“There was a Canadian professor who had once been in Piggy’s Sty with fawning hosts, going on burringly about new modes of communication and how words were all finished or something and everybody was too much bemused by Gutenberg and not wide enough awake to the revolution in electronics, whatever that was” - Anthony Burgess: ‘Enderby Outside’ (1968)
#BingYahoo: Is “The Search Alliance” Really the Path to a More Competitive Search Market?
As most professionals in the digital marketing arena know by now, two of the major search engines; MSN’s ‘Bing’, and Yahoo!’s, erm, ‘Yahoo!’, have joined forces in a bid to elevate their competitive position within the search advertising market. With an aggressive PR campaign strategy, including Twitter, frequent blog posts, and conference appearances; the hype of the beneficial changes, within the Pay-Per-Click arena, has shot through the roof. By consolidating both ad platforms into MSN’s adCenter, the idea is that the increased reach will become a more attractive proposition for advertisers to invest in their ad services.
One of adCenter’s Twitter posts stated, “The Search Alliance: The Path to a More Competitive Search Market”. Having been through a rigorous, academic training in competition economics, this immediately triggered the urge to run a short, and fairly crude analysis on adCenter’s statement. How does this move make the market more competitive? Does it facilitate competition or rather stifle it? What implications may the changes have on advertisers? Are there any hypothetical concerns, which MSN have successfully spun out of their message, for what advertisers should be fearful? If you work, or have interest in Paid Search, and you haven’t considered the above questions beyond what you’re fed, by those who sell it; come join me in this exercise of thought.
The first thing to look at is the search market structure. The E Word provides a simple pie chart highlighting the search market share for the UK. In the search market, market share summarises the aggregate proportions of how many people use what search engine. In the grounds of competition, different market structures suggest different states of possible industrial relationships. Therefore, by assessing the market structure, we can begin to develop a more focused picture on the potential impact of Bing and Yahoo’s vertical relationship. What needs to be emphasised is that this is JUST the UK search market situation, the US market is rather different in its make-up.
What can be seen is very clear, and very unsurprising. As of January 2012, Google commanded 91.28% of the UK search market. This means that only 8.72% of searches, in the UK, were performed on a platform that was not Google. Bing and Yahoo! have market shares of 3.64% and 2.22% respectfully. Assuming these market shares stay relatively stable for the time being, this means that by Bing and Yahoo! joining forces, they are facing an initial market share of 5.86%. With Yahoo continuing to exist, although merging with Bing, it first created some confusion about how the advertising merge could be modelled; however, it’s not actually complex at all… Although the two brands of search engine will continue to exist separately, at least in a perceived sense, the advertising platform will spread across both, and so the searcher reach for advertisers will be directly relative to the market share. So with this initial concern dealt with, and a brief celebratory fist in the air complimented with a solitary, meme-esque chant of “Winning”; we can continue with the analysis.
From the merge, it is being asserted from the MSN camp that this begins “the road to a more competitive search market”. But how? There are a few different ways to consider the concept of competition within a market. The one I believe MSN to be referring to is that, by Bing and Yahoo consolidating into ‘The Search Alliance’, they are forming an entity that is of a size big enough to compete with Google. I suppose an elegant analogy to this assumption would be to imagine the unlikely, free-for-all fight between a full-sized, well-built adult, two toddler-sized children, a mouse, and a turnip. By all fighting each other simultaneously, the adult will kick the shit out of everything in sight. However, now imagine the two five year-olds team up and agree to fight the adult, and not each other. The adult still kicks the shit out of everything, but this time around he/she/it has incurred some bruised shins. Therefore, what the combination of Bing and Yahoo! means for competition is that they are now of a size sufficient enough to bruise the shins of Google.
As proud of the simile, above, as I am, it’s not technically correct. The way that adCenter would bruise Google’s shins is if they stole some of the giant’s market share. I don’t personally see this happening. Marketers will not transfer their juicy, and fruitful, Adwords spend to adCenter, but rather, being the greedy little ROI piggies that we are, will no doubt be campaigning for an increased budget to flirt with the MSN/Yahoo! promises and dive head first into the golden pool of riches we desire. Google may therefore appear to lose some aggregate market share to adCenter in the future, but they won’t actually lose anything real. #BingYahoo are simply expanding the market. There are no new marketers, only bigger budgets.
Now that the UK Search market structure has been observed, we are now ready to investigate further into the potential effects of this concentrating market. I have aimed to separate thought streams into different sections.
Vertical Effects
In respect to the market of search advertising, search engines operate as B2B. They are upstream firms that provide a cross-industry advertising platform for both B2B and B2C advertisers. The participating advertisers who operate within the same industry are generally in competition with each other. With search engines providing an input that PPC advertisers rely on, it therefore seems important to assess the knock-on competitive effects, to these competing advertisers, that changes to the search market structure may provoke.
Assume that Google, Bing and Yahoo! are the only three real players in the market, with the alternatives receiving negligible interest from searchers. This means marketers only really have three paid search channels to choose from (I am not considering YouTube or social search in this model). Now assume that a PPC advertiser’s budget is not bottomless (not a very hard concept to grapple with). This budget means that the PPC marketer can opt-in for Google Adwords, plus either Yahoo! or MSN adCenter as a secondary platform. The fairly small difference between Bing and Yahoo! meaning that PPC marketers split down the middle, half operating on Bing, and half on Yahoo!; with some also probably opting out from either, depending on their risk aversity. These two secondary platforms, by not having a redonkulous reach, do not bring in as much aggressive interest as Adwords, and this in turn means that bids for keyword terms tend to be lower; based on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis.
Now consider the situation, post-merge, into ‘The Search Alliance’. Although the reach that marketers face, from the platform, will be significantly higher (well, around double what they experienced before), this brings with it the consolidation of 2 search market shares into one. If you now return to the consideration that PPC marketers (who compete in the same industry), were, before, diluted across two advertising platforms; they will now be thrown into the same gladiator ring to battle over keywords and customers. Therefore, a £/$1.00 bid which may have got advertisers a first page placement, even a top 4 position before, may now, through increased competition, result in this bid having to increase by 1.5 times, or perhaps double in order to sustain their optimal ad position.
Therefore, what can be seen is that, by Bing and Yahoo! combining to leverage some competitive ability against the G-dog, and this in turn reducing the number of significant ad platforms in the search ad market, this will inevitably see competition increase between marketers who now have to operate on this collaborative platform. This in turn will drive up the Cost-Per-Click, which PPC marketers have to incur for each sought after keyword. Suddenly there seem unattractive features for marketers, which MSN adCenter’s communication team are doing very well at spinning out of the potential impact of the alliance. As costs increase, this will have a damaging effect on ROI. The only way I can see marketers not losing out from this merge, is if the increase in conversions, or AOV, from the increased reach, at minimum compensates for the increasingly intense bidding wars that marketers will experience. If conversions don’t increase significantly, would it be reasonable to conclude that BingYahoo have worked out a way to increase the lining of their own pockets, whilst simultaneously squeezing that of their customers?
The adCenter Carrot Dangle
As previously mentioned, #BingYahoo have employed an aggressive and holistic PR campaign to build a real buzz around the new adCenter. For those interested to read about it, and stay involved in the conversation, you will have noticed a significant growing hype amongst the professionals. This campaign, which consists of facts, figures, communication, approachability, accountability, engaging on social media, and excellent customer service is helping shape adCenter as a real class act. This, in turn, is helping mould the confidence of Paid Search practitioners to take the risk and invest beyond Adwords. What this means for incumbent marketers is that not only should they expect competition to effectively double, thanks to the convergence of the two ad platforms, but they should also expect competition to intensify even further than this, because of new marketers becoming confident to invest in adCenter also.
What must be stated about adCenter is that, how they are exerting themselves with their PR campaign commands respect. For a search engine with a relatively low reach in comparison to Google, the dedicated effort offers the admirable fighting spirit of an underdog, and no one can help supporting an underdog when they’re up against Ivan Drago. Marketers are excited with the idea that the promises of the Lucas-esque ‘Search Alliance’ may see a bit of balance returned to the force…
The Benefits for Marketers
What is the assumed benefit to marketers of the merger? adCenter assert, via the Comscore audience buying power index (BPI), from December 2011, that their reach of searchers spend 4.8% more, post-click, than what Google searchers do. This suggests that by the reach increasing, the potential return will therefore also increase. I suppose the feeling adCenter are trying to instil within marketers is that they should feel confident to invest more money in adCenter marketing because of the higher spend they should expect their searchers to have. This then enticing marketers to transfer more of the Google budget to adCenter; or perhaps promoted in a way so as to downplay the concern that conversions/conversion rate will be lower on adCenter, but this could be offset by a larger AOV.
The one concern I hold, regarding this assertion that is based on the BPI, is that it has been estimated prior to the Yahoo! audience being wholly integrated within the adCenter interface. How can marketers accept that the #BingYahoo search reach has a higher spend, when the figures have been offered from a time when the two platforms were separate? Admittedly not having personally looked into the Comscore report, I offer this as a call to action for someone to look into this report, and give it the critique it deserves before anyone confidently absorbs this “matter-of-fact” statement into their beliefs.
Anticompetitive Effects
In a very quick, layman’s nutshell; regulation bodies are concerned with when firms act in an uncompetitive manor – either to raise prices, thus profit, or to hinder the competitiveness of other firms, which again can lead to more, or at least sustained profit.
A lot of the factors, which facilitate anticompetitive behaviour within an industry, result from the market structure of that industry. Collusion is a state where two or more firms secretly conspire to raise prices. This can generally only be achieved in a very concentrated industry, as otherwise, other competitive firms would undercut cooperative prices, and steal most of the market share - either from true defection or from an inability to communicate efficiently with other firms. To put it bluntly, with Bing and Yahoo! becoming one entity, sort of, this pretty much turns the search market into a two horse race - albeit one being a great stallion, the other being an optimistic Shetland - and thus the structure of the search market would suggest that it can facilitate collusive behaviour.
But does this bring us into a structure where marketers should have any concerns about their welfare (i.e. spend in relation to ROI)? Is there any way these two steeds could somehow come to an agreement to increase their turnover via falsely raising keyword bid prices? Or work out a way to adjust it so that conversion rates work out similar so no one has the incentive to divest their spend more on one company than the other? And how could this be found? The very nature of the search firms’ secret recipe (i.e. the algorithms they employ), suggest that data, as proof, on this subject will no doubt be elusive. So with this in mind, perhaps historical behaviour of the companies would be a good filtering mechanism to assess whether the pursuit of such impossible data acquisition would really be worth the headache.
Google are forever in competition law-suits of some sort, in some kind of country, and have largely been based around how the provision of their products is free (for example the recent French case around the ‘Maps’ product). They are also often accused of leveraging market power in search in order to support their other products (i.e. ranking Android above Nokia in organic search). With Google being the most significantly placed brand of the day, I do not see why they would need to raise their prices of ads, nor do I think they’re crying for cash. In fact, because of market power, Google could quite easily say “Hey guys, we’re raising our bid charges, and you are still gonna use us cos we’re awesome. OK? Good.” I therefore do not expect Google to harbour any anticompetitive characteristics that this change in market structure will stimulate.
But what about Microsoft’s history?
To be blunt, Microsoft have been at the centre of of anticompetitive concerns for decades, and although it is not my intention to put too much emphasis on bringing these negative aspects to light, what should be noted is that they have often been the result of abusing their dominant position, in order to sustain future market power in emerging markets. For those interested in looking further into previous cases, you can view a collection of anticompetitive summaries from Microsoft’s history on this PDF.
What can be asserted from these anticompetitive behaviours, which Microsoft have exhibited in the past, is that they have always been in order to secure their own future, maintain their own market position, and to leverage market power in one market in order to make market power in a new industry possible. Negatives aside, all these have been non-cooperative strategies, against what is usually a weaker opponent, probably in order to prevent them becoming strong and eating away at Microsoft’s profit. But in this industry, we have two giants, each who need to be as competitive as possible in order to keep up with the other. And in the world of consumer opinion, the techy crowd are very flakey, and any fowl play in their arena will cause them to smite down upon them with furious blogging. What can be concluded from this is that, although Microsoft have exhibited anticompetitive behaviour in the past, the tactics they are known for do not translate to a cooperative landscape, and thus we can assume that it will not happen.
Other Competitive Effects
Search engine algorithms need to be faster in their treasure hunt than the disgruntled love child of Usain Bolt and Indiana Jones. This sets a pretty high benchmark, and you would assume that firms would need to have travelled significantly down the learning curve, in order for their algorithm to be advanced enough to compete for searchers, who have less patience and time than the white rabbit. The firms already down this curve are all at the forefront of the information, communication and technology industries. Their persistent investment in R&D secures them the integration of virtually any cutting edge technology that they should need. In fact, these companies are so far ahead of the time that they’ve already set up human settlements on Mars; you just don’t know about it yet.
The impact of these factors, and unnecessary similes, is that they imply a substantially monstrous barrier to entry. New entrants would have more luck laying an egg than breaking this barrier down and successfully competing against the established few. This therefore leads me to the conclusion that this market is closed. We are locked into the most technological game of chess that has ever existed, and chess is only a two-player game. Or is it?
One consideration I have so far omitted is the social sphere. We all understand the significance of Facebook in the arena of social media. But that’s all they are, right? Just a social networking platform… perhaps not. Mashable recently discussed, via a BusinessWeek article, that Facebook may indeed be planning to aggressively enhance their search platform. Facebook have, of course, dispelled the suggestion as speculation. However, what this leads me to conclude is that the only plausible possibility of another entity entering this marketplace in the future, and successfully competing, is if this Facebook rumour turns out to be true.
Competitive Innovation
And now for the exciting sign-off! That’s if you’re not already at the pinnacle of captivated engrossment…
This is a game of technology. With no worry of new competitors (bar one), competition is between these two giants. And how do you suppose they will compete? Easy. Rapid, exponential development, which is so strategically planned that they’re both ten steps ahead of what we could possibly conceive. What’s even more exciting is that MSN and Google’s plans could be moving in completely different directions. They can only anticipate what their rival will do next, and innovate all they possible can in the mean time. If both these giants get it wrong, we may find ourselves in a near future where we get two streams of sci-fi style advanced technology which neither would have come up with if they did not try to predict the actions of the other. This, in respect to what the future holds for us, is something pretty special.
@TheFutureGeek
Wes Andvert
So there you have it. The boundaries between quality video content and advertising are blurring. The Sony Ad below is directed by Wes Anderson; director of films such as ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’, ‘The Life Aquatic’, and ‘The Darjeeling Limited’.
The End of TV? - YouTube, Content Provision, and the Importance of Adaptation
The Sunday Times Magazine published an interesting article last Sunday (12th March). It suggests that YouTube, with its investment in niche, professional channels, can deliver far more specified content for particular audiences than mainstream television can. Take the video below, for example. Part of a series called ‘People Just Do Nothing’ created by A Wasteman Production. Needless to say, I couldn’t see many post-30 something’s turning over from ‘Dancing On Ice’ to watch this on terrestrial. Oh, and by the way, to those of you who live outside of the UK, these kinds of wonderful people actually exist…
The question The Sunday Times serve is that, by such niche television being created, which caters for individuals on a far more micro level than TV does; and with quality of such content improving exponentially, is the TV industry at risk of losing their viewers to online mediums? Is irrelevant, mainstream TV to raise its final toast goodbye?
Online video content platforms, such as YouTube, combat these concerns. By individuals, or small production teams creating content relative to a particular sub-culture, or more niche group of individuals, smaller companies can now have more confidence in knowing their specific target markets are being reached. What’s more, with the Google advertising model in place, advertisers only pay for clicks on their advertising, not for the actual serving of the advertising. So, in a sense, YouTube offer advertisers what television offers, but for free, and this essentially knocks the TV advertising model out the window.
The added benefit of video advertising on online channels is that it is now far easier to monitor the effectiveness of campaigns; opening the floodgates of web analytics, and the wealth of insight it can offer to marketers. This can therefore help small companies determine whether there is room for video content advertising investment in their marketing mix, or not. Not only this, but it is barely any different, cost-wise, to running a Display/Content campaign – in which more and more companies are becoming confident in investing.
With YouTube offering this advertising platform, it also drives video creators to produce quality content that will attract as many people to their video page (or channel) as possible, as YouTube will pay a portion of its revenue back to the content creator/publisher. This takes us back to The Sunday Times article where they document a 14 year-old girl obsessed with making content that will attract enough viewers to generate her a revenue stream. Entrepreneurial? Yes. But say traditional TV does become obsolete. What then? Will we be entering a world where creative content is no longer made from the shear aspiration of interested hearts and artistic minds, but rather generated by youngsters who create material optimized for maximizing viewing stats?
Will this data driven mentality affect how content is produced in the future? Will newly published content be scrapped if the online metrics show low, immediate public appreciation? Could this prevent unpopular shows, which later garner valuable cult status, from existing? This would indeed be a sad state of affairs. I would hope individuals would not alter their own creativity to suit the masses, but rather persist in believing in what they do and see people come round to it. As a perfect example of this type of grind, advertising firm BBH did this inspiring advert for Google Chrome, which shows Jamal Edwards, owner of SB.TV, creatively using content provision to build a music empire.
Does anyone see Google’s dichotomy here? This advert beautifully establishes the platforms which Google offer anyone to create a wealth of interest based content, delivering utility to like-minded individuals. But Google own YouTube, and their advertising model could end up stifling grassroots content creation. I suppose the question you could ask is: would the utility gain from relevant advertising offset the potential loss of utility from a decline in unrestrained, organic content? It’s a philosophical question for the pub, that’s all…
Dragging the direction back to the subject matter at hand, YouTube have clearly found a winning formula synergizing the interests of both content producer and niche marketer. With the success of this platform, it is no wonder why people are starting to question the future of traditional television. But is the television industry trembling at the knees? I doubt it. But let’s delve into this a bit further to investigate…
Eric Qualman; academic, author of Socialnomics, leading thinker on social media, and a man no doubt to be referenced on this blog countless times more, continually establishes the importance of moving with, and appropriating the developing trends of the internet within your business model. Without truly understanding how changes to digital platforms alters the way consumers behave, businesses are at danger of being squashed by rapidly progressing technology. The key example of this is how P2P community technology completely shifted the way that music can be distributed. Instead of harnessing, and integrating the technology as a compliment, the music industry tried to fight back, with more law suits than Metallica could shake a twinned solo at.
What happened? The industry lost public support, garnered the reputation of being money grabbing, and still failed at achieving their goal of stopping file sharing. The challenge the declining music industry now faces is to desperately try and grapple with this technology - in order to leverage revenue streams from the same digital channels that they once so adamantly opposed.
How does the television industry compare to this? Well, first, the impact is not exactly the same. As mentioned, terrestrial TV tends to generate most of its revenue from advertising, not from the sale of B2C products. Therefore, in respect to P2P, the only impact this would have is on the sales of TV show boxsets. Being realistic little critters, TV On(line)-Demand channels (e.g. 4OD), have started to make available entire seasons of popular shows. Why? Well, if they are to be distributed online anyway, they might as well make them available themselves. This, at least, ensures the quality of content experienced by consumers is what is intended.
Making popular content available for free benefits the business, as customers appreciate the service. It will ensure that people visit their website instead of visiting rogue or illicit sites. By TV channels retaining their viewer base by opening up these online channels, it also enables the continuance of advertising revenue. Individuals do not mind viewing ads, as they know it is what funds them being able to enjoy quality content, for free. TV channels are demonstrating that they are not afraid to embrace technological change; and in the process are sustaining respect, and are guaranteeing themselves a future revenue within the digital world.
Would it surprise you to know that the video at the top, ‘People Just Do Nothing’, is currently having a pilot produced for the BBC? What does this tell you about how YouTube can, in fact, be a benefit for TV channels? The TV industry aren’t stupid. How can they battle the increasing popularity of YouTube? They can’t. But they sure as hell can integrate it into their business model. The online video platform, which openly displays number of views, essentially acts as a metric for public opinion of content. If something is popular enough, this can feed directly to the TV industry, which can result in popular, online only, content being produced for television. YouTube, or its video providers, are essentially baring the risk of new content investment, which can save the TV industry from having to do so. They just need to observe what already has a market, and of this, what has sufficient context for a larger audience. It is very easy to see YouTube, not as the end of TV, but as the start of the funnel, helping discover what content works for people, and what doesn’t.
As all businesses should understand by now, facilitating a way for people to engage in a service, by more than just consuming it, is the focal strategy of the day. The development of social media platforms has seen business creativity shoot through the roof, adding value to the customer experience. How could such social engagement be incorporated further within these online TV channels? Referring, again, back to the pilot of ‘People Just Do Nothing’ being created, how will the pilot be tested? How will the BBC know whether to invest in an entire season of it? Usually this would be achieved with a focus group, probably paid for their opinions on a number of different aspects of the show. The beauty of social media is that this doesn’t necessarily need to be the case any more. Why not release it online, and direct their entire viewer base towards it? They could provide an interactive ‘like/dislike’ button, and enable comments to gauge how popular the show is, and make the result actionable.
This type of social engagement could provide real interactive value to the customer. The ability to be involved with the decision making process, and knowing that the TV channels are listening to their opinions, would probably develop a much closer relationship between the TV channels and their viewer base, strengthening a bond that could enable their continuance into an unpredictable, technologically focused future.
So there you have it, a meandering exploration of video content, advertising, and the future of television. I think I can safely conclude that TV is not on its way out, and it is, in fact, a very exciting consideration to see how the industry will continue to develop. The concept of ‘Ready, Fire, Aim’ has never been such a prominent requirement as it is now. Businesses need to fearlessly jump in, head first, and experiment in order to keep up with online technology and social media. Failure is a possibility; but by ignoring the digital climate, failure is certain.
@TheFutureGeek
Clegg’s Small C: The Glory of Socialnomics
Last week, the British Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, announced to the world what he really thinks of the 18-24 year old unemployed. Shorten your URLs Mr. Clegg, not your pre-approved, well-rehearsed speeches.
OK, so any idiot can see that this is a very, VERY unfortunate slip-up. One that the British public, with their self-deprecating and cynical humour, will take great pleasure in suggesting as Freudian. The funniest thing being that most of the public probably think and say exactly the same thing, but they can get away with it – sort of.
The beauty of social media is that honest f-up’s such as this, instead of being left to eye-witness’ word of mouth, can be captured and distributed online almost immediately. Unfortunately for Clegg, this will ensure that the embarrassment sticks around for a bit longer, and will help lower his estimation amongst an alienated demographic of c-words.
The video above has knocked up around 15,000 views in a week, with another version of the clip tallying in at 7,500 views. As if the Lib-Dem leader needs any more negative PR. It is reasonable to expect that entry-level political admin types have been instructed to request having these videos removed. If the government really are that stupid, I’m sure Erik Qualman would shed a tear over such social media suicide.
What you need to observe from these clips is the positive externalities. The video content highlights a mistake; one that will garner views because of its incidental comedic value, or because of the said demographics disbelief of its occurrence. This much is obvious. Look below the video on YouTube, and you will see that there are already three pages of comments, and it appears to be by individuals who fit the profile of whom Clegg refers. Some of the comments are angry, immature attacks at Clegg; but the majority are sound and relevant remarks in grievance of Clegg’s overall outlook towards this generation, not his relatively human mistake.
Having only recently escaped this “sitting on sofas, glued to the television” demographic myself, I personally find Clegg’s remarks condescending and sickening. What does a ye old English ideology hopper have a right to say about todays younger generation, when he has a VIP Oxbridge ticket into whatever professional carnival he so chooses? He has no idea of the humiliation of investing in a qualification (or two), spending countless hours editing CV’s, applying for job-after-job, only to be lucky if you get a response to tell you that you haven’t got it. Fuck him. Anyway, I digress…
The point is, this mistake has engaged the demographic that Clegg refers to. It has encouraged a political debate, and provided a platform where jobless youths can vent their frustration and counter Clegg’s reasoning. Surely this can only be viewed as an awesome thing? If I were a governmental analyst, I would be praising this slip up. This enables real outside-in political strategy development. Instead of aiming to have these videos removed to minimize damage to political capital, government should be listening to the concerns posted. What better way to really understand the voice of the disenfranchised, than to hang on their every, bitter word and shape their youth policies around them, instead of forcing through a number of hypocritical and redundant policies that won’t work.
This is exactly the type of reason why social media is really exciting. It exposes humanity in those most protected from showing it – empowers the individual – engages strangers in important conversation in an uncontrived setting – and offers the potential for entities to absorb criticism and better themselves from it. Nick Clegg’s slip will no doubt cause a glitch of worry for the coalition, but hey, at least it wasn’t an intentionally racist Twitter remark by a Cambridge trained MP. No politician would be that stupid, right?
Re-Branding
After a 3-month hiatus, Future Geek is coming back into activity. Following the start of a career in digital marketing, all my efforts have been focused on becoming a “real” human being. This has resulted in literally no time to discover, and keep up with the ever changing and developing electronic music scene this blog focused on; let alone delivering the type of quality content I would wish to.
The urge to formalize my thoughts and interests is still prominent. It’s impossible to commit so much time and effort to a profession such as Marketing and Communications without it hijacking every one of your creative thoughts. I have a limitlessly growing obsession with the digitally, connected world - a world that is continuously demanding more engagement, accountability, fluidity and content. It is because of this world that I now shift the entire emphasis of the blog towards it.
I don’t want to kick music completely, and already have in my mind a number of case studies I want to cover, but it will no longer hold the centricity it did. The blog was far too romantic in scope anyway, trying to gather enough content and time to fulfill not just one page, but four or five. I’m therefore stripping it down to the main page and a better indexed, topic related archive.
I travel a lot. This gives me copious amounts of time to read a lot and think a lot. Because of this, I won’t just be regurgitating the current digital trends as they’re spouted. I intend to have my two cents. Yeh, sure, I’ll cough up some boring details to do with PPC techniques, and I’ll hammer the site with media that goes viral; however the real intention of this blog is to convey my excitement in the changing world of digital communications, but also to cynically call it into question. I guess, crudely, you could describe the central theme as the bastard love-child of Nathan Barley and Charlie Brooker (even if one is the fictitious creation of the other…).
I hope it manages to add some value and insight to whoever finds it.
Reach out. I’m always listening…
@TheFutureGeek
Woi! Another bit from Dark Sky. These guys produce nothing but fiyah. Came out on the Radius EP in July.
Dark Sky - The Lick
Gully Thursdays
Killer tune from LV and Joshua Idehen’s full length ‘Routes’. It came out on Keysound in the early summer. Cop it if you missed it. Very few producers can offer an entire album that commits as much vision as this.
It well overdue for Future Geek to tip their hat to the guys over at GETME! Their blog, events and shop are all too much. They have consistently provided guest mixes from artists adhering to the exact preferences of this site. A big focus on grime, garage and house, these mixes are always on point, often blessing the tracklists with underground classics as much as the dubs that no one else has. Check out their mix page here for 40 musical delights…
On a final note, when do you think this painting was done?
Diego Revera - Frozen Assets
