mmm 4 hero...
Powered by Qumana
« March 2007 | Main | May 2007 »
April 24, 2007
April 18, 2007
Power of Anime
We're on the verge of soo many verges...
If your into any future tech like mobile devices, location based awareness, digital signage, smart devices, smart environments, smart anything, future of advertising, collective conscious tools and more... watch more japanese animation.
There are so many concepts in old anime from the 60's-70's-80's thats taking shape now in reality. From mobile devices to digital signage, collective analysis tools you name it.
Watch a little anime and take notice at what they create, and more often than not, you'll see hints now that its coming to pass.
I remeber loving crazy holographic displays in anime. That tech has finally arrived and it'll be another 5 years or so before you see a holographic Happy Meal at the drive in, but you will see it eventually.
I think theres some great designs hanging out in the layers of anime that more people need to take a look at. Specifcally at series type shows. One offs, or movies have a bit, but on going series type shows where theres 18-24 episodes to wander thru, typically have lots of moments where animators had to think of the next phone, next door, next billboard, next this or next that. Theres more instances of sheer design and expressionism happening in a series type show.
Also, go for the scifi drama types of course. The far far future ones, and the not so far way ones. You just need a bit of scifi to see where concepts could be hanging out.
I'd pick Macross to start. Its a show that goes way back into the dark ages with Robotech, a show i grew up on and later discovered the japanese roots of the show via Macross its real name. This is a show that spans the gap from cartoony corny mecha battle to sheer golden animated bliss. Its a show that has alot of samples, several different series and is that perfect mix of fast future tech along with real reality. You cant go too far away from the audience, gotta give them something they can relate to, hope for, and then, ya.. yank them!
Also checkout Gunbuster, or any kind of steampunk anime... yes thats right shows that deal with mecha and steam power. Crazy combo, but its true, they make for some interesting concepts.
Powered by Qumana
Book'm Danno... He Left the Light On..
Well its begun. The media is loving it. Every imaginable angle of the VT shooting is going under the microscope. I watched an interview today on CNN where two kids, a room mate and another were interviewed regarding the shooter.
No the kids did dish out some facts, some good workable stuff like:
1. cyber/real stalking
2. several notices and interventions by the school
3. incidents where the shooter got in trouble over defacing property etc
But what did CNN crew bring to light as real issues?
1. leaving the light on while sleeping
2. the dude like didnt talk much
3. umm he listened to mp3s like over and over
4. he was like a loner and stuff, wtf
5. he could sense a slut in her eyes...
Oh man, way to go CNN, skip over any real tangible stuff and go after people who leave the light on while they sleep!! Yes, milk that process out.
So basically, if you cyberstalk, and in todays age of myspace'ness I'd wager half of the population probably does that, combined with kids in college doing stupid stuff, combined with listening to music over and over on a "laptop", and being a loner.. well yer screwed man.. cuff'm!
Every story gets spun unfortunately. Soon we're gonna see more stories connecting everything from myspace, to social networking to bullys to video games to iraq to music to hell some people are frickin depressed out there, do we lock them all up?!
Personally I vote for smarter buildings. Why? Cause people are fragmented and everyone gets close to a line in their life and its always there, you either choose to do x or you choose to do y. He was troubled, he gave notice, the notice wasnt enough to stop him, but maybe a smart building can.
We need more systems in place that protect us from ourselves. Sure we could regulate gun control, but the net is screaming with reports supporting both sides, one party says arm everyone on campus, the other says no arms for all, take away the weapons and ha! you cant hurt anyone. Course we all know about IDE's ya? I mean the war teaches us about that avenue.
No i say we need smart buildings. Buildings that know when a glock enters the room. Locks an elevator down when it senses a glock, or locks doors when it senses a glock. Trying to regulate a population that is fragmenting more and more everyday where traditional values are being rewritten faster than steamy love novels is hard to keep up with. We have all kinds of people on prozac, we have a population overworked, undervalued, stressed, disconnected yadda frickin dadda.. I say we start teaching stuff around us how to protect us cause we as sure cant protect ourselves.
So what now we're gonna start profiling kids via their loner myspace pages? Draw a grim doodle, cuff'm Jim? What about deathmatch games or PVP? Hell he rolled a hunter, he must be a problem.
Our society has no clear focus range, partly to blame is the net. It gives us limitless reach, limitless freedom, thats a freedom we dont have in real life. We're all spliting our personalites everyday by just surfing. The mind is hungry for anything our desires flicker into existance.
In the end what do we got, kids, professors, wrong place, wrong time. I perdict that the investigation will lead to some blame to fall on the university for the various warnings that didnt get examined as closely as they could of. Hindsight is 20/20 of course. I see potential fallout affecting social networks, more policing of web trafffic to sniff out loners out there. Gun debate will wage on and on but won't go anywhere.
In the end.. make smarter surroundings that police ourselves and don't be a loner!
Powered by Qumana
April 17, 2007
Brain on The Box
I wonder if this worked. I have to say Qumana does its job overall. Its pretty darn easy to use, and did i mention that whole breeze setup?!? My gods! I wish all apps could do that - take a page from that ecto!
So the other day I was thinking about social networks and the web etc, yadda dadda and how all this information is pooling into the web. I started thinking about "brain on the box!" from Batman Forever where the Riddler makes that sweet little tv blender thing that sucks peoples brains while they watch tv. I mean its kinda happening right now.. some engine out there is scanning this sucking down the contents and leaving other apps to analyze it.
Our brains are on the box! Its a race to build the better box to tune into the collective.
Powered by Qumana
this is... CAKE TOWN!
Powered by Qumana
April 16, 2007
TvShows + Transmission + Visual Hub + TiVO = Goodness
Friday I embarked on a new experiment. It all started when I downloaded a little open source app called TvShows. This handy dandy RSS reader goes out to the big bad web and finds tv shows out there in bit torrent goodness. It makes it simple to subscribe to a show.
TVShows triggers your bit torrent client. I had Azures, but that was overload and I quickly switched to Transmission which was more.. well simple.
So now I got TvShows and Transmission working together to bring me new content via the web. Shows from the BBC, Australia, Canada and so on.
Shows like ReGenesis a biochemical CSI drama, or Torchwood a spin off from the Doc. Who universe. Its all very cool. Now I had shows, what next?
I fed them into Visual Hub, probably the best converting video application on the planet. Cleaner should take notice that the beauty of simplicity in this application.
What's best? Visual Hub has a handy dandy "tivo" profile. Convert the shows to TiVO ready.. play back in simple goodness on the TiVO. Now that's awesome folks!
I had originally though I'd do this exclusively on something like the Apple TV, but heck, what happened this weekend was goodness baby ya!
Powered by Qumana
Google Downs Dodgeball
Dodgeball was pretty damn cool when it hit. It was years before the compeition could even fathom a concept in the mobile space arena. It was a text book case, something future gens would read up on. And then it got bought by Google.
Now Google could of done alot with the concept, they could of rolled it out even bigger than where it was. It could of been cool, but they kinda killed it. Makes me think they bought it to shelf it. Why, who knows, but it didnt go anywhere and now the founders have fled the coop.
Powered by Qumana
The Doctor chooses his women..
Theory Monday is here and here's my theory for the day.
Doctor Who chooses his women. That's right, the good Doctor chooses his women, he doesn't just run into them randomily, he chooses them.
How do I know? Its a good underlying character support concept. Think about it. The Doc always finds a witty girl with some clue as to how the universe works. He seeks them out, maybe their life force feeds the tardis or something, I mean Rose did like mind meld with the tardis and all.
Anyways, thats my theory, the Doc seeks the women out.
Powered by Qumana
April 13, 2007
The Future is Always Raving..
Its that time again. Another big brand has produced another "vision of the future" like video. You know the drill. It has cool futurisitc technology merged with everyday people doing everyday things showing everyday possibility and utility done better.. done the right way.
It also shows that in the future, folks rave. People dance man, the future is dancin! Just about every future video tech video ive seen always has some cluber or raver scene in it. Its like the transitional scene between me, here i am, doing my thing - all business, all me, and then we transition into the we, culture, people, I'm part of the group, the synergy of a club atmosphere scene.
Let's watch...
What do ya think? I actually think some aspects of that possible future could be better.
Like why do we have to look down into our handheld displays, get wise people, put that in my eye glasses or visor like device.
That apartment was really cold, too cold and basic.
I liked the PC reading back the email, I could totally see that. But he doesnt give a clarifying voice command to transition from the email to the order of "pulling" news and media content. How's that PC supposed to understand whether or not you meant to say "pull" in that email reply or that it was a voice command. I suppose one way is that the PC picks up on verbal breath like stances. There ya go, like you talk this way to friends, and your in x state, and then when you give out commands your state is y. State being how you talk, your voice verbal command breath position. DEEP.... anyways.. i suppose it could be smart enough.
Its nice to see him using a SideKick like device...
The GPS nav unit, well this could of been different. Why should the user have to mount it, why not insert it into the car, and the display appears on the windshield. Wait a sec.. why insert it into the car, it should auto sense it from his pocket, auto connect.
The bracelet ambient awareness thing is good, thats being made now via nokia.
The iphone like device appears at the end there.
And then we end with raving.. awww ya. The future is a rave.
Powered by Qumana
Apple TV
Ideas. They always hit me when I'm driving. This morning on the way to work I plugged in my shuffle and started listening to an audio book I bought by Joe Vitale called the Attractor Factor.
I like Joe, and it's a good audio book. A different twist on the whole self improvement genre of books out there. I've been taking in all these learnings of his around "attracting" what you want and dabbling in "sprititual marketing", its good stuff actually. Makes sense, alot of it is your sense you know, just translated and fed back to you minus the fear.
Anyways so I'm driving and thinking- brain listening over here, mind thinking over there. I've been debating on creating new vlogging shows lately. I've been thinking about what I can talk about, what can I talk about that just spews out vs having to really go against the grain to create.
I thought of creating a show about what I think sticks. What's sticky out there- concepts, products, ideas, places, people, brands, services, experiences.. what's sticky, what's not.
Right away I think about Apple TV. This has serious stick to me. It was pretty sticky already but then I started seeing the convergence on the web, and Apple new it would happen, they wanted it to happen. Early adopters of the Apple TV have started hacking it, taking it apart, adjusting it, tweaking it to do more than just the Apple manifesto.
And Apple isn't causing a fuss. Why turn down innovation? Let the masses rip it apart, reinvent it, show us what sticks.. thats what Apple is doing.
A few days ago I across a great little app a coder created called TV Shows. I've never been a big bit torrent person really, always seemed like alot of work. I never know where to go to find shows, and then I gotta convert them from one format to another and so on and so on. Well people are building the bridge between IPTV, bittorrent shows, youtube outlets and that little Apple TV box at record breaking development speed.
TV Shows app is simple, it shows me what's available on the whole wide web, just pick a show, subscribe, it talks to bit torrenter, it all starts the download and yer off.
Then the conversion thing. Visual Hub does it one click. Wow, that's cool, thats gonna be some serious stick for me.
Next up, I start seeing all these people on the web writing plugins, creating hardware kits, streamlining the bridge to Apple TV more and more everyday.
In my show that I'll soon create, Apple TV is sticky and will be for quite sometime. It may be niche no doubt, but it will turn into an unstoppable force, and Apple will ride out the innovations of others who have unwittingly offered to help Apple refine its stickyness. That's sticky!
Powered by Qumana
April 12, 2007
Follow the leader...
Follow the Leader is a music video i made a few years ago after watching an anime series called Yukikaze. It's your standard jet fighter action animation. Lots of planes, explosions, computers gone wild and more.
This vid has racked up quite a few views on youtube. I get comments on it all the time.
Some people don't like the combination of the animation soundtrack with the song, others dig it. Me personally, I love it. Its something thats always attracted me to the artform in the first place, its the mix that does it. The song by itself with visuals isnt bad but its not complete. To me hearing japanese itself is like an instrument. I can't understand it, but it contains emotion, its alive, its sooo tasty in the edit.
People have asked me to put up an edited version of the video without the japanese soundtrack in the background.. not gonna happen. I think that'd suck really.
When I worked in anime and edited trailers for a living basically, it started out as a "oh crap we need to put something on this tape to promote it" to a "holy crap people love our trailers". People loved the trailers we did cause we kept them alive. Action packed goodness.
Sometimes we'd change peoples perceptions about the film. Many of the trailers I made were from films that really.. kinda sucked, but the trailers were cool. They were just enough to pull ya in, lock ya down, you were on, interested, ready to buy.
Now theres a couple key rules i follow to do that.
1. Never show them talking. Moving mouths require words, thats dialogue you don't have, and worse yet if its an english dub - they sound wrong and wont fit the show no matter how many times you tell yerself ya they do fit, or if its japanese, people cant understand it anyways, so never show them talking.
2. Go with the eyes. Eye movements are key to killer trailers. People can pick up on the pressure, the weight of the world, the love for another all in an perfectfully drawn eyeball. Eye scenes are also transitional, they get you from one edit to another.
3. Take a break. Sometimes its nice to fade to black in a trailer or music video. Take a moment to bring the audience down, ease them into the next shot.. most important of all, go with the music.
4. Keep pace. Stay in pace with the music. Now I used to try and edit on the beat and afterwhile it becomes second nature, you can just do it without realizing it, your pace clock in your head is set. But understanding the pace of what you have to work with, plus the type of show your promoting, plus the music you got.. thats the magic.
5. Screw the timeline. You don't care about the timeline. Sure you just used a clip where the guy died, but now he's alive in another clip that came before that. You don't care, its your edit, not the directors, plus people have no idea, so suprise them.
6. Show doom if you can. Much of what worked in anime focused on the struggle of characters. Doom. It animates well, captures that emotion, and flows like butter. We are all attracted to the sense of doom and how to overcome it. We love heroes, but not in a vacum, if they aren't in peril, its not so sexy. Discover the doom in your work and milk it.
7. Use white to enter dream states, black to convey narrator like moments. If you have actual voice over, great, make something cool. If you need to record even better, get a good voice, and keep the mystery.
8. Lastly.... music.. a song can make or break any edit you produce. I still do it today in research. What's in the background, that pulse, that tap of the foot sets the stage. In anime it was everything, we begged for music and usually we got wrapped up in red tape poltics. I would end up taking a 20 second jungle from one moment of the movie and then looping it, or adding it to something else, all to get that tune that i needed, must have a song. If you dont have a song you can edit to, go with pacing narration and effects. If you get a song, go for no lyrics, again, those get you into trouble usually. Your edit is saying one thing visually, and the lyrics are saying something else. Conflict in your edit is bad.
Now this was a promo we made, waaaay back in 1995-6-7ish..
Lots of eyes, editing on the beat, the song itself was a rip off a chemical brothers track - but thats another story for another day.
Powered by Qumana
Working on the Sexy Beast...
The Sexy Beast was a video experiment i created last year for fun. It was the end result of me messing around with NoodleFlix and iMovie. I wanted to find another way to create content... meaningful, fun, different content. Like blogging, like vlogging, but different.
I've always liked the concept of max headroom, could i create my own max? Sorta..
It was fun to make. I have two more in the works, they're not easy to put together and I want them to be semi-up to date with whats really happening on the web.
So maybe we'll see more of the sexy beast soon.
Powered by Qumana
April 11, 2007
Using VoiceThread for Research
I've been having fun with voicethread lately. I really dig this web tool. The concept is simple - take pics, put them on site, add voice, others collab, sall good.
I've been knee deep in heuristics land lately. Basically reviewing web applications and trying to make sense of them. After 5+ hours of wading through a java app that has created its own way of doing things, your brain gets stuck on this heuristic vision. And those who are going heu-what? Heuristics is taking a moment, looking at something and giving your opinion of it in the guise of how well it operates, easy to learn, usable for the end user, etc etc for design.
People make an app and then come to us to see if what they've made is intuitive, smart, or easy basically. Easier the app, easier the adoption. Thats the idea.
With web apps its always interesting. First you consider that yer in a browser based world, you have things like links, back button, etc, stuff people have learned over their browsing time it should play nice.. but then evil java arrives on the scene and the creators create a whole new world in a browser and that can often throw folks for a serious loop.
Anyways, so I was stuck in this heuristic mode, which makes you look at everything for potential flaws. You stare at the coffee machine, yer on yer 4th cup, you wonder.. how could this be better.. thats not very easy, this could here, what about that, and where's the labeling for this, and what's my status!? Yesterday my heursitic eye was switched on too long and when i went to http://www.voicethread.com a new tool that i had used for fun a few times on here, i began to wonder.... how could i voicethread.
I like voicethread alot and i want it to flourish.. and i worry about it. Cause i get the sense a bit, like its a technology demo. Its here, but is it alive?
Ok so long story short.. i made this:
Interesting eh? Well got more interesting when the developers came back with answers to my questions. Overall I think this could be a great use for voicethread.
Researchers are always.. and I mean ALWAYS looking for better ways to absorb ideas. Whether its in deliverables or informing the team, or just getting everyone on your page, a page even, any tool that can easily immerse everyone into the big picture wins.
testing qumana
Hmmmm today we are testing qumana, which i hate the name of, i can never find it when i want to try and find it in google. I've played with this app off and on. I usually use ecto, but ever since i ran into issues using ecto to do blogger blogs, and then accidently destroying my ability to do this blog, and never getting an answer to my emails, i decided to try this tool again.
Here's one thing this tool does beautifully. Pain. Install pain. Its painless. Meaning the blog setup part is a breeze, it figures it out. I'd give ecto $20 more bucks just to the frickin work for me. And Journler which looks really cool, and i tried to use it to blog, and it said it could "sorta" support movabletype only later to find out in the forums it cant support movable type which im like dude just tell me up front, could of had this simple ease o use major win material as well but no.. only Qumana which sounds alot like qmana which i was searching for not able to find it etc.
April 06, 2007
The beauty of browsing...
I've been debating Apple TV vs Cable lately. A few days ago i read a blog bit about how a guy killed off his cable bill, and went all apple tv. He just itunes his favorite shows, ditched his tivo and cable bills and presto, felt better, it was simpler, and cheaper. Cheaper hit home to me. I'd like it to be less.
But then a moment ago i thought about browsing, half of what i do on cable these days is flip channels looking for something new to watch. Lately my lady and I have been watching house flipping shows, home improvement shows are always so interesting to us, we like the idea of taking x, and turning it into y, and getting a pay off. On a itunes apple tv way of life, i'd have to know what i want to see, and I'd pray to have it appear on itunes. There's not much on itunes at the moment compared to what you can find on cable.
Hmmmm so debatable. Dunno.
The other thing that attracts me to the apple tv, hackability. Now i'm not a hacker per say but I do like to benefit from their discoveries. There's been a bunch on the apple tv since its release. People are going crazy with the units, calling it the cheapest mac ever!
We're all still in the process of getting youtube and other like services, clips from those services and to the box. The more streamline that becomes the more of a draw i see to getting apple tv. Joost is another thing that people are talking about, a video service crafted by the kazza and skype makers. They have cool commercials i give them that.
I spend $1200 a year on my video cable feed + net. Net is a must, gotta have that. Cable.. i dunno not so much. We'll see how it all shakes out. I keep thinking i'd miss out on that browsing.
April 04, 2007
2.0 Hype Doodles + Bonus Doodle..
early adopter curse...
Is it a curse or is it a boon.. and what is boon or boom really. Maybe its a curse. Do you ever have people come up to you and act like x is the next big thing but for you x was like so yesterday?
There's on going hype around second life as if its gonna change everything. To me second life is just one of a string of virtual world creations. I remember the old ones, the classics, the text adventures, the primitive 2d graphics, the EGA mode avatars, then we went to animals or strange abstractions since drawing people was too hard, then we went to robots, basic wireframes, it got gamey, we could edit things, neat, and then we get down with sounds, the art gets better and now we have second life.
When people call it the next great medium, oh man I hate those statements. Its not the next great medium. Now lets break this down, I'm all for 3d environments when they make sense, ie gaming, simulations, but like taking the web 3d, that could happen i suppose a-la-johnny mneunoic, but thats a ways off and thats not second life, thats more like 3d navigation of the web.
This is a good breakdown.
Course I disagree that World of Warcraft just about destroying worlds. Its really about quest objections, factions, war, sure, a little player vs player is good for the soul - but is far richer, more dynamic, sticker and vividly addicting thus real stuff vs the other 3d worlds in my opinion.
Virtual Worlds are here to stay.... here's Sony's upcoming world for the PS3
But not so sticky overall cause its console based, not sure if i'll do that all day long, also while the PS3 may be leaps and bounds tech, its not doing so well with the public.
Course maybe what we're really talking about here is creation. People dig the ability to create.
I mean who doesn't like to create? And I say that all the time.. the "and who doesn't" line..
Second Life just doesnt seem that rich to me. Its one of those things that its cool when people are there and when they arent? Its like cool pictures on a floppydisk no one sees.
So will it stick? Second Life, the new big toast or yesterdays jam? I don't know. I don't think so. Is it cool, sure, is it now, maybe, hype fest - oh ya its got that.
the presence audit..
Yesterday Wyatt, one of my coworkers came to me with questions. He does this a lot. Its kinda nice really. I'm not really in the design research click per say. I mean sure I've been around the block a few times, done my share of focus groups, note taking, listening, ethnography, brainstorming, word pondering, affinity matrix making, report writing, client dealing, sense making, plan writing, proposal wording, far left concepting but its always nice when one of the deep flock members asks for a bit of aid.
And before you say, research doesn't have clicks, just take two steps back - of course it does. Ya got interactive folks, product people, phds, captain excel kids, participatory gurus and so on. We all got clicks. We design social networks.. 2.0 click soft gone wild!
Anyways the question was in regards to a new gig. One of the things I love about small business, always a new gig. Its alot like when I worked in animation. I recall the days of working in texas for ADV. The biggest high outa that job was that whatever you were working on now, was gonna end, and some new was coming. We had to turn around films from their total japanese yadda into an all american dadda in as little as 4-6 weeks at times. In research, it this business at least, its kinda the same, today yer doing heuristics on complex applications. Complex applications... let's tell it like it is.. stuff that 2 guys wrote for them and only them to use, but wait lets sell it 500,000 other people and they can use it too.
My brother and I always joke about how some of this stuff, these complex applications, require the "teacher" from Star Trek. There's an episode in Star Trek where McCoy puts on this helmet with like 5 dozen little spikes in it, its the teacher, it will teach him how to operate on Spock's brain so that he doesn't die. The apps i'm playing with today, need the teacher, they are soooo far out of my domain, that even as a researcher i'm grasping as to what that thingy does and who would do this and that and that other thing.
Ok back to Wyatt. Wyatt is pretty savvy. He's a model for the casual male curious one. If he had his own business I think he'd still be in research or maybe a record label. He's got ideas. We all got ideas. Have you ever met anyone that didn't have any ideas? I've had soo many ideas lately.
They've been looking for new interns lately. I can hear the chatter, the "this and that" of the business. Small business is like that, you can hear a sneeze from across the room. Taylor last night needed a dvd burned. Because of my geekyness, and yes oh ya baby I am geek, people with tech questions tend to kinda flow into my room. Sure i can burn a dvd, and it still amazes me most others cant, come on people.. I think many of them actually have dvd burners too. I feel sorry for the pc users, hell I was there, burning on dvds on a pc.. pfooooy!
So Taylor comes in and I start asking him about the interns. I'm curious really, who does he like? Taylor is like science officer in Star Trek, he knows his science, but he's also like.. knows the prime directive. He's wise to the underlying goal. He's almost like a plant. He knows abc, sure, ya, but he also secretly.. knows... EFG!!! So what if we skipped d. He'd make a good spy though i guess not cause i see the spy in him so thats not very spy like. He's got a bit of a business administration stint in him. And sometimes i wonder if stint is really a word. Anyways my questions begin. Very round about questions. Part of the reason why some people don't take me seriously at times, I never ask the obvious questions like "who did you like and why" I always ask questions like "if x intern was an album cover what would she be like?" or "what kind of myspace page does x have?" or "you see x at a bar, does x buy you a drink?". Of course at first this is can be clearly be seen as humorous, but each answer i get helps draw this persona of the person in a unique light, which that data alone, i believe can offer more truth into not only who that potential person is, but through what type of lens is it being seen by.
I think sometimes with research we ask too many canned questions and as a result we kinda miss the real human aspects of what we're saying, thinking, feeling, doing. Its the same reason why I'll make jokes in meetings with clients sometimes. First, break the ice, who here has a pulse. Second, who laughs and who doesn't - that tells me who has flex in my dealings with them. Third, its a frickin meeting people we're human, be human damnit!!
Part of this factors into the fact that i've never had training for research. I don't have any human factors degree. I have like a lesser science stint on the whole game. I tend to go back and forth on science. I like the simple straight to the point aspect of it. My fathers work all like that. Take x, divide by y, and thats what happened people, thats what happened. Nowadays research is more a bunch of shit went down, we heard about it, summed it up, and we think x is yer best bet. More translation for the common man in todays research.
Back to Wyatt. He's got some questions on this gig, and its all good, good stuff. Lately on a few projects i've been trying to source up some sauce on how we could be giving our clients the presence angle on things. Specificly the web presence angle. A kind of web audit presence map - dude that is smokin, aww ya. Dare I say that today, and yes today and no so much say back a few years ago, but today is a great time to take the pulse of the web. Ya got a billion people hardwired into their twitters, facebooks, myspaces, blogs, vlogs, tubes, tvs and so forth. Evidence people, there is a crap load of evidence on the web. And all the players are there, if you want to talk to people and yer not on the web you either dont care cause doesnt impact yer bottom line either way or yer soon to be outa business or you havent launched yer idea yet.
Harnessing social networks for research worthy goodness, thats about it really. So i offered that to Wyatt, whether it gets used or not, hard to say, presence audits or anything that deals in getting a vibe without directly asking people is typically avoided a bit rersearch. You cant control the group. Its a unique time really, you cant control the word of mouth, but this time the word of mouth is documented, its in digital ink, its indexed, searchable, taggable and so on and so on and theres a crap load of it out there. Its also abuseable, spinable, and potentially messy and who wants to bring messy data to the party. Yet, i can't help but to think about how real it is and how many millions are doing it right now, every day in some blog, twitter or tube near you. I mean this post alone is data, soon to be searchable in google, my thoughts poured out here in digital text - are they not worthy, are they not real enough for you?