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.

First of all, what are Facebook and StudiVZ?

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.

Do you see any relationship between the European Parliament Election and new media?

No? I’m sure, that would have been the opinion of many people. But in fact, there is a relationship!

The European Parliament Election takes place on the 4th until the 7th of June 2009. The following 27 countries are part of the European Parliament:

• Ireland
• UK
• Portugal
• Spain
• France
• Italy
• Malta
• Germany
• Belgium
• Netherlands
• Luxembourg
• Denmark
• Sweden
• Finland
• Estonia
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Austria
• Slovenia
• Hungary
• Czech Republic
• Slovakia
• Poland
• Romania
• Bulgaria
• Greece
• Cyprus

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!”.

The Flickr page of the European Parliament offers a variety of interesting topics with illustrations around the European Parliament.

Some interesting videos and TV spots are published at the Youtube page of the European Parliament.

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.

“The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit. We are committed to provide our Employees a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth. Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectiveness of Southwest Airlines. Above all, Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest Customer.”

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:

The next  Southwest Airlines video is also innovative:

Do you now believe that travelling with Soutwest Airlines is different?

In my opinion flying with Southwest Airlines seems to be an experience. I would like to try it.

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.

Jade Goody’s success was achieved by personal branding. Personal branding is defined as your total perceived value, relative to competitors, as viewed by your audience. It includes issues like:

• Personal Appearance – Including clothing, hygiene and attractiveness.
• Personality – Your values, goals, identity and behavior
• Competencies – These are cognitive, business, communication and technical skills that enable you to perform your job responsibilities
• The Differentiator – Offering a unique value proposition or benefit to your target audience

Chris Brogan identified several elements of a personal brand:

• Self Esteem First
• Be Yourself
• Offer Value
• Build a Destination – Offer people a way to contact you via social networking profiles etc
• Join the Conversation – Share your opinion and HAVE an opinion
• Innovate – Do something innovative
• Be Responsible
• Your Own Company – Look from the viewpoint of a sole trader business
• Build and Learn Constantly
• Communicate Well
• Much More

Phil Cooke is also talking about the keys of personal branding in the following video:

Further information can be found at:

• http://www.chrisbrogan.com/elements-of-a-personal-brand/
• http://personalbrandingblog.com/
• http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/10/brandyou.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_branding
• http://jobsearch.about.com/od/careeradviceresources/a/personalbrand.htm