Social Hallucinations

The Truth about Social Media Revolution

What would happen if Twitter increased the number of allowed characters from 140 to 200? And other interesting made-up stats and statements.

via www.youtube.com

Virtual Suicide

Virtual self is increasingly important part of our lives. Internet creates a virtual stage where we can play another role (roles) in the process of creating and inventing ourselves. Virtual identity is equal to the real life identity for many. Some creates new persona, which they don't dare to be in the real life. Virtual space gives more room and possibilities to stage the self...instant and with no limits.

But it takes time.

But it takes you away from the real live.

But it creates false hopes and expectations, which often can't be met where person meets a person.

It doesn't stop the ego...

Full of hope, we dedicate the time to show whom we are or whom we would like to be. impersonating the dreams, becoming the celebrities and paparazzi's of our own lives. Deprived of privacy. 

The mystery is broken.

What would it happen when you would let your Internet life die...would your real life start? Whom would you be? 

Will committing the virtual suicide impact you and your life? Is it immoral to encourage people to commit virtual suicide? Is a virtual identity just another shiny object of XXI century destined to extinct or is it something to last? or is it the extension of our personality? 

so many questions...less answers. We see the new things being created in front of our eyes. This may get us scared and seek the refuge in the seemingly safe past. This may lead us to radical actions...like this oneWeb2.0 Suicide Machine. 

“Web 2.0 Suicide Machine”  allows users to permanently delete their accounts from social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter.

Is something bad that encourages us to partially destroy our lives or is it just a funny gimmick, helping us to distance ourselves from our virtual self? 

Would you dare to take the step and sign out forever?

 

 

Tweet and decrease prizes

I am a big fan of Uniqlo. They keep on delivering great stuff that integrates the experience of shopping with being social. Lucky counter - tweet about a product and its price will come down for everybody. 

Mobile & Social Media in Scandinavia

A demographic study within the Nordics of people mobile phone habits, and social ’s media network habits...men and women, boys and girls, from 15 – 55, from all over the Nordic regions, and from all walks of life....

Mobile & social media in Scandinavia

View more presentations from Vizeum Denmark. or read more about Vizeum

 

Fight Oversharing with Pringles

For two days ago I wrote about the sharing tyranny and now Pringles comes up with the new campaign that should help us fight over-sharing phenomena where people share things of the very low importance. Clever. We will see more of this type initiatives that help us fight overflow of informations. The brands that will we be those who give us powerful and useful filtering tools.

 
 

Some Thoughts on Social Media....

... by Marcus Brown who is awesome dude. Tune in to his Vimeo channel broadcasted directly from the toilet

 

 via Charles

Making is Connecting

The new promise of creativity and innovation by connecting digital tools, activism, happiness and social capital by David Gauntlett

Digital tools aren't really worth much unless they are enable people to do stuff, innovate, initiate the change. Brilliant.

Social connection

Social experts are keep on multiplying. Clients asking more for social media in briefs. Agencies race for making frameworks, models, products to sell to the clients...but everyone seems to forget one essential thing:

"You need a social profile to engage with other people and the world - but you need to be doing other stuff, constantly, to feed it. To be successful in social spaces, you need to be active in the world." (Faris)

 Neither people nor brands exist in social vaccum. What makes us social is our stories we tell, our experiences we share. Social doesn't fit frameworks and models cause it is unpredictable, cause it is people and interactions among them. Ideas, interesting stories, shared experiences are what connects people....not Facebook fan pages.

The importance of digital literacy

Howard Rheingold on the importance the literacy in participation and sharing is what will decide whether Internet will be useful tool or garbage. 

The Internet as Playground and Factory - Howard Rheingold from Voices from The Internet as Play on Vimeo.

"Social Media Makeover"

This illustrates pretty good the last to days of advertising mistakenly called for viral and social media marketing in Denmark.

"Many businesses treat social media tools the same dropping an FSI or placing a grocery cart ad.  It becomes just more superficial window dressing.  I think it would be far better to apply that investment toward actually making the brand and products more interesting and remarkable."  (Tom Fishburne)

Danish Mother Seeking - Update

Video was removed was YouTube .... well it just proves all my points. However video can be seen here.

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Danish Mother Seeking is busted! Karen26, Danish mother seeking... was hired by Visit Denmark to promote Denmark abroad. This is rather disappointing that such a good idea that would work really good to promote safe sex, was used to promote Denmark. That's also pretty shocking that such an angle was chosen to tell the story of Denmark. 

After finding out who was behind the campaign, I must say I asked myself about the ethics - not about the ethics of use of social media, but about the ethics of the content, about the way the governmental company chooses to present Denmark for the world. Respect is missing.

Let's look at aftermath first: over 1 million views, over 5.000 comments and lot of commotion on blogs and in mainstream media...primarily in Denmark. It is pretty understandable Danes are shocked over the way their compatriots have chosen to promote their country. It is like a bad reality show. The comments from Visit Denmark and agency behind - Grey Copenhagen heats the situation even more up. I heard Peter Helstrup, strategic director at Grey Copenhagen say:

"I think, this is the most effective campaign, that was ever created for a danish company" 

Well, this is impressive viral campaign that used controversy, fake & real approach and delivered over million views in just 3 days. As I wrote yesterday views, buzz has nothing to do with effectiveness, it has nothing to do with social media. This is just a tactical and short-term solution, deeply rooted in traditional media thinking focusing on creating controversy in order to boost up views numbers on YouTube (views are still shiny objects for so many). They could as well just show bare breasts. (Btw I would like to hear more about the goals that were set up for the campaign apart from views and appearance on TV2)

What about relevancy of the campaign? I keep on asking myself, how this campaign is relevant for Denmark? Isn't Visit Denmark's major goal to attract tourists to Denmark? It seems like the major efforts were put into promoting this video in Denmark. Apparently, Denmark is where the most response came from. I googled this morning to find any comment, any blog post about the campaign outside the boarders of scandalized Denmark. I found one at Mashable titled: Danish Woman’s One Night Stand Video Is a Government Hoax. Not to mention the comments that appeared on YouTube.:

"its amazing to see all the foreigners who have lived in denmark for a long time (decade or more) come out and slam Denmark. I lived there for a decade too, and was disgusted by the petty racism and xenophobia. Not to mention shallow women who will fuck you but not even hold a civil conversation."

"Lets get to Denmark, and get laid! that its all folks! Nobody is interesting in little right wings shiit Denmark!"

No one can deny it - the campaign has backfired and it seems there is no plan to handle the crisis situation. I've heard around that Visit Denmark is deleting comments from people that criticize the campaign.Is it true?!

This is where public engagement begins and we can talk about social media marketing and Visit Denmark seems to be unprepared to handle it. This is when the real things happen - not while the views counter is going up and people leave comments hoping she will find the father of the child, but when the discussion gets heated and opinions about content appear all over the Internet.

Visit Denmark got blinded by the shiny promise of millions of views and lot of buzz. They got those views along with disgusted, disappointed, shocked people and apparently no plan how to handle the bad response video generated.

Companies and agencies chase the shiny objects like buzz and views, missing the big picture and opportunities that are available for creating the public engagement and relationships. Using social media tools will not make you social. We keep on mistaking traditional media campaigns using social media with social media marketing. Social media marketing is about ideas that are rooted in understanding of human behavior and emotions and that get people together, make their lives more exciting or easier. Social media marketing is about people (not views)

Is the next episode coming: Danish Tourist Agency Seeking the lost trust...

Busted Buzz - The Story of Karen26

A few days ago video of young and very cute Danish mother seeking for the father of her baby appeared on YouTube.

Funny story that made Danish socialville into the detective quest on proving the video is a scam. They succeeded in a very short time. Found the actor who played mothers role and now speculates on what company is behind. It is impressive how good people are today at using internet to solve advertising mysteries in a real CSI style. Just read it here, here, here, here and here. It takes us definitely towards more and more transparency and helps us to avoid being cheated by companies making fake ads. It requires pretty good skills to hide the evidence from the ominous eye of internet panopticon nowadays.

What's interesting about this story is to see how hype gets build along the social media experts and mainstream media pick-up the story and boost the hype even more and drive traffic to YouTube video and "campaign website".

The video raised even the question about ethics! You can read about it on Mindjumpers and Virkeligheden blogs. I find the ethical aspect rather misplaced in a situation when we talk about campaign which focus is on creating buzz, not any public engagement. YouTube here is just a channel that is used to present the content balancing in the grey zone, on the verge of mystery and reality. This is not social campaign, this is broadcasting that gets people to view the video and talk about it and wonder whether it is real or fake. The fact that buzz marketing is using social media tools like YouTube or Facebook doesn't make it social marketing. As Anders on Virkelighedens blog wrote - the video fulfills the requirements for viral campaign. However, it is not a social campaign, as it doesn't involve any interaction with people, as I mentioned before it doesn't create any public engagement. This is very tactical viral solution aiming at creating fast response.              

Of course, it still needs to be ethical, meaning being respectful, which I can't see violated in this case. There is also the question of deceiving people, as there are many people who express the compassion with Karen26. Yes, people get deceived in this video, but we have seen this before - blurry boarders between reality and fiction are broadly used mechanics in viral videos - Quicksilver- being the most popular example. There were plenty of people all over the world who were convinced it really happened. Videos gain viral effect from creating speculations - fake or real and the viewers tend to accept this as this is the part of story telling. The rule of tactical buzz marketing is: the more controversial you are the more people respond (see examples from Cult and Fleggard) and Karen26 seems to get it.

Anyhow, video with Karen26 is entertaining and it would be great buzz for "De unge mødre" TV show (Young Mothers), but I doubt it's them. My guess goes for condom producers.

Privacy Continues

Sometime ago I wrote a post about public privacy - tendency to show off all the aspects of personal life to the public. No filters are applied, we demonstrate the exhibitionistic attutide and invite everyone to peep and follow 24/7. Today I stumbled on this article in New York Times that demonstrated to contrtendency - prohibiting sharing the bits and moments of private life -  Party On, but no Tweets. It seems like there is the group of peope who aren't keen on being tagged on Facebook and twittered about, therefore invitations to parties includes note that it is not allowed to share any information online. Being exposed can be annoying, especially when you didn't ask for being exposed.

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• New York Times: The Paradox of Privacy (boxofmeat.net)

Public Privacy

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Image by PunkJr via Flickr

Privacy \ˈprī-və-sē\
1 a: the quality or state of being apart from company or observation : seclusion b: freedom from unauthorized intrusion <one's right to privacy>
2 archaic : a place of seclusion

I've lately found out some very personal facts about people I am connected with on Facebook but I have no close personal relationship with. It was a bit strange feeling. I felt like I was forced to peep into someone's life. Looking into someone's living room and hearing conversations without being seen or heard. I was wondering what should I do with this information, should I react or should I ignore. Of course, I should ignore as it wasn't my business but anyhow someone "forced me" to participate and in a way it became my business whether I wanted or not. I moved on, but I felt a bit strange for some time and took a closer look at different people's profiles. Now I was peeping into people's lives without being forced but drive by pure curiosity to see where the privacy begins. I was surprised to discover there were little privacy...People are literally life-casting and sharing the most private and intimate parts of their lives.

"I love you. I am so happy being married with you"*

"Morning coffee and sun in the garden, the dog has cold and in a minute cherries fall down on the terrace - life is OK"*

But let's start from the beginning. What is actually privacy on Facebook and other social networks? Is revealing your birthday date sex, hometown, Skype ID, trespasses the limits of privacy? I don't think so. Those are just a facts, external general signs of who you are that don't expose who you are a person. It is like showing your ID to someone in the real life, well people may learn when to send you birthday card and resolve the question - yes you are definitely the man - but they can't use those information to get any further into your life. Privacy has become the desirable value in 20th century after the fall of totalitarian regimes that were build around destroying privacy and spying on every aspect of people's lives in the name of protecting the ideology from the imperialistic enemies. We began to cherish privacy and the whole system of providing privacy was developed. We privatized everything from holidays to conscious and God. Then Interned bloomed and we were handed to tools to extend our social lives and we began to fear about our privacy even more...we fear people have access to our birthdays,skype ID's, location...while we freely and happily tell the word the story of our so private and protected private life via status updates, pictures, videos...

"Hey dad. Yes I come up on Thursday, I have free at 13.45. So we must just see if you have free before, otherwise I am just doing a little homework at the school .. Yes. I am also pleased to come up to you, and I am also looking forward to skiing with Mikkel and all the others, it will be great fun .." *

Our privacy has become public. The limits between privacy and public life are blurred. Our privacy has become public. We show our apartments, our friends, our parties, our newborn kids...Aren't we aware we are exposing ourselves to the world and people who aren't our friends? Did our  privacy zone shrink? Or are we using our private lives  as a form of creating ourselves (staging). Or maybe we just don't care cause we "aren't expanding our circle of friends but are strengthening our most important relationships"?

"have just received a very fancy invitation from the French embassy, I will do l'Ambassadrice de France the honor to attend the reception for the French national holiday, and I sit now and write reply..." *

What's privacy for you? Where does it begin?

 
*All quotes are from Facebook Wall Updates
 

Social(istic) Media or The Rise of the New Capitalism?

From now and then, there are voices talking about the digital media and the possibilities they bring - the driving force behind the new socialism era. But the question is whether the possibilities created by the digital media make socialism possible, or whether what we see is the rise of the new capitalism.

Image via Wikipedia

Socialism (latin societas - community) is the ambiguous term, referring to attempts to reduce social inequality and the spread of social services, treatment or management of social control through state institutions, local government, corporation or cooperative). What's common for various types of socialism is partial or total rejection of  the idea of capitalist free market, the restriction of private property and promotion of the idea of social justice. The aim was to build a socialistic society without poverty, where market forces are not the primary mechanism for distribution of wealth and where the functioning of society is based on common ownership, mutual cooperation and altruism. Beautiful idea but never proved to work (or fail - as it is not compatible with human nature). We are herd animals, but every herd needs the leader and clearly defined roles to ensure the proper functioning and survival of the group.

The whole problem with socialism is that the idea of socialism looks good on paper:

You have two cows. The government takes them and puts in the cowshed with other cows. You have to look after all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

Image by publicenergy via Flickr

Then you have the real socialism (which I experienced and would never recommend to anyone as one of the most humiliating systems to an individual and humanity):

You have two cows. The government takes them and puts in the cowshed with other cows that is taken care of by a former poultry farmer. You have to deal with the chickens, which the government took away from the farmers who are in charge of cowsheds. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as law allows, not as much as you need.

Third option is the national socialism - total exploitation, mean capitalism in disguise:

You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to care for them and sells you the milk with the flag state.

Sharing, cooperation and collaboration that are characteristic for the social media aren't quite working in the socialism, because there are always institutions watching and controlling the sharing or collaboration and trying to regulate those with laws. Maybe not a bad idea, but where regulations and power are involved, the inequalities usually emerge.
Of course there are also some positive sides in socialism, because it focuses on the common good but I can't see its chances to thrive in the world where people value their privacy and right to property. We are too independent and focused on our own success and own profits, driven by our needs. The value is YOU. Youniverse & Meritocracy are what drives the digital media evolution.

What we observe today is the rise of the new networked capitalism with intellect as the form of social capital that increases with use and the new digital opportunities are facilitators that drive the intellect growth. The value of the corporations in the new capitalism era - cognitive capitalism - comes from their ability to create new communication tools (Google), connect people (Facebook, Twitter), etc. Personal drivers as taste, creativity plays a huge role in the production process (Nike ID, Aston Martin). The property rights in relation to intellectual property also dramatically change (Napster).

In the industrial capitalism machines sucked workers in, depersonalized and automatized work, today computers / software sucked our knowledge, mashed it up and customized it getting it available and usable / reusable at every click. The question is not longer how much you produce but how much you manage to seed. The more you seed the more growth you create. What justify the existence and enhances the power of our ideas are their ability to spread and inseminate other minds (self-promotion happens to be quite effective insemination technique when used right) - twitter, blogs etc. being the tools helping on the way. It means social media has nothing to do with socialism except first 6 letters, they are the new capitalistic means of production and seeding. The question whether they contribute to the common wealth or satisfy egoistic needs and ambitions, I will leave open for now...

Image by diankarl*www.diankarlina.com* via Flickr

Sources:

Capitalisme cognitif (Le):nouvelle grande transformation, Moulier Boutang Yann

The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online, Wired