10 Digital Unpredictions for 2013

Posted on January 8, 2013 by marc meyer

It’s safe to say that just because I waited until January 8^th, it doesn’t mean that I can’t roll out what I think will happen in the next 12 months. In other words, not posting prediction pieces in December does not diminish their likelihood of occurring. In the immortal words of former NFL coach, Dennis Green, predictions are what we thought they were.

With that said, I wanted to go with things that can truly occur in 2013. Thus they aren’t predictions they’re the opposite, they’re Unpredictions! I’ll explain why with each one .

The GIF goes Hyper. Some say that the GIF has grown up. Well once they grow up, then they’re on their own right? The only limitation? One’s own creativity. Which may mean the GIF becomes so 5 minutes ago in about 3 months. 🙂
Image is everything-meaning image sharing sites continue to explode, mystify and push the envelope. Snapchat, Poke and Instagam are the first iteration, which is scary.
This tape will self-destruct in 10 seconds. See the Poke link above. But know this, Data deletion will become de rigeur i.e. standard. Want to combat the Nano bytes of data that seem to replicate exponentially? Eliminate it almost as soon as it’s created, especially if it’s useless. Look for that to be a growing option in 2013. want to know who really takes advantage of this? marketers. Marketers will jump on this and snap a gamification piece onto data deletion. In other words, Act now. No we mean it, Now!
Speaking of hard drives. They become useless too in 2013. Can we just get a better name than The Cloud?
Content isn’t King. The creator of the content is King! The act of publishing of content is no longer the issue. The platforms, they’re simple. But the person or marketing teams who “get” the user and write for the user, they are the new kings.
Simple is the Queen to the Content Creator but dumbing it down will continue to dominate design. Why do you think Video has exploded? Because no one wants to read! Duh!
The Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple games/wars continue in earnest in 2013. This is about the easiest prediction in the bunch. But predicting who comes out on top for the year 2013-We put our money on Amazon. Surprised?
2013 decides whether Google Plus becomes relevant since users seem to be incapable of figuring that out.
In 2013 everyone realizes that they must measure their digital and social efforts but that still doesn’t solve the problem. Prepare for the birth of the Social Data Analyst Marketer.
Contrary to what this article says, the death watch of the desktop officially begins.

Can anything that any of us predict, really happen in 12 months? Not really. In order for it to happen, it really has to be in the works prior to 2013, right? So that means, maybe they aren’t so much predictions as they are things that should happen because everything that we have seen heard and experienced in the past 12 months, indicate that they should happen.

Let the games begin.

It’s Not About Social Anymore

Posted on June 19, 2012 by marc meyer

I was watching highlights of a Miami Heat game the other night and after every major replay of the game you could hear the shrill cackle of a woman cheering in the background. You know how some things can gnaw at you pretty quickly for no apparent reason? Well, her cackle got to me pretty quick. Other things that gnaw at me but at a more “come to a boil type” nature, are the current and future states of social media. It gnaws at me. I’m constantly wondering where we are with it and where are we going with it. I also have some notions about where it will sit in our digital universe going forward too.

Like it or not, the conversations are NOT solely about social media any longer and I’m cool with that. You should be too. There was a time not too long ago where it seemed like every conversation and every blogpost was about social media, both the good and the bad. Hell, I even got tired of my own stuff that I used to write about social media. In fact back in the day, there came a time where there wasn’t a social media consultant or thought leader out there who wasn’t talking about Zappos, or Comcastcares, or Ford or Starbucks or Dell. It was part of the spiel. It got old. At least to me it did. What about you?

On the flip side, those same consultants, myself included, were also out there touting that if you were not listening to your customer via social then it was a big FAIL. Those also were the same people, myself not included, who took to their pitchforks and torches to light up any company who slipped up with any type of ambitious forays into the great unknown called social media marketing. Even if it was an honest mistake.

But something has happened. No, social isn’t dead, not by a long shot. In fact there might be more “social media consultants” now than ever before. Beyond that, what social is doing is it’s maturing. Social media is growing up. Yes there are still lots of nuances to be learnt and still lots of totally unqualified people screwing things up, but that’s in every industry right? The difference between five years ago when I first started and now is that there are more and more qualified people out there who are able to make educated and qualified and experienced decisions on what to do with social media initiatives. And the results speak for themselves.

That’s not to say that we’ve reached social media nirvana or the promised land, hell we’re not even close to that- It’s just that there are a few less unknowns these days then there was before say…last week. 🙂

So if social media is not the lead in the school play any longer, then what is, you ask? What has everyone all fired up and in a tizzy?

It might be easy to say and look to Facebook, but beyond the fact that they are still recovering from getting it handed to them during their IPO and though they are closing in on almost a billion registered users, there is no doubt that a wave of Facebook fatigue could be coming soon with an undertow of blowback from incessant sharing. So if it isn’t Facebook, what is it then?

Mobile and Tablet computing. The data proves it out and so do retailers, consumers and manufacturers. They are experiencing it first hand. If you haven’t noticed, the desktop is dead. Dell in so many words has admitted it and Microsoft with its rollout of its own tablet to compete directly with Apple has validated it. We love portability. We still love social but what you’ll be seeing sooner than later is a longing for the days of the niche and not the melting pot of our high school, our college and our work friends all rolled into one.

As we hurdle into 2013 and beyond, watch for the mashup of mobile and social to escalate even more, with mobile leading the way. It’s no longer about the platform, it’s now about the device and the (computing) and conversational power it will possess and it’s about getting that device into your hands.

On Dependence of 3rd Party Platforms and Leaving the Grid

Posted on August 25, 2011 by marc meyer

We use Gmail to send email. We use Facebook to connect with our past. We use Twitter to let people know what we’re doing right now. Without technology, how would we connect with people? The phone, the written word via snail mail, and or lo and behold… face to face?

What happens if Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Youtube, Pandora, Verison, Spotify, Evernote, Amazon, Google and Microsoft were to go away? What happens? Life goes on. Case in point, you’re talking to someone on your cell phone and the call is dropped, what do you do? You look at the phone, you may call them back, you may not, you shrug your shoulders and life goes on.

Have you ever thought about how dependent you are on the digital things that make your life go? I know I do. In fact, we often joke about what would happen if some of us were off the grid for any substantial amount of time.Would we shrivel up like a raisin? Get a case of the DT’s? For some it’s possible, they can hop right off of the grid and shut it down no problem. Digital for those that can’t disconnect, resembles some type of ambient ubiquity which they cannot separate themselves from for any extended period of time-like 2 days.

But what if someone just disconnects

This morning I was looking for someone who I had gotten to know fairly well who essentially created a whole new life for himself around social media. They created a slipstream niche around how to use social media for SMB’s. They wrote a book, they V-logged, they tweeted over 15,000 times, they created an active Facebook page, and then all of a sudden. No more. The sites are shut down, the social profiles are dormant and the person has just disappeared from the social ecosystem.

Did he die? Did he just decide that social media is so superficial that there has to be something better out there? Did he get a new job that necessitates that he not participate at all in social? I may never know because the only way I ever communicated with him were through 3rd party platforms and social networks. He doesn’t use those anymore. Maybe he wants to reconnect with his family? I don’t know. In a sense, he has gone from one extreme to the other, and that’s OK. Why? I’m starting to think about the overall value of social as it pertains to our truly personal, social selves and maybe just maybe this person decided that it wasn’t worth it.

It makes you wonder though. What will social look like in 5 years. Is social in and of itself creating its own oxymoron? Where social doesn’t really mean social at all? Maybe there is something to Facebook Fatigue. All I know is that when someone ceases “to be” in social media either a life has ended or…maybe just maybe…life goes on.