March 19, 2008 by internetworld
I am currently in the market for a new bathroom, and spent Saturday morning with a designer from one of the larger bathroom design companies. Everything was all set, my partner and I were happy with the proposed design and we were happy to proceed. That was until we started reading online reviews of the company in question – and over 80% of them were overwhelmingly negative.
This has caused us to think again about using this company – but part of me started to wonder about the fairness of this attitude (and I’m sure we are all guilty of having reconsidered a restaurant, hotel or movie based on something we’ve read online). This company has set itself up in business, put a website out there with all the information homeowners need, sends out its people to measure up bathrooms, and does whatever else it needs to in order to promote itself – but then has to contend with anonymous posters on a website over which it has no control which is doing serious harm to the company’s image.
Part of me says that people who’ve had a negative experience are always more prone to venting some rage on a suitable message board or forum – so the sample is unrepresentative. Another part of me says I don’t want to risk going ahead after reading what I read – which I think you will agree is a prudent course of action. But, moving forward, how can we create online forums which provide a more nuanced, and dare I say objective, version of the truth about the service we as customers can expect from a given company? One day, we could all as professionals with websites to maintain be the victim of something someone out there writes about us – is it fair to demand a right of reply? Or should we just chalk this up under the “Dangers of the Web” category? Readers, let us know what you think…
Tags: business, digital, marketing, online, web 2.0, website
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
March 18, 2008 by internetworld
It doesn’t seem too long ago since Google had entered the offline world with their Desktop application, challenging the status quo that Windows had monopolized for so long. By offering an alternative –and possibly better- way of finding things on your own hard drive, our eyes were opened. Of course, those Mac users amongst us have appreciated reliable and faster local search for years…
But in a similar manner, we now see value in an attempt to bridge gaps between not just on- and off-line, but also computer and mobile screens. Only recently, possibly with the arrival of the iPhone, can we really agree that the industry is starting to offer the internet wherever the consumer wants it, not one version for mobile and another for PCs.
Which brings me to Firefox. It is open source, and Mozilla are building on a strong community base and solid following. How long will it be until we begin to see this browser as the ultimate platform for our daily needs?
Tags: advertising, business, digital, internet, marketing, offline, online, technology, web 2.0, world
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 13, 2008 by internetworld
We seem to have hit on a rich seam of controversy regarding the gathering of your browsing habits for more targeted marketing campaigns. It seems that Qualcomm are arming up with their acquisition of an Irish company that monitors mobile browsing (with a little help from Orange).
We are moving into realms now where most things we do will be noted by somebody somewhere, whatever space we’re caught looking at (computer- or mobile-based) will simultaneously know what we’re looking at too. How long will it be before the television sets in the corner of every house start to feed statistics back to similar companies, a la Orwell’s 1984 or the more recent Blind Faith by Ben Elton?
I suppose the only place where we can get a handle on the answers would be at Earls Court from the 29th of April…
Tags: advert, behaviour, digital, internet, marketing, online, targeting
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
March 11, 2008 by internetworld
As might have become apparent from my other blog entries, here at Internet World we’re always trying to embrace new ways to do business and communicate with our like-minded brethren. Your reading of this very blog is testament to that fact. Well, today I’d like to bring to your attention another development in this area for us. That’s right, you guessed it, we now have a Facebook group and invite you to join!
This allows you to get involved with Internet World before, during and afterwards. It allows you to chew the fat with like-minded folk about the web 2.0 development of the day or the latest way to do digital business, or more importantly what the next-latest way to do digital business may be around the corner.
We’re currently looking at interesting and unique ways of combining social networking with the way we do business, and linking between the two areas is a giant leap forward. We appreciate that not everyone works the same and aim to practice what we preach, encouraging business to look at different ways to bring out the best in their employees. As a result we’ve opened the conference doors early, allowing all who join us in cyberspace to participate as much or as little as you want.
Tags: advertising, affiliate, blog, digital, email, marketing, search, social networking
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 10, 2008 by internetworld
A quick glance around the news today shows a face-off between two giants of the internet over Digg, the social-bookmarking site (which already has an advertising deal with Microsoft). This merely confirms in my mind that social websites are firmly brought to the fore in any future business planning. I would expect our speakers to shed a little more of their own light on this topic in 6 weeks time, but I think this tussle ultimately comes down to control of eyeballs. I think most of us can hold up our hands and admit to spending that little bit too long on social websites, can’t we?
Returning to your digital footprint being recorded and tracked without your knowledge, it seems that Phorm are mounting a massive rearguard defence, the story appearing everywhere. I stated previously in this blog that I was going to be positive if this technology results in a more focused marketing approach. However, reading a few of the comments on The Register, I may be inclined to change my mind a little. I suppose it ultimately comes down to whether or not you want your eyeballs soaking up any adverts at all. All marketing is obviously for the greater good! How does the consumer know what they want unless we let them know what their options are?
Tags: advertising, business, digital, internet, marketing, social networking, web 2.0
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
March 5, 2008 by internetworld
The 4th worst free-press nation has stated it intends to shut the internet down during elections coming up in the middle of the month. Iran is kept from the bottom of the league by only Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea in the Reporters Without Borders freedom of speech table. A spokesman for the Iranian government says it is to safeguard internet speeds and service for government connections during the elections, a connection which was only recently upgraded.
To live in a country where broadband speed is capped by the powers-that-be to control the populous is a terrible thing, and even though our speeds in the UK aren’t always as good as we might sometimes expect, our free and competitive market makes the suppliers drive up quality and drive down prices. Apparently anything over 128Kbps is banned in Iran. I certainly couldn’t function on a daily basis at those speeds, but then it is something we all take for granted. And without the aid of caffeine I might work at those speeds anyway.
Internet World might not be quite as flash and sophisticated if we were talking about marketing techniques and search engine optimization at a snail’s pace…
Tags: advertising, download, internet, marketing, search, web 2.0
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
March 3, 2008 by internetworld
Wouldn’t you prefer to be told to buy things you were actually interested in? I would, but not everyone feels the same way. Especially when we stop and think about how companies know what we want to buy. By recording our online behaviour, is our privacy being invaded too much? And is it against our will?
It seems like the level of invasion might be down to your choice of ISP. According to a recent article BT, Virgin and Talktalk have recently signed a deal that hands any unencrypted information over to Phorm, which could include webmail, usernames and passwords. Opting out does not seem to be an option. But the loud outcries might be coming from the same people that decried Google’s mail service when it first started searching through our messages in order to place relevant adverts next door. I think it comes down to choice. Choose your ISP, choose your webmail provider, be careful where you to leave your digital footprints in general.
Like I said above, I don’t mind being given ads I might be interested in. perhaps the individuals who are outraged by this invasion of privacy are those who actually have something to hide. For the angelic browsers amongst us, not a problem.
Tags: advertising, behaviour, digital, internet, marketing, online, privacy
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
February 26, 2008 by internetworld
It is interesting to follow developments in the social networking sphere. The world of mobile seems to be opening up new revenue streams for all, and the time is obviously ripe to join the bandwagon. If we take a step back and examine recent events, it all makes for an interesting few months in the build-up to Internet World 2008, where we have some speakers key to this area of the industry.
Mobile telcos are launching wireless mobile broadband dongles for laptop users to be where they need to be. The iPhone drives a market surge towards mobile broadband on usable screens we can read. As a result, the actual (not mobile) internet is made mobile, rather than the scaled-down mobile internet we have been force-fed for years.
And now we see the social networks riding the trail. LinkedIn launches a mobile version of its service, along with Facebook (and with their recent dip in log-ins, mobile could become all the more important). Travis Katz, Myspace SVP, chipped in earlier this month with a prediction – he anticipates that half of all traffic to the network would come from mobile devices within five years. So it will be even more interesting to hear what he says on our podium in a couple of months.
Which makes it all the more important to come down to Earls Court from 29th April this year…. Just to keep abreast of where the market will move next.
Tags: advertising, internet, marketing, mobile, search, social networking, web 2.0, world
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
February 21, 2008 by internetworld
I was reading the newspaper this morning, and, strangely, there was a full-page spread about the challenges of digital preservation. The main theme proposed is that digital content from the 1980’s can frequently become unreadable through the evolution of desktop operating systems – whereas the Domesday Book and other venerable paper-based documents remain accessible as long as the paper and ink can hold out.
It certainly puts in perspective recent controversy about people posting far too much personal information about themselves on social networking sites like Facebook – thus often unwittingly creating a digital “trail of crumbs” that can be very difficult to scrub from the web. Perhaps we should be equally concerned about digital decay – increasingly we live in a world where content is “born digital” and never makes it onto paper, so are we in danger of washing away our own popular history? Will social historians of the future wonder quite what all the fuss about Myspace circa 2006 was all about?
If not, it could be down to the efforts of the people at the Internet Archive. Since 1996, apparently, these guys have archived over 85 billion web pages – good work!
Tags: advertising, affiliate, digital, email, internet, marketing, mobile, online, search, web 2.0
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
February 18, 2008 by internetworld
Our Chief Executive at CMP is embarking on a ‘world tour’ talking to everyone in the business in small groups about the company’s plans for moving forward. Whilst it might cut short my intended long career here at CMPi if I told you all the details, there was an interesting point which is relevant to Internet World, and also, I hope, no great secret. That is the importance of digital in the world of media and publishing, and in fact how well CMP are doing at rolling out digital products.
As I sift through the speaker applications for the 2008 show (they will be up on the site soon, I promise) there are a lot of sessions that touch on how traditional businesses can captialise on the opportunities that digital presents. I’d go so far as to say that if businesses are not embracing digital (especially media and publishers) they probably won’t be around for Internet World 2009. So I don’t think CMP are unique in their desire to do more digital and we are clearly not the only ones either – I just noticed that the Digital Development Director at emap has signed up to attend Internet World this week. The question is do we let the competition use Internet World to learn about it…
Tags: business, digital, internet, marketing, online, search
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
