Casaleggio Associati created two great video productions on the future from the viewpoint of Media and Politics.  These are great representations of the advancements we have already seen and a not so unrealistic look to our future given present trends.

Prometeus – The Media Revolution

Man is God.
He is everywhere, he is anybody, he knows everything.
This is the Prometeus new world.
All started with the Media Revolution, with Internet, at the end of the last century.
Everything related to the old media vanished: Gutenberg, the
copyright, the radio, the television, the publicity.
The old world reacts: more restrictions for the copyright, new laws against non authorized copies. Napster, the music peer to peer company is sued.
At the same time, free internet radio appears;
TIVO, the internet television, allows to avoid publicity; the Wall Street Journal goes on line; Google launches Google news.
Millions of people read daily the biggest on line newspaper. Ohmynews written by thousands of journalists; Flickr becomes the biggest repository in the history of photos, YouTube for movies.
The power of the masses.
A new figure emerges: the prosumer, a producer and a consumer of information. Anyone can be a prosumer.
The news channels become available on Internet.
The blogs become more influential than the old media.
The newspapers are released for free.
Wikipedia is the most complete encyclopedia ever.
In 2007 Life magazine closes.
The NYT sells its television and declares that the future is digital. BBC follows.
In the main cities of the world people are connected for free.
At the corners of the streets totems print pages from blogs and digital magazines.
The virtual worlds are common places on the Internet for millions of people.
A person can have multiple on line identities.
Second Life launches the vocal avatar.
The old media fight back.
A tax is added on any screen; newspapers, radios and televisions are financed by the State; illegal download from the web is punished with years of jail.
Around 2011 the tipping point is reached: the publicity investments are done on the Net. The electronic paper is a mass product: anyone can read anything on plastic paper.
In 2015 newspapers and broadcasting television disappear, digital terrestrial is abandoned, the radio goes on the Internet.
The media arena is less and less populated. Only the Tyrannosaurus Rex survives. The Net includes and unifies all the content. Google buys Microsoft. Amazon buys Yahoo! and become the world universal content leaders with BBC, CNN and CCTV.
The concept of static information – books, articles, images – changes and is transformed into knowledge flow.
The publicity is chosen by the content creators, by the authors and becomes information, comparison, experience.
In 2020 Lawrence Lessig, the author of ‘Free Culture’, is the new US Secretary of Justice and declares the copyright illegal.
Devices that replicate the five senses are available in the virtual worlds. The reality could be replicated in Second Life.
Any one has an Agav (agent-avatar) that finds information, people, places in the virtual worlds.
In 2022 Google launches Prometeus, the Agav standard interface.
Amazon creates Place, a company that replicates reality. You can be on Mars, at the battle of Waterloo, at the Super Bowl as a person. It’s real.
In 2027 Second Life evolves into Spirit. People become who they want.
And share the memory. The experiences. The feelings. Memory selling becomes a normal trading.
In 2050 Prometeus buys Place and Spirit. Virtual life is the biggest market on the planet. Prometeus finances all the space missions to find new worlds for its customers: the terrestrial avatar.
Experience is the new reality.
Voice: Philip K. Dick Avatar.
Date: 6th April 2051
Lugar: desconocido

Gaia – The Future of Politics

Gaia, a New World Order, is born today, the 14 August 2054.
Racial conflicts, ideological conflicts, religious conflicts, territorial conflicts belong to the past.
Every man is a world citizen, subject to the same law.
The Internet has driven the change, spreading communication, knowledge and organization at a planetary level.

The Pyramids of Egypt, the Colosseum of Rome, the Church of the Holy Wisdom are demonstrations of power.
The Roman Empire lasts for centuries because of its road network: the “cursus publicus”.
Genghis Khan creates a network of horsemen to have real time information from everywhere in his empire, the greatest of all times, and to be able to concentrate in a few days all its military force on a single point.
Savonarola, a monk from Ferrara that anticipated Martin Luther and John Calvin, invents the “open letters”, printed in thousand of copies and distributed to the citizens of Florence.
The French Revolution walks on the legs of the ideas of the Diderot and D’Alembert’s Enciclopèdie and of the Voltaire’s Dictionnarie Philosophique.
Benito Mussolini uses the radio to communicate with the people who gather together in all the squares of Italy.
The movies of Leni Riefensthal give a great popularity to Adolf Hitler.
The first live transmission of the sessions of the House of Commons in the United Kingdom is broadcast by BBC radio in 1975.

At the beginning of the 21st century the fate of the world is still determined by masonic, religious and financial groups.
130 of the most influential personalities of the world, the Bildeberg group, have a private meeeting every year to discuss the future of the world economy.

Before the Net, communication, knowledge and organization belonged to the power. With the Net they belong to all the people.

1998 MoveOn, a political site, launches a campaign in favour of Bill Clinton with a million emails sent to the Congress of the US

1999 In Seattle thousands of activists protest against WTO thanks to the Internet.

2002 A “coup d’état” in Venezuela fails. Chavez is back as president because of the information diffused on the Internet and via SMS.

2004 Howard Dean, an unknown governor of Vermont, becomes a pretender to the White House. He creates a worldwide network of supporters with the Internet platform MeetUp and communicates with millions of persons through his blog blogforamerica.com

In many States like China, Iran, Malaysia and Singapore the Net is under control.

2007: In Italy, V Day is the biggest political event that has ever been brought together by using the Internet. It’s coordinated through the blog of the famous Italian comedian, Beppe Grillo. Two million people pour out onto the streets to demonstrate in favour of a “clean up” in Parliament.
2008 Obama wins the primary elections against Hilary Clinton. He collects more funds than any other candidate directly from the citizens using the Net

2008 Obama wins the US presidential elections

2008 At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Al Gore declares that the problems of the world, like the global warming, can be solved only by the cooperative intelligence of the people on the Internet

2018 The World is divided into two main areas. The West with direct democracy and free access to Internet. China, Russia and the Middle East with orwellian dictatorship and controlled access to the Internet

2020. Beginning of the Third world War that lasts 20 years. Destruction of the symbols of the West, Saint Peter’s Square, Notre-Dame de Reims, Sagrada Família.
Use of bacteriological weapons.
Acceleration of climate change and rising of the seas of 12 metres. Starvation.
End of the fossil fuel era.
Reduction of the world population to one billion people.

2040. The West wins. Net democracies triumph

2043. Grassroots movements emerge all over the world to manage local problems related to energy, food, environment, health. The planet is split into thousands of communities linked by the Net

2047. Everyone has his identity in a world social network, created by Google, called Earthlink. To be you must be in Earthlink, or be not. No passport is required anymore.

2050. BrainTrust, a collective social intelligence, allows people to solve complex problems in a matter of days sharing any kind of information and data on line.

2051. A world referendum is held on the Net to abolish the death penalty.

2054. First world elections on the Net. A World Government, called Gaia, is elected. Secret organizations are banned. Every human can become president and control the actions of the government through the Net.

In Gaia, parties, politics, ideologies, religions disappear.
Man is the only owner of his destiny.
Collective knowledge is the new politics.

Voice: Herbert Marshall McLuhan Avatar.
Date: 14th August 2054
Place: Nuuk, Greenland

Travolution Summit 2009 - Tourism Online Marketing

One of the new and unique ways of following a conference today is by a twitter group. Travolution Summit 2009 , a one day conference on tourism online marketing, held on April 21 at Renaissance Chancery Court in London, UK,  was tag #travsummit when you go to twitter search . Because Twitter only allows 140 characters – you get brief, precise comments, and review. As well many twitters’ provide a link to valuable information. 

Here are just some of amazing things that came out of this one day conference and links by delegates following via twitter:   a) around 80% of  UK consumers say they won’t deal with a company again if no e-mail reply within 24 hours.  2)  Google : average holiday booked online takes 29 days, 12 searches and 22 travel sites, 3)   55% of Frommer’s poll said they would book w/ a site that offered destination info , 4) 10 Hottest Online Travel Trends , 5) Economy recovery ahead but uncertainly abounds, 6) 7 Things learned at Travolution Summit – by Jeremy Head.

Travolution Summit 2009  website includes coverage, pictures, video interviews, travel hub, coverage, keynote presentations and the twitter feed.

Social Media, Online Marketing, Experiences, Personalization

Canada e-Connect 2009 Conference  provide a number of highlights…here are mine – 1) Dr. Ian Fenwick – DigiMarketing – The New Imperative session.  The 4 p’s of digital marketing – permission, participation, particulars, personalization. Privacy vs personalization. His session continues to grow on me,  2) Videos really stand out for online marketing , social media and traveller reviews  during many of the presentations at this conference. Some of these videos include  1)  The World We Live in -  2)   Town of Jasper, Alberta ,  3) Evolution by Dove .  3) Destination marketing by Joe Buhler – focus from price to experience, and DMO must lead,  4) Tourism Montreal 100% online marketing in 2009, 5)  Social Media continues to play a prominent role in trip reviews and destinations and 6) business is personal, and we need to spent real time with potential and actual customers, 7) 6.6 billion people in the world, 3.3billion have mobile phones. Mobile marketing will be big soon. 

Experiences, trip reviews, videos & photos, personalization and online marketing will dominate in 2009……

Recently, Jens Thraenhart posted in his blog – “The Future of the Media Revolution“  with a video called Prometeus – The Media Revolution. Now there is part 2 – a video that provides an interesting look up to 2015 with new media.