Internet helps to cause Global Warming and Crop Circles?

Ok, YES! The Internet has influenced many significant developments since it’s inception in the 80s but for the MSNBC article to say that the Internet is now partially responsible for low car sales in the U.S. is a real stretch. What next, the Internet helps to cause Global Warming and Crop Circles?

Does the concept of unemployment, job-loss and fear of job loss together with a halt on consumer spending not resonate with anyone as the main culprit? Who would be the people with the purchasing power for teens? Not parents? And if these parents are pinching pennies or simply don’t have the dinero then I would think this would be the greater influencer contributing to low car sales. And 20-somethings? Besides also being subjected to unemployment or lower paying entry-level jobs, they simply don’t have the access to credit lines as their counterparts had in the 80s and 90s.

 

Here’s the reason cited why the Internet’s to blame: Gen Y is opting to stay home to engage in social media on the Internet. NEWS FLASH!! Internet is mobile! You don’t have to stay at home as though you’re chained to an old-fashioned, dial-up Internet connection. Texting, Tweeting, Facebook status updating, IMing, Skyping, etc. can all be done from a smart phone, laptop or iPad. Who stays home to do these things? No one I know -- unless of course you’re a gamer or vampire in Second Life who loses time in a virtual reality world but that’s completely different. Young people are more mobile and technology is moving with them. Least of all groups Gen Y would be grounded at home to plug into social media.

Gen Y – otherwise known as Echo Boomers, Millennials or Net Generation -- is probably less concerned about purchasing a car as a symbol of who they are or want to be perceived to be, but show me young person who doesn’t desire the independence, mobility and freedom that their own vehicle gives. Gen Yer’s are described as “more tech-savvy, family-centric, flexible, non-conforming and attention-getting than their parents.” They’re profiled as very “brand conscious but dollar savvy with adult buying habits and sophisticated tastes in clothing, dining and recreation” (for more, see “Only on the Web”). With this in mind, don’t you think they would buy a car if they simply could afford one?

Did you Know?

Good Read:

MetLife Demographic Profile

E-Marketing For Sensible Folk

E-Government: Pros & Cons

Arguably, there are several pros to having e-government services (be it state, federal or local) online, number one in my mind being CONVENIENCE. Really, who has time to trek to various locations, and wait in long, frustrating lines to transact necessary business or get needed information? Not me! Online I can buy stamps, file taxes, renew my driver’s license or passport, and even register to donate an organ -- see Government Made Easy. For me, having these services online makes it far more efficient for me to get things done and more efficient for the agency to gather, process and disseminate the information. Plus, it would be a welcome day when I never again have a face-to-face interaction with a government worker.

Privacy and hyper-surveillance would probably be the biggest cons. But privacy on the Internet is an illusion. Every time we browse much of our information like IP address is captured, cookies stored, adware and spyware downloaded, and behavioral advertising data sold all without our knowledge or conscious permission. And as for hyper-surveillance, doesn’t the government have access to all our personal information anyway – social security number, DOB, credit history, name, rank and serial number? Government sites contain just as much personal information (maybe less) as your bank, e-harmony, or Facebook (FB), so you’re no more at risk on government sites than you are on social sites.

Earlier this year Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, held a press conference to address the issue of new policy protocol to protect the personal information of its over 400 million users. For the many FB addicts out there, are you concerned about privacy risks when upload all your vacation photos, update your status religiously every hour? Do you read the privacy policy carefully and do you know how and with whom your information is being shared? So what’s the concern with the government site?

The International Business Times wrote that on April Fools Day, a British company, GameStation, proved that over 88% of users on their site don’t read privacy conditions when they were easily able to take possession of 7,500 “Immortal Souls.” Do you think e-government will steal your soul?

Sources:

E-marketing For Sensible Folk: http://e-marketingforsensiblefolk.blogspot.com/
International Business Times: “Online privacy: Is there any?” Joseph Picard

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Government

The New York Times: http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/z/mark_e_zuckerberg/index.html

Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/15/online-shoppers-unknowingly-sold-souls/

Three Keys for an E-Business Plan

Professors Amit and Zott have created the “eValue framework” that presents four “key value drivers” that every e-business plan should have for potential success: Efficiency, Complementarities, Lock-In, and Novelty.

I would like to add three “key value drivers” of my own: First Impression, Clear Position and Customer Service (CS) & Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

First Impression - With any e-business, its website is its front door and it’s the one opportunity an online business has to make a good first impression. I think that it’s essential to design a powerful and effective website that is highly interactive, easy to navigate, user-friendly, bandwidth economical, and intuitive. Most of all, an e-business should have a sticky website that encourages click-through; conversion; and promotes repeat visitors and in turn repeat business, and have search engine visibility with excellent SEO.

Clear Position - There are multiple types of e-commerce business models* including B2B; B2C; C2C; P2P; and even m-commerce, and e-revenue models, including advertising; subscription; transaction; sales; and; affiliate. Because of this it’s important for an e-business to establish a value proposition and identify specifically what type of e-commerce business it intends to be and how it intend to earn revenue. This also needs to be extremely clear to the customer who visits the website (see First Impression).

CS & CRM - It’s imperative that any e-business emphasize its vehicles for Customer Service in its business plan. According to AJ Consulting, there’re two main elements of CS, Transparent Availability and Interactivity. “Transparent Availability” means that customers “should always be able to contact you immediately and in turn you must be able to access them” as well. Interactivity means a way for customers to exchange information, and the easier this is the more likely customers will submit needed information. A CRM system, in tandem with CS, will help an e-business build a database about its customers to segment customers, match customers’ needs with product plans and offerings, remind customers of products/services, know what other products a customer has purchased and to make further recommendations for others, among many other benefits.

What do you think? Can you suggest any others?

Sources:

*E-Commerce (6^th Edition), Chapter 2, Kenneth Laudon, Carol Guercio Traver
e-Marketing: The essential Guide to Online Marketing (2nd Edition), Rob Stokes

“What’s Important for an E-Commerce Business Model?”, E-Marketing for Sensible Folk

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=254

AJ Consulting  Communication & Interactivity: Two Key Elements of  E-business Customer Service

Entrepreneur.com

Article Alley

Cookies Crumble

If given the opportunity to opt-out of having my consumer information, i.e. cookies, IP address, location etc., collected without my knowledge for behavioral advertising, and maintaining some degree of online privacy, I would definitely opt-in. I like the fact that I’ll be given a choice and not have my information surreptitiously captured and stored without my knowledge or permission; so my cookies crumble. But if I were to see this Advertising Option Icon on different online ads I’d probably have no idea what it means and most likely not select it for fear of it actually being some sort of spyware or phishing tool. I think many others will either not notice it or avoid it for the same reason.

As an aside, it’s a decent logo. What the icon represent is an “i” for information and the arrow for forward, therefore, “information forward.”  

Considering that the Option Icon is scheduled to begin this fall, I haven’t heard much buzz about it. I know about it now because it’s being blogged about on e-marketing for sensible folk but wasn’t aware of it before. Have you heard about it? I think people’s awareness, or should I say lack of awareness, is going to be one of the biggest issues for this option icon. It’s ironic that this program has been formulated by the nation’s largest media and marketing associations as part of the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, yet it’s had the least amount of advertising and promotion. But I believe with the right, long-term awareness campaign it can gain the needed attention and as sensible folk said, become the “next big Internet seal of approval.” Eventually, it might just possibly become a standard for trusted as sites, especially for large and highly visible national companies.

Why, I say this? Because beginning it’ll be monitored and compliance enforced as well as consumer complaints managed and resolved by the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB), and the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). National companies like AT&T, for instance, are obvious targets for enforcement and will more than likely adopt the program. Smaller, local businesses that advertise on local niche sites may go unnoticed and therefore may not bother to register for the program.

Which leads to my next question: how do the CBBB and the DMA intend to monitor the tens of thousands of online advertisers on the millions of websites? Doesn’t this seem like an overambitious intention? And knowing this vastness will many advertisers simply opt-out?

Sources:

Ad Group Unveils Plan to Improve Web Privacy, New York Times.

Welcome to the online home of the Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising, About Ads.

Spies Like Us?

So the scenario is this: thousands maybe millions of CCTV cameras hidden in stores, business, and streets across a country; the public is encouraged to join a game as the viewing crime-fighting audience; crime-fighters monitor the cameras and when they spot a crime they click their way to points and possibly win a monetary prize.

Sounds like the plot of a bizarre SciFi movie, right? Well, as incredible as this sounds it’s actually the premise of a business model called Internet Eyes, initially launched in the UK in 2009 and on a three month trial now. What’s even more incredible is that it’s not new. According to disinformation a very similar, failed concept called Texas Virtual Border Watch Program was launched in Texas in 2008.

Naturally, depending on your perspective your opinion on this scheme will vary. Some business owners support the idea if it can help protect their businesses. On the other side, there are those who raise the questions of privacy and victimization.

“Armadillo by the water” was one of the comical reports that came through the Texas Watch program. Can you imagine on Internet Eyes, “Lad loitering in the fag aisle.”(by the way a fag is a cigarette). I think turning crime fighting -- packaged as a game -- over to the hands of untrained citizens could be disastrous and potentially dangerous. People, motivated by the prospect of winning £1000., could be tempted to make bogus reports, invade people’s privacy snooping an spying and even victimize others, something British civil rights groups are very concerned about.

It’s already unnerving to know that you’re being watched by security personnel while shopping but to be watched by millions of pairs of paranoid, greedy eyes is disconcerting. Talk about an Orwellian experience.

Sources:

Morevee

Daily Mail Reporter

disinformation

Read:

TFTS

1984

E-Marketing for Sensible Folk

Evolution = Extinction

Whoknows or remembers the song

“Video killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles? If only they knew in 1979 how relevant their song would be 2010. Since then CDs have killed records and tapes, DVDs have killed TV; now BlueRay is killing DVDs, MP3s are killing CDs and digital media is killing print media.

Ask yourself (many of you may not even know what these are), where is the 8-tracktape, or the audio cassette or the VHS or the vinyl record?) Extinct! Where is the pager, typewriter, zip drives, and floppy discs? Extinct! All extinct? Here's a cool blog to see more: web designer depot. What other once popular devices can you think of that are now extinct? To me it exemplifies that with evolution comes extinction – living proof of the theory of Creative Destruction.The president has been set.…

 

Internet killed the print media star?

I say yes, and here's why:

Sure we know how popular things like Kindle have become for downloading books and yes we hear of bastions of the newspaper industry going out of print or about the recent massive layoffs, right here in Florida, of another string of Miami-Herald employees -- leaving one to wonder about the fate of your Sunday delivery. So the question about the future of non-internet media is: will it be completely replaced; will it too become extinct? 

 

the real reason dinosaurs became extinct...

All these mentioned items that have become extinct were because of an evolution of improved technology. So in the instance of newspapers, where the Internet is the improved technology for accessing news on a global scale, in real time, I would say yes the newspaper has become a dinosaur, and in five to 10 years we'll be saying "remember when…?" The newspaper has simply lost relevance in a digital world. Added to which newspapers make their money primarily from advertising sales and to a lesser extent product and subscription sales. If advertisers see no benefit in positioning their ads in papers and readers stop purchasing in favor of the online option then without a doubt newspapers will join the ranks of the extinct. Added to this are the high production and distribution costs for papers and magazines as compared to the cost of the digital option, this alone will usher in its fate. People have other options now for obtaining information in a more dynamic format that’s convenient and affordable (even free). BUT (yes there’s a but) as far as books becoming obsolete, I don’t think they’re on the way out just yet. Digital books are convenient but I actually prefer the feel of turning the crisp pages of a new novel, nicely bound in its cheesy glossy cover, over staring and squinting at my computer or iPod screen. And for studying, I want a hard copy to streak with fluorescent highlighters and scribble notes, a digital book could never replace that for me. Of course I’m not everyone, which do you prefer?

Internet killed the TV and celluloid stars?

I say yes to TV, no to movies (at least for now) and here's why:

The best thing that ever happened to TV is DVR and online options like Hulu. I can watch my favorite series (and there aren’t many) without a zillion annoying commercials. What does this mean for TV’s business model? Will advertisers continue to produce million dollar commercials and then spend as much for placements that are going unnoticed to audiences that are choosing other mediums? Probably not, and TV as we know it will be radically changed. I'm sure we can all think of various reasons but part of enjoying and experiencing movies is actually going to the cinema and watching it on the larger than life screen with family/friends and nothing can replace that. Avatar on your iPad just isn’t the same as in 3D on Imax; now that’s entertainment!

Read: The Great Extinction of the American Newspaper

Convenience or Coincidence?

 

There’s been quite a bit of blogging buzz -- namely e-marketingforsensiblefolk.blogspot.com -- surrounding the New York Times report about Harry, a 9-year old boy, who received a brisk letter from Boeing Corp. in response to his innocent drawing of an airplane and his naïve request for them to manufacture it. Harry’s father, who is (conveniently or coincidentally) the CEO of an ad agency, blogged and tweeted about the incident, which generated online attention causing Boeing to rethink its response to Harry. Several questions have been raised on sensible folk’s blog and I figured I would offer my thoughts.

“Would airlines boycott Boeing for their “cold” response, or did they even notice?”

It would be highly unlikely that any airline would choose to boycott Boeing; boycott and go where? Boeing has over “12 000 commercial jetliners in service” worldwide, Ethiopia and Vietnam to name a couple, as well as here in the U.S., including American Airlines, Southwest, and Continental. It wouldn’t serve any airline’s bottom-line or relationship with Boeing to boycott Boeing over what is evidently just poor customer relations. What would be the point? I’m sure if asked they would feign to diplomatically condemn the response but they won’t go out of their way to take such aggressive action against it. Added to which, this type of response may not vary much from their own organization’s form letters. Had it not garnered so much negative public attention it may not have been viewed as inappropriate and the industry wouldn’t care. My theory is that Boeing, being involved more in B2B commerce, where everything is extremely formal and tightly corporate (they deal with governments and military), as opposed to B2C, is simply out of touch with basic rules of engagement when communicating with people, notable a 9-yr old. What do you think?

This leads to the next question, “would Boeing’s ‘cold’ response sway you to take an airline that uses another brand of plane?”

The unfortunate reality is no. When I board a plane, I have no clue nor am I concerned with the aircraft manufacturer’s people policy, are you? That’s way too back-end in the chain for me to be moved. Unless I become aware that they’re abusing workers or selling faulty engineering, or some other truly serious action, then my decision to use their products will not be influenced by the fact that they were not as nice as they could have been to a young boy. What I’m more concerned with is the specific airline’s safety record, their front-line customer relations, and of course PRICE. This is not to say I condone Boeing’s form letter or their excuse for not being more sensitive when responding.

“So is this another case of the online world puts another big bad corporation back in line…?”

You better believe it! The power of negative WOM (word-of mouth) on the Web can be and has been crushing for a business. And now, with the Internet and social networking media, where a negative comment goes viral in an instant, companies really should be more consumer conscious. A great recent example of this is the Neistat Brothers’ “iPod’s Dirty Secret” movie. Again spawned by a callous corporate response, this time of Apple to his concern as a consumer over his iPod battery, Casey Neistat took his displeasure to YouTube. The reported result was that Apple -- although they denied it -- moved swiftly (in days) to change its policy on replacement batteries. Check it out and tell me what you think.



Courtesy abcteach.


“…was it just a chance for Harry’s dad to get his company some free publicity, and how is it related to the dad’s agency’s crowdsourcing approach?” 
As a parent I would want to foster my child’s creativity and encourage them to take his/her ideas as far as they could go. What parent wouldn’t? Would I mail a drawing? I sure would. It wouldn’t be for my benefit but for the child’s. Did Harry’s father have more selfish intentions? Did he do it as a father or a CEO, who can say but him (and I’m sure he wont) but it became a serendipitous opportunity. No doubt, as a seasoned manipulator of marketing mediums and specifically crowdsourcing (the foundation of his agency Victors & Spoils), Harry’s father probably rightfully understood the value of the mob (so did Mark Antony in Julius Ceasar) as well as the potential reach of his posts. Could he have anticipated how far it would go and what impact it would have on Boeing’s PR or his ad company? I highly doubt it. 

And finally “is The New York Times at the forefront of e-marketing activity or are they just hard up for news?”

Frankly, what constitutes news? What makes this story any more or less important than another story and who decides? That’s the beauty of the Web, blogs and other user generated Web 2.0 mediums. The fact that The Times also has a blog and chose to report this gives it greater mainstream recognition, which adds to the national exposure and debate over this story – that’s a good thing; a great thing! Does it put The Times at the forefront? Not really. In my opinion, it indicates that they have embraced these social media forums as legitimate, news worthy sources and recognize that for the newspaper to remain a viable and relevant portal of information (as the road to extinction looms), they need to have their fingers on the pulse of social media’s beat. What’s your take?