An oft-quoted definition of social media (even Facebook uses it) is from Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein: ‘…a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content’.

Well, perhaps a more pertinent, and possibly even more important, definition would be: ‘A group of Internet-based applications that generate feelings of addiction similar to that of consumerism during the mid-2000s’.

Read More »

Today is the day many of us say goodbye to Ceefax after the analogue TV signal was switched off across London. The BBC’s teletext information service started transmitting back in 1974 and is still providing information on a wide range of topics covering news, sport, weather, TV listings and businesses.

Read More »

The Guardian has gone big with an interview today with inventor of the internet, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who warns against the dangers of big web firms controlling too much of our data.

He says consumers do not yet understand the value of the data held about them by big firms and he wants people to demand their personal data from the likes of Google and Facebook. Read More »

Today’s internet is so dominated by Facebook and Google it’s hard to imagine how they could possibly be superseded. This infographic from CenturyLink reminds us that on the web, nothing is forever. The past giants from AOL to Yahoo! have all experienced life cycles, and according to the averages below Facebook has about 3 years until it dies! Maybe we should be taking Facebook up on their offer last Thursday to download an expanded archive of all our data after all.

Do you think Facebook will suffer the same fate as these giants?

Read More »

Recently I’ve been looking at website navigation and how this can fail in being useful to a new user to a website. Sometimes you can get so wrapped up in the rest of the website design that you forget the most important part – the navigation. Read More »

Trying to create an ad as irreverent, funny and memorable as the Old Spice “man your man could smell like” is a gargantuan task that many have tried to achieve, and almost universally failed to do.

However, DollarShaveClub.com is within a whisker of being just as good. From a migrant worker to a bear, this ad is better than good. In fact, we’d go so far as to say it’s “F***ing Great”. Read More »

Weeks after its initial release the Kony 2012 video, from the small campaigning organisation Invisible Children, which aims to bring Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony to justice for crimes against humanity, still tops the viral charts and has now racked up more than 86 million views, but can it happen again?

Invisible Children co-founder Bobby Bailey, who left the charity in 2009, has created another film that focuses on the mothers of the child soldiers who are often too scared to return home because of reprisal fears. Read More »

In the fast-paced age of digital, technology, trends and tactics tend to have a short shelf life. The idea of viral marketing would be seen as relatively new when viewed in the timeframe of traditional advertising. But in the digital world, viral is already a veteran. Nowadays, smart marketers are tapping into the power of fractal marketing.

Where viral was about infecting the consumer with an intended message, fractal is about letting the consumer receive and modify the message. Fractals have the ability to repeat infinitely. Ergo, fractal marketing gives campaigns a bloody long and self perpetuating shelf life. But how can brands and agencies conquer this new zenith of marketing? Read More »

An entertaining rant recently appeared from internet sceptic John MacArthur, the publisher of Harper’s Magazine, who believes the internet is out to put him out of business (he might be right) and where he compares it to nothing more than a giant photocopier that is stealing the life from his magazine.

Called ‘Internet con men ravage publishing’ he accuses those who give free content away, he points to the Guardian and others, of being  ideological radicals and internet boosters who are doing nothing less than promoting the death of print. Read More »

The Mail Online appears to have secured its place as the world’s biggest online newspaper as it overtakes the New York Times’ in terms of daily visitor traffic for the first time, according to figures from Comscore.

In February it racked up an average of 6,265,000 unique visitors a day, compared with 6,239,000 for the The New York Times. Read More »