Here are some of the best links, videos, and photos from my Tumblr blog this week.


via FFFFound


Core77 interviews Johnny Lee, the brilliant inventor who figured out how to turn a Wii into a virtual reality simulator.

A video game where everything is white, and you have to use a black paint-ball gun to find your way around:

The Unfinished Swan - Tech Demo 9/2008 from Ian Dallas on Vimeo.

Noah built MyFirstTweet. Go there and add your first tweet to the database.

Faris found a great little informal video interview with Clay Shirky.

And this picture made me want to live in Copenhagen:


RSS UPDATE
I've created a new RSS feed for this Tumblr blog - http://feeds.feedburner.com/mikearauztumblr - please subscribe. This feed will include pretty pictures I find, interesting and entertaining videos, and all of my delicious links as I post them.

This blog feed that you're reading now will continue to contain one daily update of my delicious links for the previous day, and these regular blog posts. If you have suggestions for any other combination feed, please say so in the comments.

Happy Halloween!

I've been thinking a lot about the election lately (along with everyone else on the planet). And, aside from being incredibly excited and anxious about waiting to see if Obama actually pulls it off, I'm looking forward to reading all about how the Obama campaign has used a perfect combination of new media and mass media to do it.

This great little article on wired.com, focuses on Obama's online organization tools (my.barackobama.com), where they came from, and how they've been used effectively in Florida.

The system combines top-down direction, advice, and tools, with the freedom for independent minded supporters to take action on their own. It was adapted from a study by two Harvard professors Marshall Ganz and Ruth Wageman.

Active users accumulate points on the system, which acts as both a psychological incentive, like a game, and as a signifier to new members that this user is someone who knows what to do, i.e. talk to this person for more information. The online system that the Obama campaign uses harnesses on-the-ground canvasing by building a huge database of voters and their inclination to vote for Obama. This database can then be used by supporters all over the country to follow up with voters by calling them to make sure that they turn out to vote on election day.

This is what's going to make the difference on November 4th.

Just reading the latest news about Hulu on NewTeeVee.

I followed a link back to some Nielsen stats comparing the total number of videos streamed during the month of September across all of the major online video sites. Youtube is the winner by far with over 5.3 billion streams. Hulu is on the rise, coming in at a respectable 6th place with over 140 million streams.

But, both of these sites make their money by selling advertising on their videos. Hulu can sell ads on every single video they play. Youtube, however can only sell ads on their "partner" videos, which only account for roughly 4% of the total number of videos on their site. So who's making more money?

Well, guess what? 4% of 5.3 billion is 212 million, and that's over 1 1/2 x the 140 million monetized videos as Hulu is streaming right now.

The big missing variable here is what advertisers are paying for the ads on these two sites.

But, it's still interesting to appreciate how important Youtube's size is.

Today is the official launch date of the 2nd annual Age of Conversation. This incredible project compiles essays from 237 social media bloggers from 15 countries!

My contribution is titled Domain-Free: the internet is a journey, not a destination. Here's a brief excerpt (if you want the whole thing, buy the book):

The domain is dead. While a unique IP address may be the technical host of the data, content's conceptual home has become the communicative channels between individuals. Content lives in the digital ether between the "Share This" button and the recipient's Inbox. News articles don't live on NYTimes.com, they live in postings to social news aggregators like Digg.com. Blog entries don't live on Typepad.com, they live in conversations on Twitter. Popular videos don't live on YouTube, they live in millions of posted messages on social network sites like Facebook.

Go here to buy your copy in either digital downloadable format or print format through Lulu. All of the proceeds from the book sales go directly to Variety the Children's Charity.

Congratulations to Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton for making this happen! And thanks to David Armano for the cover art.

Read more about the project and check out the podcast at ageofconversation.com.

Here are all the authors:
Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins,
G. Kofi Annan, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw and James G. Lindberg, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

Yesterday, I took a crack at defining engagement, and along the way covered lurking, interaction, and participation. These are the initial steps on the way to building and sustaining vibrant online communities, as illustrated in David Armano's Marketing Spiral.

The last two phases of creating community are conversation and affinity.

Conversation
This is what happens when people who are interested in the same thing start talking to each other. Conversations happen when participation becomes social. Participation requires us to contribute our ideas and content; conversations are the result of those original thoughts running into and being influenced by other people's thoughts. It's a cyclical process that creates an ongoing series of interconnected blog posts, message board posts, twitter messages, videos, and photos.

Affinity

Affinity is where [our shared interest] transforms, yet again, into something deeper. Something personal. Where the link between the brand and the consumer (or the brand and my sense of self) intertwines. - Gavin Heaton

Fortunately, Gavin left this brilliant gem in the comments yesterday. I think it sums things up perfectly. Affinity is the culmination of our shared experience with the other members of the community, in which being part of the community becomes part of our own self-identity.

Now, I guess I'm going to have to define community...

I've already written about what inspires engagement, it's about time that I bother to define it. And how is engagement different from lurking, interaction, and participation?

Yesterday, I wrote about our increased ability to be part of niche communities. And Bud raised an excellent question:

What really is a connection? Clicking "I'm a fan" or "Join"? Is that really joining a community? The internet has improved our ability to be a lurker, that's for sure.

So where do we draw the lines between lurking, interaction, engagement, and participation? These are the core behaviors of new media communications; and they're the heart of David Armano's essential Marketing Spiral. These are the first steps to fostering community in a digital environment.

Lurking
The most passive level of interested behavior. Our curiosity has led us to the source, a conversation. It could be a blog or blog post, a message board thread, a Facebook group, a group of Twitter users. We read the content, we listen to the podcast, we watch the presentation on slideshare, we watch the videos on Youtube. But, we don't make choices, we don't actively seek out specific content, and we don't contribute any thoughts or content ourselves. The evidence of our curiosity is limited to an impression, a recorded "view," or a "unique visit" in a site's visitor stats.

Interaction
This is the first step that requires some kind of action, albeit minimal. Interaction is how we begin to explore. We make choices and we click on links to take us from one part of the discussion to another. We choose to seek out new information by clicking next and play. And we are interacting because we are deliberately revealing pieces of a story to ourselves. These pieces of the story are events, thoughts, and people—evidence of the community. Interaction rarely leaves a mark, but it is essential to finding your way into a community.

Engagement
This is the gateway drug. This is where we begin to transition from passive observer to active community member. The dictionary defines the act of engaging as occupying the attention or efforts of, securing for aid, employment, use, and attracting or pleasing. These are all helpful concepts for our definition. In the world of online communities, engagement means that we are invested in the growth and the development of the community. During lurking and interaction we may have just watched, but now we care about what happens. And because we care, we can be called upon to take action. It may be a small action, e.g. make $25 donation to a political campaign, take this survey to make the blog better, Digg this site. And more importantly than any direct action we may or may not take when called upon, we contribute to the future of the community through indirect action, e.g. sharing links through social bookmarking sites and social networks, submitting tips and suggestions, introducing individuals within the community to each other, rating and favoriting specific work. These actions are small, and require little time or effort, but they are the foundation of a vibrant online community.

Participation
Participation is the step when we choose to take on an active role in shaping the future of the community. This is the crucial step where we begin to share our thoughts and ideas. We create content and make it public. We express our opinions about what is most important, and we attempt to convince others to join our cause. We write blog posts, we make videos and post them to Youtube, we take photos and post them to Flickr.

(I realize again, now, how elemental Armano's Marketing Spiral is. Look for my definitions of Conversations and Affinity tomorrow.)

It's clearer to me now why engagement has become such a buzzword in our industry. This is our mission. After impressions and clicks comes engagement; and engagement is when curious observers become fans.

Last week a couple of us Undercurrent folks gave a talk on web video. As we were discussing the basic idea that the internet has led to fragmented communities formed around niche interests, we got a great question that's stuck with me since the talk: Is there a limit to the number of niche communities one person can be a part of?

I believe that there is a limit, but, like the limit on the size of our social network, the internet has significantly increased the limit on our ability to be part of multiple interest communities (organized groups who's activities are motivated by a shared interest in a specific subject).

I've heard a lot of talk recently about the expanding limits of an individual's social network. The British anthropologist, Robin Dunbar theorized that—in a pre-internet world—an individual was capable of sustaining roughly 150 human relationships, aka the eponymous Dunbar number. Since the internet has taken on a central role in establishing and maintaining relationships, this theoretical limit on our social lives has grown. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this number may easily be two or even three times as large for participants of the social web (counting meaningful relationships fostered with Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and blog readers). The "ambient intimacy" enabled by emerging means of digital communication, as described in Clive Thompson's great article in the NYTimes magazine last month, has fundamentally altered the effort vs. results equation of relationship building.

So, what about the new limits of an individual's participation in multiple interest communities?

As was the case with personal relationships, prior to the internet participation in interest communities was limited by time, space, and the costs of communication. Groups of people had to be available to meet at the same time, they had to live near enough to each other to meet occasionally in person, and communications through newsletters or other one-to-many channels had direct publishing or broadcasting costs. The internet has destroyed those obstacles.

Our ability to be part of multiple interest communities has broadened compared to what was possible before the internet. Yet, we are still limited to some extent by human nature, by our mind, and our ability to care and to pay attention.

When we consider how our ability to be part of multiple communities has evolved, the difference is in connection, not participation. Our ability to actively participate in a chosen interest community has only increased slightly; most people are still only active in a small number of groups. Our ability to simply connect with a chosen interest community, however, has increased tremendously. Through blogs, message boards, email lists, social network site groups, and conversation platforms like Twitter, it is exponentially easier to intimately observe the activities of a group while not necessarily actively participating yourself; and by continually listening over time, you can reasonably feel like you are part of that community.

It is this long-tale of groups that we feel part of by merely observing, with only minimal participation through commenting on an occasional blog post or sharing a link with our own social network, that significantly increases the number of potential interest communities we can claim to be a part of.

This is what the landscape looks like now: huge communities are bonding over seemingly obscure shared interests because the cost of connecting is approaching zero. And as Clay Shirky discusses in Here Comes Everybody, under the right circumstances, these communities can be mobilized to achieve tremendous outcomes. We see this dynamic at work in politics (Obama was a fringe candidate when he declared his candidacy), popular entertainment (comic book heroes used to just be for comic book geeks), and commerce (Apple was quaint before it was a cult).

What do you think? How many communities would you say you are a part of? And what makes it possible?

George W. Bush gives John McCain a much needed public endorsement. Be sure to watch to the end, you can tell that Ferrell's heart is really in it.

Big thank you to Swissmiss for finding this handy little application that transforms any digital photo into a perfectly retro polaroid photo. This is so much fun.

Here are a couple of my photos.


My friend Joan



The beach at San Sebastian, Spain



A horse



I can't help but feel like this is a perfect metaphor for the hipster aesthetic. We want to feel nostalgic about everything, and we often adopt pre-fab solutions regardless of their complete lack of authenticity.

Download Poladroid here.

(Check out my dramatic death scene at the 2.18 mark.)

Charlie Todd and the Improv Everywhere crew just posted the full reports from this year's 4 Mp3 Experiments in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Toronto.

I've participated in 4 of the 5 Mp3 experiments so far, and every one of them has been an awe-inspiring experience.

This year's New York event included over 1,000 participants.

I like to call this type of event Spontaneous Virtually-directed Participatory Theater. It's a mouthful, I know, so let me break it down. It's completely spontaneous because no one knows before the event what they are going to do (you don't listen to the mp3 track until it's time to start). The participants' actions are directed by a virtual being, a voice in the audio track. It's participatory (this is self-explanatory). And it's a new form of theater in which the performers are simultaneously the audience. A large group of people come together (in the real world) and a story is told by performers to an audience.

Here are a few recent technological and the internet developments that helped to make this possible:

• Content distribution, digital video and photo production, and audio production costs are approaching zero. Improv Everywhere has attracted a huge global fan community by being able to easily document their missions and share them online.


• Everyone has an iPod. Anyone who has ever ridden the subway in New York knows that iPods are more now common accessories than briefcases.


• People are willing to work with a group of complete strangers to take coordinated action based solely on a common appreciation for values demonstrated by a loose community formed around entertaining content.

What else do you think is the key to mobilizing such a huge fan community to take action in the real world?

Recombinant, usually used in a biology/science context, means a new thing that is made by combining elements of preexisting things (also known as mashup).

I first became familiar with the concept through Henry Jenkins and Faris Yakob, who has been a champion of this concept in a new media marketing context. Faris describes it as an essential ingredient of Transmedia Marketing in this essential paper.

This year we are seeing recombinant behavior emerge as an influential aspect of the presidential election. One of the first mashup hits was will.i.am's "Yes We Can" which transformed Barack Obama's concession speech following the New Hampshire primary into a heartfelt pop-song featuring a bevvy of celebrities and music superstars.



Then, during the summer, we saw the Barack Roll, which re-cut pieces of Obama's speeches to match the lyrics of Rick Astley's infamous "Never Gonna Give You Up."



Following the Republican National Convention, this video was combined again with McCain's speech, as if he and the GOP delegates had all been Barack Rolled.



And yesterday, we were given another recombinant classic. As you may have noticed from my post yesterday, I thought that this photo taken of McCain after the last debate was hiiiiilarious.



And I wasn't the only one. The creator of Fun With McCain broke up the photo into its essential elements, McCain and Obama's bodies, McCain's arms, and McCain's head, and made a Photoshop file freely available for other users to download and use to create new interpretations of the photo, like this one:



And these are only a few of the most popular examples; there are many more. When this election is over, it will be interesting to see how these independent pieces of messaging and various interpretations of the candidates, their words and actions, especially on Youtube, may have influenced voters' opinions.

If you've got other examples, please link them up in the comments.

As everyone sits around the table, some people talk more than others. Some people have incredibly fascinating things to say; others have only inane things to say. But, if you don't bother to speak up and join in the conversation, it doesn't matter whether you've got anything interesting to say or not.

In other news, my favorite fashion blogger, Style Rookie, is starting a regular video blog. (Notice that she chose Vimeo, not Youtube.)



Untitled from Tavi G on Vimeo.

Watching Tavi, the 12 year old fashion/blogging prodigy, host her own show reminded me of how many surprises her generation of internet uses has in store for us. Look at Fred, the most subscribed to Youtube channel of all time! (WARNING: Turn down your speakers.) These kids are creating audiences that rival some of TV's and print's most successful hosts and columnists. They're talented (whether adults appreciate it or not), they have the ability to produce and distribute their own content, and they're earning audiences in numbers that were completely unimaginable only 10 years ago. Without the help of Main Stream Media.

And because it's Friday, look at this hilarious photo of McCain was taken at the end of the debate on Wednesday.



And, of course, it was immediately photoshopped.


(via Buzzfeed)

Phil Hartman was such a genius. His straight man in this sketch is straighter and funnier than anyone else's I've ever seen.

This just blew my mind a little bit. By connecting a camera to a laptop, this game incorporates the real-world landscape passing by the window of a moving car into a video game played on the computer.



via Buzzfeed

I'm utterly speechless...

This is some very heavy hitting from the Obama campaign. They must have been waiting to release this, and they rolled it out at the perfect time. When your opponent is drowning, throw him an anvil. I'm impressed.



"Keating Economics: the Making of a Financial Crisis" is a documentary that shows why John McCain's failed philosophy and poor judgment are a recipe for deepening the economic crisis.

How many times have you heard a client claim that they're going to release a "viral" video? Or maybe you've been in a meeting where a new campaign is being presented by a creative team who has brilliantly decided to include a few viral videos in their online strategy? Maybe you, yourself, have fallen into the trap of promising a viral hit without ever stopping to consider what it takes to actually create that result?

Inspired by this post by Sam Ford at PepperDigital, I was reminded that viral success on the internet is actually very simple and easy to define (see the handy flow chart below).





(click for printable 8 1/2 x 11 version)


First of all, it's impossible for any video to be viral if no one has seen it, yet. And second of all, it's impossible for any video to be viral if no one chooses to pass it on. It's as simple as that. So, don't put the marketing buzz word before the work. Focus on creating content that will inspire viewers to tell other people about it, and make sure that you've given them all the tools they need to do that.

As Sam said, the most important thing to remember is that "unlike a biological virus, people have autonomy in deciding whether to spread content or not. A campaign can't be 'viral' unless the audience wants it to be."

Twitter has had many ups and downs over its relatively brief history. They have a reputation of failing when their users' use the web service most.

Recently, their service has been performing very well, with hardly any down time. But tonight, during the VP debate, I noticed that Twitter was employing a work-around that, while ensuring uninterrupted service, also completely disrupted the basic premise of Twitter's conversation platform. They were selectively embargoing certain users' tweets. I'm not sure what the methodology was behind the choice, but I believe it was based on the most popular twitterers. I didn't hear from Obamanews, Armano, Zephoria, DougMeacham or Garyvee, among others.

It has been documented that the main obstacle for Twitter's continued service is the mass publication of tweets to the followers of the most followed profiles - the Scobles, Calacanis, and Arringtons of this digital world. And tonight they revealed that they are still struggling to deal with these issues.

Can you help to confirm this assertion? Did you witness similar service (or lack there of)? And can we do something about it?

This is a great little video that Micah Spear did for us at Undercurrent.


Stop Motion Day In the Life of a Born Digital Human from Undercurrent on Vimeo.