Uba Kontrovasie

Digital Freegans

Not too long ago I was watching a TV program about Freeganism and Freegans, it was a Cutting Edge style show, not quite sure what channel it was on. It got me thinking…

The web is turning people into Digital Freegans, people who use the webs’ free resources as alternatives to traditional paid for sources of information, entertainment and applications.
 
People often ask me about the longevity of social media. With so many brands jumping on the bandwagon, will social media end up on the pile of communication methods that people become dismissive of?
 
Brian Solis tweeted one of his findings recently: “Only 16% of consumers trust corporate blogs”, stats like these possibly support the sceptical question raised above. There are many brands embracing blogging, social media etc. The problem is they’re probably not “doing it right”, and they’re probably not working to deliver any value to the audiences or communities they wish to interact with.
 
I believe we’re heading towards to the second evolution in social media/marketing, the most helpful brands are the ones that will carry on growing. Everyone in the social media business, at some same stage probably talks to their clients about delivering value exchanges and listening to audiences. I think there’s another magic ingredient that should be added to the mix, it’s called innovation!
 
Not only should brands be working hard to deliver value to the public, they should also be working to deliver value in the most innovative way possible. In time this will mean going beyond blogging and actually delivering personal B2C responses via mediums such as video, and this is where platforms like Seesmic deliver real beneficial functionality.
 
With so much useful content available on the web, the successful brands appear to be the ones that have taken an extra step forward and delivered value in innovative ways.
 
Take for example Gary Vaynerchucks’ Wine library TV, it was one of the first blogs of its kind and even now with so many wine review websites, forms, blogs and TV shows it is still as popular as ever.
 
His success can be accredited to his full length, online TV shows, which are all free to watch (true freegan feast) and secondly his content delivery is innovative in comparison to other wine review shows.
 
He makes wine accessible and easy to understand through his style of presenting. Let’s face it we’re all normally use to out of touch, snoty characters who keep droning on about the South of France, Gary changes all this with informal style of presenting and humour.  

So…whilst it is important to build relationships with key influencers and interest led communities, it is also important to provide something for the growing number “Digital Freegans” who occasionally may require something that a brand could deliver, thus making that initial connection.

The Audio Freegans

  
The music industry and its artists claim that they have been the victims of music piracy and attribute this to declines in financial growth.
 
What they call piracy should be seen as digital freeganism, which empowers the consumer. P2P exchanges and bitorrent websites have given people limitless access to music they have never had.
 
This movement has turned people into more informed music critics, that are more likely to invest further into quality artists. We’re heading towards an era where an artist can no-longer release an album with two good songs and fill the rest of the album up with crap! Sorry to be blunt it’s just the way it is. With so much good music freely accessible, nobody in their right mind will continue to pay for mediocre material.
 
If people are downloading music for free, the next most profitable revenue stream for the music industry resides with live performances, merchandise, special edition TV appearances and guest journalism. In order for these opportunities to arise artists need to turn themselves into brands.
 
This movement will require some give and take, artists and labels and will need to become more lenient towards downloading and see it as a brand building activity, which allows people to become more familiar with them. By feeding the freeganism, or at least not trying to stamp it out, artists can aid efforts of gradually turning themselves into brands with multiple revenue streams.

Tags: content, Digital Music, free content, freeganism, social media

Google going Social

I suppose none of us have been oblivious to the birth of Google Search Wiki in recent weeks, I’ve already heard lot’s of people say “hang on a sec, it’s not really a wiki”.

Search Wiki at the moment serves a purpose for Google account holders, who want to annotate, customize and improve the quality of their own search results pages.

I personally think Google might have bigger plans for Search Wiki as they may; over time use Search Wiki annotations and amendments collectively, as a means to improve the quality of their overall search results.

Google already have a very firm stance on aggressive link building activity, especially towards paid-for back links. Search Wiki along with other sources of internal data may, in the near future reduce Google’s dependance on analysing back link portfolios in order to judge website authority and relevancy.

The natural search results of Google are often just as manipulated as the sponsored search listings that advertisers use, It’s about time Google did some thing to clean up their search results. I’m sure Search Wiki will be warmly received by Google account holders, who in time will become self-motivated, vigilantly search Police.

It’s a real early warning for old school SEO practitioners that need to wake up and smell the coffee! Delivering good website structure, amazing content and excellent user experience will stop the public from deleting you from their search results.

Friendly Friends

In addition to Search Wiki, Google has also launched Friend Connect. With a quick copy and paste of code any website can now have “social” features. The ease of use makes Friend Connect a great quick win for any webmaster that wants social features on their website at minimum cost.

In addition to the simplicity of the installation, Friend Connect also allows people to join website groups using non-Google ID systems, such as Open ID and Yahoo ID. This is not only handy for users, it is also handy for Google as it increases the amount of people using their products and services.

Further to the points I raised above about Search Wiki annotations and amendments effecting natural search results, will the most socially active websites gain greater authority or improved rankings in the future? It does make sense to some degree as there are newer, UGC heavy websites on the web, which are more useful than top ranking websites that rank well because of their link equity.

Tags: friend connect, Google, improving search, search wiki, social media, social search

The value of listening

I always notice that when people start talking about Social Media they often refer to it as a new method of talking to audiences, customers and people with shared interests.

I suppose none of this is untrue, however, I rarely hear people refer to Social Media as an alternative method of LISTENING to audiences, customers and people with shared interests.

I always tell clients; if you’re using social media effectively, anything in between 50-60% of your time should be spent on listening to people.

Forums, blogs, Facebook groups and even microblogs hold so many answers in regards to how people feel about a brand and its offerings. For this reason I believe Social Media should be perceived as a valuable quantitative and qualitative research base.

Information derived from social environments can and should be used to influence product development, CRM/after-sales strategy and even marketing and advertising for traditional channels.

Should every brand be utilising Social Media?

Yes! With so many social platforms available to the public, every brand should be utilising Social Media in order to listen to relevant online communities and key influences at the very least.

For years brand owners have spent millions of pounds on product and market research. Whilst these processes are all still necessary, it is also important to realise that the foundations for these types of research can be laid with insight from social spaces and assessment of online conversations.

Tags: listening, research, social media, social media measurement

Deconstructing Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry (Steve Forrest for The New York Times)

I’m really liking StephenFry.com, he has turned into a celebrity Social Media Evangelist.

The only thing that I question about his whole concept is the use of his own video content? Why is it not being hosted on a platform like Vimeo, Revver or Viddler? If people could embed his video content onto their own blogs and websites it would travel so much further, enabling him to gain more attention from the blogosphere and social video websites such as the ones that I have mentioned above.

I keep seeing various websites self hosting video content, personally think this is an expensive solution in comparison to all the free, community enabled, social video websites that are available.

In addition to cost the efficiencies of using social video websites, the marketing and distribution benefits exceed what can be achieved through self hosting.

Tags: social media, stephen fry, video communities, video distribution, video hosting, video syndication

IAB Social Media Handbook

For the past 3 months I have been working with the recently formed IAB Social Media Council. The council has been set-up to help both agencies and marketer’s gain a better understanding of social media and some of its components.

It has been great collaborating with fellow council members, who have all provided unique and insightful views on managing social media effectively. 

Over the next few months the council will work to produce a number of supplements, seminars and information packs about social media to serve the very purpose of informing agencies and brands. 

The first completed resource is the Social Media Handbook, which can be found be on the IAB Social Media Council webpage.

Tags: IAB, social media, social media council, social media strategies

Open source and open source communities

Having never really grasped Photoshop properly and only making minor changes to photographs using Apple’s Aperture on my old Mac, I thought it was time for me to really start editing my photos properly. After all sometimes you only have a single take whether it’s film or digital.

With this in mind I began to start scouring the web for a free, ahem, cough, splutter Photoshop equivalent. A single Photoshop license costs a king’s ransom and as I’m not a designer the cost is not justified.

After some exploring and playing I’ve chosen GIMP, an open source package which runs on my mac and those things called PC’s. This package is not a new name to any of us, however, the reason why I’ve chosen it is the community that surrounds it.

The package is free and the training is free too! There is a whole youtube/blog/forum community built up around GIMP and due to the package being free there are so many people talking about it and exchanging learning’s.

Other things I like about GIMP:

> It can read, open and edit psd’s
> It has RAW editing capabilities
> Lots of frequent updates

I’ve been using software off sourceforge since I was at Uni, when you’re on a budget open source gets things done cheap.

What I am now witnessing is an increase in the number of businesses adopting open source technology. Open source software and technology no longer has this geeky back room shadow hanging over it. It is reliable, slick, robust and the endorsement from smaller businesses has led to larger organisations using it for enterprise purposes.

Businesses want lean, dynamic low cost solutions, which just work and this is open source in a nut shell. How is it dynamic? Well there are a whole host of community developers working constantly to make the technologies and the programs more stable and advanced. The communities which surround around open source technologies are often quick identify to quirks and suggest product improvements.  

When Google launched Andriod Sergey Brin said that even he had used open source tools as a developer and I believe as open source technology moves forward it will only become more advanced, facilitating and fostering more creativity and great ideas from it’s users.

So where do the heritage technology providers fit in? Microsoft, Adobe and Apple have excellent products and product support but this all comes at a price. Their business models have been built on licensing fee’s and support contracts.

For software giants like this to sustain growth they will have to maintain the bedrock revenue they receive from licensing and product support, so how will they compete with open source products?

Well Tim Bray summed it up quite nicely at FOWA “monetisation on the point of value”, I believe the giants such as Microsoft and Adobe will have to focus on product support and dedicated enterprise integration.

These heritage software companies will/should move to provide their core customers (FTSE 100, Fortune 500, SME) with solutions and not just software and product support. The models need to change and essentially businesses should present heritage technology giants with real challenges and the technology providers should work to overcome these challenges with solutions using their platforms, technology and knowledge.

By now most of you are probably thinking they already do this anyway and this is true, however, these services at this point in time come at cost.

In order to compete with the growth in open source adoption the software giants will have to start providing these services for free, yes free! Businesses in time will only pay for licensing fees and continual support once solutions start working and delivering.

Skeptics may disagree with my idea and argue that tech giants have a grip on the enterprise, which is too strong. I believe this grip will fuel the emergence of a new breed of business start-ups; consultancies and support agencies who manage the seamless transition from traditional paid solutions through to open source solutions.

This new breed of support agency will analyse business environments, select appropriate open source technologies, train staff, provide support and replace bloated solutions provided by heritage technology giants.

With no licensing fees, low-cost solution development and training, the allure of open source technology is getting stronger. We are also now amidst economic recessions and because of this we are facing interesting times ahead, as businesses look for value I am keen to see how the major players diversify their offerings in to order stay competitive.

I know I’ve digressed from all things advertising within this post, however, some of the key points to note: open source technology is developed through communities, common goals and collaboration. These points should be taken into account by B2B marketers and factored into business/marketing plans.

If you’re in business to provide other businesses with products and services now is the time to think about what you’re actually delivering, how and when do your products deliver value to your clients? How and why are your prospects collaborating? How can your business contribute positively to business collaborations and communities?

For me personally open source software technology has and is still continuing to broaden my knowledge about technology and the web. Some of the communities I’m reading into revolve around the following programs and platforms: Inkscape, Freemind, Wordpress, Text-pattern, Mod-X, Aptana Studio,TextWrangler, FileZilla and Firefox.

I am for now still quite happy with Mac OSX, however, when I get around to it I would like to get my Mac to dual boot into Ubuntu. With the likes of Dell and Asus shipping machines with Ubuntu, there will be more people using it and exchanging ideas about how to make it as practical as the more popular operating systems.

There is still a gap in the market! If anyone can point me in the direction of an open source, cross platform equivalent to MS Visio I would be keen to take it for a test drive.

Also taking is all about giving back and “spreading the love”. If you do use any open source technology go onto the forums, answer questions, blog, help where you can and if possible donate some money…you’re using something amazing for free!

Finally what to look forward to? I think it has to be the cloud computing / open source software mash-ups and open source apps, which facilitate collaboration in real time via the web.

(The image for this post was edited using GIMP and is a play on the Original Source brand logo)

Tags: enterprise 2.0, enterprise solutions, online communities, open source, open source development, open source software, social media