The Internet Of Things

The emergence of a global data field and machines talking to machines without human intervention creates both challenges and opportunities.

There already more things on the internet than people. In 2011 there will be more than 5 billion devices connected to the internet and by 2020 the estimate is something like 22 billion but what does this trend mean?

These two 2010 videos from IBM demonstrate how our world has become one Global Common thanks to the Internet.

The world has always been a system of systems but now we can see actually it and, as our society is now more connected than in the past, and we can easily follow the implications of our actions and interactions, in real-time.

To be of practical use The Internet of Things needs to have both a critical mass of devices and a cloud infrastructure; we now have both of these.




Part One




Part Two

For those interested April 9 has been deemed "Global Internet of Things Day" by the EU-based Internet of Things Council.

Pachube is a data brokerage platform for the internet of things, managing millions of datapoints per day from thousands of individuals, organisations & companies around the world.

The platform is designed to allow things to "plug-in" to other things in real time so that, for example, buildings, weather stations, interactive environments, air quality monitors, networked energy monitors, virtual worlds and mobile sensor devices can all "talk" and "respond" to each other in real-time.

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Social Web Involvement

Source: GlobalWebIndex

Click on a country name in the left hand column to view data.
GlobalWebIndex undertakes research that quantifies global trends in web behaviour and social media and the impact on consumer behaviour, purchasing and marketing communications.

The Big E

Image via Wikipedia

Right from the early days of the web building engagement with a brand has been one of the most important things to strive for.

The sites of a decade ago used simple but effective devices to capture and hold users; competitions and web cams to name but two.

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. In the 1950' when organised dances were still the rage there used to a competition called the Lucky Spot .  When the music stopped the couple nearest to a predefined marking on the dance floor won a prize.

We once used the same principle with a web cam to run online competitions and to build a membership database.

With the development of the semantic web users now have far more sophisticated expectations, although the quantum change is that they expect the web information to come to them, rather than the old way of having to make repeat visits to a site to glean information and stay informed.

Companies that persist with the old idea of "build a site and they will come" do so at their peril. The new reality is that users may come once and if they see content they like, they expect to be able to subscribe to its news feed or embed it in their own sites or blog.

From this moment forward they stay engaged with your brand from afar, only returning to a site when an item captures their interest.

The importance of RSS: No web site should be released unless it has RSS subscription options  for each page or content topic. This RSS can then be used to push content virally to multiple channels simultaneously.

Digital strategy demands a sophisticated approach to user engagement.  Companies must embrace the idea of having as much brand presence on other (third party sites) as as on their own.

To truly engage you need to be where the market is and to be using the tools that the target segment employs.

Engagement also needs to occur in other digital dimensions. Leading brand conversations through blogs, driving traffic from social media platforms to your content, to name but two.

Ultimately though your brand proposition  and online worth depends on content. The old adage of "if you don't have something good to say, don't say it", still applies.

Just being online because the opposition is there is entirely counter productive.  To build engagement your communications and digital channel strategy must be carefully thought through.  Resource needs to be allocated and not just for the build phase of the project.

Having an online presence is just the beginning; it is not an end in itself.  Engagement will only build if you have quality content and provide the tools to interact.

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Modern Modern Media Consumers Participate

This visualisation demonstrates just how significant the participatory nature of the the internet is.

Of the 61% who read their new online, 35 % actually contribute to the creation of the news, commented about it or used to social media to promote it to others.

The other point of interest is that people 'graze' for their news content and this is the nature of the medium.  Only 21% claim to routinely use one site for news and information.

These findings are hardly surprising given the development of the semantic web and the expectation people have to have the news come to them rather than to have to go searching for it.

Modern browsers all have the ability to subscribe to news and interest feeds so once a subscription has been set up the news follows the consumer rather than the other way around.  User 'portals' such as Feedly and aggregator sites and software make the ability to set up a personalised menu even easier.

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