This video on the BBC website brought me a Friday smile — even the Prime Minister forgets to turn his phone off.
Worth watching to the end…
Category : Internet
I’ve resisted for 24 hours- but no more, I’m going to join in. So here’s a quick comment on the inaugaration.
Normally we just watch these kind of events on TV. Recently we’ve been able to read about them on the internet as well– but it’s all been relatively passive. Yes, you can call a talk-radio show or write in to a newspaper, or even post a comment online. But it really feels like this event was one we could all participate in — Twittering, uploading photos, chatting with people thousands of miles away, interacting with video, blogging…
The big difference is that we can now participate and take part in an event, rather than just sit back and let it filter down to us. I might not have been in Washington but I’ve still joined in.
Category : Internet, Reputation, Video
No, that’s not a line from Batman, it’s a reference to the Vatican’s online activities — the latest news is that the Pope is starting up a YouTube channel.
The last Pope was a bit of a digital evangelist, something I learned in the 18 months I spent (on and off) producing his obituary while I was at Sky News. Slightly morbid perhaps but they even have a webcam feed from his tomb.
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And there’s an immense amount of religious digital buzz around sites like Facebook with groups of people who become fans of religious figures and saints. There’s even an app with daily prayers.
What I find interesting is the way people are sometimes so surprised to find out all this is going on. I guess religions are about like-minded communities forming bigger communities and spreading the word peer-to-peer. ‘Send-to-a-friend’ is just a modern version of the missionary idea.
Plenty of people are offering opinions about how Obama is using the internet to ’spread the word’ – it’ll be interesting to see how the Pope grows his digital strategy. Perhaps a Twitter confessional is next on the development list?
[I use this Pope example simply because it's in the news today and and it made me think about how communities are using the web to communicate. Plenty of other religions/religious communities are using the internet to communicate as well and offer equally interesting examples.]
Last month I was thinking about brandjacking and linked over to a very interesting article on Jeremiah’s blog. Meanwhile, back at the start of January things went a little crazy on Twitter with not only news that brand/personality accounts were being hacked but also that people were apparently registering accounts under famous names they had no connection with – a variation on cybersquatting, I guess. And there were all kinds of inappropriate things being said…
What’s more, how do you know if @alansugar is the real Sir Alan of Apprentice fame or someone having what they think is a laugh?
It’s another example of where online and offline go hand in hand. The (perhaps unlikely) White Knight advocate seems to be Jonathan Ross who’s started phoning round his mates asking them if they genuinely are on Twitter.
You have to provide an offline solution (ie a phone call) to establish the reality. You have to issue an offline rebuttal (in Britney’s case, for example) to explain the situation.
For me these example show:
(1) Your online and offline people need to be working together. Reputation issues know no boundaries. You need to be monitoring and understanding the digital space because there are people talking already about you there– or even pretending to be you. Is it harmless or do you need to act?
(2) The power of advocacy – Wossy is a Twitter advocate (and an advocate for his mates) and is generating a positive story. It’s much more compelling that he’s doing it. He seems to have been converted to being a Twitter advocate by Stephen Fry– that’s the power of peer-to-peer recommendations.
(3) You have to rely on the security of the services you use but it’s a good idea also to use strong passwords and change them regularly.
Every so often there’s an eye catching web advert and I stumbled across one this morning. It was an MPU for the film Bride Wars which I’m afraid I won’t be going to see– but I did appreciate the ad.
Managed to snapshot a few frames of it which catch the gist:
It was a nice example of how video can be used to tell a story quickly and concisely. A film is, after all, a series of moving images, so why not use video to promote it?
Use costume (ie bridal wear) to make it obvious who the participants are. Involve stars of the film. Presumably the film is about fighting and making up– so they do this in 2 seconds. Call to action is the release date. Entire ad ran about 5 seconds. Job done.
Not rocket science, you’re thinking. I couldn’t agree more. Desperately simple. So why aren’t we using video more? It’s dynamic and often so much more visually interesting and effective than static text/graphics. Maybe it is ok sometimes to go a bit mad.
