Facebook users bring in 10 times less cash than traditional media users

February 8th, 2012

An excellent article in Guardian’s Monday Note caught my attention earlier this week, titled ‘Facebook’s strange economics‘

The piece, written by Frédéric Filloux compared Facebook’s valuation 3 years ago, with its valuation now and pulled up some interesting data on its profit and value per user, then compared this to other social and traditional media.

The article set the scene with a snapshot of a Marc Andreessen interview, from February 2009, who was the creator of Netscape and a Facebook board member. At that time, the social network had 175 million users and Microsoft had just made an investment setting Facebook’s valuation at $15bn.

Andreessen was quoted on the vision for Facebook, saying: “6 billion people on the planet. Probably 3 billion of them with modern electricity and maybe telephones. So maybe the total addressable market today is 3 billion people. 175 million to 3 billion is a big challenge. A big opportunity.”

I’m sure there were a few raised eyebrows in 2009, but perhaps his statement is a little more believable today, although there are other issues such as strong competition in key markets, the member opportunity is indeed there.

Fast forward to last year (2011) when Andreessen was quoted commenting on Facebook’s funding ($1.3bn as of January 2011). Andreessen said the whole amount was actually a shrewd investment as it translated into an acquisition cost of “one or two dollars per user” ($1.53), which sounded perfectly acceptable to him.

As Filloux mentions in the article, if you look at Facebook’s pre-iPO filing: Marc Andreessen was right both in 2009 and in 2011.

So why the title of ‘Facebook’s strange economics?‘ Well, this is where it gets interesting.

As Filloux points out, last year, each of the 845 million active members on Facebook brought in $4.39 in revenue and $1.18 in net income. He also pointed out that based on the $3.9bn in cash and marketable securities on Facebook’s balance sheet, each of these users actually generated a cash input of $1.53 dollars.

The article then suggests the expected market value for each user after the IPO, which is based on the $100bn valuation, comes out at a value of $118 per user.

Filloux then goes on to compare this to other social networks and more traditional media.

Looking at LinkedIn, which is obviously more specialised than Facebook, and has about 145 million users, it has a $7.7bn market cap and a value of $57 per user. However, LinkedIn makes $3.5 in revenue and $0.78 in profit.

The New York Times, until recently the most read online newspaper in the world, is a less straight forward case, as Filloux notes, simply because the company has numerous websites that deal with domestic and global users as well as traditional readers of multiple hardcopy titles.

Filloux suggested a figure of 50 million people worldwide who are in regular contact with one of NYT’s titles. Based on today’s $1.14bn market cap, this yields a valuation of $23 per NYT customer, five times less than Facebook.

However, there is a large anomaly because in 2011, each NYT customer brought $46 in revenue, almost 10 times more than Facebook. As for the profit ($56m for the NYT), each customer brought in a little more than a dollar.

Looking at traditional media company Gannett, Filloux noted it makes between $50 and $80 per year in revenue per customer, and, depending on the way you estimate it, the market values that customer at about $50.

This means Facebook or LinkedIn are flying high while traditional media are struggling; when Facebook achieves a 47% profit margin, Gannett or News Corp are in the 10% range.

This in no surprise in terms of the way social media are over taking traditional media, but the value per user is much lower. 10 times lower in fact, but the market values these users up to five times more.

Bringing this in to context, Facebook looks set to offer shares a multiple of 100 times its earning and 25 times its revenue. Apple is worth 13 times its earnings and Google 20 times. These kinds of figures do not tend to stand the test of time very well when the market matures, so beware of the Facebook Bubble as Filloux puts it.

The article offers real clarity on what has been one of the most dramatic valuations since the dotcom boom. Facebook’s success is undeniable and its meteoric rise to success/power is there for all to see, but surely the valuation is generous to a fault. Or too generous not to fault.

I have no doubt Facebook’s IPO will be a massive success, and the future of the organisation is bright, but why do we need to make a success story into a super success with falsely inflated valuations, when the real story is still pretty damn impressive?

Posted in Blog, Digital communications, Digital media, Journalism, Liberate Media news, Trends and research, Useful resources | 3 Comments »

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Social Media Marketing and Monitoring 2011

September 20th, 2011

We attended Social Media Marketing and Monitoring 2011 in London yesterday, and since its launch this event, developed and run by Luke Brynley-Jones at Our Social Times, has never disappointed.

This year the event included impressive speakers such as Charles Arthur (The Guardian) , Neville Hobson (Nevillehobson.com) and Jon Morter, Big Other (organiser of Rage against the X-Factor campaign).

The event covered a range of topics, including: Social Commerce, Location Marketing, Social Search, Social Media Monitoring, Social Media Management, B2B Social Media, Engagement & Social CRM and Integrated Marketing Campaigns.

The highlights for me were:

The first panel debate, which featuring Luke Brynley-Jones (Our Social Times), Charles Arthur (The Guardian), Neville Hobson (Nevillehobson.com), Wayne Gibbins (Viadeo) and Jenni Lloyd (Nixon McInnes).

The subject was ‘The Future of Social Networking’ and one of the first topics of debate was: have we ‘bloated our streams?‘ particularly Facebook, and is this fatigue or perhaps a maturing of social networking?

The panel also came out with a great statistic to highlight the difference in international usage of social networks: 48% of web users in China are content creators compared with 24% in the western world.

Neville Hobson outlined the difference between methods of measuring influence, which focused on PeerIndex’s founder who makes the distinction between “influencers” and “opinion formers”.

We then heard from PJ Verhoef at Clarion Consulting, who covered: The What, Why and How of Social Local Marketing, and hit us with a range of useful figures, including:

Over 50% of internet connections are location enabled smartphones and 20% of ALL search is mobile.

• 96% felt QR codes were useful, 92% would use it again.
• 55% of tweets are from a mobile.
• 55% of people will travel 15 minutes for a 10% discount.

Following a brief break, we went into a discussion on monitoring, measurement & engagement

Chair: Andrew Grill (PeopleBrowsr), Joshua March (Conversocial) , Giles Palmer (Brandwatch), Catriona Oldershaw (Synthesio), Tammy Kahn Fennell (MarketMeSuite)

Catriona Oldershaw made a good point about brands often having too many metrics and not enough measurable insights, and that social monitoring and responding shouldn’t be siloed, i.e. within an agency, or marketing department.

Andrew Grill used BT as an example of using Twitter engagement, stating BT has 25 people monitoring and talking to customers via Twitter.

Giles Palmer at Brandwatch referenced analysis that his team had completed on the top 200 brands in UK and U.S., which showed 5% UK, 8% U.S. brands are responding to customer service issues through social media.

Tammy Kahn Fennell from MarketMeSuite offered input on the issue of Compliance and liability through social media, confirming the law is going to have to catch up, but it is also going to have to understand we are social people.

One of the key discussion points centred around how the Metropolitan Police should have reacted to the London Riots.

Giles Palmer confirmed the issue was difficult to track as much of the conversation was on BBM (Blackberry Messenger) which is a closed network and so difficult to access/monitor.

However, assuming the data is public, he suggested sentiment analysis could be employed around hate management detection. i.e. normalising traditional language usage, and then monitoring ‘hate language analysis’ that could act as pre-cursors to potential unrest. He confirmed it would be important to set up alerts to bring in humans who will interpret the conversations and act appropriately.

Joshua March also made a good point, confirming he used Social Media during the riots to understand where to avoid, and where was safe to go, so it wasn’t all bad.

Then came one of the presentations that many of us had been waiting for: How I Beat Simon Cowell Using Social Media by Jon Morter - Big Other.

John gave an excellent presentation on his two campaigns to beat The XFactor to the Xmas number one. He used the learnings from his first campaign, which didn’t bring the desired results, and the successes of the second campaign, which as we know kept The XFactor from the number 1 spot, something that we should all be thankful for, at Christmas or any other time.

John achieved some amazing results through his campaign, including achieving 72,000 sales of the track in the last 3 hours after releasing a live version (which is more sales than is needed most weeks to top the chart).

Jon Morter also told us that he got a call from Simon Cowell 3 hours before the chart result was due to be issued. Apparently Simon congratulated him and offered him a drink, which he still has not yet followed up on.

You can read Gordon Macmillan’s write up here.

Then Raf Keustermans an independent Consultant, (former EA and Playfish) spoke about Using Gaming Mechanics for Marketing. His presentation offered real insight into the opportunities available through gamification, including:

Before 2008 games were Niche, a big but closed industry, which rose from 250M gamers in 2000, to over 1Billion gamers in 2011.

He also confirmed 150 billion minutes are spent every month on social games, that’s an average of 10 minutes for everyone on the planet.

Next, Marcus Taylor from SEOptimse spoke about Social Search & Social SEO for Marketing, and posed the question, through various experiments: ‘Does Facebook Likes have effect on Google rankings?’

His answer being: directly no, but as part of ‘ranking circle’ yes. And that it is safe to assume Google +1’s are an influencing factor towards search rankings.

Marcus also offered five tips on encouraging brand search and getting the benefits of personalised search:

1. Appear for comparison and head of tail key terms where people start stopping.
2. Be awesome and encourage return visits.
3. Run offline radio / TV / print) ads with a ‘search for us’ call to action (Pontiac were first to do this in the Superbowl).
4. Run branded events / sponsor events.
5. Link or reference search results from products - tell people to ‘search google for X” if you know you rank number 1 for that term.

There were also case studies on the day from Play.com, Captain Morgan’s Rum and BMi Baby, as well as a final panel discussion: Is Social Commerce the Future of e-Commerce? Chaired by  Luke Brynley-Jones (Our Social Times) and featuring Peter Parkes (Expedia), Amy Kean (Havas Media), Jenny Chiu (BrandAlley), Robin Grant (We Are Social)

The event was a massive success, and congrats once again to Luke Brynley-Jones and the Our Social Times team.

Slides from most of the presentations are available at Our Social Times’ Slideshare.

Posted in Blog, Blogging, Content, Digital media, Industry events, Liberate Media news, Social media | 4 Comments »

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PR remains a top career choice for Graduates

August 19th, 2011

It seems the desire for a job in PR is as strong as ever amongst graduates. For example, according to a survey carried out by Give a Grad a Go (a graduate recruiter) 29% of Graduates want to work in PR.

In terms of pay, the survey confirmed that the average graduate salary has risen to £25,500, but this is not the case in PR, where remuneration for entry-level roles sits at around £18,000.

To be honest, I’ve always been surprised by the popularity of PR as a career choice. That’s not to say I don’t think it’s a good career, I’ve been in the sector for many years and the range of opportunities, skills and experiences it has given me are far too numerous to list in this post. However, I’m still struggling to see the enduring appeal and consistently high level of interest, especially when considering the lower pay at entry level.

In reality, The work of a PR is tough and so very far away from the stereo-typical view of the glamorous PR swanning in and out of meetings and parties while sipping Champagne.

The job is highly pressured, demanding in terms of time and skills and leaves many by the wayside. It doesn’t always reward the best, due to internal politics, although they do generally rise to the top eventually.

It’s certainly not a forgiving environment at entry level. At least it wasn’t when I started, perhaps it has changed, but the number of agencies that still recruit unpaid ‘interns’ suggest it hasn’t changed that much.

Of course there are good schemes for Graduates, Taylor Bennett Foundation being one featured in PR Week  recently, but the difference between the imagined life of a PR and the reality seem to be very different.

As part of my role at Liberate, i’m often approached by students and Graduates looking for advice to get into PR, or information for their dissertations. In fact I did an interview on the subject just the other day.

I try to be as honest as possible, as I want them to be fully armed for the reality of the industry if they decide to pursue it. However, my fears are usually exacerbated when speaking to them as I find their understanding of the basics to be pretty poor. Or to be precise, pretty outdated. Some speak a different language, consisting of acronyms I’ve never heard of, or resonate from a dim-dark past, and certainly aren’t common place in the sector.

I’ve spoken before on this blog about the disparity between the academic teachings of PR and the reality, and this only seems to be getting worse with the continuing development of digital, social and integrated marketing techniques that we in the industry take for granted, or at least should.

So, does academia have its role to play in this myth of the PR industry, or am I just lucky to have been brought up in a career that is apparently so in demand and I simply can’t see beyond my own internal blinkers?

Posted in Blog, Blogging, Content, Digital media, Liberate Media news, PR | No Comments »

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Social CRM - the buzz and the reality

July 29th, 2011

Earlier this week Charlotte McEleny wrote a piece for NMA titled: Social CRM needs to be defined.

Charlotte opened her piece by saying: “Social CRM is an exciting phenomenon for brands, but with a lack of definition, it is becoming a meaningless social media buzz phrase.” This sums up the issue well. Many people are now talking about Social CRM, but the reality is they are probably only offering one element within Social CRM’s remit, or beginning to appreciate the range of elements that must come together, and as a result, it is becoming a bit of a buzz phrase.

The issue of a lack of available case studies that Charlotte mentions is also possibly linked to this problem, as I doubt many of what we would now call Social CRM campaigns started out with that title. Instead, it’s likely that there were separate functions of monitoring, engagement and data management. Although we are now seeing these functions pulled together under the Social CRM umbrella, planned and purpose-built Social CRM campaigns are still few and far between and have little in the way of a track record to report back on.

So, I thought I would have a go at defining Social CRM, and also pull in definitions from other more recognized individuals in the sector.

Put simply, we believe Social CRM is about delivering improved customer service by managing customer relationships and data, and its main focus should be fully on ‘Humanising the conversation’.

Wikipedia defines Social CRM as follows (quoting Paul Greenberg):“A philosophy & a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes & social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted & transparent business environment. It’s the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.”

Earlier this year I attended an excellent event called Social CRM 2011 developed by Our Social Times, and you can read my thoughts on the event here.

One of the hottest discussion points at the event was that ‘Social CRM must go beyond Social Media Monitoring‘, although this is an important piece of the puzzle. The key is to understand this ‘social data’ and exploit it fully, both internally and externally. Having social profiles and listening is not enough; you must be able to react, engage and offer useful insights that your community can benefit from. This, in turn, builds trust and helps customers focus on what is important to them. Therefore, considering this range of variables, Social CRM cannot be automated.

By investing in a Social CRM strategy, brands can expect to improve customer service, consolidate customer-related information and processes, evolve service offerings and open up invaluable conversations with customers.

We must approach Social CRM by offering a combination of social media monitoring, community management and engagement with a learning element that allows the brand to refine its customer services offering as a result of relevant feedback.

However, the truth is that there is no single correct approach to Social CRM, as each organisation has different focuses, challenges and customers. This is why we believe the Social CRM process must be developed as a strategy in partnership with the brand.

For further information, Mitch Lieberman, who also spoke at Social CRM 2011, has written an analysis on IBM’s Institute for Business Value “From social media to Social CRM” paper, which is an excellent guide.

Posted in Blog, Content, Digital communications, Digital media, Journalism, Liberate Media news, PR, Social media | 6 Comments »

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AMEC confirms that measurement isn’t a quick fix

June 13th, 2011

Measurement in PR is a long-ranging, and quite frankly frustrating debate that has been raging for many years, certainly as long as I can remember, but it has gathered more urgency over the last few years.

So what is the issue? Fundamentally, the issue has been how do we prove the value of PR to our clients? The many additional problems range from the scope of media that PR’s remit now covers and especially the ongoing evolution of Social Media, which has fundamentally changed the approach to how PR is developed and measured.

The one thing that everyone agrees on is AVEs are pointless, but i’m pretty sure that has been the opinion for at least the last 13 years that I’ve been in this industry, so it’s fair to say it’s taken some time to get to an alternative.

In recent years, the spotlight has turned to the AMEC European Summit on Measurement for a response, which had its third annual meeting in Lisbon last week.

In fairness, AMEC, or The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication, which is the global trade body and professional institute for agencies and practitioners who provide media evaluation and communication research, has also taken it’s time to move the measurement discussion on, only agreeing on an agenda to answer in its second year (last year), which was given the title of the ‘Barcelona Principles’, but this year it seems there has been much more in the way of movement.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from the outcomes of the event, but I was fairly surprised when I saw that there actually did seem to be some progress. And not just progress, but a flexible approach to measurement that I for one support.

So, before we get to the measurement, I guess we should cover the background elements, or what AMEC has referred to as top priorities for the PR measurement industry, voted for by AMEC European Summit delegates and prior research.

These were selected out of a list of 10:
• “Measurement of PR campaigns and programs needs to become an intrinsic part of the PR toolkit”
• “Create and adopt global standards for social media measurement”
• “Institute a client education program such that clients insist on measurement of outputs, outcomes and business results from PR programs”

The research study also identified ‘benefits of measuring PR’ as the most important need over the next five years, ahead of ‘impact of PR program on business goals’, ‘measurement beyond media clips’, and ‘social media measurement’.

You can get a full overview on the finer detail at The Holmes Report

Onto the recommendations, which can be reviewed in the Slideshare ppt below (thanks to Arun Sudhaman)

In a nutshell, AMEC seems to have grasped that PR has gone way beyond the realm of a single measurement, or even group of measurements, to reflect the diverse tactics and outcomes that result from a communications campaign. If we also consider the convergence of PR with disciplines such as social, digital marketing, traditional advertising and other functions, the picture becomes even more clouded. Add that to a wider range of objectives from our clients, and trying to jam a square metric into a round campaign simply doesn’t work.

So, it was fairly refreshing to see AMEC suggest a group of what it calls ‘valid metrics’. These were defined through the stages of marketing against PR activity, intermediary effect, and target audience effect, with case studies as examples.

There has already been some feedback that this is not a benchmark measurement that agencies can implement wholesale, and that’s the problem. I don’t mean that it is a problem that there isn’t a framework of measurements, but that agencies are still looking for the ‘missing link’ or the ‘holy grail’ of measurement, which simply doesn’t exist.

If you’re still looking for one measurement to replace AVEs, understand that AVE was never a valid measurement and therefore replacing it with another invalid measurement is irrelevant.

Our campaigns should be as diverse as our clients and the strategic approaches we recommend executed via a range of tactics. If these elements are unique to the client, how can we measure the same metrics for each?

I will certainly be reviewing the recommendations in more detail and looking to support our own measurements with any new learnings. However, the point of this post is not to support the recommendations specifically, but to applaud to notion that measurement isn’t a quick fix, isn’t a one-size fits all, just as campaigns are not the same and clients have different objectives.

At Liberate Media we’ve been measuring campaigns using metrics specific to each client for many years. We agree these with the client at kick off and try to integrate internal measurements and shared analytics to encourage client involvement as much as possible.

This means our reporting is different for all of our clients, and yes, that does mean we don’t have standard reporting across our campaigns, but who did standard reporting help anyway? Was it developed to answer the diverse nature of our clients? Or was it more about assisting internal systems within our agencies?

It’s fairly obvious that measurements built on an internal time saving methodology will not work. So, by giving measurement the attention it deserves we can finally move this conversation forward and begin to build towards the ultimate convergence of communications services that is probably the next big question the PR industry knows is coming, but is so far unwilling to address.

Posted in Blog, Digital communications, Digital media, Liberate Media news, PR, Social media | No Comments »

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Liberate Team predict 2011 trends

January 5th, 2011

Two of the Liberate Media team have offered a brief insight into the trends that they think will be prevalent over the next 12 months.

Let us know your thoughts.

Andy Merchant:

1. Remote control - Direct access to services from your remote control. Netfilx is the first to do this. To allow you to view its services through Internet enabled TV’s. Facebook button coming soon?

2. Still on the TV theme with Google TV. This was badly reviewed when it first came out, but 2011 could be its year. Could it bring the disjointed digital family back together, just as the Wii did in the video console market?

3. Checking in - Location based marketing will grow massively this year. A small number of US sports teams are starting to leverage LBM to create loyalty schemes, watch UK based venues, teams, restaurants, etc do the same this year.

4. Remember a few years back when we were told that the paywall will never work! Well this year you will see many more magazines going behind the paywall and making it work, even more so when the new iPad 2 hits the stores this year.

5. No more online/offline social media/traditional PR - It will just become known as PR, encompassing all skills.

Lloyd Gofton:

6. Digital skills begin to evolve away from specialisms such as social/search/analytics and move towards a more general understanding of the digital landscape. A combined skill set will be more valuable to brands and agencies alike.

7. Measurement activities continue to be focused on traditional ROI rather than a relevant and useful combination of digital, social and traditional metrics.

8. Various agencies and disciplines continue to occupy themselves with the fight for ‘ownership’ of social, while the smart agencies understand ownership is irrelevant and continue to learn, experiment and develop services according to need and opportunity.

9. Brands continue to build an understanding that a social approach to business is just that, not a tactic, nor a communications channel.

10. Social meets mobile as we realise the ‘year of mobile’ is no longer important, but mobile facilitating access to the social web is essential, and as a result brands must invest in an accessible mobile offering.

Posted in Blog, Blogging, Content, Liberate Media news, PR, Social media | No Comments »

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Why we fight for net neutrality

December 20th, 2010

Every so often, one of the good guys turns up to fight for what’s right and true in this bank-distorted, greed-obsessed and blood-sucking world.

Al Franken is US senator and he has been fighting against the slavering tech companies in that benighted country who have, almost since the internet became a commercial proposition in 1993, sought to corrupt the idea of a free-flowing global information network.

These companies, of which AT&T, Comcast and Verizon Wireless are current prime examples, want to create new revenue streams by creating tiers of internet data streams, allowing companies to buy visibility and dominance. The price they expect to pay is very high in monetary terms. The price we will pay is the end of the internet.

Make no mistake, if the US Federal Communications Commission does not annihilate the threat of a tiered internet tomorrow (Tuesday, December 21st) when it meets to discuss “net neutrality”, then we can kiss goodbye to the internet.

What worries me is that the FCC has been taking seriously the views of the companies who stand to gain massively from the introduction of rules allowing a tiered internet. Indeed they have actively sought these views, which is a matter of great concern.

The FCC chairman Julias Genachowski’s draft Order has not been made public but early reports make clear that it falls far short of protecting net neutrality.

President Obama is on record in giving his unqualified support for net neutrality:

The free marketeers, God Bless ‘Em, are also on the side of all that is good and true. Witness this MSNBC Cenk Rant: Internet Freedom In Danger. Rant it might be but for once, he makes sense:

So, what’s to worry? Well, Al Franken is and therefore so am I. The FCC could change the world tomorrow. And remember, it’s not just the US – the virus of tiered internet will spread, if we do not stop it here, right now.

You can sign read Al’s arguments on Huffington Post and read more about him but at the very least, sign his petition in support of net neutrality.
Thanks.

Posted in Blog, Blogging, Content, Digital communications, Digital media, Emerging technology, Journalism, Liberate Media news, News, Trends and research, Useful resources | No Comments »

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Cyber wars, Geo Groups and the future of social media

December 12th, 2010

This week we’ve seen the next step in the re-personalisation of social media and the first public salvoes in the incoming cyber wars – both have profound consequences for the way we communicate online.

On the one hand, we have the launch of GeoGroups, an iPad app that offers a level of control over social media engagement not seen since the early days of Facebook.

On the other hand, we have witnessed the launch of, admittedly quite crude and functional, attacks on the commercial online assets of companies that bowed to US pressure and so damaged the commercial interests of WikiLeaks.

Good guys always finish, in my experience. We will have to watch the WikiLeaks story being played out and engage where needed, in the right way – and hope that the Internet can develop in the form that we want.

So, first, Geo Groups. Possibly the finest app for iPhone to be released this year, full of promise and with the initial infrastructure to make sure it flies. We’re testing in depth now but first feedback suggests that this is a new way of negotiating the social web, and one with a sure market.

For me, it represents the re-personalisation of online social culture. Geo Groups allows you to create a social group around anything that has a location but also contain and control, in a positive way, the ebb and flow of information in that group.

It’s a response to the atavistic emotions that all social media interaction currently provokes, the feeling that there is too much, too diffuse and too uncontrolled information in the daily online engagements we make.

Geo Groups has an open API and third-party developers can make full use of the platform. Check out the developer page for more info. Geo Groups is my kind of company for that offering alone.

Little grouse, though. Did you guys check out the name online before you chose it? You’re competing in search terms with one of the biggest companies in the world that offers “private correctional and detention management, community re-entry services as well as behavioural and mental health services to government agencies around the globe.”

Best of luck with the Search terms battle.

Talking of battles, apart from a very brief period in the mid-1990s, I’ve always seen the Internet as a conditional space, governed and given by global power brokers as a gesture, not a right. We, in the sense of ordinary people, do not control this space. In the same way that states can shut down the traditional information spaces – TV, radio, telecommunications, press – so in the same way can they disable the Internet.

The price they pay for this action, for blocking the “self-healing” network temporarily, is that it will have a destructive and perhaps terminal impact on trade, exchange and development.

But if a body of citizens decides to wage war on states and commercial interests by using electronic weapons (and, let’s face it, the Denial of Service is a very crude stick), states and their agents will respond with full force.

Any idea of “being beyond control” is clearly irrational. We need now to clarify in our minds what we want to achieve and to fully assess the conditions in which protest, discussion, argument and development can proceed.

If we don’t do that, we risk the end of the Internet as we have known and loved it. If you don’t believe that look at China, Burma, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and, shortly, London. Tell me it’s not relatively easy to block networks and global communication.

Hilary Clinton signalled in February this year that the US Government views cyber wars as the defining terrain for hostile engagement in the next ten years. The US might be an ailing power but it is still top Rottweiler globally and can do an enormous amount of “restructuring” to the Internet in the time it has left as the uber-state.

We engage aggressively at our peril but we do need to engage intelligently, now more than ever.

Talking of intelligence, here’s what the founder of the World Wide Web has to say about our online futures. I interviewed Tim Berners when I was working at The Times – his semantic knowledge, quiet passion and belief in the absolute benefit of an open web still resonate now.

Utterly brilliant.

Spend a few precious minutes hearing what Tim says about the future of the web; you will be rewarded:

Posted in Blog, Digital communications, Digital media, Journalism, Liberate Media news, Social media, Social networking, Trends and research | No Comments »

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Are UK Companies Still Scared of Social Media?

November 17th, 2010

Sky News recently ran a piece titled: Social Media Fears leave UK business behind, confirming; ‘British companies are amongst the least technologically advanced when it comes to using Web 2.0 and online methods of marketing and business communication.’

In a survey conducted by Purdue University and online security company McAfee, it was discovered that emerging countries such as Brazil, Spain, and India were ahead of Canada, the USA, and the UK.

So where does that leave us in terms of social communications? If UK companies are still afraid to grasp the basics of social media, how will we ever compete in a global marketplace that demands that we take our activities online and embrace social methodologies?

In a series of surveys and reports, one of the key reasons put forth for our reluctance to embrace social media is fear and lack of knowledge. Companies do not know how to use it effectively, therefore they do not use it at all - or invest so little that their efforts show no benefit.

Another reason often proffered is worries over security and control. In a survey by K2 Advisory, 37% of the UK businesses that took part admitted that they did not allow access to social media sites through their company networks. The intent was to prohibit employees from checking Facebook or tweeting on Twitter whilst at work; but it also effectively cut off any means for marketing and use of social media for business purposes.

Still another reason is lack of investment; most companies that do try social media do not invest enough money or dedicate enough staff to it. A social media investment report by Econsultancy revealed that 33% of the 800 marketing professionals they approached were investing less than £5,000 per year and 28% stated that they invested nothing. Add to that the fact that 32% had only one dedicated social networking staff member, while 29% had none at all.

In order to effectively use social media for B2B and customer relationship building purposes, companies must commit staff to fully engage with their audience, which requires listening before conversing in an open and transparent manner. Sporadic postings and one-way conversations serve little purpose and the results of those types of efforts only lead to the false assumption that social media for business does not work.

To many organisations, social media offers more potential than real opportunity and understanding is still quite low. However, there is a wealth of free content and advice online, and opening up personal networks and taking this advice onboard is often the first step to building an understanding. The UK also has many digital marketing agencies and specialists that can help businesses learn to embrace social media, although be careful to take references as although many offer the service not all actually deliver.

In addition to these agencies and individuals, there are also other resources. For instance, content development has become an increasingly important aspect, and many companies prefer to hand part of this aspect of their business communications over to experts such as Pure Content, who can take on projects of all sizes and deliver to brief.

Grasping the nuances of successful social media use is now imperative to UK businesses. Companies need to overcome their fear or apathy very soon.

Posted in Blog, Blogging, Content, Digital communications, Liberate Media news, Social media | No Comments »

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Twitter Joke trial - #IAmSpartacus

November 12th, 2010

There has been plenty of discussion around the now infamous #TwitterJoketrial case this week, if you’re not familiar here’s the low down on the story from the Guardian.

Putting issues of bomb threats to one side for the moment, and our country’s obsession with coming down hard on anything remotely related to the subject, especially in relation to aircraft and airports, even if it is clearly a joke, I wanted to pick up on a great article by Milo Yiannopoulos at The Telegraph today who beautifully overviews the issue between our judicial system, which is dramatically out of touch with the social web, or even the pre-social web for that matter.

I have a small insight into the clash between how we lead our online lives, and how our legal system interprets that, as my wife is a solicitor. From my own personal experience, I am constantly amazed by the antiquated systems and processes she has to follow in accordance with our legal system, and she works for a relatively progressive and modern firm. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, and in general our solicitors have a good grasp of what is taking place online, but the system they work under does not.

The system and its understanding is one problem, our obsession as a country with security and the removal of our natural sense of humour in relation to such matters is another, but in my opinion it’s the double standards that annoy even more.

Let’s take the case of our Twitter joker. Yes, it was probably not the best thing to do in light of recent cases where even obvious jokes have resulted in dramatic action, but let’s be honest, this was never a threat, and should we all need to be that careful? Some might argue that the hard stance is to attempt to cut out such instances of joking about serious matters, but that’s really not going to happen. If you look at our social history we have faced most of the major threats to this country with humour, is that going to change now?

The reality is, if you look at the content available on the web, there are many more real examples of threats and dangerous content. So, why take action against the citizens who may have joked about something that is undoubtedly serious, but pose no real threat, and not these other examples?

The reality for Paul Chambers, the 26-year-old accountant who has lost two jobs as a result of his Twitter joke, is he has lost his appeal and will have to pay a £1,000 fine, around £2,000 in costs and he will have a criminal record for threatening, in jest, to blow up an airport.

If I look at my Twitter feed now, I can see a range of what could be construed as threats if we are working on the Paul Chambers example. Should these people be arrested and charged? Should I stop following them as a result? Or should we all get some perspective here and put our legal energies into dealing with the real threats and not those that are clearly written in jest.

Furthermore, if you search for the #IAmSpartacus hashtag in Twitter now, you’ll see the number of people who feel this joke has gone too far by re-issuing the so called threat that Paul Chambers tweeted, in support of him.

The scary thing is, as the number of people who utilise social media in its various guises expands, the likelihood of similar cases also expands. So, while I don’t expect anything to change quickly in our legal system, we’re likely to see more unfortunate examples such as this. Furthermore, if you don’t understand the social web, #IAmSpartacus is about to become its latest case study.

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