• Recent Posts

  • How big Marketers can make a Dramatic change for Japan’s relief efforts
  • Facebook wants a piece of Netflix
  • Possible dangers of tweeting with the wrong account
  • The selling power of the iPad and Mr. Jobs
  • Western Europe’s Social Media Trend
  • Nokia and Microsoft Join Forces
  • Super Bowl’s Advertising Big Failure
  • Internet usage-based billing?
  • A New Era in Social Gaming
  • Just log in to your Facebook

• Categories

  • Uncategorized

• Recent Comments

  • kepa on Hello world!
  • Mr WordPress on Hello world!

• Archives

  • March 2011 (4)
  • February 2011 (4)
  • January 2011 (3)

It’s unbelievable the way people respond to a catastrophic natural event, like the massive earthquake that devastated Japan last weekend. Google’s Person Finder tool once again proved to be of massive help to those people looking for someone, or to those that have information about other people.  With almost 200,000 records it has become a first source of information to those seeking details about certain people.

Google has not been the only one aiding Japan, other big marketing organizations such as Coca-Cola, P&G and Kraft have been actively participating in Japan’s relief efforts. An article found in Adage, with more information about what each company is doing to help out, can be found here.

Twitter has put forth a promoted Twitter trend #helpJapan, which was donated by Twitter themselves. Twitter’s influential power was already witnessed in the Haiti disaster in 2010, where it was able to draw a lot of attention and create interest, as well as lead to copious donations that helped in the overall relief fund that was provided to Haiti.

However, I have not been able to find any other social media sites donating to the charitable cause. Facebook should really take a more proactive approach to it, rather than waiting for their users to create accounts/pages to help the Japan relief. Regardless of the influence Facebook has on Asia (which is considerably low compared to the rest of the world-mostly in part due to China) this should be a clear example where media sites really become helpful. Facebook should leverage it to gain acceptance over the Asian market…although unfortunately, it does not seem like they are that interested at all.

Facebook has been thinking about entering the online movie streaming industry, as it prepares to launch a try-out period where users can rent the movie “The Dark Knight” using Facebook credits. You can find an article about it here.

Likes- A great idea to allocate a cost per movie watched rather than Netflix’s subscription cost, given that Netflix has already established themselves with an ample selection of movies. Facebook will probably take some time before they are able to provide as wide a selection. At $3/movie, Facebook will be able to compete against ‘Video on Demand’ features that many cable suppliers provide.

Dislikes- Not too sure what exactly Facebook is trying to offer that is not already on the market. Video stores did offer the possibility of renting a movie without having to go to the movie theatres, and iTunes and Netflix provided a new service that allows customers to not have to leave their home and go to the video store to rent a movie. It is also questionable since the purpose of having Facebook credits limits the ease by which customers can watch movies. If they now have to purchase additional credits to watch a specific movie, they might just pay an extra dollar and rent it on their video on demand. Facebook cannot just provide the same service, it must provide an extra incentive if they are to compete in this market against Apple and Netflix.

Verdict: Facebook made the right decision in offering this ‘trial period’ before offering more movies because I doubt it will be very successful.

I came across a hilarious article, that can be found here, in the PR daily website. Chrysler, as many other organizations do nowadays, hired a social media agency to take control over their social media sites. New Media Strategies, a known global leader in the social media industry, was ‘dumped’ by Chrysler today as one of its employees (who manages several Twitter accounts) tweeted the following with Chrysler’s account:

“I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f**king drive.”

Chrysler had to take action and is currently managing their own social media profiles, at least until they find a new company or intern to take over the project. Following the tweet, Chrysler went online and blogged about what they believed Detroit was like, and what they thought about their hard-working citizens.

With the employees at NMS managing several Twitter and Facebook accounts one can’t help but wonder if they should really be managing their personal accounts at work as well. Next time you log in make sure it’s the right account- we wouldn’t want more people losing their jobs like the NMS employee did.

Source: http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/7521.aspx

Last week Steve Jobs announced the new iPad 2 during his usual presentations. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting much…a what? Faster, slightly thinner tablet? Yet Steve never seizes to amaze me…and apparently everyone else seems to be amazed as well. Ipad’s 2 sales projections went off the roof and Apple’s share price went up 1% the very next day.

Instead of reading an article this week, let’s all take some time to appreciate the selling power of the iPad-which is far beyond its $499 price. Click on the poster to make it larger!

3X its 2010 App revenue estimated for 2011! And the truth is that the iPad 2 wasn’t the only surprise Mr. Jobs delivered out last week, Apple is also introducing their smart covers for their iPad 2. It seemed pretty strange that up until now iPad’s covers were dominated by an external company (who’s stocks actually dropped by about 30% after the unveiling of Apple’s new smart covers) given Apple’s tendency to create accessories that are required to take full advantage of their products. Who hasn’t bought an extra adaptor for their mac to be able to plug it into the projector?

The truth of the matter is whether or not the actual iPad 2 has improved its specs sufficiently to generate as much revenue as the original iPad did last year, is insignificant compared to the extra revenue Apple will be generating from keeping the iPad a ‘hot product’.

Just keep everyone interested and Blackberry’s App world and Android’s App world won’t become a real threat in the upcoming years, seems to be their ‘motto’.

As I was reading an article in eMarketer about Europe’s increasing social media sites usage I couldn’t help but think about my hometown experience seeing as I’m from Spain. Having lived 10 years away from my home country has helped me identify clear differences in internet usage patterns. Just a few years ago, back when Facebook was restricted to several universities, everyone back home found my Facebook page quite strange. At the time I probably had around only 40 friends and the time I used to spend on ‘the’ Facebook seemed ridiculous.

Interestingly enough as the article suggests, nowadays the trend is changing. Given Europe’s aging population, these results are quite remarkable. However, as the article suggests, many organizations consider Western Europe as a similar market and yet their social media usage varies dramatically from country to country.

The UK, France, Italy and Spain have adopted social networks far faster than Germany has. Not only that, but although in most European countries, Facebook, just like in North America does dominate, other local sites are closely seconds and shouldn’t be overlooked. Examples of other social media sites are Tuenti (Spain), Hyves (Netherlands, #1 before Facebook), Copains d’Avant (France) among others, many of which are dominated by different age groups. Tuenti for example is dominated by younger teenagers, whilst the older population solely uses Facebook and most have not even heard of Tuenti.

So next time we are planning on advertising in Western Europe’s social media sites lets make sure we take a closer look at the individual country’s preference.

For the full article click here, note that you might have to be logged in to VPN to access it.

This week it was announced that Nokia will be joining powers with Microsoft to fight against Google’s and Apple’s current market growth. Specifically in the booming industry of smartphones, Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s Iphone are dominating.

Nokia’s phones will now be integrated with Microsoft Windows 7 operating system, and will be integrated with Microsoft’s Bing search engine rather than Google. An article in Mashable discussing this topic can be found here.

For Microsoft, it is really a good opportunity to introduce Windows 7 to an existing mobile market in Nokia (even though it has been on the decline). Bing will be introduced through Nokia’s mobile phones with hopes of increasing its awareness in the North American market.

But…what’s in it for Nokia? In my opinion, Nokia is basically giving up in software development, focusing its efforts solely in hardware manufacturing.

At the end of the day I believe it to be great deal for Microsoft and a tougher, riskier plan for Nokia. After exploring joining Google and including the Android operation system, they decided to join with Microsoft because otherwise an alliance with Google “… would of felt like giving up…not fighting back” (New York Times reports).

In conclusion, this is a safe bet for Microsoft, who still needs to prove whether or not Windows operating system can in fact succeed in the mobile industry. For Nokia…a last stand or “fight” against the already proven mobile operating systems in the market.

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/02/11/nokia-windows-phone-7/

I recently came across an article in Adage after searching all of this year’s Super Bowl commercials, which reflects on this year’s ad’s. The writer who was expecting this year’s Super Bowl to become the first Super Bowl of social media was terribly dissapointed after many companies spent over US $3M for a 30 second ad which he believed was a shot at an “opportunity to start a relationship, to get people to opt into a CRM funnel that can last a lifetime. A measurable CRM funnel.” And what better way to achieve that, than to introduce social media resources that organizations should have used to allow current and potential customers to develop a relationship with them.

That is not to say that there weren’t great commercials during the Super Bowl- there were plenty of great commercials (my favourite below), yet none of them use social media to their advantage. Almost none of them even had a single URL to their Facebook page.

Data in the article shows that almost 2/3 of individuals age 18-34 had a smartphone and were ready to use it during the Super Bowl…and yet no one used it for their advantage. Frankly, the only one that did use it, Go Daddy.com had a pretty pathetic commercial and barely gathered interest from the viewers.

So I guess we’ll have to wait till next year to see whether or not organizations take advantage of current trends- and take advantage of those $3M by not just throwing an unusual funny ad, but by gathering as much information from their market by establishing a viable customer relationship.

Click here for the full article.

And here’s my favourite Super Bowl ad:

Throughout the last couple of weeks I have been following some recent news regarding the new decision on usage-based internet billing. The reasoning behind the decision is really two fold:

First, it will prevent smaller internet companies that originally purchase broadband from larger competitors such as Telus or Bell, from allowing unlimited GB to be downloaded (which in turn end up costing more than those who provide the access).

Second, it should (and I mean should (!)) prevent consumers to use extra data to download illegal material online, whether downloading movies or music illegally.

I suppose both points sound reasonable, yet it strikes me as the worst decision possible. For one, it will grant these big power houses (Rogers, Bell, Telus and Shaw) even more power allowing them to charge extra to their smaller competitors. In addition, they would be taking away the ability of these smaller organizations to provide unlimited downloading data packages. Result: Destroy competition among internet providers.

It will not only destroy competition but it will destroy the opportunity of new entrepreneurs developing online businesses that require a fair amount of downloading data. The main example that all articles seem to be talking about is Netflix (a site that provides high quality shows and videos to monthly subscribers to view online automatically). Other examples could be subscriptions to NBA TV, Rogers on demand etc.

For an article on CBC outlying a review of the internet billing decision click here.

Social gaming in social networking sites has been increasing dramatically over the past two years. According to an article in e-marketer, revenues from ‘social gaming apps’ have increased up to 856M, with an expected increase to 1.32 billion by 2012.

With people spending over 2 hours a day on social media sites, it is not uncommon for users to begin playing a game whilst interacting or chatting with peers. Most games are generally offered at a low price (most apps cost around .99 c each, if not free), which allows users not to think twice when reading their peers ‘status” showing their highest scores. As their disposable income in regards to virtual spending increases, consumers are propelling the online gaming industry further, creating the necessity of owning a console to play video games obsolete.

For marketers, the opportunity arises through the use of advertising. Some companies have begun branding virtual goods, having special offers, short ads or clips that may be combined before, after or even during online play as what the article calls “digital items”.

Original gaming powerhouses such as Electronic Arts (EA), Disney and Google, have started spending hundreds of millions of dollars in social gaming. The question is whether or not, these ‘lower tier’, cheap online games will resist the console push as Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo lower their prices and integrate easier online modes to their already more sophisticated, higher graphics and much higher involvement levels video games. A great example would be Microsoft’s XBox new Kinect system which allows the player to become an individual in the virtual world without the necessity of using a controller.

For the e-marketer article click here.

Source: http://totalaccess.emarketer.com/Reports/Viewer.aspx?R=2000759

A recent article found in e-marketer discussed the new trend taking place as web retailers as they are now allowing consumers to log in to their Facebook profile instead of having to register on their e-commerce site.

No brainer right? Consumers looking to save time would definitely appreciate saving a couple of precious minutes instead of having to register with the site. Yet…at what cost?

Facebook’s personal information has become a high valued treasure for most organizations. Just thinking about it, imagine the amount of information one can gather from your ‘personal’ profile. From interests to groups an individual is involved with, to sexual preference…you name it, it is there. Yet interestingly enough most consumers still seem to be ‘very concerned’ about privacy on social networks.

The question is why don’t they allow consumers to log on to their Twitter account instead of Facebook? Simple, most importantly the amount of information gathered by Facebook is far greater than that gathered from any other social media site (probably of any other site in general). And secondly research does suggest that those individuals who have a Twitter account or any other social media account also have a Facebook profile.

For an interesting read, click here for the full article.

Note: you might have to be on campus or logged on to your VPN account to access the full artile.

keep looking »

• Calendar

  November 2024

  M	T	W	T	F	S	S
  				1	2	3
  4	5	6	7	8	9	10
  11	12	13	14	15	16	17
  18	19	20	21	22	23	24
  25	26	27	28	29	30