Monday, October 29, 2007

Lyssna på nyheter

Tomas Wennström gör ett spännande program på What's Next. Lyssna på senaste programmet med mig, Joakim Jardenberg, Mindpark och Eric Wahlforss, Sound Cloud.




Temat denna gång: Leopard, Facebook+Microsoft, Pusha och troll... En härlig blandning av spaningar, idéer och nyheter. Jag gillar särskilt Joakims tips om Meeting tokens som ett sätt att spara på folks tid!


Gå gärna med i What's Next's grupp på Facebook.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Mystisk brodyr



"Vad är det där på ditt säte?", sa Malin när vi satt på X2000 på väg till Göteborg. Den bruna lilla fläcken visade sig vara...korsstygn! "BRODYR" stod det i senapsfärgat moulinégarn. Vi blev både rörda och uppiggade av det diskreta broderiet. Vad var det ett uttryck för - kärlek eller frustration?

Liknar den typ av graffitti som Knitta gör när de "taggar" lyktstolpar, broräcken och statyer med sina små stickade "muddar". De är klart uppiggande! Kolla in videon på deras site.


PS Jag blev så nyfiken på vad broderiet kunde vara så jag googlade på 'broderi+tåg'. Direkt hittade jag konstnären Ulrika Erdes. Kanske är det hennes lilla X2000-broderi? Hon kallar sin konst för "Random Acts of Public Embroidery". Läs mer och se en intervju med Ulrika här. DS

Jag spanar på Annonsördagen i Göteborg


Hans Eric Melin, Anders Ericsson, Beata Wickbom och Catrin Myhrman.


Idag hölls Annonsördagen i Göteborg med ca 200 deltagare. Jag inledde konferensen med en trendspaning. Viktigaste trenderna för 2008:

1. Fortsatt fokus på användaren - både som nätverkare, kreatör och kräsen konsument

2. Media blir allt mer upphackad och utspridd - vi ser massor av olika sorters format (långa, korta, djupa, rörliga, virtuella, etc) och olika sorters plattformar, framförallt mobil.

3. Ännu mer fokus på engagerande, genomgripande användarupplevelse.

Sedan intervjuade jag Malin Stråhle om hennes nya projekt "Maria Plaza" - en community för mogna kvinnor.



Katarina Graffman, Margareta Kylberg och Beata.

Eftermiddagen bjöd på två fantastiskt intressanta talare. Katarina Graffman, antropolog, på egna bolaget Trendethnography beskrev olika ungdomars inställning till reklam och nya media. Jättebra talare och insiktsfulla kommentarer. Kan varmt rekommenderas som gästföreläsare. Läs mer om henne i SvD.

Catrin Myhrman, konsult på NMA pratade om hur man kan kartlägga människors undermedvetna genom nya metoder som bygger på tvärvetenskapliga rön från olika beteendevetenskapliga områden, inklusive marknadsföring, men även från den senaste forskningen om hjärnan. Hon är klarsynt, smart och superpedagogisk. Läs mer om henne här.

Tack Anders Ericsson och Margareta Kylberg på Sveriges Annonsörer för en kul dag!

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Beata på Clarion den 19 november



Välkomna till Meet and Talk - Kostnadsfria inspirationsseminarium med trevliga människor på en skön plats. Är du intresserad av att gå så maila mig! Ett samarbete mellan Clarion och min proffsiga talarbyrå SAJ.

Programmet:
Måndag 29 oktober kl. 18 - 20 Olof Röhlander Tema: Det blir alltid som man tänkt sig

Måndag 5 november kl. 18 - 20 Malin Pedro, Patrik Peter och Anders Landgren Tema: Coacha dig själv och andra

Måndag 12 november kl. 18 - 20 AnnaLinda Hultström och Teo Härén Tema: Kreativitetsboost skapar flyt i livet

Måndag 19 november kl. 18 - 20 Erika Lagerbielke, Annika Dopping och Beata Wickbom Tema: En workshop - kreativitet, design och skapande

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Debatt om Web 2.0 på Webbdagarna




Idag debatterade jag Web 2.0 på IDG:s Webbdagarna.

”Webb 2.0 är en attityd lika mycket som en teknik. Att man kommunicerar med sina kunder. Och det är inte bara en Webb 2.0 fråga, många svenska företag är dåliga på direktkommunikation. Det är lika mycket en kommunikationsfråga som teknikfråga,” säger Beata Wickbom. Läs mer på Internetworld.

Jag spanar på Webbdagarna



Jag gav publiken på Webbdagarna en update från Web 2.0 Summit. Det blev bra stämning och mycket skratt. Schysst av Internetworld att bespara pubiken $4000 för biljett och 15 timmars flygresa.

Efteråt fick jag dagens bästa betyg. Arvikafestivalens webmaster: "Du får 9 av 10 av mig!"

Läs mer på Internetworld.

Workshop om framtidens spel


På eftermiddagen åkte jag till Eskilstuna i strålande höstväder. Andreas och jag gjorde en tretimmars workshop för Lotteriinspektionen om framtidens spel.

Vi pratade bl a om Spelet som liv, Livet som spel, Lekande spel och Spel för miljoner.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Videos from web 2.0 Summit

Great quality of these videos from Web 2.0 Summit. From Blip.tv

Sunday, October 21, 2007

En avatar-många världar

Som tidigare annonserats har Linden Labs och IBM har inlett ett samarbete för att möjliggöra rörlighet mellan olika virtuella världar. Idag kan jag inte flytta mina pengar, kläder eller andra tillgångar från en virtuell miljö till en annan. Läs mer på Internetworld.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

"Reality is broken"



One of the best sessions at the Web 2.0 Summit was the 10 minute session with game designer Jane McGonigal. She is a ubiquitous game designer, a games researcher, and a futures forecaster. She is my new idol and will follow her new projects closely.

This was her perspective: instead of thinking about how to make virtual reality more like real life, think about making real life more like games. Why? Because games, networked games specifically, work better than real life. She coined the term "reality is broken".

Why?

  1. Games come with better instructions; you have a clear goal, and other people share information on how to succeed.
  2. Games give you better feedback on your performance in the form of scores and ratings, plus they provide an audience that’s tuned into your success.
  3. Games offer better community—everybody’s agreed to same rules and narrative, and you share a heroic sense of purpose.
You should take these lessons and apply them elsewhere in order to capture the attention of a “huge new market of non-gamers.”

Some articles on Jane McGonigal:
cnet Future games to harness players' collective wisdom
Wired Ask a Scientist: Jane McGonigal

Forget platforms (already?) - data is hot!



In the panel on "The semantic web (semantic=there is meaning in the data)" at the Web 2.0 Summit, the speakers, including legendary Danny Hillis, presented some new services that can organize information from a semantic perspective. The service I was most impressed with was twine. It can provide you with a unified view of "everything you know". Nova Spivack, the founder, showed the service for the first time today I am sure we will hear more about it.

The semantic web is sometimes referred to as Web 3.0. The web is the platform where all the valuable data is embedded. You just have to extract it in a smart way. An example would be Google PagerRanks which extracts its meaning from the links on the web. More on the subject in this podcast with Nova Spivack.

In a really thought provoking article, Scott Karp discusses the idea of data: "Forget Platforms And Applications, Data Is The Real Asset On the Web" .

"Applications — the front end technology — are no longer the core business asset, at least not in the long term. It’s way too easy for anyone to clone anyone else’s application.

And that means applications built on another service’s platform aren’t the real asset either — it’s too easy to reproduce. Just watch MySpace’s platform catch up with Facebook’s platform.
So what is the business asset? The users — and their data. The “social graph” is what drives value for users on Facebook. They have all their data on Facebook. Their friends have all their data on Facebook. That’s it. Done. The users are happy. They’re locked in, but they DON’T CARE.

Facebook isn’t building its business around apps — it’s building it around data — by making that data hugely valuable to advertisers.

The most successful companies on the web are those that created a virtuous cycle between their users and their database, where the more data users put in, the more value they get out. That’s the essence of Web 2.0. Data has limited value locally, or walled off on a single site".

Game Legends Live on stage

I must admit this was one of the highlights of the Web 2.0 Summit. Listening to the panel on gaming with Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision (Creator of guitarhero!) and Trip Hawkins, CEO of Digital Chocolate (and founder of Electronic Arts!).

Hawkins, an advocate of casual gaming, claims we are headed toward a world of immersive, social content. A world in which content isn’t something that we pay to watch or listen to, but something we pay to participate in–a social experience.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Life is a game




Here is an excellent example of "life as a game". Michelle plays "My car is a video game" (to see how far she can go on one tank of gas). "Hence, I must continually beat my high score, which right now is 52.4 MPG for a whole tank." Read more.

I always do this, but my Saab 9.5 does not give me the same type of feedback as her car.

Competition between email and social networks


(this image has nothing to do with the WSJ article)

Will Social Features Make Email Sexy Again?

Prediction: This article in the Wall Street Journal will be discussed and cited by a lot of people in the coming weeks.

Great speaker, great slides


Photograph copyright James Duncan Davidson.

Mary Meeker, leader of Morgan Stanley's global technology reserach team, is the fastest, smartest and post PPT-packed speaker I have ever seen. Her slides were AMAZING. (And you know I am not exactly a PPT-fan).

Download them from Morgan Stanley.

Everybody wants to be a platform


Chris DeWolfe, founder, MySpace
Photograph copyright James Duncan Davidson.

I am at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. This is the event where everyone wished they were a platform. Mark Zuckerberg explained how Facebook shall become the new platform for all the social activities on the web. Zuckerberg also described the notion of the ’social graph’. Zuckerberg said “it’s the set of conenctions that a person has in the world” and that Facebook is simply trying to map this. He said it’s about exposing people's connections, but respecting people's privacy. This was really a new concept for me and I think it will have great implications.
Tim O'Reilly, the chair of the conference, expresses a concern over how much Facebook will let third parties use the information generated on the site: "I do think that there are two views of the social graph, though, and how it gets deployed: there's a platform view in which it can be exploited to build smarter applications on Facebook; there's a deeper view in which the Facebook-discovered social graph can be accessed by other applications elsewhere on the net. Facebook's granular control of what information you reveal and to whom is thus a key part of the platform -- but the question is how far Facebook will go in letting other sites use this information. If Mark's answer is the first, Facebook is ultimately a closed platform; if the latter, it becomes a true open platform and value enabler."

Tim O’Reilly's comment is an important one. Will other applications and companies have access to the information on Facebook, or will Facebook be a "walled garden"?


Photograph copyright James Duncan Davidson.

By contrast, the conversation between Chris DeWolfe of MySpace and Rupert Murdoch of NewsCorp, on Wednesday evening, made clear that MySpace primarily thinks of itself as a media company. MySpace is primarily building a platform for people to manage their personal online presence. Basta.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.
Photograph copyright James Duncan Davidson.

Facebook, on the other hand is thinking much more broadly about the future of the net. Zuckerberg: "The early guys who built the company, we discussed building the development platform before we actually built Facebook. It's been incredibly humbling to see all these people developing; we made a conscious decision that we wanted to release this very quickly. Let's get this thing out in the world and see how people are going to use. It's going to take 30 years - or tens of years - before this becomes a really mature platform. It's just been amazing."

"We're not really a media company... The types of stuff we build and the types of problems we solve are deeply technical problems. That's the sort of thing Facebook's going to be interested in building towards."

Jag bloggar från Web 2.0 på Internetworld

Läs min spaning från San Francisco på Internetworld.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

The crazy look of Steve Ballmer


The take-away from John Battelle's interview with Steve Ballmer at Web 2.0 Summit: not as self-confident as usual. I got the impression Microsoft is looking to buy a lot of different companies to strengthen their online business. "We're in the game, we've come from nowhere quickly. But we're a relatively small player compared to the market leader (Google). In our games and devices business, what's not to love about Halo 3. There's a lot of good and a lot of areas of improvement", Ballmer said between sips of his iced Starbucks drink.
This is when Steve started to get all red in the face and jumped up and down nearly popping out of his seat: "You're just 3 years old, and we've got you in there playing basketball with a 12-year-old. You're growing up quick and getting better every day, and you've got all the potential in world, and it may take you 'til you're 7, 8, 9 or 10, but you're gonna dunk (screaming) and you're gonna dunk on the other guy some day, Johnny."
But as Bruce Chizen, CEO of Adobe pointed out. How come Microsoft has used Flash and not their Silverlight software in the Halo 3 site?
We all disagree on Steve Ballmer. Brilliant or crazy? I'll leave it to you to look at this picture.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Look out for Google Health



More from Web 2.0 Summit: Google's Melissa Mayer described Google's ambition to focus on health services. "Google is not a doctor, but people come in millions to type in there diagnosis and search for it. Health is a huge user information need". Health has been rumored for a long time as an obvious Google vertical.



The health industry is paper-based and many health records aren’t electronic. Understandably there are also privacy concerns and lack of coordination between entities. Google's ambition is to make patient records digital and portal (so you can bring your journal to your doctor on a USB). "It is obviously a really big vision. It will take a lot of breakthroughs in digitization", Mayer said.

Another feature Google will add is to add doctors and information about them to Google Maps.

Melissa Mayer started by explaining the top ten things you might expect from Google Health ;-)


Monday, October 15, 2007

Friday, October 12, 2007

CSI characters will chase killer in Second Life



One of the best speakers at VW Fall 2007 was Anthony Zuiker. He is the creator of the CSI franchise, and is now bringing CSI: NY to Second Life. The theme os his speech was on the future of TV and media. “What’s the future of television?” he asked. “It is as follows: TV, online, mobile, and gaming.” There has to be original, great content that can be distributed online, through mobile updates and interacted with in gaming and virtual world environments. Why? Because media companies need to attract a younger generation of viewers interested in interacting with television rather than just watching it. This is also a way of re-invented traditional advertising into a form "you just don't Tivo over".


Monty Brinton/CBS

On Oct 24 Gary Sinise’s character and other CSI:NY characters will chase a killer in the real world and follow his avatar as it disapperas into Second Life. CBS will provide two 30-second spots advertising the virtual world to call people to action online, all leading up to a months-long answer to the episode’s cliffhanger.



For the users it will be easy to participate. The down loading procedure is simplified to a nine-minute downloading time. There will be clues and action for the beginner, the intermediate, and the advanced users. Anthony's avatar will walk you through the scenes.

“That’s the future of television,” said Zuiker. “There’s been some negative press about Second Life. I think why is that a lot of companies are cutting big checks with no real application for promotability. We’re putting Cisco on the air twice to show their teleconferencing capability. And then we’re putting it into the world to solve the mystery. If you’re a beverage company, I’ll drop the drinks into the show and then into the world and people will need to drink them to solve the crime.”

More on this story in New York Times.

Check out Anthony as he gives out chocolates to the audience. The woman in the red jacket taking pictures is me....

IBM sees emergence of 3D web

From the session "The BEST platforms for enterprise value" (VW Fall 2007)

“It feels very like the early Internet days, and we’re trying to learn from that and not repeat the mistakes,” said Sandy Kearney, IBM Global Director, IBM 3D Internet and Virtual Business. “I want to take us down this journey from a business value perspective and an enterprise perspective. It’s starting to become pretty gray area, because a lot of us believe we can be entertained in the enterprise space.”

With IBM's announcements this week of a group dedicated to providing open standards and mainstreaming the 3D Internet, Kearney's take on the metaverse is at the forefront of things.

Broadcasing + virtual content

From the panel "Entertainment in Virtual Worlds- It's not games. It's not TV. It's..." (VW Fall 2007)

“The living room itself is changing,” said Blake Lewin, Vice President Product Development, Turner Broadcasting Inc. “Media is becoming totally device dependent. Devices are becoming content independent. On my big screen, I’ve got video games, DVR, DVD cable. And users are becoming time independent. People can watch any show any time. There’s a breakdown in the network model and also in the consumption of media. That means Turner has to look at different means of providing programming. One of the ways is virtual worlds.”

Turner has now entered into a year-long partnership with Kaneva to test virtual worlds expansion.
Meet Me 3D at Kaneva.com

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Stardoll impressed the audience


Mattias Miksche, CEO, Stardoll and Stefanie Schwartz, VP Marketing, NeoPets

The kids virtual worlds market, is really the first that’s become mass market and successful from a business point of view. We’ve seen millions of users spending their money, or at least their parents’ money, on virtual worlds.

The audience were greatly impressed by the numbers that the members of the panel: "Kids and Teen Worlds" (VW Fall 2007) were presenting. Mattias Miksche of Stardoll even pulled down a round of applauds from the audience after his "girls-only"-presentation. NeoPets has a steady 10 million unique users spending a lot of money on games, gifts and stuff for their animals . Habbo has also found a recipe for keeping their users at the hotel for hours each month.

One thing that everyone in the panel could agree on, was that pre-paid cards at Target were a great success.

Report from "Virtual Worlds" in San Jose


Beata with Ralph Koster, CEO Areae and creator of Ultima Online.
Over 1,000 participants and 100 speakers have gathered at the Virtual Worlds event in San Jose Oct 10-11. The big discssion has been on how to blend the stickiness and ease of use of social networks, such as Facebook, with the rich user experience of a virtual world. Many of the participants are here to further explore how to extend their product or service with a virtual environment. Lego for example announced that they are creating the Lego Universe, a proprietary world to be realeased Aug 2008.


The web is going 3D faster than anyone could have imagined. It is a bit of a cultural shock to see a speaker like Sandy Kearny, Global Director, 3D Internet, IBM (!) talk about the challenges of the conceptual age and referring to Dan Pink's "A Whole New Mind" as her new bible of creative thinking. She also admitted that "it took IBM 8 years to understand e-business, but only 8 months to get 3D Internet".


Now I am off to listen to the panel on "Kids and Teen worlds" where Mattias Miksche, CEO of the paperdoll heaven Stardoll, and Sampo Karjalainen, founder of Habbo Hotel is participating. Second Life may be at the center of attention at an event like this, but Stardoll is still three times larger! Way to go, girls!