Frontline: The Merchants of Cool

Frontline: The Merchants of Cool is a fascinating, albeit highly cynical look, into the way teenagers and children are marketed to. Narrated by Douglas Rushkoff, it is close to ten years old, having been first broadcast in February 2001. One of the programme’s key themes is that teen culture is fast-moving and transitory. Yet hindsight [...]

Recommended Reading – 26th February 2010

I’ll try to make this type of post a weekly occurrence. My previous link updates were quite unwieldy, so I’ll try to limit these recommend reading posts to around five items. Ten movie recuts – because it shows how perspective is dynamic and how, through editing or otherwise, we don’t necessarily see the full picture [...]

Connected: The amazing power of social networks and how they shape our lives

“Connected: The amazing power of social networks and how they shape our lives” was the title of the talk given by Dr Nicholas Christakis at the RSA earlier. Due to rather poor time management, I didn’t make it to the event itself, but followed it online. This link should eventually have the video and downloadable [...]

Fighting potential irrelevance

Disclaimer: My employer, Essential Research, has worked with several of the UK network providers in the past, and hopes to do so again in future. All opinions expressed in this blog post – and this blog in general – are my own. The first to market isn’t always the ultimate category “winner”. There were cars [...]

Two years old, and recommended reading

It’s been two years since my first, tentative, blog post at this address. I’m pleased that it is still going strong but I have been a bit neglectful of it. So, over the coming months I’m going to attempt to do the following Refresh my blog roll – something which is long overdue Post more [...]

Can social media become a mass media?

My short answer is “Yes, if it continues to evolve”. But there are numerous challenges to overcome within this evolution process. SIDENOTE: Throughout this blog, I’ll be referring to social media in the singular. I know that technically media denotes plurality, but, to me at least, phrases such as “social media aren’t mass” sounds weird. [...]

Twitter, unlike Facebook, is socially mobile

The reciprocity of relationships is, in my opinion, the most fundamental difference between Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook, both sides need to agree before the connection is made. On Twitter, people can follow whoever they like. Does this make Twitter more “social”? I think it might. I’m writing in broad terms, since different people use [...]