No Copy

The end

UPDATE

The comments so far have been truly heart-wearming. I had never even expected anyone would miss posts on this blog. But then again: you are all such polite people, so I can see the reason behind your expressing what you have until now... ;-D

Still, it feels good as it is right now. And it would seem I'm not alone with this 'feeling'.  According to a recent future report by The Future Laboratory "a growing minority of overloaded consumers are phasing out their virtual selves and returning to face-to-face socialising," as you can read here for example. So yes, I'll be sticking around on the web but when I say something like "see ya", that would be IRL preferably!

Christmas holidays, the new year in sight. Time to relax a little. Spend time with family and friends. And... try and catch up on the many mails, requests, notificiations,... that I have been receiving lately. Via Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, Scarlet mail, work mail, Flickr, Facebook, Netlog, Twitter,... Not to mention the good old post cards that seem to be flooding our snail mail box (thanks to everybody who sent us one - we're working on sending one back to you).

Perhaps it's the melancholic feeling I always get at the end of the year. Perhaps it's the lack of sunlight during these short days and long nights. But frankly, I'm tired. The web is a great thing, but I get the impression mankind has not evolved to the extent that our brains can cope with it all. Or at least, I haven't...

So no wonder people are shutting down their blog, are pronouncing the bankruptcy of social networking (found via Netlash) or are setting up a Facebook group that illustrates the same feeling of being fed up with some of the web2.0 overkill... Personally, I'm also going to take some time off blogging. Perhaps I'll pick it back up again later, perhaps I won't. But I am going to take some time to think about how, where and when I'm going to shape my 'online identity', if any.

I am not unplugging the internet, mind you. But this blog is probably going offline soon. It was a great tool in helping me to get to understand the blogosphere phenomenon. And it has introduced me to a great many wonderful people. I am not going to sum them up. I'm afraid I might forget some... But I'm sure they know who they are.

So thanks to them, and thanks to anybody who has ever visited this blog or commented on it.  All the best for 2008 and see you soon. IRL or online...

This one's for the road (tacky? who me? ;-D ) :

Bruxelles (see you in...)

The EuroBlog 2007 conference is still fresh in my mind, if only because our college was an active participant in organising it (as part of our Leerstoel Jos Willems) and I had the opportunity to be sitting "in the front row" of the event.

Still: it's time to move on. So here's the call for papers for EuroBlog 2008. And you know what the good news is (at least from a Belgian's point of view)? The 2008 edition takes place in... Brussels! That's right: Brussels, Brussel, Bruxelles...

Web 2.0, who cares?

I noticed this week that Andrea Weckerle has picked up blogging again (welcome 'back', Andrea). In her most recent post, she finds it really curious that some people would "ask where I'd gone. They didn't put my name into a search engine, which would've shown the recent hangouts. Instead, they must've just assumed that if I wasn't here l wasn't anywhere. What does that say about social networking sites and online communities? Well, it drives home the obvious point that while there is some overlap between friends/contacts across groups (and in the PR & social media circles probably more so than average), all-in-all it's less than one would expect."

I'd say she's got a point. Her observation also made me think about this quote I read some time ago on Threadwatch.org (via Jan van den Bergh):

  [photo]

"The title (viz. above, nocopy) isn't mine, it was from a 16 year-old kid that belongs to the wireless generation. His entire quote was,

“Web 2.0, dude, who cares, where’s Phone 2.0? The web is for old people and losers”.

What I've noticed is that teens are more connected than ever before, just not to the web, and usually not via PC. They don't care about 'social media' and Myspace was a fad. The kids I spoke to used it for two weeks or so, got bored and moved. Their 'social network' is real, and when they aren't together in 'real life' they stay connected with their cell phones. They aren't using Digg, Netscape, Facebook or "Web 2.0". Even the few that have blogs might post once or twice a month and even the self-admitted 'geeks' sad that the Web is like a big commercial.

A few of them shop on the Web, but it's word of mouth advertising that influence their purchases, not ads on Myspace or blogs, unless one of their friends happen to blog about something. All of them said they use cell phones and text messaging much more than they surf the Web or use messengers. I know they aren't the influencers now, but they will be. So where is all this social media stuff headed?"

You know what? Judging from how my students react to this web 2.0 'thing', this post on Threadwatch might be closer to the truth than most of us suspect... Or do you disagree?

Don't think twice

Want to know what lies beyond the revolution in social media and what it means for business? Want to really get under the skin of digital innovation? Want to know what world-class players are thinking and doing about Web 2.0?

Some interesting questions, if you ask me.

So when Simon Collister asked me to promote the NMK Forum07, I didn't even think twice and wrote this post. According to Simon "NMK Forum07 is being put together by New Media Knowledge (Ian Delany from Twopointouch is their editor), which is a not-for-profit body bringing together knowledge commercial companies and higher education to promote the success of the UK's digital economy.  There are some top speakers and panellists lined up including Jason Calacanis, Dan Gilmour and excitingly Jyri Engestrom - the guy behind Twitter-rival Jaiku."

Want to know more about what appears to be an interesting event which is to be held on 13 June at LSO St Luke's in London? Then visit www.nmkforum.co.uk for more details. There is an early bird discount, and bloggers who download and display the NMK Forum07 badge can get a further 5% discount.

Back to life

Finally life is beginning to get back to normal after a hectic couple of weeks. The Chair Jos Willems last week was a success, as well as the CONGA Award. I'll be devoting one or more posts to the Chair Jos Willems later - right now I'm still putting the presentations online. 

The missing link between the CONGA Award and the Chair Jos Willems, by the way, was the omnipresent Tom De Bruyne from i-merge. I-merge did not only win this year's CONGA Award, Tom also presented one of the keynotes of the Chair. So in honour of Tom, this photograph that he was so glad to see appear on Digimedia :-) :

No Time To Play

Not a lot of posting this week, nor the week to come. Preparations for the Chair Jos Willems/EuroBlog 2007 Conference are drawing to an end. And, as the saying goes, it's always darkest just before sunrise. I guess that's why I hardly find time for anything else but this conference nowadays.

Add to this the fact that I'm also in the organising team of the annual CONGA Award (to be held next Tuesday), and I'm sure you can see I have no time to play. What a shame...But still: worth the effort!

If you haven't registered for the Chair Jos Willems yet, you can still do so on the site. The list of participants is growing fast. So if you're into social media and you can find the time on 15, 16 and/or 17 March, don't hesitate!

Don't answer me

What makes a website a great website? No, don't answer that. It was more of a rethorical question. Nevertheless, allow me to give you one example of a website I really like at the moment: the Rock Werchter site.

A job well done by Design is Dead, the agency behind it. Great navigation, simple but enjoyable graphics, well-structured... uhm structure. What more do you need? Content? Well, I'd say it's there too. And if anything, you can still listen to the site jukebox...

See you in Werchter! And no, I don't want to read any comments about tickets prices being too high or not. There are other places you can discuss that (albeit in Dutch). :-)

PERSONAL NOTE: Am I forgetting one of the basic rules of blogging here? Allowing comments and answers from readers? In that case: let me know...

SERVICE NOTE: Ever since Andrew Wake started with song titles for posts on Eventualities, I have to admit I'm tempted to try and do the same. It doesn't always work, but Don't Answer Me ( by The Alan Parsons Project - 1984) is one of those adolescence memories you are slightly embarrassed about as you grow up, but still can't quite forget as you get older. Or am I the only one having those?

Dirt-free gardening

I enjoy a bit of gardening from time to time. It's great to get your hands dirty and be literally 'down-to-earth' for a while. If you like to grow a garden without getting dirty fingers, however, you might consider doing so from behind your pc. Just have a look at Packet Garden.

Packet Garden captures information about how you use the internet and uses this stored information to grow a private world you can later explore. To do this, Packet Garden takes note of all the servers you visit, their geographical location and the kinds of data you access. Uploads make hills and downloads valleys, their location determined by numbers taken from the internet address itself. The size of each hill or valley is based on how much data is sent or received. Plants are also grown for each protocol detected by the software; if you visit a website, an 'HTTP plant' is grown. If you share some files via eMule, a 'Peer to Peer plant' is grown, and so on.

None of this information is made public or shared in any way, instead it's used to grow a personal landscape, a kind of 'walk-in graph' uniquely shaped by the way you use the internet. With each day of network activity a new world can be generated, each of which are stored as tiny files for you to browse, compare and visit as time goes by. You can think of packet gardens as pages from a network diary.

Sounds like a really cool project to me. And it is not just a project; it's an artwork, commissioned by Arnolfini, the Bristol-based centre for contemporary arts. Packet Garden is developed using open source software components and can be freely downloaded. You can read more about it here .

[via Tits&Tats]

Don't miss out on this!

Spread the word: registrations for the Chair Jos Willems / EuroBlog 2007 Conference can begin!

A year ago, EuroBlog 2006 showed that interactive social media technologies – weblogs, podcasts, wikis, real simple syndication, folksomonies, social tagging, personal networks and other species of social software and services - were beginning to impact on communications in many different ways. The 2007 symposium will present insights from EuroBlog 2007, the second pan-European quantitative survey on the usage of social media by communication professionals, draw new theoretical insights and respond to industry feedback by identifying and presenting examples of best practice.

A must for every communication professional

The EuroBlog conference, which will be held on 16 and 17 March of 2007, is to take place during a larger event, starting on the 15th of March already: the Chair Jos Willems, organised by the Communications Management and Journalism departments of Artevelde College in Ghent (Belgium) and named after the man who started the college over 40 years ago. Artevelde College and the European PR Education and Research Association (Euprera) are organising the EuroBlog 2007 Conference together.

If you're interested in social media and the impact they have on the field of communications (be it in pr, marketing communications as well as journalism), the Chair Jos Willems is a must, offering a Dutch programme with a wide range of topnotch speakers as Tom De Bruyne of i-merge, Clo Willaerts of Skynet, Luc Van Braekel and (pdw) as well as many others on Thursday the 15th. The (English spoken) EuroBlog 2007 Conference on 16 and 17 March is also not to be missed, especially considering the fact that the results of the EuroBlog 2007 survey will be made public, that more than twenty speakers from nine countries are expected to present their findings and insights and that the keynote on Friday is deliverd by Neville Hobson, whom you might/should know from crayon and For Immediate Release.

Register today!

The number of seats at the Chair Jos Willems is not unlimited. So register quickly and make sure you do not miss out on this unique opportunity to sharpen your knowledge on social media as well networking with a fine selection of people with whom you share professional interests. Visit the website www.leerstoeljoswillems.be today and, should you speak English only, go to the page 'Information in English'. On the site you will find more details regarding the programme, the location, the registration fees and so on.

See you soon, in Ghent!

It's Belgium, Jim, but not as we know it (2)

"If all goes well, we’ll be able to feed a live Praga Khan concert to 2,000 citizens of Second Life. That would be awesome!"

  [picture]

Just quoting Miel aka MicroMiel aka Coolzûr here, who has been working on the SL launch of Microsoft Vista for the last couple of weeks. Miel is  Belgian, and so is Praga Khan, the band whose concert at the Belgian Atomium will be watched by some 2,000 SL people tomorrow (30 Jan) at 11 pm CET.

Miel seems to be confident that they're doing it right, and I think so too. He says: "I’ve had a lot of discussions with people in Second Life about brands and marketing, but I do know that everyone is really ‘pro’, because at least we didn’t just buy our way in. We come in with something that has never been done before, on an unseen scale. And we don’t take from the community, we give. That’s the best place to be for a brand."

So check it out. And even if you are not into SL, but still would like to see the concert, you should check out http://www.experiencethewow.be/streaming and learn how.