How Twitter rocked the Gary & Kevin Show at FOWA London 2009 – or let’s get ready for some conversation

To my German speaking friends:
Dies ist der letzte englischsprachige Eintrag zur FOWA 2009. Danach gehts wieder auf Deutsch weiter, wie es sich gehört für diesen Blog. Versprochen!

Last year it was Live Diggnation, tonite the Future of Web Apps Conference FOWA in London ended with the «Gary & Kevin Show» with Gary Vaynerchuk and Kevin Rose. Two born geek entertainers who were supposed to amuse the crowd with an improvised show on stage.

But the show was completely stolen from them by Twitter… and a young kid from Bath, England with the name Elliott Kember. What happened?

It all started when Elliott put up the Website Tweet From FOWA which simply collects all tweets which contain the word «FOWA». Somehow, somebody in charge at FOWA came up with the idea to project those tweets to the big screen in the conference hall during breaks. Elliott reacted, created a better version for this purpose and the FOWA people used it during the Gary & Kevin Show as can be seen on the photo.

I think, if they had known what was about to happen, they wouldn’t have done this. The tide of events couldn’t be stopped anymore. The show took a great start with Gary asking anybody with a startup to come on stage and sit on the available chair. A guy and a girl raced to stage, not in a very lady-like manner, and both grabbed the chair at pretty much the very same moment. Of course, they both could stay on stage and tell us a bot about their startups. But in the meantime the crowd discovered the fun of the Twitterwall. The tweets got more and more daring, the crowd was having a blast and laughing, the two hosts of the show definitely weren’t in charge anymore… Up to the point, when Ryan Carson, boss of FOWA, intervened and had the Twitterwall turned off for a moment.

The showed turned into a techy Q&A thing for a while, but with the return of the Twitterwall (now with real names instead of nicknames) the audience’s desire for fun started to come back. And because Twitterwall was fun, we wanted to see the guy who made it. And it worked, eventually he was asked on stage – and hey, he turned out to be a smart guy. He deserved to receive job offers right then and there.

But that was not all! @hermioneway asked for a date on Twitterwall. The spark had already flown, so it didn’t take much to get the hosts’ attention again and get her on stage. Would she get a date now? Yeah, Gary and Rose played along great and got her three possible dates from the crowd, the stage was turned into a dating game! «On our first date, which three iPhone apps would you tell me about?» Unfortunately, propably the two only guys without an iPhone were there on stage… But one of them won the game, the winner determined by the noise level of the audience. And it seemed to be a good choice. (Even though a Kanye-West-like stage invader claimed «Imma let you finish but this other guy was best date eva!»)

And so it came that Twitter rocked the show. Kudos to Gary and Kevin though who played along great, had fun, too and spontaneously went with the crowd.

What I find interesting about it: Doesn’t this show that the potential of Twitter as a backchannel and feedback channel isn’t fully utilized yet? There was another guy at FOWA who tried to combine his live music with real-time Twitter feedbacks – unfortunately it didn’t work due to technical problems. But think about it… If musicians, politicians, speakers and TV hosts would learn to deal with live feedback on Twitter, wouldn’t there be enormous potential for very interesting conversation? Granted, there might be a automatic or human filtering system needed to keep out spammers and inappropriate comments. But so many events could turn into two-way dialogues. It’s something we’re not used to yet, it’s maybe even a bit scary, and it definitely needs a big change in thinking of the people who would be exposed to all this (maybe not always pleasing) feedback. But let’s face it – one day this might be normal. Maybe not with Twitter and maybe not next year yet. But it’s better to get prepared now – otherwise we all might be as much taken by surprise as the newspaper industry was by the rise of the internet…

[FOWA 2009]: The Future of Print

Lynne d Johnson (FastCompany.com)

• 2008: 105 US newspapers, 525 US magazines closed, Print ad sales fel 30% in 1st quarter 2009
• Print is not dying completely – but it’ll change. It will become an elitist media. Subscription prices will go up.
• Radio and TV competed with print in earlier times. It worked, but now with the internet. Who’s to blame?
• Google? craigslist? eHarmony? Newsletters? … propably combination of them all
• So, what’s next? Journalists have to change their ways of thinking. They have to become bloggers, podcasters, community managers.
• 65% of US teens, 35% of US adults are on social networks
• News have to become social!
• www.huffingtonpost.com
• Print needs to think like web developers, with open APIs etc.
• … needs engagement, new revenue streams, content delivery model, product and pricing innovation.

[FOWA 2009]: Marketing your Web App – The Future of Brands Online

Alex Hunter

• Why are you here? You’re here because you want to change the world, some of you just don’t know yet…
• You can’t afford to ignore your brand.
• What brand could you not love without? e.q. Diet Coke for Alex. If waiter says «Diet Pepsi ok?» it’s like he spit on Alex’s grandma…
• How are you going to get us to love you?
• You’re going to have to work your ass off!
• In 50′s communication was one way, you couldn’t talk to a billboard… People took is at the gospels!
• Today’s different. Nowadays we all got pretty good at detecting bullshit.
• People today want to connect with people – not logos or buildings.
• Apple: Steve Jobs – Digg: Kevin Rose, etc. Those people care so much they risk their personal reputation!
• You have to believe you’re creating the best app ever!
Consistency is a state of mind… like winning.
• … and be human, be first person to say «we screwed up!»
• What did Digg do well? Very good corporate blog with interesting real faces and people blogging – details from the person who actually did it! Plus they mingle with their audience, e.q. at live Diggnation.
• Put in time and energy to define your brand! It’s not just about the name! Define your values. But don’t be like everybody…

I like Alex’s presentation style!