More power to the argument that 2009 is going to be the year that twitter really breaks.
Tweetminster is a service that lists all UK MP's who are using Twitter and their twitter id. Following on from the official Downing St twitter feed and social media makeover now you can find and follow your local MP (if they tweet, it's still in the early stages so low on numbers) or some of the bigger names like C*meron*spit* are also on there. Check it out at tweetminster.co.uk.
Can I just point you to this great story by Dion Hughes from the excellent Persuasionism.
Dion recounts his early efforts at getting a job in advertising as a youngster and an encounter with ad legend Dave Trott.
It's a charming story, and be sure to read the comments as Trott himself responds.
Anyone familiar with his writing will be aware of it's poetic structure, he even applies it to blog comments.
As i said, a heart-warming nice wee story.
Enjoy.
Posted this over at 140char.com last night.
It occurred to me the other day that i tend to read the blog posts from those i follow on twitter - who 'tweet' new articles via twitterfeed or suchlike - more often than the others in my google reader (which i check once or twice a week at the most).
Wouldn’t be good if there was a twitterfeed - that i can control - that tweets me selected blogs - from my reader - as they happen?
This would save a lot of dicking about between twitter desktop client and browser/feed widget.
Yeah, this kinda happens with friendfeed but I don’t control that - I'm not necessarily friends with most of the authors in my rss reader , whereas with a custom google reader feed into twitter, spec’d by me... is that bit more personal.
Or maybe this functionality already exists? Any thoughts?
My beef with the so-called music 2.0 evangelists has always been that they focus on business models and distribution rather than the actual CONTENT.
Yeah, Radiohead and NIN have uncovered some interesting TACTICS but what about the actual music? What are they saying about anything?
Same goes for the numerous Myspace careerist popsters.
Lots of nifty marketing but where's the cultural significance ie punk, acid house, hip hop.
Check out the second half this rant from lefsetz letter, which sums it up perfectly.
excerpt:
'We don’t have a theft problem. We’ve got a MUSIC problem.'
'Don’t tell me it’s the same as it always was. It was different in the sixties and seventies. Sure, we wanted to go to the gig to hang out, but we NEEDED to hear the music. We NEEDED to be closer to the geniuses who made it. We felt it was us versus them, the act and its audience versus the system. Whereas now the acts ARE PART OF THE SYSTEM!'
thanks to jmac and dan
My friends at TiVO NY tell me they have set up and launched another seamless web and tv integration like the Amazon partnership i reported on a few months back.
Now the custom Domino's pizza utility, that has been popular online, can also be accessed via TV for TiVO customers.
The Domino's app allows you to log in with your web id, there's also no messy account management on tv as you can pay cash when the pizza arrives. Keeps it simple.
Perhaps the definitive statement of the punk diy philosophy was made manifest this diagram*, from a Stranglers fanzine, showing three chord shapes on a guitar, and these words:
“This is a chord, this is another, this is a third - NOW FORM A BAND.”
For the fanzine producers a magic marker, scissors and a Xerox machine were your tools and the network of punk gigs in pub back rooms and youth clubs was the distribution network.
A nation of spotty youth, given the tools and the spark to create something of their own, followed those instructions and a movement was born.
You may even say it was a community of purpose.
The tendrels of punk reached out – from the bottom-up – beyond just music into fashion, art, literature, film even ballet.
Is this starting to sound familiar?
And is this the 21st century (slightly longer) version of the three chord manifesto
The Music Industry Manifesto
1. Music will always continue, but the parasitical 20th Century music industry is dead.
2. Music does not rely on technology or distribution. It simply requires people. It did not begin with vinyl, the CD, the electric guitar or the synthesizer.
3. If piracy is able to damage your ivory castles, you should seek to understand it and learn from it. Piracy is the most effective distribution.
4. You will never win the war on privacy, because the pirates have a belief, and you are protecting a business.
5. People will only pay for what they want to pay for. Get used to it.
6. Artists and fanatics run the show - if you are in neither camp you’re fucked.
7. DRM’s only function is to limit the spread of music and to irritate the very people you should be pleasing - your audience.
8. I’ve paid for the tape, the vinyl, the CD and the MP3 - if I ever pay again, I’ll pay for the rights to the content in whatever format is appropriate for the rest of my lifetime, not for something limited to one format.
9. Let’s face it..artists can make more money if middle-men are not involved
10. Look - we all know you’re pissed about you’re expense bill no longer being approved but please stop taking it out on the rest of us
11. The people of the world want to share what they love. If you stand in the way there is only one outcome. Rebellion
12. People embrace what they create. We all want to take part. It’s no longer your industry, its ours. Sure that hurts…
13. Just become a concert promoter. Live music will never end. Rip-off, insular and selfish business models already have. Sorry
14. People will pay for what they want to. If you create something of value to people, people will pay for it
15. People will not longer automatically pay for something that YOU think is valuable
16. Resistance is futile. However powerful your connections are, the people of the world will find a way around it
17. Every time you sue, you nail an even heavier nail in your OWN coffin. Think about it…
18. The people of the world love music as much as they always have - not less - its just they have seen behind the curtain now
19. Artists love fans and will get paid by them for products and services the fans adore. Get out the way and let it happen
20. Copyright is a byproduct of the business model for content creation and distribution. It’s not the reason for content creation
21. The case studies of artists making more money from not using your regime will never stop - only increase. Listen up
22. It makes no difference how connected you are to the government. Artists and fans out-number you and always will
23. All the time you spend wining about protecting music you could spend working out ways to help the new world mature
24. If you really wanna get rich, concentrate on facilitating fanatical advocacy. There is no ceiling of value to that
25. People can only truly be of financial benefit to you if they are free. Confined humans have no long-term monetary benefit
*Pedants corner: The drawing is often attributed to, but never actually appearted in, Sniffin Glue fanzine.
It’s actually first appeared in another fanzine ‘Sideburns’ and was reproduced in Stranglers fanzine ‘ Strangled’ during 1977. I was even moved to edit the Sniffin’ Glue wikipedia page to this effect.
The Music industry Manifesto courtesy of Jonathan MacDonald
one of those intellectual comedy days on twitter, mainly thanks to @johndodds and @marcus_brown, plus the influence of @zeroinfluencer (even in absentia).
Book retailers Borders announce a social marketing strategy.
From the Precision Marketing:
'A three month campaign, aims to build a network of brand-supportive influential bloggers on book and lifestyle communities across social networks, incentivising them through discount offers as well as access to exclusive content.'
3 month campaign?
'brand-supportive influential bloggers' what about brand supportive anyone?
Further on theres some guff about 'structured viral marketing campaigns' and 'brand presence across the social networking arena'
Lets see what happens.
This is a great article by Jay Rosen around the marketing-in-a-post-messaging-world theme. This is a better articulated version of stuff i'm saying every day.
excerpt:
'But now being a bulk message sender via the media is like the guy in the street trying to get you to take a handbill. He may have motivation for delivering the message, you have none to take it.
They are the people formerly known as the audience. And they do not want your message.'
Success in the new web, and the world for that matter, for brands is now increasingly dependent on their culture, philosophy and values, as ultimately the networked world will enforce total transparency of business practices.
As you and I, the people formerly known as consumers, gain more and more control of our experience and data, we pull down the shutters on brands and marketing that assumptions on what we want, based on demographics and generations instead of actually asking - and even more importantly, listening to and acting upon our answers.
To paraphrase David's Power of the Network:
'As we become the connections and the way the connections are made we are reconnecting with our human selves and accordingly what we are demanding from brands is more human interaction.'
A new marketing about doing things for people, being good. Helping them get to where they want to go. Creating real value. The Lotus Economy - 'thinking in straight lines, digitally or otherwise, will keep you going round in circles.'
Ive been banging on about the language of advertising for a bit here. About replacing words like audience, targeting, consumer, campaign etc with personalisation, relevance, transparency, authenticity, humanity.
There's a lot of us thinking the same way.
found via david cushman and gapingvoid.
pic from Reuters.
Mahatma Gandhi, Never get out of the Boat marketing/business guru #124
“Carefully watch your thoughts for they will become your words. Manage and watch your words for they will become your actions. Consider and judge your actions for the will become your habits. Acknowledge and watch your habits for they will become your values. Understand and embrace your values for they will become your destiny.”
also Unfrozenmind...
Delighted to report that this months winner in Neil's Think Tank monthly was none other than Jonothan MacDonald's Isabella Barwinska post, as nominated by yours truly.
It was a close run thing with David Cushman's equally excellent The User is the Destination Now a close second place.
Wouldn't mind being in the pub to hear that conversation, vote rigging accusations etc ;)
Nominations for posts from November will be open at Only Dead Fish at the start of December, if there's anything you've read recently you deem worthy of wider acclaim.
Going through a creds presentation yesterday - and inspired by a tweet from @samismail pulling me up on 'marketing speak' - I noticed myself editing and removing certain words.
Forever.
Here's some of them that have been banished alonside their replacements;
Consumer (nuff said) - replaced with person/people
Driving (as in driving traffic, registration etc) - replaced with encouraging/attracting
Capture (data etc) - replaced with asking for/ rewarding
Audience (no-brainer there!) - replaced with community
Targeting - replaced with involving
I will be fining myself 1GBP of the realm for each usage of the above and donate the proceeds to a named charity at Christmas time. Hopefully it won't be much, so i would appreciate any additions you have to the list and if you care to join in with your own effort please do, and you can display the badge below in your own space.
Here's the view from Geronimo HQ on Berners St W1.
The large hole in the ground is what should be 'NoHo Square' - as sort of Covent Garden-esque shopping/restaurant/apartment development.
Developers Candy & Candy (CPC Group) have apparently run out of cash - they're also reputedly defaulting on a multi $million loans for land bought in US for other developments.
So who knows whats going to happen to the space?
Any suggestions?
Photo by resident Geronimo snapper, Johnny Mitchell.
