One thing I love about “new media” (please excuse the use of a buzz word) and “Social Media” is its ability to involve the user in the process of selling them something. There’s many examples of this out there. Skittle’s were one of the first to open up their doors to UGC and social media with their uncensored Twitter interface on their own home page. “Skittles, making pedophiles fat”, was among some of the other inevitable abuse. But it worked. The Skittles site had never had that kind of attention and at least it got people talking. No such thing as bad publicity and all that…

Now, Tippex, the somewhat outdated (in my humble opinion) method for the correction of typos has released their own attempt to involve the user, generate that viral “love” and inevitably, get people buying. It’s playful, entertaining and it has achieved a purpose… I’ve been forwarded the link twice today and now, I’m sharing it too. At the time of writing, there were 11 million video views… and the comments, for the most part are all positive. I think it’s a job well done.

The video is here: NSFW. A hunter shoots a bear!

“Playbour” is one of those new hybrid words that bored creatives and techno-supremo’s keep brandishing around when talking about all things digital. The catch on and then we’re stuck with them. This one however tells the story of the current emerging superpower of Social Media. A tool that people are only really beginning to understand how to use and exploit.

So, what is “Playbour”? Well, take a pinch of play, throw in a dash of labour and hey presto, you have yourself a nice little oxymoron and the word “Playbour”. These are two polar opposite words. Play by definition means “not work”, work quite obviously means “not play”. But when mixed together, they generate new meaning. A bit like “Military Intelligence” or “Girly Man”. “Playbour” itself refers to a new paradigm in how companies, individuals, organisations and networks can achieve goals and tasks. Think Mechanical Turk, but you don’t have to pay the workers.

As an avid iPhone app downloader, with apps ranging from sports to an autism calculator, from Twitter to banking, yesterday, I came across a new app named Waze. Waze has been billed as a “Social GPS” where users, over time, will score points in return for mapping out roads and traffic. FourSquare meets TomTom. Users can “steamroller” new roads, map road directions, and collect “goodies” along the way in a pac man-like chomp. It’s constantly updating, and, as with other forms of social media, it complies to your usual core Network Theory rules. The more people that use it, the more value it holds.

But why would people engage? Well, because there is an element of play, a dabble in the realms of fun and most importantly, there is a competitive edge to it. Well, there can be, if your that way inclined…

When we begin to delve into it a little, there are plenty of examples of the power of play. A fortnight ago, Google turned the homepage of the worlds most famous search engine into a simple Pac-man environment. You could chomp your little way through the “G”’s and “O”’s of Google and and avoid those pesky little ghosts of 1980’s fame. I spent perhaps five, maybe 6 minutes playing it. The rest of the world? Well they spent 4.8 million hours, of work time. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I dare say that is somewhat more work than your office gets done, ever. Imagine if you could harness that power.

Imagine if the millions of users and hours involved in Farmville could be used to actually plow fields, plan cities or at the very least, power Wales. The power of Play is immense. Points and Prestige are rapidly becoming the new Pounds and Pence. So, sack all your staff, make the work a game and pay them in “highscorer” bonuses. Who knows, might even work for British Airways.

Yesterday marked the end of my Future Everything 2010 experience. It was a full on affair with inspiration to be found in almost every corner. Although I do have to admit, there were moments I was checking my email. But hey, I’ve never protested to have a large or even adequate attention span. Fitting I thought that my last interaction/experience of the conference was watching a mad scientist and his “creation” (or short man wearing sunglasses standing to attention) freestyle words we gave him. Kudos to my colleague Natasha Carolan for trying to bamboozle the poor fellow with “Serendipity” after my feeble attempt with “Ambiguity”. In hindsight, I should have gone for “purple” – it’s un-rhyme-able. Try it.

So, on to the conference itself. One of the highlights for me was the “Doing it Together” presentations and the follow-up panel discussion given by Alison Powell (@Postdocal), Mushon Zer-Aviv (NYU – @Mushon) and Alexandra Deshcamp-Sonsino (Tinker – @TinkerLondon). Now I’m not just saying that because HighWire got a mention… But it helped.

Alison Powell from the Oxford Internet Institute began her talk by introducing Habermas’s ideal public sphere, a renaissance evolution that sought to bring rational, critical debate on public affairs into the public arena. She highlighted cafes as a good example of the establishment of public spheres. Here people would congregate (generally men) and discuss local issues with their peers. Add to this the introduction of mass media through newspapers and the “bottom” rungs of society were able to deliberate on what was going on at the “top”.

The next thing Powell went on to speak about was counterpublics. Counterpublics are alternative media, underground magazines and other non-state-sanctioned or “underground” media. The things the cool kids read. The Public Sphere Guide describes counterpublics as “dissident networks of communication excluded by the dominant public sphere”. The purpose of counterpublics, according to Alison is as a resistance or “push-back” against the structure of idealised public sphere and politics.

Then along came The Network. I have personally never read H.G. Wells’ collection of essays titled World Brain: The Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopedia but Wikipedia tells me it is very good and it is now on the list. Alison Powell goes on in the talks to liken todays internet to H.G. Wells’ writing. I wont lie to you, when she first mentioned Wells I momentarily switched-off assuming it was just another reference to 1984 and how the internet was surrendering our privacy. But thankfully it wasn’t. Powell explains that although there are similarities to Wells’ “brain”, the internet is much more distributed and accessible to all.

Unlike the cafes and mass printed media, the precursors to the internet, the technology can now be a form of mobilising/motivating the public.

Next was Social Media Models (SMM). Powell sees SMM as “a set of functions that can work in different ways and not as specific applications”. SMM are not always as radical as alternative media, but they can be. I’m sure that if you really think about it, you have probably come across some sort of grungy underground movement or anti-establishment group on Facebook. My personal favourite, well, the favourite I am willing to write here is The National Sarcasm Society…

According to Powell there are three parts to SMM: Filter, Feed and Funnel.

In terms of information intake these days, we have moved from scarcity to abundance. Not only are we using more media sources than ever before but those sources are increasingly saturated with undesirable “noise” and there is an ever present need to censor what we let in. That’s where the Filter comes in to play. No longer do we have to wait for someone else to curate our information and feed it to us. We follow the people we want to follow, we befriend those we want to befriend and we watch what we want to watch and as such we are now responsible for our own media and information intake.

Enabling us to filter is the Feed. Often we think of the feed as pulling data in but we are also being swamped by others’ opinions. Your friends that you follow, they are stressing their opinions and whether you like it or not, you are probably swayed by what they have to say. Powell argues however, that the feed is more elite than the “cafe” as we are now in a position to be selective about who we connect with and allow into that feed. It’s not always as easy to remove someone from a cafe setting. However hard you push.

As part of the SMM, Powell also discussed the Funnel. Now, using the funnel, messages and motivations can be amplified empowering the bottom up approach to social commentary. So now, when we have Open Data being sent from the top down, we increase the voice from the bottom up. Not to mention that data generated by the end citizen can now be funneled upwards to the likes of local councils and even country-wide government. A good example of this is fixmystreet.com allowing you to see and report on issues local to you. Powell believes that the Logic is the transformative bit, not necessarily the applications.

There are downsides to the internet and its ability to empower social spheres. All of those citizens that now have an “audible” voice have the power to detract from a single cause. This is known as the Echo Chambers. Imagine two different groups are campaigning for the same cause but do not focus their followings at the same point. It has the potential to divide and detract from a common goal. Pretty much along the same lines as Labour’s pleas to not “split the vote” between Labour and the Lib. Dems. in the recent elections. But I am trying to write a blog post without some sort of political commentary so I’ll stop that analogy right there. Powell’s point was that while deliberation is now easier with the prevalence of the internet, the step from deliberation to action can now be even more difficult.

Another issue with SMM is that we are all now becoming what Powell describes as Data Serfs. Now, with our increasing activity on the internet and digital social networks, we are creating more and more data for others. I for one am pretty well sure I have now reached the point where Google knows more about my past, checkered and un-checkered. A few years ago I read somewhere that Tesco, with the information they scrape from your Club Card, can now not only tell when it is your time of the month (obviously this probably only applies to half of you reading this), but also they can now ascertain when you are pregnant before you yourself can, just by the change in purchasing habits. Most likely just rumour but it does highlight what I’m saying. By innocently participating in services we are creating data that can be used both for us and against us. We now have to be more careful than ever with what information we now allow others to see.

The last points Powell made in her presentation were on Platforms, Infrastructure, Practices and Democracy but at that point, my notes run dry.

Part 2, with Mushon and Alex coming soon…

So, twenty hours after the polls closed, Gordon Brown is “squatting” in Number 10, Clegg is apparently siding with the Conservatives and in some constituencies they are still counting. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters all over the country were unable to vote and the first-past-the-post system has again left a nasty taste in the mouth of the British public. A reported cost of £40million and the potential for a re-vote… Well that didn’t go so well did it.

Maybe it’s because I grew up on the leading-edge of generation web (by that I don’t mean that I was at the forefront, I just mean that I grew up at the same time the web did), but it still baffles me that to date there is no online voting system. I appreciate there are flaws in a digital system, but no more so than voters being turned away, in the pouring rain because of a lack of ballot forms at a major metropolitan polling station.

So why can’t we have an online, click-my-face-to-vote-for-me system? Is it security? Is it because we can’t guarantee digital inclusion? Is it because of a fear of tampering? Because I for one think these are now very much so, flawed arguments.

Lets start with security. Two weeks ago I received, along with millions of others, my glimmering white polling card. On my polling card was my name, my address and the details of how I was to vote. All presented on an uncovered postcard like card. This “postcard” had come to me through the postal system, uncovered for all to see, and into a post box that is shared by, from my estimation, at least fifty people. So on rolls May 6th, or as I like to call it, yesterday. It was a day like any other, I got up as normal, left my house and went straight to the local polling station, polling card in hand. I walked through the front doors, handed over my polling card to the lady who had the look of someone who knew that they were in for a long day. She checked a list of names, I got my ballot paper, and I voted. There was no ID check, no fingerprint scan, and the bit that upset me the most, there was no frisking. So let me ask you, where is the security in that? What is there that stops me from voting for someone else, with their card? Or perhaps imagine that one of the people that share my post box was a foreign national and as such unable to vote. What if they were to take my card and use my right to vote? It is well within the British technological capabilities to implement a system that equals, if not betters this level of faux security.

Why not send sealed envelopes with unique pin codes similar to what banks do with debit card pin numbers. Voters could log on to a site, enter their pin, make their vote and return to watching the telly before the ads return to Coronation Street. Even better, integrate the whole thing with the BBC’s red button. “Digital viewers push the red button to decide the future of your country for the next five years”. Has a nice ring to it doesn’t it.

Another point I’d like to make is that by using a Digital voting system we can make it as transparent or opaque as it needs to be. Make it transparent, increase the integrity of the vote. Something goes wrong, we can track it the whole way back. The vote become spoiled? Lets roll it back a few hours to when we know it wasn’t and then email those who need to re-vote.

So, next on my hit-list was digital inclusion. To this, I have two answers. Firstly, augment the existing polling stations with online voting, don’t replace it. Use it to ease the footfall through polling stations and town halls the country over. Allow the digitally adept to make use of the tools they find at their finger tips nearly every waking moment. At the risk of sounding vulgar, it rather appeals to me to vote for certain candidates while using my iPhone on the toilet. Online voting even has the potential to increase the vote turnout. Those citizens that grew up and live their lives with what is rapidly becoming ubiquitous technology could argue that it is now they who are being excluded. The generation web-ers can’t participate in a way that is natural to them and is that not the same argument that is used the other way around? Secondly, I believe that the web, social networks and mobile technology are growing up. In March last year I read an article about how Facebook was growing up. In the article it states that the fastest growing age group on Facebook was now women over 55. My Grandmother, now well into her late 70’s (possibly into her early 80’s but don’t judge me for not knowing exactly) is a prolific user of the internet and social media. Her partner at the moment, she met him online, through a social network. This is not a limited case either. There are cases of Online Social Networks being used to reduce the feeling of isolation in the elderly living alone. So I would perhaps venture, hopefully not out of place, that the gap between young and old and how well they are digitally represented is closing. God forbid my Grandmother reaches the stage where she is immobile, but if she does would a click-and-vote system not be easier and more cost effective for all those involved?

So how would taking the vote online help the world that exist offline? Well the first thing that springs to mind is that we could have an immediate outcome. The polling stations could close, a few buttons pressed, cogs turned and badda bing we have a winner. Or not as today has shown. Need a recount? Push the button and turn the cogs again. Hey presto. I am being flippant about it but it’s true, digitised data is easy to collate, manipulate and present. Digitising the data also reduces the costs involved, polling stations could be reduced. Costs of printing, staffing or even the dreaded millions to be spent on a re-vote could all be avoided or at least reduced.

So where do I think this leaves us? Well perhaps a little electoral innovation would help the country go a long way. Perhaps Mandelson’s vision of a Digital Britain leading the world as a Digital Economy superstar should have a fully working click-to-vote system as the jewel in its crown. But don’t get me wrong, that is not an endorsement for Mandelson or the Digital Economy Bill.

A virtual community is a group of people or social entity that have a primary means of communication other than face-to-face contact e.g. telephone, email, online social networks or instant messages. Generally these networks are used for a social, professional or educational means. They can be the sole source of communication between acquaintances or they can be a secondary supplementary source. It is common in today’s digital age for a user to have both a digital and physical relationship with.

Most online social networks make use of Web 2.0 technologies and ways of thinking. This has lead to many describing them as ‘Community 2.0′ (Ripanti 2008). However precursors to this modern phenomenon of online social medium were evident in the mid 90′s. Sites such as TheGlobe.com (1994), Geocities (1994) and Tripod (1995) attempted to bring users together through chat rooms and message boards. These were the harbingers of blogging and today’s social network platforms (Wikipedia 2009). In the early 2000′s modern social networks began to appear. Standard bearers such as flickr, mySpace and facebook had arrived. Similar trends are becoming apparent in the professional arena, as more and more companies begin to represent their staff and customers in a virtual community.

Online, and physical communities are dependent on similar kinds of social interaction and communication. Without these interactions, communities become dormant groups of people with no collective purpose or goals. Virtual communities can develop in much the same way as physical communities, in that they can develop cliques, fracturing to form new groups (Kim 2004). However one sees them, online social networks are now deeply embedded in everyday life. Be it social calendar, professional job hunting or online learning and tuition.