I hope you’re well. According to Year Progress, 2022 is 89% complete so just let’s get to it.
Music & The Internet
My office is above The Fox – the longest running independent movie theatre in Canada. I recently went there to watch the documentary Meet Me In The Bathroom (not during office hours). It covers the post 9/11 alt-rock scene in New York and it’s great. Karen O is one of the performers featured, and she recently gave an interview where she discussed creating music before the Internet. Back then, they created music using “art as their influences rather than influencers.” Ouch.
I’m more interested in how people embrace change and find new ways to use technology. Here’s a good profile of how artist Lil Nas X has blazed a trail by performing in Roblox (i.e., the metaverse). Other artists and labels are responding to trends on Tiktok, like speeding up their songs. And one of my favs Dan Mangan was just awarded funding on Dragon’s Den for his start-up Side Door that uses technology to connect artists to fans to organize shows.
TikTok & Influence
Speaking of TikTok, it represents both art and influence (see how good I’m getting at these transitions ;-) The platform and user experience are so unique, that it seems like brands are trying to learn and speak a new language at the same time when engaging on it. For example, some brands are adopting a more sassy tone when providing customer service via TikTok (bad idea). Others are trialing TikTok live social commerce - here is a great resource on how to do so.
To understand TikTok, it’s most useful to look at who is succeeding natively on the platform. Here’s TikTok’s Discover List 2022 that showcases the most successful new creators (lots of foodies). And here’s a new ‘TikTok Series’ where someone hangs out with NYC cab drivers. Brands need to learn this language quickly since TikTok users now spend on average 96 minutes per day on the app, which is 5X more than Snap and 2X more than Facebook / Instagram.
AI Generative Art
If TikTok feels like a new language, AI-generated images feel like a new style of art. My feed is full of them. Now there are exhibitions devoted to the form and artists selling their (?) pieces as NFTs. Anyone can now create their own AI-generated images starting with, what else, profile pictures. Why spend hours perfecting your lighting and makeup when you can just spend $19 to create an AI-generated profile pic as your new Tinder profile. Here are a few AI-generated images of me from FaceTune – would you swipe right?
Fresh Decks
Trend & Prediction Season is around the corner – here are a few good early reports for reference:
Dentsu Media Trends 2023: Worth a download for this perspective on content, commerce & community trends.
GWI Consumer Trends 2023: Very useful data here focused on digital media and marketing trends.
KPMG Global Tech Report, 2022: A study for CIOs based on a survey of 2,000+ global technology execs.
Activate Tech & Media Outlook 2023: Round up of trends including commerce, gaming, betting, and commerce.
Cool Beans
VW Electric Office Chair: Forget the stand-up desk, stay seated and mobile forever in a chair that moves 20 km / hour and comes complete with a seatbelt, music system, and horn. Honk!
The Conspiracy Chart: As a visual thinker, I love this interactive infographic that organizes popular theories from ‘grounded’ to ‘detached from reality’.
Classic HCI Demos: Go way down the user experience history rabbit hole with this awesome gallery of first-generation Human-Computer Interaction demos. I showed this to my 14-year-old and it might as well have been hyroglifics.