This Wednesday I was happy to be involved in one of the biggest webinars ever, when Lunch N Learn presented “Using Twitter to gain a competitive advantage”. Just under 1000 people logged in at the appointed time from their offices, laptops and boardrooms, to watch Brian Giesen and myself present our tips, ideas and theories on how businesses can extract genuine benefits from Twitter.

We received wonderful feedback after the event, persuading us that we shouldn’t leave it too long before presenting more webinars geared to online marketing. Some typical responses from attendees include:

• Very informative. Very well presented by a team who clearly know what they are talking about. Thank you! Rick
• Great intro – made me really interested to start on Twitter – thanks to the presenters, Netreg & Citrix
• Great tool for web conferencing which I will use in the future when we have need and definitely recommend. Loved the way you could survey and provide results! Best run webinar I have attended to date, thank you.
• Great presentation, learnt more in that one hour than I did in a whole day conference on social media

The webinar was also covered by Digital Media and AdNews and was reported by a large number of Twitter users.

For those of you who missed it, here is an extended version of the PowerPoint presentation I used.

You can also view the full recorded webinar, including Brian’s presentation, our audio discussions and the question and answer session by following this link.

It seems a month can’t go by without another major conference. This time, it’s the turn of the annual ADMA Forum, the expo of the Australian Direct Marketing Association taking place this week from Wednesday July 8th to Friday July 10th.

The ADMA Forum has become one of the most engaging and informative marketing conferences in the calendar, and certainly goes much further than traditional direct marketing. These days, as much attention is given to online marketing, social media and email as it is to the ingenious ways some companies get advertising into your mailbox.

For me, this year’s highlight is the keynote on Day One from Joseph Jaffe, President and Chief Interruptor of Crayon (US). He truly understands marketing as a conversation and has spearheaded much of the discussion on the new marketing world we find ourselves in.

I’ll be there for most of the three days – only disappearing for a few hours on Wednesday to deliver my part of the webinar presented by Nett Magazine in conjunction with GoToMeeting Corporate – “Using Twitter to Gain a Competitive Advantage“. You can still register for both the webinar and the ADMA Forum. If you spot me hanging around between sessions, come over and say hi.

The problem with using these special, more interesting fonts we see in Word and other graphics programs is that we can’t just set the font name in style sheets, because not everyone on the internet is bound to have that font – in fact it’s more likely they won’t.

Normally, a web designer needs to create images to place into the website in place of where the standard text would be. This way, you get the font style you want, and everyone can see it.

Perfect; right? No? … So what’s the problem?

Web designers cost money. Replacing all the images throughout your website, plus standard consultation fees, might end up costing hundreds! Why pay hundreds when technology is available to make changes like this with ease?

Introducing Facelift

“Facelift Image Replacement (or FLIR, pronounced fleer) is an image replacement script that dynamically generates image representations of text on your web page in fonts that otherwise might not be visible to your visitors.” – Facelift website

This means you can configure Facelift to generate any text placed in certain elements of the page (for example; headings, paragraphs, span elements and more) with images of the chosen font style and text, you entered on the page.

To update an image generated with Facelift, you need only edit the text on the page and Facelift will automatically update with a new image, or even a new font type if you so desire!

Visit the Facelift website
Facelift Quick Start Guide

So you have the text to image generation script going and you realise you don’t have that great a catalogue of font types on your computer. Where to now?

Introducing FFonts (Free Fonts)

FFonts is one of the largest catalogues of free TrueType Fonts (TrueType Fonts (TTF) are required font file types for Facelift). FFonts has an impressive list of categories to assist you in finding your next new font and also has search functionality to help you find the font you are looking for.

One really great feature of FFonts over the other free font catalogues available is that when you click on a font to preview, you can change what text is showed in the preview area for the font to be that of whatever you type in. This is great to see if the font will work for you without having to go to the effort of actually having to install it on your computer, insert into your design (again, requiring the designer) and then into Facelift.

Just click a font to go to the font preview page and try it out!

Visit the FFonts website
Sample font preview page

Take the next step

Now, armed with your arsenal of free image font replacement technology and free TrueType Font styles, you can tailor your website to look just how you want it and expect the new fonts to work on your visitor’s computers.

Show your web designer this article and ask about how they can implement this for you. Alternatively you can speak with a Netregistry web design consultant.

Enjoy!

Choosing the right colour palette has a lot to do with it. Your choice in colour palette can play a vital role in the success of your website, saving your website from appearing amateurish and possibly even hard to read.

So what makes for a great colour palette?

Limit your palette

Use only a few colours! You might use colours to emphasize headings, links, graphical elements and other key information. Remember, colour is a great tool to emphasize important aspects of your website.

Your website background image, which holds no real value as a source of information on your products, does not need to be vibrant and full of colour. It will only distract your visitor from the information you are presenting. Try instead; picking a subtle colour which complements your website content and helps to highlight the important part of your website (which is of course, your products!)

The right colours

Colours are emotive and your visitors will be able to feel and connect with your brand, if you choose the right colours. Using dark colours might make it difficult for your visitors to make that connection. On the other hand, your visitor demographic might be right into that sort of thing – so the right colour is a choice you make based on who you want to reach and connect with.

Be consistent

Consistency is important so that your visitor does not become confused with your website, and ultimately close it. For example, if you decide the hyperlinks on your website will be orange, they should remain orange on all pages.

All your other branding material should also follow this consistency. Colour defines your brand. In the eyes of your customer, if you can’t keep the colour palette for your brand consistent, will you be consistent for them? Colour also helps your customer identify your brand. If the Netregistry @ symbol suddenly turned green, would that confuse our identity?

So how do you choose a great colour palette?

Ultimately the task of choosing a great colour palette is the role of a professional web designer.

Netregistry has a very affordable, quality web design service from only AU$199!

If you would like to give choosing your own colour palette a shot, you can also try Pictaculous (a colour palette generator). If you already have a company logo you can upload it and Pictaculous will tell you what colour palette goes with it.

Yet, in order to shape the web, Google needs an ally. The user has more power over the evolution of the internet than any single corporation, including the primary-coloured monster. The public are in control – and Google knows it.

“That is the essential rule of the new age,” writes Jeff Jarvis in his new book “What Would Google Do?“, which unpicks how Google tapped into the entirely different business environment of the web. “Previously, the powerful – companies, institutions, and governments – believed they were in control, and they were. But no more. Now the internet allows us to speak to the world, to organise ourselves, to find and spread information, to challenge old ways, to retake control.”

Many business leaders are tired of hearing how wonderful Google are, criticising the huge influence the search engine has over the success or failure of a website. But as Jarvis points out, such criticism is misdirected.

“That’s like newspapers saying to a newsstand operator, “How dare you make a penny distributing my product? Give my papers back or I’ll sue!” Google is their newsstand.”

Resenting Google for being so successful in driving traffic to websites, and choosing to extract some profit from that free service, seems rather petulant if not extremely misguided.

Google’s success is not because they have an immensely effective website – although that was the start. Google understands the importance of distributing their services and technology throughout the web, embedded on websites and blogs and in browswers as widgets, AdSense, search bars, maps, YouTube videos, images and more. A huge proportion of websites in someway provide Google interactivity for the user, whether they realise it or not, passing back that influence to Google. The people have spread Google throughout the web like a benevolent virus; one where the symptoms actually improve the user experience. And that user experience focus is key. Instead of telling people what to do, how much to pay and where to get it, Google provides the tools for users to answer those questions themselves in an incredible number of increasingly relevant ways.

With the announcement of Google Wave, we are most likely going to see the brand enter into even more areas of our online interactivity. Google Wave was developed by the Sydney-based Google team that created Google Maps, used by millions of people worldwide. Led by Lars and Jens Rasmussen and operating as a remote start-up within Google, under the codename “Walkabout”, the Aussie team focused on improving the way communication and collaboration works for users on the web.

Google Wave is equal parts conversation and document, allowing people to communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

The significance of Wave may not seem immediately apparent when looking at a screenshot or two. Surely, you might think, it looks like any other email or messenger program. But if you watch the full presentation given to developers at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco last week, possibilities start to combine with imagination to generate some extremely interesting opportunities. Online support could become far quicker, more efficient and deal with multiple clients at once. Online collaboration on projects becomes a breeze. Email conversations become non-linear instead of continually referencing and attaching previous paragraphs or buried quotes.

Yet again, Google has developed a service that has the potential to shape and transform the way we behave online. Eventually, it will be released to the public, who will no doubt stretch the concept further and mould Wave to their own needs. And that is the beauty of the web. The most successful startups – and Twitter is a prime example of this – create tools that users can then adapt and evolve in even more imaginative ways, unrestricted by the developer’s initial intentions or grab for profit. Instead of creating products and then controlling distribution of those products in order to charge a premium, they develop adaptable and interchangeable services that users can take and use within their own online spaces. This allows for immense and rapid growth, which in turn presents alternative possibilities for monetisation from that massively increased influence and user-base.

What Google knows is that online business is about passing control to the user for free and extracting benefits in other ways, rather than limiting use within a website and charging for the privilege. The user is in control of the internet. Google isn’t alone. When eBay opened up API access to their database, sales increased by 86%. Why? Because customers were now able to access eBay auctions through widgets and applications hosted on other websites and platforms.  eBay broke out of the website and spread across the web, carried by the users.

To quote Jarvis one final time;

“Give the people control and we will use it. Don’t and you will lose us.”

The Netregistry stand at CeBIT this year has been a sensational success, despite some criticism and claims of controversy. If you didn’t attend CeBIT, our stand used a medical theme of doctors and nurses as we offered to find the online cures for whatever symptoms a website may suffer. We populated the stand with doctors, orderlies and nurses to add a bit of humour and stand out from the crowd of business suits.

The concept of the stand was designed to have fun with the brand, show Netregistry as having a sense of humour and to engage with the audience in a way that goes beyond merely handing out a leaflet and hoping someone will call. With the campaign coordinated with lead gathering, scripted follow-up emails, specially designed information packs and the ability to provide concrete advice and sales on site, we felt we offered more to the delegates than most other stands focussed on acquiring business cards or smiling politely as people passed.

(Check out more photos from CeBIT and our video of the event and our stand here)

The stand worked exceptionally well, keeping the sales team incredibly busy and garnering praise from visitors for our creativity and humour. The health pack each visitor took away was extremely popular and was designed to be read on returning home with a chuckle, rather than added to a stack of paper in the in-tray and forgotten, like most expo handouts.

Amongst a lot of standard tech stands offering servers and CPUs,  it is important to stand out and ensure the brand isn’t forgotten. A huge round of applause must go to Aaron Darc – our copywriter – and Karen Lim-Sam – our Marketing Administrator – for devising and producing such a brillant creative idea with virtually no budget, no time and a lot of ideas.

“Controversy Hits CeBIT!”

Sadly, the two nurses did come in for some criticism from a handful of vocal critics on Twitter and elsewhere – prompting stories to be written about the Netregistry Controversy.

Most of the loudest critics weren’t even attending the event. “ I wasn’t at CeBIT, I didn’t see the ‘nurses’ in question. But I didn’t have to…” was one typical example of someone incensed by others tweeting about the nurses and thereby making extreme assumptions about their nature without the context provided by the whole stand. This was inflamed still further by Tech Wired choosing to use a picture of a provocatively sexy nurse to accompany the article on their website (later removed). The image wasn’t of one of our nurses but of a sexed up version depicting exactly the derogatory image we had tried to avoid. Suddenly, the story of  ”Netregistry’s naughty nurses” began to overtake the serious stuff happening at CeBIT and prompted many visitors to the stand to wonder what all the fuss was about on seeing the genuine article. We shouldn’t be surprised – it made a more fun and titilating story for the IT sites to write about. Ironically, our stand and brand gained even more exposure because of the additional publicity.

In the end, you have to make up your own mind whether the Netregistry stand was effective and fun or questionable and controversial. No marketing campaign will ever please everyone. Ultimately, the stand was a great success, with far more praise than criticism and achieved everything Netregistry set out to achieve… and more.

Now we’re talking about next year!

Do you think twice now before buying that gorgeous new pair of jeans you don’t really need? What about your customers? If you’re worried whether you should be reacting to lower sales by slashing budgets, read on.

In periods of economic downturn, many businesses respond to the dilemma, somewhat desperately, by cutting huge chunks from their marketing budgets. They do this in the false belief that marketing dollars are not warranted, because marketing – as a means of gaining business – is rendered ineffective in such a climate. It’s the wrong response, and can often begin an ironic spiral downward – an act of saving money that leads to making less money.

Stories have already begun to emerge of businesses who have justified cutting marketing staff and budgets because, technically speaking, profits have declined. It’s difficult to persuade many business owners that without marketing, their profits would be even less – the business mindset is not a creature of conjecture, nor does it have the patience not to act hastily when faced with anything other than growing ” ka-ching”. But the smarter businesses currently understand two things:

One: the need for persuasion, in a climate of consumers who cling to their savings tighter than ever, is greater than ever; and

Two: the question of marketing is not whether it should be cut, but how should it respond to the current climate?

The consumer mindset is drastically changing – marketing ideology must change with it.

Turning “want” into “need”

It could be said that in our modern consumer society, the line between “want” and “need” increasingly became an ambiguous division – subjective to each individual’s indulgences and value system. In a booming economic period, we have the luxury of turning wants into needs – because we can want them! But that’s changing, for obvious reasons – and it’s changing the effectiveness of marketing with it. In periods of tightening or fearful budgeting (because it must be remembered that most people are still spending no less a wage than before, but are simply more fearful of spending it), whether you’re selling a want or need will drastically change what kind of campaign works.

Impulse-buy behaviour is a modern cornerstone of marketing psychology – a symptom, perhaps, of that boom mentality of excess and economic frivolity. The idea is that people have a susceptibility to consumer urges, because our greatest urge to buy a product is our initial reaction (when it is first offered to us). I’m a nightmare in a fashion store, because I basically want everything I see! And “SALE!” signs always manage to trigger a momentary, mindless sort of frenzy: “It’s on sale!” I squeal, as if I must therefore buy all of it, immediately. But even without the sales, a nice pair of jeans can cast a spell on me – so great, even when I inevitably look at the price tag and see $280, I may be beyond the point of caring, because that spell is just so great, and they’re, like, such a hot pair of jeans!! I’d like to think I’m above such superficial bliss, but… well… I’m not. And chances are, neither are you. It may not be hot jeans that arouse the sensation, but we pretty much each have our own weakness.

Sometimes, however, my rationality (thankfully) returns. That’s right – I’m an intelligent, sensible man! Aaron! Shame on you! $280 for a pair of jeans?! That’s more than the electricity bill you haven’t paid. And so what if that shirt is on sale? It’s actually kind of ugly, and you’ll probably never wear it, anyway.

Impulse versus rationality

Here, the impulse urge – as it happens with other more traditional reactive human urges (like sexual or aggressive urges) – is overcome by our rational assessment (the basis of “morality”). There’s a window, therefore, where the result of the consumer mindset – in terms of making, or not making, a purchase – is drastically different. Impulse-buy campaigns are designed to beat the inevitable shift, and take the consumer to the point of purchase, before that sensibility kicks in.

To beat this window, the campaign generally imposes a time limit – pushing the consumer to act before such a time as their rational assessment may withdraw from purchase. This is why the expiry of a sale is the focus of the sale psychology (and usually the core message of its communication). The pressure of a deal soon to disappear pushes us to act with a sense of immediacy – that immediacy keeping us in the short-term world of reactive, unrestrained consumer impulses. Otherwise, we are permitted to “think about it”. And thinking about it leads us into rational territory, where we will begin ruling out purchases on the basis of them being deemed “unnecessary”. Since necessity is the basis of how we perceive the difference between “needs” and “wants” (for wants are generally considered unnecessary), if the general mindset of this division is culturally shifted, the mechanics of impulse-buy campaigns must obviously be affected.

When we have either less money, or are afraid of potentially having less money, we maintain a constant state of rationality. And we watch our money – we actually budget! This means that when we’re making purchases (shopping), we’re approaching it with a very different mindset. We have very particular ideas of what we’re looking for, and we enter every moment knowing we’re not supposed to be venturing outside of that budgeting. At very least, we respond to every potential purchase – such as being offered a sale – with a tougher, more aware, judgment (if it’s going to lull us out of that budget and sensibility, it would want to be worth it!). This is why marketing is so important – a stronger argument needs to be made, because people need that persuading (the essential role of marketing and advertising). So where does it leave impulse-buy campaigning – a proposition seemingly making a virtually impossible argument?

Marketing the impulse

Of course, you may want to steer clear of impulse-buy campaigning, altogether – or, at very least, shift your marketing budget, to place greater emphasis on non-impulse tactics (that maybe you’ve neglected?). But it’s not time to count the basic premise out, altogether. You can alter them to suit the shift. There are two things to consider, when it comes to doing this.

The first approach is to relax the rules. Ease up on the urgency – extend those time-frames. If your product is worthwhile (you be the judge of that!) then there’s no reason why people would not eventually decide that the purchase deserves a slice of that budget. But there’s something to be said for repetition in the art of persuasion – particularly, if your campaign will find people more than once, within a certain period. The last time I gave in to a pair of jeans on sale, I firstly resisted the urge to buy them, every time I walked past them in the store window, on my way to the supermarket. “Oh, I want them! They’re beautiful! And they’re on sale…. No, Aaron, keep walking.” Each time, I would want them more – but the rationale remained the same. But by the fifth time I walked past that store, the urge had grown, to the point of overpowering that rationale. And hey, the sale was finally about to end – if I was going to do something, I’d have to finally do it, now. I wear them, still.

However, there’s an opposing school of thought that retains the importance of urgency. It makes great sense; but it comes back to the idea of needs and wants. In economic downturn, if you’re providing something perceived as a need, then you’re clearly in the privileged position. But you can hardly sit on your hands. The market is there – but you’re still competing against every other competitor buying for the same spot in the weekly budget. In this situation, impulse-buy campaigns may very well make the difference.

This is because part of the current economic mindset revolves around anticipation. Let’s not take anything away from the people who are already horribly affected by the crisis – but still, most people are not yet compromised, financially. They tighten their wallets, and sharpen their consuming awareness, because they’re “thinking ahead”; prodded by a media so happy to pump up the doom and gloom for the benefits of sensationalism. They change today’s spending habits, for the sake of tomorrow’s. The thought, therefore, is “I have to spend the money I have now, because I might not have it in the near future” – and this has an obvious relationship to impulse-buy campaigning. The term, “stocking up”, is somewhat of a cliche, but it’s a cliche for a reason – in times of crisis, we quickly grab those perceived needs. If you’re offering a need, then, that’s your impulse. It’s a completely different impulse to the traditional (somewhat indulgent) kind – but it’s still an impulse!

So, for many businesses that offer products that may not appear, at first glance, a necessity – or for those who walk dangerously close to the parameters – the goal of your marketing is clear. You must become a need. And, perhaps, you already are – if only you knew it. Remember, that different people – different demographics, in other words – have very different ideas on what are essential components of life. I don’t particularly see any need for guitar strings; but I know a professional musician who is increasingly anxious about juggling the shrinking entertainment job market, with the rising cost of his imported strings and guitar accessories. Last week, our pleasant stroll through the city was interrupted by the frenzy that erupted upon sighting a sale on his favourite guitar strings. He “stocked up”. “Do you really need ten packs?” I asked him; “Didn’t you just tell me that you’re struggling, this week?” But he assured me that within a couple of months, prices for these strings could be almost double that sale price. He saw it as a completely rational purchase. He was successfully impulse-pitched.

So, if you’re currently scratching your head, as to what to do next to market your business, or even why that last impulse campaign didn’t quite make the mark you thought it would, perhaps it’s time for a reassessment that steps outside the square of traditional thinking. Times are changing. You’ve got to change with them. Right now.

The conflict comes from auDA’s sudden and extreme de-accreditation of Bottle Domains  on April 15th over an alleged security breach dating from 2007.  Nicholas Bolton of Australian Style – the company behind Bottle – strenuously denied any wrongdoing by the domain registrar and immediately sought to have the decision overturned in court.

What this means for domain holders is another month of uncertainty and confusion. Bottle has yet to clear their name, causing many domain holders to still choose to transfer their domains away upon hearing of the alleged security breach. Many resellers have also taken the decision to avoid any loss of business by transferring their accounts to other accredited registrars. Also, auDA’s authority and judgement has been strongly called into question, causing further criticism from other registrars.

Should Bottle Domains win their case on June 22, auDA could be forced to pay massive damages for loss of business and damage to reputation. Calculating that lost business could be a huge undertaking, sifting natural attrition from those transfers brought about by auDA’s actions. A large damages bill could risk bankrupting auDA or may result in higher domain prices as it seeks to recoup costs by taxing domain holders.

If auDA were to win, it would be a pyrrhic victory. auDA can only win at the expense of their own reputation, forced to question their handling of the entire affair and how their actions have spread instability and chaos throughout the Australian domain industry for over a month. There is no doubt that, even if auDA’s reasons for deaccrediting Bottle Domains turn out to be correct, it has done the industry no favours and damaged more people than it has protected through the arbitrary way it was carried out.

And the day started out so smoothly as well.At midday today, The Australian Domain Name Administrator (auDA) announced to the Australian domain industry that they had terminated the accreditation of Bottle Domains, the domain provider set up by Nick Bolton of Australian Style.Yes, that Nick Bolton – this week’s media villain and alleged corporate greenmailer who scuppered his own resolution to resolve the debacle of BrisConnections after selling his own proxy votes for $4.5 million.Makes it far easier to cast Bolton as the villain and auDA as the sword of righteousness when he’s already been attacked for his rampant capitalism in the press. But is that accurate or even fair? How is this an appropriate and constructive response that benefits the Australian domain industry? What about the innocent victims in all this – and there are a fair few thousand of them!Without going into details about security breaches and who did what when and reported which to who and responded how to wherever, the question still has to be asked whether stripping Bottle Domains of their accreditation is anything other than a ’scorched earth’ approach to registrars and damn the consequences. Whether Bottle Domains had breached their obligations or not, the ramifications of cancelling their accreditation causes far more damage to far more people and businesses.Cove is a domain name provider that resells from Bottle Domains, and as such has suddenly found themselves reacting to a situation not of their making but with potentially serious consequences for their business model. They now have to find a new registrar that fits their current IT set-up or spend more money developing and tailoring their website to accomodate a new api or reseller arrangment. And they are only one of a number of resellers caught unawares.Domain providers have been inundated with confused customers receiving emails from auDA regarding their Bottle Domains acoounts, concerned whether this is a scam or whether they need to take action. As domain providers received notification of the major event at the same time as everyone else, they have been unprepared to provide the advice and service the customers need at a time like this.And then there are the thousands of customers themselves, confused by media releases, auDA announcements and conflicting reports. Originally, the auDA announcement only covered Bottle Domains, prompting an announcement from BD this afternoon that .com.au domains could safely be transferred back to one of the other accredited businesses in the same group – the similarly named Bottle. Not long afterwards, News.com.au reported that Bottle and Domain Central may also lose accreditation, throwing attempts to reassure customers into doubt.According to News.com.au, Chris Disspain of auDA says, “We are currently considering what, if any, action to take in respect to those two (other) registrars bearing in mind there is a continuity of management between them and Bottle Domains.”Bolton is continuing to dispute auDA’s claims of wrongdoing. Earlier today, he commented to News.com.au that, “We are in state of disagreement with the position (of the) registrar and are taking measures to remedy the matter. We deny that there was a breach.”Breach or not, the losers in this situation are those workers who risk losing their jobs in Bolton’s domain enterprises and Bottle Domain’s resellers if the situation isn’t swiftly resolved. Then there all the customers inconvenienced (to put it politely) by being forced to find a new registrar. Many will also feel the need to transfer hosting, if confidence in Bottle Domains suffers – a risky and time-consuming process that can be a real headache for small business owners with limited technical skill.There is no doubt that Bottle Domains are not the only ones punished by auDA’s actions, making today’s announcement not only unfair but potentially damaging for the entire Australian domain industry and local online business.

If the internet has done anything for us, it has increased the pace of life. These days, we obsess about faster internet connections, instant messaging, up-to-the-minute news and response times so fast they’d give you a nose bleed. No longer will we put up with webpages that take so long to load we can brew a coffee while we wait. No longer are we satisfied with content that isn’t constantly updated. No longer will we read a thousand words when ten will do.

Kevin Rudd’s announcement yesterday of the government’s $43 billion plans to run the National Broadband Network in-house and provide fibre connections to the home was further confirmation that things just keep getting faster. We’ve lagged behind many comparable nations (and even many uncomparable ones too) in broadband speeds for too long. Only the fastest wins the race and if we want to become a leader in an information technology future, speed becomes essential.

Yet, the faster everything gets, the faster we also become in our interactions. Who wants to sit through a three hour movie any more? My daughter’s attention span wouldn’t last the opening titles! Information and entertainment is now increasingly served in bite-sized, easily digestible chunks – a short YouTube video, a couple of paragraphs on a webpage, a Tweet.

Yes, Twitter is a perfect example of our growing obsession with brevity and speed. Confining everything within 140 characters forces economy onto all users and this has been hugely successful. Thousands of tiny nuggets of wisdom (and thousands of nuggets of fluff as well), beamed straight to your PC or mobile device for your now-now-now atuned brain to snack upon.

So what’s next? How much faster and shorter can we expect information to become as the world speeds up around us? Welcome to Flutter – a beautifully funny viral video from Slate V!