The beauty of the internet for those keen to understand consumer needs and desires is that people naturally express these in social networks and other social media.

iWant is a simple, experimental tool we’ve built to mine this info from the twitter stream. Give it a spin if you dare

Series:AdTalk
Series:MarketingTalk

The trend towards free, as postulated by The Long Tail’s Chris Andersen

Surely economics has something to say about [the free model]?

It does. The word is externalities, a concept that holds that money is not the only scarcity in the world. Chief among the others are your time and respect, two factors that we’ve always known about but have only recently been able to measure properly. The “attention economy” and “reputation economy” are too fuzzy to merit an academic department, but there’s something real at the heart of both. Thanks to Google, we now have a handy way to convert from reputation (PageRank) to attention (traffic) to money (ads). Anything you can consistently convert to cash is a form of currency itself, and Google plays the role of central banker for these new economies.

There is, presumably, a limited supply of reputation and attention in the world at any point in time. These are the new scarcities — and the world of free exists mostly to acquire these valuable assets for the sake of a business model to be identified later. Free shifts the economy from a focus on only that which can be quantified in dollars and cents to a more realistic accounting of all the things we truly value today.

Over 99% of the interesting stuff we come across during our sessions traversing the newsosphere (blogs etc.) don’t make it to this blog because we deliberately decided to focus on posting mainly podcasts and the odd article so as not to crowd things too much.

If you’re not reading this on the website then take a few moments to pop there. Because we’ve added a new box, top right, where we’re sharing interesting links from our cyber travels. As usual the coverage is broad, reflecting the diversity we try to cover on ResearchTalk, so this may not suit everyone.

But for those who are interested, come visit us often (list updated multiple times daily). Alternatively, given our RSS-enabled world, you can choose to subscribe to the link-blog feed here. And do let us have your feedback, good or bad.

Merci.

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We have an exclusive video of Oliver James, the well known psychologist, author and broadcaster, talking at the recent AQR Trends ‘07 about his fascinating new book Affluenza. The chat is both thought-provoking and funny, and there’s an audience q&a session at the end.

But to see it you’ll need to join our Facebook group. So if you haven’t already done so, join now (300 already have). It’s free, easy, and you’ll find more exclusive content there, including discussions between you guys.

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10mins | Produced @ AQR Trends ‘07 | More podcasts in this series

 STARRING 

• William Higham, Next Big Thing
• Alison Fydler, Joint MD and co-founder, Firefish

Of all the trends discussed during the AQR Trends ‘07 conference, the one William talks about here could be one of the most significant, in our humble opinion. He suggests that age-based targeting is becoming significantly less relevant across many categories. For example, grey folks exhibit teen-like behaviour (eg. still into hedonism and rock ‘n roll) and vice versa (teens exhibiting social responsibility and an interest in politics).

Listen to William as he chats with Alison from the award-winning Firefish, about the wider implications of William’s theories. Interesting tidbit about Alison and William: we randomly paired them up for this chat but little did we know that the two already knew each other from years ago as they were growing up!

BTW, references to ‘Oliver’ are to Oliver James who spoke before this chat took place, and he spoke about his new book, ‘Affluenza’.

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We popped to the AQR Trends Day event yesterday, something that’s run every couple of years, and were pleasantly surprised by the interesting mix of speakers and excellent organisation thanks to AQR chair Rosie Campbell and her team.

Below is a teaser featuring the following bods while we beaver away on the full edits…

• Sean Pillot de Chenecey, Captain Crikey
• keynote Oliver James, psychologist, author and broadcaster
• William Higham, Next Big Thing
• Dr. Nick Southgate, Grey Advertising

Thanks to guest hosts Sarah Davies, Alison Fydler and Chloe Fowler for their sterling work.

Do remember to subscribe to ResearchTalk (top left sidebar) so you get the full podcasts as soon as they’re out. And as always, feel free to embed the video on your own blog/website.

3mins | Produced @ AQR Trends Day ‘07 | More podcasts in this series

Series:Events Series:AQR Series:Trends07

Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO Denuo and Chief Innovation Officer, Publicis, chats about…

• The business importance of authenticity
• Why PR agency Edelman’s reputation suffered in the Wal Mart undisclosed blogger fiasco
• Three big media trends he’s seeing including the shift to on-demand, the participatory culture, and the shift from segmentation to reaggregation
• Why he’s ’short’ on Google’s ability to monetize YouTube and ‘long’ on Yahoo’s future

8mins | Recorded @ Wildfire ‘07 | More podcasts in this series

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“We’ve had two years of change [in MR], my guess is we’ve got another 25 to come…” (Ray Poynter)
 

 EXCLUSIVE  Brand Strategy magazine’s Ruth Mortimer talks about some hot issues in branding such as co-creation and branded content. Ray Poynter talks tech trends. And FDS’s new co-owner and MD, Charlotte Cornish, on the extraordinary story behind her acquisition of FDS

 STARRING 

• Ruth Mortimer, Editor, Brand Strategy Magazine
• Ray Poynter, Director, Virtual Surveys, and Head, The Future Place
• Charlotte Cornish, MD, FDS and Director, Munro Global

Recorded live at ESOMAR CONGRESS 2006

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 EXCLUSIVE  ESOMAR Congress 2006 keynoters Julia Hailes MBE talks about the environment and sustainability, and Interbrand’s Rita Clifton talks about branding and engagement

 STARRING 

• Julia Hailes MBE, prolific environmental author, and Sustainability Consultant
• Rita Clifton, Chairman, Interbrand
• John Kearon, BrainJuicer (Host)

Recorded live at ESOMAR CONGRESS ‘06

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