We all know Alex Tew, in fact, many of us are green with envy whenever his name is mentioned. Alex Tew is the guy who created milliondollarhomepage and made a million dollars in the process. Alex has also had a number of other viral successes including donothingfor2minutes.com
What some of you may or may not know is that Alex Tew has moved to American to become Product Manager of Monkey Inferno which, according to it’s website is a ‘place where we dream up cool internet projects, develop them, nurture them into successful businesses’. How cool?!
But there is more, Monkey Inferno, is self-funded by Michael and Xochi Birch who sold Bebo in 2008 for a cool $850million! Basically, what this means is that Monkey Inferno can a) never go bust and will b) never need investment.
Alex Tew is a genuinely nice guy who dreams up big ideas and ensures that they happen in practice. I cannot think of a more perfect fit for Alex to be working with Monkey Inferno. A massive congratulations to you Alex!
I am pretty sure that Alex Tew + Monkey Inferno will = a shit load of cool stuff!
All of the above, must be true, it is on Alex’s Twitter bio: @tewy
Media used to be a top down thing, you could listen to the radio, watch TV or newspapers and the only time that you could share your voice on such platforms was when the gate keepers allowed you to do so – whether this be a letter to the editor or a radio phone in. Well, with the advent of the internet this has all changed and has significant and far-reaching consequences, consequences which I believe are greater than we currently understand.
Let’s take two contemporary cases:
The Murdoch Empire - Rupert Murdoch, as well all know, is a media mogul who is worth a cool $5billion. In no way, shape or form did anyone ever think that the foundations of this empire would shake and his media business would start to crumble, but it has and to me, this points to one thing… People are fed up of the way things are, with the way things have been and they want to see change. The internet provides a platform to voice these feelings, for good or for bad.
I am not making any startling revelation. We have seen the powerful results of WikiLeaks and we have seen the voice that the internet has become which has aided country-wide political revolutions. In Murdoch’s case the internet does not play any part in the revelation of the information. Nevertheless, people, in their droves hit the internet, tweeting, increasing their Facebook status and discussion on forums their dislike of the whole News of the World situation which resulted in advertisers pulling their marketing budgets, the public boycotting the newspaper and, ultimately, the closing down of the whole operation. A growing disillusion with the way that things are + the power of the internet to spread a message has resulted in the foundations of a worldwide media empire start to crumble = powerful consequences.
Google: The second media company that I want to discuss is Google. Google has traditionally been good at what it does, enabling people to effectively “search” the internet to find information that the need, fast. Google has launched a number of businesses that quite simply didn’t take off. Jaiku, a Twitter equivalent, launched by Google and subsequently failed, is one example. Google have always wanted to get into the social networking space and launched Google Wave, in an attempt to take a chunk out of the power and influence of Facebook.I remember speaking to Google’s PR team when Google Wave was launched and he was championing the impending success of Google Wave and how it was going to be adopted by future generations. Great idea, awesome ambition but the public did not take to it and ultimately it was closed down in August 2010.
Recently, Google went for it again and launched Google+, this time the public adopted the social networking site and within weeks it was announced that there was 10million users on the site. Some of the Google+ features have caused Facebook to panic leading to an announcement of an integration with Skype. The public are really going for Google+ and it has left Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin trying to raise their game.
The point that I am trying to make is that people have power and as people talk, share and engage online it brings about a confidence in others to share what they seek, what they think and what they feel. The News of the World ‘phone hacking case could only be held off for so long, people talk.
I believe that this is only the start. People are getting restless and fed up with the unacceptable behavior and now, more than ever they have a powerful method to share their views. Murdoch’s empire is only one foundation that is shaking, many more businesses will shake. However, at the same time, when the public get behind something, like Google+ they will do.
People are talking, about good and bad and the consequences of both are set to be significant.
I would love to hear your thoughts.
I was added to Google+ this week by a Pasa Mustafa, a good friend and a media guru in his own right. So, naturally I headed over to this brand spanking new social network in order to see what the fuss was all about!
To be honest, initially, I thought it was a bit rubbish. When you start creating your own profile it seems a bit basic, however, in hindsight I suppose I am used to the Facebook layout and, of course, it’s a case of building and populating your Facebook profile. When I first got on to google+ I did not really have much time to play around so I logged of wondering what the fuss was all about. But, and this is a huge but, today I had a few hours to play around on the site and, to be honest, I am addicted. Here are some top level thoughts:
1) Google+’s biggest user will be…
I am pretty confident that, in the same way that Twitter is dominated by techies, geeks and media practitioner’s, Google+ will be the same. In my opinion it actually sits in the Twitter/LinkedIn market space so it will be interesting to see how much of a chunk Google+ take’s out of these other social networks. In order to start using Google+ you have to be invited on to the platform which means early adopters, techies, geeks, entrepreneurs are using it which, in my opinion results in the fact that this group of people will become the dominant users.
2) Google+ ‘s killer features
There are some cool killer features on Google +. Firstly, you place your contacts into circles i.e friends, family, acquaintances and whatever other circles you wish to create. This is highly specific and targeted which means you can decide who and what you share. I appreciate that Facebook has it’s groups feature, however, this was an added functionality, something that Google+ has added as a core feature. I do have to say that I had made a mistake in discovering, a bit late on, that Google+ would initially be used by entrepreneurs and so most of my contacts fit into this specific circle!
Secondly, the other big feature, for me, is that of the video software. This is a highly refined video conferencing feature which enables you to have a conference call with 10 people at once, which is a great little tool. It will be interesting to see the impact that this also has on Skype.
It is also important to add here how Google’s +1 now makes a heck of a lot more sense. When you +1 it comes up in your Google+ stream. Clever.
3) Google+ and the future.
I am intrigued to know what is in store for for Google+ and, indeed, for other social networks as a result. In my opinion it is difficult to be on and manage everything: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc so will one loose out? Is it possible to use one social network in order to cover all bases (friends, family, business etc) or does this all start to become a little too much to manage. Since the birth of Twitter I use Facebook less and less and, indeed, I use Facebook to stay in touch with my friends and Twitter for business, entrepreneur, media. So, what impact with Google+ have, we will soon find out!
4) Google+ for businesses.
I am interested to know what will happen here. Facebook obviously has Facebook pages, in the same way, will businesses start to adopt Google+, it will be interesting to find out. I wonder if businesses will use it and people will start to develop business circles or circles for different types of businesses: local, national, online etc.
At the launch of Tribewanted.com, my focus was crowd-sourcing, gaining the wisdom and skills of people online in order to make something happen offline. What really intrigues me now is that the floodgates are now open and I am seeing a move away from crowd-sourcing and the wisdom of friends to crowd sharing, we are sharing information that we pick up. The crowd sourcing model meals that we input our wisdom whilst the crowd sharing model seem to have a much more humble approach, we read, we get inspired, we share and we learn. Now, people collaborating in this way, through the likes of Google+ could lead to incredible new inventions, businesses, charities and changes. Quire exciting, really.
If you are on Google + please add me to your circle:
For some time I have been following the inspiring website Mixergy. Mixergy is run by a guy called Andrew Warner who co-founded a website which $30million+ in annual sales, which is an incredible figure. Andrew now runs Mixergy which is a website that is dedicated to interviewing inspiring entrepreneurs from huge companies, including the likes of Groupon etc, in order to ensure that a new generation of entrepreneurs learn from the best.
Recently Andrew Warner realised that aspiring entrepreneurs can equally learn from other entrepreneurs who have not quite made it yet, those who may have ‘failed’ in some way or another, with the intention of seeing their experience as a positive thing that can be learnt from.
Last week I was interviewed by Andrew Warner, over Skype, in an interview which lasted an hour as he asked deep and relevant questions for his ‘failed’ series. I believe that this interview should go live over the next week or so and, as soon as it does I will point you in the right direction.
In all honesty it was pretty humbling that Andrew and his team would ask me to get involved. As you may be aware from www.somestartupsfail.com I have never been ashamed of telling stories of projects that I have been involved in which have gone wrong. I am consistently pushing forward as I work towards the ‘breakthrough’ project for me.
I will let you know as soon as this interview goes live!
This is a blog that I wrote whilst working with the awesome Traffic Digital team which can be viewed as it’s original version here. However, I was reminded of this post this week and I have been thinking about it all week. I think it is relevant today, more so than ever, let me know your thoughts!
A few of the Traffic Digital team headed to the 2-Screen event on the 14th October, an event that discusses how social media has become integral to our lives. This was a very good event, and one talk in particular that stood out was given by Channel 4′s Matt Locke.
Matt gave some awesome insight into the shapes of the audiences who watch TV, which I will summarise as the following:
1. Live, synchronous shapes – those who watch events like Lambing Live & Seven Days and engage online, live, using twitter.
2. ‘Cult’ shapes – Lost and The Soprano’s fans are prime examples. They may be on twitter discussing the programme but they have a cult following and engage in the life, character, storyline and plot of the TV show.
3. Asynchronous shapes – these are viewers who like to snack on programming, users who may play the likes of Farmville etc. Matt suggested that we should look at how we should change traditional 30 & 60 minute formats in order to cater for such an audience.
4. Factual shapes – these are individuals who engage with the likes of Embarrassing Bodies or Battletfront and they engage in order to learn or with a mission in mind.
It is the final group, the factual shapes, that I would like to focus on and indeed take a step further. I would like to split ‘Factual’ into two categories: Factual Shapes (educational shows such as Embarrassing Bodies) and Activist Shapes.
I would like to focus on these Activist Shapes. Matt Locke alluded to these shapes giving examples of Channel 4′s Battlefront, a campaign show to further a cause. We have also seen this shape of audience in Channel 4′s Landshare. However, in the current economic and political climate, I believe that we are going to see a lot more of these shapes.
Alongside reflecting on Matt’s talk at 2Screen I have also been thinking about a Seth Godin talk on Tribes (see video below) and how society is coming together in specific tribes. Of course this has always been the case from the mod’s and the rocker’s, to tribe’s around specific football teams. However, with the news in recent days I believe that we are going to see people form more and more ‘tribes’ with an activist purpose.
The UK Government have recently announced all the cuts required in order to take this country away from the brink of bankruptcy. Part of these cutbacks include council cuts and impending job losses of hundreds and thousands. I believe that these cuts will result in local councils focusing on core activities – such as looking after the poor, vulnerable and needy – and peripheral activities such as leisure centres, youth centres, and promoting looking after the environment will become secondary.
As a direct result of these losses, ‘Activist Audiences’ will come together in order to fulfil these roles and these tribes will use social media to come together in order to ensure that these services are met and indeed, run by them.
It is inevitable that we will see crowd-sourced ownership of local community activities that can no longer be run by local councils. As believers in both social media and television it is down to us to be forward thinking and creative about developing uses for twitter, new mobile apps and indeed new television programmes that will facilitate our Activist audiences and indeed enable them to change our communities forever.