The Tannoy: Digital Advertising News and Views

Vulnerability

2011-03-03T09:06:00.000-08:00

I really enjoyed this TED talk. It reminded me of some qualitative research I did some years back on the feelings as expressed by people of different age groups online. Having seen this talk, I can now clearly see that vulnerability underpinned so many of the comments to do with feelings in my research, from before pregnancy, to after death...

Enjoy

(and just so you know.. I'll be retiring this blog in a bit and moving to www.thetannoy.wordpress.com)

FB and the Net Help Free the Arab World

2011-01-30T05:36:00.000-08:00

From the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/29/egypt-mubarak-tunisia-palestine?intcmp=239

We've waited for this revolution for years. Other despots should quail

Change is sweeping though the Middle East and it's the Facebook generation that has kickstarted it

My birth at the end of July 1967 makes me a child of the naksa, or setback, as the Arab defeat during the June 1967 war with Israel is euphemistically known in Arabic. My parents' generation grew up high on the Arab nationalism that Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser brandished in the 1950s. But we "Children of the Naksa", hemmed in by humiliation, have spent so much of our lives uncomfortably stepping into pride's large, empty shoes.

But here now finally are our children – Generation Facebook – kicking aside the burden of history, determined to show us just how easy it is to tell the dictator it's time to go.

To understand the importance of what's going in Egypt, take the barricades of 1968 (for a good youthful zing), throw them into a mixer with 1989 and blend to produce the potent brew that the popular uprising in Egypt is preparing to offer the entire region. It's the most exciting time of my life.

How did they do it? Why now? What took so long? These are the questions I face on news shows scrambling to understand. I struggle with the magnitude of my feelings of watching as my country revolts and I give into tears when I hear my father's Arabic-inflected accent in the English of Egyptian men screaming at television cameras through tear gas: "I'm doing this for my children. What life is this?"
And Arabs from the Mashreq to the Maghreb are watching, egging on those protesters to topple Hosni Mubarak who has ruled Egypt for 30 years, because they know if he goes, all the other old men will follow, those who have smothered their countries with one hand and robbed them blind with the other. Mubarak is the Berlin Wall. "Down, down with Hosni Mubarak," resonates through the whole region.
In Yemen, tens and thousands have demanded the ousting of Ali Abdullah Saleh who has ruled them for 33 years. Algeria, Libya and Jordan have had their protests. "I'm in Damascus, but my heart is in Cairo," a Syrian dissident wrote to me.

My Twitter feed explodes with messages of support and congratulations from Saudis, Palestinians, Moroccans and Sudanese. The real Arab League; not those men who have ruled and claimed to speak in our names and who now claim to feel our pain but only because they know the rage that emerged in Tunisia will soon be felt across the region.

Brave little Tunisia, resuscitator of the Arab imagination. Tunisia, homeland of the father of Arab revolution: Mohammed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old who set himself on fire to protest at a desperation at unemployment and repression that covers the region. He set on fire the Arab world's body politic and snapped us all to attention. His self-immolation set into motion Tunisian protests that in just 29 days toppled Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's 23-year dictatorship. We watched, we said wow and we thought: that's it? Ben Ali ran away that quickly? It's that easy?
Ben Ali called his armed forces for help 27 days into the popular uprising. It took Mubarak just four days into Egypt's revolt to call the army. He had unleashed the brutality of his security forces and their riot police, but they couldn't stem the determination of the thousands who continued to demand his ousting. He put Egypt under information lock-down by shutting down the internet, Burmese-junta style, but still they came.

Ben Ali's fall killed the fear in Egypt. So imagine what Mubarak's fall could do to liberate the region. Too many have rushed in to explain the Arab world to itself. "You like your strongman leader," we're told. "You're passive, and apathetic."

But a group of young online dissidents dissolved those myths. For at least five years now, they've been nimbly moving from the "real" to the "virtual" world where their blogs and Facebook updates and notes and, more recently, tweets offered a self-expression that may have at times been narcissistic but for many Arab youths signalled the triumph of "I". I count, they said again and again.

Most of the people in the Arab world are aged 25 or are younger. They have known no other leaders than those dictators who grew older and richer as the young saw their opportunities – political and economic – dwindle. The internet didn't invent courage; activists in Egypt have exposed Mubarak's police state of torture and jailings for years. And we've seen that even when the dictator shuts the internet down protesters can still organise. Along with making "I" count, social media allowed activists to connect with ordinary people and form the kind of alliances that we're seeing on the streets of Egypt where protesters come from every age and background. Youth kickstarted the revolt, but they've been joined by old and young.

Call me biased, but I know that each Arab watching the Egyptian protesters take on Mubarak's regime does so with the hope that Egypt will mean something again. Thirty years of Mubarak rule have shrivelled the country that once led the Arab world. But those youthful protesters, leapfrogging our dead-in-the-water opposition figures to confront the dictator, are liberating all Egyptians from the burden of history. Or reclaiming the good bits.

Think back to Suez to appreciate the historic amnesia of a regime that cares only for its survival. In cracking down on protesters, Mubarak immediately inspired resistance reminiscent of the Arab collective response to the tripartite aggression of the 1956 Suez crisis. Suez, this time, was resisting the aggression of the dictator; not the former colonial powers but this time Mubarak, the dictator, as occupier.
Meanwhile, the uprisings are curing the Arab world of an opiate, the obsession with Israel. For years, successive Arab dictators have tried to keep discontent at bay by distracting people with the Israeli-Arab conflict. Israel's bombardment of Gaza in 2009 increased global sympathy for Palestinians. Mubarak faced the issue of both guarding the border of Gaza, helping Israel enforce its siege, and continuing to use the conflict as a distraction. Enough with dictators hijacking sympathy for Palestinians and enough with putting our lives on hold for that conflict.

Arabs are watching as tens of thousands of Egyptians turn Tahrir Square into the symbol of their revolt. Every revolution has its square and Tahrir (liberation in Arabic) is earning its name. This is the square Egypt uses to remember the ending of the monarchy in 1952, as well as of British occupation.

The group of young army officers who staged that coup in 1952 claimed it as a revolution, heralding an era of rule by military men who turned Egypt into a police state. Today, the army is out in Tahrir Square again, this time facing down a mass of youthful protesters determined to pull of Egypt's first real post-colonial revolution.

This week I’ve mostly been discussing:

2011-01-11T07:44:00.000-08:00

• Linkedin developments
• Facebook data outputs
• Integrating company consumer data with social media
• Social media app design and creation
• Wedding apps
• Digital radio research
• DAB
• Onlilne multi-platform buzz measurement
• Digitally mediated Public Relations
• Facebook addiction
• IPv6
• Page popularity measurement
• Multi-lingual digital message measurement
• Translations of legal docs to Irish
• German translations
• Slovak translations
• Online private investigation
• Cyber lobbyists

• Digital Asset Management

• Anonymous
• 4chan
• Facebook hacks
• Business app popularity
• Cyber philosophy
• Short stories
• Analogue radio measurement
• Online business sector monitoring
• The Buy and Sell Index

• Organiser
• Data merging
• Chart porn (with an 'r')
• Asus Eee Slate

• Project Gutenberg
• Irish economic sector market sizing and trending
• What happened to Foursquare?
• What happened to Pixelpipe?
• Kindle
• Google books
• Data output re-balancing
• Digitally mediated word of mouth
• Postgraduation education for the Law faculty
• Supermax prisons and the panopticon
• The persistent power of email
• NGrams

• Diaspora
• iPod II
• Darkroom
• QR codes
• Blog privacy
• Scan apps

• Digital Flowers
• Mobile loyalty program mechanics
• Virtual cash

• Mind Maps
• Market Research in 2015

• East African Broadband
• Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2
• Self publishing

• The end the Foghorns in Ireland

Mostly. Amongst other things.

So, apart from almost every aspect of the world rapidly becoming a digitally mediated there’s perhaps little wonder I can’t think of anything specific to blog about. Sorry about that. :-|

An Awesome Resource for Marketers and Researchers... The Buy and Sell Index

2010-11-19T07:15:00.000-08:00

We at Pavilion have been doing some really interesting work with Buy and Sell. So interesting in fact that we’ve created the Buy and Sell Index to share the insights in their data. It really is an amazing resource of information on almost every product or service you can imagine... from Tractors to Tonka Toys, and from Pets to Pyjamas.

The reason we were invited to do this was partially due to the sheer scale of the turnover of goods on the platform. It’s truly amazing. In 2009 there was €948 million traded on the Buy and Sell platform i.e., – through the newspaper and on the website. That is almost 1 Billion worth of goods bought and sold by Irish people that has kind of slipped beneath the news and information radar! Already this year there’s been over €800 million in trades with B&S.

Apart from these big numbers involved, there are a few things about this work that really blow my hair back about the data. These include:

• Goods traded are tax free...
• This ‘grey economy’ has never really been examined before – outside of programs like ‘Cash in the Attic’ or ‘the Antiques Road Show’. At least, never is such a macro sense.
• The Buy and Sell Index gives insight into an invisible economy that is set to rocket in the coming years
• Ireland doesn’t have one economy, is has several. For example, average prices asked for goods in Leinster are down 27%, while in Connaught they are up 7%. Those in Ulster aren’t as affected by the recession (public service workers?) but those that are are rushing to their gardens, and to their hobbies and collectables. Culturally and economically quite different.
• For researchers, economists, marketers, academics, policy makers and politicians... there’s now an invaluable factual pool of information on goods and services, and with regional differences. Starting a business, launching a new product or service? Research it all with the Buy and Sell Index.
• Because people can’t afford new things, they’re trading and swapping their second hand goods. And why not. With Christmas coming... (5 weeks! Ugh!)
• It’s a tremendously empowering space for people who want to make the most of what they already have, rather than going out to get something new that they can’t afford. Why not sell something you don’t need, buy something you do!
• Using the index is a great way of re-calibrating ones view on one’s wealth and worth
• The business services sector is growing in terms of total value, though the average price of services has dropped by a third. People are getting busy marketing themselves, but charging less, to gain more!
• I was thinking, if you’re losing your house, remember it always belonged to the bank. It’s the stuff that’s in it that you actually own, and you still do!
• Some of the swaps are for goods worth as much as €200, 000. Investment property in negative equity? Swap it for something closer to home. If they are both in negative equity, no capital gains tax... (No gain, no tax.)
• It’s a great time to buy a boat

One other thing I'd like to add is that, as a statistics guy, this is a very, very, very valid sample. 4 million or so pieces of data, 140,000 ad posts... Sure it's almost a census. So, what is true of this Buy and Sell Index, will definitely be true for the population at large. From my point of view, its like the best random sample one can imagine, and it just keeps growing, month on month. Sweet!

For more information see our first launch report. It’s at http://www.buyandsell.ie/buyandsellindex.

Media Measurement is Broken

2010-11-02T04:23:00.000-07:00

No matter what method is currently being used, media measurement is broken.

Personally, I’m a big fan of primary research methods... the old way of doing it. Sample, validity, probability, regression, trend, cluster, segmentation... and the miracle of the normal curve - but these are far too slow in the modern digital world, with expectations for real-time data being the norm. And why not! Quite right too! And you know... one self selecting random sample is much like another statistically speaking.

The difficulty is the lack of mixed method. It takes a bit more nous to handle these, but, with the derth of valid digital interpretations of the real world at present, it seems no matter how good the single method approaches for media measurement, they’re just not working.

It’s hard to have this chat without naming names, and I absolutely concede that providers are doing their best within the limits of their methods, but things are being missed. Huge chunks of behaviour are knowingly omitted for want of a mixed methodological mechanic.

In the US, for example, Sandvine figures show that 20% of all downstream internet traffic from fixed access (non-mobile) locations during peak periods is from Netflix.

But Comscore’s recent figures miss this. That’s a huge chunk of an audience – missing. (We used to cry about losing one record!)

The reason for the disparity is simple. Different methodologies. Sandvine looks at data networks and so captures mobile access points, as well as fixed ones. It’s network centric. So, they capture iPhones, PS3s, as well as desktop PCs and Macs. Comscore has a panel that monitors web use on specific machines – so its panel centric. And I’m told, it doesn’t count Macs (have to check this though as it seems incredible).

With the growth of iPhones, iPads, WiFi connectivity, Web over TV and a TV over Web, this gap really matters. I’m not thinking into the future here either. The old methods are missing usage today, and the impact of these problems for advertisers and media in general is huge.

Let’s take Irish radio as a local example. It’s collected with a very large and rolling sample with four releases of data per year (second only to the CSO). Those who represent the medium like this because a rolling sample gives no huge peaks and troughs. No rich-today poor-tomorrow stuff. No surprises. Not very webby though and it plasters over important changes and truths. But here today, gone tomorrow does happen. We who know the web are aware that traffic is in fact capricious. Look at Bebo! Why should it be any different for radio programs, or stations? Well, it isn’t. It’s just that the measurement is slower and uses 75% of the last wave, with the new wave. This softens the curve considerably. The findings when presented as the facts for today are in fact only 25% of the facts for the recent past, and 25% from a while ago, another 25% from age’s ago, and a final 25% from when God was a child. It’s like saying our economy is fine... when averaged out with the height of the Celtic Tiger. Dangerously misleading, and if presented as today’s news – wrong!

It means, for example, that despite the death of the very popular Gerry Ryan a long time back, the audience he won is in fact still being counted and attributed to someone else in his spot. So, many thousands of advertising euros have been spent for an audience that just isn’t there anymore. That’s just not right. Is it! It’s wrong.

And... what really bothers me, is the lack of digital. Digital radio is omitted as the current method is not reaching the at-work mobile radio user. Why? They aren’t home on a door-to-door sample. Are they! The tremendous popularity of digital audio consumption – and I don’t mean DAB, is being largely ignored, and in doing so ever valuable advertising euros are being lost.

Video is another problem. It is measured almost wholly for TV sets in Ireland, though it includes Web based TV in other countries. How often have you or someone you know viewed video over the net, on YouTube, RTE player or another TV over Web format. A smartphone for example. Once? Twice? Well, that isn’t being counted. It could be you, or maybe some people you know very well. 1 out of 10 maybe you know? Do a count... That could be a considerable percentage of all adults, and it’s not being counted. 10% of people are probably being lost, and what they are doing via their smart device is also being lost.

There was an item in The Times on analogue switch off for TV only the other day. Digital media communication is becoming pervasive, like it or not. But, more importantly, digital is multi-platform. It is not like TV, or Radio, or Print. With digital, it doesn’t matter, while with current research methods - it does. And these methods will not and are not coping with the modern digital media world. They were not designed to do so.

And bigifying the sample won’t help either. It’s the method that’s the problem. Recently, for example, Nielsen in the US increased their TV sample from 8700 to 25000. Big numbers. But, even with this huge count they did not detect any activity from non-network TV sources. That is... no iTunes, no Amazon, no YouTube... etc, etc. I read that as – no up-to-date media consumption. Old school. Stone age. Rubbish. We know its rubbish! And if it’s professing to be true, or right, or definitive which it is - it’s just wrong.

They are viewing a digital world through analogue glasses.

Needless to say, I’ve thought about this a good bit. And, it really annoys me that these issues aren’t being addressed, as not doing so is costing practically every medium consumed by Irish people a fortune in lost revenue. The audience... the true audience, for almost every medium I can think of is in fact much, much bigger... and the audience doesn’t give a damn about the device being used. Do they? Nope.

An interesting bit.ly link hits me via twitter. I click blind to a newspaper article. Wow! That’s interesting. Did I buy a newspaper? No. Did I read one? Yes. Did I see the ad at the top of the page? Yes! Am I up to date? Yes. How often does this happen every day... on twitter alone. 20,000 times? So, perhaps 20,000 newspaper reads – per day, missing. Across all sorts of titles I’d never buy. Thats 600,000 reads a month. 7.2 million reads a year. What’s that worth in Ad-land? Anyone? I dread to think.

And also, needless to say, there are solutions. Lots of good, doable, realistic, affordable solutions. What cannot be fixed on the other hand is the terrified and protective research ideology that pervades most media committees and organisations.

But there is a need to try some new things... And soon, so that little by little we can deploy new mixed method research approaches which I know will work sufficiently well to increase media consumption counts massively.

These will achieve:
• • Real time reporting
• • Platform and operating system agnostic audience measurement
• • Fixed and wireless (mobile and stationary) measures
• • Aggregated audience counts

And these steps need to be taken now, before mega-corps like Google, Apple and Microsoft become too dominant and become the de-facto auditors of measurement and message truth, in pretty much the same way Google is the de facto truth for search engine visibility. That took about three years. The impact of waiting for that to happen is that ad euros will leave the country... moving into other networks, with bidding platforms and prices commanded by the audience, not the publisher.

It also needs to happen before too much advertising money is lost by lost audience. While more real time measures may be jumpy, they can be averaged over time. But ignoring the digital for fear of its capricious nature ignores huge tranches of the audience of today, and any independent view on the audience of tomorrow.

In Pavilion Digital, we recently trialled some new methods, addressing a diverse set of data sources. Facebook outputs, iPhone app outputs, primary research, website posts, newspaper sales and classified ads, mobile research datasets... funky stuff! And I have to say, it was fun. Real Rubix cube territory, but what it brought home, from the outset, is that traffic, eyeballs and commerce leaves a digital footprint, and once you get your head around that, bringing all that data together is a challenge, but a hugely beneficial and rewarding one. And, with a single medium for example – you only have to get your data modelling right once... maybe tweak it a little, and if you’re good to go, you’re good for good... until another channel for audience consumption opens up. This is a good problem to have if you have it. Good for us and for the medium being reached.

Currently TV, Print and Radio are treated as silos of data which cannot, or are not counted together because they represented different industry interests and their respective ommittees. But nowadays, with it all being digital, they can represent the same interest, regardless of the platform of delivery. In the end of the day, data is just data. It doesn’t care where it’s from, or what it represents, or where it is delivered.

Take RTE. What is their media interest would you say? Well, perhaps TV, analogue Radio, DAB radio (RTE Choice is brilliant!), digital Radio (Grab Radio streams), Web Radio, Print (on website), iPhone apps (4 or 5?), TV over Web (streamed), RTE player (recent TV re-broadcasts), Website traffic, Blog reads and postings... etc, etc, etc. I’m sure I’ve forgotten plenty... (forgot Aertel). So, one interest – RTE, requires platform agnostic, OS agnostic, fixed and mobile digital delivery and consumption, and digital interaction. What are they counting? TV set viewers and mostly analogue radio listeners... and maybe website traffic. Oh, and the information is out of date.

This is a ridiculous state of affairs and as a licence fee payer funding our national public service broadcaster – I find it objectionably incompetent at best and a regrettable lost opportunity.

Really and in real time it is time for media measurement and the interests it represents to wake up. There’s an audience shift alarm clock going off loud and clear. And no, it’s not a windup clock - it’s digital.

5 Top Tips re: Mobiles, Apps, Facebook and Blogs

2010-08-12T03:12:00.000-07:00

I must blog, I must blog, I must blog. It’s been there on my list for an age and I’ve made a few stabs, but never posted. It’s an ongoing problem. What’s wrong with me? Is it that I’m using the web less? Eh... no! Not a chance. I’ve become a 24/7er netwise. Maybe it’s the iPhone usage? Well... there’s the thing. The iPhone is so snappy for lookups and sign-ins for social nets there’s not ‘surfing’ per se. But I’m on the net. Amen’t I? Technically, but often appways rather than browsered.

I’m on the social net anyway – and my lookups are constant – never letting a link go un-clicked, or a reference go un-referenced, a fact go un-Googled or a vid go un-viewed (‘sept the flash ones of course which is annoying, but they seem rapidly less prevalent which is concerning). I’m also well podded with Digital planet and buzz out loud and my own penchant for Thinking Allowed.
The faithful (old) Toshiba portégé accompanies me for sit-down work. Hours slip by on comfy seats over lattés or hunched at the office delving my way through big documents before zipping them here and there.

But why not blogging – and this is the point of this blog.

If the web is always with you, as it is with me, you now have to make an active choice to do browser and document work via the bigger laptop screen. This is perhaps where the iPad style device fits in nicely. The trend towards increased access for mid-sized super-light mobile devices with longer battery lives means the capricious nature of much previous net use can now be taken away from work and the office (not the same always) and into the home, the street, the back-room or the coffee bar (I’m in Starbucks right now). The personal and connection work can now stay personal and be dealt with right now, rather than peppered throughout the day when one gets behind a screen.

The other related trend is toward app delivered content. Is it a good thing to have all this content tied up in apps? Well, for some software apps that is definitely true but for other apps I don’t really think so. Many companies really should consider browser delivered services before jumping on the app bandwagon. There are many advantages, such as, you don’t have to keep updating the app, and you can always encourage the ‘add to my home screen’ button to be employed. If the service in question is needed they can find it and return to your site simply with this method. And very quickly, between free and paid for apps, there will be simply too many on the phone – something that iPhone 4 folders addresses nicely. I mysteriously seem to be heading toward my 300th app, having deleted many I don’t use and can do without. Obviously I’m an-typical nerd – but the simplicity and benefits of the app store I, as an early adopter, have found I think will be found by others giving a trend towards more and more apps. Some are really cool. Seriously! But tellingly – several of those on my homescreen are shortcuts to webpages and cloud services. So, the companies in question didn’t have an app, and actually don’t need one for my purposes.

Other apps need to be appified and benefit from being apps. It is the only way that a particular service can be delivered – benefitting from the mobile nature of the service or the iPhone gyroscope thingy. Fair enough. So, an open mind is the best way to go I’d say. Not wishing to dis the client but many want an app without really knowing why – like they want clients to put them in their bookmarks list on a funky new phone. It is always good to have a cost benefit analysis running in the background when you go down this thought cul-de-sac. Functionality and links may be more important to your business than having an app.

Mobile Internet and smartphones mean – to all intents and purposes - that the net itself is disappearing from view. This was always going to happen and has happened with all previous communication technology. The net is now the taken for granted bit that no longer distracts from the content it delivers. Half a billion Facebook users? How did that happen? Quickly and without much effort or worry that it was on the Internet - and now the FB app is so good, it’ll be 1 billion before you know it. If you remove the very young, old or very poor from the world’s population – that starts to look very like 1 in every two people communicates via Facebook – and much of that use will be mobile. Why? Because it’s better.

What this means is that social interaction is now the most powerful driver toward net use and should be the preferred location for engagements of all sorts. The Facebook platform is now most important in the world for social software. If it’s sitting on a MC or PC or iPHone OS... well, it doesn’t really matter.

To close the circle of this conversation and bring it back to blogs isn’t easy. I’m in a funny situation because my work is also my interest and hobby. I was just chatting with another business guy who blogs and we agreed that blogging is important for taking care of the various brands that exist in any business. The CEO is as much a brand as the business brand and that’s important, but also the blog is an important mechanic for extracting insights from the day-to-day experience and bringing them into focus. It’s a process and though it takes a little time (not much), the benefits are tremendous. So, I just have to blog more. It’s as simple as that.

So – time for some top tips:
• Take account of the new way digital media is being consumed in a mobile context
• Take note that the consumption of online content is now often via an app. There are big implications here
• Make sure if you are developing an app – that a browser isn’t be a better way to go – even for mobile devices. The quality of mobile (and iPad browsers) is so brilliant now, and it’s easier to update a website than an app for several devices and OSs
• Use Facebook, and build for it
• Blog for your business and yourself

Countdown to iPhone 4 release date

2010-06-09T08:44:00.000-07:00

Countdown To iPhone 4 release

If you want something done...

2010-06-01T06:54:00.000-07:00

OK. Time for a bit of a braindump.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, and I’ve written a few, but always left them without being published because they weren’t good enough, or big enough, or important enough, or something. I’m not sure I’m out of that head space just yet, but I do want to share some thoughts and questions.

The Tannoy has always been about new technologies and communications, and I’ve tried to track shifts in the way were talk to each other in the digital realm. Since we last spoke I’ve set up a few new companies to address and service these changes. All have a view of digital marketing at their core, but one of these – Pavilion Digital - looks to another development discussed at length by The Economist some months back.

Data.

It’s a word that has lost its meaning because it means so many different things to different people. For me, it is the 1s and 0s of raw code that tell a computer what happened when. Back to the binary coal face! There is more data than ever before, and will be much, much more in future, but what do we do with it?

Pavilion Digital extracts meaning from data. Any and all data. Diverse data sets, market research, server data, tracking data, sales, sales force and CRM of every description. Whatever it is, we can import datasets, analyse them individually or together and extract reports, statistical insights and most of all - value - from what already lies within. We’ve done it in the past few months with some very big clients from the transport and FMCG sectors, and the thing that emerged for me, most of all, was how difficult nay impossible this work is if you don’t know how it’s done, and don’t have the right tools. Few people, in my experience, can get their head around data sets, weighting, imports, exports and then extracting sensible stories from it. Important stories. We have the people to do that, and the best tools, so that’s cool! :-)

In the end of the digital just provides another tool for telling a story. Pavilion Digital gives you the glasses to read it and the directions to understand it.

I’ve also developed and sold some iPhone apps – hardcore utility apps for data gathering and dissemination you understand... not the faddish gadgetry as makes up so much of the 150,000 apps, or whatever it is, that are out there. That’s been real fun. It’s very cool to come up with ideas, get them scoped, scripted and launched, and then someone just has to have them. Very rewarding. When I say iPhone apps, they are actually device and software agnostic, so will work on any smart phone. But more of that in a later blog. I’ll let you all know when the customers launch them and you can check them out.

Again, at the core of these and indeed all digital communication functionality is data.

OK. I sound wishy-washy and half-baked, and sorry for that. I’ll get to the point.
I’m looking at the digital communications industry, and I worry about it, because it seems to me that the whole thrust of internet collaboration is anti agency. Any agency! It’s all about putting people together, directly. Peer to peer not consumer to consumer. And to extend the analogy its about: - P2P, P2B, B2B and B2P.

The internet has taken an amazing toll on the market research space, the advertising industry and the travel space, because it puts individuals in touch with companies directly. And, vice versa, it also puts individual companies in touch with their markets’ individuals too. This puts agencies in a difficult situation... What is left for them to do?

At present, digital ad agencies are broken out by common sense boundaries. Social networks, of course, search and Pay Per Click, naturally. Website builders, traffickers and trackers and em... and, apart from the creative department (part of the website department) and content writers, that’s kind of it. (I'm sure someone will correct me here and feel free.) I know there are bigger agencies which co-ordinate the needs of bigger clients, and there is bound to be a need for these for some time. But then again... the bigger they are...

Market research agencies have a range of other issues including the lack of a requirement for a field force, the slashing of margins, shifting client expectations, the shortening of timeframes and indeed the whole cheapening of the space. Only top quality slimmed down research houses need remain.

The problem for the agency world in general is that any company can do all of these things themselves. Easily. And, if they can’t, they will be able to in a year or so. They probably do some of the things already. In fact, any individual will be able to do them. What’s worse for agencies is that very big companies, who make up the lion’s share of all advertising spend, are taking these functions in house. Why? Because they can, they have control, they don’t get dependent and bamboozled by gurus, and because, well, they just like it. Worse again, hard pressed governments, who used to make up another chunk of spend, are doing it too – wiping out even the larger players in the digital ad space. (The loss of such a contract was a major contributor to the downfall of digital media buying giant – i-Level in the UK.)

The issue for agencies is that buying advertising, tracking it, and optimizing it is child’s play, if you know how. It’s not only all so trackable - it is all so easily trackable. And, you will know how to do this sort of tracing and optimizing - if you want to. It’s not hard, if you can read instructions and can use a computer and the Internet. (If you can’t do either – this blog aint for your!)

The other issue is shifting impressions. Two years ago people used to surf the web now and then. That’s largely gone. That free time has been taken up with surfing on Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter... not on websites – unless you are doing something like research for shopping, or gathering information for health reasons for example. Or buying a ticket maybe. In short, there’s very little actual surfing done these days, so the impressions burned per user on the web as a whole will be dropping. Per user mind, not in total as the number of users is growing. The audience is just hanging out in a different place.

The long tail is getting a hell of a site longer. It has to be. People are visiting much fewer bigger sites, and occasionally wandering out of their social network in response to a link. I heard that 50% or so of Facebook users (350 million of them) are visiting the site daily for over half an hour. That is just phenomenal if you think about it. Well, all of those impressions that 350 million had to offer the Internet advertiser outside of Facebook are lost, unless the ads are in Facebook itself.

So - back to data. The game of business today, as I see it, is in using your existing information, your data, and squeezing every morsel of insight out of it before you spend any money on market research. There’s cash in that there data attic - if you just go and look.

Then, when you are advertising – try and get your head around as much of it yourself as you can, (or get staff to). You’ll save an absolute fortune! Between Bluestreak and Google Analytics you can track the world and his mother as they view your ads placed on networks for small beans. Use social networks. Embrace them. Learn how to target your market with age, sex and location. It’s so wizarded – my Dad could understand it. It’s intuitive, obvious, easy-to-manage and click – you’ve got a campaign going. Website? Use blogging software.

You will need help with logos, and creative, but it is a really, really very good time to do this. (There are free ways of getting them too, if quality isn’t a huge concern.) Then, when you’ve got all your add data, and reports, why not integrate them with your server data, CRM data, sales data, spend, product categories and sales outlets, and analyse them all together. That’s where we come in – because, with the right setup, tools and training, or if you want someone to do it for you and send you the reports – you talk to Pavilion Digital. Again, it’ll save you a fortune.

Slash market research budgets, manage and optimize ad-spend without margins to third parties. Optimize all activities and hone the ideas and marketing plans. This is the best way to give your business the best chance of making the most margin on all sales.

And don’t worry about going it alone. The net is empowering all and it is a collaborative space, so, if you don’t know how, ask, and someone will help you – for free. Just give it a go. You can’t break anything, and everything is reversible. It is tough times out there, so what have you got to lose. No, a better question – What have you got to gain?

Unofficial iPad countdown button

2010-03-01T08:08:00.000-08:00

No. I haven't got an iPad yet. No one does till it's released at the end of March. Here's a countdown button so you don't miss it.

:-)

Irish Times Gloriously Missing the Point of Twitter

2010-02-28T05:30:00.000-08:00

OK. It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, mostly with the wind-down of Net Behaviour it has been necessary to pass my time setting up new businesses, and this has gone very well indeed. I’ll make some announcements to those who don’t already know when the time is right, and the sites are live etc.

Actually, to tell you the truth, I wrote this blog last week, and didn’t publish it. That’s how busy my life has become. And since then there has been the Chile earthquake, which further reinforced some of the points made here. Anyway. Apologies for the silence if you like this blog, and I promise to try harder in future. So, here it goes.

I’ve also been spending my bloggers muse writing for the Belfast Telegraph and Digital Times, so, I have actually been getting my bi-monthly copy out. I’ll tweet and Facebook links those pieces for those who are interested.

-------

400 words, or a 140 character tweet weren’t sufficient to clarify my frustrations at a recent piece in the Irish Times disseminated by excellent @williewhite. I rarely get into Facebook comments banter, but I couldn’t believe how gloriously a recent Irish Times piece ‘The Revolution was Not Tweeted’ by Mary Fitzgerald missed the point of twitter, of the web even. She even missed the power of word of mouth. Ironically, the reason she wrote the piece undermined her argument considerably. You can read it here.

The logic of suffered from two common Irish errors. Dichotomy and exaggeration - Twitter will change the world for everyone, versus it has does not change anything and the hype was wrong. It also suffered from taking too few examples and not taking a sufficiently broad and historical view of change in the world of media and communications. There was also, I felt, a further typically Irish crime of begrudgery at success and fame, or in this manifestation, dislike of technology driven hype.

It was clear to me that Fitzgerald has missed the tectonic shift in social and political communication that twitter has become, not because it is clever programming but because it is simple, easy to use and it’s so popular.

I’ll ask a question. What does it really mean for a world where you cannot stop people from talking and being heard? The question doesn’t seem to make sense even, but just 30 years ago, it did. That’s how far we’ve come. Gone are the days of the power of a state to control the knowledge of that state and their understanding of world beyond. To mould millions of minds into doing dreadful things such as joining the Nazi party or committing genocide. I’m reminded of the fact that during the Falkland’s war, it took 21 days for the sinking of HMS Sheffield to reach the mainstream media in the UK and Ireland. 21 days! And that was only 1982. It would take 21 seconds today, if that, and it would be near impossible to stop the news getting out.

It is this sort of hype, or in my case, excited enthusiasm, that the Irish Times writer doesn’t like, but the facts remain true nevertheless.

The reasons cited for undermining this point of view was that... not everyone in Iran was on twitter during the recent protests against Ahmadinejad’s ‘election’ and that most of the information shared was carried by word of mouth on telephones. I read this and thought... ‘Oh dear. Luddite alert!’

As I see it, all it takes is a very tiny group of people to have a credible but sharp view on truth, with a picture for example, and the balloon of propaganda will pop. Remember the picture of the naked girl running from the napalm bomb that is credited with bringing an end to the Vietnam war? Can you see the picture? If so, you must acknowledge how sharp was the tip of that pin. Perhaps you remember the picture of the mysterious girl with the green eyes from the front of National Geographic magazine, or the 95 theses (tweets?), or the tale of the girl who refused to leave a bus designated ‘whites only’. Or the picture of the dole queue with the slogan ‘Labour isn’t working’ beneath it that swept Thatcher to power in 1979.

All of these single pieces of information consummated a tipping point in public opinion because they manifested an unassailable truth about an injustice. A truth that a million copywriters and spin doctors couldn’t fix. Job done! Truth out! Game over!

The difference between these images and slogans and acts and twitter is that the news that carried all of these pieces of content was carried on mainstream mass media. They had a ready-made audience and word of mouth, education and re-publishing took care of the rest.

This is where twitter and the re-tweet come in. It does not take everyone to be on twitter, or social networks for these to have an effect on a population or public opinion. That is ridiculous. All it takes is one person to write a slogan, or tweet, with perhaps a picture taking on a smartphone for inescapable truth it contains to be retweeted, and within hours the message can be carried the world over. This happened when the Boxing Day Tsunami hit. The pictures and films were amateur. The mainstream media were absent, or drowned, and amateur news became the only source of truth about the scale of the disaster for the mainstream media, and what it looked like. The rest of the job of sharing news and truth is done by word of mouth. ‘Isn’t it terrible’ conversations over a coffee, or ‘did you hear about so-and-so’ chatter over a pint. Phone conversations, texts and even jokes make news travel even quicker and make it some colour of fact. The same happened with Riverbend blogger during the first Gulf War.

So, I’d like to make the point that everyone does not have to be on twitter for twitter to be a total game changer. Every comment, every sentence, every tweet is in fact its own individual webpage, indexable, searchable and findable on search engines and endlessly shareable with thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions of people. Word of mouth among social chatting, silly and interesting people is the point, not the instrument used for sharing that word of mouth. Word of mouth takes place online and offline of course, but you have to have something to talk about. Twitter can leak that truth, does and did in the days of the Iranian election.

In George Orwell’s 1984 the news came from a centralised location. This made the concept of ‘thought crime’ credible. Now news and information comes from a million points. The objective view of what happened is now contested. It’s no longer about your news source (twitter, irish Times, word of mouth), but how you use the news you get, like I’m doing here. I’ll tweet and Facebook a link to this blog and, with retweets I may reach a small group of perhaps few thousand. If I mention it the Belfast Telegraph, a few more. But how many of those who hear about this blog use twitter? Does it matter? Nope.

If it was 1982, or 1979 when the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran, we’d know little or nothing about what happened during the days of the protests, and it would be as simple as it was then for Iranian spin doctors to hide the facts, and for the police to jail protesters. What is more, the protesters probably would not have had the courage that twitter gave those same Iranians in the past few months. Their actions were tweeted around the world, the riots were seen and Iranian injustice was unmasked leaving it open to sanctions, actions and influence. To the court of worldwide public opinion!

When people believe their story might not be heard and their words could get them jailed or killed they tend to be quieter. But when there is the tiniest breath (140 characters) of the oxygen of publicity, they gasp at it and let a roar. Iranians spoke and the world heard. So yes, the Revolution was Tweeted as all revolutions, large and small will be tweeted from here on in.

Twitter is Bad for Blogging and Maybe Business

2010-01-20T08:02:00.000-08:00

Not only does it distract, and endlessly digress, it takes the wind out of your passionate sales. It’s not that twitter is a bad thing, per se, but it can cloud focus on the core variables that make a business work. Closing deals, invoicing and getting paid. This, of course, all comes after creating a product or service, packaging it and selling it.

And this is my beef. So much of the online entrepreneurial zeal is getting lost in a cloud of ideas, messages and directionless digressions that it are not delivering one clear thing that is priceable, and buyable. Consultancy, knowledge, experience and enthusiasm are great but they are hard to take off a shelf and bring to the cash register. If you can’t describe what you’re doing and why and how much it costs, how can someone buy it?

I know there are so many twitter positives for certain types of businesses, but, from my cursory look, these are service business, and more than that, they require a certain type of digital networking element to them. They also often photographic or design in nature!

The difficulty arises when people look at twitter and think they can force any business model down its 140 character throat. Very often you can’t, and you shouldn’t try. You can do more harm than good to your fragile brand. And the last thing you want to do is to expend energy doing the wrong thing well. It’ll look like a hit, but only if you don’t put a value on your personal time, as with a lot of ‘free’ open source programs. Don’t put a cost on 10 years of tinkering and teaching yourself how it’s done by you for nothing and you’ll find most things in life will be ‘free’. I could make my own kitchen furniture if I gave it enough time, but the cost of that time? The quality?

So, what I’m recommending is a mentoring service so that companies can find the right fit, social media wise, for the business needs. Not just the next big thing, or the latest buzz word that sounds like great value, but the right thing that gives the most efficient bang for the buck and doesn’t require of the user/client a lifestyle change on their part, or a similar lifestyle change for their market. And also, to identify the best business that requires the least time for the maximum return on time and financial investment. Clean, efficient and targeted at a real, not an imagined, market that exists today and is only likely to grow.

So I’d say do what works, go where your market goes, but do it cleanly and efficiently, and don’t twitter about it, unless you’ve got a business for tweets. And, if you want me to bend an ear your way and bounce some ideas around, let me know. That’s a tweet DM I’ll answer.

iPhone Saves Lives on Subsequent Saturdays

2009-10-17T04:39:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, to the day, a viral went around a corner of the web about the Heimlich manoeuvre, and I watched it with some interest as these seemed to be a good thing to know how to do. That evening my Mother-in-law came over to our place, as usual, so that myself and El could pop out for a pint and a bite to eat in our favourite locale. We’re spoilt – what can I say.

So, I’m minding our youngest - Felix, with other various children of various ages clambering over me. Total Wipeout USA is on and this can transfix the kids with slapstick hilarity, which is useful if you’re getting ready to jump ship; or hype them up, which isn’t. It had done the latter. ‘Emmet,’ I hear in cross sounding tones. I consider options and causes. Something has split. Kid has fallen over. Close the clasp on my necklace. There may have been another ‘Emmet’ as I tried to heave my progeny from my belly... but then came a crystal clear ‘EMMET!’ I’m off.

Mother-in-law walking lost and directionless around the kitchen, and then leaning against the wall – lips blue, with a green tinge around her mouth and nose. ‘She’s choking,’ say’s El in a mysterious calm. On auto-pilot, I take over. ‘Kids out... Out! Everyone out!’ I shout, and they leave. ‘Can’t do mouth to mouth, or emergency tracheotomy while explaining why I'm stabbing nanny in the neck to traumatised tiny people’ I say to myself. ‘Not ideal at least’. I spin Mother-in-law around... knot my hands, feel under the ribs, front and side aiming for the diaphragm and say into her ear ‘I’m going to do this... OK?’ She agrees. Two or three violent hoicks later, her feet leaving the ground and I hear the strangled whistle of air through a barely open pipe. ‘You’re breathing now. You’ve got a breath. You’ll be alright now I say...’ She recovers in minutes, and, in shock, pretends nothing happened. We all do. But, on the way to the pub I say to El... ‘It worked. Isn’t that amazing! A simple technique has saved us from a very different Saturday. I watched it on the web, and it worked!’

(It also crosses my mind in true Les Dawson fashion... 'You had your chance, Mother-in-law choking already. No witnesses. Blew it. You had to turn into Superman... Didn't you! Then again... Think of the babysitting! She owes me big-time!)

A week later, to the day, El has gone to upstairs after lunch... not feeling well. She comes down and announces. ‘I don’t feel well at all. Look at me! I’m all red!’ And she is. Ears bright red, very flushed, eyes even seeming to bulge a little, and lips a shade of cherry Max Factor would patent. ‘I think it’s an allergic reaction. Anaphylactic shock!’ There was a film I saw a while back where the main actor looked similar and had to be rushed to the chemist I remember, but Ellen had never had anything like that before. Out comes the iPhone, and Dr. Google informs me these are indeed the symtoms, and also the symptoms of an allergic reaction to fresh mackerel which hasn’t been cooled down quickly enough. We had mackerel for lunch. I’m off. Just going to the chemist you need some strong anti-hystamin I call as the door shuts behind me. The chemist tells me that indeed, it sounds like anaphylactic shock, but I’m to get back quick in case the breathing starts to go. The car roars away from the chemist but as soon as I get in the door, I’ve been gone maybe 3 minutes, Ellen tells me... ‘I can’t even breath properly.’ Kids are flung bodily into the jeep, some still in PJs with wife propped in the passenger seat. The lights are with me as we belt for St. Michael’s Dun Laoghaire and I drop her at the door. She hobbles in to safety, an injection, and recovery some hours later. Phew. Typically perhaps I say to El... ‘Isn’t that amazing. Dr. Google had the symptoms. That bloody mackerel.’

Why am I telling you this? It’s Saturday, and I’ve suddenly become quite worried about being any distance from my iPhone and the instant, life saving information it provides. In fact, this week, it’s probably my turn! L

Google Defends it's Turf from Apps

2009-10-14T06:34:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Google wants to own the search experience across every mobile media platform, and its latest offering is a universal search box that lets users of Android-based smartphones look for apps, contact information and web content right from the device's home screens.

The Cloud, Collaboration and Polaroid Glasses

2009-10-12T06:22:00.000-07:00

I was watching Richard Dawkins last night on TV and he made me ask some important questions about the Net.

He asked what is it when individual neurons act together – millions and billions of them collaborating to produce a person, with intelligence and the capacity for self reflection – and something that some may call a soul?

And following on from this I ask, what is it when tools of collaboration - such as a fluid for messages to flow through serves this function, permitting a physical, social, psychological and educational quantum leap for a group of individuals within a body, or for entire echelon within a social group. Each person plays the role of a neuron, and the body is an echelon otherwise known as the digerati or a part of it. The lubricant of collaboration (closing the gap between the synapse) is social media and tools like Google Wave, file-sharing and torrents or open source software.

As the Roman army well knew – the essence of social advantage arises from collaboration, genius and good communication. Over-stretching the supply chain leads to failure.

And I further ask: what is it when elements of human society take on (inherit), this advantageous, favourable gene – each neuron, both selfishly and generously, using it to their advantage, growing more influential, quicker and more efficient through the communication with other similarly favoured neurons (twitter/facebook through smartphones/mini-pc’s). And what becomes of this group of super cells when they exist within a milieu of similarly favoured or not so favoured ones? Do they become a cancer, a brain, or a new speciality organ charged with information, educational and development?

Is it true that access to information and learning together with the capacity to process, understand and reproduce that information – to appropriate it – gives advantage and success?

I suspect so, and this in essence, is what twitter and social media and Google wave are doing and providing for individuals within the digital society, and the power of these individuals is not their own access to information, (anyone who can search Wikipedia or Google has this), but their group access to a larger cloud of individuals who filter an even greater reach of information. In a world which truly is overloaded with data and facts, intelligent filtration is everything.

Seeking facts through a cloud brings clarity out of confusion, like looking at the bottom of a pond through Polaroid glasses. The better and stronger the glasses, the deeper and clearer you can see. So being part of a good generous cloud of bright people is more advantageous for information processing and finding the fish, than being a blind boffin in your own right, swamped by light from every angle, and without any dinner.

Experts and agencies remind individuals of their weakness and ignorance and dependency, and act as a source of disempowerment and alienation. For example, the days of adverts for household cleaners with an ‘expert’ in the white coat saying ‘It’s Vortex’ are long gone. His place is being taken by a cloud of product users who profile and report on product qualities. All are empowered, inclusive and seeking a better truth.

The net has always embraced the cloud and the multitude and its growth has been explosive as a result, since the days of Usenet and AOL, through to the likes of facebook, twitter, Linux and Wikipedia. These have grown more quickly, and been more successful than any individual or company could ever have hoped to be. The growth of the cloud has been simply exponential and collaboration is its fuel.

Clouds are now the source of news and truth and growth and development. Cloud members trust the recommendations of friends and colleagues above any other source. People always did, we just couldn’t see it, or measure it the way we can in a digitally mediated space. Collaboration takes place in social media, twitter, and file-sharing spaces, and through development tools like Google wave, open source software and open APIs. Fluency in the understanding and use of these collaborative tools gives advantage to the individuals within clouds in their access to information through and collaboration with the other larger ones.

In 1976 Richard Dawkin's wrote his influential book 'The Selfish Gene'. In 2009 the net and social media have shown that 'The Collaborative Gene' gives a model much closer to the truth.

Analytophilia, Analytophobia and Social Media Weather Forecasting

2009-09-30T07:21:00.000-07:00

I was introduced to a new word today. Analytophilia. I love it. Analytophilia is the addiction to (or love of) checking how connected you are in social media: - how many tweets, DMs, facebook contacts, Linkedin connections and comments on your status, or others. This is a world where agoraphobics feel safe, but can also feel really social, without leaving their desk or iPhone (and entering the physical agora or marketplace).

I’d add another term. Analytophobia. This is the fear that your analytics would reveal, with cruel accuracy, that you’re a ‘nobody’, - not even a ‘somebody’ in the digital sphere. This would lead the sufferer to fear the login, like pressing the answerphone button and hearing ‘You have NO new messages’ too often. It’s not good for the old ego Sir. Time to join an online role-play game (MMORPG), like World of Warcraft. They’ll fix the fragile ego in a jiffy because anyone will play with anyone, and they do so in their millions.

Analytophilia and Analytophobia are, in fact, two sides of the same digitally mediated psychological coin, like pride and shame. Welcome to the Sociology of Social Media Emotion.

There are important implications for businesses which need to figure online, and have figures to prove it, in the growing cloud of online social buzz. There are loads of ways of doing it... if you know how and have the time to do the reporting and tracking, and sifting and monitoring. Trying to do it without the right tools to hand and operatives to use them, is like buying a pile of hammers and saws and nails and trying to build a house. You might actually succeed in building a hut of sorts, which will keep the rain out for a while. But you’ll never build a house or a good one at least. And think of the time, and injuries; and it might fall down in a storm! That’s when you call the likes of my good self (shameless plug). Yes we can! (Bob the builder, not Obama)

Prediction/observation: The net, and all communication is, and will be, driven by data, and those who can handle data and present it in a beautiful, simple, meaningful and actionable fashion... will always be busy.

It’s strange to admit, but I love numbers and the challenge of becoming a social media weather forecaster because weather is interesting, and the language of weather is taking over the language of surfing and sea that haunted the web since its nascent beginnings (from surfing and waves to clouds etc). And did you know that the biggest computers were built, partially, to handle the billions of computations necessary to predict the weather? Eniac for example. That chaos theory arose out of the big shift in weather prediction shown because of a few decimal points being omitted? Physics, maths and the computing that facilitated them were largely driven by the simple need to know what the weather is likely to do next. Well, now is the time for the Social Weather and forecasting, and the computing is being done already, but not by one machine, by the cloud of users and their computers. Businesses and people need to know the temperature outside, before they leave the building.

The driving equation and goal for social media: -

(messages ↑, efficiency↑, news/information/gossip ↑,freedom/mobility ↑, work/life-balance ↑) = (time spent↓)

The online clouds, (word of mouth/public opinion) are moved by the seas (offline people whose opinions (temperature) move much slower, but they hold their opinions for much longer). The net is a much more promiscuous, impatient and ephemeral space than the real world. Always has been. Within the clouds there can be hurricanes (like when MJ died), smaller storms, (#Lisbon2), and little squalls (#Luas). The online activity, in a storm, can strike offline public opinion like a bolt of lightning too, when the fact of the online news being so busy has a huge impact on the news of traditional media, and ALL public opinion (reflexively). The weather is also driven by the medium (the air, or platform (PC/iPhone/Facebook/twitter), and the sun (the Internet connection).

OK. The analogy is getting tired. But, it might still be useful.

In short! What can be done with this? Well, we can:

Monitor social media: Any topic, issue, group, industry category, sector... whatever. This includes forums, blogs, YouTube, twitter and news sites. We can graph, present, analyse and output for you and yours
Put scale on the storm: how big, how busy, how powerful, who’s involved
Forecast: where it’s likely to go next. How big it’s likely to get
Take part: setting up a social media portal/outlet for your business, and maintaining it
Alert you: When the unhappy or unruly come knocking at the door of the office.
Give you an Umbrella: Protecting you with online PR advice and provision

So, don’t be afraid of the Social Media weather. Let us give you the forecast and provide you with an umbrella!

Is Social Media a Fad?

2009-09-25T04:10:00.000-07:00

It seems not.

Best iPhone Apps: The Must-Have Downloads

2009-09-22T02:46:00.001-07:00

I thought this was a good presentation, though everything may not be relevant to the UK and Ireland market. I've used many of these, and am likely to explore those I haven't. I'm dying to see Yelp on my phone for example.
Enjoy!

Best iPhone Apps: The Must-Have Downloads

View more presentations from Josh Clark.

5 Digital Developments in the Past Year

2009-09-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

Too many blogs of this type are predictive. I, or they, generally say what will happen. The truth is that, for advertiser and researchers at least, many are more interested in what has already happened, and how many are doing it, whether that is to watch a show, visit a website, or use a new medium. Of course, you need both, but for me, who’s heritage dates pre-dot.com bubble days, the whole game has always been to work out what might happen next, and build it, service it, understand it. The Internet business developers’ answer to the land grab, or gold rush mentality. But in the recent past, many became wealthy doing exactly this. Then again, if you are a person who thinks of new businesses, and services, and offers them, you need to have both approaches running en train.

So, with that in mind, today, I’m taking stock.

Digitally speaking, here are five of the biggest things that have happened in the past year.

1) Social Networks - Personal Home-life Profiles
Social networks embody web 2.0 thinking, and have changed the way we use the net. In the past the Internet was used in several key ways, described in previous posts. Adding the truly social mechanics of Facebook, and latterly twitter, have helped it realise the potential as a truly digitally mediated social space that it always had, but which in the past, was the stuff of the geeks and the young, or both. Now using the net for building profile pages, and connecting with others is child’s play. Today, with 300,000,000 users (that’s 300 million, but the noughts help us remember that’s a really big number), there are twice as many people using Facebook than live in Russia and the FB population is at least doubling every year. Twitter’s growth is similar. In fact, 10% of all net time is spent tweeting, something discussed at length in previous posts. If social network use were to approach the popularity of similar Japanese social networks, proportionately, one in two people in modern western democracies would be using it. I don’t know what that number might be... but it’s in the billions (nine noughts). There’s an advertising and research opportunity if ever I saw one.

2) Personal Work Profiles

Linked in and similar sites provide all of us a simple, clean, pervasive mechanism for maintaining our CV and reputation, which, in the recent past, was controlled by undeserving employers. Imagine having to get a reference from the likes of David Brent? Lots had to. Now they don’t have to. A simple change, but it opens up a psychological power shift in the workplace. Staff can also work out what others are getting paid for similar work and search for and find fresh employment from the comfort of their existing desk, and job. Again, this leads to confidence, empowerment of a workforce, and control for the individual over their working history and their reputation. It’s also true that Linked in makes CV’s largely irrelevant. Let the prospective employer link to you, and they can see all they need to know. Balance!

3) iPhone and 3G
Despite similar functionalities in the past (my favourite XDA IIs for example), the iPhone has revolutionized digital communication. Soon, everyone will have one, or similarly fully enabled 3G devices, which will push broadband Internet penetration and use to equal that of mobile phones, at around 100%. The joke about the iPhone, is it’s not a phone at all. It’s a tiny, flexible, powerful laptop. It’s optimized though, and only does what you’d use a laptop for, not the other bells and whistles you never use, or which get in the way when you want to use something. Virus checkers and the many Microsoft programs rarely, if ever, opened, are a good examples. Virus checkers on an Outlook are a special bug bear of mine... But, of course, the iPhone is not stuck to a desk, it’s mobile. In star trek terms the iPhone is a communicator, the screen on the bridge, the location scanners (maps/gps/lbs), the character Data (Google), the simulator (roleplay and other games), the school (iTunes u), the contact with earth (email), and, of course, the captain’s log. It’s also much more, and, all these are included in this one tiny light communicator device, if you understand me. In my experience devices or programs that offer this sort of efficiency always win in the end, if not in the beginning - despite begrudgers and luddites that abound.

4) Shopping Online
Shoppping has changed forever. The Internet is the consideration medium. If you’re doing something big, or spending non-grocery money, it’s where you consider where you should send your hard earned bucks. Having quick unobtrusive access to your social set and industry sector, especially when times are tight, makes net access a must. This changes the way we shop, of course, but also the way we think about shopping. We never liked to have the wool pulled over our eyes, and be tricked into over spending, but now we can take steps to avoid this. And, if we are tricked, the over-charging or dishonest supplier can be punished, not by the courts, but by public opinion. Reviews, blogs and tweets that tear strips off this person, or that company who behaved in a less than forthright manner, are common place. So, watch out pedlars of shoddy merchandise, or poor service. What goes around comes around, and what may be going round is a tale about you. Ya crook!

5) Time Shift, Convergence and Content items

Convergence, a dreadfully over-used word, is now a digital reality. It kind of snuck in the back door without knocking. We did apply the word to hardware, and software, and media and all sorts in our three dimensional world, but never included the fourth dimension, time.

In the end of the day, winning the race of survival of the fittest often involves getting their first, so Time for humanity is everything. But, with so many media items and formats around, the solution is not so much getting all of the information immediately. It would be too confusing and distracting. It is more about getting all of the information, but in a manner that you can choose to consume it at a time that suits yourself.

Time shift requirements have been the key driver for convergence in my opinion, from the early days of the Tivo, a personal video recorder popular among the Sex in the City characters, to Google alerts linking to blogs, video and newspaper text, through to Sky +, stop, rewind, record, remind, series link. But actually, time shifted content consumption goes back to the early days of the vinyl record. We’ve always been after where we are today. It’s just digital makes content reproduction infinitely simpler and more successful than say wax rolls, or cassette and video tapes.

The growth in portable media, and podcasts make the point. And consequently, the digital language of formats, delivery and media buying have steadily pervaded all other media sources. The pervasiveness of twitter on the mobile phones has made citizen journalists out of all. I got the news about the Luas and Bus crash yesterday, in a twit pic four minutes after the collision. However, I could consume it when I chose to. I wasn’t going to miss anything, so it’s a stress free process to be open to a vast array of data inputs, or news, as we call it. And it’s a reality, here, today. In relation to the Luas crash, I could see, by refreshing the picture, that it was getting over 100 views every minute and the rate was growing steadily.

All the theories of media and political communications I studied at University (gatekeepers, agenda setters and the like) are largely obsolete and any new ones better be written and published quickly before they go out of date too. Unless the academic sets up an alerts system so other can see what they’re working on of course.

A rapidly changing landscape and too much news would cause a glut, if it weren’t for splitting away of news and content from the news source, or sender, and the chunking of it into podcasts, video casts, tweets, digital program downloads or similar content items. Content items are king. And almost all can be consumed on any device. iPod, iPhone, laptop, iTunes etc, etc. And look at the ‘i’s. That’s convergence. And Apple appear to be at its epicentre.

51 Great Ad Ideas

2009-09-14T06:47:00.000-07:00

Internet Co-operating beats Competition and ensures Twitter Will Last

2009-08-05T03:58:00.001-07:00

Twitter is such a silly word, better suiting teeny birds. Silly little ultra cute vulnerable ones that you might step on by accident. It reminds me of a Tweetie Pie and Silvester Looney Tunes cartoon. Poor ‘ittle Tweetie Pie. And it looks like silly software too... with people ‘tweeting’ where they are, what they’re doing and what they’re thinking to those who are following them. ‘Followers..?’ I hear you say. ‘Sure, who’d want to follow me and what would I ‘tweet’? If I want to ever talk to someone there’s mail, or SMS, or, God forbid, why not just pick up the blasted phone?’

I have to admit, the first time I saw twitter, I didn’t get it either. Why would anyone bother programming such a piece of software and why would people use it? And, when I looked at the updates from some big digital computer company boss saying ‘Hey, I just met Brad Riprock at Digi 3D Valley Conf Q1/07,’ I thought, this is software for geeky sycophants. Nonsense! Not for me. I didn’t ‘update’ and as I’d no ‘followers’, I didn’t read other updates, and all of this served the not-getting-it problem. Then, because someone said I should, I started following Stephen Fry.

This was the real Stephen Fry. The Peter’s Friend’s/QI/Fry and Laurie Stephen Fry. He’s brilliant. So, what’s he doing on twitter? Someone must be doing it for him. But then Stephen got stuck in a lift. He posted photos and was typically amusing, and without noticing, I was starting to get some of what twitter was all about. Real-time multi-media updates from the very famous or interesting. Immediacy!

It’s obvious now that the reason I didn’t get twitter is – I wasn’t using it. I reminded me of my lovely late Gran who owned one of the first rotary Bakelite telephones. She never used it, never gave out her number and as a result, didn’t ‘get’ the whole telephone thing. Not very social really. Twitter, similarly, is merely a communication platform that is part of the social media phenomena but talking and engaging with others is the point. So, if you’re not feeling social like my Gran was, it’ll make absolutely no sense.

The phone analogy over simplifies things considerably, but makes an important point for the newbie or Luddite. It over-simplifies things because, unlike a phone or email - twitter carries other media. All sorts of messages are carried via twitter, in different formats. Yes, short text messages (140 characters) not unlike SMS, but also links to video and TV, audio and radio, news articles, blogs, podcasts, adverts, sound files, pictures and even links to software. And mainstream news too. Good professional stories from SKY news, the BBC and the Belfast Telegraph indeed are tweeted around the web. In fact, many more Wall Street Journal news articles are read via twitter than by people going to the Internet homepage.

This diverse multi-media content would not be likely to be consumed by you - the twitter user - if you didn’t have a twitter account, because no one would be sending you the links to this Internet content. If, for example, you are following the BBC on twitter, they are sending links to you like an RSS newsfeed. But the people who you are following on twitter are the real boon. They are the ones sending an endless stream of their own news and views and the fruits of their own net surfing. They act as a special interest filter for the hobbyist clique. They are sending links to a like-minded group of which you are a member. They’re posting to people who are following them because these are interested in similar stuff or they wouldn’t be following in the first place. Twitter chat is fun too, because people can be very funny. Banter to lighten the day. It’s all excellent stuff to be honest, but the best part of it all is - I think twitter will last, and here’s why.

People often see business and technology in Darwinian terms. Something new is born, so the old stuff dies out. In fact, this rarely happens in a digital world and those who enter it with this attitude are the ones with the short life. Rather, the technologies that work together with other technologies, co-operating rather than competing, are re-born as part of a larger more efficient entity, which is more resistant to the mores of social and technological change. The Internet ecosphere has more in common with the Gaia philosophy view of reproduction than the ‘Survival of the Fittest’ one. In short - co-operation and inclusion is more effective for survival than competition. Bebo, for example, is made up of lots of existing bits of older software, like flash, website development wizards, blog hosting etc... I’m sure there is some bespoke software somewhere, but it hides, permitting the user to organise all the bits of their existing information and favoured formats in one space. It is the fact that it works with what people already know works that makes it work so well. Twitter steps back even further, providing the simplest platform possible, before formatting. Text and links. That’s it. It’s what the earliest HTML provided. It’s not about content formats, like YouTube, or your profile, like Facebook, or your CV, like LinkedIn. It’s about what you think, have to say, or what you’d like to read, see or hear. It’s about ideas - looking out, rather than people and personalization - looking in. And twitter users form an infinitely richer idea and creativity cloud together than they could ever embody if its members competed. A symbiotic relationship full of idea buzz that is quite addictive to be part of. Something new and hundreds of times more efficient, richer and more resilient than its constituent parts could ever be. But it’s only a talk platform but this simplicity is its strength. Twitter will become obsolete, perhaps, when a simpler platform exists, but with a similarly open API, (application protocol interface), which permits anyone to design software to run on the platform. Twitter is co-operative to its philosophical core and is likely to last, or become part of something else – and that will last. The people who use twitter and their ideas are its life and its longevity rather than the platform upon which those ideas are expressed.

The uses of twitter are similarly diverse, and should not be seen in a vacuum. Initially, tweeting may not work for you! For example: did it work for your marketing campaign? Well, if used in a vacuum, probably not. Especially, if the message was given to a profile with very few followers, or it was not compelling enough to be sent on or ‘re-tweeted’. If it was used with other formats and media, with whom it could share a healthy symbiotic relationship, it probably had a good chance of being effective. It’s common sense really.

But, to gain its full marketing potential, I feel twitter should be acknowledged as a platform that requires a level of skill and technological literacy and fluency that is perhaps in inverse proportion to the apparent simplicity of its appearance. When it works well it’s amazing, if you consider the Obama election, but when it’s done badly, it’s a total, if seemingly inexpensive, flop. In fact, a bad campaign could raise the ire of the addict/geek who feels (s)he owns the space and is insulted by the presence of the offendingly disingenuous ad message, and could, in fact, do considerable brand damage. Twitter is easy when you know how, so, until you do - give it to someone who does.

The number of twitter apps that exist has grown at a similar rate to its usership. Hundreds of apps and sites that interact with, measure, map and monitor twitter and other social media messages seamlessly on PCs, phones, desktop widgets and GPS or location logging gadgets of all description. Again, this is co-operation and not competition.

Emmet Kelly (twitterID: emmetkelly)

Audience, Publisher and Publience

2009-07-08T09:21:00.000-07:00

Audience

The potential efficiency for peoples consumption of new and information content has improved exponentially with the advent of twitter. On my iPhone, I can consume 50 messages, and click through to maybe 10 pictures or articles in about 5 minutes. I can’t do that any other way. I wouldn’t know where to click, what is of interest, or what is good. If I was to try to do that actively, by visiting blogs, news and scanning, I’d be burnt out in 30 minutes. With twitter, it’s a passive experience, and stimulating rather than tiring. On twitter, I have a filter of likeminded individuals who will scout out good or relevant content for me, and say, ‘look at this’ and give me a hashtag to identify its nature. And, of course, I do the same for them.

Having 200 hand-picked sub editors at your beck and call is a great thing. Not only can I consume perhaps 10 times more efficiently than before... what I can consume is 10 times more pertinent, relevant and of interest. That makes 100 times, of something. There’s no need for surfing. This way is so much quicker, and just works much better.

Publisher

Publishers have fragmented the access to their content, and their content. Newspapers with 30 pages have become headlines to articles from a certain category tweeted to the interested. They are more interesting to the consumer because of this filtering. I’m not interested in Irish party politics at the moment, but I get tech news articles tweeted to my iPhone from the Guardian, and a host of other mainstream sources... ones I’d never buy. One ‘publication(s)’ has 100 articles in 20 categories tweeted to a couple of million readers... Now, that’s a business model... if it carries even a tiny logo from a business. Think about it. Eminently trackable. Eminently costable. Eminently consumable. And so turn-on-and-offable.

Publience

I tweet therefore I am. Tweeting and reading and @ing and DMing. SMS, meets Email, meets Blogging, meets feedback and CRM meets advertising, networking and social media. Where do you draw the line between the audience and the publishers when the audience is a publisher in their own micro or macro blogging or social media , or forum posting right. You don’t. Bloggers and tweeters become journalists too, (cf. Persiankitty and many other examples.)

The Mix of Sliding Scales

Through the twitter filter of follower and following sub-editors, the capacity to engage with the world grows, but the exposure to linear, non-filtered content shrinks.

The remit of the public service broadcaster involved creating content to educate and enhance the population. It involved making programs they may not actually have asked for, or want, so that their exposure to ‘educational’ content would be increased, something impossible in a wholly commercial environment. The twitter fan-base of friendly followers and tweeters has no such remit.

But, it’s a sliding scale. The capacity to get content not offered by a mainstream source increases hugely and a lot of this can be educational and enhance a population.

Also, the capacity for states to control a nation’s view of the world, as soviet Russia did for its own population for perhaps 50 years, has shrunk. Propaganda is a much more difficult game than it used to be.

But, it’s a sliding scale. The capacity for the creation of factions, with an intensely ideologically driven micro view of the world... however inaccurate that may be, has increased. Twitter creates cliques, and not all cliques are hobby driven, or benevolent.

The capacity for slanted or misinformed views to fly around the world has increased too with twitter. But, so too has the capacity for the correction of incorrect or misleading information. It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. It’s a sliding scale.

What is Twitter and Will It Last

2009-03-05T04:04:00.000-08:00

Who cares? It’s popular and it works’ – you say. Or, alternately, ‘I’m glad you asked that question, I was afraid to ask because everyone seemed to know all about it’. Well, in the spirit of working out why things are popular and what they do that works so well - so that at some stage we can all spot, or develop the next big thing... I care. Here are my thoughts.

Short messaging combined with blogging

Blogs have suffered from long messaging... this one included. Wannabe writers wittering on about their inane existence ad nauseam. Some go nuts writing their super work of philosophical politico treatise in public... waiting to be discovered by another genius, like the soap box geniuses shouting at Hyde Park corner. While others give a sometimes boring, sometimes entertaining kitchen sink real time Shirley Valentine drama. Some shock, writing about their job as a hooker or psychiatrist, while others muse amusingly on this and that or shout angrily populist sentiment to the gathering mob (they hope). The one problem with all of these types of blogs is they are self indulgent, self centred and full of both pride and shame in equal measure. It’s like watching a manic depressive slowly unravel their shattered character in front of you. A slow motion personality car crash... and there’s nothing you can do to help, or would necessarily wish to. OK. That came out harsh... and I'm a blogger, so I can say that. No?

But for Twitter, 150 characters per message is short, but it’s enough to say what you’re doing. Micro-blogging. Not much time for self indulgence in each message, though you could with several message, and some do tweet far too often. The size per tweet is also a challenge. It’s very short. To answer this challenge, a friend of mine has taken to tweeting short stories for Twitter. ‘It was a simple plan, but then they were simple people and so, it didn’t quite work out as it should have. Pity that!’ A mini haikuesque saga. (Thanks Jo.)

Following People

So, twitter messages are like text messages really, but you can get messages from famous people. Jonathan Ross, Barack Obama, Stephen Fry are leading the way, but the Dalai Llama, Brian Cowan and probably the Pope aren’t far behind. Ratzinger @ emmetkelly You are going to hell because you don’t believe in hell, or heaven. emmetkelly @ ratzinger See you there?

This is fun. It’s efficient. It’s novel and it’s new... so, it will join the ever increasing gamut of media messages we can choose to expose ourselves to.

Advertising

In amongst the tweets are the ads. This means Twitter has a business model. The ads are small, not interruptive or irritating but yet they cannot be ignored. As long as there aren’t too many, this will work. Oh, and they click through too to whole webpages. SMS can’t do that.

Pictures and Media

TinyURL has never been so busy, because long internet page locations need to be minimized. Pictures, sound, quotes, videos... all with your tweet. SMS can’t do that either. It’s easier than MMS, and takes up no memory because the files are hosted on the wonderful interweb. Very efficient, novel, new and fun... so it will last.

Connectedness and Belonging

We are social beings. We need to be connected. If we aren’t, we get lonely. Being alone for even 40 days and nights is likely to get you in the bible. Loneliness drives Internet communication because it solves the problem. Twitter takes it to another level, especially when it’s on your phone. People don’t like to be seen to spend too much time at their PC living their virtual life because it’s obviously visibly solving some need, or something lacking in their real offline life (unless its work of course). But, with twitter, it’s on your phone. You get little funny text messages from your friend Stephen Fry. How cool is that. And you can tweet him back, and he might even reply. Hilarious. You belong. You’ve arrived. You have friends... Famous ones. Lots of them. And, you’re not in front of a monitor, unless you choose to be.

When twitter is combined with the excellent Locle.ie and Facebook... you’ve arrived. You have friends, you can see everything about them, and they can you, and you can follow them, and with Locle, you can see where they are on a Google map. ‘Oh, look, Sean’s at home.’ SMS to Sean. Goggin’s in 20? (why do my posts always involve pubs... hmmmm). Tweet: Dart is broken down. But, look at the bird at the station. I may be some time: twitpic.com/*&JJ(*UFRGF. When you update your Locle status, it tweets automatically. Again, very efficient and very clever.

Open API

The mini techie bit of this post. Twitter has an open API which means that anyone can program a widget for the program, and thus ensure its vast potential will only grow. More add-ons, plug-ins and enhancements and we’ll be tweeting for a very long time to come.

So, soon, we’ll all be Twitterers. Soon, we’ll see TwitterAds. Twitter has big advantages over SMS and may be the answer many issues in the mobile marketing quandary... ‘how do I give my recipients the change to see my products and services. Semi-impossible with SMSs. Perfect for Tweets.

Happy Valentine’s Day iPhone

2009-02-13T05:03:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine’s Day iPhone. Never leave my side. I’d be lost without you.

OK. As you can see, the honeymoon period isn’t exactly over. It’s been six months or so since we met, but I’ve grown accustomed to her face and can now gauge how my life is different since I met her, and how I want it to stay this way forever.

A few months back a friend called me and said... ‘Hey Mr. Kelly, want a new iPhone for €99,’ and I said, ‘Hey. Yeah. Why not? I hear she’s something special.’ It was a blind date. I had no idea...

When we met it was strange. I held her immediately tightly. She was so small, and light in my hand, I found myself exploring her surface in disbelief. She was so beautiful. I kept finding new things, touching, swiping and pinching, and I instinctively and immediately felt like protecting her in case she got a bump or scratch. A cover, a guard. Oh yes... if something happened to her beautiful surface I would have blamed myself and I couldn’t cope with that. I wasn’t good enough for a smartphone this beautiful. But I knew nothing of her power.

A mate introduced me her App store... Wow. I hadn’t even noticed the funny little icon skulking shyly beneath the calculator. You see, when she was a doddle to integrate with Outlook, iTunes etc, etc, etc. I thought great, that’s it. What’s all the fuss about. But I was so wrong. It was just the beginning. The early days were halcyon though. Everything worked, if you read the instructions, but they mostly said ‘plug it in and don’t touch anything!’ which is exactly what I did.

The most incredible thing about her I think is that everything does work, which is strange if you’re a techy like me and used to the challenge a new machine offers for setup, tweaking... optimizing. That used to be both the frustration and part of the fun. Tempting a new machine into working for you. The chase. Not being beaten. Conquest. But the iPhone was such a pure doddle I ended up doing things I never thought I’d do. Just for the hell of it. Waiting to be let down, to confirm my insecurities, but no. We had such fun. For example, I’m not a big music collector, but I had to use the iPod, simply because it said it worked and it did work. Immediately. The early Leonard Cohen sounds just didn’t fit though because I was too happy with my new machine, not sad... So, I moved on. What else worked? Well... let me tell you.

Social network applications work perfectly without opening your Safari browser: Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and a few others. When a mate I haven’t seen for 20 years say’s ‘I’m bored’ I know he’s bored immediately. (OK, that’s a bit sad, but you take the point). When Stephen Fry is stuck in a lift, I can see him in the lift. It was pretty funny actually. He’s a big tech head it seems and he tweets fun stuff around. (E.g., ‘devolve-me’ - see what you look like as an early human -http://tinyurl.com/9tacnt)

Then there are the email accounts, SMS, WiFi, Contacts and Phone, Maps, Around Me, Vicinity and Google Earth.

Then there are the free retro games (Submarine, Pacman etc) and the widgets which use the angle of the machine, (Biiball and Topple). Then fun marketing ones like Carlsberg and Zippo.

Then there’s the music apps (Piano, Guitar, minisynth (kids love this one)) and Ocarina (a wind instrument believe it or not. You blow over the mic and put fingers over the virtual holes.) It all works

Then there’s the Television app, where you can.... em, watch TV for free, another one where you can control your SkyBox at home and then there’s the Radio (200 or so categorised stations (no BBC though). Reference (Google, Wikiamo, WorldWiki). YouTube is great too, and works really well, with full screen and good sound. eBay too if I had something left to sell.

Then there’s the academic stuff. Stanza (1000s of copyright expired classic books), Translaters (Ultralingua, French, Italian). The language phrase books actually say the words for you so you’re pronounciation is good. If someone answers you’re stuffed but you’re half way there. (‘Help. I need my inhaler!’ ‘Τι είναι μια εισπνευστήρ? ‘Uggggggghhh?’ 'He say's his hovercraft is fully of eels!' 'No, can I change this record, it is scratched.' 'Ahhhh... Second turn on the left, The chemist is on the corner.')

Then there are the utilites. Stocks n shares, Notes, word and spreadsheets, super clock, calculator, calendar, text, blog writer and pic grabber and poster.

And, that’s only the start. One of the joys of my new friend is finding all the rest of the stuff you can download and run for free, or nearly nothing. It’s also the weakness. She can eat up time. It’s a work machine, a toy, an education and finally, did I tell you? It’s works? That’s the bit I can’t believe. 5 rewarding minutes spent with her is like a week with another resulting in failure. You choose.

Loyalty grows and she never leaves my side. My laptop is in a jealous sulk and my workstation is ready to dump me and isn’t even talking to the network. ‘But it’s only a phone...’ I hear you say. ‘There are plenty more phones in the sea.’ Yeah right! Thought you’d say that. Well, I can’t listen to that now. I just have to check to see if Stephen Fry was up for the ISDN linked voice over in London before filming this morning. He shouldn’t have had that last voddie! I suppose, after a night shoot, you’d need something to help you sleep. Twitterific!

So, Happy Valentine iPhone. Listen, are you doing anything on Saturday? You see, I’ve found this lovely restaurant... What do you think? Don’t worry. I’ll plug you in for a re-charge later afterwards... Whatya say?

Very Short Story: Friday Night Mobile Marketing: Dublin 2012

2009-02-10T08:22:00.000-08:00

Keith left the front door of his apartment and tweeted.

Keith: ‘OK. I’ve left.’

Fachna: ‘Stuck in a lift, should be there in 20.’

Sophie: ‘I hate snow. Who knows. 1 hour?’

Keith @ Sophie: ‘Come when the kids are down.’

Sophie @ Keith: ‘I’m hardly leaving when they’re running around. Am I...’

Fachna: ‘It’s decided. Goggins’ at 9.30. So sick of this lift guys. Something smells baaad and it’s me. Not this time anyway! J’

Passing the Cineplex Keith was vouchered. ‘Mermaids of the Caribbean with Bradly Armpit and Sterile Creep. 30% off with this voucher. Offer till 9.30pm, Dun Laoghaire Branch.’ ‘Damn’, thought Keith. ‘I need to leave BrightKite on so the crew can follow. I’ll be voucher central by the time I arrive.’

He was right. 5 minutes walking - 5 vouchers. One a minute. Vouchers for tyres, burgers, holidays, a charity and bizarrely, free dog grooming had found his iPhone and entered it as he moved toward his local. ‘How did they know I have a dog?’

Text from Sophie: ‘Where are you? I’m at the back – smoking section. Guinness?’ Reply: ‘Yep. There in a bit’.

iPod time. Girl from Impanema retro-electro. Free iTune with a Big Mac. Quite good really, he thought.

Hitting Goggin’s he went straight to the smoking section. Empty. Panic set in. Did they go somewhere else without telling me? Text to Sophie: ‘Thought you said Goggins’ smoking section. Where are you’ Reply: ‘Patience pet. I’m on the loo. Are they there yet?’ Keith breathed a sigh of relief and sat down.

‘Heya!’ It was Shelley. ‘Hey Shells. Sophie’s in the bog. Drink?’ said Keith. ‘Thought she said an hour?’ said Shelley. ‘Sophie O’Neil, not Sophie Sophie. Look. Fachna’s stuck in a lift, but he’s on cam.’ ‘Hilarious,’ said Shell, and clicked ferociously on her screen.

Both Sophies arrived at the table at the same time and joined Keith and Shell. Fachna cammed from the lift with the help of Hotel wifi. Keith sat back and surveyed the crew, taking the odd suck from his pint.

‘So. Any news?’

There was a short pause while they all looked at each other, then at their phones and then they exploded with laughter. ‘Not in the last 30 seconds ya eejit,’ said Sophie Sophie. ‘But we’ll keep you posted!’ Then each, in turn, picked up their respective phone from the table and started tapping. ‘Another monosyllabic Friday in Goggins’,’ thought Keith and gestured the barman for a fresh pint. ‘I should’ve stayed at home!’ Then he took out his own iPhone and joined them… each in their own respective personalized mobile silo lifeworld interconnected by messaging, tweets and status updates; separated by a few feet of table and a few drinks, or in Fachna’s case, a few miles and the wall of the lift stuck between the 14^th and 15^th. Videos and pics passed. Occasional snickers and the odd… ‘Get a look at this! Have you downloaded this one?’ ‘That is so cool. Send a link.’ And then back to tapping.

Tweet: Sophie @ Keith: ‘This is so ****ing boring. Let’s get out of here. Have some fun if u want to.’ Keith @ Sophie: ’15 mins. Your place.’ Sophie got up suddenly and speaking as she left said, ‘I’ll see yous. Don’t wait up.’ Keith @ Sophie ‘Kiss kiss – Mwah!’ Sophie @ Keith ‘J’

Keith was vouchered again on the way back to Sophie’s and annoyingly one was a ‘Buy 1 get 1 Free’ for Guinness at Goggins’. ‘Reliability in a World of Change. Offer closes midnight.’ ‘Might have numbed the boredom,’ thought Keith.

Reaching the door he got a text from Fachna ‘Hey mate. Out of the lift now so off cam. Where are you guys? Physically I mean.’ Keith replied: ‘Sorry mate, you missed it, home now’. ‘Bo**ocks,’ texted Fachna. ‘What a Friday night that was!’ Keith felt guilty. Poor Fachna. So not fair on him.

But as he shut the door to Sophie’s apartment he heard a baby’s distraught cry. ‘He’s up,’ called Sophie. ‘Damn it!’ Keith looked up the stairs and listened as Sophie picked her infant son up from his cot, and carried him to the bedroom. He looked at the TV screen flashing away in the front room, and he looked again at Fachna’s text.

Text to Fachna: ‘Feck it mate. Goggin’s in 10 mins it is. You need a Guinness. It’s on me.’

10 Digital Attitudes to help your Company Survive the Recession

2009-01-21T07:49:00.000-08:00

1) Big Online Brand Lessons for Offline Brands

The brands that will weather the recession are online brands like Amazon, Google and Pay Pal. Web only brands, great market share, and they know what they are doing. They are also flexible, and do not need tonnes of bricks and mortar to do business. Did you ever see that documentary on Amazon? Huge warehouses... thousands of miles of conveyor belts, millions of books and almost no people. All brands have to learn from these and become more efficient, and by efficient, I mean net driven. A little investment today creates great efficiency and a recession proof path to market. Not doing digital means not being flexible, efficient, modern or competitive in today’s world of marketing. No digital front door, no digital communications and a huge limitation on the number of customers.

2) Carrying out your own research

First class of Bus Org in 1984, and Greg O’Conner asked what the most important element of any business was. He wrote the school books on Bus Org at the time. No one guessed... The answer? Market research... A lesson I never forgot it... probably because I slept through the rest of the course.

Research online is more efficient than research has ever been. But, be warned, buying software is no more likely to make you a researcher than booking a hotel room makes your chat with drink softened strangers a research focus group. Still, I recommend buying the best software you can, not the cheapest, and make sure there’s training and support and you can save thousands on expensive market research options. Inquisite is good but costs a bit. Cheap/free software like surveymonkey is just too simple, and will never give you the outputs you need. Like everything else, you gets what you pays for! Use other software to research word of mouth online. Quick, efficient and clean. Net Behaviour can also help here with our funky new buzz monitor service.

3) Added Value

More for the same money, especially when services are bundled together. More impressions, more tracking, more reporting, more data, more customers delivered to the client. We just have to work harder and we’ll make the same money!

4) Inspiration and the Multi-disciplinary

Now is the time for multi-disciplinary people on the pay roll. The set that can turn their hand to most things, but most importantly have special interests of their own, which constitutes them as experts in one or two sectors. Someone is good at video games in the office, someone else can blog, another has a keen eye for good viral marketing executions, while someone else can get stuck in the backend of data driven systems and get outputs that are in plain English. These are the people for today’s marketing team. Quirky originality and talent is good. This is the age of the nerd.

5) Packaging and Bundling Reductions

We’re seeking to bundle our services to create efficiencies for our customer base, and think you should do the same. Advertising, brand tracking, creative and blog monitoring with a single all-in value cost. Also you should explore such things like content generation, customer relationship management, but above all, make sure that any mix you come up with is innovative and creative and exciting, but simple and buyable too. Fix a price people can afford above inviting a negotiation which ever increasing costs that will make a customer nervous. And, stick to the price.

6) Digital Literacy

Without foreknowledge of the scale of the disasters that would hit 2009, I did loosely predict in a previous post that the digital literacy divide would grow, and today staying on the right side of that literacy equation for the modern marketer has become both an imperative for themselves and for their companies. The most efficient way of doing things is also the best value, and computer driven solutions are 1000s of times more efficient than others... especially for advertisers. The net is more efficient in terms of time, cost, value, flexibility, effectiveness and consequently gives better ROI. The super Google PPC bidding system for example has revolutionised ad buying for all media in my opinion and it works because of giant computer silos munching all that valuable search/need data. What we’ve seen from these guys is only the beginning, but understanding and learning how to get the most from Google inventions is only at the early stages too. When you hear someone who says ‘I know a guy who knows all that stuff,’ they don’t! No one does. It is the utterance and wishful thinking on the part of the net illiterate who wants to persuade you they are safely on the digital bandwagon.

Indeed travelling today’s digital landscape is an ongoing battle to speak new languages and understand new concepts as you progress. It’s an ongoing exploration of such scale it would have made the likes of Alexander the Great or Marco Polo stay at home and stare at the wall. But then again, these guys were at the forefront of the technology of their time. Siege engines, war machines, cartography and natural science maybe, but there's a lesson there too surely.

7) Experimental Marketing

With new challenges come new approaches. Innovation is the cornerstone of successful marketing in 2009, and this means mixing old modes of communication, and coming up with killer ideas which explain the essence of a brand in the modern context. (Easy to say, hard to do, has to be done.) There is no time for new marketers to say they don’t understand the net, or don’t believe in digital, because it is just too efficient and turn-on-and-offable to ignore. People who think this way are as inescapably on the verge of extinction as those who defended the steam engine. Yes, other things work, and will get you there safely, but if you don’t see it, you don’t get it or don’t want to because you haven’t the time to take to understand why digital is better. Maybe you’re afraid of going too fast?

From a pure advertising point of view, lessons from the Walkers crisps in recent times show that this could be the most creative and exciting cross mode, including digital, marketing time this century. I want to taste Cajun Squirrel crisps, to see if they do taste better than my flavour, New York Pastrami and Gherkin and I’ll buy a pack as a result as will about 3 million others in a similar predicament. That's clever marketing, and who'd have though it would be for the humble bag of crisps.

8) The Opportunity presented by Needs Must

We all must still do business despite the incessant news of doom and gloom, and we just have to be cleverer about it. And if budgets have been cut, you still have to do something. In fact, I’d say that those who can’t afford today’s digital solutions probably can’t afford anything... and have probably already gone bust. But, for those who haven’t... seek and you shall find and who dares wins and other clichés. With digital comes a myriad of opportunities. Those who were there when the dot com bubble burst and got the net bug knew there were opportunities then despite the almost total lack of business. Things are infinitely rosier now thanks to broadband, iPhone, Social Networks and the rest of the tech developments that exponentially expand the reach of this most versatile two directional medium the world has ever seen.

9) Cheap Luxuries Mentality brings the Masses Online in Droves

An economic truth: when times get tougher people still need to cheer themselves up with luxuries and the cheaper ones grow in popularity. Pizzas and takeaways replace the restaurant, cans in replaces pub nights out, lipstick and knickers are sold by the truckload instead of that gúna nua. Video rentals also increase. Well, the net has cheap or free music, video, TV, films, chat, dating, games, Skype, web text and even porn... and all-in for a single cheap monthly charge. So, this is where your customers are going are spending more and more of their spare time and they’re likely to have much more of this too. Net use kills time so more effectively than TV or radio, and young hardly ever buy newspapers these days.

10) IP Society

And best of all the Internet is a social activity. When you maybe can’t afford to be physically social, virtually social beats solo every time. TV used to be social, but now people are watching videos in bedrooms, on DVD players, or other devices, so they’re not sitting getting embarrassed in front of their parents when something rude happens on the box in the corner.

These days, things are much less family oriented and much more solo and this where the net comes into its own. It’s a physically solo, virtually social networking balance which seems to satisfy the social needs of humans in this progressively solitary age. Sitting alone at home with a can chatting or playing a game or watching videos with mates on the Internet feels much less sad and lonely than the same evening spent staring at Desperate Housewives, ER and QI. Your mates are home alone with you after all - texting, chatting and calling you for free.

And, for the business man, since your customers are online, you need to be there, or they won’t even know you exist.