As seen in the Herald today an article on our exciting new project with The National Theatre of Scotland supported by Nesta's R&D Fund.

"It has performed plays in drill halls, swimming pools, offices and a Wall of Death.

Now shows by Scotland's national theatre company could be sent to the smart phones and tablets of audience members who need captions or audio descriptions.The National Theatre of Scotland will experiment with the new technology so that its guiding vision of "Theatre Without Walls" is also one without barriers to the visually impaired or hard of hearing.

The system of captions and audio descriptions is being developed with Glasgow firm We Are Everyone to create a web-based tool accessible through iPhones, iPads or android phones. It will relay captions and audio description directly to members of the audience in real time during live theatre performance.

The NTS stages productions in unusual locations or with different audience movement, with standard audio description headphones and screens often showing captions unavailable or impractical.

Marianne Maxwell, the audience development manager at NTS, said: "The company is currently in Shetland in a quarry [part of Ignition], we recently produced a show [Lifeguard] in a public baths, and what we want to do is offer as much access to the audience as we can.

"But with the current headsets and subtitling sets, the captioning units, they have limited use outside standard theatres.

"The question is how do we address that and we need to find a way and to test it."It will be a very interesting process for us and we want to not only be a theatre without walls, but one without barriers, too."

By Phil Miller
Arts Correspondent
The Herald

If you havent tried Pencourage just yet, you are in for a bit of surprise. Pencourage is an anonymous social networking platform which has struck a chord right across the planet from users who have been searching for a place to let go, be honest and feel free to write what ever they want.

Dont get me wrong, penning a brand new social network from scratch is no mean feat, however our talented team have hand crafted Pencourage in only two months. Take up has been phenominal, the quality of the content has astounded us and the growth the site is showing each day is starting to worry the Sys Admins!

The web UX has been designed to provide'at a glance' content and fast access to posts and replies. Users can tag a heartfelt post with images, video, spotify audio, youTube audio, links, surveys and much much more.

Users can only pen one journal entry a day with a maximum of 200 words. Users can request help and can rate the level of assistance they receive. Readers can send 'Love' to other users to let them know they are listening and the authors of journals know they are being listened to as each post carrys a readership statistic, one of the most sticky features of the site thus far.

Last week we popped the new lovelochlomond.com website live, it's awash with things to do, places to stay and loads more information surrounding Loch Lomond, the Trossachs and Argyl. The website represents a huge area of Scotland and was commissioned by the DMO for the area alongside Scottish Enterprise and Visit Scotland.

The site is actually massive with lots of behind the scenes 'self service' areas for business owners who can maintain availability, tariffs, media, maps and much much more.

The flexibility offered by Eskimo's powerful content management system allows administrators to construct and deploy extremely content rich pages using content panels and 'pods' which can derive their data from a huge array of stored data.

The design brief was to develop a site which allowed an editorial approach to a site that allowed them more opportunities for 'point & click' content deployment. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the team at lovelochlomond.com for their input and wish them all the best with the new website!

We are really delighted to announce after a 3 way pitch we have been awarded the contract for the redesign and development of the Love Loch Lomond.com site. We love loch lomond anyway but now we have extra excuse for getting out of the studio and exploring this stunning part of Scotland!

We were so inspired by Mo Farah's outstanding performance at the London Olympics in amongst all the other sterling performance from the members of team GB that we decided to construct an HTML5 / CSS3 / jQuery game to celebrate & also to have a bit of a well earned break for the team from our busy studio schedule.

The brief was simple: Develop an entirely client side game which would scale well and build within one day from initial concept to implementation surrounding the Olympics, launch it, seed it virally and make it soar!

The team came up with gofarahthanmofarah.com , they designed, constructed it and seeded it throughout the social networks and in all the right places in one day and the results were outstanding! It was played by thousands in it's first day. The game was retweeted by many prominent tweeters including the Commonwealth Games 2014. The aim of the game is to compete on duration, speed and distance in a Daley Thomson style game based around the main Athletics event.

It's testamount to the fact that Viral ideas can and need to be conceived concisely and quickly, often in response to an event or newsworthy subject matter. Traffic soared to the website and invariably pushed a huge amount of traffic to our website generating subsequent sales enquiries.

Quite simply companies should take the time to construct viral ideas, no matter how off kiltr from their primary subject matter as it's amazing how well it puts you in front of customers you would otherwise not gain access to. You may even have a bit of fun developing your idea!

Why no have a go for yourself?
http://www.gofarahthanmofarah.com

Now back to the real work!! :-)

Everyone has just launched two sweet new Facebook apps for our friends at Tobermory on the isle of Mull and Bunnahabhain on the Isle of Islay. The store locator use's Google's mapping API with our own algorithm to devise the 'nearest' store from a postcode or place. You can then switch 'on' or 'off' the different ages of whisky depending on exactly what vintage you are looking for.

Try them out for yourself, and remember Drink responsibly!

https://www.facebook.com/Bunnahabhain/app_190322544333196
https://www.facebook.com/tobermorywhisky/app_190322544333196

As a DJ in my spare time (Yeah like i have any!), I'm not precious about the fact that i use almost entirely digital tracks, mixed with the amazing Native Instruments Traktor/ Control X1 / Audio6. Believe me when i say that just a couple of years ago, I was the guy giving digital DJ's a hard time. "Yer not a real DJ unless it's vinyl" kinna chat. Eventually and reluctantly i got over it, mind you i've still got a monolithic wall of 20,000 records at home that will probably stay with me until the day i die, but the days of lugging an eye popping, hernia inducing, thieving gypsy attracting DJ box around the clubs have gone as the level of creativity tools like Traktor offer makes a huge difference and the level of performance now achievable with layering of tracks, effects and loops far surpasses my rose tinted vision of a vinyl etherea.

Anyway the one think that i truly miss about traditional hard formats is the artwork. For some deep rooted reason, when a designer is asked to produce artwork for an album they make a massive concerted effort, i guess partly due to the fact that if the album becomes massive their work gets massive exposure, but it's much, much more than that. It's the fact that it lasts, persists, like a line in the sand and sits in record shops, record fairs, peoples shelves & attics for an age. In many cases they are passed from generation to generation. Hard formats of music are really difficult thinks to throw away as they are emotionally linked to days in your life, relationships past & hedonistic outbursts.

I've always thought that the quality of the artwork more often than not relates to the quality and production ethos of the music. If a musician takes the time to commission an artisan level of design and carefully select a designer or illustrator that gets what they do, then usually the sountrack reflects the care and attention to detail that they achingly poured into selecting just the right designer, expensive materials and unusual finish.

I sign up to the brilliant Boomkat's e-mail campaigns and each week they feature a re-issue or a special edition which makes me yearn for those slabs of plastic once more. Anyway here's a few of those that we at Everyone merit and own!!. :-)

Toad’s Caravan is a digital and analogue artists’ collective based in the west end of Glasgow. All working freelance, under one roof with a view of making collaboration easier for clients and the designers themselves.

Set up in October 2010 bringing together designers in a shared space to generate more work, share skills and ideas and most importantly, to keep one another company.

Today we see a new collaboration with EVERYONE & Toad's Caravan delivering a new website that allows all of the residence, editors and guest editors to promote themselves, their work and other designers, artists and films makers. Enjoy the site at www.toadscaravan.com

This week sees the launch of a website for a brilliant business involved in the industry of Vampire Facelifts. This treatment offers a non-surgical way in which to rejuvinatate and repair skin tissue not by using invasive drug treatments, rather by using the patients own blood cells to repair scar tissue, wrinkles and other conditions.

NaturalSkn approached Everyone to develop their brand and associated marketing materials both online and offline. Check out their shiny new website here!

http://www.naturalskn.com

This week has been extremely busy with 2 new e-commerce launches, tictocwatches.co.uk and cakeclothing.co.uk.

Tictoc watches is an online watch specialist offering a massive catalogue of watches online. The system is powered using Eskimo, our fully featured e-commerce platform. The system enables Tic Toc to quickly merchandise products online and gives them advance analytics into product conversion, SEO appeal. This, alongside our new Order management dashboard allows them to pick, pack and despatch whilst keeping the customer in the loop at all times. Eskimo's SEO tools positioned almost 90% of Tic Toc's watches on page 1 on Google within a single week!

In other news, CAKE clothing have supplied Glasgow's Jilted population since 1997 with T-shirts, Hoodies and more for over 10 years now and they thought it was about time that they started to sell there product range online. CAKE clothing in partnership with Everyone have now launched the site and it can be viewed at cakeclothing.co.uk

Film City Glasgow is well known as the center of the Film industry in Scotland housing some of the most prolific film producers & support services in the UK today. Film City approached Everyone to develop a brand new web presence which reflected the current ethos and outlook of the ground breaking facility.

The website is refreshingly different in it's aesthetics and reflects the unique approach Film City applies to its occupants and service offering.

The website can be experienced at www.filmcityglasgow.com

Other website launches this week include onlin clothing store cakeclothing.co.uk and ecomms watch supplier tictocwatches.co.uk

I am delighted to be working with Everyone and clients, present and future, in a New Business Development role.

Based, as we are, right next to the River Clyde, the history and industrial heritage of our waterways is recognised by most. These big estuaries were the main commerce channels of Scotland for centuries. They were also places where information was exchanged two-way about locations foreign and lifestyles unknown.

Writing this during my first day working from the Everyone offices in Film City, on the site of the former Govan Town Hall, there is a sense of history but also of possibility – it is an incredible building alive with creative agencies and broadcasters.

It is hard to avoid the impression that this location remains a vital channel of communication and people doing business.

Marketing and new technologies have been the most rewarding aspects of my career so far and I have a great deal of admiration for the way in which Everyone has been created. It’s about collaboration and engagement, helping business move forward and improving the lives of customers.

So, after a good few years working for luxury brands like Linn Products – who themselves have “Clyde built” inscribed on their hardware - and Montpeliers (Edinburgh) who helped transform central Edinburgh from a dry financial zone to something far more colourful, I anticipate projects new to be passionate about.

I look forward to bringing my experience and energy to Everyone…and, in turn, helping organisations realise their goals. It is a time of change as we all know, but being creative is in our nature, it’s going to have to be. And I firmly believe Everyone is the place to be in Scotland to harness this belief and make it a reality.

Much to our surprise and delight we have bagged our very first award. The title of RBS Scottish Business of the year goes to our proud business. We firmly believe that has been achieved through our ongoing relationship, support and collaboration with our amazing clients and team of talented people around us. This feels like a mini big deal to us as it proves you can be rewarded for working hard, believing in what you set out to do, and being nice to folk along the way. It doesn't end here but for now, a massive thanks to you all, you know who you are.

Article from The Herald: Michelle Mone and Sir Tom Hunter at the Scottish Business Awards.
Picture: Julie Howden

The charitable Scottish Business Awards attracted a roll-call of top entrepreneurs last night as Sir Tom Hunter, Sir Ian Wood, Sir Tom Farmer, Sir Arnold Clark, Jim McColl and Michelle Mone heard Sir Bob Geldof call for a new commitment to "social business".

At a ceremony hosted by Angus Deayton, 85 companies paid £2000 each to take a table, with 100% of the profits going to charity CLIC Sargent and social enterprises Wild Hearts and Glencraft.

An auction had prizes including a chance to "spend the day with Bill Clinton in New York" and "a round of golf with Paul Lawrie".
The award winners were Barrhead Travel (employer of the year), Greene King (marketing strategy), Linn Products (new product), Argent Energy (green business), Ian Suttie (entrepreneur of the year), Vets Now (social entrepreneur), Vascutek (business innovation), We Are Everyone (new business), James Watt of Brew Dog (young entrepreneur), City Building (corporate social responsibility), Insights Learning & Development (customer focus) and TAQA (growth strategy).
Organiser Josh Littlejohn of Capital Events said the event had "challenged the business community to use their skills in enterprise to create social businesses that tackle pressing problems in Scotland and overseas"

After working closely with all the lovely team at Timorous Beasties we are very proud to say the new eCommerce website is now live. Explore the amazing Fabric and Wallcovering collections, check out the projects and don't forget to have a go at creating your room.

www.timorousbeasties.com

Everyone is set to recruit more talent
As featured in The Scotsman:

Colin Walker and Dino Squillino of 'Everyone.'
Photo: Ian Rutherford
By Peter Ranscombe 
Published on Tuesday 3 January 2012 01:15

A WEBSITE design firm that lists Black Bottle whisky, social network Kiltr and the Edinburgh Sparkles winter festival among its clients will nearly double its headcount this year to cope with its rising workload.

Glasgow-based Everyone, which creates websites and runs social network-based marketing campaigns, was set up 18 months ago by technical director Colin Walker and creative director Dino Squillino.

The pair had previously worked together at digital agency Drivebusiness, where their clients included retailers such as AllSaints, Bench and Gant. They had also worked at 2FluidCreative, which counted Asda, Pearl & Dean and Tennent’s lager among its customers for promotional campaigns.

2FluidCreative was set up by Jacqueline Doherty, one of the co-founders of the Reality Group, among Scotland’s first internet businesses. When Reality was sold for £35m, Doherty set up 2FluidCreative, which in turn was wound up in 2009.

Everyone plans to take its headcount from seven to 12 by the middle of the year.

The company turned over about £120,000 during its first year in business and its directors are now targeting about £350,000.

Walker said: “We’re taking the expansion slowly, so we can recruit the right staff. It’s a big compliment to have so many big brands wanting to work with us.”

The firm has carried out projects for whisky labels owned by Burn Stewart Distillers – including Bunnahabhain, Ledaig and Tobermory – and for Solley Hotel Group, Cake Clothing and Bloom Venture Catalyst. Bloom provides access to “crowd funding”, allowing companies to raise money from a large number of investors.

Walker added: “Being based at Glasgow Film City, near the new BBC offices at Pacific Quay, has really helped because it’s a very creative atmosphere.

“One day you might see zombies having lunch in the canteen after a film shoot and the next day you might bump into Robbie Coltrane.”

Peter Allish, business manager at Royal Bank of Scotland, which has backed the company with £10,000 of lending, said: “Colin and Dino represent all that is good about the entrepreneurial spirit that exists in Scotland and our support reflects their determination, professionalism and commitment.

“We will continue to focus on providing the funding to enable firms like this to realise their ambitions.”
The Scotsman’s sister paper, Scotland on Sunday, revealed that Kiltr – one of Everyone’s most high-profile clients – has secured a third round of funding, which will allow the social networking website to launch across the UK in the coming weeks.

Much to our surprise (in a good way!) we have been shortlisted for the Royal Bank of Scotland Business of the year award in the Scottish Business Awards this year;

From te Scottish Business Awards website;

The Scottish Business Awards is based on the belief that business and entrepreneurship is the primary driving force behind growth and development. Especially relevant in a time of recession, it is entrepreneurial activity and excellence in business that will stimulate recovery and spur economic growth in Scotland. The awards programme particularly looks to celebrate those who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses in Scotland. By recognising and rewarding the contribution of people who inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievement, the ultimate aim of this event is to encourage entrepreneurial activity among the future generation, and harness their potential for the benefit of Scotland's economy.

The award will be judged by a plethora of business leaders including Duncan Bannantyne, Shaf Rasul and loads more. (Scary!)

So here's hoping, fingers crossed!! :-)

As featured in the Herald.

Online for Success. Stewart Fraser, left, and Brian Hughes started KILTR, a professional social networking site for Scots and Scottish businesses. Picture: Colin Templeton.

With social networking generating a frenzy of interest among users of the internet, entrepreneurs around the world are trying to figure out how to make money from the phenomenon.

In this week’s SME Focus we hear two technology specialists explain why they are adopting a Scottish approach to addressing a global challenge.

Name: Brian Hughes and Stewart Fraser
Age: Brian 37, Stewart 40

What is your business called?
KILTR

Where is it based?
Glasgow

What service does it offer?
KILTR is a professional social networking service for Scots, affinity Scots, and business owners across the globe looking to tap into the Scottish market and develop relationships with organisations operating in Scotland.

To whom does it sell?
The site does not explicitly sell anything yet, but encourages business communities in Scotland and beyond to engage with one another and develop working relationships. The membership base consists largely of senior business representatives. Since launching last year, the site has attracted commercial interest with JetLogic coming on board as sponsors and BAA Glasgow supporting the site through a joint marketing initiative.

What is its turnover?
We are in beta testing (the last stage of testing before a computer product is launched on the commercial market) having just secured funding from Par Equity, Barwell, and the Scottish Investment Bank.
The full version of the site will be launching next year with a view to monetising through sponsorship, events and recruitment tools. To date, KILTR has received almost £1 million funding.

How many employees?
12 on both a full-time and part- time basis.

When was it formed?
The name was established in September 2007 and we launched the first phase of beta testing in August last year.

Why did you take the plunge?
We have always had an interest in the technology industry and we identified a gap in the market for a niche networking site designed for Scots at home and abroad. The Scottish identity is something of a global phenomenon; no matter where you go in the world, you will meet someone who has an affinity with the country. With almost seven times as many people with Scottish heritage living outside of Scotland as there are living in Scotland, we saw an opportunity to engage with this informal network on a business level and harness the power of social networking technology to support the growth of Scottish business, on an international scale.
While working for Hi-Tech Scotland magazine, I got to know Paul Atkinson, owner of Par Equity, and mentioned the idea of KILTR – a niche networking site for Scots.

Paul was really interested and encouraged Stewart and I to present the concept and business plan to a panel of investors. Par Equity quickly got behind the idea and the investment process was finalised in just three months.

In the meantime, we had built a holding page for the site and were receiving multiple emails on a daily basis from people interested in the concept and keen to find out more. With the funding in place, things really took off.

The timing was perfect for both of us as Hi-Tech Scotland, the magazine I was employed with, was being wrapped up while Stewart, a contract software developer, was nearing the end of a project.

Everything just fell into place around that time and, before we knew it, an idea that had started with a conversation between Stewart and I had grown into a real business.

We have spent every waking minute since working to develop the site and establish KILTR as an important player in the social media market.

What were you doing before you took the plunge?
We met at university – we had both opted to study physics and chemistry at Glasgow Caledonian. After our first year Stewart moved on to continue his degree at Strathclyde University and I decided to do a bit of travelling.
I spent six months living in Greece before returning to Glasgow to study marketing and communications.

I then spent some time studying business in America before moving back to Scotland where I did a master’s in Enterprise and Business Growth at Glasgow University Business School.

Soon after I became co-publisher at Hi-Tech Scotland magazine, which was for several years Scotland’s leading business technology publication. I published Hi-Tech Scotland between 2005 and 2009. It did well for a niche title, securing advertising from global players like Microsoft and Oracle, but when the recession hit hard and print advertising budgets started to dwindle, it became clear that it was time to get out of the magazine game.

After earning his honours degree in Applied Physics from Strathclyde University, Stewart worked as an electro-optic defence systems engineer, an analyst at a major Scottish bank and then spent over 10 years as a contract programmer, designing and developing software systems for various public and private sector organisations.

We always kept in touch and shared a keen interest in technology – forever toying with new on-line business ideas.

The idea for KILTR was one that stuck with us and with new developments in Web 2.0 and the increasing popularity of social media in business, the concept really began to take shape.

What was your biggest break?
Securing seed funding from Par Equity and the Scottish Investment Bank, and Barwell who came on board at the public beta launch last August.
This further boosted our confidence in the product and turned KILTR the idea into KILTR the business.

What was your worst moment?
As with many things, the worst moment was closely tied to the best. Finance had been secured and all the legal documents had been signed based on a launch on to public beta last August.

We had to spend a solid 72 hours working in the office to get the site ready for launch.

It was definitely one of the most challenging experiences either of us has ever had, but it felt great when we succeeded in launching the site on time.

What do you most enjoy about running the business?
Creating something different and seeing our ideas come to fruition.
KILTR is still in its infancy and, as with all growing businesses, every day brings a new challenge. The stressful, crazy days are often the most enjoyable – weirdly.

What do you least enjoy?
At the moment we have little time to think about anything else – we currently eat, sleep and breathe KILTR.
What are your ambitions for the firm?

We want KILTR to become the leading business networking platform for Scots and affinity Scots across the globe.

In addition, because we’ve built our own proprietary technology from scratch, there’s no reason why our technology can’t be licensed to others to create their own niche online network.

What are your top priorities?
At the moment, it’s noses to the grindstone to enhance the functionality on the site and get it in shape for the full launch at the beginning of next year.

We are also exploring a range of options for monetising the site which is going to be a key priority following the full launch. Above all, a desire to grow the network over the next 12 months.

What could the Westminster Government and/or Scottish Government do that would most help?
Scotland would benefit from an initiative similar to that of the Y Combinator model in the United States.
Y Combinator is a business accelerator programme which, twice a year, injects funding into a large number of promising start-up companies.

The companies are then relocated to Silicon Valley where they are fine-tuned and coached to get them in the best possible shape for a major investor pitch.

While there is Government support available to start-ups, it can be difficult for very small “seedlings” to navigate through the red tape.

A Government-backed business accelerator programme which actively supports very early stage start-ups would bring huge benefit to the Scottish market and help young firms secure backing from major investors further down the line.

What was the most valuable lesson you learned?
Never second guess yourself; trust your instincts because they’re usually right.

How do you relax?

Brian: I enjoy mountain biking and go snowboarding in the French Alps whenever I get the chance. Stewart is a bit of a master on the decks and can usually be found DJing in his spare time.

For more info

www.KILTR.com
The Herald

Some pictures from the packed event for Social Media Week Glasgow which our very own fashionista Hilary Laing sat on the panel at Fashion Blogging 101 at Citizen M alongside Michelle Haswell of the massive Kingdom of Style blog.

For more information: http://socialmediaweek.org/
http://www.kiltr.com

As part of Social Media Week Glasgow, in partnership with Inner Ear, Radio Magnetic, Stereo, Equator and EVERYONE are supporting the KILTR team at the KILTR Hub. 20 — 28 Renfield Lane, Glasgow. Feel free to pop down say hello and get involved.

Our very own Colin Walker is providing insight into socially seeding events and leveraging brand awareness through one of the Social Media Week events. Socially adept or socially inept? How to do, learn and use social media for business at Film City Glasgow. Grab Colin's presentation from http://bit.ly/qi1bs9 Plus our very own fashionista Hilary Laing is sitting on the panel at Fashion Blogging 101 at Citizen M alongside Michelle Haswell of the massive Kingdom of Style blog.

For more information: http://socialmediaweek.org/
http://www.kiltr.com

The lovely people over at Jaggy Nettle get interviewed by Sarah Mack from the BBC to get an insight into the working methods and upcoming activities from the duo. Jaggy Nettle also have a new stockist in the King's Road Manchester.

Creative Clyde is an exciting new initiative, designed to build on the success of Glasgow’s Digital Media Quarter and encourage the development of the creative industries in Glasgow. We recently attended the networking event so see the new identity for Creative Clyde, and get a preview of the new master plan for the future development of the area around Pacific Quay which includes our studio at Film City Glasgow. All exciting stuff..looking forward to seeing the new website as well..

We are very lucky to have recently recruited the skills of 3 very talented individuals to the team in the form of Steven Sinclair (Developer) , Dave Hall (Designer) and Hilary Laing (Social Media Consultant). The growth in numbers is due to our commitment to our customers and to grow with their needs.

The overdue appointment of additional design and development staff has increased our ability to deliver and both Dave and Stephen are time proven, experienced digital media professionals and are welcome additions to the team!

The appointment of a dedicated Social Media Consultant allows us to more cohesively develop editorial content, plan campaigns, introduce recruitment strategies and measure the growth of your brand online via all the social media channels.

We currently Social media for several brands such as Black Bottle, Bunnahabhain and many more and regularly show steady growth of around 10% new user recruitment per month in most cases. When backed by our experienced tech/design team the end results are tangible, 'on brand' and measurable.

We have invested in sophisticated software which analyses your brand message across all the networks and provides user friendly 'snap shot' views of your brands overall performance across all networks from gender to age demographic, from most popular post to visitor geography. Our ability to schedule messages provides you with 24 / 7 / 365 coverage throughout all the networks and positions you as an active and engaging brand at all times. :-)

Everyone at Everyone is really excited about working with some of Scotland's most Iconic Whisky Brands. We have recently secured deals with Whisky Brands Black Bottle, the only blend consisting of all 7 Islay Malts, Bunnahabhain, the Sea tainted whisky from Islay that provides a unique taste over the traditional peaty pallette of other Islay malts, Tobermory, one of the oldest Commercial distilleries in Scotland and Ledaig, the unchill filtered Malt from Mull with heritage dating back to 1798.

Our remit is to provide Social Media Strategy, implementation and technical support services for all the brands which we are all very, very excited about!!

The future of friends: Who can topple Facebook?
By Rory Cellan-Jones

— As seen on BBC
http://www.bbc.com

Facebook has won the social networking wars, right? The likes of MySpace, Bebo and Friends Reunited have fallen by the wayside as Mark Zuckerberg's friend machine trundles onwards, to complete its mission of world domination. Or maybe the story isn't over, and someone else will come along to show us a better way of networking?

In the final episode of The Secret History of Social Networking on Radio 4, we look at where this phenomenon is heading next - and whether Facebook will continue to rule the roost. We hear from a clutch of new networks, with different ideas of how we will live our online lives in the future.For Foursquare, it's a vision of life as a kind of boy scouts' game, on the move sharing your location with friends and collecting points, badges and mayorships along the way. But can they make even a dent in Facebook's appeal, when their ideas have already been copied by the much bigger network?

Path, the San Francisco network founded by a former Facebook executive, believes we all want to share more of our lives, in the form of photos and video clips, with a far more restricted collection of friends. Its idea is a smartphone app where you record key moments for your nearest and dearest, rather than telling all to the world. But, despite managing to attract quite staggering sums from investors, the start-up seems to be making little progress in winning users over to its concept.

And then there's Kiltr, a social network which believes the future of friendship is local. Kiltr is aimed at Scots and the Scottish diaspora around the world. Its founder Brian Hughes Halferty says giant networks like Facebook don't suit everybody: "There's a lot of noise in the bigger networks," he explained. "And what we'll see happening is the user base of these networks gradually splitting off into more fragmented networks, based on specific interests, and potentially shared values, even a localised, regionalised approach."

And Kiltr isn't too fussy about whether you're actually Scottish - I've joined with no credentials whatsoever.There's no reason why local and specialised networks should not prosper in the shadow of Facebook, though they may struggle to put much of dent in the audience of a site which has shown, from Egypt to East Finchley, that it can be all things to all people. A bigger threat may be mounting concerns about security and privacy. A number of rival networks are being set up with the explicit promise that they will give users more control over their data and their privacy than is on offer from Facebook.

Diaspora attracted plenty of interest when it announced its plans last June in the middle of a row over Facebook's latest privacy settings. Its founders quickly raised a sizeable sum from online well-wishers, with their plan to give people more control over who sees any aspect of their online activity. Nothing much seems to have happened since, and Diasora looks like it might struggle to find enough people who really care about this issue. But one of the founders Daniel Grippi insists the idea still has widespread appeal amidst concerns about Facebook: "Even non-technical people understand that this is a problem, and that something has to be done about it in the short term. Owning your own data is a huge selling point and a natural step forward."

And others are even more strident in their view that Facebook has taken web users in the wrong direction. Johan Stael von Holstein whose MyCube network allows anyone to keep a safe copy of all the data they have put on a social network, says parents in particular need to be aware of the dangers of Facebook's social graph: "Their kids will never have to go to an interview again because they'll just be recruited on the social graph that Facebook holds for them, that they're selling to companies... this is a nightmare that George Orwell would be jealous of."

Facebook's sheer scale is now putting it in the firing-line - from cybercriminals who see it as a great place to launch an attack, from parents worried that it is not doing enough to protect children from stalkers and cyber-bullies, from neuroscientists concerned about what it is doing to our brains and our concepts of friendship.

The network does seem aware of these threats to its reputation. Yesterday a senior member of its privacy team spent an hour briefing journalists about all the ways Facebook is trying to make sure its users can lead happy networking lives, free from the attention of stalkers, spammers, bullies and bugs. But when I asked whether the emergence of rivals like Diaspora had focused minds, he replied "I don't know much about it to be honest," and asked me to explain what it was about. He, like just about everyone I've met from Mark Zuckerberg's empire, seemed supremely disinterested in what was going on elsewhere in the networking world, focusing entirely on what is going on inside the business.

And, for now at least, that seems a perfectly sensible approach. By my reckoning, more than a quarter of the world's two billion internet users are now on Facebook, and traffic to the site keeps growing. By one measure it has now overtaken Google. With that many friends, no wonder nobody at Facebook is losing sleep over the threat from rivals.

Social network membership will exceed one billion this year and a Scottish start-up aims to stand-out from the crowd.
— As seen on Holyrood Magazine
http://www.holyrood.com

Reid Hoffman, the former PayPal executive, founder of the professional networking site LinkedIn and investor in some of the Web’s most successful start-up companies, believes that one of the most important things a site can do is “separate signal from noise”.

When Hoffman was thinking about LinkedIn, he focused on the idea that every working person will have some kind of profile on the Web: “And who knows what may find me? If I’m looking for a job, a job may find me. If I’m looking for an investment, an investment may find me. If I’m an expert on something, a consultancy may find me,” he said in a talk to Stanford University in 2007.

“The other idea is: what is the key that separates signal from noise? How do you sort between people who are crazy, people who are well-meaning but you don’t want to talk to and people who you would invest in? People have assets they can deploy and one of these is personal referral. If someone I trust says, ‘Pay attention to this person’, then I pay attention. So LinkedIn is a profile and a network of trust for reaching and filtering people, with applications built on top.

“It is version two of the resume, if version one was a list of assertions on a printed Word document. In version two, you can have your resume network validated. In that environment, it is easy to check people out. Not only that, people can check out the person who is trying to hire them. Working life is heading to entrepreneurship; you are a small business and your brand is what you can do. The skills of entrepreneurship are applicable to any career path.” Since Hoffman’s talk, LinkedIn has emerged from the shadow of other social networks (albeit, its membership is still a fraction of Facebook’s) to potentially become one of the next wave of publicly offered companies. It now has more than 1,000 employees and has grown to 90 million users in more than 200 countries.

The company has hired banks to advise on an initial public offering (IPO).

An IPO would follow a $500m investment in Facebook, the most popular social network, by Goldman Sachs and Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies. Their stake valued Facebook at $50bn. LinkedIn would be the first major US socialnetworking website to do an IPO, giving it funds to take on its larger rivals in the industry. “What the Goldman investment underlined is that there is a huge window of opportunity for other social networkers to make it to the market,” said Josef Schuster, the Chicago-based founder of IPOX Capital Management.

Into this market comes a Scottish startup, KILTR, described as “the first social network for the 40m Scots worldwide”.

It is the brainchild of Scots businessmen Brian Hughes Halferty and Stewart Fraser and aims to bring together business professionals of Scottish descent around the world. There are seven times as many people of Scots descent around the world than actually live in Scotland and there are many more with an affection for the country, it asserts. Its founders say KILTR will tap into “the vast knowledge, experience and opportunity offered by the Scottish diaspora.” The founders who met at university in 1992, are both passionate Scotsmen who are focused on harnessing the power of social-networking technology to help shape Scotland’s future international success. They assert an “unparalleled commitment to build a world-class product, and just as importantly, a great Scottish company.” They describe the site as a next-generation business social networking and media platform.

It leverages Scotland’s unique cultural heritage and entrepreneurial spirit to assist professionals, entrepreneurs, companies, organisations, clubs and societies, who are Scottish or have an affinity to Scotland, to accelerate their success across the globe.

Hughes Halferty hatched the idea for the network during a trip to the United States. As soon as he began speaking with a Scottish accent, he noticed how many people claimed a connection with Scotland, whether through direct heritage or simply a love of the culture. That connection gave them an immediate bond.

“Diaspora networks bringing together groups of expatriates devoted to their culture and heritage are incredibly powerful for fostering business growth,” he said. “With KILTR, we can provide a one-stop resource for the tens of millions of people of Scottish descent around the world, and gives Scots the basis to form connections and business relationships across borders.” The company says that unlike other social networks, where people may find themselves connected to strangers with no common interests, KILTR uses a built-in search and recommendation engine that pushes relevant opportunities to the users.

The site is focused on delivering valuable business and networking opportunities to members whilst sharing information, links and important connections to support individuals and businesses worldwide.

KILTR aims to establish itself as the professional networking service of choice for Scots and ‘affinity Scots’. The company has recently closed a Series A round of financing with Par Equity of Edinburgh as the lead investor allowing the company’s evolution from prototype to public beta launch. Subsequent follow-on investment is expected with a worldwide launch planned later this year. The unique aspect of KILTR is that professionals, entrepreneurs, companies, organisations, clubs and societies can immediately start networking with others who have a known shared connection or affinity for Scotland.

“One of KILTR’s advantages is its clean, uncluttered interface,” adds Hughes Halferty. “We use a concertina navigational device across the site, which allows pages with large quantities of content to be organised into bite-sized chunks of information. Users only see what they need to see, in the context of the function they’re performing, reducing a lot of the noise common with social media sites.” The interface also uniquely supports complex functions such as contextual posts, attachments in conversation replies, embedded multimedia and links, and tagging of post types for a specific user, group or organisation, leading the way in social media innovation. “We have created a platform that allows everybody, from tech-savvy professionals to novices, to immediately jump in and begin opening doors to business opportunities,” says Fraser.

Entrepreneur Christian Arno, who founded the international translation company Lingo24.com, welcomed KILTR’s entry: “It’s great to see any British start-up using the internet to blaze a trail across the globe. And given that my company was launched in Scotland, it’s particularly great to see a Scottish startup doing something a little different on the Web.” Mark MacLeod, a partner at Real Ventures, Canada’s largest seed investor, added: “As a proud Scotsman, I’d love to connect and do business with people from the homeland.” But he added: “Generally speaking, people have ten websites or services that they use regularly. So, if your company wants to hit it big time, you need to displace an app, service or media company that is currently in people’s top ten lists. That, of course, is no small feat.” It is estimated that the membership of social networks could exceed one billion this year; KILTR is hoping that its distinctive voice will be heard above the noise of the crowd.

Totally love this concept, by joining Nada Bike revolution for $100 you get a simple bike frame for you to build as you see fit. The idea is to promote, health, indepence, freedom through a collective spirit. check it out at nadabike I'll certaibly be ordering my bike

An unexpected plethora of great old school signage and brands was apparent during an outing to Balmaha at the weekend. I love the way these brands stamp their authority on machinery and portray quality, robustness and power on each hardcore machine that they embellish. I particularly like the last one, which was actually the name of a boat, and a big one at that!!

A real pleasure to watch and work with our friends at Glasgow Letter Press on our new business cards, which are printed on GF Smith, with a lovely bronze foil. I'll posts some images when they are done.

We are please to announce a new client to our roster. Makers of luxury cashmere knitwear, lovely goodies for your home, harris tweed shoes and hand signed salvaged denim from Japan all with a contemporary take on tradition and hand made processes. — Jaggy Nettle.

Jaggy Nettle is currently working on collaborations with Faber & Faber books and the World Wild Fund amongst others on a range of exciting new products. All to be on sale online via a new eCom site made by Everyone.

Undertaking the development of a social network with a small team should not be understated, this has taken a while and it's still only in Beta, however we are proud to announce the launch of Scotland's first Diaspora network KILTR. It's intention is to unite the 10 million Scots and affinity Scots worldwide within a new type of Social network aimed at utilising the warmth, knowledge and good nature of Scots & affinity Scots worldwide for the collective good of the nation.

KILTR also seeks to explore some of the inherant flaws that have emerged over the past few years within most of the major Social networks, they have become far, far to noisy, full of commercialisms and easy tasks like simply adding stuff takes ages. They are in real danger of becoming over engineered and unnecessarily heavy. KILTR seeks to challenge these problems by simplifying functions and providing a neat, clean and easy to use interface.

The 'Concertina' is key, as a navigational device throughout the site allowing pages with a large quantity of content to be organised into bite size chunks of info, letting the end user see, only what's needed in the context of the function they are performing at the time.

Creating posts and adding attachments is easy, a user can attach many pieces of media to a single post, be it documents, video, audio or a gallery full of images. The context of the post can also be shared be it a thought, an update, a question, a job post or an event, all from the post box.

The recipients can also be tailored extensively be it a group, an organisation, selected individuals and privacy is maintained through the use of private and public visibility throughout.

This method of sharing information give huge possibilities within a few clicks, unseen on other networks.

There is still a lot to roll out during the next few months and i'd encourage you to sign up and trial the Beta, let us know what you think, any issues you encounter and any feedback you have so that Everyone and the rest of the KILTR team can help make it better!

www.kiltr.com

Last night's viewing pleasure incase you missed it on BBC's iPlayer, — Documentary feature film, tracing the lifelong quest of visionary genius John Lautner to create 'architecture that has no beginning and no end.' It is the story of a complicated life - and the most sensual architecture of the 20th century.

What it is about a scruffy warehouse building, with no windows, a bunch of amazing DJ's and a great sound system that gives you that sense of the good old days and proper parties!. Even though this was a sunday mirco festival it definitely captured a spirit for folk, a really great line up that delivered a really great night out. ( Notables for me Liquid Liquid, and Simian Mobile Disco ). Take a listen to the preview over at our friends at Radio Magnetic

The Old Castle Lachlan is a tranquil ruin set on the beautiful shores of Loch Fyne, Argyll, is a popular place for visitors. It is only one and a half hour’s drive west from the city of Glasgow yet feels remote and unspoilt, and is well worth a visit ( and a spot of lunch at near by Inver Cottage always makes the trip even more enjoyable ) 

The Castle is an important part of Scotland's heritage, a scheduled ancient monument and 'A' listed building that has legal protection because of its significance but it is at serious risk of collapse. We were invited to help raise awareness of the Old Castle and deliver a site to help gather donatations and preserve the stories associated with this slice of Scottish hertiage.

The new site is now live, we hope you like how it turned out, and if you wanted to help to reduce the risk of it falling down by making a donation, or by signing up to keep informed of the forthcoming events, we thank you kindly.

I can't help being really taken in by the idea of this advert, I love the fact that you don't see the product until the end of the clip, not a new idea obviously, nor the fact that it's from the driver perspective either, but the styling, colour, and music ( radiohead i think ) coupled with the idea of the modes you can drive in is a nice touch — another clever, yet subtle ad, right out of the Honda brand book.

Adverts don't sell cars it's the sales guy at the show rooms, the ads just get you there in the first place — I can't remember who said that, or if that's even a correct quote. Still tis' a nice ad.

Craig Allen and Eric Kallman of Wieden + Kennedy are behind the new Old Spice ad. We, at Everyone think it's really well put together and funny as f**k. Former American football player Isaiah Mustafa's acting skills suit the outrageous concept. Enjoy

Part 2

And how it was made;

I've been facinated by Frankfurt based, Argentine artist Tomás Saraceno's work for ages and his latest creation, '14 billions' is an extension of his 2009 installation called "Galaxy Forming along Filaments, like Droplets along the Strands of a Spider's Web."  This version is abstractly based upon a black widows spider web.

Saraceno's work looks to scientific study which uses the imagery and structure of spider webs to map the origin and structure of the universe. Referencing these studies, the sculptural pieces explore the delicate balance between ourselves and the earth.

While deeply philosophical and laden with scientific study, Saraceno softens the academia with interaction—encouraging viewers to participate with his discoveries. Nimble visitors can explore the web installation, while children and adults alike can create their own additions to his Cloudy House.

Sadly this exhibition has recently finished, but was a great sucess when displayed in Stockholm's Bonniers Konsthall earlier this year. The installation took almost 2 years to complete and spanned a remarkable 400 cubic meters.

It's not often i'm kicking about this part of town but Tradeston in Glasgow is an interesting and undeveloped place. Situated litterally minutes from the city center, it's a sparse part of the town with some awesome warehouse buildings crying out for re-development. Situated right on the clyde this lonely little property sits there crumbling facing some of Glasgows latest high-tech buildings in the Financial district and is totally representative of the area in general. I propose that the council should renew some of these old warehouses as creative spaces for businesses and individuals. It's bizarre that such an undeveloped area lies right next to the city center.

For the muso's amongst you, you'll know that some of the most ledgendary electronic records of the past 20 years have used either a SP1200 Sampler from E-MU electronics or an AKAI MPC drum pattern making device. A huge amount of the hip-hop and house drum loops that you hear were penned on at least one of the devices. I remember Edinburgh DJ Gareth Sommerville had an SP1200 which i got to mess about and have fun with for a while, it had me drooling for one for about 5 years afterwards. These devices now go for a lot of cash especially the SP1200 which was made famous by house music pioneers 'Masters at Work', notably for the drum loops created in their sublime dub on Tito Puente's  'Rak Kan Kan' track from about 1991 on Elektra.

Tiny replica's of these devices have been turned into USB keys and i think they are rather sweet. The detail is great and i think you should get yourself over to www.juno.co.uk to purchase one of these little bits of music making history without the hefty price tag!

Always goood to see our work in situ especially when it's unexpected, you always get a fresh take on the work. Here's the first of the Electric Frog Street Carnival Posters I've seen so far. Hope you like them.

Dunno what it is about this building, but i'd love to see it in the flesh. From the outside it's got me wondering whats on the inside. The Stockholm Globe Arena, known as the Ericsson Globe is apparently the world’s largest round building. I love the eratic nature of the window positions, reminds me of some old 1970's computer punchcards.

What you can't see in this image is the little glass orb called the skylift which hoists passengers round the outside of the globe using ski lift technology in about 20 minutes, and gives the occupants a first class view over stockholm.

* Note to self, must go see the Ericsson Globe.