Conceptual Zeitgeist

Here's how Google uses Wisdom of Crowds averaging and polarisation of it's search queries to determine what it considers 'Zeitgeist'

The tools listed here are invaluable to get a grip on your own niche marketing efforts and are especially useful for those feel they are drowning in a sea of SEO iniquity......

http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist/index.html

You can also use the Google Zeitgeist to strike up conversations on Twitter etc if you haven't got anything to say!

Google! you need to take a long hard look at what media corporations have determined your conceptual zeitgeist and it's methodology of determination.....especially if you want to be big brother!

Zeitgeist varies from household to household, market to market, Serps to serps!

Wellkommen and Bienvenue to the RAEL zeitgeist!

How not to win the lottery with the Wisdom of Crowds - Derren Brown fakes it!

So we are all gaming Google to get rankings and with the obvious desired outcome of earning money! Right?

OK, today were not going to talk about SERPS or marketing or ranking or any of our other favourite subjects, but I do want to talk about two of my favourite subjects - Fast Money and the Wisdom of Crowds - in relation to.... guessed it yet?

Derren Brown and predicting the winning lottery numbers!

Unless you've been living on the Moon or read this blog from the States, you would be aware that on Wednesday night British illusionist Derren Brown predicted 'successfully' the six winning numbers of the UK National lottery in a live show that was broadcast simultaneously with the live draw.



Apparantly, although I've not bothered to read any of the rubbish, the British gutter press ( That's all the UK newspapers) have been espousing theories of how he did it, and last night in another live show Mr Brown went on TV to explain how he achieved this success! or did he?

Before we look at the explanation I'd like to point out that Mr Brown has been on our screens every night for the last few weeks with a variety of advert traliers for his new series - The Event - in which he explains and demonstrates through a series of cleverly composed sequences that the new series is about the art of MISDIRECTION.

And that my friends is the where the truth of the matter lies - put into English. Derren Brown DID NOT predict the winning lottery numbers

Oh yes he did we hear you say! we saw it on LIVE TV?

Oh no you didn't I say........and here is why

This is what you saw......

You saw Mr Derren Brown read out LOUD (into his microphone) the numbers of the lottery as they were drawn, and write them down on a piece of cardboard.
You then saw him reveal his chosen numbers that he'd put balls into a tube to represent.
When revealed the balls matched the lottery numbers!

Wow! Derren Brown successfully predicted the National lottery winning numbers - NOT!

Last night Mr Brown went on TV again to 'explain' how he did it. NOT!

Remember his Friday night show is all about misdirection and this was designed to further remove the viewer from the simple truth - the original lie!

So lets look at his explanation as he told it in last nights show....

Derren Brown said he took 24 people and showed them the winning sequence of numbers to date. He then asked them to focus on the numbers and use automatic writing to connect with their 'Ids' and subconciously produce six winning lottery numbers..
He then took these numbers and used 'Wisdom of Crowds' averaging to produce the winning line.

What a load of Bull!

Let's look at this!

Automatic writing has been around for over a hundred a fifty years since the days of Madam Blatavsky as a concept, although it became popular in the 1960's when a certain Mrs Brown produced works from beyond the grave for Mozart, Brahms and Lizst. All exponents agree it needs a deep trance state and years of practice, something Browns 24 subjects did not possess!

The wisdom of crowds theory cannot be used to predict random numbers, but only to guess at a known value or unknown quantifiable value. Even if you accept that a lottery value is quantifiable after the event it cannot be predicted by wisdom of crowds methods as the lottery numbers are never average but entirely random.
The 1:14,000,000 chance of correctly predicting the numbers remains constant no matter what numbers have occurred in the past.
What Derren Brown calls 'deep maths' simply can never be predicted by probability or wisdom of crowds average. 24 people or 14 million people would always produce different sets of results and 24 people is highly insignificant.

This is simply more misdirection and logically there is only one solution to how he 'predicted' the numbers....

The balls were fixed!

No not the lottery balls, but the balls in the tube which he failed to show you before 'the event'!

So how did he do it - my BELIEF is that as the numbers were drawn and he called the numbers out, voice recognition software within the balls imprinted or displayed his voice on the funny looking balls in the tube - simple? or maybe not!

Misdirection is powerful and is something you need to consider carefully if you want to dominate; and that includes Google! Beat the system!

Death of the Newspaper - Arise Sir RSS - The Birth of Peoples Journalism

In case you haven't noticed there's not so much rubbish on your doormat these days!
Thanks to the green revolution of paper free news - The Internet! - our letterboxes are far less full of spam and junk, whether they are local FreeAds style newspapers or national celebrity milking rags, like the British Gutterpress.

Hurrah! Bye bye bad old media with your introverted political claptrap and stories about nobodies being outed for doing the things that 'everyone' does! ....

Hello world!

Yep! in case you haven't noticed - and there are many 'local' niche papers that will survive the current ' transformation' in information (news) delivery...

The old 'bastions' of news, those deciders of what we want to hear! the free press, the fourth estate - are going bust!

Bye Bye! the death of another hierarchical structure should not be mourned! it is a move towards wisdom of crowds! More better diversified information of size!

Here's an interesting view from Two old farts who have lost their Industry - The old press - journalism

Bow down all ye and gaze upon the New News of the World in AWE - Shock and AWE!

RSS will provide people with their choice of news from their trusted authorities.

Similarly RSS will be used to construct websites of authority and distribute - syndicate to be more precise, content to other hubs worldwide!

RSS is the lifeblood of content driven marketing and the Social Web!

Now what's the fuss about those old 33rpm's