What are you doing?

Facebook spends $1 million a month on electricity, $500,000 a month on bandwidth, and up to $2 million per week on new servers to keep up with its users’ insatiable photo-uploading needs (members post nearly a billion photos every month).

And, it doesnt make enough from advertising to break even!

News to pay for…

The debate has been raging – Mr Murdoch wants people to pay for their news. Can this work!?

Today I see an article on the UK preferring subscription over micro payments (@martinbailie)…

http://econsultancy.com/blog/4657-subscriptions-preferred-over-micropayments-in-the-uk-report

I forwarded this on to a colleague in research who is discussing the matter with another at the time… Moments later I receive an interesting response:

My point is that this research is pretty worthless, because it takes a very narrowminded look at what is available right now, and how things work at the moment. I think NI are working on something a lot more interesting, and I think they well pretty much start packaging it as a utility.

Think Sky+phone+broadband+VOD+News on Demand?

This is the other article I was talking about, really interesting, but backs up the point that we don’t really know what tomorrow’s model is going to look like, and in essence, there is nothing that will replace it. Scary (from our wages perspective), interesting from a conversational point of view!

http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/

 

Quite a lengthy article, personally I found the argument against the micro payments system using a iTunes case study slightly more interesting:

http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/why-itunes-is-not-a-workable-model-for-the-news-business/

The summarising main point being:

people like to hear the same song more than once. There are dozens of songs you’d be happy to hear hundreds of times and hundreds of songs you’d be happy to hear dozens of times, but there are not many newspaper articles you’d read twice. This in turn means that music operates outside the classic intellectual property valuation problem: if I let you read something I write, and then try to charge you for it, I will fail, even if you liked it, because you don’t want to read it again. If I let you listen to a song I recorded, and then try to charge you for it, I may succeed, especially if you liked it, because you do want to listen to it again.

 

So, how will the paid for news content go down? Will it work or won’t it?

I am interested to see the out come of the first attempts:

1 – How will the system work – surely it needs to be seemless with some interesting and exciting worthwhile content. how do you sell content on a slow news day?

2 – Advertising? They make money off the content but how do they also gain the advertising revenue?… Paying for content is one thing but for it to then be littered with the same flurry of ads we currently experience on sites or in paper? (especially if I can wait an hour or so for someone to copy and paste the content subscription and ad free).
The upside being – ads can be well targetted so it won’t be like hit and hope in the paper medium.

3 – News International seem to be pioneering this idea and are going to be first to step up, but I am sure that others will follow. Could we end up with the  eventual devaluing of the subscription or micro payments due to competition or possibly a similar newsstand war we saw a few years ago with free gifts – DVD’s, CD’s etc…

We shall wait and see what the mighty NI has up their sleeves in the coming months…

Rupert

Twitter – Terrific

Last night I believe I saw a fine example of a social networking in action, possibly not the average but still…

There we were excited and on way to seeing Jay-Z at the Roundhouse, as you do these days – you share your excitement with the masses and let them know what you are doing – both myself and Dj Firestarr did this to our particular and very different groups of followers on Twitter.

Soon after, tweets start flooding back (more to Firestarr than me sadly) commenting that they too were going to the RoundHouse… then other people we are following are sharing their excitement… after half an hour we have identified a trend that a majority of followers, radio Djs and many other randoms have decided to go to Nando’s prior the gig.

Suddenly, unaware we have our own little social group – many of which we can not identify but know are present.

It’s almost the opposite to an online game avatar – you’re at home – logon – go in to The World Of War Craft and meet people also sitting in their homes….

In the Twitter case we are all in the same building and area talking over an online network possibly trying to suss who is who…

At one point the search function of Twitter comes in to play so everyone can post #innandos and all get in touch with each other…

A great example of the power of the social network I think.

Then whilst writing it brings me to the bigger question – could this be where the giant of networking tools starts to capitalise – what if like Google advertisers brands purchase keywords and could purchase them to be linked when used in such situations? E.g  #innandos is started – the end users sees no cost but if Nandos purchase their keyword it then activates and links to their site (or promotion) when used? So the brand gets some recognition or new people can get involved in lesser known # conversations if they know the meaning.

This could evolve to things like #hoovers this then hyperlinks who ever purchases hoovers and could direct you to where ever it is Dyson would like when to direct their traffic.

This cant go to far to interrupt the conversations and infiltrate the general text of a post as it might post something with a link and then there are 5 other words linking in my post – that’s just going to p!ss people off.

Just a thought….

I will admit – this is prone to spam… but I have noticed the amount of spam on Twitter at the minute – especially those capitalising on top trends by just sticking the work ‘Jay Z’ in to their tweet about white teeth for $5.

The spammers then get me thinking about that huge number of users… and how many are genuine active users!?  :-s

 

 

Jigga what? Jigga who?

Social Media Addicts…

People keep saying I post to much – maybe I need to get down to a meeting…

Or maybe, ill set up another Twitter account…

Too true…

So, I am reading a random book I picked up on presentation skills… found a well articulated point that agrees with my thinking and is hopefully true:

“You could have great content and know and own your knowledge but struggle to form it through your physical acts of communication.

If your content (knowledge) is good but your form (presentation skills) poor, you have probably been frustratingly overlooked and enraged at the success of hollow presenters (those with good skills but lack true knowledge).

Perhaps it is a sign of the times but I am increasingly noticing that the hollow ones are crumbling and failing while those with content are moving into the forefront as leaders.

Let us harness both form and content for power.”

Past 300 million and beyond…

So good old Facebook flies past the 300 million users mark… Thats a big number – infact, it probably more people than they can cram on my tube in the morning and thats  a lot of people!

Before you go and read about how well Facebook is doing, I have a few thoughts which perhaps lead to a question.

How many of these 300 million are active people? (OK so i started with my thought which is in fact a question)… By active, I think it is fair to say checks their account more than once a month? I must admit I am not sure when they state these numbers if they only account for active accounts. I did however question a leading Social Marketing Guru about the average longevity or lifespan of a user – if there were any stats or facts on how long someone gets into the social networking game for… The answer was as expected – it’s to early days.

This is fair enough – however it is why I am sometimes a little sceptical. Great, it works at the minute – but what does 2million friends, 1million followers really give to a brand, especially if 4 of these people alone are infact Jonthan Ross but not Wossy - I suppose if the message penetrates or converts 1% and they go out and get involved with the product fair enough, thats a good ROI for signing up to a Social Networking tool. It still feels a little hit and miss with the amount of people who are willing to jump on the bandwagon and yet – we dont know when the wheels will fall of that particular wagon.

I would never poo poo the idea of using Facebook, twitter etc… but I would like to see or know more about the bigger picture – the life cycles etc. I’m yet to find an article or statistic that satisfy my intrigue but perhaps I am looking in the wrong place. How prepared are those people only now getting involved and learning about these tools to move on and learn a whole new one every 6 months?

Read more about the Facebook success…

http://tinyurl.com/

So this is what a bandwagon looks like!

The Right Factors…

The people you see on Xfactor might be desperate looking for that little bit of fame but do you think this can reflect the average job application? Are there people diluded in much the same way with their work – loving the idea of the job and its a dream job – but clearly lacking the skills they need… it worries me – because occassionally someone might say ‘they will do’ and put them through – scuppering your chances to bring real talent to the table.

Back in the day…

Back in the day, not so long ago as my parents tell me. It seems that people took careers for longevity and security.

Old media bosses

Security in these times is definitely hard to find and perhaps longevity too but within media – especially the digital sector – what is longevity? Most roles and titles have only just come about and I am sure new ones added daily.

Company structures maybe still remain similar with a hierarchy but finding that dream jobs isn’t quite what it was (possibly it no longer exists) but also with the changing landscape and keeping up to date with advances in technologies and communications means you may no longer have direction.

You might spend the next few years going down the Social Network Optimisation route for it to turn out to be to hit or miss, so many accounts lay dormant or people just joining groups with no return rendering it a less viable medium which has been replaced or to the bottom of the ad spend budget.

Of course marketing or design skills acquired over the years can keep you in your desired field – but look at Myspace, one minute your chugging along in the dream job at a rate of knots just to have the carpet taken from underneath your feet.

There’s also those moving into areas they’d not nessarily know – one minute your doing promotions and events – the next you’re thrown in the deep digital pool, a lot to learn and unlike certain areas of marketing or design there is not just the message and look to think of but also the best practices and technical knowledge. Th amount of emails I get from reputable companies that look nice enough with no mistakes in them but then they have a blue borders round images (sorry a pet piece of mine image properties  border!! DO IT!!)

I know someone that wants to be a journalist and it is what they know, love and have learnt and they are banging on the doors of paper based products putting in the effort and time for free on internships. I’m not saying sell out, if it is what you truly would love to do but the web has outgrown the paper based brands in terms of investment…. I maybe wrong but Im sure we shall soon see what happens to those brands pumping their funds in to the paper product instead of getting their online proposition in place, enough examples have gone down the pan already.

In summary, the working world of media is not what it was – in some respects I feel that some people are still playing catchup and guessing games to get things right and it could be risky business for some bright sparks out their who don’t think before they leap at nostalgic heroines for a career.

Crazy Inventions…

The car phone?

How mad does that seem now… Someone invented a phone that could work whilst in the car to be used when driving, gutted this was then made redundant by the mobile phone which could be used any where whether it be in the car outside of a car – but also for the whole concept – using the phone in a car to be made illegal!

Not only that – but imagine if you told that yuppie on his brick of a car phone that in the not too distant future he will be able to update a website from his touch screen phone that can also take videos and pictures for free – he would have thought you were crazy!! (and zoomed off in his BMW)

What do we deem crazy at the minute…? One of the many great examples of innovation and change…

 

The mighty carphone

Long gone icons…

Free newspapers, free online video, streaming music is all great but with so much of it – will we miss out on the classic big hitters we have experienced in the past?

So much choice and niche interests available to the masses means that it’s harder to create those mega stars we were previously used to – will there be another Madonna , Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson. Even if the talent is there – will the fans be? It’s seemingly easy to become famous – or have followers and attract some form of an audience. Will this continue or will it just be a phase as people want that high quality talent, news, films given back to them as they loose sight of tracking it down for themselves.

Even the once iconnic films are becoming less regular – these days box office hits seem to be taken up with nostagia as they can now be given a new more exciting lease of life – Spiderman, Transformers, Batman, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland. But where are the new ideas? If we live on nostalgia now what’s left for the future… Memories of already reformed ideologies to crack out again in a few years time once there is a new way to showcase then?…. all seems a little lazy to me.

Alien Vs Predator