Communities Dominate Brands

The dream of the personal computer aka the world is mobile

From the Economist July 29th.

On the PC's 25th birthday, The Economist leader article says. The IBM PC helped to democratise computing. Now to finish the job.

Merchants in Zambia use mobile phones for banking; farmers in Senegal use them to monitor prices; health workers in South Africa use them to update records while visiting patients. All kinds of firms, from giants such as google to start-ups such as CellBazaar, are working to bring the full benefits of the web to mobile phones. There is no question that the PC has democratised computing and unleashed innovation but its the mobile phone that now seems likely to carry the dream of the "persoanl computer" to its conclusion

Then the FT (Financial Times) today July 29th ran a piece Microsoft sees the beginning of the end for PC's

Opening statement

Sometimes it takes an outsider tp speak the unpalatable truth that everyone knows but is unwilling to acknowledge outright. That task fell this week to Ray Ozzie the man who last month took on Bill Gate's mantle as leading visionary at the world's most powerful technology company.

Microsofts great rise is now historical as a new battle, a new journey beckons down the yellow brick road.

Ozzie said

In a previous era – the PC era – Microsoft would naturally begin with a PC mindset. We're in a new era, an era in which the internet is at the centre.

Right Ozzie - but wrong. The next era will be the mobile internet. The FT claimed that the PC's centrality to the tech world is passing. IT will be mobile phones, games consoles, digital media players and TV set top boxes shaping the future.

But - the word is mobile.

As a post note to this blog. Interestingly the big operators in the US and Europe are missing out on an opportunity - locking in, locking down, believing they "OWN" customers shows their short sightedness.

Rather than working hard to build for the future they seem stuck in a world that is more about steam trains rather than the wonders and possibilites of mobile digital platforms.

And its not just a new technology model as we argue in our book - its a new business model - its a new marketing model.

Forget what you knew and jump into the world of the mobile internet

Electronic Echoes: hundreds commented on iPod 14% story

Our iPod 14% market share story was widely covered and discussed by hundreds from Philippines to Portugal, from Singapore to Sweden, and of course among the passionate Apple/Mac/iPod community centered in the USA.

Normally we have about 300 visitors per day. And we receive a couple of comments per week. "Demise of a Darling" broke all of our records. We had over 8000 visitors reading the iPod related pages and they left us over 120 comments over the last week to the three postings relating to that story. 3000 visitors and 32 replies came within the first 24 hours, those from just two Macintosh/Apple -related sites

In all we have 145 comments from 72 readers (the 145 includes my replies). On several dozen other blogsites at least another 150 comments have been posted on this topic around the world. On dozens of discussion boards ranging from the Apple/Mac discussion groups to the general IT discussion boards to the mobile telecoms panels the story has attracted many hundreds of comments more, from the "these guys are idiots for even suggesting it" to "since Apple now admits to planning an iPhone, what should Apple do next to enter this market Ahonen talks about." It was a reasonably "hot topic" over the past week. But like so many other hot topics introduced on the web, it is now all but over.

NOT SENSATIONALISM

We did not invent this phone-iPod convergence story now in July of 2006. Earlier this year there have been some of the biggest names in telecoms, IT and media acknowledging that the MP3 player market now consists of iPods and mobile phones. From the predictable players like Nokia's Anssi Vanjoki to Microsoft's Bill Gates we've also heard the music industry discuss the convergence such as Warner Music's CEO Edgar Bronfman. Even Apple's own CFO Peter Oppenheimer on 19 July admitted that musicphones are now in the same market as iPods. His position was that iPods still hold the technical lead over such devices as the SonyEricsson Walkman phones. I also want to mention, that none of the Vanjoki, Gates, Bronfman or Oppenheimer comments were in response to ours. They all discussed the converged market BEFORE OUR BLOG.

We did not invent this story last week to cause hype and a tidal wave of readership to our site (what many in their haste to post angry replies probably didn't notice, is that we don't carry any advertising on our site so there would be no point in creating visitors for the sake of traffic).

Already some of the biggest and most reputable analyst companies for the IT and telecoms industries, like IDC/Informa (which Apple itself uses), and Gartner, Ovum, Yankee Group etc have already started to track the musicplayer market as one which includes both iPods and MP3 players. Newspapers and business periodicals from the Financial Times to Business Week have discussed the market as becoming one (or indeed already being one market).

SO WHY THE STORY

We introduced the topic here, as this blogsite tracks digital convergence in all media, IT and telecoms. As one example of how rapidly a new marketspace (iTunes/iPod) can be invented - and often by unlikely rivals to established industry - like we write in our case study of the iPod in our book - to how rapidly such market space can be "invaded by the hoardes", or cannibals at the gate, if you will. This is what happened to the iPod during the past 18 months. That is the story we wanted to report. But like so many similar stories of magazines dying because of digital convergence or of advertising spending shifting or of youth time and disposable income shifting, etc, this one topic, iPods, received as many comments as all other comments left on our blogsite in the past year. It was apparently a hot button topic.

PATTERNS IN REPLIES

On this site we had 145 comments (that includes my frequent replies). The outside comments came from 72 people. 52 people (72%) were completely or mostly against us. 12 people (17%) were partly or fully in support of us. And 8 people (11%) felt the topic had some merit, perhaps more in the future than today; or gave a neutral comment like requesting some specific information.

WHAT IS THE SPLIT?

Is there a clear split to the replies? Most of the 72% of the replies against us, came from the Macintosh/Apple community. I need to point three splits of this set of replies.

There is the obviously clear Apple/Mac vs PC split. Macs are the minority in the computer world. They are very passionate, and often feel discriminated. They are most fiercely loyal to their cause. I think many had hoped the iPod would become the world-beater that the Macintosh never was able to be. And perhaps it is those hopes they felt now this kind of 14% market share posting was destroying? I don't know. Apple/Mac fans felt we were totally wrong with the blog. Bear in mind that Macintoshes are under 10% of all PCs. And yes, some Mac users also agreed with us.

PC vs Telecoms experts. There is a bigger split in the overall IT world, that of the PC computing world vs the telecoms world. Actually the telecoms world is much larger in total revenues, Fortune 500 sized companies, and total customers (remember 1 billion internet users vs 2.4 billion mobile phone users and 1.3 billion fixed landline telecoms customers). In the split of IT vs Telecoms, almost all experts on the telecoms side found agreement with our blog. The telecoms world is more than twice the size of the IT world in terms of total revenues.

USA vs World. The most telling split is that of North American readers vs the rest of the world. We've had comments here at this site from Europe, Asia etc, in addition to those from the USA and Canada. There is a very clear split that most North American readers tend to comment "I have not seen anyone using phones in this way" while almost all European and Asian commenters openly agree that the musicphones are now an everyday item in their markets. Americans are only 5% of the world's population. And yes, some in America supported us too, and some outside found fault in our reasoning (and these tended all to profess to being Macintosh/Apple people too)

With that, it makes sense that almost all comments against us come from either Macintosh/Apple computer users or from Americans in general. Almost all in support of us come from the non-Apple PC world, the telecoms world, or outside North America.

MANY APPLAUDED US

Robert Scobler at the Scobleizer blog is one of the best-read blogsites in the world and regularly quoted by the industry:

"(Tomi Ahonen's) very long (but excellent) essay saying the iPod is on decline. Why? Because of cell phones eating into iPod’s market share."

http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/07/20/the-new-apple-is-dying-meme

(63 comments)

Another typical comment from Technovia by Ian Betteridge

"Tomi Ahonen has been taking a beating from the rabid Apple fans for his analysis of the portable music player market, despite the fact that his numbers and premise are completely sound"

http://technovia.typepad.com/

(34 comments)

APPLE PEOPLE VEHEMENTLY AGAINST US

Vehemently against the posting - these are exclusively Mac/Apple/iPod dedicated sites, but there were many that I found (and I don't mean to suggest there weren't even more). Note the amount of comments at these:

TUAW The Unofficial Apple Weblog there were two threads, the first entilted "Gimme a break, iPod market share 14%?" by Dan Pourhadi. He invited opinions by "ye members of the Mac Elite"

(54 comments)

The Mac Format covered the article claiming it sensationalist (and making an error as we never said Apple was in any way dying because of iPod market share crashing). They write:

"Really the whole article just looks like another Dvorak-inspired* piece of sensationalist journalism designed to drive traffic to a website" - which I must immediately refute that as we have no advertising at this site, generating traffic is quite a pointless task. We want intelligent readers, and just to attract an angry Apple mob serves us no purpose whatsoever.

(3 comments)

In addition to these, are the various Macintosh/Apple user groups (listed below) which requre registration and thus are not really blogsites as such, rather discussion groups

OUTSIDE USA WE HAD LOTS OF SUPPORT

Many sites in over a dozen countries and languages reflected their support of our blog, such as this:

Web 2.0 Asia

"The article is quite long, but a must read, if you are interested in mobile media."

http://www.web20asia.com/24

REPORTED ON DOZENS OF OTHER SITES

Many news sites and aggregators reported the story, including:

Business Week, Wireless Watch, The 3G Portal, Forum Oxford, Carnival of the Mobilists, Newsgator, Nedrichards,

Dozens of blogsites mentioned it, included a link, or posted a short excerpt. I know I have not found all, but hope that this is a fair representation of at least most that have sent traffic to us.

Blogtronix, Del.icio.us, money.cnn.blogs, domelhor.net, SMStextnews, ptrmn.blogspot.com, techmeme, blackbagops.net, megite, irishblogs,ie, blogdigger, gnoos.com.au, feedcollectors, johanfitie, haddock.org, piersantelli.it, crazyfactor, informatory, athla.info, asterisco.paradigma.pt, divedi.blogspot.com

There were also many Mac/Apple specific sites who reported it, which I want to separate from the generic blogsite bunch:

MacTime, MacAddict, MacFormat, TUAW, OmenaMehu.org, podcentral.ph, free-ipod-blogs, podcast.blogwog,

SOME SAID ITS OLD NEWS

There also are those who make the point that this view is not radical at all, that its been said many times before. (these tend all to be experts based outside the USA)

For example Joe Hayabashi at the Joe's Blog writes

"Sure the iPod is still super strong and Apple will continue to make and sell a ton of iPods.  It's just that over the long haul it's very difficult for single function devices to compete against the functionality consuming mobile phone ecosystem (other than as a high-end niche device).  I'd argue that the writing has been on the wall since the beginning..."

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/jhayashi

OTHERS SAID IT WILL ATTRACT IRE OF APPLE FANS

Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus was supportive of us, and warned it will cause a vehement Apple fanatics response:

"I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Apple community will react to this article as if it were the insane ramblings of a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. There's some justification for that. But. There's also some justification in believing that there's a point being made here. Cell phones, almost certainly, will surpass dedicated MP3 players (as they have cameras and PDAs). Has it already happened?"

http://www.internet-nexus.com/2006/07/demise-of-darling-ipod-market-share.htm

Paul's prediction proved remarkably accurate. Michael Mace also reported on the "cat fight" - and Michael also sides with us on this:

Michael Mace's Mobile Opportunity blogsite

"By far the best cat fight of the week is the discussion spawned by Tomi Ahonen's lengthy post declaring the death of the iPod at the hands of the MP3-capable phone. "The battle is totally over. Apple cannot recover," he writes. Tomi makes the mobile-phone-conquers-all argument very forcefully and in great detail. Check it out and decide for yourself."

http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/

BEST COMMENT

As anyone who'se seen me speak knows, I am a big fan of using humour. And here is my absolute favourite comment. It was at the TUAW site and I tried to reply to this many times to thank for the funniest reply ever to anything I've said. But unfortunately the TUAW site had some technical issues with my e-mail and wouldn't let me in (they were most supportive and helpful of me and apologized). This is by jbelkin on 21 July at the TUAW site (note the Thurott he refers to had commented in support of my blog):

"Thurott doesn't go far enough - what about people who spontaneously burst into song? They are in effect a human Mp3 player - so, the ipod share goes lower - especially if you count insane people. As the Earth rotates, millions of people actually turn off their ipod to go to sleep - that's a market share loss every night! Potentially millions of those people could have a horrible nightmare and want to buy a WMA 128k flash player the next morning! Again, more market share losses."
-- jbelkin

I honestly laughed out loud when I read that. Thank you jbelkin. Spontaneously bursting into song. Yes, I forgot to count all the idiots who further erode the iPod market share ha-ha

IS IT WORST OR BEST?

We also have the dubious honour of someone claiming it the worst writing of all time, while another considering it one of the best writings of the week.

Worst article ever written says one (Apple fanatic) writer

A blogsite entitled "Fix Your Thinking" but for which the author is not brave enough to reveal his own name, he posts with this headline: "In the history of all articles written on the internet, this is the worst" The author writes:

"You've read a lot of articles on the internet, right? You read BLOGs and other news sites like this one on a daily basis. No matter what rant you've read from Dvorak, from Enderle, from Palmer ... nothing tops this absurdly lengthy, incredibly non factual diatribe on Apple's iPod. Not only is the debate contained within this article non sequitur (a favorite word of mine lately) ... but it is so poorly written that it almost seems the writer Tomi T Ahonen is living in another universe. He's certainly not on the same planet I'm on where the iPod has <76% marketshare."

I of course have also commented at that site - apparently that author's planet is exclusively the USA, as Apple's own numbers reveal their next best country by market share is Australia at 58%, Canada at 46% and rest of the world more like Germany 21%, France 11% etc. But I digress. This blog entry is at:

http://jackwhispers.blogspot.com/2006/07/in-history-of-all-articles-written-on.html

It is funny how one blogger (anonymously) can say this is the worst writing of all time, while many others like Robert Scoble say its an excellent article and the Carnival of the Mobilists made it one of the finalists for best writing on the web of last week. The Carnival said my blog was one of the finalists at this link:

Michael Mace who hosted the Carnival of the Mobilists, selected the blog as one of the finalists for the best blog of the week recognition:

As host of the Carnival, I get to choose a post of the week. Tomi's iPod post is definitely the most passionate (and longest), Stephanie's was very insightful, and I really like the way Kevin Evans thinks. But the point-counterpoint at All About Symbian was my favorite, so that's the post of the week. Congratulations, guys!

http://mobileopportunity.blogspot.com/

So someone (who dare not post his name) says its the worst writing of all time, while another reputable blogger of long standing and big readership considere it one of the best blogs of the week? Beauty in the eye of the beholder, no doubt?

HAS MERIT, LETS WAIT AND SEE

There are the "lets wait and see" postings who accept the premise but point out that there is a valid view on both sides. Owen Thomas at CNN/Money blogsite The Browser takes this view ending with "If other countries follow Japan's lead, the iPod's reign could be short-lived indeed."

http://money.cnn.com/blogs/browser/

(4 comments)

The Irish Eyes blogsite by Bernie Goldbach reports on the moves by Apple towards iPhones but references our blog,
(11 comments)

APPLE USERS THEMSELVES SHOW THIS PATTERN

Most revealingly TUAW also ran a poll of how many of its users (keeping in mind this is The Unofficial Apple Weblog - listen to music on phones). They have had 5,354 votes as of 26 July. What should concern Dan Pourhadi and the TUAW site visitors, is that of THEIR readership, 18% of this Apple-hard core fan base admit to listening to music on phones, using both (11%) or more on phone (2%) or exclusively on phone (5%).

http://www.tuaw.com/2006/07/21/tuaw-poll-do-you-use-your-phone-as-an-mp3-player

So even among the die-hard Apple/Macintosh/iPod loyal fan base, the dam is breaking and the shift has started to emerge. One in five loyal Mac fans is already using a mobile phone for some or all of their music consumption.

It has been a heavy period of time, replying to all comments, and I do feel a frustration in having to explain the same points time and again. But also, I am confident this discussion has opened some eyes with miscellanous readers. There is no doubt. There is a trend of music consumption shifting from iPods to musicphones. The discussion at this blogsite and on dozens of sites around the world, reflects passionate Apple/Macintosh fans expressing their frustration on this, but also reflects many of the most respected sources admiting our argument is totally true, or at least has a lot of merit.

I want to end on one comment in support of us. For those who actually have taken the long time to read all of the comments, and see how diligently I've replied to every one of our visitors, with a personal, named reply to each, these kind words did feel particularly warm, thank you Mikeleh:

Mikeleh's Take:

"Tomi explains it in depth and with saintly patience for the flood of Apple fanatics who dispute him. Worth reading."

http://mickeleh.blogspot.com/

We thank you all for visiting our site and for enjoining in the discussion. I hope sincerely that you can join in other discussions in the future as we examine the convergence of IT, telecoms and media; and the role of digital communities such as bloggers, in that new converged world.

Nokia survey finds mobile phones may replace cameras and MP3 players

06 June 2006 - A recent study by Nokia finds, perhaps unsurprisingly, that people want and, indeed, expect more from their mobile phones than just phone calls.

According to the survey, 44% use their mobile as their primary camera, and 72% say that their mobile has rendered their alarm clock obsolete as they rely on their phone to wake them up.

Despite the relatively high cost of surfing the net with a mobile, 36% of respondents say they use their mobiles to go online at least once a month, whereas 37% of Japanese respondents go online with their mobiles at least once a day.

Mobile phones are more important to 21% of respondents than their wallet, credit cards, or their wedding ring.

Nokia also pried into the music habits of those surveyed, to find out the 67% download a percentage of their music, while 87% believe they buy more music now than before they owned a digital music device. Of those surveyed, 67% say that mobile phones will replace their MP3 players.

In the home, almost half the respondents want all their gadgets, including printer, PC, and mobile device, interconnected.

The survey was run by ICM Research, who interviewed 500 people in each of eleven countries for a total of 5500 respondents.

Via MopHap

Liveworld helping companies and their customers to better engage with eachother

I want to start this post with a reference to the previous one concerning Citizen Journalism

My question: why is citizen journalism so powerful?

Because according to the Reuters editor in chief Geert Linnebank

The new participatory journalism is leading to a much richer telling of stories

Then think about the fact that we live in a world of collapsing geographic borders, technology has contributed to that and we are a we species by design - we have a fundamenetal need to connect and communicate.

Then we have the reality that the days of blockbuster economics are over, and that what is happening is the creation of niche mass markets.

Then we are curating our own consumption like never before and that we are beginning to enter a world more social and a world which is being being built on a new socio-economic paradigm.

How value is created is changing - the very nature of commerce is changing too.

Just like at myspace.com or second life or world or warcraft.

So it is no surprise to me that Peter Friedman CEO of liveworld.com has recently completed a JV with WPP

Apparently Peters phone is ringing off the hook - from where I sit as co-author of this blog and book I would be advising companies that an approach based upon a persistent and dynamic relationship with your customer base is the way forward.

But it is a different mindset - from the aggressive stance and language of conventional marketing communications.

In a Wall Street Journal article (registration required) of 26th July - Peter Friedman said the following

The majority of the world has time in the day to meet other people, and they want to do it. But as great as technology is, over the past 50 years it has functioned to isolate people. The internet and particuarly online communities venues turns that round and enables people to connect with eachother and go back to the fundamental need that the last 50 years of society and technology and marketing have hindered. So this is really getting people back to what they are all about, and they want to do it, and that is for any age group

And Friedman has some advise for his clients

One thing we tell our customers is if they are going to say something about your brand on your community you can be sure they are saying it somewhere else. You might as well get your arms around it, address it, listen to it and know what it is

A sentiment we share here.

However, others are less generous to Friedman

Why? Because they see the words EXPLOITATION coming down the road as full beam headlights Their simplistic ideology communities good. Businesses very very BAD

and then they repeat it like a mantra. sigh.

What we argue is that companies must adapt and evolve to survive. Nothing stands still. And it is why I believe that these new social platforms are forcing companies to behave in different and more responsible ways. They have to become more transparent, they have to listen, and this new form of engagement will hopefully produce better services and products.

There is enough evidence (read our book) that traditional economic models are no longer viable, yet we need strong economies to have better schools, better education, better healthcare etc.,

We know that traditional marketing is at a last gasp stage, yes it will not go down to Davy Jone's locker yet, and some will cling to the flotsam and jetsom.

But smart companies will be thinking about a social/community strategy and brand architecture, that allows them to successfully survive in this very competitve world - where every companies fear is that they will become a commodity.

Just look at the battleground of BT - Sky and Orange as but one example and Virgin will be weighing into the fray very soon I am sure of that. And what are they all doing? They are starting to blog iin a quest for greater transparency with the ultimate desire that their brands and offerings will be more trusted

In our post Companies learn the value of blogging - Or do they? we discuss how Dell got it so badly wrong. Someone was giving them bad advice.

If I were Dell - I'd say pick up the phone to Peter Friedman and ask him how Liveworld could help get them out of the deep doooh daaah

Citizen Journalism and the new media ecology

Mobile group in talks to create TV link for citizen journalists

Citizen journalism is poised to take a great leap into the mainstream media as the mobile phone network 3 pursues talks with ITN and Sky News about feeding clips produced by its customers on to television news bulletins.

A deal would create a direct channel for anyone caught up in a big news event.

Changes in mobile phone technology, which have put relatively high-resolution cameras into the hands of millions of people, have created some of the most powerful news images of the past two years. From footage of the shocking impact of the Asian tsunami to shots of passengers stumbling along dimly lit tracks after last year's terror attacks on the London Underground, and the progress of a confused whale up the Thames, mobile-phone pictures have relayed events before the arrival of professional camera crews and reporters.

Writes the Guardian

Whilst Reuters plan to evolve with citizen journalists

A senior Reuters executive has said the firm will have to review how it deals with user-generated content during major breaking news stories in the future.

David Schlesinger, the company's global managing editor and head of editorial operations, added that in the event of a major story that prompted people to send in a vast amount of photographs and video clips, such as the London July 7 bombings, the organisation may need to reallocate editorial resources.

And why is citizen journalism so powerful - well according to the Reuters editor in chief Geert Linnebank

The new participatory journalism is leading to a much richer telling of stories

And so the public are changing the relationship bewteen them and news organisations by the gathering of information for media coverage

the BBC director of news, Helen Boaden said

Its a gear change. It shows there is a terrific level of trust between the audience and us, creating a more intimate relationship than in the past. It shows a new closeness forming between BBC news and the public. We are into a new world now and each big story that happens confirms that.

Companies learn the value of blogging - Or do they?

In our book we talked about Bob Lutz of GM blogging at the Fastlane blog and Jonathan Schwartz COO of Sun Microsystems also a blogger.

Schwartz famously said

my 1000 bloggers at Sun have done more for this company that a $billion ad campaign.

And he talks about how Sun's bloggers have created a more transparent company, that appears more human as a result. This is the natural consequence of two way flows of communication. Something that many brand and advertising managers struggle with. Command and control should no longer be part of any marketing communications strategy.

We are at the very beginning now of a revolution in marketing communications. How businesses will engage with their audiences, how marketing budgets will be spent, and how marketing departments will be organised. These are topics I suggest thyat are on the tips of many CMO's and CEO's and perhaps even the odd board.

Not surprising then that a year and a half later the world this side of the Atlantic is catching up according to the Financial Times who reported on July 17th that BT's COO John Petter will start blogging following hard on the heals of Charles Dunstone at Carphone Warhouse who is now blogging. Read his blog here

However, Richard Charkin CEO at Macmillian the publishers has been blogging since December. Welcome to the blogosphere Richard. Launching an ancient industry into the 21st Century.

Dresdener Kleinwort, set up an internal blog to share ideas. JP Rangaswami, who was instrumental in the process, believes that internal blogs and wiki's increase and improve efficiency

There is no doubt in my mind that the transparent, addative, collaborative approach to these types of social software make a significant impact on organisations. Its quite a cool way for companies to start to learn to embrace the future.

Howard Rheingold decribes them as technologies of collaboration. About which we write about exstensively on this blog and in our book. Though Howard is without doubt the supreme font of all knowledge on this topic.

But interestingly, there are those out there that "dont get it" Reading Shel Israels blog about Jeff Jarvis and his fight with Dell came this post: Dell attacks Jarvis

Just when I thought Dell was beginning to understand blogging, an anonymous representative of Dell's Marketing agency, CGI, hurls this incredibly tasteless and inaccurate pile of shabby homework into Jeff's Comments and makes Dell look really awful, just when it seemed to me, to be moving in the right direction. Now, whatever direction Dell tries to go, it will be moving with each foot in a bucket.

Richard Edelman, whose agency competes with CGI, rightfully called it a " serious case of malpractice," which is pretty much on-spot, if you ask me.

As far as the anonymous comment poster, his footprints go directly back to CGI. Dude, if CGI has half a brain, you should look forward soon to a career in the restaurant service industry.

And this is the point that blogs, represent a completely different way of communicating and interacting. Clicks leave digital traces and so truth and transparency play a key and fundamental role in this new media ecology. In fact its not media anymore, its " social media. " Social media has a different language, framework and rules of engagement. Also read what's an Oxymoron? and blogs and trust

So its good to see corporate bloggers this side of the water - it will be the first step towards what we describe as the revolution of engagement marketing.

Web content 2.0 @ the RSA

Earlier in the year I was invited to NMK's web content 2.0 conference where I went head to head with Shel Israel co-author of Naked Conversations

Well, it was more a friendly chat - what a lovely man. Greetings Shel :-)

Anyway here is the link to the podcasts

And here is the link to the conversation that Shel Israel and I had

I also thought Bradley Horowitz Vice President of Product Strategy at Yahoo also made a very interesting presentation. Listen here.

Nice one Bradley and a book will be on its way to you shortly :-)

The broadband Wars

TalkTalk finds free broadband response overwhelming

Carphone Warehouse has been overwhelmed by the demand for its "free" broadband offer from TalkTalk which has signed up 340,000 customers in eight weeks, twice the company's forecast. Chief executive Charles Dunstone admitted that customers are being kept on hold as its 1,200 British call centre staff struggle to cope with the flood of inquiries.

Charles Dunstone commented

I don't want them to have to wait at all. I hate the fact that people are queueing and I have got people working flat out. What has surprised us is the success of it. More people resented how much they paid for broadband than we ever imagined.

Orange plans broadband TV rival to BT Vision

Orange is planning to offer a broadband TV service in Britain this year to compete with a similar service planned by BT and BSkyB's converged TV and internet product, due to launch over the summer.

Confirming the launch of a "free" broadband offering, Orange's UK head of broadband, Eric Abensur, said Orange TV would include the digital terrestrial TV channels from Freeview, seven-day catch-up TV and video on demand. Customers will get a set-top box they can plug into their television and broadband connection, which includes a personal video recorder.

BSkyB puts up £400m to join 'free' broadband race 

BSkyB launched its second digital landgrab in a decade yesterday as it committed £400m to signing up 3 million broadband subscribers by 2010.

The pay-TV group confirmed that it will launch a "free" broadband service, matching offers from mobile phone operator Orange and Carphone Warehouse.

However, the Advertising Standards Authority is expected to upset those plans today by ruling that Carphone's service cannot be described as "free" because it includes a connection fee and line rental. BSkyB's three-tiered Sky Broadband service could run into the same trouble because customers will have to sign up to a pay-TV package starting at £15 per month, if they are not subscribers already.

So is free really free? As they say there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Censorship and the blogosphere: case from India

One of our readers (thank you Harsh Dhundia) told us of the recent censorship of blogsites in India, following the bombings there. Many used blogsites to spread information during a time when news was difficult to find, and then suddenly the Indian government blocked access to several of the most popular blogsites.

First, this is obviously an issue many governments are having to learn to deal with. There will be postings at blogsites which some will find offensive etc. Is it going to be open or censored. We, Alan and I, believe very strongly in the openness, and completely condemn the censorship.

But this case also verifies the power of digital communities. The story did not die. It was echoed outside of India and suddenly covered by the major global press, like the International Herald Tribune and then on 20 July, India relents, admits it was a mistake by overly zealous government officials.

This - the blogosphere - is a new medium with new rules. We, the bloggers, have to be diligent and defend the blogosphere and each other, even if we don't always agree with what we may be saying. The power is that we all are connected.

Thank you Harsh for telling us about the story and providing the link.

Ethical travel takes off

In a Guardian article Boom in green holidays as ethical travel takes off

Justin Francis, managing director of the firm responsibletravel.com said:

Our bookings are double what they were this time last year. We have had this consumer demand [for ethical products] in food and fair trade for 15 years, but not in travel.

Five years ago there were only 5 travel firms that were ethically based, which RespsonsibleTravel felt comfortable recommending to their clients

Now we have over 160 tour companies ... Tourism is one of the world's biggest industries, some say the biggest [for] employment. This is an industry that until the last two or three years has been untouched by a strong consumer ethical dimension, though other global giants, like oil and mining, have had to show a commitment ... We have the world's biggest industry belatedly in catch-up.

The Guardian reports that:

Holidays sold as "responsible" or "sustainable" still make up perhaps just 1% of trips overseas, equating to 450,000 holidays from Britain a year. But as the ethical consumer market grows - Fairtrade food and drink sales increased by 52% in 2005, while ethical investments were up by 31% - the ripples reach the travel industry. According to consumer research firm Mintel, by 2010 the outgoing "ethical" holiday market from the UK will have swollen to 2.5m trips a year.

You only have to go into most supermarkets to see how ethical consumerism has become big business. The inevitable consequence of this trend will be increasing pressure on businesses and brands to be more transparent in their operations offerings and propositions.