Pandora Squared - Web and Business Architects, Consultants, Social Media Marketing, Software and Blogging hope not hype

coz Vinnie Mirchandani, summarizing results of a study commissioned by cable television’s Oxygen Network, reports that “four out of every five women felt comfortable using technology with 46 percent doing their own computer trouble-shooting”.

More about the study here.

And while you are at it, take a piece of advice from the two books below: Wired Women: Gender and New Realities in Cyberspace

Women@Internet: Creating New Cultures in Cyberspace

“Seems like diamonds may no longer be a girl’s best friend.”

Pete Cashmore writes:

“PayPerPost is a great new way to lose your credibility as a blogger – the service will pay you to write reviews of new products and services. Advertisers post “opportunities” on the site – they can specify whether the post should have pictures, and even request a positive review. That last part really crosses the line, and it’s sure to destroy any credibility you have as a writer. PayPerPost will pay more if you have a high-trafficked blog, but anyone who has spent time building up an audience would be crazy to take part.

Ted Murphy, the founder of PayPerPost, has actually been at this for a while – his BlogStar Network used to contact bloggers via email and pay them $5 to $10 per post. Positive reviews were encouraged. He sees the new system as a way to streamline the process.

PayPerPost is a terrible, terrible idea and totally unethical. But I know this stuff has been going on for a long time. Every so often, you’ll see a spate of blog comments around the blogosphere that promote certain brands – they call them “buzz” campaigns. Paying for posts is a natural evolution. And while no serious content creators will take them up on the offer, I’m deeply concerned they’ll tap into the long-tail of unethical bloggers, polluting the Google results and fooling unsuspecting readers.”

How to separate the chaff from the grain?

I am looking for a polling mechanism (bookmarklet?) that ports across browsers allowing you to flag content as inappropriate, e.g., paid hack, pornographic, hate post, etc., in situ. Should allow for generating categories out of folksonomies via the long tail. Results could even be aggregated to develop indices and quotients, e.g. Credibility Index, Creativity Index (Thanks, Richard Florida), Collaboration Quotient, etc.

Eva Kaplan-Leiserson cites a Gartner study in 2004 predicting that by 2014, more than 30 percent of mobile workers will be using augmented reality.

Now, with edutainment becoming iconic in the evolving landscape of 21st century learning, let’s take a look at what’s been happening so far.

Lakshmi Sandhana reports that “Researchers are turning cell phones into motion-detection game controllers similar to Nintendo’s new Wii device.”

Case in point: “[T]he Human Interface Technology Laboratory in New Zealand used a pair of Nokia Series 60 phones in a game of AR Tennis.” Mark Billinghurst, the leader of the project, argues that “Using physical motion as an input for a phone game is extremely natural and intuitive” (Read: Desire lines).

Ron Edwards ups the implication ante.

He asks: “Your employees are increasingly mobile. Is your learning?” He continues: “A combination of driving growth and innovation, and maintaining productivity while ensuring alignment across organizations are often key issues for business leaders. Yet many formal learning initiatives, where the bulk of learning investments are made, are either not strategically aligned or don’t take into consideration the constraints on people’s time by re-engineering how they produce, deliver and encourage formal and informal learning. With a significant proportion of the workforce already mobile and the trend on the rise, the question is not whether mobile learning should be part of the learning strategy, but how.”

Let me add: “Perhaps mobile social software could be a place to start.”

Now make your conclusions.

On the radar:

” The Cambrian House crowdsourcing website was launched Tuesday, with a mission of gathering like-minded individuals from all over the world to contribute ideas, code, graphics and other skills in an effort to commercialize software.”

“The community had signed up over 1500 members before the site was launched through their network of developers, and they are estimating over 10,000 new member sign ups and 1000 idea submissions after their first week.”

“Using the internet to harness the wisdom and participation of crowds, Cambrian House seizes creative software ideas from the ether and builds them into real software. With the use of online market testing, Cambrian House then objectively determines if an idea should be built or be terminated.”

” If you require additional information or have any questions or concerns please contact:

Cambrian House

Michael J. Sikorsky, CEO

Tel: 403-263-2042”

Dear lovely one

I am writting this letter with due respect and heartful of tears since we have not known or met ourselves previously. After I have gone through your profile that speaks good of you…my (late) father…But he was killed…with my mother…after their death I managed to escape with a very important document (DEPOSIT CERTIFICATE (US$10.5m)...

Worse Than A Tattoo: Think Twice Before Posting

What you place online- becomes permanent, indexible, searchable…and part of the collected knowledge management system that the Internet has become…

I myself have made serious errors when blogging or commenting, usually I have several windows open I multitask like an ADHD Chihuaha and well, while one window may, say close- and it is much later you realise you never finished your thoughts—-only to find said thoughts found by a coworker and reported to you later as you openly called someone pretty rude names…

This from all things starlets and Internet Mike Abundo (I bite my arm as I link to his site but hey despite the women he has good points)

Myspace Starlets Arise in traditional media

Tila Nguyen Graces Cover of Maxim UK

Tila Nguyen, Queen of MySpace, bags another magazine cover: Maxim UK.

Before the Industrial Age interruption of manufactured sexpots, the ancient market for sex symbols was intimate, personal, multifaceted, and conversational.

Well, that is a stretch it seems to me to place another attractive woman on the blog, point is, think about this—she is on the cover of MAXIM, AFTER she made it big on Myspace.

Media is Changing.

I just ran a search of [“desire lines” human factors HCI]. After several search permutations/iterations, a filetype:doc caught my attention. It is a draft of A CULTURAL ASSETS INVESTMENT STRATEGY FOR CUMBRIA .

More like institutional “desire lines” but the idea that appealed to me was “rural regeneration”. Then I remember coming across this blog on Centers of Excellence. I know that Pale Pilsen is one CoE in the Philippines. So is Peanut Brittle in Baguio, Mango in Cebu, etc. Perhaps we should also start promoting local/regional commons. Meanwhile I am still looking for a framework to model “desire lines”.

I wonder sometimes how many people know that AT&T failed? That it went bankrupt and was purchased by SBC. SBC then changed its name to reflect the stronger brand (which just failed) and renamed itself AT&T…

Some people may argue that this is the strength of brands. We say Bull hockey this is the strength of Myth, that this is the Power of Myth and not brands…Myth is the collective unconciousness, like Chryslers Too Big to Fail, the concept in the consumers mind is also created after generations The Heros’ Myth of the founder and the stories and conversations of that brand.

And having a many decades plus brand won’t save you. Especially when the conversations in market turn against you.

It goes without saying. The universe has shifted…The Internet as you know it is dead. And companies that play by the old rules (AT&T, ) die.

We are not kidding your company MUST be part of the conversation. Big expensive Super Bowl Ads, yeah those are for the dinosaurs.

Don’t believe us?

Take the red pill

You have got to get out of the technology will save you mindset. The technology is not it, it is the proper application of the technology. Are you part of the conversations, does your brand have a flickr account? Who in your company blogs? Do you remember America’s Funniest home videos? Cops? or Girls Gone Wild?

These are now on YourTube and part of the conversation. If you have a lifestyle brand like Redbull and say Sporting Gear, or even TRAVEL and Vacationing Brands… How are you engaging the Web? Do you have videos on YourTube? Where is your personal or company Myspace Profile? Flickr?

The matrix is everywhere.

It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes, to blind you from the truth.

Unfortunately no one can be told what the matrix is, you have to see it for yourself.

What is the Matrix?

The answer is out there, User. It’s looking for you. And, it will find you, if you want it to.

We know kung fu.

You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland. And, we show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

I know that any piece of Web technology is not a purpose but an enabler, but how does one really extract value from social networks that it is supposed to underpin?

Then I hit upon the ideas of Game Theory, Pareto Efficiency, Prisoner’s Dilemma, Nash Equilibrium and even the game show Friend or Foe.

Very elementary, you might say. Trust and Collaboration. But the devil is in the details. Not necessarily with technology but when it involves people. Time to unlock the hidden side of social software.

Perhaps the ideas behind freakonomics could help.

If you look at some sites, like ESPN you get the “Me! Me! Me!” Chest-beating of marketing. The consumer is not at the center here. No, the ESPN brand is the center here. There are not many conversations going on and a lot of noise. In short – your typical and traditional media site. I bet if we had the ESPN marketing team in one of our catalyst workshops, the mind map of ESPN would have “content” or something similar in the center.

Home Depot: Last Among Shoppers

Ok, so a lot of people are talking about how Home Depot s-cks. Home Depot no longer has a fan club – it has an anti-Home Depot fan club . They should take it on the chin and embrace reality, and pay these people for their thoughts on improving the supermarket’s services. If the dissatisfied customers go through that much trouble, I ask What group to improve Home Depot?

Business week online has an article on the failures of Home Depot.

Let us talk about one of the most innovative companies, one that understands the long tail – one that uses social sciences with enabling software and processes.

Kraft Foods is one of America’s biggest magazine publishers.

Kraft Foods and Family is the number two distributed magazine in the USA and the number one in personal content. Kraft understands that documents are social

With the user at the center, Kraft Foods has multiple touch points with the consumer; they collect data from the consumer in a social way (grocery stores), and the consumer (user) feels happy to interact, because in some cases they get free and much needed items (diapers, etc). Then Kraft’s consumers talk online or on the phone, about their free coupons.

Kraft understands that people are not consuming their products on a remote island, but that they are part of a collective family or group of families. Having personalised content offers a relationship with these individuals, now they feel like they are part of something.

Again from John Seely Brown:

Instead of “I think,, therefore I am” but rather “We participate, and therefore we are”.*

We come into existence, we come into being through participation with others. Others could be mostly other people, participation with the world.

Technology is the enabler of business, not its purpose.

According to The New Media Mix:

Changes in TV viewing habits have caused forward thinking packaged goods marketers to re-examine their marketing mix and explore alternative channels to connect with their consumers. Kraft showcases how they, as well as other CPG companies, are rebalancing the marketing mix and using direct and interactive tools such as Web, Email, Direct TV and Direct Mail to effectively communicate with consumers across a multitude of customer touch points.

All of this is tied together with CRM and social software.

Here is a great quote by Doc Searls:

The companies with the best relationships will win. Companies that put users and customers last will lose.

We say quit focusing on big huge websites. We say quit focusing on web two point oh. Successful business is just that – successful as an organism in an ecosystem that has an interaction of products, goods and/or services. Social Software and social networks are much more than the technology behind Myspace clones. If you have a brand or organisation, and you have conversations already going on, google or useTechnorati. Better yet email us at info@pandorasquared.com.

...And embraces Social Software

When I first read the long tail, I immediately saw the application of social software tools. The millions of markets of dozens applies to everything. It is more social sciences than it is technology. Yahoo has recently released a GAY PRIDE portal Next is: Jews for Jesus Portal, then perhaps the Scientologist Portal, and perhaps Coalition of the Willing Portal, World Cup…and why not?

Fuzzy Strategy: Myspace and News Ltd know why you need an IM client.

See Myspace lacks a desktop Chat client and they know it. That is why they are pushing to mobile to go around yahoo. In 2002 I was initially planning on releasing a search toolset / IM client called Fuzzed. Fuzzed was a job tool that could keep track of your database of intentions when you searched on everything. So if you were a java developer and looking at job ads on banking sites it would use Implicit AI to send out agents and return to you “Banking Jobs”. We never got to the AI but we did have a tool in Websphere that could search every job site in the world. Then you could apply that tool to commerce, maybe dating…

I wasn’t as seasoned then (mistakes are good) as I am now. Now I realize you have to never finish something- that is right – get it out there have people using it. Watch what they do, learn, adapt and focus on agility. Build small toolsets, release, build more, release.

Be then Do.

This is why this is the best darn time of our life. We get to announce new cool toolsets all the time.

Yes the color codes are a pun and their on purpose, but I want to dissect this and show

• Green: Podcasting- the integration of podcasts is a nifty no brainer. One step further is shared video casting…

• Blue: Feedback mechanisms, and push to the non profit. This is the ECOSYSTEM I frequently speak of.

• Pink: What else to do on Yahoo… this is the user at the center concept they surround the user not by creating the wave but riding the wave- showing the conversations already in market.

• Red: integration with your avatar… genius brilliant. This is why avatars are so powerful. It stems from Myth…we use myth…

Yahoo incorporates some really interesting bits to showcase how using Portal technology tied into a single sign on you can take simple member management into social software. All of this is done with modules (I am not sure if they are using say JSR 168 portlets or not) But there is a big huge difference in PORTAL technology and engines such as Drupal or…

Genesis Engine.

Drupal is PHP and enough is written about it. So I will focus on Genesis Engine our Ajax RoR toolset, Tribe tried to do private label tribes, but like any Yahoo it requires you to share with their brand, versus the client owning their own…ok some people don’t mind this- and Yahoo is posed with 360 to do some real Myspace killing.

Many toolsets exist but The Genesis Engine in mobile ready, already (many competitors are soon rising- hence our focus on mobile, social sciences and search too. You must have a complete solution or you’re a commodity.

Prometheus Fire team leader Hunter works with genesis engine, mobile, search and more.

So we can offer you or your organization that toolset today= we are looking into a few strong deals here in South East Asia.