WordPress for those that are not familiar, is a blogging platform.  This blog is running on WordPress.  Yesterday, late afternoon, WordPress was down for 110 minutes.  On the face of it this would be a crisis.  For example when gmail goes down, even for 2 minutes, everyone panics, predicts the end cloud computing, reflects on how this proves you cannot trust Google etc. etc.

When wordpress goes down, here is the result.

WP.com Downtime Summary

1. Jean-Luc Crucifix
   February 19th, 2010 at 12:03 am

   Thanks for this very quick update! We appreciate it!

2. Olivia Tejeda
   February 19th, 2010 at 12:04 am

   Honestly, I was horrified when I heard WordPress was down, but you did a great job of keeping us informed and getting back to business. Thanks so much for that!

3. Avraham
   February 19th, 2010 at 12:04 am

   Thanks for all your hard work!

4. jamesb101
   February 19th, 2010 at 12:05 am

   Thanks for the info…..
   I love you guys…..You’re doing a great Job….
   After I did a level 2 diagnostic check (A la Star Trek ) I knew it was the system and I just left things alone…
   Keep up the good work!

5. Ruslan Trad
   February 19th, 2010 at 12:06 am

   We understand!:)

We love you, thank you, we understand??  There are 203 comments and they are 100% in the same vein.  There is not one comment suggesting they will leave WP, or even anything remotely negative.

On twitter these were the initial reactions.

And this was wordpress response at the time – note Matt Mullenweg is the CEO.

I have seen similar occurrences when something has gone wrong at WP and the result is always the same.

A few things stand out about wordpress.

1. They are both personal and personable.  Users feel they are dealing with people.  First names are always used.
2. Matt the CEO is personally engaged and it shows.
3. There are frequent enhancements to the service that are promoted on my dashboard, and discussed on their blog and forum. They are always communicating to their users.
4. Users care about WordPress, appreciate the service, and feel engaged with it.  so when it breaks they feel part of the problem, as opposed to Google users who have no idea who is on the other side of the wall at gmail.  There is no personality in the case of Google.

Relevance to Bankwatch:

In my little case study of one, me, WordPress and gmail are my two most commonly used apps.  They are both technically sound, equally reliable and invaluable to me.  Yet I have more perceived confidence in wordpress than gmail,  this despite the fact that logically I know that gmail has never missed a beat since inception in 2004, and I have complete confidence my mail will always be there, despite occasional hiccups.

I believe one difference must lie in personality, and knowing who I am dealing with.  I always have more confidence in the bank where I know the people than in a monolithic organisation such as a typical discount brokerage firm where there is little human contact.  Incidentally I also recognize the distinction between the immediacy of the tools which will also influence how users interpret downtime. 

The challenge then, relative to the organisational personality aspect is to create that human contact and create it in a way that is genuine, and that will scale, without having to maintain a 1,000 unit branch network for example.  The traditionalists always say that bank branches drive loyalty and new accounts.  Is it the physical locations or is it the personality that located in those locations?  How do we scale personality and personal contact.  Before everyone jumps on it this is more than a twitter solution.  My impression of twitter is that it is actually becoming highly impersonal with RT being the predominant twitter activity.

No, the challenge for banks and other organizations to develop a genuine and trusted personality online will be multi faceted yet essential in order to succeed and produce economic scale.

I raise all this again after meeting today with the nice people from clearlyso located at CSI in Toronto.  Clearlyso.ca is the Canadian arm of a UK group clearlyso.com and launch is coming soon!  Our conversation was related to communitylend, but that’s not for here.  Clearlyso has definition of social business that makes sense to me.  In fact I raised it here and here in the context of regulation, and here in the context of meaningful social capital.

Yet this all becomes hazy when I look at real businesses and attempt to evaluate them based on being ‘social’. 

So it was refreshing to see someone lay a line in the sand and outline a simple definition. 

A social business definition | clearlyso.com

A social business is one which integrates two objectives:

• A commercial objective: To achieve and increase profits and realise growth (like any traditional business) and…

• A social (and ethical and environmental) objective: As set out in our list of social benefits, found in the search box on the company directory.

A social business can be large or small, a start-up or an established player, it can take any legal form (CICs, co-ops, Ltd companies, and so on) and can operate in most industrial sectors (it’s difficult to imagine a social arms manufacturer/trader)

In summary a socially oriented company is one that is doing good, and not doing evil. 

• Customers are right until proven wrong
• making profits from inherently devious and fake products such as derivatives is evil
• taking TARP money on false pretenses is evil and it turns out illegal
• forcing call time that drives revenue and does not allow the customer choice is evil, driving ‘thin value’

Why is it that on the banking side, I have more evil than good?  That’s not good. 

The definition of social has finally transcended the fact of hosting a forum, or engaging in twitter/ FaceBook/ blog comments.  No.  Rather it is a fundamental requirement in the business objective of the company that sees business profits to be made while people perceive real value, both financially, ethically and morally.

In 2004 people were asking about blog business models. Now it is social network business models. I have suggested other ways to deal with business models, but the mob continues to aim directly at advertising as the answer. It will pollute the web, and result in the opposite result than what is desired. It will not bring sustainability for them using advertising.

So what happened this week.

• twitter volumes are already dropping. Pick any topical topic and search it on twitter – result 80% of the tweets are re-tweets of the topic. Its a gigantic echo chamber. In fact the next question – how many of those re-tweets were someone with a vested interest, a professional marketer, or a PR company? The theoretical value of wisdom of crowds does not allow for gaming the system. The black swan of twitter search.
• the volume of requests to me at this blog for linkbacks, blogroll links and outright requests for ads is increasing significantly. That will never happen btw. However it is indicative of the desire for ‘social media’ results
• A good friend who despite my recommendations still uses hotmail (now windows live). This persons entire contact list and archive of emails were deleted and it turns out this person not alone. Some kind of scripting virus inside hotmail launched by making the wrong click and signing up for something let the virus in. The clue was emails to all the contacts notifying my friend was happy with some TV or the like. Needless to say my friend is now using gmail exclusively but its a bitter lesson.
• techcrunch reported on the real evil of ad networks online and the significant money being made. Its a long post, but the key is that no-one is generating any real value here. Individuals are getting rich and that is all.

So what is the point of these seemingly unrelated observations especially as I am a devout proponent of the value of internet. What I am against is traditional interruption advertising coming online. It pollutes the medium and hinders the genuine creation of new and valid business models.

Today I read Umairs post at Harvard and that solidified it all for me (Umair does that). He points to the coming online crisis that is the online version of the subprime crisis. Readers of this blog get the sub prime crisis. The coming online crisis is one of trust, and realisation that online activities require security and protection yet something more which is still to be invented – control. It will be a crisis and it will be a broad based internet crisis of confidence. The result will be serious and cause serious grief for banks and others who have come to rely on online for servicing.

The parallels with the financial crisis are interesting. The financial system was getting better and better at recycling money and the convoluted networks that were built lost sight of the origin of the credit instrument, and the underlying risk. Causes were lack of transparency, shadow markets, rapid expansion, and mis-allocation of risk amongst others. In the case of the online advertising market, there are similar attributes. Transparency is non-existent in most cases, because there is no way to know who is behind those ads. Shadow markets and rapid expansion – ditto. Mis-allocation is interesting. I avoid online ads because they are interruptive. At a deeper level, they are mis-allocation of resources away from user experience and towards the requirements of a stupid ad server that is busily collecting data on you. The value is highly one-sided – worse the server is gather data that may or may not be of any value. Internet is simply clicks – do clicks imply desire, need and future purchase patterns?

Relevance to Bankwatch:
Smart banks and others will look at the embedded value in the customer base they have and define models that add value to those people, not spam them. What is known about your customer base, and what do your customers actually want. Traditional advertising models assumes customer needs – internet models will (I believe) enjoin the customer to participate in the definition of what they need and in return protect them (the customer) from spam advertising. One example is the promise of VRM. But it is only one – others will be developed, and will be supported by powerful authentication tools.

Innovation is another loser in this coming crisis, or as Umair notes unnovation. In advertising land, innovation is all about finding ways to get inside peoples click patterns and drive ad revenue. There is not value created for the majority of consumers (90% + who do not click), nor for merchants who actually desire long term client loyalty.

This has turned out to be a negative post, but really it is intended to provoke thinking beyond online advertising and ad servers. Which innovations will align customer advocates and merchants in a genuine and trusted manner?

The post is about FaceBook, but it is less about them, than it is about business models for dot.com companies with large userbases who insist on following tradigital advertising models. The whole ‘We have lots of eyeballs so lets monetise’ thing.

[disclaimer]  I have long believed that adwords, adsense, and any such interruptive advertising model has only a limited online lifespan, and represent a termproary interlude that keeps SEO types busy in these formative internet times, until we get to the next level whereby the consumer is truly in charge.  Only then will I accept a Web X.0 increment.

I look at myself and my online behaviours, and maybe I am in the minority, but maybe thats because the tools I use are not well understood.  My online experience sees almost no ads except when I choose to do so, and I do so choose.  I see them in emails I deliberately subscribe to, I see them when I seek them out, but my standard web experience is protected by pop up blockers and AdBlock Plus.  If in doubt how many have PVR’s at home, and skip tv ads?

Its not that I don’t want to lknow about products and services.  I just don’t want to know when I am reading, listening and watching things on the web.  This is the power and the promise of the internet medium;  it has the power to be better.  I listen to Sirius Radio for similar reasons; I want to hear music not ads.

Enter Vendor Relationship Marketing (VRM).  Terrible title, but in essence VRM says you will decide when a merchant (vendor) may contact you, ie advertise to you.  Until then stay away. Here is one of the more provocative catchphrases from “The ClueTrain Manifesto” which forsaw this problem and solution 10 years ago.

The challenge is how to move from an interruptive model in radio, television, phone, mail, and now internet to VRM which would require a seismic and complete shift.

“be prepared to be misunderstood for long periods of time.” – Jeff Besos

Back to the RWW post.  Bernard does a nice job of pointing out that FaceBook is taking too long to develop a business model, and is taking longer than Google did.  He notes that it will take a radical shift in order to do that, and that shift will be misunderstood, but give it time.

I agree with Bernard.  The reason FaceBook and traditional advertising doesn’t work is because no-one wants to hear an ad in the middle of a conversation.  However FaceBook has the other benefit (some say weakness) of being a walled garden and Google cannot see inside.  He notes this is the perfect oportunity to turn that walled garden into a powerful tool on behalf of the consumer.  When they feel the need for a product, service or information on them, FB users could, through an RFP (Request for Purchase) process make it known to vendors, even to the point of naming their price or price range.  Vendors could respond.

This turns the ad model on its head.  The playing field is levelled between the merchant and the consumer.  If the merchant comes on stronger than the consumer wishes, or tries to return to old ways, the consumer can ignore them.

Relevance to Bankwatch:

Consider banking – every day thousands of RFI’s emanating from VRM services, and the banks can compete on them, all electronically.  Clearly this requires formats, standards, and defined processes but it makes an interesting future world view, and one that FaceBook could kick off.

Whether this was innocent or otherwise, it appears to be a fact that it happened hence the significance.  Also read here for discussion and note the ‘informed’ comments.  One cannot help but think that there is something deliberate to all this, and even that Twitter may be an unwitting accomplice.

[If this is the same guy, Cohen is actively engaged at State in Middle Eastern affairs, and published this "Iran’s Young Opposition: Youth in Post-Revolutionary Iran".]

With a hint to Twitter, Washington taps into a new force in diplomacy | NY Times

Yet on Monday afternoon, a 27-year-old State Department official, Jared Cohen, e-mailed the social-networking site Twitter with an unusual request: delay scheduled maintenance of its global network, which would have cut off service while Iranians were using Twitter to swap information and inform the outside world about the mushrooming protests around Tehran.

The request, made to a Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey, is yet another new-media milestone: the recognition by the United States government that an Internet blogging service that did not exist four years ago has the potential to change history in an ancient Islamic country.

“This was just a call to say: ‘It appears Twitter is playing an important role at a crucial time in Iran. Could you keep it going?’ ” said P.J. Crowley, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs.

update: Whose views are being managed and by whom? (Washington Post)

“Twitter’s impact inside Iran is zero,” said Mehdi Yahyanejad, manager of a Farsi-language news site based in Los Angeles. “Here, there is lots of buzz, but once you look . . . you see most of it are Americans tweeting among themselves.“

This summarises something that has frustrated me for several years.  Picture a situation where you have (relatively) perfect information about a customer, and what they might need and want.  Supplement this with what they actually have with you, and what you can safely predict what they have with others, and you have the ultimate marketing opportunity.

Because people don’t go on social networking sites to hear your pitch – people go on social networking sites to talk to their friends!

She answers the question on what is the one thing you need to know.  I won’t steal the reports thunder, so you can download and read for yourself, and I do recommend it to all banks.  As a hint, it differentiates beteen building link credibility and building personal credibility.  Marketers who read this, must keep an open mind because it requires new skill sets, and much of what is required here is not a requirement for marketing departments, and will engage other departments.   There are useful things here that all banks can participate in, no matter your cultural issues.

Top Marketing Trends for 2009: Execs ‘Sick’ of Web 2 | MC Marketing Charts

#4. Marketers “Sick” of Web 2.0: Twice as many marketers are “sick” of hearing about Web 2.0 and related buzzwords such as “blogs” and “social networking” compared with last year’s survey.

I know enough people in marketing who actually do get it, that I feel safe in generalising here – the comment is aimed at the rest

What is interesting here is that web 2.0 however one cares to define it is being written off by marketing before they try it.  This is not SEO or fake emails to bloggers – its about being genuine.  Here we have some concepts that have the potential to transform business, marketing and business models, and already it is being written off, before even trying them.

I keep going back to Cluetrain.  Written in 1999 it is even further ahead of its time than we realised.  it does not help that it is an awful, and disorganised read.  Nontheless it is prescient and visionary in its beliefs.  Cluetrain is the real web 2.0 and the tools we hear of such as blogs and wiki’s are transitory, and replaceable.  The concept lies in wisdom of employees, enjoined with the wisdom of customers that develops a new level of understanding of products and services.  This understanding will make marketing messages irrelevant.

It will take us some time to get with with traditional thinkers apparently, but the web will take customers there before corporations.  The corporations who ‘get’ that will be amongst the winners.

Google Analyst: “Worst Economic Environment In Our Collective Lifetimes” | Techcrunch

Google’s stock price closed yesterday at $291, the first time it has dropped below $300 since 2005. It’s 44% off of its 52-week high of $725. Most analysts think its cheap and getting cheaper – the average price target is still over $500. Former analyst Henry Blodget, however, thinks it could fall to $200 (I prefer the bullish version of Blodget myself).

I have been skeptical about advertising as a model online.  It feels to me like a square peg pressed into a round hole.

The data suggests Google may be less powerful that people thought – June 2007

The perversity of online advertising

Internet advertising – gaps in the advertising model

Relevance to Bankwatch (and startups):

Austin Hill made this classic statement today at StartupEmpire. 

“Advertising is not a business model”

Enough said.  Its a great way to attract revenue, as you adjust, dip and dive through the competition, but its not a business model.  Business models require paying customers – period.

PS – I live and die by Google – I love them – I pay for Google Apps.  But their advertising is irrelevant to me. I worry if they will be there for me

Note the last item – a ringtone.  What a simple, free, yet brilliant marketing idea.  What if your ad was a catchy, consistent music theme.  Serve it up as a ring tone, and both customers and prospects will hear it all over the place. 

A Final Marketing Lesson from NextCard | By Jim Bruene on January 5, 2002 7:06 PM

Ironically, as we looked in on NextCard’s Web site on the evening of Feb. 7 to see if they were still taking applications, we noticed the company was using a simple, but very effective marketing tool aimed at gathering the email address of users which had clicked on the NextCard application, but had abandoned it prior to completion.

One key component was how they maintained contact during that all important time when for some reason users leave.  Management of that moment will only improve activation rates.

Users exiting from the first page of the application are greeted by a popup message offering various incentives to leave an email address for future contact. After 50 to 75 tests, we determined that the company was testing five different offers

Click through for full details on a methodology that is equally relevant today.

The industry’s most prominent independent ratings agencies continue to recognize growth in terms of insurer financial strength. Our financial strength is our commitment to you that we’ll be there for you when you need us

The main page is running their latest ad here, and it speaks about ‘what we see’, has photo’s of football players, and is generally a typical wealth management type ad.  Time to get real.  Where is the comment to people speaking about what they are doing.  If I had an AIG policy, what are you doing for me – is my policy still working?  Simple basic comments addressing what people are actually thinking.  This is what people expect and what social media mean.  Talk to people and listen to people.

Anyhow, here are Johns suggestions and click through for the detail.

1. Stop your traditional advertising with your old campaign now

2. Make a commitment to educating your customers on personal finance

3. Whoever said corporate blogging is dead is an idiot – start a blog for godsake

4. Listen and react to your customers publicly

5. Advertise all of the above and build a strong community around your bank built on trust

Microsoft Annual Report

To sustain the growth of our Server and Tools business amid competition from other vendors of both proprietary and open source software, our goal is to deliver products that provide the best platform for network computing – software that is easiest to deploy and manage, and that is most secure – with the lowest total cost of ownership.

# of mentions:

linux – 9

Open source – 1

Live™ – 22

Business Description:

Client – Operating Systems

Our operating system products compete effectively by delivering innovative software, a familiar, easy-to-use interface, compatibility with a broad range of hardware and software applications, and the largest support network for any operating system.

Server and Tools

We believe that our server products provide customers with advantages in innovation, performance, total costs of ownership, and productivity, by delivering superior applications development tools and development environment, compatibility with a broad base of hardware and software applications, security, and manageability.

Online Services Business – includes Search, Live, Hotmail

We believe that we can compete effectively across the breadth of our Internet services by providing users with software innovation in the form of information and communication services that help them find, discover, and experience what they want online and by providing merchants with effective advertising results through improved systems and sales support.

Microsoft Business Division – includes Office, Sharepoint

We believe our products compete effectively with these vendors based on our strategy of providing interoperable, adaptable solutions that work well with technologies our customers already have.

Entertainment and Devices division

We think the Xbox 360 is positioned well against competitive console products based on significant innovation in hardware architecture, new developer tools, expanded revenue sources, and continued strong exclusive content from our own game franchises such as Halo.

In reviewing the five business divisions and their comments on competition, a couple of things stood out:

1. they do a good job at summarising the breadth of competitors
2. the comments on Microsoft’s strengths relative to the competition (shown above) are less clear.

Relevance to Bankwatch:

The general assumption amongst commentators today is that Microsoft is not well placed in Browser, Search, Online Advertising and future shifts of enterprise office applications into cloud computing environments.  What struck me in this brief review is that challenge is spread across three divisions, Client (Browser), Online Services Business (Search, Advertising), and Microsoft Business Division (MS Office).  This may seem rational at first because the nature of search/ advertising is different than office applications … or is it? 

I look at Google Apps, and Gmail, for example, and search is a key component of both.  Yet the Microsoft Search team are in a different team than the Office group.  But the real stunning point is that the Internet Explorer Browser, the fundamental requirement for all the pieces is alone in the Operating System division! 

This is an organisation destined to fail, because the components for success are not aligned.  Why am I commenting on this here, apart from the fact I care about Microsoft?  How well is your Bank aligned for addressing the components of future success?  Lets look at some Banking examples to wrap this up:

In your Bank …

1. who owns social media ?
2. who owns advertising?
3. who owns customer experience
4. who owns the web site – public
5. who owns online banking?

then .. in your Bank …

1. who is thinking and planning social media ?
2. who is thinking and planning advertising?
3. who is thinking and planning customer experience
4. who is thinking and planning the web site – public
5. who is thinking and planning online banking?

In times of disruptive competition, its worth looking at the world as others see it, versus how the old organisation sees it.

One market driver is therefore ‘customer empowerment’.

Another driver, comes from the way customers are continually required to manage their own affairs, at the ATM, the pin pad, online banking, bill payments, office card access, airport check in, car rental drop off, quick hotel checkout, travel booking. This frequency of self service is now pervasive and required several times daily for everyone. Organizations have become impersonal and are represented by their self service touch points. Self service has been underway for a long time, and internet has only sped up that process for Banks’.

Customers appreciate self service, but the sheer pervasiveness of it, means customers are continually, comparing and evaluating it. Without realizing it, customers are comparing your bill payment web process flow, to the Hilton quick check out, the credit card pin pad machine to your ATM, etc etc. People do not interact with products; they interact with self service touch points, and that is where the value is experienced, or value is lost.

So our other main driver is the advent of ‘the experiential economy’.

While Banking has benefited from technology advances in information management, and elimination of human processes, it has absolutely not addressed these drivers.  Bank motivation has been entirely financial driven by the vagaries of the quarterly announcements and the impact on stock prices.

Banking has benefited from detailed analysis of customer behavior allowing enormous profits on credit cards through targeted marketing, and portfolio management of card holders supported by high interest rates.  However banking has suffered from having to bear the additional costs associated with the new technologies, and in particular the plethora of new channels, including direct mail, ATM, telephone banking, online banking, and disruption in traditional marketing channels.

Relevance to Bankwatch

How has your Bank adapted to customer empowerment within the online experiential economy?  This would involve re-thinking marketing tactics, site design, and even branch personnel training and tools.

BankerVision: PR shifts to Community Management

One final question is in my mind, though, is what use HSBC’s or Citi’s Community Outreach Coordinator will make of a competitive bank’s blogger like myself? Will they just ignore me, or take a leap of faith and realise that the community is powerful regardless of who is in it?

Relevance to Bankwatch:
His final paragraph says it all. With the lone exception of Ed Terpenning at Wells Fargo, where are the community managers at the big Banks? I know a large part of the reason lies in the fear of loss of control of the message. Any Banks care to comment?

Banks currently define themselves and their brand in terms of commodity products and expect customers to switch banks so that they can have “all the things they currently get from their current bank.”

The piece is full of memorable quotes, and goes on to say

What banks need is a new brand promise, one that is a reflection of who the target audience is when they use that bank and is positioned against the competition. The problem now is that the players in the market say the same thing so they are not positioned against anybody

Finally, here is their “take the test”. Their point is that the statements apply to all Banks, and are instantly recogniseable.

Stealing Share | Increasing Market Share | Brand Company | Bank Study

Is it as bad as we have said? Take the test. Take any bank you can think of and insert its name here-

* (Insert Bank Name Here) has many ATMs
* (Insert Bank Name Here) has convenient hours and locations
* (Insert Bank Name Here) has free checking
* (Insert Bank Name Here) has friendly employees
* (Insert Bank Name Here) has online banking
* (Insert Bank Name Here) has credit cards
* (Insert Bank Name Here) gives you more
* (Insert Bank Name Here) really wants my business
* (Insert Bank Name Here) has competitive rates

Today a family member got something in the mail from BMO Mosaik Master card that read:

Complete and return this form today to continue benefitting from the BMO Mosaik MasterCard CardAssist Plus Service without interruption

Note the key words ‘continue‘ and ‘without interruption‘. Also note the entire package was in a pull apart envelope thing designed just like the kind of serious confidential mailing that is used for Bank Card pin numbers, or new credit cards.

There is one problem …. said family member does not have the CardAssist product, whatever that is. Yet response is required to ensure no interruption! On reading the small print, family member has been set up ‘free’ for two months until August 24th, 2008. I think no payment is required for the service if no response is sent in, but to be honest the package was so convoluted and confusing, I will be checking in September to ensure that it is in fact cancelled.

This is just awful marketing of the worst 1990′s kind. That card company has millions of customers. Clearly the the intent is to have x% of customers send this package back in just so they are not interrupted in their service, and the Bank will gain by $39.99 annually in new fees.

New marketing, and customer expectation has moved on and its sad to see that there are some old style marketers still out there. Time for BMO to get a new agency methinks.

» Blog Archive » SES & Social Media Strategy: what happened to ethics?! (A rant)

The internet has a short attention span and a long memory. Be smart. Treat your consumers like idiots and they won’t stick around for long.

Click through for Joey’s excellent summary of Fredrick Marckini’s keynote presentation at searchengine strategies conference in Toronto this week.

» Fredrick Marckini’s Keynote at Search Engine Strategies 2008 Toronto » The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century : Joey deVilla’s Personal Blog

72% of all clicks were in the natural results section; the remaining 28% were in the paid.

Web Strategy

….  data using free social media tools, that look at keywords on twitter, as well as ‘traffic’ to websites of the runners. I rarely place much weight in any single use of these tools, but there is a clear trend towards Obama getting a great deal of activity. Is this telltale to the future? I’m not sure.

Marc’s Voice » Blog Archive » How SHOULD dynamic privacy work?

By that I mean – clearly Facebook wants to keep their user’s data in their system, but they have to answer all our demands for allowing user’s to move their data or at least access their data – from remote locations.

Others
Scoble – Mike Arrington is right – FaceBook is wrong
Arrington – Data portability – its the new walled garden

The one common attribute they all share is that the issue is not clearly outlined. Here are some facts, and background from what I see.

What is “your data” that they are discussing?

1. personal information; name, address, phone, email, other contact data
2. friends contact information; your address book in essence, and whatever contact information you have there
3. your buying habits, your opinions, your views
4. your friends habits, your opinions, your views

Where is your data?
This is where it gets interesting – given the above definition, your data is obviously in many places:

• web mail (gmail, yahoo mail, etc)
• your computer – Microsoft Outlook, Evolution, Mac email, etc
• your social network – Facebook, Mebo, Hi5 etc.
• your online merchants – Banks, ecommerce sites (plus a host of offline day to day merchants, telco’s, electricity providers, etc etc etc)

What are the big company’s doing and why?
Facebook – Connect
Google – Friend Connect
Yahoo – Mesh

At one level, they are all attempting basically the same thing – attempting to find ways to have access to as much data as possible, especially 2, and 4 above, and matching that to 1, and 3. The underlying assumption is that if your friends choose something this increases the likelihood that you will adopt the same preferences.

In short all this “social media” effort by the big guys is an attempt to automate methods of advertising to you in a more meaningful way. This represents the crux of the matter – the perceived value of your data and how that will translate into meaningful advertising, and sales.

Other company’s
This is the more controversial of social media marketing.
Media6
Minggl

These company’s have plans to use the data above, watch it as people browse, and offer up insights to advertisers that they can base their advertsing upon.

There we are – some things that are going on, that I think is worth watching.

Relevance to Bankwatch:
This in its infancy and is mainly being debated amongst the geeks at the moment. But it is something to watch, and will be on us before we know it.  Banks need a position, and will have some tough decisions to make.

The Story » Blog Archive » Know how to use your bank technology

During the summarization of that day’s stock market activities, a newsflash came up in gigantic letters stating that my bank’s stock prices had dropped significantly. To say the least, that’s probably not what the bank wants to broadcast in its own branches.

What this little blunder said to me was that the bank marketing team didn’t fully think through their purchase of these LCD monitors. They snapped up the new technology before they knew what to do with it, or how it was going to enhance their brand.

That is no comment on Facebooks business model.  I simply question that merely because young people are your target market, that you can stuff traditional interruptive marketing techniques into FB, and they will work.  Jim’s analysis proves that out.

NetbankerOverall, the banking and personal finance apps have anemic usage levels totaling just 263 daily users (for apps with more than 1 daily user). That does not include virtual currencies or stock tracking/investing applications (see note 2). In comparison, the most popular general Facebook app, FunWall, has more than 3 million daily users.

There has to be something to Obama’s approach of targeting internet early.

How Obama Became The Man To Beat, CBSNews.com Reports: Barack Obama Is On The Verge Of Becoming The Clear Democratic Frontrunner. How Did He Do It? – CBS News

Obama campaign, unlike the Clinton campaign, aggressively targeted new voters – and they responded. “The astounding thing that really made the difference is the massive increase in turnout,” says Dennis J. Goldford, professor of politics at Drake University. More than 239,000 Democrats caucused on Jan. 3rd, nearly double the number who did so in 2004. Fifty-seven percent of voters under 30 – a group that caucused in unprecedented numbers – broke for Obama.

He is using FaceBook, but only 200K supporters there on his FaceBook app.  [Yes he has a FaceBook app.]  But his blog is possibly more pertinent.  He is getting comments in the several hundred … 400+ on posts.  Whereas Clintons site feels like I am looking at my Mums site.  Her blog is cold in comparison as to tone, and the blog comments are in the 40 – 90 range.  Very telling.

Banks should take note of the distinction.  Gathering new customers in the under 30 group is a key strategy, and traditional posters on the wall will not attract them.  Watch what Obama does as he changes things.  I have no idea who is on his staff, but they clearly ‘get it’.

A final note … the degree to which Obama is picking up momentum her was not picked up by the early market surveys.  This too must be a lesson for us all that things are changing and traditional methods have to be questioned.

Listing all ideas – Ideablob: where ideas grow

What would you do with $10,000 towards your business idea?

My thoughts are:

• its important to begin somewhere, try and learn, so this is in that category
• they are NOT trying to sell anything; thats a big plus for a Bank. Learn the space, and sales will follow once customers can see you are for real
• the follow through is another competition next month … not sure about that, but then I am biased against competitions. They will drive a certain behaviour, but generally that won’t drive business, or even brand acceptance
• nice layout and simple design. Good use of thumbs up, etc. Maybe the base structure could be adapted to vote on:

• Advanta customer service
• other products
• Advanta products

Looking forward to more from Advanta in this space.

Technorati Tags: advanta, ideablob

Proximic :: Home

The Proximic Platform is an open contextual ecosystem to connect publishers, bloggers and end-users by delivering related news, articles, background information and ads in a better way.

Some key attributes here:

• Google Adsense is keyword based
• Proximic is theme based … it is semantic
• Google is processor intensive
• Proximic is very light
• Proximic will provide a more precise view to match the content of the actual page being read

They will be offerring their ad platform over the next few months.

Relevance to Bankwatch:
This is one of those things to file away and consider for the future.  I see different search models that are much more appropriate and meaningful for users.  With advertising aligned with those results, the potential is great.  The service also provides for sharing of relevant content with friends.

I also see potential with this contextual matching service, to be aligned with Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) … a future where people have real and meaningful control over what they see online, what they find online, and what services that are offerred to them. 

Technorati Tags: Proximic, online+search, online+advertising

What intrigues me about this comment from the Citi CMO is that she must be unaware that the conversations she fears are already taking place online.  Here are a set of examples on Youtube. 

My take …. why not embrace the madness, and get out there and join in the conversations.  Find ways to dip toes into the water.

MediaPost Publications – Citi Cautious About Advertising On Social Networks – 10/01/2007

She added that allowing consumers access to Citi logos and other materials related to its brand for their own creations could backfire: “I am very loath to put it at risk and let some individual do what they want with it.”

Such a move may be a particular gamble in the banking realm, and apparently, the auto category. When Chevy permitted consumers last year to use clips it provided to develop their own commercials for an SUV, some took the opportunity to create spots that challenged whether the vehicle is environmentally friendly.

In the social-networking areas, Caputo cited Facebook as a venue that causes particular concern.

Finally this quote is most surprising of all, indicating that somehow branding does not include other aspects of internet than the current set of online advertising.

In addition to issues involving the downside of user-generated content,
Caputo said another hold-up to entering the space is the practical
matter of Citi having recently launched a new brand campaign that’s
occupying much of the focus of the marketing team.

Technorati Tags: citibank, online+marketing

Memelabs | Contests | Wells Fargo – Be Center Stage in the Rose Parade

If you like to sing and dance, or if you’re an aspiring director, this is your chance to show us – and the country – what you’ve got! How, you ask? By producing your own music video!

….. tomorrow (Friday) we’re launching our first Consumer-Generated Marketing program, giving the general public the opportunity to produce a 30-second nationally televised ad spot to be shown during the Tournament of Roses parade (to an estimated 37 million viewers). See http://memelabs.com/CenterStage/

As you read this, and check out the site, recall Wells is a Bank. The winner will be featured in the Wells ad during the Rose Bowl parade in January. 

Technorati Tags: wells+fargo, marketing, consumer+generated+media

marketingcharts

Technorati Tags: online+advertising, ad+spend

Mark Evans – The Evilness of Eating Your Cake and Having it Too

Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. Any anyone using Adblock is a fool because they clearly are missing the big economic picture. If you believe in Web 2.0 and/or if you believe in the concept of free, Adblock is pure evil.

But seriously … the argument goes, that the web economy is based on advertising, therefore if I kill the ads, then I am undermining the web economy. This argument is flawed. It misses the point that ads pissed me off for years (since 1994) until I discovered pop up blockers, Firefox, and finally Adblock. I never clicked on ads, and I do NOT subscribe to the future web economy being predicated on advertising. And in the new world, its all about …. ME.

Last time I checked, its a customer centric world we are moving into, and if I don’t like ads, I can zap them in my PVR, and block them in my browser. On a deeper level, I don’t like ads because they are not relevant. Relevance means, I need something, and that the timing is right.

Interruption advertising is well known in television, radio, and newspapers. Thats not a good reference. The web economy is nascient and evolving. Just as we have the Toronto Sun chock full of ads, and occasional news, alongside the Globe & Mail, with a more balanced approach based on product value, I see the web evolving similarly. Just because Google and adwords rule the day today, does not mean that will live forever. Example – Vendor Relationship Management (VRM).

My web is not based on advertising. It is based on value to me. I am a person … find me.

For more, read Nicholas here, or Doc Searls, that I quoted earlier.

Sorry Mark ….

Technorati Tags: cluetrain, advertising, online+marketing, VRM

Credit card companies pursue subprime borrowers – International Herald Tribune

For credit card companies, the subprime market is a profitable one, analysts and consumer advocates say. Subprime customers, charged higher rates than those with better credit, are more likely to make minimum payments, maintaining balances that generate interest revenue for card issuers, consumer advocates said.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets – Advertising Share Shift

Advertising Share Shift

Analysis by:

Silicon Alley Insider

Technorati Tags: advertising+spend

The “Enjoyability” Genderation Gap « Customer Experience Matters

• Male Gen Xers want a lot more enjoyment. When it
  comes to every category of business except airlines, Gen X males were
  at or near the top in their willingness to switch providers for a more
  enjoyable experience.
• Seniors aren’t looking for more enjoyment. Female
  Seniors was one of the groups least likely to leave its current
  provider for a better experience – except when it came to the group’s
  dealings with general department stores. Male Seniors felt the same
  disinterest in moving business away from six of the different types of
  companies.
• Female Gen Yers have more enjoyment than their male peers.
  Young consumers are split down gender lines when it comes to
  enjoyability. Gen Y males give some of the lowest marks to seven firms
  while Gen Y females give some of the highest marks to four of the firms.

Technorati Tags: forrester, genderation, segmentation

The Aging of Facebook Makes it a More Appealing Platform for Financial-Services Firms (NetBanker)

To her, it’s a privileged place for her friends to communicate: uncles, aunts, and especially parents, are definitely not on the invitation list. It will be interesting to see what happens to the hip kids as the establishment invades their turf.

Technorati Tags: marketing, advertising, bank+strategy

eightbar » Blog Archive » Wimbledon, that’s a lot of users 8.5 million

Things such as the times article reached many people as did the extensive blog coverage by everyone. This approach to reaching people is in itself a good lesson. Also reaching people who take the time to find you means they want to come along and want to talk.

This is a deep sentence with three takeaways:

1. word of mouth
2. power of blogs
3. power of customer advocates

Technorati Tags: marketing, wimbledon, IBM

Awareness of the product is high, and curiousity about it very high. Yet according to Piper Jaffray, sales of the device are approximately 500K over the weekend.

Perhaps this is the best example yet of new marketing.

- product quality
- brand consistentcy
- nurture the market conversation
- let the advocates talk it up
- deliver on expectations

This photo of Patrick Scoble sums up the energy around iPhone.

Technorati tags: Marketing

Quick takeaways, and I use the net promoter basis [positive minus negative].  Word of mouth is the clear winner, but there remains some life in traditional methods.

The really bad category is to be avoided.

1. word of mouth is most persuasive by far [57]
2. newspaper ads beat TV [28]
3. TV ads feature surprisingly strongly [25]
4. collaborative filtering is lower than I’d expect (Amazon) [13]
5. really bad advertising
   1. banner ads [-10]
   2. email spam [-38]
   3. telemarketing [-55]
   4. pop up ads [-60]

Source:  eMarketer

his blog is at cmorants.com

Notes:
- 96% of sales will occur without the search keyword purchase
- Direct Mail: has been the engine that runs the business; customers are sorting mail into bills, and junk. We can measure ROI, and forgot how to create demand
- brand happens everywhere; but where is everywhere? “My Reality” = Physical, Virtual and Dream worlds ….
- deep rooted marketing processes for a world that no longer exists
- marketing prices have increased 8x to 10x for things like Yahoo home page advertising. New media opportunities must be assessed against reach and engagement value
- Telling and selling does not work; try having a real conversation
- Scale from oblivious to listening, to responding. Banks are nowhere on responding
- online conversation tracker, predicts what is important to people (i need to find where he got that from)
-

Technorati tags: Marketing

The data suggests that Google may be less powerful than people thought, at a time when the search engine is seeking to widen its empire – and drawing fresh criticism almost every day as a result of its perceived growing dominance.

Source: The Times

The storm in a teacup episode arose, when Google planned a party in Boston to co-incide with an Ebay event, and the result was that eBay pulled all advertising in Google. Teacup storms aside, the bigger question that immediately struck me was for eBay to evaluate the impact of the $25 million they spend on Google advertising.

I think the Hitwise comments may be premature, and more analysis will be required based on a longer time horizon than one day. Nevertheless, I sense a chink in the armour.

My question regarding Adwords is this …. of those who click through, how many actually purchase.

Technorati tags: Online Advertising

His biggest hate is for spin. He talked a lot about the importance of transparency. he spoke frankly about the Walmart fiasco, when, if i remember right, Edelman staff were found to be ghost blogging supposed Walmart customers. He sees the HQ role as one of standards and training, and encourages all 2,500 staff to be engaged in social media.

One of his main points, was to encourage companies not to leave the social media to the “anti’s”. Get engaged in the conversations, challenge where you think the “anti’s” are wrong and support them when you believe they are right. But recognise this will require changes inside your company, and be prepared for those.

His three takeaways to PR folks in the audience:
- make your stories visual
- dont let yourself become defeatist
- don’t let clients force you into a box

Some quotes:

- “Public Relations is about telling a story well”
- “runway of trust’
- “get companies to give up control of the message”
- “trade-off between control and credibity”; example “Dove campaign”