Should we listen to every conversation?

Over on the Essential Research blog, I have responded to a post by a social media conversation monitor who eulogised the death of focus groups.
In that post, I have outlined why focus groups themselves aren’t the issue; rather it is shoddy application. Here, I want to expand on that a bit. It is my contention [...]

Foursquare uses for my iPhone

In my post on mobile yesterday, I mentioned that the mobile internet is changing people’s conception of what a mobile can do.
Initially, a mobile phone was purely about communication. This is no longer the case. Broadly speaking, there are four main ways in which a mobile phone is now used:

Communication
Information
Entertainment
Utility

To illustrate the multiple ways in [...]

How can research inspire?

The question in the title is predicated on the assumption that research can inspire. While the haters may disagree, I truly believe it can.
Understanding the different ways in which it can do so is trickier.
In a slight contradiction to my previous post on “insight”, I’m using the term “research in its most catch-all form. Rather [...]

Facebook Polls could be pretty useful

At the recent World Economic Forum, Facebook Global Markets Director Randi Zuckerberg demonstrated Facebook polls. This, accompanied by an interview in the Telegraph, has sent the blogosphere aflutter in two separate directions.
In one corner are those excited by the prospect of 120,000 responses in 20 minutes (as a question on Barack Obama’s stimulus plan received). [...]

Links – 22nd December 2008

This post is part 1 of 2, and they will effectively be my only link updates for December. A shame considering I kept the updates fairly consistent beforehand, but December isn’t the easiest month to keep on top of things – particularly with ATP and illness.
Anyway…
Social media

I’ve been using Twitter a lot more recently – [...]

Links – 27th August 2008

Another shorter list. Rather than my getting more clinical in pruning bookmarks, I believe the main reason is that the Internet gets a bit quieter in August (and I’m posting this earlier in the week).
Blog-related:
Seth Godin upsets direct marketers – by suggesting that if we click ads on sites we like, we can up-end the [...]

Links – 16th June 2008

Part 4 of 5:
Technology and social software links
Collection of presentations from the Web2.0 Expo (random($foo)) – a very comprehensive directory containing both videos and slides
10 things to hate about web2.0(Hugh McCloud)
Scaling a microblogging service(Hueniverse) – or How to fix Twitter
Chronology of brands hit by social media(Jeremiah Owyang)
The first Internet disconnection due to piracy is… The [...]

What you see is what you get

Seeing this article on the Compete blog (which, incidentally, is often a fascinating read) prompted me to think more widely about our online personas – both real and assumed – and how perpetual they may be.
As social networking as a process (if not the specific sites – yet) becomes more ingrained, we are leaving increasing [...]