A very different Cannes

This year was a very different Cannes, as can be seen from this Wunderman Cannes report. 

Why doesn't the District Line tweet?

Everyone in London has done it: dashed to the Tube station, only to find that the system is down and nothing is working. No one checks the website, because they don't expect to need to. But those on Twittr read tweets most mornings. It might work.

-- Post From My 2G iPhone

Is Digital Greener Than Analog?

This viral makes the case.

New 128-page Book On Digital Media

Check out my new book. The PDF is downloadable from here. If you want a hard copy, try Amazon.

Send a friend a moccachino via your mobile phone

Social networking may be the big trend in the United States and Europe in 2007, said Sooyoung Choi of 24/7 Real Media at Stream, but most of what is happening in the West today happened first in South Korea in 2001.
The dominance of the SK Telecom group allowed them to set up CyWorld, a portal that gives every member a virtual living room or ‘minihompy’ that they can furnish and decorate to impress their friends. And South Koreans have been paying real money to do so.
Today almost half the entire South Korean adult population is signed up to Cyworld. And a good looking minihompy is an essential accessory to a sociable South Korean.
And things continue to more on.
Whereas in the West in 2007, people spend their days sending virtual beers and donuts to each other on FaceBook, in Seoul people can send real gifts to each other via their phones.
To do so, they choose a gift on their phone, anything from a Starbucks to a green tea ice-cream, and text it to their friend. The charge goes on their mobile phone bill.
When the friend receives a message, they click on it, and a barcode appears on the screen of their phone.
The shop assistant or barista then merely scans the barcode, and hands over the gift.
It’s happening in South Korea today. So expect this to be the big thing in the U.S. and Europe in about 2010.

Anarchy OK

There are no fixed sessions at Stream. You just write what you want to talk about on the big boards, and at the allotted time, a group of people turn up at your conference room, or lawn, or bar table, ready to talk about it.
No one is in charge, because no one can be in charge. Such is the speed of change and transference of ideas in Web 2.0 that any discussion scheduled three months before the conference would no longer be worth having.
And that leads on to the thing that is different about Stream.
Most conferences are full of managers dressed to impress, cautiously agreeing with their bosses about measured corporate objectives. Not so at Stream. Here anything goes, and anyone can – and does - disagree with anyone.
Most conferences are about etching a corporation’s policies into the minds of its managers.
This unconference is different. The discussion is genuine. And the outcome is genuinely useful.

Mommy’s little helper

Meanwhile in the Orange room, the Jory Des Jardins of blogher.com talks about blogging by American mothers, the so-called ‘mommybloggers’. Their influence on the U.S. food, packaged goods, and medical marketing scenes is great.
The difficult issue of how to put commercial activity in the heart of blogs comes up.
Do you pay per plug? Only the most cynical of bloggers and networks will agree to do that. It’s a bit like the respondents who turn up to focus groups claiming that they are a heavy user of whatever grocery product you are researching this week, or Laura Linney turning to camera and plugging food brands in The Truman Show. You can smell the insincerity.
The better way is not to try to influence editorial, and let the best bloggers get on with what they do best – turning their everyday lives and experiences into something thousands of women in similar positions find compelling.
But then the marketers struggle.
This isn’t polished corporate editorial like Company or Good Housekeeping.
The reason websurfing moms find it so compelling is because it is people’s real lives.
It is blogging verité.
And do marketers want their cuddly fmcg brand next to mom’s discussion of her bipolar disorder?
The ethical dilemmas for brands are growing and growing, as are the opportunities.
It is this area that Jory Des Jardins handles with such aplomb.