The Chameleon Net blog

Is the future of the book written in the iPad?

chris@chameleonnet.com (Chris Thorn) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:26:39 GMT

Although the iPad is surely going to be a popular way to watch video, play games, surf the web etc., what I am really interested in is what it means for the future of the book.

eBook readers have been slowly been gaining ground, but with the iPad and iBooks store, eBooks take another leap forward. Although ebooks are available from multiple online retail points, Apple's major centralised ebooks store is the first to present a genuine challenge to Amazon. Five of the six major publishing houses - Penguin, Harper-Collins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Hachette Book Group - have signed up to iBooks. Random House is the lone major yet to sign up. Also unlike Amazon, Apple has embraced the open ePub format, bringing an industry standard closer to fruition, which is bound to knock down another barrier to widespread adoption of using electronic devices to read books.

Therefore, there can be little doubt that over the next five to ten years, there will be a major shift in developed countries from the printed word to the electronically created word! More than this, Jobs says that the iPad can read colour photos and video. Therefore, the nature of books themselves could change, and the distinctions between media categories and formats blur; you can imagine a cooking eBook containing a video of the celebrity chef making the recipe along with a link to the chef’s website; or a gardening book containing a video of Alan Titchmarsh in action. Maybe new hybrid formats might appear in fiction as well softening the line between film, books and on-line resources.

But before I get too carried away, we will have to wait to see what the reading experience on the iPad is like. After all, the eBook movement has been underpinned by the development of non-backlight, high contract screens using technology like eInk, which is why products like the Barnes & Noble nook use two screens - one eInk screen for reading and a small LCD touchscreen for navigation.
So the jury is out, but whether the iPad is as hugely popular as the iPod and iPhone or not, one thing we know for sure is that the electronic “book” is here to stay and there is no going back!

data.gov.HOORAY

richardk@chameleonnet.co.uk (Rich Kirk) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:51:37 GMT

Today marks a watershed moment in UK government digital policy. With the launch of data.gov.uk, the government has instantly become more accountable, more transparent and more democratic. Finally the huge amount of data generated by the public sector has being harnessed in such a way that it becomes of real use to citizens like you and me, through the medium of web-based apps.

Data.gov.uk will host a growing number of datasets covering all aspects of public sector performance. These can be used to:

Build web applications that make useful information accessible and relevant to anyone.
Examine the performance of public sector services both nationally and regionally.
Create visualisations that accurately illustrate how social issues affect different areas and groups across the UK.

Data Visualisation has been a tactic I’ve been advocating to clients throughout 2009. In a world where we are all bombarded with information on a constant basis, visualising large amounts of data in one diagram can often help you cut through the noise around your chosen subject and instantly get your audience to understand your point.

Here’s an example: how confused are you about the differences between the parties in the upcoming election? Most people can grasp that the biggest issue facing the economy is our national deficit and how to cut it, but if you were to listen to Brown, Cameron and Clegg waffle on about “real terms increases” and “public spending efficiency savings” it would take you a fair while to work out what their real policies were. Instead, why not look at the visualisation below culled from party policy documents? It certainly helped me get a clearer idea of who I’d vote for.

The other great reason for making this data public is the applications it can power. The government has realised it will make more progress by crowdsourcing the development of these rather than by paying for them to be built. Some great examples such as ‘PlanningAlerts’ already appear on data.gov.uk, and some other ideas of ways to use government data can be found here.

Credit to MPs like Richard Allan and Tom Watson who pushed for this sort of approach to be adopted by the civil service and have worked to make it a reality. With this agenda receiving nothing but rave reviews from the tech media and now also mainstream outlets, it’s not hard to envisage a world 5 years from now in which open data (not just from government but from private companies as well) shapes news stories, informs our everyday decisions and allows real political dividing lines to be drawn for all to see on the issues of the day.

Releasing datasets, doing data visualisation and building apps are all great ways of driving online PR and building inbound links to your site: this has obvious knock-on benefits for SEO etc. Get in touch if you want to know more.

BBC blog on the same topic here

The Publishers, the Internet and the new Decade

rossm@chameleonnet.co.uk (Ross Miles) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:42:02 GMT

In 2010 publishers everywhere are facing challenges to their business models as the power of the internet spreads. In its simplest form it is purely a case of old meets new. Traditional print media is struggling to adapt to the digital revolution.

One such battleground is the controversy about Digital Rights Management (DRM). DRM is intended to protect the intellectual property from unlawful distribution, but it also restricts what devices can use the content to only those that have been authorised. One outspoken critic of DRM is ZDNet’s David Berlind who prefers the acronym C.R.A.P (Content, Restriction, Annulment, and Protection) as it limits cross platform/device sharing, which has the knock on effect of preventing its spread via word-of-mouth and viral marketing.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp and Sky News, stands on the other end of the spectrum and is currently waging war against search engines, but most vocally he is railing against Google, about the free distribution of ‘paid-for’ content online. He sees the distribution of News Corps content, for free by Google News and similar services as “stealing” and has set June 2010 as the date for the removal of all content from Google.

While the pros and cons of DRM continue, other publishers are looking on how to embrace and enrich their content for a more tech savvy audience. The development of eBooks and eReaders is one such area being led by Amazon’s Kindle but other devices are being announced, such as the Newspaper & Magazine friendly Skiff Reader and the Cool-er eReaders with 3G and WiFi connectivity in the wake of Random House announcing $23m in eBook sales off the back of selling 100,000 copies of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. There is however one hurdle to overcome with eBooks and that is the ability to turn smartphones such as iPhones and Android devices (and their increasing screensizes and fast internet connectivity) into eReaders through a simple download.

Smartphones are helping some magazine publishers engage their consumers on a whole new level. Before I go on, does :CueCat ring any bells? 10 years ago, as the last decade started, magazine publishers such as Forbes and Wired were sending :CueCat devices to all their readers so they could interact with the specially printed barcodes in their magazines. As it happens the technology didn’t take off due to the fact the :CueCat barcode readers needed a user to be sitting next to their internet-ready computers whilst they read the magazine, which limited its usefulness so much so that Gizmodo voted the :CueCat the Worst Gadget of the Decade. Fast forward 10 years to the present day where smartphones exist and free to download barcode scanners are some of the most oft-used items and the field of play has changed...

In their March issue Esquire magazine will be using barcodes as part of a feature entitled “30 items a man would need to get through life” in order to give further ‘styling advice’ to consumers interested in the products shown on the page. Other magazines such as Everyday Food, Entertainment Weekly and Star Magazine have used SpyderLynk’s SnapTag technology to engage with readers with more basic phones. The concept is that the reader uses the phone’s camera to take a picture of the SnapTag and then txt or e-mail it to a specified address to receive more information. This method is a little more convoluted possibly but does not require a consumer to download anything or be connected to the internet.

Also in March 2010 InStyle Magazine will use actual photos of clothing items themselves, held up to webcams, as triggers for 3D videos to load and help readers to put outfits together. Although the presentation of the enhanced information will still be atheistically pleasing (no black outlines or barcodes necessary) the magazine reader WILL need to be next to a computer with a webcam, which was part of the problem with the aforementioned :CueCat. (*Google Goggles is a ground-breaking, but very new, image search functionality that may eventually eliminate any need for unique identifiers*). The December 2009 issue of Esquire saw the publisher use the increasingly popular ‘WOW-factor’ of Augmented Reality (AR) to enhance reader experiences on the front cover, in the fashion pages and others as the publishing industry has begun to wake up to the digital challenges of the 21st century.

The use of barcode scanners on smartphones is a technology already well embedded in Japan where QR codes (another form of barcode) are prevalent in everyday life; on taxis, in magazines, on billboards and even on t-shirts so when you see someone wearing one you like, you can quickly order your own! It is also becoming more common in the Western Hemisphere too as its functionality is included in Mobile Apps for eBay (scan a regular barcode and then see if the item is listed on eBay), Amazon (scan a barcode and search for similar items on Amazon) and Calorie Counter (scan barcode and get all nutritional information for the food/drink) to name a few.

So with the numbers of smartphone users skyrocketing and technology such as AR, portable internet devices and barcode scanning apps becoming more ingrained into society, why is print media still just that, printed media? I’m one of those people that does like to hold a tangible item such as a book or magazine when reading, rather than gleaning my information from a computerized version or website, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to experience a greater level of interactivity or immersive content! Publishers need to be less scared of protecting their content and more concerned with engaging their consumers!

Liveblogging

richardk@chameleonnet.co.uk (Rich Kirk) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:48:43 GMT

I have been on leave recently, spending some time on the Isle of Skye in the Hebrides. I went up there to try and finally knock off the traverse of the Cuillin Ridge, which I would heartily recommend to anyone who likes the outdoors, vertical drops of dizzying proportions, and/or bad weather.

The traverse is something my Dad had wanted to do for years, and with him being 50 this year, I had arranged for a guide to help us. This was my 5th attempt and my Dad’s 7th or 8th; around 90% of attempts fail due to awful weather, navigational difficulties and/or lack of fitness, so I was anxious to give ourselves the best possible chance.

Hiring the guide was not cheap and so I’d done it as my Dad’s 50th birthday present. I’d also got contributions from a lot of his mates to help with the cost. Herein lay a problem; how to give something back to everyone who had donated cash so that they felt involved in the trip? I decided to live-blog the 2 day traverse, so people could chart our progress from their desks or mobiles whilst we were away.

Using the Wordpress app and my iPhone, I was easily able to update my Dad’s birthday blog from the mountains with notes and photos of our progress, even though I only had fairly weak GPRS signal at best (the O symbol next to the normal phone signal symbol on your iPhone). If I can get signal in the Cuillins, which are about as remote as it gets in the UK, then liveblogging must be possible across almost all of the UK!

Happily the whole thing proved to be a real success. I thought only 10-20 people would be interested in the blog, but over 200 absolute unique users were recorded on the site in a period of 3 days.

Being new to live-blogging, I found the main benefits were:

It has left a record of events that is more genuine and ‘raw’ than a circular email sent after the event could be.
People are interested in something they can see developing; most people would have found out through word of mouth we had completed our challenge and then not been as interested in a subsequent email account of the trip.
Liveblogging seems to be bleeding edge enough to genuinely capture the interest of family / friends
Liveblogging and allowing opportunities for realtime feedback ensures the audience feels involved; sending a report after the event implies they missed out.

For digital marketers looking to generate interesting content and create buzz around a website liveblogging seems to be a great solution, why sit at your desk and force yourself to write a blogpost when you could be more interesting in less words by sharing your thoughts or experiences live from an event you / your company is involved in?

Top tips for your live blog:

Alert potentially interested audiences about the broadcast in advance, and also send a reminder email / tweet at the start of the broadcast, or just after your first live entry has been posted.
If you are using Wordpress make sure you use twitter and facebook blog widgets to auto-update your wider social networks with an “I’ve just posted xxxx” link whenever the blog is updated.
Keep checking your comments / feedback, if your audience is debating the content of the liveblog, reflecting that in future posts will make them feel even more involved in the event.
Try to keep in mind the wider purpose of your liveblog and website and whilst you have an elevated level of attention from them, ensure you suggest things like donating / signing up / purchasing from you.

In case you missed the link earlier you can still check out the live blog of our trip here.

Focus on... Technology trends

louiser@chameleonnet.com (Louise Ryan) — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:14:37 GMT

I wanted to write this blog post as a follow up to my technology trends presentation i gave at Chameleon's client seminar held on the 29th April 2009. I'm going to touch on the issues I talked about, but mostly I want to give you some further reading and funky examples on some of the subjects I discussed.

Mobile

Firstly I talked about how until very recently it was pretty tricky to develop web sites for mobile devices. The huge variety of devices and hence different capabilities, screen sizes meant that to target mobile web users would mean rather a large investment. Over the last year or so that has changed with the release of much improved mobile devices which include great browsers e.g. Safari on the iPhone and Opera on the BlackBerry. Mobile web use is increasing massively and is going to influence almost every decision you make about your organisation’s web presence in the future. Jon von Tetzchner (CEO of Opera) thinks that mobiles are in fact going to become the 'primary device for web usage in most of the world'.

With all this improved web browsing technology, do we need to bother creating a mobile targeted web site? Usability guru Jacob Nielsen thinks so - read up on his feelings in his Feb. 2009 Mobile Usability Test Findings report.

What do we need to consider when building a mobile web site? The primary concern is your users goals and motivations. They're likely to be different if they're browsing from a mobile device than if they are browsing your site via a desktop. Here's a selection of other top tips:

Short URLs
Get rid of big logo/brand statements at top of page
Avoid plugins
Minimise data size
No popup windows
Forms – minimise user input – use defaults (radio buttons rather than text-input fields)

Geotagging

This is the process of adding geographical coordinates to various media or data items. For example, in the seminar I talked about how MSF are geotagging their letters from the field. Here's the focus on Chad example I used in my seminar.

Want to get some geotags for your data? MyGeoPosition is a great website to help you look up the coordinates you need.

Microformats

Please do take a look at the Wikipedia entry describing microformats. This will give you a good idea of what they are and how you might be able to use them in your website. If you want to see them in action and use the Firefox browser then do download the fab Operator extension.

Multi-touch

Move-stuff-around-with-yours-hands-coolness. Hopefully meaning death to the wrist killing mouse and much slicker user interfaces in the future. Check out the Wikipedia entry on Multi-touch and then take a look at this video on YouTube to see what the fuss is about.

Web as service platform

All the big players out there are really opening up their systems so they can be accessed and used from all over the place. Let’s take Facebook as a classic example. Since its success it has been criticized for being a ‘walled garden’. Developers could only work within its confines. It's now embracing the open web and has launched an API called Open Stream. This means that developers can create apps that interact with Facebook on other websites, via desktops widgets etc. Facebook has probably recognised that it needed to take this step to survive! Expect to start seeing these widgets soon.
Steve Rubel summarises the situation nicely in this article.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data (virtual reality), where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time - from Wikipedia. Far easier to demonstrate than describe - check out the example videos below

Lego box models come to life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UxWkZtUKaI
AR on your mobile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4FAKjfppp0
Just for fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW6_X9qBeds

We can build this type of stuff in Flash and have already put a prototype together in the office!

That's it! This article has turned out much larger than anticipated (and I didn't even mention twitter!) but with all the exciting new concepts and technologies out there I didn't want to skip anything!

Scribd - friend or foe to publishers?

danm@chameleonnet.com (Dan Martin) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:30:42 GMT

I have been reading with interest the online discussion over Scribd.com

If you're unfamiliar with it... in their words 'Scribd began with a simple observation – that there's a writer in all of us. Today, Scribd is the place where you publish, discover and discuss original writings and documents.' Surely a laudable, innocuous-sounding concept?

The answer is less than straightforward. In effect what Scribd is providing is a mechanism for users to upload and tag content for others to consume and download. It's firmly aimed, supposedly, at self-publishers or content-owners.

Of course, unauthorised copyrighted content is cropping up all over the place on Scribd. So as you might imagine it's attracting a lot of interest in the publishing sector. Two of the latest pieces are Alison Flood's appraisal on thebookseller.com last week and this article in the Guardian.

For me the real issue surrounding Scribd is the user's responsibility for their own actions, and it's as old as the web. For year's there has been an issue with people posting stuff that they either don't have the rights to legally, or they shouldn't in someone else's opinion.

Scribd make it clear the resonsibilty is in the hands of users when it comes to posting content. See their general terms. It has also said publicly that it does not police the site - it expects the community to do that itself - but will remove content on request.

Which means that so long as they are seen to be acting on information provided to them by those who have an issue with certain content in a reasonable timeframe, then they are acting within their stated remit. And it's true that most reports I have seen online suggest their staff are friendly and react quickly.

But the problem lies in the passive nature of this moderation. It wrestles the onus onto content owners, who no doubt have better things to do, to check to see if their content has been illegally posted. And of course users can always put the content back up again! OK, there are automatic checks, but users are canny and have plenty of tricks to get around those, if they are that way inclined.

Such automatic checking, without active moderation, is only as good as the technology it uses, which is always flawed by its nature.

In many ways it is similar to implementing a automatic system to vet out unacceptable words, such as swearing or racist terms, but not imposing any checks on the context or purpose of all the acceptable words, and so can miss things like harrassment or bullying, or even simple stuff like deliberate mispellings to 'get around the bots'.

Of course I'm not in a position to comment on the quality or otherwise of Scribd's auto-checking of copyrighted works. But it's clear to see where the gap lies, no matter how good their systems. I've seen plenty of content posted that looks copyrighted to me, big titles by well known authors, and I'd suspect that some of that content was not posted with the right authority. Have a browse and see for yourselves.

So what's the solution? Stop file sharing sites? Well that's just never going to happen. For every Scribd there are dozens of 'underground' sites, torrent networks, etc. Give up content rights altogether? No publisher will, or should, ever do that - it's their product.

Where the real solution lies IMO is in understanding users and then providing a compelling proposition to the market. Sites like Scribd thrive not just because people want stuff for free, but also because there's a genuine demand for the content itself.

People are willing to pay for products if they value the content and feel the price is acceptable. Ask yourself, is the hardback jacket price a suitable price point for a new e-book?

They are even more willing to pay if they get something they couldn't get elsewhere, like goodies or extras. Just think how much money is spent every year on repackaged DVD box sets with the latest special features, director commentaries, and cool new boxes.

'Honesty box' experiements, like with Radiohead's last album launch, have also proved people understand the value of the artist and their need to make money from their works too.

If publishers can get their digital content strategy right, then legit sites like Scribd, file sharing networks and so on, will keep on going but pose only a minor threat to the markets publishers need to survive.

And in some cases, free content on those sites can even stimulate demand for the genuine article, reaching audiences that may never have paid in the first instance, but whose appetites have been whetted by a freebie.

Paris Marathon

louiser@chameleonnet.com (Louise Ryan) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:24:30 GMT

In November last year I took the mad decision to enter the 2009 Paris marathon - to be held this year on the 5th April. I can't say that I'm particularly looking forward to it but I have enjoyed elements of my training. Two things have kept me going.

My running gadgets

Of course being a software developer I am naturally a bit of a geek (only a very little bit though of course). Therefore when I do my running training I must have either my iPod or iPhone with me. Obviously they keep me sane by enabling me to listen to music, podcasts and audiobooks during my training but they also record my progress. Here's a quick overview of how they work:

Nike+ for my iPod
This consists of a wee little accelerometer that you can attach to or pop in your running shoes and a Nike+ receiver which you attach to your iPod. It records how far and how fast you are running or walking. You can then sync this data with your Nike+ account via iTunes and get a marvelous little summary of how your training is progressing and a breakdown of each run. Here's a pic from the Nike+ website for you to take a look at. I'm a bit of a fan of RIA (Rich Internet Applications) and really like how the site utilises Flash in a useful and very pretty fashion. The main disadvantage of the Nike+ system is that it’s not totally accurate but I can live with that as it still gives me a good idea of how I'm doing.

RunKeeper for my iPhone
I love my iPhone. Probably too much. This free app is the thing I show to my friends when I want to impress them with how cool the iPhone is. RunKeeper uses the iPhones GPS (Global Positioning System) capabilities to track your run, or in fact your walk, cycle, sky, whatever. Then when you have finished your run you can view a highly accurate breakdown of not only your time and pace but also your route via clever use of the Google maps API. You can also view this same data on the web using the RunKeeper dashboard site. Here's a pic to give you an idea. You can share runs with friends and also have RunKeeper auto-tweet your twitter account with your run data! This kind of really useful mashup application gets me all excited about web development! However, GPS tracking apps also have all manner of privacy implications - for example, in this article I have linked to a picture of my run rather than sharing the run itself (which you can do via the RunKeeper dashboard) because I don't really want the world to know where I started and finished.

It does get you thinking about the world of possibilities that GPS tracking opens up though. At the moment you can only provide geo targeted content via websites by inspecting the users incoming IP address or by asking the user to tell you where they are. However, with more and more mobile devices supporting GPS being available more possibilities open up for useful applications of this marvelous technology.

Finally this brings me to the second thing that is keeping me going through training - I'm raising cash for MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières). I realised what amazing work this charity does when I worked on their website last year. In emergencies and their aftermath, MSF rehabilitates and runs hospitals and clinics, performs surgery, battles epidemics, carries out vaccination campaigns, operates feeding centres for malnourished children and offers mental health care. When needed, MSF also constructs wells, dispenses clean drinking water, and provides shelter materials like blankets and plastic sheeting.

If you've enjoyed reading about my pain or would like to help MSF please sponsor me or donate directly to MSF via their website.

Useful resources:

Nike+iPod: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike%2BiPod
RunKeeper: http://www.runkeeper.com/
Sponsor me via Justgiving: http://www.justgiving.com/louiseryan2009
Médecins Sans Frontières UK: http://www.msf.org.uk/

Twitter For B2B Websites

richardk@chameleonnet.co.uk (Rich Kirk) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 11:27:39 GMT

Like everyone in the digital marketing space, here at Chameleon Net we are twitter junkies. Even our table football has its own feed! The phenomenal growth the service has enjoyed over the last 5 – 6 months means that Twitter is the platform switched-on marketers are buzzing about right now. However, as with any service growing at an exponential rate, there are problems. This recent article warning of a “Twitter bubble” summed up some of our fears about the service and the industry springing up around it. The challenge Chameleon faces is to make Twitter part of the range of e-marketing services we offer to clients, in a way that can best guarantee a good ROI for both our clients and ourselves.

Many of our more forward thinking clients have expressed an interest in developing a Twitter account, and as a result this week we launched Drivers Jonas on Twitter. DJ is a commercial property consultancy turning over nearly £100m per year and employing over 700 staff, yet they remain remarkably agile when it comes to marketing their website. We're excited about this project because we feel that with the right aims and expectations, a B2B Twitter feed can easily harness all the best aspects of Micro-blogging.

As a B2B company Drivers Jonas is using Twitter to provide the company with a more human face than their corporate website can, as well as develop their reputation as a ‘thought leader’ within the property industry. We believe that in time, being active on Twitter will help Drivers Jonas unearth business leads, connect and interact with potential new recruits (especially undergraduates), as well as doing more routine things like publicising DJ events. One thing Drivers Jonas recognises is that Twitter isn’t a marketplace in which to sell, it’s a watering hole at which they can meet their stakeholders; something I believe is vital to good big-business tweeting.

We’ve also envisaged that in the absence of a DJ blog (which would be time consuming and difficult to operate in line with internal compliance procedures) the Twitter feed could be used as a rapid response in the case of a major PR event. This flexibility is something many B2B companies would love to have; for some blogging is the answer, but for marketers at larger companies getting sign-off for a controversial blog post is ‘worst nightmare’ territory. Twitter restricts you to 140 characters, and at the same time, restricts the barriers to getting a message out into the public domain.

I hope to blog again with more on this project as it develops, as I think it will provide some interesting insights into ‘corporate tweeting’. In the meantime, if your company thinks they could benefit from being on Twitter, but want a helping hand building a business case and launching an account, get in touch.

Seminar on Digital Student Recruitment - an overview

surajs@chameleonnet.co.uk (Suraj Shah) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:36:38 GMT

Chameleon Net held a seminar on Digital Student Recruitment for the higher education sector yesterday, Tuesday 24th February 2009.

Drew Davies, Head of Online Marketing at Chameleon Net spoke about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategies for student recruitment.

Helen Aspell, Head of Digital at the Equality and Human Rights Commission and former Head of Digital Marketing at University of Southampton, spoke about User Experience, the heart of an engaging digital presence.

Drew Davies then spoke about Protecting Your Online Brand, where he shared a case study of the work Chameleon Net has done with Barnardo's UK on their opinion-polarising "Break the Cycle" campaign.

> > >

The seminar was well-received with feedback such as "Very useful & thought provoking", "Excellent - one of the best I've been to", "Impressive venue and tasty danish pastries in the break!", "Stimulating & Exciting", "Very well organised & professional", "Engaging & felt very current" and "Very interesting, frightening & enlightening!"

More on Chameleon Net's work in the higher education sector can be found at www.chameleonnet.co.uk/education

The Rise of Twitter

rossm@chameleonnet.co.uk (Ross Miles) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:22:22 GMT

Social Media is a fast-growing and rapidly evolving beast, and the latest website to be the darling of the Google Generation is micro-blogging site Twitter. The idea is simple, you have 140 characters, including spaces, to answer the question- What are you doing now? This however, as with all things Web 2.0, doesn’t tell the full story. Twitter acts as a bulletin board as well, where titbits of information, via links, can be shared between users. UK Celebrities such as Jonathon Ross, Stephen Fry and John Cleese are all advocates, and Barack Obama used it during his election campaign to motivate the masses (he has over 144,000 followers). Twitter has seen its popularity grow 10-fold in the UK in the past year and traffic rise 750% in the US where it is know a more visited site than Digg. As I write this blog post just under 2 million tweets are being submitted worldwide every day!

Whilst to ‘outsiders’ it might seem a trivial and almost pointless service, only for users with high levels of deluded self-importance, but Twitter played notable roles during a several significant events in the past 4 months. The part Twitter played in providing break-neck speed updates on the Mumbai terror attacks in November led Forbes Magazine to write Mumbai: Twitter’s Moment. Before News services had broken the event on television Tweeps such as @rakesh314 posted “I'm hearing news of gun-firing in Mumbai. Can anyone confirm?”. Updates from people involved even led to an internet myth that the terrorists themselves were following events on Twitter itself to counter the actions of the forces sent in to stop them.

The much more recent plane crash into the Hudson River was another example of Tweeps providing a rapid reaction. One Twitterer, @jkrums, took a picture of the half-submerged aircraft with passengers standing on the wing from a passing-by ferry which quickly went viral and eventually landed him an interview on CNBC. Others tweeted about how they stood watching the drama from their office blocks. What was the most notable though was the integrity of the tweet-reporting which cited accurate numbers and stories relating to the event as information about what had happened disseminated among users.

As great as all this impartiality and interactivity sounds, how can Twitter serve the business community? And that’s exactly the point, this notion of impartial interactivity. Twitter provides a transparent window into an organisation for the consumer, a portal in which to directly interact. Several brands are using it as such a device to. @ScottMonty is the face of car manufacturer, Ford, on Twitter (who have multiple employee accounts) and says “It’s part of a larger social media strategy to humanize the Ford brand and put consumers in touch with Ford employees”. Lisa Kim @AmericanApparel is the Website Manager for American Apparel and is another advocate of Twitter as a way of increasing customer care, “We saw a tweet from someone who received less than stellar customer service at a store in Canada & we got in touch with them to sort it out.” Children’s Charity Barnardo’s used Twitter alongside their blog to engage the media storm around their controversial ‘Break the cycle’ ad campaign (managed by Chameleon Net) so successfully that Barnardo’s own staff kept abreast of the situation by following the charity’s own Twitter feed. Higher Education Institutions are now looking at using Twitter as a Personal Learning Network in which students can ask questions of their peers and teachers in order to increase feedback and accessibility.

Twitter is quickly evolving to become fundamental in the development of any digital strategy and with its thrust into the UK lime-light thanks to varying celebrity endorsements, its popularity is only set to grow. Businesses need to educate themselves and start twittering soon or risk being left behind by more media-savvy rivals.

CREDIT TO:

http://www.brandrepublic.com/Revolution/News/875017/Celebs-start-tweeting-Twitters-UK-popularity-rises-10-fold-year/

http://nielsen-online.com/blog/2009/01/16/tweeting-the-us-airways-flight-1549-plane-crash/

http://popacular.com/gigatweet/analytics.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07awareness-t.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/12/twitter_the_mumbai_myths.html

Audio Books – Who’s Listening?

jeremyd@chameleonnet.com (Jeremy Davis) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:12:18 GMT

My Dimbleby mission continues. Seriously, David, look over your shoulder and you will see me there…albeit with the need of the Hubble telescope.

I was invited to be a panel member for The Bookseller’s “Audio Revolution 2008” – a one-day Publishing industry seminar focussing on all things audio book-related.

My session was the last of the day and I must say that it showed in some of the faces but nonetheless Jo Henry chaired an interesting discussion about how audio books could/should be marketed.

I was representing the web marketing side of things, with Tony Lynch of Gospoken making an excellent case for the viability of audio books on mobile phones and Madeline Milne of e-Music discussing the success of their subscription-based download model.

It was difficult to do justice to this very broad topic in fifty minutes and I was very surprised at how few questions the panel got from the floor. I think this represented a general feeling that I got from the afternoon. No one was really talking about marketing audio books. By which I mean getting them out there and selling them.

I spent the afternoon thinking that audio books are like this little-known secret and it surprises me that the industry isn’t shouting about them more. I mean, they are really great!

I was speaking to one of our recent recruits at Chameleon Net – young, early twenties, bright – and, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, he said “I don’t like reading books, but I really like audio books. I wouldn’t read a book on the train but I just put on an audio book – it’s great.”

And there it was…a new market for publishers. So why, I wonder, isn’t the industry shouting from the rooftops about this amazing format that means people who don’t like reading can enjoy books? I mean, some people are just mainly auditory – that’s how they like to learn and that’s how they like to consume information.

Surely the industry should be running massive campaigns about audio books?! Publishers should be giving some away as tasters…get people using them!

I think if the publishing industry could unite, get over all the internal issues like audio book rights, royalties, investment in recordings, etc and just get the message of audio books out there, the response would be huge! Just get people aware of them, using them, liking them. There’s a market out there and most of them don’t think about audio books. And they are not all old women and travelling sales reps.

So, “quit your whingeing” I hear you cry “and do something to help”. Ok then, I will. Here are my top ten tips for marketing and selling audio books:

1.   Get all over social networks – they are still the fastest growing sites in the UK and your target market is using them every day. Sometimes for hours and often when they should be working. Create groups, use Facebook advertising, run competitions, give-aways (i.e. free downloads)

2.   Use ePR (or an agency that knows how to use it :)) to target key influential bloggers and get them blogging about you and your products. Credibility online is everything and all votes are not created equal. Make powerful friends and work together.

3.   Get all over search engines. By which I mean Google. They have nearly 90% of UK searches and 94% of people use it, all of whom are qualified as having an informational need (otherwise they wouldn’t be searching). Where else would you want to advertise? Do this by PPC ads and also by optimising for organic search results (see below).

4.   Optimise for natural search. This gets its own number coz it’s so important. It’s by far the best ROI when it comes to search engine marketing and every day that you don’t do it and your competitors do, the lower you will show up in the searches. In natural SEO, doing nothing just means you keep getting lower. More of this below….

5.   Use metadata: use target key words to describe your audio files and make sure they are on optimised pages: page titles, H1 tags, alt tags, copy, etc. SE’s can’t listen to audio books (yet…I’m not kidding, speech recognition software is getting better and Google may soon be able to index the spoken word) so give them lots of thematically-relevant content to help them.

6.   Think Accessibility. Audio books have a perfect market in people with visual impairments. Make sure your site works for screen readers. If you’re not sure, get an audit (“from us” is the answer to your next question).

7.   Speaking of sites…get a good one. There’s no point spending time and money marketing products if your site is rubbish at converting visitors to customers. You’ll lose sales and damage your brand in the process. Make sure your site makes buying mind-numbingly easy. Joyful even. People should leave your site happier than when they arrived. If not, your site is letting you and them down. I mean, nobody likes to be made to work hard to buy something – it’s just not polite.

8.   Don’t worry about DRM. There are so few audio books out there that there is not much of a market in illegal copies 9unlike music). It’s about creating the market at the moment – better to have a million audio books out there with 10 per cent buying them than ten thousand with 100% of them buying. DRM can always be adopted later.

9.   Create added-value content. Like extras on DVDs…publishers can offer something more than the retailers…exclusive interviews with the author, an introduction, an otherwise unpublished epi/prologue, etc. This will really help the ePR and build buzz.

10.   Sell ‘em direct. Find out what your customers like and talk to them about it. Don’t let Amazon have all the fun.

Of course audio books are part of a seismic shift in the Publishing sector that is happening in order to adapt to digital content and multiple delivery platforms and formats.

For an excellent analysis of these changes, I recommend Sara Lloyd’s insightful article “A book publisher’s manifesto for the 21st century”.

If you are a publisher and want to know more of our thoughts on this and other Publishing-related topics, you may want to attend our free seminar: Quick Web Wins for Publishers, on Tuesday 25th November at London Chamber of Commerce, EC4. There’ll be exclusive content and an opportunity to ask us questions.

The President of New Media

stephen@actualmarketing.co.uk (Steve Thorn) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:33:27 GMT

The President of New Media

Maybe it’s my age but for the first time ever I’ve found myself following the developments of the US Presidential Elections.

With just five days to go, the coverage on the BBC has been up to its usual standards, but I’ve been intrigued enough by the characters of the main players to have a look at their websites and see how they’re using the web to spread their message.

Arriving at the McCain site, www.johnmccain.com, I was greeted with a streamed video of the hopeful candidate that opens with the words (rather worryingly seeing as he’s also a Republican), “The last eight years haven’t worked very well have they?”

Unfortunately there isn’t a Sarah Palin gallery online (I did search for one, perhaps another indication of my advancing years) and I got quickly bored with the site and wandered off into the Web to see what else I could find. The most engaging item was the Republicans’ YouTube video satirising the ‘holiness’ of the Obama campaign (see more at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/) being currently embroiled in a row over copyright.

Heading on over to the Democratic camp, I found www.barackobama.com much more new media savvy with lots of exciting, dynamic web content including BarrackTV, the RoadBlog, Obama Mobile, the choice of sixteen social network links and a button inviting me to ‘Donate Today and receive a free Obama car magnet’!

Obama has also used new media to target likely pockets of supporters including the Latino vote - www.vivaobama08.com features perhaps the only Mariachi song to include a mention of healthcare legislation.

All good multimedia stuff. Not only that, but whatever the outcome Barack will go down in history as the first President to use video game advertising to spread the message (‘Guitar Hero’ and ‘Burnout Paradise’). This is aimed at a target audience of 18-34 year olds in 10 key States before the election.

And finally, a 10-second search on YouTube came up with the song “I’ve got a crush on Obama” which has so far received 10 million views. A truly terrible video, only lifted by the magnificent lyric halfway through: “You’re into border security, let’s break the border ‘tween you and me”. Enjoy. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wKsoXHYICqU

The Blogosphere: Friend and Foe

lucie@actualmarketing.co.uk (Lucie Bickerdike) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:57:30 GMT

Like Suraj, I’ve been thinking a lot about online PR recently.

Public Relations traditionally holds a reputation management role, making sure its organisation is kept in the public eye, regarded positively and protected from the damage caused by public criticism. Crucially, the internet offers companies the opportunity to engage with their target audiences in new and exciting, more productive ways – but it also gives consumers a platform from which to vent about poor experiences, and negative reports can spread like wildfire. I need say no more than ‘Dell Hell’.

This topic was touched upon by one of the speakers at a CIPR conference I attended this week, and the Q&A session was indicative of how wary much of the PR industry still is on the subject of online PR. One exec said that her company had so far omitted any online activity from their communications strategies, but that they had realised they really should get involved. However, her particular organisation was subject to a certain amount of public criticism. Her question was this: if we begin communicating with our audience online, will we be opening ourselves up to more criticism and will we in fact be focusing people on the negative story?

Of course, the answer was this. People are talking about you online, positively or negatively, anyway – would you rather stick your head in the sand and let the conversation go on without you, or engage in it and take some control of the messages being circulated?

I think an important point to make about PR is that it’s not always just about the protection and management of company reputation. Yes, a company’s reputation is arguably its most valuable asset – after all, consumers listen to each other and if they’re all slagging you off you’re unlikely to make enough money to survive. But PR can also be used to communicate with customers on a more equal level, where you’re not trying to impose your own interpretation of their needs upon them, but really listening to them and building their feedback into your product or service.

The internet offers some exciting possibilities for companies wanting to place customer requirements at the centre of their business. If you do it right, you can get valuable feedback from your target audience that would cost you thousands in focus groups and surveys. Perhaps this is the most valuable PR opportunity presented by new media at the moment.

The fact remains that organisations can no longer hide from the fact that the web now has the power to make or break them. The ‘blogosphere’ should be ignored at their peril.

Digitise or Die (or “Much Ado About Digital”)

jeremyd@chameleonnet.com (Jeremy Davis) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:12:00 GMT

In my ongoing mission to become the David Dimbleby of the Web Industry (and beyond?) I recently spent an afternoon chairing a “Question Time” style event for movers and shakers in the UK publishing industry: “Digitise or Die” was the inaugural annual event run by The Bookseller, the leading trade publication for the book industry, with the sole intention of focusing on the issues facing the book business in the digital age. And issues there are.

Pretty much ever since Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440, the only way you and I could get our hands on a book would be if a Publisher printed it (the only way to create multiple copies on anything like a large scale) and a bookseller sold it to us. Simple. Oh yes, and of course and author needs to write it.

So, publishers find authors, groom them, coach them and generally hone their talent so as to (hopefully) create not only a great piece of writing but also a rampant commercial success. Of course the publishers would have to kiss a few frogs but hey, sometimes when you get your prince he turns out to be a darned good catch (JK Rowling, Terry Pratchett, Dan Brown anyone?)

So, that model’s clear: Publisher finds the creative talent, publishes the work, markets it, sells it to retailers and then you and I buy it. Hang on a minute…that sounds familiar…creative talent…publisher…seller…consumer…Ah yes I’ve got it! It’s the music business!

And that is essentially the problem facing the book business – how to not do what the music business did. In the digital age the roles are unclear: anyone can be an author (just add talent), publish a book, mass produce it, reach an audience (if it’s any good) and distribute it worldwide, absolutely free.

Perhaps books are just content, and the web is very good at distributing that for free. So who’s going to pay for it? Yes, the book business is probably going through its biggest change in over 500 years, when Gutenburg, quill in hand, said to himself “there MUST be an easier way of doing this!”. Anyway, back to my Dimbleby impersonation....

With research done and cue cards in hand, off I went. There were several speakers in the morning and then my session was in the afternoon. Tension was in the air…what does the future hold? speakers included Jason Hanley from Google (who are digitising content at a rate of knots) and he aptly demonstrated the speed at which the internet, in only 15 years, has been able to reach an audience of 1.5billion – way faster than the decades it took TV or radio to reach anything like those numbers. Yes, the internet is REALLY good at delivering content.

All in all the event was developing a fairly dramatic atmosphere and like any drama there had to be a bad guy. And there was. Enter, stage left, Andrew Keen, self proclaimed “Anti-Christ of Silicon Valley” and both irreverently funny and deadly serious all at the same time. And his message? That book publishing is finished as a business, either for the publishers or the authors. Content has gone digital and digital content (as the music business is finding out to its cost) is largely free on the web.

As a popular author himself he should know – most of his money, he says, comes from live appearances (c.f. Madonna, Rolling Stones?), not book sales. Although a word of qualification here: as far as I know Andrew has one popular book to his name and that’s hardly a career. Most creative artists would expect to have to produce a substantial body of popular work before they can think about retiring…but I digress. And so to the afternoon session....

In front of an audience of book industry bods I chair an interesting discussion that ranges from the role of the author to the role of the high street bookseller. My fellow panellists included Andrew Keen, Kieron Smith (MD of BookRabbit.com) and Yang May Ooi, who introduced interesting ideas about how the nature of storytelling has changed with the digital age – maybe the book is a format from another time.

Our session was then followed by an excellent presentation by our very own Drew Davies who gave the audience a whistlestop tour of effective SEO techniques.

One thing was very plain throughout the day: Change is afoot. There is fear. There is excitement, anxiety, confusion and (as in all times of change) opportunity. My sense is that there will indeed be winners and losers in the publishing sector over the next few years and the landscape may look very different.

When the dust settles we will see who grasped the opportunities for delivering high quality digital products in a way that consumers want. Content is here to stay and if it’s good enough I think people will pay for it too. The challenge that faces the book business (and the music business) I think is how to position itself so that it adds value, not just the mechanism for distributing content. Value is always attractive....

Next question…ah yes…the man at the back with the yellow tie…yes you, sir!

How To Manage Your Online Reputation

surajs@chameleonnet.co.uk (Suraj Shah) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:29:44 GMT

When you offer a service or sell a product, either people are talking about you, or no-one is. If they’re talking about your brand, it may be positive or it may be negative. If no-one’s talking about you, perhaps they should be.

There are many examples where a brand’s reputation has been massively damaged, simply because a negative mention of a brand snowballed and was not spotted in time.

One such example is when a blogger from America bought a computer from the large computer manufacturer Dell in 2005 and paid for a four year home service support plan. Soon after, when the machine needed seeing to, Dell told him to return the computer, which left him without the machine for 10 days. When he wrote a short blog post about the poor service, it generated over 200 comments within a few days. This then resulted in 10 follow up posts and over 2500 comments that sparked so much opinion that it led to the phrase “Dell Hell” becoming a household term. Imagine is this post had been spotted in time – perhaps the massive damage that the brand received could have been limited.

Following an internal training session on Brand Identity Tracking run by our Head of Online Marketing, Drew Davies, I thought I’d write and share a few notes about how to discover what people are saying about a particular brand, how that can be tracked over time, and how the information can be used to improve brand identity.

Why Do Companies Choose To Track Their Brands?

Companies generally want their brand tracked for predominantly one of four reasons:

New product / service: The company is launching a new product in the marketplace and wants to see the attention the brand will be getting online over time.
Bad reviews: A brand has been getting bad reviews on the web, and the company would like to see the extent of that damage done to the brand.
Good reviews: The brand is already receiving positive reviews on the web, and the company would like to see what is being said and use it to create more products and engage with the happy consumers.
No reviews: The brand has been around for a while, but the company feels that nobody’s talking about it, and so that company wants to see where their competitors are being talked about and work out how to enter those forums.

How To Benchmark Your Online Reputation

We use a three step process here at Chameleon Net to benchmark the online reputation of our clients’ brands:

Step #1: GATHER – scouting the web for mentions of specific keywords relating to the brand in question, and recording how positive or negative the conversations are about the brand. Keywords here would include variations of the brand name, categories, and competitor brand names where appropriate.

Step #2: ANALYSE – working out what the comments mean according to pre-defined metrics, and benchmarking this information over time and against competitors.

Step #3: ENGAGE – making amends where there are grievances about the brand, and reinforcing positive comments about the brand on behalf of the client.

Tracking Your Online Brand Identity – For Free!

There are already a number of free tools that companies can use to find out what people are saying about their brand online. Tools offered by Google include:

Google Search: visit http://www.google.co.uk, type in the name of the brand into the search box, and see a list of the websites that mention your brand.
Google Blog Search: visit http://blogsearch.google.com, type in the name of the brand in the search box, and see a list of the blogs that mention your brand, along with the date of when it was mentioned.
Google Alerts: visit http://www.google.com/alerts and sign up for alerts that will notify you by email about the latest web and news pages that mention your brand.

Limitations of using these free tools for tracking your online brand identity

If you have a good internal team who have plenty of time on their hands, information on conversations about the brand can be gathered fairly simply using the free tools listed above.

However, although the tools are good for finding the raw data, that’s where it stops. The next step is to analyse the gathered data with metrics to make sense of it, which requires a natural human touch.

Recently we tracked the brand identity of one of our clients in the not-for-profit sector who wanted to see how they are perceived online. We benchmarked our findings over time, and against similar charities in the sector.

Engaging: handling negative comments

So what happens if you discover negatives comments about your brand? What can you do to recover from an online reputation crisis?

The article at http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2008/01/five-steps-for-recovering-from-an-online-reputation-crisis.html suggests the following steps:

Respond from the top
Admit your mistakes and apologise
Host the conversation
Seek resolution
Turn detractors into evangelists

To recover from even the severest of mistakes, base your crisis communication on sincerity, transparency, and consistency.

Engaging: encouraging more positive comments

Suppose you find positive mentions of your brand at the websites and blogs that you find, how do you leverage that?

Simply go to those websites and say “thank you” in the comments section. Then suggest other innovative ways that your product or service can be used.

Engaging: starting a conversation

Sometimes, you’ll look around the web and find that no-one’s talking about your brand. What can you do there to create positive exposure?

Well first highlight where you want to be mentioned, and then build an innovative ePR campaign to get more people talking about your brand.

Chameleon Net ran an ePR campaign to launch ‘The Survival Kit’ – a cookware kit developed in a collaboration between Jamie Oliver and Tefal. Get in touch with us to request our ePR case studies.

Is ‘Online Reputation Management’ ethical?

Some may refer to this process as controlling their message, while others may look upon it as ‘gaming the system’. What do you think? Is online reputation management ethical?

Will the semantic web save the planet?

stephen@actualmarketing.co.uk (Steve Thorn) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 09:38:57 GMT

^{Last week I attended the annual Digital Marketing Conference in
Cambridge to hear what those with a vested interest in the rise and rise of the Internet
had to say about the digital future for all of us.

Presentations were on subjects like the power of mash-ups, the
belated arrival of the mobile revolution, the next generation of web connectivity
and the dawn of ‘intelligent agents’ on the web. (As a side note, watch out for that
phrase, ‘intelligent agents’ - I predict we’ll hear more and more about the chips
and processors behind the web descending upon humankind and making our lives ever
simpler).

This wasn’t the first time in the week that the emerging revolution
in internet and mobile communications was brought home to me. Just the day before,
on Radio 4 Today programme, Tim Berners-Lee had been talking about the future of the
web – and how the progress being made on the development of the semantic web will
reduce the workload on our poor human brains.

Two days later Apple launched its clever new iPhone 3G with camera,
satnav and push e-mail. The device was greeted by Tom Dunmore, writing on Stuff.tv:
"I can prove that the iPhone 3G is 31% better than the original. That's 31% better
than the Best Thing Ever." Blimey.

And then to finish the week we wrapped up the work on a couple
of recent news stories for Chameleon Net (you knew I’d get a plug in there
somewhere), both of which demonstrate ways the internet is being deployed for social
and environmental good.

First, there was the news that they’d been working on a ‘mash-up’
of data drawn into the Medicins Sans Frontiers website where the extraordinary work
of the agency in remote field locations was brought elegantly to life through the
plotting of those locations on Google Earth maps. This reflects MSF’s philosophy of
‘temoigner’ (act as witness) brought firmly into the 21st century. (By way of complete
digression, that’s also the title of a book by Nicholas Sarkozy!)

Secondly there was, on the face of it, the not-very-sexy news
that Chameleon Net have been working with the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Environment
Forum (YHREF) and Yorkshire Futures to create a dynamic shared online diary
for environmental groups and those working on regional information sharing.

With their newly joined-up ability these groups can work together
to ensure that environmental issues and concerns can now have greater impact on the
local, regional and national agenda. I’d give that a ‘hurrah’.

From all I’ve learnt recently about the rise of the semantic web
intelligently connecting like-minded global communities, added to the long-awaited
mobile revolution to help disseminate their joined-up thinking, I can’t think how
else we’re going to effectively communicate the changes we need to make to our society
to increase the planet’s survival.

Let’s just hope Tim Berners-Lee gets a move on – the clock’s ticking.

Steve is MD at marketing and PR consultancy the Actual group
(www.actualgroup.co.uk)}

Chameleon Net in the news - online

danm@chameleonnet.com (Dan Martin) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:29:17 GMT

I thought it might be useful to create an area where we can compile and keep track of any websites that mention/report on Chameleon Net's activity. Mainly news sites and online press.

So in the spirit of web 2.0 I've set up a de.licio.us account to bookmark such bits and pieces.

Feel free to check it out: http://del.icio.us/danm_chameleon.

“Facebook” ad platform to be popular in 2008

kelm@chameleonnet.com (Kel Miah) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 11:00:02 GMT

2007 showed phenomenal growth for “Facebook”, by the end of the year it had 7.6M active UK users, that’s 12.5% of the population. With so many active users participating on the social networking site some form of advertising system to target these users was inevitable.

Social networks such as Facebook create groups of niche users by gathering some personal information about them, such as hobbies, interests, marital status, and age. This information is primarily used to provide users with a compelling and interactive experience, but they also help build an advertising profile.

What these niche groups create is the opportunity to target very specific audiences with relevant ads which they may find interesting. As an advertiser you would expect more ROI or a higher click through rate if your ads were being served to pre qualified traffic.

Facebook’s ad platform consists of 3 major types of platforms, Facebook Pages, Facebook Social ads, and Facebook Beacon.

Facebook Pages - allows brands to have profile pages on in the same way that users have them.
Facebook Social Ads - allows advertisers to use the full range of profile information to target people by age, gender, relationship status, location, and so on.
Facebook Beacon - is a widget-like system being adopted on 44 third party partner sites. Activities on sites using Beacon will flow back into a Facebook user's News Feed or Mini-Feed, allowing their friends to know some of what they did at that site.

The basic principle of the advertising platform is similar to conventional platforms, using Cost Per Click (CPC) and Cost Per Impression (CPM) pricing models.

I can imagine a lot of UK advertisers experimenting and trialing the Facebook ad system, and just as Facebook demonstrated phenomenal growth in 2007 I believe their ad system will prove very popular in 2008.

I expect users to be highly receptive to these form of ads, my first impressions are that the ads to not lower the user experience and because the ads are highly targeted the users see them less as advertising and more as recommendations.

If one of the user’s hobbies is listed as reading comic books and Formula 1 racing, then ads for Formula 1 merchandise and reviews about the newest comic book will be seen as recommendations rather than traditional advertising.

'Tis the season to give online...

donnaa@chameleonnet.com (Donna Adams) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:05:45 GMT

Does anyone recall those childhood Christmassy charity drives? You know, those ‘Sponsor me to eat 10 mince pies’ type of things.

You were cajoled into walking around in the bleak mid winter weather, knocking door to door with a soggy piece of paper asking for sponsorship – only to have to go through the same dreary saga after the event itself just to collect the money? – All that, and I don’t even like mince pies!!

Well, what with the latest in internet trends, social networking and fancy applications, fundraising has never been so easy – or fun for that matter! You no longer have to brave the extremes (until the event itself that is!) You can do all your fundraising and collecting online from the comfort of which ever festive environment you prefer.

I recently decided to take on the challenge of cycling from Vietnam to Cambodia (much better than 10 mince pies, I know!) In my efforts to raise as much as possible I have been throwing myself into web 2.0 as only an online marketer knows how!

Websites like Just Giving offer you a secure online sponsor form and a quick and easy transaction process – they charge a small percentage, but allow you to claim gift aid and better yet they send the money direct to the charity on your behalf! You may also have noticed a number of the bigger charities, like our client UNICEF, creating personal fundraising portals for themselves, where all the money goes straight to them.

Once you’ve got your interactive sponsor form then why not utilise another one of our web 2.0 friends – You Tube. Create a video, post it on You Tube and promote your event. It will spread the word quicker than your waist line spreads at Christmas! – Take a look at my You Tube effort – it’s worth a hearty chuckle or two!

Try creating a Facebook group to publicise your event, post pictures of your training and links to your sponsor form. My group is a right little hub of activity with 77 supporters to date!

I’ve been fundraising for a few months and am already 64% on the way to my target – Facebook has introduced me to other supporters of the charity I am cycling for and I’ve even had sponsors from some very generous people that I don’t know!

So if you’re in need of a boost to your door to door fundraising then I say ‘give online a go’. If you’re interested in taking on a charity challenge take a look at what’s on offer from Barnardo’s, and if you want to sponsor me then make a swift visit to my website!

Widget Top Tips Download + Add Your Suggestions

danm@chameleonnet.com (Dan Martin) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:17:56 GMT

You may know that this December we have launched a seasonal desktop widget - the Karma Calendar.

The widget is your portal to top tips, fun items, blog posts, and even some Chameleon pressies all the way up to Christmas, updated daily to your desktop.

You can get it here: http://www.chameleonnet.co.uk/widget/install.html

What's more - this is a call for your Top Tips...

Got a favourite web technique or an online marketing ace up your sleeve? Don't be selfish, it's nearly christmas, share it in the comment trail on this blog post and the best ones will make it onto the widget feed as a 'Guest Top Tip' to everyone's desktop.

In the spirit of things, here's a top tip from me too...

Top 3 Browser Keyboard Shortcuts (feel free to disagree!)

Working on a laptop, I don't always have a mouse with me and trackpads are fiddly. Keyboard to the rescue though:

1. I reckon tabbed browsing cuts down my web surfing time by at least 5%. CTRL + T opens you a new tab in all current versions of IE, FireFox and Opera. Nice. (plus CTRL + F4 to close a tab is handy)

2. Wearing your 'W' key down to a nub entering web addresses? Bit of a lazy typist? Type the main bit of the domain you want and then CTRL + Enter will stick the 'www' subdomain and the '.com' top level domain round it for you. (If, like me, you're UK based, in FireFox you can change the way this behaves to add .co.uk instead - credit to the 'How-To Geek').

3. Need to get home quick? ALT + Enter takes you to your browser homepage. For quick searching, I use Google as my homepage because the cursor focuses on the search field on page load - so ALT + Enter allows me to type my search without moving the mouse - even quicker than me using the google search bar embedded in the browser.

...Looking forward to hearing your top tips!

Dan

'New Web' seminar - three hot discussion points

danm@chameleonnet.com (Dan Martin) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 00:29:00 GMT

I thought it'd be worth outlining three particular areas discussed in conversations at breaks and during the Q&A slots at the end of each session at the recent seminar.

Attendees were asking:

1. Should we set up a corporate Facebook profile?

2. What are the pros and cons of implementing AdSense on our site?

3. How much of a risk is it to allow UGC on our site and deal with negative comments?

So here are some thoughts...

1. Facebook. Clearly this is one of the most popular online social spaces going at the moment, and naturally companies want to know if it's appropriate for them to get set up with a presence on Facebook.

The simple answer is to decide whether or not you have anything useful to contribute in the context of connecting individuals within your company with the other individuals using Facebook to communicate.

If the answer is a strong 'yes' then it may well be worth looking at what you might achieve and how.

If the answer is a 'maybe' or a 'no', then I'd question whether it is of value, because the risks of blundering in and making yourself unpopular, or of spending budget on something that delivers poor return, could rule it out as an avenue.

Even if you don't set up a Facebook profile, one thing is for sure though: your target audience is out there networking, so it is definitely worth considering which methods could work for you to communicate directly with them, something we are helping a number of clients work out.

If you haven't given much thought to whether it's appropriate or not, but are pressing on regardless, it probably won't end well!

2. AdSense. Monetising your website can be an attractive proposition, and Google's AdSense (the system whereby you can opt to display adverts through Google's AdWords programme on your website) is one of the main options.

Our experience is that AdSense is limited in how effective it can be to generate income, and that ensuring that appropriate ads appear on your site can require a significant management overhead.

Here are some specific criteria to help determine whether AdWords can be of benefit to you...

1. You run a site in an industry where people are used to seeing advertising (e.g. magazine style content). This will mean people find them less intrusive and that a portion of your visitors will have a propensity to convert.

2. You have enough traffic to make it financially viable. There's no sense in spending a lot of time and resource managing the ads if there is not enough revenue in it to make that profitable.

3. You are willing to accept that ultimately you do not have total control of some content that is displayed on your site.

4. You are also willing to accept that, despite the tweaks that can be made to the visual format of Google Ads, some visitors will find their experience devalued, given the presence of AdSense on many poor quality, cheap and 'spammy' sites, and possibly will think less of your brand.

The short answer is that there are a few situations where we would recommend AdSense is used, but they are exactly that - few.

However, if you want to look at the revenue streams through on-site advertising, a more worthwhile option could be either niche providers who specialise in syndicating certain types of advertising, or to set up your own ad management functionality and solicit ads yourself, and only select those you feel are a good match for your site's content. It may require a little extra effort and cost up front, but you get greater control, and of course you get to keep all the income too.

3. User Generated Content (UGC).

In our view, getting involved with user generated content is one of the great opportunities of doing business on the new web.

The reason for this is that it creates a dialogue between you and people you communicate with, and it shows to everyone you engage with that you are a transparent, customer-facing organisation that is happy to talk to people, confident about its product or service, and comfortable with dealing with all situations, both positive and negative.

OK, negative comments about your brand can be a bit scary, because if you allow people to post content on your site, they may well say what they think, so some companies are understandably nervous of this.

But the greatest risk is not participating.

People will make their thoughts known online whether you like it or not. They are probably talking about you right now. Do you know what they are saying? And if so, would it be appropriate to join in?

At least on your own site you know how people are feeling and what they are saying to each other. So why not be part of that conversation, and fix problems when they go wrong. If you do that, not only have you engineered a 'brand success' with an individual when you remedy an issue, but everyone involved in the dialogue can see it too.

'New Web' seminar - quick update

danm@chameleonnet.com (Dan Martin) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 23:20:37 GMT

Just a quick thank you to all who attended the latest in our series of free educational seminars on Thursday 11th October at The Groucho Club in Soho.

The event was titled: Debunking New Web Myths - The Realities of Commercial Success with Web 2.0.

We felt Web 2.0 had been in circulation long enough now to warrant a bit of scrunitising, breaking down the fact and fiction, and making some sense out of what is effectively the Internet's buzzword du jour.

We really felt the seminar was a great success, in fact our most subscribed to date with around 60 attendees, particularly important when trying out a new topic and slant.

It seems that sentiment was echoed by the attendees, especially those who have kindly allowed us to publicise their comments, such as Catherine Demajo, Head of Magazine Marketing at Time Out who thought it was “a great seminar”, Andrew Oldfield, Website Resources Manager at The Housing Corporation who thought it was “fantastically useful”, and Emma Simon, Marketing Director at Walker Books who said we were “engaging, enthusiastic and informative”.

It's great you guys felt the seminar was suitably valuable to share those comments with a wider audience. We appreciate it too, so - thanks!

We'll be running the seminar again very soon, so keep your eyes peeled...

(BTW, I'll be submitting a specific post or two on more topical seminar-related stuff over the coming days.)