I was beginning to dread that the “Start” button would never return to Windows OS, but thankfully according to reports out today, MS have listed to loyal customer feedback.

Its  a bad day when a windows user of 25 years reverts their OS from Windows 8 back to Windows 7. I was forced to do just that last month. I’d had enough. Been patient… tried to weather it out.. maybe thought it was just me. In fact  not only me. My teenage daughter (16) also hated the OS. I gave her the laptop for a month (and in the process was figuring out where it was me that needed upgraded.) But nope, she hated it just as much, with again, the number one issue being “Where is start”. What used to be one click away now seems a myriad of confusing gestures hidden behind a poor attempt at iOS. Its as is Windows 8 was changed halfway through when they discovered the Apple iPad interface.

Anyway, it seems Microsoft CAN fix those broken windows and is doing a u-turn. Sigh… relief… at least for now.

Social Media Killer App

…where the facebook of the future forced users to verify that they are who they say they are, that they are human and over 18 (emulating what Paypal has done for years) and pinging a new users bank account with a token sum, say $1. That transaction carried a unique ref code on your bank statement, which the genuine user then enters into the social media platform and WHAM! Now the social media sites knows…

1 – This is a real person

2 – This person is at least over 16 (banks insist on this)

3- We know who this person really is (Banks don’t allow bogus names like “big Freddie” or “Tom Cat”

4 – Advertisers can be assured that the big audience numbers and demographic breakdown boasts of the social network are in fact genuine (http://mashable.com/2012/08/02/fake-facebook-accounts/)

5 – Systems (such as pluck) which rely on Facebook OS for comment moderation will actually function correctly

6 – You now have a ready made financial relationship with the social media user which will allow you to sell and importantly, your advertisers to carry out financial transactions, where you are the facilitator.

I can’t believe that ebay/paypal hasn’t got into bed with myspace in this one. Sure, you’ll lose all those bogus accounts, but then, they were never real anyway. What your left with is a highly valued, trusted and moderated core of users who are probably going to feel a whole lot safer anyway in this secure environment. In a way that facebook seems reluctant to introduce.

You heard it here first.

Comment moderation. A mixture of legal technicalities and legislative regional policy make this a very complex and expensive traffic source to police.

There is a solution to this. If facebook took the decision to employ an account verification process, exactly as ebay has done with paypal – whereby the user has a small sum of money pinged to their bank account, you would

• - Verify that the user is over 18
• - Verify the actual identity of the user
• - Make it far less likely that a social media user would leave illegal or slanderous comment when its directly traceable to their real identity.
• - Opens up a payment gateway to facebook which makes monetising the many users far easier.

Does anyone agree? 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media-network/media-network-blog/2012/oct/03/publishers-beyond-print-digital-debat

and this

http://www.mondaynote.com/2012/10/07/brand-x-device-reach/

TV and Radio however have to date had a relatively unchallenged landscape. Until now, the internet hasn’t really disrupted the traditional monopoly on tv and radio stations that users and advertisers chose. To be more precise, DAB although massively in the rise, still isn’t mainstream inside motor vehicle dashboards, and TV channels are most commonly used through digital freeview or Sky boxes.

Les take the first scenario, and look at today and in 5 years time. Today, as Im driving to work with the radio on, I’ll probably skip through a selection of say, 10 radio stations, complete with commercials every 5 minutes. So for advertisers and consumers, the monopoly of who can launch, serve and receive channels is still pretty fixed. Imagine though its 2017, and my car radio is now digital – receiving a broadband signal from my 4G mobile phone handset. Instead of 10 radio stations, based on geography of nearest mast, I can choose from 5000 – and from any niche topic I fancy, As an advertising agency I can now drill down not only by location, but also by interest. POW! Monopoly broken, advertising rates down, consumer empowerment.

Apply the same for TV. Using an internet enabled TV or Smart apple /google tv box, instead of sky and freeviews pre-determined channel list monopoly, I can choose from thousands of programmes tailored specifically to my interests and buying habits.

Radio and TV may think they have it bad, but it’s only just begun…

http://www.nmk.co.uk/article/2012/8/14/bbc%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98virtualbagel%E2%80%99-experiment-does-not-prove-facebook-advertising-ineffective

“Mark Thompson appointment marks the rise of the multimedia executive”

With internet enabled TV, traditional commercial TV channels are about to suffer the same disruption as newspapers have. If you’re thinking of entering this space, here’s a great link to 10 internet TV white label providers:

http://www.masternewmedia.org/professional-white-label-video-publishing-platforms-guide/

And for Radio, read “in-car DAB” .

Now I love music. And for the past 35 years +, I’ve bought all my favourites over and over again. From vinyl down the record shop, then cassette, then CD, then pirated MP3 and latterly legal purchases from iTunes. iTunes and music, by Steve Jobs’ own admission was a game changer for Apple.

Recently, I had the mis-fortune to drop my external drive. Yeah, I had a back up, but the whole task of backing up, constant updates to itunes etc is pretty time consuming. At the end of the day, I had about 10,000 of my favourite tunes. Not bad for spending about £20k over the years – NOT!

So I’ve turned to cloud services. No – not apples cloud replacement for the tunes Ive already bought from the iTunes store – but Spotify. Yes, there… Ive said it! I no longer own music – I lease it. 16.8 million of them to be precise, and counting. And it feels good. What pay £1 for a tune from Apple, when for £5 or £10 each month I can listen to MILLIONS of them, on demand, whenever. Of course, its dependent in a connection – but it’s amazing.. almost.. liberating.

Be gone old 500Gb exernal hard drive. Long live Spotify. If google realise this first – they can eat Apples lunch. You heard it here first folks…