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CLIP: "Like prior moments of rapid media development – script to movable type & the proliferation of books & other printed matter, to the invention of radio, cinema, & then TV – there has always been a "the sky is falling" response along with the flush of excitement at the brave new world the new medium ushers in. And yet, there is something particularly notable about the digital age that makes many media watchers pause. "What we saw in the past was an exploration of new ways to tell stories by both authors & readers," Carr said, referring to prior new media waves. "It worries me that we don't see the new influx in narrative. Every new medium exposed opportunities for storytelling. Why is this important new electronic medium not conducive to narrative?" & CLIP: "She agrees that as "people become fatigued with the peppering of information," the presentation & consumption of story that requires time & attention will have a place again. How stories will be consumed is what will change."

CLIPS: "If Twitter’s raison d’etre is “what are you doing?”, then location based social network apps like Gowalla and Foursquare refine that to “where are you doing it?” And as SXSWi fast approaches, people like Robert Scoble are dubbing this years’ web-geek spring break “the location based SXSW”" and "When Twitter first began to percolate up in the public lexicon, many thought it was dumb, and back in 2006, I was a skeptic as well. I’m operating under the premise that if you’re reading this, you don’t doubt Twitter’s importance. But now, why check in throughout the day and share the geographic details of your travels with your various social networks? What precisely is the point? Still somewhat dubious myself, I polled my Twitter network. How important are place based networks like foursquare and gowalla to businesses and users? What are their impact on the social web? Are they moving the dial? ...... What unfolds is a tale of risk, reward, and redemption."

CLIP: "A survey of nearly 900 Internet stakeholders reveals fascinating new perspectives on the way the Internet is affecting human intelligence and the ways that information is being shared and rendered.

The web-based survey gathered opinions from prominent scientists, business leaders, consultants, writers and technology developers. It is the fourth in a series of Internet expert studies conducted by the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University and the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. In this report, we cover experts' thoughts on the following issues:

* Will Google make us stupid?
* Will the internet enhance or detract from reading, writing, and rendering of knowledge?
* Is the next wave of innovation in technology, gadgets, and applications pretty clear now, or will the most interesting developments between now and 2020 come “out of the blue”?
* Will the end-to-end principle of the internet still prevail in 10 years ...... "

Great talk by Carnegie Mellon University Professor, Jesse Schell at DICE2010. Particularly like his take on the psychology behind reality vs fantasy - and how reality is sneaking up on us!

"If you’ve gotten 200 followers for your corporate Twitter account in Sydney, and sent out 20 tweets, that’s now ample qualification that you are a social media expert. I spoke to someone recently who works in IT but consults to some of Australia’s largest brands on social media; mostly from the tech/ implementation aspect. The stories he told me turned my hair grey…well, more grey. Companies that think less than 100 mentions in a month is a social media success, because their marketing/ PR ppl told them. Companies who are reluctant to tweet, but want to have a social media strategy without Twitter. Australia is suffering from a major outbreak of social media experts, and it is and will damage the whole space. The problem, as I wrote in August, comes back to trust. There is little to no trust in every man and his dog who uses twitter in PR/ Marketing claiming to be an expert. There is zero trust in those who have never really practiced in the space, or have only done so 5 minutes ..."

Here’s a collection of terrific social media infographics that might come in handy. As you probably know, infographics are visual representations of information, data, or knowledge. They illustrate information that would be unwieldy in text form and they act as a kind of visual shorthand, making information easy to understand and consume. They are driven by the same information as charts, but they’re often a better form of communication because of their pleasant aesthetics — charts and graphs can communicate data, but infographics turn data into information.

It’s very helpful to use infographics in presentations, reports, articles, etc., to convey concepts. Instead of poring over figures and long reports to decipher data, an infographic can immediately explain what the data actually means.

Most of these have been scaled down or cropped. Each one has been linked to the original, so please visit the links to view them full-size.

CLIP: " .. a lot of marketing professionals also tend to forget that brands have always been the products of their media. When there was only print, logos were important. With radio, slogans (in jingles) took center stage. With TV, it became all about brand image communicated through the 30-second spot. Simply put, branding strategies have always been connected to specific media technologies.

Change this technology, and the rules of branding crumble. That's why we need to stop asking the wrong questions.

First wrong question: How to use digital tools to build brands?

This reveals that we are still dealing with the strategy vs. implementation dilemma. The question should be: How can digital tools challenge what we call the brand? Instead of simply wondering whether we should spend more time and effort on developing strategy or focusing on implementation, our challenge is to address branding online simultaneously as behavior and technology."

CLIP: "Michael Wesch, who pioneered the use of new media in his cultural anthropology classes at Kansas State University, is also sceptical, saying that many of his incoming students have only a superficial familiarity with the digital tools that they use regularly, especially when it comes to the tools’ social and political potential. Only a small fraction of students may count as true digital natives, in other words. The rest are no better or worse at using technology than the rest of the population.

Writing in the British Journal of Education Technology in 2008, a group of academics led by Sue Bennett of the University of Wollongong set out to debunk the whole idea of digital natives, arguing that there may be “as much variation within the digital native generation as between the generations”. They caution that the idea of a new generation that learns in a different way might actually be counterproductive in education....."

Overview and Article Downloaded. http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2009/isbn9789522481900/article11.pdf and http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2009/isbn9789522481900/


Clip: "Anne Kaikkonen, a UI product manager at Nokia, recently presented her doctoral dissertation on the usability and user experience of the mobile internet. Internet on Mobiles: Evolution of Usability and User Experience (pdf)
Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy presented at Helsinki University of Technology (Espoo, Finland) on 11 December 2009. .... This dissertation has its focus in the area of human-computer interaction research and practices. The overall goal of my research has been to improve the usability and the user experience of mobile Internet services. My research has sought answers to questions relevant in service development process. Questions have varied during the years, the main question being: How to design and create mobile Internet services that people can use and want to use?"