Tracking the World Wide Buzz

Marketing, media and consumer behaviour redefined

Standard Bank recently had a few marketing and banking tongues wagging after forking out millions to change their well known and fairly acceptable ’simpler. better. faster.’ pay-off line to the abstract, Triple-B: ‘inspired. motivated. involved.’

Sentiments echoed across the blogosphere were all somewhat scathing, which illustrates the power of blogging and the fact that consumers have found their voice and are not shy to use it. (A good example of what was and is being said can be found on the popular community blog about all things cherry – Cherryflava). One wonders what results Standard Bank would have enjoyed had they pocketed their marketing budget and instead implemented a direct mail campaign asking clients for recommendations on the new slogan. They could even have thrown in a sparkling new iPod as a prize for the best submission. Let’s face it, for the most part 50,000 heads can only be better than 50.

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My blog is my sword

My brother phoned me the other day. I was on leave with my family but what he had to say just couldn’t wait. In a rushed and high-pitched tone he told me he just ‘did’ his first blog. I’ve not seen that kind of excitement around a blog since… well ever. And the reason it’d been such a moment for him, wasn’t because of great writting, or interesting citizen-media. It was because he’d been phoned that afternoon to let him know he’d won a truck load of money. All he had to do, was drive 30 minutes out of town to go and pick up his prize. Clearly the common-sense part of his mind was completely over-ridden by his need to win a truck-load of cash, because he almost went.

What stopped him was Google.
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SA Blog Awards

Whoah, what a night. This was certainly (and hopefully) the fringe of blogging. Even as wierd as Mike is, he didn’t even look like he fully fitted in with the ‘interesting’ human beings in the room.

Winner of best new blog, went to ‘peas on toast’, Mushy Peas on Toast. Interesting story that goes with this blog. You’ll have to do some work on your own to dig it up, but well worth it.

Our best shot was in the category ‘group blog’ and we lost out to a blog called Chump Style They’re well known for their ‘boobs of the week’. And they won three awards for the evening. Maybe says plenty about the aparent fringe of blogging? Mike thinks not, but that’s because ‘boobs of the week’ is his home page : )

Best lifestyle blog went to ’splattermail’ Splattermail These guys looked fairly normal and human. Maybe why they get to win that kind of award.

If you want to see all the winners and runners up and links to their site go to SA Blog Awards

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The bottom line on blogging

I’ve stumbled across an excellent article at KansasCity.com entitled The Bottom Line on Blogging which takes a look at some of the emerging stories from blogging and bloggers in the corporate world.

Our very own, extremely successful Stormhoek Winery blog gts a significant mention!

A snippet from the article:

“But blog watchers — and yes, there are blogs that track business bloggers — say 23 of the Fortune 500 companies now have formal blogs. The practice has been institutionalized at companies such as Microsoft and IBM.

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1000 entries!!!

Earlier today, the 1000th entry was posted on this blog. Aiden Choles, a regular contributor and member of the TomorrowToday team, was the one who did it.

A big thanks to all the contributors up to now. This blog is truly something to be proud of.

Thoughts on corporate blogging

A few interesting articles around the increasingly accepted practice of corporate blogging (whether as marketing devices or internal communications tools) are finding their way into conversations on the Web at the moment. The first, one CNN Money’s site (but originally a Fortune editorial, I think) is entitled Do’s and don’ts of corporate blogging.The article reasons that some of the intitial hesitation shown by many corporates around blogging, in any capacity, has roots in what we were taught about communication back in ‘varsity:

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For the people, by the people?

Johnnic Communications have launched a new ‘citizen media’ site called reporter.co.za.

The website is inviting people to become active participants in broadening the scope of news by reporting on issues that affect their lives. reporter.co.za will be completely free-flowing and the public will decide what news they want to report on, putting the editors firmly in the back seat.

They’re suggesting that,

A new era of innovation in South African media has dawned.

Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t? Certainly it’s clever, and they’re using the interest in blogging to create a space for people to write. I don’t know what I make of it yet. We’ve seen people write of what happens when corporates get their hands on blogging. Well this is one example. I’m going to visit here a while longer to try and work out how I feel, and what exactly they’re doing.

Be interested in your thoughts as I play….

Blog Communicating

For the last couple of weeks I have been milling with a question in my mind.

Are there rules for blogging?

People that are being communicated to, how do they receive information?

Sometimes in life all you need is half a sentence, other times a couple of hours to get the message across and then there are times the audience just does not understand/grasp what is being conveyed to them.
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Has Google sold its soul?

So has Google’s purchase of AOL for $1Billion brought it it into the fully capitalist fold, thereby undermining its “Do No Evil” motto? Matt Asay would have us believe so in this post at InfoWorld’s blog.

December 17, 2005
Google sells its soul for a mess of pottage

So, Google got the Time Warner deal. For what? $1B and its soul, according to the New York Times:
Google, which prides itself on the purity of its search results, agreed to give favored placement to content from AOL throughout its site, something it has never done before.
The lesson? Never, ever trust a capitalist who pretends to be otherwise. “Do no evil” was a catchy slogan for Google, but one that it was willing to sell for a few bucks.
For all those who thought Google was somehow different, I’m sorry. I can hear your idealism dying from here. For those who knew better, there’s not much to cheer about in this, is there? Google has just opened the floodgates to a very profitable, “happy to do evil” business.

Follow this link for some great comments & conversation InfoWorld Blog

Outside of effective media strategies where else do monopolies hurt

South Africa is home to only one fixed-line-operator. It’s name is Telkom and it’s enjoyed this status for long enough to have generated a fair amount of frustrated customers.

Screw the public! Do we care? NO! Why? Look how much money we’re making!

As from today, I’ll add: and for being a “corporate bully” to the list.

Do not sign a contract for an ADSL line

There has been a strong campaign to alert the public of people’s frustrations. But are there other areas that can send the same message?

One of the issues people have when you talk to them is that there’s nowhere else to go. You can’t change to a competitor because there isn’t one. Here’s an interesting way to let Telkom know how you feel outside of attempts to create bad publicity through citizen and traditional media, change your accounts with companies that Telkom has business interests in.

For example, one of Telkom’s big investments is in Vodacom, one of three cellphone operators in South Africa. If all the frustrated Vodacom account holders moved their accounts to Cell C or MTN, a strong message would be sent via Vodacom to Telkom to get their house in order. I’ve never seen a campaign like this, but I’m fairly certain that if it were to happen, the financial pain would be a powerful strategy.

“Podcast” declared ‘word of the year’

This could be seen as another post giving you amunition for why you need an iPod for Christmas, or it could be an illustration of just how important social software has become.

The New Oxford American Dictionary has declared ‘podcast’ as word of the year, and will add it to it’s online version in it’s next update early next year.

“Podcast was considered for inclusion last year, but we found that not enough people were using it, or were even familiar with the concept,” said Erin McKean, editor-in-chief of the New Oxford American Dictionary.

“This year it’s a completely different story. The word has finally caught up with the rest of the iPod phenomenon.”

Click here for the story on BBC News. Or check out the Oxford University Press blog for words that didn’t make it.

An interview with Jackie Huba

I recently got in touch with Jackie Huba of the Church of the Customer blog following a comment I made on the blog about her already infamous Apple Vlog. Jackie is an influential business speaker, trainer and writer. She recently co-wrote Creating Customer Evangelists (buy at Amazon.com) with Ben McConnell and received rave reviews from both the New York Times and Harvard Business School. Together, they pen regular columns for MarketingProfs.com and speak frequently at industry, association and company conferences. They also facilitate the creation of customer evangelism plans inside organizations.

In the course of our conversation I asked if she’d be willing to grant a short interview on her subject of expertise. She graciously accepted, and you can read it here:

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Blogging seminar

Today, TomorrowToday.biz hosted a blogging seminar. To be honest, it went further than blogs to social software.

Newbie (to TmTd and presenting), Mike Stopforth did a great job. So did the old lads, Barrie and Graeme (if I say so myself). “And a fun time was had by all”. Some of the legends of SA blogging were there, too.

Check out the real time blog we created during the seminar: http://bloggingseminar2005.blogspot.com/

How tags drive traffic to your blog

Tagging is the practice of collaborative categorization using freely chosen keywords (Wikipedia). Tags are descriptors that individuals assign to Web “objects”. Think of a tag as a simple category name. People can categorize their posts, photos, and links with any tag that makes sense to them. These tags get collected in one space, with their assigned objects (posts, bookmarks, photo’s), and can be searched, shared and resourced.

Bloggers use tags to categorise their posts using tools like Fintan’s Technorati Tag Generator, which automatically generates the necessary HTML code for tags that are listed on Technorati’s tag page (Technorati is a blog search engine). You’ll need to follow the instructions on Technorati to get an account, claim your blog and insert code into your template in order to facilitate the transfer of information between you and the search engine. It is a lot easier than it sounds… Other Web users searching via Technorati’s tag facility for all blog posts on leadership, for example, will automatically pick up on your post or posts categorised with ‘leadership’.

Flickr is an web-based photo-sharing application that allows you to upload your personal pics, or any pic you find online, for free, and assign tags to them for easy reference and sharing.

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From ink to audio

Yesterday on the 26th day of the 10th month of the year after last, TomorrowToday.biz went audio in the form of a Pod Cast channel. We’ve jumped in on Odeo and as of a little while ago we had 3 shows ready for you to listen to or download.

If you use iTunes to listen on your PC or to update your iPod then you can add Odeo as a channel in the ‘Pod Cast’ section of your iTunes.

To do that all you do is….
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How are you losing out?

A post with the title, Mind the Conversation Gap at Steve Rubel’s Micro Persuasion caught my eye today, not only because TomorrowToday.biz uses a framework with a similar title (see Mind the Gap), but because in the post he has supplied solid emperical backing to the school of thought that encourages companies to think long and hard about possible opportunities to connect with customers and stakeholders via blogs on the Web.

To generate the data, one needs to employ the services of blog trend tools (like IceRocket’s Blog Trend Tools), and the process can be a little cumbersome, but the results are staggering.

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Using the internet to get sassy with the Y generation

A report in Biz Community (1 Oct 2005), looks at targeting the Millennial Generation with websites. The report starts, “Internet AdSales reveals that the internet could seriously affect your bottom line when marketing to the youth of today.

They’re mobile, trendy, streetwise, technologically; brand and lifestyle savvy, have plenty of disposable income. They are highly developed, active key influencers, trendsetters and are using the internet on a daily basis.

Generation Y – renowned as the first internet generation; into multitasking and consuming media simultaneously – whether it’s blogging, chatting, shopping, dating, researching, downloading…

Previously ignored, as it was a challenge for marketers to keep up with this fast changing generation but not for much longer!”

Read more here.

Blogging in the media

I’m sitting with the crew from SABC’s Business focus, doing a spot on corporate blogging.

Feel free to interact as part of the shoot!

What is Squidoo?

Seth Godin is undoubtedly one of the gurus of online marketing. His ideas never seem to age and he seems to often be one step ahead of the rest. In his latest move, he has set up a service called squidoo. In his words, this is what it is about:

“For a long time, the web has been about more. More links, more traffic, more hits, more choices. In the face of all that more, many sites (and most surfers) are not getting what they want. This free ebook, from bestselling author and Squidoo.com founder Seth Godin, proposes a different way of achieving your goals: less.�

The ebook outlines a technique that will increase PageRank, user satisfaction, clickthrough and the spread of your ideas, whatever those ideas are. It doesn’t matter if you use Squidoo or not… the idea of a lens makes sense whether you post it yourself or let us host it for you. And hey, it’s free. Once again, a great free offer from Godin, download his book here: http://www.squidoo.com/stuff/books/EveryoneIsAnExpert.pdf

Visit the Squidoo site here: http://www.squidoo.com/blog/

Amazing how the web changes, you gotta love it!

No money in blogging?

Maybe not in Africa, but Reuter’s reports that Weblogs Inc., Jason Calacanis’ blog network, has been purchased by AOL. The sale marks the first major deal signed between a blog network and a mainstream media corporation.

The pricetag? USD25 million. Not bad going.

But why would AOL take interest in a blog network? Well, let’s take a closer look at Weblogs Inc. Jason Calcanis has networked more than 80 blogs in categories ranging from business and tech, to wellness, gaming, and more. The network caters for:

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Writeboard….collaborative documents

In a similar vein to Jotspot, another collaborative tool is writeboard. The difference is that it seems that writeboard has quite a bit more functionality and it is completely free, no matter how many “boards” you put up. Also, it has some pretty good organising functions, so take a look around. The company that has developed this is called 37 signals and they have developed a few other collboration tools such as:

Basecamp – web based project management tool
Backpack – personal and small business information organiser
TaDa list – web based to do list

Looks pretty good, take a look at : http://www.writeboard.com and http://www.37signals.com.

Graeme’s on 702

So Graeme is live on 702 and seems to be doing a pretty good job. Looking forward to hearing the callers.

Blogging on the up and up

Techweb news – Blogs are being read more than double from last year. According to Forrester research, 10% of consumers in the States read blogs once a week or more, that up from 5% who browsed blogs the previous year. RSS has tripled in the same period up to 6% this year. Watch this space, it seems more of you will be in future.

So what does this mean to businesses. Well in short, it seems blogs are starting to be positioned as a very real way to talk to customers and get insights into their thoughts and concerns. It also provides a great feedback mechanism for companies in real time, in short, a marketers dream or in some cases a nightmare, depending on the type of feedback you are getting. It seems blogs are picking up some momentum, so what are the views, should our big corporates in SA get started on blogs, and who will be the first to get them going, Herman Singh of Std bank has one, who will be next…I think we all need to remember that it is not a race, but a journey, blogging though is simply one of the routes..

An update from TomorrowConnecting.biz

?ic@TomorrowConnecting.biz is a blog dedicated to understanding HyperNetworking Technologies (blogs, wikis, RSS, etc.) and their impact on society and business.

This week we’ll be running a Blogging 101 series – specifically designed to unpack (in plain English) what blogs are, how they work and why they are worth taking note of. Refer a friend, email a colleague, invite a family member. It will be a worthwhile exercise!

Piracy, the Digital Divide, & Improving Our ‘Lot’

Can the current licensing structures around software, etc actually make it impossible to improve your lot in life without risking HUGE fines? The following is an extract from a post on The GripeLine by Ed Foster.

“A few decades ago, a man could still ‘pull himself up by his bootstraps’ — meaning all it took was some hard work and determination to improve your lot in life. If you already had money and means, you could easily afford the tools and education that it required to move from one station in life to another. If you didn’t have the tools or the education, you could legally obtain them by borrowing them from a neighbor. Even the government was more than willing to give you a hand-up in doing what needed done.

Today it is not necessarily the case, especially in a digital world.
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The Future Bank Blog gets it

I think BlogMaps – where blogs meet maps – are fantastic tools (thanks to FeedMap.net for the free service). Using BlogMap you can geo-code your blog using ordinary geographical coordinates, browse already geo-coded blogs and search for blogs. It is a great way to watch your local blog community growing, and to pick up on some like-minded local thinkers!

One of the finest “Neighblogs” I’ve discovered through my BlogMap is The Future Bank Blog – the brainchild of Herman Singh and Dave Glass.

The former recently posted an outstanding article highlighting his concerns about the future we are building for our children, in the light of the phenomenal advances we are witnessing in technology, connectivity and automation.

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Microsoft, Mini-Microsoft and the Talent Exodus

The mileage our monolithic proprietary friend has gained out of its new human persona, attributable to the 2,000 or so registered Microsoft employee blogs, not to mention the now-famous Robert Scoble (of Scobleizer), is suddenly being tainted by a self-proclaimed Microsoft Deep Throat.

“Who da Punk”, as he refers to himself on his Blogger-hosted Mini-Microsoft site (ha ha – Blogger being Google’s free blog hosting service and all) is an anonymous Microsoft employee who “pretty much ‘tells all’ about too many meetings, sagging morale, the slow schedule of new releases, etc. (He) also mocks CEO Steve Ballmer’s relentlessly upbeat, non-answers to BW.” (See the recent BusinessWeek Ballmer interview).

Debbie Weil comments, “Interestingly, the anonymous blogger insists that he loves his juggernaut employer and only wants to make it a “lean, mean, efficient customer pleasing profit making machine.” But then Mini (he admits he’s a man; that’s the only identifying detail we get) agrees to meet with a BW reporter at a Starbucks in Seattle.”

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SAA flight crew don’t give a damn

My friends over at Jo’blog have posted an entry showing how customer-oriented SAA are, despite their recent bad press (see Graeme’s previous entry).

When are SAA going to learn that consumer-generated media holds weight? When are they going to start responding? Or are they simply too big to bother?

Companies simply cannot afford to sit back and ignore citizen journalism anymore. Rich…! shows us how a digital camera (or camera phone), a quick blog entry and a few links can turn into a PR nightmare.

Do you know who’s talking about your company?

MBA blogging community

BusinessWeek Online, who brought us Blogspotting and other fantastic business blogging resources, have added a new string to their blow.

The MBA blogging community (still in beta version) allows users (MBA students, alum or recruiters) to start their own blogs under the BusinessWeek umbrella, and according to the site users will be able to share their ‘journey’, exchange ideas, build a network, post photo’s, rate fellow bloggers in the network, and much more.

From the links and previews on the site it looks to be pretty popular already.

Where do you get your news from?

I find it fascinating that more and more people are getting their news from “spoof” news shows. The Late Night Shows (Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno, etc), have always provided light relief, with a few well placed jokes about current affairs up front. But now, with the proliferation of blogs, as well as the mainstreaming of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” (Global Edition) on CNN (a comedy central production), spoof news is big news.

Also check out one of the hottest vlogs online at the moment: Rocketboom (see story from BusinessWeek below). Its a three minute a day mock news show, using an actress, Amanda Congdon to host the show. The filming takes about 90 minutes every day. They’re trying to build a faithful audience so that soon they can start charging a small subscription fee, and also introduce advertising. Nice idea, and they’ve got my vote! PS – because its a vlog, you can actually post your own comments on the show, submit your own footage, and interact with it.
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