In response to a press request via headstream (who I also do digital planning goodness for in my role at LCG), I did this. So I thought I would share it.

FriendFeed

What is it?

FriendFeed is a new web 2.0 service that enables you to aggregate all of your, and your friends, online activity and conversations in one place.

How does it work?

It uses RSS feeds to pull in the information from a wide (and growing) number of sources and places them in one feed so you can see everything in one place. RSS means that FriendFeed will be scalable in the future as you don’t need developers and open access APIs to create new content, RSS is the common standard for sharing information across the internet.

Why should I care?

The atomisation of the web means that users have pockets of information fragmented all over the web. Just think about a regular person who watches, favourites and maybe posts a few videos on You Tube, puts their family holiday snaps on Flickr, comments on a blog they read daily, shares links from their Google Reader. Multiply this by a blog you write, the comments on that blog, the links to it, tweets on Twitter, Facebook updates, de.licio.us, digg and stumble upon tags. And then multiply by the number of friends you follow and the fragmentation and amount of this information becomes overwhelming to the point of overload.

FriendFeed helps that by aggregating all that information in one place so you don’t have to traverse 5, 6, 7, 8 + websites to keep in touch with the information. It helps you stay on top of what’s grabbing your friends’ attention and keeps you connected. You also get full control of the people you follow and can un-follow at any time.

And because it’s all RSS enabled, you can distribute that content to where you want it: Google Reader, your personal homepage (iGoogle, MSN Live etc.).

But I’ve only just discovered Facebook!

It’s true that FriendFeed is pretty much used by the early adopters at the moment and true that you would have to again subscribe to/follow friends which is a chore. But the benefits of having everything in one place for those who currently suffer web 2.0 overload are worth it. There’s even a feature called “imaginary friend” where you can pull in a feed of someone who you want to read – a thought leader perhaps – but you aren’t their actual friend. This overcomes the limitations and annoyance of Facebook where you do actually need to know people.

In summary

FriendFeed gives you control over the web 2.0 noise and lets you consume it in a way that is relevant to you.

Add me as a friend

More bedtime reading:

http://friendfeed.com/about/

http://scobleizer.com/2008/05/18/why-friendfeed-wont-go-mainstream/

http://scobleizer.com/2008/05/18/why-friendfeed-will-go-mainstream-part-ii/

Also posted on the Interact European Congress blog where I am a collaborator.

UPDATE 03.06.08

My input helped to spawn this article in NMK where I get a quote. I think Tim Hoang did a great job on the article. One to send to mum to try and explain what I do.

“The atomisation of the web means that users have pockets of information fragmented all over the web. Just think about a regular person who watches, favourites and maybe posts a few videos on YouTube, puts their family holiday snaps on flickr, comments on a blog they read daily, shares links from their Google Reader. Multiply this by a blog you write, the comments on that blog, the links to it, tweets on Twitter, Facebook updates, de.licio.us, digg and stumble upon tags. And then multiply by the number of friends you follow and the fragmentation and amount of this information becomes overwhelming to the point of overload,” said Nicholas Gill, planner at headstream PR.

“FriendFeed helps that by aggregating all that information in one place so you don’t have to traverse numerous websites to keep in touch with the information. It helps you stay on top of what’s grabbing your friends’ attention and keeps you connected. You also get full control of the people you follow and can un-follow at any time,” continued Gill. “FriendFeed gives you control over the web 2.0 noise and lets you consume it in a way that is relevant to you.”

Also posted here on the headstream blog.

I love this. A fantastic example of user generated content. Dare are doing some cool stuff for Sony right now. I see myself using this as an example in future “digital wtf?” sessions.

Who’ve you got a grudge against? Shout it here. I enjoy the retro feel of this.

Awesome business cards. Does what it says on the tin.

Amazing stunts without photoshop trickery.

Google broek? Or Google domination? You decide. (via @MusaAykac)

A new ezine that “prompts the positive, kindles the constructibe, highlights the hopeful and leaves you feeling… well, up.” (thanks to Mel Ferguson)

Email marketing has surprised me of late.

Maybe it’s because I’ve had the fortune to work on and develop some class-leading CRM programmes in my time but I figure that if you want to be the best, you adopt best practices. And for me, double opt-in is the way to go. I remember spending several meetings and design iterations later to re-word and re-art direct positive opt ins for digital communications for Diageo to be ahead of the curve and live best practice, not just tip a hat to it.

So I was somewhat taken aback to read in eROI’s Cradle To Grave report (there’s no direct link, click on quarterly studies and download the report) that only 30.69% of US companies are using double opt-in. That’s tantamount to spamming if you don’t use that method.

And worse, 59.4% of those companies don’t pass an unsubscribe to other parts of their company when they get one. Two yellows equals a red card! So if you’re a consumer, basically a friend could get you signed up, you receive emails, you unsubscribe and you get them from another part of the same organisation. Aaargh. That’s just not joined up thinking and hardly going to endear your consumers to your brand.

Closer to home in the UK, econsultancy report that one in three companies flout spamming laws with only financial services boasting 100% compliance with email rules.

When you consider that European consumers receive over 250 emails per week (35 average per day) is it any wonder that 38% use spam filters, over half of promotion emails get deleted without reading and more people are concerned by clicking on ads in emails than on banners? The top two reasons people unsubscribe are irrelevant content and overly frequent emails.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. We just need to up our game and practise what we preach. Don’t let the standards slip and do it the right way. Because if we get it right, consumers do love email.

Consider this information released by eMarketer today. 67% of US adult internet users prefer companies to contact them by email than any other method. And in 5 years time, 67% will still prefer email to any other communication.

Remember, email is a conversation too.

Also posted on the European Interact Congress Blog where I have been invited to collaborate on the blog.

Katie White, aka cheese girl

Bob at lunch.

When we were on holiday in sunny Florida, we spent a fab day at Discovery Cove swimming with dolphins (more on this soon, I promise) and generally larking about in the water all day with masks and snorkels. And we bought a $16 underwater disposable camera so we could capture our Jacques Cousteau moments.

Fairly unremarkable except when I realised this: I hadn’t taken a picture and not seen the result immediately on the preview screen on a digital camera or mobile phone in nearly 4 years. The last time I had a disposable camera developed was at our wedding where we had one on every table to capture what our guests wanted to alongside the official ones and my reportage shots of the day. 4 years! That’s a long time to not have to trek to a film developing store (I had to ask where the nearest one to work was). I paid my money for the films and of course for a CD so I could upload it to iPhoto.

It felt odd pressing the button and turning the dial to wind the film on. How antiquated in these new fangled times. And would they turn out fine or a bag o’ cack like the good old days when the pictures came back with advisory labels on basically telling you that you were a photography retard?

In the end they came out pretty decent. Apart from a few of basically nothing or a close up of an arm, they were ok. And I actually enjoyed the sensation of ripping open the pack and looking through the pictures rather than running a slide show on iPhoto.

Although I won’t be rushing back to film anytime soon, I think I will print out more pictures.

Pic is of me & my niece, Maddy.

I’m pure. Suspiciously so. Or at least so say the folks at ghd on their new dark or pure site. What sounded like an interesting ploy turned out to be a tiresome exercise that took forever to load as the site was so flash heavy although as the content didn’t actually do much I have no idea why. The “are you dark or pure” submission was salacious only in the first question which asked whether I’d ever cracked the whip. The rest of it was a bit tame. And then when you expect an instant answer (after all, digital has created real-time expectations), you have to wait 4 days to be told whether you’re dark or pure. Why?  And it went to junk mail. And then a few days after that you get an exclusive preview of… the new hair tongs!

OK, I knew ghd was about hair products. And OK, I know it’s aimed at girls so the hair straighteners were never going to appeal but the site experience and the brand experience wasn’t dark or pure. Just crap. Grey text on black background? Contrast, people, contrast. Pretty much no content of any use? A real shame as they have a point of difference in their brand expression everywhere else, especially their tone. An example of how not to do this thing called digital.

The only slight bit of redemption is the dark or pure models. Look closely, they both have the flash loading icon. Why? It’s a static image! And, breathe…

More proof that people trust people rather than brands when finding out about stuff.

Future aspirations survey from Chartered Management Institute. If you’re a “young manager” fill it in.

If you haven’t found Groundswell yet. And make sure you follow Charlene Li on Twitter. And read the blog. And if you have any web 2.0 tchotchkes, please send to her for a project. 950 Tower Lane, Suite 1200, Foster City, CA 94403. If you have no idea wtf a tchotchkes is, try this. Look forward to seeing what the project is all about.

I might go to this next week. Anyone fancy holding my hand?

Image source

Heat maps of the world based on news coverage

10 steps to personas

WalMart time lapse video

Is web 3.0 really just skynet in the making? Reading this excerpt from Andrew Walmsley’s column in Marketing, you might think so:

If machines could understand the information we put on the web, they could share knowledge with each other, and make conclusions and recommendations based on the information they find.

The next step is deciding to nuke the human race. He does go on to give a less scary vision of the future though:

Websites would understand that the weather forecast in Barcelona is for rain on the date on which we have just booked a flight, recommending clothes we can buy, while events in the city on those dates could be presented and selections loaded automatically into our calendar and accounting software.

Audio sushi - personalised soundtracks tailored to your taste, mood or occassion.

Naughty kecks and get your illustration on a new set of playing cards with Lascivious.

A casual luxury hotel from Hyatt in London. What’s casual luxury? Swap check-in desks for a free bar, pre-loaded iPods and comedy and literary evenings. Hmmm.

Source for non-Terminator content: Toni & Guy Spring 2008 magazine.

Tip of the hat to Greg Verdino.