Coup D'Tweet

Coup Or No, Cats Don't Care

We live in amazing and ridiculous times.

This showed itself again over the weekend, where a failed military coup in Turkey hit home in a major way for me. A good friend and her son were trapped in the airport in Istanbul, with her husband (and one of my best friends) was posting updates on their condition while in the U.S.

The drama played out, both on networks and our various personal feeds, in real-time. There was chaos, F-14 fighters spreading sonic booms over populated areas, taking cover during crossfire, calming walking through people chanting for hangings while trying not to betray soul-shattering fear, bridges taken and flights canceled, and finally, Turkey's embattled president taking to a social media channel that he's frequently tried to shut down, rallying his supporters to counter the action, effectively. There are even some who doubt whether this was indeed a real coup, given the immediate and effective counter strikes by the government, who has instituted mass arrests and punitive measures that are still unfolding as I write this.

While my friend and her son are safe now, they were in no way safe during the proceedings, and the final death toll is likely to astound. They are witnesses to history many times over, and while I want to wish them well and a homeland they can safely visit again, that might not be likely again in our lifetimes. Turkey is just too fragmented between the secular cities and the religious in-country, and the fact that we all have our own channels to view during this is unprecedented in human experience, and a likely continuing unsettling element.

It's been on my mind a lot. How are nations supposed to continue to exist when the media isn't only polarized and fragmented, but increasingly incapable of maintaining a sense of continuity and unity... because everyone knows they are corrupt, and would rather view their own feed? Why should Scotland stay with Great Britain when they would rather be in the EU, or London with the same reasoning, when borders are more or less meaningless from international interactions? Why should our own Red vs. Blue United States remain, well, United, given that we clearly want different things, and don't even believe common facts?

To overthrow a government used to be a relatively simple thing, to the point where the Wikipedia page for Turkey's coups now has six entries. Simply enough, you just needed to have enough people in the military become convinced that the political class had gone too far, then roll a few tanks down the main roads, round up the leaders and reboot. Turkey has been unique in its status as a relatively stable and prosperous nation that also had fairly routine takeovers, but it's not as if they were alone in their process of living through coups.

Now? There's no playbook, no sense of what happens next, what's real and what's stagecraft. And I'm not just talking about Turkey, of course; all of this applies to the UK, and maybe the EU, and all kinds of countries in Turkey's neck of the woods, and maybe further. Social media is something like a contagion. And there's no telling how it will spread next, and what the final result of every one being their own media network, will be.

So from a marketing and advertising standpoint... you know where this is going, right? Away from broadcast, away from broad blasts, and into the micro and niche and dynamic. It's where the people are, and will be.

For good and ill...

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The World Changed This Week, Thanks To A Game For Children

Push Media

I'm sorry if I'm going to exhaust your tolerance for augmented reality this week, but the plain and simple fact is that when something goes from nothing to a ridiculous level of market penetration with this kind of speed, there's more going on than a summer fad.

Also, well, summer fads rarely monetize this well. Nintendo is rolling out ad-supported hotspots next, because why on Earth wouldn't they? Any business that benefits from walk-in traffic (which is to say, damn near every quick serve restaurant, convenience store and so on) should probably consider this, especially if they are in a part of the world with enough foot traffic, or if they are in a walkable neighborhood. (Frankly, I suspect that the game makers could also collect protection money from homeowners or associations who want their peace and quiet, but that probably says more about my sense of humor than the business model.)

Locally to me this summer, a transit agency had to take a third of its cars offline due to repair issues, in the height of a busy convention season. People are going in to work an hour early or late, enduring packed cars in heat, and so on. And if you gave that agency an ability to delight those in queue, they'd be crazy not to take it. (And yes, I know that the scale of game play hasn't quite extended that far yet, but give it a little more time, and a host of other games that use the same tech, but appeal to different demographics.)

You'd add in the game content at a managerial level, if only to lessen employee turnover from dealing with customers who are inconvenienced. We've been conditioned as digital consumers to search for Easter eggs in digital media for decades, and now the eggs are out in the world. This has all been a series of dominoes that have been set up over the past 15 to 20 years, and now that they are all in motion, the change in our society will be breathtaking.

It's not all a panacea, of course. The news has been filled with the unintended consequences of the game's impact this week, from small-time crime to the end of shaky romantic relationships, and a host of ill-considered attempts to cheat the system. Getting to a place where people are paying even more attention to their phones hardly seems like a positive development, especially when you add in the likelihood of distracted pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers.

But all of that is beyond the point now. The game changer to end all game changers in mobile has come, and it's only the first of many applications to take advantage of the platform and technology. We're not going to stop feeling the ramifications of this for a very long time.

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Augmented 2.0, Or After Pokemon Go

I Am The Trainer Who Pokes

On a daily basis, I walk my dog through my neighborhood for a couple of miles. It's almost always a solitary experience, which is fine; we can both use the exercise, and I do some of my best writing (well, pre-writing) at the other end of his leash.

But tonight, we had company... my two kids, locked into their phones from the most viral video game of their lifetimes, and having a grand old time while getting covert exercise.

As the miles passed and my kids utterly failed to notice sore feet, darkness that usually spooks them a bit, and the sudden and mildly dangerous phenomenon of other kids playing the game, but on bicycles, I thought about what happens next for this relentlessly viral hit. Over 1 out of every 20 Droid phones have the game now, in just a week of release, each one a conscious download, and it's hard to imagine that this is going to be the last manifestation of mobile phone with augmented reality. I can easily imagine, say, a zombie apocalypse game with similar movement needs, maybe a player vs. player first person shooter, hopefully with more comedic aspects than gore. The toothpaste is out of this tube, and all that's left is to see how many bogus "news" stories will spawn from it, or how long the fad will run. (My guess for this game? At least until Labor Day. After that, all bets are off.)

There's something cheery about the community here, though. Mobile technology has helped to stunt social skills, in my opinion, with people retreating to text their emotions in virtual safe spaces, rather than learning real-life conflict resolution. Now, at least, perfect strangers are interacting around a simple shared interest, making virtuous trades, maybe even making new friends. I'm told that peer versus peer gaming is soon on the horizon, which will likely spur more interactions, if not more friendships.

I suppose that, on some level, this is the kind of VR we should have expected. No special gear, no over-the-top age-inappropriate graphics or restrictions, and with faint whiffs of digital hoarding; it's as American as you can get, despite not being American at all. But just because this is first, and it might be the biggest one for a very long while... that doesn't mean it will be the last. Or that the concept won't soon infest every airport, waiting room, doctor's office, DMV and pharmacy where making people wait without getting annoyed about the waiting is well worth the cost of wifi.

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.