Fusion: Digital Convergence and the coming Technological Singularity

My favorite stand-up comedian is Jerry Seinfeld, and every person with a TV set should know who he is thanks to his TV show Seinfeld which shaped pop culture of the 1990's (disturbingly my life has also started to mirror said show, but I digress). In one of his latest bits, he talks about how the usage of devices like the Blackberry has hindered personal communication. My favorite line in the little segment, which can be seen here, is when he jokes about the people who look at their phones while in a conversation, an action that he equates to picking up a magazine, holding it in front of someone's face, and reading it while they are talking.

Jokes aside, Seinfeld does have a point. Look at all the features that our cell phones have today. Aside from the ability to place calls to people, which I believe was the original purpose of these devices, we can now send text messages, check our email, browse the internet, and take pictures and videos which we can send to our friends. And let's not even talk about the "apps" for our phones, which let us find movie times, get directions to places, read books, watch TV, turn the lights on and off in our homes, the list goes on and on. The amazing thing to me, is not that our phones have the capability to do all these things, but it's that we as a society actually think we need our phones to do all this stuff.

And it's not just cell phones either. It's all around us, TV, books, movies, games, every aspect of human culture is being integrated with technology. It's a process called "Digital Convergence" which is a shorthand term for various industries being merged into one conglomerate (mainly IT, Telecom, Consumer Electronics, and Entertainment). Through Digital Convergence, our society is becoming more tech oriented, and at it's current pace our world could be a very different place in just 30 years or so, in the sense that technology will not only be an essential part of our lives, but it may quite literally run our lives as well.

In this blog, we will talk about Digital Convergence, where it is happening, how it affects our lives, and how it's propelling us towards a future that the world isn't ready to believe.

As The Center for Convergence and Emerging Network Technologies says; "'Digital Convergence' refers to the profound changes in the structure of media caused by the emergence of digital technologies as the dominant method for representing, storing, and communicating information." So what does it mean? It means that thanks to advancements in technology, the way media is presented to us is changing in order to take advantage of this new tech. In my previous blog post I touched on this, saying how YouTube and Second Life were being used to promote the newest movies, and how you could watch the latest TV shows on iTunes. In a related example, most networks now put up complete episodes of their shows on their websites for viewers to watch in the event that they missed the original airing.

A good example of this is Hulu, a free online video service that operates as a joint venture of the major TV networks (NBC, FOX, ABC, etc.). It's purpose is to stream the latest episodes of TV shows, movie trailers, and even feature length films for free. It's style and presentation is similar to YouTube, but because the networks have direct control over the website, the content is restricted to only the media that is published by the networks and/or their parent companies (News Corp, GE, etc.) as well as others who have a presence on the site (such as E!, PBS, G4, etc.). Also the videos that are on the website are only available for a certain amount of time, being deleted once their time is up, so there's some corporate greed here in the sense they want you to buy their media on DVD, iTunes, or whatnot instead of watching it for free.

Here is an example of a Hulu page showing an Episode of 24. While the interface is a different style than YouTube's, it offers similar options. There's options to view the episode in a higher resolution, in a pop up window, or full screen. Also it lets you share the episode with your friends. Should you scroll down, you'll see a comments section similar to YouTube's, as well as a message board pertaining to the episode, and even some reviews.



So how is all this possible? Through ads! See the little white dashes on the progress bar at the bottom of the screen? Hulu states that for "legal reasons" they can only load the video up to that point before they go on. Conveniently ads are placed at those little sections, like the one below.

Note that it has similar viewing options, in that you can view it in a separate window or full screen. Also at the top there is a message that says "Your video will resume in seconds." As that implies, these ads cannot be fast-forwarded, they must be watched in their entirety. Also at the left side, there's buttons that say "like" and "dislike." Similar to Facebook, you can tell Hulu if you liked or disliked the ad and why.

You also can now watch Hulu on your TV. With the PlayOn software developed by MediaMall Technologies, you can use your Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii to watch videos hosted by Hulu in your livingroom. So now you can watch streamed TV shows on...well, your TV. How's that for full circle.

Now let's talk about cell phones, perhaps the most obvious example of Digital Convergence. Everyone by now knows about the iPhone, and thus because of it's exposure (and the fact that I have an extreme hate for Apple) I won't be discussing it here. Instead we'll talk about one of it's competitors: the Palm Pre.

The Pre went on sale last June, at first it was exclusive to Sprint, although it's now sold through Verizon. The Pre is a smartphone designed to compete with the iPhone and similar devices in a variety of ways. This has been my personal cell phone for about the past year, and I am very happy with it, and in my opinion it's the best cell phone I've ever had. Personal feelings aside though, the Pre is a good example of a product taking advantage of Digitan Convergence. In addition to calling people and SMS, picture, and video messaging, the Pre is powered by an in-house developed software, called WebOS, which supports internet browsing and email sending and receiving. You also can sync the calendar on the phone to your Facebook and/or Google calendars online. Speaking of Google, Google Maps are included and are integrated to function with the Pre's built in GPS. There's also an app store similar to Apple's, which allows you to download various apps for WebOS, and while there's not as many apps for the Pre compared to the iPhone, there's many useful ones available. Finally, in the biggest advantage the Pre has over the iPhone, you can run multiple apps at the same time, so you can check your email, update your Facebook status, and talk on the phone all at once! (Good luck trying to physically pull that off though!)

Now let's be honest, do we really need the Pre to do all that for us? No. After all it is a phone, it's only obligation is to allow for you to make calls. But we live in an increasingly tech-dependent world, and being able to do several things at once on just one gadget is much more convenient than being able to do only one thing at a time on several gadgets. This is why phones like the Pre must be able to do a billion things at once in order for them to sell well. Our parents might have been okay with a phone that just lets you make calls, and maybe one that lets you send text messages, but not us. No, we want our phones to be able to do those things, as well as help us edit our report for the boss, forecast the weather, and give us the highlights from the NCAA tournament. Digital Convergence at it's finest.

Books might as well be the last safe haven. I mean we have all this information in these giant textbooks, and we'll be carrying them around with us forever. Right? Right? WRONG! Now even books are being digitized, and with the advent of electronic readers, like the Kindle from Amazon, literature is now faster and easier to access and transport. Even entire libraries are going online, with projects like the ambitious Michigan Digitization Project, a joint venture between U of M and Google, which aims to digitize the entire collection of the University Library. Now students won't even have to go to the library to check out a book, they can just hop on their computers and download it.

It's really no surprise that readers have come along. One of the inconveniences of academic life is that we have to carry around so many books that it's a workout just taking our backpacks from one class to another. When I was in Junior High even, I would nearly throw out my back (which is already suffering from scoliosis) due to the sheer weight of books I had to carry. Readers, like the Kindle, could have made all that unnecessary, in the sense that if there were digital copies of them, I could just download them to my Kindle, and I could carry that around with me instead of 10 books. Take a look at this picture (taken by my Palm Pre); on the left is one of the books for this class, on the right is my personal Kindle with the same book loaded, and other books for this class and others stored in its memory banks. Which one do you think I'll carry around?

Okay, so it's 2010, and we live in a technologically advanced world. However some would say that it's not advanced enough. The late, great, Sir Arthur C. Clarke seemed to think that by this time, we would actually be way beyond what we are at now. Clarke is known best perhaps for the Space Odyssey series of books, of which the first, 2001: A Space Odyssey, is perhaps the best known. The sequel for 2001, titled 2010: Odyssey Two, takes place in the year 2010. One of the hallmarks of the Space Odyssey series is the predictions in technological evolution. Indeed some predictions made by Clarke (and Stanley Kubrick who directed the film adaptation of 2001) have come true. We do have flat-screen TV's, credit cards, glass cockpits for airplanes, and computers that have some basic artificial intelligence, as well as being able to synthesize voice. However we do not yet have bases on the Moon, or giant spaceships that can travel to other planets, or sinister computers that try to kill you (thankfully!).

But at the rate technology is evolving, it's likely that all the predictions made in 2001, 2010, and in the other stories of the series will be realized. In fact in just 30 years our world could be changed drastically, as by 2045 the evolution of our tech is expected to reach an exciting and terrifying climax: the Technological Singularity.

The Technological Singularity is a hypothesis which states that because technology is evolving so fast, it is impossible to accurately predict the future as it will be radically different from today. More specifically it refers to the theory that while development of new tech has only been determined by the intelligence of the human brain, in the near future it is very possible (almost inevitable) that an AI will be developed that is superior to human intelligence, and thus the AI will develop a better AI and so on. In other words, technology will literally take over our lives.

A key piece of evidence for the Singularity hypothesis is "Moore's law", a diagram of which is shown on the left. Moore's law, developed by Gordon E. Moore the co-founder of Intel, states that the processing power of computers doubles about every 2 years. This is a trend that is responsible for the usage of digital tech in all aspects of society, as well as Digital Convergence. The trend, which is expected to continue until at least 2015, is used by those who support the Singularity hypothesis as an example of tech evolving at an exponential rate, to the extent that technology will inevitably surpass humans.


One of those who support the Singularity hypothesis is Raymond Kurzweil, who wrote a book entitled The Singularity is Near which gives his predictions for the future. I agree with most of the predictions he lists, and I'll summarize them here, as they help shape my vision of the world we will come to know in our lifetime.

By the end of this year, Kurzweil predicts that we will have computers with the raw power of the human brain, but an AI of that level will still be a way off. Computers will start to "disappear" in the sense that they will become more integrated with everyday objects (like clothing), and full-immersion AV virtual reality will exist. As we proceed through the decade cell phones will also become more integrated, possibly being built into clothing. High-speed internet will be available everywhere, and household cleaning robots (possibly descendants of the Roomba) will be commonplace. One of the more promising inventions would be VR glasses that could beam images directly onto the retina, and contain earbuds to project sound. This could be used as a new medium of advertising, as well as acting as a personal assistant with many useful functions (like language translation). By 2018 10 Terabits of PC memory (about the equivalent of the brain) will be avalible for $1,000. And by 2020, computers will have the raw processing power of the brain, but still lack a "strong" AI.

Throughout the 2020's and 2030's, nanomachines will be introduced for medical uses. They will be able to provide accurate brain scans, as well as enter the bloodstream and "feed" cells. This will eliminate the need for normal food consumption (eating and drinking) and essentially make humans "cyborgs." When nanotech manufacturing comes into play, products will be produced for a fraction of the costs it would take to produce them traditionally, which will radically alter the economy. Also with the proper advancements in nanotech, the threat posed by biological diseases will be all but eliminated.

Most importantly, by 2029 a computer will pass the Turing Test, making it the first "strong AI" even though it would only be as intelligent as, say, a child. Also virtual reality will be so advanced that it would be impossible to distinguish it from reality (sound familiar?).

With a developing neural-nanomachine interface, it will be possible to create a virtual reality without the need of external equipment. Also in addition to telepathic communication, people could share experiences in real time, and "upload" their memories and even their entire mind. By 2040 humans will be so integrated with cybernetics that the human body will no longer have a corporeal state, people will spend most of their time in their own personal virtual reality (akin to The Matrix), and society will drift apart. By 2045 computers will be a billion times more powerful than the human brain, and Artificially Intelligent machines will become the dominant "life forms" on the Earth, thinking and communicating so fast that humans cannot even begin to perceive what is happening. Evolution of technology will now be run by machines, with each generation more powerful than the last, as machines literally dominate the world. This is the Singularity.

The Singularity will be disruptive and world-altering, but don't despair. Despite the fact that machines will literally rule over humans, a violent extermination of man is extremely unlikely, mostly due to the fact that thanks to nanotech developments, there will no longer be any distinction between man and machine. The disruption comes from the knowledge that this "new order" will be resisted by renegade factions of mankind, but their overall impact on the evolution of technology will be little to no effect, as it is likely that machines will have countermeasures enacted against their methods before long.

Now there's no guarantee that this will all happen in the way that me and Kurzweil are predicting it will, as I've said before there's no way to accurately predict the future. But based on the development of technology, I'd say that the Singularity is inevitable. Even today we are already starting on the path towards it through Digital Convergence. Now sure we're not plugged into The Matrix (we think), but based on our VR research, that will eventually come to pass as well. Hopefully it will be by choice, and not because the machines are using us as batteries! Either way the evidence is clear that thanks to the evolution of tech and Digital Convergence, we are becoming a more "technocratic" society, and very soon technology will not only be a convenience, but an essential part of our lives.

And when the Singularity does come, it will either be a glorious new age for man and machine, or it will be a hellish dystopia. Depending on your point of view.

Sites used for Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_convergence

http://dcc.syr.edu/index.php

http://www.hulu.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulu

http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Pre (Picture licensed through Creative Commons)

http://www.lib.umich.edu/michigan-digitization-project

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_Is_Near

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_%28film%29#Imagining_the_future

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_Law (Picture licensed through Creative Commons)

http://www.irobot.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

All pictures are licensed through creative commons

Social Network Marketing

You wanna hear something funny? I have this thing outside my house, and it's called a mail box. How it works is that it stands out there, like some sort of odd lawn ornament, and every day at a pre-determined time a man comes by in a giant truck. He fills the box with letters that are, get this, written by hand with pens or maybe even typed. And when he's done I go to the box, pick them up, and take them back home with me!

Yeah we all remember the days when we used good ol' "snail mail" to communicate with our friends, and we had to write down addresses and buy stamps and go to the Post Office and so on. Back then this was how businesses advertised their products, and this was the replacement for the door-to-door salespeople. Sears and Toys R' Us and so on would make these catalogs, and we'd get them in our mailboxes. We'd read them, find a couple of nifty items, and order them through mail.

Such days are long gone, today we just need to type a few keys to send an electronic signal consisting of a letter to a friend halfway around the world and it takes a fraction of a second to accomplish, which is a million times faster than ordinary mail. Corporations took advantage of this, obtaining our emails through various ways and sending us offers for various products, which is why "spam" is now a derogatory term.

Then came the social networks; Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Now the various companies, news agencies, and so on are joining the millions of ordinary people who are spreading their message to others around the world. But instead of talking about what they did Saturday night, they're advertising their products.

This is a new world. The rules are changing. In the past businesses and organizations used word of mouth and traditional advertising on print, TV, and radio to sell products. Today they have a new tool; Web 2.0.

One of the best examples is Facebook. The social network monster that has come to virtually dominate our lives, its presence is growing faster than Google, the "Big Brother" of the internet. Facebook allows users to upload photos and videos of themselves, hyperlink web sites, and according to this article from FOX News a location-based service will be launched in April, which will now allow people to see where their friends are when they update their status.

A man by the name of Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in his college dorm at Harvard back in 2004. The original intent was to take his mind off a girl who he had completely blown it with, as well as to compare the physical appearance of the students at Harvard (this was done by hacking the network and uploading the photos). What was originally an ivy-league exclusive social network soon went public, and its popularity soared, overtaking the infamous MySpace (which was purchased by News Corp in 2005). Despite offers to buy Facebook from several prominent companies (Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google) it remained independent, and in 2009 its cash flow turned positive and revenues could be as high as $2 billion. Just look at that snazzy HQ!

The "face" of Facebook is the news feed, this is the wall of text that you get when you log on. Here the status updates from all your friends are displayed so you can see what they're up to. Because this is a very "in-your-face" experience, companies use this to promote various products, or even just announce their brand names. One way to do this is by placing ads, sponsored by the organization, on the side of the news feed. Take a look below for an example of this, in this case an ad for the Marines.

The ad is small and seen off to the side of the page, so while it's noticeable it's not intrusive like the infamous Pop-up ads seen across the web. Its presence is designed to appear natural among the feed, and noticeable at the same time. Note that the ad doesn't ask for you to send any information in, or order anything, or sign off to anything. It only asks that you become a "fan" of the USMC's Facebook page. It also shows which friends (mine have had their names censored for privacy) are fans of the page. Also note the small "x" in the upper corner, clicking this will close the ad as well as trigger a pop up box asking why you didn't like the ad, with the feedback being sent to the agency.

When you click on the "become a fan" button, you receive status updates from the pages. Below is an example of posts from two pages I am a fan of; Repo Men, and Glee.With status updates, companies can now throw advertisements literally in your face. Often though they are not blatant "BUY ME" messages, but instead news relating to the products or media in question. For example the Repo Men post has some production photos that users can look at, while Glee talks about an interview with one of the cast.

Status updates make Facebook, and let's face it, it's all we go on for. What is needed is a social networking site that strips Facebook down to merely the status updates. Enter Twitter.

Called the "SMS of the internet", Twitter functions by having users upload posts containing up to 140 characters, and it can be done via Cell Phone as easily as it is done on the computer. Hundreds of thousands of "tweets" are made every day, and while most of them are conversations with others or just babble about nothing, a handful of them are used to promote products. In fact in August 2009 a study was done by Pear Analytics out of San Antonio of the content of "tweets" that are sent out. For 10 days, they studied tweets made between the hours of 11:00 am and 5:00 pm Monday-Friday. Out of the 2,000 tweets in total, 117 (5.85%) were classified as "Self Promotion" which were defined as "typical corporate tweets about products, services, or “Twitter only” promos." The study also states that this could be good news for some "as there appears to be a flurry of companies and businesses joining Twitter to promote products and services."

This is an example of a small business using Twitter to advertise, the business in question is Heather Highlands Golf Club, a golf course owned by my father in Holly, MI.

The tweets are a tad hard to see, but they advertise deals such as "Leagues and Outings book next week and lock in 2009 rates. Hurry this offer can't last. Call Chris today - 248-634-6800" and "Save 10 % on any Wedding that is booked in January." Also the bio says "We will be offering special "Twitter" promotions here ALL season. Follow us for a great value in golf. Who else lets you play free ?" Not only does this work by reaching new target audiences (the survey mentioned above points out that 43% of Twitter users are between the ages 18-25, and 55% are female) but it gives out promotions that are exclusive to Twitter. It's like the business is rewarding people for being addicted to Twitter, how's that for an incentive?



Then there's YouTube, the multimedia giant that has revolutionized how we share videos and whatnot.

YouTube is the embodiment of everything that is Web 2.0. Everyone from around the world can upload videos, ranging from simple clips from games to professional short films. Here's an example of both: a gameplay clip from Team Fortress 2, and the Half-Life 2 fan film "Escape from City 17"

Even though it's now considered a subsidiary of Google, YouTube has done a lot in revolutionizing the media of videos. This also affects the Long Tail that we talked about in previous entries. On YouTube, users can upload movies, TV shows, etc. that have long since been lost and forgotten, as well as letting you watch parts of the newest TV shows for free (provided that the videos haven't been removed by the evil Viacom or it's affiliates). Sure you can go on iTunes and download the latest episodes of LOST and 24 and so on, but you can log onto YouTube and find specific clips of those shows. Maybe you want to see Katie's flashback of the crash in LOST or maybe a mash up of Jack Bauer's kills on 24. Sure some of the videos you find are of poor quality, and might be plain old mashups like the second video here, but you can watch them for FREE! That sure beats paying whatever the price is on iTunes to download an episode that you only need a 30 second clip from.

Back to the Long Tail, in YouTube's immensely massive servers there are lots of old clips from TV shows past. Looking for the first episode of the first season of Pokemon? Or how about that episode of the Muppet Show where the cast of Star Wars crashed the theater? Chances are there's a couple of users on YouTube who have those clips and have uploaded them for the viewing pleasure of you and all the internet. Now are they available on DVD or whatnot? Yeah sure, but where DVD's can be lost or destroyed these clips arn't going anywhere barring some sort of internet self-destruction, and again you can watch them for free!

Some TV shows have tapped into the Long Tail concept itself. For example the famous "Sesame Street" has a YouTube page that is full of not only the latest clips from the show, like David Beckham explaining "persistent" to Elmo, but also contains "classic" clips for those of us who watched Sesame Street when we were young, but have grown up. My personal favorites are these classic clips, like Bert and Ernie having the appliance war to end all wars and Grover serving his hapless blue-headed customer the "BIG Hamburger." Now these clips were obviously made with the preschool audience in mind, but a lot of Web 2.0 users who are in their adolescence probably grew up with these characters, and so these clips remain funny to us. There is a large market for vintage videos like these, in fact the Sesame Street channel alone has over 2,000,000 channel views, and the individual views for it's uploads total at over 65,000,000. It can be argued that without YouTube, these clips could have been lost forever!

And what the heck, here's another clip of Grover at a fast food restaurant.

With so many users on YouTube, this is a gold mine for companies looking to expand their markets outward. When you open up the main page, you are confronted with a large ad that takes up half the screen, as seen on the right. Note that the ad is paid for by Sony. With Google's purchasing of YouTube, there's now much more space for advertising, and the most viewed videos have ads that play before the movie actually starts, in a format similar to a regular commercial on TV. Sony also has it's own YouTube page, where it has videos promoting new technologies being developed as well as products it is selling like the (in) famous PlayStation 3. Sony's multimedia branch, Sony Pictures Entertainment, also has a page where it posts trailers for the latest movies from Sony Pictures, like the Karate Kid, and The Bounty Hunter.

YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are efficient and fun ways to promote products and they have a good success rate, but there's one other avenue of Web 2.0 that often flies under the radar: Second Life. Second Life is a "virtual world" developed by Linden Lab, and the name is fitting in the respect that it operates and functions a lot like the real world. You have your own avatar (not to be confused with the ones from the movie, though there are some like them) that is completely customizable, in that you get to pick a name, gender, and even species to play as. In Second Life, there are no "winners" or "losers" (though Jim Halpert begs to differ) and what you do in Second Life is similar to what you would do in your real, or "First", life. You can go to school, go to work, get a car, play games, go dancing, you name it. Second Life also has it's own economy thanks to it's in-world cash system which has an exchange rate in tune with the value of real world currency, like the US Dollar. Second Life is virtually the same as the real world, with the exception of a few details (like you can fly).


Because Second Life is overlooked for the most part as a medium of advertising, not a lot of companies sell official products. However users in Second Life can create their own content, clothing, vehicles, equipment, anything they need. To that end a lot of real-world products or brands are emulated in-world. The photo on the left is an in-game screenshot taken by me of me and a friend on a motor boat (I'm the one in the back thank you). It's hard to make out, but the texture on the propeller mount says "Sea Wolf" a nod to the "Sea Doo" brand of watercraft. While Sea Doo does not specialize in boats, the one modeled here is based off of real-world boats, and the Sea Wolf logo is again a reference to Sea Doo, and a clever way to avoid copyright infringement. Another example is this online advertisement of a sports car inspired by the Dodge Viper GT, note that the ad is careful to state that the car was "inspired" by the Viper, in order to avoid confusion that this is in fact a licensed product developed by Dodge.

Second Life has attracted the attention of corporations however. 20th Century Fox held a premiere for X-Men 3 in world. Computer manufacturer Dell has set up their own island to sell PC's from. Adidas and Toyota have also established a presence there, offering licensed products from shoes to a Scion XB (the car I drive in the real world). Now you can't use these products outside of Second Life, but the odds are that if you buy them there, you will be inclined to buy from those brands in the real world.

Second Life's freedom with user-created content has resulted in users attracting even government agencies. The International Spaceflight Museum (pics taken by me at right) started off as a small, non-profit organization dedicated to the exploration of Space. It soon attracted the attention of real-world Space agencies, like NASA and JPL, as well as companies with investment into spaceflight, like the Sea Launch venture which held a talk last month in Second Life about how their company operates in respect to launching satellites into orbit. NASA, JPL, and other government agencies like NOAA began setting up official areas surrounding the spaceport, and today the once small island has grown into a vast region dedicated to spaceflight, called SciLands, which you can visit.


NASA and JPL also hold in world events, usually they are talks with people from the organization (sometimes Astronauts!), or in-world broadcasts of Shuttle Launches, or even astronomical events like the 2008 Solar Eclipse. My personal favorite was in August of 2007, when JPL was getting set to launch the Phoenix space probe to Mars, and they had an in-world event to watch the countdown, complete with a virtual rocket launch! My avatar, Helios Eusebio, is an anthropomorphic bird (in case you haven't figured that out by now) and to be specific; a Phoenix. I was wandering around the event site a day before the launch, and the JPL rep was on hand and noticed my avatar. He asked if I wanted to be the unofficial mascot for the mission, and I was more than happy to oblige! There was a great turnout for the liftoff, and I got my picture taken by lots of folks. When the spacecraft landed in May of 2008, they held a landing event and I reprised my mascot role, taking a perch on the model of the Phoenix. I was even featured in an article! (I apologize for the pictures not being available. The one I included here should hopefully convey the scene).

We've covered a lot of ground here, from the ever popular Facebook to the underrated Second Life. But what does all this mean? How can Web 2.0 help businesses get their word out the same way it helps people around the world express themselves?


With the new means of communication via the web, new methods of advertisement are opened up, and they're so natural that their presence is almost completely expected. We all remember the infamous pop-up ads that polluted the web in it's early years, and while they're still around (and have given rise to the annoying flash ads where women with unnaturally high voices offer you a Nintendo Wii), they are slowly but surely becoming obsolete. Part of this is because of the presence of pop-up blockers on internet browsers, but also because of ads like the ones you saw on Facebook and YouTube, that are integrated into the site and don't demand that you give out personal information just that you subscribe to their web pages. These ads are noticeable, but at the same time they are not intrusive, surprising, and unsettling in the way pop-up ads are.

Then there's other areas like Second Life and Twitter, where you can take your business literally into the next dimension. By having exclusive offers on Twitter, or re-creating your products to be sold and used in a virtual world, you are providing a reward for those who throw away their lives to sit around in front of the computer all day, and at the same time selling your products to a target market that otherwise might not be exposed to your goods or services. And with virtual talks, concerts, etc. in Second Life you can bring people together like never before. Now people from around the world can attend the premiere of the hottest movie without ever leaving their living room.

The integration of business with the social networks of Web 2.0 is increasing, and I predict that in 5 years, a page on Facebook or Twitter will be necessary for small businesses to survive. Competition will soon be heating up for dominance of the internet, it's already happening on Second Life where in-world corporations compete against each other to sell products ranging from clothing to complete avatars. It's only a matter of time before this all spills over into the rest of the internet, and when that does we will enter a brave new world of marketing, where just by logging into your Facebook you will attract the eye of businesses that are ready and willing to sell you their products.

To paraphrase Louis Armstrong; I see pixalted trees, Twitter feeds too. Facebook pages, and Muppets on YouTube.

And I think to myself...

What a wonderful world!


References:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/09/facebook-adds-location-based-services/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fscitech+%2528Text+-+SciTech%2529

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Windowsat1601californiaave.jpg (licensed under Creative Commons)

http://www.pearanalytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Twitter-Study-August-2009.pdf

http://twitter.com/HHGC

http://www.youtube.com/user/SesameStreet

http://www.youtube.com/user/sony?blend=1&ob=4

http://www.youtube.com/user/sonypictures?blend=5&ob=4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Businesses_and_organizations_in_Second_Life

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/05/the_uncanny_xme.html

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123126243

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life

http://www.scilands.org/

http://spindriftisland.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/scieye-welcomes-phoenix-lander-to-mars/

http://secondlife.com