Lasting Rose

Facebook has amassed a gigantuan membership of over a billion people and Twitter aims to catch up with new features like Vine, taking micro Blogging to new levels. This spectacular growth of the social web, no doubt, is largely due to its nature as a free place for social interaction.

However, the role in the growth and evolution of social web, of pop stars and celebrities like Lady Gaga andJustin Bieber who have enhanced their fan base and interact with their fans through social web, is also undisputable.

But what about Elvis Presley, who sent millions around the world in a frenzy hardly ever stepping out of the US soil and just by singing I can't help falling in love with you, when no one had even heard of the social web? Could he have shaped the social web to be a totally different place from as we know it today?

There is no denying that without the Television neither Elvis Presley nor Lady Gaga would have reached the level of popularity they attained. So the integration of the social web with television by most recent technological advances like social streaming and social DVR, which allows for real time interaction over social media with time shift would have evolved naturally.



However, the popularity of Lady Lady Gaga, who is a singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer, and activist on the social web is largely based on her daring stage appearances and the issues like bullying and causes like lgbt which the artist actively support.
Her achievement like being invited to speak at Harvard is more of a reflection of her belief and support of the issues she has chosen to champion for. As a result, the technology she sought was some means to interact with her fans on the web on those issues, enhancing her presence among her fans, which created her famous back room chats with her fans and which rendered her role of counselling her fans possible.
But in the case of Elvis Presley it was his talent, good looks, sensuality, charisma, and good humour which endeared him to millions, as did the humility and human kindness he demonstrated throughout his life. Known the world over by his first name, he is regarded as one of the most important figures of twentieth century popular culture. He has been described as the sexiest man of his generation, so manly yet beautiful!
In the words of music historian John Robertson, Elvis was a flirtatious teenage idol with a heart of gold, a tempestuous, dangerous lover, a gutbucket blues singer, a sophisticated nightclub entertainer and raucous rocker.
Years after his death, fans continue to yearn for him with comments like "We will never have someone like him again... Elvis, unique, wonderful, our king forever!!!!"
Obviously, the persona of Elvis Presley, which had no need of a social web for the entire world to swoon for him, might have attracted the entire world to Facebook, if he were to have a fan page!
Given the wild passion and infatuation his fans felt for him as was evident from his concerts, It is conceivable that tactile technologies like the remote kissing devices would have found their place in Facebook much head of simple chat.
May be you could have enjoyed an on demand virtual concert by Elvis Presley singing I can't help falling in love with you, just for you.
Perhaps a new version of the Aloha from Hawaii music concert that was headlined by Elvis Presley, and broadcast live via satellite around the world on January 14, 1973, in which fans could rejoice by touching Elvis, using this invention, wherever they happened to be could have been broadcast through Facebook or whatever name the media would have been called.
There is of course many things one can imagine as was possible. The predominant factors would be the key elements which made Elvis irresistibly humane and accessible to millions. One thing is sure, whatever shape the social web would have assumed, it would have done more to bind people of the world in romance, love, passion and compassion, qualities which Elvis was graced with in abundance.

Here is a relatively obscure snippet of news, which could have made the corporate honchos of the leading makers of DVR like TiVo, Motorola, RCA, Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba and cable companies like Time Warner, Comcast and Cox which offer TV packages that include a DVR, sit up and take note.

DVR Falls Victim to "Social TV"

"Social TV," in which young viewers use cell phones to communicate with friends about shows they are currently watching, is reversing the trend to record shows on DVRs and watch them at some later time, according to a survey conducted in the U.K. by Digital Clarity. According to the study, 80 percent of users below the age of 25 communicate with their friends while watching TV, with 72 percent using Twitter, Facebook or other mobile applications. "Rather than social networks and television competing for attention it seems that young people are happy to embrace both and use one to enhance their enjoyment of the other," the study said. Digital Clarity founder Reggie James suggested that Social TV's actual victim has been the DVR.

"Social TV has changed this completely by turning programs into online events where you have to watch them as they happen," he said.

If the DVR marketing guys didn't take note, at least their dwindling sales projections should have given the first warnings of the changing trend.

However, ARKTAN, a Silicon Valley technology upstart, which has pioneered the social streaming technology, which enables the Social TV, has seen the writings on the wall and has come up with innovative solutions which allow social streaming to integrate with the DVR technology, which they call Social DVR.

So all those, who don't want to miss the fun of sharing what they watch in the privacy of their homes, with their friends on the social web, don't have to really give up their DVR just because they can't share their joy, excitement or anger with their friends on the social web unless they are glued to a telly.

With groundbreaking stuff like Social DVR, anyone can have his cake and eat it too! You can have the fun of watching your telly with social web and the convenience of a DVR when you want it, when you are ready for it and not as dictated by a channel's pre-determined schedule.

Keeping all the exciting features of DVR like pause, fast-forward, add, skip, etc. in tact, the Social DVR, with its time-sync capability is a technology enhancement that brings you the convenience of the DVR with all the fun and excitement of the social web. If you were at work and missed that climax of your favorite serial or a clinching moment your favorite team missed a goal with your friends, as and when it happened, you can still enjoy the moment as if you were with your friends, with SocialDVR bringing you their live tweets, comments, etc. as it happened at that moment.

So how do such amazing features become a reality? For a start, the developers have already successfully implemented their social streaming solutions with integration and curation technology for various platforms like social TV, celebrity homepages and curated social hubs.

TV shows like Dallas and Falling Skies and interactive web presence of celebrities like Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and a host of others, powered by this social streaming technology implemented by media groups like UMG, place this technology provider ahead of the pack.

The developers have simply added additional features like time sync and support of additional functions, so that you don't have to mess with a second remote control, to robust APIs which allow you to capture and curate real-time social web content and conversation from multiple social platforms

Good news for those who are always on the move is that the time-syncing feature and social DVR capabilities are available for live and on-demand videos of TV shows and video programming playbacks across all platforms, including mobile.

If you are excited and want to know when this technology will be available to you, the website of Univision, is powered by both Social Streams and Social DVR, is live from October 2012. The site has already registered millions of viewers and thousands of videos on demand.

Apart from delivering the fun of live media with live social media, the effect of this technology might be far reaching. For example, reactions to events like the tragic gang rape in New Delhi or the Sandy Hook school shooting could be wider and spread over days, with decisive impact on shaping public opinion as more people will be sharing the impact of events.

Least of all, the enormous effect on an industry which will otherwise be facing a downgrading due to a product no one wants any more cannot be under estimated.

Fortunately, with Social DVR everyone can keep on smiling and hoping for better times both on the telly and on the social web.

This is not mere Google bashing which has become very fashionable these days. It is not about the deterioratingsearch quality of Google everyone is starting to notice or why Microsoft's Bing is any better.

It is really about how the cyber world is changing and shaping the needs and expectations which have evolved beyond mere key word search and how services likeScoop.it will meet those because Google won't. Pretty soon the question will be "have you scooped it?" rather than "Have you Googled it?"

With the exponential growth of speed and capacity of the internet and cloud computing, the cyberspace has witnessed unprecedented creation and sharing of knowledge, especially through Blogging. If we used to search for information by punching in a keyword in to Google 5 years back, now everyone is searching for actionable knowledge and trickles of wisdom they can rely up on.

Mere information or the meaning of or explanation of something one doesn't know no more satisfy human mind. Thanks to the abundance of global information instantly made available through information technology and big strides in education, we are much better tuned to analyse, compare and judge before accepting anything.

In other words, we are likely to be looking for expert advice, guidance, opinion or recommendation we can trust on what we are searching for, even if we have no intention to use it right away. And there are plenty of those in the Cyberspace. Only problem is Google's search juggernaut can't deliver such 'condensed' knowledge. You need to wade through web page after web page, Google's powerful search machine will flash in front of your eyes even before you type in exactly what you are looking for. Who needs such boring and arduous labour anymore?

When it comes to human nature the observation of Bill Gates is so canny.
Well, in the search for easy grabbing of curated knowledge, that is exactly what the lazy world has done. They have encouraged a host of services like Scoop.it to pop up, which are ready to cull information and dish up curated knowledge on everything you wish to know.

Services like Scoop.it depend on a community of millions of hard working experts who wonder what to do with the wealth of knowledge and wisdom they have accumulated in life and are happy to share it if there is an easy way to make any good of it for fellow humans. Thankfully there is also an army of lazy, time constrained and content hungry, bloggers too to lap up what the experts can share.

Scoop.it in fact is a lot of fun. If you have ever cherished being an editor and creating a colourful magazine like Hello everyone will go gaga about, you can do it easily with Scoop.it. If you have enjoyed cutting and collating things in to your scrap book in school, you already know how to use Scoop.it and what you can do with it.

In fact the power of Scoop.it is in its capability to pull together visually appealing web pages rather than inanimate links to the urls which hide the information behind them.

The way Scoop.it will help you build your powerful magazine is simple. Once you chose the key words you are interested in and like to curate, and you christen your magazine, Scoop.it will scourge the social web tocollate a list of web pages, tweets and comments etc and will present to you the latest of them every time you visit your dashboard. All you need to do is to literally drag what is relevant in to the column and curate by adding your bit of endorsement, comment of approval, disapproval etc.

It is a win-win situation for everyone. You give extra traction to the publisher of the web property you select to add to your little magazine, you add your stamp of little satisfaction to it and dish it out to someone who trusts your views or expertise. Everyone is happy with Scoop.it.

At the end of the day, Scoop.it, which is free, is the right answer for information seekers and providers as well as the experts who like to show off their expertise.

A happy meeting place where the cyber world is fast moving in to at the cost of Google!

Article first published as How Long Before You Will Scoop.it Instead of Google It? on Technorati.