tags: facebook, olympics, techcrunch

We are boycotting this Olympics, right? Web 2.0 tie-ins for the Games are *so* not cool.

TechCrunch UK » Blog Archive » Brits go online while watching TV. Duh.

tags: media, socialnetworking, tv

The research showed that nearly 70 percent of online British adults who watch television go online while doing so, with 21 percent of 16-24 year olds always using the Internet while watching TV.

tags: no_tag

I was totally taken by surprise by this one.

(A little further research has revealed that it was created by WCRS, and that there is some controversy over the originality of the idea. What a shame.)

tags: research, social media, whitepaper

for all that extra reading time I’ll have…

Submit A Business Plan  Annotated

tags: business, business model, funding, vc

So saith Sequoia: “Start-ups with these characteristics often foretells the success of a business and the likelihood of it becoming a sustainable, enduring company.”

Eudora Releases - MozillaWiki  Annotated

tags: eudora, penelope, thunderbird

If I’m ever able to ditch exchange server, this sounds a very plausible alternative: “Eudora 8 is an email client that combines Mozilla’s Thunderbird with code, features, and GUI elements from Qualcomm’s Eudora.”

It’s a sort of wiki - but wait, come back! There’s a few interesting differences from the sort of wiki software you might be used to:

(a) the whole thing is contained in a single HTML file - the javascript, the CSS, the data you’ve added.

(b) so you can download it and use it on your laptop or travel with it on a USB key. If you like you can sync that with an online version.

(c) you can use it on any browser - even the iPhone.

(d) it’s written to encourage short posts - Tiddlers - rather than the massive empty spaces found in the MediaWiki software and others.

Apparently, there’s some way to use it as a blog platform, but I’m still working that bit out…

I am working on a contribution to a white paper being prepared by Hotwire PR via Drew Benvie - my particular chapter is ‘Who Uses (online) Social Networks, and How?’

I have a feeling that my first stab at the answer - ‘lots of people in all sorts of ways’ - won’t stretch to 1000 words, so any contributions, quotes, introductions to eminent scholars and links are very welcome. By next Tuesday. I’m also considering its economic importance to UK, plc.

I suspect that my original answer is probably right, considering there are networks for old people, babies, dogs, zombies and pretty much everyone in between. However, some uses are likely to be more common than others. For the purposes of this article, I’ll define online social networks as web sites that allow users to create personal (and often personalised) profiles on their own pages within the site and also to communicate with and befriend other members, thus articulating and visualising their social networks.

Economic importance is tricky, too. Most stories from official sources are along the lines of “£10bn a day lost productivity due to Facebook”. On the other hand, how much money has been saved on things like research time, recruitment fees, knowledge-sharing, advertising and general strengthening of loose ties which one day lead to money changing hands?

Anyway, over to you. You can reply via email, if it’s a secret.

But don’t search for ‘ie8′ with Google, because you’ll get this:

One half of the screen is a search for news about ie8. The next suggests that I was probably searching for IE7. None of the remaining four links, as I scroll down, are any use.

I buy into the idea of integrated search, that results from news, maps etc. be incorporated into your search. But, in this case, half the screen is devoted to trying to persuade me to search for a different product entirely.  Pah! - Page and Brin, your time is up. (Not that I tried any other search engine for this result - we all know they’re rubbish,eh?)

(Here are the links you really need.)

NMK has employed the services of Elizabeth Varley as a new events consultant. She will be producing around four new events and a similar number of courses for us over the next year.

Elizabeth has been working in new media for a number of years and has great links with a number of key organisations in the web 2.0 revolution as well as web 1.0 diehards (viz. the ones that made money). She’s also a kick-ass writer and thinker on this stuff.

I’m really thrilled to be working with Elizabeth. The key thing, for me, in a role like this, is that you’re able to spark off each others’ ideas but at the same time complement each other’s skills. She’s clever, well-organised, focused and determined… So that should work out fine.

Join the NMK Facebook group here.

Right now, VRM (vendor relationship management) is an idea. It’s predicated on the perception that the relationships between people and brands/companies are terrible. They shout at us with their megaphones and we often do our best to ignore them. Most of the time, the only thing either side ever talks about is the exchange of money - “how much does it cost?” Compared to a real market, a street market, that’s an extremely impoverished relationship.

Up till now, it’s been business that has come up with ’solutions’ to marketing problems. But there are some problems that can and ought to be solved from the individual perspective, the demand side, Searls maintains.

One of the latest solutions to the problem of marketing without wasting loads of money is CRM. Companies collect loads of data about their customers and potential customers and then target their marketing efforts at segments of those groups. CRM is ‘lame and bad’, though, because it isn’t about relationships at all, but about media planning. And it can go wrong badly, Searls recounted that his Satellite TV company simply lost his account details when he last moved house - he lost the extras and perks he’d gained from being a long-standing customer.

Searls also cited the example of National Public Radio in the US, a service akin to the BBC, but dependent on voluntary contributions rather than a licence fee. So how do they get people to make contributions? Every so often they say they are going to have to close down because they haven’t got enough money. So people send in money. Then, for the rest of their lives, they get spammed by the organisation, asking for more. This is ineffective and intrusive. There’s no mechanism for listeners to act the way they want to naturally. They can’t donate money to a particular show they enjoy, for example.

There are efforts to cut out advertising and create more direct relationships. The online sale of Radiohead’s In Rainbows, for example. The trouble is that these come from the supplier side, so we potentially end up with a million different ways of dealing with organisations we want to buy things from. If the nature and technology for managing those relationships came from the customer side, then it could be uniform and cut out a lot of the inefficiencies in the system.

Searls views the VRM project as unfinished business from the Cluetrain Manifesto. The central insight there, ‘markets are conversations’, has struck many people as true and right, but the technological implementation and management of that remains frustratingly tricky.

So how does VRM work?

That remains something of a conundrum. The best bet - as far as I could make out - is that it integrates with blogs or is similar to blogging. Individuals record their preferences and the personal data that you normally need to use an ecommerce site - on their own sites (or maybe they use a third-party service or a facebook app or whatever).

Those preferences are objects on your site - I think they are probably recorded as microformats - little snippets of machine-readable code that you can post online. There are already formats like hCard that can act as an online business card. Carrying that over to record things like product details or preferences wouldn’t be terribly difficult from a technical perspective, as I understand it. So there might be a microformat that records your preference for airline seats, for example - extra legroom, window seat, not by the wing, say. You’d have that little code snippet at a unique URL and you could decide whether to allow universal access or access only for companies that you’ve decided to have a relationship with. If a company annoys you, you could cut off their access at the press of a button.

So you have got all these details and preferences recorded in your online strongbox. Then - if you want - you let Amazon or Waitrose or whoever have access to the parts of that that you chose. The consequences might be that (a) you never have to fill in online forms again; (b) companies get to submit tenders for whatever it is that you want. I need to buy a new laptop - these are my preferences - I’m letting that information out to vendors. What have you got? (c) companies have access to rich data about what their customers actually want from them.

Objections

(a) this all sounds a bit geeky - it will never catch on

Yes it is, so are blogs. And blogs have forced companies as big as Dell to completely change the way they interact with their customers. If we just do it, and it becomes a phenomenon, companies will be forced to listen. Eventually, it will become productised, the same way MySpace productised blogging.

(b) I don’t want a relationship with the people I buy things from

Doc said, “Sometimes, I don’t want a deep relationship, I just want a cup of coffee”. And that’s fine. VRM-style approaches won’t replace all other marketing by every company. However, most people spend most money on big, considered purchases like houses and cars. Our ability to properly judge those purchases will be enhanced by a VRM approach. Large B2B purchases also account for a lot of money. Regular, smaller purchases from companies like supermarkets and bookshops will also be enhanced.

(c) Hang on, I work for an advertising agency/publisher/PR Company.

Yeah. You’re screwed.

Well, not entirely. That’s not going to happen overnight and not going to happen to the whole of the marketplace. Think of VRM as having the same impact as blogging activity now and the way that will grow. We’re at the equivalent of 1999 when it comes to VRM.

(d) Where’s the money?

Good question and it’s not something we know right now. There’s a potential whole new industry called ‘needs management services’; there’s the potential for individuals being paid for access to their data; there’s the possibility to create large, targeted focus groups on the fly similar to YouGov. Basically, that 50% of the advertising budget that doesn’t work is up for grabs because VRM systems guarantee interested, relevant relationships. However, the thing now is to create the phenomenon. From the human being perspective, this better than what we have now. You will have a better life if you embrace VRM.

How to learn more?

I’m glad you asked. NMK is running a panel discussion about VRM on the evening of March 18. Do please come along. Top speakers, cheap ticket, free beers, exciting subject. What’s not to like?

[The picture came via fffffound from here and shows how VRM might work in practise. ]