Spinning the Web

So, we had the first ever Going Social event at Kaizo yesterday – a breakfast seminar designed as a sort of ’social media 101′ for those who are looking to learn their Digg from their Delicious.

Now, it might not sound big to you, but a presentation in front of 50+ people (all bigwigs from major brands I might add) was a pretty big thing for me – but luckily it all went off without a hitch, and the presentation was really helped by two cool little web 2.0 tools, namely Animoto and Prezi.

Firstly, I used Animoto to create some punchy little vids to drop in – much more interesting than bullet points or screen grabs. Here’s one of them, created to talk about how brands are using Facebook:

Secondly – and probably most impressive in terms of impact – was Prezi. You might not have heard of it, but it’s a new online presentation tool (currently free!) that doesn’t use slides and provides an antidote to death by Powerpoint. Weird? Yes. Cool? Definitely. Click here to see the presentation. I was going to embed it in the post with an iFrame but decided it’s better in its full screen glory.

It might not make much sense without me and Neil Hallmark presenting it, but you can have a play and see what Prezi is made of. Although the best thing to do is probably just have a crack yourself and play around. Below is a quick vid that gives you a nice insight into some of Prezi’s tricks (although I have no idea what the native language of the narrator is – it’s definitely not English!)

And it’s not just Prezi that’s finally killing the beast of Powerpoint. Slide Rocket is probably the most famous online presentation tool at the moment and loads more can be found at Go2Web2 where I find loads of gems.

Okay – I’m aware that everyone has blogged about this, and therefore nobody is interested in more musings on Obama’s social media campaign. However, the web is all about opinions eh, and given that this is my blog (and I’m pretty much it’s biggest fan) I’ve decided to crack on and chuck my tuppence-worth in.

Obama is the new President of the United States of America and global superhero – Huzzah! So obviously the newspapers have been filled with details on how he went about winning whilst covering the inauguration (where 2 million people watched very little happen before and after an amazing, historic speech). Interestingly for the USA, opponent bashing and soundbite politics took a bit of a backseat this time around as the world looked on in wonder at the birth of electioneering 2.0.

It’s no surprise that the internet was a priority for the campaign managers – in just the four years since the last US election, social media has proven its capacity to distribute information virally, shape and broadcast opinions, drive offline word-of-mouth, unite activitsts or social groups and permeate audiences that are difficult to reach through traditional media channels. I mean, Facebook was only just launched in 2004 – but in 2008 over 130million people are logging in every month.

What was surprising, however, was the intelligence with which social media was targeted – by both the official and unofficial channels. The key to Obama’s success for me was a great mix of using existing social networks such as Facebook and Flickr, alongside unique online resources to recruit 1.5million supporters.

At one point I was being blamed for Obama’s loss in the election (should it happen), donating my Facebook status to the cause, watching my dream woman Sarah Silverman urge anyone Jewish to fly to Florida to get Grandma to vote Obama, hacking the live debates through Twitter and playing with an iPhone widget that was developed to unify supporters in the same locality. It’s probably best to overlook the efforts made by Obamagirl.

It’s probably too early for a full debrief on the precise impact social media had last week, but one thing is clear: politics has changed forever.

^ Viral images, viral videos, celebrity endorsements, social networks, microblogging – you name it, we saw it used to fll effect on the election campaign trail.

Do you know your Tweetbeep from your Twanslate?

I love Twitter. Fact. That might, in some eyes (okay – most eyes) make me appear a geek. It wasn’t always that way.

There was a time when I used to regard Twitter with confusion and disdain in equal measure – my impression of the serial tweeter was pretty close to that of the gloriously hideous Twitter Whore.

However, I am most definitely a changed man. In recent times Twitter has become an essential professional tool – connecting me with a knowledge base that literally spans the world.

I also love the fact Twitter has become defined by its users – with many tweeters using the Twitter API to create new and exceptionally useful little tools and Web 2.0 widgets.

Here my soon-to-be Twitter addicts. Here.

You can see my own tweets to the right, or, as Hitler, the Pied Piper and the Moonies have been known to say – “follow me“

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALbH63Ali9U&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01]

^Twitter Whore: the traditional Tweeter caricature

It’s been around for a while but Dipity 2.0 is like, well, like your life flashing before you. Aside from providing a wealth of benefits when mapping projects, the combination with Daylife provides an exceptional tool to review news content around a specific issue according to time and date.

The timeline is, for me, by far the most useful visualisation but the Google Maps mashup adds another dimension of insight.

Below (as an example) is my current timeline bringing feeds from both my professional and personal life – quite scary for me, quite dull for you. These can be embedded in any blog or website, but also within Netvibes or other AJAX dashboard.

Okay – update… since moving from Blogger to Wordpress I can’t embed the Dipity widget. Meh. But click here to see it in fullscreen glory. Here’s a quick screengrab to show you how it looks: