2012

Do you ever find yourself missing the dulcet tones of dial up? 

Lamenting those lost 20 minutes spent rapping your fingers on the desk, waiting for a picture of Jennifer Aniston to load, just so you can show your hairdresser the "Rachel"?

Of course not. Isn't it amazing though just how much the internet has changed in the last ten years?

2012 has been an exceptional year for web video, with Psy's taking the world by storm and Felix Baumgartner's huge leap from space.

With record-breaking numbers of viewers watching content online, video has also played a massive part in the growth of companies globally.

Just take a look at YouTube's statistics to see how mind boggling the 'video revolution' has become, for example: 500 years of YouTube videos are watched every day on Facebook. Crazy!

We've pulled together a few interesting statistics from the past 12 months to sum up how web video has also been impacting on businesses.

University of Westminster and Museum of London are on the hunt for 12 #citizencurators to record life in London during the Games.

As everyone knows, the great moments of the Olympics will be photographed & written about, with opinions of organisors, commentators and celebrities in the media - but what about the experience of the humble London resident?

That's where the #citizencurators come in! #Citizencurators is a research project developed by the University of Westminster for the Museum of London that explores what it is like to live in London during the Olympic fortnight (July 27 – August 12).

Your votes are in, London!

After a mammoth Social Media Week for 2012, it's time to reveal who you dubbed as this years best SMW Event and Speaker in London, as well as Social Media Personality and Campaign of the year!

Thankyou to all who participated in voting, Chinwag is delighted to announce our catergory winners for the SMW Awards 2012, sponsored by 3 Monkeys.

With over 180 events in London alone last week and over 15,000 registrations not including the people enjoying all the action on Livestream, it was a serious hit!

Don't forget that eleven other cites were simultaneously taking part in Social Media Week 2012, although London being our amazing city made the most noise on Twitter throughout the week according to Brandwatch with 29% of the global buzz and over 50000+ Tweets, with New York close behind.

Day One

On Monday causing a stir was Twitter, the Butterfly effect and the future of Journalism with Andrew Walker, founder of Tweetminster; Paul Lewis, Special Projects Editor at the Guardian; Anna Doble, Senior Online Producer at Channel4 News; Steve Butterworth, founder of Flumes Media Limited; and Titia Ketelaar, UK correspondent at NRC Handelsblad. Paul Sawers from The Next Web brings you all the highlights.

"Spotify Paid Lady Gaga $167 For 1,000,000 Plays"

This headline showed the “dark side” of music streaming start up, Spotify. Critics were in awe about how little artists were being paid for their hard work. Despite the short lived pleas from Spotify that they paid more per play people focused on this number, as if it was a bad thing.

Paying an artist less than 1p per play sounds like a raw deal, until you remember Spotify is a marketing platform. Spotify is designed as a service for people to listen to their favourite tracks cheaply. Why does this benefit the artist? Because if you love their music, you’ll go to the show, get the t-shirt and support the live scene.

YouGov, the most quoted research agency in the UK, today reveals its predictions for 2012 on people’s consumption and behaviour around Smart TV, smartphones, Facebook, digital newspapers and digital radio.

As 2012 approaches I thought I would write a nice post.

I hate the clichéd "prediction" articles you tend to get at this time of the year as peoples predictions tend to be either biased hopes (which never happen) such as me wishing for a hoverboard just because Back To The Future said they would happen. Or really really easy extrapolations of what's happening right now. The industry moves fast and predictions change hourly, so that's not what this post is about.

Here are my 5 favorite iPhone apps of 2011. And why I think you should get them for 2012. I've specifically avoided the usual suspects (Twitter, Facebook, FML etc). In no particular order...