Google Reader Play shows a possible side benefit of the iPad: cleaner web browsing

12 March 2010

With the upcoming launch of Apple's iPad, publishers have been rushing to debut new digital designs for their publications. But one thing has been overlooked: many of these changes could be beneficial to PCs.

This week, Google has unveiled a new addition to its RSS reader functionality: Google Reader Play. The new interface is optimized to display content on the iPad. But it also provides a great option for viewing content on the PC.

Google Reader Play is similar to online discovery service StumbleUpon, anyone with a Gmail account can use it. Play bypasses the complications of setting up an effective RSS reader and shows users content relevant to their interests.

According to the Google Reader blog:

"If you sign in, Reader Play will also be personalized with items that people you're following have shared in Google Reader, and items similar to ones you've previously liked, starred, or shared."

Combined with Google's other news products, this could help the search giant bypass user defection from RSS readers. Yesterday at Media Summit, Hunch's Caterina Fake admitted an increasing phenomenon: "Because of Twitter, I've all but abandoned my RSS feed."

Also, the experimental browsing tool is well suited to the iPad. Publishers and advertisers have been excited by that device because it presents a new opportunity for monetization. The theory goes: if they can present a digital interface as well designed and seamless as a magazine, there will be better (read: more expensive) advertising opportunities.

The simplified interface certainly looks better than your typical RSS:

Items are presented individually, and each photo is blown up to bring the reader in. When the reader wants to move on, navigational arrows are presented on either side of the content.

It's not hard to imagine how much better a well-optimized advertisement could be received in the space. Ads could either be served in between pages or on the sides of images. But simplification is key. As The New York Times points out, it could look really nice on a big screen like the television.

But as brands and publishers try to find better ways of delivering content on new screens, computers shouldn't be ignored. Just because monetization has been hard in digital, it doesn't have to stay that way permanently. If publishers are smart, they'll integrate some of the things that excite them about the iPad into their existing properties online.

Image: Google

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Quotable Clips and Better SEO for YouTube Videos

11 March 2010

Video is hot with online audiences, but there’s one big problem for video producers: search engines just can’t deal with the "talkies": Images and audio are behind a glass wall when it comes to indexing for search results. And if your nonprofit is going to take the initiative to produce and post a video, obviously you’d like it to help being visitors to your blog or website from the search engines. Better SEO for YouTube Videos Until recently, search engines had to rely on title text and tags to...(read more)

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A New Look for Selfishgiving.com

11 March 2010

Cause marketing news, advice and commentary just got better (looking). Welcome to the new and improved Selfishgiving.com! Late last year I started thinking of refreshing my blog with a new look that I could extend to all my other social media platforms and offline activities. A lot had happened since the last redesign two years earlier! At [...]

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Work in Human Resources? Know digital? Think again...

11 March 2010

Earlier this week, Econsultancy’s UK Research Director explored the increasingly apparent permeation of digital within different organisational disciplines.

Following a recent roundtable event held by Econsultancy, one of the areas where we have found this to be more obvious than most is within Human Resources.

The HR sector certainly seems to have been left behind as companies scramble to get into the digital space, with many professionals displaying lack of knowledge as to how best to use digital tools and techniques to supplement their daily roles. 

Additionally, it’s becoming apparent that HR roles are blurring into other disciplines across businesses, with digital concepts at the root of this. Suddenly those responsible for staff recruitment and retention are finding themselves thrown into digitally-driven areas of customer service, reputation management, marketing and PR.

This raises the major question as to where digital sits within an organisation, and who is responsible for it overall. 

One of the biggest emerging concerns is that there is increasingly a feeling of isolation amongst those in HR, both from their peers and their colleagues in other departments, due to significant shifts in working culture. This is far from ideal, as isolation in any job role can ultimately have an extremely negative impact upon the individual and their organisation. 

Yet, this can be countered by digital means, especially within social media. Forums, blogs, Twitter and the like can all contribute towards support and development, but tellingly, many individuals in the profession seem to be failing to embrace these technologies. 

This also highlights the second major issue that seems to exist: a distinct lack of knowledge about the tools and techniques which are readily available to HR professionals, alongside implementing them using best-practice methods. This extends to both internal and external communication and resourcing activity and consequently this may well develop into the equivalent of a staffing Achilles heel, as organisations are failing to implement HR-based digital strategies.

The result of this can be seen in the recent failings of Virgin, Dominoes and DSGi, where unclear digital polices resulted in major PR fails and led to negative sentiment towards the companies. 

However, this then returns to the issue of blurring HR boundaries. Should digital polices of staff be the responsibility of HR or marketing? Who should be monitoring staff engagement and dealing with any consequences? The fact that staff are being monitored opens up even bigger debates surrounding numerous topics, from privacy rights through to intellectual property.

Overall, HR’s relationship with digital is one that runs much deeper and wider than first thought. Equally, it’s one that’s very rarely explored, leaving many in the industry feeling somewhat in the dark, trying to find a light that can help them do their job better. 

Training is one way forward, but what areas need to be focused on? There’s no real definitive answer, as every HR team is as individual as the organisation to which it belongs. However, if you are an HR-pro, to help you identify any possible areas of weakness, you might want to take a look at Econsultancy’s free trend briefing, where various issues, ideas and developments between the complex relationship of HR and digital are examined.

Furthermore, you might want to consider taking our quick survey to help us explore this difficult area and figure out how best Econsultancy needs to be focusing on delivering relevant digital information, training and events for those working in the Human Resource sector.

[Photo credit: victoriapeckham via Flickr]

 

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Media Summit: Consumers are king. But advertisers don't always pay attention.

11 March 2010

For many publishers — both online and off — content runs their business strategy. As Rupert Murdoch recently said, “Content is not just king. It is the emperor of all things electronic.” But a good point came up at Digital Hollywood's Media Summit in New York this week: it's consumers that you're trying to reach with that content. And businesses need to pay a lot more attention to the consumer if they want to increase revenues and find successful ad models today.

For publishers, producing good content is the most integral way to attract consumers. Carolyn Everson, executive vice President of ad sales at MTV Networks, expressed the point of view that many publishers have:

"We start from the premise of content and how content is consumed. You can’t always think about what’s next. You have to think about “do you have the right content?”"

But for advertisers, good content is often a way to access the audience viewing it. As Jeff Lanctot, managing director of Microsoft Advertising, puts it:

"A significant trend in the marketplace is that increasingly, marketers are buying audience directly. The notion that marketers will not just buy content, but audience and not care as much about content as they did in the past, is an important issue to address."

Meanwhile, purchasing advertising in a publication to get access to their audience is not new to the digital age. As Lee Doyle, CEO of Mediaedge:cia says:

"We’ve always been buying audiences and the content was just a way to predict what the audience would be."

However, the cost structure isn't quite there yet. Doyle continued:

"Right now we’re in an awkward phase with pricing models. We want to follow the consumer. If new platforms present an opportunity to deiiver ads that are more relevent, then that has value."

But right now, consumers aren't responding to online advertising the way that many businesses would like.

"Consumers can have what they want, when they want it, where they want it. That’s disruptive to everyone else who’s not wanted at that particular time," says Current Media CEO Mark Rosenthal. "We’ve trained a generation to think that content should be free. That’s a bad thing if you’re trying to run a business. It’s something we all have to deal with in different ways."

Many businesses right now are thinking about their bottom line, and how to close the gap after the ad market deflated last year. But that's not the right approach. 

"The objective should be to give consumers what they want, not make the consumser do what we want," says Saul Berman, global lead partner at IBM Global Business Services.

Finding the sweet spot of ad quantity online is going to be tricky. Says Everson:

"We’ve assumed as an industry that people can only handle a pre-roll. Maybe they don’t want any of it and they’re willing to pay a fee. We’ve assumed a model that says much less adertising and the model doesn’t work. Maybe the consumer can handle more."

While advertisers, publishers and consumers figure that out, the key to sustaining revenues for many online businesses is diversification.

There can’t be one revenue stream," says Lanctot. "We don’t believe anything’s free. Someone’s paying for it in some fashion. There was a presumption that the ad dollars will come. Maybe they won’t."

That can be a disturbing thought for many in the industry. Everson suggests another approach:

“Think about it from a consumer centric point of view. How am I consuming content? The ad models will follow.”

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The benefits of taking fashion e-tail international

11 March 2010

The marked and continuing growth reported by online fashion retailers demonstrates the potential e-tailing holds in times when the high street is suffering.

The e-commerce industry body IMRG reports that online sales of clothing, shoes and accessories were up by 18% from Dec 2008 – 2009, and that fashion e-tailers were the leaders in the UK online market.

By taking the notion of online retailing one step further and going international, the opportunities for growth for the retailer are taken to a whole new level.

Cross-border e-commerce has proven to be hugely successful for online fashion retailer ASOS. Launched ten years ago, ASOS (As Seen On Screen) now sells to 150 countries. From France to Fiji and from Ireland to Iran, ASOS reports having 2.9 million registered users worldwide.

The company states that it increases its multicultural usability of its website by sticking to the guidelines set out in the Plain English Campaign, keeping the English language on the site clear and concise. It also features a currency converter for all of the countries it markets to. By making the website as culturally ‘friendly’ as possible, ASOS broadens it potential customer base.

By using these tools effectively, ASOS managed to up their international sales by 102 % last year alone. In fact, the site has done so well in the USA that the company plan to start up a US-specific site later this year, a project fellow retail giant Topshop has already taken on, and is currently reaping the rewards of.

However, cultural ‘friendliness’ isn’t the only factor that needs to be considered when opening up an online fashion retail site to an international customer base. Potential new markets need to be researched thoroughly, with each local market looked at distinctly. Here are some key points to consider:

• Does the brand already have presence in the targeted country? A brand that already has stores overseas, or features in media coverage (think Topshop) is going to be more successful online than an unheard of brand.

• Check out the competition. Are there similar, cheaper brands already doing well in the region you want to target? If so, how can you ensure your brand works successfully?

• Look at cross-border sales figures for each region. There are some countries that are more open to buying from overseas than others.

• Look for any potential growth in overseas markets. For example, the CRR predicts a 36% growth in online shopping in Poland for 2010.

With such a globalised fashion and celebrity culture, now is the time for online fashion retailers to take full advantage of international e-commerce. Statistics show that shoppers are gradually becoming more confident when buying products from abroad, with cross-border purchasing having more than doubled since 2003.

And while both businesses and customers have expressed concerns over fraud, payment problems, and logistics when it comes to overseas online purchasing, with today’s advanced security software, safe payment options such as PayPal, and with the benefits of selling internationally being so evident, now is the time to reach out to the global fashion community.

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Make Your Next Hire a Writer

11 March 2010

 This photo is by churl on Flickr.

I'm finishing up Inbound Marketing | Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs by the fabulous folks at HubSpot.  The thesis of the book is that it's far more effective to acquire new donors, members and advocates by getting them to come to you (via Google, social media and blogs) vs. interrupting people (boo!) with unwanted emails, telemarketing calls, and radio and TV spots (even if you could afford them). 

The trick is, "getting found" online takes a lot of work.  You have to have the talent, creativity and patience to build up a lot of great content that people actually want to read.  This is why your next hire should be a writer.

According to Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, co-authors of the book,

"Ten years ago, your marketing effectiveness was a function of the width of your wallet.  Today, your marketing effectiveness is a function of the width of your brain (bold my emphasis).  You no longer need to spend tons of money interrupting your potential customers.  Instead, you need to create remarkable content, optimize that content (for search engines, RSS readers, and social media sites), publish the content, market the content through the blogosphere and social mediasphere, and measure what is working and what is not working.

You want to think of yourself as half marketer and half publisher.  You might consider making your next full-time hire a writer/journalist."

In short, if you want to get found via search engines and via social media you need to start creating great whitepapers, e-books, (short) videos, podcasts, webinars, teleseminars, articles, blog posts, etc. NOW!  The only way to do this is to have someone on staff that can write.

Can't afford to hire a marketing communications person?  Read my tips for becoming a better writer in this article.  You should also check out Copyblogger for excellent advice on composing compelling prose.

Cheers!
Jocelyn

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Some newspapers may hate search engines, but they love SEO spam

11 March 2010

The newspaper industry in general has a tepid relationship with search engines (particularly Google), but that doesn't mean that more than a few newspapers don't love SEO spam.

A post yesterday on GigaOm details how one former columnist at the struggling San Francisco Chronicle found that the Chronicle had taken her articles and liberally changed them up in a clear attempt to improve the article's ranking in the SERPs.

Violet Blue, who used to be the Chronicle's sex columnist, discusses what she discovered on her not-so-safe-for-work blog:

My Google search results did not return my column’s original archive, as it always had in the past. Instead the top results were a copy of my column on an SFGate subdomain (articles.sfgate.com). The column had been stripped of all links, and divided across several pages. My bio was missing, as were all the comments. Freakishly, all the commas were gone. And the URL had been changed. The address was comprised of words; to my horror the URL had been keyworded to say “ashamed porn star” — the exact opposite of the article’s content. **See update** Worse, when I clicked around on the articles.sfgate subdomain I couldn’t navigate, couldn’t find content by author (or find anything), and was essentially trapped in a dead end of static content and ads.

Violet's immediate reaction: call the subject of the article in question and apologize. After a few angry tweets and emails, and a week of delay, Violet was finally able to get in touch with somebody:

By the following Monday I got a phone call with their VP: Digital Media. She pressured me not to talk about SFGate on my own Twitter account...I told her I would be fine with my content appearing on articles.sfgate.com if the necessary fixes could be made, and she indicated a level of difficulty in restoring the articles so as they would likely have to pull my content from the subdomain. The commas could be fixed, the bio was actually there but on the last page (unlinked). Restoring my articles’ links would be the dealbreaker; they could not do this.

Unfortunately for Violet, there's no recourse readily available. As per her contract with the Chronicle, the newspaper has the rights to do with her content what it wants. She was told if she wants her content removed altogether, she can pay for the Chronicle's "estimated losses on ad revenue".

Venture capitalist Tim Oren did some digging and notes that the Chronicle is just one of a number of newspapers using technology from a company called Perfect Market, and this technology is behind the changes made to Violet Blue's articles. Perfect Market's "proprietary technology" is designed to "[help] publishers create value from their online content with little effort and no risk". It does so, of course, by turning quality content into what many of us would classify as 'SEO spam'.

Oren makes three important points about the use of Perfect Market's technology:

• It may hurt a newspaper's relationship with writers, as some writers are certainly going to react the way Violet Blue did.
• The intent of the pages Perfect Market's technology creates is "isomorphic, from a search company's point of view, to those created by more questionable tactics such as scraping". Given this, it's unclear how long search engines will allow this to last.
• "A keyword stuffed, link stripped dead end page" is harmful to the newspaper's brand.

Given the economic challenges so many newspapers face today, it's not entirely surprising that newspapers are turning to SEO spam, even if it's ironic given the rampant complaints about search engines that come from the newspaper industry on a regular basis. Yet the notion that SEO spam is going to help newspapers in a no-risk, minimal-effort fashion hints that some newspapers may be more lost than previously thought.

Photo credit: arnold | inuyaki via Flickr.

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Tips for usability testing with children

11 March 2010

Children represent a huge market for digital products yet most are designed by and for adults. Even those which are targeted at children often get it embarrassingly wrong – like dads trying to be ‘cool’. But all is not lost. We have found that user research and testing with children opens up a whole new perspective, helping adult designers to see the world through the eyes of a child.

Our user research with children has ranged from social networking and mobile phones to online games and websites targeted at everyone from toddlers to teens.

Here we share some of the lessons we have learnt in adapting our usability research and testing methods for children...

The Testing Environment

Have a close look at the environment you are using for the testing. Is it friendly and welcoming to children or is it a bit cold and clinical with lots of distractions? Removing distractions and adding a bit of comfort and colour can make a big difference to results.

When testing with younger children it is important to have a parent or familiar adult around to provide reassurance. The adult may or may not participate directly in the session depending on what we are trying to achieve and what sort of feedback we need.

If a parent would normally help their child use a website, then it can be helpful to observe when they step in to help. They can also help with answering questions and comment on how the children usually work at home.

To get a true understanding of childrens' behaviour we also find it very valuable to interview children and their parents at home, and to observe them at school. This allows us to see how they behave in their normal environment, without the distractions and unfamiliarity of a testing lab.

The Tasks

Remember that children have a short concentration span and can get bored and distracted easily. Make sure the length of the session and the difficulty of task is appropriate to the children’s age and development. Pre-school children will need more open, exploratory tasks than those of school age, and younger children will need shorter, less complex tasks than teenagers.

The faciiatator has to keep a close watch for boredom, fatigue or children becoming too engrossed in one task and have a range of options ready to move the session on to more productive areas.

We always try to aim for sessions which are fun and tasks which are engaging with lots of different activities, games and breaks for snacks and drinks.

One of our clients recently reported back to us:

Not only did the children enjoy their time with the team, one child said they were having such a good time they didn’t want to leave!

We find colourful probe packs are very helpful for children to use to prepare for creative sessions. Ours often include cameras, diaries and 'about me' prompt cards.

Communication

It is important to recognise that children communicate in different ways, many of them non-verbal. Facilitators need to be flexible and use appropriate communication techniques. Very young children (under 6) are often not able to express themselves verbally, so behavioural observations can be as important as verbal feedback (e.g. smiling, fidgeting, sighing, groaning).

While older children may find it easier to describe what they like and dislike, non-verbal feedback is still very important. We provide lots of different ways for children to indicate their likes, dislikes and preferences including picture scales, and simple, child-friendly rating descriptions.

And finally ...

If you are well prepared with plenty of alternatives available, a flexible approach and a good sense of humour, research with children is fun, rewarding and full of valuable insights into the next generation of digital users.

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Virgin Media launches community for young entrepreneurs

11 March 2010

Virgin Media has launched an online community in partnership with Enterprise UK to support young entrepreneurs.

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Are companies getting smarter with email marketing?

11 March 2010

Companies are gradually becoming more sophisticated in their email marketing efforts, with greater use of personalisation and segmentation in their campaigns.

The Econsultancy / Adestra Email Census 2010 also finds that, though some areas are improving, too few are integrating email with other marketing activities, while many still don't know their ROI from email marketing. 

Personalisation and segmentation

There has been a big increase in the proportion of companies taking advantage of their email vendors' ability to personalise emails, something which can have a significant effect on open rates.

More than half of respondents (52%) say they use personalisation, compared to 38% in 2009.

As the chart below shows (click image for bigger version), more companies are using more advanced tactics like using transactional emails for marketing, behavioural targeting and re-marketing. 

More companies are making use of the services offered by email vendors:

As well as personalisation, more companies are using the measurement and analytics services offered by ESPs, as well as other features like design and copywriting services. 

Nearly two thirds of companies (65%) are now using measurement services provided by their email service providers, an increase (+15%) from 50% of companies in 2009.

Integrating email campaigns

This is one area that hasn't really improved since the first Email Census back in 2007. Only 17% of company respondents say that their email marketing is fully integrated with the rest of their sales and marketing activities, no change from last year. Three-quarters (75%) of companies now say email is 'somewhat integrated with room for improvement', a slight increase on last year.

This lack of integration means that companies are unable to provide customers with a seamless experience with that organisation, while it also means missed opportunities for using data gleaned from customer behaviour in other channels to inform and improve email marketing efforts. 

The biggest barrier to integration, according to both company and agency respondents is 'disconnected systems and technologies', while lack of skills and training and lack of budget are also cited.

Email ROI

A common theme running through the last four surveys is the lack of ROI measurement, and this year is no different, though the number of company respondents that don't know their ROI from email is down from 42% last year (and in 2008) to 39% this year. 

For those that do know, the results are impressive. The proportion of companies who say that email marketing delivers an ROI of 300% or more has increased from 61% to 63%, while 5% more companies say their ROI from this channel is 500% or more.

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Is the Chatroulette fun about to come to an end?

11 March 2010

Chances are you've heard of Chatroulette, the clever website that pairs users up for random video web chats. It's one of the hottest websites on the internet right now.

It reportedly receives upwards of 500,000 visits each day and its creator, Andrey Ternovskiy, a 17-year-old high school student in Moscow, is now being courted by some of the world's most recognizable technology investors, including Russia's DST, which owns stakes in hot American social networking companies like Facebook and Zynga.

Chatroulette's appeal isn't all that mysterious. Participants find themselves chatting with random strangers from around the world. When one participant wants to move on, he or she simply clicks 'Next' and is connected with a new random stranger. The potential entertainment value is obvious, and in many cases, for better or worse, Chatroulette delivers 'interesting' experiences.

Yet the Chatroulette fun could be coming to an end thanks to the site's mainstream popularity. A new website, Chatroulette Map, shatters any illusion that participation in Chatroulette is anonymous. Because the computers of Chatroulette participants are connected directly, it's possible to identify the IP address of another participant. Chatroulette Map is taking advantage of this to build a geolocated database of Chatroulette participants. Chatroulette Map plots its data on a Google Map, and for each participant, a photo and the actual IP address of the participant are displayed.

With this publication of this data, determining the real identity of any Chatroulette participant listed on the site is not only possible, but probably relatively easy for someone sufficiently motivated. Even more importantly, the method by which Chatroulette Map collects the data it displays is one that any geek with a minimal amount of tech savvy can replicate.

The privacy and security implications of this are obvious. The fact that the average internet user probably doesn't know what an IP address is or how it can be used only makes the situation worse, as individuals who may otherwise be inclined not to participate join the fun not knowing that they could be identified and tracked down. Investors looking at Chatroulette as a potential investment would certainly be wise to look at the potential legal risks here, and the significant costs that might be required to change Chatroulette's infrastructure to protect the privacy of participants.

Of course, in the overall scheme of things, as we've seen on social networks like Facebook and MySpace, many individuals are more than comfortable sharing very personal information online. But users of social networks can generally limit who sees what, and their IP addresses aren't made available. On Chatroulette, participants are far more likely to be under the impression that they're truly anonymous and once they click 'Next', that's the end of it.

The question now is: as this impression gives way to reality, will the bored and intrigued who are drawn to Chatroulette decide to click 'Next' on Chatroulette itself?

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It’s not what you need from your donors.  It’s what you give your donors.

11 March 2010

Fundraising is not about what you need.  Really.  It is about what the donor – through you – can achieve.  It’s about giving donors the gift of knowing they changed the world for the better.  It’s not about our goals – it’s about our donor’s aims.

Everyone knows you need money.  So do the other 1.8 million nonprofits in the United States – as well as the millions more around the world.  If that’s all you’ve got to say, you are just another organization with yet another appeal.

What is special about you?  The answer can’t simply be that your programs need support.  It must be that with your donor, you can together achieve a difference that no one else can.

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Ovarian cancer charity warns of symptoms in online film

11 March 2010

The Ovarian Cancer Action charity is using digital media for the first time to raise awareness of the symptoms of the disease.

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OK Go ditches EMI to make a real go of viral video

10 March 2010

Major music labels often depend on the album sales of their most popular artists to counter the production costs for other musicians they work with. But online, viral views do not always translate into album sales. That's one of the reasons that EMI and the band OK Go have decided to part ways this week. 

The split opens up new possibilities for OK Go, but leaves open the question. What will labels do when their most popular artists decide to take the middle man out of the distribution equation?

OK Go's new video for the single This Too Shall Pass has been viewed over 7 million times since its release. Why? Because it's awesome. The band has learned that impressive attention to detail and single shot live action videos are a pretty consistent way to peak people's interest online. You can check it out here:

Before their new album was released in January, OK GO was touted by Capitol Records as a huge online success story. But that doesn't mean that EMI knows what to do with them. In January, the label removed the embed feature for all videos on YouTube created by bands represented by EMI or any of its subsidiaries.

Considering that YouTube has allowed content creators to put overlay ads in its videos embedded on other sites since 2008, that doesn't make a lot of sense.

And OK GO was not pleased. The band's lead singer, Damian Kulash wrote in The New York Times:

“[T]he fans and bloggers who helped spread “Here It Goes Again” across the Internet can no longer do what they did before…Believe it or not, in the four years since our treadmill dance got such attention, YouTube and EMI have actually made it harder to share our videos.”

According to Kulash, views of the band's famous treadmill video dropped 90% after the change — from about 10,000 a day to just over 1,000.

The split today was initiated by the band, but mutual. From PaidContent:

"OK Go manager Jamie Kitman announced the separation via e-mail to industry observer Bob Lefsetz last night: “we secured ok go’s release from capitol—two weeks before the current video (up to 6.6 million hits in under a week)—came out. we’re living in the future, about 15 minutes earlier than we’d expected, and loving it.”"

And EMI was happy to let them go, writing:

 ‘We’ve really enjoyed our relationship with OK Go. They’ve always pushed creative boundaries and have broken new ground, particularly with their videos. We wish them the greatest success for the future.’”

According to PaidContent, the band's new album Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky only sold 3,000 units since January. For a major studio release, that is a huge failure.

But as the dynamics of media consumption change, the pay structure has to change as well. And OK Go is better equipped to handle the changes on its own.

OK Go is creating its own label — Paracadute — to handle all distribution and promotion issues. And while EMI doesn't see the benefit of embedding viral videos, the band certainly does.

EMI was leaving money on the floor. Ad dollars on online video views may not compare to album sales for major album releases yet, but there are going to be more and more ways that bands can capitalize on their popularity in new media. The thing EMI should be worried about is what it does when more big name singers and bands decide they don't need a label making distribution decisions for them when they can release content directly to the public themselves.

In this case, it will be especially interesting to see how many more views this video gets after the announcement today, when bloggers and viewers start sharing the video once again.

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Internet is indispensable when it comes to local shopping

10 March 2010

If 97 percent qualifies as "everyone" (and it very nearly does), then everyone is using the web to enhance local shopping. Among consumers surveyed in a study conducted by BIA/Kelsey and ConStat, 90 percent of users use search engines; 48 percent use Internet Yellow Pages; 24 percent use vertical sites, and 42 percent use comparison shopping sites.

Small wonder that new local web tools are appearing with increasing frequency. Just yesterday, Foursquare joined the fray, offering local analytics tools to merchants.

Full results of the survey are not yet available, but some interesting data points were made public.

• On average, consumers use 7.9 different media sources when shopping for products or services in their local area, up from 6.5 sources in 2009 and 5.8 in 2008.

• 58 percent of respondents report using an online coupon when shopping for products or services in their local area in the past year.

• 19 percent of respondents report making an appointment online in the past six months for a service other than a restaurant reservation, such as a business or health-care appointment, auto service, or personal service such as a beauty salon).

This last item is of particular interest, given the ability to make appointments online is anything but widespread. Clearly, it's a site function consumers are prepared to embrace once adoption increases.

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11 steps toward a content strategy

10 March 2010

IBM recently published research showing that about 80 percent of those who begin a corporate blog never post more than five entries. And that's just blogging. The Internet is littered with near-tweetless Twitter accounts, expressionless Facebook pages, no-one-home YouTube channels. In the rush to adopt social media as a tactic, too many marketers leave strategy in the dust.

Increasingly, marketing isn't about buying media, the advertising model. Media is cheap -- or often even free. But rolling your own media brings with it a new set of challenges: coming up with enough content to fill all those blank pages, blog posts, profiles and such....and doing so on a regular basis, not just in a one-off burst of Week 1 enthusiam.

In short, brands are media. Marketers are editors, or at least need to start thinking like editors and producers if they don't want to come up short-handed. So herewith, 12 steps toward editor-think to help marketers get beyond that accusatory Blank White Page and start thinking like an editor.

1. Know your audience

Couldn't be simpler or more self-evident, but the importance of knowing who you're producing content for cannot be overstated. Customers? Prospects? Fans? Industry peers? Colleagues? The media? Some or all of the above? Selecting topics and tailoring messaging is a whole lot easier when you know who's on the receiving end.

2. Define key themes and messages

Now that you know who you're addressing, what is it, broadly speaking, you want to communicate to them? Don't just focus on your product, service or business here, but do some thinking as to how it relates to an audience's real-world concerns. If you're a local business, you may want to weave broader local themes into your content. If you're hawking something with a high consideration curve, education and learning may be part of your messaging. Use your knowledge of your audience, your tone-of-voice, and the broader informational environment in which you reside to inform themes and messaging.

3. Establish a frequency framework

Half the journalists I know say the write for periodicals because they need deadlines in order to produce. In the trade, it's called feeding the beast. You may not need to blog, or write, or tweet, or status-update every day, but once per month is probably not enough...and you risk the whole endeavor tipping off the cliff. Create a schedule for content updates and adhere to it. Map out potential stories, features, or other content in advance so that when the deadline looms, you'll have a sense of what's due. Falling into a rythm beats falling out of visibility altogether.

4. Create an editorial calendar

An editorial calendar plugs directly into the frequency framework. Just as your local newspaper has a fod and dining feature on Wednesdays, an expanded entertainment section on Friday, and home and gardening on Thursdays, mapping a type of content to your frequency framework is a great step forward in terms of making relevant content happen on a reasonably frequent schedule.

5. Develop regular features and rubrics

Creating a few regularly-appearing content elements is one of the oldest editorial tricks in the book. Comics, horoscopes, weather and film listings all help round off a newspaper's offerings and keep readers coming back for more. Moreover, once you've got these regular features, they're all but auto-populating. Highlights of the week, links out to other relevant content, a quote of the day are just a few down-and-dirty ideas to keep the flow of content coming.

6. Interview

Interviews probably belong up in item #5, but are notable enough to warrant discussion on their own. Are your own ideas drying up? Talk to someone else! Experts in your field, enthusiatic users, people in your company. Make a list of potential interview subjects, and consider making interviews a regular content feature.

7. Go multimedia

Content isn't limited to text alone, of course. Images, photos, video and audio all expand and enhance your content offerings. Blogging? Posts accompanied by a graphic image draw attention to themselves. Don't take my word for it, give it a shot -- web metrics bear this one out.

8. Enlist contributors and provide them with guidelines

You don't have to go it alone. Look around at your coworkers, colleagues, professional network. There are lots of potential content contributors out there. Often, all you have to do is ask, either for one-off contributions or regular features. User-generated content is, of course, a whole new route to ensuring content is created for you, be it comments, ratings and reviews, or contests. With clearly defined guidelines and expectations, and a little bit of polite asking, you may be surprised at how much content is created for you rather than by you.

9. Opine and editorialize

A frequent stumbling block to content creation is when the creators think they're obligated to be first to break a piece of news. It's a big internet out there and news is traveling at the speed of fiber optic cable. This is a losing game. Leave it to the pros. Divest yourself of the notion that you're a reporter and instead become an expert observer and interpreter of what news means to your audience. Establish youself, your company or your brand as a thought leader, not a deadline reporter.

10 Turn on comments and feedback

Whatever digital platform you're creating content for, ensure comments and feedback mechanisms are in place, easy to use, and monitored. This not only creates a platform for participation, it's a gauge of how well you're doing, what excites and interests your audience, and will doubtless feed in ideas for shaping and improving future content.

11 Listen

Listen to what others in your space are saying, and do so outside the parameters of your own comments section. Set up topic alerts for your relevant themes. Get out there and participate in what others are saying within your arena of expertise. It's the social media equivalent of leaving the house.

 

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Impossible to Resist - MoveOn's Latest "You're In the News" Video

10 March 2010

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CNN's Jonathan Klein: TV Ratings don't matter. We're competing with social networks.

10 March 2010

It's not unusual to hear someone from a television network that's not in first place to claim that ratings don't matter. And CNN's Jonathan Klein is no different.

Speaking at the 2010 Media Summit in New York, the president of CNN said that television ratings don't paint an accurate picture of his network's strengths. But his reasoning is interesting — it's not because FOX is beating them there, but due to competition from online sources that aren't being tracked by the Nielsen ratings.

FOX consistently beats CNN in the ratings. And Klein has plenty of evidence to prove that those ratings don't present a fair portrayal of popularity. For instance, CNN had 100 million viewers last month. That's 10% more than FOX's 90 million. But FOX's visitors stay longer, view more often during primetime, and do other things that Nielsen takes into account when compiling its rankings.

Klein says "we think of ourselves as being first." But that's not exactly how these things work. Even if CNN sees itself as the most fair and balanced, informed and fast network out there, that doesn't mean that viewers are going to.

However, the news landscape is rapidly changing. Increased competition from the internet is changing the venues where news gets delivered. And consumption habits are changing. CNN is making more money than it was when it was one of only a handful of news channels. And it's also beating other networks with its coverage of specific events. On both election night and major primary nights in 2008, CNN beat the broadcast channels:

“Never before have we competed on equal footing with the broadcast networks and beat them.”

But beyond TV, CNN is competing with more news sources today than ever before. Klein says:

"The competition I’m really afraid of comes from social networking sites. I'm more worried about the 500 million people on Facebook than I am about 200 million watching on FOX."

As Klein points out: "We're number one by a mile in digital news."

CNN has been working hard to integrate breaking news from the web into its daily programming. There are a lot more man on the street — or web — updates interspersed throughout the network's news delivery. CNN tries to verify all of the news that it gets from other sources, but often getting information up is the most important thing, and viewers have to acknowledge the source.

Trying to compete with online can also affect coverage negatively. Josh Tyrangiel, editor of BusinessWeek, likens 24-hour cable news to selling umbrellas. "You can sell the best umbrellas, or you can try to convince people it's always raining."

CNN tries for the former. But to convince audiences, you have to keep your game up at all times. Can a television network keep up with the internet?

"All depends on the people you have doing it," says Klein.

Klein doesn't think having a 6P news show matters any more, which sounds unusual coming from a network exec:

"There may not be a half hour news cast, but thank God there doesn’t have to be. There are so many sources of information. And there are going to be more of them."

Whether there will be a sustainable payment structure to pay them is a different story. Klein puts it this way:

"I’m bullish on journalism. More people are getting into it than ever before. But I don’t know anyone who gets into journalism for the money. It’s an obsession."

Image: CNN

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10 heinous usability crimes committed by Playmobil

10 March 2010

In the comments of a recent article by Matt Curry on e-commerce platforms and Javascript, Playmobil was mentioned as an example of particularly poor usability. 

One of the problems that Matt found was the threat to lock users out of the site for 24 hours if questions were answered incorrectly, which is astonishing.

There are plenty more user experience crimes to be found on the site though, and if Playmobil wants to make the most of the online channel, then it should look into solving the following issues, if not redesigning the whole site... 

Detect visitor's country of origin

The first screen you see when you arrive at the Playmobil site via the search engines is this, which asks the user to select their country:

The website should detect the visitor's IP address and automatically direct them to the relevant site, why make them work any harder than they need to? It's just annoying. 

Don't make users register before browsing

Like the lockout threat, this is pretty staggering stuff. Someone at Playmobil seems to value the capture of customer data well above the user experience. 

Basically, if you want to view the full product page, browse the online shop on the site and add items to your basket, you have register first. This is absolute madness. 

Making users register before they checkout can be a bad enough idea at times, but at least by that point customers have added items to their basket, and shown enough purchase intent that registration may not put them off. 

By asking people to register before they can even view further product details or add items to the basket, Playmobil must be deterring loads of potential customers, something which is not helped by the lengthy registration form, which asks for email address, password, name, address, phone number, as well as inviting you to set up separate accounts for your children. 

The text at the beginning of the form perhaps provides an insight into the thinking behind this baffling process. It says: 'We encourage you to visit your local Playmobil retailer to make your purchase', before going on to describe how you can touch, view products in displays, and ask advice from store assistants. 

So, Playmobil doesn't actually want visitors to its website to shop online. Never mind that they have already shown an intention to purchase by arriving at the site and clicking to register so they can actually start to shop, they would rather send you offline where, who knows, you might find a competitor's product which you prefer. 

Messy URLs

Playmobil has some lengthy URLs that have no connection to the product displayed on the webpage.

Adding related keywords to product page URLs can help SEO, as well as making them more understandable to the site's users. 

Login madness

Just in reviewing this site, I must have created at least five or six accounts on Playmobil. This is because it doesn't seem to remember cookies and, if you leave the site alone for half an hour or so, you have to login all over again. 

As you may have already guessed, this can be a tortuous process. You cannot create another account using the same email address so you need to either go through the reset procedure or start a new account, which is the lesser of the two evils. 

While perhaps I should have remembered my password, I've not had as much trouble resetting passwords and logging in on any other site. If this was online banking I could understand the fuss, but on an e-commerce site it is unnecessary and will just put people off. 

Like the example in this post, where a retailer made $300m by removing registration, I would wager that there are tons of duplicate accounts on the site. 

Children's accounts

Playmobil allows users to create accounts for their children, if the hassle of creating one account before shopping wasn't enough.

This creates unique logins for children so they can browse and add items to wishlists, though they can't buy anything from the site. In the run-up to birthdays and Christmas this may have some value, as kids could create a wishlist that parents could select presents from.

In practice though, it just doesn't work, since I can find no way to link the children's wishlist to the parent's account to actually buy the items on the list, which totally defeats the point of wishlists. 

Ludicrously long T&Cs 

Entering the checkout brings up a page of Terms and Conditions that should deter a few of the shoppers that have made it this far through the process. 

Most e-commerce sites sensibly keep the T&Cs out of the way of the checkout process. Yes, you have to agree to them, and they are there for users that want to read them, but to place them so prominently within the checkout process is just bonkers. 

Rude error messages

While sites should do what they can to anticipate and avoid common user errors, they will happen, and therefore error messages need to alert the customer to the mistake and help them to correct it, while also being polite. 

This error message (click image for a larger version) doesn't fit the bill. The exclamation mark is totally uncalled for, and will just annoy users. It annoyed me anyway... 

Shipping costs that deter higher orders

This has to be one of the most bizarre examples of delivery charges I have seen on an e-commerce site: 

Yes, the more you buy, the more you spend on delivery, which is nuts. What better way to discourage customers from adding extra items to their baskets? 

Long waiting times for delivery

 

 

Then there are the delivery times. Some e-commerce sites can deliver same day or next day, while most manage it within 2-3 days, so why does it take 10-15 working days for delivery?

 Would anyone bother when the wait is that long? It certainly doesn't make it an attractive destination for Christmas shopping after October. 

No contact number and slow email response times

If you want to check up on your order, or else ask any questions, then there is no contact number for you to contact Playmobil, just an online contact form which promises an answer within five business days. 

Telephone or live chat options should be provided for customers, as this offers a quick and easy way to answer product queries or follow up orders. If there is no phone contact option then, as ASOS does, emails should be responded to promptly. 

Doing neither will just infuriate customers, especially when delivery lead times are so poor. Customers could conceivably wait three weeks for an item to be delivered, then another week or two for a response to a problem with the item. Transactions could take months. In a digital age, this kind of service is totally unacceptable. 

Conclusion

I've only scratched the surface here; i could easily find plenty more usability issues with this site. For a well-known brand that people will search for online, this website is a very poor effort. In fact, I was surprised to find that this site was apparently relaunched in 2007, as it seems like a relic of the late 90s. 

Whatever the thinking behind this website, it seems clear from this website that Playmobil is simply not paying enough attention to its e-commerce operations.

Just by following some basic e-commerce best practice guidelines, it could make a huge difference to its conversion rates and online sales. 

Playmobil is a well-known and trusted brand, and one which surely could do well online, so it's a mystery why they seem to have got it so badly wrong so far... 

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