FOWA

I was at FOWA for the second day of the conference last week, it was an insightful day out of the office and I walked out feeling quite informed about all things going on in the world of web apps and social websites.

My day kicked off with Tim Bray giving a good on talk on how we as an industry should move forward, in what now has been dubbed as the “credit crunch”. Open source software, cloud computing, social media, collaboration and multi-skilling were all on the top of his list.

Without sounding cheesy it was quite an inspirational talk from a man who had a frightening amount of knowledge about technology, business and err…the world. Definitely one of those ones that leave you thinking “s*** I should read more”.

One of my favourite quotes from his talk was “monetisation on the point of value”, this referred to how the enterprise will lean towards open source technology and only pay for solutions when they start to deliver value, gone are days of licensing and value delivery after expense and integration.

This made me think about the value of social media more and more. As the use of social media is not as accountable as traditional DM/DR marketing what value does it deliver during a credit crunch?

Personally I believe it allows a brand to get closer to it’s audience during this period of financial uncertainty. People are now more than ever are looking for a value exchange and this is something that can be most effectively delivered by brands through building relationships with audiences.

A typical example would be someone looking to buy a high-end laptop online: Taking the current state of the economy into account, would a cash thrifty consumer buy a laptop from a brand who has no unbiased online feedback? Web commentary, product reviews and integration information? I wouldn’t buy from that brand, I would want to be reassured that during these cash strapped times my investment is a sound one. No form of interrupt marketing will provide me this reassurance until we reach a period of economic stability.

This may not apply to every product, service or vertical but think about it! The people who have the cash, the big spenders, they’re often the wisest ones too!

Moving forward we will see more brands get closer to their existing customers, do the best to provide a pre-purchase value exchange to prospects using social media in conjunction with low cost acquisition methods such as Affiliate Marketing, SEO and low cost CPC advertising.

I digress but that’s what thinking makes me do anyway…

Other highlights of the day included all the sessions on cloud computing, in particular Jeff Bar from Amazon web services made some really good points during his session. Microsoft were also demo’ing all their new bells, whistles and Silverlight but I think my second favourite batch of talks were delivered after lunch.

The interview of Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg was really insightful. It answered a lot of questions about the directions Facebook is taking in regards to making the platform more open, integrating technologies such as oAuth. Zuckerberg said it wasn’t out of the question and it is something that is on the cards, however, timelines are yet to be established. He went on to say that one of the key things that keep him and Facebook going is the passion he has for sharing information and this is why Facebook, overtime will become a more open platform.

Seeing someone soo young, speak with such a forward thinking mindset was definitely good for personal motivation. Roll on FOWA 09!!