Cloud Culture

Cloud computing is transforming our digital reality. As data and applications move from the desktop to ‘the cloud’, information becomes accessible anywhere, enabling collaboration with distributed teams.

Ready to Participate
Engaging with people via crowd sourcing, social networks and smart apps is now a top priority for senior marketers worldwide. Personal customisation of everything is an expected standard. We are always connected and ready to participate. From music, fashion and search results to blogs – we are not just observers, but contributors and producers.

Cloud Computing
In his very interesting article ‘Let’s open up cloud computing’ – Charles Leadbeater states: “The internet, our relationship with it, and our culture are about to undergo a change as profound and unsettling as the development of web 2.0 in the last decade, which made social media and search – Google and YouTube, Facebook and Twitter – mass, global phenomena. The rise of cloud computing will trigger a battle for control over a digital landscape that is only just coming into view.”

Lifecasting and Video Sharing
In the era of cloud culture we already see the first signs of cloud capitalism – a controlled digital landscape where companies offer cloud management for money. Apple is leading in this field with iTunes, the iPhone app store and Apple TV. Cloud culture enables us to capture and broadcast our lives – with lifecasting and video sharing becoming increasingly important and popular mediums. In the future we will see the growth of enabling open source platforms, as technology feeds our desire for instant information and personal expression.

The Age of Dialogue
Participation in social media has become a necessity for businesses and individuals alike and our links to one another will increasingly be routed through a vast shared ‘cloud’ of data and software. Cloud culture is already impacting society profoundly and will become an essential part of our life and the way we do business. In the age of dialogue it is essential for companies to join this cloud conversation to engage marketing-weary consumers with the power of genuine ‘real-time’ dialogue, community and partnership.

Inspirational Sources
“This shared cultural cloud will come at a price that is difficult to calculate” – Charles Leadbeater

* Cloud Computing: The cloud movement will see a major leap forward with the launch of “Office Web Apps,” free online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote released in tandem with Microsoft Office 2010. Contagious

* ‘Let’s open up cloud computing’. Before our digital lives disappear too far into ‘the cloud’, we must wrest it from corporate and governmental control. Charles Leadbeater

* Apple Facts and Figures: Apple is the biggest mobile device company in the world. Over Nokia, Samsung and Sony.
– 250,000,000 iPods sold since 2001
– 284 Retail Stores had 50,000,000 visitors (last quarter of 2009)
– 140,000 Applications in the App Store
– 3 Billion Applications downloaded in 18 months
– Over $ 50 billion revenue annually

* Entertainment Clouds: Spotify, LastFM, MixCloud are all the iTunes fof the radio. Video on demand Apple TV, Snags Films and TED

Images
1. Cloud Syria
2. Oslo Opera House – Snohetta >>
3. Grafitti Le Marais Paris