We wonder as the sum of all our knowledge and memories is uploaded, converted into bits, tagged and indexed, are we sacrificing what makes us human, or evolving what it means to be human? All we know is that we are here now. And though it was us who made it, it is the internet that is remaking us.
Credits: Jordan Clarke: Vancouver based designer specializing in motion design and video production. Jorge Feres: Motion design and animator. Adam Saint
I’m currently in a mad rush to finish reading an advance copy of a book due out in November 2009 by Darren Barefoot Julie Szabo. This book is a phenomenal read and is titled “Friends with Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook”. Before I go on, I just want to put it out there that I was thrown by the title at first. In other words, I was confused about the authors meaning until I continued reading the rest of the title, “A Social Media Marketing Handbook” after which I grabbed my gut and had a big chuckle to myself as continued reading the press release. Just thought I’d share that little anecdote.
Without doing a direct quote from the book, there is a part that addresses honesty and authenticity on the internet through social media, be it via a blog, YouTube, Twitter, etc. The example used in the book was the lonelygirl15 marketing scheme that was, to my recollection, both lauded and looked down upon (Read this and this as examples). On the one hand it was incredibly cool that this so-called video blogger named “Bree” (16 years old) also known as lonelygirl15 on YouTube, was actually a 19-year old actress–which was astoundingly clever. But on the other hand, this reveal was bittersweet in that it immediately alienated the fans and betrayed the cool-factor of how transparent Bree was and the authenticity of what she talked about in her videos.
The good part of that “experiment” is that it served as a litmus test if you will, for just how people want use the internet and the immensely strong resolve for how people want to connect with others online. The closeness of getting to learn about a person who seemed to have no reason to lie about what she shared was betrayed. Fans were inadvertently made the butt of what effectively came across as a viral marketing trick. The feeling of connectedness with Bree and her honesty was amazing and it made you feel like you (the viewer and fan) were friends with a real person. While the medium (the internet) is virtual the desire to connect with real people real, and the eventual relationships that people do build via the many tools on the internet, (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Viddler, Blogger, etc) are also real–NEVER forget this! (As an aside, other iterations of this marketing scheme were used, but in a way that wasn’t alienating by virtue of the kind of content that was being marketed–in this case a film along the lines of the shaky Blair Witch camera film style. For example, the video clips that were posted to the internet and passed off as if they were real to market the film “Cloverfield”, by my standards, was a sheer genius means of getting the film known and built a strong following before it’s release. Learn more… with J.J.’s Viral ‘Clovefield’ Diary)
A real, genuine, and positive testament to what kind of community could have continued around lonelygirl15 before news broke of it’s falsehood, were she blond, 25 and an even more active video blogger, is the very real, Justine Ezarik of ijustine.com. She has a huge following–primarily young females–and most of what she does is in real time, in that she shoots a lot of video and posts it to the web relatively close to the time she shot it. She essentially streams a portion of her life on the internet, interacts with her fans, or friends as she puts it, via different social networking sites, and even features them in her own mini web show, “Ask iJ“. The majority of the tools that she uses are free social networks that she uses to share and connect. More importantly, I haven confirmed whether she did this on purpose or it just happened this way, but all the internet tools that she uses and what she does with them now serve as her calling card or business card as far as her personal Brand “iJustine” is concerned. Finally, all of this is done in a positive way that is honest, authentic and non-alienating to her fans and business partners, while never compromising her own privacy and safety.
Authenticity goes a long, long way and that is what continues to amaze me so much about this present phase in our age of the internet.
In closing, I’ll give a more thorough review once I’ve gotten through this book.
Something that has been missing from my blog but was intending to do is to talk about other people on the web and what they do or say on their blogs. So to get right down to it today I am introducing Pat Dryburgh. I learned about him through @cdevroe on twitter. I was curious and found a most thoughtful blog.
Pat is a graphic designer and print manager, but also does freelance work–currently in the works. I called his blog thoughtful because the majority of his posts are perceptive and some are also introspective, all of which I like. What caught my eye in particular was one of his posts titled “Freedom from Numbers.” In it he admits to a borderline addiction to checking his web analytics practially on a daily basis, but knows that he should lay off it. He mentioned this because he’d seen a video of a guy named Carlos Whittaker that coined his own phrase “blogatical,” meaning a sabbatical from blogging and the internet. It was an interesting read on just stepping back and really avoiding unhealthy addiction–namely internet related addictions. The bottom-line is that the post caught my attention and kept me reading, informed me more about the writer, and was on a blog that’s aesthetically pleasing, decked in a minimalist design concept.
Now since I mentioned the issue of internet addiction, I know that it can be addicting and it’s important to do other things besides hang out on here all the time. So I feel that I really got a lot out of what Pat and Carlos had to say. I have taken a blogatical before and it is soooo worth it. It’s refreshing to me and helps one to evaluate, re-think some things, and maybe come back and start fresh. I probably won’t take another one until May or June. We’ll see.
Question: What do you think of taking a blogatical? Is it practical or useless for you or just in general, if not for you?
I took a long, long break without my choosing. I don’t know, my body and my mind just said, “I’m tired of the internet! Time for a break!!” So now I’m just really getting back into the swing of things and plan to blog some more.
I have come to realize that blogging is almost like a full-time job, but I hate thinking of it that way. So what I began to notice was that dealing with macdavidpro.com was becoming job-like and that’s when I know I need to walk away from it, then come back later. Make sense?
But like I said, I’m good now and feel like jumping back into the innernets.
