Looking for talented editors/ writers / project managers / social media on cool tech, media, and future topics

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We have just posted an ad on Elance, looking for editors/ writers/ project managers for some of our existing and forthcoming online publications.

Please apply on Elance if this seems like a match, or pass it on to others if you think it might be of interest. If you have questions before applying you can use our contact form. We hope to find some awesome people!

Talented editors/ writers / project managers / social media for cool tech and future topics

We run a series of content websites on topics related to technology, media, and the future, among many other activities.

We are looking for highly talented editors/ project managers who can drive quality content and traffic on these sites.
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Creating social TV: lessons along the way

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I recently wrote about social and participative TV, as one of the important aspects of how TV as we currently know it will evolve.

Of course, this is not to say that all TV will become social. A key characteristic of the TV format is that it is passive, and that is what many people are looking for. Part of what we need to learn is not just what the mechanisms of effective social TV are, but in what situations it works well. While the term ‘social TV’ is becoming commonly used to refer to a variety of initiatives, I distinguish between social TV as focused on a shared viewing experience, and participative TV which is about viewers contributing to the program itself.

In this context, local TV station KOMU in Columbia, Missouri has recently created an hour-long participative TV show hosted by Sarah Hill. Here is the program preview:

TVNewsCheck has a detailed review of this and similar initiatives, saying:
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Revisiting the future of PR

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For many reasons PR (or perhaps rather what PR could be) is close to the center of my interests. As we shift to a world driven by social media and influence networks, arguably the PR industry has the best background and capabilities to help organizations deal with the new challenges and opportunities that are emerging.

Yet the PR industry has not markedly prospered relative to adjacent industries, which have muscled in on the new work generated in a rapidly changing landscape. ‘Public relationships’, if we take the term literally, dominate the agenda, yet PR is not dominating the discussion.

I recently recalled that I wrote the article Six Facets of the Future of PR well over 5 years ago now. It’s nice to see that it is still the #1 result on a Google search for ‘future of PR’.

As a good article about the future should be, it is still entirely relevant today. I thought it would be worth revisiting a few of the points I made, as they probably bear repeating.

Six Facets of the Future of PR

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Futurist conversations: Ross Dawson and Gerd Leonhard on the future of Nokia

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In this final video in the series of ‘futurist conversations’ between myself and Gerd Leonhard of The Futures Agency, we discuss the future of Nokia as a keyhole on where the mobile phone market is going.

Here are a few of the points we make in the conversation:
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The implications of the new broader, flatter distribution of music taste

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The distribution of music taste and consumption has shifted dramatically over the decade years, and will continue to evolve significantly in coming years.

Back before a dozen years ago, radio and MTV exposed people to a limited range of music from label playlists, and the cost of records and CDs made it hard to experiment with new music.

The first big change from that landscape was the widespread availability of online music downloads, which suddenly massively broadened the music libraries of the minority of people who were active downloaders, though didn’t give people an easy way of discovering music they liked that they hadn’t heard before.
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Futurist conversations: Ross Dawson and Gerd Leonhard on the future of newspapers

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Continuing our series of conversations between fellow-futurist Gerd Leonhard of The Futures Agency and myself, here is our session on the future of newspapers.

Here are a few notes from our conversation:
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Exploring new formats for music (and revenue): Björk releases inspiring “app album”

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The music industry has struggled for over a decade as it tried to push back against inevitable change and maintain the status quo. While there has been some good experimentation over the years, we are now reaching a phase where the old structures have pretty much died and all that remains is experimentation to build what will be a radically different structure to the music industry.

One of the most interesting experiments is Björk’s new “app album” Biophilia. The ‘mother app’ can be downloaded for free to iPad and iPhone, including the first song Crystalline, with the remaining songs (2 out so far) cost $1.99 to purchase. Each song includes rich interactive visualizations, scores, and sometimes even the ability to control the music. The individual songs can also be purchased on iTunes.

Here is the introductory segment, narrated in naturalist David Attenborough in his classic style, evoking the world of life expressed in the album.

For more details on Biophilia see:
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Futurist conversations: Thoughts on the future of television

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Continuing our series of conversations between fellow futurist Gerd Leonhard and myself, here is our session on the future of television.

Here are a few of the ideas we share in the session:
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Futurist conversation: Gerd Leonhard and Ross Dawson on the future of music

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Continuing our series of conversations on the future between Gerd Leonhard and myself, today’s session is on the future of music.

Here are a few of the points we made:
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List of the top 100 Twitter cities in the world

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While Twitter started in the US, it is now a global activity. Below, courtesy of Twitter Grader’s Top Cities, is the list of the current top 100 cities in the world on Twitter, based on the total number of users who put that city in their location setting.

We have color-coded it to make it easier to see the distribution:
North America: 52 (of which 5 in Canada)
Europe: 20 (of which 9 in UK)
Asia: 16
Latin America: 7
Oceania: 5

See below for the full list. How does your city rank? Is it higher or lower than you would expect?
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