Yet despite myself I’ve been rhapsodising to anyone who listens about the future of social commerce, and how product curation – alongside content and conversation – is the next big thing. It’s something I was working on last year with a retail client, but it’s only in the last few months that the epiphany has really settled. It’s accepted by the particularly clever that the future of digital browsing is heavy with user curation (as seen in apps such as Flipboard), and I believe product curation will influence trends in online purchases. In fact, I’d put all my money on it.

When we think about the history of advertising in comparison to where we are now, we know that control has shifted from the men in suits to the consumer. Aspirational messages don’t necessarily have the same impact they once used to, and the way brands speak to customers has changed. Consumers are not spoken to, they are spoken with – and now that companies are having multiple conversations rather than one, marketing to consumers has become complicated. We can use social data to further segment customers, we can be clever and create compelling content which we hope increases conversion rates, but ultimately brands are now at the mercy of the consumers in a way never seen before. We are their bitches, and we do not like it.

And whereas brands once had to persuade bloggers and ‘influencers’ to like their stuff, now we have social content curators to contend with. These are the super-users on ‘traditional’ networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and they’re also rising up the ranks on sites such as Pinterest. They’re the person who somehow always manages to find the cool stuff to buy, the person who inspires us and doesn’t necessarily have an agenda in their brand involvement. They’re sharing because they want the kudos and the self-esteem boost, and fellow consumers follow because they don’t want to be talked at by traditional marketing methods any more. It’s goodbye advertorial, and hello fellow shoppers. It’s social commerce ramped up; it’s power to the people.

There’s a multitude of stats out there that suggest that users have more confidence in user reviews and ratings than any information given by someone in ‘power’ (the PR, the brand representative, the journalist writing about the product). This isn’t anything new.  But when a consumer chooses to ignore these calculated marketing messages, there’s a blip in the broadcast – and a super-user can move into it. They can suddenly be the authority on your brand, and you’re powerless to stop them.  It’s the same reclaiming ethos that spurs on crowd-funding projects, Occupy Wall St-style protests, and possibly even London riots.  And if you can’t stop them, well, the only thing you can do is to join them.

Brands who understand the importance of product curation will be the ones who flourish in 2012. Companies who relinquish a certain amount of power and allow hyper-personalisation will be those who see the most conversion. Yes, brilliant mobile sites are important, and we mustn’t ignore customer service on social networks, the socialisation of search, smart TV, gamification or whatever else is being talked about with regards to ecommerce. But most of all we need to understand that our customers are individuals who want to repackage our propositions as part of the personalisation of their digital profile. For consumers are no longer just what they look like or what they say – they are also now what they buy, and brands cannot afford to ignore this.

This column originally appeared in New Media Age magazine.

1. Compile your Scrivener document into an RTF

• Open your Scrivener document
• Go to File –> Compile
• Select the chapters and scenes you wish to include in this version of your manuscript
• Select ‘Compile for RTF Word compatible’ (you may wish to choose a different type of document, I use RTF to retain formatting)
• Hit ‘Compile’

2. Email your .RTF to your Kindle

• Find out your Kindle email address. To do this go to Your Account –> Manage Your Kindle –> Personal Document Settings.
• Ensure your regular email address is in the ‘Approved Personal Document Email List’ (if it isn’t you can add it)
• Open your email, add your .RTF attachment, and send your document to your Kindle email address

3. Sync Kindle and your manuscript shall appear!

It really is that simple. I’ve done this so I can proof my manuscript-in-progress while on public transport / in bed / on the beach.

- thanks to Ivan Salcedo who taught me how to do this.

Our interactions on the web have the ability to make us all look like grasping, desperate fools. Like a one-night stand with a man no stranger to the unforgiving gleam of the clap clinic, social networks create a false sense of intimacy. They lure us into believing that, in participating, we can be ourselves – that we can share our views and our tastes and that by doing so others will love us.

But as anyone who’s woken up next to a person they never intended to get feral hot with will know, the reality is somewhat different. We are not loved for being true to who we are; we are loved because he is drunk and horny. In the cold light of day, it is possible, even likely, that we will be rejected when he sees us without make-up on. When he sees who we really are.

Social networks, of course, are our distribution tools of choice in showing off the best, edited-for-publication versions of ourselves. We only allow flawless, skinny photos to grace our Facebook pages. We talk of things that make us look intelligent, rather than dumb.

And we’re always performing, even when we’re not aware of it. Social networks allow us to be at our first-date best over and over again. Our moody, ugly, bad-hair day selves are rarely allowed to make a cameo on the web.

Until, that is, we forget ourselves and think that he might just be into us after all.

One such victim of forgetting herself is Diane Abbott MP. Embraced in her own personal love-nest on Twitter, Abbott casually wrote: “white people love playing ‘divide and rule’”. What went wrong? She forgot she was supposed to be performing.

Rather than dressing in an expensive, see-through baby-doll that skims her worst bits and makes her tits look fabulous, she let it all out. She let herself be seen in her true light: unsupported, flabby, saggy, sad. And maybe a bit racist.

In a rush to defend herself – her excuse for allowing herself to be swept away on a wave of foolishness – Abbott released a statement. She said: “I understand people have interpreted my comments as making generalisations about white people. I do not believe in doing that. I apologise for any offence caused.”

But, of course, it is too late. Abbott believed that the gentle, accepting kisses and hair stroking of others meant something. She forget about the rules of digital reality and instead fell headlong into a bed of roses, aware of the thorns hidden beneath the sheets but thinking, perhaps, that they would not scratch her.

She forgot to play the role of the MP and fell for the myth that hyper-reality on the web is true.

Should we berate Abbott for casual racism? Of course. But, more than that, I think we should feel sorry for her. She is not the first woman to wake up the next morning to discover she’s not wanted thanks to her performance the night before, and she won’t be the last.

The digital economy we now live in makes everything and everyone disposable. How could it not when our words and our purchases are now made up of pixels rather than of something tangible?

What isn’t disposable, of course, is reputation. Abbott is now perfect BNP fodder, a woman who makes rash remarks, a woman who will now realise that being herself is the ultimate faux pas. How she’s managed to become an MP without first understanding this is beyond me.

Dude looks like a lady

As a Wendi Deng Murdoch aficionado, I was obviously delighted to see the woman herself on Twitter. And when she announced she was actually a Guardian-reading he, I shrugged my shoulders and decided I couldn’t care less.

The world needs more women like Wendi Deng, and, if someone wants to pretend to be her on Twitter, I’m all for it. Why not? It doesn’t ever really matter who’s behind the account so long as the right brand values are enforced – and let’s be honest, ghost writing on Twitter keeps plenty of redundant (and some not-quite-yet-redundant) journalists out of the benefits office.

I propose that the bored man who started the fictional account keeps it up. He clearly has nothing better to do, is fairly competent at pretending to be a kick-ass woman, and is obviously filling a gap in the market.

Deng is almost too good to be real. Why should she be real on Twitter?

Kanye do it

Yes he can! Especially if it means reinventing himself from a rapper to a Shoreditch-style nontrepreneur. Which is kind of nearly the same thing, but with less ass-shaking girls on your tail in the latter case.

For those of you still reading, yet confused, I’m talking about Kanye West coming over all undergraduate on Twitter yesterday.

If you believe his late-night statements, West has apparently started a company named DONDA (named for his mommy), which will change the world. He said: “DONDA is a design company which will galvanize amazing thinkers and put them in a creative space to bounce there [sic] dreams and ideas…”

So far so Silicon-Roundabout wishy-washy? Absolutely. But read further. ”We want to help simplify and aesthetically improve everything we see hear, touch, taste and feel. …To dream of, create, advertise and produce products driven equally by emotional want and utilitarian need. To marry our wants and needs.”

Several prominent Old Street angel investors, who have opted to remain anonymous, told me this morning that it sounds like a grand plan – indeed, it’s the most realistic pitch they’ve heard in months. They stand ready and willing to help fund the rapper’s endeavours.

This column first appeared in The Kernel

I’m currently writing my fourth novel. It’s due at Easter. Everything was going swimmingly until several bad things happened and I took six weeks off work to bum about, eat cheese strings, and watch Mad Men on loop. But it’s a new year and I’ve decided to keep a record of my writing progress. I used to do it at the top of my manuscript when I wrote novels in Word, but since swapping to Scrivener I haven’t bothered. Which is clearly a mistake. Additionally, being transparent and therefore also accountable will possibly shame me into writing more.

Anyway, look away now if numbers bore you (they do me). Or keep reading if you want to see how many words I have written this year (note, these are manuscript-only words and do not include columns or articles which I also write).

Additional: I need to average 1000 words a day, or 7000 words a week, to hit my deadline on time. Wish me luck.

BOOK FOUR (still untitled. I need to sort this out – in my head it’s called Something is Rotten in the State of Denmark St, but I don’t think this is snappy enough I now have a title, but I’m not going to share it until after I’ve submitted my MS to my editor. Sorry.)

2012 manuscript word count total: 22,005 after 29 days.

Week 1 total: 4905 [+ 964 for The Kernel]

• Monday, 2 January: 2092.
• Tuesday, 3 January: 1023.
• Wednesday, 4 January: 1790.
• Thursday, 5 January: 0
• Friday, 6 January: 0 [I won a game of Scrabble though!]
• Saturday, 7 January: 0 [editing]
• Sunday, 8 January: 0

Week 2 total: 4514

• Monday, 9 January: 0 [researching]
• Tuesday, 10 January: 0 [meetings]
• Wednesday, 11 January: 2523 [and I made a presentation which I had to give the next day. Productive]
• Thursday, 12 January: [meetings / actual pounding-London-streets research]
• Friday, 13 January: 59. Not in the mood.
• Saturday, 14 January: 1932
• Sunday, 15 January: 0

Week 3 total: 4805 [+ 750 for New Media Age]

• Monday, 16 January: 0 [editing & plotting]
• Tuesday, 17 January: 1666
• Wednesday, 18 January: 0.
• Thursday, 19 January: 3139
• Friday, 20 January: 0
• Saturday, 21 January: 0
• Sunday, 22 January: 0 [I had the very best of intentions for the weekend but my plans were thwarted.]

Week 4 total: 6754

• Monday, 23 January: 1583 [and loads of research into the history of India's railways. Really.]
• Tuesday, 24 January: 2946
• Wednesday, 25 January: 1137
• Thursday, 26 January: 0
• Friday, 27 January: 0
• Saturday, 28 January: 1088
• Sunday, 29 January: 0

I’ve stopped consulting and have taken on a full time job … bring on the six-day week, working in the evenings, and constantly apologising to friends for not being able to see them as much as I’d like to.

Week 5 total: 0. I took the week off to settle into my new job.

Week 6 total: 1027

• Monday, 6 February: 1027
• Tuesday, 7 February:
• Wednesday, 8 February:
• Thursday, 9 February:
• Friday, 10 February:
• Saturday, 11 February:
• Sunday, 12 February:

Ella Aldridge seems to have it all. Married to Danny Riding, one of the Premiership’s leading goal-scorers, she lives the dream – the mansion, the car, the freebie designer clothes.

But Ella and Danny have a secret. Their marriage is not what is seems. Between them, it takes a lot of hard work to fool the press and the nation that they really are Love’s Young Dream, when deep down Danny’s desires lie elsewhere.

With Ella’s star in the ascendant, the world is at her feet – a TV show, a fashion column. But then she meets Johnny Cooper, the bad boy of British television. He’s ruthlessly charming and sexy, and he can see through Ella’s sham of a marriage in a heartbeat. Drawn into a risky, high-octane affair, Ella suddenly realises how much she has to lose and how quickly it can be taken from her…

Preorder All That Glitters on Amazon.