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NFC Will Be the Killer App for 2011
By David Dorf on November 29, 2010 12:40 PM
As a former smartcard engineer, I've seen many different electronic payment schemes come and go. Payment technology is saddled with the "chicken or egg" problem. That is, you can't justify the expense of the infrastructure without a critical mass of consumers, and the consumers won't bother unless they know the new method will be around for a long time. For this reason, most emerging payment techniques remain in campus settings (e.g. universities, corporate campuses, sporting arenas) and fail to go mainstream.
But the momentum behind mobile commerce is about to introduce us to NFC, a short-range contactless technology that's been waiting for the right moment to pounce. With NFC-enabled phones, consumers will be able to quickly and easily communicate with retailers to accept marketing offers, pay for goods, and receive loyalty points.
The following news stories illustrate that momentum:
- April 2010, Apple files patents for iPay, iBuy and iCoupons that include the use of NFC.
May 2010, The French government-backed NFC trials in Nice commence as a dry-run for a planned national rollout. The trial involves four mobile operators, two banks, and the city's transit system.
June 2010, Nokia spokesperson Anssi Vanjoki announces (and later clarifies) that Nokia will begin including NFC technology in some of its phones starting in 2011.
August 2010, Apple hires NFC expert Benjamin Vigier and continues filing patents for mobile payments, including the use of NFC.
November 2010, Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced Android "Gingerbread" 2.3 will support NFC.
November 2010, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless announce joint venture to build national mobile commerce network using NFC-enabled phones. The Isis™ mobile wallet will eliminate the need to carry cash, credit and debit cards, reward cards, coupons, tickets and transit passes, fundamentally changing how you shop, pay and save. All with your phone.
Retailers would be wise to begin looking at what it takes to add an NFC reader to their POS. Oracle Retail will be demonstrating integration with the VivoTech NFC reader at the NRF Big Show in January. Stop by the booth and see.
Comments (4)
Tom Chorn:Smart phones already are vulnerable to a number of security threats. The Wikipedia entry for NFC enumerates additional threats for this technology.
IMHO, the biggest threat comes from NFC relying on the phone to authenticate the user. There are a number of ways to get around this --yes, you can circumvent the phone PIN... So, if you lose your phone, what protection will you have when someone starts to use it to rack up hundreds/thousands of bucks in purchases?? I bet it won't be the same as the protection you get on your credit cards.
Posted by Tom Chorn | November 29, 2010 1:34 PM
Posted on November 29, 2010 13:34
Tom, the technology has its shortcomings, but I don't see it as worse than current magstripe cards. Once lost, your phone can be deactivated by your TSM to minimize the damage. Good point, nonetheless.
Posted by David | November 29, 2010 1:47 PM
Posted on November 29, 2010 13:47
One way to facilitate deployment of NFC services can be through infrastructure, not only POS payment equipment, considering every usage which could benefit from contactless. We have been working on this and are proposing both infrastructure equipment, modules to allow other companies to integrate contactless in their own equipment such as kiosks, and also dedicated mobile devices when needed. All of our products are NFC and Zigbee capable, then you can add mid-range to short range communication, the communication flow being secured between both protocols.
More information on our website http://www.taztag.com
You may also visit us at CARTES in December or CES in January.Posted by Michel | November 30, 2010 3:30 AM
Posted on November 30, 2010 03:30
chip:Another option to prevent an unauthorized use of phone is to have IMEI of your device printed on your driving license. heh ...
Posted by chip | November 30, 2010 8:59 PM
Posted on November 30, 2010 20:59
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
'Tis the season for predictions. Here's an exciting one from Oracle.com: NFC Will Be the Killer App for 2011 (Insight-Driven Retailing Blog)
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Some of the best things in life can be free. From MediaPost. 10 Tools for Digital that Don't Cost a Dime
Which tools do experienced digital marketers rely on to develop their marketing strategies, plans, and programs?
Before building your next digital plan, be sure to check out these terrific free tools for input, support and guidance in 10 important areas.
1) Competitive site traffic: Compete.com estimates the number of U. S. visitors to practically all the top web sites, enabling users to enter up to five website names and receive Traffic Volume for each, along with additional site analytics. Quantcast.com provides U. S. audience composition stats, including gender, income, age group, visit frequency, and other sites visited. Alexa.com ranks sites comparatively based on traffic by millions of its toolbar users.
2) Search volume: Google Trends lets you enter up to five topics and see how often they've been searched on Google over time. It calculates how many searches occurred for the entered term(s), compared to total Google searches, and graphs the results. The Hot Searches feature displays the 40 fastest-increasing searches in the U. S., and is updated hourly. Google Insights enables narrower analysis to compare search volume patterns across specific geographic regions, subject categories, time frames and other Google properties. Google Traffic Estimator shows predicted search volume, average cost-per-click, and ad positions for specified keywords.
3) SEO Evaluation: WebsiteGrader.com, a free SEO evaluation tool, grades any site on its SEO effectiveness, based on factors including title, meta description, keywords, headings, images, Google Page Rank, inbound links, Google indexed pages, directory inclusion, and Delicious bookmarks. Entering your own url or a competitor's delivers a quick SEO assessment.
4) Competitive search activity: SpyFu.com reports the keywords a website buys on Google Adwords and the keywords causing a site to rank in search results. It also provides cost per click, search volume, and estimated search advertising spend. Other available information includes keywords used, organic search rank, top competitors, sites purchasing specific terms, and sites ranking organically for a given query.
5) Social media dialogue: SocialMention.com tracks the most current conversations about a company, product, or any other topic across the social media landscape, encompassing blogs, forums, bookmarks, comments, events, news, etc., by monitoring over 100 social media properties like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and YouTube. Technorati.com is the leading blog search engine, indexing over a million blogs, tracking the authority and influence of blogs, while providing an index of what is currently most popular in the Blogosphere.
6) Twitter monitoring: TweetMeme.com aggregates all the popular links on Twitter to determine which are popular, organizing these into Categories, Subcategories and Channels, so it's easy to filter and find what you are most interested in. Klout.com measures influence on Twitter (and Facebook), on a scale from 0 to 100, using variables like the number of retweets, the Twitter audience size, and influence of followers, while also providing influence monitoring tools.
7) Social media case studies: To keep abreast of social media marketing activity by industry leaders or competitors, visit these wikis/sites, which provide a wide range of case studies. For Social Media Cases across all industries, check out A Wiki of Social Media Marketing Examples. If you're focused on the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, read the cases at the Dose of Digital Social Media Wiki.
8) Sample Size Calculator: If you aren't a statistician, but require a simple, quick way to quantify the validity of your results, or establish the correct quantities for an in-market test, either of these two tools will do the trick: http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm or http://www.raosoft.com/samplesize.html.
9) Online Advertising Impact: Both DoubleClick Research and Atlas Institute Insights regularly publish valuable white papers with insightful analyses of online media performance impact, benchmarks and trends.
10) Marketing Stats and Presentations: Slideshare.com lets you share presentations, or view documents written by others, across a whole range of topics and industries. PewInternet.org is an ongoing research project providing a rich resource of trends and statistics about consumer usage of digital channels.
These are among the most powerful, free tools that equip digital marketers to plan and analyze more effectively, but if you have other personal favorites, please share them by posting or emailing.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Online Retailing is on the Rise - and So is On-Air! From The Guardian - QVC: Sale of the Century
Inside the QVC studio, a model shows off a ring in front of the cameras. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
It's Christmas time at QVC. But then it often seems to be Christmas time at QVC. It is 25 November when I visit the HQ of the home shopping channel in Battersea, south London, and it is gearing up for its Big Christmas Weekend. That's different from Early Bird Christmas; that was 25 September. Or Christmas In July, which took place on 25 July. "If there's a 25 in the month – there'll be Christmas," says Dermot Boyd, QVC's twinkly CEO. "It's the best time of year for us. We do make a feature of it." The channel's buyers, almost 100 of them, have already done their buying for Christmas 2011. You can see why.
But then QVC has reason to feel extra-specially Christmasy this year. Profits are up 6%, and it is now the UK's most widely distributed retailer. One-in-four homes have had something dispatched from its mile-long Liverpool distribution centre, one that's six times larger than Wembley Stadium. Last year it handled 15.1m calls, generating £368m. Six weeks ago, it launched a second channel, QVC Beauty, to tap into the UK's £16bn lipstick and mascara market, which has proved impervious to the recession.
"The demand for beauty over the last couple of years has been incredible," says Kate James, head of buying for the channel. Her clients agree. "On a good day, we've done £1m on QVC," says Andrew Rodgers, European marketing director for cosmetics company Bare Escentuals. "That would take a year in a department store."
QVC now reaches 106 million customers across five countries (QVC Italy opened in September, joining Germany, Japan and the original US parent company) with new-customer growth at a 10-year high. Just in time for 2011: QVC's 25th anniversary.
This will be the economic downturn, you'll be thinking. With no money left to leave the house, people are slumped in front of their digital TVs, morosely dialling up for cut-price Butler & Wilson PVC mock croc skin shoulder bags or Jack LaLanne compact power juicers. QVC has heard that one before. "It's not to say QVC does better in a recession than a boom," Boyd says carefully. "But relative to other retailers, it's a very resilient model. In the UK, we were founded in a recession, in the 1990s. And we grew successful in that." But QVC's biggest recent success may be one that's harder to put a figure on. That's a subtle brand repositioning.
The Apprentice's memorable 2007 candidate Katie Hopkins may have spoken for many (though perhaps not in quite the same language) when she described QVC's audience as "bored, big-boobed housewives called Mavis", balking at having to go on and sell plastic footspas and chocolate fountains (her amiable Apprentice rival Simon Ambrose faired better, going for the high-risk strategy of the pricier folding wheelchair). The perception was that QVC sold cheap tat, cheaply. Seventeen years ago, that may have been hard to argue with: when QVC UK launched, its must-have item was a yellow alarm clock shaped like a Volkswagen Beetle. Today, it stocks boutique-level beauty brands Decléor, Elemis and Bobbi Brown, alongside Bose stereo equipment and 3D-ready plasma TVs.
In April, it sold £1m worth of Dell notebooks in 24 hours. Before that it had some £19,000 necklaces for sale (it only sold two, but then you only need to sell two – the Simon Ambrose model). Marco Pierre White, Jemma Kidd, Lulu Guinness – and, indeed, Lulu – have all appeared on QVC, selling their own product lines. In the US, the channel has courted upmarket vendors such as NARS Cosmetics, while Mad Men costume designer Janie Bryant launched her collection on the channel. With co-sponsorship from Vogue, celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe recently helmed a New York fashion week show during which, noted QVC's US merchandising boss, "the inventory kind of evaporated".
That's not to say QVC is ever going to be confused with the Beverly Hills appointment-only boutique The House of Bijan: in the UK, the median purchase price remains £35-£40. You might recall the laughter directed at James Arbuthnot, chair of the House of Commons defence select committee, during the MPs expenses' scandal, when his claim for a four-piece garlic-peeling set was revealed – bought from QVC for £43.56. But at least it wasn't a yellow alarm clock shaped like a Volkswagen Beetle.
"In the early years, TV shopping had a negative connotation that came from the US, because they had a lot of infomercial channels that made unrealistic claims," says Boyd. "Here, the Advertising Standards Authority regulates very strictly what you can say. We think that's a good thing. We do a lot of work measuring brand recognition and, actually, in the UK, people don't have a negative [opinion of QVC]; but they don't have a positive. That's an OK starting point."
This year, Boyd set out to build on that, to "raise the profile of the company". In February, he handed a £500,000 contract to the PR firm responsible for Channel 4 and BAA. Their brief was to reposition his presenters as experts in their field, and build awareness. There have subsequently been a number of those PR perennials, the consumer survey, making their way into the papers. In June, thanks to a QVC-commissioned poll, we learned that 10% of the country "would rather give up their partner than their TV"; and then, in July, that women "are at their most beautiful at 31". But that was small fry compared with November's bright idea: within hours of William and Kate's marriage announcement, QVC had dug out an Epiphany Platinum-Clad Diamonique oval cluster ring, branded it "The Royal Engagement Look" and watched sales jump 800%. It has been sold-out ever since. To HRH: a priceless family heirloom. QVC price: £34.42. "We probably sold £40,000 worth of rings with a blue stone," says Boyd. Who would buy such a ring? "One assumes it's people who approve of the royal couple," says Boyd, smiling. "I think it's the feelgood factor."
A selection of items for sale on QVC. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
Then there is 2010's most surprising innovation: pop stars going on QVC to sell their albums. In February, the famously shy and retiring light entertainment polymath John Barrowman suggested he come on to promote his new collection of songs from musicals, selling 1,000 copies in the first three minutes. He was already a QVC devotee (he got his shopping card out on air to prove it). Where Barrowman leads, others can only follow. Charlotte Church, Jamie Cullum and ecclesiastical supergroup the Priests subsequently all launched their new albums on the channel. You can see the thinking. With few CD shops and even fewer music shows left, here's an hour to sing live, have a nice chat and, in Church's case, not be asked any awkward questions about Gavin Henson.
"You have to take advantage of the promotional opportunities there are," says the Priests' Fr Martin O'Hagan. "A lot of people don't go down the street to do their shopping any more." Boyd says that currently "all the main record companies are talking to us", while QVC's PR says the labels have told them "what a relief it is . . . how it's been an absolute nightmare to find new platforms". In May, the Official Charts Company changed the rules to allow QVC sales to contribute to the Top 40. You don't have to be Paul Gambaccini to spot that QVC's acts have all come from one place: the middle of the road. You're not going to see Motörhead on there. Or are you? "Actually, metal's interesting, because a lot of metal fans are in their 40s – our core audience," says Boyd. "Motörhead in full-flight wouldn't work, but maybe Lemmy acoustically. Rap would be tricky, though if I got Dizzee Rascal I might be tempted."
QVC was started in Pennsylvania in 1986 by Joseph Segel; founder of the coin and memorabilia supplier The Franklin Mint. Having watched a videotape of the Home Shopping Network, he felt he could do better. Segel insisted his presenters sell by informing. They would have to gen up on their products beforehand, and there would be no staring down the camera, hard-selling – the high-pressure tactics of the infomercials were out. Products were never "cheap", "cheaper" or "a bargain", but "good value". The presenters should convey the idea that they're shopping with a best friend.
"I look for voice tonality," says Tina Halvorsen, QVC UK's guest presenter manager. "Lots of our viewers keep QVC on all day, like a radio."
As any Apprentice fan knows, producers constantly direct their presenters via an earpiece. In the gallery, a live database tracks precisely how well a product is selling, and how much stock remains. Anything that triggers a sales spike – a certain phrase, or stroking a jacket's lining – is encouraged to be repeated. If sales-per-minute numbers are not good enough, it's on to the next item. An underperforming product might get a second chance in another time slot. After that, it's out.
"Even if you're presenting something that you personally don't like, the head you have to put on is: 'Well, my neighbour across the street would'," says Julia Roberts, QVC's longest-serving presenter (no, she's not that Julia Roberts). "You do a Worzel Gummidge."
QVC presenter Julia Roberts: she says her viewers look on her as a friend. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
Roberts used to be a hostess on The Price is Right with Leslie Crowther. Before that she was a cabaret dancer, supporting Cannon and Ball in summer season in Guernsey. For her QVC audition, she was given a pencil. "They said: 'Now sell this for five minutes.'" Her audiences love her. They come and chat in the supermarket. "Then you can see them thinking: 'I don't actually know you! I feel really stupid!' I take that as a compliment. They think I'm their friend." Judging from the number of enthusiastic montages on YouTube, she's also got more male friends than QVC's demographic would suggest. "I don't even want to know!" she wails.
Halvorsen gives me a tour of the building. It's like a village and is home to 500 planners, buyers, set builders and producers – all making 17 hours of live TV, 364 days a year. Everyone is very cheerful. Behind one door, a team have been prepping Christmas puddings since 7am.
"Hello, Tinee!"
"Hello, guys! How's everyone?"
"Oh, busy, busy!"
In the gallery we watch Dale Franklin – son of one of the Wrigley Doublemint twins – selling gold rings. "One thing you never hear us say on QVC is, 'Buy these as an investment because they're going to go up in price'. We don't know. Buy it because you love it. Buy it because it's something perhaps you want to pass down to your family . . ."
"'You're saving over £300 . . .'" nudges his producer, James Faulk.
"£686 regularly," Franklin parrots. "Now it's £374 – the one-time-only price . . ."
Faulk glances at his database. "Dale, we've lost 'R' for 'romance'," he says, indicating the sold-out ring size. "We've got S, T, V only . . ."
Halvorsen turns and beams. "I always say QVC is like a jigsaw puzzle: you need to look behind the scenes to see how it all fits. It's such a hard combination, isn't it?: broadcasting and selling."
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Electrifying. Just grabs and shakes you up. From AdAge. Dana Anderson's Celebrity Rules for Digital Marketing
Stay on top of the news, sign up for our free newslettersDana Anderson's Celebrity Rules for Digital Marketing
What You Can Learn From Robert Downey Jr., Angelina Jolie and Lady Gaga
By Kunur Patel
Published: November 30, 2010NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Dana Anderson, senior VP-marketing strategy and communications at Kraft, brought a gaggle of pop icons to the ME conference in New York. Even marketers can learn a thing or two from glossy celebrities such as Robert Downey Jr., Angelina Jolie and Lady Gaga.
--> For Ms. Anderson, celebrities and musicians show the course for big marketers looking to evolve for digital communications. Here are her simple rules for dragging a big, old-school organization like Kraft into the digital age.Pete KoloniaDana AndersonHave swagger
Ms. Anderson first looked to bad boy Robert Downey Jr., whom she dubbed the king of swagger."If you want to inspire people to go with you, you need the charisma and swagger," she said. "You need a little bit of Robert Downey Jr."
Ms. Anderson herself was a prime example of the value of swagger. Her confidence and ability to energize the crowd and to frame marketing lessons in easy pop-culture references and humor were evidence enough that the bad-boy rule also applies to girls. Badness is equal opportunity, she said.Related Stories
- Kraft
- Big Fork Little Fork IPad App
Be sly
Digital experiments also require a different set of rules than the typical measurement-driven campaign. Where new digital programs or media may be difficult to quantify by old standards, there are ways for an organization to dip a toe in and get people used to a new format."Pilot is my new favorite word: It means we are going to learn and going to have less risk," she said, adding, "Recess trumps calculus every time. Playing beats math. We're not going to worry about that [measurement] right now, we're just going to play."
That experiment mindset could also lead to an unexpected discovery of something valuable. "Two things I want you to remember are penicillin and electricity," she said."'Should we do social media?' is kind of like saying 'Should we get a light bulb?' when electricity was invented."
Play house
A next step is bringing people together to learn digital lessons in a more meaningful format than a training session. At Kraft, those events are called "digital hothouses." People are asked to bring their work problems to the hothouses and can expect to leave the event with an outline of a solution."It's not that people don't like training; they just don't have time for it," she said. "If you make it valuable ... they'll show up."
Don't settle
Ms. Anderson stressed that marketers should follow the lead of Angelina Jolie, who as an award-winning actress, mother and philanthropist, never settles. While her reference was playful, she acknowledged that digital means culling the herd.This advice especially applied to staffing, talent and agency partnerships, where settling should never be encouraged. "Be like Angelina," she said. "Learning about digital is hard for some folks," she said. "Not everybody is a 10."
"Not only do I want my guys to demand the very best, I want them to be the best, too," she added. That said, marketers and others need to be realistic -- or at least self-aware. She outlined the Rule of Two, where on a scale of 1 to 10, a person can only date someone two points above or below them.
"Let's say I am five, I can date two up and date two down," she said. "The same thing applies to being a great client. If you're a 5, you'll buy a 7 or 3, but what are the chances you'll inspire a 10?"
Be a little reckless
Next on Ms. Anderson's list of pop icons was Lady Gaga. From her, marketers can all learn a lesson in recklessness."Sometimes if you only color within the lines, you miss a lot," she said. "A lot of times when our folks get started, they think it's all about community, but pushing them beyond that can mean something great."
Live large
Staying in music, Ms. Anderson took a page from rap mogul Jay-Z's book. He does it big -- he even bought his wife, pop icon Beyonce, an island for $19 million. With him, Ms. Anderson emphasized the sheer scale of digital."We're moving to the big-D digital," she said. "Whether you're the new-products guy, the customer-service woman, there's a way for big-D digital to play a role in what you're doing."
Kiss and tell
Following pop star Katy Perry, Ms. Anderson says we should remember to kiss and tell. (She kissed a girl, and she liked it.) Especially in large organizations such as Kraft, marketers have to remember to share successes and new projects."You have to walk those halls and tell people what's going on," she said. Ms. Anderson tells her teams to take pictures for her.
"I'm going to tell these stories later," she said. "You have to work inside to let other people know you're having success."
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Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Encouraging news. Hope it happens. From AdAge. Marketers, Media Execs: Silos Breaking Down as Ideas Matter More
Stay on top of the news, sign up for our free newslettersMarketers, Media Execs See Silos Breaking Down as Ideas Matter More
WPP's Scanzoni: 'Clients Want Integration'
By Maureen Morrison
Published: November 30, 2010NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Marketers and media executives at Ad Age's Media Evolved Conference said they see silos of media type breaking down, and content mattering more than devices.
Scott McCune, VP-integrated marketing at Coca-Cola; Mark Kaline, global director-media licensing and consumer services at Kimberly-Clark; Rino Scanzoni, chief investment officer at WPP's Group M; and Matt Seiler, global CEO at Interpublic Group of Cos.' Universal McCann, participated in a panel discussion on the future of the media and how marketers can work with media companies and agencies to establish a new model built on partnerships and innovation.
From a marketer's perspective, Mr. McCune said, "We're looking at why we are buying media. It's no longer looking at spots and dots. We're thinking about how do we start to partner with content owners in a way that can actually drive our business." Mr. Kaline echoed similar sentiments. "You have to look at why you're partnering with these media companies in a certain way. It used to be because of efficiencies and scale. That is still valid but what we're trying to do is build programs around ideas."
Media agencies are recognizing clients' needs in an increasingly fragmented media landscape. "There are still siloed vendors and agencies but those are breaking down quickly because clients want integration," said Mr. Scanzoni. And Mr. Seiler observed that if agencies continue to think of media owners as vendors -- rather than partners -- then "we will continue to be in a buyer/seller antiquated world."
With all the talk of integration and breaking down of media silos, mobile still stands out. Mr. Scanzoni noted that with content being distributed through all channels of media, including mobile devices, content and engagement will become increasingly more important. "The way the consumer is going to engage is going to be more relevant to content than the device. The device is less relevant to experience."
Mr. Seiler added that mobile is not as much about the device, except for it's proximity to the purchase. "Is the consumer the same through all devices? The person is the same person. But at what point are they a consumer? Close to point of purchase. The moment of interaction is a much more interesting way of thinking about the cycle of entertained person to engaged shopper."
As for the future of media, Mr. Scanzoni reiterated the importance of content over devices; Mr. Kaline said the future media landscape will be dominated by strong media brands -- be it a magazine, network or mommy blog; and Mr. Seiler thinks it will be a mix, as opposed to one dominant player or medium.
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Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
The Analog v Digital War has upped a notch! From The NYT. Print Magazine Ad Mocks Digital Cousin
The ad is meant to highlight print as preferable to digital.
So which is better: a print magazine or its digital version?
The newest ad for the nation’s major magazine publishers, which have been running a promotional campaign to counter perceptions that print is a dying medium, doesn’t side with its newer medium.
“This is not the Internet. Feel free to curl up and settle in,” begins the two-page spread, which features a full-page picture of a woman lounging in a hammock strung between two palm trees. She does not appear to be reading a magazine.
“Magazines don’t blink on and off,” the ad reads. “They don’t show video or deliver ads that pop up out of nowhere. You can’t DVR magazines and you can’t play games on them.”
Previous ads, which have all carried the tagline “Magazines: The Power of Print,” highlighted the strength of the print business. But they did not go as far as to actually assail the Internet.
This new approach may seem somewhat strange coming from an industry that has spent the last few years tearing down the institutional walls between print and online operations.
There is also all the money and resources — tens of millions of dollars each at the largest publishing companies — that they have poured into creating iPad versions and other digital formats of their titles.
But the ad’s chief creator, Michael A. Clinton, president of marketing and publishing director for Hearst Magazines, said the news that magazines are thriving needed attention even if publishing is an increasingly digital business.
“Magazines didn’t have a consumer problem; they had an advertising problem,” he said, stressing that the fundamentals of the business are solid despite the decline in advertising spending that forced many publishers last year to lay off employees and shut down titles.
“We have to be delivering our content in different ways,” he said, “but in a continually digitized world, the interesting thing is the passion people still have for the print product.”
The campaign, which began in March and was designed by Y&R New York, has been a joint effort by Hearst, Time Inc., Condé Nast, Meredith and Wenner Media, all of which have run the ads in their magazines.
The Association of Magazine Media has also thrown its support behind the ads. Formerly known as the Magazine Publishers of America, the group recently changed its name because its leaders wanted a less print-centric title.
The quote at the end says it all. From AdAge. Marketing: A Brand's Best Bet in Social Media Is Randomness
Stay on top of the news, sign up for our free newslettersWhen It Comes to Facebook, Relevance May Be Redefined
To Create Conversation, Simple, Random and Banal May Be a Brand's Best Bets
by Matthew Creamer
Published: November 29, 2010NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- May 4, as you may or may not know, is National Star Wars Day, a fact recognized by no less august bodies than the Los Angeles City Council and the Church of Jediism, a George Lucas-inspired denomination that counts itself as the fourth-largest church in the United Kingdom. This year the occasion was also marked by the folks at BlackBerry, who updated their corporate Twitter account to read "May the 4th Be With You."
What does BlackBerry have to do with Star Wars? Not much, other than selling an app that turns your Torch or Tour into a faux light saber. But that didn't stop the tweet from being one of the company's most effective -- a phenomenon Brian Wallace, VP-global digital at BlackBerry parent Research In Motion, had to try to explain to colleagues.
--> "I remember getting emails from my peers asking me why we would post such a thing and was this why we created our Twitter channel," he wrote in an email interview. "My response was that this post reached over 150,000 people, 98% of the posts were positive, most tweets made a positive association with our brand, and it drove a 15% increase in our followers. Now what's the value of all that to our company? For the cost of $0.00 we have increased positive brand sentiment, generated a measurable earned-media value and now have 20,000+ more people who I can share product-related information to. Not a bad ROI."Oreo strikes a balance between promotion and chat on Facebook.
Marketing executives all over the world are having experiences not dissimilar to Mr. Wallace's. Relevance has long been a central tenet of effective advertising, but the rise of Facebook and Twitter are forcing a redefinition of the term. As it turns out, many people in social networks don't want to talk about your product, they just want to talk. We've long known that inserting brands into social-media channels requires a conversational touch, but many are surprised by just how conversational. There's increasing evidence that the most-effective kinds of marketing communications on these websites are simple, random, even banal statements or questions driven by the calendar or the whim of a writer that may not have anything to do with the brand in question.
What are you doing this weekend? What is your ideal vacation? What's your favorite movie or book? On Veteran's Day, BlackBerry posted a simple holiday-related message that received nearly 8,000 likes and more than 500 comments, many of which consisted of veterans thanking the brand and posting their PINs, allowing others to contact them via BlackBerry messenger. Reaction to that update far outpaced other recent ones concerned with products or tips.
It's never been particularly easy or cheap to get 8,000 people to do anything for a brand, but Twitter and Facebook may be changing that. "We're so used to advertising and marketing being highly reviewed, high-production-quality creative on which you spend a lot of money and time, and there's a whole flow built on creating and approving it, said Michael Lazerow, CEO of Buddy Media. "All the sudden, a very simple question, like 'What's your favorite movie?' is engaging your customers and that's your creative. People say 'Whoa.'"
With more than 500 million people on Facebook and Twitter closing in on 200 million users, "stream marketing," as Mr. Lazerow describes it, will be crucial. What goes into those ceaseless rivers, alongside updates and content from friends, said Mr. Lazerow, "is some of the most powerful and important creative that we're going to be dealing with." On the part of the writers, that requires a different ability that's far from what's been traditionally needed in marketing. Said Mr. Wallace, "You need to be skilled at understanding how a seemingly random-type message can -- in the end -- contribute to the company brand and/or behavioral objectives."
Mr. Lazerow, whose company makes tools that help brands manage their Facebook presences, estimates that roughly two-thirds of a company's Facebook content should be conversational in nature. The exact ratio, however, depends on what it's trying to achieve. While there's no across-the-board data on how conversational posts compare to promotional ones, he said the evidence is clear. He pointed me to a few different examples on Facebook where those conversational posts produce eight to 12 times the response of more brand-oriented ones. "It's not always about your brand," he said. "It's about why people are there to connect with other people, [gettng them] to connect with you because they like you. The numbers speak for themselves."
Oreo is masterful in handling that balance between promotion and conversation. Consider the responses from several recent questions:
- "Ever try dunking an Oreo cookie with a fork or anything else?" 8,200 likes and 2,300 comments
- "Pick a flavor, any flavor! If you could create a new Oreo cream flavor, what would it be?" 7,100 likes, 12,500 comments
- "Pop quiz: Twist, lick, then..." 6,500 likes, 6,200 comments
In case you're wondering, these numbers aren't far off what posts on Lady Gaga's page might do. Not bad for a 98-year-old cookie brand. Oreo's Facebook fan base has grown by 3 million since late October, giving it over 15 million fans. It's one of three brands, along with Coke and Starbucks, to penetrate a top 25 dominated by celebrities, entertainment properties and Texas Hold Em Poker.
The Kraft cookie's Facebook presence originates from a department at the digital agency 360i, which, with a dozen writers who work off pre-planned editorial calendar, is as organized as any publication and is now bigger than many. That department reaches more than 30 million fans across a long list of brands, including Coca-Cola, JC Penney, Lysol and Jell-O. Those writers typically have experience talking to people on behalf of brands, often as community managers in non-social network settings.
"When you have ad agencies or copywriters writing your Facebook copy, it ends up being promotional in nature and if you're not inspiring feedback no one's going to care," said Sarah Hofstetter, senior VP-emerging media and brand strategy at 360i. "You can only talk about your product so much. Balance that with you're not trying to be their best friend, you're trying to achieve some marketing objective."
For Oreo, as Ms. Hofstetter explains it, those objectives are both fan-base growth and engagement on the page. For other clients, it's a whole different thing. Bravo, for instance, is interested in clicks and views of the videos of its shows. BlackBerry's Mr. Wallace said that success is about getting likes, or shares, or comments. Or maybe the person will click on an ad or post a photo or video he or she took with a BlackBerry.
"In the end it's behavior-based," said Mr. Wallace. "A Facebook fan has no value. Getting a Facebook fan to do something does."
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From The NYT: Mobile Banking in the Emerging World
BERLIN — In Tanzania, a hospital sends money by text message to women in remote areas so they can pay for bus fare to travel for critically needed surgery. In Afghanistan, the government pays its police officers by text message to skirt corrupt middlemen. In Pakistan, the biggest financial network is not a bank, but a unit of Telenor, the Norwegian mobile phone operator.
While storefront bank branches and online banking are ubiquitous in the United States and most developed countries, in less-developed countries only a small fraction of the population is served by banking services.
Mobile banking first appeared in the Philippines in 2001, when two operators, Globe and Smart, introduced their own domestic payment plan. In most mobile banking models, the person sending a payment sends the amount by text to the recipient’s phone number.
The person receiving the payment goes to an authorized local agent, typically a mom-and-pop retailer that also sells prepaid mobile phone cards, and withdraws the cash.
In parts of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, more than 90 percent of people typically carry at least one mobile phone, a technological tether that mobile operators are exploiting to become retail bankers to the emerging world.
“Five years ago, there was hype around mobile banking but no real numbers in terms of customers,” said Mung Ki Woo, vice president of electronic payments and transactions at Orange, the wireless unit of France Télécom. “Now we are starting to see significant numbers. I think the potential of mobile banking is huge, going forward.”
Since December 2008, Orange has signed up one million people for its Orange Money mobile banking service in six African countries: Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Kenya and Niger. In Kenya and Tanzania, subsidiaries of the British mobile operator Vodafone now process more international wire transfers than Western Union.
In Kenya, Vodafone has 13 million customers and in Tanzania, six million customers for its mobile banking service, which generated 670 million transactions last year, primarily for domestic or international money transfers, said Peter Cornforth, a Vodafone business development manager for the service, called M-Pesa. Pesa is the Swahili word for money.
In Kenya, coffee growers routinely pay their field workers by text message, and in Tanzania, Vodafone customers pay the national electric utility, Luku, by text. In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, a rehabilitation hospital called C.C.B.R.T. sends bus fare via texts to women who travel to it for surgery to correct fistula incontinence, a common side effect of childbirth.
“Apart from being a serious new business for operators, these services for the first time are connecting people to critical banking services, and making positive changes” in their lives, said Mr. Cornforth, who is based in London.
Telefónica, the Spanish operator that is a market leader in Latin America, plans to start mobile banking services in four South American countries next year. Globally, the number of mobile banking users is expected to surge more than sixteenfold, to 894 million by 2015 from 55 million in 2009, according to Berg Insight, an industry research firm based in Stockholm.
Almost all of those mobile banking customers — 78 percent, or 697 million people — are in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, according to Berg Insight. In Europe and North America, mobile banking remains secondary to personal computer-based Internet banking. Even so, the on-the-go convenience of mobile banking is attracting users in the West.
About 10 percent of U.S. bank consumers use mobile banking, usually to transfer money, make payments or monitor bank accounts, said Teresa A. Epperson, a partner at Mercatus, a Boston company that advises banks and financial institutions. As more U.S. consumers buy smartphones, mobile banking’s market penetration is expected to exceed online banking’s, which currently is about 50 percent, by 2015, Ms. Epperson said.
“This is only going to get bigger, in our opinion,” she said.
The potential is great in Latin America, where only 35 percent of the people have bank accounts, only 19 percent have bank cards but 90 percent have mobile phones, said Pablo Montesano, the head of mobile financial services at Telefónica.
Investors are also beginning to recognize the potential of the technology. In September, a leading maker of mobile banking technology for SIM cards, a French company called Gemalto, bought Trivnet, an Israeli company that makes financial transaction management software for mobile operators, for $40 million.
Only six months earlier, Trivnet had won the contract to supply mobile banking technology in Latin America to Telefónica.
Amit Mattatia, the Trivnet chief executive, said that 10 to 15 operators next year are planning to start large mobile banking operations in big markets in Latin America, the Middle East and India. Citing confidentiality, he declined to identify the operators.
“Because so much of the world is under-banked, consumers want these services very much,” Mr. Mattatia said.
As the cost of a simple mobile phone has fallen below $20 in most of the world, mobile banking is becoming affordable in emerging markets.
“This is now poised to explode in the developing world,” said Philippe Vrignaud, a senior vice president in Singapore for Gemalto.
In Pakistan, where only 14 percent of the people have bank accounts, Telenor introduced mobile banking in November 2008.
The service, called Easypaisa (100 paisa equal a Pakistani rupee), now has 500,000 active users who sent transactions worth a combined 5.5 billion rupees, or $64.1 million, in the first quarter of this year.
Most were domestic money transfers, which are limited to $120 a transfer. Telenor exacts a fee of as much as 5 percent of the transaction.
Easypaisa is available at 11,000 independent retail agents that make up Telnor’s distribution network, which outnumber the 8,300 combined branches of all Pakistani banks.
Within three years, Telenor plans to expand the number of retailers in its network to 36,000.
“This service is about addressing the unmet needs of the consumer,” said Aamir Ibrahim, a vice president and chief strategy officer at Telenor Pakistan. “I think this is suitable for all of our markets everywhere.”
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Instant-gratification is at times overrated. From The Guardian: Daily Mail's message about media success in the long-term
The Daily Mail HQ in Kensington. Ownership matters when it comes to taking the long view. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian
A smiling editor of the Mail Online, Martin Clarke, found himself suddenly applauded at an editors' conference a few days ago. He could claim growth nearing 55% a year, a record 50 million unique visitors in October, the prospect of overtaking the New York Times as the world's biggest newspaper site – plus profitability. Now factor in year-end results for all the Mail group and applaud again. Pretty stunning, smileworthy stuff.
You don't have to like what the Mail says to be duly stunned. You may, indeed, wish to denounce it from the nearest soap box. But you'd be stupid not to trawl through those results and draw some lessons. Pre-tax profits up by 23% to £247m. Profits at Associated News, which covers the national papers, up 54% to £95m. Ad revenues recovering from recession by a clear 7%; circulations – though a little queasy – among the best performers in town. What's not to like?
Stand back, with the benefits of analysts' wisdom, moreover, and the lessons don't finish there. By 2011, on this form, newspaper profits across the entire group will only amount to 34% of the total. In 1996, they were 87%. In short, the move into business-to-business areas and related fields has been a signal success. Newspapers – bar the failure to sell regional titles when the going was good – aren't anywhere near dead: but they survive within a much broader base.
And there's one more lesson to add, a lesson about newspaper ownership. The family Harmsworth, whose ownership of the crucial voting stock in the omnipotent Daily Mail and General Trust gives them the decisive voice in the company's affairs, has often taken stick for investing too much in journalism, keeping staffing ratios too fat, not pushing short-term profitability to the maximum. For, in short, not trying to run all the time when it could afford to stop and think.
But now, in the wake of an almighty crunch, you can look around Europe and search vainly for major newspaper groups with a share price record to rival the Mail. The long view counts. The ability to take that longer view can mean money in the bank. The often despised dynasty principle can deliver the goods – if the dynasty sticks together. It may not be an ownership model that others can easily replicate: but don't fail to count its blessings. More cautious sounds of applause, off.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Will 2011 finally prove this right? From The Paypers. Micropayments: a new growth opp for media, entertainment?
Micropayments: a new growth opportunity for media and entertainment companies ?
Published: Wednesday 24 November 2010 | 09:43 AM CET, The Paypers
After various attempts to develop efficient strategies for digital content monetization, the “micropayment” model appears to emerge as a key revenue growth opportunity for global media and entertainment (M&E) companies, a recent report notes. Nevertheless, a universal approach to providing micropayment services is not possible, as consumer habits in different countries vary, the same study points out.
The global research conducted by international organisation Ernst & Young and based on various data sources of consumer spending habits in 12 countries, has revealed that there are major disparities in consumers’ free and transactional online behaviour, with cultural spending habits rather than broadband speed being the key element to the success of paid content models. The report identifies the UK, France, Japan and the US as markets where paid online content is most likely to thrive.
Behaviour patterns vary between countries
According to the report, on average, 54 percent of consumers in the 12 countries under review access free online activities, such as online videos and social networks. But behaviour varies widely between countries. For instance, South Korea ranked highest, with 70 percent of internet users accessing free online content, followed by 61 percent in China, 60 percent in India, and the UK and Japan, with 45 percent and 43 percent respectively. With 57 percent, the US was the only non-emerging country among the top five.
Consumer behaviour differences particularly evident in digital music sales
Companies focused on finding an efficient micropayments model to monetize their digital content should also take in consideration indicators such as sales and downloads of digital music, the report has shown. Findings of the research suggest that internet users in the UK, Japan and the US spend considerably more on digital music than users in the other countries in the study, yet they have among the lowest levels of online music penetration.
In the UK, for instance, internet users spent an average of USD 6.30 (GBP 4) on digital music products in 2009 with18 percent of the population using the internet to access digital music, both paid and free, according to Ofcom, the UK independent telecommunications regulator and competition authority for the communication industries. Across the globe, Japan had a high per user spend (USD 10.12) with a relatively low penetration (25 percent), indicating that Japanese are paying for their music content more than in any other country. China has an extremely high penetration (83 percent) with a very low per user spend (USD 0.20).
According to the report, a state of equilibrium has not been reached yet between internet users accessing music online for free and those paying for it. Nevertheless, a sector that seems to have found the right balance is the online gaming industry, which has already developed various paid content business models for social gaming, generating revenues through microtransactions for virtual goods.
Processing costs still a major challenge
The virtual goods industry presents a significant potential of expansion. Findings of the research have shown that in the US, the market is set to reach USD 1.6 billion in 2010. Of that, the social gaming market alone contributed USD 835 million. China has over 105 million gaming users. Their virtual goods sales in 2009 were estimated at USD 2.2 billion.
Nevertheless, in order for the micropayments system to become widely adopted across the M&E industry, processing costs need to decrease, the report outlines. At present, the cost of clearing and settling a payment still amounts to approximately USD 0.20 (12 pence) per transaction, a figure which is significantly high for a payment of USD 1 or less.
The Paypers is the leading independent news source for the global e-payment community, covering all significant news in the online and mobile payments industry, as well as closely related topics. The Paypers provides you need-to-know information about the payment industry: real time news, research, analysis, statistics and various articles. More info? Visit: http://www.thepaypers.com or e-mail: info@thepaypers.com
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Yet more proof old and new media MUST mix. From MediaLife: For radio, the promise of digital coupons
medialifemagazine.com
Radio
For radio, the promise of digital coupons
By Mike Stern
Nov 22, 2010 - 1:02:19 AM
Radio has long worked as a medium for driving consumers into stores, and quite well. Think of the Pizza Hut spot airing during afternoon drive time, targeting commuters on their way home as they ponder what they’ll be having for dinner.
Zip, off the expressway they go, aiming for the Pizza Hut closest to the house.
Now radio is coming up with a new way to drive consumers into stores, and in a way that merges this very traditional medium with the newest of media, digital couponing, where stations offer listeners deals on advertisers’ products and services.
Example: A coupon, delivered via email, offers $15 off dinner at a local Italian restaurant or 10 percent off on dog grooming services. The offers are sent to a station’s list of dedicated listeners.
It’s the hot new thing in radio, and it comes at a good time. While the economy is coming back, advertisers, local advertisers in particular, are still looking for opportunities that deliver results they can measure directly, in the form of revenue.
Couponing benefits stations in a number of ways.
It’s another stream of revenue, but beyond that it gives the station something else to sell, a new product, so to speak, and the opportunity to sign on businesses that have not advertised in the past. Once they come in on a coupon deal, they’re ripe for up-selling.
“Some of our partners have attributed broadcast buys from new clients to being able to use digital couponing as a conversation starter,” says Dean Pederson, the founder and principle of Dialog, a platform stations can use to execute coupon programs.
Digital coupon offers also strengthen a station’s bond with listeners by giving them chance to save money during tough economic times.
In the last few years digital couponing has seen huge growth, from an estimated 38 million users in 2008 to over 45 million in 2009, or about 14 percent of the U.S. population, according to the Web site Coupons.com.
Further, of those 45 million people, more than 13 million exclusively use digital coupons, eschewing the traditional paper coupons found in newspapers.
What’s new is the increasing use of radio. Much of the early couponing was through online-only vendors.
Radio stations bring to couponing their tremendous reach, which makes the service that much more attractive to businesses deciding whether to sign on.
“As radio stations get involved it could really change the makeup of who interacts with these coupons,” says Jim Nichols, a senior partner at the strategic marketing services group Catalyst SF. “I’ll bet it will broaden the appeal.”
The two primary types of programs stations are getting involved with are deal-of-the-day programs, known as social couponing, and more traditional retail discount programs.
Social couponing originated in Chicago with a company called Groupon, but the model is being widely copied.
The system is fairly simple: Consumers opt in to receive a daily email detailing that day’s deal. But there are two all-important catches that are really at the heart of the deal. The offer is good for one day only, and it’s only good if a minimum number of people sign up for it.
The effect is to set off a user-driven viral campaign as consumers who are interested in the offer reach out to friends to come in, lest they see the deal evaporate.
The consumer then buys the discount coupon online, and the revenue is split 50-50 between the station and the business offering the coupon. The station pays the third-party firms that execute the program.
The advantages for the business are several. It receives the revenue upfront, before it delivers on the good or service, and it gets the benefit of the radio spots promoting the deal, without laying out a penny.
“If we sell one or 1,000 [coupons], there is tremendous value in the promotional spots from the radio station,” explains Dialog’s Pederson.
The best candidates are service businesses where costs are fixed so the extra traffic is all additional revenue.
For businesses selling goods, such as restaurants, Nichols suggests doing the math carefully when crafting an offer. If the average bill at a restaurant is $40, he suggests offering a deal in the range of a coupon for $30 of food for $15 so the additional $10 in spending helps mitigate the cost of the offer.
He also suggests using the program to drive business in non-peak times. “The idea of a marketing technique that could not only fill my restaurant on a slow night but could result in return traffic and has guaranteed revenue is tremendous.”
The other type of digital couponing stations are exploring involves more traditional retailer discounts.
For example the web site Edeals.com recently signed on to provide digital coupons for a number of radio stations, including properties owned by CBS and Journal Broadcasting.
Edeals.com COO Mike Palso says radio stations had been toying with this type of program but hadn’t fully committed. “They had dipped their toe in the water but hadn’t put in the type of time, effort or funding to really get traction.”
Partnering with companies like Edeals.com enables stations to provide listeners with access to discounts from national retailers and local businesses personalized with the station’s branding.
Each station’s page features individual branding, including having demo-appropriate deals featured prominently.
Palso says partnering with companies like his or Dialog really helps stations take full advantage of this opportunity.
“When new technologies comes out we are already testing those things and have it available allowing them to stay right on the edge without having to make a big investment to be there,” he says.
© 2010 Media Life
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Why Twitter matters for media organisations | Alan Rusbridger | Technology | guardian.co.uk
I've lost count of the times people – including a surprising number of colleagues in media companies – roll their eyes at the mention of Twitter. "No time for it," they say. "Inane stuff about what twits are having for breakfast. Nothing to do with the news business."
Well, yes and no. Inanity – yes, sure, plenty of it. But saying that Twitter has got nothing to do with the news business is about as misguided as you could be.
Here, off the top of my head, are 15 things, which Twitter does rather effectively and which should be of the deepest interest to anyone involved in the media at any level.
1) It's an amazing form of distribution
It's a highly effective way of spreading ideas, information and content. Don't be distracted by the 140-character limit. A lot of the best tweets are links. It's instantaneous. Its reach can be immensely far and wide.
Why does this matter? Because we do distribution too. We're now competing with a medium that can do many things incomparably faster than we can. It's back to the battle between scribes and movable type. That matters in journalistic terms. And, if you're trying to charge for content, it matters in business terms. The life expectancy of much exclusive information can now be measured in minutes, if not in seconds. That has profound implications for our economic model, never mind the journalism.
2) It's where things happen first
Not all things. News organisations still break lots of news. But, increasingly, news happens first on Twitter. If you're a regular Twitter user, even if you're in the news business and have access to wires, the chances are that you'll check out many rumours of breaking news on Twitter first. There are millions of human monitors out there who will pick up on the smallest things and who have the same instincts as the agencies — to be the first with the news. As more people join, the better it will get.
3) As a search engine, it rivals Google
Many people still don't quite understand that Twitter is, in some respects, better than Google in finding stuff out. Google is limited to using algorithms to ferret out information in the unlikeliest hidden corners of the web. Twitter goes one stage further – harnessing the mass capabilities of human intelligence to the power of millions in order to find information that is new, valuable, relevant or entertaining.
4) It's a formidable aggregation tool
You set Twitter to search out information on any subject you want and it will often bring you the best information there is. It becomes your personalised news feed. If you are following the most interesting people they will in all likelihood bring you the most interesting information. In other words, it's not simply you searching. You can sit back and let other people you admire or respect go out searching and gathering for you. Again, no news organisation could possibly aim to match, or beat, the combined power of all those worker bees collecting information and disseminating it.
5) It's a great reporting tool
Many of the best reporters are now habitually using Twitter as an aid to find information. This can be simple requests for knowledge which other people already know, have to hand, or can easily find. The so-called wisdom of crowds comes into play: the 'they know more than we do' theory. Or you're simply in a hurry and know that someone out there will know the answer quickly. Or it can be reporters using Twitter to find witnesses to specific events – people who were in the right place at the right time, but would otherwise be hard to find.
6) It's a fantastic form of marketing
You've written your piece or blog. You may well have involved others in the researching of it. Now you can let them all know it's there, so that they come to your site. You alert your community of followers. In marketing speak, it drives traffic and it drives engagement. If they like what they read they'll tell others about it. If they really like it, it will, as they say, 'go viral'. I only have 18,500 followers. But if I get re-tweeted by one of our columnists, Charlie Brooker, I instantly reach a further 200,000. If Guardian Technology pick it up it goes to an audience of 1.6m. If Stephen Fry notices it, it's global.
7) It's a series of common conversations. Or it can be
As well as reading what you've written and spreading the word, people can respond. They can agree or disagree or denounce it. They can blog elsewhere and link to it. There's nothing worse than writing or broadcasting something to no reaction at all. With Twitter you get an instant reaction. It's not transmission, it's communication. It's the ability to share and discuss with scores, or hundreds, or thousands of people in real time. Twitter can be fragmented. It can be the opposite of fragmentation. It's a parallel universe of common conversations.
8) It's more diverse
Traditional media allowed a few voices in. Twitter allows anyone.
9) It changes the tone of writing
A good conversation involves listening as well as talking. You will want to listen as well as talk. You will want to engage and be entertaining. There is, obviously, more brevity on Twitter. There's more humour. More mixing of comment with fact. It's more personal. The elevated platform on which journalists sometimes liked to think they were sitting is kicked away on Twitter. Journalists are fast learners. They start writing differently.
Talking of which…
10) It's a level playing field
A recognised "name" may initially attract followers in reasonable numbers. But if they have nothing interesting to say they will talk into an empty room. The energy in Twitter gathers around people who can say things crisply and entertainingly, even though they may be "unknown." They may speak to a small audience, but if they say interesting things they may well be republished numerous times and the exponential pace of those re-transmissions can, in time, dwarf the audience of the so-called big names. Shock news: sometimes the people formerly known as readers can write snappier headlines and copy than we can.
11) It has different news values
People on Twitter quite often have an entirely different sense of what is and what isn't news. What seems obvious to journalists in terms of the choices we make is quite often markedly different from how others see it – both in terms of the things we choose to cover and the things we ignore. The power of tens of thousands of people articulating those different choices can wash back into newsrooms and affect what editors choose to cover. We can ignore that, of course. But should we?
12) It has a long attention span
The opposite is usually argued – that Twitter is simply a, instant, highly condensed stream of consciousness. The perfect medium for goldfish. But set your Tweetdeck to follow a particular keyword or issue or subject and you may well find that the attention span of Twitterers puts newspapers to shame. They will be ferreting out and aggregating information on the issues that concern them long after the caravan of professional journalists has moved on.
13) It creates communities
Or, rather communities form themselves around particular issues, people, events, artifacts, cultures, ideas, subjects or geographies. They may be temporary communities, or long-terms ones, strong ones or weak ones. But I think they are recognisably communities.
14) It changes notions of authority
Instead of waiting to receive the 'expert' opinions of others – mostly us, journalists — Twitter shifts the balance to so-called 'peer to peer' authority. It's not that Twitterers ignore what we say – on the contrary (see distribution and marketing, above) they are becoming our most effective transmitters and responders. But, equally, we kid ourselves if we think there isn't another force in play here – that a 21-year-old student is quite likely to be more drawn to the opinions and preferences of people who look and talk like her. Or a 31-year-old mother of young toddlers. Or a 41-year-old bloke passionate about politics and the rock music of his youth.
15) It is an agent of change
As this ability of people to combine around issues and to articulate them grows, so it will have increasing effect on people in authority. Companies are already learning to respect, even fear, the power of collaborative media. Increasingly, social media will challenge conventional politics and, for instance, the laws relating to expression and speech.
Now you could write a further list of things that are irritating about the way people use Twitter. It's not good at complexity – though it can link to complexity. It can be frustratingly reductive. It doesn't do what investigative reporters or war correspondents do. It doesn't, of itself, verify facts. It can be distracting, indiscriminate and overwhelming.
Moreover, I'm simply using Twitter as one example of the power of open, or social media. Twitter may go the way of other, now forgotten, flashes in the digital pan. The downside of Twitter also means that the full weight of the world's attention can fall on a single unstable piece of information. But we can be sure that the motivating idea behind these forms of open media isn't going away and that, if we are blind to their capabilities, we will be making a very serious mistake, both in terms of our journalism and the economics of our business.
Fascinating treatise on Twitter.
Friday, November 19, 2010
First read this NYT piece 2 years ago - and the truth it tells still applies: Google Seduces With Utility
Not long ago, someone invited me out to the Googleplex, the nickname for Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.
The fact is, I already live there. And it’s starting to worry me.
Having grown up in the vapor trail of the ’60s, I learned to be wary of large, centralized organizations, and yet Google, a huge enterprise with a market value of $80 billion, is my ever-present wingman.
My increasingly exclusive relationship with Google started with search, of course, when I switched from Yahoo years ago. Eventually I accepted an invitation to Gmail, with its oodles of storage and very granular search function, and it has oddly become my default database — deep, rich and personal.
I added the company’s calendar because I needed one I could share both inside and outside of work. And then the calendar and e-mail started talking to each other — and to me, I guess — by asking whether I wanted to schedule an event that was mentioned in an incoming message. Although it sort of creeped me out, the answer was yes, which it almost always is when it comes to Google.
Google has begun to crowd out other brands. I was a loyal MapQuest guy, but as Google Maps added features, it seemed cumbersome to go elsewhere. And even something as specific as HopStop, an elegant tool I used to navigate the New York subways, is left behind as Google gets smarter about the difference between the N-R line and the A-C-E.
I’m getting ready for the Oscar season, so I needed to set up some relevant R.S.S. feeds, and Google Reader was handy, so there’s that. It’s easy to update my status under my chat icon while I’m on Gmail, so I tend to update that mood ring with more frequency than my Facebook status. When Google acquired YouTube, it gained another chunk of my mindshare.
And then a few weeks ago, I noticed there was a steady march of new little camera icons on the Gmail chat function. I looked around and saw a colored button at the top of my e-mail page that was a link to Google voice and video chat. I clicked it, hit the download button, and within 20 seconds, I was ready to go.
It’s not the first video chatting that I have done, only the first that actually worked well. Within minutes of downloading, I was talking live on my PC to my 11-year-old daughter on a Mac, a process that in the past would have involved everything short of splitting the atom. Then I told my twins away at college and yes, my mother-in-law about it, and before long we were all chatting away in an easy, friction-free future.
Score another one for the Googleplex.
You could credit Google, the largest ad seller in the world, with being a brilliant marketer and advertiser, but when was the last time you saw an ad, not served up by Google, but about Google? Not very often. That’s largely because Google’s Web platform, in all of its high-functioning glory, is its marketing.
“The most powerful form of advertising is to be exceptional,” said Ranjit Mathoda, an investor and technologist who blogs at Mathoda.com. “Google has created an ecosystem that perpetuates itself by being useful.”
Take video chat. Many other companies would take that kind of quantum leap and shout it from the rooftops, but Google just did a smallish blog post about the new feature and left it at that.
“We do have a philosophy that our products should speak for themselves. We tend not to make a lot of noise,” said Jeff Huber, senior vice president for engineering at Google.
As always with Google, the price point is appealing: zero, if you don’t count the amount of personal data that I am trading for all that utility. With Google, it is always simple, and any engineer will tell you that simple is hard. There had been a lot of talk within Google about creating video chat as a PC-only application, a much easier endeavor for the company, but it would not have been simple for the consumer.
If Google owns me, it’s probably because I am in favor of what works.
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, who was in New York last week. “We want a little bit of Google in many parts of your life.”
Mission accomplished, at least on my desktop, but I asked Mr. Schmidt if I shouldn’t be worried that I am putting all of my digital eggs in one multicolored, goofy-lettered basket.
“That depends on what you think of our company and our values,” he said. “Do you believe we have good values?”
Mr. Schmidt seems nice enough, but I sometimes wonder if I will come to regret the easier, softer road I have chosen. A record of my surfing lives on its servers for 18 months — not by name, but still. Google continues to insist that my IP address is not me, but a motivated government with a subpoena in hand could find me, lots of me, on Google’s servers.
Most data privacy experts would call me a fool to index my life into any one company so deeply, and diversification in all matters is just common sense.
Mr. Huber countered that I am free to come and go as I wish.
“The nice thing is that we don’t force you to use only our stuff,” he said. “It is not tied tightly together, and the content is all easily exportable. If you feel like we are letting you down, or you don’t like our products or we are failing to innovate, you can pick up and go where you want.”
But with video chat now enabled in my Gmail, how likely am I to click away? Some people worry that Google will take over the world. Through the sins of competence and innovation, the company has quietly and efficiently surrounded me.
“That’s our business model,” Mr. Schmidt said.
E-mail: carr@nytimes.com
My English teacher in HS taught us to keep an "invisible knapsack" of "memorable passages" that talked of "significant human experiences". My knapsack must have zipped open because, for some reason, I just couldn't keep thinking of this piece, which I first came across almost 2 years ago today. Think of it as a truth, or fashion it a philosophy. And keep it in that knapsack.
This post is not so much about Google, as it is about the idea that Google represents - that so long as you remain relevant and useful, you'll have a place in someone's heart. Whether that person is a loved one, a co-worker, a family member, a friend, or - yes - a consumer.
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