Marketing on the edge: Let's spam!

There is a wide variety of fully ethical ways to advertise your products on the web. Yet over 70 % of all e-mail traffic is spam. If you thought spam is something only hackers burried deep in their dark nests are capable of, it seems that you were wrong.

User-friendly spamming for dummies

Ever wondered how to advertise on Twitter? Use the TweetTornado! This targeted advertising service looks almost just as professional as any other - how to videos, support, terms of service etc. Their software will enable you to spam on Twitter fast and easy.

Simillar situation can be found on the e-mail spam underground market. Transparent price lists, translation services, support, metrics... just like AdWords. A 1,000,000 e-mails for $100? That's a bargain! Conversion rate might be very low, but ROI counts!

"Do not to your neighbor what you would take ill from him." (Pittacus)

This entry is not meant to promote spamming, my point is to show how alarmingly easy it is to do something like that. Do not forget to consider the ethical side of your behaviour and the rules of reciprocity.

Article source.

Ever wondered why is spam called spam? It's because of this Monty Python's video!

F*** My Life: Making money on people's misery

A few days ago, I've stumbled upon this rather controversial website that seems to be a favourite of some of my Facebook friends: F*** My Life. This site enables individuals to share their most embarrassing moments anonymously and comment on them. The lenght of shared "anecdotes" is very limited, which reminds me of Twitter.

Apart of self-critically admitting that only a few things cheer one up more than reading about other people's misery ;-), I find quite interesting, how you can make money on that.

Of course there are ads by Google. It's funny in a way what Google chooses as best targeted ads for this site's audience. 3D sexy chat for loners and a book telling you how to be popular with a very interesting banner:

On top of that, authors are proudly announcing that they declined offers made by others who wanted to buy & use the content of this site. Instead, they are enabling everybody to share the content for free through an API... of course only as long as there is a link back to the source. Clever? Maybe... smells kind of sneaky if you ask me.

Microsoft Office 14 on-line to include banners

A whole new playground for advertisers is probably going to open up in 2010. Microsoft's upcoming Office package (version 14) will be available as a bundle of offline applications just as we know it, but there will be an on-line ("cloud computing") version as well.

It seems that the on-line version will be available free for everyone and supported by ads. In this move, Microsoft is in my opinion trying to secure the dominant position of their office package by making it available for anyone anywhere. At the same time, Microsoft is likely going to re-emerge as an important advertising channel, thus fighting Google on two fronts.

The reaction of consumers is hard to predict, could be positive if the level of aggression of ads is controled, so that they do not disturb users concentrating on work. Microsoft also should not forget that Google is offering their package free of advertising. Anyway, Microsoft's decission to try out a new revenue model hints at being sick of fighting software pirates. Moreover, from ad-supported to free and free of ads is just one step, as we've seen in many cases.

Google to launch "behavioral advertising" (read "spying")!

Google is currently testing the long denied technology for user preferences tracking. The system will track user behaviour across the immense Google partner network. Data on visited sites will be associated with your unique browser ID and stored in Google's database. Mined data are then going to be used for advertising purposes (so called behavioral advertising). According to Google, this is going to be beneficial for advertisers (providing them better targeting options) as well as for internet users (ads shown will be more relevant and thus add more value).

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!

This is a serious privacy disaster! It is equivalent to being followed whenever you go! Sure, more relevant ads are a nice thing, but for what price? How safely will be the data stored and who assures it's not abused? Google is playing with fire here, as it's good image might end up in Microsoft's levels in a few years... What made them change their attitude and start experimenting with a technology they have been refusing so far? Global economic downturn and decreased advertising revenues?

Sure, Google offers an opt-out. You can go to a specific site (note: you can also edit your ad preferences there) and download a plug-in to your browser that insures that you're not being spied on. What a convenient solution! Moreover, they made the announcement silently on their blog. How many people do you think will know that they are being followed and that they can opt-out?

In my opinion, if Google dares to do something like that, it should certainly be on an opt-in basis. I'm pretty sure that we are about to hear more about this story in the media soon. Read more here.

Is Google going to delete my blog?

Queen Elizabeth II going social

Queen Elizabeth II is going to have her own Twitter feed. Although probably one of the oldest, she's the first member of the whole Royal Family to start using Twitter. Bravo! Her feed is expected to be followed by many people and should bring her closer to young people.

Barack Obama style?

Sounds familiar? This may look like trying to copy Barack Obama, just like many other politicians do nowadays, but the Royal Family is certainly one of the most innovative out there. Look at their Royal Channel on YouTube - set up a year and a half ago, having over 26000 followers. Sure, Barack was there a year sooner, but fall 2007 is still long before everyone started to talk about Obama's social network mastery and on top of that, the Royal Channel got a prominent web address ;-).

Facebook to introduce new homepage design

Facebook is about to introduce new homepage design soon. This is a very welcomed step, since Facebook promises to offer new filtering and highlighting capabilities to combat the ever-growing amount of information. "About time!", I say. Have a look at the following screenshot that explains it all (more screenshots here):

Facebook vs. Twitter: Open war?

If you look "behind the scenes" a bit, Facebook is trying to deliver a more Twitter-like experience, changing the "Status" to more liberating "What's on your mind?". Maybe there is no need for two social networks when one could offer the functionality of both...?

At the same time, Facebook is going to recommend you information about certain friends that you communicate with the most. This means we are probably about to lose a bit of control of who gets what preference on our homepage.

Facebook -> Google -> Microsoft

These are certainly tiny details, but aren't they a bit controversial? If you look further into the future: When does the time come that a nice and friendly company becomes ugly and evil? Look at Microsoft or Google that is potentially on the way to the other extreme. Does this happen to all companies, because we like small and new and hate big and powerful?

Facebook emerging as the main vehicle of government 2.0?

Facebook offered a great way to connect people and enabled them to communicate quite efficiently. As such, it is slowly becoming a very important tool in politics. The way Barack Obama primarily used it (i.e. to communicate with the electorate) was just the beginning. 

Thanks to the ease of spreading what you have to say and gaining supporters in just a few clicks, we see and are going to see Facebook used as a hub for political movements that were too weak to gain attention among their potential followers in pre-Facebook days. Moreover, it has never been so fast and easy to coordinate activities, vote and present outcomes to the general public on a massive scale.

This is how you do it

Over 15,000 individuals "from Facebook" signed a virtual petition for the new controversial Czech National Library by supporting it on Facebook. Furthermore, they used Facebook to coordinate a manifestation. This was the first time I've heard about Facebook in Czech media, who rather clumsily treated the Facebook community as almost homogenous "people from Facebook".

The Causes application looks like it was created just to make people's voice heard and is likely to play a role in the future. Wanna "Make St.George's Day a Bank Holiday in England" - fine, join the cause, like over 500,000 individuals did! How long would it normally take to get 500,000 signatures on a petition? Would it be even worth it? This is a massive public force forming here...

... and some people are sure to abuse it. This specific cause entry created by English Democrats looks more like being focused on collecting donations than supporting the cause.

What I'm trying to say is that Facebook is a potential source or rather a vehicle of tremendous power and let's hope it's going to be used in a way beneficial for everyone.

The Facebook "plague"

When I joined Facebook in autumn 2006, it was just pioneering in the Czech Republic, but it was already obvious that it's spreading throughout the world like a "plague". I avoided it at first, because I'm not into everything that masses like and I also feared that my personal data could be abused. It was curiosity, friends from abroad and a spark of exclusivity that Facebook had at that time at least in my region that brought me there.

Come to the dark side

After I joined, I was really happy about all the fancy capabilities and I did my best to make my actual friends to sing up, so that I could start really using them. I became a Facebook advocate, fully aware of the "plague" I'm spreading, but it just seemed so beneficial for everyone. And so within a year, most of my friends did sing up, even the hardcore sceptics. They had no choice, when all the events and photos were on Facebook. They could choose - either to sign up or to be an outsider.

With my friends list reaching 100, it was becoming obvious that my "addiction" to reading newsfeeds about friends is not very sustainable. I had to start filtering and choosing to "see less information about these persons". I turned off the chat a short time after it was introduced. My growing friends list has another disadvantage - I'm loosing control of who can see what information about me.

I'm not adding anyone anymore and I almost stopped advocating Facebook - there are almost none of my actual friends left, who do not have accounts and there is no more need to advocate it, the movement is already there, the pressure on outsiders to join is already there, "the plague" is unavoidable. 250000 individuals sign up every day (link in Czech). I'm getting friends requests from people whom I actually don't want to have in my friends list, but I don't want to offend anyone, I want to "maintain good relationships" with them.

A service shaped for the served (or?)

The need of more control is growing and I know that I'm not the only one who has it. WHY DOES EVERYONE HAVE TO BE A FRIEND when they are actually not friends, they are just acquintances that I want to keep in contact with. WHY ARE THERE NO FRIEND GROUPS/LEVELS?

Facebook is not a mere internet service anymore, it has become a norm, it is changing the society in a HUGE way, that's what we can all agree upon. "I know you from Facebook" is becoming a common phrase. The concrete effects on society are yet to be studied, uncertainty is present. Even the EU commission realized that there is something happenig and warns that Facebook can be dangerous (link in Czech), because young people are sharing huge amounts of personal information without seeing the risks. How many times have YOU revised the information you share on your profile and your privacy settings?

Although it might sound like it, I'm not against Facebook now nor did I ceased to use it. Actually I use it more than I would like to... it's now my homepage. The question is, is it only the society that has to change, or should Facebook do a better job in fitting the society?! 

If my post got you thinking and you want some more impulses for your ideas, see a very interesting related article "Alone among friends" from Sueddeutsche Zeitung analyzing Facebook psychologically and sociologically (in German).

New world marketing @ Nokia Ideas Project

Nokia recently launched a website called Ideas Project. It is a virtual room for sharing (BIG) ideas, responding to them and elaborating on them. Surprisingly, these do not have to be related to mobile communication in any way.

To speed up the launch of this website, Nokia invited a couple of visionaries to present various ideas. Some of them are really interesting and inspiring, I recommend browsing the site. An example of what dragged my attention are Jerry Michalski's ideas on marketing and social media:

In the new world, he says, you develop your product with your audience from the start and if you actually have to spend any money on advertising, maybe there's something wrong. Well, very provocative, indeed. Reminds me of Apple. But I'd not underestimate the role of advertising as not everyone is engaged on-line and not all product categories  have the ability of creating a global hype like consumer electronics.

One may argue, why did Nokia launch such website? Did they do it, so that they can be part of the on-line massive collaboration trend shaping the future and thus part of the future as well? Looking at the user submitted ideas signals rather a new channel for harvesting ideas on Nokia's products and services. But if it's just a mere new channel, why making it so blurry and unintegrated with other listening channels?

Britannica reaches ouf for massive collaboration

The famous Encyclopedia Britannica is definitely the biggest on-line competitor to Wikipedia, although the two projects operate on a different basis. Wikipedia is edited and expanded by massive crowds and thus covers a great deal of topics in detail but with limited reliability, whereas Britannica prefers quality to quantity, allowing only paid experts to contribute.

As Jorge Cauz, president of Encyclopedia Britannica stated on the corporate blog:

"We believe that the creation and documentation of knowledge is a collaborative
process but not a democratic one."

Although I welcome massive collaboration, I must also agree with this opinion. The dangers of Wikipedia - public myths becoming truth - won't go anywhere if we close our eyes.

But Britannica recently realized that it is impossible to manage and keep up to date the huge amounts of knowledge with only "a few" experts on board. Now it is slowly opening up, allowing registered users to suggest edits, which then have to be reviewed by paid experts before displaying on the webpage. An ideal way to increase quantity while maintaining quality? Maybe...

Don't forget, that Britannica is a pure business, while Wikipedia a non-profit organization. Most of Britannica's content is limited to users with paid premium accounts and the website is full of advertisements. The question is, what will motivate people to contribute, when they know, that their friends mostly without premium accounts won't be able to view their texts and some businessmen will make money thanks to their volunteer work?

So far, Britannica offers only one reward - your name in the list of authors below each article. I believe that this, accompanied by sense of contribution to the community, is not enough. Further restructuring of their business model will be necessary if Britannica wants to be successful. Why not to pay some money for reviewed contributions and make this business come full circle?

Government 2.0 and internet enabled massive collaboration

When I first heard of "Government 2.0", I thought it's just yet another buzzword. But now, with Barack Obama emerging as the 44th president of the United States, it might be getting closer to reality. As we all know, successful integration of social networks and other progressive internet platforms was one of the key elements of Obama's campaign. An eMarketing example par excellence, brilliantly targeting audience of mainly young and educated people.

It would be very shortsighted, not to continue walking this path. As it seems, Barack Obama is ready and introduces new ways of interacting with the government and fellow Americans, like the USA Service. When I read Don Tapscott's posts on the Wikinomics blog that inspired me to write this entry, I could not shake the feeling that what is hopefully on the doorstep is so much more than just new ways of marketing.

It's not just Barack Obama talking about "the change" nowadays. Many fundamental systems like the world economy are reaching their crisis, meaning that a new or somewhat altered order must and will be found in order to fit those systems to a globalised and through internet connected world. Governments around the world are struggling to please the nations and it is becoming obvious that their inner structure is somewhat rigid. Maybe Governmnet 2.0, reaching a higher level of interaction between governments and the people and letting the people effectively influence the decission making, is the way to go for governments.

But how about the world as a whole, is it going to be changed through internet enabled massive cooperation? Is Wikipedia only the start and an example of what many individuals united can achieve? And more importantly, how does business fit in it all? What will be the business model of companies participating in the change? Or is the old perception of business models based solely on monetary calculations simply obsolete, as huge amounts of personal time devoted to non-for-profit community projects could signal?

Many questions are waiting to be answered in the future but there is one thing that we can be sure of. If you or your company are not part of the change, not flexible enough and relying on "the old ways", there will be others who will take your place. Just as senator McCain experienced last year.