HMS Victory has been reunited with Vice Admiral Lord Nelson in Trafalgar Square. The giant ship-in-a-bottle sculpture is the creation of Yinka Shonibare and will remain on the Fourth Plinth for 18 months.
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Fernandez & Wells’s bar, Lexington Street, Soho
Fernandez & Wells’s bar is one of three small shops in Lexington Street, Soho. It’s a fantastic find that could easily be in Barcelona or Servile. Platters of cured meat and cheese are served with a glass of wine at a long bar. Inspired by the Slow Food Movement it aims to “provide freshly made, well-sourced food and drink in an uncluttered spaced.”
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David Siegel on the semantic web (and the temperature in Venice)
We’ve spent the last two decades creating and storing more and more information.
David Siegel author of the Power of Pull reckons that the computer generation has digitised more than 500 Exabytes (500 followed by 20 zeros) of data. Siegel was speaking at Thinking Digital yesterday.
“In five years time we’ll have generated more than 20 years that amount. We’re builder bigger and bigger electronic filing cabinets. We’re spending trillions of dollars replicating old systems,” said Siegel.
Without context data has limited value and requires human intervention.
Here’s an example. Ask Google “What’s the temperature in Venice”. The answer will be somewhere in the 1.4 million search results but you’ll have to search manually.
Now try Wolfram Alpha “What’s the temperature in Venice”. The single result that you’d expect is returned immediately. That’s because the data that the search engine searches has been marked-up semantically.
The semantic web is the unambiguous web where data has context because of the way it is marked-up.
During the next 30 years Siegel said that we’ll make a considerable leap in productivity because information on the web will be organised so that computers can understand its context and meaning.
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Story telling using data from social networks
Human beings aren’t very good at interpreting numbers. That’s the view of Jer Thorph speaking at Thinking Digital in Gateshead yesterday.
Thorph describes himself as a software artist, writer, and educator. He’s also a contributing editor for Wired UK.
His session described how data could be represented in a visual format. That’s the premise behind his Just Landed project.
The application scans Twitter for mentions of “I just landed” or “I just arrived” and using MetaCarta adds Longitude and Latitude data.
The Just Landed application uses these data point to plot the flights taken by Twitter users over the course of several hours.
By contextualising data in this way Thorp explained that it’s easy to understand the story behind data – in this case the flights that Twitter users are taking.
We Feel Fine takes a similar approach to plot instances of “I feel…” from social networks.
Thorph said that these same techniques could be used to predict the spread of a disease.
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Not all customers are equal in social media
Image via Wikipedia
We’re only beginning to see the use of Twitter for customer service. Yet the expectation of brands that use the channel is increasing all the time.
Businesses may start prioritising engagement with customers on Twitter according to their influence. This was Brian Solis’ prediction speaking at Thinking Digital in Gateshead today.
Solis said that measurement tools such as Klout enabled brands to determine the influence of a Twitter user and prioritise their response accordingly.
Ultimately the ability for consumers to communicate directly with organisations is likely to required fundamental corporate and organisational change.
“Fundamental issues that are repeatedly arising on Twitter need to be dealt with at an operation level within a business,” said Solis.
Placating Twitters users will only work for so long he said.
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Brian Solis on Engage
Gabba’s Paul Fabretti hosted a lunch at Thinking Digital in Gateshead today where author and social media marketing expert Brian Solis talked about his new book Engage.
Solis says that he wrote Engage as a means of explaining to his wife how he earns his living. He said that he intended it to be a handbook for anyone working in new media.
It’s an audacious challenge that led Solis to over shoot his publisher’s brief by 300-pages.
In a Q&A session after his talk Solis was asked how agencies and brands should measure the success of social media campaigns.
He said that it’s very easy to track cause and effect digitally – and that metrics should always be tied to objectives but also recognise intangible and serendipitous benefits.
But Solis cautioned companies to get their online housekeeping in order to improve the effectiveness of their campaigns.
“We’ve one click to get it right. We’re taking people from a rich social experience to web sites that are stuck in the nineties,” he said.
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Eco-project aims at personal change
Andy Hobsbawm, founder of Online Magic, the UK’s first Internet agency, now part of Agency.com, has a new eco-project called Green Thing.
The Green Thing team is using creative communications to reframe environmental issues for consumers in a bid to bring about behavioural change.
Speaking at Thinking Digital in Gateshead today Hobsbawm said that individuals are typically motivated by green issues but find it difficult to take meaningful action in their lives.
Hobsbawm advocates that communication lies at the core of reframing the issue.
“So often the environment al change is pitched as a form of abstinence. We need to move people from they ought to do, to what they want to do, and inspire them to do the green thing,” he said.
Hobsbawm cited examples of this approach in three Green Thing projects.
- Driving music? How about walking music? Walkcast is a downloadable soundtrack tuned to the walking pace of 105 beats per minutes. Stick it on iPod and hit the streets with a beat to your step.
- Glove Love brings together misplaced gloves sourced from lost property outlets from across the UK. Single gloves are united with a partner and branded label and sold by Green Thing for £5.
- Nothing is a retail concept whereby consumers satisfy their need for a retail experience literally by purchasing nothing via a website wittily branded Amazero for nothing. A purchase generates a series of purchase and delivery emails aimed at mimicking a purchasing experience.
Each project is intended to prompt reflection and scrutiny of personal eco issues. Job done I think.
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Meeting @documentally at Thinking Digital
Christian Payne, better known as @documentally, is a former freelance photographer turned mobile media maker. He originally turned to social media as an outlet for images from Iraq that he couldn’t break into the mainstream media.
This video posted two years ago shows Payne’s much-loved Land Rover shortly after he flipped it on black ice.
Payne recounted to the audience during his presentation at Thinking Digital today that in the days following the post he realised the potential of social media as his network reached out to offer practical help and support.
“The more experiences I share the more connections I make,” he said.
Payne is a prolific content producer and says that his participation in social networks has enabled him to promote his trade, showcase his work and generate interesting work.
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Creative Commons cuts legal costs for content collaborators
Technology has enabled computers to be connected together and has democratised how we share information at low or no cost.
Speaking at Thinking Digital in Gateshead today Joichi Ito, venture capitalist and CEO, Creative Commons (CC), told the 500-strong audience that the next significant challenge for technologists lies in the collaborative manipulation of applications and content.
“We need to create standards that harness the opportunity for collaboration that the Internet enables,” said Ito.
His contention is that it’s wrong that legal and licensing costs are now the most significant barrier between third parties seeking to collaborate and reckons CC is the answer.
CC has defined six flavours of legal contracts from full copyright to public domain that are available and enforceable in almost every country in the world.
Ito said that the benefits of using a CC licence are both creative and financial.
He cited the example of Nine Inch Nails. When it released Ghosts under a CC license it drove amateur remixes and hype that resulted in it becoming the number one paid MP3 download on Amazon in 2008.
Other CC customers include Al Jazeera, Flickr, Google and Wikipedia.
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