Bye for Now

Image by Bill Cammack via Flickr

I’m going to go into hibernation for a bit regarding this blog, and start deleting some of my online traces where this is possible. The plan is to end up with one website dedicated to my PhD, where I will then also integrate my twitter eventually, as well as – maybe – a blog in the future. However this won’t be a daily one like I’ve attempted with this one.

The reality is that my life is pretty steady right now – I know where I’ll be living, working, and who I’ll be dating for the foreseeable future. I have no desire for change.

Hence, I will focus on the things in my offline life and enhance them, and make them better and better. There’s not much room right now for social media, or ‘web 2.0’ (apart from maybe twitter, but that’s micro and not intrusive upon my life!).

The other point is that I think the backlash against social media has begun (see for ex. Bobbie Johnson’s Why I’m finished with Social Media). Brought on partly by the credit crunch, but also the fact that companies will realise that they’re have to make money out of it somehow, then they’ll introduce some shite, and users will desert. I’m not a doom-monger, but I’ve always been kinda right in my vibe about the internet. I might just be starting a new trend here 🙂

Britney Spears’ Online Media Manager

Image via Wikipedia

This strikes me as a great idea – and no doubt other ‘celebs’ already have a ‘personal online brand manager’.

Britney Spears (well… her ‘people’)  is looking for her own Brand/Social Media Manager. Apparently this was posted on the Harvard-only private job board (according to TechCrunch, link above).

You don’t have to be posh to be geeky. I’d say rather the opposite. There again, Facebook was founded by Mr. Zuckerberg while at Harvard, I believe.

Either way, I can’t think of anything duller than having to maintain Ms Spears’ various online identities. Yawn.

New Social Network: Friendface

as promoted in Friday’s episode of The IT Crowd 😀

Enjoy!

Credit Crunch Affecting my Previous Company

I found out today that my previous company had to make 6 people redundant due to the current economic situation (= fucked).

I was chatting with an ex-colleage whom I hadn’t talked to for ages and she even had to tell a junior person from her team! Good, then, that I did leave and went back up to Scotland to take a job here. Though I don’t think they would have made *me* redundant as I was bringing in lots of £££.

Still, you never know. Apparently it’s very quiet just now, and less ‘social media marketing’ work. The gold rush of social media marketing might be over. Certainly more method is needed, and clients will want to know exactly what their money will give them (ROI). And that, with Social Media, is always a bit more difficult to measure in terms of hard, quantitative facts.

Web 2.0 Peaked in 2007

I’m going to say something controversial today. The goldrush of web 2.0 is over. 2007 was the year of Facebook, and of brands latching on to social media, desperate to get a slice of the action.

Now, everyone seems to have sobered up a bit. Facebook is seeing a decline in its users, while YouTube have announced the arrival of video ads.

Having worked in social media optimisation for the last year or so, I can see a change from ‘goldrush’ mentality – where clients let us get on with it, using our expertise of online spaces to devise the best strategy for their campaigns – to their asking more questions – how can you measure social media campaigns, how can you prove its impact, etc. etc. I.e. clients now want to see proof over and above the hype. They want to know what it is they’re actually getting, and, what we’re actually doing. This article has a few pointers on how to provide social media measurements.

Because of companies such as my last workplace, and the need for social media sites such as Facebook to actually make money (Social Ads…), brands now increasingly and aggressively enter the formerly ‘secluded’ social spaces and are trying to get a piece of you and me. That in itself will make it less attractive – I for one try to get away from ads, and wherever ads go, I leave (ironic really, as my last and new job will be in the same business of getting ‘my’ brands out there, and into your face).

Mark my words: 2008 will see not the end of the web 2.0 hype, but it will continue to slow down and move towards integration from overhyped, overbuzzed ‘anything can go’ to becoming more part of other media. Social media will turn from the new into the old. Brands will continue to move in and commercialise those online spaces, making them less attractive places to hangout in.

The next big thing must be just around the corner!