Google Buzz is “a Google approach to sharing.”

Google is making an interesting move which is two-folded.
At the one hand, it’s trying to enter the social networking business, on the other hand it’s trying to do what it’s overaching goal is: organizing information, in this case, social information.
Google’s trying to get a grasp on Facebook and Twitter. Especially Facebook is unstoppable in its advance in monthy traffic.

What Buzz does is incorporating social tools in Gmail.
It has five features:

• Users can auto-follow people which he/she is frequently communicating with, be it email or chat.
• Sharing becomes much easier, the user will be able to share content from Flickr, Youtube and so on.
• A recommendation service where Buzz will help you find popular content.
• The user will get social updates.
• The user will be able to update his/her status, be it to the public or private.

Some features do look alike the ones which are available on Facebook and Twitter. Gmail is a perfect platform to deploy these social tools, a huge userbase of 170+ million, which will return Google lots of intel, on usage, functionality, usability etc.

One of my last articles, The Synaptic Web and the Flux of Information, referred to search and filtering and why filtering is becoming the mechanism in this highly communicative digital society.
Google Buzz will create Google’s own real-time stream of information, how will Google manage the flow for the user, in terms of keeping an overview and not being overloaded?
Yet another tool is not adding more simplicity to the overcrowded landscape. Looking forward how and if Google is able to convince its users to go for Google Buzz.

What are your initial thoughts?

With a userbase big as Yahoo’s one, it’s a logic result that Yahoo is figuring out how to leverage its users to create an Augmented Reality application which differs a bit from others.
Instead of tagging pictures to a geolocation, Yahoo’s goes social by making it possible to leave notes on specific surroundings, which can be read by the user’s network.

Read here the patent which is filed by Yahoo. Read up the detailed decriptions, some interesting notes are made.
The abstract:

Disclosed are methods and apparatus for capturing information that is pertinent to physical surroundings with respect to a device, the information including at least one of visual information or audio information. Overlay information for use in generating a transparent overlay via the device is obtained using at least a portion of the captured information. The transparent overlay is then superimposed via the device using the overlay information, wherein the transparent overlay provides one or more transparent images that are pertinent to and in correlation with the physical surroundings.

There are many Augmented Reality applictions developed or in development, the potential application by Yahoo differs in terms of existing userbase and possible mass adoption. The social aspect might drive adoption, being able to identify oneself faster with overlaying data, than any kind of data which is not close to someone.

Would this move make sense by Yahoo?

(Originally published at Atlantic Free Press)

by Richard G. Kastelein

If we all thought the Facebook and Twitter social media growth phenomena were extraordinary, wait until Social TV hits your screens.

And it’s not as far away as you think — not only with the logical IPTV market, but also terrestrial TV. I recently attended the International Broadcast Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam, which bills itself as ’The content creation management delivery experience’. IBC2008 attracted 49,000+ visitors and 1,300+ exhibitors from more than 130 countries. This year is expected to be bigger. Last year, I was part of a team exhibiting at MIPTV in Cannes, and was expecting something a bit similar… but this was almost all about hardware and software and less about the actual formats and programs. However, this was not a disappointment. For embedded in the show there were some jewels… which have profoundly altered my view of Social Media, the future and the implication of reach that will touch billions not millions.
(more…)

That is what Chitter.tv is offering people. Right now it’s in beta, but you can sign in with your Twitter account.
Watching TV becomes interactive, from a passive modus, you are now able to interact in real-time with other watchers who happen to consume the same content at that time.

Right now TV and Twitter are two major activities, TV is being consumed more and more in combination with other activities like Internet, radio and so on. Combining these two is bound to trigger interest from users, companies and the market in understanding the converging phenomenon and how users will intertwine the two.
At this point, some of the channels which can be watched on Chitter.tv are: MTV, Fox News, Sky News, Bloomberg, but also channels like Classic.fm TV, RaiNews, RTL-Z, Humor-TV and AT5.
Depending on your interest it certainly has its charms to engage with current watchers and talk about the live seen content, it feels odd, but that has to grow on you.

This is just a beta version, but many features can be thought up which will add value and experience to Chitter.tv, probably initial experiences and opinions are awaited till further development is undertaken.
It’s not possible to scroll down the list of tweets or directly interact with another user. From a commercial point of view all kinds of interactive commerce can be implemented to convert impulses and enthausiasts.

Interesting to see where this will head to, the perceived risk is low, so many will at least test this, how many will experience this as a added-value service and convergence?
What’s your opinion?

Informitv – a convergent communications consultancy agency – is one of our regularly read websites, an authority when it comes to television and its convergence. Their publication Connected Vision is well worth the read as well, which you can download here.

Dr William Cooper of Informitv has given 20 predictions for the next decade on television and its developments:
(Visit their website to read the additional information per prediction)

1. Television will be less dominant.
2. Fewer television channels will survive.
3. Global communities will dominate media.
4. Audiovisual communication will become personal.
5. Most viewing will be on personal screens. .
6. Mobile video will be delivered over data networks.
7. Displays will be network connected.
8. Displays will become resolution independent.
9. High definition will be standard.
10. Fidelity of reproduction will improve.
11. 3D will be a limited success.
12. Network distribution will become more efficient.
13. Fibre-optic networks will reach the home.
14. Broadband will become a utility.
15. Home networks will become ubiquitous.
16. Massive data storage will be cheap as chips.
17. Physical media distribution will decline.
18. Global releases will reduce piracy.
19. Copyright protection will be invisible.
20. People will pay to avoid adverts.

When reading through the 20 points, an apprehension is becoming clear that this industry is at the dawn of thorough transformation, melting with other media into a morphed new industry that has much more opportunities for that what it sustains: Content.
Summarized can be said that important developments are the fact that every screen can be used to consume content (whatever screen works to service what a user wants, when he wants it and where he wants it), television -as we know it- will decrease in importancy and hardware/underlaying technologies will advance the ‘front-end’ developments.

An exciting decade is awaiting us full of media convergence and evolutions. What are your most important conclusions or predictions?

View the short introductory video by Google where it announces you can discover breaking news on the web with real-time updates from news, blogs and social networks! After Bing has introduced Twitter results in its search results, now it’s time for Google to show its abilities.

Finally, it was bound to happen that Google is displaying real-time results from microblogs, blogs and social networks, next to this news, Google announced as well partnerships with Facebook, Myspace to get real-time data and not to forget, the deal from October with Twitter.

What are the effects and implications of Google’s real-time search and what questions are being raised?
* Will SEO be expanded with optimizing tweets and other public data as well?
* Will all this real-time data be available in Google Analytics, the social media monitoring market will have a new worthy competitor?
* Is Google Search the right place for real-time data (in combination with ‘historic’ data)?
* Will users make use of Google as an aggregator more and more (kind of Friendfeed), or will they make use of each network because it’s more relevant contextually (Google in time will integrate that as well)?
* Will real-time efforts be mechanized just to make sure that people or companies rank high in the search results?
* If Google will prove its importance to real-time search, what about SPAM just to make sure that people or companies rank high in the search results?
* How will real-time results weigh against ‘normal’ search results?

When Google launches new tools, it almost always reshapes or at least shakes up the established Internet landscape.
This is not so bad, it keeps companies focused and it ignites creativity and innovation to come up with solutions for questions as the abovementioned.

If you were the devil’s advocate, what questions would you raise?

Clear image which shows the elements of the Social Periphery and Mobile Social Networks, the Content and Context which are given the appropriate importance and define the mobile convergence.
Relevant content based on Location and Action is what makes this extension of the human more and more important. Think of the numerous social mobile-, Augmented Reality- and local applications -to name a few- which will find their way to the mainstream public.

I do find the reference to “Brands as the filter and the enabler. Ideas must be good enough to share.” an interesting one, brands will have an extra/complementary way to have their awareness and get their brand association in relation to the location and content, a kind of super-proximity marketing potential fueled by key-enthausiasts/target groups who will engage and spread their word of mouth if ideas are indeed good enough to share.

A last important addition to this excellent graph is the mentioning of relationships as intelligence, not only the interaction is relevant and of importance, the relationship between those who interact related to the location/context is an enhancement or extension of the quality and opportunities!

Taken from davidjcarr.wordpress.com

We got questions after the Agora Media’s own Social Media case -> 16000% growth post, on how we did achieve this growth.
Social Media is very specific for each company and related to their target groups, objectives, proposition and so on.

What I can set forth is the kind of framework we use to mould our social activities.

The three parts are:
* Content
* Context
* Social Media Intelligence

Content & Context
I already have extensively written about content and context in one of my previous posts The Content – Context Diarchy where I explained that content is important to have a quality threshold, but that the quality of the content is not valued or not fully valued when the context is not of equal quality.

The content is the information (in its broadest meaning of the word) itself and the context are the networks/sites where we share, interact and retrieve information.

Social Media Intelligence
Social Media Intelligence provides the relevancy we need in relation to the context, to be at the right place, at the right time with quality content (which is also based on what is happening in the market).
We achieve this overview of the Internet landscape by creating all kinds of radars that will notify us when an activity is happening online which might be of use or importance to us.

Social Media Intelligence is a constant two-folded enhancing process which upgrades our content and context, we learn where our target audience is and where relevant information can be found, and our content is influenced by that what is said, wanted and needed in the market and makes our content more time- and place-relevant.

Not only does it take time and efforts to write good content, find the networks which are beneficial for the content and brand, but Social Media Intelligence the transparent framework from which we build upon and deserves time investment and attention to create a valuable information infrastructure.

Content * Context * Social Media Intelligence = Powerful Social Media

Google Wave, two weeks in progress and what an impression!

It’s great to experience the initial stages of a project of this magnitude which is disruptive and innovative as Google Wave.
One of the first things I found striking is being accustomed to get in contact with anybody, be it via email, social network or another mean. This is not yet the case with Google Wave, the amount of invites (thus the slow diffusion / adoption) amongst the potential users is causing part of this slow kick start. As long as not everybody has access to the platform it has an opposite effect.

Secondly, the current buggy state does not contribute to a good and easy initial experience as Google Wave has a learning curve to figure out all the options and possibilities (check out for the many explenatory videos on Youtube concerning Google Wave), for many non-tech-savvy people this is an obstruction and will not motivate.

Thirdly and most importantly, all the Waves and its interactions, I’m having the same kind of feeling which I had in the old days when I was getting acquainted with Internet, email, chat, messageboards and other applications.
The other participants and I are finding out how to applicate Waves in what kind of settings and purposes, educating and pointing out each other and reinforcing the Collaborative Curve in the initial stages of the platform.
It’s the same learning path and discovery, it’s the same eagerness to learn the opportunities and possibilities, it’s the same child-like marveling!

Learning by process and enhancing each others skills will fire up enthausiasm and exploration.

If you want to involve me in Waves or get in touch with me via Google Wave, do add me with gcuccuredduamg [at] googlewave.com , let’s get in touch, share and learn.

What are your initial impressions using Google Wave?

At one point in the Google Wave Preview video, Lars Rasmussen proposes the question what email would look like if it was invented at this point of time. He continues by telling that there are a million ways to concretize the question and that Google Wave is their attempt.
I must say, it’s an impressive translation of their vision on the question.
(more…)