Great graphic that presents very well the opportunities and the Content-Context relationship.

What interesting to see are the Synaptic Web derivatives when we have a look at the Context.
Information is being filtered and recommended, based upon interests, location, subscriptions and so on. By doing so, the offered Content is more relevant and appropriate.

When looking at the amount of possibilities that are shown in the image,  understanding the -potential- power of this device is important.
Why?
First of all to understand the business environment better, secondly to adjust business strategies to these new opportunities or maybe reinforcing current strategies in order to create a better positioning and proposition.

I should at least research the impact on middle- and long term, making sure you won’t be surprised and ready to thrive or survive this mobile transformation.

(click to enlarge)

What do you think of the graphic and that what is being shown?

Thought I would share my winning pitch for The Netherlands Deloitte’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) Predictions 2010 Tech Visionary for futurist views on Social TV and Media Convergence.

I wrote it on the train on the way down… I actually forgot half of it and kind of made it all up again once I got up there. I had two minutes to pitch… in front of about 200 of Holland’s tech community who voted by SMS.

My name is Richard Kastelein, I am a Canadian of Dutch heritage and am currently working a Chief Strategy officer for a startup in Groningen called Worldticketshop as well as building a creative and innovation agency called Agora Media Group in London.

How many of you have young children out there?

In five years, your children and mine will laugh at the old days when certain programs were available only at certain times. We will too.

On demand TV  is just part of the great change we are going to see in the future… where media will be ubiquitous, and will no longer be the passive experience we now see today.

It’s called TV Everywhere.

I am going to go through four quick points.

1.       Production. The rise of User Generated Content has already and greatly shifted the Internet landscape and will do the same for TV. Merged media will be everywhere, video, audio, photography, 3D and more.

2.       Delivery – Entertainment will be available in the cloud – everywhere, on demand and available to anyone, anywhere.

3.       Consumption – This will be profoundly changed due to the future convergence of the Web and TV, where web widgets become part of the TV experience and viewing culture will be radically changed due to the inclusion of recommendation engines which will offer true reflection of consumer needs and wants.

4.        And lastly, Monetization. Last year, it was noted by MTV here that content companies are now driven by control of Intellectual Property. And that has too and will change. Business models will change. I call it tCommerce and it will also be a paradigm shift for the TV industry. Last year MTV also mentioned that new business models will need to come into place. We feel that affiliation models will rise – profit sharing rather than profit hoarding. The ability to shop on TV will be seamless and simple allowing for revenue sharing between the broadcasters and advertisers.

Already new players in the social tv space are building API’s and SDK’s to allow developers to make the shift from iPhone and Facebook to new models on TV. Yahoo Connected has an Open API, Europe ’s HBBTV will likely be Open Source software as it’s based largely on Open IPTV and even BBC’s Canvas in the UK is pushing towards open standards.

I will wrap this up by saying that it’s my feeling that this could be the next ‘bubble’ in the market as TV is going be decentralized and it will, in the future, be owned by the audience in many ways. Unlike TV today…. Such as in the USA, where the networks are publically owned and contracting – with no sign of growth in the future.

Thanks for your time and feel free to contact me at the borrel if you are interested in chatting further. We are working on building products for this new space.

(Disclaimer: I’m part of the team at Traffic4u that develops TrafficSAM)

In the digital environment where quantification reigns, the importance of Online Advertising has become increasingly evident.
The worldwide success and adaption of Search Engine Advertising (PPC) is the most obvious example of this. Search Engine Advertising rapidly grew as the pull and results driven-channel because it is able to attract and convert visitors in an advanced manner.

Over the years competition has become more fierce, and all sorts of tools have been developed to cope with expanding accounts and the increasing complexity of this channel. The role of Search Engine Advertising is maturing. Companies understand the power of focusing on target groups and Search Engine Advertising’s strategic use for internal processes (competitive intelligence, market research tool, etc.). Along with the maturation of this channel, a demand has arisen for sophisticated technologies that are able to assist marketers in the decision making process.

This is where TrafficSAM comes in. It’s a tool that has been developed in-house from the experience we’ve gained over years of extensive (international) campaign management.

Two important aspects define TrafficSAM and the way it meets the needs of businesses:
(more…)

Microsoft presented their Augmented Reality mapping technology at TED.
Look at the video below, fantastic what it can do.

For me, three things strike out:
*The incorporation of Photosynth processes in their maps. Great way of including crowdsourced images in a natural way.
*The abilty to augment a location by use of the mobile phone camera and being able to see their real-time view superimposed on maps.
*The ability to look inside buildings due to the use of backpack cameras.

What is your first impression on the new opportunities?

We did it!

The prediction by CEO Richard Kastelein has received plenty of votes, enabling him/Agora Media to be present at the Deloitte Technology, Media and Telecom event the outlook for 2010 and further. This is the chance for him to be recognized as a ‘Tech Visionary’ representing Agora Media – and further – the entrepreneurial community of the Netherlands.

Richard’s prediction is in line – of course – with Agora Media’s outlook of the future in terms of Media Convergence and the rise of Social TV.

His entry:

Media Convergence and Social TV
If we all thought the Facebook and Twitter social media growth phenomena were extraordinary, wait until social TV hits your screens. And it is not as far away as you think – not only with the logical IPTV market, but also terrestrial TV. Social media fused with TV is …the future and the implication of reach that will touch billions not millions.

As Facebook revolutionized the way advertisers can niche-target their online demographics, social TV will profoundly change the ad agencies and marketing departments will offer their wares in the television realm. It’s called tCommerce and watch out – TV widgets and recommendation engines are not far away.

Neilsen ratings seem vague, less targetable and will likely become obsolete in TV 2.0. See http://agoramedia.co.uk/blog/?s=kastelein&x=0&y=0 for articles I have written on Convergent Media and Social TV.

Contest link

On March the second the prediction will be pitched in front of a crowd of 200 Deloitte thought-leaders, CEOs, presidents and other VIPs in the Dutch TMT sector. The winner will be selected by the crowd.

This will be great exposure and certainly the platform to show our outlook and opportunities in these sectors.

We will keep you up to date!

The information on Youtube says the following on this new and experimental way of applicating Augmented Reality:

Adidas Originals is launching the first Augmented Reality experience in footwear. The adidas Originals AR Game Pack is a set of 5 shoes, each printed with an AR code on the tongue. When you hold the code in front of your webcam, you’ll gain access to a virtual version of the adidas Originals Neighborhood. Each month between February and April, we’ll launch a new interactive game within the Neighborhood and your shoe will be the game controller. The experience launches on February 10th at http://www.adidas.com/originals

Great way to get attention and be an innovative brand!
It certainly is a fun way to use your shoes ’slightly’ different than normal. The campaign behind is excellent, giving the Augmented Reality enabling also real meaning by using it as the game control and not solely as something which calls a digital superimposing.

Augmented Reality can be applicated in many situations, creating new, fun and innovative ways to bind customers, offering them a new experience.
What other examples can you give where AR is applicated like this?

TechCrunch announces in its article Facebook’s Project Titan: A Full Featured Webmail Product that Facebook is developing a full fledged webmail product. Internally -of course- it’s seen as a Gmail killer. For some of the known features of Facebook’s webmail product, click the link above.

What I do find more interesting, is the question if this might be or not be, the Gmail killer?
Facebook has one advantage that Google does not have, the social network. Where Google wants to organize the world’s information, Facebook tries to be the global social hub.
70% of the time spent online is attributed to social networking, communication through email is simply an extension of it.
The question is if people would trade Gmail for Facebook email if that simplifies the activity and centralizes these activities on one platform?

What do you think, would people back away from Gmail to Facebook or are the perceived risks too high and has Google diffused so much that it’s not an option for many?

The book Groundswell was enlighting, how to create Social strategies and so on. It was an eye-opener for many to understand how Social Media can be applied and intertwined in marketing efforts.
One of their tools is the Social Technographics, which classifies how people use social technologies.

Forrester has announced an upgrade in the classification of their Social Technographics ladder, they added the Conversionalists to it.

It’s good to see the enhancement of the ladder, because it shows the evolution of the usage of social technologies.
Dynamics as less perceived risk, adoption, diffusion amongst their circle of people, social technologies upgrades and so on, make the Conversionalists a new and present group. This doesn’t mean that status updating didn’t happen before, but networks and interoperability of networks have made it so much easier for people to inform their connections on what they’re doing.

The Social Technographics ladder is an important tool in social strategy creation.
First of all it let you create a profile of your customer base, it will prevent the creator of deploying tactics on networks where your customer base is not present, or with the wrong activities.
At the right of the ladder you’ll see the activities per group, these have to be tuned in with the marketing campaigns you’re going to execute.
On a wider scope, you’re able to segment the audience appropriately which will increase the relevancy, quality and successes of strategies.

What does this mean for social media plans?
Microblogging or real-time updating has become an important way for people to interact with and inform their networks.  It also shows that people are becoming hyperconnective, a constant flow of short messages which are bounced back and forward between people and objects (read The Synaptic Web and the Flux of Information for the impact of the connections) to create an information infrastructure for private and business purposes.

Your target audience might have reached a critical mass to seriously investigate the opportunities of your Conversionalists, how to reach them and most importantly, how to empower them to create word-of-mouth enthausiasts. C2C (consumer to consumer) communication is a daily activity.
Your brand is what customers think the brand is, it’s in their hand, and the simplicity of status updates offers lots of opportunities to tap into this vast resource.

The challenge though, which as a community needs to be looked at, is how we can make sure that users won’t have a constant information overload?
An effect for this example is that your current customer base and potentials don’t read your content as you’re not the only one asking for the consumers’ attention.
Another effect is that the content which is communicated has to be relevant (be it in time and network), here the Social Technographics ladder proofs its importancy. It’s better to create small vertical campaigns which reach smaller amounts of quality people. It might cost more (in time), but you’re assured of a better long term effect and word-of-mouth.

Like the Social Technographics ladder is being updated in reaction to the differing usage of the Web, the next phase is how to cope with all the fragmented information, both from the customer and business point of view.
Technology-wise, opportunities lie ahead to find the much needed solution.

What’s your first reaction?

We hope that people in the industry will be interested in anonymously contributing their knowledge so we can all benefit from the aggregate results.   The intended respondents for these surveys are people who have built or have hired other people to build AR apps.  The intended readership of the results are people who are interested in hiring AR developers.  We hope this information will help more people feel comfortable hiring AR developers, that more information will be good for the AR economy and the people who want to be a part of it.   We’ll be sending the results out to everyone who participates, along with a discount code if you’d like to purchase the larger research report this will be a part of.   If you’ve got any questions you can email me at marshall@readwriteweb.com  Thanks for you time taking these surveys.

To access the surveys go to:

Webcam AR

Mobile AR

It might be an unsettling reality, or hard to grasp, or too different from current settings, but as Matsuda explains:

The latter half of the 20th century saw the built environment merged with media space, and architecture taking on new roles related to branding, image and consumerism. Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it.

This view offers a look into a more cyborg-like society, where technology and the human being are intertwined heavily. Not a bodily intertwining, but more an informational and intelligent enhancement.
If our daily lives are being ‘controlled’ by step-by-step executions, how does that impact the quality of it?

This film is produced to finalize his Masters in Architecture, which is part of a larger project about the social and architectural consequences of new media and augmented reality.
It’s wise to contemplate about consequences of technologies, even if they are exaggerated, to understand and keep understanding its role in society and effects on the environments.

Your opinion?