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Thursday, May 08, 2008
Social networks are the place to be
Researchers at the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California have just published their report on the consequences and benefits of children going online. However, embedded within the report are some interesting facts that every online business needs to think about.
Firstly, the annual study shows a dramatic shift upwards in the use of "online communities" of all kinds. Plus it reveals the kind of online groups that people are joining. Even though "social networking" sites are popular, the researchers have discovered that the most popular online communities are those related to specific hobbies.
 What this tells us should not be news, really, but it is...! Internet users are interested in specifics - not generalities (as the graph above shows - taken from the research web site). If you are a train spotter you want to join a group of like-minded train spotters, not a general group of people and then have to hunt for the train spotters.
In other words, the Facebook model of all things to all people is clearly not pleasing the majority. Add to that the recent revelation of a loophole in the security at Facebook and you might begin to think its days are numbered. Perhaps they are. However, if they take the example of Ecademy, things should be OK.
Ecademy continues to thrive because it is focused and because of its huge network of topic specific clubs. They may not be "hobbies" as the USC study suggested, but it points to the fact that social networking's future lies in ever more specific groups, rather than general groups.
So what does this mean for online businesses? It suggests that you need to set up, or take part in, relevant clubs. Say, for instance, you were a mobile phone manufacturer. Where would you put help information? On your own web site? Yes, but where are people looking for such information? Well, not on your web site. Instead, as the research shows, people are beginning to get focused on the community nature of the Internet.
So if I were a mobile phone manufacturer I'd have a user group for each model on Facebook, I'd have a club for my users who happen to be Ecademy members, I'd go along to Marzar and upload some documents and set up a group. In other words, rather than trying to get your people to come to you, use social networks to go to your people.
Far too many business web sites are standing on the sidelines trying to attract people over to them. The problem is, those people are much more interested in what they are doing. If you want to get their business, you have to go over to them. And they are spending increasing amounts of time in social networks and topic specific groups and forums. So that's where your business needs to be as well. Labels: future, internet psychology, social networking
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Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Internet marketers need to get inside each customer's head
You will make more money if you get inside each customer's head; really get inside and start to think exactly like they think. We all know that marketing is about providing what people want, but new research, published in the journal Psychological Science, suggests that we need to do much more than simply finding out basic needs and desires.
Psychologists in Chicago at Northwestern University looked at the comparative value of empathy and perspective taking. Their investigations showed that during negotiating sessions, those individuals who showed empathy towards their "opponents" were less successful than those who undertook "perspective taking".
Empathy is not enough online
In psychological terms, empathy means the ability to have an emotional connection to someone, to be able to gauge their feelings and react appropriately. That might seem sensible for sales people and for anyone trying to negotiate. Indeed, you'll find plenty of sales training material suggesting that you work on your empathy.
But the researchers discovered that "perspective takers" had much more successful negotiations. Those people who can perform "perspective taking" are able to consider a situation from someone else's viewpoint. It is much more than empathy, which merely deals with emotion. Perspective taking allows you to think like your opponent. When you do this, you are considerably more successful than merely being empathetic.
So what does this tell us as Internet Marketers? It suggests that simply knowing what your customers want and connecting with them emotionally is nowhere near enough to be sure of selling. Instead, you need to see your web site and all your sales materials, emails and so on, from the customer perspective.
Connect with your customers
And how can you achieve that? It means you have to really, really, really get to know your customers. Talk to them, ask them questions, find out as much as you can about them. Be with them, go where they go, join the clubs they join. The more you understand your customers and the more you connect with them the more you will be able to start thinking like them. And once you do that, you can take their perspective, resulting in more sales. Labels: internet, internet marketing, internet psychology
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Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Why the Google advertising change doesn't matter
Google quietly changed it's terms and conditions for advertising yesterday. Up until now, advertisers using Google AdWords have been banned from using the brand names of their competitors in their adverts; now they can.
This has spawned all sorts of suggestions as to how businesses might capitalise on the change. One example I read was if you are Sainsbury, you can now use the word Tesco in your online advertising with Google. Fine; but what value does it bring you.
Let's take a look at some statistics. Wordtracker tells us that every 24 hours just over 1,200 people type in the word "Tesco" and a mere 500 or so type in "Sainsbury" or "Sainsburys". However, both of these stores sell millions of different things. Compared with the other keywords for which they might be found, these figures pale into insignificance.
Take "car insurance"; both Tesco and Sainsbury's sell car insurance. There are almost 3,000 searches on Google every day for the phrase "car insurance". There are just over 200 for "Tesco car insurance", but none at all for any combination of "Sainsbury" and "car insurance". In other words there are almost twice as many people looking for "car insurance" as anything containing the word "tesco" or "sainsbury".
Brand, online trust and credibility
What does this tell us? It suggests that at the outset, brand does not matter. When people are searching for something they are looking, for instance, for anyone who can help them with their car insurance needs. When they have a selection, then, perhaps, brand comes into play in terms of trust and credibility. But at the search level, it is of secondary importance.
This means that using a competitor's brand name in an advert is - once again - looking in the wrong direction. What it means is that companies will focus on their competition, rather than spending their time thinking about their customers. Tesco, for instance, is well known for saying its turnaround from being an also-ran in the supermarket business, to a world leader came when they stopped worrying about their competitors and focused every ounce of corporate muscle on their customers.
The Google change will do the reverse. It will make companies focus on their competitors rather than their customers. And as the "car insurance" example suggests, at the search stage of the process who provides the car insurance is not important.
Consider fresh bread!
As another example, consider "fresh bread". Only 11 people every 24 hours search for this phrase - but there is only one advert on Google and that's not from Tesco or Sainsbury. Yet, both these companies have in-store bakeries and would be able to outbid the current advertiser easily, gaining almost all of those 11 people a day. Add that to the millions of other products and they'd gain even more traffic from people looking for specific products.
What the corporate brands do, is believe their own publicity. They honestly believe that the brand is all important, when online it is of only secondary importance. To the people who want fresh bread, they want fresh bread - who supplies it doesn't matter that much.
I'm not saying that brand is irrelevant; I'm just saying it is lower down the pecking order than big brand owners would like to think. The problem with the Google change it confirms in the brand owner's mind the importance of brand. Hence they will spend more money using brand names in their Google AdWords campaigns - and who will benefit? Well Google of course.
Brand names are not important
What will happen to those 4,105 people a year who want "fresh bread"? Well they will be denied the knowledge that Tesco and Sainsbury offer them tasty fresh bread prepared by master bakers. Tough on them, but even tougher on the retailers who are denying themselves income by worrying about the competitor's brand name adverts rather than focusing on their customers.
Google is laughing all the way to it's bank of course. Why? Because they have focused on their customers very well indeed. Google knows that its brand name customers love using brand names - even though Google knows it's a fools game. So, if big brands want to waste their money? Let them, says Google.
Focus on your customers - and online that means providing what they want at the precise moment in time they want it. When searching, brand is of little importance. Only when people are making a decision to buy online does brand start to play its part. The result is that for almost every business this change from Google is worthless. Your customers are not searching for your brand, or your competition's brand; instead they are searching for your solutions and that's what your advert should focus on. Labels: internet, internet marketing, shopping
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Readers' Comments:
It's a rather shortsighted viewpoint you put forth. The reality is that Tesco and Sainsbury aren't necessarily worried about each using the other's brand. They are worried about the many fraudulent websites that attempt to lure you to their sites based on a trusted brand name. At the end of the day, Google shows they are only in it for the money and don't care if they support and encourage fraud along the way.
Thanks for your comment. I disagree that I am being short sighted. I'm well aware that Tesco and Sainsbury aren't bothered about each other. The point I am making is that the change Google has instituted means that online businesses will be encouraged to focus on what their competitors are doing, rather than focusing on their customers. It's not about "fraud"; it's about customers.
What? Fraud? If someone was had up for fraud every time someone ended up on a website they didn't intend to be on, I think the courts would be rather full!
Anyone who does arrive on the wrong site won't be out of pocket anyway. It's the advertiser that pays for the click, not the person viewing it, so how have they been defrauded? I think our anonymous friend fails to understand the mechanics of pay per click and the definition of fraud. And let's not forget that Google insist on a 'display URL' showing where the ad goes through to, on every single ad to avoid misleading people.
Pay per click is just a form of marketing (a blindingly obvious fact which many people manage to miss) and in any form of marketing communication, you need to tell your prospect what you can do for them. They don't want to be in the middle of a squabble between you and a competitor, so any mention of competitors needs to be subtle at best. Consumers are generally sceptical of any mention of a competitor, so I hardly think any floodgates are about to open.
What I think has happened here is that Google have simply relaxed a rule that was proving increasingly hard to police. Millions of companies worldwide now use Adwords - can Google really keep a list of ALL of their advertisers' competitors? Especially if we continue with Tesco as an example - they sell just about everything these days, they must have thousands of competitors.
Clearly, Google know as well as you do Graham that this will make barely a scrap of difference. If they felt it would I hardly think they would put their multi-billion pound advertising model at risk for the extra few quid they will make from people who think there's a huge opportunity here.
Absolutely Rob, I agree. Thanks for your excellent comment which puts things into perspective. I suspect that the Tescos and the Sainsburys of the world will not be in the least bit bothered by Google's move. However, many small businesses may be tempted to use competitor names in their adverts and they are the ones who will waste time worrying about how they can steal clicks from their competition, rather than focusing on serving their customers.
Sorry, but your post is clearly flawed on a number of areas. Let's look at the first line.
Google quietly changed it's terms and conditions for advertising yesterday.
It wasn't very quiet - it was announced about a month ago and it's been in the press quite a bit since, I believe even the FT ran an article on it.
You then go on to say..
Let's take a look at some statistics. Wordtracker tells us that every 24 hours just over 1,200 people type in the word "Tesco" and a mere 500 or so type in "Sainsbury" or "Sainsburys".
Firstly Wordtracker is outdated and you should not take that figure as gospel - it's better to use MSN's figures (that use real search numbers). These show that last month on MSN the keyword "tesco" had 158,875 searches. If you do some calculations based on their market share information it actually means that the keyword "tesco" that you mention gets 1,200 searches a day actually gets more like 143,118 searches per day.
Quite a bit more and as your post is based around those figures I think it makes a big difference.
With that being said - I don't think terms like Tesco are going to be impacted too much, but terms suddenly available now such as "ipod" (with about 7k a day in searches) will have an impact.
Time will tell though - it's certainly going to be an interesting few months ahead.
James, thanks for your comments. However I don't agree that my article is flawed. Let me address your comments individually.
Firstly I used "quietly" to indicate they did this without announcing it to AdWords customers. True there were press announcements, but it was a "quiet" introduction of a policy change if you thought you'd hear about it via AdWords directly.
Secondly, I don't take any figures as gospel, so why should I take MSN's as valid either? The exact numbers themselves do not matter. It's the proportions that matter. Even with the hugely inflated figures that MSN suggests, more people are searching for the products and services that Tesco sells, than for the company itself. This means that if they are using PPC keywords merely for their brand name - they are missing out.
I am saying nothing different to the theory proposed in the leading business book, The Long Tail. That tells us - along with plenty of other examples - that focusing on your competitors is doomed. People should focus on their customers.
Whether you want to use your numbers or my numbers, they point to the same thing. Anyone worrying about the use of brand names in their PPC adverts is barking up the wrong tree.
Finally, where do you get the notion that Wordtracker is out-dated? True it uses a different process to MSN and it comes up with other figures, but it's not the raw numbers that matter. What matters is the general indication that these tools provide.
Thanks for your reply.
In terms of Wordtracker vs. MSN, I would say that MSN is more reliable - the figures are taken from actual search numbers in the previous month.
Some people still use Overture even though it's about 6 or 7 months old and wordtracker uses it's own metric and is still relatively new to the UK - it's more of a sample than real results. Saying that, my wordtracker login shows a heck of a lot more than 1,200 searches a day for Tesco so unsure why it's so different to your own..
With all that said - I appreciate and agree that merchants should concentrate on their own customers, but as part of an overall PPC campaign I think it's fair to say that competitor and product keywords that were previously trademarked can now have a big impact on the ROI - this can be both positive and negative.
Let's look at one each one.
Negative - in that your own brand becomes more expensive to bid on. As a paid search agency we have seem that bidding on your brand, even when you rank number 1 organically can have an impact to your sales - so of all of a sudden this becomes a lot more expensive.
Positive - As mentioned in my previous example, retailers who sell ipods can all of a sudden start bidding on a product that they sell, which is not a bad thing. There are plenty of other examples of where this could work and we've already seen (before the changes) that competitive terms convert, sometimes very well.
It's all part of a balanced keyword campaign :)
James, thanks for the clarification. From what you say, I can see we are in agreement. The difference in our Wordtracker results may be because of the use of different databases. The "compressed" database can produce different results from the "comprehensive" database, for instance. But I don't think we need to get hung up on precise numbers. Your iPod example is a good one which shows that focusing on the products people want to buy is probably going to be more successful than focusing on the Apple brand name, for instance.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Internet training courses might not help you
Trainers are available on all sorts of Internet subjects. Want to learn how to do "SEO" (search engine optimisation)? well, there's a course on it. Like to discover how to "monetise" your web site? There's a course on that too. Perhaps you'd really like to learn about corporate blogging. Well, guess what, you can have a training course for all your staff on that as well.
However, new research on obstetricians confirms what I've long suspected - that training courses themselves are of little effect on their own. The study, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine shows us that training courses had little impact on the practice of doctors.
From old to new
Here's what they did. The researchers wanted to see how doctors changed their practice from the "old ways" to better, more modern methods. In one group of hospitals, everyone was put through their paces on a training course. A second group merely had one doctor who was trained who then had to "spread the word".
It turned out that where "spreading the word" was four times more effective in getting a change in practice than training everyone. So why might that be? Two reasons. Firstly, the message was delivered via a "social network" of peers, making it seem more "natural". Secondly, the new information was delivered by someone the doctors knew and trusted - one of "them", rather than some unknown trainer.
 The implications of this study should not be underestimated. We learn more from our peers and our social groups than we might think. Indeed, think about how you learned about numbers. Was it at school? Or was it as a toddler with your Mum singing songs like "one two three four five, once I caught a fish alive" and counting out Lego bricks with you? Numbers are learned socially. How did you learn language - in a classroom, or by learning from those around you? Yes, you've guessed it - socially.
Improving your online business
So what does this all mean for your Internet plans? The study suggests yThe same is true for what we learn about the Internet and how to apply it in our business. We discover more things by talking with our peers and colleagues about running an online business than you ever might in a formal training course.
ou need to mix with other businesses doing the same as you. Go to networking groups in your industry; make sure you are in all the relevant associations and club, join online social networking groups, like the Internet Marketing Club, to share your knowledge. Social learning is much more likely to have an impact on your business performance than formal training. Labels: internet, internet psychology, social networking
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Readers' Comments:
Graham,
The "word of mouth" is a very powerful tool, which is largely ignored in Marketing and that is precisely what is needed. To make a product that will be recommended by "social networks", should be the goal.
When a product achieves that, it goes viral!
See Google, for example, minimal advertising - just "peer recommendation". So when someone goes for a search engine, they go to Google.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
The Internet World is all about relationships
Your friends like you; honest, trust me, they do. If they didn't like you, then you wouldn't like them and, hey, you wouldn't be friends. Web sites are the same; if they demonstrate they like you - by providing exactly what you are after - then you like them. It's simple really, give your audience what they want and you are home and dry.
So, why oh why is that so few web sites do that? They tell us all about themselves - and frankly, we couldn't give a stuff could we? Sign on at Amazon and the first thing you see is a list of books all suited to your personal preferences; the site is about you. Is there material about Amazon itself? Sure, but it's tucked away.
You see, Amazon knows about relationships. They know that to build a relationship you have to ask questions. Imagine how difficult it would be for you to get new friends if you were never able to ask people a question. It would be impossible. But you can't ask any old question. To build relationships you need to ask questions that allow people to provide you with information about themselves.
Amazon does this in subtle ways - you provide them information on your buying preferences, but also in answering their questions such as "do you want it gift wrapped?" They know from that whether you are a "fluffy" person or not - and that helps them direct the right kind of materials to you. In building friendships we do the same. We ask questions that help us create a picture in our mind of the kind of person we are dealing with.
So, tell me why today when I went to the Internet World exhibition at London's Earl's Court was I faced with so many people who were unable to ask me the right questions. The questions I received were useless in helping the exhibitors find out anything about me; as a result they were unable to build any kind of relationship with me.
For instance, if I got asked once I was asked a dozen times "are you looking for more traffic for your web site?". I answered "no" every time, at which point I was met with a stunned "oh" and a "well thank you anyway" before they moved off to the next victim. But what if I had been asked "how do you get people to come to your web site?". I have to give more information - and then they could enter into a dialogue with me about how they could help me get more of those kind of people.
I wandered around the exhibition for over two hours noting what was happening at each stand. Apart from the fact that most stands had almost no visitors (they were all at the various presentation "theatres"), most of the people wandering around were doing just that - wandering. When I did overhear people being accosted, just like me they were all asked completely closed questions, making it almost impossible for the exhibitor to build any form of relationship.
 No doubt the exhibitors will go away with a huge pile of business cards and say it was an event worth going to. I doubt it - except for one company, Huddle. This is an online collaboration and project management system that incorporates social networking principles.
However, Jon Landau from Huddle was different to almost every other exhibitor I met. He asked me several open questions and engaged in conversation with me. In other words, he treated me as a human being rather than a "prospect". Interestingly, the Huddle stand was amongst the busiest; no surprise there.
Do I know if Huddle is better than its competitors? No. Do I think it is? Yes. How do I judge it? On the fact that the company, through Jon, engaged with me. And that's why most web sites do not work - they don't engage. Most web site are rather like those hapless exhibitors at today's Internet World, asking closed questions and letting me pass on by without engaging. That's what most of the world's Internet traffic does. It stumbles across a site, which asks "do you want to know about us?" - a lovely closed question to which we all say "no thanks". But the owners of those web sites measure their success in terms of the number of visitors they get, just like today's exhibitors counting business cards into the small wee hours. It's one measure, but not a very good one.
Far better for you to really engage with people. Not only do you get more business, but you get more recommendations. You might have noticed I spent a couple of hours in a large exhibition centre and only found one company to recommend. Now what does that tell you about the Internet World? Labels: internet, internet marketing, internet psychology, social networking
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Readers' Comments:
I had a very similar experience last year Graham which is why I didn't return this year.
It seems that very few exhibitors have thought about how to engage with visitors to the exhibition.
I recall wandering around collecting free pens (for my daughter); picking up a few leaflets (for inspiration for my then embryonic business); dropping my business card into bowls promising me the chance to win something useful (but which I knew would lead to 'spam emails' so I was choosy; and being ignored by most exhibitors who simply waited for people to step onto their stands and ask for information.
When I was approached (like you) I was asked closed questions that may have been consciously chosen to quickly identify serious prospects and avoid time wasters. In reality they probably only received positive answers from the time wasters.
I've long subscribed to the view that, in business especially, 'you get the behaviour that you are seen to measure and to record'. I'll bet most of those exhibitors judge a successful exhibition quantitatively by the number of business cards and 'leads' they generate. A qualitative aspect is rarely apparent.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The World Wide Web is just a baby
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, claims today that the technology is merely in its infancy. It's almost 17 years since the first ever web site was published (6th August 1991), so you'd expect the web to be a spotty teenager.
The first British newspapers can be traced back to the 1620s, but they only really entered the "modern" world with colour printing in the 1990s, almost 400 years later. Who would have thought in 1620 that you would be able to print something in colour from a picture taken on the other side of the planet just a few hours later? So in age terms, 400 years on, newspapers have probably only recently entered adulthood themselves.
At any moment in history, people like to think they have all the answers, have solved all the problems and have advanced their technologies as far as they can go. Those first inventors of stone age tools probably were unable to predict the microchip. And so it is today; those of us heavily engaged with the Internet world like to think we are working with the latest technologies. Come back in 1,000 years and take a look...!
From the Stone Age to the Microchip
There is one problem, though. To get from stone age tools to the microchip took thousands of years; to get from hundreds of copies of flimsy black and white newspapers to their international production in colour took hundreds of years. But to go from an idea about hyperlinks to online shopping and downloadable products has taken less than 20 years. In other words, the development of Internet technologies is much more rapid.
So what does this mean for your business? It means that even though the web is in its infancy, you cannot afford to sit back and wait for it to mature. The changes that keep happening are taking place so rapidly that you need to keep up. Rather like a 5-year-old child nowadays - if they didn't mix with their friends and keep up to date on the world around them, they would stagnate into people who could not take part in society.
Your business is the same as that toddler. Take part, in full, in the Internet now and learn as much as you can every day about it. That way you will be able to grow with this infant. Stay on the sidelines and before you know it that child will have developed into something completely different and unpredictable - and your business won't know how to mix. Taking part with web technologies is no longer optional. Labels: future, internet, internet psychology
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Readers' Comments:
Good conclusion, however, the comparison of the newspaper to the internet is a difficult one, because today, technology changes a lot faster than it did in the early 1900s. So, even though it is fairly new, I think it is safe to say the internet as a concept will reach adulthood very soon. However, like other forms of technology, I doubt the internet will every quit growing. You compare these forms of communication to a single adult, or child. I think it would be more apt to compare them to populations of species. The all populations eventually reach a decline (like newspaper) and even an extinction, like the telegraph. The evolution of the internet depends on where you look, some highly competitive environments have highly advanced concepts that they implement in their websites, whereas other, less competitive environments, will not be utilizing those concepts, and will run the risk of being left behind if their competitors adopt those concepts first.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Social networking may be in your genes
Some people are avid social networkers and build up huge numbers of "connections" and "friends" online. Take a look at Thomas Power, the Chairman of Ecademy, for instance. He has over 15,000 contacts in Ecademy and almost as many in LinkedIn. Does he really know all those people? If you think he's in a fix, consider Ron Bates - LinkedIn's top networker who has almost 40,000 connections.
Facebook appears to limit the number of friends. Steve Hofstetter, for instance, managed to amass over 200,000 friends, but was cutback by Facebook to a puny 5,000. Charlie Rosenbury reportedly had a similar reduction in his friends list. These limits are probably more to do with the loads on Facebook's servers than anything else. But it does raise the question, why do people have so many connections and friends online?
You would have thought, for instance, that with all the hype about online social networking that teenagers would be avid networkers. Indeed, the media coverage would have us believe that MySpace and so on are full of spotty youths. However, a recent report on teens and social media suggests otherwise.
Networking teens are already social
The research behind the report shows some interesting facts, according to Dr John M. Grohol. He points out that only 6 out of 10 teenagers who use the Internet have a social networking profile. But digging deeper into the statistics he reveals a more interesting fact.
The teenagers who are the most connected and active in online social networks are also the most socially active offline. In other words, online social networking is not perceived as different. These individuals are "naturally" social and do social things online and offline.
You would have thought that spending ages on Facebook, MySpace and so on, the online social networkers would not have time to spend with their friends offline. But it seems the reverse is true. The more that people network online, the more time they spend with "real" people.
It was fascinating yesterday when I sparked a debate in Ecademy about going for quantity rather than quality in the online contacts you have. Some people were dubious about going for raw numbers. However, my anecdotal evidence is that the more social you are, the more success you have in several areas of life, including business. No, there's no science in this, just a hunch.
But take a look back at Thomas Power's numbers. He has tens of thousands of online contacts. Yet he is one of the busiest offline networkers I know, attending dozens of meetings each month. So is he, like the research suggests, naturally social? Certainly.
The evidence is mounting that online social networking is merely an extension of our natural inclination to want to be with other people, just for the sake of being with other people. Those individuals who see social networking as something different or just for teens are missing out. If you like meeting people offline, you will love it online. And if you like people and you have thousands of online connections, you will like it even more, because you will take the time to meet them, since you are naturally social. Labels: internet psychology, social networking
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Google
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LinkRoll
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Lycos
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ma.gnolia
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Netscape
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Newsvine
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Ning
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reddit
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Simpy
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Spurl
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Squidoo
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Wink
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Readers' Comments:
Graham - I think you're missing the word 'be'from your title!
Interesting post though. I've always wondered whether those people with thousands of Ecademy contacts actually get any useful leverage out of it!
Hi Rob
Thanks for spotting the typo - now corrected. Amazing how you can re-read something several times and still miss something obvious...!
Kind Regards
Graham
Really interesting post. I think it would be a really interesting discussion if we had data frm other countries also. I come from Greece were internet use now it is rising. So, what if we had a crosscultural analysis about social networking and how the culture affects parallel social networking in teenagers?
Thanks Maria. Yes I agree, I think this would be interesting as it would help web site owners to slightly adapt their offerings for individual cultural preferences - something they don't really do at the moment.
Great article, very balanced and I love the information about teenagers, I think it is very true, if social online likely to be social offline. I can confirm Thomas is meeting people offline every day, and I am out at least 3 days meeting. Nothing really replaces building a close friendship face to face but the online does allow you to keep in touch and start relationships going.
Thank you, loved it, infact going to quote you at the Guildford Grow your own Business tomorrow!
Thanks for your kind words Penny. I think it's worthwhile reflecting that unique amongst the social networking sites is the mix of online and offline that Ecademy brings. Once all the hype about online social networking dies down and it becomes an "everyday" thing, this mix may well prove to be Ecademy's most significant benefit and is probably why it is a long-term survivor - and will be.
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It's a rather shortsighted viewpoint you put forth. The reality is that Tesco and Sainsbury aren't necessarily worried about each using the other's brand. They are worried about the many fraudulent websites that attempt to lure you to their sites based on a trusted brand name. At the end of the day, Google shows they are only in it for the money and don't care if they support and encourage fraud along the way.