The Social Cluster

The Social Cluster as I see it is when the world decides that the internet will be a new place to live. So far we can see this transformation happen right before our eyes. From the amount of time we spent online searching, reading and entertaining ourselves, the internet is becoming the fabric of our everyday lives.

Take for example the recent news about kids killing their parents due to the fact they took away their iphone. Or how about the Chinese family who's son dropped his phone in a tank and had the mom and dad jump in, only to find out that the chemicals in the water killed them. The emotions that come with internet and connectivity can be seen as a dangerous slope.

So the foreseeable future will be one that can destroy our humanity because people are spending less time interacting with each other in the real world and more time interacting in the internet world.

What does that do for people like myself and marketers who are trying to wrap their heads around this fast group.

One word, activities. If we do not start to embrace and set up things for our youth to do, you can be sure that things will only get worst and violence amongst guns will dramatically increase.

Video games are just one aspect of how our world is becoming more senseless.

If I were you I would keep my children in sports and only allow them to connect to their devices once they have done everything that we use to do as kids.

Im Erik Garcia for eg entertainment and I hope you have a great rest of the week, because my hand is starting to hurt from writing this which is one of the reasons why I had to stop writing.


see you next time.

Short Video Clips Cater To America's Short Attention Span!

I'm starting to sigh at the notion of online video. As I mentioned in my past post, the online space is becoming saturated with online video. From 15 second Instagram vids to  six second Vine clips the world's attention span is diminishing right before our eyes! If the baby boomers lived on the edge more than their parents did and Millennials live more on the edge than the Baby Boomers than it's safe to say that the next generation will live even more dangerously.

With regards to online video, all that means is people have increasingly smaller and smaller attention spans leading to short form video clips taking most of the focus! As we move further along the rabbit hole of social media, users are being programed to accept this new form of communication. If you think about it, you could consider it another way of shouting, or yelling at someone, but in a more story like form...I don't see this going anywhere anytime soon. If anything I would highly suggest embracing short form video and start understanding how these platforms are building enormous audiences and turning normal folk into over night sensations.

You can find several Vine personalities that have grown fan bases upwards in the millions. With very little talent and anything really to offer their fans other than ridiculous short video clips of pranks, dances and spontaneous ideas, Vine stars are capitalizing on their success and brands are paying to reach their audience, just like any other medium or social network.

You can find this manifestation if you look at your Facebook feed. For example, you might notice one of your friends liking some weird video of a short cat clip. Or maybe a fight clip, or something amateur. If you look at the fan bases of these pages and look at the engagement you will find that people seem to like and enjoy these off the wall video clips more than any other type of content.

Content and media producers are starting to take notice and are building huge audiences off these fundamentals. Again, we are talking about short video clips and memes. However what was all the craze of memes has now translated into gifs and short form video.

Pay attention and you'll see what Im talking about. Don't be surprised if you find yourself laughing at one of these videos on your mobile phone on your way to work. It may just brighten up your day!