Yes, the blogosphere and ‘Web 2.0’ are filled with fluff, idle chatter, and, quite frankly, a lot of crap. However, if you learn to filter the junk, as you do with your mail, e-mail, or television, the rewards can be extremely meaningful – and valuable to business.

I live on Wikipedia (and often am driven their by Google). I do a lot of research and reading and find the quality on Wikipedia to be superlative. In fact, while it has its critics, I’ve yet to encounter a credibility gap. And yet, the reliability of more traditional, scholarly sources are not always as reliable.

Flash is a wonderful and cool programming tool for any cool website. Flash can be used to present dynamic content such as video, other multimedia, and interactive tools. 

The trouble with Flash, despite its flexible and dynamic presentation, is it has until now been unpopular with anyone looking to get indexed by Google, and virtually all search engines. Until now Google and the other search engines didn’t index Flash content. As of this summer Google is now able to index most Flash (.SWF) files. Web developers rejoice!

Though the celebration in the developer community has been forstalled…

Read the full column and the potential impact on your web development plans: Google now indexes Flash; rejoice or refrain?

It is said that our ability to create Web content vastly outstrips our ability to digest it. Consistency in how content is structured, catalogued and managed is consistently inconsistent, to say the least. The problem also persists in the world of digital signage.

Digital signs are the electronic or digital signs that you find in elevators, in lobby kiosks, or even the billboards in Time Square. It is believed that China already has more than 100,000 of these digital signs.

Cisco® today announced the development of a new qualification program for those creating content for digital signage. The Cisco Academy of Digital Signage (ADS) will offer a specialized curriculum focusing on the three vital areas of digital signage:

• content creation
• content management
• content distribution

Continue reading "Content is the focus of new Academy of Digital Signage" »

“Collaborative tools are overloading employees and killing productivity—to the tune of $588 billion a year, according to a January study by Basex, a collaboration technologies consulting firm,” writes Brian Watson of CIO Magazine (see Web 2.0: Too Good to Be True?). “It’s the money-saving argument that’s getting pushback lately.”

Web 2.0 does not deliver the ROI, does not live up the hype, and is not even close to being a top priority for senior management (not all, but most).

A CIO Magazines study, Top Technology Priorities for 2008 finds that even techies don’t consider Web 2.0 as a priority. A survey of 250 “top IT executives” from a collection of small, medium and large organizations doesn’t even touch on the issue of Web 2.0.

Continue reading "Web 2.0 fails the grade, according to executives" » (on Content Matters)

Although both leading personalized user portals have been around for years, the two search turned portal turned Augustus Caesars have been upping the ante for your eyeballs.

The ongoing war is being fought with content and Web 2.0 as the delivery mechanism. Both My Yahoo! and iGoogle are personalized portals that allow the users to choose the type of content, layout, design, and tools that appear on the home page.

This spring iGoogle was redesigned and enhanced with new tools including Google gadgets (Google gadgets are interactive mini-applications like personalized, weather, etc. for your desktop – the same gadgets that inspired the gruesome Windows Vista gadgets).

Read teh full article iGoogle vs My Yahoo! (Content Matters).

The news that Google will pay at least $900 million in advertising revenue to have its search boxes and keyword-driven ads on MySpace helps to answer an important question about social networking: can companies monetize the strong traffic growth of this Web 2.0 phenomenon?

The deal means that Fox Interactive is starting to see a return on its $580 million acquisition of MySpace. Google, in turn, is expected to realise net revenue of $50 million to $200 million from its deal.

So there’s money being spent, and not just by Google. Debra Aho Williamson, Senior Analyst with eMarketer, writes in her breakdown of the deal that it will have no significant impact in 2006 because the payments do not start until 2007. eMarketer estimates that MySpace will generate $180 million in US ad revenue this year, two-thirds of total revenue in the social networking category.

“As for succeeding years, News Corp. executives stated in an Aug. 8 quarterly earnings conference call that less than 10% of the $900 million guarantee is earmarked for 2007. That leaves around $810 million to be divvied up over 2008, 2009 and the first two quarters of 2010. And that’s assuming Fox Interactive Media makes its minimum targets – both companies believe the upside will be far greater.

“eMarketer estimates that US social network ad spending will rise to nearly $1.9 billion in 2010, from $280 million in 2006. With the Google/MySpace deal, ad revenues at MySpace may top $1 billion as soon as 2010.”

But while the social networking opportunity is being monetized, the relationship between two Web 2.0 poster children and the thoughts of an influential business professor suggest companies considering how they can participate must consider “three Cs” if they want to master the opportunity: core competence, Consumer Generated Media and controversy.

MySpace has demonstrated that it has discovered a formula for attracting and holding the attention of an extremely distractible, and highly desirable, demographic. But it has not yet developed an e-commerce platform to generate revenue from its audience’s interaction. Enter Google, which is constantly finding new applications for its Web 2.0 competence in managing complex data. Uniting the competencies of the two entities could create a new model for online transactions.

Aho Williamson points out that: “New products such as Google Local and Google Checkout are crying out for an audience and MySpace could be a convenient place to give them a big push: Local businesses could offer a seamless way for MySpace users to find their retail storefronts using Google Local, or they could simply handle online transactions with MySpace users by using Google Checkout.”

As for Consumer Generated Media (CGM), John Deighton, Harvard Business School Professor and an expert on interactive advertising, provides an interesting perspective. He was interviewed by the Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge newsletter about the deal, and sees MySpace as “a really exciting marketing frontier.” For one reason, the utilization of CGM means that it can continuously remain linked with the needs and interests of its audience: “MySpace will evolve with its users. It relies on user content, so this is bound to happen. As member tastes grow up, so will their profiles.”

With concerns about online predators targeting MySpace users, one can’t mention social networking without noting the controversy it attracts. Deighton suggests that advertisers not be scared off by this concern, and even sees it as part of MySpace’s appeal: “It is popular precisely because it sits between safe-boring and truly frightening. I don’t think News Corp really minds MySpace’s racy image.”

There is no doubt that social networking can be monetized. But the companies that do so must have a competence in managing content in Web 2.0—in this case, harnessing collective intelligence and handling a complex database—know how to build a business model around CGM and be willing to handle the controversy that can be involved.

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If you spend any time on the Internet, you will have at least a passing interest in blogs. But if you’re responsible for communicating your corporate message and managing your advertising budget, you need to be using this social media actively. Recent statistics demonstrate that blogs are an extremely cost effective way to reach an influential audience at a fraction the cost of traditional media vehicles.

The phenomenal growth in the number of blogs has been well documented, and recently released statistics from comScore Media Metrix, demonstrates that this explosion in content has driven a corresponding increase in usage. They report that the traffic to blogs continues to grow, up 56% over the past year to 58.7 million visitors, and that represents 34% of the total Internet audience.

 As with many Internet-related trends, a younger demographic plays a key role in driving the numbers. Users between the ages of 12 and 17 are 21% more likely than average to visit blogs.

However, certain blog niches (like politics) have a median age of 45 and median income of $85,000, and a high level of C-level executives.

Effective blog advertising

The stat about blog niches was provided by Henry Copeland, president of blogads.com, in a discussion with B.L. Ochman on MarketingProfs.com. According to Copeland, the appeal of this new media has driven a 300% growth in blog advertising in the past year. He adds that, if used well, blog advertising can allow companies to establish significant brand awareness for as little as $25,000 to $75,000.

The article makes a strong case for the importance of utilizing blogs for corporate marketing, and provides a number of useful examples about how the media can be used to achieve spectacular—and cost effective—results. But it also cautions that advertisers must adopt a blog mindset it they want to succeed with blog advertising.

“With click-through rates in traditional online advertising dropping, inexpensive blog click-throughs are as high as 1%,” writes Ochman. “Advertisers are starting to appreciate the influencer constituency on blogs, where the distinct advertising value of these audiences ‘isn't their eyeballs, it’s their mouths,’ Copeland says.

“Successful blogs are edgy, have a sense of humor, and are recognized experts in a narrow niche. Blog audiences look at traditional ads, like ‘Click here, get 20% off,’ and say ‘screw this, I've seen it everywhere,’ Copeland says.

In his discussion, with Ochman, Copeland offers the following guidelines for effective blog ads:

Effective corporate blogging

Given the significance of blogs for on-line communications, every company should be incorporating them into their communications mix. Not only is a corporate blog an inexpensive way to deliver information, best practices in corporate blogging have become obvious and are easy to apply:

• Establish your credibility as an expert.
• Know your target audience, connect with them and engage them.
• Use an informal, conversational style.
• Keep your information real and relevant.
• Provide links.
• Respect your competition.

Microsoft provided a high profile example of the benefits of corporate blogging with Robert Scoble. His blog attracted millions of readers and his departure captured mainstream media attention. For instance, in its coverage of Scoble’s move to a video blogging start-up, Forbes.com wrote that: “To err is human, to blog, divine? For the last three years, one man has shown how a blog, plain-spoken and irreverent in its tone, could be a tool to significantly help soften the monopolistic bullying image of a corporate giant like Microsoft.”

Scoble epitomized the practises mentioned above, winning praise for himself and his company. He was clearly an expert who connected with his tech savvy audience, wasn’t afraid to respect Microsoft’s competition—praising nemesis Google, for example—or to criticize his own company. As a result, writes Forbes, “industry watchers came to appreciate both Scoble's honesty and his inside look into the traditionally insular world of software development.”

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There is no event that can match the World Cup for capturing the globe’s attention and stimulating national passions. This year’s tournament is also providing a valuable lesson in how the Internet, when well deployed, plays an essential role in the media mix.

Personally, I’m experiencing the tournament’s ability to bring people together from all over the world through the pool in which my old soccer teammates are participating. Many years after our last provincial championship, we’re living across Canada as well as in the U.S., Australia, Spain and  Ireland. E-mail remains one of the key Internet applications, and the organization of our pool—as well as the sharing of video clips of diving Italian strikers and photos of our children—would be impossible without it.

The World Cup also energizes the city in which I live, because Toronto has a wonderfully diverse population. Flags adorn vehicles driving through the streets, and entire neighbourhoods shut down after key wins cause impromptu celebrations. Traditional media simply can’t reflect the depth of the passion on the streets, but Consumer Generated Media (CGM) is more than up to the task. One blogger brings a commitment to watch games with national supporters in their favourite hang outs and a digicam to capture the experience of how the tournament is enjoyed in this multi-cultural city.  

Of course, the tournament would be inconceivable without television. A Global Market Insite (GMI) survey, reported by e-Marketer Daily, showed that over 95% of all global fans will follow the cup on their televisions, with the vast majority (93%) choosing to watch at home. But the Web is becoming an important complement to television.

According to figures from comScore, in April there were 5.7 million unique visitors to the official 2006 FIFA World Cup site hosted by Yahoo! and 4.2 million visited in March. Not surprisingly, the bulk of these visitors are in Europe. E-Marketer reports that Europe contributed the greatest proportion of visitors in April with 51%, or almost 3 million people. The next highest region was Asia Pacific, with 17% of the total, nearly 1 million people. Traffic from Latin America represented 12% of the total, and only 10% of the visitors came from North America, highlighting the still limited popularity of soccer in the US.

The many North Americans who are not visiting the FIFA World Cup site are not only missing out on the passion and excitement of the tournament, they are not seeing a superb example of how to present information online and engage visitors.

·        The site itself has a remarkable depth of content, including multi-media elements like video highlights. It is also very interactive, with a live match cast that provides comprehensive minute-by-minute up-dates of the games and live fan chat.

·        In addition, if you don’t have access to computer (for example, if your daughter’s gymnastics class coincides with the England-Ecuador match), the site is optimized for viewing on a mobile device. It loads quickly and presents just the information you need to see on a small screen.

While following the World Cup offers many Internet-related learning opportunities, I’ve been focused on the lessons provided by the competition and who is involved, such as:

• Don’t let your heart prevail over your head when making crucial decisions, like predicting that Ivory Coast will survive the “group of death” at the expense of Argentina.
• Expect mocking e-mails when bad decisions become known to a global audience, such as predicting that Ivory Coast will survive the “group of death” at the expense of Argentina.
• Don’t drive to Little Italy for pancetta with 15 minutes left to play in an Italian match.

For a consumer preparing to spend a substantial portion of her household income on a family vacation, travel is about finding the right experience for the best value. For the business providing that experience, travel is about standing out in a hyper-competitive, global market while maintaining a sustainable margin. For both parties, travel has also become about mastering the Internet, which these days means immersing themselves in the emerging world of Web 2.0, notably the deep respect for data and the collaborative creation of content.

It’s well established that travellers rely on the Internet to make their plans. For example, in its North American Consumer Technology Adoption Study, Forrester discovered that US online leisure Bookers research across an average of 3.2 sites, plus one offline resource, to plan their trips. But in an age in which Intelliseek reports that consumers are 50 percent more likely to be influenced by other customers and individuals than by traditional advertising, travellers are increasingly using the Web to engage in a dialogue with one another about their trips.

“User-generated content has exploded over the Internet, and, from blogs to Wikis to MySpace, real-life user commentary is trumping established media and brands,” writes Matt Rand in Forbes.com. “Travelers have taken to the Web and are now providing real-time, illustrated, no-holds-barred travel guides.”

The online travel industry, which has reached sales of US$60 billion in revenue, or about one-quarter of the overall US travel market, has recognized the importance of these trends, and as a result provides helpful examples of how to incorporate the technology and mindset of Web 2.0 into their business plans:

• A new generation of travel search sites have stolen a page from the Google Web 2.0 playbook, and perform meta-searches to offer comparison-shopping pages that aggregate pricing data from many retail sources. Unlike the travel agent sites like Travelocity, the meta-search sites include every airline and travel-booking agency, including Orbitz and Expedia. Kayak, for example, features the slogan: “search with us, book with them.”  As interesting as the model is, however, Forrester reports that these sites owns less than 5% of all online travel.
• The industry offers an interesting deployment of a wiki to assist with travel planning, World66, a site on which everything is written and edited by random visitors.
• Social networking has become one of the most talked about Web 2.0 phenomenon, and the travel industry has a numerous examples. FlyerTalk, for instance, features thousands of posts from frequent flyers who are helping one another, trading discount certificates and swapping customer experiences. The established travel players are attempting to participate in this Web 2.0 world. Starwood, for example, created a new blog, TheLobby.com, and invited the Starwood Lurker, who had become a celebrity on the FlyerTalk community, to address hotel issues.

While these examples provide a good reference for any company contemplating how to incorporate the mindset and technology of Web 2.0 into its strategy, Yahoo! demonstrates how organizations that develop a competence with CGM can enter new markets and pose a significant threat to incumbents.

“With features like Yahoo! Shoposphere, an add-on to Yahoo! Shopping that gives users a chance to make lists and guides for others, Yahoo! is tapping into its 400 million users to create content and foster communities that will keep the Web traffic flowing,” notes Rand. “In addition to reviews and photos from Flickr, the service includes a trip planner, where people can create itineraries for trips that other users can then vote for in Yahoo! Travel’s listings if they like the trip plans.”

Reiterating the point that Yahoo! sees travel as being a market that requires Web 2.0 technology, it bought travel meta-search site FareChase in 2004 which enables users to check fares while looking at reviews and trip planners.

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The NY Times has redesigned their website to make it more like the paper version (credit to Tom Marciniak ).

Famed Canadian media guru Marshall McLuhan, called the "Oracle of the Electronic Age", coined the phrase and book title, The Medium is the Massage (not ‘message’ but massage… though it’s assumed that this was a carefully crafted pun). While this quote has largely been bastardized and misinterpreted, McLuhan espoused that the medium or channel that conveyed the message shapes the message (or alters it). In other words, the complete message or meaning of a story on TV could be different than the same story communicated in, for example, a newspaper.

The NY Times is attempting to make the website look and feel more like the newspaper with a five column layout, less color, etc. However, a website is not a newspaper and shouldn’t be mistaken for a newspaper. People read very differently online than they do when actually holding a physical newspaper. When reading a newspaper you can be sitting in almost any position with no screen glare, no animation, no up-to-the-minute stock quotes, etc.

However, I must admit, there are things that I really do like about the new site… and the more I look at it the more I like perhaps better than any other newspaper site.

The home page is rather busy with its five columns – I don’t know quite where to start reading. But I like the white space. It looks clean. I very much like the three column layout they use under the Today’s Paper tab which includes an enlargeable JPEG of the actual paper version.

When reading an article, the page offers the reader a number of interactive options including E-mail, Print, Reprints, Save This and Single Page (though I’m not sure what this option actually does except strip out one or two ads). Also presented a tabbed box called Most Popular. It lists the top 10 most e-mailed articles, the top 10 most blogged articles, and the top 10 most searched terms (top searches were ‘immigration’ and ‘Colbert’ (as in the very funny current affairs comedian and talk show host).

I like the new site; it works for me. What is agreeable to me though is not necessarily agreeable to the masses. (In fact, I guarantee you the NY Times get a handful of both complaints and kudos.) Users generally like a far more simple layout and less cluttered look. In addition to it hugely effective search engine, there’s a reason why Google is so popular. The Google home page is simple to digest and fast to load. The trend to simplicity is more than just a trend – users demand simplicity.

Should you consider a five column layout or try to emulate a hard copy publication? I certainly wouldn’t do it. The medium is the message. However, more important than media theory, is an intimate understanding of the needs and expectations of your users and delivering flawlessly.

Content should be at the core of your internet strategy. Yes, think about balancing sales channels, connecting the site’s goals to your organizational objectives and getting your look and feel right. But content remains king, so knowing how to effectively deploy and manage it will be critical to your online success.

Before presenting at the Gilbane San Francisco conference, I was able to take in a few of the sessions, and two in particular provided excellent insight into the role that content can play in achieving business objectives and the business considerations that must go into being able to manage content.

Actionable content

Gilbane Consultant Bill Trippe discussed this useful concept in a presentation to the CM Professionals Spring Conference, which started the day before the Gilbane event.  Bill explained that Forrester originated the phrase “transactional content,” which Mary Laplante and Bill Zoellick from the Gilbane Group have defined as:

Transactional content can be defined as shared information that drives business-to-business processes. It is the content that flows through the commerce chain, initiating and automating processes such as procurement, order management, supply chain planning, and product support. Transactional content is shared in the sense that it is exchanged among partners, suppliers, customers and distributors who each can contribute to it.

Bill and Gilbane colleague David Guenette have taken to calling it “actionable content,” and Bill provided some eye-catching stats explaining why the concept is so important:

• Less than 10% of users will contact a supplier whose Website does not provide detailed product and service information (2004 Content Solutions User Needs)
• 91% of industrial buyers rely on the Internet to collect information and 90% of industrial buyers visit the Web and eliminate potential suppliers before they even consider calling (Outsell, Inc, ICR Research, others).

While understanding actionable content is critical, implementing it is complex and difficult. As Bill notes, it requires multiple media, multi-platform integration, and cross-functional teams.

In our experience, many companies are beginning to recognize the important contribution content makes to their business goals, even if they are not yet familiar with “actionable content.” And, once they accept the need to tackle an important business challenge, they recognize the importance of developing an effective plan.

Managing content

In his outstanding tutorial called “Web Content Management Systems: Architecture & Products,” Tony Byrne of CMS Watch provided a comprehensive overview on the topic. Among the key messages that emerged was that acquiring and implementing a CMS is not a straightforward business decision due to:

• Complexity of choice. Tony estimates that there are approximately 2,000 systems available, although about 1,600 are “consulting-ware” that have only been implemented a few times.
• Wide variance in price points. With Enterprise Web CMS solutions starting at $250,000 and Open Source options beginning at $1,000, assigning a budget prior to searching for options may prove virtually impossible.
• Estimating Total Cost of Ownership. TCO can be summed up with a simple question: what does a free dog cost? Open Source provides a great example of why a TCO model is very important for a CMS. As Tony pointed out, these “cheap” solutions often require extensive integration, a cost for which many companies fail to budget. He suggests that for every $1 spent on software, you allocate between $2 and $8 on services.

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(San Francisco) There are three certainties in life: death, taxes and, if you manage a website, you will acquire a content management system. Attendees at this week’s Gilbane San Francisco received in-depth information about how best to make this inevitable purchase. They also received an important reminder: content still ends up on paper.

For the first time, the session featured a track on automated publishing. The sessions were organized by Gene Gable, with assistance from Thad McIlroy, who are well known in publishing circles for their work in documenting the digitization of the production value chain.

The track provided the opportunity for participants to learn how the printed page can best be managed in a broader content management plan. It also enabled them to understand how new publishing technology can benefit all players involved in creating and distributing content.

For example, I presented in a session called “Accommodating creative needs in content management.” The key message was that when planning to implement a solution that will have a profound effect on the way an organization communicates—whether it’s a CMS or automated publishing system—success depends on understanding two phrases:  who is “in the tent” and who has put “skin the game.”

In the tent

Prior to beginning to evaluate new technology, the project manager needs to determine who to put on the project team. In other words, who should be in the tent? It sounds like common sense, but we still see too many examples in which one department acquires a system and then starts approaching other groups to gain their support. The required buy-in is often secured, but at the expense of precious time and energy that delays the implementation of the system. Or worse, the company discovers the system is missing critical functionality.

Putting skin in the game

Aside from not putting the right people in the tent before initiating the search for a new solution, another common problem is allowing an individual or a department to develop and implement the acquisition plan on their own. Not only does this approach mean that there’s no load balancing of the work, it also creates the impression that it’s “their plan” not “our plan.”

There are many reasons why people don’t get behind other people’s plan. Some are negative, like if the plan fails you can preserve the ability to say it’s not my fault. Some are benign, like you don’t understand it and can’t see why it should be a priority. Once it becomes “our plan,” however, we take partial ownership for its success. In other words, we’ve put skin in the game.

The approach is important when evaluating any major content management system, but so is remembering that content still ends up on paper. Frank Gilbane deserves a lot of credit for bringing Gene and Thad into the conference and making sure that paper stays in content’s tent.

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A lot has been written about the evolution of content management and the CMS market. This emerging but uneasy market has been around for a number of years now but is still very immature (see CMS market evolution and Content Management Trends – Growing upward, outward and onward…).

There are literally thousands of solutions. No hyperbole – thousands of solutions. They range from free to millions of dollars and most are horribly user unfriendly, complex and over-priced. As such, this nascent market relies on a lot of smoke and mirrors to sell their products as true success stories are rare and ephemeral.

Case in point: I was recently invited, as was our VP, Carm Porco, to an upcoming Ziff Davis seminar next week called Content Management for the Rest of Us. I was not able to attend but I sent the invite to our resident CMS expert Tom Marciniak.

Both Carm and Tom were confirmed to attend this event that featured ‘wine tasting’ (perhaps not smoke and mirrors but you get the point). Today Carm and Tom received notice that they were uninvited – there’s no room for them. Both however RSVP’d and had received confirmation of their attendance.

So, it is perhaps good news for Ziff Davis that their event is ‘oversold’ and they have to turn people away. It shows the degree of interest in the CMS market. However, to underscore the reality and my point about a very immature market relying more on ‘smoke and mirrors’, here’s a little perspective as to why someone like Ziff Davis should rollout the carpet for Carm and Tom at Prescient Digital Media. In the past year and a half Prescient has been involved with and recommended the implementation of 7 or 8 content management systems for our clients including Scotiabank, the Ontario Ministry of Health, BC Lottery Corporation, Atomic Energy of Canada, Ontario Realty Corporation and others. These are not insignificant companies – nor were the size of the contracts. On top of that, Carm and Tom both have written articles on the subject and spoken at conferences as well.

These guys are key influencers in this market. In short, they’re VIPs and absolutely ideal target audience for Ziff’s event. But they were uninvited. Needless to say this ‘un-invite’ from Ziff Davis does not look good on them or the sponsor Oracle. Worse yet, in addition to being known consultants that influence the CMS purchasing at some big name organizations we are also an organization of writers and our blogs receive on average 2,000 visitors a day – clients, prospective clients and other consultants with influence in the content management space.

Now if I was a vindictive sort I might look into the event to try and determine the exact sales pitch and make light of it. However, that’s not the point nor my desire. The point is this: the CMS market is incredibly immature and many solutions in fact represent a dangerous investment. For example, I’m talking with a client that spent $2.5 million on implementing a CMS and they’ve contemplated scrapping a little more than a year after going live). Buyer beware has never held so much urgency for businesses looking to buy a CMS.

Now I won’t rule out ever working with Oracle or Ziff Davis on behalf of a client, but you can be sure the mention of either won’t have me running to hire either.

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There’s nothing remarkable about the fact that I received The Simpsons opening sequence – with real people from four different people. Receiving the link from more than one person means I know more than one person who engages in one of the most common web-enabled applications: forwarding funny e-mails.

What is remarkable is how simple and inexpensive marketing on the Internet can be, provided one grasps how people use it and how much value they place on well crafted, humorous and original content.

A study by Sharpe Partners revealed that 89 % of adult Internet users in America share content with others via email. The study on viral marketing also found that 63 % of the respondents share content at least once a week and as many as 75% of the respondents forward this content to up to six other recipients.

In addition to capturing the frequency of content sharing, the study also showed that the most popular content is humorous material, with 88 % forwarding jokes or cartoons.

The Simpon’s video,a  viral marketing campaign by UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB, was viewed millions of times in less than a week, according to Reuters. Meticulously created by Sky and ad agency Devilfish, the video was intended as an on-air promotion until they had an insight about the viral power of the Internet.

“If we had only showed it on air, you might turn to someone and say that was really cool,” BSkyB communications director Matthew Anderson told Reuters. “Putting it online, there’s a fantastic discussion between millions of people—it’s bringing the Simpsons to them instead of having them tune in.”

We all have to monitor emerging trends and technology like social networks and increasingly powerful content management systems. But we can never lose sight of the importance of helping people engage in basic interactions. Like sharing a good joke.

If anyone doubts that content is king on the Internet, they have obviously been ignoring the rapid emergence of Consumer Generated Media (CGM). Whether a company has built its business model on content creation and dissemination, or selling deodorant, it must incorporate an understanding for CGM into its web strategy.

Not that getting it right is easy.

The New York Times reported that, after proclaiming grand plans to bring elaborately produced sitcoms, talk shows and other television-style programs to the Internet, the head of Yahoo’s Media Group, Lloyd Braun, is sharply scaling back those efforts. He said the group would shift its focus to content acquired from other media companies or submitted by users.

“I didn’t fully appreciate what success in this medium is really going to look like,” Braun a former Hollywood executive told the Times. “This is not about creating one-off hits like in my old business. That is not going to create a sustainable competitive advantage over the long term.”

His answer? CGM. “I now get excited about user-generated content the way I used to get excited about thinking about what television shows would work.”

In an article in CRM Magazine, Alexandra DeFelice provides a number of interesting case studies of major brands who are not only excited about CGM, they’re making it work.

For example, Kao, the manufacturer of Ban deodorant, created a contest asking, “What would you ban?” It generated roughly 50,000 website visitors, about 10 percent of whom entered ads they had created online. Nine semifinalists were selected and given promotional materials to try to get people to vote for their ads. Within two weeks, those nine individuals generated 150 percent more traffic than all the company’s advertising had in the previous few months.

“As consumers are inundated by ads, marketers will need to stand out by finding better ways to reach them. Simply put, companies must develop methods that are interesting and compelling to consumers,” writes DeFelice.

She also offers seven tips for fostering creativity:

1. Stay grounded, but consider alternatives. Alternate channels are a complement to other forms of marketing and rarely can be used as a standalone effort.

7. Think strategically. Don’t get caught up in cool ideas. Choose alternate channels that make sense based on your strategy.

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People read differently online compared to reading for print. But make no mistake about it, people read online – a lot. (No need to go and read about the Super Bowl – my Seahawks lost).

Some would argue however that people only want quick hits of information online. A general argument for this can be made. For example, people are far less likely to read a book online than in print. Who wouldn’t?

T.J. Larkin is a well-known professional communicator who recently wrote an article called Change the Communication Channel for Communication World magazine (the trade association magazine for the International Association for Business Communicators). In his article, Larkin makes the case that the Web is only good for “small pieces of data” such as:

• Finding the temperature for a welding operation
• Locating a mailing address
• Checking the accumulated value in a 401(k)

Hmmm, yes all of those are good bits to get using a browser and mouse. However, the web is more than “small pieces of data.”

Larkin rationalizes his argument stating…

• “Not everything belongs on the web.” – True
• “The Web… is best for short quick information retrieval.” – Partially true
• “Messages that are new, long and complicated belong on paper, not on web pages.” – Wrong

Ever read news online? Ever research a school assignment online? Ever read a financial prospectus or an analyst report online? Ever use the web to research a purchase and read a detailed specifications sheet? I’ll bet you’ve even read a product sheet and wish it had more information…

I don’t need to convince you with rhetoric of the illogicality of Larkin’s assertion (I’m sure he’s a fine person, but clearly his experience with the web is limited). Instead, here’s some recent statistics that speak for themselves:

• 53.6 million Americans read online newspapers per month - up 30% from last year (Newspaper Association of America)
• 35% of first-time car buyers said they consider the Internet to be their most important informational tool, compared to 8.2 % naming TV, 4.4% listing magazines, 3.6% citing newspapers and 1.1 % utilizing radio (Polk Center)
• The Internet is cited as the biggest influence on luxury purchasing (cited by 44% of affluent purchasers) (IAB)

Larkin attempts to bolster his argument by citing a study that suggests students have less retention studying online than studying from paper. Well, duh. Of course, they would have less retention with more distraction (e.g. links, colors, moving animation, etc.). I’ll bet they have a study that also shows that that those studying in front of the TV have less retention than ones with no TV on. Having said that, it doesn’t mean that TV is a poor medium for learning. Nor does the study mean that the web is only good for “small bits of data” – an extraordinary, exaggerated extrapolation.

People will read anything online if it fulfills a need – be it small pieces of data or feature stories or reports. However, users do want to be able to find information quickly. However, if it’s what they want they will be willing to stay and read (providing it fulfills a need).

A key difference between print versus the web is in the presentation of information. Users demand tighter, more succinct sentences and paragraphs, and cues that break-up the text (e.g. bullets, headers, callouts, etc.). So whereas ‘small’ clues and indicators or directors (e.g. labels, icons, links) are key to directing users to the desired information, users will stay and read more than just “small pieces” if it is in a web friendly format and relevant to their world.

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Writing For The Web

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I’m taking a two-day hiatus for the birth of our new baby! My wife is a scheduled c-section delivery at 9:40am PST. Keep your fingers crossed… I’ll post a baby update by the end of the day. Now let’s see if I can get any sleep tonight…

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media

New research reports that consumers are 50 percent more likely to be influenced by word-of-mouth recommendations from peers than by radio/TV ads. Growing confidence in consumer-generated-media (CGM) creates a strong impetus for marketers to influence this new media, and a recent survey from Bain & Company provides an excellent suggestion about how to start: keep your customers happy.

The “2005 Consumer-Generated Media (CGM) and Engagement Study” a new study of consumer behavior by Intelliseek Inc., contains interesting findings on the interaction between old and new media and the behaviour of Internet-savvy consumers:

·        “Active ad skippers” are 25 percent more likely to create and respond to Internet message boards, forums and blogs.

·        Word-of-mouth behavior among “familiars” trumps all forms of advertising and is more trusted than news or “expert commentary.”

·        Consumers are on track to post close to 2 billion comments on the Internet by the end of 2005.

While it’s critical for marketers to ramp up their knowledge of the blogosophere and develop strategies for managing their brand in this space, they can’t take ignore the source of the positive or negative comments that will be posted: the customer experience.

The Bain & Company survey indicates companies need to be more honest with themselves about their performance in this area. In a survey of 362 firms, the consulting company found that 80 percent believed they delivered a superior experience to their customers. But when they asked customers about their own perceptions, they found that they rated only 8 percent of companies as truly delivering a superior experience.

Bain went on to determine what criteria put the top performers into the elite eight percent, finding that they take a broad view of the customer experience and pursue three imperatives simultaneously:

1. They design the right offers and experiences for the right customers.
2. They deliver these propositions by focusing the entire company on them with an emphasis on cross-functional collaboration.
3. They develop their capabilities to please customers again and again—by such means as revamping the planning process, training people in how to create new customer propositions, and establishing direct accountability for the customer experience.

A new report from Nielsen/NetRatings adds to the quantifiable impact of blogging, in this case the ancilliary benefits generated by blogs. The organization reports that traffic to image hosting Web sites has skyrocketed due to the massive rise in blogging activity this year.

• As a category, image hosting sites have grown 406 percent to more than 14.7 million unique users since January 2005, accounting for nearly 10 percent of active U.S. Internet users.
• In July 2005, 20 percent of active Web users, or 29.3 million people, accessed blogging or blog-related Web sites, growing 31 percent since the beginning of the year.

While no business people (especially ones who derive revenue from digital images) would ignore these stats, they might question the applicability to business strategy when they learn that female teens between the ages of 12 to 17 years indexed the highest out of the age groups broken down by gender.

There’s an easy explanation for this demographic trend—social circles have moved on-line, web journals provide a great means for getting to know someone and teenage girls like to meet people—but companies that look beyond those demographic fine points will see the inherent power of the Internet as a social media and refine their Internet strategy appropriately.

The same social impulse that draws teenage girls to blogs sparks the mass collaboration that is capturing business interest and rewarding companies that learn to harness its power.

In a comprehensive article on the topic, Business Week, provides a number of statistics on how on-line collaboration impacts various industries, including:

• Telecom: More than 41 million people use Skype software to share processing power and bandwidth, allowing them to call each other for free over the Internet. Partly as a result, combined 2005 revenues of AT&T and MCI are expected to fall by $7.4 billion, or 15%.
• Media: Reversing the traditional broadcast model, more than 53 million Americans have contributed material to the Net, such as product reviews and blog postings. At least 10 million blogs, some drawing more visitors than mainstream news sites, are now read by 32 million Americans.
• Advertising: Search engine Google instantly polls millions of people and businesses whose Web sites link to each other, producing an entirely new ad venue that grossed $3.2 billion last year, up 118%. That compares with an 8% increase in TV ad spending and 5% in newspapers and magazines.

Mass collaboration challenges numerous business principles, notably the command-and-control structure instituted by most corporations. Not surprisingly, then, the early winners have been upstarts rather than established businesses.

Nonetheless, companies like Hewlett-Packard and Proctor & Gamble have tapped into the power of mass collaboration, learned to manage the social impulses of their customers and employees and generated solid business results through their efforts.

It’s a trend that all organizations will need to watch. Just like  teenage girls are discovering that image-intensive web journals are a great way to meet people, organizations that harness the power of mass collaboration are becoming very popular in their own social scene.

With all the talk about usability, technology and killer applications there is still one thing that stands above all others: content. Content is still king.

“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting,” said Bill Gates in his infamous 1996 article, Content is King – nine years ago.

In reality, most of the money is still being made on transactions. But content is delivering the transactions. The Wall Street Journal Online sells the content directly. Giants such as Google and Yahoo! sell targeted advertising based on content. Amazon sells goods but uses content to drive those goods.

But we’re not all in agreement here...

“Content has never been king, it is not king now, and is unlikely to ever be king,” wrote Andrew Odlyzko, Head of the Mathematics and Cryptography Research Departments at AT&T Labs, in his article Content is Not King. Odlyzko argues that a massive portion of the traffic and transactions on the Internet is still represented by e-mail, corporate intranets and other non-content related transactions including instant messaging and electronic data interchange (EDI).

“The Internet has done quite well without content, and can continue to flourish without it. Content will have a place on the Internet, possibly a substantial place. However, its place will likely be subordinate to that of business and personal communication.”

And yet companies continue to invest huge sums into content on their respective websites. Yahoo! is a prefect case in point. Yahoo! is investing in news. The portal has hired a roving war correspondent, CNN and NBC veteran journalist Kevin Sites. Sites will spend the next year traveling to 36 war zones around the world, reporting on those ‘hot spots’ and what is transpiring.

Why is a portal company that earns billions on aggregating other organization’s original content now starting to invest in original content? Because content pays. Users want to read it; advertisers want to pay to reach those users.

Outside the free content that advertisers support, consumers are also paying directly for content. In 2002 consumers paid more than $1 billion on pure content and the expenditure is growing at a huge clip. Total consumer e-commerce purchases on the Internet this year are expected to surpass $13 billion. And of those that aren’t purchasing online, many are using the Internet to research their purchase.

A Unity Marketing survey of affluent consumers found that the Internet is the media that has the most influence on luxury purchasing. The Internet was cited by 44% of luxury consumers as very or somewhat important in influencing their purchasing. Articles and reviews are second, with 42% reporting being influenced by editorial matter. Traditional advertising is well behind: newspaper ads (31%); television programs and commercials (28%); and magazine advertising (24%).

Internet authors and pundits will continue to dominate popular discourse with talk of usability, technology and applications – all of which are less important to consumers and are merely princes to King Content.