Privacy, permission and concern for the individual versus concern for the network

Data, published conversations, recordings of what we say to each other, call it what you will, ownership of what you publish online has long been fraught with complexity.

Traditional media companies kept it simple when they went online. They got you to agree that everything you publish on their site is theirs to reuse as they wish. They did it at sign up.

They've got a little greedy about this if most print news publications are anything to go by. From their repeated sourcing of quotes and stories from the likes of Twitter it appears they feel they can reuse pretty much anything you publish online.

They haven't sought your permission.

Neither do those companies who spider the web to gather and index what you say. Google, for example. And, of course the wide range of alternative search and social media monitoring tools.

Publish to the web and your default state is that your data is discoverable and can be reused for profit and gain by, well, anyone.

That's a truth. And it's one rarely considered.

Now, if you don't like that truth, you can opt out. You could set twitter to locked, Facebook to absolute private, tell google not to index your blog etc. Or just publish nothing online at all.

These are all options. And they are all actually more about permissions than privacy.

For example, let's imagine that when you sign up to use the web (at all, anywhere) you get the option to set your permissions.

Would you set yours at 'allow my data to be used by companies for gain'? That's effectively the default in the age of social media monitoring. If your data is discoverable it is discoverable by all. On or off.

If you're 'on' monitoring technologies can pick up what you say. There's nothing CIA about that. You can do exactly the same with some patience and a search engine. They can only track open conversations.

Then nice people like my company (90:10group) will slice, dice, analyse and interpret. And if the nice people we work with take the appropriate action and make change based on what they hear then you get better things, things that you cared enough about to want to publish to the web about. (This, by the way, is just part of what 90:10Group does, but it's the part that is relevant in this conversation).

Four groups just gained from your data:

The monitoring tool makers.

Companies like mine: which turn the data (your conversations) into something that can drive change - one to the benefit of both producer and customer.

The producer: Who gets to make a more efficient fit with the expressed needs of their customer.

You. You just improved something you care about.

But should we have asked your permission before we began the search?

My good friend Jonathan Macdonald believes so. And he makes his case very well himself so I will simply link to that here.

I don't object to the provision of an opt-in to this kind of data collection. Many people do make choices already to opt out via the methods I described earlier. The concern is the current internet-wide default that you are opted in.
We could tackle this through a big new 'opt out' button, or education, or by the insight industries opting themselves out.

But for myself I won't be opting out.

When I choose to express my metadata in public (ie publish online) I do so with the intention of connecting with others who care about the same thing I do.

I do so to join with others who may be trying to solve the same issue as I am right now. I do so because together we make things better.

The problem is more important than the individual.

One extra connection (node) doubles the number of connections in a network. It doubles the value of the network.

Which means when I limit the spread of my metadata I'm limiting the connections all of us can make and the value of the network to all of us.

And I'm all for the network over the node.

So maybe what all this does come down to is concern for the individual vs concern for the network.

Tough choices to make. But these are the realities of the networked world.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone so I may have to tidy it up later ;-)

Related articles

• The Web Overreacted to Facebook's Latest Privacy Issue (programmableweb.com)
• Privacy Furor on Facebook (foxnews.com)
• With Schmidt Out at Google, Will Privacy Change? (socialtimes.com)
• Privacy Protection Pricelists: $10 to Delete Your Facebook Account; Message and Photo Encryption Free (blogs.forbes.com)

M-Football: Your team as social object

Image via Wikipedia

I'm running a roundtable at James Cameron's M-Football event on Jan 21.

A group of us will discuss the social side of the mobile tech in a footy context.

If there's anything that qualifies as a Social Object it's a footy team. Yet I'm struggling to find good apps or tools which do more than broadcast information at silo'd individuals. Big opportunity there and one I'm keen to explore in my session.

Appropriately, the event is at Arsenal FC's Emirates Stadium in London. Among the keynote speakers are two very good buddies of mine; Tomi Ahonen and Jonathan Macdonald.

Both are brilliant and disruptive mobile minds and this represents a rare opportunity for all three of us to be in the same place at the same time. Bit like planets aligning - or buses arriving, depending on your perspective :-)

For my small contribution I get to share a 40% discount code: It is
'speaker-HJRQTSEC' making the ticket cost £180+VAT. To access it go here.

The event starts at 08.30 and the final agenda can be viewed here

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• Arsenal wins the Social Media League (ecairn.com)
• Mobile: My Remote Control for Life (fasterfuture.blogspot.com)

Mobile: My Remote Control for Life

Need a lesson in mobile marketing and communications? I can't think of a better place to start than this training day run by people I know, admire and respect; Alan Moore, Jonathan Macdonald and Alex Meisl.
It's on October 28 at London's Hospital club. More about why you should take my word for it, here.

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• mobile marketing and communications training day (smlxtralarge.com)

Mobile Advertising: Serving people not targets?

What's going on with mobile advertising? A couple of people I thoroughly recommend have come together to try to answer that question with an event in London on June 15 - James Cameron and Jonathan Macdonald.

Mobile Advertising UK is backed by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe and the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) UK.

Ogilvy, Mediacom, Mindshare, Alcatel-Lucent, Sponge, Mediaedge:cia, Inside Mobile, Unanimis, ringring media, AKQA Mobile, Vodafone, Telefonica O2, Orange and 3 will all take part.

And I'd have been there joining a panel if it wasn't for the demands of a family holiday.

On top of the conference, the event will host the inaugural EverySingleOneOfUs Mobile Campaign of the Year Awards, designed to recognise the past year's most engaging, creative and effective mobile advertising campaigns (download the entry form here). Image courtesy theworldscreams

Jonathan (who founded EverySingleOneOfUs, and was among the launch team at revolutionary mobile operator Blyk) has come up with a neat twist on the awards theme. It'll be judged on how useful it's been for the people it was intended for - us lot.

"The EverySingleOneOfUs Mobile Campaign of the Year award is the first award in new media to be judged for the benefit the campaign has to the public."

It will be judged for value, relevance, ease of interaction and transparency of offering.

Who dares enter?

Contact James for delegate passes, awards entries and the conference programme.

The Communication Movement

My good friend and co-conspirator in the Eighth Mass Media, Jonathan Macdonald, launches phase two of his Every Single One of Us; Communication Movement initiative today.
Go take a look with my hearty recommendation. There's a wealth of resource and inspiration available there for all to share.
Join in, you just might be part of something big.

Here's the Press Release:

An industry movement entitled EverySingleOneOfUs (www.everysingleoneofus.com) launches today as a grassroots resource, aggregating knowledge, and authorizing best practice and methodologies that ensure optimal mobile advertising user experience.

Founded by Jonathan MacDonald, who was previously a Chairman of the Music Industries Association, Commercial Director of Ministry of Sound, and Sales Director at the advertisingfunded mobile network Blyk, the effort unites a cross-section of mobile operators, mobile companies and big-name brands to educate the market and encourage discussions about emerging business models, industry issues and areas of growth that will help companies, stakeholders and shareholders engage with potential consumers and ultimately drive mobile advertising revenues and positive results.

The success of mobile advertising and subsidized models based on delivery of content, applications and services, is dependent upon the willingness of participants to accept advertising on their mobile devices. Whilst recent research, including a 2007 survey by Generator Research, confirms that over half of mobile users (61% US and 72% UK) are interested in mobile advertising, there is a catch: Mobile advertising must be relevant and genuinely useful.

Ultimately, users demand advertising that relates to their interests and is tailored to their specific needs. Anything else will be perceived as ‘spam’, which degrades the experience, increases the likelihood of churn, and breeds a distinct lack of trust.

“I created this movement as a collaborative project for us all to grow the industry together,” said Jonathan MacDonald, Founder of EverySingleOneOfUs.
“The promised land of ‘upward curve revenue’ from mobile is unlikely to happen without a catalyst. This catalyst can only come, in my opinion, by working together in the interests of citizens rather than the protective interests of various elements of the value chain.

The EverySingleOneOfUs movement uses state-of-the-art tools to map out structure and progress, such as ‘Personal Brain’ (www.thebrain.com), and cutting edge publishing platforms to ensure clarity, access and freedom of expression.”

The inspiration for the EverySingleOneOfUs movement comes from The Communication Ideal (Vol 1), a comprehensive and collaborative online publication authored by MacDonald, drawing on the passions and pragmatism of a loose group of contributors -- ranging from senior executives at mobile networks such as Carl Taylor, Director of Applications & Services, Hutchinson Whampoa, through to renowned bloggers/research analysts including Peggy Anne Salz, Founder of MSearchGroove, and thought leaders like best-selling author and independent consultant Tomi Ahonen - to identify and differentiate the shortcomings in mobile advertising approaches, more specifically the industry's blanket assumptions about user behaviour, from the positive opportunities and potentials for growth.

Based on these insights, MacDonald has connected with a wider network of professionals and practitioners to develop No Way Back From Here (Vol 2) – a collaborative effort to provide players in the evolving mobile advertising ecosystem with a realistic roadmap to change.

More importantly, this second volume – which is a work in progress - will guide the future work of EverySingleOneOfUs worldwide.

The first phase will kick off with Mobile Advertising U.K., an ambitious and far-reaching research project which will be endorsed by industry associations in early 2009. Drawing from primary research, in-depth interviews with 25+ mobile executives, agencies and mobile networks, as well as an online consumer survey, Mobile Advertising U.K. will expertly document the state of the mobile advertising industry in the U.K., and shed important light on industry obstacles and opportunities.

To an extent, Mobile Advertising U.K. will follow the blueprint of Mobile Advertising Netherlands, a mobile advertising research project spearheaded by AENEUS Strategy Consulting and Management and sponsored by some 20+ companies including GroupM, a leading media investment management operation; telecom vendor Alcatel-Lucent; mobile operators and service providers Vodafone, T-Mobile, KPN, and Blyk; and full-service media agencies Starcom, Marvellous, MADS Mediacom Mindshare, and Mediaedge:CIA.

MacDonald also states: “The research project stage will conclude by the end of Q1 2009 and will be complemented by a range of conferences, seminars and master-classes from the world’s thought leaders and industry heads. Together we can mature this industry in a positive and productive way, and the angle we approach this from is firmly biased towards the best interests of the citizens of the world – every single one of us.”

To learn more now, visit www.everysingleoneofus.com.

Connecting the dots. Creating change

Take this (via Mark Earls)

"What can we do, what do we need to do, to improve our differentiation?”

And add this. (via Neil Perkin)

"Everyone sat inside... organisations has the leverage to transform the model of the business they are in. When they try, the temptation is for the business to wrap such ideas in short-term ROI, judge it by existing rules, implement it through an existing structure, make it fit an existing process. You don't manage innovation. You need to get the organisation, with all that process, all that hierarchy, all those assumptions, out of the way

Sprinkle in some of this. (Via Chris Carfi)

"There is a transformational thought, a "transforming idea," and a point at which the group "gets it" and starts to gel in the new world."

And... do not relax.

Aww shucks!

I've been overwhelmed by the many very kind emails, tweets and comments following my announcement yesterday of my departure from Bauer and my arrival at Brando Digital.
So many wonderful people saying so much that is positive and encouraging. But none can top this.
Jonathan Macdonald. Simply - and truly - thank you. Wow. :-)

Best Practice in Social Media? Best practice being human

The estimable Neil Perkin just tagged me as part of a 'Best Practice in Social Media' meme.
Trouble is Neil has said much of what I would have.

Actually, that's not a problem - it's a great thing that so many of us are converging around similar conclusions: Seth Godin, David Armano, Mark Earls, Jackie Danicki, Alan Moore, Euan Semple and seminally Doc Searls and the rest of the Cluetrain gang, to name but a few...

So yes I'll agree with Neil, once again, that human interactions are critical. (Image by dotbenjamin via flickr)

They are exemplified in notions such as P2PR, Lean-Too Marketing, The Intention Economy (which Doc was referring to more than two years ago, so I'm a late comer on that!) and summed up as best as I know how in this slidedeck:

Adapting Brands To The Networked World

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: internet network)

If you want a case study; try this. The slidedeck above also refers to some great examples of the use of social media.

Quick guide? Well I wrote this for 'how to blog'. Seems much of it is appropriate to all social media.


Time to tag: I nominate: Neville, Christopher, David, Mark and Jonathan
Dan was already tagged by Neil! This meme was started by Mitch.

Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media: Download and share

I'm off for a little R&R. So I thought I'd leave you something chunky to download, read and digest while I'm gone.
 Tomi Ahonen (of Communities Dominate Brands) is about to publish his sixth book - Mobile As Seventh of the Mass Media.
Regular readers of this blog will know we're fans of the concept (originally worked up by Tomi and his co-author on CDB, Alan Moore).
Jonathan Macdonald and I are now pushing the idea into what the Eighth Mass Media can become.

But right now you can download a free 30-page excerpt of Mobile As Seventh of the Mass Media in advance of publication. And, should it tempt you to buy (it will, particularly if the mobile space and digital convergence fascinate you) you can pre-order here.

Tomi says: "Here is the pdf file of the book, Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media. It includes the Foreword by Pekka Ala-Pietila (CEO of Blyk and past president Nokia), the Introduction Chapter, one of the case studies (Flirtomatic) and the fourth chapter, Mobile as 7th Mass Media, as well as the index of the 18 chapters and 16 case studies.

You may freely quote from this document, and you may freely forward it. I am shortly going to launch a blogsite for the book as well, so there will be a place to collect the feedback, news and developments in the 7th Media space. If you blog about the book, I would appreciate it if you could include a mention of the futuretext.com website where potential buyers can already order the book today, before it appears on Amazon in a couple of weeks.

So that's the deal. Enjoy. (Image by Norma1 via flickr)


Pleased to say I'm co-hosting a two-day course at Oxford University on the subject (Mobile As The 7th Mass Media)  with Tomi this winter. Check here for dates when confirmed.

And I'll be presenting on The Eighth Mass Media at WidgetWeb Expo in London in October (6-7) and at Mobile Content (also in London) in November. Tomi and Jonathan Macdonald are also on the bill of the latter. Unmissable really ;-)

Now, where's that suntan lotion...

Blogs dead? Who cares? Ubiquity of Connectivity is what matters

The eighth mass media is not about tools. I care little who says blogging is dead or who claims microblogging is the next big thing.

The eighth mass media is where:
we are the connections and the way the connections are made; beyond silos. It needs tools but it isn't made by them.

It's the direction we're headed in. The sixth and seventh medias (internet and mobile) are helping us on our way.

How we choose to connect, in which silo or with which tools, is less important than that we do connect - and, crucially, as widely and instantly as possible. Blogs are quite good for this. They are considerably less silo'd than your average (what we traditionally think of) social network. Don't write them off just yet.

More importantly Hugh refers us to one of Clay Shirky's more oft-repeated lines (my emphasis):

"Yes, again, it's all about what Clay Shirky said four years ago, in a wonderful interview he did for Gothamist:

"So forget about blogs and bloggers and blogging and focus on this -- the cost and difficulty of publishing absolutely anything, by anyone, into a global medium, just got a whole lot lower. And the effects of that increased pool of potential producers is going to be vast."

Amen to that. We all have cheap, rapid, easy ways of sharing our metadata. That's what publishing has become. Publishing for all. Advertising for all.

We can all share content. Content is the conversation starter, conversation is where ideas turn into action, action is where value is created.

Now we can all share in sharing this. We can all share ourselves.

That is what changes everything.

In some ways the eighth mass media is also the first (as J_Mac pointed out in a comment on the original post).

Alan Moore and Tomi Ahonen's work on Mobile as the 7th mass media lists them thus:
1. Print
2. Recordings
3. Radio
4. Cinema
5. TV
6. Internet
7. Mobile

The eighth is where we are moving towards: We are the eighth mass media. But we were of course always the first, too.

The difference between the pre-mass information age and the post mass broadcast age is speed of transmission and scale of spread both enabled by the ubiquity of connectivity.

We need the sixth and seventh mass medias to enable the eighth.

We are the eighth mass media

Today saw the first Eat'n'Tweet. If you'd like to join us at the next one, add your contact details in a comment - or just your twitter name, or follow me and look out for updates!
It gathered a truly energised group of people to discuss everything from mobile advertising to group forming network theory and all stations in between.

The bit that sticks in my head was a discussion about Mobile As The Seventh Mass Media. I won't go into the detail of why mobile needs to be considered a separate and distinct mass medium (the first is print, second recordings, third radio, fourth cinema, fifth TV, sixth internet) because Alan Moore & Tomi Ahonen have that covered in their excellent white paper and presentations.

The notion prompted the question: So if mobile is the 7th mass media, what is the 8th?

Jonathan MacDonald suggests 'Mobility', I suggest something around treating the 'user' (horrible term, but bear with me) as the destination, driven by real-time response to the expression of shared purpose.

It's a notion at the heart of my white paper Communities of Purpose are the Busness Units of the 21st Century and revisited with a distribution/marketing-focus in We Are All Publishers Now (Media Transformative).

Jon and I are both speaking about the same thing - and no doubt will come up with the right word to describe it in the end...(hey J_mac?)

My best stab right now is "We are the eighth mass media".

 I don't just mean that we create it in a UGC vs Professional Content Creators kind of way. I mean WE are the distribution, the content, the 'user journey', how messages are transmitted... WE are the medium and the media carried within it.

We are the connections. We are also how the connections are made.

It is this that marks the crucial shift, how the connections are made, and which will help us recognise when the eighth mass media emerges.

When we can express our metadata globally in real time, beyond any silos, when we can find other people who want to solve the same problem (who share your purpose) right now as we do, people who will join us in solving it right now (because it also holds value for them, right now), then, the eighth mass media arrives.

And then how value is created really does shift. Group forming with no silos. A new world.

Using mobile social networks to target advertising... one day

I was due to be in Brussells on Monday to present on the subject of using mobile social networks to target advertising.
For a variety of reasons I can't make it. My good friend Jonathan Macdonald is going to fill in for me. Many thanks for that.

Still, I'd done all the prep work so I'd rather share that than waste it. Right below you'll find the slide deck and then below that my notes to go with them. It's not quite the real thing - but if it gets you thinking and makes you want to take the conversation in various directions, I'd be delighted to read your comments.

In summary:

• First we need ubiquity
• UGC-powered broadcast models and Total Community models require different approaches
• Viral is something we do together
• Be ready to give up control

| View | Upload your own

• Slide Two

First things first.
The company I work for, Bauer Consumer Media, is one of the few media brand owners to sell its own mobile advertising, at least in the UK.
We can do this because we have long term excellent relationships with key operators. Our brands include FHM, Grazia, Heat, Motorcycle News, Angling Times, Mother & Baby, Your Horse, Zoo, etc.
In mobile our best known brand is Eyevibe – the video mobile social network which operates across 3, 02 and Vodafone in the UK.
Selling our own advertising reveals two significant truths for us:
1. A lot of people still don’t know where to start if they want to place an ad on mobile.
Is it with the operator, the agency, the media property, the handset maker even. So just to be clear: If you want to place an ad on any of our properties come and speak to us!
2. We’ve learned a bit more about the scale of the opportunity than most media owners. And right now, that opportunity is small.

• Slide 3

What that means is that while I’ve been asked to talk about ‘exploiting mobile social networking and user generated content to deliver highly targeted mobile advertising’ the reality at present is that none of us have big enough pies for media buyers to trouble themselves with slicing up.
At the moment we are stuck with selling our services, and the eyeballs gathered by whatever community features we deploy.

• Slide four

Eyevibe has 350K unique users a month generating 28m page impressions each month.
That may sound impressive, and in mobile internet terms, it is. But it’s not enough to start dicing and slicing for the average media buyer.
We know for example that our core age group on eyevibe is 18-25. 18-25 year olds who are heavy users of mobile internet are a pretty focused group right now. That’s focus enough to offer advertisers without going too much further.

• Slide five:

One current example: Doritos is carrying out a mobile advertising trial with Bauer. The five shortlisted entries to its £2.5m 'You make it, we play it' competition are being shown as post-roll ads on not only eyevibe but also on Empire and FHM’s mobile sites. They are targeting 18-24 year olds. Users are asked to vote for their favourite and the ad will be aired on TV during the UEFA European Championships.

• Slide six

Mobile is playing its role in an integrated campaign and one in which the planners have identified mobile as having high penetration among the 18-25 age group.
Targeting broad channels within a mobile social network, rather than tightly targeting individuals within it may be the best fit for today’s media buyer. In fact that’s an approach we are working on with eyevibe – the sponsorship of channels.
In short, it is too early to be deploying highly targeted advertising on mobile..

• Slide seven

Why is this? Because we are not at internet scale yet – or anywhere near it. It’s more like the mid 90s on the internet. And remember, Google adsense didn't emerge until there was already a good deal of advertising volume on the internet. Ubiquity first, targeting second.
We are not yet at that volume and your business plans for the short to medium term must take account of this.
Pains me to say it, but it's important to understand the reality of now before examining how value will be created in the near future.

• Slide eight

Now, all that said, scale is coming. Only a fool will think otherwise. Flat rate data is becoming ubiquitous, 3G footprint is expanding, emerging nations are going to mobile first adding billions to those online, search is improving, walled gardens are coming down.
So no wonder Google’s Eric Schmidt now predicts more ad revenues from mobile internet than fixed line in a few short years.
What I'm going to talk about speaks perhaps to the understanding google has arrived at. Google are focused on services – where ads and content meet. They also see a new slicing and dicing niche emerging from location based services.
When we reach scale then we have the possibility to create more value with real relevance. Ads have the opportunity of moving from interruption to engagement – from lowest common denominator to being focusedm useful content for the user.

• Slide nine

So with that in mind, let’s return to that question ‘Unleashing the power of the user: Exploiting Mobile Social Networking and User Generated Content to Deliver Highly Targeted Mobile Advertising.

Is it right to lump these together? Perhaps not. Here’s why.

• Slide 10:

I think there are two kinds of user generated content models:
broadcast and total communities.
Youtube and wikipedia and our own eyevibe are great examples of UGC-powered broadcast models.
1% of users contribute. 99% consume.
Let me be clear. This is not a bad thing. The 99% now have something they want to consume, created by that busy 1%. It didn't exist before. It's been carved from that cognitive surplus that Clay Shirky introduced us to. New value has been created.
It’s actually a very good thing if you’re an advertiser of the old school. Youtube, for example has some videos which have been viewed by 1m plus. That’s an audience – and it’s one in consumption mode.

• Slide 11

What they are consuming is content. And if your advertising model functions in a content way you have opportunities for success. In simple terms: music video to promote sales of tickets, downloads etc, discount vouchers to promote sales of products, wallpapers to promote fan affinities etc.
Users in these worlds soon spot straight-forward 30 second spots though – and turn on them. Yes they are ready to consume content on youtube, but not to be spun at.

• Slide 12

Simple ad models we are familiar with such as pre-roll etc have a better chance of success if users are receiving something in exchange – your download is free if you watch this ad, for example, seems a reasonable bargain. Just make sure the ad is relevant to the content if you don’t want those eyeballs to simply turn away…
Consuming your ad as a part of their selected experience can work.
There are, for example videos on youtube which reach multi-million audience. eyeballs matter when you have this scale – for branding purposes at least. an ad for a web2.0 conference on a great bit of web2.0 thinking could work well.
The greatest aggregate value will of course be achieved by activating advertising in the long tail in self-formed audiences.
So UGC-powered broadcast models can deliver value and are relatively easy for traditional agencies to understand.

• Slide 13

Then we have Total Communities, the other UGC model. These are communities in which to take part you have to create part.
Think of twitter. If you don’t create a profile you can’t take part. And if you don’t contribute some thoughts through microblogging you’ll get little value.
These are models which aren’t architectured to be accessible to large consuming audiences – they are for small communities to form around shared purposes and interests – facebook, myspace, secondlife… social networks/mediums.
Itsmy is a fine example in the mobile world.
And in these cases I’m going to suggest traditional ad models will prove less effective.

• Slide 14

So it may not be a question of using social networks as a vehicle to deliver highly targeted advertising, more that unless you consider different advertising models advertising will simply not be effective in social networks.
In Total Community models ads as content models are king.
Itsmy allows users to choose if they want to display ads, and if they do, they get to choose which ads to display. It changes the relationship with the brand. Now your choice of relationship with your brand says something about you, it’s now your content.
Even in huge networks like facebook and myspace, we know response rates even to relatively targeted banner ads is poor.
I believe this has much to do with the mode of thought people are in when they are using Total Community sites – they are more creative than consuming.
They are also looking at each other, rather than at you.
Give them an opportunity to join in the creation of an ad message and they are not only more likely to respond, they are also more likely to share.
As Mark Earls, author of Herd, says, “give them something to do together”

• Slide 15

This is at the crux of the idea that viral marketing may be “the key enabler for the success of mobile advertising”.
To be successful viral marketing must follow the rules of a networked world – and they are rules that appeal to people in creative mode, the mode we find people in in total communities:
Speak in an authentic voice (close the gap between creation and marketing)
2. Lose the TV envy (think relevance over quality)
3. Give people tools to make it their own (that which we create, we embrace)
4. Don't bother with urls, links or 'brand messages'. (We don't do spin) If people are interested they will search. Buy the keywords if you want to make it easier for them.

• Slides 16-18

What it takes to succeed in the viral environment:

1. A willingness to relinquish control.
2. Toolkits users can play with.
3. Creative users.

2 and 3 are readily available.
Number 1 is down to you.

• Slide 19

Summary

• First we need ubiquity
• UGC-powered broadcast models and Total Community models require different approaches
• Viral is something we do together
• Be ready to give up control

| View | Upload your own

Blyk on target as Google adsense goes mobile

Despite consistent mutterings within the mobile industry that Blyk cannot possibly work... here it is hitting its 100K customer target in the UK six months ahead of schedule.
Congrats to all those involved including Jonathan and Alan.

Also today I see google has added Mobile Ads to its adsense suite. So now you can design a mobile-friendly ad to link to your mobile internet site. Potentially very powerful and something I'm sure admob will be watching carefully.
The google tools even include giving the advertiser the tools to create their own mobile internet page for the mobile ad to link to (the horrible flaw in the car-crash they had before was that the ad might point to a standard fixed line web site. All the clicks but none of the business).

All very long tail enabling.

However, that page (an Adwords Business Page) is only an 'information' page. In other words you can't enable easy payment or ordering of an item advertised. Which seems a bit daft. How long before they integrate google checkout?

Don't be evil. The Google Bad-o-meter

Google's informal corporate motto 'Don't Be Evil' has been in discussion again this week. It certainly was when Jonathan Macdonald and I had lunch on Monday.
Sorry Jonathan (and aesthetes everywhere), I couldn't resist.
I don't even feel this way about google.
I guess what I mean is mottos should be positive rather than negative.

The value of a brand is in its conversations

It didn't take long. Twitter accounts are now going up for sale. Via Jonathan Macdonald and David Armano.
AndrewBaron is up for sale on eBay. Last time I looked bidding had reached $1125! @andrewbaron has just 1400 followers.
This phenomenom isn't particularly new - but it is new to twitter. MySpace accounts have sold on eBay before.
This essentially treats user accounts as media properties. Think about that for a moment. A user creating an account on someone else's platform is creating value (in real live dollars) simply from using themselves as a media property.
The fact that bidding has risen so high so fast for AndrewBaron indicates there are those who see the value of highly focused niche communities of interest.
However, the risk is that they are also seeing this as a way of purchasing some eyeballs. And eyeballs, no matter how focused and dedicated, are of less value than ears and mouths. In other words, by purchasing someone else's account you have access to audience, not access to conversation. The dynamic changes. Have you bought the conversation? Do you own it now?
That's contrary to the distributed micro-blogging nature of twitter. The conversation can and does start from anywhere within your self-formed group.
Note, it is a self-formed group. It isn't owned by AndrewBaron, he has no control over it.
All you have bought is access to audience - an audience who, by the way, are more like a community and may disappear if you broadcast at it.
Of course there are plenty of companies and commercial concerns moving into twitter in the hope of extending reach by broadcasting into a niche. Most fail to understand that the value derives from the conversations - not from the broadcast of the message.

And this I believe reveals a truth about how brand values and the value in a brand are now created. The value of a brand comes from conversation about it and with it.

Shoe firm zappo have understood this. @zappos is active in twitter, at least its CEO Tony is (ie a human being rather than 'a brand'.
Tony doesn't just use it to create a buzz (with regular prizes for random followers) he is careful to follow everyone who follows him - enabling the conversation (you have to be matched to see eachothers tweets in twitter).

Tony doesn't just tweet about zappo promotions, he reveals his life and his personality to you in every tweet. He presents a very human face of a company - and he does it in a way that is open to real live human conversation. Marketing without the fog.

I'd never heard of zappo before I found the fuzzy edge of their self-forming group on twitter. Now I have and so have you. And I for one have a warm feeling about it. The value of the brand and the brand's values are being created right before your very eyes - and shaped by your interactions with it.

Marketing and Advertising Models for a Networked World

I'm hosting an internal seminar and workshop tomorrow (April 10) on Marketing and Advertising Models for a Networked World.
If you're coming along, I look forward to seeing you. Delighted to say that among those joining us will be Blyk's Jonathan Macdonald, Communities Dominate Brand's Alan Moore, Snipperoo's Ivan Pope, BzzAgent's Dan Creekmore, Gray (London)'s Jon Williams, FaceTec's Jon Bickley and Microsoft's Ciaran McConaghy. And all in the humble training rooms of Bauer Consumer Media's Media House in Peterborough.
Marvellous.

Day one at Mobile Internet, Berlin

I've heard loads of interesting and challenging stuff today at Mobile Internet in Berlin (see 'speaking at' links, left). I've met some interesting people too.

I was twittering live throughout, as I will be on April 1 and 2. That means those that follow www.twitter.com/davidcushman get to ask questions, too.
Was great to hear from Antonio Vince Staybl, CEO at GoFresh/Itsmy.com from the stage and to have a conversation with him in a round table. I'm a big fan of itsmy's focus on community first and mobile first. They have an incumbent- rocking model. As Antonio points out a new media leads to new leaders; before cars there was no BMW. Before the internet, there was no google... before mobile there was no itsmy!
I also like the itsmy ad model. Users don't get a share of the revenues they create. BUT they do get to choose if their ugc carries adverts - and if it does, what sort of adverts. The users are allowed the power to treat the ads as content (the content as ads).
Interesting itsmy stats: The first pic of the recent UK earthquake was uploaded to itsmy within 30seconds (only content created on a mobile can be uploaded to mobile). Each user looks at 60pages per visit. 42% had never used a social network before using the mobile-only itsmy!

Cyworld's Christian-Peter Heimbach revealed the South Korean MoSocialNetwork is retreating to asia after a failed european experiment. Christian himself will crop up working in Brighton soon. Brighton types - give me a shout so you can welcome him in, he's a nice chap.

The Cyworld back-track was clarified after Jonathan Macdonald (following via twitter) asked Christian, via me, what the plans for a launch in the UK were. Answer, er none just yet. It's back to rebuild the aging tech with a view to returning someday soon.

Yahoo's Alex Romero had some nice things to say about my presentation (I was on before him, and before lunch!) and talked about new products such as oneconnect, among other things. It allows you to bring together all your social networks merging all your contacts. To which www.twitter.com/stoweboyd asked if yahoo thought this was something we actually want.

I caught up with Alex later and he explained the idea is more about a user gathering their routes to networks in one place - not sharing your digital identities and each identity's connnections. Need to investigate this a little more before drawing a conclusion, I feel.

Alex was fascinated by my eeepc. A few more sales coming Asus' way. Wonder when I'll get my commission...

I was also interested in Tim Hyland's youtube stats eg: every minute of every day 10 hours of video is uploaded to youtube. youtube uses more bandwidth today than the entire internet did in 2000.

Spent some time chatting to Luke Brynley-Jones of Trutap. Aim to catch up with him some more over the next few days. Luke revealed one user had sent 1200 messages in a day. Who knew thumbs could do that? And two Finlands a month are going on to contract in India each month at the moment. Now that's a growing market!

Finally (and apologies to those I haven't mentioned here, I may have reported previously via www.twitter.com/davidcushman) Martin Duval of orange gave us an interesting insight into the orange start-up programme which has orange working with vcs to develop and help new businesses take shape. He's creating a value web in the best traditions.

More from conference tomorrow, Follow it live at twitter.com/davidcushman and look out for opportunities to ask questions.

Starts again at 8am UK time.

What's valuable in a time of change?

Jonathan Macdonald comes up with a new way of looking at the bottom lines of companies: Revenue Centres, Cost Centres and Future Centres. And in a time of change, he argues the Future Centres may be the most critical of all.
Fairly obviously, I like this idea.
It's one with some personal resonance for reasons that become clear if you connect my career dots.
But much more importantly, we have to recognise that ALL companies are going through a period of huge change - rather, those that are going to survive will recognise this.
As the industrial era ends and the networked world begins to hug us all, the Future Centres are your guides.

Emap's Mobinar: The Power of the Network in Your Pocket

Yesterday, I was honoured to host emap's Mobinar: The Power of the Network in Your Pocket .
We had a fantastic line up of speakers: global consultant and high-tech author Tomi Ahonen, Dave Springall (Yospace) and Mike Burgess from emap, Jonathan Macdonald from Blyk (on the day after Blyk launched) and myself on the whole network thing!
And contributing throughout the day we had Jon Williams from bmbagency.com

Everyone attending came because they wanted to. We were a self-formed community of interest - and boy did it show.

The afternoon workshop sessions were amazing. Perhaps they were driven by the commitment that one of these ideas would happen. As people created ideas, they took responsibility for them - we found champions who will help bring them life outside of the Mobinar.

Tomi is a whirlwind of an inspirational speaker and workshop leader. I heard only positive - and I mean really positive - reports about him from the small group attending.

Jonathan blew our minds with the fabulous engagement model that Blyk represents - leaving his audience in shock and awe.

I think I learned three things for a successful event of this kind:

1. Get people to attend who WANT to attend (ie, are not directed to attend)
2. Commit to a really solid output: If it's about ideas - commit to making one a reality.
3. Commit to a follow up. And mean it.

It goes without saying of course, get the right speakers on the right subject. Frankly I don't think I could have found better speakers if I'd scoured the planet with a budget of millions. A huge thank you to you all.

Now, this will all seem a bit esoteric if you weren't in the small group who attended (which was primarily emap people, but we made those silo walls a little permeable by inviting in 'outsiders').

The slides the event generated will be circulated to those who attended - and to those who indicated they had planned to but were let down by last minute circumstance. Can't share that with everyone here, for some pretty obvious IP reasons.

However, Tomi has been kind enough to say he's happy for me to share a video of his morning sessions so expect to find them on this blog soon, along with my own morning presentation.

Finally a giant thank you to every single person who attended. You were awesome.

Two posts you should check out for more. Tomi saw the 'guts' of Blyk for the first time at Mobinar, this is his blog response.

And this is his kind comments about the event.

The increasing incidence of coincidence: Is serendipity becoming the norm?

I had a great day meeting brilliant minds in London yesterday - pretty much back-to-back.

Just to keep the coincidence theme going, I found myself free (after emap meetings) at 4pm so looked up Jonathan Macdonald - a mover and shaker at Blyk. He was free so we met.

Turned out he'd come from a meeting with three emap people. One I had seen earlier the same day, too. Another, I'm seeing on Monday. I'd met neither of them before yesterday. Nor had Jonathan.

And, after the previous day's facebook puppicide coincidence, I was thinking things were getting just a little strange.

I went on from my meet with Jonathan (who I'm glad to say has agreed to speak with emap colleagues at a mobile seminar I'm organising next month) to have curry with social apps genius Stowe Boyd.

And our wide-ranging and fun chat included some time spent on Reed's Law.
As a result I started wondering if the whole notion of being surprised by it being a 'small world' is gradually going to wash away.

If networks allow groups of shared interest to self-form (and assuming - as I'll discuss in a white paper I'm close to completing - that these are collaborative groups of purpose) then it becomes increasingly likely that the people you 'stumble upon' will also be stumbling upon the same people you are.

If I'm interested in the same things you are, the people you are interested in may well be the same people I am interested in.

We help each other expand this network of interest (our community of shared purpose, if you will).

The group itself may grow exponentially - but the view from our node may not reveal this.
In other words the likelihood of coincidence grows without us noticing it is happening.

LinkedIn reveals something of the truth of this. I have 72 contacts, 8000+ friends of friends and 865,000+ friends of their friends.

I'm guessing if I am in contact with one of my 72 first-degree contacts it's likely that coincidental same-day meetings of the kind described above will come from the 8000+ friends of friends, or at the outside, from the third-degree circle.

Sure enough, a quick check, without naming names, reveals this to be the case in the coincidence of the people Jonathan had met, referred to above.

People don't have to be on Linkedin for this to work, of course, it's just that Linkedin does offer a very graphic illustration.

Serendipity could be fast becoming the norm. As more people touch the network - the more it'll happen for more of us.

Add on Stowe's own 'Boyds Law which (forgive me if I twist this round my neck Stowe...) is about the willingness of groups to contribute their time to respond with their efforts in real time (ie drop what they're doing and help you) and in groups where all those factors are in play doesn't it become the natural state of affairs that coincidence happens?

You'll be helping each other out today - so the incidence of coincidence has to rise.

When you access the power of the network in self-forming groups of purpose - and where the group members are willing to contribute real time - it really is a small world. You are part of a global niche of shared interest.

We're taking the tools technology is giving us and restoring the cooperative and collaborative power humankind always had.

Thanks to the exponential growth Reed's Law predicts - where once you could only access the power of the small group you lived among, now you can activate this on a global scale.

The potential is truly limitless.