brand investing works especially well coming out of a recession as consumers are less inclined to make purchase decisions based purely on price

In the long run, social networks as destinations will fade into the background (like air) and we’ll just be able to access or be guided by our friends wherever we are in life at any given time we want.

social media and wireless connectivity will NEVER totally replace the big (and small) meeting […] We can convey content remarkably well via our technology – but we cannot connect as well in that manner. […] We want to enhance the emotional connectivity to deepen the relationship with those people we’ve been sharing content with…it’s a need as old as humanity itself.

Learn one thing about Twitter: it is a unique medium of 140 character or less communications. It’s like the haiku of the real-time Web. If what you have to say is often longer than those 140 characters, maybe you’re using the wrong medium.

Facebook now attracts a bigger and more engaged audience than Yahoo. And Twitter has turned into a major communications channel that distributes an average of 50 million tweets per day, up from 2.5 million per day at the beginning of last year

We find ourselves in an age of personal branding and marketing, of relentless social media and networking, of the end of privacy and the promulgation of a self-crafted identity. An accepted social construct has emerged that allows for endless calls to forget your fears, to embrace your dreams, to listen to your inner voice. And yet in the midst of this media circus we often punctuate the conversation with desperate cries demanding, both for ourselves and of our audience, authenticity. […] the problem with authenticity is that it asks that we actually be exactly what we claim to be.

In an age of information abundance, quality and signals rule.

social networks themselves may be contributing to the decline in trust. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have allowed people to maintain larger circles of casual associates, which may be diluting the credibility of peer-to-peer networks.

the broader, open Internet is fast becoming the new, cost-effective “job board” of talent

The focus on consensus and group is an asset in building teamwork, but also can make it hard to challenge what has been decided or designed. Such cultural inclinations are not unknown elsewhere around the world, but they are exceptionally powerful within Japanese corporate culture and constitute significant impediments to averting and responding to a crisis.

Personal blogs are the new CV.

While e-mail is already almost fully penetrated in the corporate space, we expect to see steep growth rates for sales of premises- and cloud-based social networking services

Unlike money, reputation won’t reduce by act of giving it. Instead, it is going to multiply.

Using 2D bar codes or other symbols that require the user to take a photo and do something with it is still a scenario that is not well understood by consumers. It’s not that it won’t be, but if you are going to use these tactics, be prepared to invest in consumer education.

Brussels may not want to pick a fight with Google […] because there is no one to reward if they win.