Citizen Media Watch

The Canadian defence department has sent a memo to soldiers, urging them not to use social networking sites like Facebook, writes CBC News. The reason is said to be that terror organizations like Al Qaeda are monitoring these sites and any details revealed by soldiers might compromise missions and potentially threat the safety of the soldiers and also their families.

There are many areas where transparency is a good thing. In some ways, this isn’t one of them. At the same time, social media or indeed citizen journalism is one of the few ways to really find out what’s happening in troubled areas like Afghanistan or Iraq. Wherever wrongs are being committed by either side, I for one hope the soldiers are brave enough to go public with it through the media - citizen or traditional - so that we don’t get another Abu Ghraib scandal.

(via IDG.se)

Happy new year, all!

I’ll start this year off with a 2 month vacation from this blog. I’ll be travelling during January and Febuary, and post updates in The Many Faces of L., but won’t do much here at Citizen Media Watch. See you in March, when I start my new job as managing editor at Broaden Community.

Niklas Tyllström is at Hubbub 07 to talk about Green hat people, a pretty cool real life game where you get instructions in your cellphone and then go places in your city to find clues and answer questions.
- We were lacking unpredictability in our lives. We came up with a concept where the real world is the playground.
They found that people were not willing to pay for the service. Instead they are running an advertisement-based service.
They had to move from everyone as a target to corporate events.
- Just to stay alive, Niklas Tyllström says with a laugh. He still hopes that everyone will want to build their own games and play, though.
Once more the N95 is used as an example. They were asked to be part of the launch in Sweden. More powerful phones of course create greater gaming possibilities.
- In our perspective, to make a multi-faceted game, it gets really cool. The gaming experience gets really intense. To make that happen on the mass market, that is a challenge. Marketing, partnering with organizations and going to schools are ways that Green hat people are working to broaden their user base.
Timing is crucial for your concept to take off.
- As being Swedish, and in that sense trying to promote a service that is derived from converging technologies, the drivers should really be highlighted. The pricing is important, and the ease of use.
If you have to download something to use a service, there’s a good chance you don’t. Tyllström sees an age difference in that behaviour. Young people usually don’t see downloads as a problem.

My photos from Hubbub end up here. And here’s the Hubbub Flickr photo pool where everyone’s sending photos.

Update 2007-11-24: Four more speakers added!

Next Saturday afternoon the nice guys and gals at Nustart will host another conference at Nymble at KTH in Stockholm. The last one, Hej!2007, was a great success, and I am looking forward to Saturday when Hubbub07 takes place.
The focus this time is on fixed to mobile applications in web, voice and IPTV. The six ten speakers represent four interesting companies in this field:

• Sorosh Tavakoli, Founder of VideoPlaza, will talk about online video advertising
• Trond Bugge, serial entrepreneur and founder/CEO of Super Local Media, will evaluate the importance of mobile location-based access to information at a global level
• Henrik Thomé, entrepreneur and CEO of Sonetel, will talk about “Open source, globalization and Internet technology gives super-powers to the customer-focused IT-entrepreneur. Why have staff? Why have infrastructure?”
• David Haddad, co-founder of Spontu, will talk about convergence of positioning technologies – mobile internet, smartphones and social networking.
• Peter Arvai, VP of Product Development at Mobispine, will talk about mobile internet challenges for both operators and content providers
• Patrick Broman, software architect at Mobile Sorcery, will talk about catalyzing the mobile revolution
• Niklas Tyllström, CEO and Co-founder of Green hat People, will speak about the timing of convergence.
• Hjalmar Winbladh, CEO and Founder of Rebtel, who is challenging the telecom giants.
• Per Mosseby, CEO of Pixbox, will speak about “why the preferred mobile Internet device among the wealthy will continue to be the laptop computer, and why the smaller-than-subnotebook-revolution is happening - in developing countries”.
• Per Leine, CEO of Extransit

One of the things I really liked about Hej!2007 was that live blogging and use of backchannels were encouraged and made use of during the day. This is also the case at Hubbub07. Here you can follow the event:

Jaiku Onelinr Flickr

They are all visible on the live Hubbub site. There you can also find live blogs. I will be blogging live here at Citizen Media Watch, so check back during the event!

Encouraging live coverage and backchannel feedback might seem obvious, but far too often it’s an aspect that organizers put way too little effort in facilitating for the audience. Even at the recent SIME event, the backchannels were as far as I understand not official SIME backchannels and the feedback was not used on stage. Unfortunately I could not attend SIME this year, but Joakim Jardenberg’s thread on Jaiku addresses this and other issues.

Social media is supposed to make it easier for everyone to contribute and to express oneself. But a lot of people are still shut out.
- Blog services are not accessible for everyone, says Stefan Johansson of Funka Nu. He talks about accessibility at the Morgondagens webbplatser conference in Kista outside Stockholm.
He gives the example of Blindbloggen, a blog started by blind people. In the beginning they were enthusiastic, but the project died out because it was too complicated to use the blogging tool.

Accessibility issues are not only about people with physical disabilities. A lot of people simply don’t understand what they’re reading. It is a common problem that hasn’t yet been given much focus.
- One fourth of all adults cannot answer control questions correctly about an article they have read in an ordinary morning newspaper.
He thinks that accessibility is often forgotten when a new site or new functionality is developed.
- Few site developers have problems with using a mouse, for instance, Johansson says.
- They don’t think about it being a problem for some people. If you’re aware of the problem you can find a solution. Flash developers are also seldom aware of accessibility problems.

As soon as you build in requirements in your web site, you shut out people.
So how well does your site work with keyboard only?

- The best people to test-run your site is one blind person and one with ADHD. People with ADHD have low patience, and need things to work right away. They will tell you what you need to change.

John Hargelid, producer at EA Digital Illusions, talks at Daytona Sessions about ads and the social aspects of gaming.

They are connecting their games with websites. He mentions the game Skate. It has a video editing function, so that you can record your skate tricks, and upload them to a site. There you can share the clips with friends, on facebook, del.icio.us etc.
They have ads in their games, a sponsorship deal with Intel, for instance. The target audience is well defined.

- In Asia games are often ad-financed, the user getting the games for free, Hargelid says.

Qualitative analytics of blogs is Mattias Östmar’s focus in his startup PRfect analys, which he presented at Daytona Sessions.
- I like methods of measurement, and I like to define things, he says with a smile.

- Marketing used to be about mass communication. It won’t die out, but targeted marketing will compete with it.
It is harder today to reach out to an audience. You have to be better and more funny. Reach as the only measurement of success will not work.

Media becomes a number of conversations. Getting a full coverage of media will be close to impossible when everyone becomes a publisher. The concept of journalism will be more vague.

When form is separated from content, the channel is never as important as the person behind the message, Mattias says. Who you listen to is a person like yourself.

Personality type testing is important, because you need to know what drives people. What ticks them off. There are different type theories. Östmar shows Keirsey’s types.

Your choice of words communicate your personality. Analysing the words in blog posts will tell what personality the blog has. It becomes much harder when you bring in context as a parameter.

He asks for a bit of help with the business model.
- I’ll buy you a beer!
…though the main theory is that if you can predict people’s needs, you can reach them more effectively. That should indeed be interesting to marketers and communicators.

Henrik Torstensson is talking at Daytona Sessions about where the internet five years from now.
- Predicting the future is practically impossible, he says. But I’ll build upon experiences.

He has five key points.
Access. When everyone’s got broadband the possibilities of community building expand. Ahead, a similar development will happen in mobile devices. Flatrate will make this easier. Mobile services are improving, and will be built particularly for smaller devices.
Distribution. Partnerships. How will we be visible on other sites than our own? Our strategy must be more exact than just “viral marketing”. Viral marketing is only a proof that you’ve built a strong product.
Cheaper technology. Cutting costs, making new things possible.
Advertising. Search ads are good for advertisers, the ones selling the ads, and for the users. Relevant ads are accepted. More specific ads will appear in areas outside search. Facebook social ads is one example.
This is the one point he thinks can be threatened by integrity laws.
Social publishing. The will to publish yourself, regardless of economic compensation. To communicate.

Daytona Sessions are about to begin at Debaser Medis in Stockholm. The usual crowd has showed up, plus some additional people and some I haven’t seen in a long time.
Henrik Torstensson is the first speaker of the day. The jaiku backchannel is active. Most my posts will be there.