LouisJvR’s writings on web

Right, with the launch of Buzz a month ago, I just had to revisit my prediction in December last year and again affirm that by 2013 GMAIL will rival Facebook as the biggest social network online:

My original post: Can I be so bold as to make a prediction around Gmail and Social Networking?

An excerpt…

“Considering established user profiles and user information, status updates, avatars and instant messaging, all Gmail (read: Google) needs to do still is organize user profiles to better indicate relationships between profiles and consequently facilitate sharing of experiences/content between profiles.”

Yes, Buzz is still very much broken. Currently lots, and lots, of noise. A bit uncomfortable. Almost like a 1^st date.

(In fact, Techcrunch (here) said it best: "Buzz Is A Broken Instrument Capable Of Beautiful Music")

However, you have to admit – the signs are there. The foundations are being laid. The organising and inter-connectedness of Gmail profiles are starting to take shape… now it just needs to happen a bit more elegantly*.

I’m waiting with bated breath.

*At Davos in 2007, Mark Zuckerberg told a room full of high profiled delegates that the key to Facebook’s success wasn’t about creating communities, but rather taking existing communities and apply “elegant organization”.

> LouisJvR's writings on web: www.louisjvr.com | Email: jvrlouis [at] gmail dot com | Twitter: @louis_jvr

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Indeed this is one of my favourite topics – free content vs. paid for content?

Needless to say this is a very intriguing debate and not at all an easy decision to make for content publishers.

Enter The Economist with this article on The year of the paywall* – an excerpt:

In the coming months Rupert Murdoch, News Corp’s boss, is expected to make good on his promise to introduce paywalls on the websites of the bigger publications in his stable, such as the Times of London and the Sun. Last month Axel Springer, a large German publisher, began charging for some of its newspapers. Variety, a trade publication for Hollywood, has begun demanding money. The New York Times is pondering a similar move. Even the Guardian, a British newspaper that has long been an evangelist for free news online, has launched a paid-for iPhone application (though accessing stories is free once the app has been downloaded). The Economist recently introduced a paywall for the print-edition contents list on its website.

Content publishers (read: media owners) are on the threshold of getting to grips with profiting from digital whilst balancing reader expectations.

I do believe this is an exciting time to be involved in the content business. Scary yes, but exciting nonetheless.

*Paywall is defined as: A feature of a website that only allows access to certain pages or data to paid up subscribers OR… as www.urbandictionary.com puts it: “The techy part of a web system that makes you pay dosh to get to the goodies...”

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Some weeks ago I asked the question why content publishers are afraid to charge for content and why aren’t they investing more time and money in exploring ways of making it easier for people to spend money online – particularly making it easy to buy content?

Enter this post by Sean Silverthorne, editor of Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, where Sean indicates that the Era of Free Content is Coming to a Close – let me share snippets of his analysis with you:

Comcast have now decided, after much experimenting with sites such as Hulu and content subscription models that you, my friends, will pay for most of the content they create. It won’t be fee or free. It will be fee, with some free.

The New York Times is considering tiered pricing for “gold” and “silver” packages, which would supplement basic news coverage with behind-the-scenes interviews, product discounts and even previews of upcoming news stories.  Expect other national and perhaps even regional papers to follow suit if the Times finds success.

Hulu CEO Jason Kilar hinted to the NYT recently that his site, which streams television programming with some ads for free to viewers, is likely to experiment with a subscription channel. “We never aspired to be Hulu.org,” Kilar told the New York Times, referring to the popular domain used by nonprofits. Note that as part of its deal for NBC, Comcast will also acquire a third of Hulu, partnering with Fox and ABC.

Comcast, Viacom and other operators are at work developing “authentication systems” that will allow their subscribers, after being verified, to access streams of their popular shows. This is essentially a move to pressure TV networks and Internet channels from putting cable-developed content over the air or on the Internet for free.

Sean refers to results from a recent survey:

According to a nine-country survey of 5,000 people by the Boston Consulting Group, U.S. consumers would pay $3 per month while Italians would pony up $7.

I ask you once more content publishers – why the bottleneck?

Love your work Sean!

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When I get asked this question by prospective or current clients, I often get this big question mark stare when trying to explain the value to them.

My approach is often, first explaining to them what Twitter does (i.e. the whole ‘140 character’ speech) and then secondly explaining how our agency, World Wide Creative, is using it as a tool (successfully I might add) to promote, recruit and share (i.e. the ‘real world case study’ approach).

Still, the penny doesn’t drop immediately.

When all else fails, I provide them with a 2-week trail guarantee: “Try it for 2 weeks, take’t for a test run, follow some people, reply to others, share some of your content, share others’ content. Just experience it. The value will come.”

Again, scepticism towards the hype can be felt. Justifiably so.

It’s like Guy Kawasaki says: “Often it’s like explaining something you find funny: You had to be there.”

So, Guy points out some tips in demo’ing Twitter to other people – highlighting it’s business value:

1. Sales and support. Truly, Twitter is no longer predominantly about people telling strangers that their cat rolled over or that the line at Starbucks is long. You can start off by showing how businesses use Twitter. For example, AmazonDeals increases Amazon’s revenue, and ComcastCares provides support to Comcast customers. Zappos promotes the caring brand image of the company because its CEO, Tony Hiesh, is doing the tweeting.
2. Competitive intelligence. Another business use of Twitter is monitoring what people are saying about a company or its product via Twitters’ search. You can also monitor what people are saying about the competition—for example, if you work for AT&T Wireless, you should watch what people are saying about Verizon, again, via search.

Finally, Guy says: “If all else fails, then just give them some time. This is year three of Twitter. In a sense, it’s like the Internet was fifteen years ago. Remember when people said, “Why would I go to a web site when newspapers and magazines come to my house, I can see people in person or talk to them on the phone, get driving instructions by looking at my AAA map, and buy books by going to the mall?” That’s where we are right now.”

My take, I can’t avoid the blank stares. They won’t disappear. So, from my end, I’ll make sure to keep on telling Twitter’s story in the most practical, profitable way possible.

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I’m not a big fan of predictions… but can I be so bold as to predict that GMAIL will rival Facebook as the biggest social network online in 3 years time?

Considering established user profiles and user information, status updates, avatars and instant messaging, all Gmail (read: Google) needs to do still is organize user profiles to better indicate relationships between profiles and consequently facilitate sharing of experiences/content between profiles.

Why not iGoogle or Google Wave? Purely as email still forms the cornerstone around which social networks (and other web services for that matter) are built. Facebook being no exception in this regard. Put even simpler, you cannot be part of a social network without an email address and social networks won’t survive without users being ‘reminded’ of social networking activity via email.

Let it be logged: 7 December 2010, 12:22pm, Louis Janse van Rensburg predicted that GMAIL will rival Facebook as the biggest social network by 2013.

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Imagine a world where consumers are as comfortable to spend virtual money, as they are comfortable spending “tangible” money i.e. offline.

If you where a content publisher of some sorts, how would this change your thinking of monetizing your presence?

Would an advertising-based business model be your first consideration and consequently primary source of income?

If your answer is “ka-ching” or something in that line… then isn’t consumers willingness to use money online, comfortably, with-out hesitation, the bottleneck?

Doesn’t that mean publishers (read: media groups) should invest significant time and money in exploring ways of making it easier for people to spend money online?

Educating them.

Building trust.

In theory it is easier to spend credits/points than it is spending cold hard cash.

In theory I’d rather then trade virtually than offline.

Why are publishers scared to charge for content?

Is it because they think people won’t be willing to pay for content?

Why aren’t they willing?

Why the bottleneck?

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I’m a big proponent of tapping into any customer data you can find and glean learnings from it in crafting your web strategy – any data, offline and online.

In fact this is something that’s come up a few times over the last couple of months in discussions I’ve had with some of our clients at World Wide Creative.

How do we integrate research data – particularly customer insights and statistics – into digital strategies?

Case in point, recent research done by David Bell from the University of Pennsylvania indicates that Internet businesses should do well using ‘non-web methods’, explaining that his research has found that people in same regions/communities (that is offline) tend to make use of the same sites surfing for products, services, jobs etc online – thus, as David states:

“You can take old economy data, like census data, and look at who’s living in a neighborhood, for example, or how many stores are there” to target a specific regional demographic.

How are you tapping into offline data in planning your business/brand’s digital endeavours?

(You can read the interview BNET did with David on The New Key to Success in Online Retail: Geography for more on his research)

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Malcolm Gladwell gets stuck into the concept of free being the future in his latest New Yorker piece: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/07/06/090706crbo_books_gladwell?currentPage=all

Thank you Mr. Gladwell for putting all the Free-hippies in their place. As they too will realize that nothing is in fact for free.

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I’ve realised over the last couple of months that I’ve really placed a premium on my attention.

Seriously, I consider it a very valuable commodity.

One that is protected by some very shrewd internal filters.

For example…

I read a book / magazine / newspaper – if it doesn’t hold my attention. I chuck it.

I read a movie review, see a trailer – if it doesn’t appeal to me immediately. I won’t watch it.

I stumble across a blog, site, tool – if it doesn’t add to my day within the first few seconds, I won’t visit/use it again

I phone a call centre – you make me wait for more than 2 minutes (I’m a lenient guy), I’ll hate you for it*

I go to an event – if I don’t get a sense of value in the first hour or so, I’ll leave

I stand in a queue in the shops – if you make me wait, I will leave

I go to a restaurant / get take-aways – ditto

I see an advert – if the message doesn’t appeal to me, I won’t support the company sending it. Ever.

(*Admittedly, I will stay on the line often when I don’t have a choice e.g. a Telkom query. I’m still not going to like you.)

As harsh as it may sound, my appreciation of my attention has crossed-over to my interaction with human beings; if I meet someone and there isn’t a sense of shared interests, chances are I won’t make an effort to interact with that person again.

I know all of this sounds ‘high-and-mighty’, but that’s not how I view it.

Fact is, I need to be selective of how I ‘spend’ my attention. Every single day I am bombarded by sources vying for my attention. I need to prioritize these sources in order for me to make the most of my day.

If I don’t do this, I’ll either loose time spent rather on family, friends or loose money or even loose a bit of ‘me’-time.

The flip side of all of this is that if you DO get my attention… boy, I’ll support you relentlessly… to my previous examples, I consider my attention well spent with these sources:

Book, magazine or newspaper: Maverick magazine, The Mail & Guardian, SA Rugby magazine, Seth Godin

Movies: The Departed, District 9

Blog: www.heavychef.com, www.bnet.com, www.web-strategist.com

Call centre: Wesbank

Event: Silicon Cape, Heavy Chef events, 27Dinners

Shops / restaurants – Woolworths, Col’Cacchio, Heat, Fourno’s, Exclusive Books

Advertising: FNB, DSTV, Allan Gray, Cadbury, Windhoek

In order to keep my attention, all I ask is one thing – consistency.

Consistency in service delivery

Consistency in brand message promise

Consistency in value offerings

Consistency in innovating

What is the value of your attention?

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