A fantastic group of artists from Sydney called The Glue Society has created a group of images they call The Bible According To Google Earth, meaning that they took images from Google Earth and reworked them to look like events from the Bible were actually taking place. Aside from being beautiful and dramatic images, this project, as this post on Creative Review suggests, aims to help people ask questions about technologies that they are accustomed to trusting, like satellite photography, in a creative and unique way.
It seems that future works will include images of famous mythological and historical events and I can’t wait to see them! Being a lover of history and mythology I always find it exciting to be able to see how these events might have looked like in a realistic way, rather than just imagining them.
I don’t really know what implications a project like this might have, but art has always been one of the most interesting, beautiful and powerful way to help people question their reality. By mixing modern technologies and traditional subject matter, The Glue Society is highlighting a timely and important question in an age where we have millions of sources of information, most with questionable reliability, and where accountability and transparency are becoming more and more important and being demanded with increasing fervor.
Starting on December 4th, Chris Brogan, a social media consultant, has decided to dedicate his next 100 posts to “helping you grow the value of your social media and social networking efforts.” The “Social Media 100″ series already started out with some great tips and information with posts like “Social Media Starter Pack” and “Help Someone Understand Social Media“. So be sure to check it out and offer some ideas on what you would like him to cover!
Finally, here is the link to the company blog I am helping with:
www.refineandfocus.wordpress.com
There you’ll find some great tips on how to use interactive media to get the best results, as well as lots of links to resources, great blogs and experts and more.
I’ll still be posting here, only less often, so please come back and check it out!
Arun directed me to a blog post on CK’s Blog that gives a great guide to social media, with links to a variety of other guides, interviews, tips on why blogging and social media is important, and even useful books to read about social media. It is really a great resource and I recommended you all check it out! I also added a link to it in my post “Everything a Beginner needs to know about Social Media“. Thanks Arun!
Sorry there haven’t been any updates here lately. I’ve been a bit preoccupied with other things and also, working on launching a blog for the company I work for. Since it is an interctive media company, many of the posts on that blog will overlap a lot with what I would write about here. Although I will continue to keep this blog, my updates here will be a bit less frequent. However, our company blog will have a lot of great information and resources as well and as soon as we have it set up (probably sometime next week) I’ll post a link to it here so you guys can check it out.
Meanwhile, check out great this video about how Twitter can be used for marketing. And as always, please keep checking and leaving comments as I love to hear from you!
So sorry I’ve been away for a few days, but luckily, I’ve been pretty busy with work and other stuff. But I haven’t forgotten about you, so, to make up for it, here is a great blog I StumbledUpon! It’s called MakeUseOf.com and basically it’s tons of lists and reviews of great web services that the writers think are cool, as well as free and useful. The blog gives us many themed lists with short reviews of each site or service, the Directory 2.0 helps you browse the various lists by topic, the Geeky Fun tab gives us fun images and videos from around the web and the Podcast tab has a list of great podcasts. Great resource. Have Fun!
Connected Ventures is the company behind the CollegeHumor Network, which includes CollegeHumor, Busted Tees (which I love), Vimeo and a couple of others. Like so many other new web enterprises, the company is made up of very young and intelligent people who are contributing to the changing corporate environment. Being part of a successful business no longer has to mean confinement to a 6×6 gray cubicle for 9 hours doing the same, uninspiring work every day. Don’t believe me? Check out some of Connected Ventures’ videos on Vimeo (this link is for one of the employees and not all of her videos are of work). If thats not changing corporate culture, I don’t know what is.
Obviously, when Connected Ventures is looking for people to hire, they are aiming at a very specific group of potential applicant, i.e. people like them. So it makes perfect sense for them to use one of their own allies, Vimeo, to show the world what it’s like to work with them. The videos are fun, youthful, irrelevant, energetic. If you are young and smart, why wouldn’t you want to work there? But that doesn’t mean that other companies, looking for a slightly different profile of applicant can’t use the plethora of Web 2.0 tools and mediums to promote their own unique company culture in order to attract the right applicants. In fact, I think that this is a fantastic way to do it. No matter how innovative or traditional your company, if you have an environment or culture that sets you apart, share it!
On Thursday Google announced that their new service called OpenSocial is live and they believe it is a step forward in making the Internet much more social.
So let’s forget, for a moment, the ridiculous presenter on the video of the (slightly creepy) Google Campfire (where Google announced OpenSocial), who was disturbingly reminiscent of every infomercial I have ever seen. Developers who were frustrated about Facebook’s exclusive API (the code that applications are built on) must be pretty excited about this development, since what OpenSocial does is standardize an API for any website that wants to add the service. Therefore, developers can develop one application that can work on a variety of different sites.
Initially, this seems to be great news for everyone except Facebook, but, as with any new development, one needs to take a step back and analyze the situation more thoroughly. In reading a couple of articles on this news and the extensive comments on them (TechCrunch’s coverage here, Mashable’s post on the announcement and it’s extensive coverage before that on the Related Articles list here, TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld on Facebook’s possible reactions here) it appears that many people are skeptical that Google really has what it takes to succeed in the social networking arena. Although it has Orkut, the network is really only popular in Brazil, and Google’s strength is in search and text ads. Can it really compete with Facebook? On the other hand, a great many networks have already signed up for OpenSocial, including MySpace, Bebo, Ning, LinkedIn, Hi5 and others, and many are speculating that Facebook itself might do well to join in too (although rumor has it that Google hasn’t invited Facebook to join. Drama!). Some have questioned the real monetary value of this service to Google. Others still criticized OpenSocial as nothing more than “glorified widgets”, without a variety of features available for applications that use Facebook’s API, not the least of which is the ability to monetize its use.
And, to put public opinion in a numerical perspective, Mashable’s Daily Poll says that 33% of voters believe that OpenSocial ” Adds functionality, but users stick with their current social networks” and 31% that “Open Social API becomes the new standard for developers”.
There is still a lot to read and learn about Google’s newest project, and undoubtedly the service itself still has some ways to go in terms of development, but I think that anything that brings some competition into the market is a good thing, right? And in terms of scrambling onto the OpenSocial bandwagon, I think that companies’ and marketers’ best bet is to discuss the opportunities that OpenSocial could bring, but hold back for a while. There is still a lot to come.
Finally, for an interesting and useful breakdown of what OpenSocial means for business executives, including advice on next steps (like waiting and watching, but planning) check out Jeremiah Owyang’s post.
I always wish I could go to some the great conferences that occur all over the world about the most fascinating topics. Fortunately for me, some of those conferences are innovative and kind enough to offer recordings of their keynotes and panels in free podcast form! One of these conferences, that I wish I can someday attend personally, is ad:tech. From the website:
ad:tech is an interactive advertising and technology conference dedicated to connecting all sides of today’s brand marketing landscape. Worldwide shows blend keynote speakers, topic driven panels and interactive workshops to provide attendees with the tools and techniques they need to compete in a changing world.
It looks like it would be a very exciting, and extremely useful and informative opportunity, but until I am near enough to Paris, Hamburg, London, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Miami, Beijing, Sydney or Singapore at the time of a conference (and have enough background to be able to engage in meaningful conversation with the many highly experienced attendees) I will have to stick with the podcasts, which you can get here.
Yesterday I listened to the one-hour panel discussion called “Social Networks and Consumer Generated Media: Re-examining the Value Proposition”. It had representatives from social networking sites and the library of Congress talking about the best ways to monetize these types of CGM and networking sites. It was all very interesting and gave an insider’s perspective on what these companies are thinking.
My next one will be I think “New Media Universe, New Consumer Behavior”. I’ll give you a bit more info on the social networks one and this one later. Hope you find the podcasts useful!
