s.mueller

Web 3.0 – On the exponential growth of information

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Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

This video nicely deals with the issue of information overload and explains how we obviously increase the information management problem with every bit of new information. Wherever you look at, information is growing exponentially. Centuries ago we very well considered which motives to photograph – today we can constantly produce 4.5 images per second because storage space and the speed of data processing in a digital camera do not matter. But does it make the path to a good photo easier? Or do we just save time shooting and then spend more time scanning the 300 pics we took in just 10 minutes?

The video offers various thoughts about how we can possibly deal with the masses of information in the future and which direction the web will possibly go. The semantic web is just one of the concepts offered and it is also examined in this video. However, just like some experts in the 80s never believed in the mainstream success of a computer, we today have no imagination of what the web as we know it will develop into.

Take MySpace, Facebook and all the other social networking platforms. They improve the ability of millions of people to communicate with each other in just seconds. All this may be convenient, but what we all too often ignore is the enormous amounts of information/date that is produced behind the scenes. Just think of a simple change in your facebook privacy settings and how this affect the relationship (in terms of data) between your profile and those, say, 350 friends you may have.

Today the amount of servers Google is using is unbelievable! This reminds of the statement that popped up some time during the Gulf War: Future wars will be fought with information. While during the Cold War when Game Theory evolved, strategists where playing with the perfect answer issue today’s warfare strategist may possibly consider something totally different: spamming the opponent with information that he or his systems are then unable to process and thus paralyzing him like a venomous spider does with its prey.

From today’s point of view, I see no end to the tendency of exponential information growth. The question will be if we continue to be able to somehow grow our information processing tools at the same rate. Or if some day we will just not be able to keep up with the pace of information growth and simply surrender.

I know that was a little bit of Doomsday talk, but just consider! Now back to Facebook! 🙂

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s.mueller

TT – Telekom twittert: Service in 140 Zeichen

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Jetzt ist auch die Deutsche Telekom dem Trend von Dell & Co. gefolgt und nutzt Twitter als Servicechannel. Laut n-tv ist die Deutsche Telekom damit eines der ersten Unternehmen die Twitter als Servicekanal nutzen. Das zeigt einmal wieder, dass deutsche Unternehmen im Bereich Digital Marketing und Social Media doch nur „Follower“ sind. Die Early Adapters sitzen noch immer anderswo…
Gelaunched am 05.05.2010 hatte der Twitter-Account bereits innerhalb eines Tagesüber 700 Follower.

Telekom twittert

Telekom twittert

Heute am 06.05.2010 sind es bereits über 1.300 Follower, und die Zahl steigt….

Telekom twittert

Telekom twittert

Jeden Tag von 08:00 bis 20:00 stehen qualifizierte Mitarbeiter der Deutschen Telekom ihren Kunden zur Verfügung wenn es um Probleme in Sachen DSL, Handy, Festnetz und Co. geht. Glaubt man dem Wallpaper des Accounts so stehen insgesamt 8 Mitarbeiter zur Verfügung die versuchen im Rahmen von 140 Zeichen die Probleme der Kunden zu lösen.

ScreenHunter_01 May. 06 09.19

Als Erstkontakt und für schnelle Anfragen zu gängigen Userproblemen sicherlich eine gute Sache. Für kompliziertere Themen und technisch wenig affine Kunden dürfte dieser Kanal nicht das Richtige sein. Hierfür steht der direkte Telefonsupport oder der Besuch des Technikers zur Verfügung. Aber in der Regel twittert dieses technikaverse Kundensegment ohnehin nicht.

Personenbezogene Daten sollen über Twitter nicht ausgetauscht werden. Dies geschieht dann direkt zwischen Mitarbeiter und Kunde.

Uns stellte sich die Frage, wie bei der Vielzahl der eingehenden Tweets die Übersicht behalten werden kann. Sicherlich laufen die Tweets in eine Art Datenpool, aus denen sich die Sachbearbeiter einzelne Tweets rausfischen und bearbeiten. Nach einem kurzen Blick auf die einzelnen Tweets der Telekom-Mitarbeiter sieht man, dass diese CoTweet für die professionelle Abwicklung verwenden. Neben der Deutschen Telekom schwören auch Firmen wie Ford, Southwest Airlines, McDonalds und Coca-Cola auf diesen Service.

So wie es aussieht wird das Angebot gerne angenommen. Dem Image der Telekom ist eine schnelle Reaktion via Twitter sicherlich zuträglich, verbindet man Serviceanfragen an den magenta-farbenen Riesen ja in der Regel mit endlosen Warteschlangen und nicht immer kompetenten Sachbearbeitern. Aber es geht auch anders, wie dieser Twitter Account beweist. Und nicht zu vergessen: Oft sind eben jene technikaffinen Kunden, die sich im Social Web pudelwohl fühlen auch die stärksten Meinungsführer. Sich als schwerfällliger Konzern diesen extrem krtischen und anspruchsvollen Kunden von seiner innovativen Seite zu zeigen kann viel bewirken. Und wenn es die Deutsche Telekom tatsächlich schafft guten Service in 140 Zeichen zu packen, dürfte das dem Image sehr gut tun.

Wir werden verfolgen wie die Zahl der Follower sich entwickelt und wie das Feedback der Kunden ausfällt

Upate 10.05.2010:
Das Twitterprofil hat nun schon 1.661 Follower!

Update: 02.06.2010:
Das Twitterprofil hat nun schon 2.679 Follower!

SOM sagt Herzlichen Glückwunsch:
telekom_twitter_425

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s.mueller

Case Study: How to use Social Media to promote your brand

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There are numerous examples of companies using Social Media for their business purposes. The most common is to promote one’s brand, to allow consumers to experience the brand, allow it to enter their private sphere and even show their affinity to the brand to their peers. I will not enumerate the psychological motivation behind such actions but rather focus on an example – a regional one – in which Social Media activity is being triggered and even had to compete with classical media, a newspaper.

Bischofshof_425

Case Study: Bischofshof Beer Queen Vote

Bischofshof is 360 year old German brewery based in Regensburg, Bavaria. Aside from their regular varieties the brewery also offers the „Bruckmandl“ which seems to be targeted to a younger yet sophisticated audience (the radio spots use American dialect). Breweries in Germany are struggling with a decrease in demand and in Bavaria in particular, the market is colored by a tough competition between numerous small and medium sized regional breweries. To fight beer giants such as Becks or Krombacher, these breweries have to make sure their regional target groups remain loyal and enjoy drinking a local beer.

Among other marketing activities, Bischofshof holds an annual beer queen election. This year, 10 young women have been elected to fight for the title of Bischofshof Beer Queen – two others will become Beer Princess.

The election takes place in several stages. Two jury decisions, an online pool and a weekly newspapers voting contribute to the final decision. Via online poll and newspaper voting the consumers and brand fans are invited to participate by not only voting for their favorite candidate but also by spreading word-of-mouth and online by sharing the news about the election. On the Bischofshof website, visitors can constantly check the current ranking. Facebook turned out to be a preferred medium to spread the news and to activate one’s peers to vote for the favored candidate. It should be mentioned that the brewery does not (yet) have its own facebook fan page. Given the number of votes in the online poll (the leading girl currently has more than 1300 votes) you can imagine that website traffic must have incresed greatly through this campaign.
The other benefit is that the brand is word on the street, especially in the greater social networks of the 10 candidates: their friends, their colleagues, fellow students, family,….

It remains to be seen how well the competition is being documented on the Bischofshof website. And what is most interesting: It would be very interesting to see which medium resulted in more votes – online media or classical media. We will try to get information on that after the new queen has been chosen.

SOM is voting for Daniela Meidinger! Join the vote today! Thursday 22 April is the last day to participate!

Here is the link:
http://www.bischofshof.de/aktuelles/Wer_wird_die_Bierkoenigin_91x6.htm

More info on Bischofshof:
www.bischofshof.de

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s.mueller

How consumers shop online

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Ever wondered how consumer really behave when shopping online?
If you are running your own ecommerce website you can invest a great deal into web analytics. Analyzing visitors paths, conversion rates and visitor loyalty can provide interesting insights. Still it may be really hard to get definite information. Changing IP addresses, inexact origins due to electronice data processing centers and all the common inconveniences of web analytics make it hard for online retailers to analyze their customers behavior.

McAfee Secure now came up with a white paper that summarizes the results of the analysis of 163 million consumers who completed a total of 2.52 million transactions. The results are stunning. And they prove what we already know from real life shopping: We love to promenade through the inner city stores monitoring all the interesting products and comparing prices before we finally come to the obviously bet decision based on the information we have gathered. The same happens online. Consumers do not shop at once (except for spontaneous purchases). The average online shopper is in no hurry. Of course not, as stocks online usually last some time and there is barely any fear someone else might grab the last item available. The average online shopper of those 163 millions shoppers surveyed take their time – on average up to two days – between first visiting a website and finally purchasing a product.

What happens within those 33 hours and 54 minutes? Well, nothing extraordinary. Consumers compare prices elsewhere, read test results and consumer reviews, ask their peers about the product and gather recommendations from other users. An ever growing source of information are social networks and the entertaining social media presences of brands. They may lack elaborate information but they provide a good impression of a brand’s character and its fans. Some ecommerce websites even allow shopping together making use of social media technology. We call it social commere. Paul Marsden, an expert in this field defines social commerce as follows:

Selling with social media – the use of social media in the context of e-commerce (Source: www.socialcommercetoday.com)

What are the implicatios of this analysis for online retailers?

Well in order to assure that shoppers really shop with you instead of finding another place to get the product of their desire, you might want to assure this: clarity / good usability, transparency in terms of costs, shipping and handling, warranty, product details and of course the reputation consumers have of you! You know, price is not everything. Simply treat your customers the way they expect it. And for your own sake, always keep an eye on costs. The best service in the world is useless if it costs you too much and eventually ruins your business. Then customers with a service issue will sadly have to find out that only some months after they bought your products your business went bankcrupt….

For a more detailed list of advice, please see a really good article on this here:

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1799-Online-Shoppers-Wait-Two-Days-to-Buy

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s.mueller

Don't go Social Media if….

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well, plenty of reasons to enumerate!
As I had been previously writing about the fact that not every company or organization should blindly invest in Social Media campaigns or open up a group, account or whatever wherever possible, I much enjoyed an article by Lisa Barone on her blog. She lists up „10 signs your company isn’t suited for social media“ – which pretty much covers the issue.

Here they are:

1. You have no social skills (and don’t want to fake them)
2. You have no sense of humor/can’t handle criticism
3. You’re going to forget about it in the morning
4. Openness is a problem for you
5. You’re only there to sell
6. You view social media as a numbers game
7. You’re inclined to call people’s wives ‘douchettes’
8. You think Twitter is a social media strategy
9. You don’t have a ‘social’ culture
10. You don’t have permission

For the details, well you know where that is to be found!
Please see her blog for the entire article.

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s.mueller

SOM is back and here's a goodie on B2B Marketing

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After a brief cold that came across my way and totall corrupted my schedule I am back on track. Having barely found the time to provide content for this blog here is a goodie published today on mashable.com.
Social Media still is in every mouth and this is very likely to continue for much longer. These two words combine the hopes of oh so many companies out there, fearing to lose touch of their consumers as times change faster and faster. But Social Media can also be of help in the B2B sector. The only trouble is that solution are not as evident as in the B2C field. Open a Jaegermeister youtube channel or a Nike facebook page. No big deal. But in the B2B area you need to be a little more fact-oriented and less entertaining. To successfully apply Social Media here, you might need more phantasy than in the B2C field. Sounds weird? Well, who would have thought that an electronic devices supplier such as Farnell would successfully establish a community (element14) for its business customers where they can exchange their insights, tips, troubles and so on about Farnell products. And it obviously does work and they do love it!
Another aspect is going out into the existing platforms such as facebook, twitter, and so on. This may not be the ideal place to sell B2B goods, but at least what you can do is learn and find the appropriate partners. Mashable.com’s today article provides you with 10 essential Social Media Tools for B2B Marketers. If Social Media is a topic in your business you might wanna check their article. But do not forget: in the end it is still you who has to find out if Socia Media does make sense and does generate real profit for you business! Enjoy!

Here is the link:
http://mashable.com/2010/04/08/b2b-marketing-tools/

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s.mueller

Missed the SXSW? No big deal!

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As most of us had no chance to attend the SXSW, here is a nice selection of presentations that have been held.

http://www.slideshare.net/sxsw2010/tagged/sxsw2010

SXSW 2010 Presentations

SXSW 2010 Presentations

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s.mueller

Internetrecht – frei verfügbares Skript von Prof. Dr. Hoeren

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Wer heutzutage im Web unterwegs ist, stößt zwangsläufig immer wieder auf rechtliche Fragestellungen und Probleme.
Das betrifft aber nicht nur Gewerbetreibende und Unternehmen, sondern auch Privatleute. Gerade diese trifft es oft aus heiterem Himmel wenn von irgendeiner windigen Kanzlei eine Abmahnung ins Haus flattert.
Für Gewerbetreibende, die ihr bestehendes Geschäftsmodell auf das Internet ausweiten wollen – sei es in Form einer reinen Internetpräsenz (ja, nicht jede Firma hat heute eine corporate website) oder gar einer (social) ecommerce-Lösung – findet eine erste Berührung mit dem Gebiet des Internetrechts schon bei der Registrierung der passenden Domain statt. Fragen wie „Ist mein Firmenname verfügbar?“ oder was darf meine URL enthalten, was ist verboten, etc… stellen Unternehmer vor viele Fragen. Und das ist meist nur der Anfang…
Gut, wenn man hier auf die Hilfe von Experten zurückgreifen kann.
Einen sehr guten Überblick über die gängigen Fragen des Internetrechts gibt das frei verfügbare Skriptum von Prof. Dr. Thomas Hoeren, Inhaber des Instituts für Informations-, Telekommunikations- und Medienrecht an der Uni Münster. Im Sinne eines Chris Anderson ist dieses Skriptum trotz seiner 552 Seiten frei verfügbar. Dies sollte eine rasend schnelle Verbreitung, wie auch hier in diesem Blog mehr als garantieren.

Das Skriptum kann unter folgender URL im pdf-Format heruntergeladen werden:
http://www.uni-muenster.de/Jura.itm/hoeren/materialien/Skript/Skript_Internetrecht_Februar2010.pdf

Wir danken Herrn Hoeren für die Bereitstellung dieses Werkes und wünschen allen aufschlussreiche Erkenntnisse bei der Lektüre!

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s.mueller

The US behind Europe in Social Media Usage – or is it the other way round?

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US behind Europe in Social Media?

US behind Europe in Social Media?

This post refers to a blog post by We are Social, a digital marketing and social media agency based in London.
The reason this post caught my attention (I actually found it via Twitter), was a statement in the very beginning of the post which I am citing here:

„Europe is ahead of the US in terms of the consumer usage of social media, and yet little attention is often given to the nuances of what is on one hand is the world’s largest economy and on the other a collection of 48 countries with very different cultures.

Find out why the blogging scene in Paris is 2 years ahead of the US, the Brits are all a Twitter, the Dutch prefer Hyves to Facebook and the Germans will take any chance to give brands a hostile reception in social media.“

This statement by Robin Grant came as a surprise to me. Usually the latest marketing trends do come from the US, not good old Europe. And please not that I am saying marketing and not social media. The latter ist a branch of marketing, not a separate phenomenon. Anyways, I was fairly surprised to see that obviously something may have changed. But has it really? I do have some doubts that this is really true and that it can be stated that easily. German Facebook users may be the most active, England may be in the hand of Twitter but still the companies behind it are from the US. Also, can you name a Head of Social Media in the home of cars, Germany? We do not have a Scott Monty at BMW or Daimler or Audi. And even if we have someone in a similar position, he or she is not yet living up to his US counterparts. Now je ne connais the French blogosphere but I can hardly imagine les Francais are so much more active than the Americans.

I don’t want to take a definite position on this issue and I will leave you with some very nice presentations covering the European face of Socia Media. Please decide for yourself who is ahead in Social Media. Or if maybe it is not about being ahead but perhaps about employing Social Media more profitable…

European Social Media

Iab Social Media Research October 22nd 2010

View more presentations from Tom Smith.
Oh and please make sure you drop by We Are Social for an impression on how others responded to Robin Grant’s post
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