Turntable is that online version of being around people who know more and are teaching me when an in-person lesson is not an option. The reason that I am talking about here is the social and gaming aspects of site participation are interesting:

• Anyone can set up a room and DJ to a theme of their choice. Up to five people can DJ in a room and the control rotates between them.
• Anyone can join the room and “vote” on the song playing as “lame” or “awesome.” When you vote “awesome,” your avatar’s head starts bobbing to the music. You can see how the song is fairing on the lame/awesome meter while it plays.
• The more people that favor your song, the more points you build as a DJ. With more points, you can change your avatar (choices open up at different point levels). Every visitor can see your score.
• There is a chat column in each “room” and visitors talk about the music.
• The name/title of the song shows and there are built in features for sharing the song to your social networks and saving the song to your music player of choice.

CNN recently called it the “cool kids’ Pandora” and offered some spinning tips for the new visitors.

I am loving it right now. Check it out.

Instagram is now up to five million users and is adding about a million users a month.  According to a New York Times article this weekend, “Those who study the way people socialize online say cellphone photos are becoming an integral part of sharing and communicating.”

“Professor Sundar said people once tended to take photos on special occasions, like birthdays and vacations, then post a big batch on services like Picasa and Flickr and share a link with friends. But with the introduction of smartphones with improved cameras, coupled with the rise of services like Facebook and Twitter, people are more accustomed to constantly documenting moments and sharing throughout the day.”

And brands are starting to experiment and use the tools available to engage their customers with photography.

“Brands like Oscar de la Renta, Brisk Iced Tea, Kate Spade, Starbucks and Red Bull are also on the service. Cecilia Liu, digital marketing manager at Kate Spade, said the company added Instagram to its social media lineup this year. She said it was appealing because the company could mix in a little more personality and behind-the-scenes glimpses than it would on Facebook and Twitter.”

Starbucks was one of the first brands to sign on to Instagram.  Now, when you search the Starbucks tag on Instagram, over 10,000 photo hits come up.

“We’ve been using Instagram for a couple of months and think it’s a fun, different way to share photos of what’s going on behind the scenes,” says Product Manager Brad Nelson. “We’ve also found a lot of people already sharing Starbucks photos, so it’s been a joy to look through those.”

As people are using mobile photography and sharing to these sites to document their lives, what are they taking the most photos of? Food, of course.

And, to find all of this great photography online, last week, Twitter introduced a new version of its search that incorporates photos and videos.

Brands that are figuring out how to incorporate photography sharing into their engagement strategies are connecting with their consumers on a more intimate level.

This morning as I watched actual “news” coverage of the spot and an interview with the child actor that was in the Darth Vader costume, I hit my tipping point of curiosity and started searching for some explanation for the strategy of the spot.  The majority of the talk online, much like that “new” segment I saw this morning, talks about how “cute” the spot is and how much everybody liked it; there was little, if any, mention of the brand or the product.  While I can accept that it is a brand ad and they are not necessarily trying to sell Passats, can it be considered successful if no one remembers/talks about/notices the VW brand itself?

It was on AdAge that I finally found a real review of the spot:

“But if we were VW, we wouldn’t be too triumphal too quickly. Another name for the Relationship Era is the Listenomics Age, and if you listen to what was being said, you’d notice that the vast majority of the Twitter traffic mentions the ad, and not the car. Not even the model — which happens to be a Passat. Certainly nobody mentioned the ad was nominally promoting keyless ignition, and no wonder: that’s all but a generic feature.

“So, yeah, VW got some positive attention, and that’s good. But the attention wasn’t on automobiles. That’s bad. This could have just as well been a McDonald’s commercial. Which just goes to show: If you’re peddling entertainment instead of products, cultivating smiles not constituents, the Brave New World will be just as easy to squander resources in as the cowardly old one.”

Right on.

Knowing when a consumer is more or less likely to check-in and share their location with friends and followers can give a business the opportunity to offer special deals during slower time periods to try to drive traffic.

This graphic tells me when to stay home!

Clever.  Consumers love clever.  Brands should think about the unique qualities of their brands and leverage the data to make the consumer smile in appreciation.  Then, check-in because they want to be part of the inner circle offered by the brand.

The year 2010 proved that location sharing was relevant to the social consumer.  Foursquare has by far dominated that scene.  Some of the questions in 2011 will be:

• Can Foursquare maintain its dominance or will Facebook’s massive user base switch to using Facebook Places?  There is something appealing about the game aspect of Foursquare that encourages participation more than Facebook Places; but being able to tag friends with you gives Facebook an edge.
• Will brands figure out how to really use location sharing in ways that benefit consumers and get them talking?  Big brands like Starbucks have used it and small yet savvy independents have used it.  But what about those mid-size challenger brands that are trying to stand out?
• Will we see the apps for location sharing get more robust?  Some allow photos, some don’t; some allow tagging friends, others don’t.  What about multiple photo uploads to one check-in?  Or user rankings or reviews for each location?  How about options to leave feedback for the business versus posting it publicly to the check-in?  Will we see video sharing options built in?  Might we see some personal analytics tools for “defining” the user type?  How about varied privacy settings a la Facebook so that family can see all posts, certain friends can see limited posts, others can see more, etc.?

This topic is explored in a new book, Alone Together.  I haven’t read the book yet, but have put it on my list to read soon.  The book was recently reviewed over at The Daily Beast:

“The advantage to all that gadgetry, of course, is connectedness: email lets us respond on the go, and we are in touch with more people during more hours of the day than at any other time in history. But is it possible we’re more lonely than ever, too? That’s what MIT professor Sherry Turkle observes in her new book, Alone Together, a fascinating portrait of our changing relationship with technology. The result of nearly 15 years of study (and interviews with hundreds of subjects), Turkle details the ways technology has redefined our perceptions of intimacy and solitude—and warns of the perils of embracing such pseudo-techno relationships in place of lasting emotional connections.”

The “alone” versus “together” situation works in reverse as well: when we are face-to-face among a group of people, many of us isolate ourselves by bowing our heads to the mobile devices actively lighting up in our hands.  If you don’t believe me, next time you go out to dinner, do a quick scan around the restaurant and check out what people are doing at each table.

The impact of technology on social mores is not a new topic of conversation, but as technology and social channels continue to improve and become even more integrated into our lives, the conversation will grow.  But will anything change?  Will we pull back on the use of technology and social media now that it is ingrained in our behaviors?

Check out the novel Super Sad True Love Story for a satirical look at the possibility of completely transparent sharing through technology and utter dependency on technology.  It is funny and sad and scary.  Set in a future where people are obsessed with appearances, their smart phones and credit scores, this book tells the story of two mismatched lovers through their journal entries and online communications.

Watch the video here (while the NFL did the video right, they didn’t embrace the full power of the social web to make it embeddable; a fail in my opinion).

Crowdsourcing is not a new conversation topic on this blog.  I am always impressed by well-done, crowdsourced videos.  And, today’s example actually gave me goosebumps.  Maybe it is because I am from Louisiana and I am proud of the Saints.  Maybe it is because I have become more engaged in football lately with my Fantasy Football obsession (although a losing proposition).  Maybe it is just because I love the fact that through social channels, everyday consumers can contribute to a major advertising campaign.  Maybe it is just really well done.

“‘You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter,’ he told the students. ‘And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations – none of which I know how to work – information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it’s putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy.’”

President Obama seems to be criticizing the media, technology, video games and the internet in one fell swoop, lumping it all into an “information” category. When did having access to more information become a bad thing? Is not good to hear many sides of a story so we can form our own opinions? And if the information comes to us in an entertaining way, doesn’t that just make us engage with it more?

The discussion that sprung on the internet following this speech was surprising: while many were quick to defend the technology, most agreed with President Obama and felt they were constantly attempting to manage information overload, with no time for processing and understanding. This brought to mind the two-year-old The Atlantic article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (which has developed into a book just released this month entitled The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains (see the Ms. Adverthinker review of this book here) Some highlights from the article supporting President Obama’s opinion:

“…media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”

“A new e-mail message…may announce its arrival as we’re glancing over the latest headlines at a newspaper’s site. The result is to scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration.”

“Never has a communications system played so many roles in our lives-or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts-as the Internet does today.”

And, an excerpt that provides an argument for the other side:

“In Google’s view, information is a kind of commodity, a utilitarian resource that can be mined and processed with industrial efficiency. The more pieces of information we can “access” and the faster we can extract their gist, the more productive we become as thinkers.”

One commenter had an interesting perspective in favor of the information abundance we are experiencing:

“…it may not be that the internet is making us stupid but making us more demanding. Before the internet we were given a limited number of topics that we could review from a newspaper, television, magazine etc. Since they were limited in scope they needed a greater amount of depth and description. However now that we can delve a wider range of topics there is no need for such depth. In fact if a person was to spend as much time on any given topic today as was 50 years ago or more it would be hard to stay up to date on the numerous happenings that are going on. No longer are people simply expected to know what is going on in their home town on a day to day basis, but all the important events of the modern world….So it is really a question of balance and of need. Is it truly necessary for us to wrap our minds around each topic that we stumble upon on the net, or is it more important to simply grasp the main points of each topic? In today’s world it is no longer necessary to be intimately familiar with each topic, I can say that I have often found it better to skim information so that I am aware of it’s existence, then when I find myself in need of it I can pull it up more quickly.”

The debate is an interesting one that has spawned books, articles and comments galore. The access to information is empowering. The knowledge we gain is the power. The question then becomes, are we turning that information into knowledge? Perhaps we are in the midst of an evolutional shift: those that can learn to navigate the information streams and turn them into applicable knowledge are the ones that survive.

The Brain Changes as It Needs to Change

Through the first few chapters of the book, we learn that our brains are amazingly adept at adapting to these changes.  The brain actually re-wires itself to deal with the new experiences: “Evolution has given us a brain that can literally change its mind–over and over again.”  Experts quoted in the book support this fact:

“Our neurons are always breaking old connections and forming new ones, and brand-new nerve cells are always being created.  ’The brain,’ observes Olds, ‘has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions.’”

“‘If we stop exercising our mental skills,’ writes Doidge, ‘we do not just forget them: the brain map space for those skills is turned over to the skills we practice instead.’”

Are We More or Less Creative as a Result?

Our brains become more accustomed to cursory scanning of data for relevant bits of information; in turn, it becomes more difficult for the brain to focus on long-form, single-source reading.  This is not a bad thing, as we are able to gather the same amount of information, but now diversify the sources from which that information comes.  However, a question was posed about the stifling of creativity as a result of reduced focused on reading as a meditative act.  Many of those quoted in the book felt the opposite was true:

“Friedman told me…that he’s ‘never been more creative’ than he has been recently, and he attributes that ‘to my blog and the ability to review/scan “tons” of information on the web.’”

“Karp has come to believe that reading lots of short, linked snippets online is a more efficient way to expand his mind than reading ’250-page books’…”

“Muses Davis, ‘The Internet may have made me a less patient reader, but I think that in many ways, it has made me smarter.  More connections to documents, artifacts, and people means more external influences on my thinking and thus on my writing.’”

Conclusion

History has shown that our brains adapt to the way information is processed: we did it when converting from oral storytelling to the written word and we are doing it as we convert from the written word to the digital word.

Recommendation

Read The Shallows.  It is a quick, interesting and relevant read right now.

Thanks to Blake’s Think Tank for passing this along.

As it turns out, this self portrait phenomenon and observation is not unique to me.  According to the New York Times:

“With the debut last week of Apple’s newest iPhone, the latest show of vanity has kicked into high gear. With a second camera lens that faces the viewer (instead of the view), the iPhone has simplified something people have been struggling with — some covertly, some flagrantly — ever since they signed up for AOL more than a decade ago: taking a good picture of themselves. Finally, the iGeneration has a good head shot.”

…

“As a result, the self-snap is fast becoming as vital a facet of how we present ourselves as our clothes, figures or voices. Photographing oneself easily and well is a talent that, like being able to download music via mind control or reduce whole paragraphs to acronyms at warp speed, is now a given for young people.”

…

“‘This really represents the shift of the photograph serving as a memorial function to a communication device,’said Geoffrey Batchen, formerly of the City University of New York and now a professor of art history at Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand, who has written extensively on historical and contemporary photography. ‘The camera was used to record something that happened so it could be remembered. Now it’s used immediately. It’s uploaded to Facebook to say, “Here I am in Istanbul” or whatever, so it also goes back and forth between personal and promotional use. It really represents the refashioning of the self for a semipublic view.’”

I am a fan of the self-portrait: there is something intimate, incorruptible, interesting and immediate about the taking and online posting of these photographs.  While, I am relieved to know that I am not alone in this ridiculously narcissistic behavior, I am curious to see how the trend further develops as self portraits become easier to take and people are less inhibited when taking them.  I really like the thought of photography serving as a “communication device.”  After all, “a picture is worth a thousand words” and with our decreasing attention spans as a result of technologically delivered snippets of information (more on this later), pictures could be how we ultimately receive most of our information.  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Self portrait, while writing a blog post.

• “In the minutes following Landon Donovan’s game winning goal in the 91st minute of action (which sent the US to the round of 16), traffic spiked to 11.2 million visitors per minute, which moves the event past the 2008 presidential election as the 2nd highest traffic spike of all-time.”
• “The plethora of World Cup breaking news briefly knocked Yahoo Sports offline.”
• “Tweets containing ‘USA’ spiked to 6% of total tweet volume.”
• Many Twitter users encountered the “Fail Whale” as a result of the traffic volume on Twitter during the game.

And, I think every status update on my Facebook news feed was related to the game.  Yes, soccer has the power of influence this month.  It will be interesting to see how that influence is capitalized on by marketers both immediately and in the coming months.  Some of the lucky ones advertising during the World Cup coverage are even getting some of the chatter; a favorite among those I have talked to:

Enjoy the games.

This is great news for marketers looking to justify a larger investment in social media as communications tools.  The news is even better for those looking to communicate in local (i.e., smaller) circles: “if a user traces their friends, and their friends and so on, in 3.32 steps on average they will discover a follower of their own. This means there are many small, circular connections on Twitter.” At this point, it almost seems negligent of a brand to not have a presence on Twitter.

When looking to wade (or dive deeper) into the social media pool, take the five-degrees-of-separation fact with a grain of salt and remember these few tips:

• Don’t build it and assume they will come.  Seek out quality followers: those active on Twitter who are predisposed to like the brand.
• Content should be relevant and interesting to warrant any “retweet” activity.
• Monitoring with the resources for rapid response are absolutely necessary.  A negative message will usually be spread faster than a positive one will be shared.

“Earlier this year, for the first time in American history, the balance of the workforce tipped toward women, who now hold a majority of the nation’s jobs. The working class, which has long defined our notions of masculinity, is slowly turning into a matriarchy, with men increasingly absent from the home and women making all the decisions. Women dominate today’s colleges and professional schools—for every two men who will receive a B.A. this year, three women will do the same. Of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most in the next decade in the U.S., all but two are occupied primarily by women.”

And:

“Men dominate just two of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade: janitor and computer engineer. Women have everything else—nursing, home health assistance, child care, food preparation.”

And:

“But women are also starting to dominate middle management, and a surprising number of professional careers as well. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women now hold 51.4 percent of managerial and professional jobs—up from 26.1 percent in 1980. They make up 54 percent of all accountants and hold about half of all banking and insurance jobs. About a third of America’s physicians are now women, as are 45 percent of associates in law firms—and both those percentages are rising fast. A white-collar economy values raw intellectual horsepower, which men and women have in equal amounts. It also requires communication skills and social intelligence, areas in which women, according to many studies, have a slight edge. Perhaps most important—for better or worse—it increasingly requires formal education credentials, which women are more prone to acquire, particularly early in adulthood.”

And:

“Only 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and the number has never risen much above that.  But even the way this issue is now framed reveals that men’s hold on power in elite circles may be loosening. In business circles, the lack of women at the top is described as a “brain drain” and a crisis of “talent retention.” And while female CEOs may be rare in America’s largest companies, they are highly prized: last year, they outearned their male counterparts by 43 percent, on average, and received bigger raises.”

I have heard the argument made–as a rationale for highlighting men as future leaders of our state–that we have very few women in business in Arkansas.  I can only shake my head at this obvious oversight and antiquated way of thinking.  Even developing countries recognize the power of women:

“In 2006, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development devised the Gender, Institutions and Development Database, which measures the economic and political power of women in 162 countries. With few exceptions, the greater the power of women, the greater the country’s economic success.  Aid agencies have started to recognize this relationship and have pushed to institute political quotas in about 100 countries, essentially forcing women into power in an effort to improve those countries’ fortunes….Postgenocide Rwanda elected to heal itself by becoming the first country with a majority of women in parliament.”

Let’s have more discussion about the power and leadership of women in Arkansas.

Check out the Sienna Family YouTube channel for all the spots.  Here is the music video that I just saw today and laughed out loud: