TheCustomer

Semantic isn’t ‘news’ per-se… but there’s a perceptible shift away from industrial publishing models towards digital thinking. Maybe the media hysteria around Twitter tipped the old school over the edge. {Twitter is very *very* significant, but not (yet, its user base and audience is small, relative to its media footprint) for its mass adoption… but for changing the way that folk use the web… for making writers of readers, and dragging writers out of private social ghettos into the public eye.} Thomson Reuters’ OpenCalais & blogger version Tagaroo is an interesting case in point.

By adding semantic metadata to professional and amateur publishers, ThomsonReuters are breaking down a barrier between traditional news media and personal, social news channels. Giving personal users access to the same service (adapted for small scale use) is a tacit agreement that some news is best found by individual amateur reporters (isn’t it?)… and that by collaborating with every part of the news spectrum, presumably Thomson Reuters expects to get more readers for higher quality news.

… an event well worth noting!

But what comes next? Here’s Tim Berners-Lee at TED (earlier in 2009) on the semantic web. It’s what happens next, and we ain’t seen nothing yet.

The cultural shift in business, government and society will only accelerate as data becomes unadulterated:

Raw Data Now!

<Update, Jume 2009>

aha, Downing Street heard Sir Tim’s call, and he’s been asked by the UK Government to “help us drive the opening up of access to Government data in the web over the coming months.”

Good job: the UK’s eGovernement services are generally in good shape, and ready t be pushed into this next wave of development.

YouTube has just started auctioning video positions to the highest bidder – Adsense paid search results for video. (tip o’ hat to Marshall K at Read Write Web ) Along with yesterday’s announcement that full length feature films from MGM are to run on YouTube, that’s another dent in broadcast tv’s audiences, and revenues.

There’s already a good selection of brand commercials on YouTube: there’s a high definition service too. If you were running a commercials agency, wouldn’t you put some budget into YouTube? If only as a hedge against falling broadcast audiences – and with the potential to earn larger production fees on long films.

How long before we see broadcast tv being used to trail long ads on YouTube? It’s a technique that’s already been used by advertisers like the Army (who also offered mobile video, iirc). The idea that TV may not be the prime channel, that it’s just feding others, will make some old Madison Avenue & Soho admen rotate in their graves.

The world’s changing, and fast.

As you’d expect, Teligent gives a very quick & precise heads-up on adding community to a business:
6 Things For The Community Strategist To Think About

You’d think that folk starting social businesses would get past the technology & think about what their users expect – should a start-up be fortunate enough to have any users… Last year Rapleaf upset some folk when early adopters felt their privacy had been violated. Rapleaf reacted quickly, and a crisis was avoided.
This year, socialminder managed to stir up the privacy storm.

Two things to note.
1 The storm raged faster & more intensely this time around, as Twitter spread the ‘news’.
2 Early adopters have different expectations from later mass users… they’re probably *more* sensitive to privacy abuse. (I’ve no science to back this up, just years of watching

socialminder (& indeed rapleaf) aren’t doing anything that Plaxo et al get up to – but the mass user perhaps doesn’t manage their network reputation as sensitively as tech-savvy early adopter types. That’s a challenge for any savvy startup in this area – early adopters are (probably) a vital part of your launch strategy. Their feedback can iron out many bugs & unintended design consequences.

Technorati Tags: privacy, startup, spam

How To Demo Your Startup hey, a post that does what it says on the tin; very sound advice on pitching, well, frankly, anything – not just a startup.

Think of your audience, and help them through the pitch – you’re going to throw a huge amount of information at them in a very short space of time, so help them out! Point 3 – “Leave them wanting more” for example. You can’t say everything that’s you’d like, so don’t try. Leave stuff out. If you’re smart, leave out stuff that your audience will want to ask about – and that you have great (short) answers on.

I *do* like Tara Hunt’s take on “helping out for free” – and since she’s making a thing of it, there’s a good chance that culture will shift a notch or two in that direction. You can’t eat Whuffie (but it’s getting harder to eat without it) | ::HorsePigCow:: marketing uncommon

(Thanks to Hugh MacLeod & Twitter for the heads up)

Whuffle has been part of my web experience since the early days of Fast Company London in 97/98 (FC London was the vortex that drew me into this working life) – pitch in, share ideas, expecting only shared knowledge, thanks and companionship in return. But the network built a decade ago still pays back.

I hope that Project VRM may offer something similar – we’ve had the whuffle talk – and folk are involved because, well, because it’s a cause we believe in. I’ll be interested to see the reactions to 20 minute conference talk – with added VRM – in Delhi next week. It’s very interesting to see how readily the ‘old’ marketing economy is thinking about VRM – there’s an article by Doc Searls, Alan Mitchell & Iain Henderson in this month’s IDM Journal (text for members only, I’m afraid).

Bulletin board postings more likely slander than libel, says High Court | OUT-LAW.COM

Very, very useful to know.
(tho frankly not the most exciting news of the week

another piece of innovative communication from Melbourne (see car park signage below)
Craft Circle Fights The Power, Martha Stewart Style | PSFK – Trends, Ideas & Inspiration
I wonder what they’re putting in the water?

Axel Peemoeller’s – Eureka Carpark Melbourne
has fantastic signage – which makes sense when seen from the right angle. And no sense at all when looked at from the wrong direction. How many times have you seen marketing campaigns that looked just like that – planned from the company’s perspective, they make perfect sense to the company, and none at all to the customer.