Front Page News?

I was quite stunned to see this morning the front cover of two (of the three) main “free” daily papers — that are distributed to commuters throughout France — where both publications this morning carried EXACTLY the same over-page H&M advertisement.  Good for H&M?  That said, I wonder to what extent each paper was aware that the other paper was carrying the same ad on its cover.  I am guessing not, and that there were some heads that rolled in their respective organizations.  Since Direct Matin and 20 Minutes are free papers, they both live & die by the advertising dollar.  The jury is still out, it seems.  One is apparently in the black (20 Minutes) and the other (Direct Matin) may still be under water (no confirmation).  But, the ability to get a free audience is no easy task in our time-cramped world.

Is the FREE newspaper viable?

These two papers are already battling it out in terms of distribution, along with a third paper (“Metro”).  I have a personal preference for 20 Minutes, but the content is rarely very engaging.  While Direct Matin provides an interactive web app (“Direct Flash”) that allows you to explore certain articles further (videos, links, etc.), it is rather devoid of interesting analysis.  So, is the free “real” newspaper a legitimate avenue as opposed to the free media online that are not beset with the physical costs of production and distribution?  If they are beholden and handcuffed by advertisers in the way H&M did this morning, I am going to say no.  For now, I am still expecting the videocast / podcast to take its place in the life of the commuter in France.   What do you think?

About the newspapers:

• 20 Minutes is owned by a consortium including Schibsted and Groupe Ouest-France, with a circulation of around 800K.
• Direct Matin (there used to be a Direct Soir, but that title was pulled), is owned by another consortium including La Vie-Le Monde (Le Monde) and Bolloré (Direct 8, Direct Soir, Havas), with a circulation quoted at 1 million throughout France.

The Internet of Everything

A right or a mystery?

Wireless Fidelity (wifi) a standard?

Is free access to wifi something that we should all expect in the future?  I personally believe so, not that I completely understand all the technical ramifications and costs.  Specifically, is wifi something that will need to be upgraded regularly, like USB or 3G?  Or is wifi a standard that will last for a very long time?  As it stands, wifi technology certainly has a number of benefits, not least of which is its acceptance around the world and the very large number of devices that are wifi enabled.  According to wikipedia, globally, there are over 4 million public hotspots (ie outside of work/home networks) and that number is surely growing.

Wifi access as a public priority?

Should governments make public wifi access generally available?  If they are interested in improving competitivity, I absolutely believe so.  To the extent that the [immediate] future of the internet is in the mobile, having access to the net is becoming vital.  The take-up of digital media marketing and mobile marketing (including mobile commerce) will certainly be related to level of access to internet.  Ultimately, of course, access to the internet will happen everywhere, via everything (ie. the famous “Internet of Everything”).  Presumably, South Korea is the lead country in the world in terms of connectivity and wifi access — and the level of eCommerce and mCommerce there is among the world’s best.  So, what about in the US and France, my two “home” countries?

North America – wifi access via commercial and public channels

On my most recent trip to the US and Canada (this August), to avoid the radically expensive international roaming charges, I was constantly looking to discover where and to what extent one can get free access to wifi.

Free public wifi is still far the norm in North America, but it seems to be much more available than, for example, in France (where I live).  At any number of coffee shops in streets of New York, Seattle or Montreal, I was able to connect easily.  Walking around Seattle, the city provides free wifi in certain spots — maybe spurred on because it has so many coffee shops (HQ of Starbucks is in Seattle)?  The Seattle (SETAC) and Philadelphia airports provide free (and fast) access – in other words with a robust router.   Even the airport at the “city” of Sitka, Alaska, whose population is a whopping 9,000, offers free wifi access.  Now the airlines (eg Continental, United, USAir…) are beginning to offer a paying inflight wifi access.

Access to wifi in France

French Connection

Moving to the French Connection, in the heavenly streets of Paris, the only likely way to get “free” uninterrupted access is to buy a latte at Starbucks or to order a Big Mac at McDonald’s.   The airports of Paris (Orly and Roissy Charles De Gaulle) offer just 15 minutes of free connection; thereafter, it is paying.  The train stations provide only travel-specific access.  The irony, for me, is that one of the most regular listings in your wifi hotspots is from FREE, which is a paying service provider.  Possibly part of the retard in France (and most of southern Europe) may be related to a disagreement about internet access being a fundamental “right”?  A second more likely reason is a delayed understanding by the powers-that-be that access to Internet is becoming a vital business (and personal) need driven by the spawning mobile platforms.

Compared to North America, France is still quite behind.  Especially at the international travel points, I think that free wifi should be generally available.  I believe that it is time that the European governments (Belgium on down to the south) wake up and, at a minimum, get their larger transport hubs up and running on free wifi.  After all, it is not about surrendering to some foreign [US] monopoly.  At the very least, it is a way to “welcome” tourists and international business travelers; and, better, it is a burgeoning business opportunity.

What do you think: should free wifi be generally available to the public?

BREAKING NEWS

MayDay, MayDay: I interrupt this fine Monday morning to bring you breaking news: Twitter is the best & fastest way to get the news.

Twitter is not just social, it is media.

I learned about the death of Osama Bin Laden this morning in my Twitter stream.  Apparently, this was the same experience for a good number of people.  According to the Mashable poll here, it was this way for a majority of people (for those of us who are connected to the Internet, anyway).  As of 6:30am, Paris time, 4,200 people had already taken the poll which is quite a feat considering the news broke late in the night (roughly 5am Paris time).   Note that Facebook got more than television!

Twitter: Bringing me the news

Of course, the Mashable poll is slanted because its readership is largely geeky, social media connected people.  However, I still think it is significant.  People tune in to their computer more frequently than to the television via their mobile and/or desktop.

Celebrating May Day

Here is the tweet that got my attention and announced the news to me (and I particularly like this one, too):

• RT @sfsam22 May 1st 1945 Hitler confirmed dead. May 1st 2011, Osama Bin Laden confirmed dead. via @stephengillett @Mentalist

Update (811AM) via CNET: It’s official, the news was first broken on Twitter with this tweet.

HOT NEWS is right. "Keith Urbahn, once chief of staff for former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld is credited with breaking the story about the death of Osama bin Laden. (Credit: Twitter)"

Here is the story from CNET.

Please share with us your story of how you found out about the death of #OBL?

The hockey stick effect

We have all seen and/or read about tipping points and hockey stick curves.  Digital media seems to be full of them.  None seem more powerful than the one below: the rise in awareness of Twitter in the US 2008-2010.  Perhaps inspired by the beginning of the NHL playoffs (go Flyers!), I wanted to riff on this hockey stick curve.

NHL Playoffs for Twitter!

The ascension of Twitter in the digital mediasphere has been meteoric (Edison Research).  The way Twitter has become mainstream is impressive, boosted in no small part by mass media.  After a muted existence at its outset among the digital savvy nerds (from its inception in 2006), the awareness of Twitter has soared in the last two years in the US.

Twitter Notoriety in the US

With widespread awareness come users, those who have been converted from being sitting on the bench to actually signing up for an account.  Naturally, for the most part they turn into observers, as opposed to participants (only 10% of the estimated 200 million subscribers worldwide are active).  But, does that not sound like a good thing for brands and/or people wanting to get a message out?  An audience looking for material!  One of the primary reasons Twitter is being used is as a watch post, a digital surveillance mechanism.  As far as I am concerned, it is fine with me if not everyone participates, as long as they find value from what they are reading in the Twitter stream.

Looking at my country of residence (France), where Twitter is far from mainstream (estimated at 2 million accounts, of which a paltry quarter million are active users), I believe that France today is probably closer to the 2009 mark in the US (i.e. maybe around 30% awareness, although I do not have any statistics to prove this).  Will France and other non-English speaking countries follow suit and fly up the hockey stick?  For brands and digital marketing teams, the ‘payback’ is clearly not as decisive as participating in Facebook — aside from the media, politicians and a couple of personalities, French consumer brands are yet dimly present on Twitter.  The first to pierce through on the top francophone Twitter accounts is the boutique Collette Paris with 72K followers.  My suspicion is that the 2012 Presidential Elections may yet provide a spark — it would not be without irony that the government be responsible in France for accelerating the adoption of Twitter.  The official Presidential account (“Elysee“) has 22k+ followers, an as yet anemic penetration compared to Ecology & Transport Minister NK_M at 70K followers.

But, coming back to hockey, my old home town Montreal Habs team has 124,000 followers on Twitter.  Puts things in perspective for the Twitter social media marketers in France!

An Unvieling of Facebook’s Growth

F...acing East

Not that we need to keep weekly tabs on the meteroic rise of Facebook, but there was something a little curious about the statistics that were published (thanks to CheckFacebook) about the fastest growing Facebook countries last week (week of April 18, 2011).  I noticed two things in particular.

What about you?

unveiling Facebook's growth

Double digits

The first comment is that the growth is extremely high for a single week — albeit off low bases.  Typically growth is single digit.  Clearly, some countries are just NOW getting on board with this social media.

Regional effect

Secondly, there seems to be a prevalent trend in this top ten in the form of Middle Eastern countries (7 out of the top 10).  One must believe that a certain segment of the population — notably among the socially unrestful — is swarming the social network to connect with others.  Political motivation seems the obvious impetus for these spikes.  Meanwhile, Japan’s growth is probably linked to the international involvement after the Fukishima disaster — also considering Facebook’s penetration had previously been extremely weak in Japan.  Luxembourg remains a bit of a mystery both in the feeble absolute number and the spurt just last week.  Any guesses?

I had the chance to meet François Pétavy, a fellow INSEAD alum, who is CEO of Eyeka, a successful French start-up providing a co-creation and crowdsourcing platform for brands around the world.  Eyeka manages a community of over 140,000 creative consumers who participate and co-create with  brands on a wide array of briefs that focus on consumer insights and innovation.  In this interview with François, we look at the service that Eyeka provides and the particularity of Eyeka (versus existing competition), whose roots are decidedly French.   Eyeka provides a very intresting semiological viewpoint that makes it stand out from the crowd (so to speak).  Eyeka provides another example of why being open and collaborative in spirit can be an invaluable asset in the fast-moving world of marketing.

To follow or contact Eyeka and/or François Pétavy:

• Eyeka – the blog (in English)
• Eyeka on Twitter
• François Pétavy on Twitter
• Eyeka Facebook (7800 fans and counting)

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Further resources for the Minter Dialogue Radio Show:

Year-end 2011 Retrospective

A 2011 retrospective

It is Boxing Day, 2011… aka December 26th.  I write this post as I have been asked to write a little recap of the year that has just passed.  Oh, and what a year it has been, I hear you say.  A veritable boxing match.

By all accounts, we were very busy having to keep up with the accelerating rate of change.  What strikes me about the year that we have just lived is that really it was quite unremarkable in certain regards.  Sure, geopolitically, we had the flare up in the Koreas, the mysterious death of Bin Laden (only to be replaced, in a surprise move, by Dawood Ibrahim, the “most dangerous man in the world” as described by Gilbert King in his premonitory book), and the violent wave of demonstrations across the US on the heals of the successful terrorist attack that finally punctured the homeland security. Sadly, 2011 saw a continuation of high numbers of natural catastrophes that peppered 2010.

The Cote d’Ivoire civil war did not attract the Twitterati’s attention, unlike the assassination attempt of Ahmadinejad or the tragic passing of the Queen, right after Prince William’s wedding.  There was the near collapse of the Euro as the Germans narrowly voted in a referendum to keep the beleaguered currency in the wake of the second bailout of Greece.  There was also  the victory of New Zealand in the 2011 Rugby World Cup (in a repeat performance of 1987 when they were last hosts) and the surprise victory of the Chinese in the Women’s Soccer (aka football) World Cup.  The paradox of 2011 was that we all felt like it was a super busy year and, yet, objectively speaking, it was a rather staid year.  Why do we feel this way despite the ho-hum year?  Very simply put, the human being likes to prove Cyril Parkinson right.  We get busy doing nothing.  As Parkinson wrote humorously, and so justly in his 1955 Economist article, in what has now become known as Parkinson’s Law: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.“  And with the ongoing barrage of information overflow, the manic competition for the limited purse strings and the burgeoning malady of the decade (which I define as ineffective prioritization), we run from [multi-]task to [multi-]task and consider ourselves fully (if aimlessly) occupied.

Digital Marketing in 2011 – Driving all the Growth

Microsoft & Facebook Merger

But, as we all know, the big news of the year came from the sale of 51% of Facebook to Microsoft just as the growth of its membership was beginning to plateau at 700 million.  Whether it was the joint venture with Nokia to create F.A.M.O.S. (the Facebook Mobile Operating System), the agreement with Sina.com to help Facebook enter China (where Nokia also has a strong mobile market share), the FTV project (FacebookTV) or the launch of the Facebook Café concept (a real world competitor to Starbucks) that propelled the Facebook valuation to such heights, Microsoft’s deep pockets and their propensity to make strategic large scale acquisitions provided the only logical solution.  Moreover, with ex-Microsoft Stephen Elop as CEO of Nokia, the relationship was more like a three-way union.  Rumors about Apple buying Facebook fizzled out with the much ballyhooed spat between Jobs and Zuckerberg that erupted in the early months of 2011.  With the per pop (per member) valuation of $107*, the entire stock market took renewed hope that digital social clubs would stimulate the stagnant world economy.  At $107/pop — what could be considered a farcical discount to cable and cellular phone valuations — many people still applauded the deal as a virtual steal.  Of course, at a $75 billion valuation, the price was quite heady, well outpacing even the ‘optimistic’ $50-60B numbers bandied about 12 months ago.  Turning the Facebook members into annuities, aka constant revenue streams, akin to the cable or cellphone model was hardly a realistic speck on the forecast screen at the end of 2010.  Anyway, who would have thought that Ballmer would have allowed Zuckerberg to be co-CEO?

The evolution of the Community Manager role

The scurry of hirings of “Community Managers” that we saw in 2010 moved to hirings for far more segmented, targeted roles such as the CRM manager, SEO and SEM managers, the eMail Manager, The Employee Advocate Manager (TEAM) and a few sub-specialties such as the Facebook, Twitter and YouTube manager.  Marketers underwent the all-but-obvious tsunami that they had coming to them and we saw a sorting of the wheat from the chaff of those that “get it” and those that don’t.  In a corollary movement, IT departments started to hire TMs (TechnoMarketers) to help bring closer bonds between technology and marketing.

More and more companies finally cottoned on to the fact that customer service is the name of the game for modern marketers.  In 2011, customer service managers were one of the roles whose average pay soared.  For the truly customer centric organizations, if you think about it, it makes perfect sense that customer service become the new sweet spot for marketing.  The CS department is the only one to have the word “customer” in it.  Moreover, instead of worrying about creating the perfect product, these companies put special emphasis on the all-around experience and the service accompanying the product purchase.

2012: A race for the cur-ator

Looking ahead to 2012, a year that is going to be much more explosive on the geopolitical front with the US, Russian, Chinese and French Presidential elections, the Summer Olympics in London, and the World Expo in South Korea, we are going to have to see how Apple and Google react to the MSFB merger.  What’s going to be the next “Twitter” phenomenon?  I am going to go out on a limb and say that CuratioNews.com [the URL wasn't even taken as of the end of 2010] will be the big hit of the year.  As with initiatives like Scoop.it and Newsy.com, different sites are piercing through the noise to help filter and organize the torrid inflow of information.  The kicker behind CuratioNews is the combination of an elite squad of old school “name brand” editors along with the “Genius Connect” which operates much like a cross between iTunes’ Genius Bar and Facebook Connect to provide a socially selected and constantly improving curating system.

3 magic wand wishes

So, 2011 may have been a ho-hum year, but on my wish list for the next 12 months, I have three wishes that echo the ones I had at the end of 2010:

1. the grand poobah uber consolidation service of the multiple message systems (Facebook messages, SMS, gmail, hotmail, Twitter DM @replies, etc.)
2. better manners with the use of “new” technologies, especially more considerate use of the cell phone in public places and better email etiquette
3. more humility from management and better conversation in the workplace to help brands get in touch with their employees and their customers.

If there is one thing to retain, it is the need to be more than ever, laserlike focused on getting more prioritization because the options and the distractions are not going to reduce by themselves.  Au contraire, there are going to be ever more opportunities and decisions that need to be taken.  I thank you for your time and wish you and yours a wonderful happy new year ahead!

Do let me know your thoughts when the time is right!  And in a year, we’ll see where we stand!

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*”Per pop” valuation was coined by Dennis Leibowitz, media analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in the 1980s, to ascribe a relationship between the stock price and the number of subscribers (for cable and cellular companies).   I worked with Dennis at DLJ from 1987-1991.

The issue of privacy is a little schizophrenic.  In any event, it is strategic and worldwide in scope as far as developing one’s business online.  We all say we want our privacy, and yet we do not want to be treated as a number.   Yet, for businesses to provide us with customized and relevant offers that make us feel like VIP customers, they need to know our data.  At its core, the issue of privacy is one of trust.

Between Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook, in case anyone does not know who he is) ruling out all notions of privacy and assurances from Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) that our data is not being mined, the only thing you know for sure is that virtually everything in our private sphere is knowable.  The notion of privacy changes between cultures and who is the owner of the data is going to become of strategic importance — not just for business, but in diplomacy and politics.  The battle for China’s internet market will be central to the Sino-American trade relationship.  Google has struggled in China.  Facebook is nowhere in China (with some 75,000 members, dominated by China’s copycat version of FB, renren, which is currently #111 worldwide in Alexa) and, I don’t believe they will make heavy inroads.  Even if Facebook tailors its privacy settings and allows government oversight of the censoring, I do not believe that the Chinese will trust the Facebook organization.

Your Private Life is Totally Under Control (Herald Tribune, October 16, 2010)

For companies trying to implement a social media strategy, privacy is at the heart of the debate as well.  How much does one want an employee leading his/her private life at work?  How far can an enterprise allow or enable its employees to be personal in their daily business?

As loyal readers of this blog will know, I am a proponent for business getting personal.  The trick is knowing where the limit lies between that which is personal and that which is private.  In order for brands to create stronger contacts with their customers and potential clients, they need to provide an environment of trust, first between employer and employee, and then between employee and client.  Trust is an eminently personal issue.  With more trust, we might be less concerned with sharing our personal (not private) activities.  In countries accustomed to invasive state censorship and oversight, the issue is more than sensitive.  Germany’s resistance to Facebook might be a case in point.  If companies — such as Google and Facebook — abuse their access to personal data, then there will be a backlash in all countries.

For now, consumers must be vigilant of what they share overtly, how to set their filters and, more importantly, to gage carefully what they are getting in return for the openness.

Who should dictate levels of privacy?

(Update July 28) With the massive leak of over 91,000 documents from the US Army operations in Afghanistan to wikileaks, the notions of security, confidentiality, privacy and piracy have hit the front pages of mass media around the world.  The role of the internet and the oversight of governments on issues of privacy, in particular, is likely to become a focal point in cabinet meetings, board rooms and at dinner tables alike.

Whether you like, love or hate Facebook, it and its smaller peers are having an impact on every level of life.  With Facebook now hitting the half billion mark worldwide (of which 110+ million in the US) and Facebookers spending some 7 hours per month on average on this social media, businesses are now ramping up their involvement everywhere.  But, considering its scale, you now have to believe that governments will ineluctably start to intervene on this media and on the issue of privacy.  The real challenge for politicians around the world will be keeping up with the rate of change.  If you consider the length of time due democratic process takes in government, by the time a law is written, the playing field will surely have shifted and new players will have taken root.

For example, the US Senate has recently put the subject of consumer protection on the table (see Fast Company article here covering the ongoing discussions).  However, the issue is far from new and the discussions, which began in April, keep on rolling along and nothing substantive appears to have been put on paper other than a letter of concern to Zuckerberg.

Meanwhile, there have been some governments that have gone the draconian route and banned access to Facebook such as China and Iran (due to political control), and Pakistan and Bangladesh (due to “sensitive” cultural issues) .  Other governments have weighed in about the incursions into one’s private life.  With the ever wider transparency of a Facebook user’s profile on the web, it would appear that Facebook is singlehandedly defining the boundaries of what is personally publishable to the public and what should be personally private.

In some regards, the different ways governments are reacting to Facebook is symptomatic of the cultural divide(s).  While the US Senate considers protecting the individual from unsolicited viewing, Facebook is widely used in the recruitment process and, apparently, is also usable in the court of law or by the IRS.  The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers indicated in press releases that 81% of its members have seen an increased use of evidence from social networks, 66% of which cited Facebook as the main source of evidence, followed by MySpace at 15% and Twitter at 5%.  In August 2009, the WSJ wrote up this piece “Is Friending in your Future? Better Pay Your Taxes First,” about the use of MySpace and Facebook by the taxman (IRS).

If you sit back, you can observe that social media is playing an evermore important role not just in mainstream life and helping to keep in touch with your friends and family around the world, but in recruitment as a CV, lawcourts as evidence, politics as an opposition statement (Iran…) or to rally voters (Obama…), disaster relief (Haiti, Iceland…) and even taxes and criminal investigation for illicit dealings.

It will be interesting to see how governments rule on the issue of privacy and how much/if the consumer will indeed be more protected or outted in the end!  If a central tenant of democracy is anonymity, it stands to reason that privacy should also be protected.  What are you thoughts?  What level of intervention should a government be allowed?

Taking a step back recently, I tried to think of all the industries that have been radically transformed by the tsunami of the Internet. Internet has a way of altering the way of the land in many different ways because, fundamentally, it changes the way we all communicate.  The immediacy, mobility and multiway channels of the “new” communication is a powerful combination — especially since the cost is relatively minimal.  Perhaps, the harder task would be to identify which businesses will not be significantly impacted. However, if the Internet does not get them, I have a feeling that the arrival of other new technologies (miniaturisation, RFID, etc.), changes in societal values and consumption habits, or the effects of global warming or terrorism will cause equally large changes in those industries as yet untouched by the Internet alone.

To this end, I have compiled a far-from-comprehensive list of sectors, industries and businesses that have been rocked by the Internet. I think the list, ultimately, will include absolutely every industry.  If only in search of cost savings, new forms of internal communications or a change in the marketing mechanics, all industries will be impacted in one way or another by the internet.  While the terminology in this analysis tends to be “negative,” using rose-tinted glasses, the situation is riveting, exciting and potentially explosive for those companies within each industry which manage to capture the wave and surf on the opportunities.

I have categorised the list into three different areas: media, other goods & services, and the dark side.  I thought it would be fun to speculate about how much each industry has been hit to-date (up to 5*), and then to consider what other collateral ‘damage’ has or will occur due to the relative revolution in the said industry. I then cite an emblematic player who has typically been benefiting from the paradigm shifts. Finally, I have dropped in a pithy statement on the future prospects for that industry.

As a matter of principle, I have not systematically cited the usual list of suspects of winners (Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Apple, etc…) that will all benefit from the ongoing surge in internet users (now at over 1.8 billion people, of which more than 600 million are now doing so from their mobile). This post is not intended to be academic, nor complete. It is merely an opportunity to take a step back and consider the wonderful opportunities that lie ahead.

The first list concerns the media industries which have systematically been on the front line — a normal state of affairs considering the Internet is not just a new media, but all media in one.

The media industries under flux

Other than the media industries, herewith is a list of some other industries of goods and services under the same analysis.  There are obviously many missing.  For example, all the computer hardware and software suppliers or Politics.  I have written in the past about the impact in the political spheres with the opportunity for anonymity as well as the strong demand for transparency.  All political campaigns going forward will have more than just talking heads, but tweeting heads and blogging buddies.  Anyway, here is a sampling… with just a couple of b2b industries (which in many cases have actually been faster to take on social media than b2c companies).

Some other industries (other than media) hit by the internet

And, then there are some less conspicuous industries — which bear witness to a darker side of the human being — that are also being revolutionised.  And, I could probably add a few more, such as sex toys, prostitution rings and terrorism…

The darker side...

What industries are cruelly missing from this analysis?  How far off base did you find some of the commentary?  I will be glad to hear your thoughts?