Back to Square One

Is email dead?

2011-12-08T11:47:00.003Z

Mark Zuckerberg has suggested that email's time is nigh, this pronouncement came not surprisingly at the launch of one of the most significant developments on the Facebook platform for some time the new Messenger system through the messaging centre, something he hopes will ensure that his 750 million users dumps email in favour of Facebook.

The fact that you have to have an email address to have a Facebook account somehow seems to have been lost somewhere in the announcement, but that aside is Zuckerberg right? Well certainly there is evidence to suggest that email is on the wane. A research study by Comscore suggested that in the 12-17 year old age group usage was down 59%. This is well supported by the fact that last year 25% of US universities did not issue emails to new students but instead chose to run all communications through Facebook or other social networks.

So within the consumer population email usage is down but I don't believe email is anywhere close to dead in both the consumer and the B2B space, but there are a number of factors that are going to impact on the efficacy of email in 2012.

Multi-channel distribution complications
Social media platforms have meant that content can now be distributed in multiple ways. We don't see Facebook and Twitter's existence as a the death knell for email distribution. There is a time and a place for relevant information disseminated by email, the key though is ensuring what you are emailing is shareable through social networks to ensure that your valuable content is disseminated using these channels.

Smarter inboxes
Email inboxes have got smart. Users can now automate filing, and use 'sweep' options to ensure mass inbox clean ups. Marry that with the fact that email inboxes such as Boxbee can now deliver email based on previous behaviours it puts the onus back on brands to ensure they are running more effective campaigns. That means users will keep them listed as a preferred sender or 'starred' as a sender users want to hear from. If brands are keen to continue receiving consistently high open rates and prevent their message being deleted en mass with other senders content needs to stay high quality and relevant.

Portability
Up to 30% of email is now received on smartphones whether that be Blackberry, iOS devices or Android. It's therefore absolutely essential brands are optimising your email campaigns for mobile receipt.

Email will become more valuable
Opted in email lists are more valuable than ever before. Studies show that an opted-in email list is 23% more likely to convert to sale than other online communication channels. That means keeping lists recent, clean and relevant has never been more important.

Click thru rates up but open rates down
All of the above factors will most likely mean open rates will start to decline, however if brands ensure the quality, timeliness and relevance remains high we predict Click thru rates will increase and if the social sharing options are improved from each email the potential distribution possibilities become far greater than ever before.

Google+ launches pages

2011-11-18T11:52:00.002Z

So five months after it was promised, possibly the most anticipated social platform launch of the year, the great hyperbole that is Google+ pages finally arrived last week.

It met with the now expected polarised coverage from:

"Why Google Plus Pages (Will) Beat Facebook. And Twitter"

to

"Google+ Is Dead"

Frankly how one can make predictions this early on (we smell linkbait) is beyond us.

So the facts are that Pages provide organisations with the ability to broadcast and interact with their customers in much the same way as Facebook pages. As Robert Scoble points out though they currently appear to be more suited to small companies or companies with a small social presence rather than large corporations, as the management options for multiple logins are currently absent meaning companies with advanced social strategies touching many parts of an organisation will find the management tough at present.

These types of tools will arrive over time but for now the key benefit (which is why we can't understand the ‘Google+ is dead’ headlines) is the baked in search boosting tools, which is where Google+ really has an advantage over other social platforms.

Companies that are serious about natural search rankings have the opportunity to really consolidate through their presence on the platform and this is where we think the real growth will start. The attraction of improved natural search will inevitably attract companies to set up stall (61% of the top brands already have) and if they start to run promotions through the platform the users will follow, which means there will be a natural activation of what is currently a relatively inactive Google+ consumer base. Interestingly this is the Facebook growth model in reverse.

So after 5 months of wondering we now know what Google’s ambitions are and the next year is going to be a fascinating spectacle.

The true price of free

2011-10-03T11:58:00.000+01:00

If you've visited Facebook or read any business or technology pages in the past couple of weeks you will be well aware that facebook has made one or two changes.

The changes have been discussed at length so we're not going to explore them in any great detail, but instead consider the furore that has engulfed the user community. A survey of 1300 users noted that 84% of the base didn't like the new changes. But so what.

As Adrian Short pointed out last week if you haven't paid for the service then you have no real say. Certainly you don't have rights. As a facebook user you're merely a tenant, you don't pay anything to be there so you need to expect things to change. If you want to control your web experience then you're going to need to be prepared to pay. facebook answers to its advertisers and those advertisers are the ones looking for more time online, better targeting, greater engagement and that is what the interface change is designed to deliver.

The radicalism of the change is something that brands have to be vigilant about. For years facebook has provided a free platform to develop your brand space on. If this is the decision you're making, you need to be prepared for the unexpected. You don't get anything for free and if there is a decision in the future to change things this could affect your wall, your apps or any tools you build in and fundamentally the brand experience you're building. With a long rumoured IPO in the near future, monetising the site has never been more important for facebook and one thing we can expect is more of these types of changes in the future. facebook has been a fantastic innovation for brands, but its best to remember facebook are doing it for facebook not for your brand.

Is it milliseconds or days that count?

2011-09-05T12:10:00.002+01:00

In 1986 the financial sector's Big Bang saw the explosion of the industry. It was the end of October 1986 when the Stock Exchange Automated Quotation system replaced the trading floor. This screen-based quotation system was used by brokers to buy and sell stock rather than meeting face to face. It's been the technological advances in the sector that has kept it competitive and continues to do so.

Work has just got underway on the Hibernian Express a 6000 mile fibre optic cable that will cost over £300 million and is being justified by the fact that milliseconds will be saved in trading transactions providing the edge that companies need to ensure they stay competitive.

However, increasingly it is not just the huge infrastructure projects that are necessarily giving the edge, but easily accessible and free platforms. Analysts at Derwent Capital Markets have launched a £25m fund that makes its investments by evaluating whether people are generally happy, sad, anxious or tired, because they believe it will predict whether the market will move up or down. How do they do that? Well it's Twitter. The millions of tweets posted on Twitter are being analysed by their hedge fund managers in conjunction with a research team headed by Professor Johan Bollen, they have developed a predictive modelling technique for the Dow Jones with 87.6% accuracy.

Paul Hawtin, Derwent's founder and fund manager, has an exclusive contract with Bollen to use his technology. Mr Hawtin told the Sunday Times "Investors have always accepted that markets are driven by sentiment, mainly fear and greed. When people are greedy the markets go up and when they are fearful they go down.

"When sentiment dropped, and people tweeted about feeling tight on money, were worried or anxious, the markets would crash two or three days later."

This is not the only tool on the market, but increasingly small houses are looking at investing in social technologies at a fraction of the price of large infrastructure projects and in some cases predicting market shifts far earlier than the milliseconds that may be won by the Hibernian Express.

10 things Google+ has done for me

2011-07-05T21:20:00.003+01:00

So straight off the top of my head here we GO...

1. It's cut out the noise of Twitter

2. It's helped me discover interesting content more quickly

3. It's facilitated better conversations

4. It's made me feel innovative again

5. It's made me be more rigorous about how I'm presenting myself online again

6. It's started me blogging again

7. It's helped me choose who and how to share better

8. It's made me like people I'd started to go off

9. It's sparked my imagination back into life

10. It's bumped me out of a bit of a lazy hiatus

First campaign on Google+

2011-07-05T21:10:00.004+01:00

It's a bit clunky (and the spelling leaves a bit to be desired) but it's good to experiment, it's why I like hackers and hats off to these guys for finding the first hook

ph creative - the first campaign ever on google+ - 2011

Google+: Social networking grows up

2011-07-04T16:23:00.003+01:00

Google+ launched last week. The demand was so great that Google were forced to shut down invites within a day. Having been lucky enough to get in as one of the first though, I've been playing around for a few days now and can't help concluding this is a service that really is going to be a game changer both for consumers and for brands involvement in social.

The service has variously been touted as a Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Myspace, Skype (and it goes on) killer. I'm not going to speculate here about whether it will kill any of those, but suffice to say it does many things that all of those brands should be wary of. I believe after my first dalliances, there are four aspects that make this service amazingly strong.

First and possibly most importantly is its core strength. Google+ pulls together all of Google's services seamlessly. Your Google+ alerts are sent through Gmail. The photo upload is through Picasa. The event scheduling is through Google Calendar and so it goes on. As there are currently over 1 billion Gmail customers alone, let alone the other services, when the service comes out of beta it could well be hugely dominant.

The second is the Circles feature. Circles is an incredibly simple and intuitive way of building your friend lists. Contacts can be dragged and dropped into one or as many different circles as you like and then any content you share can be published to any of those created circles or, if you wish, made completely public making privacy simple and easy. This group function is far simpler than either Facebook and Linked In Groups and arguably far more baked in to the service than Twitter lists and therefore far more likely to be integral to its usage. It also fundamentally inverts the privacy pyramid back in favour of the user.

The third is Hangout. Hangout provides group video calling to anyone with an enabled webcam. Rumour has it that Facebook could be releasing something similar this week but the ease with which it is to fire up a Hangout is frightening and frankly Skype could definitely be under threat.

The fourth is the photo and video sharing. This sounds like the classic me to service and it would be easy to copy existing models, however Google has created a drag and drop experience which is Apple-like in its ease. You simply drag any photo onto a box and it uploads instantly. Working similarly to the recently launched Google images preview function, you can then scroll through gallery lightboxes seamlessly. The user design in this area really makes you feel this whole new proposition has been amazingly well thought through. Added to this great functionality, the upload interface with Android on the mobile side is seamless and if there are some fence sitters out there, this will definitely provide great reasons for choosing Android over the Apple iOS.

If we were to pick just one killer app over everything else it would have to be Circles, this puts privacy absolutely in the hands of the consumer and as such this really sees social platforms growing up. This is the reason we think that Google+ is a game changer for brands. Brands are going to be forced to look at more complex metrics than simply followers or fans, as it has been easy to rely on up to now. Engagement is going to have to be based around much more solid content interaction strategies if brands really want to spread through the Circles structures. This social platform is putting the power back in the hands of consumers and brands are going to have to step up their game to have real impact.

Has Facebook faltered?

2011-06-17T16:48:00.002+01:00

It was widely reported this week that Facebook had lost customers in the UK to the tune of 100,000 users with an even larger proportion being lost in the US. It was also reported that overall the rate of Facebook's global growth had slowed significantly for 2 months in a row. Both of these facts were denied by Facebook themselves stating 'From time to time, we see stories about Facebook losing users in some regions. Some of these reports use data extracted from our advertising tool, which provides broad estimates on the reach of Facebook ads and isn't designed to be a source for tracking the overall growth of Facebook'.

Whatever the facts of this story, the nervousness that underpins the reporting and comment highlights just how reliant some, especially companies have become on Facebook as a platform. The site undoubtedly provides the opportunity for really deep engagement with customers and the explosion in Facebook Commerce (F-Commerce) just goes to prove how important it has become to the sales and marketing investment strategy for many companies, but there is an inherent danger in switching to a one channel focus and the lessons learned from sites such as MySpace and Friendster and their loss of favour have to be heeded, as history does have a habit of repeating itself.

At present the time on site per user as reported by Comscore has increased from 21 to 25 minutes per day, however relying on this to continue could be a folly. It's important that there is investment and presence across a number of diverse channels in recognition of the fact that users are very promiscuous when it comes to the way they use the net and could move on at any time.

'Fish where the fish are' is a wise strategy, but you have to also keep one eye on the potential future migration patterns to ensure that the pool doesn't get over-fished and you miss out as the fish swim elsewhere. At the moment, Facebook is still where all the action is but you need to keep an eye open for where the action could be in the future and be ready to move.

Who cares about online security

2011-06-03T16:34:00.001+01:00

Online privacy and data security are increasingly in the spotlight. Whether it be the recent Sony Playstation Network hack or this week’s issues surrounding the Chinese hacking plot on Gmail. And of course, when you entrust your personal details to a commercial organisation in the hope that those details are securely stored then you absolutely, have the right to expect that those details are safe.

However a couple of instances have emerged this week in which online denizens appear to be willingly giving up their private details in a way that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. First was Intel’s quite brilliantly executed Museum of Me, which promised (and indeed delivered in spades) to ‘create and explore a visual archive of your social life’. The application fantastically visualises, photos, video, links, profile pictures and status updates from the day you signed up to Facebook and onwards and in order to do that they ask you to giveaway pretty much every Facebook access privilege you can, but hey it’s Intel they’re OK they’ll be responsible and indeed to date 224,000+ users have happily done so, but there are those that are warning against giving away so much willingly.

The second is maybe a little less blatant and involves Google Wallet. The mobile payments solution unveiled by Google last week promises the mobilisation of payments via your smartphone and an NFC chip. Potentially ending the need for cash and indeed of your card wallet. Fantastic, how convenient, but what is the price of using the technology. Well, potentially you give companies access to your purchasing behaviour. So far, so loyalty card, but on top you also open up your location, your predilections and therefore to some extent your soul. There’s definitely work that needs to be done around the privacy settings that are fixed to mobile payment solutions and before you blindly plough in, you need to make sure your privacy is protected.

Consumers have the right to expect companies they give their data to, to encrypt it, protect it and ensure that it can’t be hacked and stolen, however life on the internet comes with responsibility and before we give our lives away more and more freely we all need to be thinking about what it is we’re giving up.

It started with a tweet

2011-02-18T12:23:00.004Z

This week National Australia Bank (NAB) launched a campaign that looked particularly unbanky. Choosing Valentine’s Day as their launch date @NAB tweeted this rather cryptic teaser (on 11th February):

They followed this with a tweet on Valentine’s Day linking to a video of the bank writing their break up letter

The bank is trying to separate itself forcefully in both proposition and use of these social platforms to create complete differentiation. The campaign is also supported by a Facebook page and they are curating all the content relating to the bank on their dedicated site. On both their Twitter stream and their Facebook page they have transformed the environment to field customer enquiries and certainly it would appear that they are being managed by Bank employees rather than an agency to fulfil that remit.

This launch has resulted in 78% of all online conversations around banking in Australia containing reference to NAB which is undeniably huge. Interestingly the launch came in the same week that Ovum released research suggesting retail banks are still resisting social media and with some banks still viewing online activity as highly dangerous NAB's move is certainly bold. There is little peer comparison possible in the UK where the closest we have currently is probably First Direct, which interestingly has recently stopped running live sentiment on their First Direct Live site, but is now using both Twitter and Facebook more effectively.

I take my hat off to @NAB for this fresh approach. I'll be watching the campaign follow-up with interest . When the budget's there to support a strong campaign theme using social platforms the momentum can be fantastic. The proof comes in what those social platforms are used for beyond that initial burst.

Contactless mobile payments closer to a reality

2011-02-14T17:16:00.001Z

Over the last few weeks there have been a flurry of much firmer announcements suggesting there will be a significant roll out of Near Field Communications (NFC) services across the UK, but with a real focus on scaling up for the Olympics in 2012.

Google's Nexus S has been making a lot of headlines for a few months. Built as a mass market smartphone its integral NFC chip has got tongues wagging. However, two recent announcements have meant the NFC subject's exploded into life.

First was Orange's partnership announcement with Barclaycard that will mean Everything Everywhere customers will be able to take advantage of what is claimed to be the UK's first mobile payments service. NFC hasn’t been embraced by lots of brands yet, but is already installed in Pret a Manger, Little Chef and National Trust, however the roll out gathered pace with McDonalds announcing they would be implementing the technology and Everything Everywhere stated that the proposition could definitely extend to T-Mobile customers. With O2 having already tested mobile contactless transport payments as a replacement for Oyster Cards it's a fair assumption that they may well be next up as it would be a comfortable fit with their O2 Money product.

The second big announcement was from Apple who would appear to be shaping up to make mobile payments a key launch message for both the iPad 2 and the iPhone 5. The firm states that both devices are being built with NFC chips installed. It is more than likely the payment system would integrate with iTunes which already holds users' card details and while it's probably going to launch first in the states, pressure from payment service providers in the UK as terminals grow in number will see the move to the UK quickly.

This move to the UK will undoubtedly be galvanised by the 2012 Olympics which seems to be shaping up to be the 'mobile Games' with many of the food outlets and transport hubs aiming to be fully contactless enabled and also BlackBerry announcing their intentions to join the game.

Will Money Dashboard change the way people save in the UK?

2011-01-21T17:25:00.005Z

This week saw the launch of a new UK based personal finance (PF) site. Money Dashboard moves squarely in to the territory, not quite conquered by Wesabe and definitely vacated by Kublax after its demise in early 2010.

Operating in the same way and utilising the same backend technology as the hugely successful US PF solution, Mint.com, Money Dashboard's CEO, Gavin Littlejohn is hoping that providing customers with the ability to aggregate their current, savings, credit card, loan and other accounts into one place, and displaying it through an easy to understand online dashboard, will allow them to analyse their financial health holistically and make the appropriate investment decisions for themselves. “Here in the UK, there is very little access to financial advice. Most people don’t know their bank managers, and few people have access to a financial adviser,” says Littlejohn.

Thisismoney.co.uk has been quick to point out some of the potential security risks of the site, but as a read only environment, the risk of fraud is minimal. In fact Thisismoney.co.uk went on to state 'In five or ten years, this could be so common that all today's security whines and gripes look like childish folly'. They then make the bold claim that this could be a glimpse of the future of UK banking. Certainly account aggregation services recently launched by First Direct and Egg suggest that there are some very real concerns about the impact of online PF sites. If the US and Canada based Mint.com's 4m customers are anything to go by the concerns would appear valid.

Money Dashboard is in an interesting space. Solutions similar to the service have either come and gone, or not quite taken off yet in the UK, however with solid angel investment backing totalling $3m, there is plenty of scope to have a good pitch at success. When it comes down to it though, success could all rest on Mint's future global expansion plans. If those plans are imminent and the UK is a target, Money Dashboard could struggle.

How financial services brands are using Quora

2011-01-14T20:09:00.004Z

Something happened over Christmas. A hitherto quiet little start-up social network, that had gained a little traction in H2 2010, suddenly exploded into life. In the first week of 2011 every second tweet and all the headline technology articles seemed to be about Quora.

So what is Quora? It's slightly more complex than your average social network, but has been described as a combination of Twitter, Linked In Answers and Yahoo Answers. You can find out a little more here or here. Essentially the promise is, that it will build communities around core specialities, meaning that if you are looking for an opinion or just a straightforward answer to a question - about anything - those questions can be addressed by 'experts' as opposed to an amorphous mass with a passing interest in the subject. So far, so good.

However, as Vikki Chowney pointed out this week the low volume of users and sheer volume of content that is being posted is leaving an awful lot unanswered, or alternatively there can be a similar echo chamber feel that can sometimes come from spending too much time on Twitter, and as a result the service maybe just requires a watching brief at present.

Interestingly though where brands are engaging in this new network the content is becoming very rich and there are a couple of financial services brands that have thrown themselves in to it. Bank Simple has really embraced it with open arms, with a strong presence and engagement in some tough and complex questions around its place in the market and its offering. Similarly Mint.com has engaged with the site tackling challenging questions head on.

Both of these engagements hint at the possibilities of effectively tackling extremely challenging customer issues online in a way that possibly couldn't in some other online forums. The site therefore holds a new potential for more direct online reputation management.

Quora is undoubtedly more transparent than the vast majority of social sites and therefore arguably, quality and consideration of answers is higher than some of the throw away comments that can occur in other online destinations. Whether it's successful or not is the million (actually, probably billion) dollar question, but it certainly seems one of the strongest new social network contenders for some time.

The gamification of Financial Services

2011-01-07T20:27:00.000Z

In recent months financial services brands have increasingly been turning to gaming experiences as a way of engaging their audiences with fun online brand experiences.

Last October Barclays launched 56 Sage Street a role playing game aimed at educating users about how to make and then safeguard money through hard work and the avoidance of scamming.

Similarly in the US, Bank of America developed the Morris Code specifically aimed at educating college students around managing their finances. Largely video-based it aims to deliver the content in a fun and engaging way and interestingly buries the Bank of America brand as far away as it possibly can.

This week a US start up Payoff launched their personal financial planning service as a game experience. Picking up on some of the features of Facebook and Foursquare, it allows users to set financial goals such as paying off a loan, which in turn can earn them badges which can then be turned into real cash rewards. It has effectively taken some of the classic features of Social Networking and activated them in real terms.

The increase in the use of gaming as well as video as a marketing platform really is a mirror to what consumers actually spend their time doing on the net and how they most enjoy consuming content. Good marketing has always relied on providing an extension of an experience that makes the audience feel good, which is why we should expect to see a lot more gaming-type approaches throughout 2011.

Social Platforms get serious in Europe

2010-12-07T20:44:00.000Z

In the past couple of weeks social platforms Twitter and Facebook have both announced a serious push into Europe. First Twitter opened a London office. On 25th November they announced “Twitter plans to have a small number of people on the ground in Europe in 2011. We’re currently researching locations and potential candidates.” Then Facebook last week announced they would also be strengthening their presence “to help agencies and developers create more effective ad campaigns on the social network.”

The moves by the big two is recognition the importance of advertising on these platforms for brands in Europe. Facebook in particular was recently voted the ‘most important developing advertising platform’ in the IPA online media owner’s survey. Facebook currently has over 1 million developers worldwide working on content for the site and with over 550,000 branded applications now live, so this move is not unexpected.

Both players have realised that the European markets have become hugely important advertising markets and the move means that Facebook can now work directly with agencies and brands to develop highly innovative campaigns, hopefully that will mean far more relevant and integrated efforts from brands.

Contactless payments by mobile phone could become mainstream in 2011

2010-11-22T21:33:00.001Z

Something odd happened in the past couple of years. Everyone stopped asking whether it’s the year of the mobile. That’s probably because mobile has now become mainstream and with the mainstream comes the tsunami of innovation, not least in the financial services sector.

This week Nokia announced that they were making a huge move in the mobile payments market to move closer to contactless payments with the launch of their C7 phone in 2011. The rumours are that the Near Field Communications (NFC) technology required are also appearing in patents being filed by Apple for the new generation iPhone and in addition Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO has also announced that they working with NFC technology for the android platform. So does this mean an era of contactless payments may be just around the corner?

Alex Kwiatkowski - Principal Analyst in Ovum's Financial Services Technology Team voiced some doubts stating that 'While the ecosystem is evolving, old concerns (10+ years) over a viable business model for sustainable/decent revenue remain' he went on to say 'Nokia pulled its 6216 device (using NFC & SWP) in Feb '10, due to current state of NFC ecosystem and poor consumer experience.' So Nokia definitely have some credibility issues when it comes to the technology and with Symbian still performing so poorly, the issue is compounded.

However as always with Google and Apple in the frame the play becomes more serious from a software perspective and with Nokia’s ability to flood the market with low cost hardware, the battle could be fought on two fronts.

Ecosystem and revenue concerns there may be, but with 3 such massive players making a play and a whole host of bit part players around the edges, you get the impression that there must be something in it. Personally, the sooner I can get rid of my wallet the better so I’m hoping we’re not far away.

Lessons from Sibos 2010

2010-11-03T21:43:00.002Z

Sibos drew to a close at the end of last week and while the cream of the banking industry were there in force with some of the largest stands ever seen, it was noticeable how many new players were present . Reflections on the conference can be found here, but the innovation on show covered in the main, mobile, the cloud and the future of business payments. All of which are putting more and more power in the hands of consumers.

Strikingly amongst all of the big banking that was being talked, there appeared to be a groundswell of new businesses coming together to promote new models. The first project that had real stand-out was a view that we were about to see the new Financial Reformation.

This bold vision was echoed by the Future of Money project. The project started out as a blog post, a few weeks prior to this year's Sibos. It was a post that galvanised small businesses with a vision for the future of transaction, payments and new economic models, to not only donate their time but their money to build this vision for the future. This is a vision that cuts out the banks and relies on communities to find ways and means to build new transactional models.

It is inconceivable that these views would have been given exposure at the same event some years ago. However, it is a measure of how the financial crisis has hit the sector that there is a real challenge to the old model in their own backyard.

The future of money is here and it's in our hands

2010-10-30T10:31:00.002+01:00

The Future of money project started out as a blog post, a few weeks prior to this year's Sibos. It was a post that galvanised small businesses with a vision for the future of trasaction, payments and new economic models, to not only donate their time but their money to build this vision for the future. This is a vision that cuts out the banks and relies on communities to find ways and means to build new transactional models.

The Future of Money from KS12 on Vimeo.

I'm fascinated to see where this goes next. It feels like it's created amazing connection across the world. This is the start of the money revolution keep your eyes peeled.

Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!

2010-10-15T23:23:00.001+01:00

Anyone who saw Sir Ken Robinson's first Ted talk in 2006, will be pleased that he returned this year in a follow up to the talk that persuaded TED's organisers that they might just be on to something.

The first talk is absolute essential viewing

The second is just as engaging.

Human augmentation and human restoration

2010-10-15T14:42:00.001+01:00

Via RWW this morning I was taking a look at the 2010 Gartner hype cycle as below.

It's pretty fascinating stuff. However there was one tag right at the bottom of the cycle that I knew very little about, i.e. human augmentation. A quick search bought up the video posted below. It's frankly quite amazing stuff. It's over an hour long, but if you have the time it'll be worthwhile. I haven't finished watching yet - work and that - but really it's astounding from the off.

There's more info from MIT World and additional resources here.

ASB opens first Facebook bank branch in the world

2010-10-07T17:41:00.001+01:00

Three weeks ago ASB in New Zealand opened the doors (or whatever you term the online equivalent, launched I guess) to Facebook's first online bank branch. On my company site I blogged some months back about the potential for Facebook to become a major player in banking services and what ASB have done is recognise that potential and faced it head on, moving their services on to the social network. It's a brave move in the FS industry, but one that was inevitable.

Last week I tried the branch out. It's a very simple service. At its heart it's an online chat interface built directly into Facebook. There are a selection of advisers to choose to talk to, all of whom are named and photographed individuals, to increase the person to person appeal that is the hallmark of social networking and you are able to choose from those available to chat.

I spoke to Elysse to find out how the launch was going? She was friendly, personable and very knowledgable and stated there had been considerable interest in the service. Although ASB are at present unable to offer services to those overseas, she said they had had considerable contact from New Zealand travellers who were able to sort out their issues quickly and easily through Facebook.

I then went on to have a brief Twitter chat with Anna Curzon the General Manager, Internet Banking for ASB who confirmed the interest

That second statement really underlines the point of introducing this branch concept in to Facebook. In a time impoverished and globalised environment brands need to be in the places their customers are. Financial services brands are definitely behind the curve in following that trend, but ASB has made a huge step forward.

While the services through the ASB Facebook branch are currently limited the mere fact that they are there speaks volumes for their foresight and ambition. This is a bold first move and we’re sure it will be the first of many. I'm keping a firm eye on whether ASB benefits from first mover advantage.

The IFA is dead, long live the IFA

2010-09-29T11:22:00.002+01:00

In a side room of the Liberal Democrat conference last week, the traditional IFA was put on life support. Lord Newby stated in a satellite meeting that, “The traditional model of the IFA looks to me like a doomed species. I think there will be a drift away from old fashioned financial advice”.

He went on to say. “I hope people do take financial advice but they will want it free and they will want it delivered electronically.”

This may well be true of the old model, but at the same time in Newport the IFP was holding their annual conference. This collection of individuals represents the future of the industry. Life planners and chartered financial planners, who embraced RDR from the minute it was announced and are now using new technologies to engage with their customers and run a completely fee based model. This was a room of individuals harnessing the power of the web to ensure that the advice model adapts and changes and letting the world know through a vibrant hashtagged twitter stream.

Businesses like Informed Choice with its Brilliant with Money and recently launched Brilliant with Advice split option portals or Jackson’s whose MD Pete Matthew recently launched the completely free video based Meaningful Money .tv channel are looking to overlay free sensible advice with quality paid for financial planning.

This new model for advice is being supported and electronically enabled by businesses such as Paraplanplus whose Moneyscope product is about to launch. In addition the IFA focussed social network IFALife is growing exponentially to support the community and stimulate the growth in this new electronically enabled financial planning model. To facilitate that growth they launched their new iPhone app last week.

The IFA may be dying, but the future of ‘paid for’ financial advice is alive and kicking stronger than ever online.

Fostering a new culture of test and learn in financial services

2010-09-17T11:18:00.001+01:00

This week a group of digital industry professionals came together at the Dmexco trade show in Cologne to discuss the future of marketing. The key take out of the day was that Marketers must take more risks if digital is to be fully capitalised upon. Digital channels and platforms are so fluid that it's essential brands begin to look at running far more testing. That means allocating realistic small budgets and spending time and money on analysis. That means being open to failure, multiple failure if necessary and moving on quickly until success is achieved.

This is easy to say, but financial services is a category built on risk elimination and steeped in compliance process. Test and learn is not a natural fit within that environment, however test and learn requires a shift in thinking about the problem that may not be seen as so risky. In fact it could actually be safer in the long-run.

Seth Godin this week expanded on his initial thoughts - commonly held by many - regarding the shape of the prospect funnel. He has long held a belief that targeting in modern marketing is skewed and has gone beyond the expensive ‘one to many’ philosophy of old advertising and flipped to a 'one to the most relevant'. His assertion is that you should spend the majority of your time identifying the most influential individuals for your products and then work with those individuals on multiple small projects and rely on the viral effect to monitor an increase in spend.

This more risky initial approach could in theory actually be a less risky strategy in the long-term. You're effectively developing live real-time test cells and focus groups which will help to identify and promote your future successes at a lower cost per test and all online. Over time the products that win out will be those that are the most attractive and the most stable. It's time to think bigger by thinking smaller, be more experimental, be less risk-averse but ultimately win.

Geo-location is where it's at, but should financial services brands check-in?

2010-09-10T11:15:00.000+01:00

An interesting video was uploaded by a French developer this week, in a few hours he'd developed a product called Track Dropper. This allowed users to leave musical 'treasure' for passers-by in specific locations. Do what? In simple terms you choose a music track from your mobile device and attach it to your location. Users who then pass that place in the future and are using the same software would be able to pick that track up, upload it to their mobile device and listen. Why's that of any use? Well it could be used by brands that have music as a core element of their strategy. So for O2, at the O2, or maybe for Diesel in their retail outlets, this could provide fantastic brand value.

Geo-location has been the building story of 2010. Since SXSW in March this year the fight has been on to win the geo-location battle. The main protagonists so far have been first Foursquare who has successfully built 2 million followers by tapping into the enthusiasm for gameplay. Users who 'check-in' are awarded points and badges while sharing their location with their friends. Second there's Gowalla who allow users to attach pictures and videos to locations for other users to pick up when they next check-in. Then on the horizon is the big beast Facebook with its Places product, with 100 million users updating on their mobiles, the opportunity for Places is absolutely monumental as people start to share their location on a huge scale.

But what are the implications for Financial Services brands. There's been plenty of chatter about location-based services, but that doesn't mean brands should really be worrying too much at the moment. There's no harm in experimenting with some accounts as an individual, and/or setting up profiles for your organisation's locations, all these new services should be tested out to identify utility. But there's no pressing or immediate need to go any further with it. There are some applications that I feel could work well for the insurance or mortgage lending space, but at present the services need to mature and users need to start getting involved more deeply before location will have real impact

The shifting summer holiday paradigm

2010-09-07T13:48:00.003+01:00

I started running again recently. There are myriad reasons why it's good for me, not least the fact that I get to run in places that I wouldn't normally have occasion to visit. My running coincided with the beginning of the summer holidays and as I huffed and puffed around the back streets I dragged past a bench that I've gone past many times before. You've probably seen loads of benches like it. Someone, or some body placed it there years ago, but you've never seen a single person actually sat on it. You've probably wondered why the hell it was ever built in the first place.

On that particular night though there were three kids sat on and in front of it, about 14/15 years old chilled out, enjoying the early evening sun (yes there was sun this summer) and just having a very pleasant looking time. Three days later on the same route I passed the same bench, but this time there were 5 or 6 kids hanging out. Same vibe, quiet, chatty and relaxed. There was a mix of boys and girls and
they looked pretty cool (what do I know, I stopped being able to read that barometer years ago). It had a lovely feel to it, not so much incongruous, as unusual that this was where they'd chosen to be. Granted it had a little bit of greenery, some shade from the sun with the trees, but nevertheless it was basically in the middle of a suburban sprawl with no shops nearby, no real 'entertainment' on hand, just a bench as a focal point and few opinions.

My running's continued sporadically over the summer holidays and rather than varying the routes as is my normal practice I've been following the same pattern and as the weeks went by the size of the group that was gathering around this previously unloved bench grew to around 20. I started to enjoy running past it. It was convivial, quiet, considered and above all fun.

Then it began to change. As I ran past it seemed slightly more fractious. The group was bigger, there was alcohol, it was rowdier, there were factions, the conviviality had gone and as I ran on, two of the original kids I'd seen weeks before were walking away.

I went on holiday at the end of August, returning at the end of the school break at which point I resumed my slow painful fitness regime. When I ran past everything was different. The original kids had gone and had been replaced by a completely different group of individuals. Obviously I'm looking at this as the parent of kids not a million miles off this age, but they were oiky, 'orrible, oily individuals.
There was a lot more drinking, a lot more shouting and the original spirit was gone. Come yesterday evening, two days after the schools had gone back there were four kids left drunk and surrounded by litter.

The bench was over. The cool kids had moved on. The spirit had disappeared. The paradigm had shifted. I’d like to think the cool kids had found another anonymous bench. If I’m honest they’re probably back at school, but it suits my romantic side that they’re all happy chatting in Pleasantville just a few streets away.

Now inevitably this whole episode has led me to muse on the nature of social networks, their adoption and possible future abandonment. I watch brands pour millions of dollars/pounds through specific channels and often think ‘I really hope they don’t ruin this’, because if they do their audience won’t stick around they’ll just move on elsewhere, not only that they’ll switch that brand off ‘FOREVER’ because that’s the choice being online gives you.

Facebook popped up out of nowhere 5 years ago, 515 million users on the late majority are still ploughing in, with brands following in their hoards, but there’s really no reason to believe that Facebook won’t go as soon as it came.

Facebook’s sudden disappearance is unlikely, but it’s important to understand when the cool kids leave and where they’ve gone, because they’re the ones who’ll spark the next big thing and as a brand you need to know about that and be prepared to act upon it. I’m not going to go into how in this post as that’s a whole different issue and in fact the answer may be, ‘do nothing, hang back’.

The point is, you have to be fluid, you can’t be too brash and you have to consider the huge range of variables that may open up to you through digital channels and be prepared to embrace them. Concentrating in just the one area and using it and abusing it for every last drop of value is a dangerous game and can ultimately leave you in the wilderness, with a bunch of ‘friends’ that left for a better bench long ago.

Apparently the web's dead - should financial brands be worried?

2010-08-20T11:11:00.001+01:00

This week Wired called the death of the web. This piece came a week after a column in Ad Age asking 'Do we still need websites?' The argument is that with 'simpler, sleeker services — think apps — [user experience is] less about the searching and more about the getting'.

So what does this mean for financial services. There is an argument to say that financial services hasn't fully embraced the full power of the web yet as a customer enablement tool, so maybe many brands could circumnavigate it all together. For some services like payments this could already be deemed the case, with the increasing pace of mobile payment solutions in the market, there is currently no need to open a browser at all.

The greatest opportunities though probably lie in the servicing side of the business. Manage my account and customer query could very effectively be executed through secure apps. Why force your customers to a web interface when it could all be browserless and mobile. Far more convenient. More likely to be secure and certainly more convenient for the customer.

In truth the web is unlikely to die any time soon. There has been plenty of counter-evidence written to prove its continued vitality and in truth financial services need to improve user-experience across the internet, but as people look for more defined content interactions browserless becomes vital if a brand is to ensure that their website doesn't become a virtual ghost-town.

Has marketing got a million times harder?

2010-08-18T17:45:00.003+01:00

I’ve been in the communications industry for 15 years now. I’ve worked in DM agencies, advertising agencies, integrated agencies, digital agencies, I ran my own business for a few years.

In that time I’ve helped send millions of direct mail packs to blanket audiences. I’ve helped spend millions on hair-brained dot com marketing schemes. I’ve helped build a customer base of millions, from scratch, for an ISP with no USP. I’ve launched TV ads that have had over 200 million opportunities to see. I’ve delivered online display campaigns with over 500 million page impressions.

I’ve been involved in some really good work over the years, but without wishing to bag my career, I’ve done an awful lot of untargeted, unmeasurable, unmeasured stuff. It’s been pretty, it’s won awards, it’s been a sensation, it’s been hailed as innovative, but actually when you dig below the surface it’s rested on some relatively shallow foundations. Even the stuff that was measured for marketing effectiveness was based on some funny old massaged metrics.

And on top of all that, I’ve worked bloody hard. I’ve done 18 hour days, 7 days a week, for 2 months straight. I’ve done press passes at 3.30 in the morning. I’ve spent all night sat on floors envelope stuffing, I’ve worked 72 hours straight to get a piece of work out. I’ve sat with a creative department and studio of 30 people, all of us, maccing, creating, splicing and boarding until 6 in the morning for a pitch at 9am.

But that stuff was easy…

...that stuff took a bit of thinking up front, it took the adaptation of a template that we took off the shelf, granted it involved some highly talented creative sparks (but that’s rarely been me) and then it took some schmoozing, a couple of awkward get out of jail client calls, a bit of elbow grease and out the campaign went. Brilliant.

Those days have gone. They’re long gone. The template doesn’t exist anymore. Shiny and pin-sharp holds little of the overall value these days. Every single piece of work I start on today is built from the ground up. Every solution we deliver is completely bespoke. Every piece of work has an inordinate amount of brain-work poured in to it, because none of it is about launch, it’s all about the long tail, the follow-up work, the impact on reputation long-term. The industry’s said that’s what we do for years. Actually if we all admit it, none of us has really worried too much about it, because frankly we could make more money not worrying about it.

Come on, be honest. That’s right, really honest. Yes you’ve probably done some amazing work, you’ve probably done some award-winning work, some work you were really proud of, but be honest, was it really hard work? It may have been tiring, stressful work, but was it hard work, work that made your brain permanently fizz?

Marketing’s got harder, a million times harder, but actually I think I might actually stick at it now, because it’s a damn sight more rewarding than it was in the past.

How many tweets are actually being read?

2010-08-13T11:08:00.001+01:00

Measurement in social media has long been a hot potato. There is still limited solid information out there upon which to make reliable ROI based decisions. However, there are big strides being made towards more tightly focused metrics. A thought-provoking piece published this week, suggests that Twitter reach may be around the 2% mark. It was not a scientific study, it was a piece of personal research aimed at kicking off a debate around Twitter’s true impact. So for balance, a similar metric developed last year suggested it may well be 10% with the additional value of up to 1.3% CTR.

Reach is a good kick-off point, however Twitter is not merely a broadcast medium. These stats are just the start for the true potential of Twitter. Used properly and consistently, it is a powerful tool for engagement. If your brand is simply using a Twitter stream to post press releases, then 2% readership could be a cause for concern, especially as you have no control over who your readership is and also your brand is unlikely to understand its true influence in the space. If it is part of your overall social CRM strategy however, one of your tools for engagement, then simple readership is just part of the overall package.

Social communication is not all about followers, or readers, or fans. It’s about a new way of communicating and co-creating, it’s about creating exceptional service and finding out if you’ve got a service problem. This is not to be dismissive of the purist measurement of the reach of social media. It is essential that this becomes more robust and as an industry we are starting to get more scientific with open source movements such as ‘Measurement Camp’ helping to build more reliable models that will stand even your FD’s scrutiny, but we need to ensure we keep focused on social media's killer USP and that is 'dialogue'.

Is Facebook the answer for financial services brands?

2010-07-23T10:49:00.005+01:00

Facebook announced its 500,000,000th user this week. That makes it the equivalent of the third most populus country on the planet; 7.4% of the world’s population; 1 in 13 people is a member etc. etc. I’m sure you’ve probably read the stats, they’re front page news after all.

However, the question remains. Is Facebook the right place for all brands and in particular the large established financial services brands to start engaging with customers? While trust remains at such a low ebb, financial services brands have got a long way to go before they can be 'Liked' on Facebook with any true conviction.

There's no doubt that financial services brands should be involved in social media, but the job at the moment is to listen. In many ways it could be argued that brands with the lowest trust levels should be modelling their businesses around social even more than those that are loved. That means listening, learning, feeding that into customer service, product development and innovation and then releasing and engaging through multiple touchpoints with consumers.

There is an opportunity right now for financial services brands to build businesses that could emerge as some of the most customer responsive and fully immersed companies in the market. So Financial services braqndsdon't concentrate too much effort on being 'Liked' on Facebook. It's a distraction. Concentrate on being 'involved' with your customers at as many touchpoints as possible.

Move over Meerkat, Old Spice is the new guy on the web

2010-07-16T17:41:00.005+01:00

What’s 71 years old, looks fantastic in a towel and smells great. That's right, Old Spice baby. In the past couple of weeks Old Spice guy has stormed the Internet, in what is without doubt this year's 'Compare the Meerkat', in terms of it's impact, engagement and huge, fast-growing fanbase.

At the heart of the project is Old Spice guy, a smooth talking, towel wearing, hottie, loved by men and women alike. While the TV advertising sets out his buff credentials, the online activity has taken the campaign way beyond TV's dreams.

Since Tuesday, Old Spice guy has been personally responding to questions posed by fans and online big hitters alike. So far, the team has shot over 200 30 second video responses posted on Youtube, each within a couple of hours of the original question. The video postings have so far prompted over 10 million views in just 3 days and grown a Facebook fan base of over 500,000.

Undoubtedly the key to the Old Spice success has been the digital engagement strategy. The strategy sits at the heart of what started out as a TV ad aimed at going viral. The social media phenomenon that was Meerkat, started out as a side project which successfully grew exponentially as time went on. The recognition by P&G and Wieden and Kennedy (the agency behind the campaign) was that online social media needed to be, 'as well as', the TV not 'instead of'.

This has taken bravery and trust from the client, who are effectively handing over sign-off of, what are effectively, 100, 30 second TV spots, per day and enormous commitment and resource from the agency. There is currently a team of techies, film crew, analysts, marketers, writers and producers holed-up in a studio somewhere in Portland, Oregon working round the clock to get these things out.

As has been proved time and again digital and social media in particular is not the easy option. It takes a herculean effort of co-ordination, man-hours and creativity. Given the right time and space though, the rewards can be countless. Monocle smile @-)

Transactions via social networks and mobile gather pace

2010-07-12T10:43:00.000+01:00

New research last week suggested that the pace of movement towards mobile payments is gathering. Teamspirit has been tracking the rise of alternative payment methodologies for a while, but it would seem the big banks aren’t necessarily taking the threat of the spread of these systems, through social networks, that seriously.

I’ve blogged previously about the potential impact of Facebook bank, but in the absence of a full commitment to all services the Facebook credits system that has been introduced, and widely used for payment of services such as online gaming, is very reminiscent of the way Paypal leveraged E-Bay to secure a foothold in the payments market to ultimately launch across the entire web. Facebook credits could easily follow the same model and become much more than the virtual currency it is currently.

But apart from these large social networks moving towards transaction it is the tipping point, provided by the adoption of smartphones that we feel will probably see the category explode. The emergence of smart phones, which can simply enable mobile wallets and interact with both marketing databases and payment-settlement networks means these devices can provide a bridge for what are currently e-commerce processors to reach the physical point of sale.

Evidence of this trend emerged earlier this week with news that PayPal and Googl e have found ways to let accountholders with their payment systems use their handsets to tap those accounts with physical merchants. As always the internet is finding ways of sweeping away all the old traditional structures, this doesn’t mean that the banks will necessarily lose, but their strong survival will in large part rest on an extremely powerful mobile strategy.

Facebook may finally have a true rival

2010-07-05T10:35:00.000+01:00

On Thursday Google made their first major update to Google news since 2002. The aim is to make the whole news section more relevant, personal and of course, as is de rigeur these days, more real-time. We’re wondering though whether it may be a precursor to something much bigger and could perhaps be part of the functionality development within Google Me.

‘What’s Google Me then?’ you may ask. Well it’s just a rumour, however, it’s coming from some very credible sources. By all accounts Google Me is a social service due to rival the might of the now omnipresent Facebook and frankly a competitor probably couldn’t come soon enough. It’s been argued that Facebook’s sheer scale is strangling innovation as it harvests all the best ideas and releases poor imitations of the original idea.

However the real win here is the focus on the privacy issue within Facebook. This week Mark Zuckerberg has been in the UK facing questions about the privacy issues and he and the company have assured users they are tightening up on securit y. However, Google have an excellent reputation for data security (despite the slight Streetview blip) and given that fact and their similar scale they could provide a real alternative to Facebook. Let’s just hope Google Me doesn’t end up being the next Buzz or Wave.

Nationwide bookie's taking bets now

2010-05-25T14:01:00.009+01:00

So there I was watching the England v. Mexico game (or should that be one side traversty) last night and the new Nationwide Building Society ad. came on. Leaving aside the pros and CONS of using Little Britain characters to represent your brand, the core message promoted the 4 year Football bond and promised 'If England win you win'.

Unfortunately I can't find the video anywhere but the promise is repeated on their site.

Now is it just me or does that basically make Nationwide a bookie? I'm really not sure that in an environment that needs Financial Services providers to rebuild trust with their customers that becoming a bookies is a good idea.

The dangers of putting all your eggs in the Facebook basket

2010-05-21T09:14:00.001+01:00

A couple of months ago Loic Le Meur posted a tweet. The founder of Le Web's assertion was that 10 years ago brands’ presence on the web was all about their websites, 5 years ago it was about Google and today it was about Twitter and Facebook. Our response was that we felt that today a brand's web footprint needed to be far wider than just Facebook and Twitter. We didn't get a reply, but as a digital heavyweight I doubt that Le Meur's thought was as narrow as the literal tweet suggested.

However it does highlight an issue that has become a serious concern in the past month, as the Facebook privacy row has exploded all over the web. There are plenty of brands who have ploughed a lot of resource into a very narrow Facebook channel, building huge (successful) presence and even changing their digital calls to action to point into Facebook and adopting Facebook Connect as the route to login. Given the growth of names around Facebook in the past 18 months on the face of it this make sense, however building such strong presence in one place is not necessarily about becoming more social, but actually about an extension of destination thinking that started with every brand on the planet rushing to open up shop on the web in the mid 90s.

There is a real danger in putting so much resource into one channel that is completely out of your control. The fact that people become fans on your Facebook page is great, but their interaction is still independent of your brand and entirely dictated by the terms of the channel in which you've chosen to exist, a fact that has been brought in to sharp relief with the Facebook privacy issue.

Now all of the above has to be taken with a pinch off salt against a backdrop of numbers that suggested last week that, a) the number of Facebook names had reached almost 500 million b) that visits to the site were up by 2% c) that the dwell time on the site was up 1.2%, a number that is already 4 times that of Google it's nearest rival in terms of daily visitors.

However, Facebook isn't the social web. It's a very big social media channel which requires it's own processes, governance, guidelines and forms of accountability. However brands must break out of extended destination thinking and go to where customers are, not rely on them to come to them. As we replied to Le Meur brand footprints need to be wide, it's important that you surf in many channels, test in many channels and be aware that at any time one channel could suddenly become irrelevant. After all remember Friends Reunited and Friendster.

Redefining financial services one character at a time

2010-05-07T11:44:00.000+01:00

Photo courtesy of viZZZual.com

Steve Bee at Paradigm Pensions announced last week that he would be creating a Twitter style glossary aimed at defining all pensions terms within 140 characters. A challenge, but nevertheless this is the kind of activity that the digital space is enabling more and more. The need for simplicity in financial services is indisputable and the need for that to happen online is even greater.

However, what Bee's done goes further. By inviting pensions 'experts' to contribute to the glossary he can reach a fully consensual crowd-sourced definition that can be broadly agreed by the industry and become highly useful to the consumer audience. This sort of collaborative exercise should happen more within the industry.

The barriers that exist between providers have been built around the need to protect customer data, protection of IP and corporate espionage. In reality the walls have been extended so far into organizations, that simply don't require them, that collaborative behaviour is anathema. If the industry is to rebuild consumer trust some of these walls need to come down and there needs to be a far better sharing of information for the good of the industry not just for the good of individual companies.

First Direct Live - 6 months on

2010-04-26T18:40:00.000+01:00

It is coming up to 6 months since First Direct launched First Direct Live. The site has been hailed as a triumph of the open and honest sharing of customer feedback in real time. First Direct is still really the only UK retail bank that has successfully engaged with its customers online. However, in reality the online experience isn’t ‘amazing’. The persistence in using white out of black in the design is still an accessibility minefield, however because it looks different it has been allowed to pass and while the First Direct 'Retail Experience' is so much better than other competitors it tends to be regarded as highly successful. However, if you place the offering next to some other large consumer brands it doesn’t stack up as successfully.

Now this is not to say that First Direct is not a decent experience, but it could be better and it is against this backdrop that the questions around First Direct Live come. There has been little critical evaluation of the site. It does seem to have snuck under the radar with little scrutiny, so 6 months on from launch there are 5 areas in which I feel the site could definitely be improved as a true reflection of customer sentiment.

1. Ratings - The ratings widget is an automated sentiment scoring system at present. In reality there isn’t currently a sophisticated enough algorithm to replicate true human sentiment, so the scoring needs to be taken with a bit of a pinch of salt.

2. Curation – the filtering of content appears to be moderated, or highly selective and you don’t seem to get a full view of all feedback. It would appear that not all comments are posted and you get no feel for the volume of comments received.

3. Live words don’t really mean as much as they could and because you can’t click through to any of the content that the tag cloud is made up from it’s difficult to understand context. There is also a mismatch between the positive and negative scoring and the overall sentiment scoring and it hasn’t really been explained why. As an additional point, the words that make up the cloud and how they are rated negative and positive bring into question the overall sentiment algorithm again.

4. The platform is still all about push and destination web thinking. There’s almost no interaction and the lack of a human face makes it feel quite corporate.

5. The fact that the site’s been leveraged with a campaign leaves a suspicion around the original motives for the site. The satisfaction proposition is indeed very strong, if a little unspecified, but again this feels suspicious.

Now I have to say that what First Direct has done is laudable. It’s certainly much better thought out and executed than many brand forays into social media to date in any category. However, it’s more controlled than other attempts and that’s where the conflict exists – control is not what you’re looking for if true transparency is to be achieved. Now maybe we haven’t reached a point where true transparency can be achieved for a corporate company and in terms of First Direct taking things forward it’s brave and still unique within UK financial services. The digital community has unbelievably high expectations of what brands can currently achieve given the corporate structures that remain in place and until businesses are modelled around social we won’t see truly social businesses, so I guess where First Direct is, is good, however we do need to consider First Direct Live with a more watchful eye.

Could a billion people break the existing banking model

2010-04-05T18:32:00.000+01:00

In February Thomas Power the founder of eCademy wrote a blog entitled ‘What happens when Facebook becomes a bank?’. It sparked a huge debate around the role of social media in banking something that was firmly on the agenda at SXSWi last week with Smartypig, CreditKarma, Mint and Lending Club sitting on the panel, however while SXSWi was running Power followed his blog up with a clarification of his position on video.

His argument runs that when subscription levels to Facebook hit a billion - as predicted by the end of 2012 - that it will hit a scale and organisational maturity that will not only facilitate the sales of simple products such as loans, insurance and savings, but will mean groups of individuals will be in a position to come together to execute group purchases and lending on a huge scale. It would be a simple task for Facebook to integrate a facility such as Zopa onto it’s platform and then users have access to all the tools they need.

If we work on the basis that Facebook's 2008 poll has some validity then 13% of users would be happy to use the platform as a bank. If we then assume an average £1,000 deposit with the bank of Facebook then at a billion users that's a £130 billion business, something financial institutions would have to sit up and take notice of.

Mark Zuckerberg is an ambitious man. Scale is his goal. The product will develop itself and as Power says the person with the biggest number of names wins the game. Financial institutions need to take note.

Remember - Do cool stuff - 5 of the best

2010-03-16T15:01:00.000Z

I had a fantastically refreshing chat with a client yesterday. We were talking about the development of their online social strategy, the integration with their B2C strategy and the dovetailing of their CRM process. All good business-focused conversation, but I tacked on at the end 'We shouldn't forget to do the cool stuff'. To which they said 'oh yeah we're definitely not going to forget the cool stuff'.

There's a lot of talk at the moment about how social media strategies are often nothing more than a bunch of tactics thrown together willy-nilly and in many cases of course that is absolutely true. There is a poor integration of online social planning into overall business models - something which I plan to write about more over the coming weeks - but in the rush to create more social businesses we need to remember the great tactical stuff as well and shouldn't become too earnest in our pursuit of connectivity.

After all it's the really cool stuff which actually becomes unforgettable.

Here are 5 of my favs:

ASOS dashboard
My current fav. It's effectively a great big curation exercise, but ASOS and their partners Adaptivelab have created something really engaging.

Zappos shoe map
From last year the Zappos shoe map is a really simple mash-up of their real-time sales data and the Google API. Really simple, really engaging and endlessly fascinating as a small anthropological window on the shoe buying habits of the US public.

Uniqlo Try
An enduring classic. How do you make a survey about bra tops interesteing? Turn it into a giant swirling, music and video driven infographic.

Qashqui Car Games - Spanner league
More of a campaign this, but the Nissan Qashqui Spanner League was a great spoof of a global petrolheads competition that caught the imagination of thousands and spawned 100s of copycat UGC videos.

Sony Bravia: Balls
I know, I know it was a mistake, but when Fallon happened to shoot their Sony Bravia commercial in blogger central San Fran the buzz about the 1000s of balls that swept through the city prior to the final ad. being released was phenomenal. It actually became the template for pre-ad buzz for ad agencies all over the world and soon got tumbled as just that by every savvy blogger out there (so be wary).

Now oddly enough (or not) many of these are tactics are employed by organisations that have the makings of very strong social strategies, which I guess is the point, get the strategy right and you can do as much cool stuff as you like.

Was #Likeminds the best gig ever?

2010-03-02T23:52:00.000Z

If you're not a Pixies fan - or even if you're a little bit of a Pixies fan - you might not know 'Into the White'. The song appeared on the B-side of 'Here Comes Your Man' and had enough energy to power Exeter for a week. For about a year the Pixies used to open with it religiously and I saw them play it about 5 times in a row at the Town and Country club between 1988 and1989.

They used to fill the stage with dry ice, shine spotlights through the fog and kick in with that unmistakeable bass line. Each time it was utterly electrifying, unique and played just for the fans. We used to tumble out of those gigs go home and play the live gigs on Maxell 90s - bought off some dodgy goth outside the venue - at full volume for hours. Those nights are some of the most memorable of my life.

Last Friday as I got into my car to drive home from Likeminds, I reached for my iPhone plugged in the MP3 jack and scrolled to Surfer Rosa by the Pixies and turned up the volume to max. and drove 100 miles (way too fast) up the A303. That says an awful lot about how good the day was.

Walking out of Likeminds felt like you'd been exposed to something utterly unique, something special, something raw, but at the same time very slick. In short it felt like you'd seen one of the best gigs ever.

Some reasons why it's up there with the best

1. It had a string of amazing support bands and the main act didn't quite play by the rules.

Of course the term support bands is pretty derogatory in this context, but it can't have been an accident that Chris Brogan was on last.

Jonathon Akwue opened with a great story around the parallels between the rise of hip hop and social media. I think he also helped to set the tone for the entire day. His examples of how public bodies were reaching out and creating spaces for people, run by people, really added some clarity to how important it is to be available, authentic, real and empathetic. Many of the insights he shared I know I can take away and apply to highly commercial organisations.

John Bell outlined a fantastic approach to socialising an organisation and how to structure a truly far-reaching internal training programme, something I certainly need to apply within the spheres I'm involved with.

Joanne Jacobs gave everyone a master class in not just how to use new social technologies smartly and appropriately but, also how to be an engaging presenter. No matter what she thinks of Paul Clarke's photos of her, they captured the passion with which she delivered her subject.

Olivier Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder) laid out the case for re-structuring an organisation around what he termed 'social communications' a really thought-provoking piece moving the conversation away from social media and towards more social businesses.

Yann Gourvenec explained how Orange had approached the social space. Refreshingly though he helped us understand that what customers are looking for is appropriate levels of engagement. It's not about the channels, it's not about sitting and pondering about social media, it's about getting out there and engaging appropriately. Listening and acting consistently.

And last but not least. What can I say.

Chris Brogan came on almost broke his mic, came very close to knocking over the on-stage table and went on to break the swearing embargo within 15 seconds (something that even Joanne Jacobs had managed to avoid). He then went on to outline his theory around guest experince design as opposed to customer service, a brilliant piece of shared thinking that has made me completely reappraise a proposal I already had in the pipeline.

2. It made you think you'd do things completely differently from now on.
Little of the content was brand new, but the focus that Scott Gould and Drew Ellis had put on the theme for Likeminds - 'people to people' - really helped to refocus thoughts away from the tools and mechanics and towards the real point of social media - the participants. The real conversation is the one that happens person to person and develops real value - not just commercial value, but emotional value and that has to be central to future thinking.

3. People came away feeling they'd been part of something special, but all had a different and unique story to tell.
Which have been very usefully curated by the Likeminds crew here.

4. It left you wanting more
I had to shoot pretty much straight after it finished, so watching from afar, as the post-conference get togethers and satellite events bubbled away was extremely frustrating, but just went to show how productive the whole event was.

5. The venue was mysterious, but perfect
Likeminds took place in a conference hall that none of the local taxi drivers realised was there and you had to get in the queues early to get the best seats.

6. It had it's very own beflowered roadies
Stuart Witts picked up Chris Brogan from the airport and transported him to Likeminds and according to Stuart they spent three hours shooting the breeze about comics and films. Sounds like a damn good use for three hours on the road.

7. You had to be there, but if you weren't there's a lasting legacy
The whole event felt like a highly participative gathering. Likeminds is a perfect title for such an inclusive, informal but informative event, but within the framework of that intimate gathering, the lunchtime sessions allowed you to get even more in-depth. It was a fantastic way of putting something back into the local Exeter community.

By holding 20 separate events at different venues and all within 10 minutes of the venue, it put a different slant on things. My particular lunch hosted by the lovely Kate Day had a great balance of banter and sharp eyed insight. Teamspirit the company I work for has always based our internal briefing around story-telling so how that applied to social media really resonated with me.

8. It was hyperlocal, national and global all at the same time.
What struck me was the number of local Devon business people that were there. I met some fantastic people for which Likeminds had ignited a completely new way of doing business. It felt that Likeminds had spawned a networked community that simply hadn't existed prior to the first event in 2009.

At the same time I was able to finally meet with a lot of the people I was following already and hadn't met in person and put a face to an avatar (by the way Avatars are confusing) and of course the buzz that Likeminds created meant it was a global trending topic at points during the day and that Twirus had it in the top five UK hashtags two days running. Successful in so many ways.

So was it the best gig ever?

It was definitely pretty close, I bust one of my car speakers as a result, so that has to notch it up in the rankings.

Brilliant infographic on social media usage

2010-01-29T00:00:00.000Z

Via chrisrutz.de and Litmanlive

Metpolice campaign uses youTube tabs - nice

2010-01-26T13:53:00.000Z

Really like this very simple Metpolice knife crime ad. from last year.

The opportunity provided by tabs has really transformed YouTube videos into really simple interactive sites. With Boone Oakley being my favourite example.

Love it.

Is the iPhone about to go mainstream?

2009-11-27T16:54:00.000Z

It was announced this week that the iPhone - beloved by gadget freaks, the twitterati and the cool kids - will be sold at Tesco prior to Christmas.

Despite what agencies might have been saying for the past couple of years, the penetration of iPhones in the UK is currently minimal. Despite the wealth of stories about the success of the iPhone app. store, the persistent celeb shots and the general hyperbole, the British public still haven't really taken to the iPhone as quickly as Apple would like. Although August's Admob report does report an increased penetration.

As with every market Tesco enters it's widely anticipated that the move will spark a price war that hasn't resulted since the announcements by Orange and Vodafone of their entry into the market. While the Orange deal was welcomed by the geeks for providing better 3G coverage, customer service and faster speeds - things O2 has been criticised for since their exclusive deal began - they didn't twin these advantages with competitve pricing.

Getting the iPhone onto Tesco shelves is the big prize and possibly hands the advantage back to O2, Tesco's operator partner. Tesco Mobile's customer base are already heavy data users so the market is primed to burst beyond the affluent middle classes, but to do that there must be a competitve pricing model. What the Tesco pricing model is will remain a question for the time being, but the iPhone could suddenly be this year's hottest present again.

Minority report and beyond...way beyond

2009-11-24T16:51:00.000Z

This video doesn't really need much explaining. Awesome's a word I hate using mainly because there are few things outside natural phenomena that are actually awesome. However I'll make an exception with this.

Introducting Pranav Mistry and his sixth sense awesomeness.

Is peanut butter and chocolate really the perfect combination?

2009-11-10T22:51:00.000Z

This morning Linked In and Twitter announced that they would be errrr... 'Linking In' with the introduction of Twitter updates into the Linked In status bar.

For some reason the two companies have decided to use a peanut butter and chocolate analogy that sounds slightly weird but hey that's silicon valley for you. Tubs of spreads are close to those guys hearts.

But what of the TwitterIn' combination? At first it seemed to me a rather unholy alliance, but on reflection it's probably an excellent combo with real obvious value for both parties.

Recently Twitter has definitely been striving to be perceived as more of a business tool than it had been previously. The recently added list feature proved this. By integrating with Linked In this seems like the perfect way to connect and demonstrate Twitter's utility to a huge community of social mediaites on Linked In that have failed to see the point of Twitter up until now.

On the flip side Linked In has suffered the opposite problem. It's been stuck in an enterprise user rut and isn't seen as particularly cool. Activity on Linked In can seem like it moves at a snails pace in comparison to other social platforms, but by integrating Twitter suddenly the platform becomes a realtime bonanza.

Time will tell what the impact will be, but this week's most unlikely alliance could definitely prove a winner.

Watch the Wave

2009-10-06T18:58:00.000+01:00

Right so first up my invite from Graeme hasn't arrived yet, but then according to @Twephanie it's going to take some time to come through which means Graeme will have to keep on waving at himself for a little while.

However I'm going to start moaning about it already. One of the key features that the development team are pushing is the ability for correspondents to see each others typing in real time.

Cool you may think, but why. How many times have you written and rewritten an email response, or written in haste and thought again or written an email and then changed your mind. Many times I'd suspect and in most of those cases you probably wouldn't have wanted the intended recipient to have seen what you were writing so far not so good.

However my key issue with this functionality and something I posted about on Amelia's blog is it effectively replicates and promotes one of the worst aspects of human communication i.e. that of not listening to what i being said and therefore anticipating what is being said and responding. Online social communications are all about listening, they're about understanding and responding accordingly. Although our browsing behaviour has become increasingly snack like we don't want it to progress to poorly communicative anticipatory otherwise what's the point. Realtime communication while it sounds like the future and may well be, may not be a great leap forward.

Brands under fire, beware Google Sidewiki

2009-09-25T21:33:00.000+01:00

Google quietly released a new social tool this week called Sidewiki . Sidewiki is an addition to the Google toolbar, so far, so innocuous. However this could possibly enable the most visible feedback online brands have yet to face.

The Google Sidewiki toolbar allows any user with a Google account to comment, on any page, on any site (and of course I though I'd have a crack with Natwest). It effectively means users have the ability to graffiti corporate sites. Google say they are monitoring comments and have provided a reporting tool if posts are deemed malicious, however if the criticism is constructive, instructive and therefore destructive then the implications are massive.

Over the course of this year there has been a greater and greater demand for brands to listen from consumers, technology companies, agencies, in fact too many voices to list. In a way it's been convenient for companies to ignore it. If it's all going off on Twitter, or Facebook or “some blog” then it's out of sight and therefore out of mind (of course this an absurdity). What Sidewiki does though is bring it to the doorstep and now anyone can graffiti all over your front door. Now it's already been declared dangerous and doomed to fail and simply a way of Google monetising the whole web, but this is a Google beta product and it'll inevitably change and over time integrate Google's other features. And in the meantime the comments are going to start cluttering up the doormat and they're going to be difficult to ignore.

This kind of interwoven peer to peer feedback is the future of the web. It's going to force companies to change the way they operate so once again with gusto. Start listening and start taking heed.

So Natwest can you get back to me on this one.

Could Apple survive without Jobs?

2009-09-11T23:46:00.000+01:00

Steve Jobs crash landed back in San Fransisco on Wednesday with a new liver, some new products and instantly breathed new life into Apple. His speech immediately sparked a rally in the company's share price and earned him a standing ovation from his employees. However it begged the question could Apple survive without Steve Jobs?

It's a question that has raised its head many times since his well documented health problems came to light. Commentators have suggested they simply can't see Apple fans flocking to the Apple keynotes without the charismatic frontman. However it looks like Jobs may be planning for succession, he's clearly still not fully fit and although he's back it's almost certainly not full time. So however long he remains he now has the opportunity to transform the company from a one man show to a vibrant employee led organisation (a bit like Google maybe).

There is an obvious need for Jobs to develop a second in command however the way the company embraces social media is becoming a key issue for customer engagement. Apple hasn't run with the pack when it comes to social, they have been notably absent from conversations that they should have been contributing to and unless Apple employees are empowered to start involving themselves and emerge from Jobs' shadow the brand can only sustain it's reputation for so long. Social media needs engagement from brands and Apple ignore it at their peril.

Twitter under pressure

2009-09-05T00:37:00.000+01:00

Since its launch in 2006 Twitter has been bombarded by negativity (yes there’s also been a huge amount of positivity as well) from the tech community and on the whole they’ve carried on with business as normal, but is it now time to listen?

Twitter has come under constant fire since its inception. It's been accused of being unstable, being irrelevant, having no reliable long term business model, that it appeals to oldies and teens just don't tweet. However, each time the criticism is levelled the management team remain steadfastly silent in the main, they don't react but instead point to the numbers - and the numbers can't be ignored - at the most recent count there are over 30 million online users globally and that's just those that are accessing Twitter via the web. It doesn't include those accessing the myriad of applications that utilise Twitter's open API. This week however E-Consultancy published a blog relating to what Twitter needs to do in order not to fail. There are some fundamental criticisms of the view, however how long Twitter can remain on it's single minded mission is questionable.The social networking category is beginning to consolidate and develop additional functionality with which Twitter simply cannot compete. There are other models developing out there that are increasingly challenging Twitter so it may well be time to get off the pot.

Friendfeed accepts Facebook's friend request

2009-08-15T00:18:00.000+01:00

I loved the title of Louis Gray's blog title so much I thought I'd nick it it's a tribute really.

On the face of it, it looks like a match made in heaven. The additional search functionality that Friendfeed has (no surprise - it's run by ex-Googlers) - if integrated into Facebook - will make it a very powerful player in the search market and with the Microhoo deal last week it looks like the search market really has hotted up with Facebook definitely now a potential threat to Google search.

There is some disagreement over it's ultimate impact on Twitter, with some suggesting it's a Twitter killer, while others point out that Twitter turned a deal with Friendfeed down some time ago and that it can't compete as single-mindedly as the microblogging service and is therefore simply a vanity purchase on the part of Facebook.

I'm not sure any service is about to kill any other service, however Google and Twitter's total pre-eminence in their respective categories may well be over.

Twitter's down. What do I do now?

2009-08-06T23:29:00.000+01:00

So Twitter went down about an hour ago and I felt like someone'd chopped my hands off. So how do I find out what's wrong. I go to trending topics on Twitter of course. Oh no can't do that. So I guess Friendfeed's the answer and lo and behold there they all are - the power users - wittering away and that's when I realised why I don't yet use Friendfeed.

Friendfeed's still just rammed with early adopters and they're steering every conversation that has any sort of momentum. Yes i now know what's going on with Twitter, but in my opinion Twitter has become more democratic. Yes it's getting full of bots and spammers, but if you manage your stream carefully you don't need to worry about that. The power users, say there is more scope for conversation on Friendfeed than Twitter and of course they're correct but two things here a) the conversation seems to be quite limited to the San Fran set and b) Twitter isn't about conversations so much for me, it's for research and educative purposes.

I've no doubt that I'll use Friendfeed more and more in the coming months and years, but at the moment it just isn't ready for me to be too active on there. The other thing I was wondering is with the imminent release of Google Wave will Friendfeed simply get washed away by the Google Tsunami, not only will you be able to have conversations there but you can work outside real time as well. Time will tell I guess.

Do you use LinkedIn and/or Facebook

2009-08-04T16:10:00.000+01:00

It's a question I asked on LinkedIn itself the other day and unsurprisingly unanimously the answer was Linked In for business, Facebook for personal. I expanded and asked if others were using Twitter or Friendfeed or any other social network and again the majority response was I don't have time (Now that's a whole different post).

The reason I asked in the first place was I just can't get along with Linked In. I'm a big fan of social networking and in terms of it's educative qualities it's been an enormous addition to my professional development. Twitter has almost completely surplanted my RSS feedreader as a research tool. Friendfeed helps me to understand who influences those that I choose to follow. Facebook keeps me in touch with friends who due to family pressure I don't get to see much and cousins I don't see regularly, you know the score. Delicious and Digg help me to share my bookmarks and content I like.

All of these platforms help me be social and hopefully helpful. They allow me to be myself but also keep on top of business and that's where I part the way with LinkedIn. It's not a social networking site, nothing about it is social. It's about networking, but not the ecademy way, it's more the bad glass of sweet white wine and guard up kind of way. It's not intuitive, it doesn't aid in the sharing of information, in essence it's far too closed.

I concede that it is great at finding professionals and if you are looking for a job, but Twitter and Friendfeed do that as well as everything else and as an added bonus you're likely to understand whether you'll get on with them on personal level as well which for me is just as important.

In my opinion it really needs to step up it's game if it's going to continue to grow, there are rumblings that there is a major overhaul in the planning stage, I just hope it's a significant improvement.

Search just got interesting again

2009-07-30T18:50:00.000+01:00

All the talk yesterday was about the long awaited Yahoo/Microsoft search deal, but that was only half of the story when it came to how competition in the search market has ramped up.

The launch of Bing in May finally paved the way for the 10 year Yahoo search deal and the search engine will now be integrated into Yahoo as it's search platform. There is no doubt that the deal furthers Steve Ballmer's insatiable need to take on Google and with just under a third of the search market Microsoft finally look like they could gain some traction.

However, what Google and Microsoft have yet to crack is the newly emergent real-time search model. Two developments occurred on Wednesday that took this into new territory. Twitter relaunched their homepage and switched the emphasis away from followers and into search and arguably turned itself into a destination portal. Some argue that this won't actually benefit users, however as websites become less important to users and the importance of web presence becomes more and more essential the body shift from Twitter makes sense. At the same time the newly launched Collecta.com improved it's already impressive offering by adding an additional layer of search capability with video and images.

Microsoft has got bingtweets in beta and Google launched search options back in May but the improvements in realtime search is going to keep the big boys on their toes. Ultimately the smaller players look like acquisition fodder, but the longer they stay ahead of the curve and hold out against a takeover the more expensive the battle's going to be to win. Certainly Wednesday will go down as a pivotal moment in the field of search and certainly from the marketing community's perspective Wednesday's announcement was music to the ears.

The changing nature of news aggregation

2009-06-17T10:55:00.001+01:00

If you've been watching the situation unravelling in Iran you'll probably be aware of the almost complete silencing of journalists in the mainstream media. This has seen the mainstream channels turning to the social channels to aggregate and report the news. Both the BBC and Sky are streaming, Youtube, Twitter and Flickr straight onto their site as well as offering opportunities for individuals to upload their videos directly to their sites.

Twitter has been such an essential part of the information flow out of the country that they and their IT vendor NTT took the unprecedented step on Monday of putting off essential site maintenance for a day to ensure that the channel remained open for Iranians reporting on the ground as their blog outlined. Interestingly it emerged today that it was the US state department's intervention that led to the suspension.

What this starts to reveal is the maturing role of citizen journalism and the mainstream media's willingness to use it as a major contributory source within their own reporting. It may lack quality, it may need far greater verification, but in terms of speed and it's ability to reveal the true picture there has yet to be a more effective medium for information flow.

Why esquire.co.uk isn't part of Chris Brogan's vision

2009-05-28T03:29:00.000+01:00

A couple of days ago Chris Brogan wrote an extremely insightful piece about what the new Media Company could look like. He describes a more dynamic and decentralised entity with an emphasis on collaboration and a focus on developing themes over time. A colleague of mine summed up parts of it nicely 'no narrative should now be definitive'.

It's a theme that is starting to dovetail with a whole bunch of conversations around the publishing and ongoing existence of content and where and how it should exist online. I wrote last week about Jeremiah Owyang's view of our march towards social commerce a theme he expanded on Social Web TV a week or so ago. It's relevant here because he is envisaging the need for a structured fragmentation of identities that will allow users to participate in conversations and ultimately transactions wherever they are on the web. All part of the same future collaborative status quo that Brogan is envisaging.

At the same time Adam Ostrow over at Mashable is riffing about the death of the destnation URL. Again it's a conversation about content's existence and where a company should concentrate it's effort i.e. do you want to force customers to come to you or do you go to where your customers already are and collaborate there.

April Dunford wrote an interesting piece about how Brogan's vision should be adopted by marketeers, a view I very much agree with, because the themes are really about collaboration and remaining open to outside influence. As April puts it 'If you are in marketing, you are in the communications business and the way we are communicating is changing, in my opinion, for the better.'

So within this context I was interested to read about the relaunch of Esquire.co.uk the UK men's style magazine. Obviously this is just one publication and not a company, however against a backdrop of increasing collaborative working I wanted to see how it stacked up.

On first view it really looked like it had hit the mark, it had what I now think of as that 'Wordpressy' blog look, but what about the content. Oh my, no ability to comment. They appear to have launched a blog with no collaborative capability. So I tried a video link, nope nothing there either unless you want to leave the site and participate on Youtube itself. Frankly, it's weird, I've come to expect to be able to converse about everything everywhere, whether I'm interested or not and in this particular sector even more so.

So I went back to Brogan's article and pulled out his proof points to see how Esquire stacked up against them:

Stories are points in time, but won’t end at publication. (Edits, updates, extensions are next.) Doesn't look like that's the plan the content's light and some simply looks like straightforward advertorial.

Curators and editors rule, and creators aren’t necessarily on staff. Nope that doesn't look like it's gonna happen

Media cannot stick to one form. Text, photos, video, music, audio, animation, etc are a flow. They are publishing in mixed media in fairness.

Everything must be portable and mobile-ready. (Mobile devices need to evolve here, too). Not great on my Nokia and even on my iPhone it's pretty shoddy.

Everything must have collaborative opportunities. If I write about a restaurant, you should have wikified access to add to the article directly. Definitely not, probably it's greatest failing.

Advertising cannot be the primary method of revenue. No trashy banner advertising.

In-line content marketing, clearly delineated/disclosed/explained is one revenue stream. One of many. Yes this does seem to be the case

Contributors come in many shapes: onstaff, partner (how pros like TechCrunch link to Washington Post), guest (for love and glory only), and conversational. Nope just looks like staffers to me.

Value-add services are another revenue stream. Why not book hotels and flights from my travel magazine directly? Why not buy how-to information on marketing from Ad Age or FastCompany? This looks like how the revenue model is likely to work or certainly it's set up to be able to do that

Collaboration rules. Why should I pick the next cover? Why should my picture of the car crash be the best? Nope that aint happening

Everything is modular and linkable. Everything is fluid. Meaning, if I want the publication to be a business periodical, then I don’t want to have to read a piece about sports. Nope it's five sections take it or leave it

Paper isn’t dead: it’s on demand. With Esquire I do think they can survive as online inexorably grows and there will continue to be a market for the paper publication.

So in summary it looks like they've got the commercials right, which is nice for Esquire, but in terms of long term value for their readers this has to go down as an epic fail. This is old style print publishing for web, I really thought big publishers would have got over it by now. It seems not.

In yesterday's NMA announcement Jeremy Longmead Esquire's editor was quoted “It became clear that a well-designed niche website with a cerebral heart would have much more appeal and we’re very pleased with the finished result.” and there in lies the problem. The focus is on the design not the content, or at least not how the content exists in the new world and as an editor that should have been the key issue. Design is becoming less important, yes it's nice to have beautiful design but it always has to be led by the content.

My feeling and it's with sadness I say this because I actually don't mind Esquire is that it will be dead in a couple of years if it doesn't embrace collabortive content generation. I hope it takes steps in the right direction.

Twitter in real life

2009-05-15T18:30:00.000+01:00

For me Twitter has now almost completely surplanted my iGoogle RSS feed reader, but for many it sems to be being used as a Facebook extension which just misses the point and so says College Humour.

Getty Images Data fail

2009-05-14T18:45:00.000+01:00

I was sent a link to a new Getty Images social application 27 letters launched recently which promised me the ability to track trends in image usage and buzz around specific image generation across the web.

About time too I thought, Getty have rapidly been losing ground to other social image sites such as Flickr for quite a while now and appear to have been clinging to an old print led model. So this promised much and when I first opened the link it looked very promising so I clicked to register and this is when I realised they were still stuck in the old business models.

I was faced with a barrage of requests for my personal information all of which were mandatory and all of which allowed me to open an account with Getty. It was quite obvious that this information would be fed directly back in to their central model and into an existing customer segmentation model.

You have to question the objectives of launching a social application like this. To my mind it should be about developing an engaging experience for as wide a range of customers as possible across the social web. In Getty's case it should be to entice the millions of bloggers and publishers away from cheaper and often free sources of imagery to an often higher quality of image that can really enhance a creative execution.

In pursuit of that it is my opinion that you should provide as open access as you possibly can to your applications, that means asking for as little data about your customers as possible up front and then providing multiple optional overlays to customers to add additional details, profiles and preferences to enhance their experience. This provides an easy route to the content you're sharing.

Once there, it is important that you understand usage patterns and the paths that users take around the web to help build a new prospect data model related directly to usage of the social application. This does not preclude you adding this data to your existing database and possibly fitting it into an existing segmentation model, however it does require that you undertake some development work with your database to ensure that you capture new usage patterns and start to understand new customer engagement.

In short I actually like this application alot and so do a lot of the guys here in the studio, but we're all pre-existing customers. If you're going to attract new users and a new customer base you need to look at new ways of workings. Until that point it's going to be difficult to grow the customer base.

The social web is coming of age

2009-05-11T14:50:00.000+01:00

When Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web I doubt he imagined it would be hijacked by the world and his wife to relocate their store front. Thankfully 15 or so years on the internet's moving back to a place where people connect, share and chat, only this time it's got a prettier interface.

Forrester's Jeremiah Owyang recently defined what he sees as the 5 eras of social web with a belief that we will reach an era of full peer to peer social commerce as early as 2011.

Now in reality elements of this is happening already. Meebo for example's got IM under control, Facebook Connect's launch really looks like it's going to revolutionise open ID and indeed Business Week's assessment last week was that social networks will turn the portal model on it's head and become infused throughout the web and become entirely embedded rather than providing a destination point through which everything else flows.

Now I already buy an awful lot as a result of following or being followed on Twitter and I look forward to a time when via open ID I can take my social profile across the web and look for peer recommendation on all sites I visit. However, I also work with clients that simply aren't set up to offer this functionality or anywhere close in the next couple of years. Now many would say that these businesses will simply die, however while I have no doubt that a couple of the less agile corporates may go under, because they fail to adapt to new busines models I refuse to believe we are entering a completely new paradigm. This is a case where Bill Gate's technology innovation quote really stands up. I guess all we can do is wait and see.