2012 will be the year of the multimedia social network. Photo and video based social interaction will grow. Given that the camera on your smartphone is almost as good as your actual camera, the multimedia driven social networks are here to stay and will be an emerging force . . . → Read More: Technology Trend Predictions for 2012 – Travel and Beyond]]> Growth of Photo and Video Social Networks

2012 will be the year of the multimedia social network.  Photo and video based social interaction will grow.  Given that the camera on your smartphone is almost as good as your actual camera, the multimedia driven social networks are here to stay and will be an emerging force for brands in 2012.

Convergence Emergence (Traditional and Social) 

Marketing campaigns will increasingly integrate social with real life.  For example, as part of a recent campaign, Dominos Pizza posted unfiltered feedback on a large billboard in Times Square, bringing together real opinions from real people pulled from a digital source.  These types of trans-media experiences are likely to define social in the year to come.

Social Sharing

Ideas, opinions, media and status updates are all part of what makes social media a powerful and often disruptive force. The media industry was one of the first to understand this, adding sharing options to content, which led to more page views and better status in search results. What comes next in social sharing is more closely aligned with e-commerce or web transactions.  Sharing that holiday that you’ve just booked, or recommending a product, or service from any site to a social network is where sharing goes next.

Outsourcing Content Creation

Content will play a bigger role as social media becomes more mainstream.  However, stretched marketing teams will struggle with adding content creation to their already full plates.  Marketers will therefore need to find a sustainable model for continually creating new content, which may include more outsourcing.  As social media matures, efficiency will become an increasingly important factor.

The Cult of Influence

In much the same way that Google has defined a system that rewards those who produce findable content, there is a race on to develop a system that will reward those who wield the most social influence. To some degree everyone now has some digital influence (not just celebrities, academics, policy makers or those who sway public opinion). But for the next year, the cult of influence becomes more about the tools and techniques professionals use to “score” digital influence and actually harness, scale and measure the results of it.

Gamification

The trend in online games, already popular in the entertainment industry, is set to extend to the travel industry according to recent research.  The WTM Global Trends Report 2011 reveals the ‘gamification of travel’ is already taking hold with companies and tourism organisations including Lufthansa and Tourism Ireland using gaming techniques to create brand awareness and build loyalty.

Last year Tourism Ireland unveiled its Ireland Town game on Facebook giving it the potential to engage with more than 62 million people.  Campaigns such as ‘Nothing Like Australia’ encouraged Australians to upload a photo and share their holiday experiences with the world.  The experiences were than used to create an interactive map.  According to Gartner, by 2015 more than 70% of Forbes Global 200 companies will have at least one gamified application.

Convergence of Social and Mobile

Gartner predicts that by the end of 2012, the number one way that consumers will be interacting with the internet is via their smartphones and tablets.Companies need to think about how existing core marketing initiatives carry through to the mobile web.  It needs to be just as easy for someone on a mobile device not only to access content but also to act on that content in a social manner ie. “Like” it, share it etc.

Sources – LinkedIn Today, www.tnooz.com and www.wtmlondon.com

1st – Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral. 2nd - Invention is the mother of necessity. 3rd - Technology comes in packages, big and small. 4th - Although technology might be a prime element in many public issues, nontechnical factors take precedence in technology-policy decisions. 5th - All history is . . . → Read More: Melvin Kranzberg’s six laws of technology state:]]>

1st – Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.
2nd - Invention is the mother of necessity.
3rd - Technology comes in packages, big and small.
4th - Although technology might be a prime element in many public issues, nontechnical factors take precedence in technology-policy decisions.
5th - All history is relevant, but the history of technology is the most relevant.
6th - Technology is a very human activity – and so is the history of technology.
from Kranzberg, Melvin (1986) Technology and History: “Kranzberg’s Laws”, Technology and Culture, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 544-560.

A quarterly bulletin on online activity in Ireland Compiled by AMAS in association with the Irish Internet Association

DOWNLOAD: Autumn 2008

At Google, we have a saying: “launch early and iterate.” While this approach is usually limited to our engineers, it apparently applies to our mailroom as well! As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit “send” a bit early on a comic book introducing our . . . → Read More: A new browser: Google Chrome]]> From the official Google Blog:

At Google, we have a saying: “launch early and iterate.” While this approach is usually limited to our engineers, it apparently applies to our mailroom as well! As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit “send” a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome. As we believe in access to information for everyone, we’ve now made the comic publicly available — you can find it here. We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries.

So why are we launching Google Chrome? Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web.

All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends — all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff — the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.

This is just the beginning — Google Chrome is far from done. We’re releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We’re hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust.

We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we’re committed to continuing on their path. We’ve used components from Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox, among others — and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.

The web gets better with more options and innovation. Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the web even better.

So check in again tomorrow to try Google Chrome for yourself. We’ll post an update here as soon as it’s ready.

>>> Comic book explaining Google Chrome