eCommunications for global organisations

For most Communication professionals, it is now clear (I hope) that the web and new technologies have proven that communication as we used to see it is no longer, and is changing at an incredible speed. The fun when you are working in communication and open to new changes is to figure out whether and/or how a new technology is going to change the way we communicate. My bet today is on print interactive advertising / magazine. I am not talking about so-called ‘e-paper’ - the flat-panel screen technology displaying newspaper. Now I am talking about real paper, real print opening up to the virtual world: the ‘augmented reality’!

I was watching a ‘reportage’ on Euronews the other day (click on the video button to view it here). They describe the ‘augmented reality’. If you were impressed in your young age by putting on your 3D binoculars and watching the images come to life in 3D, then watch out! Here it is the same but with the fantastic addition of actually interacting with the 3D images that forms once you put on your enhanced binoculars. You can give command to the 3D element, see it moving around (even going out of the border of the magazine and moving on the table you put your magazine on!) and if you have captors on your hands you can even feel it! Ok this is nothing new and cinema and some hi-tech museums have been using it. What is new is the cost of it - it is now affordable…so it is going to come very soon into our daily lives.

Watching this I was already dreaming about my future paper magazine (sorry but I actually love the feeling of paper in my hand) or my book with not only flat images but with elements and ads that are moving around, coming to life and with which I can interact and learn so much more.

For more info about this just Wikipedia it or Google it or YouTube it…and watch out for the first to actually use it for a print communication campaign!!

[youtube]ZKw_Mp5YkaE&hl=en[/youtube]

After iTune, the sector of music continues its long tail development gathering availability and filters (long tail conditions) together with Web 2.0 functionalities. For the end of 2006 and Christmas, the winner is www.musicovery.com, a web radio allowing the user to trim the tempo, the period, the style of music, the dancing feeling and other criterions that make the music fit your the atmosphere. Try it, you will like it.

If you don’t know the long tail concept yet,… hey, hurry up! Take a look here at the blog and order the book now. This is the best economic analysis I have read about how Internet changes your business model. http://www.longtail.com/

I guess it’s an obvious topic, but I liked an article I just read on the bbc’s site about the decline of TV viewing being replaced by internet surfing/watching videos online.  The title of the article is Online Video is Eroding TV Viewing. 

To me this is a change I see all around me, and I kind of enjoy.  First because the dominance of TV in our culture has had (in my opinion) a rather debiltitating effect on people.  It is passive medium, where the lowest common denominator wins, and where ’sheep mentality’ is developed and encouraged.  This is why TV advertising is simply about ‘repetition’ and ‘creating emotion’.  But from a distance it looks scary and patronising.  The web is offering us an outlet for our curiosity and desire to know, to learn, to be entertained, but everyone needs to create his or own viewing experience.  You need to find the blogs you like, watch the clips you appreciate and there is this constant temptation and possibility of being a player, an actor.  You have no excuse for not making your voice heard.  Even if no one cares, you are at least developing your communication skills (as opposed to just passively receiving information).  So now you know, I don’t just think the internet is a great business opportunity I also think it is a great personal tool for learning, experiencing meeting people.  And I think it fundamentally empowers people.  So that makes it a good thing.