jump to navigation Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , The Economy of Attention: Captivate Your Online Audience or Be Stuck in the Past
By Cam Balzer
The proliferation of conferences in the online space is staggering. I’ve found several that are well-run and consistently provide valuable content, like Search Engine Strategies, Search Insider Summit:, SMX:, Searchonomics: and Webmasterworld PubCon.
I recently attended Future of Online Advertising, a nicely presented new media economy conference, and would say that it is worth attending for a forward thinking view on the industry. Top notch speakers and good sessions.
It was in a great venue too, New York’s Gotham Hall, a former bank built in the colossal Roman style, a temple to the old financial economy. The contrast between old and new was highlighted by a series of aphorisms carved into the granite walls circling the three-story-tall hall:
“Waste neither time nor money but use both for your own and your neighbor’s good.”
“There is no gain so sure as that which results from economizing what you have.”
“It is what we save rather than what we earn that ensures a competency for the future.”
These paeans to frugality sound quaint in an era where the average U.S. household carries $9300 in credit card debt. However, they also seemed strangely appropriate given that many of the speakers directly or indirectly addressed the key resource in the new economy: consumer attention.
The Economy of Attention
Marketers often behave as if they are in sole control of consumer attention, powering print and television via their ad spending, pushing messages to captive audiences. Unfortunately, this tendency has frequently been transferred to the online space unchallenged.
In that old economy, consumers didn’t have easy means to speak back or turn the shouting match into a conversation. Clearly they have always selectively doled out their proactive interactions with ideas, brands, products or media. The Internet and especially Web 2.0 tools enable nearly frictionless response. In fact, the ease with which consumers can express themselves online prompts other consumers to respond in kind. Suddenly, the voice of the consumer is amplified, sometimes reaching volumes unmatched by even the biggest advertising budgets.
Competition for consumer attention is at an all-time high, and it shows no signs of stopping. In an age where consumers can be more selective able what advertising they view, and where they use their extra time and energy to create unique conversations, they demand more careful attention from marketers. This reversal of value flow in the new economy has huge implications for marketers and publishers.
Here are a few recommendations for marketers distilled from the Future of Online Advertising conference speakers:
Stop shouting and listen: do you really understand what consumers want?
Serving existing ads in new places might work better than it does in the old places, but that’s only because of novelty. In the long run, marketers will better engage consumers by creating ads tuned to specific conversations, which necessitates analysis and understanding of those conversations.
Your brand, their terms
Consumer 2.0 wants to “license” your brand on their terms, not simply buy your products. There are exactly two reasons a consumer is going to blog about or review your product: it’s extremely cool or annoyingly bad. If it’s cool, the consumer will endorse it and by doing so “represent” it—or maybe actually let it represent him/her—in a blog or social site profile. Mediocre products get no visibility at all, only the remarkably good or bad get play. Marketers will expend energy trying to drown out negative reactions. If marketers are attentive, active participants in online conversations, they won’t make bad products in the first place.
Let go, let flow
Relax and be playful. You can’t control your brand the way you could 20 or even 10 years ago. Instead of being a drill sergeant when it comes to controlling the brand, perhaps there’s room to aspire to be a summer camp counselor, facilitating a good time for all and intervening only when the safety or the collective good time is jeopardized.
The old world messages emphasizing frugality were primarily directed at consumers, with temple-like banks meant to instill awe and respect for the institutions managing those funds on a saver’s behalf. But in this century, that same frugality exhortation should be heeded by marketers. Treat attention as the most valuable asset your consumers can give you. The old aphorists were on to something: when it comes to the attention economy, what you save still ensures “a competency for the future.”
Cam Balzer is vice president of emerging media at DoubleClick Performics, and a regular contributor to Chief Marketer. Contact him at cbalzer@doubleclick.com.
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , The Unspoken Truth
Posted July 31st, 2007 by Gregory Wilson
There is a lot of talk these days about measuring results and whether advertising agencies should be more proactive when it comes to finding ways to be accountable for their work.
To date, agencies have been somewhat hesitant. And, while the reasons are many, there is one universal truth that goes unspoken. For most agencies, it is far more lucrative to be paid for the possibility of success, than it is for the actuality of results.
The good news is that a new engagement study, recently released by Omnicom Group’s OMD, may encourage a few agencies to be more open to the idea of accountability.
What the results from the study indicate is that one engaged viewer is worth eight regular viewers. Not to mention that for the brands involved, factoring engagement into the equation increased measurable return on investment 15% to 20% over models that only factored in GRPs.
Coincidently, Nielsen/NetRatings recently announced that they would start measuring time spent rather than page views.
Why is this important?
Because if “time spent” is measurable on a page, which it is, then it is also measurable when someone clicks into and out of a commercial on a digital platform. When do they click out? Usually when the commercial becomes less engaging for them.
I know. Many will argue that time spent does not equal engagement. So for now, let’s just say that it does appear to be a fairly good indicator of engagement if the viewers are allowed to activate the commercial and leave when they want to.
Now what would happen if an advertising agency said that instead of receiving a fee for creating a commercial based on hours worked, they would like to be paid based on how long their commercial involved the viewer for?
In other words, the more engaging their work, the more the agency would make. The less engaging the work, the less they’d make.
Would advertisers be willing to work this way?
Considering that an engaged viewer is worth eight regular viewers, and that ROI increases 15% to 20% with engagement, you would think that advertisers would be motivated to take their agencies up on this.
Except for that unspoken truth thing: for most agencies, it is far more lucrative to be paid for the possibility of success, than it is for the actuality of results.
Fortunately, most is not all.
And there are a handful of agencies — Crispin, Goodby, Wieden, BBDO — that are, for good reason, confident in the work they create. You’d think that they would like nothing more than to be paid based on how well their work engages the viewer.
The fact is, under the current labor-based compensation model, engaging work and non-engaging work are compensated equally. As most agencies are better at the latter than the former, the outcry has been minimal. Failure, has in fact, proven to be quite lucrative for most agencies.
It’s only the truly brilliant shops that are leaving money on the table.
Should things remain the same now that we can determine engaging commercials from non-engaging commercials on digital platforms? And especially now that it seems as if engaging commercials are worth more to the advertiser?
The digital marketplace and its new measurement capabilities offer the opportunity to liberate advertising from the clutches of mediocrity. And to let those agencies that are better than the rest rise even further to the top — both in the work that they do, and in the way that they’re paid for it.
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , Mags Migrate From Building Content to Buying It
Hearst and Time Warner Grab Web-Only Properties to Bulk Up Online Stables
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By Nat Ives
Published: July 30, 2007
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — It took a little while, but most magazine and newspaper publishers eventually accepted the need to establish web versions of their cherished print properties; it was pixelate or risk perishing. But now those same publishers are demonstrating a growing belief that while those companion sites are necessary, they are not sufficient.
Jonathan Simpson-Bint, president of Future US, says that publishing companies have been picking up new web brands because of difficult experiences migrating established print titles online.
Hearst Corp. acknowledged as much last week when it revealed a deal to buy UGO Networks, a suite of men’s lifestyle sites about games, movies, TV, movies, music, sports, women and comic books — but little connection with established Hearst magazine brands such as Esquire or Seventeen. Condé Nast Publications has been busily building sites such as Flip.com, Lipstick.com and others with zero old-media roots. And who can forget Time Inc.’s online-only Office Pirates, both born and axed in 2006? It may have survived only six months, but its parent has promised to try again.
Part of the drive stems from the failures of many print brands to make much of themselves on the web. Hearst’s Esquire.com drew 247,000 unique visitors in June, according to ComScore Media Metrix; UGO sites got 11.2 million.
“A lot of companies are aware of the fact that big media brands have not successfully migrated online, or that there’s certainly a lack of them,” said Jonathan Simpson-Bint, president of Future US, publisher of magazines such as Guitar World, Pregnancy and PC Gamer. “So the feeling is we need these new brands.”
New players dominate
Even an established online player such as Time Warner’s AOL has found more success with gossip site TMZ than it ever did depending on Time Inc. brands such as People.com. TMZ drew more than 9.3 million unique visitors in June, up 99% from last June, ComScore said. People.com, now in Time Inc.’s control, got fewer than 6.1 million, up 29%.
Future US has a lot invested in magazine companions such as GuitarWorld.com, but it also just launched a brand at Gloob.TV, where editors present videos picked from the ocean of available clips. And that curated experience was supposed to be the main draw, but already visitors are making good use of another element: the ability to embed their own videos in the comment threads.
New digital brands can draw from those sorts of interests and influences of crowds — in a way that established names can’t. “A lot of the big successes online are successful at something that wasn’t their original goal,” Mr. Simpson-Bint said. “MySpace was built to be basically a network for bands. They didn’t really think that 20 million kids were going to go get their own home pages on there. If you put something out there and it’s exciting and malleable and connects with people, the audience will potentially take it in a different direction. You have to create the room for these things to take place. That’s possibly why established media brands have struggled online — because there’s automatically baggage.”
Not giving up
It’s not that anyone, including Future US, is giving up on digital companions for print properties. They remain the centerpieces of most online businesses run by traditional print operators, who view other acquisitions or launches as complementary.
“You take Seventeen.com and some of our teen magazines … it translates pretty well,” said Ken Bronfin, president of Hearst Interactive Media. “UGO reaches an 18-to-34-year-old male demographic, which is often difficult to reach with traditional media properties.”
Established print brands have an opportunity to capitalize on their currency among advertisers and readers, said Eric Blankfein, senior VP-channel insights director at Horizon Media. “The approach to promoting the web versions of competing magazines is what’s key, not the fact that they haven’t been created from the ether,” Mr. Blankfein said.
But online brands’ central focus on digital and ability to offer interactive experiences, among other things, overpower the strength of magazines’ print brands and content, said Rishad Tobaccowala, president of the Denuo Group. And where eyeballs flock, advertisers tend to follow.
Buying blog cache
There are, of course, different ways to deploy a brand online. Complex magazine, where Complex.com is an important part of the brand footprint, has just formed partnerships with the independent blogs Nice Kicks, Nah Right, Bastardly and SlamXHype. Each deploys classic internet irreverence and subject expertise to attract and maintain its audience. Complex could have tried building similar blogs on its own site, but it didn’t see as much upside.
“When you have an opportunity to get in bed with and partner with people who are pure and organic as possible, especially in the trend marketplace, it’d be insane to reinvent the wheel,” said Rich Antoniello, publisher of Complex. “Also you can’t just decide, ‘We’re going to be pure and organic.’”
At Condé Nast and its CondéNet division, destination sites such as Epicurious.com are meant to be big ad plays while companion sites such as VanityFair.com are meant to enhance print readers’ relationships with each title.
‘Companions’
“You could try to build a really big site based on a brand,” said Sarah Chubb, president of CondéNet. “We have just chosen to be very focused on having the sites be companions to the magazine. That means echoing the brand, supporting the brand, giving the person who’s really into that magazine more to do online. Which is very different from trying to make a big magazine site itself.”
The new brands do lend themselves to faster growth, Ms. Chubb added. “A brand like Epicurious, because it was a new brand, had elasticity to it that meant, from day one, that we could make it what we wanted, which was the No. 1 destination for food online. If you’re working with a pre-existing brand, a pre-existing corpus, it’s a different thing.”
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Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , Six of 10 Online Adults Watch Online Video, Most Prefer Professional Quality
Six of 10 Online Adults Watch Online Video, Most Prefer Professional Quality
Some 57% of online adults have used the internet to watch or download video, and 19% do so on a typical day, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project’s first major report on online video. Moreover, 74% of broadband users with high-speed connections at home or work watch or download video online.
The growing adoption of broadband, combined with a dramatic push by content providers to promote online video, has helped to pave the way for mainstream audiences to embrace online video viewing, Pew said.
Professional-quality videos are generally preferred to amateur productions, which nevertheless appeal to coveted segments of the young male audience, according to Pew:
- Overall, 62% of online video viewers say that their favorite videos are those that are “professionally produced.”
- 19% of online video viewers express a preference for content “produced by amateurs.”
- Some 11% say they enjoy both professionally produced video and amateur online video equally.
- Among young adult men, some 43% of online video users express a clear preference for professional video, but 34% say they prefer amateur content.
- Another 19% of male video viewers ages 18-29 say they enjoy both amateur and professional content equally.
Overall, 27% of online video consumers say they watch or download video from YouTube; of those who watch or download videos from more than one location, 29% say YouTube is the place where they view online video most often. Young adults
are almost twice as likely to point to YouTube as a source for online video: 49% of video viewers age 18-29 say they watch YouTube videos.
Other findings from the Pew report on online video:
- Most online video viewers participate in some viral component of the medium:
- More than half (57%) respondents say they share links to the video they find with others, and three in four (75%) say they receive links to watch video that others have sent to them.
- Overall, just 8% of adult internet users say they have uploaded video content online, while 15% of internet users age 18-29 have contributed video.
- Young adults also stand out for their unique video viewing preferences:
- News content is the most popular genre with every age group except for those ages 18-29, 43% of whom say they watch news videos.
- For young adults, comedy is a bigger draw, with 56% watching humorous videos.
- In all, the survey asked respondents about 10 types of online video content:
- 37% of adult internet users say they watch or download news videos online.
- 31% say they watch or download comedy or humorous videos online.
- 22% say they watch or download music videos online.
- 22% say they watch or download educational videos online.
- 19% say they watch or download animation or cartoons online.
- 16% say they watch or download movies or TV shows online.
- 15% say they watch or download political videos online.
- 14% say they watch or download sports videos online.
- 13% say they watch or download commercials or advertisements online.
- 6% say they watch or download adult videos online.
- In addition, 6% of respondents say they watch some other type of video that does not fall into any of these categories.
About the study: Pew Internet & American Life Project surveyed 2,200 adults, age 18 and older, during February 15-March 7, 2007. Some 1,492 of those interviewed were internet users. The Project is an initiative of the Pew Research Center.
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , JIM HOOS joined Nationalgeographic.com as vice president of advertising sales. Most recently Hoos was national sales director for TVGuide.com and TV Guide Mobile. |
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JAIME SABERITO was promoted to senior director, corporate communications, up from director, for Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel. |
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RPA named SELENA CHIN as local media manager in the agency’s Chicago office. Most recently, Chin worked for Carat USA as a senior spot supervisor. |
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MELISSA WASSERMAN was named vice president of advertising sales marketing for AMC. Wasserman was formerly vice president of marketing activation and promotion at CBS Radio. |
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Pure Brand Communications named KEN BARBER as head of digital strategy. He joins the company from Digitas where he designed, executed and measured online promotions as manager of the Strategy and Analysis group for such clients as General Motors and the Intercontinental Hotels Group. |
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MEC Retail, a division of Mediaedge:cia, named ANN MCGRATH client services director. She will be responsible for managing clients Colgate-Palmolive, Cadbury Schweppes and Pepperidge Farm and will focus on building business for MEC Retail and Retail Media Link. Most recently, McGrath managed customer marketing agency J. Brown, developing customer-specific initiatives for various clients, including FTD, Fort James, Nabisco/Kraft Foods, Dannon and Irving. |
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MY Entertainment Company and Carat Entertainment promoted SARA CHAZEN to senior vice president, head of development and production. |
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DOUG STRUBEL joined Slack Barshinger & Partners as a partner in charge of agency growth. He joins the agency from Mobium Creative Group, where he led the agency’s strategic and growth initiatives. |
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Underscore Marketing named DAVID SINGH as a manager in its New York office. Previously, Singh was an account director at Kinetic Results. |
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Reuters promoted SHAUN HEKKING from senior account manager to director, New York advertising sales and elevated JEREMY RANDOL from account manager to senior account manager, New York for Reuters Media. |
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GJP Advertising named ELLEN ZABITSKY executive vice president of client development. Zabitsky will lead the customer relationship and direct marketing discipline for GJP’s three offices. She joins the agency from Rapp Collins/DDB Canada. |
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Madison Square Garden promoted LOIS FRIEDMAN to senior vice president of audience insight and planning; BRIAN HOFFMAN was named vice president of marketing solutions; ERICA HERBST was promoted to director of audience insight and planning; and KEVIN MAROTTA was promoted to director of entertainment and sports properties. |
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Strategis named KLAUS GENSHEIMER as creative director. Prior to joining Strategis, Gensheimer was creative director at Trinity Communication in Boston. |
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LEE SLATTERY was named publisher of Fitness magazine. She joins Fitness from Golf for Women, where she served as vice president and publisher overseeing sales and marketing for the publication. |
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Iq Marketing named ADAM BENSCOTER as account manager. Benscoter will manage several of Iq’s major accounts, focusing on brand management and strategic planning. |
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ELLEN CUMMINGS was named director, fragrance and grooming for Men’s Health magazine. Cummings comes to Men’s Health from Traditional Home Magazine where she served as senior account director managing beauty, jewelry and home decorating accounts. |
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TYLER GOLDMAN was named chief executive officer of Buzznet. Prior to joining Buzznet, Goldman served as acting president of Feedster. |
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Jumpstart Automotive Media hired DAVID LIEBLER as director east coast sales, a newly created position. Liebler joins Jumpstart from CO-ED Magazine where he served as president/publisher. |
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TiVo named KAREN BRESSNER as senior vice president of advertising sales. |
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domino named JEFF BARISH as advertising director and ERIK KOKKO as executive director of home furnishings and beauty. |
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ROBERT RASMUSSEN joined R/GA as executive creative director on the Nike account, a position previously held by NICK LAW, now chief creative officer, NA. Most recently, Rasmussen was creative director on the JetBlue account at JWT. |
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Energy BBDO promoted BRIGETTE WHISNANT to the new role of svp, director of film and digital production. She replaces DIANE JACKSON who recently left the agency. Whisnant joined Energy BBDO in 2006 from Fallon, serving as an executive producer. |
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MayoSeitz Media named JARED ORTH as a senior communications planner. Orth previously served as a communications manager on the Saturn account at Goodby Silverstein & Partners. |
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Zenithmedia promot
ed STEPHANIE LOREDO to vice president, account manager. |
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The Laredo Group hired JASON HELLER as executive vice president, a newly created position. He previously served as managing director of Horizon Interactive. |
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| JEFF GASPIN was named president and chief operating officer, Universal Television Group. In this expanded position, Gaspin adds to his responsibilities executive oversight of the Telemundo television network and its 16 owned-and-operated stations. Previously, Gaspin had served as president of NBC Universal Cable and Digital Content. |
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ED HECHT was named associate publisher of Rolling Stone. He previously held the position of advertising director. |
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RLR ADVERTISING & MARKETING named GABRIELA TORRES account executive, responsible for the agency’s healthcare and financial services clients. |
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Stanton Communications named RICK LEONARD managing director of its New York office. |
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CLARK KOKICH was promoted to CEO of Avenue A | RazorFish. |
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MARC USA promoted JASON DILLE to supervisor of online investments. In addition, ANDY COLEMAN, KIMBERLY GUNTHER, KEVIN LAZZARO and ANGELA POTTS were hired as media assistants. |
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| Q Interactive promoted GAYLE GUZZARDO to senior vice president of product management. |
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RICHARD BATES joined BIG, Ogilvy’s branding, design and innovation company, as executive creative director. Most recently, he worked as a consultant with BIG on Johnson & Johnson, Coke and Mattel. Prior to that he spent 11 years at Atlantic Records. |
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , | Orkin |
| In Review |
| Mullen, Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners and The Richards Group are the three remaining finalists vying for Orkin’s $25 million advertising account. |
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| Verizon Wireless |
| Various agencies |
| Hill Holliday, Global Hue and Zenith have been selected to provide account service and creative support to advertising efforts in Verizon Wireless’ local markets nationwide. Hill Holliday will be responsible for the strategy and creative support for all local advertising. The account will be handled by Hill Holliday’s Erwin-Penland unit in Greenville, S.C. Global Hue, in an extension of its role as multicultural agency for national advertising, will be the lead multicultural agency for the company’s local markets. Lastly, Zenith New York, currently responsible for national advertising media planning and buying, will add to its duties the coordination and support of local efforts in markets throughout the country. |
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| LoJack |
| Via |
| Via was awarded the $10 million LoJack account. Hill Holliday previously handled the work. |
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| ConAgra |
| Venables, Bell & Partners |
| ConAgra moved creative duties on its Orville Redenbacher and Slim Jim brands from Crispin Porter & Bogusky to Venables, Bell & Partners. |
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| Havertys |
| Kelly, Scott and Madison |
| Havertys selected Kelly, Scott and Madison as its media agency of record. KSM will manage and place media for the company’s 120 locations in 17 states. |
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , Odd candidates spice up Japanese national election
By Takanori Isshiki
TOKYO (Reuters) – A fixed smile on his face, a middle-aged Japanese man dances to blaring ’80s dance tunes on top of a van in Tokyo’s bustling Shibuya district.
Passers-by look on quizzically.
But for Mac Akasaka, 58, a former businessman running in an election for parliament’s upper house Sunday without the backing of any major political party, the dancing is no joke.
“Low-profile candidates like me need some kind of twist to get attention from the public, otherwise nobody would listen to my speech no matter how hard I try,” Akasaka told Reuters.
“So I started dancing before the speech.”
Resorting to wacky campaigns is not uncommon in Japan, where lesser-known candidates say a 50-year-old election law hampers efforts to get their messages across to the masses.
The law prohibits candidates from using visual images that can reach a large, unspecified number of people, and has been interpreted to ban campaigning on TV and on the Internet
Akasaka has also grabbed voters’ attention with his quirky “smile therapy” exercises, in which he massages the edges of his mouth higher with sweeping hands.
He advocates “smile power” to revive the Japanese people’s hearts, and calls his one-man organization the “Smile Party.”
Another independent candidate is managing to win grins from voters, if not necessarily ballots, with his offbeat campaign.
Yoshiro Nakamatsu, the self-proclaimed inventor of the floppy disc and more than 3,000 other gadgets, is back campaigning after a failed bid for the Tokyo governorship in March.
In his campaign pledge, the 79-year-old Nakamatsu — who calls himself “Dr NakaMats” — boasts that his newly invented “HOD” technology for converting water into fuel for cars can help fight global warming.
His Web site says his aphrodisiac “Love Jet” perfume is guaranteed to turn around Japan’s rock-bottom birth rate.
For most voters, such offbeat candidates are fun to watch, but not to put in office.
“Though their efforts should be respected, I don’t think just blaring their names helps to boost their campaign,” said Kiyokazu Anbiru, 42, who heads a charity.
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , Cellphones, Internet step to the fore
Land lines pull in just 27% of revenue
GRANT ROBERTSON
MEDIA REPORTER
July 27, 2007 at 8:49 AM EDT
Almost 50 cents of every dollar flowing into the Canadian telecom sector now comes from cellular or Internet service, an indication of how much the traditional phone has been shoved aside as the industry’s biggest money generator.
The sector brought in a record $36.1-billion last year, but old-fashioned local phone service represented just 27 per cent of the pie, or $9.75-billion, according to annual data published by the federal communications regulator.
The report, released yesterday, highlights the contrasting segments of the telecom industry. Internet and cellphone service now combine for just over 49 per cent of total revenue.
Cellular phones command $12.64-billion in revenue, or 35 per cent of the industry total.
They have become the new kings of the sector, not only overtaking residential phone service, but the industry’s other traditional cash cow – long distance service, which brought in $4.69-billion last year, representing just 13 per cent of the pie.
The dominance of cellular service is perhaps more apparent when looking at profits, industry observers said.
Wireless service accounted for $5.6-billion in pretax profit last year, which equals 44 per cent of its revenue.
Overall, the industry made $7.5-billion in pretax profit, holding on to roughly 32 per cent of total revenue.
“You can see where the money is,” said Kaan Yigit, a consultant at Solutions Research Group Inc. in Toronto. “Wireless is bench-pressing above its weight in profits.”
Wireless subscriptions grew by 10 per cent last year, but revenue rose more than 15 per cent, indicating the use of data services and other cellphone features is driving the trend.
Further pushing the traditional residential phone into the background is the increasing number of Canadians opting only for cellular service. Barely more than 1 per cent of households were using only cellphones in 2001. Last year that number hit 5 per cent.
“We are seeing the Golden Age of wireless,” Mr. Yigit said.
The report suggests two thirds of Canadian homes have at least one cellphone. Other industry estimates peg cellular penetration at 58 per cent of the population.
Though Canada still lags the United States, Europe and Asia in terms of cellphone penetration, it leads in broadband adoption.
About 7.5-million homes now have high-speed Internet access, equal to 60 per cent of households.
Mark Goldberg of telecom consulting firm Mark H. Goldberg and Associates Inc. said the challenge for the industry is to continue investing in networks that will increase the use of high-speed Internet among consumers.
“One of the things we’ll be watching is how they are able to invest in technology that allows them to continue the speed evolution of Internet service,” he said.
IBM Writes Employee Guidelines for Virtual Conduct
Company picnic or group interview?
IBM, which began using virtual sites to conduct meetings for remote employees, recently decided to establish virtual guidelines for the over 5,000 staff members inhabiting Second Life and other online worlds.
The Globe and Mail dubs IBM the first corporation to build offical regulations for online denizens. Executives say a code of conduct helps officiate corporate life in the virtual space, thereby encouraging paid staff to further explore the virtual worlds IBM calls the “3d internet.”
“For those employees who may be hesitant, guidelines can provide the encouragement and Intel philosophy they need to actually dive in and start anticipating,” said Gina Bovara, an Intel marketing specialist. Intel has also begun using virtual worlds for remote conferencing.
Intel is preparing a “tip sheet” for virtual employees, alongside a voluntary course for those that use blogs and social media sites.
IBM’s guidelines range from the mundane, such as prohibiting intellectual property discussions with unauthorized citizens, forbidding discrimination or harassment, and being an overall “good 3D Netizen.” More unique rules require that users be “especially sensitive to the appropriateness of your avatar or persona’s appearance when you are meeting with IBM clients or conducting IBM business.”
The company also hopes to make a profit on advising corporate clients seeking to follow suit. Frequent avatar transitions are considered a violation of trust.
At some point, IBM expects to make a profit advising other corporations that may be seeking to follow them into the virtual world. It currently remains unclear whether employees who violate virtual guidelines will meet actual discipline.
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , Most Facebook Users Aren’t Coeds, Over 3/4ths Have Toyed with Apps
Facebook, with more than 31 million active users, averages over 100,000 registrations per day – 3 percent growth per week – since January 2007, according to figures the social-networking site released this month, reports MarketingCharts (via Poynter Online’s E-Media Tidbits).
And over half of those users are not in college.
The number of active users has doubled since the site opened registration in Sept. 2006, according to the figures.
Some other data tidbits released by Facebook:
- More than half of Facebook users are not currently enrolled in a university or college.
- The fastest-growing demographic is the 25+ age group.
- Facebook is the sixth-most trafficked site in the United States*.
- Users spend an average of 20 minutes on the site daily*.
- The site is the No. 1 photo-sharing application on the web*.
- Photo application draws more than twice as much traffic as the next three sites combined*.
- Canada, with more than 3 million active users, has the most users outside of the US.
- The UK has the third-largest user-base, with more than 2 million active users.
- Over 1,800 applications have been built on the Facebook Platform.
- More than 75 percent of Facebook users have used at least one Facebook application.
The full set of data released is available via Facebook (pdf).
*Source: comScore Media Metrix
