Facebook’s short tale and the mobile long tale?

The IPO of Facebook should have been the big NASDAQ event of the year…but after a few days it turns out that the Facebook story is short tale instead of fairy tail! However conclusions can’t be made over a few days, future will tell whether Facebook is able to turn his IPO into a long tail success. Mobile will be the key element in the success of Facebook’s long tail.

The Instragram added power for Facebook

With more than 40 millions users who are sharing pictures through the Instagram network, Instagram has given a whole new meaning (and destination) on photography in the 21st Century. While Kodak is fainting away, digital and mobile photography has taken over….with Instagram taking the lead.

Bringing social to B2B!

When we talk social, social media, social business, …. everybody tends to stick to the B2C world…nevertheless “social” should be a part of B2B as well. At the “B2B goes Social” – symposium (at Nyenrode Business University – Breukelen/Utrecht) 5 inspirational speakers offered a frame-work to bring the social into B2B.

Everybody is doing social (media) today, social media is bringing people together, sharing thoughts ideas and is starting the conversation. Social media are building a community around your brand, company or organisation.  B2C is doing is this for 3 (-5) years already, but since B2B always tends to lack behind B2C a couple of years it time to act as a B2B company and start building a community around your organisation.

Customer Experience, Conversation, Content & Collaboration drive the conversation company

The official book launch of “The Conversation Company” – Gent

After writing the big success “The Conversation Manager” Steven Van Belleghem introduced his second (would-be) best-seller “The Conversation Company” today. After a hand full of warm-up speakers who gave us an introduction on “underutilized potential” (something we all have and should use), staggering numbers of “the conversation manager” (23 500 copies sold – best marketing book in Holland – more then 700 attendees today (probably the best ‘in-crowd’ of marketing & social media professionals today in Belgium – …), it was time for Steven himself to take the spotlight and talk about how to transform your company into a conversation company. It’s all about culture, people and, off course, social media to connect and take you organisation to a higher level.

The big little thing that drives Women crazy? This must be Pinterest!

Pinterest…It looks like something you cannot miss these days.
More so then Google+ Pinterest attract tons of new users who are active users of the (social) platform. For those who don’t know Pinterest, Pinterest is an online Pinboard on which you can “pin” and share stuff you like. With the linking to Facebook and Twitter, and the social aspect added by Pinterest self, this is an alternative way to share stuff you like. The difference from the Facebook  channel is you “pin” interesting stuff from around the web to the board, instead of telling what you like in a status-update. (Pinterest skips the 2 step Like function of Facebook, making things easier). But the integration of Pinterest on your Facebook Timeline makes this a winner!

True Internetentrepreneurs behind Netlog, knew what to do….find a new business: TWOO.Com ! A new succes?!

They had a dream….building the largest social network in the world….but they didn’t cound on Mark Zuckerberg to have the same idea, so Netlog (Belgian social network) founders had a bit of a downturn the last years when Facebook concurred the world of social networks and Netlog didn’t….BUT as good entrepreneurs they knew what to do! Find a new and better product to concur the world, and so TWOO.com was founded, and is on his way to concur the world, maybe not in social media but in dating, although they call it “social discovery).

Privacy, who cares? You better make a verb of the word privacy

Reading yet another ‘what knows Facebook about you’ – story just made me wondering…who realy cares about his privacy? And better yet, who truly knows the meaning of privacy, and is this notion of ‘privacy’ still relevant in the 21th century.

But first things first…what is privacy? I don’t want to take the dictionary a tell you a unique definition. For most people privacy starts where personal freedom ends. You want to be in control, and want to share people The stuff you want to share.

Apparently in the digital era there seems to be a double problem, because most people only see this definition as a definition of privacy…but there is a second approach to privacy: who owns your ‘data’? Because what you share on digital platforms isn’t yours anymore most of the time. The platforms own it, like Facebook keeps track of all your data, updates, photo’s,…. Most people don’t know this, few people care about it, but some people make a fuzz out of it. As the video bellow shows, Facebook knows a lot about you…but that doesn’t need to be a problem, what Facebook does with this data is the real question. They use it make personnal one-2-one advertising possible through Facebook Ads, and probably they will sell your date to who is willing to pay.

The networked & connected society

Our society has changed rapidly over the past years…our society has become networked and connected.
This flat world makes it easy to communicate in a dialogue model, but also changes our way of living, the power of our lives, our possibilities, …
A stumbled upon a few interesting movies, documentaries and presentations the last few days which I want to share with you.

So sit down and relax, and enjoy the connected ride from the past over the present to the future!

Flat World Competition is fierce – What’s hot today, is old yesterday!

The flat world….always on top of the newest evolution, platform and emerging trends. Last weeks my eye catched some of the new ideas and platforms of the e-buzz world. [Updated November, 28]

• Chime.in a competition for Twitter?
  While Twitter hits 250 millions tweets per month, a new microblogging platform entered  the room: chime.in
  Chime offers more than 140 characters and shows your shared short links and photo’s.  Besides a more visual approach Chime offers participants to gain a (small) profit. From adds which are sold to go with your pages, the profit is split. (Interesting idea….) You can also add your own sponsored adds to your page (from which you can keep 100% of the profit!….)
  This is an interesting business model! I’ll keep a close eye on this, and see if it can turn into a real success (and threat to Twitter)

• Google+ takes it up a notch with the integration off Google Apps
  Officially opening up the Google+ doors (so no beta invitation version) created a big hype with people signing up. A growth of 1269% was reached in september…So is this the real big launch of the Facebook Competitor..probably not. With 50 million members (and I’m not writing active users), we see a vast population looking at Google+. But are they convinced this is bigger/better than Facebook? Probably not, since Facebook launched it s Timeline and other top end features last month.
  But last week Google announced its incorporation of Google Apps in Google+! Now this is what I call a benefit. Online collaboration will become easy through Google+, this way Google+ really has a head start against Facebook. This way Google+ will reach a critical mass of active users, who will use Google+ as social forum but also as an online collaboration platform….in a better way Facebook services them! Again something to keep an eye on!

[November 27th, Update]

• Google to launch streaming music player within weeks notice….with a deep integrating in Google+.
  I just can’t keep thinking of the idea Google is trying fiercely to pimp his Google+ platform…hiping to attract more actual users (not only register, take a look and never come back).  Will this be the ultimate service we’ve been waiting for? Probably not, since Spotify has integrated with Facebook (and yes Spotify is coming to Belgium as well!….soon), and other services like Apple’s iCloud and the Amazon cloud offer the same service, with a huge back catalogue.  Again a problem for Google who’ll only get an agreement with 2 of the big 4 music labels…

• Pen.io a light weight, easy to use and fast publishing tool on the web. No huge accounts, just a page name and password and you’re set to go with this online tool. It’s not a blog, it’s not a social network…it’s just an online white paper on which you can easy share ideas, drafts, work together, ….
  No fierce codes, some simple tags and your set to go….this can be easy to use for people who’re not into the real publishing tools of the web, but still want to use the strength of the web to communicate with students, family, colleagues,…
  I’ve made this page in less than 2 minutes (including “registration”) so it can’t be that difficult….:-) )

[November 28th, Update]

• A new social network is beiing unleashed: unthink.com – again a new competition for Facebook, Google+, …
  Will this one make the difference? We’ll have to see, but Unthink.Com has made a USP of not taking the users freedom. Companies are as well invited to start social selling (the next big thing!) through the Unthink channel.
  “I want to be free, I want to control our own communications …” Unthink doesn’t own your data, and won’t sell it to advertisers, brands, ….
  How do they gain revenue? Every users needs to endorse a brand (and each brand will pay per user who endorses his brand). If you don’t want to endors a brand you pay 2$/year user fee….again great thinking regarding the business model! Who’ paying what….? And in the end, you engage with a brand who pays your fee, but gets a dedicated follower/endorser!
  In beta version now, but probably open for business soon….is this the Facebook killer we have been waiting for? Brand wise it’s an opportunity…let’s see if the people follow!
  Are you an Unthinker?

[To be continued]

ADM – Foyer: Fixing the media by Jo Caudron (MediaMorgen)

“Drama, Internet & Business with Jo Caudron”…a nice introduction after the small media storm Jo Caudron had to put with the last days.

For those who aren’t in on the dramadays of Jo Caudron: Jo tweeted a message of a company vehicle who passed him at high-speed during traffic works….nothing to big you would think: but he added the care plate and an action picture! After a lot of retweets by famous and less famous followers, a Belgian newspaper decided to do an editorial on how Jo had become a vigilante 2.0, without any further investigation or reply from Jo, and other parties. Jo ended up in a small media storm, gaining maximum exposure, and hopefully gets the debate going on privacy and social media! [to be continued]

But let’s get back on topic! Fixing the media…
Media itself is part of a perfect storm, who comes around ones in lifetime….there is a huge media shift happening because of the content explosion and change of media control. More and more people are becoming self serviced human beings regarding media usage (you watch TV whenever you want with delayed viewing, a non linear approach of linear media). This means a huge shift (and problem) for linear (media)companies.

The social media is the new internet (check for recent research on this topic – or soon in Flat World Education), which means this is a major part of your business as usual.  But instead of seeing social media as new business entity, you should look at social media as something that runs through your whole organisation and will affect every department in your organisation. This means your company will become completely transparent and accountable 24/7! This is a huge challenge, but will make companies smarter in the end.

And off course traditional media companies (like television stations, newspapers, ….) are in for a huge shift. Those media companies need to look for a complete new business model to survive the new media paradigm. But for the moment they don’t seem to bother at all…they push there traditional media in an online channel, or develop an app….but don’t rethink the business (model)! It still a long way untill we’ll have 24/7 up to date news with background stories embracing the dialogue….

But as always: embrace innovation, don’t underestimate in the long run but don’t overestimate it in the short run!