Anyone who has clicked a mouse and entered the world of the internet appreciates that there are a significant number of anonymous online people who are out to judge, criticise, bully and do harm. These ‘trolls’, as we have come to know them, can cause serious damage. Nevertheless, it has been incredible to watch on and see how the public have reacted to the death of Claire Squires, after the London marathon, and how people took to the internet to provide a lasting legacy for one incredible lady.
It was heart rendering to hear that Claire, a 30 year old woman, collapsed during the final mile of the London Marathon and consequently died. Claire had raised over £500 herself in order to support the good work of the Samaritans who offered professional help and support to her family when her brother died. It was humbling to see that within hours of the sad news breaking, Claire’s name was globally trending on Twitter with a link to her donations page encouraging people to give in her memory. Before the first day of promotion was over £60,000+ was added to the total. A day later the media broke the story and less than seven days after Claire sadly died the total figure stands at an incredible £1million. At one point a staggering £1,500 per minute was being donated!
What an incredibly positive story demonstrating the true power of social media. It was the thousands of people across social media that decided to launch a campaign to raise as much money as possible – no newspaper, radio station or magazine, but people. Naturally, the next day the story was picked up by Sky News and in every leading National media outlet which further fanned the flames of the campaign. However, if it was not for social media and the public’s quest to raise as much money as possible, the media would not have a public campaign story to tell. The goodness of people and the viral nature of social media did this.
Of course you get idiots online. But the potential of people coming together online with the goal of doing something incredibly, outrageously positive has huge potential. It was fantastic to see how this campaign was launched and spread virally and, although it is not the first of it’s kind, it does represent an increasing move towards a discovery of how the internet can be used positively for social causes, causes that are not initiated by the government, the press or other bodies but, quite simply from the people. I love it!
My favourite thing to do on Twitter is to enter the search term #startup as anyone and everyone who is discussing their startup or a startup that they are fond of, on Twitter will pop into your stream. I was doing this little search last night and came across Housefed – which I think is pretty awesome!
Housefed is a website that enables you to get a home cooked food, anywhere! In the same way that Airbnb allows the public to offer their room for an amount of money, to gain that homely feel whilst travelling, Housefed lets you have a home cooked meal on the road.
If you are a host, you state on the site where you live and what home cooked food you are offering. If you are on your travels and are sick of hitting restaurants then you log on, search through the ‘home cook chefs’, pick your favourite dish, make a booking and turn up at their house and enjoy your meal.
This is a pretty simple idea and I certainly would use it on the road. What I love about this idea is that it really enables you to experience the food or a new area rather than simply going to a restaurant. This site gives you a real opportunity to ‘go local’ and, whilst you are eating learn and share in the culture of those who you are visiting.
Housefed is not just about having a meal, it is a whole learning experience. Although this concept is in it’s early stages I really do think that it has the ability and opportunity to do well, keep an eye on it, certainly one to watch!
I recently headed to the 2-Screen event on the 14thOctober, 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 of 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. I am actively engaging with organisations, businesses and social media guru’s to develop content, app’s and social media which will enable these activist audiences to own, shape and define the world in which we live – if you are interested, get in contact!