It can be easy to forget how vital music is in social media. For all the editorial pumped out by the blogosphere and viral videos that do the rounds, nothing is ever going to change the fact that we all like a good tune. So good, you feel compelled to spell it beginning with a Ch. And tell everyone about it. But the musical side of social media has fallen out of time with other branches in recent years, with prohibitive royalty fees and licensing issues grinding innovation to a halt. Luckily, that’s about to change for the better.
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Why mobile social media changes next month
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
I’m excited right now. But not as excited as I would be if I lived in the US. There are plenty of phones we get over here first in these green and pleasant dales, but two of the biggest gadget launches of the year are about to go down across the pond early next month, and they could point to where social media is headed in a big way.
When social and old school media meet, moderation is key
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009
Twitter may have just an eighth of the users Facebook does, but it continues to generate buzz like no other web service right now. Twitter is a media darling, and the latest groupie to embrace the micro blogging platform is US news show Nightline. It’s just announced a new online TV show, NightTLine (sic), which will see guests fielding questions sent in by Twitter.
I’m intrigued to see if this will work, but I don’t have high hopes. Twitter is a staggeringly useful tool, but not a useful platform for thoughtful political discussion, limited as you are to 140 character grunts. That aside though, the immediacy and anonymity that Twitter can provide has led to some unfortunate mishaps when traditional media players have tried harnessing it beyond a way to deliver content quickly.
Everyone wants a piece of Google!
Thursday, May 7th, 2009
American writer Thomas Peters once said: “Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing… layout, processes and procedures.” I find it hard to disagree with the man. With regards to social media tools there is one website that stands out head and shoulders for its simplicity and sparseness in design, and its unflinching ability to provide you with instant results. You might have heard of it: Google.
Could social media be taken over by robots?
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
Let’s face it, the Turing test is easy. OK, so no computers have actually passed the gold standard yet, but it’s only a matter of time before somebody programs one with enough recorded chat up lines and put downs to convince someone it’s real. I’ve got an idea for an effective new test of computer AI: it’s called the Sillis test. Yeah, I named it after myself.
How does it work? Simple. A robot has to be smart enough to create its own identity, profile and following on the world’s most popular social networks. And I’m not just talking followers and friends – they’re easy to acquire, even for computer programs – but real authority, as measured by organic factors like retweets on Twitter, or the number of people in Facebook groups it sets up.