The Verge: Qualcomm’s insane CES 2013 keynote in pictures and tweets.
In which mainstream A/V production values get ripped. These are all well-worn A/V techniques, techniques you’ve seen if you’ve ever attended a big conference. Unfortunately, I suspect these are techniques whose day has come and gone in the face of withering social media commentary. With the snark of Twitter in the background, noone can pass off even the best of jokes. It would be interesting to cast onsite audience response vs. virtual audience response … I’ll bet you’ll find a difference.
I can list for you the production values. I can imagine sitting backstage running the videos or scrolling the prompter as this all unfolds. Did it for ten years!
The ‘theme’. The theme is cooked up in the proposal stage. The A/V company does the research, and hires the writers, and tries to come up with a clever phrase that’s memorable yet serious enough to attract the suits who shell out for these shows. Everyone on the speaker roster speaks to the theme, all graphics and videos have some color or design relationship to the theme. The theme is introduced by a high-value skit, done with young up-and-coming actors. Horrifically overacted here, but I can’t gauge audience response over a livestream. This level of energy may be appropriate to the audience - did they give the livestream audience an on-site audience shot so reactions could be seen? Sounds like no. Usually these young actors are not directed by skilled directors, but the writers and producers of the event. [They’ll end up on the skids doing off-Broadway stuff.]
Keynote speaker gets big intro after the skit, or introduced by the skit itself. As opposed to how we did things in the past, the Jobs-ian style of speaking without a podium is now de riguer. This individual sort of looks like he’s wandering around the stage, staring at the far distance over our heads, conversing with some invisible entity. Or worse, talking to himself. It’s kind of disconcerting.
Every so often, introduce an attention-restorer. Attention spans are short, even the most interesting address needs a kick in the pants. Something diverting, informational and/or entertaining, but always in sync with the overarching theme. Here I see Ballmer (interesting/unintended humor), del Toro (apparently horrifying), Big Bird (entertaining/humor/less formal), Tutu (human rights/interesting/feel-good), Star Trek’s Alice Eve (eye candy/entertainment), Rolls Royce (upscale/impressive).
Finally, big talent entertainment payoff to get everyone pumped. In this case, Maroon 5. That cost a pretty penny. Seems the onsite live stream outfit screwed the pooch on the feed. Happens frequently. But having *Dido* as the backup for the audio stream? I can’t imagine what they were thinking.
Overall, the production company who developed this threw the kitchen sink at the keynote. Everything is there, from a conventional A/V standpoint. It just can’t stand up to remote Twitter scrutiny via live stream. As we’ve seen before, once the snark is started, it’s all downhill from there. There’s no rescue.
But remember … the important thing is, you’re talking about it. There is no negative PR. I could care less about Qualcomm, but now I know more than I did before I saw this takedown of their keynote. If they had played it all off with a semblance of self-deprecating humor, they’d be heros right now *and* socially popular.
Given all the above, I’d love to see what our old live-animation character would do in a modern Twitter environment. I’d cast Tiny as the ‘social media monitor’ who breaks in occasionally and throws snark back at the Twitterverse. With some of the comedians and writers we had, I suspect we’d tear you social media people to shreds.
And that points up the failure here. The fact that neither the company nor the producers prepared to handle the PR on the social media channels. With a livestream, I suspect such ‘handling’ is now a requirement.
Anil Dash: All Dashboards Should be Feeds.
That’s a sore spot. ‘Twas what we had with the ‘old’ Google Reader, really. Now those of us who used to fire off all kinds of stuff, are dead in the water, floundering.
Wired: How-To Download Your Instagram Photos and Kill Your Account.
FYI. I’m going to wait to see if they rescind the policy. If not, I’ll torch my account. Been looking to slim down, socially speaking, anyway. IG’s making my choice easier.
Anyone feel an abiding sense of trust with IG or FB? I have to say, their continuing boneheaded TOS and privacy moves are encouraging me to pull the plug on all of it, benefits or no.
Instagram: Terms of Use.
Check the section on Rights, #2: “Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.” My emphasis. It’ll take effect January of next year, if allowed to stand. I don’t want my stuff used for commercial purposes, so I’ll leave the service is this remains unchanged.
Mashable: Social Media, The Newest Designer Drug.
ReadWrite: Instagram Turns Evil, And It’s All Our Fault.
“You have investors, who want the biggest possible return in the shortest possible time. And you have users, who want as many features and as much interoperability as possible, at zero cost. Which group do you think gets priority - the one that gave you millions of dollars to build your business, or the one that wants everything but doesn’t want to pay?” Calling FB a ‘roach motel’ is a great takedown.
Medium, Haughey: Why I love Twitter and barely tolerate Facebook.
The Atlantic: Are Your Facebook Friends Stressing You Out? (Yes).
Slate: Libel on Twitter - You can be sued for libel for what you write on social media.
Mashable: Tomb of the Unknowns Facebook Photo Gets Woman in Hot Water.
“ The National Labor Relations Board has declared that social media postings are not protected under federal labor law. A judge also ruled in May that a Like on Facebook can also get you fired.” Did you social media mavens know this?
ReadWrite: Beyond Klout - Better Ways To Measure Social Media Influence.
Sounds much more useful for actual influence measures.
BuzzFeed: There’s Less “Dark Social” Than Meets The Eye.
Picks up on that Atlantic article from last week. Cut to the chase: mobile is extremely important.
JUMP FOR JOY! Photo Project: Interview with Lilou Mace in Kauai, Hawaii 2012.
Eyoälha Baker is one of my original Flickr contacts from years ago. She’s out pursuing her dream, literally jumping in without a safety net … urging people to simply, heartfully ‘jump for joy’ and photographing them, with the intention of creating a book. What seems to be happening is this book idea of hers is becoming secondary to her natural ability in getting people to live ‘in the moment’, expressing joy from every pore of their bodies. I admire what she’s doing. She brings joy wherever she goes … her enthusiasm is viral. Even on the soggiest, dreariest bad-news sort of day, she gets me to smile. You should follow her on Facebook, or just subscribe to her blog’s RSS feed. Eyoälha’s donation page is here.
And if she’s in your area … absolutely, make contact and JUMP. Roland, you and Barb should absolutely get in contact with her. You two would be FANTASTIC jumpers.
The Atlantic: Dark Social - We Have the Whole History of the Web Wrong.
Social media mavens need to read this and retain it. Thanks, Jon Rock on FB.
CNN: Presidential election tests Facebook friendships.
“In the real world, we navigate these issues all the time. We know not to bring up politics around certain friends or family members. We try to avoid people who are constantly looking for an argument or trying to sell us on their pet ideas. [snip] Since blocking, unfriending, hiding people is the closest social analogue to those real-world examples, it’s not necessarily surprising to see people taking these steps in the virtual space.’” At certain times of day, it seems FB has become a political free-for-all and not much else. I wish folks would not just rabbit their partisan sources, but actually apply their reasoning skills to back up with further evidence than a ‘they said this’ link. Then again, FB doesn’t lend itself to multiple linkages.
Raw Story: New study says Facebook and Twitter are more tempting than sex.
Initial App.Net ideas.
Nice start. Kinda empty at the moment, but when it fills up it’ll be unwieldy.
Ideas:
1. “Global Feed” … a pulldown, allowing one to narrow the result by country, region (state, whatever), city … even neighborhood (thinking of Manhattan). Set in your profile.
2. A similar button to “Global Feed” … call it “Niches”. You narrow the results by hashtags, again, available by a pulldown and set in your profile.
3. Put hashtags or whatever tagging is desired in a separate text field (like Tumblr). It’s a benefit for search, it shouldn’t count against total characters.
Do those three things alone, and you’ll kick Twitter and Facebook in the arse.
I am now on App.net.
Username? Guess. @dangerousmeta. See you there.
Youtube: Instagram i love you.
Don’t abuse the ‘Gram.
SEO Book: When Will SEO Die? The Death of SEO [Infographic].
If your SEO person is still talking keyword frequency and not microformats, dump ‘em.
CNet: App.net will begin paying out $20K monthly to app developers.
Last one to program “Angry ZuckerBirds” is a rotten egg …
Mashable: Former Twitter CEO Says Network Needs a Better Metric Than Follower Count.
“The dream metric is really how many people see your tweet, which is not even active followers. [snip] It’s some different metric.” I think we need to be specific … how many humans have interacted with that tweet, and the raw ‘virality quotient’ of the content. That’s what people want to know, after all.
FT: Facebook raises fears with ad tracking.
“Facebook is working with a controversial data company called Datalogix that can track whether people who see ads on the social networking site end up buying those products in stores.” Fears, hell. They’re only testing for this now?!!
SmallBusiness.com: Survey - 35 Percent of Small Biz Owners Don’t Find Value on Facebook.
Even more interesting to me than the title … “78 percent of all respondents say they gained at least a quarter of their customers via online channels this year. The survey was conducted online, so presumably there were very few respondents who don’t have a website or other online presences.” That gives me ideas for changing up my advertising/marketing methods.
