eDopter - the next big thing?

Colleague pinged me the address for eDopter the other day. Seems like quite a nice idea.

What's the beef?
Well, it's a community who spot stuff on and offline that they think could be the next big thing. Posts are then given a thumbs up or down, based on whether the community members think the idea will fly.

Sad to see Daft Punk on there. Not because I don't like the French electro outfit (ooh, slap-dat-bass, daddy-o). It's just that they are a big thing - see what I mean? Myopic numpties are simply using the platform to show people stuff they like, not what they believe is a future trend. Ergghhh...

Jembo's comment...
Trend-spotting is a serious business online - it could lose you a fortune. So it seems sad that the usefulness of what could be a useful tool is being diluted by mindless posts. Bring back the birch.

Visible Technologies: almost certainly a future big thing
These guys came to see us the other day - very impressive. If you're looking for next-generation buzz monitoring and WOM tools, check them out. Nice people too.

Social media trend-spotting (aka nailing jelly to a wall)

As head of digital strategy at one of the country's - sorry, the world's - biggest digital agencies it seemed right I should have a blog, so I can:

• practise what I preach (it is practise with an s, isn't it?)
• practise my hobby of writing prose (it definitely looks right with an s)
• vent some spleen (a phrase I pinched from a film, the name of which I forget)
• help put the world of digital media in perspective
• invite friends and colleagues to share a chortle
• offer spiteful acquantainces an open window to my soul through which they can gawp and sneer

(That last point is imporant because it hints at a recent liberation I feel. You see, for many years I spent most of my time worried what many of my so-called friends thought of me. It was crippling - a draining and relentlessly unhappy pursuit, fuelled in no small way by narcotically-induced paranoia. Free of the weed these days, the clarity of my thoughts enables me to see now that I only ever had one or two real friends. The rest of the group I so wanted to impress were simply lingering passers-by in my life, with whom, in truth, I had little or nothing in common. A bunch of feckless try-hards whose sycophance now seems nauseating yet, at the time, was a currency I so wished to earn. Still, they were a good bunch in the main and we had some great laughs -even a few when we were straight.)

I digress.


Social media trends report
Anyway, on with business. Found a great post summarising the latest Universal McCann social networking trends survey: Power to the People Social Media Tracker Wave 3. If you're tasked with trying to pull the wool over a client's eyes this week, ie that you know a little bit about social media (or at least more than they do), then I suggest you get stuck in. All social media bluffers, print off and memorise the summary of the report today.