2012 Digital Trends: Generation Overshare

2011 saw mass sharing in the social media age bringing new meaning to the term ‘information overload’. As Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive of Facebook, said at the f8 developers conference last year “Our development is guided by the principle that every year the amount people want to add, share and express is increasing”.

What Facebook, and brands too, are witnessing is the trend for digitally savvy consumers disassociating themselves from the enjoyment of the moment to record it. You could see this at any live event or concert last year – the masses of people with their phones/cameras held in the air, lighting up the crowds like a sea of stars as they record away for posting on Facebook or YouTube. The trend now and more so in the future, isn’t about going to an event and having an experience but defining yourself by telling and showing others you were there.

2012 will see this trend grow and develop, and experts at Trend Watching.com predict the growing manifestation of Frictionless Sharing this year. Brands like Spotify and The Guardian already benefit from its success, allowing consumers to passively share what they are listening to and reading (via automatically sharing on your Facebook profile). This is said to be taking over from the influence and power of the ‘Like’ button, giving consumers the developing concept of an automatically curated social web.

The prediction for 2012 is for brands to embrace social sharing – pandering to the consumer desire to use content and experience as their wallpaper of daily life and broadcasting it to their network of contacts. Brands know that leveraging this power will be increasing important as the year goes on. We’ll have to stayed tuned to find out if it does.

Social Media: Friend or Foe to the Job Seeker?

From being caught out whilst pulling a ‘sickie’ to posting negative comments about your employer, there has been a plethora of example where social media use has proved to be detrimental to the career prospects of the social media savvy.

According to a recent survey by social media monitoring service Reppler, 90% of recruiters and hiring managers have visited a potential candidate’s profile on a social network as part of the screening process. Whilst many may put this down to natural curiosity, an alarming 69% of recruiters admit rejecting a candidate based on content found on his or her social networking profiles.

However, it’s not all bad news for the next generation of workers, that same survey found an equal proportion of recruiters (68%) have hired a candidate based on his or her presence on those networks.

Profiles on business social networks, such as LinkedIn and Xing for example, have a variety of tools that support the recruitment process from both sides of the table. However, it’s not just these professional sites that appear to be getting people into interview room.

A recent article from Mashable.com showed that approximately 18,400,000 Americans say that they have got their current through Facebook. This is in fact more than both Twitter and LinkedIn combined, with 8 million and 10.2 Americans, respectively, stating they have gotten their jobs through social platforms.

There are also other fantastic examples of the creative use of social media being used to grab the attention of potential employers, from social CVs to entire campaigns.

Whilst social media contains pitfalls for the potential job seeker, and potentially employers as well, it has also allowed people to break the pen and paper CV mould, fostered creativity and opened up global opportunities to the next generation of workers.

Unsure of whether your online persona matches your professional ambitions, check out this article on jobsearch.com for some helpful hints.

It’s all about the money, well digital wallet actually

It is amazing to think that my son will have as hazy memories of cash as I do of ‘old money’, if the latest research from Paypal proves to be true.  In the same way I can only really remember sixpences from the tooth fairy, by 2016 there will be no need for cash, credit cards or cheques on the high street. Paypal estimates that £2.5bn will go through as mobile retail payments in the UK that year and that will be just the beginning.

What is not quite so clear is whose digital wallet I will have in my pocket.  Visa is the latest brand to come out punching with V.me – love the name – being launched a fortnight ago.  Also out there fighting are other big financial players like American Express with Serve, MasterCard with its multiple collaborations strategy, the ‘disrupters’ such as Google (‘Google Wallet’), PayPal and Carphone Warehouse (Mobile Money Network) plus others perhaps yet to show their full hand (Amazon or Apple anyone?).  There are also some interesting innovating start ups in the US to keep an eye out for: Square and Dwolla to name just two.

The individual mobile operators are trialling showcase projects with RIM/Telefonica announcing just last week a test project in Spain.  But perhaps the more interesting news is that back in June major UK operators  – Everything Everywhere, O2 and Vodafone – announced a joint venture (JV) to ‘bring together expertise and technology ’.  The JV already needs to fight off an anti-trust complaint from 3.  If this takes off, and means common standards, then this is good news all round.  But if the intention is to deliver another rival system, we have a serious contender to add to the mêlée.

Whichever way this one goes, there is a titanic battle ahead.  One thing you will quite quickly see is more partnerships as the above and more jostle for position.  Who wins the fight for your virtual wallet will partly be based on relationships with retail (retailers simply can’t support them all) and partly on who wins the hearts and minds of the lovely digital generations.  Making the service easy and perhaps more importantly, given the intention is for them all to be easy, delivering excellent digital customer service is going to be vital.  Not something the finance industries are traditionally noted for.

At this stage there is all to play for.  Watch this space.

One to Watch for 2012: The Social TV Convergence

There was a time, a long long time ago before the internet, The X Factor and Pringles existed, when the phase ‘water-cooler moment’ was coined. This was a moment of community and shared experience, where the tele-visual event of last night was watched by the majority so they could be involved in the conversation. Then, as time passed, the number of channels grew and digital recorders such as Sky Plus and online catch-up sites like 4oD and iPlayer evolved, and the relevance of the event diminished to a point where advertisers withdrew and ratings dropped.

Now, however, an online revolution is changing all that, it’s no longer the water cooler but the social media moment, and it happens live, as the programme is broadcast. Suddenly a two screen revolution is under-way as internet access and multi-platform applications such as Twitter and Facebook are used in unison with the television to analyse, discuss and ridicule the exploits of soap characters, reality ‘stars’ and world events. No longer does it take any great effort to access the social media platforms for the average viewer, of a certain demographic, has mobile phones, tablets and laptops at their sides while they watch TV. There are even services like Zeebox springing up that embrace this trend and give users a one stop social media stop.

This is a sign of the future where all forms of media channel (YouTube, ITVPlayer and Sky TV) are viewed within a web environment that is not confined to the window of that company. So what does this mean? Well, for the consumer it means more feedback which could lead to better programming but also more power to those who air their views. For the businesses involved, the broadcasters lose control over image but have more metrics by which to show value to advertisers and these advertisers will no doubt be the target of the social media platforms collecting opinions.

Are Digital Magazines Taking Off?

Good magazines are being closed down a rapid rate. Many are going to pure online versions or ending entirely like the venerable Police Review.

But some are exploring the digital magazine option and leveraging the iPad zeitgeist.  So far there’s been little reader research published on how these digital magazines are faring. Until now.

An article in Ars Technica reports on a study by the US Association of Magazine Media into the reading habits of 1000 digital magazine readers. A healthy number of these claim that they read more magazine content in the digital format than they did with the physical format. Whether this is simply to do with the novelty of it all isn’t questioned but the survey does point out some areas for improvement that highlight the current shortcomings of the digital magazine movement.

For example, respondents reveal that they would like to be able to make purchases from the display ads featured in the digital magazine. Why this hasn’t before is odd except when you consider how much digital magazines seem to be straightforward flatform PDF copies rather than an actual new form of media.

Nonetheless, this research suggests that the digital magazine format has a greater potential than is currently being exploited and the popularity of iPad and perhaps the new Kindle Fire will fuel new developments.