Connecting Past, Present and Future
Martin Rabl
Currently employed as Community Manager in the video games industry I focus on staying on top of new tools and ideas for communication and interaction between people, friends, customers and colleagues. After finishing my studies (economics with IT focus) I have not been programming on my own much anymore and my main interest shifted towards the practical integration of new tools in my everyday life.
Beiträge von Martin Rabl
Old media is not dead (yet)
19. Dez
While a lot of social media enthusiasts praise social media as the next big thing and the killer of old media, we are by far not there yet. How many times have we seen these things in the past? Have video tapes killed the cinemas? Not even with HD BluRays these days going to see a movie on the big screen still remains the true experience. TV didn’t kill radio and even today we are still sending and receiving physical letters instead of emails.
Sure, over time things like telephone or emails drastically reduced the amount of letters and many companies offer their customers digital bills online already. Cars replaced horses but trains are still running.
Engaging with brands
24. Nov
Traditionally companies have been polishing their brand, controlling the messaging and often been able to make people believe that their product is exactly what the marketing wanted it to be. Customers are better connected today and can’t be fooled that easily anymore. One painful lesson many companies learn is that the power of connected consumers can easily get out of control and suddenly the people define the image of your brand instead. More and more companies tap into the connected community, trying to find out more about what their customers think about the brand and use it to provide a better service or create better products. What can customers themselves do to get the most out of it?
Social comments in video games
21. Nov
Tweeting and Facebook status updates are a new trend in video games. It sounds like a great idea but if the feature gets used too often players can be considered spamming their friends and followers. A hard lesson learned by many players of Uncharted 2 in the beginning, eventually leading to Naughty Dog deactivating and tweaking the feature around the launch of the game. The biggest problem of those updates is, that not all friends are interested in them or they are simply useless for the friends at that time. There might be a better way for this.
If we put the publicity function of public tweets from within a game aside and are not thinking about how to raise awareness, we still have the core social function of such short messages left. For movies, there is Spot411, an application which syncs with the movie you are watching and lets you see comments from your Facebook friends exactly at the time when they have been made during the movie. This can easily be done in video games, too.
Spot411 Aims To Make The Movie Experience More Social
18. Nov
Recently the news about FoxPop supported DVD’s caught my attention. Fox established a partnership with the recently founded interactive entertainment company Spot411 to offer a richer and more social movie experience. Starting with “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” (Dec. 1) movie enthusiasts will be able to read background information, trivias and comments made by your friends on Twitter and Facebook.
Not to a big surprise especially the last thing made me download Spot411 (the application FoxPop is based on) and try it out with a movie which is already supported. The promise is that I can see what my friends were thinking about the scenes in the movies and their comments will pop up at the same time they have been made when they have been watching the movie. I could also watch a movie around the same time as a friend – but in a different place – and have something like an interactive viewing party.
Tweeting With The Family
17. Nov
When living abroad, staying in touch with old friends or family members is often limited to longer catch up phone calls or emails on a regular basis. After our company got hit by some lay-offs I realised that even a few months after my colleagues were gone (some even outside the country) I seemed to know more about their lives than about people from my hometown. Facebook and Twitter let me say in touch with them and get an insight of what they are doing even though we stayed rather passive and rarely exchanged information directly.
I didn’t have that option with my family members as all my Facebook updates are in English and I did not want to send my father to an English course with his 60+ years. He bought a PC a few years ago and despite my initial doubts he quickly figured out how to get the most out of Microsoft Office, Scanners and even something that can vaguely be described as some sort of fantasy football. My hope was, that he would be able to figure out how Twitter works, too. Twitter’s website is not available in German so I encountered a few hurdles which I solved with the following procedure:
Social Media Changing The World?
16. Nov
I know, I’ve said the next entry is about my experience with using Twitter to communicate with my family members but I have just read a very interesting article on Mashable. J.R. Johnson is writing about how Social Media Can Change The World Through Common Ground. Worth reading and even though it is painting a blindingly positive future I believe there is some truth in there.
“But today, we now have the ability to reduce that innate animosity through common ground discovery. Even if the only things we share are as trivial as loving Cherry Coke or Seinfeld, that’s a start.”
Isn’t it true that we tend to dislike people more the less we know about them? Of course, there are the ones who reveal their ugly face to us later but in general finding out about common interests builds up trust and topics to talk about. A lot of people are scared revealing too much info on social networks because it might be harmful but what if the person sitting in front of you at your next job interview is a big fan of the Foo Fighters and really likes the tattoo you are showing off so proudly in your public Facebook gallery (which he investigated before the interview to get a first impression)?
The Casual Information Gap
15. Nov
Several months ago I started an experiment and tried out Twitter to stay in touch with my family in Germany (while I was in Brighton) and it actually turned out nicely. Many people asked me why I did this, after all I could use emails or the telephone. I had a few reasons why I thought that I need a new medium to improve the communication again.
People say, that the world is becoming a global village. Flights are getting cheaper, it’s easier for European citizens to work in other European countries and if you want to make a phone call abroad you don’t have to ask your bank for a higher overdraft limit anymore. (Warning: It might still be needed if someone has the crazy idea to call YOU when you’re travelling and rely on roaming – not to mention you being crazy enough to use data roaming and send pictures – different story though). Our generation has it much easier to choose where they want to work, we have more options to find our dream job and dream place. Unfortunately this new freedom comes with a price. Most of the times the adventure means leaving friends and family behind and starting all over again.
Inspiration and motivation
14. Nov
Welcome to my blog!
For a long time I’ve been thinking about starting my own blog but I never really took my time to sit down and set it all up. After all, there are so many blogs out there so why would the world need another one? Then, on my last flight from Seattle to London, I’ve read Six Pixels Of Separation by Mitch Joel and suddenly I knew what I had to do and why.
Mitch makes it very clear in his book that “everyone is connected” and those connections are a strong currency in today’s world. I am actually not sure if I read the latter or just made it up now – sounds good though. (Googling for it shows that I am at least not the only one thinking that). However one can have millions of connections and not making use of them by staying passive. Stand up, find your voice and let people know what you have to say.