Highlights from the PSFK 2010 Conference

The recent PSFK 2010 conference in New York has come to a close and even though I couldn't make it in person (determined to go next time!) I have been keeping a close eye on the key speakers and topics discussed...

Below are some of my favourites:

Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai



He gives a comprehensive overview of what drove them to start Foursquare and what their overarching goals are for the platform and where they envisage the future to be.

One of the insights I found fascinating is that their company goal is to use software to change peoples behaviour.
They introduced game mechanics with the central thought ‘can we turn life into a game?’ alongside ‘always doing better’ stimuli which certainly seems to be working.

He discusses feedback and response to some of the badges they have created such as:

• The Gymrat badge offered to people who check in at a gym 20x or more in one month – people are becoming healthier and more active in the gym just because they want to earn the badge

• The Swarm badge, where 50 or more people need to check in at the same location within the same time period for them to all receive the badge – a flurry of house parties, flash mobs and specific ‘Swarm’ events have taken place as people try to earn it

He goes on to describe the potential future implications of Foursquare to be that we could all become more aware of ourselves and our behaviour by understanding our social, health and work habits via check ins. Apparently people have even been checking into moods and emotions!

Avner Ronen - founder of Boxee



A very informative look into the future of TV including content consumption habits, operating systems and that the future of TV comes down to the fact that 'there is no TV' it's just another connected screen as opposed to a standalone medium.

Advertising is....."Tinkering with perception rather than that messy business of trying to change reality"

A great TED talk from veteran ad man Rory Sutherland...

An introduction & analysis of the new internet phenomenon - ChatRoulette

ChatRoulette user Casey Neistat breaks down his own experience of the site, documenting the users throughout a period of the working days as '71% male, 15% female, 14% pervert'.

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

Tropicana: Brighter Mornings

I recently came across this amazing idea from Juice brand Tropicana which I absolutely love as an example of brand generosity and thinking outside the box.

Tropicana wanted to highlight the fact that it played an important role in the morning ritual of millions of Canadians, to coincide with the launch of its newest juice, Tropicana Essentials.

The brand wanted to become Canada's National Provider of Brighter Mornings.

In order to do this, Tropicana spent a month in Inuvik, one of the country's northernmost towns, during the coldest and darkest days of the winter. The 3,500 residents of the Arctic town in the Northwest Territories live without a sunrise for several weeks every winter.

Tropicana literally brought a brighter morning to Inuvik with a giant artificial sun that emitted 100,000 lumens of light. A team of Canadian filmmakers captured the raising of the 'sun' in Inuvik for a series of documentary-style commercials.

The brand also provided 1,200 free cartons of Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice - one for every household in the community.

In addition to TV advertising, the campaign features blogged commentary and behind-the-scenes imagery from Inuvik to provide a catalyst for conversation on a new Tropicana Brighter Mornings Facebook page.

You can watch the video here:

Source: CMD Global

Is the social web in Australia just Facebook?

Facebook has recently turned 6 years old and they have released ‘Facebook FactLook’ which is an overview of where Facebook stands now and some points about the average FB user (global)...




The numbers are pretty impressive with Facebook growing over 200% last year and having recently surpassed Google in the US with unique visitors...


From an Australian perspective, in October 2009 alone, users spent 27.2 hours browsing online and 7.55 hours of the total was sucked up by Facebook (nearly one third all time spent)
MySpace managed just 39 minutes and Twitter 17 minutes, confirming my initial thoughts back then that Myspace was descending deeper into nothingness and that Twitter had a high account sign up rate but that regular usage was minimal.

Facebook said its Australian users in October had uploaded 80 million pictures and written 32 million “wall posts” and 45 million “status updates”.
If more Facebook hype is needed, Nielsen has also crunched global data which shows Australia now leads the world for time spent each month on social media sites (7.12 hours), ahead of Britain, Italy, North America and Japan which is significant.

Therefore my view is that the social web space in AU is just Facebook with a handful of bloggers thrown in for good measure, making social web strategies pretty straightforward!

This may well change in the near future but we'll have to wait and see if apps such as Foursquare, which has been heralded as the next big thing, can make a bigger dent that Twitter as it received the same billing this time last year...

One Young World Summit In London 2010

For me as a 25 year old, this is directly relevant to my future, and my children's future. Lets see more of this...

Inspiring stuff for young and old...

Stefana Broadbent: How the Internet Enables Intimacy

Mashable recently pulled together a fantastic post of the Top 5 Insightful TED Talks On Social Media which I highly recommend that you watch...

One of those most interesting to me was by Stefana Broadbent, a sociologist, who talks about her view of the impact of technology on intimacy and relationships.
The widely accepted view at the moment is that even though we as a global population are now more connected than ever, the quality and depth of those connections tend to be focused on shallow micro-interactions such as tweets, status updates and the ubiquitous text message...

However, Stefana disputes this and gives solid examples of how technology has in fact allowed us to become more connected at a more in-depth level and that communication devices such as mobile phones, computers and specific technology such as IM and Skype give us the opportunity to interact more regularly.

You can watch her talk here which is all of 9 minutes long. It's a really interesting and compelling alternative view which has certainly questioned the assumption that human relations are suffering due to the tech barrier: