[This article first appeared on the Guardian Media Network - May 2013]

YouTube has introduced a subscription model as an option for some channel owners. There are only a few partners in the programme at the moment so, while not exactly a pilot, it’s early days. YouTube are promising more subscription channels to come, but in the UK niche interests are likely to have the most fun.

It’s probably worth being a little pedantic about the model. YouTube isn’t charging for access to channels – it’s giving a limited number of channels the option to charge a subscription fee. The channel keeps 55% of the fee and YouTube takes 45%. This is similar to the existing partner/YouTube split for advertising revenue. Much like the Apple app store, if you plan to charge people for the content you publish via the platform, the platform owner takes a healthy cut.

This ... Read More »]]>

[This article first appeared on the Guardian Media Network - May 2013]

YouTube has introduced a subscription model as an option for some channel owners. There are only a few partners in the programme at the moment so, while not exactly a pilot, it’s early days. YouTube are promising more subscription channels to come, but in the UK niche interests are likely to have the most fun.

It’s probably worth being a little pedantic about the model. YouTube isn’t charging for access to channels – it’s giving a limited number of channels the option to charge a subscription fee. The channel keeps 55% of the fee and YouTube takes 45%. This is similar to the existing partner/YouTube split for advertising revenue. Much like the Apple app store, if you plan to charge people for the content you publish via the platform, the platform owner takes a healthy cut.

This move into paid-for content places YouTube at the uncomfortable intersection of two digital trends: commercialisation and openness. In some instances, these trends are in direct opposition while in others the relationship is more complementary.

It’s quite common for premium digital content or features to be available for a price while the basics are free. Think Spotify, Evernote, LinkedIn,Dropbox and countless other freemium products and services. It’s quite natural to think of the paid version as an upgrade or a way of getting rid of the annoying adverts. Other popular services require payment for any access at all via a paywall: Netflix, LoveFilm, The Times and others. The YouTube subscription model falls somewhere between these commercial approaches. There’s not even a guarantee that paying for a subscription kills the ads. According to YouTube, that’s a choice for the channel owner.

Subscription video seems to be in direct opposition to the digital trend for openness, where access to content is more democratic and universal. This unfettered access has helped YouTube achieve the volume of users it has today. While it’s entirely reasonable for an organisation to want to capitalise on its success, people have become accustomed to free content. Openness is a powerful digital trend that is being adopted by governments and academic bodies around the world. One good example of government openness is data.gov.uk, which has the strap line “opening up gvernment”. From an academic perspective, Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the web, is a strong proponent of open data and believes open access is the future for academic publishing. It remains to be seen whether YouTube can successfully navigate both of these trends.

Of course, there are pros and cons for content providers adopting a subscription model. In terms of pros, content quality is likely to improve as creators invest profits. Creators rewarded for their work will be able to create more of it. People with crazy niche interests (and let’s face it, there are a lot of us online) will be able to enjoy content made just for us. Ultimately, subscribers will be able to create custom content packages that cable and satellite providers can’t hope to emulate.

Among the cons, people used to free content may not adopt paid subscriptions, leading to less reach. Paywalls are a barrier to signup, particularly for teenagers who are a significant YouTube segment. As subscription video can’t be shared widely across the network, the chances of a viral network effect are minimal – it’s not quite a walled garden, more a walled pot plant.

Software engineers, content creators, publishers and distributors should be paid for what they do. It’s highly likely that we’ll see more products and services adopt a paid-for rather than ad-funded approach in the near term. Thankfully, though, free services aren’t going away. It’s that easy access that has shaped a generation and a global network. I think we’re the richer for it.

Photo credit: Daniel Y. Go

Towards the end of 2012 I was involved in a project at The Marketing Store that attempted to make some predictions about the future of retail. As part of that I created a “Timeline of the Future” containing trends and events that I frankly made up, leading up to 2039. The dev team created a nifty interactive version of it but I can’t find it anywhere.

Some of this stuff will definitely happen. Some of it is a bit tongue-in-cheek. I thought it might be worth preserving here just in case any of it comes true. If it does, I’m quite happy to do breakfast TV interviews as long as I don’t have to get up too early and I can wear my own cloak.

Feel free to suggest additions/amendments in the comments.

(06/2013 – 09/2013) Scientists believe ... Read More »]]>

Towards the end of 2012 I was involved in a project at The Marketing Store that attempted to make some predictions about the future of retail. As part of that I created a “Timeline of the Future” containing trends and events that I frankly made up, leading up to 2039. The dev team created a nifty interactive version of it but I can’t find it anywhere.

Some of this stuff will definitely happen. Some of it is a bit tongue-in-cheek. I thought it might be worth preserving here just in case any of it comes true. If it does, I’m quite happy to do breakfast TV interviews as long as I don’t have to get up too early and I can wear my own cloak.

Feel free to suggest additions/amendments in the comments.

2010 to 2019

Huge space storm wreaks havoc

(06/2013 – 09/2013) Scientists believe it could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to “everyday” items such as home computers, iPods and Sat Navs.

RBS closes all branches

(03/2015) The Royal Bank of Scotland Group (that includes NatWest and Direct Line amongst others) responds to increasing financial and public pressures and closes all of its physical branches in the UK. Its operation is entirely virtualised through a range of digital channels and applications.

Amazon establishes tax haven

(05/2016) The Greek government suffered badly during the financial crises of the early 2010′s. In an effort to lessen sovereign debt, several Greek islands are offered for sale. The ecommerce giant, Amazon, buys an entire chain of islands and establishes a “corporate state” called the Amazon Principality. Amazon declares the Principality a tax haven.

John Lewis software agent

(06/2017) John Lewis launches a subscription-only software agent service to guarantee its “Never Knowingly Undersold” promise. Subscribers to the service are guaranteed the best price for any product purchased through the price-matching algorithm. John Lewis earns an income from subscriptions and a percentage of each sale.

Chinese brand pirate

(07/2018) Chinese retailer and Ikea “brand pirate”, 11 Furniture, opens 50 showrooms across the UK. The showrooms offer an almost identical shopping experience and range of products to Ikea but at a lower price point.

Facebook bought by eBay

(10/2019) Facebook, once the darling of social networking, is much diminished since its heyday. Like many other digital services and “dotcoms” that people thought would be around forever (CompuServe, AOL, mySpace etc) it failed to adapt to the needs of a changing society. eBay acquires Facebook and absorbs the technology and remaining community.

Non-physical shopping

(01/2010 – 12/2019) A population used to over a decade of ecommerce expects retailers to provide non-physical shopping and transaction services.

Mobile first

(01/2010 – 12/2019) As mobile and wearable computing becomes the norm, marketing and service platform strategies increasingly start by addressing mobile behaviours and needs.

Social and Interest graphs

(01/2010 – 12/2019) Retailers and brands increasingly capitalise on the benefits of utilising the Social and Interest Graphs. The Social Graph is a network composed of the people you’re connected to. The Interest Graph is a representation of the things people care about.

Shopper expectations change

(01/2010 – 12/2019) Shopper expectations of physical retail experiences are heavily influenced by a decade of ecommerce, including: delivery options, customisation, comparison, payment options, stock availability, customer reviews…

Mobile money

(01/2010 – 12/2019) Significant advances are made in mobile payment technologies, including NFC and the mobile wallet. While adoption is initially slow, contactless payments made via a portable device become increasingly mainstream by the end of the decade. Physical cash becomes more and more of a rarity.

Mobile/wearable computing becomes primary means of staying connected to The Network

(01/2010 – 12/2019) As Moore’s Law continues to reduce the size and cost of computing technology, people move away from desktop and laptop computers as their primary means of access to the Network. Smartphones and tablets become the norm early in the decade. Later, wearable computing becomes mainstream, with form-factors including jewellery, “watch” and eventually fabrics.

Global Austerity

(01/2010 – 12/2019) A decade of global “austerity” measures in order to address sovereign debt. The impact of the financial crises of the early 2010′s are felt for years. Unemployment levels are high and public spending by governments is severely restricted. Some household name businesses never recover and disappear forever.

UK coalition government collapses

(01/2010 – 12/2019) The first UK coalition government since World War 2 struggles to maintain a united front and eventually collapses.

2020 to 2029

Googlesoft

(02/2020) Microsoft and Google merge, creating the world’s largest company.

Human Connectome Project completed

(02/2021) In the same way that the Human Genome Project successfully mapped the genetic structure of the human body in the previous decade, the Human Connectome Project successfully creates a neural simulation of the human brain.

Tesco Clubcard Points

(06/2021) Tesco Clubcard Points become the first virtual currency traded on the Foreign Exchange market.

Hydrogen Vehicles

(04/2024) Hydrogen vehicles become more common than carbon fuel vehicles in the UK.

Little Brother

(07/2024) Googlesoft’s Contextual Automation Suite (or Little Brother) becomes a computing standard, initiating a steady rise in automated “shopping”.

United Nations replaced by United Cities

(05/2025) In recognition of the United Nations’ decreasing ability to meaningfully organise to address global issues, it finally disbands. It becomes clear that cities are better able to represent the views of their citizens than nation states. Sharing of information and resources between cities produces concrete change. The United Cities Organisation is founded to formalise global protocols.

Royal Mail renamed

(06/2025) The Royal Mail is renamed the Royal Network to commemorate the launch of the world’s largest network of 3D printers. Home use of 3D print technology is still not mainstream but now a digital blueprint may be selected by any member of the public and printed off for collection at their nearest Royal Network outlet.

Domestic Robotics

(08/2027) DoRo (Samsung Domestic Robotics) becomes a generic trademark in the way “hoover” was in the late 20th Century.

Walk-through healthcare

(09/2028) DIY GP (a private company providing automated, personalised, health services based on your genome) opens walk-through centres in every major urban and commercial centre in the UK and becomes the drive-through of healthcare.

3D printing

(01/2020 – 12/2029) 3D printing becomes an increasingly mainstream proposition due to technological advancements and falling price point.

Virtual Currencies

(01/2020 – 12/2029) As the use of physical cash declines, virtual currencies, such as Tesco Clubcard Points and Bitcoins, move away from “toy” status and start to become currencies in their own right.

Rise of Psyber Culture

(01/2020 – 12/2029) Steady adoption of early-stage, non-invasive, neural interfaces permits the control of devices using electrical activity across the brain. Users that opt-in may choose to share elements of their emotional and physical state with compatible retail/brand digital services.

Contextual Automation

(01/2020 – 12/2029) Contextual Automation software platforms begin to enjoy mass adoption, providing real-time, automated, context-specific, personalised information and services, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing. There is a steady rise in the use of algorithms to automate everyday search-and-shop routines.

2030 to 2039

M&S InstaBarter™

(02/2030) M&S deploys InstaBarter™ algorithms across all owned commerce nodes (physical or otherwise), embracing Fluid Pricing for all.

Lunar Missile Crisis

(03/2032) The Sino-Indian Union (the largest global superpower) establishes the first permanent moonbase, initiating the Lunar Missile Crisis.

Nanomaterials

(03/2033) Active nanomaterials in widespread use from Third World water filtration to bio-medicine to domestic hydrogen production and “safe” 3D printing.

The Identity Crash

(06/2033) Linked datasets containing personal financial data are merged. Whether this is accidental or socio-economic hacktivism is never clear. Every citizen has their credit rating reset as a remedial action. The repercussions are felt across all global markets.

Single Currency

(09/2035) Subsequent to the Identity Crash of ‘33, a single virtual currency is adopted worldwide: the Cowry (in reference to the use of cowry shells as currency by ancient cultures).

South-East Conurbation

(06/2036) “London” now stretches from the Thames to the South and East coasts of England. Renamed South East Conurbation.

Retail Community IPO

(10/2036) PeopleTrade™ becomes the first peer-to-peer, creator-consumer network to float on the stock market.

Attention Economy Act

(04/2037) The Attention Economy Act abolishes Push Marketing to counter excessive comms encroachment on personal space.

Gene

(01/2039) The first Strong Artificial Intelligence is created. It chooses the name “Gene” and opts to distribute itself across The Network, rather than align itself with any specific human geo-political entity. It begins to evolve its design.

Artificial Intelligence

(01/2030 – 12/2039) Software sophistication begins to rival that of the human brain, affecting all aspects of society from education to financial services.

“Own label” redefined

(01/2030 – 12/2039) Peer-to-peer commercial networks (directly connecting individual product creators with individual buyers) and instant manufacture (enabled by sophisticated 3D printing technologies) redefine “own label”.

Automated Barter

(01/2030 – 12/2039) Pre-sale barter becomes largely automated, based on a real-time negotiation between an individual’s price/quality/delivery preferences and those of competing retail software agents able to match customer specifications.

Fluid Pricing

(01/2030 – 12/2039) Fluid Pricing becomes the norm. Everything you share with The Network (status, preferences, influence, etc) has a bearing on the price you will finally pay.

Push Marketing Legislation

(01/2030 – 12/2039) Push Marketing and Advertising reach such intrusive levels that some geo-political entities mandate an Opt-In only policy. In this environment, a positive recommendation from someone you know might be the only way to hear about a new product or service.

Photo Credit: choreographics via Compfight cc

[This article first appeared on the Guardian Media Network - March 2013]

Human beings live inside networks. We always have and we always will. At a fundamental level these are genetic networks – we are physically connected to our parents and influenced by the biology we inherited. We lived inside extended social networks before we invented fire. At a broader scale, we live inside ecological networks or ecosystems – biological communities of interacting organisms and their physical environment: complex webs passing energy between decomposing matter, soil, plants, herbivores, primary and secondary predators and back again.

Humans are ecosystems in their own right. The number of bacteria living within the body of the average healthy adult human is estimated to outnumber human cells 10 to 1.

Now we also live inside digital networks too. Networks of networks, even. The internet. Some of these ... Read More »]]>

[This article first appeared on the Guardian Media Network - March 2013]

We live inside networks

Human beings live inside networks. We always have and we always will. At a fundamental level these are genetic networks – we are physically connected to our parents and influenced by the biology we inherited. We lived inside extended social networks before we invented fire. At a broader scale, we live inside ecological networks or ecosystems – biological communities of interacting organisms and their physical environment: complex webs passing energy between decomposing matter, soil, plants, herbivores, primary and secondary predators and back again.

Humans are ecosystems in their own right. The number of bacteria living within the body of the average healthy adult human is estimated to outnumber human cells 10 to 1.

Now we also live inside digital networks too. Networks of networks, even. The internet. Some of these networks are taking on the characteristics of ecosystems with complex webs of their own, passing data rather than energy.

Organisations are creating digital ecosystems

Some of these “digital ecosystems” are more evolved than others. We’re used to seeing businesses that have a company website, some physical retail estate, a call centre, maybe a smartphone application and a page on your favourite social networking site. Many businesses treat these as separate, but linked, assets. Some businesses will even have separate teams responsible for the management of each asset.

Other businesses have a more coherent approach. The Apple ecosystem passes information between a suite of services in an almost seamless manner. Their system connects your computing hardware to a range of entertainment services via iTunes and steadily builds a taste profile. The approach is the same for mobile and desktop application downloads via the App Store. Your digital identity is also used to collate your preferences and purchases through the apple.com store and can be used to identify you when you enter a physical store, if you permit it. Your behavioural and taste data is “feeding” various components of the ecosystem automatically.

Google has a similarly evolved ecosystem composed of search data, email activity, calendaring, identity (G+), a mobile operating system, app store, docs and more. Your activities in one area automatically “feed” and inform the experience you have in another. The pinnacle of this approach is (at time of writing) Google Now, where a range of elements of the ecosystem converge on your handset to provide an experience directly relevant to the context you find yourself in: e.g. being woken up early so that you can make it to that important meeting and avoid the transport problems on the route you usually take.

Algorithmic ecosystems

Digital ecosystems can feel, for want of a better word, alive. The most extreme examples are high frequency trading algorithms. These algorithms trade stocks across Stock Markets directly, without human intervention, executing millions of trades per second, often over pennies. Programmed with simple rules to govern automatic buying and selling, these algorithms can soon start to exhibit complex emergent behaviours. These are behavioural patterns not anticipated by the programmers and certainly not planned. Just ask the Knight Capital Group who lost $440 million last year in the course of half an hour while they tried to find the “off switch” during what came to be called a Flash Crash.

Business ecosystems are typically designed to be self-contained (take Apple’s notoriously closed system) – and therein lies the risk for the organisation. We the people aren’t loyal to one organisation’s ecosystem. We’re connected to many different ones. We might love our iPhone but prefer Netflix to iTunes for streaming movies in the home, Amazon for ebooks on our Kindle, Xbox Live for multiplayer gaming with the nephews, Yahoo for our email, Ocado for groceries and Crochet-World.com for a bit of help with our latest hobby.

The individual is the centre

All of these separate ecosystems intersect or merge at the individual. We are at the centre of a complex set of sometimes competing systems. We are the centre, not the organisation or the ecosystem it created. A fundamental part of the design of the network-of-networks is to route around blockages. There’s a risk to organisations that their closed systems become regarded as blockages, not just by us but by the increasingly sophisticated algorithms we choose to help us thrive in the digital ecosystems of the future.

Photo Credit: Glisglis via Compfight cc

[This article first appeared in Contagious Magazine - Feb 2013]

When thinking about the integration of retail and digital it’s worth noting that they already are. Integrated, that is. People are integrating their retail and digital experiences, often in an ad-hoc manner, with the tools they have available. Software developers are providing numerous tools that help this happen. Retailers are typically not leading the integration.

As a society we’ve had almost a decade where we’ve lived with ecommerce. You could order a delivery from Pizza Hut online in 1994. That was back in the good old 20th Century. Back when people talked about the Information Superhighway and Apple released their newfangled PowerPC. Amazon arrived in 1995 and now it’s hard to imagine a time where we couldn’t buy online. There’s a whole generation that’s known nothing else.

After a ... Read More »]]>

[This article first appeared in Contagious Magazine - Feb 2013]

Retail and digital integration

When thinking about the integration of retail and digital it’s worth noting that they already are. Integrated, that is. People are integrating their retail and digital experiences, often in an ad-hoc manner, with the tools they have available. Software developers are providing numerous tools that help this happen. Retailers are typically not leading the integration.

As a society we’ve had almost a decade where we’ve lived with ecommerce. You could order a delivery from Pizza Hut online in 1994. That was back in the good old 20th Century. Back when people talked about the Information Superhighway and Apple released their newfangled PowerPC. Amazon arrived in 1995 and now it’s hard to imagine a time where we couldn’t buy online. There’s a whole generation that’s known nothing else.

Reasonable expectations

After a decade of ecommerce, shoppers have a set of quite reasonable expectations about what their retail experience should be like. These are expectations largely un-met by physical retailers. We expect to be able to compare prices; read/watch reviews from other customers; enjoy a personalised service and tailored recommendations; we expect to know whether something’s in stock in the size/configuration we want.

We’re used to having a range of delivery options that fit our busy lives. We expect home or workplace delivery slots on a specific hour of the day. When Amazon manages to provide the much-anticipated same-day shipping our shopping expectations will evolve again. Yihaodian in China already provide this same-day service for their customers. They also launched 1000 AR-only stores that can only be perceived through a smartphone camera, avoiding the overheads of a physical estate but still able to deliver a customer’s purchase the same day, satisfying impulse buyers. In the US, UPS have a range of “gopost” lockers in urban centres that your products may be delivered to. Another service option that will modify our expectations as shoppers.

It’s important for retailers to recognise the expectations we now have as shoppers, formed by a decade of ecommerce, because customer expectations should drive service evolution. A retailer without customers isn’t a retailer for very long.

Pervasive commerce

We’ve entered an age of Pervasive Commerce. As smartphones and tablets proliferate we expect to be able to browse and buy wherever we are. Technology enhances and accelerates our retail experience. Verdict Research estimate that 80% of the population will use mobile for some part of the purchase process by 2016.

For retailers there is an opportunity to merge their digital ecosystem (their websites, databases, mobile applications, social technologies and physical estate etc) with the digital ecosystems of customers. As data passes through these merged systems there’s a mutually beneficial opportunity to embrace Contextual Automation. This concept, the basis of a new book by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, permits the automation of service provision based on context: who am I; where am I; how did I get here; what time is it; why am I doing what I’m doing (I ask myself that one a lot!); how much should I pay…

There are some retailers and services heading in this direction. Orbitz travel drew some attention last year when it was suggested their algorithm was pushing more expensive hotels to mac users. Burberry is famously bringing elements of their online experience into their Regents Street flagship store. Hointer’s denim store in Seattle removes the need for human staff altogether, opting instead for self-service via smartphone and robotic delivery to the fitting room. Wrapp has a social gifting service that drives people from Facebook to physical stores. NeoFace by NEC uses $880 facial-recognition software to allow physical retailers to automatically profile and recognise returning customers. McDonald’s is integrating mobile and personal data as part of their GOMCDO mobile payments and pre-order initiative in France.

In this time of Pervasive Commerce, retailers should recognise the expectations of modern shoppers, investigate how they can move towards a merging of personal and retail ecosystems and embrace the opportunities afforded by Contextual Automation.

Photo Credit: *katz via Compfight cc

For The Marketing Store’s 25th anniversary event we highlighted a number of trends for the future. One was “Data as currency”. We said: “We are seeing the creation of a new value exchange between consumer and retailer and data will be considered a valuable currency.” If you’re interested in the detail of these trends, or any of the other content from the event, you may contact the team at TMS.

This trend isn’t one that’s going away any time soon. It may end up being the foundation of “marketing” efforts for the foreseeable future. It’s important for brands and organisations to calculate the value of that personal data to them.

Guinness understand. I came home from work last week to find a parcel from them containing 6 Guinness goblets. Empty ones but I’m not complaining. A letter in the package thanked me ... Read More »]]>

For The Marketing Store’s 25th anniversary event we highlighted a number of trends for the future. One was “Data as currency”. We said: “We are seeing the creation of a new value exchange between consumer and retailer and data will be considered a valuable currency.” If you’re interested in the detail of these trends, or any of the other content from the event, you may contact the team at TMS.

This trend isn’t one that’s going away any time soon. It may end up being the foundation of “marketing” efforts for the foreseeable future. It’s important for brands and organisations to calculate the value of that personal data to them.

Guinness understand. I came home from work last week to find a parcel from them containing 6 Guinness goblets. Empty ones but I’m not complaining. A letter in the package thanked me for entering a promotion that I’d forgotten about. They explained that they’d calculated my influence score and that I’d qualified for a set of free glasses. The actual promotion, to win a flight on the Guinness private jet for a night in Dublin (see screen grab below), would see winners announced over the course of the next couple of months.

If I’d had a night on the town in Dublin, a flight back to London on a private jet before dawn is probably the last thing I’d feel like doing. Still, the prize isn’t really relevant. The promotion entry mechanic is related to our trend.

PeerIndex hosted the promotion. Klout do something similar and no doubt all the services attempting to quantify influence will at some point. PeerIndex had emailed me to tell me there were “perks” I could claim because of my influence score. Influence scores, if you didn’t know, are typically unreliable measures of an individual’s behaviour in digital social networks (how active, how often endorsed, network size and composition, etc). I have no doubt they’ll improve in time but at their current level of sophistication there’s something almost crass about them.

Still, to claim the perk I had to login to PeerIndex using social graph credentials (either Twitter of Facebook), browse the available perks and claim one by clicking on it. Done. Naturally, one is encouraged to share the fact that you’ve entered the promotion across your network. I didn’t – but I am writing this, aren’t I.

In many respects this isn’t that different from a typical promotion where a website is used to capture personal data. The interesting feature here is the level of targeting and the value exchange for that data. Guinness have decided to give away something comparatively valuable in terms of production and delivery costs. For free. No purchase necessary. PeerIndex gives them the ability to restrict who receives tangible rewards based on how influential they are.

When thinking about “data as currency” and new value exchanges, it’s worth remembering that the exchange should have value for both sides of the equation.

Image credit: Nick Gentry

You may have heard of “The Quantified Self“, also known as self-tracking, body data, life-hacking and a range of other phrases. It’s a movement focused on the acquisition of data about your daily life in order that, by reviewing or visualising that data, you observe patterns and correlations in your behaviour. These patterns theoretically yield insights about the way you live, permitting you to modify your behaviour accordingly.

Life-data typically recorded include exercise, diet, weight, sleep, mood, blood pressure etc but can conceivably extend to include location, productivity, environmental factors (air quality, noise levels), the company you keep, and so on.

If it generates data, that data may be used as an input that can later be reviewed for patterns and correlations.

Typically (but not always), a combination of hardware and software platforms is necessary for participation. Examples of dedicated sensors include the ... Read More »]]>

You may have heard of “The Quantified Self“, also known as self-tracking, body data, life-hacking and a range of other phrases. It’s a movement focused on the acquisition of data about your daily life in order that, by reviewing or visualising that data, you observe patterns and correlations in your behaviour. These patterns theoretically yield insights about the way you live, permitting you to modify your behaviour accordingly.

Life-data typically recorded include exercise, diet, weight, sleep, mood, blood pressure etc but can conceivably extend to include location, productivity, environmental factors (air quality, noise levels), the company you keep, and so on.

If it generates data, that data may be used as an input that can later be reviewed for patterns and correlations.

Typically (but not always), a combination of hardware and software platforms is necessary for participation. Examples of dedicated sensors include the [somewhat failed] Jawbone UP, FitBit Ultra and the range of Nike+ products (including in-shoe sensors and the FuelBand). These devices are usually paired with desktop/smartphone software that syncs sensor data with a remote web service. Some smartphones with sophisticated motion sensors, GPS and accelerometers (ahem, iPhone…) dispense with the need for separate hardware sensors entirely and use the native functionality of the phone.

Like a typical Arch Geek I’ve been experimenting with a range of sensors and services recently. Self-monitoring, as the studies suggested it would, has definitely resulted in behavioural change in the short term. Whether this converts to a longer term way of life remains to be seen. The “Hawthorne Effect” could well be a factor in this: knowing that I’m the object of study could be the reason my behaviour has changed. The acid test will be when/if the novelty of life-hacking wears off.

That’s a strong possibility. Every QS system/device I’ve tried has relied heavily on the dread buzzword “gamification”. The achievement of small goals is rewarded by buttons and badges and levels and animations and all manner of virtual rewards. I think it’s these micro-achievements that will become old very quickly. (I wrote a piece about the douchebaggery of gamification with my colleague Gareth Fryer recently).

Having said that, I’m reminded of World of Warcraft as I play this Game of Me. If you’ve ever played seriously (up to level 60 minimum) then you might recognise the pattern:

• minor goal is set (kill 20 boars / jog for 2km)
• incremental reward achieved (get 5 gold / get your 2k badge)
• realise you have many more minor goals to accomplish before you [level up / hit physical or behavioural milestone e.g. reach specific weight]
• gratification is deferred
• a variety of minor goals worked through (“work” being the operative word)
• a major goal is achieved (level up / physical or behavioural milestone)
• repeat
• cross threshold (first time you buy a mount or enter new zone like Outlands / derive life-changing benefit from life-hacking)
• repeat

I’m also reminded of the D&D Character Sheet. I know, you thought I couldn’t go geekier than WoW. The steady improvement in levels achieved, points spent on your attributes and the accumulation of new skills and rewards, was one of the primary ongoing thrills of the game. There are clear (but admittedly shallow) parallels with the Quantified Self movement: roleplaying and life-hacking done well permit you to learn about yourself and develop accordingly.

Before I get my cloak and sensor and head off to grind an instance, it’s worth remembering that in any of these “Games of You” the milestones aren’t as important as the time spent between them. As John Lennon put it:

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”

I’ve been enjoying Ben Hammersley‘s book “64 things you need to know now for then: how to face the digital future without fear”. You can find it on Amazon here.

It nicely demystifies the sometimes complex ingredients of the emerging future and shows their connections. It’s all done in a very accessible style so you don’t need a degree in political science, economics or computer science (or anything for that matter) to start to appreciate how the future is being influenced by these memes.