Posted by: nicolekrahmann | May 15, 2009 | No Comment |
That could become true!
The Guardian published an article on its website that an own virtual payment system is intended to be introduced from Facebook. This idea is inspired from the high consumption of virtual goods and social games offered at Facebook and the millions of dollars spent for these services. Therefore, a testing period of a micropayment system is scheduled for the coming weeks. Only few information regarding this new virtual payment system are available but it is assumed that only few developers are involved in the test and that Facebook offers users the opportunity to buy things with real money.
In reality it could be that a “universal currency” will be introduced which is linked to the user’s login. Therewith, user’s payment information have to be entered once in order to make transactions on the platform Facebook as well as applications and third-party sites which are connected and accessible from Facebook.
The Guardian highlights that these are more or less speculations since there is no official confirmation from Facebook, but they also believe that the likelihood that such a virtual payment system will be introduced is very high.
Facebook as well as StudiVZ are web 2.0 social networking sites.
The US-based Facebook was initially established in 2004 only for Harvard University students. Since it is global the majority of the users seem to be late teenagers and adults. Currently, the social networking site has more than 200 million active users worldwide. Facebook provides the following features:
profile
wall
email
instant messaging
pokes
photos
tag people at pictures
status
news feed
groups
search
customisable privacy settings
markup language
gifts
marketplace
applications
publication of events
video sharing
fan pages
advertisement ability for companies.
The Germany-based StudiVZ was initially established in 2005 for students from Germany, Austria and Switzerland and was provided in German, English, Spanish, French, Italian and Polish. Since January 2009 only the German version operates and has 12 million users. As a result of the high popularity of StudiVZ two other versions called MeinVZ and SchülerVZ were established. StudiVZ and MeinVZ are interlinked. StudiVZ offers the following features:
profile
wall
email
instant messaging
pokes (”gruscheln” in German)
photos
tag people at pictures
status
news feed (exclusively for status)
groups
search
customisable privacy settings
fan pages.
The following video is a visual comparison of StudiVZ and Facebook:
The features, services and the layout unambiguously demonstrate the similarities of both social networking sites. Since Facebook was established first and also introduced all features before StudiVZ the question arises – did StudiVZ steal Facebook’s ideas?
Facebook also identified the previously mentioned similarities and sued StudiVZ in a California federal court in July 2008. A declaratory judgement at the District Court in Stuttgart was requested from StudiVZ as a result that they denied the claims.
A further legal procedure is currently disputed between Facebook and StudiVZ at the county court in Cologne. The court recommends both to come to an arrangement out of court. A joint expert opinion is suggested to identify if StudiVZ’s source code was copied from Facebook’s. If both parties do not come to an arrangement the court hearing will continue at the 16th of June 2009.
If Facebook would win the legal procedure StudiVZ could be forced to immediately take the social network off the web. Therefore, the result of the legal procedure has drastically impact on StudiVZ and remains interesting.
Further information regarding each country and their election days can be found here.
The relationship between the European Parliament Election and new media is that the European Parliament makes use of social media in order to promote the elections and to encourage people to vote.
Therefore, the European Parliament established a Facebook page. The page offers general information on the European parliament, asks for feedback, encourages visitors to vote, highlights the importance of voting, identifies advantages and disadvantages of voting, offers up-to-date press stories, links to the European Parliament’s Flickr page etc. News of the European Parliament’s website as well as the blog established from the team are published.
The MySpace page of the European Parliament offers similar content like the Facebook page. Additionally, it illustrates the countdown until the election, offers the banner of the election and allows to decorate your profile picture with “I use my vote!”.
Furthermore, the European Parliament published several TV spots in order to motivate people to vote at the European Parliament Elections 2009. The following one is the most attention catching and most viewed one.
All of the previously illustrated examples demonstrate that the European Parliament is very committed in terms of new media.
First of all, I would like to give some background to Southwest Airlines. The airline was founded from Rollin King and Herb Kelleher 37 years ago and is based in Dallas (Texas). Today, the airline is one of the largest in America and employs more than 35,000 employees. Southwest Airlines flies to over 64 cities within America, carries 104 million passengers per year, has 500 aircrafts and flies 3,400 times a day. The airline emphasises on customer satisfaction by flying to destinations their customers want to fly to, being on time, offering the lowest feasible fares and providing an enjoyable environment during the flight for their customers. Southwest Airlines offers flights, car and hotel reservation, cruise bookings as well as a Travel Guide. Furthermore, the airline differentiates itself from their competitors through promising not to charge hidden fees and to deliver long-lasting vacation memories.
Southwest Airline’s mission demonstrates their willingness to satisfy customer’s as well as employee’s needs and wants. The company is aware of the fact that satisfied employees lead to satisfied customers.
At Southwest Airlines some things are different than at “normal” airlines. One very interesting point is that safety information are rapped.
Furthermore, Southwest Airlines is blogging and is member of Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn and Youtube. At these social networking sites or the company’s own blog people have the opportunity to get in contact with Southwest Airlines and to publish their opinions. The airline also provides hints and tips regarding a series of topics valuable for their customers.
Entertainment during flights is also common at Southwest Airlines. The following video illustrates entertainment at Southwest Airlines through an Elvis impersonator.
Another way of entertaining is racing with toilet paper as the following video shows:
Posted by: nicolekrahmann | May 6, 2009 | No Comment |
Dr Patrick Dixon is a leading futurist, global change guru and a conference KeyNote speaker.
Watch the following speech to get an understanding of future consumers, lifestyles and online communities – impact of new technology, communications, wireless networking on business and personal life.
Further speeches of Dr Patrick Dixon can be found on Youtube.
In my last post I talked about the dangers of the web 2.0. But this is just one side of it and there are many other, more positive ones. The web 2.0 is very useful to find people you lost sight of in the past.
In former times, it was nearly impossible to get in contact with people you lost sight of when you did not know their address or telephone number. But the web 2.0 with its search engines and social networks now offers the possibility to find old class mates, friends, early loves or sometimes also family members like lost children or parents. Everybody can find everybody! Again, this could also be a danger! But from the viewpoint of today’s post it is positive. Only condition to be found and to find people is the participation at the online society by providing a website or blog, being member of social networks, etc. Classmates.com is a social network with the purpose to unify former classmates. This social network provides also websites in Germany, Sweden, France, Austria, Switzerland and Canada.
Furthermore, the internet allows getting new friends. For example through specific online communities, where members share particular hobbies, interests or just the same place of residence. Some online communities establish meetings in the ‘real’ life. This form of making new friends can be predominantly interesting for people who are new in a region or who do not have friends, who share their interests. An example of an online community is the Gilmore Girls community.
Everybody talks about the opportunities the web 2.0 offers, but only a minority considers its dangers for every party who makes use of it. There are various types of dangers which lurk in the web 2.0 and I am not able to cover all of them, but some important ones.
The party which is most affected are kids and teenagers. There are many reasons for that. The main reason is that the majority of the kids are not very critical, because they do not have bad experiences. As a result of that they publicise personal information without ulterior motives. Some websites target especially young people because they easily accept terms and conditions of any transaction.
Terms and conditions are new headwords. In recent years there were lots of cases in the press that some websites provided confusing terms and conditions and ripped off many of their customers with this practice. After using a supposed free of charge application the customers receive a very high invoice. One common example for this practice are age calculators. A friend of my parents had the misfortune two years ago. He saw such an application online, was interested, signed up and added his personal information. Afterwards he received a report with the supposable age until he would live under the prevailing circumstances (e.g. smoking or not smoking, working full-time or part-time). Approximately one week later he received an invoice of 98 Euros with a notice that the company would take legal steps if he would not pay. He paid and half a year later exactly this application was in the press as a good example of rip-off. Later on, the website was banned because the terms and conditions were misleading.
Online communities can be on one hand beneficial but on the other hand hazardous. The online environment and especially communities allow interest groups to get connected. The problem is that it also allows violent criminals like terrorism federations or assassins to communicate with each other or to address new members. The gun rampage which took place in Winnenden, Germany at the 11th of March 2009 was probably (investigation not yet completed) announced in an online chat.
Online dating is also very popular but maintains high risk. People do not know each other and therefore, personalities can be faked. This fact offers violent criminals especially sexual offenders the opportunity to get connected with unknown people. Chatting with these strange people is not very dangerous but a meeting could be.
Another issue of the web 2.0 is the security of personal data. Of course, everybody is responsible and can determine which data he wants to publish, but sometimes it is just vague stated how the data will be used by the website provider. On the other hand social networks like Facebook offer lots of personal information which can be of high value for individuals or organisations who look for personal information. Every person who publishes personal information either on a social networking site or anywhere else does not expect that these information could be misused – but that is the danger. Such personal information can be utilised in many different ways, if it is from a potential employer or a violent criminal. The consequences for the affected person might differ, but the intention to get personal information is the same in both cases.
The following video is created to caution individuals against a too careless provision of personal information.
First of all, sincere condolence to Jade Goody’s family and friends.
The 27 year old Jade Goody died on the 22 of March 2009 on cervical cancer. The story of her sickness is well-known all over the world. She appeared the first time in the public in 2002 at the British version of Big Brother. Since this time she was constantly in the press. She wrote her autobiography, produced fitness videos, launched a perfume, participated in “Celebrity Big Brother” and took part in India‘s version of Big Brother in 2008, where she was informed about her cancer. These were just the main steps of Jade’s media occurrence, but in fact, she separated the population into two camps – the ones who idolised her and the ones who were bothered.
Her success as a personal brand is demonstrated in the achievement of her fragrance which was the third best selling perfume of Superdrug after Kylie Minogue’s and Victoria Beckham’s. Furthermore, she has an own fan club which offers the opportunity to leave condolences, to share pictures and videos as well as it allows to add a tribute picture to your Facebook profile. Since her death 1699 people – number increasing steadily – left her condolences on the fan page of Jade Goody.
The money (over a million dollars) Jade Goody generated from her media appearance is aimed to enable her two sons a better childhood and life than she had. Moreover, she created value for the world population by increasing the awareness of cancer.
Even if I would not publish my life like she did and I am not supporting it, I have to honour her success. It seems to be that she addressed loads of people with her personality. But is this still normal? Every time when I heard from Jade I was just wondering how so many people can be interested in one individual. She has not done anything remarkable or had an important background – she was a “normal” person like we.
If you are interested in one of the above mentioned topics just click on it and follow the link to the video, which I selected for this topic.
This link provides an overview of the top ten video sharing websites as well as a comparison of their offers. It demonstrates that YouTube is the leading video sharing provider and at the same time offers the most features.
Video sharing has a high impact on a company’s reputation because it offers the opportunity for everybody to express opinions and thoughts as well as to publicise information very fast to a high number of people. Therefore, companies need to be aware of the chances and risks of video sharing. On one hand there is the positive aspect of video sharing where past and recent commercials, up-to-date information, product developments and advice are published.
Companies also try to manipulate customers by sharing company related videos about e.g. unpacked products without stating that the video is created by the company itself. With this strategy, companies aim to convince potential customers to buy their products. But not all unboxing videos are created by the companies, “normal” buyers also film how they unbox their products and share the video afterwards. The challenge for the customer is to recognise which is a marketing strategy and which is not.
But Youtube is not just a very effective tool to promote an organisation; it is also a powerful tool to destroy a reputation of a company. Unsatisfied customers, competitors, charities or every other person who wants to inflict damage on an organisation are able to manifest themselves. A famous campaign against Nestlé’s marketing activities was created by Baby Milk Action.
I like his “blog voice” writing style and how he brings issues to the point. His language is easy to understand, to read and shows passion for the topics he covers. As reader you get the feeling that he didn’t want to write just another marketing and pr book, he really wants to address the reader personally.
In the first chapter of the book “The New Rules of Marketing and PR”he is talking about his experience of visiting websites of the car manufacturers Ford, Chrysler and GM. His conclusion of visiting these sites is that they were advertising to him, but not building a relationship with him.
That’s interesting, isn’t it? I’ve never visited websites and considered this view point, but after reading the chapter, I did and I totally agree with him. Building a relationship with customers is crucial, because they are overcharged with advertisements, which do not fulfil their purpose and lead to the result that customers do not recognise advertisements of their interest. In my opinion David Meerman Scott is building a relationship with his customers – the readers – and the achievement of the book supports me and my experience.
The success of “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” relies on new rules of marketing and PR; the author did not spend a single penny for advertising or promoting the book. You want to know how?
Read the book and make your own experiences. You will like it!
