Social Marketing & Digital Agency

Speaking at Cybermummy to Blogging Mums

So tomorrow is The Cybermummy Conference. I admit I’m excited. Not just because I finally get to meet so many familiar online friends and associates, or because I may get to tell India Knight how much she makes me laugh, or because Mumsnet‘s Justine Roberts and Google’s Technical Account Manager Eve Andersson are on my panel, but mainly because I am the moderator of the lunchtime session on ‘Influence and Statistics and how to Expand a Blog’s Audience’, ie how to increase your reach online and measure it and then apply what you learn so can do more of what works and less of what doesn’t…

…ooohhh, getting a shiver down my back just writing this, because as this is what I have spent most of my grown up life doing, and it still gets me excited!

While I would never lay claim to a tech or geek mantle, I admit to getting ridiculously enthusiastic about digital technology, always have right from the earliest days when I was at university playing around on Quantel’s paintbox and with editing suites and cameras and mixing desk… yum…, but what really – and excuse the terminology – turns me on is the application of said technology and working out how I can use it for my business or for my clients.

In fact, whatever the new technology or bit of kit, trend or gadget, my first thoughts after “Mmm interesting, how does that work then?” is…

“What does it do, and how can I use it to… [delete as applicable] produce, influence, attract attention, and make money … for [insert self or client or brand or event]”…

Quickly followed by “and how do I quantify that, measure it, analyse it, monitor it… find out whether it works and how… make it do more of what does work and less of what doesn’t…”

and then “how do I join the dots up to these other lovely technologies over here… to increase profit, brand profile, bottom line…”

Before finally “Wash and Repeat…” (well if it works keep doing it!)

Which is probably why I have ended up running www.themediamarketingco.com, and working as a digital marketing strategist – because I love it. Because it’s where the whole digital revolution really gets exciting don’t you think?

Not just the ‘shiny button-pushing, whizz bang, isn’t it AMAZING’ bit, but the fact that it facilitates so much, enables so many of us ordinary people to do more and have more influence, clout, time and money than ever before.

I mean that’s fantastic isn’t it, when you look at the bigger picture. When has that ever happened before? Never. Who of our parents’ generation would have ever predicted it? No one. How much of a force for good is this going to be and will it be in the future? Limitless.

Cheers Cybermummy and all who made it possible, and here’s to many more ‘ordinary digital gatherings’ in the future.

14 January 2010

A new mobile phone technology called near field communication (NFC) will begin to replace traditional wallets and purses from 2011, according to a new research report published today.

Banks and mobile network operators will both be seeking to make money from
the introduction of the new mobile payments technology, the report
predicts, and are set to go head to head in a bid to gain control of the
market.

“NFC technology will be used to replace everything from credit cards and
loyalty cards to bus and train tickets, library cards, door keys and even
cash,” says Sarah Clark, author of ‘NFC: The Road to Commercial
Deployment’. “What hasn’t yet been decided, however, is who will win the
battle to provide consumers with their new hi-tech mobile wallets.”

The UK, France, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Taiwan and Korea will be
the first countries to get the new mobile wallets, the report predicts. The
US, Canada, Spain, Germany, Italy, Norway, the Czech Republic, Romania and
Australia are also expected to be early adopters of NFC.

Businesses ranging from retail and travel to fast food, consumer goods,
tourism and entertainment are all expected to be affected by the arrival of
NFC services. Government and educational service providers will also be
impacted by its arrival.

“Decisions made in 2010 will be critical in determining which mobile
network operators, which banks, which industry suppliers and which service
providers become the leaders in the field,” she adds. “Ultimately, only two
or three companies in each country will succeed in building a major new
business providing NFC services to businesses and consumers. The winners
could be banks or mobile operators, or even a new entrant to the market.”

Consumers with NFC-enabled phones will be able to simply touch their phone
to a ‘smart’ poster or product label containing an RFID chip to sign up for
a loyalty programme, collect a money-off coupon, download a trailer for a
new movie, access the latest travel information or go straight to a
product’s website to read customer ratings and reviews and compare prices.

Social networks will also get a major boost. With an NFC phone, you can
friend someone online when you meet them in the real world by simply
touching your phones together. Or touch your phone to a smart poster as you
go into a restaurant to automatically update your Facebook status and get
an offer coupon from the venue as a thank you for telling your friends
you’re there.

Commuters will be able to store their travel pass on their phone and mobile
versions of airline boarding cards, hotel room keys and even passports will
make it quicker and easier to get from place to place. Paying bills will
become much simpler, too. Simply touch two NFC phones together to transfer
money to a friend, buy a drink or pay for a service.

“No more rummaging around for the right change, card, keys or paperwork and
no more texting your location to your friends — with NFC everything can be
handled by your mobile device,” says Clark. “And, of course, NFC is a
highly secure technology. Consumers will be able to instantly lock all the
mobile wallet services on their phone if it is lost or stolen and then get
them automatically transferred onto a new phone as soon as it arrives. They
will also be able to use their phone to make payments even when the battery
is flat.”

Interestingly, this is a subject our digital techno blonde, Claire, covered in depth for WTF magazine in 2008, as Japan has been using this technology for a number of years now – see here for ‘Going Japanese‘ article.

According to recent research by content management association AIIM, on average 51% of the paper documents scanned by user organisations are born digital, having been output directly from a computer application.

The survey also found that 25% of scanned documents are photocopied before
being sent for scanning, and that only 31% are destroyed after scanning,
indicating a reluctance by users and organisations to lose sight of mission
critical documents. On balance, however, the number of users who reported a
decrease in the volume of paper and photocopies as a result of scanning was
the same as the number who reported an increase.

The AIIM report compares strategies for outsourced, centralised and
distributed scanning, and concludes that there is a move back to
centralised scanning operations, along with a greater investment in capture
and recognition software to automate data capture and document indexing
processes. Although outsourcing delivers cost and management benefits,
quality of indexing and difficulty of integration back into electronic
archives are given as the biggest disadvantages.

Doug Miles, Director of Market Intelligence for AIIM, comments, “We have
seen a steady increase in the use of scanning and capture as an input to
business processes, with 42% of documents now being scanned-to-process
rather than scanned-to-archive. Proximity to the process, and the level of
integration with other enterprise systems become more important in these
applications. Users find that distributed processing with departmental
scanners and MFPs improves ownership by the process owners, but office
staff and knowledge workers need training and encouragement to ensure
accurate indexing.”

The AIIM survey also found that 46% of users report payback on their
scanning and capture investments within 12 months, with two-thirds seeing
returns within 18 months. These returns are consistent across many types of
content and process, with invoices, contracts and application forms being
the most popular.
Based on over 850 responses, the AIIM research report is entitled
“Capture: local, central, outsource – what’s working best?”  Part of
the AIIM Industry Watch series, the full report is free to download from
the AIIM website. It is underwritten by Abbyy, Autonomy, EMC Corporation,
Epson, Image Source, and Visioneer.

UK’s largest homegrown news aggregator refuses to sign Newspaper Licensing Agency agreement, branding it “unacceptable and of questionable legitimacy”

NewsNow.co.uk, the UK’s largest homegrown news aggregator, is to pull all links to many national newspaper websites from its subscription service as a result of a failure to reach agreement with The Newspaper Licensing Agency Limited (the NLA) over the NLA’s proposed “Web Database Licence” scheme. However, links to NLA member publications will remain available via NewsNow’s free website. The NLA had issued an ultimatum to NewsNow to sign its new “Web Database Licence” by Thursday, December 10th, 2009, or face the prospect of immediate legal action.  The “Web Database Licence” purported to license NewsNow’s use of headlines linking to NLA member publications in NewsNow’s subscription service. However, in NewsNow’s view, the legal basis for the NLA’s claims that a licence is or was required remain unsubstantiated. Although NewsNow believes it has a strong case, it did not feel it could justify the considerable costs of pursuing the matter in court at this time. According to Struan Bartlett, Managing Director and Chairman of NewsNow: “Unfortunately, we have not been able to reach an agreement with the NLA. In spite of the NLA’s claims to the contrary, we continue to maintain that what they are demanding of ourselves and our customers is unacceptable and of questionable legitimacy. Irrespective of the lack of a legal basis, the NLA’s licence is not fit for purpose. This is not just about the charges they intend to impose on us, but the charges they would also impose on our customers for receiving and circulating links within their own organisations. In addition, it is a perhaps an under-reported fact that the terms dictated by the NLA scheme would oblige us to hand over customer details to the NLA, which seems to be developing a potential rival service itself. It is hard to imagine that this kind of behaviour would be tolerated in any other sector. The NLA has also offered no reasonable guarantees of limitations on the increase of costs over time. We strongly feel that to accept the NLA’s terms would set a dangerous precedent restricting our customers’ ability to conduct their business freely. We see this as a ‘slippery slope’ towards any free-to-access website demanding licence fees from any organisation for circulating or clicking on links.” Newspaper titles that NewsNow is to pull from its subscription service include The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and the Daily Mirror. A full list of NLA member publications can be obtained at http://www.nla-web.co.uk/downloads/NLA%20Licensed%20Websites.pdf. Bartlett added: “We have worked extremely hard to seek clarification from the NLA and its solicitors on the legal basis for either NewsNow or our customers requiring a licence. I am sorry to say that the NLA has not substantiated the legal basis for its licence. Indeed in our view its arguments do not hold water. We believe that other organisations who privately agree with our position have reluctantly signed the NLA agreement under pressure. However, we are not in a position on our own to fund an extremely costly legal case on behalf of an entire industry. Regretfully, we will therefore as a precautionary measure be removing all links to NLA member publications from our subscription service. We will continue to seek clarification of the legal basis for the NLA’s web licensing scheme.”

Independent News & Media has partnered with iome to launch the first white-labelled social event planning tool on The Independent newspaper’s website. The service creates new web and mobile revenues for the publisher, as part of its 2010 digital media strategy.

The free-to-access service provides the 10 million* monthly visitors to the
Independent’s website with a useful tool that helps them plan their social
lives and make savings via discount vouchers.  In this socially-connected
world, with demands on people’s time and money, consumers want to easily
discover new things to do and places to go, find offers and share that
information with friends; until now, no one service has been able to
provide consumers with an easy way to do so.  The iome white-label service
fills this gap.

The Independent will generate new revenues through the service, on
purchases made through the portal (such as theatre tickets and restaurant
bookings) in addition to advertising and sponsorship.  And, by partnering
with iome, the Independent has been able to go to market with its new
branded service in less than three weeks from inception of the project,
enabling readers to start using the service in time to organise their
Christmas events.

Bill Swanson, managing director (Digital), Independent News and Media (UK)
said: “We are very excited to be the first business to launch this service
in the UK.  It not only enables us to extend our reach to readers, but also
to create new revenues via web and mobile.  We recognise that consumers are
hungry for new ways to organise their social lives through the web – this
service is the first of its kind to enable people to organise themselves,
make savings and interact with friends in a single location.  Plus, the
service has the ability to learn behaviour including likes and dislikes,
giving us the opportunity to deliver highly targeted services and offers.
This is a significant step forward with our digital media strategy for
2010.”

Added Phil Eames, CEO, iome: “People like to share information online and
there are a plethora of sites out there that help with individual elements.
The iome service lets people not only identify what’s going on near them,
but also access discounts, make bookings, create plans and share them with
friends via Facebook and other such sites.  It gives businesses the
opportunity to develop a better understanding of their consumers, allowing
for greater targeted services, content and advertising to be offered in the
future.”

Today is ‘Cyber Monday’ where online retailers are forecast to have record sales which top £350m.

The first Monday on December is forecast each year to be the highest spending day of online sales as the run up to Christmas starts in earnest.

As shoppers throw the recession away for the festivities, the online shopping sales were already up by 17% last month from November 2008.

Last week, John Lews said that they saw the ‘best ever sales’ on both their online store and high street shops.

According to statistics the busiest hours for this epic online shopping spend will be between 1pm and 2pm GMT.

Even here at The Media Marketing Co office we are spending some time today online shopping, so we will certainly be adding to those record breaking online sales.  At least with online shopping you don’t have to park the car!