Firstly, a consolidation exercise by the parent company at the end of 2010 resulted in focusing on 3 areas of service.
Secondly, an attempt to find value sources of reference and discussion.

There is thought that this site may combine / consolidate with another site but we’re considering if that is the right strategy.

In the meantime, thanks for tuning in.

The 6 Social Media Sites You Should Explore – They are certainly leading the new social media revolution

Firstly, Foursquare – Ever heard of the term, ‘location, location, location’!? Well this is a location-based social network/gaming application that is gaining ground.  Members or  Users “check in” at local businesses and earn rewards for frequently visiting participating establishments.
Currently, the site is receiving greater than 1 million check-ins per week.  Business owners can get value out of Foursquare by offering incentives for users to check in, such as special offers for repeat visitors. There is also the ability to be crowned Mayor of an establishment!
i.e: What is the definition of a deal? One example, is a a free drink or appetizer or starter dish for the Foursquare user who checks in the most (Its the user who is called / hailed the Mayor).

Interestingly, this company has signed major partnerships with TV network Bravo and restaurant guide to functionality and usage.

In the video above, you can see Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare. Here he discusses the goals of this location-based social networking application.

Gowalla – According to Wikipedia: Gowalla is a location-based social-networking game created by Alamofire. Users ‘check-in’ at Spots in their local vicinity, either through a dedicated mobile application or through the mobile website. As a reward users will sometimes receive items from check-ins. Items have developed to become a promotional tool for the game’s partners e.g. Incase. As of March 2010 there were approximately 150,000 active users.

Rummble – Similar to the latter, the concept of trust and ratings is introduced. For example, their website suggests:

It is a bit like your social network, but based upon trust (or lack of) in peoples recommendations so you can discover cool stuff from thousands of people, not just friends or immediate trusted connections. Rummbling is really easy online or from your mobile phone.  Its the best to Rummble when you’re actually at a place you love or loath, then you can add a photo & if you want, share it straight away on Twitter, Facebook, Bebo or more…

Google Buzz – Buzz allows users to post status updates and upload pictures and videos to a Google profile, not unlike Facebook and Twitter.  A user’s network is formed by contacts they interact with frequently on Gmail. If a user makes an update public, the information also gets added to the “Buzz” layer now available on Google mobile maps.  Now, Google Maps users on iPhones and Android devices can view the things other Buzz users have said about businesses in the area.

Loopt – This is another location-based social service. It aims to connect its users with their friends by visually displaying their location and availability on a localized map. Users can connect with friends in the area, see reviews and recommendations of restaurants, and find events in the area that might be of interest.  Businesses have tapped into Loopt’s location data to offer targeted promotions. Loopt is already accessible on more than 100 mobile phones and currently used by about 3 million people, giving it the widest distribution of any of the location-based services.

Blippy – Blippy aims to connect people around the purchases they make.  I guess people will need to be very careful about what they say or what could be misconstrued! Blippy publishes the amount and location of customer purchases, with user permission -that the rest of the community can then react to.

Groupon – This site offers “collective buying power” by providing deals to groups of people who buy products and services in bulk from participating retailers.  The site uses social networking to get users to share offers with their communities, in order to reach the target number of customers the “Groupon” requires to activate.

Businesses could gain exposure and new customers by making offers on the site—if Groupon develops a large following. However, one observation is to take advantage of group discounts you will have to find members with the same interest first. While the revenue from the purchase is helpful, exposing a large group of customers to your product is even more valuable.

This is by no means an inclusive list, only 5 exceptional companies striving to change the social media landscape with fresh ideas.

Which up-and-coming social application are you most excited about? Who did we leave off the list that should have been included? Please leave a comment below…

Other new services include:

http://www.Intent.com
http://www.akoha.com/
http://www.traxo.com/
http://www.socialight.com/
http://www.communike.com/Messages.aspx
http://www.yoink.com/

http://www.wombeat.com/

What about linking Social Media to Augmented Reality!?
Our article and associated videos about the potential of Augmented reality can be found at:
http://www.drsavi.com/opportunities-with-augmented-reality/

The following articles are also fascinating, i.e:  The future of social networking – a concept investigation with Augmented Reality & http://imod.co.za/2009/10/01/social-networking-and-the-future/

NB The following mock-up images from the latter, say it all!

• Sky 3D – Coming soon commercially!
• iPhone 3.0 – with cut & paste functions & now the phone offers over 90,000 applications!
• The concepts of paying for apps has also lead some commentators to suggest that people will pay for exclusive content. More on the arguments on the latter at an article we wrote entitled: http://www.drsavi.com/the-future-of-news-services/
• Google Android 2.0 – together with Google Maps Navigation.
• Windows 7 – Officially viewed at CES 2009 but not released until 22 October, Windows 7 has the fantastic touch screen functionality built in.
• OS X Snow Leopard – With speed and great enhancements.
• Project Natal – controller-free controls !
• Spotify mobile
• ustream – via your phone for live streaming
• JazzFM – Iphone app
• Track & Tuck – Iphone app
• Radiobox – I phone app
• Trainline- Iphone app
• Sikhnet Radio – Iphone app
• Sky songs – with a subscription fee for unlimited songs and a selection of MP3s to keep
• Nikon Coolpix S1000PJ – including an awesome builtin projector.

See full article here:

Following on from my recent article, entitled: The future of News services where I discussed the potential of advertising and subscription funding journalism rather than making exclusive content chargeable, I came across this wonderful R&D work being performed by Bonnier and Berg (Designers and practitioners in electronic and mechanical engineering, industrial design, 3D, animation, videography, visualisation, data-mining, coding and technical development).

From a technical and commercial perspective:

1. The Radial menus provide a very innovative and intuitive way of navigation.
2. I like the idea of considering how the device should behave during idle time.
3. I guess we are so used to a magazine format it makes sense to innovate on a trusted layout.

There are of course the protagonists who will suggest that no one can beat the ascetic feel of paper. I read once that original typed manuscriupts could show the intensity of the writers thoughts as he/she banged away at their mechanical type-writers! It has also been suggested that hyper-linking contributes to laziness on the part of the writer and reader as they can simply place a reference to a location rather than use exqusite terms and phrases.

What devices of this type offer is the greater availability of knowledge. If you wish to enjoy a good book by the fireplace – that is fine too.
What will be great for us humans is the ability to develop a new genre of reading with interactivity and dynamic information facilitating the development of more imaginative/ inference based ideas.

I can see this as product a reality within the next few years. Interestingly, with Apple rumoured to bring out a larger tablet / i-phone device in Jauary 2010, could this help our economies to recover and provide greater content to enrich our souls and promote world harmony? The latter assumes that a more educated world leads to peace.

With Google’s recent encounters with news outlets and Microsoft attempting to ‘cut’ exclusive content deals with traditional media giants what is the future of media.

Is mixing advertising with content a good way to fund journalism?
What is certainly interesting is the repulsion of the public against text (sms) based advertising. Survey’s reveal this to be irrirating. Personally, it is frustrating to watch a 15 second advertisement before watching a video on Youtube or even the scrolling adverts underneath, albeit that you can compromise on how much you can see as there is a shortening/summary button.

Will the tablets usher in a new way of advertising or fueling news content?

The Video showing a mock-up of what a Sports Illustrated magazine could look like is fascinating. It shows a whole new world of possibilities. For example: Sponsored articles, product placement and also affiliation with brands. Surely, that should be enought to fuel any journalist’s salary or media moguls financial outlook. Maybe the idea for charging for content has been considered due to the success of the i-phone. Clearly with 90,000 applications for the latter device, demand is strong for developers to use this technology as an outreach for their content services et al.

Other opportunities include:

• Mobile services
• Gaming
• Interactive Video
• Interactive Music
• Subscription services for specialist content rather than exclusive content.
• Mash-up of content to derive selling opportunities and hardware sales!
• Aggregation around multiple sources is another possibility

With regard to the latter, just look at BizBuzzz, it focuses  on bringing you the best Blogs, News and Entertainment news all from one channel.
On a related note, there has been a lot of debate this year about the future of video streaming. Again, this offers new possibilities for established media outlets. If networks can establish both niche and relevant everyday content in an accessible and high quality format, then we have the start of new convergence strategies – news like you have never experienced news before.

It is certainly a fascinating insight from a well respected figure from the world of broadcasting.
Jon works for Channel 4 in the UK. He suggests that he straddles between stone-age and the digital age.

Interestingly the BBC have certainly embraced new innovations and have always been at the forefront of using social media to extend what I call ‘the public reach’ to information for our daily lives.

On a recent visit to the US I spoke with a journalist from KOMO 1000 in Seattle:

He described himself as a news gatherer. I had a great chat with him after he had just finished interviewing a group of Boeing executives. I asked him if he was podcasting. His reply was ‘Nah! We don’t do that anymore as none of our listeners were subscribing. I find it far more dynamic to simply record on my iphone 3GS and post directly to YouTube. Then our news service announced on the air that the latest associated new video can be viewed from our website’.

Interesting how content is now being gathered and sent out at the same time.

Talk of an Apple Tablet PC came as early as 2007 from CNET. See:
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39029450,49293967,00.htm

More recent news from http://www.i4u.com/article26033.html dated 24th July ’09.
In an article entitled: ‘Apple Tablet PC Coming’, Robert Evans the article author
states:

Huge news, Apple fans! There is finally information from a reliable source that Apple is finishing up work on its new tablet PC. This Apple-pad is the brainchild of Steve Jobs himself, and it’s just now coming out of an agonizing three year development cycle. Expect to see it in stores early 2010.

Apple’s new tablet will be a 10” touchscreen with 3G enabled and plenty of computing power. From what AppleInsider says, it sounds like this thing is basically going to be an iPod Touch with netbook level processing power and memory. And, since Steve Jobs is the man behind it, you know it’s going to be an extremely solid product the instant it’s released.

In a more recent article, as hot as two days back the rumor is that the unit maybe out by Christmas ’09 (article dated July 27th ’09).

We guess there are also other issues to consider:

1. Who will be the 3G carrier  and will the deal be: Exclusive or Open?
2. What comes with it – Blue tooth would be useful – where is the functional spec today?
3. Could it be a great eBook reader too.
4. What GPS/ Maps application could it use
5. What kind of games will it support
6. What about accessibility
7. Practical portabilty/size/safety options will there be ???
8. Interactive music applications could be amazing
9. What interconnectivity options will be provided to realise a semantic way of connecting with home devices or even your music system!?
10. Will the introductory costs be good to ensure a pervasive inducing strategy

With regard to the latter, it would be great to have a practical, easy to integrate and cost effective unit to connect the world easily.

Typical TTT course content can consist of:

• understanding learning styles,
• structuring courses,
• developing relevant frequently answered question banks and
• enhancing the way to deliver key learning areas.

Using new media and elearning should be considered as complementary tools to ease both the dissemination of the TTT syllabus but also establishing a set of online resources to aid the delivery of learner knowledge.

This can be achived with

• Video and Audio Podcasts
• Wiki’s (private and public),
• A social network established to share learning resource centres
• Incorporating pre-recorded video segments to enhance a typical TTT or face-to-face course.

Interestingly, reading the following report entitled: The John D and Catherine T.Max Arthur Foundation : Living and Learning with New media, Summary of findings from the Digital Youth Project issued in November 2008, it suggested that:

programs are those based on kids’ own passionate interests and allowing plenty of unstructured time for kids to tinker and explore without being dominated by direct instruction. Unlike classroom teachers, these lab teachers and youth-program leaders are not authority figures responsible for assessing kids’ competence, but are rather what Dilan Mahendran has called “co-conspirators;’ much like the adult participants in online interest-driven groups. In this, our research aligns with Chavez and Soepliii who identified a “pedagogy of collegiality” that defines adult-youth collaboration in what they see as successful youth media programs.

Why are these finding relevant and how do they apply to the corporate world?

I really like the term, ‘pedagogy of collegiality’ as it suggests that you only have to look at the rise of Facebook and its impact on peoples lives. If this concept of sharing ideas together can be applied to learning, then the nature of instructors will change to provide new avenues to enrich learning in a supportive rather than direct manner.

The Pomegranate Phone could one day be a reality bar the harmonica, pardon the pun.

Maybe many of our current day products are based on Start Trek? What other stories will inspire us in the future ? I especially like the universal translator, that would be amazing…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Don’t forget the coffee:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pomegranate Phone

I’m confident that popular podcasts are probably sport, politics and movies.
In addition, I’m encouraged by the following statement:

Twenty-four-year-old advertising student Prachi Ganjedra says that the medium is “kind of cool” and has also started attracting commercials.

I would consider the term, ‘narrow’ as being a reality, for example:

The demographic is certainly focused on those who can afford access to technology, albeit that there could be a big student population (hence the Hindustan Times article possibly mentioning Orkut).

Another area to consider would be the Non-Resident Indian listeners (NRI’s – a common description by Indian’s describing those that have migrated typically to the West) – Who & how many also applies.