( ? , qUeStIoNMaRk )

Got hit by a huge laziness and procrastination (illness powered) wave…

…now it’s time to get back to blogging.

By the way, this is one of my favourite Beatles’ videos.

Interesting initiative by Il Sole 24 ORE (Luca De Biase) in collaboration with Elastic (Nicola Mattina): 10domande | ai candidati premier alle elezioni politiche 2008, that is 10 questions to candidates to the 2008 political (italian) elections. From the site:

10domande è un progetto di giornalismo partecipativo: è una video-intervista di dieci domande formulate e scelte direttamente dagli elettori.

Round I (dal 3 al 23 marzo). Tu proponi una domanda che viene votata da tutti gli utenti del sito. Le dieci domande più votate diventano un’intervista ai candidati premier.

Round II (dal 24 marzo al 13 aprile). I candidati rispondono alle domande. Tu puoi votare le risposte e dire se ti piacciono o meno.

This is a really nice example of what participative media in the internet age are all about (also what means providing a smooth implementation and making a good use of them).

A twit (which I read via facebook) by Gianluca remembered me of an ancient and deep philosophical question about the nature and meaning of wrapped oranges. The distributed conversation has gone so far like this (begging other participants’ pardon for the poor translation):

gluca: I’ll never understand why some oranges are paper wrapped and some others not.

dottorgioia @gluca it is based on a deep and thorough marketing research

Marco (that is me): This question got me passionated since my early years right now I’m experiencing a sort of dummy epiphany; wrapping all the oranges would be too much expensive, however by wrapping only a few you are able to reach a satisfying “brand visibility” (there should be a paper wrapped orange per “buy” on average).

image by only alice on flickr

The converstaion has been followed by some insights by Gianluca on a bleeding edge marketing technique, which I’d name AdRance, or AdWraps (NOTE - for the imaginary native english readers - “arance” it’s the Italian translation of “oranges”). From “Arancia misterious marketing“:

Yes, paper wrapped oranges will be without any doubt the new frontier of ambient and co-marketing: they have a great reach (who doesn’t eat oranges?), a good GRP (no way you can eat the orange without taking a look at the ad - and it is known that the wrapped ones are the first to get eaten, as if it would be unconsciously possible to find a hidden surprise), ridicolous CPM, vareity of sensorial experiences by changing paper features or colors, opportunity for prize games (e.g “if the number of seeds is equal to the one on the paper wrap, send the proof of purchase et cetera…), in brief, it’s all there.

Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Now only a slick and simple web front-end to let advertisers bid for placement on the basis of orange type, fruit shop/market location, paper features, and plan their own prize games, remains to be developed to accomplish world domination by means of AdRance (or AdWraps).

Begining 2008, Wafer is keeping up with the good ol’Web Cocktail tradition. Yesterday On friday evening I got to the WebCocktail on “MA CHI L’HA DETTO??
REPUTAZIONE, CREDITO, POPOLARITÀ AL TEMPO DI INTERNET“, and it turned, as in past “editions”, a good chance to hear some interesting thoughts and reflections concerning the web (in this case reputation) and have a few talks with intellectually honest and stimulating geeks people.
From the panel, moderated by Alessandra Farabegoli, I got some notes/sketches (I beg you pardon for my poor english which will affect the transposition of the original thoughts hereafter intertwingled with personal considerations):
- [Gianluca Diegoli - Minimarketing] Blogs made the critique (towards products/firms/brands) individual (no more anonymous as it was used in newsgroups time) weighing in the balance the reputation of the critique author (his blog, his thoughts, his social relations) . Bottom line: critiques grain consistency and “value” for the criticized product/firm/brand which can build on these to improve the “user experience”.
With respect to astroturfing the internet and the web do have antibodies, and the ecosystem is quite good at keeping everyone honest, in other words “lies have short legs” on the internet”. If you start a fake-user-generated marketing campaign the chances you got exposed and the firm’s reputation is blown are fairly high. On the other hand there’s an ever increasing interest in fruition of the web as an old-style/main-stream media as entertainment, so it doesn’t bother (this kind of audience) if the video is fake (e.g. Ronaldo and Crescina); it only matters if it is entertaining.
- [Massimo Mantellini] Long live “shop-window” corporate websites; firms hiding beyond fictitious participation (faking positive comments/blog posts) pollutes the value of social interactions on the web reducing the overall ecosystem value and reputation. Is really the case for corporate participation in social networking, does it bring any good (to the community/net-citizens)?
Nice question. Gianluca points out that if the value for a company lies in the relations (interactions) with its customers and hence the company do really value the relations (i.e. honest communication), keeping it apart from the participitative web/social networking scene inhibits it from exploiting its true potential.
- Speaking of transparency and honest communication [Antonella Beccaria] notes that journalism is not any stranger from distortion and pollution (often more subtle and difficultly discoverable due to relations with “strong powers” and interests rather than a “one company affair”); in the last years the consumer perception of the reputation of the main-stream information has been changing: more and more people started questioning newspapers, TV news.

Following the panel it came the so awaited cocktail… There I spoke with Gianluca, Massimo, Enzo, Francesco, and Fullo and Leonora about everything-web-computer-related (from (lack of) “hacking-attitude” of the new generations, to RSS (lack of) adoption, to still dominant portals market share in traffic on the web, to javascript for server-side scripting/agile development, http://appjet.com).

Then, I must thank Laura for being my Local Positioning System, driving me to the restaurant and to the wine bar.
Among the many matters of discussion It is worth noting that talking about methane-fueled vehicles it is always extraordinary amusing and funny (I do remember an incredible methane-powered trip from Cesenatico to Dimaro for a rafting week-end: never ending quests in find of a station, turbo-boost system (AKA fuel switch) to surpass other cars). I recommend you read Elena’s post on the matter: “Son sicura di voler entrare nel tunnel del metano?“.

From the high clock-wise: me, Elena, Tommaso, [mini]moglie and [mini]marketing, Alessandra, Michele, Laura, Luca and Livia. The photo was taken by .
Thank you all for the great time.

In the meanwhile I get the time to write down some (not so badly) articulated thoughts on the interesting event I attended in Ravenna on October 13th “Strati in Rete” (inside “Strati della cultura” for ARCI’s 50th year anniversary) I’d like to share (for no good reason at all) my notes. I met and took a chance to nicely talk about internet and participation with Alessandro Bottoni (future value of past failings - GNU Arch and BazaarNG), Frieda Brioschi (valorization of expertise and competence in wikipedia), Livia Iacolare (her experience with intruders.tv), Antonio Sofi (participation and new media distribution models - radiohead’s In Rainbows and Magnatune) , Alessio Jacona (the right channels for the right audience - how the participation is changing the way companies “talk” to their customers), Valentina Orsucci (second life and metaverses possible innovations in [e]learning processes and a nice “Prisoner’s Dilemma” based experiment in the classroom) and Elena Zannoni (open source and technology adoption in Public Administration), and other people I forgot to mention.

Kudos to Luca for the organization.

Disclaimer: the notes are (highly) rough and my handwriting is hieroglyphic at best, this whole thing is a kind of experiment.

Strati in rete Notes 1/4 on Flickr
Strati in rete Notes 2/4 on Flickr
Strati in rete Notes 3/4 on Flickr
Strati in rete Notes 4/4 on Flickr

Take part in this action for a Free Burma!

1. Publish a posting (Bulletin Board, Forum, Blog, Social Network, Static Website…) on the 4th of October with the header: “Free Burma!”

2. Tag it if you can with “Free Burma”

3. Choose a grafic from the Grafics page and

4. Link to www.free-burma.org there your readers will find some informations about the campaign and Burma and a participant list which you can join. Even if you’re a webmaster of a bulletin board or social network you will find a special Group List to join.

5. Add the Petition Widget to your blog/website.

6. Feel free to write any additional text you want.

Image by Cuaderno de Silicio on Flickr.

Among the many things you can do to raise awereness and support the Monks’ Protest in Burma is putting a ribbon in your blog/wiki/site template.

The code for the top left ribbon is:


<a href="http://free-burma.org" style="position:fixed;top:0;left:0;display: block;text-decoration: none;"><img src="http://questionmark.blogsome.com/images/freeburmasx.gif" alt="FREE BURMA!" /></a>


The code for the top right ribbon (the one on this page) is:


<a href="http://free-burma.org" style="position:fixed;top:0;left:0;display: block;text-decoration: none;"><img src="http://questionmark.blogsome.com/images/freeburmasx.gif" alt="FREE BURMA!" /></a>


Technorati Tags: Free Burma

The air is quite fresh here at BocaBarranca…

People starting gathering…

POST-ITs…

ready for the “main-event” day of RomagnaCamp!

Italian versions of the infamous motivational posters…

Solo uno Stupido non verrebbe al RomagnaCamp!!

Adoro i BarCamp ben riusciti!

Here we are!

(actually the photo was taken EARLY in the beginning)

On September 7th, 8th, 9th I will be at RomagnaCamp (a wonderful initiative allowing many people to talk, discuss and exchange ideas, opinions face to face about internet, social networks, blogs, open source…). I am expecially interested in the talks on “Free Software WiFi Hotspot” by Luca Sartoni and “e-learning 2.0″ by Emanuela Zimbordi.

In futtilitatis impetu (In a worthless impetus) I produced two “motivational” posters:

I love it when a RomagnaCamp comes together!

I Pity the fool who does’nt come to RomagnaCamp!!

Original photos are by Luca Sartoni.

Everyone is free to improve upon my questionable work (GIMP needed): ateam_romagnacamp.xcf.