Web Trend Map: Reactions

What started as a fun new years card made quite some waves. Google search now reveals almost 50,000 search results for our Web Trend Map 2007, which means that it generated around 50,000 blog entries.

Key bloggers like Steve Rubel from Micro Persuasion (the nice guy from the dark side) wrote about it, Steve Bratt (CEO of W3C) contacted us and asked why the W3C is missing, a German newspaper featured it online, an Italian Internet magazine and printed and distributed on their DVD, and now the Japanese Media is getting interested.

Big in Japan

So today we made it on the front page of Sankei Shinbun print edition (center right, economy focused, 2,800,000 readers), and their website, and now our server soars.

iA in sankei shinbun parody

The article is about brand protection and parody. Tokyo Metro might not happy that we use their M-mark upside down (Note: If you turn the M upside down it becomes a W). Last week a reporter from Sankei Shinbun came over and interviewed us. In short this is what we said:

The Internet is not a no rule zone. The rules are very simple (treat people as you wished to be treated)
The real world and the Internet don’t follow the same legal practice
Internet law is in many ways more pragmatic as do’s and dont’s are based on common sense/practice more than “the letter”, and are thus closer the actual idea of the law (to make our social existence possible and worth while)
Legal practice on the Internet is more reasonable in regards to brand protection and copyright as well - that is for the end consumer
You only succeed if you show humor

What’s going on at iA anyways?

Some readers contacted us, asking why we didn’t post in two weeks. Thing is, we are working on an exceptionally huge project, I’m in the process of hiring another staff member and everyone is working around the clock to meet the crazy deadline. We’ll be talking about it a lot as soon as we are allowed to do so.

So far this is what we can say: We are working on changing the print media from within. A leading publishing house has contacted us to sketch out a global strategy on how to make newspapers interactive. So, please hold on and wait to get blown away by our next project.

Come on, give us more

Sorry, we can’t. If you want some secret hints: Take a look at what we discuss internally and compare it with our predictions:

Yahoo is in trouble
Microsoft is boring
Apple is doing quite well and Ballmer is jealous
Big newspapers are opening up (we are working on that)
Bloggers start getting paid paid through other channels than adWords or Amazon (we’re working on that as well)

Not a prediction but a credo: Branding is a core element of online success. CNet news believes that Microsoft blew it with their Windows Live branding. We’d have a lot to say about that, be we have this deadline…

More! More! More!

Nah, but if you have an idea on how to open up newspapers, fell free to tell us.

Comments

gulfsprite

Newspaper ideas… Newspapers are so oriented to a publishing deadline that they forget that the web is not only 24/7 but that what is old (publish date) can easily become new again when a reader happens upon it. It would be great if newspapers online could react faster to posts / questions / comments on some of their older content. I don’t think for most of them that they have the functionality built in to do so.

I also see those who run forums or discussion lists, etc.. not responding after the first “rush” of reader input. It would help a great deal if they could put in place some measurement tool to react to this type of reader interaction.

Another forum / discussion list related issue is the posting of forum topics. Being more open and requesting things like what their readers like to read… then following through with good solid reporting on the topic (even if not daily or even weekly) would really help to open them up to their community. If the readers knew that they could shape what was reported on it would go along way to bridging the gap (at least those newspapers in America).

Fredo

Very interesting. Even Murdoch gives up:

Big media conglomerates have less influence amid the continued explosion of news sites, blogs and podcasts, News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said in the session moderated by Charlie Rose and available via Webcast. “It’s so pluralistic,” Murdoch said. “We all have less power, much less…(we) the big companies.” Not only are there many more places from which to get news and opinion thanks to the Internet, he said. He said traditional media are also “put right immediately” these days when making mistakes, citing the example of the CBS News affair surrounding allegations against president George Bush last year. Similarly, Murdoch said “government now has to be much more open” because of the Web and suggested, along with Gordon Brown, chancellor of the exchequer and the possible future prime minister of the U.K., that governments should try to see it as an opportunity for them. “We just have to let this go,” Murdoch said. “We can’t reverse it.” Asked if his News Corp. managed to shape the agenda on the war in Iraq, Murdoch said: “No, I don’t think so. We tried.” Asked by Rose for further comment, he said: “We basically supported the Bush policy in the Middle East…but we have been very critical of his execution.” The News Corp. CEO also once again signaled that he sees much more change ahead thanks to digital media. “We’re in the very early stages of it,” he said.

BeeVee

They’re bitching about the “borrowed” logo or the map? “Tube” maps for visualization of ideas has been around for awhile… the London Underground tube map being the most “borrowed” out there.

Checkout Remo Burkhard’s 2005 “Tube Map Visualization” at jucs.org (volume 11 issue 4). A very serious analysis of the metaphor and knowledge discovery.

Martin Kay, a fellow information architect wrote an ebook on using tube maps for process/workflow visualization. (www.kaywebs.co.uk)

For an interesting collection of other tube maps checkout- owen.massey.net/tubemaps.html

I think your trend map is the best example I’ve come across, for sure. But, if they’re upset about the use of the map then they need to first check and see if they’ve paid for the licensing of the original; Mr. Harry Beck and the London Underground.

Great site! Keep it up!

anonymous

no 2chan, drudge or engadget? yeah, you guys really did your homework…