (2007), its biggest sister, the App Store became one of the largest software marketplaces in the world, selling more that 6 billion applications in two years. The next gadget, the iPad (2010), was launched with a bigger sister too, the iBooks, which is currently messing up Amazon's Kindle operation, even though the success of this story is still hard to estimate. A few weeks ago, Apple also introduced the new cloud powered Apple TV (2010), which will enable selling (actually renting) fresh HD movies and TV shows using the iTunes platform. And to complete the circle, there are rumors Apple will also provide a subscription service for newspapers, supposedly the iNewsstand, which could actually become the biggest of them all.

So, how did a "personal computer" company come to this position? If you ask me, the answer is simple – Steve Jobs. This visionary was able to predict where the future will go and if you look at the situation today, when this business model is proven to work, it's really trivial. When personal computers were on the rise, it was obvious business and sales will be in hardware and software. But in the present information era, where billions have access to the web, overloaded with information, it's almost obvious that business and sales will be in providing content: data and information in all forms.

Besides Apple TV, Ping, a social network on top of iTunes, was also introduced on Apple's last "mass". I won't speculate on how cool it is, because I haven't tried it and am not sure if I will. But the fact is that iTunes has 160 million users and generates a lot of revenue. Ping actually represents a first integrated wide scale social market place, which probably is the future of social electronic commerce, so it will be interesting to see what will happen. No matter how cool, adding a Facebook Like button on Amazon simply isn't real social commerce.

That's Apple, once a computer manufacturer, today a diversified technology and media corporation with great know-how in electronic commerce and providing content, while pioneering (again) in social commerce. Besides owning a complete set of platforms for providing and selling different types of content, many of them market leaders, they also offer beautiful hardware and software infrastructure for their implementation. Something we will be seeing in most living rooms of the future?

The Web is going rogue. The Web is going mainstream.

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:16:40 GMT

Times are changing, and the World Wide Web isn't any different. You've probably already noticed your mother on Facebook and it's not too hard to understand that interests of specific generations can be a bit different. The same goes for young people, who are obviously growing up in a world of their own, a confusing world overwhelmed with infinite amounts of information.

In the USA, already 93% of people under 18 are online. A massive group, which is probably the main driving force behind changing how the Web looks, and they are actually doing quite a good job in making it mainstream and pop. The Web used to be a part of the geeky subculture, but lately it's becoming just one of the mass media, another television on steroids.

YouTube

A great example of this pop transformation are top videos on YouTube. Star Wars Kid, David After Dentist and other classic home-made videos are starting to look unimpressive compared to Lady Gaga's and Justin Bieber's music videos. If you check the current list of most viewed videos, you can see that YouTube is really becoming more of a PopTube, where record labels are dominating the chart with high budget music videos. Lady Gaga managed to be the first pop artist with the most viewed YouTube video, but was quickly dethroned by Bieber. A sad fate for the biggest online video sharing tool.

Twitter

When people who actually have something smart to say are getting less followers on Twitter than pop princesses, you know something's gone wrong. Ashton Kutcher, the king of Twitter and the guy who beat CNN to one million followers, was overtaken by Britney Spears in the number of followers just a few moths ago. This is just the beginning - the following list provides information about top Twitter users, where you can see more and more pop stars whose accounts are emerging and taking the lead. Perhaps I'm not the correct target group, but Britney's Twitter account with her 423 tweets pretty much sucks!

Google

Google is kind enough to allow us insight into it's most popular searches of every year, which offers great overview of the culture of a specific era (Google Zeitgeist: 2007, 2008, 2009). This is The spirit of the times, as seen by world's biggest search engine:

In 2007, there were no people or other pop brands on the top 10 list of searches.
In 2008, Sarah Palin became 1st and Obama took 6th place, but that was mostly because of the US presidential elections, which can't really be considered pop. Pop star searches included Heath Ledger on 5th (because of his death) and the band Jonas Brothers on 10th place.
In 2009, the trend of pop searches continued. Michael Jackson became 1st (due to this death), New Moon (Twilight movie) finished 6th and Lady Gaga 7th. Creepy enough, but wait until Justin gets on the list in 2010.

These are some of the cases showing the evolution of the World Wide Web, currently ruled by it's undisputed queen, Lady Gaga. The scary part is that all of this is probably just a virtual portrait of the real world of today, where Pop Stars and Supermodel reality shows are helping to create new values and a wannabe society. And the Web is not just a victim of this trend anymore, it became an active player helping to promote this new and strange culture.

All of this saddens me a bit, and this is my puny effort to change this trend. Or maybe I'm just getting old.

Slovenian grocers going for Web 2.0 design

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:12:48 GMT

It’s obvious that Slovenian grocers are using TV as their main advertising medium, the same as many others. Nothing wrong with that. Their commercials are typical for their industry, emphasizing actual promotions and discounts and going for direct sales mostly. Nothing wrong with that too. They finish off with their logo on the screen, so they do a bit of branding too. Reasonable, you have to use all marketing approaches. But wait a minute, why do their logos look Web 2.0?

Using a reflection under a logo, picture or icon was started by the king of design, Apple, and was later on embraced by the Web 2.0 architects and designers. Here is an overview of history of Web 2.0 design, from the times we didn't even know what Web 2.0 was. Today, this stylish feature can be seen anywhere and is already becoming a cliché, but who am I to tell...

After I started being more observant, I noticed that half of the commercials on Slovenian television are using some sorts of reflections, for which we don’t know if they supposedly communicate modern and web (2.0) approaches or are they used just for aesthetic reasons. So much for their creativity anyways. But there is something important they forgot – Web 2.0 is not design, Web 2.0 is a concept.

In our case, the two grocers mentioned are Mercator and Tuš who, interesting enough, don't use the same Web 2.0 logos on their websites. Mercator is ahead though, they have a Facebook page and an active Twitter account, while Tuš failed to recognize new types of media and new Web 2.0 approaches for marketing (and their web site looks like it's from 1995).

I wasn't able to find these advertisements online, so I had to do it old school - photographing the television. The quality is miserable, but enough to prove my point. Looks like Web 2.0 design is so in that it's already out.

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

What's hot on the web - Part 4: Performances gone wrong

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:03:09 GMT

A lot of time has passed since our last What's hot on the web broadcast, so I bet you are already eager to see more. The series is doing quite well, but the time has come to do a bit of specialization. This part will be focused on weird (and therefore funny) performances from around the globe, turning into epic fail. Looks like some people think they are ready for the spotlight, but they aren’t. Youtube, you can make our day.

Model takes a tumble twice

I don’t know what's funnier about this one, the commentators who can't stop laughing or the model who does the boogie woogie. We all know fashion has it's price, but the price for this one is a new type of dance nobody can reproduce.

Staying on stage fail

If you have a public performance and you actually do choose to play on playback, make sure you stay on the stage. Otherwise, everybody will know what you're doing...

Ken Lee

This one already became a legend. A girl, performing at a Talents competition in Bulgaria wanted to sing Mariah Carey's Ken Lee, a song which nobody heard of. It turns out she got the lyrics of Without you a bit wrong, which is amusing the jury. Later on she tried to repeat the performance and do it again with the right lyrics, but the original version took the most applause. The extensions of this meme went so far that even Mariah herself made a comment about it.

Is Europe a country?

Stereotypes have it that Americans suck at geography and that blonds are a bit, well, you know... This one proves them right. In a show where people compete against fifth graders, this girl fails miserably when she thinks Europe is a country.

American educational system

On beauty contests, answers of the competitors are always a bit interesting. In this case, it looks like Miss South Carolina didn't quite understand what the question on American education was and she answers a totally different thing. Besides, even if she answered something, nobody knows what that was. A sad irony.

Exclusive nightclub fail

There are a lot of interesting moments on TV shows and quizes, so we won't even try to go through all of them. We’ve all seen The wheel of fortune, where people have to guess the right letters and words. The following competitor almost had it, but not quite. Check your spelling capabilities before you go playing a game like that.

Wrong price is right winner

Another cool quiz that produces a lot of awkward moments is Price is right. This one is twice funny. First, this woman makes a really stupid bet, putting her in a situation where she has almost no chance of winning. Besides, when the price is told, she thinks she actually won. Twice. Triple fail for that one.

Coconut breaking

People do all sorts of crazy shit to get noticed. Like this guy, who sets out to break a few coconuts with his hand. Hm, even before you see the footage you can tell this was a bad idea...

I hope these perfomances make you think before going public. Once it’s online, you’ll be marked forever.

Check out the complete What's hot on the web series.

What's hot on the web - Part 3: A peek into obscurity

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:39:25 GMT

You know the drill. The world wide web is a beautiful thing filled with cool and funny stuff. A lot of that stuff gets unnoticed by most of the people, so consolidations are needed. I like weird and unexplainably attractive things, things that are differently funny and geeky. Because we've already went through the classic ones, this part of the series is a bit more obscure. Presenting What's hot on the web, part 3.

The Techno Viking

The Techno Viking is supposedly the only guy who could kill Chuck Norris. The story is happening on an open air party where this guy tries to pickpocket a visitor. Little does he know that around the block the Techno Viking is lurking. Once he get into his element, the dominance doesn't end until the end of the movie.

All your base are belong to us

This one is based on a lousy translation of a video game. The cyber community and gamers found this so hillarious that somebody actually made a song out of it, video included. All your base are belong to us!

local: reporter Andrej Stare drunk

The legend has it that all Slovenian TV reporters are a bit drunkards, because their job demands spending a lot of free time while on the set. One the funniest is a sports reporter Andrej Stare, who magnificently commented on a hockey match between Slovenia and Croatia. Totally drunk, of course.

Hope you had a good laugh. But beware, you don't want to piss off the Techno Viking.

Check out the complete What's hot on the web series.

At least we have the Discovery channel

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:14:05 GMT

I think television is bad. Besides making you a brainless zombie, watching without thinking, it channels all the bad things on this world into the little box in the living room. Of course, there are also positive broadcasts, but they are still heavily overwhelmed by the negative. The news brings mostly bad news, making mass paranoia and hysteria. Reality shows are making the youth confused and are building a wannabe society. Sure, there are a few interesting series going on, a few good movies, but otherwise, it sucks. Thank god for the Discovery channel.

The Discovery channel is one of the most interesting channels we get. The way I see it, the whole watchability stands on two different concepts of shows, clothed into numerous different versions. The real-work reality shows (not to be confused with "reality" reality shows, such as Big brother) and the pop-science shows. We have the Discovery channel (probably) East Europe, so this post may not be up-to-date with the US or European versions, but here are the shows that are cool.

The real-work reality shows are actually reality show in the most literal meaning of the word. They cover real people, doing real jobs, without (m)any scripts or scenarios. Those that are worth mentioning are American Chopper (a dad an two sons building motorbikes and having a spicy relationship and vocabulary), The Deadliest Catch (Alaska fisherman hunting crabs in hellish environment), Ultimate Survival (someone named Bear going through different uninhabited regions and eating bugs) and Dirty Jobs (a guy trying out how hard and dirty some jobs are).

The pop-science shows bring an interesting overview on how things are made, how they work and what they are. The Mythbusters are the best in this category (two geeky guys making weird experiments), their English almost copy Brainiac, Time Warp (recordings of things using a high-speed camera), a few different shows on how things are constructed (How It's Made, How Things Work, etc.), and a ton of documentary shows on construction, cars and technology (Mega Builders, Built From Disaster, etc.).

In some cases there's a thin line between the categories, and I think the best ones are actually those that are able to combine the concepts of both. These shows are at the same time working well on our curiosity, but still keep a contact with our social senses and humanity.

There's an honorable mention, a show that we don't get anymore, which is a bit sad, because it was really cool. Scrapheap challenge, or in it's worse US edition, The junkyard wars. It's about two teams, who have one day to build something using just materials from a junkyard.

There you have it. A solid proof that Discovery channel is one of the best TV channels around. It's fun and it educates at the same time. So kids, don't watch MTV, it just makes you feel bad.

Michael Jackson's death - this year's biggest business

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:43:18 GMT

We have finally seen it. Michael Jackson's death ceremony. I have seen parts of it, a bit out of curiosity, but I also enjoy his early music (Bad was actually one of the first songs that gave me the shivers) and I wanted to see other artists perform his covers (meh). I am not here to judge the ceremony, but I should mention that I was sickened by all the hypocritical people that were talking on his final event. Yesterday he was a freak, today he is a saint. That was to be expected, as we have seen it in similar situations before.

I have always been a bit of a conspiracy theorist and the idea of him staging his own death doesn't seem that far fetched for me. Today, in a world that we get live coverage of famous people going to the toilet, we didn't get even one clear picture, movie or anything that could prove the body was really his.

Michael Jackson was heavily in debt, we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. It turns out that his death could be worth in that range. Let's check a few lucrative after his death businesses:

The O2 concerts: Michael was supposed to have some 50 concerts in the O2 arena to cover some of the debt he has produced over the years. They sold a lot of tickets, and now, when it's clear that the concerts are not going to happen, not everybody is returning the tickets. They are the ultimate fan relic, to keep or to sell on eBay.
Music and merchandise: After his death Michael became the first artist to sell more than 1 million downloads in one week. Combine that with all other stuff people are buying and you can calculate quite an interesting figure.
The ceremony: Hundreds of millions of people watching, infinite television stations broadcasting. That should top even the previous two.

I would like to point out again that Michael Jackson was one of the greatest pop artists of our time and I hope I didn't insult any of his fans or family with my critical thinking. If he is still alive, all I can say is good work - you got us all. But in both cases I am interested to know who benefited from this outcome and what figure are we talking about, as I am not able to make an estimate. Hopefully it will be enough to pay for all of his debts and let (him and) his family live a normal life.

UPDATE (26.10.2010): At the time of this post the movie This Is It was nowhere to be seen, supposedly grossing 260 million.