SHINGYDavid Shing is AOL’s Digital Prophet. He spends most of his time watching the future take shape across the vast online landscape. The rest he spends talking to people about where things are headed, and how we can get the most out of it. Shing has spent most of his adult life in the digital world working for both large and small creative companies. He served as AOL’s European Head of Media and Marketing before taking on his current mantle.

THere’S Never beeN a beTTer TIme for braNdS To ImmerSe THemSelveS IN dIGITal markeTING THaN rIGHT Now. The rewards for those bold enough to engage, embrace and encourage the changes at play in our business are astonishing.

However, there’s never been a more confusing time to leap into digital either. The landscape is constantly shifting, audiences are expanding and splintering simultaneously, and the quality of everything from tiny ads to giant web sites is sorely lacking.

So what to do? It’s a sticky wicket and no mistake, but I’m herve to help. I’m a digital prophet. It’s part of the job.

Want to know more? Drop a line or give me a buzz. I’d be happy to fill you in.

Measuring by click-through rates should be a thing of the past, with “attention” the new currency for brand marketers, according to AOL’s digital evangelist David Shing.

Speaking at MediaCom’s Beyond Advertising event in London Yesterday Shing said children are now “born connected” and that the rise of social media has meant everyone is now one click away from each other’s inner, personal thoughts. “The new form of personal expression is the new form of entertainment,” he said.

However, Shing said people are still focusing on the wrong kinds of measurement. “There is still a land grab for Likes on Facebook and that’s a rubbish concept,” he said.

The industry has evolved from focusing on curated content a few years ago, to curated conversations today, and marketers must adjust their KPIs accordingly, according to Shing.

“Those winning in the social space are those that treat their audience like VIPs. We want to gather people’s attention – attention is the KPI that all brand marketers will be judged on. Attention is the new currency - forget click-through-rates- that’s done,” he said.

aTTeNTIoN IS THe New curreNcY NoT clIck-THrouGH raTeS, SaYS aol’S davId SHING22 maY 2013

“There is mass confusion out there. There are more ways to distribute through links than actual publications. People have changed the way they live, eat, the way they are entertained and gather information. We have to catch up with them. We must think bigger and faster,” said Shing.

To adapt to changing digital behaviours and hold people’s attention brands must focus on utility, especially when it comes to mobile, according to Shing. “That means it must be useful, and please don’t call it the second or third screen – it’s the first screen. How many of you walked in here with a TV screen?” he added.The days of build an app and they will come are long gone and there is now a 70 per cent chance that any person that downloads an app will only use it once. Instead focus should be on building a great experience on mobile and for that experimentation is necessary, according to Shing. “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication when it comes to mobile,” he said.

Meanwhile he called for more brands to adopt richer ad formats, which can incorporate social, commerce, video and apps within them to provide contextual experiences for consumers.

He dismissed the term ‘native advertising’ because it only renders an ad contextual to a specific site it is on. “For people to have consistent brand experience it must be contextual across all sites – I call it harmonious ads,” he added.

Earlier this month AOL revealed it was dropping the GoViral video network brand name two years after buying the company for $100m, relaunching it as part of a new global content business called Be On.

Be On will also include production arm AOL Studios, which makes the AOL Music sessions featuring acts including Adele and Florence and the Machine.

Razorfish, one of the world’s fastest growing digital and technology agencies, today announced the start of their biannual Client Summit this Monday, where several hundred executives from the agency’s top client brands and staff will gather to hear from influential thought leaders, network with peers and exchange ideas. The 2013 Summit, taking place in Las Vegas over the course of three days, will focus on the theme of the convergence of media, technology and creativity, coinciding with the release of the forthcoming book “CONVERGE: Transforming Business at the Intersection of Marketing and Technology,” penned by Razorfish’s Global CEO Bob Lord and Global CTO Ray Velez.

The Summit will feature thoughtful keynote presentations from guest speakers Billy Beane, GM of the Oakland Athletics, Yael Cohen, CEO of Fuck Cancer, Casey Neistat, famed film director and producer and Ann Lewnes, CMO of Adobe and client speakers including Bob Kupbens, VP of marketing and digital commerce at Delta, Vanessa Colella, managing director and head of North American marketing for Citi and Mark Penn, corporate vice president for strategic and special projects at Microsoft. Presentations and behind the scenes footage will be covered exclusively by AOL Digital Prophet David Shing via a series of his infamous “Shingerviews,” making the content of the invitation-only event available to the general public.

“The convergence of creativity, technology and media has always been an integral part of our careers; it’s the theme to this year’s summit and it’s essentially what makes Razorfish the award winning partner it is today,” said Lord. “Our clients, guests and colleagues are looking forward to enriching and entertaining discussions on truly transformational business ideas at this intersection.”

razorfISH kIckING off coNverGeNce-THemed clIeNT SummIT IN laS veGaS26 aprIl 2013

The Summit will be held from April 29th-May 1st in Las Vegas, NV. To keep tabs on Razorfish Client Summit “Shingerviews,” check back at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-shing/. For more information on “CONVERGE: Transforming Business at the Intersection of Marketing and Technology,” please visit the book’s official microsite: http://www.convergebook.com.

AOL’s engineers are hard at work building the template for a new kind of internet experience with Big Data at its heart that the company’s digital prophet David Shing says will help suit the need states of internet users.

Shing was in Dublin this week to visit the company’s Dublin operations where over 155 people are employed to develop the systems to enable AOL’s content management systems and future media platforms. In recent months the company announced plans to create 35 new jobs for software engineers to work on critical technologies in the area of Hadoop and Big Data.

“The main thrust of what is happening in Dublin with AOL is we have these amazingly smart developers building the backbone to amazingly intelligent new technologies.

“I can’t tell you specifically about the technologies they are building up here, but one thing that is interesting is it talks to the themes we see emerging in the future direction of the internet.”

One of the internet’s biggest ‘brand’ companies, AOL employs close to 6,000 people around the world, providing a vibrant internet ecosystem that includes content properties like the Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget, Mapquest and many others.

David Shing predicts a major shift away from standard internet advertising to what he describes as intent-based marketing. “People don’t tend to hang out on one website, they go in multiples and that’s where behavioural advertising has been interesting.”

aol’S dIGITal propHeT davId SHING – ‘IT’S TIme To buIld a New kINd of web’22 februarY 2013

Big Data in the evolution of the webBut because of Big Data it is now possible for brands to detect people’s intentions and anticipate their needs better.

“We’re now starting to understand people’s patterns and that can only start to happen when you’ve got Big Data. This is where the rubber really hits the road. If I’m doing searches on my desktop and the web is trying to understand what I need why should doesn’t that continue when I pick up my phone and head out to launch?” That’s a long way of saying what our guys in Dublin are focused on and many of them are heavyweight technicians.”

When the CEO of AOL Tim Armstrong was in Dublin last October at the Web Summit he also intimated that the company was focused on the next evolution of the internet.

I ask Shing what he thinks of Facebook’s move in the direction of Graph Search.

“Facebook can go that way because they are single site-bound. At AOL we have a number of properties that all loop together and help the day-to-day digital life. That’s our mantra. If we are able to enable people with the tools to improve their human experiences online, that’s all we care about. And that’s what we do with this cluster of sites.

“As we go from a crowded space to more focused places where we want to hang out with like-minded people, the idea of having these really focused subject matter web sites matter more and more. This is because they play to people’s passions as opposed to trying to figure out what their passions are. That’s some of the limitation that exists with search and some of the limitations within social networking sites because they are so damn generic.”

Shing admits he spends less and less time on social networking sites. “For me it has become so random and I’ve also made the mistake in the past of having all these random relationships and friendships and they don’t have any context to my entire life. I prefer to listen to a subset of people who share the same interests as me. The rest I just count as noise.

“I think the whole idea of like-minds is going to be very important.”

Linking like-mindsShing says that one of the things that dominates converstations at AOL is how can the web be programmed to be better attuned to people’s need states.

“Television does a great job at need state because I can watch a very different programme at 11am in the morning to what I’d watch at 11pm at night. But when we’re online we also have lots of different need states and they are all at different times of the day and are about different things.

“If I want to accomplish something I might go to a grocery delivery store online and get my groceries delivered. If I’m just looking for some kind of release I might go to a casual games site for 10 minutes at lunchtime or a gossip site or a news site.

“In terms of the web industry we just haven’t programmed that need state that TV has succeeded in. Its something that keeps me awake at night.

“If we can just enable digital to allow people to have better human experiences then we’ve done our job. If digital can be a companion to human experiences, then

that’s awesome.”

Shing says that AOL differs from all the other web giants because it actually produces content. “We were the original connector – that’s what AOL was known for. But what’s interesting about AOL’s legacy is it simplified the web for a lot of people.

“In order to do the same thing in terms of people’s daily digital experiences we need to simplify the way they get their digital information.

“We develop content and we are one of the few web giants that actually does own and develop content. Facebook gives you a platform. We’re the number one news-referrer on Facebook and that’s through The Huffington Post. If you look at Google, if you don’t build relevant content they can’t scour it for you to go to the top.

“We may have picked an expensive route but it’s the one thing that’s fueling the internet still.”

Shing says that the challenge now is to evolve from being the ‘connected’ generation where we can simply connect on a myriad of devices to being the ‘connection’ generation where useful content and connections are working for us.

“Our true value will always be: are we providing rich content in all its form, whether its long or short form, written or video. We don’t care as long as we are providing the right information to people in a way that will hopefully enhance their lives.”

It might seem an arduous task to live up to the job title of “digital prophet”. But when David Shing talks, people pay attention.

Part of it may well be down to his looks – he catches your attention. But the Australian-born tech expert also has some strong opinions that stimulate debate.

In the past he has denounced the notion of apps as a “rubbish” concept, with Facebook likes also coming in for criticism.

He’s also a memorable showman. His talk at the Web Summit last month was a glimpse into how Shing’s mind works – fast and furious, with some prop photos to bring his point home.

Shing adopted the role of AOL’s digital prophet after the company’s reorganisation meant its marketing budget came under pressure.

Shing uses his role as head of media and marketing for AOL in Europe as an opportunity to speak at conferences and on panels as he tries to keep the firm’s profile in the market.

“Some people would argue that we have a perception problem, so I wanted to change that,” he said. Part of this role, he said, was to “out-teach” the competition.

It also means that AOL can identify new opportunities for its business, a crucial advantage in a marketplace that has become increasingly competitive in recent years.

“It doesn’t exist anywhere else, to have this evangelist prophet,” he said. “There are

web STorm IS STIrred up bY dIGITal propHeT1 November 2012

evangelists, product evangelists typically, but that’s not my job. My job is to be agnostic to the marketplace, to educate and inspire.”

Keeping on top of trends and spotting the next big thing is his business, and he is feels at ease discussing the future of technology with the next generation of entrepreneurs.

“I’m native to it, It’s become second nature. I can sit in a room full of 16-year-olds and still be able to tap dance with them. That’s part of the beauty of being part of that fabric, the early adopter.”

In the past few years, the use of social media has exploded among consumers, and businesses have had to follow suit.

Shing, however, isn’t convinced that for businesses, social media can really deliver what they think.

He predicts a backlash against what he describes as a “landgrab” of “likes” on social media by companies. Part of the problem, he said, is that is doesn’t always mean that consumers will interact with the firm, nor will it necessarily translate into any commercial advantage for the firm.

“I’ve been talking about verbs for a long time, and the type of verbs we’re going to see. ‘Want’ is one that’s just surfaced, which in my mind is an answer to Pinterest for Facebook,” he said.

“It does have a genuine e-commerce hook potentially. I don’t think anyone has done e-commerce very well in social. It doesn’t work that well just yet; it’s not

well integrated.”

It’s new territory for many companies, and they need to tread carefully to protect their brands.

“We are getting comfortable with the company of strangers, and you’ll see that via the aspiration of Twitter, but we’re not to a point where we trust the new environment I think,” he said.

Shing warns that firms not only need to be careful in what they say on social media, but they also need to be careful about what they remove, citing examples of companies removing unflattering comments and posts, and stirring up a backlash from consumers as a result.

Although he may not be tempted by “like”, one aspect of Facebook’s business that does appeal to Shing is its decision to buy Instagram.

The photo-sharing app set Mark Zuckerberg’s company back $1 billion (€771 million) earlier this year, but Shing considers the purchase a good move for Facebook.

“I find myself contributing less and less to Facebook. With Twitter, I find it depends on what I’m doing, what I find interesting,” he said.

“The only one and still actively engaged in which I think is a beautiful acquisition by Facebook is Instagram, because it’s right time, right place.”

It is this aspect of social media that he predicts will develop further in the future – self-expression.

“When video gets that convenience level, I think the whole notion of 1-9-90 – 1 per cent originate, 9 per cent comment, 90 per cent passive – I think we’ll find it becomes actively more engaged,” he said.

“I think personalisation and the context of that is going to become more important.”

Shing is also hoping the web will make us better humans – more well-informed, more compassionate – and that the web itself will become more humanised.

“Maybe it’s human nature, but we don’t tend to react when people are literally trying to reach out, we don’t reach back fast enough until something drastic happens,” he said.

“I think that’s part of the success or failing of social in the real-time social world.

Few people are as charismatic and quotable as AOL digital prophet (not to mention, musician adored by the PromaxBDA staff) David Shing.

With his wild hairdo, fast-talking personality and hilarious slides, Shing just got finished lighting up the house at his Game Marketing Summit marketing keynote: “Changing the Communication Game: Recalibrating Digital Conversations.”

He covered such a vast amount of information, trends, topics and stats in such a small amount of time, it would be impossible to squeeze all of them into a single post, but here are some choice quotes/paraphrases from the talk to engage and inspire you: “We’ve moved away from the information age and into the social age.”

“The challenge with likes is, you can like 10 things about me without liking the whole. You’re really looking for shares.”

Email still works. We spend on average 4.5 hours per day in our inboxes.

“In the future we’ll defriend, unfollow and clean up our social graph. Nice dialog is very, very important.”

Liking in exchange for discounts is dangerous. Sharing for discounts is more important -- the crowd drives demand for cost to go down.

“Behind every brand should be a human voice.”

“It’s not about the number of people you have in your network, it’s about the number of people who are affecting change.”

lIve from GmS: davId SHING rockS THe HouSe17 aprIl 2012

Google+ has 66 million people on it and counting. Circles are amazing. If you are able to sponsor a circle there is amazing value in that.

“I love good ol’ fashioned communities. They still work. In the future they will be even more powerful.”

If you market to kids, Moshi Monsters are where it’s at. 50 million kids registered.

On LinkedIn you can have real B2B conversations that are authentic.

Cause marketing: 90 percent of people need to know what your brand is doing to make an impact. How can you tap into people’s needs states?

“We’re going to move away from big cities and back into neighborhoods.”

“Forget about swiping. It’s all about gestures .The tip of your finger is not where it happens anymore.”

“Social is not a thing you go to it’s a thing you do.”

In the future we will pay for things that cancel out noise and chaos.

The three primary colors you need for a successful digital campaign: Technology, Content, Distribution.

Have a budget for innovation that is like a lab.

“Give your customers the tools to remix your brand. Create love. Make them VIPs. Embrace platforms and co-create. Let people take ownership.”

“Attention, my friends, is the new currency.”

The pace of change and talks at the London Web Summit is frantic. Five to ten minutes per speaker, five panellists in a short session. You’d be pressed to take it all in and skilled to get your message out.

Enter David Shing, AOL’s ‘Digital Prophet’ who went at his talk so fast that even his own slides could not keep up (there was a minor technical hitch).

The chatty Australian stands a good half foot taller than he should, due to his extraordinary hair cut and charismatically energetic nature. He’s odd, but he’s friendly.

Shing’s presentation romped through future projections, current trends and even things that most marketers would not want to hear at a futurecasting, lightning talk, “Email is hot,” he says. “Expect a 256% increase in ROI for email.”

Tips for the futureAs a former designer and founder of a startup that died and restarted (reanimator?), Shing knows the territory. “Share and engagement are what you are going to hear about from Facebook,” he notes.

“There is too much confusion, and ‘Defriend and Unfollow’ will be the new thing. You need to be a good curator and you need to be original,” he continues. “It’s a fight for attention. If you curate something delicious, then people will have more time in their lives for you.”

Shing also knows that the underlying principles of technology still apply, “All technologists are looking at battery life. We’ve finally caught up to the technology and now we’ve over-capacitized it and we are waiting for hardware to catch up again.”

aol’S dIGITal propHeT, davId SHING: “appS are a rubbISH coNcepT”19 marcH 2012

Fewer apps for that“Apps are a rubbish concept”, Shing states flatly, suggesting that HTML5 should replace them all. “What’s important are M-sites. It’s like the desktop of Windows 98 – if an app isn’t on your top screen, I wonder what the redundancy is on screen five.

“So there ‘s already a hierarchy there. This is why HTML5 and the next iteration of the graphical web are so important, they will be ubquitous across all devices.”

Even if Shing can fit more into an Internet minute than most, can he summarise some advice?

“Embrace fragmentation and go niche. Tech forecasting is a portfolio game, you need multiple iterations and you need to fail fast.”

It seems like an expensive game and being original appears to be the key to negotiating success. “Oh yeah, you need to stand out like dog’s balls,” grins Shing. Which is advice a bit harder to forget.

David Shing, the man who helps figure out future trends for AOL, is fed up with Facebook and Twitter.

In fact he has told his bosses that defriending and unfollowing are going to be the next big thing as users realise that the increasing “noise” on social networks is counterproductive.

“The web is so overwhelming, so then it becomes underwhelming [because] it’s so hard to find anything,” he says.

He believes the new challenge for both individuals and marketers trying to promote their brands using social networks is to stop adding to the noise.

“If I have 2,000 friends on Facebook or Twitter, how do I work out which one will actually pick me up in the airport? Social tools can help us but then also hinder us, they dehumanise what we do. We need to make the web more human. It needs to enrich your offline life.”

Shing, speaking at the Dublin Web Summit, believes new F8 applications on Facebook that enable users to automatically share music tracks, video or even newspaper articles could be counterproductive and encourage far too much clutter.

“I don’t want people to know that I still listen to Dolly Parton,” said Shing. “I want to be more in control of my digital footprint, not less. I’m no longer 11 years old so I’m not in a popularity contest.”

For the record Shing is 41 and has only 700 followers on Twitter and a similar

TIme To cuT THe facebook aNd TwITTer cluTTer, SaYS aol’S ‘dIGITal propHeT’27 ocTober 2011

number of friends on Facebook. He doesn’t tweet much because he’s still trying to figure out its value.

“Facebook is about your real friends and Twitter is about who you would like to be friends. For example I am friends with Yoko Ono on Twitter and she’s tweeted me back, but that’s it, she’s not really a friend.

“People are going to start defriending people who constantly tweet and post on Facebook with rubbish info,” he said.

Similarly for brands, he said it’s very dangerous for companies to get involved on social networks unless they can guarantee a meaningful conversation. “If I invite a brand into my home, there better be a good reason for them to come in.”

Shing, who spent three years in London heading AOL Europe’s marketing before moving to New York to be its “digital prophet”, believes the future is all about the “attention economy” – a world in which content is valuable enough to dwell on and more likely to be curated by friends than pushed by “in-your-face advertisers”.

Or as Joe Fernandez from Klout.com – a kind of page ranking service for people – put it: “The web has shifted from being page-centric to people-centric.”

He believes companies also need to get back to basics and treat early adopters more seriously. “We need to focus on them and look after them. If you don’t they are going to go somewhere else as we saw with the bum rush from MySpace.”

AOL’s European team is going through still more executive changes. David Shing, who was picked this February to run both Media and Marketing in the continent, is being called to New York, where he is promoted to a role AOL’s calling “digital prophet”.

What does that involve? “David will be working across both North American and International territories to identify new opportunities for the business and assist in building the external profile of the company,” AOL (NYSE: AOL) says.

aol callS medIa dIrecTor SHING To be ITS ‘dIGITal propHeT’1 december 2010

In Shing’s wake…

– Media: European media director Julian Downing left this month after seven months. Publishing director Dan Bolger and editor-in-chief Carla Bevan will run the UK team.– Marketing: European business ops director Emma Newman will run the team.The introduction of AOL’s Project Devil advertising strategy means its European creative solutions unit, run by Scott Williams has been moved to sit under sales; Williams also left earlier this month to set up his own company, Uloo, a digital consulting agency.

New AOL Europe head Kate Burns, a Bebo alum, picked Shing, AOL Europe’s marketing director, to lead European media and marketing this February. The whole executive team has been in flux for a year or more.

AOL’s Media team has today rebooted Fanhouse, its football fan content site, to encompass more sports.tt

arTIcleSAttention is the new currency not click-through rates, says AOL’s David Shinghttp://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/05/22/attention-new-currency-not-click-through-rates-says-aol-s-david-shing

Digital Journal, Razorfish Kicking Off Convergence-themed Client Summit in Las Vegashttp://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1210199

Bicycle Retailer, IBD Summit tackles digital landscapehttp://www.bicycleretailer.com/north-america/2013/04/18/ibd-summit-tackles-digi-tal-landscape#.UZD1QCtbrd5

Silicone Republic, AOL’s digital prophet David Shing – ‘It’s time to build a new kind of web’http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/31602-aols-digital-prophet-david

Georgakopoulos.org, Words with David Shing, AOL’s Digital Prophethttp://www.georgakopoulos.org/david_shing/

Alba, Meet David Shing at his pre-TEDxAthens Talk at ALBAhttp://www.alba.edu.gr/events/Pages/Events/Meet%20David%20Shing%20at%20his%20pre-TEDxAthens%20Talk%20at%20ALBA_1778.aspx-?WebID=269b06c9-642d-440b-ad54-4e8954fc3f5f&ListID=402f9840-68f6-40aa-86ee-95de3e04d3ce&ItemID=1778&DetailField=Descript

Irish Times, Web storm is stirred up by digital prophethttp://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/technology/web-storm-is-stirred-up-by-digital-prophet-1.545821?page=1

Irish Times, Start-ups told: think big to go globalhttp://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/technology/start-ups-told-think-big-to-go-global-1.554059

publIcaTIoNS/lINkS

Promoxbda.com, Live From GMS: David Shing Rocks the Househttp://promaxbda.org/industry-development/association-news/2012/04/17/live-from-gms-david-shing-rocks-the-houseThe Next Web, AOL’s Digital Prophet, David Shing: “Apps are a rubbish concept”http://thenextweb.com/uk/2012/03/19/aols-digital-prophet-david-shing-apps-are-a-rub-bish-concept/

Lisa Byrne (blog), Future Media Trends Presented by David Shing During Digital Capital Week 2011http://lisabyrne.me/2011/11/14/future-media-trends-presented-by-david-shing-during-digital-capital-week-2011/#.UYPd0qWqIzI

The Guardian, Time to cut the Facebook and Twitter clutter, says AOL’s ‘digital prophet’http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2011/oct/27/facebook-twitter-clutter-aol

PaidContent, AOL Calls Media Director Shing To Be Its ‘Digital Prophet’http://paidcontent.org/2010/12/01/419-aol-calls-media-director-shing-to-be-its-digital-prophet/

PaidContent, AOL Appoints David Shing To Run Media And Marketing Ops In Europehttp://paidcontent.org/2010/02/17/419-aol-appoints-david-shing-to-run-media-and-marketing-ops-in-europe/

vIdeoSilicone Republic, David Shing, digital prophet at AOL, on AOL’s focus on online contenthttp://www.siliconrepublic.com/video/v/741-david-shing-digital/

Silicone Republic, Dublin Web Summit | David Shinghttp://www.siliconrepublic.com/video/v/989-dublin-web-summit-david/

drop me a lINeSHINGY@Teamaol.com917.209.7614@SHINGY