Digital Britain : what's the impact?

llustration: Tobias Hickey via The Guardian

So the long awaited Digital Britain report is out. It details the economic importance of the web and related industries, as well as plans to eradicate piracy and illegal file sharing.

Headlines include:

2Mb broadband links for all (woo-hoo - that's about as fast as your nearly dead hamster could power a hairdryer)

Boomerang Kangeroo - C4 and BBC back in talks (why did they veto it the first time round??!)

Digital industry key to our economic recovery (a ten year old could have told you that)

BBC licence fee to help fund broadband and ITV local news - and a 50p 'tax' on phone lines. (smartphones anyone?)

Analogue radio switch-off set for 2015 (scary for those who switched off their DAB platforms last year - most recent victim: Birdsong FM, blub)

Internet service providers to cut illegal filesharing by 70 - £50,000 fine and jail time for sharing a file(erm, just not going to happen!)

Reactions so far have been fast and pretty furious from the digital community, twitter followers calling it "short-sighted", "umimaginative" "naive". Personally, I think there's been little innovation here, and a sometimes scary lack of understanding about the evolution of the internet and what its impact will be. It's a shame really, especially when the govt seem to be trying to re-brand the country to rival Silicon Valley. It just goes to show what happens when bureaucracy gets in the way of innovation - nothing.

Follow the feedback on #digitalbritain

For a shortform explanation see the wordle version.

How to build a community

Free TV Show from Ustream
Gary Vaynerchuck is an entrepreneur from the US who built a multi-million pound wine business from scratch through social media. He recently spoke at the Paris Le Web 08 conference. Everyone should watch it, if nothing else, it's entertaining if a little terrifying - he's quite intense.

In short, he says two things matter: 1) Word of mouth - Now instead of a maximum audience of 100 now people have audiences of thousands if not tens of thousands & customer service will prevail, if it’s good.

2) If you can build a personal/people based brand you should as it will add value to yourself and the company you are working at. A company/brand with a board of celebrities is always going to be more valued by a customer base than one which is invisible.

TED.COM

www.ted.com

Inspired talks by the world's greatest thinkers and doers.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 200 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week.
Nimi

THE POWER OF NETWORKING

Meet Daniel Jenkins. Only 23, running his own retail business and already included on Courvoisier’s ‘The Future 500’ list. This is a list of Britain’s brightest stars of the future generation, all motivated and determined to push themselves to achieve success in their business and social life (read a summary of the launch here). Inclusion on this list is an impressive achievement for someone with a business only a year old, in this rocky economic climate, in retail! It shows what the power of having a strong understanding of your brand and place within a market can do.

He doesn’t advertise. His name is solely built through word of mouth, bloggers, and pestering the go-to people in the fashion industry until they recognise the worth in his business. And it’s working.

The selling point for Daniel Jenkins Ltd. is the fact that he is the ONLY shop in Wales to sell the labels he does, and in many cases the only shop in the UK to sell them. He has such a fervent belief in British fashion that in S/S ’09 he will only be stocking British labels.

Without a hook, Daniel Jenkins would be just another menswear shop in a tiny town somewhere in Wales but thanks to a passion verging on obsession at times, a keen eye, and a recognition that networking counts, he has managed to land himself a place on such a prestigious list. (That and a smattering of help from a certain little sister. Ahem.)

Frances

SOCIAL MEDIA AT WORK

This is a visitor map showing where people are coming from to see the daily aphorism. Since we launched last week, we've had over 30,000 visits from 118 different territories. We've had press in The Guardian, Time Out and The Scotsman. But even though a lot of man hours have been plowed into getting in big name press, the vast majority of coverage has come from blogs and amplification tools. From StumbleUpon alone, we've had over 22,000 hits. proving once again that great idea + good conversation = masses of exposure for very little money. People power really works.

ST LUKE’S IS POSTER BOY OF INTERNET ADVERTISING

“The Holy Grail for advertisers is positive word of mouth and online is a brilliant place to find it.” Al Young, The Guardian, 03/11/08

Having sat on the bank of the www. world for the last few year’s, St Luke’s has now submerged itself. But in true St Luke’s style, not content to be a laggard, we’ve jumped into the future – surpassing the banner straight into the land of community.

And today we’ve been recognised for our vision. The Guardian’s Internet Advertising supplement feature’s Al as a talking head on the front page and a further two articles profiling our vision and our work.

Commenting on the Content and Community Department, New Business Director, Liz Little said: “Calling it a digital department suggests digital marketing is ‘bolted on’. Because of the new focus on audiences, we look to create communities and conversations around brands online.”

She added: “There’s been a massive sea-change to the perceived wisdom in the last five or ten years, but a lot of clients still come in talking about ‘advertising’ and wanting a 30-second TV ad.”

Creative partner, Al Young talked about the influence of digital technology on St Luke’s work: “All of our investments in marketing for our clients are now online. An online presence helps create a community and that can create content as well as sales, so the whole investment washes it face.”

A mosaic of Magic Good Mood Film images highlights the impact building a community and asking for contributions can make for your brand. Space NK and Ikea also get a mention.

To get the whole thing, ask Daniel or Roy for a copy. Well done everybody.

Google rocks

Google - the near ruler of absolutely everything - are launching a nice tool for planning media spend and looking at where your audience is online. The adplanner tool will be free though a gmail account. The good news is it incorporates information about millions of websites from over 40 countries. The bad news is only US demographic information is supported right now - UK info is coming soon.

What's interesting about it, is all those media planning and buying agencies who charge an absolute fortune for "expertise" will now be exposed. All those freebies and contra deals will dwindle while clients can access proper info. It's the equivalent transparency issue online faced when google analytics was launched.

It launches on the 15 of July, but if you want access to the beta version, email me.

Here's some more info.

the power of many

if a tradition can be proscribed to something that's a mere decade old, then it would be this - we'll tell you. Thus far it has taken on the same ethos as newspapers and TV. We'll shout and stir and get in your face until you notice us - please notice us!
Well no more. The smart bets are on the people. It comes down to this. No matter how clever, friendly, fast or big you are, them out there are cleverer, friendly, faster and bigger. That's why wikipedia, flickr and youtube work. It's why opening the doors is better and more effective than building and repairing barricades. Use the people and the people will use you.
The new rules for collaboration - openness, peering, sharing and acting globally. Act now or suffer later. For more on this and other brilliant insights, read this - http://www.wikinomics.com/blog

by emily

what's this web thing all about then?

so you've no doubt got web 1.0 - websites that don't do much. You can spot them 'cos you can't interact. You can't post comments, you can't personalise, you can't connect. Surprisingly there are still a lot out there.
Web 2.0 was all about interaction. Amazon, eBay, comment functions and a little bit of UGC (user generated content). V.1 MySpace came from this - users become broadcasters and a whole new generation of webbies were born. Facebook took the gauntlet and ran the marathon. It's a very friendly place where you can tell everyone about you and they can tell you right back. Brands fell on the wagon and bought themselves a piece of the conversation. Then users got savvy and ignored the widgets, gizmos and adverts that were thrown at them. Only the most useful stuck. Things that allow users to interact, plan, get information and share it.
That's where we are now. If you want to take anything away with you, it's this. Only the useful will survive.

by emily