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Google releases better Android emulator

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Posted 10 April 2012 15:28pm by Patricio Robles with 0 comments

Ask mobile developers who work with both iOS and Android, and you'll probably hear from more than a few of them that the Android emulator is lacking. From poor performance to inconsistencies, there have been no shortage of complaints about the tool developers are provided with to test their Android apps prior to testing them on a real device.

So Google is doing what you'd expect it to do and trying to improve its emulator.

Yesterday, Google's Android engineering team announced a number of improvements to the Android emulator that it hopes will help developers build and test their apps more efficiently. These improvements include:

Improved CPU performance. Google says its new x86 system images and host drivers "offer significantly faster execution" of apps in the emulator.Built-in GPU support. Google says this provides for significant performance gains.A greater level of hardware feature emulation. Now, a tethered device's sensor and multi-touch inputs can be used with the emulator, with support for Bluetooth and NFC coming soon.

Needless to say, Android developers, particularly those left disappointed by the Android emulator in the past, will most likely welcome these improvements. Google, of course, will continue to need to make them, and make them much faster than it has in the past, if it hopes to keep developers on side.

The reality for platform companies hoping to compete in the app ecosystem today is that it's not just enough to provide developers with adequate tooling; developer experience is key. Developer experience covers everything from development tools like IDES and emulators to app store submission and revenue sharing, and with companies like Microsoft trying to be more developer-friendly, the bar for developer experience is only going higher.

View the original article here

Court reinstates Viacom lawsuit against YouTube

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Posted 06 April 2012 14:01pm by Patricio Robles with 0 comments

Google has taken YouTube to new heights since it acquired the popular online video service in 2006 for $1.65bn. And in 2010, it looked like the search giant would be able to continue to grow YouTube without worrying about the billion-dollar lawsuit media conglomerate Viacom had filed against it.

That lawsuit, which alleged that YouTube and Google were responsible for copyright infringement of Viacom content, was thrown out of court on the grounds that YouTube was protected by the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Viacom appealed the summary judgment issued by Judge Louis Stanton, and today the lawsuit was reinstated by the US Court of Appeals in Manhattan, which found that, on several points, the lower court erred in dismissing Viacom's lawsuit.

"A reasonable jury could find that YouTube had actual knowledge or awareness of specific infringing activity on its website," two judges at the US Court of Appeals in Manhattan wrote in their decision (PDF). So the District Court will have to pick up the case again, addressing the issues that the appeals court found it didn't get right the first time.

While this certainly isn't the outcome Google was hoping for, it's not all bad news. The Court of Appeals did find that three of the four software functions in question do qualify for DMCA safe harbor coverage, so while Viacom will have an opportunity to make its case, some of its legal arguments are off the table.

As Google sees it:

All that is left of the Viacom lawsuit that began as a wholesale attack on YouTube is a dispute over a tiny percentage of videos long ago removed from YouTube.

That may be the case, but it doesn't mean that Google has nothing to lose. Conceivably, it could still be on the hook for some damages.

The big question is what Viacom really stands to gain. Even if it manages to beat YouTube on the issues that are part of the reinstated lawsuit, that victory will still be of questionable value. Viacom, and media companies like it, need to play ball if they want to win in the digital space, and given YouTube's popularity, playing ball probably requires dealing with YouTube, past (alleged) infringements notwithstanding.

View the original article here

AOL sells patent collection to Microsoft for $1bn

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Posted 09 April 2012 18:07pm by Patricio Robles with 0 comments

The patent wars continue.

Just weeks after AOL CEO Tim Armstrong was quoted as referring to AOL's 800-plus patent portfolio as "beachfront property in East Hampton" and reports surfaced that the company was shopping the collection, AOL sealed a deal with Microsoft worth just over $1bn.

A memo from Tim Armstrong to AOL staff explained the deal and what it means for AOL:

This morning, we announced that we’ve agreed to sell 800 of our patents and their related applications to Microsoft for $1.056 billion in cash. Most importantly, for the future growth trajectory and innovation for our business, we will continue to hold a significant patent portfolio of over 300 patents and patent applications spanning core and strategic technologies, including advertising, search, content generation/management, social networking, mapping, multimedia/streaming and security among others. AOL also received a perpetual license to the patents being sold to Microsoft, which allows us to continue to innovate and drive strategic growth across all areas of our business.

Armstrong continued:

This process of unlocking the value of our patent portfolio, that we began last fall, is a significant example of focusing our time and energy around strengthening our company’s balance sheet and unlocking value for our shareholders. Most importantly, this is another step forward for the comeback of AOL and allows us to remain laser-focused on our strategy and future growth.

While the $1bn haul is good news for AOL, and appears to represent a good deal given that AOL will retain perpetual licenses for the patents sold, it's questionable as to whether the sale is really a "step forward" for the company.

Yes, Microsoft has added money to the bank, but that doesn't mean that AOL will spend it wisely. The company's Patch initiative, which might be referred to as a train wreck in progress, shows that too much money can be a dangerous thing when it's being invested in an unprofitable concept.

The billion-dollar price tag for AOL's patents is a big one, but not an amount that Microsoft executives will lose sleep over. Just how 'good' (read: legitimate) are the AOL patents, many of which cover technologies related to "online communications"? Who knows?

But as we've seen from the Yahoo-Facebook patent lawsuit circus, patents are sort of like guns: much of the time, you don't need to know if they'll actually fire to accomplish what you're looking to accomplish, meaning any gun is a good gun so long as the party staring down the barrel thinks it might fire.

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What we've been reading this week: APAC edition

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Posted 05 April 2012 23:30pm by Jake Hird with 0 comments

Finally, it’s Friday. But what have we been reading and sharing around the office this week? Here’s a quick round up of the content that grabbed our attention. 

Pop back later to see what our UK and US offices have being checking out, too. 

-

Baidu is far ahead of Google in China, controlling 83% of all searches, compared to Google’s 11%. However, when you look the revenues. Google accounts for nearly a fifth of estimated $866 million (5.5 billion Yuan) ad-spend. 

Originally published 28-Mar-12

The Attorney-General has announced that the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) may review the operation of copyright in the digital environment. Interested stakeholders are invited to comment on the proposed draft terms of reference.

Originally published 30-Mar-12

Taiwan’s 7-Eleven ibon machine allows customers to buy train tickets, concert tickets, pay telephone bills, top up phone and gaming credits and pay cash directly. Going through a physical third-party player makes the customers a little more confident that the deal is trustworthy, and it provides a cosier environment for e-commerce in Taiwan to flourish. 

Originally published 29-Mar-12

Companies needing assistance with digital and mobile marketing efforts aren't required to turn to advertising agencies. They can and will work with anyone who seems to offer the needed expertise... 

Originally published 04-Apr-12

Analyzing heaps of data can give you an edge... or make you fall flat on your face. It all depends on how you use the results. 

Originally published 26-Mar-12

China’s e-commerce king, Taobao, now has a PC web browser of its own that’s aimed at – surprise, surprise – web shoppers and providing security when making online payments. 

Originally published 02-Apr-12

There is a considerable confusion about a difference between SMM and Customer intelligence methodologies. This matrix tries to make it more simple. 

Originally published 28-Mar-12

An appeal court has ruled that Google misled Australian consumers in 2007 by including paid advertisements from competitors in search results – and ordered that a protocol to avoid repeating the practice. Is this the beginning of the end for brand bidding? 

Originally published 03-Apr-12

Just in case you were wondering, Facebook is not trying to build an ad agency, despite recent hiring of some of the industry's creatives... 

Originally published 27-Mar-12

It wasn't so long ago that pipe-smoking men in dark suits could sell their products to women with a patronising pat on the head and a wink. Those days went the way of the cocktail lunch, but sexism still rages in the advertising world. It's just that now, everybody gets in on it. 

Originally published 03-Apr-12 

Jake Hird is a Senior Research Analyst for Econsultancy. Follow him on Twitter and Google +, connect with him on LinkedIn or see what he's keeping an eye on via diigo. 

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Colorado's online use tax reporting law ruled unconstitutional

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Posted 05 April 2012 16:41pm by Patricio Robles with 0 comments

When Colorado politicians pushed an affiliate tax designed to bolster their state's revenue on the back of out-of-state retailers, one thing was certain: the effort would backfire.

After all, we've known for years that states which have tried to find a way to collect sales tax on out-of-state internet sales fail to raise revenue.

The latest state to learn that the hard way is Illinois. When it passed affiliate tax legislation, it saw major retailers like Amazon and Overstock terminate their Illinois affiliates, giving successful busineses dependent on affiliate fees a good reason to flee for other states. Adding insult to injury, we now know that the tax hasn't raised a cent for the financially-troubled state.

Colorado politicans, perhaps aware of the failure of affiliate taxes in other states, decided to take a different approach when they passed legislation in 2010 designed to ensure that residents of its state pay use tax on purchases from large out-of-state internet retailers. Instead of trying to force out-of-state retailers with in-state affiliates to physically collect sales tax, Colorado's legislation sought to force out-of-state retailers to report purchases from Colorado residents. With those reports, Colorado's tax authorities would be able to pursue the use taxes residents are supposed to pay but rarely ever do.

Colorado's new tax law was temporarily blocked while a lawsuit questioning its legality worked its way through the court system and now, that dispute is one step closer to resolution after a US District Court Judge declared the law unconstitutional last Friday.

In issuing his opinion, US District Court judge Robert Blackburn wrote that the so-called Amazon tax would "impose an undue burden on interstate commerce" and that "enforcing a reporting requirement on out-of-state retailers will, by definition, discriminate against the out-of-state retailers by imposing unique burdens on those retailers."

The state of Colorado may very well appeal the decision, so it would be premature for the retail and affiliate groups who led the fight against Colorado's law to declare victory. But given the evidence that trying to tax out-of-state sales on the internet is a fruitless exercise -- evidence which has only grown since Colorado passed its law -- perhaps state officials will take a step back and reconsider just how much their coffers realistically stand to gain from tax laws that are as foolish as they are unenforceable.

View the original article here

Amazon launches eBooks Kindle en Español

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Posted 06 April 2012 11:59am by Patricio Robles with 0 comments

According to new research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 21% of American adults have read an e-book in the past year. In mid-December, that number stood at 17%.

Chalk that increase up to the rise of affordable e-readers and tablets, like the Kindle Fire and NOOK Tablet, which many Americans received as gifts this past holiday season.

With more and more consumers calling themselves owners of e-readers and tablets, it's clear that e-books will play an increasingly important role in the book publishing world.

Given this, it's no surprise that Amazon is working to make sure it's virtual shelves are stocked with the books that appeal to a wide array of consumers. To that end, the online retail giant today announced the launch eBooks Kindle en Español, a section within the Kindle Store specifically targeting Spanish-speakers in the United States.

Containing more than 30,000 titles, including 1,000 free classics, eBooks Kindle en Español features works from popular authors such as Paulo Coelho, Gabriel García Márquez, Camilo Jose Cela, Julia Navarro and Isabel Allende.

All told, the store offers all of the Spanish-language bestsellers available in e-book format (as tracked by Nielsen) and 65 of the top 100 Spanish-language bestsellers (as tracked by Amazon). Also for sale in eBooks Kindle en Español are subscriptions to 14 Latin American newspapers.

Amazon's VP of Kindle Content, Russ Grandinetti, stated in the company's press release:

We expect our Spanish-speaking customers to enjoy both the newly-added books in Spanish, and the improved shopping and reading experience-including dedicated customer service in Spanish-that we've added to eBooks Kindle en Español. 

According to 2010 US Census data, Spanish is the primary language spoken at home by some 37m people, and overall there are 45m Spanish-speakers in the country. That is creating and will continue to create significant opportunities for content creators and distributors, like Amazon, able to find ways to successfully serve this growing market.

View the original article here

Associated Press to use video content from Bambuser members

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Posted 05 April 2012 10:06am by David Moth with 1 comment

Live video streaming site Bambuser has announced that its users will now be able to share newsworthy content via the Associated Press (AP).

The site already allows users to share content through Facebook, Twitter and other social media channels, and the partnership extends this to a potentially global audience – but only once AP has vetted the content.

The announcement comes as Kantar Media reveals that 35% of British internet users read user-generated content (UGC) and articles on newspaper websites, compared to 47% in Brazil, 44% in Argentina and 26% in Germany.

Latin American countries also show the highest rates of activity in terms of submitting articles or comment on the websites of newspaper publishers, with 27% in Brazil and 26% in Argentina, dropping to 17% in Germany and 12% in the UK.

These statistics suggest that there is a steady appetite for UGC that publishers need to be aware of.

The ubiquity of smartphones and other recording devices means that so-called ‘citizen journalists’ are now a common source of content for major news channels, so it makes sense for AP to secure a direct way to source this.

As part of the new arrangement, the AP also will explore use of Bambuser’s live video platform as a news gathering tool for AP journalists.

AP deputy director of international video Mark Davies said UGC has become integral to covering breaking news, particularly where access is restricted.

Bambuser users have already provided AP with live feeds of fighting inside Syria. This agreement will allow us to share even more Bambuser news video with a worldwide audience, via more than 700 broadcast networks.”

Social technologist Christian Payne said Bambuser had done well to survive while many similar video sharing sites had fallen by the wayside.

I switched over to Bambuser about three years ago as it seemed to really know what bloggers wanted, were innovating and trying new things.”

He said that citizen journalists and activists had been using Bambuser for years to share newsworthy content and the deal with AP would give its users confidence that the site has a secure future.

Hopefully this will validate the platform and encourage other agencies and journalists to use it for live streaming news, which will in turn educate citizen journalists how to produce more professional content.”

David Moth is a Reporter at Econsultancy. You can follow him on Twitter. 

View the original article here

Coming soon: .google?

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Posted 09 April 2012 18:52pm by Patricio Robles with 6 comments

Thanks to an ICANN decision, new gTLDs are coming.

According to a recent Afilias study, a sizable minority of brands may apply for their own gTLDs, ushering in a new era in which consumers are asked to visit websites ending in .brand, and not .com.

There's reason to be skeptical about the new gTLDs. Many, for instance, see them as a cash grab for ICANN and a handful of companies. Some, myself included, believe the .brand gTLDs will have little utility for companies but that some will snap them up anyway as a defensive move.

We will soon find out whether the skepticism is well-placed or not. On April 12, ICANN will close applications for the new gTLDs. So who is buying, and who isn't?

According to Ad Age, most of the "major marketers" it contacted were silent on the matter, for obvious reasons. But one of the few companies that did indicate it's applying for gTLDs is a big one: Google.

A Google spokesperson told Ad Age, "We plan to apply for Google's trademarked TLDs, as well as a handful of new ones," adding "We want to help make this a smooth experience for web users -- one that promotes innovation and competition on the internet."

While the spokesperson did not reveal which gTLDs the search giant would be applying for, it's logical to expect the company to apply for .google and .brand extensions for some of its top properties, including YouTube. As Ad Age's Jason Del Rey notes, "one could see using '.YouTube' as a way to mark a brand's YouTube channel destination -- for example, www.AdAge.YouTube."

Google will apparently be joined by companies like Deloitte and Canon in its new gTLD quest. But others, including Facebook and Pepsi, are apparently going to wait and see.

"Consumers are always going to think about first going to MountainDew.com or Pepsi.com before they think about Drink.Pepsi," Pepsi's global head of digital, Shiv Singh, told Ad Age. "That's not going to change anytime soon, and maybe not for a few years."

It may never change. Because ICANN's process will make it all but impossible for squatters to register gTLDs for brands like Pepsi, the work of branding .brand domains will fall to the companies which are going to not only register new gTLDs, but actually use them. Google may be one, but unfortunately for the supporters of the new gTLDs, it may only be one of a few with the resources to do anything meaningful.

View the original article here

Online advertising trends in Q1 2012

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Posted 05 April 2012 15:46pm by Heather Taylor with 0 comments

With the adoption of new ad formats and further penetration of tablets, the growth of paid search is on the up. According to IgnitionOne's new online report on Global Online Advertising, the first quarter of 2012 showed a 30.3% year on year growth in search advertising. 

The comprehensive report outlines some of the biggest areas of growth in this area including targeted paid search spend, Yahoo/ Bing market share and an increase of mobile search activity, especially from tablets.

The first quarter of this year has seen the highest year on year growth rate in ad spend since before 2009. Google CPCs are on the decline and are down 4.4% while an increase in clicks (29.1%) as well as click through rates (20.4%) has been seen. As users can select results that are more relevant to them compared to a past reliance on blanket keyword advertising, the adoption of new ad formats seem to have an advantage over organic search. If this continues, marketers may see better return on investment on paid search.

According to IgnitionOne's research, there was more competition in Yahoo/Bing auctions after their recent best practice and broad match keyword push. Using broad match keywords as a stepping stone into exact match, there has been an increase of 40% year on year for these types of keywords even though traffic has barely increased. This change may be the reason for a 46.4% increase in US search advertising spend compared to Google's growth of 26.6% year on year. With this jump in spend, Yahoo and Bing have had their best quarter since the two joined forces and now make up 21.2% of the market share.

Though only 12.3% of the total search advertising spend in Q1 was allocated to mobile search, mobile clicks were up 246.1% year on year and impressions were up 119.9%. It is no surprise that mobile search is on the rise, and the adoption of tablets are adding to our need to search on the go. In fact 67.4% of the mobile search advertising budget in the US was attributed to search on tablets. 

As tablet click through rates are 0.6% higher than PC rates of 2.5%, this will definitely be an area that will continue to grow in terms of spend over 2012. With a reliance on first-position search advertising, small screen ads would have greater results even though the fight to be at the top is more difficult. This could indicate why mobile devices with full browsers almost doubled the PC click through rates at 4.4%.

Overall, the growth of advertising spend is encouraging. Google is still the leader in the paid search space but the move of Yahoo and Bing to merge as a single force seems to be paying off.  With our continued adoption of tablets, mobile search will rise throughout 2012. Until these devices saturate the market, this rise will continue into the foreseeable future.

View the original article here

Netflix: the algorithm company

Netflix: the algorithm company | Econsultancy Skip to content Privacy and cookie policy Member Log In Join Now Basket Contact Us MembershipWhy Join EconsultancyPricing & PlansReportsMarket DataInternet StatisticsSurvey ReportsInfographicsTemplate FilesWeb Project TemplatesDigital Marketing TemplatesRequest For Proposals (RFPs)Business CasesBest PracticeBest Practice GuidesBeginner's GuidesJUMP MagazineTrends & InnovationInnovation ReportTrend BriefingsSupplier SelectionBuyer's GuidesEvent PresentationsTrainingCoursesCustom TrainingSkillSet™QualificationsMSc in Digital Marketing CommunicationsMSc in Internet RetailingDigital CertificatesOur Training TeamTraining AdviceWhy Train with Econsultancy?EventsDigital CreamDigital Cream San JoseDigital Cream SydneyDigital Cream ChicagoDigital Cream SingaporeJUMPJUMP 2012 LondonJUMP 2012 New YorkConferencesFuture of Digital Marketing 2012FUNNEL Past ConferencesSocial EventsJUMP Webinar: Social CommerceQualifications Open Evening - London Qualifications Open Evening - Manchester Qualifications Open Evening - London Qualifications Open Evening - Manchester Qualifications Open Evening - London Qualifications Open Evening - Manchester Past Social EventsBriefingsInnovation AwardsWhy enter?Awards Ceremony2012 Winners2012 ShortlistJobsView JobsPost a JobBlogMoreAbout EconsultancyPress ReleasesConsulting ServicesSupplier DirectoryMember DirectoryForumsBest PracticeSupplier SelectionOther TopicsEconsultancy LabsProject ArachnidBrowse by topicAffiliate marketingB2BE-commerce & conversionEmail marketingMobileOnline advertisingOnline PRProject managementSearch marketing (SEO, PPC)Social mediaStrategy & business planningUser experience & designWeb analytics & measurement HomeBlog Netflix: the algorithm company

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Posted 09 April 2012 19:58pm by Patricio Robles with 2 comments

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If you were asked to think of one company that is defined by its use of algorithms, you might name Google.

And for good reason: the search giant's algorithms are not only at the heart of its success, but for many, they're the source of constant hope and fear as changes to them can literally make or break businesses.

But another prominent name on the consumer internet might also be a viable contender for the title 'algorithm company': Netflix.

In a post on its blog, Netflix revealed details around the recommendation algorithms it uses. Note the plural 'algorithms'. Netflix personalization science and engineering staff members Xavier Amatriain and Justin Basilico explain:

Personalization starts on our homepage, which consists of groups of videos arranged in horizontal rows. Each row has a title that conveys the intended meaningful connection between the videos in that group. Most of our personalization is based on the way we select rows, how we determine what items to include in them, and in what order to place those items.

Take as a first example the Top 10 row: this is our best guess at the ten titles you are most likely to enjoy. Of course, when we say “you”, we really mean everyone in your household. It is important to keep in mind that Netflix’ personalization is intended to handle a household that is likely to have different people with different tastes. That is why when you see your Top10, you are likely to discover items for dad, mom, the kids, or the whole family. Even for a single person household we want to appeal to your range of interests and moods. To achieve this, in many parts of our system we are not only optimizing for accuracy, but also for diversity.

That's just the beginning. Netflix's algorithms also factor in awareness, freshness, similarity, and social connections, amongst other things.

Why the sophistication? Miraculously, Netflix says that "75% of what people watch is from some sort of recommendation." From this perspective, it's not a stretch to say that Netflix's business today is driven by the ability of its recommendation algorithms to make good recommendations. Which sort of explains why the company created a million-dollar challenge with the goal of improving its recommendations by what appeared to be a small margin.

While most companies aren't as big as Netflix, many businesses large and small will increasingly find that algorithms are a crucial part of serving customers effectively. From helping customers find the right products, to reducing fraud, to delivering services more efficiently and cheaply, there are arguably few businesses that can't benefit from a Netflix-like approach.

The challenge of course, is increasingly not data. Thanks to the big data trend, more and more companies are collecting that. The challenge is performing the type of analysis that Netflix-like algorithms perform. With this in mind, the really important trend to watch may not be big data, but rather big analysis.

Patricio Robles is a tech reporter at Econsultancy. Follow him on Twitter.

Reader comments (2): Add your own Martin Ryan Bronze

Technology Consulting Manager at Javelin Group

10:47AM on 10th April 2012

While I agree with the sentiment, most retailers can not devote the resources that are available to Netflix, nor expect to achieve the results that they do.

Most are today content with automated product recommendations from the likes of Baynote and richrelevance. These products (and many others) are rapidly maturing and becoming a staple of basic website personalisation. Retailers that do not yet use them should investigate them as a priority since the return on investment often looks compelling.

The interesting developments are in using these algorithmic personalisation tools with other tools. For example using them with search engine results sets to provide personalised rankings, or with customer service knowledgebases to help reduce contacts per order.

Nick Tsinonis Silver

CEO at RecSys Ltd

12:14PM on 10th April 2012

The great thing about data is that it does not need to ask questions, just observe behaviours and learn from them and apply these learnings in real-time.

Every business in the next few years will be using algorithms to not only predict users tastes but a mix of personalization, discovery and prediction algorithms allows for:

- higher sales and retention due to personalized marketing via learning through crowd and trend behaviour

- Personalized serindipity assistance. More aha! moments through discovery of new products that customers would never logically look at

- better understanding of customer journey to target customers in different ways in a real-time fashion

- Better prediction of users exhibiting scam, spam, fraudulent and troll behaviour

- New discoveries from user-to-product behaviour leading to new branches of products, that lead product development

... and more

In short, testable and observable behaviours can lead to almost any predictive model being applied.

Nick Tsinonis
www.RecSys.com

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Reebok uses PeerIndex for new CrossFit campaign

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Posted 10 April 2012 12:08pm by David Moth with 1 comment

Reebok is to invite 1,000 fitness-based social media influencers to free training events as part of a campaign to promote its association with the CrossFit exercise trend.

CrossFit is a popular strength and conditioning programme in the US that Reebok has been associated with since 2010.

The top 100 most influential people as identified by PeerIndex's PeerPerks service will also receive a free pair of Reebok’s RealFlex trainers, which is part of the brand's global ‘The Sport of Fitness Has Arrived' marketing campaign.

The PeerPerks campaign starts today, targeting social media users who are deemed to have relevant influence levels in sports, athletics and fitness.

After arriving at a PeerPerks hosted microsite, users sign in with either Twitter or Facebook to be told whether they're influential enough to have won a free session. They can then book, and invite friends to join them.

Reebok hopes that discussion of the free events on social networks will drive traffic to this microsite, as well as generating positive brand association for Reebok with the CrossFit trend.

Digital marketing manager Mark Allin said that PeerPerks allows the company to better target influential fitness enthusiasts and help build Reebok’s online community.

We’re worked before with members of the CrossFit community, but this campaign is about attracting new people and raising awareness of Reebok’s affiliation with the programme.”

He said that ROI would be judged on driving people to the events, but also on the number of new followers and fans on its social media profiles.

We are aiming to add to our online community and develop more long term engagement with fitness enthusiasts. We are confident that the people we are targeting will talk about the events on social media so that puts the pressure on us to deliver a good experience.”

The CrossFit events will also act as a recruitment method for a new TV show Reebok is launching in partnership with Eurosport.

‘The Box’ starts this Saturday and will see competitors from the UK, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Russia and Sweden test their fitness in the Reebok-sponsored CrossFit Fitness Championships.

Allin said that the digital campaign is integral for attracting show competitors, increasing both awareness and coverage of the TV programmes.

David Moth is a Reporter at Econsultancy. You can follow him on Twitter. 

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Social customer service: eight things to consider before you start

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Posted 10 April 2012 10:22am by Steve Richards with 0 comments

There is a need to step back and think strategically about your social customer service offering before you leap in and do it. 

By now, most brands realise that they can’t ignore it. They will probably have seen the case studies of people getting social customer service right and feel a slight sense of panic about getting it wrong as barely a week goes past without a social customer service failure going viral. 

But as Luke Brynley-Jones outlines in the previous link, though they know it’s important, so many companies are a long way off developing a coherent approach here, and for a multitude of reasons. 

There is of course a need to step back and think strategically about your social customer service offering before you leap in and do it. Easier said than done, of course; and you’ll need to make sure that you have an interim offering of basic monitoring and response (even if that response is a request to call or email) in the interim. 

It’s not a comprehensive list, but we’ve been thinking about some of the things you need to consider before you put a social customer service strategy in place. It would be great to hear any other suggestions below.

And where you’ll listen, and by what means. Searching for brand terms is a given, but how far you want your related terms to cover? At a certain point, you’ll have more information than you can usefully interpret and act on within a reasonable time period.

Doing some research into these tolerances is necessary to understand how many staff you’ll need, how they’ll need to be trained and how your response times will work. This will also help you work out what software you’ll need to get the information in the first place.

Once you know how you’re going to listen, you need to know how to respond. Of course you’ll want to deal with customers in the channel in which they instigated conversation and establish a tone of voice.

But how much will you take offline? What about the community support model, where users and fans can help each other? (The model that giffgaff has built its entire business on, and one that BT uses – giving community members the chance to respond before replying in an official capacity.)

You also need to consider how to weight and prioritise responses. Twitter uses may shout loudly but does that mean customers calling in deserve lower priority?

It’s about more than simply putting a social team into a call centre or training your call centre staff on social. It’s also about levels of autonomy and approval that staff engaging with customers on social media will be permitted.

Will you develop a Twelpforce, will your team have the power to make offers of compensation, or are you imagining having legal teams sign off all tweets? 

There are many methods you can use to measure the effectiveness of your activities – cost per resolution, speed of resolution, positive tweets/discussions about resolution and more, depending on what matters to you.

However, it’s really important to benchmark social customer services against other customer service channels and evaluate it on a level playing field. 

Global accounts present many challenges: languages, local market take-up of different social channels (Sina Weibo in China, anyone?) and different ways that social is used.

Multiple local accounts will probably need to show some degree of similarity and co-ordination of operation, but a single global account will need to be able to handle these nuances.

Will your main brand presence on Twitter be used to handle customer service queries (like Vodafone here), or will you separate the channels for marketing messages and customer service? What about different business divisions? How many Twitter handles can you handle?

Do you have the facility or inclination to open your customer service channels 24/7? There’s not necessarily a right or wrong answer here. KLM’s oft-quoted social customer service channels are open all hours, but not all brands have the resources for this.

ASB Bank in New Zealand has a ‘virtual branch’ on Facebook that clearly states its ‘opening hours’. If you visit the virtual branch outside these hours, you’ll see a friendly explanation video and a ‘closed’ sign, with details of how to resolve your query when the ‘branch’ opens again. 

Realistic turnaround times will depend on resources and on taking all of the above points into consideration.

You’ll need to assess likely levels of demand and resources, and though best practice is to respond within minutes or within an hour, this way you can at least launch your social customer services offering with a realistic, transparent and publicised turnaround time.

Knowing the factors that influence this mean you’ll also be able to amend resolution times when crises occur. Going into this with your eyes open and letting customers do the same is key.  

What else do brands need to consider as they set up their social customer service offerings? 

Steve Richards is MD of social media agency Yomego and a guest blogger for Econsultancy.

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What the Lumia 900 means for Nokia and Microsoft, and how they're bringing it to market

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Posted 06 April 2012 14:59pm by Sam Dwyer with 3 comments

Nokia and Microsoft’s sharp-looking new phone, the Lumia 900, is coming out today, and while there are no visible signs of panic, both companies desperately need a winner.

Nokia has been struggling for years now to compete in the rapidly changing mobile market, and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 OS has achieved only 2% penetration. Both companies are in danger of being locked out entirely, and need a smash hit.

So far, the results of their labors look pretty good. But will that be good enough? Nokia lost $1.4b in 2011, which includes a fourth quarter cash payment of $250m made by Microsoft. If the Lumia isn’t a breakout, is Microsoft willing to keep Nokia afloat?

 Here’s a look at how all the pieces are coming together:

Physically, the new Lumia 900 is lovely. Nokia has developed it’s polycarbonate unibody design through several iterations now, and the look is unlike anything else on the market except for, perhaps, a second generation iPod Nano. The fit and finish are reportedly superb - a sharp contrast to the chintzy feel exuded by most Androids. The colors of the AMOLED screen are richer than an iPhones, though some reviewers are complaining about inferior resolution. Photographs are through an 8mp Carl Zeiss lens (which means nothing), and they look merely OK.

The Windows Phone 7 OS is visually attractive, and is capable of competing with iOS and Android. First-time smartphone buyers (and there will be many of these over the next few years) will not be unpleased. Design fiends who prefer the look of Windows Phone 7 may convert. Android nerds and iPhone partisans will not, but that’s hardly surprising.

There are early complaints about the number of apps available in the Windows shop: 80,000 and growing.

Evaluating an app store by it’s quantity of apps is a mediocre metric, but it isn't meaningless. App quantity indicates the enthusiasm of a development community, if not necessarily the quality of it’s labors. More Microsoft money is being spent to develop an “app campus” in order to encourage developer platform adoption.

The potential for powerful Xbox Live integrations is intriguing. If enough Windows Mobile phones are sold, this connection could be the site of some exciting action.

The Lumia 900 will be available through AT&T at a price of $99, with a two year contract. The carrier is giving the phone “hero” placement as it’s first big LTE phone, and is permitting it to be used as a wireless hotspot for up to five devices (no doubt in part to highlight speed of new LTE network). Also, as Matt Rosoff of Business Insider notes, AT&T is making the Lumia 900 the exclusive free phone for employees. This special treatment comes at the reportedly low, low cost to Nokia of $25m of Microsoft’s money.

AT&T is undoubtably pleased to have a potential knock-out product made by a more agreeable partner than Apple.

Absolutely. The Palm Pre was given similar “hero” treatment by Sprint, which actually paid for the privilege in the form of marketing spend. Getting the Lumia into the pockets of AT&T employees is a smart move - one of the complaints made by Palm was that Sprint sales reps didn’t know the product, and couldn’t convey the finer points of it’s unique WebOS. 

The Pre was also positively reviewed by tech bloggers, positioned as an iPhone alternative, and heavily marketed. It didn’t matter. Palm was subsequently purchased by HP, which recycled WebOS for use in their TouchPad tablet, which was positioned as an iPad alternative, heavily marketed, and also a humiliating failure.

Palm was widely mocked for attempting to out-cool Apple with arty, conceptual ads directed by Tarsem Singh that featured an early New Wave hit by the band Freur, and were probably derived from Ridely Scott’s famous work for Chanel in 1980.

Nokia and Microsoft aren’t playing that uptown game, at least not right away. Nokia has been making a large PR push targeting "influencers." The first several Lumia ads in mid-March portrayed the phone as the rugged choice of youthful male extreme sports enthusiasts under the slogan "Focus on Amazing," and exhorted viewers to sign up for trial phones. This was conducted through the main Nokia Facebook page and the web property Nokia Connects, which has been building the Nokia brand while focusing on photography. 

Newer ads, released several days ago and picked up widely by gadget blogs, go negative on the iPhone. There are three of them: they're painfully unfunny, and are aimed squarely at Apple, which is portrayed as an arrogant corporate monolith. This is one example:

 The videos push three critiques of the iPhone:

The screen is hard to see in sunlightIt breaks easilyIf you hold it wrong, it loses signal

The first point, about the screen, is probably a defensive positioning. Though the argument is correct - the iPhone does wash out - few people seem to be complaining about this issue. The bigger problem for Nokia in comparison with the iPhone is the lower screen resolution of the Lumia. The second point, about resistance to breakage, is a position of strength for Nokia. The third point, raising atennagate, is a little weird, because the iPhone 4S fixed this problem. But Nokia is willing to take what it can get, and perhaps there are still some low-hanging fruit out there who will find this ad compelling.

These ads direct to a microsite, Smart Phone Beta Test, which has three programs:

To instill a sense of impatience, and connect it to a date. This is accomplished by the countdown timer and video of man waiting in an office, doing nothing. Distributing the three videosHub for a Twitter influencer campaign focused on Beta Testers  

As of 4/4, the Beta Testers microsite has been shared 1,287 times on Twitter and Liked 3k times. The hashtag for the Beta Testers Twitter campaign, #betaphone, has been tweeted 126 times and the @smartphonebeta account has 650 followers.

These aren’t huge numbers - they’re a little fizz that can’t hurt. The Lumia also has premier placement on Nokia and AT&T’s websites. AT&T’s Facebook also manages to squeeze mentions of the product in to it’s messaging mix. But curiously there’s not a word about the phone on any of Microsoft’s digital marketing presences except for it’s Windows Mobile site.

Today, for release day, Nokia is executing a Times Square takeover in NYC, which means coordinated digital billboards - hopefully clever ones that can be intereacted with via text or other means. A "special guest" is performing -  and AT&T reps are claiming that the Lumia 900 is "above anything we've ever done."

UPDATE: The party was a splashy, big success, with lots of cool billboards and Nicki Minaj.

The Lumia 900 is a really nice-looking phone, but it's not revolutionary. The marketing is understated. Nokia and Microsoft are playing it cool. They don't want consumers - or anyone else - to spend time thinking how close to the edge they are, and they don't want to set up the Palm Pre narrative of this is our do or die phone.

There's no show-stopper campaign that gets in front of the product - the PR and marketing for the Lumia 900 is very specifically targeted and articulated, and seems to be generating interest. Early adopters might buy this and be proud of it. Average AT&T store shoppers in for their first smartphone may "discover" it, and be seduced by it's lovely form. 

Despite what the reps say, this isn't an iPhone-sized blockbuster. It's a really nice phone, and Nokia and Microsoft are hoping that it sells accordingly. With enough support from AT&T, it might.

Unfortunately for a slow-burn strategy, it's not clear that the targets Nokia and Microsoft are struggling to hit now will be relevant in, say, a years time. The mobile device market is poised for greater convergence between laptop, tablet, and TV functions.

Apple is in a prime position to pull the strings tighter between it’s iPhone, iPad, computers, and Apple TV. Google and it’s Android partners will be able to cobble a competing product together - and we’ve still yet to see what will come out of their Motorola acquisition. Amazon is lurking in the background as a wild card. RIM is a dead duck.

Without Microsoft, Nokia would be almost completely out of runway - the tragic backdrop for all of these events is that the company is slashing R&D spending and letting employees go.

Microsoft is in a curious position. It's still Microsoft. It has plenty of cash. It also has a lead on the race into the connected living room in the form of the Xbox. And now it's intimately involved with a mobile hardware manufacturer.

If the new Nokia phones fail to sell in the US and the company can no longer continue to operate independently, Microsoft is in position to harvest the assets and follow Google and Amazon as they attempt to Apple-fy into end-to-end digital service providers. They might not want to do this - liscensing is the story of Microsoft's success, and is what led them to market dominance - but they have the option open. And it might become necessary.

Sam Dwyer is an Analyst based in Econsultancy's New York office. He can be followed on Twitter @sammydwyer.

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Amazon targeting FMCGs to boost ad revenues

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Posted 05 April 2012 11:55am by David Moth with 0 comments

Amazon is looking to boost its ad revenues by attracting FMCG brands as advertisers across both its website and mobile offerings.

Reuters reports that at ad:tech San Francisco Amazon’s VP of global advertising Lisa Utzschneider said that boosting ad sales to FMCGs was a “huge opportunity” for the company.

There are millions of mums researching products and buying online. Mums have $2trn of annual spending power."

Amazon began selling ad space across its web properties six years ago, and recently began doing the same for Kindle devices.

US FMCG online ad spend will approach $5bn by 2015 according to eMarketer, so it's little wonder that Amazon wants to tap into the market.

Utzschneider said that currently only 4% of Amazon shoppers buy FMCG goods via the site, so there is huge growth potential, particularly when you consider Amazon's wealth of customer knowledge.

The e-tailer recently ran an ad campaign for Huggies Slip-ons nappies across its websites and Kindle devices that included an offer in some of the ads for $2 off - plus a 20% discount on Amazon's subscribe-and-save program. 

Some of the ads also had customer reviews embedded in them.

According to Utzschneider the ads made consumers 30 times more likely to find out more about the nappies and 13 times more likely to buy them.

Furthermore, the ads that ran on mobile devices helped double sales of Huggies Slip-ons via such devices during the campaign.

The drive to boost ad sales comes as part of a move by Amazon to diversify its revenue streams away from simply selling books and DVDs.

As well as its hugely successful Kindle e-reader, Amazon is trying to take on Apple with its Kindle Fire tablet and rumoured Kindle smartphone.

It has also been reported that its associated Android app store is currently outperforming Google Play.

Amazon has also launched its own daily deals site, AmazonLocal, and a subscription video streaming service called Prime Instant Video that seeks to rival Netflix and Hulu.

David Moth is a Reporter at Econsultancy. You can follow him on Twitter. 

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The tag revolution: infographic

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Posted 10 April 2012 11:30am by Vikki Chowney with 0 comments

One of the hottest topics from Digital Cream London 2012 last month was attribution.

Though not neccessarily the sexiest of subjects, the potential to use this to directly measure which marketing activities are driving conversions is huge.

As DC Storm's Seth Richardson outlined for us, the real value is the long term campaign and budget optimisation benefits.

Obviously, tag management start-up Qubit agrees with thtat sentiment. 

Specifically, the team of former Googlers believes that tag management holds the key to better, more attributable online marketing. 

It's not the easiest of techniques to place though, and as such, the company has created an introduction to the space below.

Vikki is News Editor for Econsultancy. You can follow her on Twitter or Google+.

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