Just when you though 2009 couldn’t get any more crazy, this last month saw witness to revolutions taking place in the streets and online, overshadowed by celebrity deaths and iPhones. So it’s time once again for me to share some of the trends and ideas that have emerged in my sphere of influence recently:
Comic: Superhouse. A new webcomic, illustrated by the Chris Maue. Required reading if you like to LOL.
Meme: Michael Jackson. Did anyone even remember how much they enjoyed the King of Pop as an entertainer anymore? Within minutes of his death millions of people reacted in shock, and later celebration of this musical icon. In the wake of the news, websites like CNN, Twitter, and even Google received spikes in traffic that nearly took down their servers.
Music: Beck’s Record Club project. Every week Beck releases a cover version of a song through each sequential track from a record album. First up he’s recording The Velvet Underground & Nico. These cover songs are accompanied by original music videos they make themselves. Beck has always been and will probably remain the most significant musical influence in my life.
Politics: Iran Election. Maybe you remember hearing about this before a bunch of celebrities died? For a little while it looked like real democratic reform was about to take place at the will of it’s people. People around the world rallied to their support, and Twitter became really important. This last month has been heartbreaking.
Social Network: TIE – Reddit & Kirtsy. Social Bookmarks are the agenda setting mediums for the 21st century. Whereas Reddit serves an audience more engaged with newsmedia, with measurable influence in this community. Kirtsy offers many of the same great shared links, but without the misogyny that prevails on Digg (among others).
Theory: Image Repair Discourse. Benoit provides a model through which reputations can be repaired through appropriate responses to each crisis. Depending on the nature of the crisis, there are several strategies through denial, evading responsibility, reducing offensiveness, mortification, and taking corrective action. These are strategic approaches to communicating with the public about your impact during a crisis.
Video: DTV Transition. On June 12th, broadcast television signals were switched from analog to all digital signals. Believe it or not, millions of people did not know about or how to make the switch to DTV. After all my work helping to spread the word online last year, I was happy to tune in for the last night of analog TV.