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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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.

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At May 01, 2008 3:56 PM  Kat said…

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Teenagers write more now than ever before. Just think about it; when you were a teenager you probably only wrote at school, doing your homework and then on thank-you letters your Mum made you write. All your other communication was spoken.

But things have changed significantly and dramatically. Nowadays, teenagers write vast amounts. Not only do they write at school, they also write text messages, email messages, notes in social networking groups, blog postings, forum entries and so on. Teenagers have never communicated so much in writing.

And that means it is going to have a real impact on all our futures. What's revealing, according to a new report on teenage attitudes to writing, is that teenagers do not perceive all this written communication they do as writing. To them it is all just chatting to people.

Different writing styles
Indeed, most teenagers have different writing styles - one for their person to person communications worlds and another for formal writing at school. But the subtle perceptual change that writing online isn't writing means that the words on this page will be thought of differently depending on your age. And that means virtually every business online is going to have to adapt. As those teenagers enter the jobs market, they are going to find a disconnect between the kind of writing that all businesses engage in and the type of writing they perceive as the online norm.

Businesses need to write more informally to engage younger people - not to dumb anything down in any way, but to actually connect with them. Otherwise they will pass you by, ignore the jobs you have on offer and set up in competition with your business, engaging all those other people who no longer see writing as writing.

Teenagers love writing online, the report shows; and the fact they have an audience is a significant motivator in encouraging them to write more. But because they don't perceive it as writing, the online writing they will do is bound to be different to what someone my age is used to.

Adapt or die
Written communication has been much slower to change than the spoken word, which evolves rapidly. Now that teenagers have made the switch in thinking as to what constitutes written communication you can expect to see much more rapid changes in text based materials. And that means your business must adapt; otherwise you will be speaking a foreign language in your own country.

Labels: future, internet, internet psychology, social networking

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Today is the worldwide (apparently) Earthday. You knew that this morning if you strolled along to Google to discover the logo had changed. In fact for every Earthday for the past seven years, Google has changed its logo in honour of Earthday.

The idea behind Earthday is to mobilise people to take action on the environment. But it is likely to have little impact. The day has had scant attention here in the UK and the British media hasn't rushed to cover the topic. And the reason why isn't hard to see.

All you need to do is visit the Earthday web site and you will see immediately that this so-called "global" day is really only taking place in the USA. It's rather like the "global series", which is a match between the USA and Canada. The American view of "worldwide" appears to mean it covers ALL of America...!

OK, I know, I'm being stereotypical. But, take a look at that Earthday web site. The phone number is a USA number and we are being urged to call our "representative" or "senator". But outside the USA, we don't have them. Equally, all the headlines at the bottom of the page are American, not global. Dig deeper into the site and you discover that there are international projects taking place and that over 1 billion people worldwide will be celebrating today's Earthday.

But, the immediate American focus of that front page means that instantly people elsewhere in the world think "this is not for me". In the fraction of a second people take to make their mind up about a web site, this one simply screams "I'm a page for Americans" - hence the rest of the world may look away.

You only have half a second to engage people and make them want to read more of your web site. If you are promoting a global environmental day and you want to attract international audiences, making your site so obviously American from the outset could work against you. Equally, if your web site needs to attract middle-aged builders or young women interested in knitting wools, make sure you site shouts out "this is for YOU". Attention spans are getting shorter and your site needs to make an immediate connection with your target audience.

Sadly, the Earthday site which has so much global potential signals it is only for Americans in that moment when people visit. Make sure your site sends out the appropriate signals for your target audience, otherwise you will lose business.

Labels: future, internet marketing, internet psychology, politics

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At April 23, 2008 9:02 AM  Rob Watson said…

At April 23, 2008 1:35 PM  Hjörtur Smárason said…

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Phil Calvert is a marketing expert who encourages everyone to market themselves "live" at seminars and other events. But he also says that blogging is the equivalent of live marketing because it places you in front of a large audience.

Indeed at an Ecademy event he explained to the 250-strong audience that social media of all kinds were now essential to anyone doing business. He went on to say that he is involved in over 30 different social networking groups and leads 50 different clubs on Ecademy. So it poses the question, when does Phil find time to do any work?

One person said to me at this event that she was far too busy working to do so much online social networking, blogging and group activities. So can you do too much online? How much time should you spend online compared with actually running your business?

Well, here's the rub. People like Phil have realised that the online world is the real world. People who claim that they are too busy running their business to do social networking are still thinking there is some kind of separation between the Internet and the "real world". But there isn't.

Online and offline have now merged; few people aged under 25 understand why older people think there is some kind of barrier between the two. To them, the Internet is "where it is at" because - well, just because.

In the good old days of business - the 1990s - there used to be armies of sales staff who travelled up and down the motorways simply knocking on doors and seeing people. Then, back in the office, there were account managers, who spent all day on the phone, simply chatting to customers making sure all was OK. There were also client liaison officers whose task was to keep people happy, that's all. Indeed, back in those good old days, bank managers spent most of their days just meeting customers, chatting with them and taking them out to lunch.

Then along came the Internet and businesses saw a way of saving cash. Sell everything online, they thought, and we can dispense with half our sale staff, we can manage all the accounts using some kind of online database and a couple of clerical people and we can have an Internet controlled call centre somewhere cheap, so we can get rid of all those client liaison people. Whoopee, we'll be rich, they thought.

But along with the savings businesses have made as a result of Internet technology, there has also come a cost. All those sales staff, account managers and client liaison staff did a hugely important job - relationship building. As relationships dwindle, so does loyalty and businesses now have to constantly get new customers.

Online, now, thanks to social networking, blogging and so on, you can build and maintain relationships. The tools of Web 2.0 have replaced those endless streams of sales calls and account management meetings with clients. So, those companies who see social media as something that is a time waster for their business are rather missing the point. What Phil Calvert does is not a waste of time, rather it is essential for the success of any modern business. All those social networking engagements build relationships - just like the sales calls of the past.

If you see the divide between the online world and the "real world" you are unlikely to think that social networking or online clubs are the way to go; indeed you will see them as an unnecessary intrusion into your time. Younger people, in particular, expect online social networking and if your business does not do it - and you've dispensed with those older ways of relationship building - well, you can probably say goodbye to your business fairly soon.

Extensive online social networking is no longer a "nice to have", as Phil Calvert has shown, it is an essential activity. Either that, or re-employ all those sales teams and account managers. Which is more expensive? Extra staff, or a few hours online each week? You decide.

Labels: blogging, future, internet, internet marketing, internet psychology

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At April 22, 2008 9:54 AM  Hjörtur Smárason said…

At May 08, 2008 10:27 PM  john said…

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Marketing gurus tell as all the time that we need to really focus on our market; they say that "niche" marketing is even more important these days than ever before. Online, people expect to be able to find products and services that are directly targeted at them.

Strange then, that a recent study of Internet users reveals that the majority of those aged over 55 feel that the content available online is mostly targeted at young people. Indeed, the study shows us that not only do these "oldies" feel that the content is wrong, but they also dislike much of the design of web sites because they are generally too youthful.

What's wrong with that, you might think. Well, several things. For a start, statistics collated by Pew Internet, the leading research company on human-Internet experiences, shows us that seven out of ten people over the age of 50 use the Internet. For those aged younger than this, there are eight out of ten regular users. In other words, the proportion of "oldies" using the Internet is roughly the same as the youngsters.

This implies that most Internet marketers are missing a trick. Older people are clearly feeling "left out" by many web sites. That means lower sales for online businesses and the possibility that competitors will see this market gap and proceed to fill it.

Internet marketers miss a trick
There's another problem for Internet marketers; the world's population is ageing. According to a United Nations report on ageing, the numbers of people aged over 50 is set to double between now and 2050. In other words, for anyone running an online business this is a growing market.

So just imagine, for a moment, that you run a record company. Typically youthful in approach, your web site is bound to be young looking and targeted at young people. That puts off the over 50s, it seems from the recent study. But guess what; the over 50s are happy to pay for music - the younger population expects it for free. If the music industry targeted their web sites to older people, they'd probably make more money online.

The research showing that older people are disenfranchised by the lack of content and design targeted at them should be a wake-up call to online businesses that they need to focus and target much more than they are doing. To dismiss the "older" Internet users could be financial ruin for many businesses. Perhaps it is time to look at your online business and see if it needs re-shaping towards the older Internet user. We focus on youth too much online.

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A new report for the recruitment industry reveals a massive increase in the number of companies that are banning the use of Facebook at work. The survey shows that seven out of ten companies now have banning orders in place to prevent their staff from using Facebook. That's double the number of companies compared with the same time last year.

Bosses are worried that their staff will become distracted from their work. So, rather than make the work more interesting and stimulating, those bosses are resorting to overt control of their employees. Hardly the right way to motivate and gain commitment.

For years, British business in particular has been beset with an "us and them", "bosses vs workers" culture. That divide has caused the collapse of some companies and has seen others face industrial disputes year in, year out. Togetherness, teamwork, all being on the same side - well, say the British bosses, that's namby pamby. The trouble is that study after study shows that a co-operative, free-style culture leads to greater productivity.

So, the banning of Facebook in businesses could well have the reverse effect that company bosses are hoping to achieve. It could demotivate staff from trying to do well for their boss. It could lead them to finding other social networking sites the bosses haven't heard of yet, so can't ban. This distraction in itself could lead to more chaos in the workplace than leaving Facebook available.

But, the biggest problem that British businesses will face is in actually recruiting and retaining younger members of staff. New graduates and people under the age of around 22 actually expect Facebook to be available; they can't believe you can run a business without some use of social networking. So if you ban it they will think you are a bunch of old fuddy-duddies and won't want to work for you. It's worthwhile remembering that recent studies have shown that people under the age of 25 even think email is "for old people".

There is an added problem; around half of current university students do not expect to be employed when they graduate. Not because they won't get a job - but because they don't want one. They want to work for themselves, running their own businesses. And guess what, those businesses will use social networking successfully.

British bosses who ban Facebook are slamming the door in the face of the very people who could help their companies survive the major commercial changes ahead.

Labels: future, internet, internet psychology, social networking

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At April 10, 2008 8:14 AM  Mari Smith said…

At April 10, 2008 8:52 AM  Mark Lee said…

At April 11, 2008 9:33 PM  Jeremy Jacobs said…

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Take a look at this picture from The Sun web site - eye catching isn't it?



Now look at the British Airways web site:



Different isn't it? The Sun is screaming at us that there is a problem, the BA site is much more sober in it's approach, just paying lip service to the enormous difficulties they created for themselves. What's important, though, is that BA did not put up the half-hearted apology until after The Sun newspaper exposed the lack of thinking.

This is another remarkable gaffe by British Airways. Airlines now get around 60% of all their bookings - the vast majority - via the Internet. Hence most customers of BA were likely to go their web site to find out the latest information on Terminal 5. It is simply not good enough to wait five days to update the company's web site.

Apart from the fact that this is yet another example of poor management at BA, it highlights the need for every company to ensure that their web site is the FIRST thing the deal with in any negative situation. Not only will customers be visiting the web site to find the news, but journalists will do the same - which could bring your firm huge negative headlines, as BA has just discovered by its lack of action.

Most big businesses - and quite a few small ones - see their web site or the Internet generally as an "add-on"; something that "marketing" do, or perhaps part of IT. But it is not; the Internet is now completely central to every business. If British Airways had a "Chief Web Officer", a senior board level director whose sole responsibility was the use of the Internet in the business, action would have been taken immediately on their web site. The problem is for many businesses, the Internet is "sidelined". It therefore does not get the central funding or viewpoint that it needs.

Microsoft itself learned from its mistakes about ten years ago. It's market shares were dipping. It was losing out to fresh online competition, but the company was largely ignoring the Internet. Then famously, Bill Gates had an "overnight" realisation that the Internet was important - and went back in to the office and restructured the business with the Internet as central to its operations. And they seem to have done OK with that idea.

Yet, I walk in to business after business to discover that the Internet is "part of marketing" or "we have a team in IT who look after it", which makes me realise that few companies are aware that the Internet is central to their survival. British Airways will probably not realise it either; instead they'll be blaming those "bloody journalists at The Sun" - passing the buck again.

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Internet businesses have been hampered lately by the cutting of undersea cables connecting the telecomms networks of various countries. Only last week, cables close to the Egyptian coastline were cut, probably by ships anchors.

The problem is increasing - plus some of the longer established cables, such as those crossing the Atlantic, are beginning to have problems due to their age. The result is that Internet traffic can expect to have several hold-ups in coming years.

Officials at the Federation of Overseas Operating Licensees, which represents the companies with international cabling have come up with a novel idea for reducing traffic. They want people who run online businesses to undergo a test to see whether they are a "morning" or an "afternoon" kind of person. It is well known that some people function better in the morning, whereas others take several hours to "wake up".

The traffic online could be reduced if people only use the Internet at their own performance peak, says the Federation. That way, even if cables are cut between countries, there is an opportunity to keep the Internet running because the reduced levels of traffic can be diverted via satellite links, for instance.

The Association for the Psychological Reaction to Internet Limitation has said it will undertake the testing of Internet marketers so they can be allocated a license to operate the Internet at only certain hours of the day, depending upon whether they are "morning" or "afternoon" people.

Luckily, the Federation of Overseas Operating Licensees (FOOL) is in complete agreement with the Association for the Psychological Reaction to Internet Limitation (APRIL).

Labels: future, internet

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At April 01, 2008 12:40 PM  Rob Watson said…

At April 01, 2008 1:42 PM  Graham Jones said…

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The current financial meltdown happening on Wall Street and in the City of London is not going to affect the Internet, according to some recent research. This study suggests that far from investing less money online, businesses will spend more online in the coming year or two.

That bodes well if you are running an online business - especially if you accept advertising. Reading the current crop of negative financial stories it's enough to make anyone take to the hills and stuff their cash under the mattress. But confidence online is apparently strong.

If a recession does hit - and it seems increasingly likely - the Internet could well be a place of safety for anyone trying to make money. Yesterday, for instance, Vodafone announced 400 job cuts at its Newbury headquarters. And Northern Rock, unsurprisingly, is to shed 2,000 staff. Other companies are looking shaky too, particularly in the financial services sector. So, it won't be long before thousands of people will be turning to the Internet in the hope of making some cash.

If your online business has anything to do with saving money, getting good deals, entrepreneurship, home-based businesses, retirement planning - the list goes on and on, then you will have a whole host of new customers coming your way if the economy goes belly-up.

Remember, the amount of money going out of the financial services and retail sectors has to go somewhere; it doesn't disappear. That means if there are problems in the City, that money is going to end up somewhere else. It looks like the Internet is where it is heading.

Labels: future, internet, internet marketing

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Social networking is still seen as something teenagers do. But it is actually a natural human activity merely taken a technological twist. We are social animals by our very nature, so anything that allows us to socialise online is bound to be successful. And that theory is now being put to the test in some large companies.

Many bug businesses have an "intranet" - but often this is "top down". It is full of material the "management" want the staff to know about and use. Traditional intranets have little staff engagement. Some companies, though, are now experimenting with internal social networks, so that there is more "bottom up" activity on the internal system.

One company has shown that by using an internal social network a company can have a dramatic impact on its operation. Since introducing its corporate social network for its staff, the retail giant "The Best Buy Corporation", which employs 140,000 staff, has seen a dramatic shift in employee engagement. Not only do 18,000 people use the system regularly - that's more than 10% of the workforce each day - the social network appears to have made people like the business more. So much so, that the company's staff retention rate has rocketed. Unlike other retailers, where staff turnover can approach 60%, Best Buy has seen its staff turnover drop to a mere 8%.

Why should that be? After all, they have only introduced a souped-up intranet. What has happened is simple; by making the intranet a social network, the company has made staff feel as though they belong. The principal reason for staff turnover in any business - but especially retail - is a lack of a feeling of belonging. When staff feel they are just "a number", their allegiance to the organisation is reduced. By allowing staff to socialise online, companies increase that sense of belonging.

There's another reason as well. Retail staff are usually young - and they have grown up digitally. They expect the organisation they work for to be digital too. Companies that employ young staff and do not have young methods of communication can look forward to high staff turnover, lack of motivation and increased costs.

Labels: future, internet, internet psychology, social networking

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At March 19, 2008 6:29 AM  Karan said…

At March 19, 2008 9:53 PM  Stefan Martens said…

At March 26, 2008 9:44 AM  shopping cart said…

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Advertising gurus are great aren't they? They are seen as leaders in "the creative industry"; they pat themselves on the back with lavish award ceremonies to celebrate their "stunning" advertising creations; and they mix with the stars who feature in their ads, making us all jealous that they have friends in high places.

But, what the advertising industry hasn't yet worked out is something that the rest of us already know - people don't like adverts. We hate them. No-one is rushing home from work at the moment saying "hey, must get home to see the latest TV ads". They may well be rushing home to see their favourite soap opera? But the ads? Give me a break!

And what about those billions of adverts that fall onto doormats the world over each day? Even the advertising industry admits that less than 1% of people look at them. More than that and they are ecstatic with joy at their success....! So, let's get this right - 99% of people ignore what you are doing and that's success? Er?

For years the advertising industry has produced stuff that looks great, but has limited value for a business. Most businesses that advertise do it because their competitors do it, rather than for any strategically logical reason. Just ask those advertising pundits to name one of the world's top companies. Google, they'll say. Guess what - Google achieved it's success over an eight year period and didn't advertise for the first seven of them.

You see, adverts are interruptions. They spoil our TV programs, they disturb the flow of articles in magazines and they annoy us when we are trying to listen to the radio. Advertisers just don't get it; after all, they've tried every medium known to humans and appear to think that the Internet is their saviour.

Targeted advertising is the current mantra of the advertising industry. Apparently, advertising hasn't been as successful as it could be, because the industry couldn't accurately target its audiences. Now, with the Internet, they tell us, targeting is easy.

Well, here's some news. Eye tracking tests have shown that advertising gets little attention on a web page. Why? Because it interrupts us from reading the material we came to look at. So, we ignore it. So, well done advertisers again, you're producing advertising we don't bother with.

Aha, says the industry, generic advertising doesn't work. Targeting, that's what it's all about. So, along comes Phorm. This is a system that knows what we look at and therefore allows advertisers to only deliver material in which we are obviously interested. Already several ISPs are said to be interested in it.

Hang on - they know what we have looked at? Yes, that's right; the system tracks what you view online and delivers "relevant" adverts as a result. Already, the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee is upset by this suggestion. Apart from his concerns over privacy issues, the advertising industry has still not understood one basic principal.

Even if they deliver "relevant" adverts, we will still ignore them. No doubt the industry will praise itself and have another award ceremony for the best "relevant" adverts, the most creative "relevant" adverts and the best performing "relevant" adverts. But, if the Beacon system on Facebook is anything to go by, ISPs that introduce this new system will get short shrift. They'll be told in no uncertain terms by their clients - forget it. And even if they are prepared to be snooped on by their ISP, the money-making potential is limited because we already know that adverts are largely ignored.

This is particularly the case online; more and more it is becoming evident that those growing up in the information age want just that - information. That means the advertising industry needs a wholesale revolution. Targeted advertising is merely clutching at straws.

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