Justin Bieber is the most searched for celebrity on the internet and has the most viewed youtube video in history. His debut album, My World, was the highest grossing debut by any artist in 2009 and he is the first artist in history to have seven songs from his debut album reach the “Billboard Hot 100.”

At this point you’re probably asking yourself: “Who is this kid and how did he do it?”

Scooter Braun, who discovered the child star and is now Justin’s manager, offers some insight:

1. When Justin was discovered, he had 5 videos on YouTube, with the highest viewed having about 70,000 hits. Justin opened a Twitter account and with a year interacting with fans and uploading home-made videos to YouTube. He already had millions of fans when his album launched.

2. Justin’s appearances see uncontrollable crowds flocking to see him. A video of a 3 year old girl crying over Justin has over 13 Million views on youtube! As Braun says, “Kids would rather discover something on the Internet than hear it on the radio… there’s a sense of ownership.  People feel more connected to Justin, and they deserve to, because they made him.”

3. Justin’s dedication to social media tools like youtube and twitter give him unprecedented insight into his fan base. When asked about next steps Braun remarked, “the next step is to figure out what the fans want and give it to them. We know a lot of kids want to see Justin in a movie and now we’re preparing for that.”

4. In order to prevent Justin from becoming another soon-to-be-forgotten child star, Braun researched former child stars who had fallen from grace. What he found was that “the talent was always there, but their heads got too big and swollen and they forgot that without the fans you’re absolutely nothing.”. We often see companies get so big and removed from their consumer base that they have no idea how to interact with the public (BP?).

Comment

Most of this is:

a) Fairly obvious and

b) Simple to do

but requires a will to stick to a plan and make sure you adapt your social media content to the needs of the audience. You probably think that the story above does not apply to you or your company but as all of us start to live our lives in public then we are responsible for our own brand.

Justin has crafted a beautiful brand around what the kids want, why can’t you carve out a brand around what your customers want – that is assuming you know what your customer want!

The absence of many of the senses (touch, smell, taste and largely, hear) when interacting with t’interweb is a challenge that at some point needs addressing if we are to replicate the real world into the virtual world.

Lots of studies have shown that these senses greatly influence our decisions and if virtual environments seek to achieve comparable success to the real world it won’t be overlooked for long.

Sound

On the face of it, sounds easy to deal with – simply play a backing track on a page and you have sound except that’s not the whole story. We use sound in a far more complicated manner and how we perceive or react to sound also varies depending on what we are doing.

We’re going to start testing using sound as an aid to navigation, initially it will be as simple as small “click and ding” cues to assure site visitors that actions they are trying to do, have, in fact been achieved. Sound is, potentially, the easiest sense to deal with as most browsing devices have a speaker, very few have “smell-o-vision” and I’m not aware of any device that produces taste (urgh!).

Touch

Is an interesting one. The growth of touch-enabled devices such as the iPad and other touch screen tablets shows some promise. Joshua Ackerman of MIT suggests that our use of tactile concepts in metaphors that relate to behaviour might influence our judgement which provides an interesting basis to start thinking about how we might use tactile feedback to “convince” a web site visitor. There is not yet a way for a site to directly feedback touch but there most certainly is a way to read touch via devices that have accelerometers installed. In fact simple examples of this exist already on, for example, the iPhone that can carry out actions when shaken, turned or moved.

Early work has started on meta-materials that can impart different touch sensations such as rough, smooth, rippled and whilst this work has an early home working with vision-impaired people the simple idea that a site can “talk” to you through the feeling of the site as your finger or palm wanders over the page is appealing, if not a little ‘Star Trek’.

This is the practice of hiring a group of mainly poor kids to ply their way through the myriad of online games (Everquake, World of Warcraft et al) collecting things of value to other gamers such as gold, potions, weapons etc. These items are then traded, via a broker, for real money to players that really can’t be arsed to go collecting or alternatively want to short-cut the tedious lower levers of these games.

The online gaming community really don’t like these “gold farmers” and tend to hound them pretty hard and even kill them (virtually) if the game allows it.

It’s quite a step to think that an online game has such a black economy, especially as most games are not actively policed that hard and rely on crowd-policing to deal with problems.

So what’s this got to do with the commercial world?

At the moment very little except to say that this is an example of entrepreneurship in terms of brokering items of value. As we start to see the rise of proper interconnected social networks who’s to say that “information farmers” cannot carve out their place in the information economy.

The more we live our life in public the more this information is freely available but time consuming to acquire.

Please do take a look at www.kiva.org, it’s a really clever idea that allows people to loan small amounts of money to budding entrepreneurs, no more than £16 ($25) in the third world.

These small amounts, aggregated, provide (typically) no more than a few thousand dollars to micro-business people to start small ventures designed to raise the standard of their lives.

These are loans and are repaid so you can then invest more.

The small value of the contribution multiplied by the volume of lenders reduces the risk and allows struggling people to access funds that would not normally be available to them.

Try it. It’s fantastic. Better still, start a Kiva club at work and each person can invest in different projects and race to generate the best and fastest return. Highly recommended.

From September 1st, Connected are throwing their doors open to any creative types

What? Yup, we’re opening 1,500 sq ft of cool office space to anyone who wants to use it

We already have quite a few friends and clients who use our office space and we thought, “to hell with, invite everyone In”

Great minds thinks alike, CONNECTED for FREE

We’ve got FREE ultra high-speed Wi-Fi, hot desks, huge LCD screens, sofas, colour printers (A3/A4), usability testing suite, a great library, parking, a massive conference table for 18 people, breakfast bar, all-day cafe (not free, sorry) plus an art gallery to refresh tired creative juices.

You will also have access to some of the best brains in the web marketing world, for FREE

We’re running this experiment until the end of year so why not drop us an email, find us on LinkedIn, visit our Facebook page or just drop in and say hello.

We’re open from 10am every working day. Our coffee pod machine is a Krups Dolce Gusto so bring along a pack of pods, mine’s a Cafe Lungo.

Even if you are not strictly creative in terms of pretty pictures, maybe you are just creative from an entrepreneur point of view, maybe you simply crave the company of bright, link-minded, people.

I shamelessly stole this title from an illuminating article in New Scientist (2739/40/41) in which the author talks about the risk of modern man being enslaved by gadgets, technology and (demanding) services. I am old enough (44) to remember a time before mobile phones, email, Facebook and Gowalla – it now seems odd if I leave the house without my iPhone loaded with access to email, Google maps, Gowalla or Twitter. I feel naked.It certainly does seem that we are being drawn more and more into a world of slavery as our gadgets take over and sometimes demand more of us than we want. The tables, it seems, have turned from our technology being there to serve use.

A great deal of technology undoubtedly still helps us and provides extremely valuable support in carrying out our day to day functions, but I strongly feel that in many cases this is overkill and can actually weigh us down. Technology should be able to set us free and complement our work and play time, making us more productive and happier.

This dependency on real-time technology has been bothering me for quite some time and as a result I’ve made a conscious attempt to change my lifestyle and, more importantly, my work style to better deal with these (perceived) pressures. It’s quite simple to create a better, more relaxed framework when dealing with all this modern technology.

(Not so) famously Baz Luhrmann released a song in 1999 called “Sunscreen” where he dished out useful life advice to the young including the need to “wear sunscreen”.

In honour of Baz, I intend to dispense my advice forthwith (sic).

1. Simplify all the technologies you use, right down to the basics. You don’t need most of the very latest gubbins that manufacturers throw at you so don’t use it unless it gives you a distinct and large benefit.

Simple computing is better, simple email is better.

If you can’t use the product or the application without resorting to a manual then it’s probably too complicated.

2. Create a location-free information environment. Not 99%. Ensure everything you need to do for work or play can be done anywhere. This will free your location and your time as you can choose to do work or play or family anywhere. You will note the use of the word CHOOSE.

3. Don’t chase the latest gizmo unless the latest gizmo is MUCH better than the gizmo you have now. If you use an iPhone 3Gs now then you’ll really struggle to find a reason to upgrade to an iPhone 4.

4. Value your learning time. Don’t waste it upgrading applications to add crap features you don’t need, don’t waste it playing Farmville or reading Stephen Fry’s twittering.

5. Read. Books, magazines, blogs, news. Use technology (Diigo, Reddit, Evernote etc) to queue up interesting things to learn and research about; and then make sure you go back and look at them.

6. Social interactions need to be with people. Virtual can work but come at a price not understood yet. Get out, meet people. Go to the pub.

7. Work when you want to. If you don’t feel like working then you’ll produce crap. If you don’t feel like working very much then change your job, or career, or lifestyle.

8. Don’t forget your family. They’ll give you the greatest support and the best inspiration for anything you do in life and you’ll do the same for them – if you find the time.

9. Everything changes and life is not fair. Get used to it. The phrase “move on” means the same as “adapt”. Learn to adapt and make change your weapon, not your enemy.

10. Most advice is bad, including this, but a lot can be learned from watching other people and picking out the bits you like and that fit you. The internet is a great place to watch people.

So there it is, 10 key pointers to a simpler, happier life. I’m probably wrong but I’m certainly correct in saying you’ll need to do something to liberate yourself from gadget slavery. Happy revolution.

We’ll let you know the outcome!

Next week is vinyl week, followed by old photo week. Keep an eye out for some of the fun! Any suggestions for the following weeks?

Sometimes whilst down the pub, I get asked what I do. Depending who I’m talking to and in what context, it’s sometimes easier – and a bit of fun – to use a pseudonym.

So… Hi, I’m Andy and I design sports biscuits. Generally, people love it, “really?!!”, I’ve even been asked “can you design one with me on please?”

The iPlayer is as popular as ever, enjoying its best month to date in April 2010, with 123m requests for TV and radio programmes.

The homepage now has ’sliding drawers’ which open to reveal more content in each of the categories; featured, most popular, friends, and ‘for you’.

Other changes include a complete separation of TV and radio content to make it clearer for users, while you can also flick easily between channels while watching live TV.

The best improvements for me are the personalisation features. I use iPlayer regularly and it should know what I like based on my viewing habits, so making use of this data to produce recommendations would have been a welcome step.

Instead of simply learning from previous viewing habits though, it seems that the new iPlayer relies on users adding programmes into their ‘favourites’ folder, and then lines these up in a playlist for you.

The introduction of social network integration is another welcome step; while viewing any programmes, you can click to recommend it on iPlayer, as well as sharing it on Twitter or Facebook via the recommend button:

The addition of user recommendations should also make content discovery much easier, as you can now read other users’ reviews of programmes, and see the most recommended in chart form.

Other developments to come include the addition of links to programmes from ITV Player, 4OD, Clic, Demand Five and SeeSaw, meaning that the iPlayer can direct users to these other websites, while also making the iPlayer a more attractive destination.

Key new features

Simple

* Cleaner user experience, with three discovery areas:

–Sliding drawers: Featured, For you, Most popular, Friends

–TV Channels: TV listings page, showing what’s on now

–Categories: browse by genre and sub-genre

* Separate TV & Radio

–No longer grouped together, easier to browse

–Radio console

–Pop-up console runs while you browse

* Channel-hop whilst watching live

–Quick links in viewing window, one-click to flip between channels

* BBC iPlayer Desktop

–Download favourites in advance to save time

–Easier to watch favourite programmes offline

* Improved viewing experience

–Fewer buttons

–Larger screen

–Higher quality video

Personal

* Favourites

–Tell BBC iPlayer what you like, and it will line programmes up in a convenient playlist

–New programmes, expiring programmes and unwatched programmes are flagged so it’s easier to keep track

* Improved recommendations based on what you watch and listen to

–Stored in local cookies, or via BBC iD

–Families can log in through separate IDs: individual experiences through the same machine

–Improved programme alerts delivered via email, so you don’t miss a thing

* Roam with BBC iD

–Log in to store preferences, so you pick up where you left off on another computer

* Customisable EPG

–List your favourite channels and stations

Connected

* Connect with Facebook

–Post content directly to your wall to recommend and share with friends

* Sync with Twitter

–Auto-tweet to recommend and pass links to friends

* Live chat with friends using Windows Live Messenger

–Log in to Windows Live Messenger through BBC iPlayer

–Forward links to others online: watch on-demand at the same time

–Comment live on programmes as they air

The very first record I ever bought was Come On by The Rolling Stones. It was 1963 & I had to stand in a queue to take my turn to sit in the booth at Valences on the Headrow, Leeds, headphones on, buzzing with excitement, joining the revolution!

My pleasure, listening to the Chuck Berry composition belted out by the greatest Rock & Roll band ever was my heaven. I rushed home (2 buses) to play my first record on my best pals Dansette record player.

His dad was a dustman, he had everything my parents could never afford. I think the original purchase price was circa 3 shillings!!

I still have the record, in it’s original Decca sleeve!

Now, just turned 60 & still a rocker, the technology that is available to keep me informed & entertained is vast & accessible via the web.

This weekend I reviewed & downloaded, from iTunes, the brilliant 1972 album Exile On Main St, onto my iPad.

I synchronised it with my my iPod, plugged it into my Bose dock in the garden & enjoyed great memories whilst enjoying the sunshine in the garden, It was simple & timely.

I have enjoyed a ‘Stones’ weekend, watched ‘Keef’‘, my favourite Stone, playing ‘Happy’ on You Tube.

I recently watched An Imagine Special on BBC 1, The Stones in exile, the making of the brilliant Exile on Main St album. I will watch it again on iPlayer tonight & later this week I will listen to Front Row – News from Cannes – Exile From Main St reviewed by Tyler Perry

All in all the accessibility of solutions via the web has transformed my personal time & enlarged immeasurably my choices.

My next step is to rid myself of the clutter of CD’s & go ‘Cloud’ based with spotify.