Random thoughts on changing web platforms and blogging

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I’m back writing on my blog after 2 1/2 weeks break. For the first time ever for my personal blog, I’m using a WordPress interface.

I’ve used several platforms for my blog since I launched in 2002, with the last three years on an increasingly dated version of Movable Type.

So over the holirday period I bit the bullet on technology on several fronts:
* We moved my blog, including over 1,000 posts since 2002, onto WordPress. We currently have 4 Movable Type and 8 or so Worsdpress sites, and are starting to shift to to WordPress only.
* We migrated all the blog comments from Movable Type to Disqus which will be the commenting platform from now.
* We shifted my web host from Media Temple to Rackspace, moving 20 or so websites including blogs, companies, books, events, forums and more.
* We moved all our email over to Google Apps.
* We are about to start using Zoho Projects, having paid for and barely used Basecamp for two years.

I’ll hope to get back later to say a bit more about the reasons for all this. But for now I though I’d share just a few prominent thoughts about the experience.

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ExaTrend of the 2010s: Everything Media

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Excerpt from the list of ExaTrends of the 2010s:

EVERYTHING MEDIA

What we knew as media has exploded far beyond its traditional boundaries to encompass most social activity, how organizations function, and indeed the creation of almost all economic value. Even as newspaper extinction proceeds apace, the best media operators will thrive..

See the full 3 page framework including the Map of the Decade, full descriptions of the ExaTrends of the Decade, and the 11 themes of the Zeitgeist of 2011 by clicking on the image:

ExaTrends of the Decade and Zeitgeist for 2011:

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ExaTrend of the 2010s: Economic Power Shift

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Excerpt from the list of ExaTrends of the 2010s:

ECONOMIC POWER SHIFT

The sheer weight of China’s burgeoning economy together with India’s rise will change the business world’s center of gravity. The Far East will fund the continued profligate spending of the West. The weightless economy based on innovation, media, and professional services will dominate growth.

See the full 3 page framework including the Map of the Decade, full descriptions of the ExaTrends of the Decade, and the 11 themes of the Zeitgeist of 2011 by clicking on the image:

ExaTrends of the Decade and Zeitgeist for 2011:

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Future of Crowdsourcing Summit: initial reflections on Twitter

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Future of Crowdsourcing Summit is just over, and I’m very pleased with how it went and the feedback so far.

The format of back-to-back cross-continental panels over two hours means that the content is very intense, and given the size of topics we take on – the impact of crowdsourcing on work, organizations, media, economies and more – we can only really touch on the key issues, so much goes unsaid. Still, an extraordinary amount of really rich material was covered during the event.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to keep notes while I moderated. Part of the audio of the event was captured, so we hope to get that up in some form. However the primary record of the Summit was from Twitter, with the #foc10 stream very active throughout the event. @LeslieCBarry generated a very nice visual overview of the Twitter stream at the event:

FoC_Twitter.png

The full Twitter stream for #foc10 is here – it’s well worth a read. The event done, I now have to focus on my Future of Global Media keynote in New York later this week, but will reflect more on the Future of Crowdsourcing Summit when I get a chance, hopefully soon. This really is one of the defining issues of our times.

A fantastic success story in local TV, newspaper and web: aggregating audiences and linking to transactions

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Next week I am giving the opening keynote at the Regional TV Marketing Association conference in Byron Bay, which brings together the top executives across regional television, media buyers, and corporate marketing roles.

I’ll share more on what I cover when I get a chance (not for a few weeks probably), but I thought it was worth sharing one of the standout case studies of success in local media, including TV and newspapers.

This has been driven by Clark Gilbert, who has famously come from being a professor at Harvard Business School to running a media company in Utah, the heart of Mormon country. The results so far have been exceptional, including 20% growth in the Deseret News newspaper in 2009, the highest in the US. This interview with Gilbert brings out some deep insights, making it well worth watching.

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Getting an online identity from before you are born is just the beginning of a life online

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The invention of the graphical web browser in 1993 was the moment that ‘getting online’ became meaningful, when we could start to post ideas, photos, and more that anyone in the world with an internet connection could access. However you needed a certain amount of tech knowledge to do that, and it was only from around 2000 that it began to get easy for anyone to blog, post images, share personal media among friends, and a little while after that to upload videos for the world to see.

Those born in the last five years, in this era of ready online sharing, have rapidly gained online identities, sometimes pretty much at the same time as their parents. Internet security firm AVG has done a survey showing how quickly these images are posted to the world.

babiesonline.jpg

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Holidays in Fiji – yay!

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We are about to leave for Fiji! We planned our holiday a couple of months ago, when we realized this was one of the only times I could carve out before the end of the year. Since then I’ve been too busy to appreciate the fact that it’s coming up, though knowing I’m about to go on holiday has made my intense schedule a bit easier to cope with. I will realize that it’s real when I arrive there.

We went to Fiji just over a year ago, a few weeks after Phoebe was born, and Leda hasn’t stopped talking about it since then, so it will be great to get her back there. It’s an easy destination to get to and spend time in.

I have long thought that a great holiday is one in which you start thinking things you couldn’t even imagine before you left. One week is a bit short to allow submerged ideas and perspectives to emerge, though I think they might, as I play with the kids in the pool.

Back soon!

Newspapers become irrelevant and media is reborn by 2022

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On Thursday I am giving the closing keynote at Newspaper Publishers Association Future Forum conference in Sydney. I gave a sneak preview of some of what I will be covering, leading to a wide variety of coverage including in The Australian, by Roy Greenslade in The Guardian, on The Inquisitr, and on Mumbrella (including a rich discussion). I will also be doing some interviews on ABC radio tonight and tomorrow.

Below are my pre-talk primer notes – more detail coming in a bit:

• By 2022 newspapers as we know them will be irrelevant in Australia. However the leading newspaper publishers of today may have transformed themselves to thrive in what will be a flourishing media industry.

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Word of mouth in Australia vs US – Apple is a stronger brand Down Under

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At our Future of Influence Summit conference last year Sharyn Smith of Australian word of mouth agency Soup was one of the key local experts to speak. Given that Australian companies have been a fair bit slower than the US to take up broad word of mouth initiatives, it’s good to see what Soup are doing.

Soup has just released research on word of mouth in Australia they commissioned from the dominant US firm researching the space, Keller Fay.

Apparently Australians have 67.8 branded conversations each week, of which almost two-thirds are positive. Below are the headline results with a few quick comments

Top brand for overall word of mouth (both positive and negative)

WOM_Aust1.jpg

Source: Soup

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A belated hooray! iPhone will finally get an external keyboard

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Last year in intense frustration I wrote It is totally INSANE that you cannot use an external keyboard on an iPhone. It is absolutely crazy that I have to carry around other devices to be able to touchtype on the move.

With the launch of the iPad with external keyboard capabilities (and large on-screen keyboard) I was getting worried that they weren’t going to give the iPhone a keyboard in order to differentiate the devices.

Fortunately Steve Jobs has just announced that iPhone OS4, due out in the Northern summer, will include Bluetooth keyboard capabilities. Again, it is totally insane that it has taken this long – the iPhone has always had Bluetooth, it’s just that Apple deliberately crippled the ability to use it for keyboards.

iphonekeyboard.jpg

This means I’m likely to continue with iPhone for a little while. The latest Android phones were beginning to look very tempting.

Of course there are some other nice features in OS4, notably multitasking and enhanced camera and video capabilities. But the keyboard is for me the critical one.