A world map of social networks

If you wonder what is the most popular social network in your country or in what countries is FACEBOOK the most popular network you should have a look to the World Map of Social Networks in the Vincos Blog

The dark side of social networking

In this blog I have argued a couple of times that organizations and businesses should introduce a code of conduct when it comes to the use of digital media by employees either in their working or private time. Lack of such a code can harm both businesses and employers as the Domino's Pizza incident indicates. In my post about the Domino's case (what is of course one of many) I mentioned the following: "The incident once more underlines the need to draft company guidelines of employee usage of Social Media as means of personal expression. Considering the increasing number of people seeking fame online I think that lack of organizational guidelines spells problems for companies that see their products and brands suffering because of the irresponsible behavior of some of their employees. It spells also problems to many idiots who cannot think of the consequences of their actions putting themselves and their employers in trouble."

It is true that an online wild west is not at the interest of anyone. People are loosing their jobs or miss job opportunities because recruiters and HRMs are increasingly obtaining information about their employees or applicants on social media sites where these have profiles. A misplaced comment or picture can have sometimes disastrous results on peoples' employment perspectives. Even CNN has put attention to the issue with two recent online videos in their Technology section. I must say that for some reason most cases we hear about such incidents come from the other side of the Atlantic but I suspect that the phenomenon of people's background checks is not exclusively an American phenomenon. A clear corporate policy is a good way to avoid such incidents.

Networking in optima forma: The DAPRA Red Balloons Challenge

Marking the 40th anniversary of the Internet, DARPA has announced the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition meant to explore the potential of social networking in the timely communication, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems.

The challenge was to be the first to submit the locations of 10 moored, 8-foot, red, weather balloons at 10 fixed locations in the continental United States. The balloons were placed in readily accessible locations and visible from nearby roads.
Am MIT Team won the challenge. Hope to see a paper about this published soon

My article "Web 2.0: Conceptual Foundations and Marketing Issues" in special about 10 years of the JDDDMP

The official journal of the Institute of Direct Marketing, the Palgrave MacMillan Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice (Formerly Interactive Marketing) celebrating its 10-year anniversary invited Dr. Dave Chaffey * to give a personal perspective on the significant changes in marketing concepts and practice over the last 10 years as reflected by contributions to the IDM Journal. Chaffey selected 10 articles ( in his words "most significant, engaging and useful papers") published over these 10 years reflecting the evolution and transition from Direct to Interactive Marketing as a result of the digital technologies. I proudly saw my 2008 article "Web 2.0: Conceptual foundations and marketing issues" co-authored by Stefan Fountain included in the selection as one of the 10 contributions highlighting the transition. For those interested the article is available as free download at the site of the Journal.

*Dr Dave Chaffey is a consultant, trainer and author specialising in digital marketing. His books include Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice and Ebusiness and Ecommerce Management. He helped develop the IDM Certificate and Diploma in Digital Marketing for which he is a tutor and examiner.

Are you ready for Google Wave?

If you are not one of the 7.8 mil people who already saw the Google Wave video presentation in YouTube you can enjoy now; what you see is the launching of the application infront a developers' public. Warning: the Google Wave is not open to everyone but according to Mashable Google will make the service available to 1 mil users.

YouTubercial: The commercial of the future? II

Inspired Bicycles This must be the top viral film of 2009. More than 12 mil views in YouTube. Worth seeing it even if you hate mountain bikes!

Google Goggles: For those who got tired typing for searching!

(And happen to have an Android device)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhgfz0zPmH4

Dump Growth versus Smart Growth (or what the Dubai bubble has to do with 2.0)

An insightful post of Umair Haque titled "Why Dubai Defaulted - And What America Should Learn From It" in the Harvard Business blog. The post is a guide for recognizing bubble economies build on megalomaniac real estate or financial services (Dubai combined both) and ignoring the real fundamentals of growth. Haque argues that next to this combination of bubble ingredients things got even worst for Dubai because of a rampant pursuit of "Dump Growth" focused (among other things) on the 20th century growth model (trying to attract the IBMs and the Dells) and ignoring the 21st century realities of “Smart Growth” suggesting investment in the Enterprise 2.0 and attracting innovative players like Google and Apple.
Time for new approach to benchmarking in general and a new view on growth fundamentals ? I think so.

The High Technology Small Firms Conference 2010 (HTSF 2010)

For the 8th time my department (NIKOS) in cooperation with the Manchester Business School organizes the annual High Technology Small Firms Conference (HTSF 2010) on the 27th and 28th of May in the campus of the University of Twente in Enschede (NL). There is also a Doctoral Workshop ogranized on the 25th and 26th of May. Info in the conference site and the Call for Papers. Hope to see you in Enschede next May

Products On Demand: Online shopping experience closer to retail shopping

Zappos 'Overlays' Interactive Video for Nike - MarketingVOX

Class of 2013: Computer Time Doubles That of TV Viewing

Some of the findings released from Alloy Media + Marketing’s 9th annual College Explorer report on behalf of Harris Interactive indicate the new ways college students are dealing with technology. One of the most amazing findings is that US students are expected to spend 12 hours per day engaged in some form of media by 2013; most of that time – 9.5 hours – will be spent with their “tech” gadgets, including computers, mobile devices, MP3 players, and gaming devices. This multi-tasking public is expected to spend $6.5 billion on technology-related items by 2013, including computers, mobile devices, MP3 players, and gaming consoles and devices; this segment is becoming less and less unaccessible to traditional push marketers. This group spends twice as much time on their computer than on TV.

Social Media and Employer's Empowerment

In this blog I have often underlined the undisputed contribution of the Social Media to customer empowerment. What we have to realize is that empowerment is by no means limited to customers only but expands to everyone who has access on the online information and alternatives: these can be our competitors, our suppliers and not to forget our bosses (or potential bosses).
One of the effects of the Social Media that certainly requires more attention is the voluntary violation of personal privacy: people posting online content that compromises not only their privacy but also can negatively affect their personal life and career. This becomes evident by some recent cases: A Canadian depressed woman who lost her insurance benefits because of Facebook pictures, a Swiss woman who was fired when she was spotted using the Facebook while claiming to be too ill to use a computer or an intern who was busted partying while he told his boss that he had to return home because of a family emergency!
Cases like these and of course many others like the Domino's Pizza I wrote about some time ago tend to become routine making me wonder if some people are very naive or lack every sense of the often praised personal privacy. The fact is that employers today have a new tool in their toolbox for screening job candidates. A recent study of Creerbulder found that online content posted by potential employers can have negative but also positive effects on employment chances. The summary of the study is very interesting for everyone involved in Social Media networking.

Social Media as Marketing Tools: Low cost thriller become a $ 100 million blockbuster

Those who doubt about the potential of the Social Media as Marketing tools must read this: A $ 15.000 movie becomes a blockbuster via buzz marketing. The Paramount film Paranormal Activity originally released in 12 student towns is now nationally available in US and Canadian  movie theaters and is about to cross $ 100 million at the box office soon. The San Diego firm Eventful created an online campaign based on widgets placed in blogs or other kinds of social media sites frequented by movie goers. Visitors of the sites could "demand" to have the movie in their city. After receiving more than a million demands Paramount released the film nationally with accent on the areas that most demands originated from. 
Not bad at all for a low budget film (it seems to be a scary one from the trailers I saw, it is not available in Holland yet). No need to say that the film has already its TWITTER  stream with 9.000 followers and a FACEBOOK page with 160.00 fans.
For the Thriller fans in Holland some good news: To my surprise I found that 32 people have voted already to have the film in Enschede! The buzz seems to go overseas

Social Media: getting mainstram

When this blog started, more than 2 years ago, the terms Web 2.0 and Social Media were just beginning to attract executives's attention. Since then the Social Media have become a major issue for businesses and especially marketers. A real Social Media Tsunami spills out to all directions affecting the lives of individuals and changing the way business operate: in this blog the issues of customer empowerment, openness, transparency and public scrutiny of companies and their products have been often discussed. The Customer Generated Content (the cornerstone of the Social Media movement) poses again a threat - like the Internet in the 90s - again some of the established industries like advertising/communication, printing and press. At the same time the conviction of an increasing number of businesses that crowdsourcing is not a bad idea after all, opens new opportunities to creative amateurs to actively take part in the business process of product development and marketing communication. I am personally glad witnessing the increasing enthusiasm about the New Media among my students (both undergraduates and graduates) in the University and outside. Two research projects about the adoption of Social Media by individuals and businesses are under way in my department; I hope to post some interesting findings for the readers of this blog soon. I will also try to share with the readers of this blog some of my thoughts about the basics of Social Media in the next posts starting with the definition of the Social Media and the identification of it as components of Web 2.0. Coming soon

Social Media blues

The fact that Social Media is a promising marketing tool does not mean that you can mess around with the social Web; I found a nice collection of social media flops in the blog of Penn Olson. From the 5 Social Media Disasters presented  in the blog disaster nr 4 (Domino's Pizza) has been also discussed in this blog some time ago since I could follow it from the very first moment it was unfolding.

Social Media: Twitter for customer service

Busy times as I mentioned in the previous post. At the moment together with my colleagues from the University of Castilla-La Mancha we conduct two surveys on adoption of social networks in Holland (following a similar study in Spain) and adoption of Social Media as marketing tools by retailers in Holland (Spain will follow). From the front the news are interesting, you feel also that the issue of Web 2.0 / Social Media keeps many people busy. I see every day new examples of engaging such media as part of the marketing; a nice example is BESTBUY's Twelpforce  a Twitter feed used for customer service and tech advice (the current tweet informs the iPhone owners about the iPhone virus that I heard about yesterday)

Busy times

The readers of this blog have most probably noticed that no post appeared in the blog the last 20 days. The reason: no time! The last weeks have been really hectic both professionally and personally. In the mean time many interesting things happen in the Web 2.0 /social media world, soon I will be back with new stories and comments. A taste of things happening in the Web 2.0 domain this video about Healthcare 2.0 ( this is by the way also subject of the Social Media Research Center of our University. Hopefully soon some fresh results form our research will be available in this blog

Health 2.0 2009 Opening Video from Health 2.0 on Vimeo.

Bloggs have to disclose freebies

It is no secret that the best way to launch a product today is the persuade the New Influencers to write something about your product in their blog. Top blogs attract millions of visitors every day and are linked to thousand other blogs creating this way a tremendous communication effect about any product they mention. A recent decision of the US Federal Trade Commission attempting to increase the transparency of such product endorsement testimonials requires bloggers to mention explicitly in their site what they get in return: free products, money (what about paid vacations in Hawaii?). See also the news in the CNN
A good move (Maybe the European Commission should look to this issue also) although I do not expect to bring any important changes in the "blogsphere". Most high caliber blogs will comply (some do this already without having to) since their reputation and trustworthiness is largely based on openness and sincerity. It will be interesting though to see if there are any exceptions to the rule and if some blogs are not as independent as they claim to be.

The Social Media Tsunami

Most people are aware of the staggering growth of the Internet and the social media content (online sales, new web sites, blog posts, tweets, social network memberships etc). Yet it is hard to imagine what this growth really means and how the web is growing as you read this text. If you really want to get a good picture I advice Gary's Social Media Count

Peoples' Empowerment through Technology: Who is watching who?

A very interesting video by Dr. Henry Jenkins, Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program of MIT and author of the "Convergence Culture" who talks about the new media landscape. Interesting for everyone in the marketing business but mainly interesting for those who still doubt that something new happens in the marketing landscape. Interesting is Jenkink's quote that with the new technology "with our little cameras we are watching the Big Brother every moment of the day". An interesting reminder not only to Big Brothers but also to small ones.