Trend Frims Use Blogs To Search for The Next Big Thing

As reported on www.thecoolhunter.com

This front page cover story appeared in  Melbourne's, The Age newspaper, Greenguide liftout today. We've re-published it with permisssion from The Age.
 
ON THEfrontlines of cool, bloggers with street cred are the unwitting quarry of forecasters anxiously scanning the net in the hope of spotting just one thing: the next big trend.

The forecasters have a wide net to cast in: there are an estimated 100 million blogs worldwide, about 450,000 of which are in Australia.

Online encyclopedia Wikipedia says the concept of "cool-hunting" evolved in the early 1990s and refers to a new breed of forecasters who spot trends and add their interpretation to developments in fashion and culture.

Before the blogosphere unleashed the personal publishing revolution, companies such as Nike and Reebok had trend-spotters on the streets assessing what appealed to the youth market. Research companies specialising in youth culture, such as Look Look, were hired to be the eyes and ears of business to help them find new ways to reach Generation Y.

Now, however, blog-watching and mining is big business and companies such as Nielsen BuzzMetrics and Cymfony have developed software to sift through and interpret the millions of voices talking in social network sites such as Flickr, which hosts blogs and images.

According to Cymfony, their software can help "process technology with expert analysis to identify the people, issues and trends impacting your business". At the other end of the scale, businesses can also find out the impact and reputation of their brand and products.

But mention cool-hunters to bleeding-edge bloggers and one encounters a virtual curled lip. "They're definitely the current hot thing," says Paris photographer and blogger Yvan Rodic, who publishes daily photographs of Paris street fashion on his blog facehunter.blogspot.com.

"Australian born, New York based publisher, Bill Tikos, (thecoolhunter.net) is currently working on a television series featuring five cool-hunters who travel the planet looking for the latest thing," he says. "Australian director Peter Weir is working on a big-screen adaptation of William Gibson's novel Pattern Recognition, which tells the story of a New York cool-hunter in the post-September 11 world."
 
Every day on The Facehunter, Mr Rodic gets 3000 to 4000 visitors from around the world. "From teen fashionistas to fashion designers and trendspotters, I receive a lot of feedback about my photos," he says. "Everyone can find personal ideas for dressing up or inspiration for designing a new collection or just spotting new trends."

In the past couple of weeks, Mr Rodic says he's been contacted by publications in the US, Brazil, Denmark, France, Switzerland, Bulgaria and Japan. "Suddenly it becomes something big," he says. "I'll have regular columns in the Danish fashion magazine Cover and in the Japanese issue of Tokion. Big companies need to be aware of what's going on all around the world, so it can be very expensive. For them, street style and cool-hunting blogs located in more and more cities are something really worthwhile and they're free.

"Blogs are good for these companies but at the same time they're good for the public who can create their own look by watching what's hot on the streets before industry and big companies have it. In the end, the price the companies pay for this 'free' information is that they don't have exclusivity. They are not seen as avant garde while the public is looking for exclusive ideas and
products."

Reinier Evers is the founder of the Amsterdam-based website trendwatching.com. More than 130,000 business and marketing professionals in more than 120 countries subscribe to the site's free monthly newsletter. A network of more than 8000 spotters from more than 70 countries send in information in return for small gifts, such as key-ring cameras, but mostly just for the credibility that comes from spotting a trend.

Mr Evers says innovation based on trend information is a hot topic. "We get virtually all of our 'big spottings' - consumer behaviour-changing ideas, concepts, big-picture thinking - from blogs written by smart business thinkers such as Jeff Jarvis buzzmachine.com and Seth Godin sethgodin.com," he says.

For business trends Mr Evers has a network of spotters who rely on blogs covering business ideas. "Often those blogs are local, so especially our Japanese, Chinese and Brazilian contributors pick up stuff that may not pop up in mainstream US and British publications," he says.

"We actively scan MySpace, Cyworld, Habbo Hotel, Flickr and YouTube, as one  an keep a finger on the pulse of (youth) culture by reading what people are putting out there, what they do, what they like. It is the same for activities in virtual worlds like Second Life.

"Everything is available, everything can be found and observed, with millions more joining this space each year and contributing.

"Our role is becoming more of a curator as the average marketer just doesn't have the time any more to track everything. We are also an adviser on what to actually do with these observations if you're a brand. What we do is virtual anthropology."

While the concept of cool-hunting may date back more than a decade, Mr Rodic points out that the rules of the game have changed in the past few years. "The classic Paris salons of style already seem like anachronisms," he says. "These fashion houses continue to put forward their visions of the future through their biannual shows as though nothing has changed. They may have some influence on the street but they still cultivate the fantasy that haute couture dictates to the street and businesses impose their products on the market.

"Today society has less and less time to wait for the prediction of these fashion houses. It is instant and out there on
the street."

And the mainstream is listening to what bloggers have to say. Helen Lee, editor of Australian online fashion and beauty magazine sassybella.com, says blogs have changed the fashion scene as people can now get up-to-date information about fashion shows in Paris, Milan, New York and London almost as they happen. "With the popularity of broadband, people can get up-to-date video feeds as well," she says. "Blogs give a magazine-like commentary at the turnover time of newspapers. Whether
they're news blogs or fashion commentary blogs, it all happens a lot faster and you can find out what the latest trend is in Copenhagen or Denver."

Paris-based fashion blogger Adeleine Tyson agrees. She says she often sees fashion magazines and newspaper spreads copying ideas from blogs and websites. "There is no doubt that in just about every frontier related to popular culture, and also in special niche worlds, the online world is always a step ahead of the print, TV and audio media worlds," she says. "For those willing to be online, there is faster access to images and information than for those who wait for TV and print media delivery."

Ms Tyson, who publishes her fashion observations at eurobrat.blogspot.com, says that if she writes a magazine story about boots, for example, "it goes out into a kind of void because the magazine delivery system doesn't allow for readers to respond immediately to me with their ideas and thoughts".

But when she writes about boots on her blog, within a few hours "I can see that 20 to 30 people have read my entry and if it sparks their interest, five to 10 of them may write back to me to comment and offer their ideas. So an important part of this
connection is the proliferation of independent ideas.

"You can see how this phenomenon, whether it happens about boots, music, social justice or interior decorating, can generate so much creativity and connectedness with others interested in the same issues. I think, because of this, the online world is very fertile for ideas and the creation of trends."

Ms Tyson says that as an avid reader of fashion magazines and newspapers, she has found five or six instances of fashion articles that occur "after my blog entries that have the same titles and or print content".

"I suspect that fashion journalists often dip into the blog pool," she says. "I think the more successful blogs in marketable areas will inevitably become commercialised. We just haven't seen this very much yet because blogging is such a young world."

Cologne-based designer Markus Gogolin, who runs the blog designspotter.com, says he loves the influence the internet is having on society and trends. "As a designer, it is so easy to see what is happening on the planet.

"Before the internet, a designer would have had to buy hundreds of magazines to keep in touch with what was happening in design around the world. Today they just take a look at 20 or so blogs each day and get the best information anyone can get."

Taking it to the streets A combination of technology and human analysis helps blog-watchers to spot a new trend or marketable product. At a cost of $US30,000 to $US100,000 ($A40,000 to $A133,000) a year, they use technologies known as "natural language processing" and "unstructured data mining" to unscramble the often ungrammatical writing and slang found in the
estimated 100 million blogs worldwide.

But how often does a trend or product make it out of the virtual world into the marketplace?

In the US, mobile phone company US Cellular developed a new offering for teenagers after discovering from blogs that they were anxious about exceeding their mobile minutes because parents made them pay if they were over-limit. They also resented incoming calls that pushed their minutes up. As a result of this, the company offered teens an unlimited "call-me" package.

The blog designspotter.com has played an active role in helping young designers, first noted by its team of spotters, to achieve success in the mainstream, according to designer Markus Gogolin. Through vehicles such as international design fairs featuring products that had been "spotted" in the blog, young designers have had an opportunity to get their product into the marketplace.

Mr Gogolin cites the example of an innovative candle designed by Christoph van Bommel, a student at the Design Academy of Eindhoven. The inspiration for the design comes from the molecular structure of cholesterol, the candle burning with multiple wicks. Made from paraffin wax, the candle, pictured above, will burn for four to five hours.

"Featured on designspotter.com, they are now being manufactured and out on the street and have had reviews in many design magazines," Mr Goglin says.

Yet to be taken up by the mainstream are the products of German bloggers Miss Geshick and Lady Lapsus. Among their offerings are T-shirts sporting faux underarm hair.

Their rationale? "Our products are dealing with those delicate themes of everyday life that we don't want to eliminate but put in a positive context," they say. "That way small mishaps become a stylish element in your life." by Mary Riekert - The Age