Tag Archives: Digital Shoreditch

This Week’s Top Ten Stories

16th May 2015

1) Spotify’s financial results this week have highlighted theirstruggle to make paid, streaming music profitable. Its 15m paying subscribers helped Spotify to more than €1bn of revenues in 2014, but its losses are still growing faster than its income. CEO Daniel EK insists that the focus is still on growth, and profitability will come once it has reached a ’sufficient’ size – but when will that be…? Does in fact, the paid streaming model need a re-think?

2) Verizon is buying AOL for $4.4 billion. At its apogee its was worth over $200 billion and the value of the company now, is primarily in its video streaming and ad technologyAstonishingly 2.15 million people still pay for its dial-up service.

3) Here is one way of getting the message through to smokers.Write it in ink made from diseased lungs. Powerful idea from BBDO Proximity Thailand

4) An obscure island just past the Bronx in New York is home to 850,000 human graves. But access is tightly controlled and photography prohibited. Welcome to Hart Island – ‘the intended secrecy is due to the island’s status as the greater metropolitan “potter’s field” (or civic graveyard) for unclaimed bodies. Since 1980 at least 62,370 people have been buried there, but as it has been used for interments since 1869, presumably the number is much, much higher. If nothing else, an incredible space-planning operation for approximately a 131 acre area.’

5) Given the issues with privacy on the web this is especially Interesting – research into drug usage at music festivals , using Instagram images. 3.6 million different images were considered and scanned for terms related to intoxicating substances. Alcohol was the clear winner but the order of some of the other intoxicants may surprise you.

6) Definitely worth supporting . Anjali Ramachandran ( provider of the Other Valleys newsletter ) has produced an e-book called Disruption in the Developing World and you can download it here. Proceeds go to the Nepal Earthquake Appeal.

7) This week, Game Of Thrones broke another record – the all time digital piracy record ‘Sunday’s episode rallied up 2.2 million illegal downloads within 12 hours of the original airing, blowing out the previous record from season four’s premiere episode, which was downloaded nearly as many times but in a longer, 24-hour time period.’

8) The Galaxy Sized Video Game . A new game : No Man’s Sky will let virtual travellers explore eighteen quintillion planets. It is being created by Hello Games, a small company based in Guildford, Surrey – England.

9) Digital Shoreditch #DS15 was on this week. Here is a link to the website, highlighting the fabulously broad range of information covered. Wednesday was themed as NEXT day – looking at future technologies and opportunities. An eclectic range of topics included – how to become an android, using connected devices to help those suffering from Alzheimers, survival tips using technology in the event of an apocalypse, building interactive experiences using food and the real reason that the music industry collapsed in the early 90’s ( clue – isn’t was all down to Napster, as the music industry claim ) . On Monday we presented our provocation – on ‘how to energise the creative spaces between people’ – The Geography of Ideas; slideshow here.

10) And finally – 30 women were asked on camera whether they thought that size mattered, or not. No further explanation was provided and the respondents were left to interpret as they saw fit. They mostly focused on one area in particular.

 

Ten Stories We Have Enjoyed This Week

1st May 2015

1) Not a great week for Social Media as LinkedIn becomes the third company this week to lose as much as a quarter of its valuation after reporting a weaker outlook. Some $7bn was wiped off its market cap in after-hours trading on the warning that sales in the current quarter would be $45m below Wall Street forecasts of $670-675m – partly because of currency fluctuations. This comes after Twitter shares dropped as much as 26 per cent on missed revenue expectations and lower forecasts and Yelp closed 23 per cent lower yesterday after missing revenue and earnings forecasts’.

2) And in the same vein Secret has closed The founder David Byttow said: “I believe in honest, open communication and creative expression, and anonymity is a great device to achieve it. But it’s also the ultimate double-edged sword, which must be wielded with great respect and care’.

Somewhat in tune with this sentiment, this is what I said about anonymous social media channels last year – Whisper and our World of withering comminications.

3) Seems almost astonishing how quickly attitudes have changed in the US, in relation to marriage equality – This Is How Fast America Changes it’s Mind.

One of the reasons for this, has been the tireless afforts of Evan Wolfson who has been fighting for same-sex marriage since the 1980’s. From Slate – The Marriage Mastermind.

However, according to this piece from This American Life , it is actually quite rare for people to change their perspectives – The Incredible Rarity of Changing Your Mind.

4) The BBC goes global with it’s chat app strategy : “The BBC’s latest effort comes via chat app Viber, which the broadcaster is using to send news and information to Nepali people affected by this week’s earthquake. The alerts, which the BBC experts to change over time information, have so far included news, information and safety advice.”

5) The very smart and very entertaining @Faris has a book out –Definitely worth a look.

‘Paid Attention is a guide to modern advertising ideas: what they are, why they are evolving and how to have them. Spanning communication theory, neuroscience, creativity and innovation, media history, branding and emerging technologies, it explores the strategic creation process and how to package ideas to attract the most attention in the advertising industry’

6) Great Idea – using technology to re-imagine reality and engage young people with the great outdoors. Minecraft fans invited to design Australia’s perfect national park.

7) Love this – in an age when we struggle to cope with an overload of information, here is (another) clever ad from Honda that challenges us, even forces us to pay attention.

8) Your Imaginery relationship with a Celebrity – “In a highly connected era where fans can easily and directly interact with famous people online, long-standing parasocial relationships have intensified and become increasingly complex to navigate”.

9) A piece of shameless self promotion – we are presenting atDigital Shoreditch – 11.50am in Shoreditch Town Hall on Monday 11th May. Our chosen subject will be The Geography of Ideas. Do come along if you can.

10) We had to see this coming right? This selfie stick is arm shaped to make you look less like a loner….

..and this is even better. An entrepreneurial graffiti artist , who isn’t Banksy but sounds very similar, has taken to spray paining shapes around pot holes in Manchester. The nature of the shapes has encouraged the local council to mend the holes at an astounding rate.

Will Social Media kill off the art of storytelling?

13th June 2012

Social interaction and audience involvement with content creation (or storytelling) – be it across live events, television, cinema, theatre etc… is very much in the ascendant, as brands look to more closely engage with their customers. A word of warning though – never confuse ‘crowd sourced content creation’, with the fine art of storytelling. They are two very different things.

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