Posts Tagged ‘mobile’
Mobile the key to more inclusive and youthful social networks
February 10th, 2009
Two reports caught my attention this week and reminded me again how much more effort will be needed before the mobile sector catches up with the rest of the connected universe. The Future of Social Networking workship in Barcelona featured a clear call from Dominique Hazaël-Massieux, W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative Activity Lead for the mobile providers to open up and lead the push for ubiquitous social networks.
She said: “Now is the time for the diverse social network actors out there to work together and resolve barriers to industry growth and stability. All social networks users, and especially young people, expect the richest possible social experience, but with full mobility, accessibility, and privacy.”
The workshop report emphasises the importance of mobile in the social network mix, with contextual information and sharing key data across all networks both key to progress. With the downturn, full-scale collaboration between the operators on all sides is sorely needed to avoid the partial implosion of the still young, vibrant but vulnerable online culture.
And talking of youth, the Independent’s Richard Garner this week flashed a snapshot of youth habits online. It’s even more official - young people are migrating away from TV and spending up to 31 hours a week online with social networks taking an increasingly important slice of that time.
Even more reason, then to ensure that the people and pipes that control and connect are as open, free-thinking and resilient as the users.
PR’s positive attitude to social media can help to play a significant role here and let’s hope that the grumblies and doomists who are joyously predicting the demise of sociability will soon be drowned out by a realistic and visionary chorus of social media advocates.
Moving mobile social networks beyond MySpace and Facebook
November 12th, 2008
A lively time in Wardour Street last night at the Chinwag event on mobile social networks with feisty (and drink-enabled) characters in the audience providing a testing warm up for the expert panel and chair Bena Roberts (GoMo News).
When things settled (departure of character with the Voice of Reason), it soon became clear at the MoSo Rising gathering that while there are no stellar new performers in the space, with established marques like MySpace and FaceBook leading the charge into always-connected social spaces, there are many positive signs.
Right now though start-up and niche mobile-only social networks are wrestling with the best revenue models, with white-label services a winning play at the moment, as ads and subscriptions largely fail to deliver.
More pressing for many agencies and PRs on the night was the need for clarity on how best to advise companies interested but fearful of mobile/social web. Panellist Alfie Dennen, CEO Moblog, suggested that brands and agencies need to think in more inclusive way, and embrace mobile as part of the communications mix, in much the same way that broadcasters have.
Harry Blunden. Head of digital at ?WhatIf! Digital advised that all agencies
should have at least one mobile savant - the one who could read the current mobile terrain and map out the potential for clients. He and other panel members all felt that many agencies did not understand Mobile but needed to embrace it.
Ron Shelton. CEO Next2Friends also urged agencies to encourage client to experiment with Mobile now, educating them away from the fear of the platform.
The view from the panellists, not necessarily shared by everyone in the Slug and Lettuce, was that digital agencies don’t yet get the mobile space and that a focussed education programme was needed to pull agencies into the new age with clients still very reluctant to put money into mobile.
A positive view on the development of the mobile/social web came from the floor as Conor McKenna, business development manager at mobile search company Taptu who said that growing numbers of people leading quite disconnected working lives used mobile web and social networks to communicate and engage and as a form of escapism.
Bena Roberts added how Polish workers she had met were addicted to social networks on mobile as this was all they had to keep connected with their social groups.
And in Hungary, people in villages who had not heard of broadband were using their mobiles as web/social media access tools.
The key messages I took away from a thoughtful evening were that MoSo is only just starting as is going to be a greater part of the mobile, always connected web with massive opportunities for all the players: operators, service providers, brands and agencies. While “always on” mobile is maybe 5-10 years away, there are great opportunities for brands to engage with their customers and for agencies to build business.
At the moment, brands can harness Mobile by playing to its current strengths, keeping it simple and direct but also thinking creatively about how to use the at present limited functionality. It’s not just about delivering ads and brand messages one way.
And the simple questions for agencies and brands to ask around Mobile: “What do we want users to do? How do we create real value that engages?”
O2 engages with customers through Twitter
November 4th, 2008
Hats off to O2 - after years of getting its telephone customer service completely wrong, it’s finally doing a great job of engaging with disgruntled online customers.
Yesterday, in a moment of exasperation, I Tweeted the following about my mobile provider (after being on hold to O2 for 40 minutes):
“wendymcauliffe: O2 truly has the worst customer service I’ve ever encountered. Every time I need to contact them my blood pressure rockets!”
A couple of minutes later, I received the following reply:
“hellojp: @wendymcauliffe Hi there, I work for O2 and saw your tweet - anything I can help with?”
After briefing describing my predicament, I promptly received another reply:
“hellojp: @wendymcauliffe Oh no, not ideal! Definitely not what we’d be aiming for - sorry you had such a hard time! Did you get your problem fixed?”
The O2 representative then went on to give me his personal email address, so that I could email him with the details of my enquiry which he has promised to handle today.
I’m not sure who’s behind O2’s adoption of Twitter, but this is definitely a step in the right direction, and something that all public service companies should be doing. While there are still big improvements to be made with O2’s telephone customer service, it’s great to see them engaging with customers online in such a timely fashion.
It will be interesting to see how my case is dealt with today!
Crisis management storm brewing for O2
April 17th, 2008
O2 is not faring well in the press or public eye at the moment with its blunders over 3G speeds, and PR gaffe where it called readers of The Register “techie nerds”… and I’m about to make matters worse for them!
I’m unfortunate enough to be an O2 customer. My Blackberry is my lifeline. So when my data connection went dead yesterday morning, I phoned O2 up to see what was going on.
The customer service person I spoke to knew “exactly what was going on” before I’d described the problem, which was enough to get the alarm bells ringing.
I was then informed that O2 had moved to a new billing system over the past couple of days, and that all my tariff details had been lost. There was no record of the fact that I was a Blackberry user, had a data tariff, or the number of minutes or texts I received each month. Hence the reason for my Blackberry saying “data connection refused” for the past couple of days.
I was asked to describe my tariff so that the problem could be manually corrected! I’ve been promised that my data bolt-on will be reconnected tomorrow.
In true O2 style there was no apology, no offer of compensation for the impact this might have had on my business, and no explanation.
So in true social media style, I’m breaking the story here!
The new billing system has been implemented across O2’s entire customer base, so I’m guessing if you haven’t picked up on a problem yet, you will when your next bill arrives! I’d love to hear how O2 iPhone customers have been affected.
The final irony in the tale is that when the post arrived later today, I had a letter from O2 about the new billing system, entitled “a change for the better”!
October 9th, 2007
It’s been a busy day in the world of Google. First of all, news reached us this morning that Google shares have risen above the $600 mark for the first time. Not bad considering Google’s stock launched at $85 a share in 2004.
Then came the news that Google will be allowing websites in its ad network (AdSense) to embed videos from some YouTube content creators. This offers Google a new source of ad revenue, which will of course need to be shared with the content creators and sites that embed them.
However, the news that interested me the most broke this afternoon, when Google announced that it had acquired the Finland-based SMS and microblogging service Jaiku, competitor to the better known Twitter.
This is another telling move, proving the all-encompassing Google development arm is now focusing on mobile and social networking…and everything in between. Mike Butcher at TechCrunch has the full story.
Interestingly, Steve Rubel is giving Twitter 45 days to be sold, and he thinks Yahoo! will be the most likely suitor.
Oh and while i’m doing a Google news rundown, I should also mention that Google and IBM are partnering on a university project to provide data centres holding 1,600 computers that students will be able to use to learn cloud computing.
Or as Eric Schmidt put it: “In order to most effectively serve the long-term interests of our users, it is imperative that students are adequately equipped to harness the potential of modern computing systems and for researchers to be able to innovate ways to address emerging problems.”
Now the weather…
Technorati tags: google, jaiku, twitter, ibm, news, cloud+computing, social+networking, mobile