Trust in Blogs

Blogs are useful ways for companies to engage in conversation with consumers who are connected to online social networks. Consumers use blogs to gather information about varios products and services. How effective are they anyway?

On a 2008 survey conducted on the sources of information that people trust people were asked to rate on a scale from on to five the information sources they used. The most trusted source was e-mail from people you know (77% trust it) followed by print newspapers (46%) magazines (39%) and television (38%).

Quite concerning where the rates obtained by marketing messages from companies. E-mail from a company was rated with 28%, direct mail with 25% and company blogs with 16%. Company profiles in social netoworks came in with 18%.

So how to make consumers believe in blogs? According to Josh Bernoff companies should consider the following when making their blogs:

• Talk to consumers in a way that "suggests". Consider consumer issues not solely the company's ones. Rubbermaid's blog (http://blog.rubbermaid.com/) is not about Rubbermaid. It’s called “Adventures in Organization,”and it’s about getting organized.
• If you can't earn it, then borrow it. If there are famous blogs in your market that customers are reading about get involved in them so people start talking about you.

It's not enough for a company to have a blog but for consumers to trust what is being said on it. I think that having a blog that no one trusts is more harmful than not having a blog at all. Companies should keep a close eye to what is being said about themselves on popular market blogs because these could most probably have more users than their own.

Source:
Blogs, Marketing and Trust: Who do you Trust? By Josh Bernoff

Hulu Super Bowl Ad -- $$$ well spent?

We all heard so much about the cost of superbowl commercials, and the difficulty brand advertisers have in measuring the impact on sales of a a 3 million dollar 30 second spot. Well now we know that Hulu’s Super Bowl Ad Jacked Traffic 50%. It looks like Hulu’s monthly visitors had been steady at around 9M for the previous 3 months and then shot up and doubled in the month following the big game. This, despite Hulu recently pulling content from other major referral networks and devices, including CBS-owned TV.com and Boxee.

It’s interesting to see all this business going to Hulu, and it’s difficult to tell yet how many people are actually dumping their cable to watch TV on their PC or streaming through a device such as Boxee to their TV. But we do know that almost half of cable TV customers say they would pay $10 per month to watch video on their PCs. This shows why the big networks like Fox and NBC (who own Hulu) weren’t worried about spending to try to figure out the best business model… and apparently it’s working.

New content through mobile broadcasting

One of the new trends appeared about one year ago is mobile online live streaming application. Over a fast internet connection, videos can be broadcasted from a mobile phone (with video capability of course) live to the internet. Users can broadcast to friends, blogs, and social networks as well as then interact with their viewers via mobile application. Flixwagon is the currently the leader, offering live video streaming service not only with a 3G or WiFi enabled phones (e.g. Nokia and Sony Erickson handsets) but also on iPhone. Its main competitor is Qik followed by other players such as Kyte.tv and Bambuser.com.

How do they work? Both Qik and Flixwagon require online registration on websites and afterwards an application can be installed onto the handset, all for free. There are some differences on functionality, for example Qik has the option to repost videos to download back to PC. Qik has another advantage over its competitor because offers the possibility to copy the video not only on to YouTube or Facebook as Flixwagon offers – but also to other sites such as Blogger, Mogulus, Pounce, Mobuzz.tv. Both websites have a video archive where all videos posted are stored. Social features are enhanced by Twitter, Qik and Flixwagon use it to alert friends and them directly to the video. Furthermore, chat rooms from both Qik and Flixwagon are offered to allow viewers to send messages to users’ mobile handsets.

Mobile broadcasting offers interesting business opportunities for traditional media companies and mobile carriers. It allows carriers to create new revenue streams and increase customer loyalty. On the other side, also media companies and TV broadcasters can benefit by receiving high quality live video broadcasting of news or entertainment, from any location around the world.

Since February 2008, Flixwagon has signed a partnership with MTV as content provider and is currently exploring other partnerships with media companies.

Mobile broadcasting market is still young and not too crowded but is growing rapidly. Future potential can be exploited and accelerated further by bandwidth increases and enhanced mobile handsets. Stay tuned.

Isabella

Save me from Windows Vista

It’s now more than a year that I have been fighting with Windows Vista and missing my old XP.

Windows Vista was released in beginning of 2007 with after a huge hype but it has proven to disappoint not only me, but most of the users. Furthermore, businesses have adapted very slowly this new system due to numerous pitfalls of this system. What is wrong with it? Just to mention a few frequent and basic troubles… many of the programs and computer peripherals (e.g. printers) do not work and are incompatible, overall there is a much slower performance - especially during start up and shut down phases - not mention a shorter battery life and a problematic hibernate status.

So what are the advantages? A part for a more cool design, graphics and enhanced video capabilities, I still haven’t realized what the improvements of this new operating system are.

Unfortunately there aren’t many options. A part from converting to Apple’s Mac, if you are lucky you can still find the older and mostly wide used version of Windows XP regularly uploaded on HP and Lenovo PCs, available until June 30^th. Another option would be to downgrade from the installed Vista to the XP or lastly hope that a new version of Vista will bring improvements to the current and numerous issues.
Isabella

A world wide blackout

This past Tuesday a Gmail blackout left about 113 million users with no access to their email account for more than 3 hours.

The explanation of the incident was due to a spillover effect of a crash in one of the European data centers during a routine maintenance causing unexpected overflow over other data centers. While the other sites were supposed to cover the damaged software center, the final result was a general crash down with over 3 hours of worldwide blackout.

Today Google's Gmail is the 3^rd most popular web email service after Hotmail and Yahoo, with 283 and 274 million users respectively. But Google is not offering only an email box; this outage had other serious effects from simple communication to business and various activities. Many users were completely stuck, not only accessing their emails but also documents, data and software applications.

Google has been developing extensively numerous online based alternatives applications to compete with Microsoft Office desktop applications. Most of the services are free, but advanced applications are also offered under payment fees. Numerous individuals and businesses already switched to Google’s web based services, such as Google Apps, replacing conventional desktop email and software. Users can work on documents collaborating instantly online with Google docs, as well as share calendars, messaging and chat with the other Gmail services.

This is not the first Google blackout…in year 2008 according to Google, the mail service suffered on average 10 - 15 minutes of monthly downtime. The last serious outage in August, when email service went down for about 90. Last January instead a blackout of Google search engine left internet users lost on the web.

Perhaps people believe that Google is infallible and only when it goes down we realize how today business and communication is internet related and internet dependent.

Isabella

Jaguar & Land Rover Go Mobile

Jaguar and Land Rover announced their plans to spend $1.6 million on mobile advertising in 2009. AdMob will be running the auto brands' campaigns on its U.S. network.

Interestingly, the push for mobile advertising this year is more around driving response than growing awareness. Research has found that mobile advertising is currently more a direct-response tool versus awareness tool. This appears likely because of ads targeted to smart phone users. The relatively affluent user demographic of iPhones and Blackberrys use their devices to stay connected while they travel and play and past performance of mobile ads indicates mobile users are indeed acting upon content consumed on their mobiles. As can be imagined, past performance is a key driver of tomorrow's ad sales.

As such, despite the looming recession and advertising cuts, companies still see value in mobile advertising. We can expect to see more and more advertisements hitting our phones this year. According to Steve Bader, Managing Partner of Brand in Hand:

"Million-dollar-total campaign budgets are not totally unusual and will become more typical in the coming quarters. The smaller scale of most (mobile ad) buys of the last few years has not been in rational proportion to the growth of mobile audiences and interaction rates with mobile advertising."

Soure: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=134882

“Crowdsourced feedback” (like it or not)

Tropicana is changing their package back to its previous incarnation after six short weeks. The strength of digital media and social networks may have fanned these winds of change.

Those of who know me well have heard my "gentle rants" about the Tropicana Orange Juice repackaging launched earlier this year. Why the vertical logo placement (I have never had a single piece of research support vertical logo placement, as efficient as it can be for big branding of primary panels)? Why on EARTH would you walk away from the strong visual equity of the straw-in-orange conveying freshness? Why a generic sans serif font... are you trying to make it look like a TESCO or Sainsbury's package ? They changed the cap to a half-orange which, while cute, smacks of premium packaging on a consumable which is a no-no in this conservationist age. And completely, utterly, unshoppable as all differentiation was buried no doubt for the sake of art.

I wasn't the only one thinking this way, the blogosphere agreed. This article in the NYT from earlier this week acknowledged the massive backlash Pepsico encountered acknowledged massive direct feedback via phone and email, but I have seen numerous blogs with innumerable comments all addressing the topic which I imagine carried equal sway as I imagine they no doubt helped create the 'push' needed to get consumers more vocal.

Kudos to Pepsi for listening to the consumer (doing so prior to launch would have been way cheaper) and moving swiftly to backtrack. And if anyone would like a little schadenfreude (Thank you John Gapper for that one) tune here to see Peter Arnett waxing poetic about all the psychological mumbo-jumbo reasons why this packaging is a winner at its launch. Next time you hear marketers speak like this about ANYthing, short the stock.

Japan and the IPhone

did anyone else see this:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/02/why-the-iphone.html
Apparently the iphone is not doing well in Japan-- to the point where one Japanese carrier is giving it away for free with a 2-year contract.
It seems the aesthetics of the iphone are not appealing-- and the capabilities not up to snuff. As the article states:
"For example, Japanese handset users are extremely into video and photos — and the iPhone has neither a video camera nor multimedia text messaging. And a highlight feature many in Japan enjoy on their handset is a TV tuner, according to Kuittinen."
Given this added feature demand, suppliers are stepping up:
http://www.eetasia.com/ART_8800562792_499488_NT_12434ead.HTM
Softbank mobile along with Siano mobile Silicon has created a Tv & Battery:
"Called "TV & Battery," the new iPhone accessory unit—which looks like a small, sleek iPhone the size of a business card—is "a charger to go" and a mobile TV receiver in one."
Once connected via Wifi, the viewer can watch tv on the iPhone, with the receiver tucked away in a pocket, purse, etc.
I wonder if this will help increase iPhone sales in Japan; the free phones with 2 year contract should certainly help. Apple's COO has noted that demand has increased for the iPhone with each reduction in price.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10172786-1.html

New York Times to Launch Local Blog?

TechCrunch reported this morning that the New York Times may unveil a local neighborhood blog project this upcoming Monday. The Brooklyn neighborhoods of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill will be one of two pilot neighborhoods. Users of NYTimes.com will be invited to report neighborhood matters including "...cultural events, bar and restaurant openings, real estate, arts, fashion, health, social concerns and anything else that goes on in the ‘SoHo of Brooklyn.’"

This new initiative can be likened to CNN's iReporters site, which also encourages the public post news stories. How this changes the nature of news reporting still waits to be seen, but it appears that both initiatives will attract more eyeballs, and in turn, more advertisers to their sites. Still, whether or not this can be a sustainable revenue model is anyone's guess. Will small, local advertisers finally be able to advertise on the coveted pages of the New York Times - space traditionally reserved for big name brands? Will the operational costs of running the local sites be recouped? How will the New York Times define "all the news that's fit to print?" Will the paper's brand and image take a hit? Again, the answers can only be guessed at this point.

E-Mail Newsletters the Way to Go?

More and more web sites will be pushing newsletters into your inboxes in 2009. There is no contest when it comes to the economics of advertising revenues collected via e-newsletters versus CPM for display ads. For example, take the case of Dogster, which extensively uses newsletters:

- Use of Google AdSense can yield a CPM of 28¢

- Use of Glam Media, one of the highest-paying ad networks, would deliver a floor CPM of $2.
But that was still leaving a good amount of revenue on the table, especially considering an ad network takes half the gross.

- In addition to letting Federated Media sell some inventory, Dogster built its own Web sales force, setting CPMs at $8 to $20.

- But even that pales compared to what he charges advertisers per 1,000 views of an ad on his e-mail newsletter: a whopping $20 to $40

A few months ago, Comcast offered $125 million for DailyCandy based on newseltter advertising potential. Last month, Yelp! landed its first national ad campaign for its "Weekly Yelp!" newsletter. At first glance it may seem counter-intuitive that advertisers are willing to spend more money on advertising via low-tech e-mail newsletters. But as this BusinessWeek article points out:

"But remember that signing up for and opening an e-mail newsletter is a much bigger commitment than passively clicking on a link that takes you to a blog post. Publishers can see how many people open an e-mail, how long they read it, and how many friends they forward it to. Advertisers eat up that kind of engagement, because it's different, tangible, and more likely to result in an action such as making a purchase."

See BusinessWeek.com article for more: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2009/tc20090224_035701_page_2.htm

Online Advertising Market to Shrink in 2009

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the online advertising market is forecasted to drop 5% in the first quarter of 2009 (by research group IDC), the market's first contraction since the dot-com bubble burst in 2001. This is a far cry from what research was suggesting only months ago - that the market would continue to grow despite the worsening economy. The Washington Post ran an article by Sarah Levy (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/25/AR2009022503245.html) that suggested two assumptions were at the root of the perpetually bullish views on online advertising:

"One was that online advertising is more actionable and more measurable than advertising in the offline world. The other was this pie chart that Yahoo’s PR department used to love to trot out showing the discrepancy between the amount of time people spend online and the percentage of advertising spend that goes online. ‘At some point, that has to balance out, right? RIGHT?’"

Measuring online advertising is turning out to be more convoluted than originally thought and metrics are still hardly reliable (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2009/tc20090127_410266.htm). Sarah Levy continues to suggest there is a dearth of innovation in this space, when it's clear that innovation is what's going to grow the market. She says:

"Google-aside, I think the Web industry has gotten lazy when it comes to advertising innovation. There's too much outsourcing to the ad networks and too much of an assumption by the portals and other large properties that gaudy eyeballs will be enough. That's old media thinking."

Apparently many e-marketers are spooked by IDC's data. Hopefully this will push marketers away from old media thinking and lead to more innovation that the market requires to flourish.

on PR

Just visited the Commission Junction site and wonder if there’s another business model in the making for PR firms.

Rather than charge advertisers a fixed retainer fee/month (usually in the 5k range for an average client), a PR firm could create additional revenue by researching sites that provide lead generation fees and pitching those products on a commission basis. With CPAs ranging in the 30 dollar range, and a show on Today reaching 3 million eyeballs, profits could range in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, just for one hit!

The Colbert Bumb for Twitter?

In Wednesday's Colbert Report, Colbert comments on a report that 'lots of Congressmen were using their Blackberry's' during the President's Congressional Address.  It appears these Congressmen were actually posting to Twitter.  The bit demonstrates one of the benefits of Twitter: immediate access to inside information.  I'm surprised that Congressman even know about this technology, let alone comfortable enough with it to use in a situation like this.  Guess Twitter isn't just for teenagers.

The reference to Twitter starts around 3:45 seconds into the video.  

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/219745/february-25-2009/barack-obama-s-congressional-address

This Blogging Thing

http://www.coxandfor/kum.com/archives/000478.html

So if you are new to the blogging scene like me it is important to learn as much as possible from the experts.

According to the "Urban Muse" the 5 terms every blogger should know (allthough most of these were covered in class) are:

1. Blogroll: a list of related blogs


2. Domain name: this is the name of a website and it's considered more professional to have your own domain.


3. Social bookmarking: allows users to search, store, and organize favorite links and access them from any computer. Examples include Delicious, Digg.com, and StumbleUpon.com.


4. UGC: user-generated content


5. Widget: third-party online applications that can be embedded in your website.

So now that you know enough in order to start your new blog consider the following tips iwhen constructing a new blog:

1. Find a niche and stick to it. Most successful blogs focus on a single topic.


2. Put your personal spin on the topic


3. Commit to posting regularly


4. Link to other like-minded (or unlike-minded) bloggers


5. Get your own domain name


6. Do a "soft" blog launch. In other words, wait until you have at least a handful of posts and you've worked out the blogging software before you announce your blog to the world.


7. Invite more experienced bloggers to contribute


8. Set realistic expectations for your blogging success


9. Keep a few posts in your drafts folder


10. Realize that you can't read everything. When you're just starting out, it's tempting to want to read the archives and sign up for the feed of every single blog in your topic area. This is admirable, but it's just not realistic.

Now in order to promote your blog consider the following:

1. Add your link to all your profiles


2. Comment Early and Often


3. Create reciprocal


4. Google/Google Alerts: Regularly google your name and your blog's name so you’ll know when people are mentioning you and leave a comment thanking them.


5. Register with blog directories. A few examples: BlogCatalog, BlogHer, BlogWise, DelightfulBlogs, and Technorati.
   

It seems to me that blogging is not only art but also science and you have to consider several things before starting out. When I was seaching for blogs in the internet there are an infinite amount of blogs for a great variety of topics. Now you have all the tools to start out a new blog and to try to differentiate from the rest.


Happy Blogging!!

Sources:

http://www.urbanmusewriter.com/

New York Times in a Recession

According to the International Herald Tribute, unlike almost every other major paper in the country, the New York Times has not significantly reduced the size of its newsroom or the content of its pages. And perhaps more so than other newspapers, the Times has made a long-term bet on the digital future, integrating its print newsroom with the Web, making its website a fully interactive news and information platform.

I think the New York Times' "last-man-standing" strategy could work. Although declining ad revenue both online and in print has weakened company's cash flow, the Times is financially more healthy (lower debt ratio) than its peer. On the other hand, growing internet ads should outweigh the erosion of ink-and-paper revenue. If New York Times can maintian its quality and leading position in both online and offline news, it would eventually be in even better position as competitors drop out before the market turns around .

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/09/business/09times.php

Yahoo: to sell or not to sell?

Yahoo's CFO Blake Jorgen said on Wednesday that Yahoo is "not opposed" to sell its search business. However, any deal, whether a partnership or a sale, would be done for "the right reasons and the right economics."

With Google's dominating marketshare in the online search business, Yahoo search will remain a small player in the market. Selling search allows Yahoo to focus on content and save hundreds of millions in operating costs. However, Yahoo also needs to the likelihood of display advertising continues to be weak. In that case, Yahoo will need this search buffer for the foreseeable future.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE51O81U20090225?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

Wifi on Flights

Alaska airlines has joined Virgin Airlines and American Airlines in testing wifi on some of its flights. Assuming it is successful, it could soon be on all flights.  The airline billed the addition as an improvement to the customer experience.  It'll be interesting to see if this eventually lead to cell phones on airlines.  Wifi is less intrusive, but it's reasonable that passengers may demand the service if the technology is available.  

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/26/alaska-airlines-starts-testing-satellite-based-wi-fi-services/

Obama isn’t the only one talking about transparency

As we all know by now, Facebook hit another bump in its road last week when it introduced new terms for its users that seemed, well, controlling and user unfriendly. This led to a public outcry and retrenchment on Facebook’s part. Today when I logged on to Facebook the next chapter of the saga was in front of me.

Facebook is announcing a new approach that allows users to have a role in determining the policies that govern the site. For more information and links to the groups containing our new draft policies, check out the Facebook Blog.

I can only imagine that the entire social networking community is happy to sit back and let Facebook figure out what to do in these uncharted waters. Facebook, in this move, seems to be acknowledging that the internet has unleashed a force that it has to reckon with. The aggregation of people into social networks is not only connecting people but seems to be creating a consumer/user rights movement.

The Facebook blog says that history has shown that transparency and openness lead to the best outcomes. I have to give Facebook credit for continually admitting when it is wrong and having the courage to take a step back and try to create a business as unusual model. I suspect this is not the last chapter in this book. Even more interesting will be the impact Facebook’s story has on other companies.

--Kate Grossman

Different rain in Naverland

In South-Korea 76% of internet searches are being done on search engine Naver. Where Google is not the market leader in search in China nor Japan, it seems almost like none of the South-Koreans Google anything at all. Naver does not only search but also provides an internet portal drawing together news, e-mail, discussion groups, stockmarket information, videos, restaurant reviews etc. According to The Economist some 17m people visit its home-page every day and since January they have been able to customise it according to their own tastes.

The Economist has an interesting article on search-engines in South-Korea, China and Japan. The article gives as main reason for the success of other search engines the adaption to local needs. Searches require typical results in anglo-based countries, but might need to show complete different results in Asian countries. Where 'rain' leads to hits on falling water in Google, Naver brings people to results on a popular singer and actor called Rain.

If you're curious about search in Asia, read the full article at http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13185891

RyanAir vesus "Lunatic Bloggers"

In my Emerging Media class we saw a demonstration of a service that allows companies to monitor blog posts -- the idea being that representatives can contact a blogger, either directly or via a comment, to answer questions or ameliorate concerns. We were all a little dubious, imagining that only a handful of firms would go to the trouble.

As it turns out, upstart RyanAir goes to the trouble. Not to answer questions or ameliorate concerns, mind you, but to insult people.

A guy named Jason Roe found what he thought was a bug on the RyanAir site, and posted it to his blog. Then the following comment appeared:

Ryanair Staff #1 Says:
February 19th, 2009 at 5:25 pm

jason!
you're an idiot and a liar!! fact is!
you've opened one session then another and requested a page meant for a different session, you are so stupid you dont even know how you did it! you dont get a free flight, there is no dynamic data to render which is prob why you got 0.00. what self respecting developer uses a crappy CMS such as word press anyway AND puts they're mobile ph number online, i suppose even a prank call is better than nothing on a lonely sat evening!

This was followed by equally caustic messages from "Ryanair Staff #2" and "Ryanair Staff #3".

You'd think it was just some idiot impersonating the airline, right? Nope. Someone traced the source IP (internet) address and sure enough these came from RyanAir.

The response from the company was even more baffling:

Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion.

It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again. Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel.

Does this seem like a good internet marketing strategy? Would you trust these people with your luggage? I'd hope the answer is no.