Futurist proved correct! …and today describes the extraordinary social technologies of 2016 (release)

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This morning Future Exploration Network issued this press release (excuse the hyperbole :-) ) I have already done several radio interviews on the forecasts in the release with quite a few more radio, newspaper and TV interviews lined up for the next days – the ideas seem to have struck a chord.

Futurist proved correct! …and today describes the extraordinary social technologies of 2016

Seven years ago, in his prescient book Living Networks, global leading futurist Ross Dawson accurately described the networked world of today, anticipating social networks, Twitter, corporate blogging, crowd-sourcing, personalised advertising, virtual personal assistants and much else that is now familiar to us.

Today, he offers insights into the extraordinary world of technology we will experience seven years into the future.

Ross’s forecasts for 2016 include:

• Many people will wear video glasses as they commute and walk around, experiencing new forms of television, news updates, and detailed information about the world around them and people they meet.

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Will Spotify crack open the all-you-can-eat music subscription model?

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Spotify is one of the hottest online music properties of the moment, currently pushing into the US from its home territory of Europe, where it has over 2 million users in the UK and over 4 million users in the continent. Its founder Daniel Ek recently said that it is doubling revenues every month.

The basic model is providing music streaming from a library of more than 5 million songs, through European deals with all the major music labels plus many independents. Ad-supported free subscriptions are available, or full packages for EUR/GBP9.99 or equivalent per month which include ad-free access and the ability to download over 3,000 tracks to your music player to listen to wherever you are.

Early this decade the all-you-can-eat music subscription model was getting some attention. In my 2002 book Living Networks I wrote:

These twin powerful trends of greater access to content, and increased awareness of quality content, can result in greater revenue for these industries, but new business models are required. For example, US music consumers currently spend on average $60 a year on CDs—equivalent to perhaps four albums. If each of those consumers were given the option to pay $10 per month, and in return get all the music they wanted, it is safe to predict that most would take it up, feel they are getting great value, and the industry would double in size.

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Social Media Strategy Framework in Italian – Schema della strategia relativa ai mezzi di comunicazione sociale

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Continuing our series of translations of Social Media Strategy Framework, today we are launching the Italian edition.

See the original post for the full overview of the Social Media Strategy Framework in English.

SMSframework_Italian_500w.jpg

Click on image to download pdf

Please share this with any Italian speakers.

Also be sure to let me know if you can suggest any improvements to the translation.

Video interview on the future of interactive marketing and online business

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In the lead-up to my opening keynote at IPZ2009 Interactive Marketing Summit in Istanbul on 21 October, Turkish crowdsourced site Buzla did a video interview with me.

Click here to go the video interview in English, subtitled in Turkish.

As I explained earlier, the concept was that members of Buzla site spent two weeks submitting questions for me. The most popular questions as voted by the members were then posed to me in the video interview.

Buzlainterview.jpg

Click on the image to go to the video.

Again, I am preceded by the psychedelic teddy bears, which I am growing rather fond ot.

Here were the questions selected by the audience that I responded to in the interview:

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Social Media Strategy Framework in German – Social Media strategische Rahmenrichtlinien

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Continuing our series of translations of Social Media Strategy Framework, today is German.

See the original post for the full overview of the Social Media Strategy Framework in English.

SMSframework_German_500w.jpg

Click on image to download pdf

Please share this with any German speakers.

Also be sure to let me know if you can suggest any improvements to the translation.

The future of social networks and television distribution channels

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Last weekend’s Sunday Telegraph published an article titled Tech to the future that looks at what’s coming next in consumer and social technologies. Unfortunately it isn’t available online, however here are the sections where I was quoted:

Futurist and author Ross Dawson says the next big shifts will pivot around how we connect to other people and “how we share the content of our lives with others. It’s all about the social use of technology.”

Analysts predict that rather than a new Twitter-styled platform emerging, social networks will move towards being meshed or interconnected. They say private and public data will blur together and an advanced version of the social networks of your choice will be your browser of entry point.

Now that we have as a society discovered sharing the content from our lives, the floodgates are open. Interoperability across social networks is evolving slowly, but is what we are coming to expect. Then later in the article:

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I look forward to it: Finding any information in the universe just by thinking about it

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This interview segment on Techcrunch quotes Google CEO Eric Schmidt as saying on the future of search: “Connect it straight to your brain”.

Indeed. Search is about finding meaningful information. If just by thinking about what we wanted to find, we could find that information or content among all the information in the Universe, that would be a Very Good Thing.

So the question is: will we ever get there? I certainly don’t know whether we will ever be able to search by thought, but it’s certainly in the realm of the possible.

If so, I hope I’m alive when we get it. It will be fun!

Five key trends in how influence is transforming society

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I just got off an interview on the future of influence on 2SM radio which lasted almost 15 minutes – close to a record for my interviews on live AM radio, which tends to do 3-5 minute segments. The talk show host was clearly fascinated by the issues of how influence is shifting away from people like him, and towards the unwashed masses.

In the interview, done in the lead-up to Future of Influence Summit which is on next week in Sydney and San Francisco, I discussed the social transformation wrought by the changing influence landscape, and pointed to key five trends driving this change:

1. Influence is democratized

It used to be that people were influential by virtue of their position, such as CEO, journalist, or politician. In a world of blogging, Twitter, and social media anyone can become highly influential, shaping how we think, behave, and spend. Companies can ignore no-one. As many more become heard, a truer democracy will emerge.

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Hashtag for Future of Influence Summit is #foi09

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Belatedly launching the hashtag for Future of Influence Summit: #foi09

FOI is Freedom of Information as well as Future of Influence, so putting the year in will help us stand out…

I have been remiss in not using the hashtag in my Twittering yet, but now we have quite extraordinary cast of attendees as well as amazing speakers in both San Francisco and Sydney, it’s time to kick off the Twitter conversation on where influence is going.

Hope to speak soon on Twitter about the future of influence!

Here are links to a few conversation starters:

The changing nature of influentials and the role of the social graph

You (or your favorite charity) can make money from your tweets! Participate in an experiment on making money from influence

Influence research: what are the real influence networks within Twitter and social media?

Influence research: Duncan Watts and the debate on whether “influentials” really matter

Launch of the Influence Landscape framework

The changing nature of influentials and the role of the social graph

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We weren’t the first to use the phrase ‘Future of Influence’. Most prominently Nate Elliott of Forrester wrote a report ‘The Future of Influence‘ (though you’re better off going to Future of Influence Summit than buying the report :-) ) and has done a number of presentations on the theme.

Nate summarizes the topic:

* As Users Become More Active in Recommending Products and Services, New Influence Challenges Volume of Classic Influence

* The Growth of New Influence Will Overwhelm Some Users, Reinforcing the Value of Personal Recommendations from Known Sources

* Marketers Should Focus on Classic Influentials to Drive Direct Action, Encourage Them to Make Off-line Recommendations

Nate’s presentation below describes the difference between what he calls ‘Classic Influentials‘ (who exert passive influence by responding to requests for information) and ‘New Influentials‘ (who exert influence by proactively giving advice).

The Future of Influence

View more presentations from Web2 Expo.

A key focus in this analysis is user reviews. As we get a critical mass of reviews of products and content, this becomes a better source of information to consumers. However simple recommendation behaviors, for example in Twitter, are also being aggregated to provide information that guides decisions and behaviors.

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