What do you do?

I observe and research how consumers articulate their feelings and experiences concerning products and brands. Word of Mouth, in other words. More specifically, I am interested in how companies can stimulate and influence the WOM that is going on about them, and increasingly so in the digital sphere. The things that I learn and the things that intrigue me, I post on my (German) blog www.connectedmarketing.de, I write articles about it, I am working on a doctorate, and I am consulting companies in this area. The latter earns my living. :-) When I am not doing any of the above, I make music. Preferably with an electric guitar. Some of that can be found at www.coyote-collective.com (in English).

How do you live and work digitally?

Even though this isn't very "Web 2.0", I must say that I live on e-mail. The major part of my professional exchanges happen through e-mail. I don't use networking sites much, I don't really IM. When an interesting conversation starts on my blog, sooner or later it gets gets mirrored via e-mail. So that is where the bulk of my digital life happens. Additionally, there is Skype. I am having more and more conversations via Skype now, after I started to use it for an international book project in 2004. And then again, there's my blog. It's fairly well-linked to now, I am having interesting stuff going on there. If I did have a private life next to my work, I'd probably start a music blog and post more mp3s, etc.

What's different about "onliners" today than, say, a few years ago?

Everything is so much more taken for granted. Buying stuff online, e-mail, getting information quick and easy on the web - all those things are a given now. That enables us to move beyond and really start to rethink the web: what can it do for us that no other media can? How can we build exciting and rich lives by using the web as both an enabler and a media platform? So I'd say we've moved from the "learning to crawl stage" to the "early first uneasy walking steps stage".

Anything or anyone online that is of particular interest to you?

Yes, the future of television. I am intrigued by how the relationship between content owners and providers and the audience seems to be shifting. Talent has such a more direct path to audiences now, and we're seeing the first results of that. Why need massive media companies when people can go and produce their own stuff, incorporate breath-taking special effects, get marketing through online word of mouth and then distribute it through iTunes? In particular once we'll have RSS-enabled hard disk video recorders that just pull your feeds off the web and straight to your TV screen? And once all people have read Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail" and understood that niche content isn't necessarily of less value of quality. Exciting times!