A brief addition to the Skyscanner blog…
Struggling to decide who to visit next? Skyscanner allows you to import your Facebook, LinkedIn and iPhone contacts and tells you how much it’ll cost to go and visit them. Naturally I took the liberty of deleting your name to illustrate the point:
Pretty cool huh?
You may recall that back in April, Facebook paid an eye watering billion dollars for photography app Instagram. At the time it seemed like an unbelievable amount of money for, what is in effect, a free app. At the time there were around 30 million active Instagram users. Since then however, this has shot up to over 100 million active users worldwide, who are in fact, far more engaged with Instagram than Twitter users are with Twitter.
Pretty cool huh?
Prior to the takeover, Instagram had a link up with Facebook and Twitter than enabled you to take a photo, manipulate it and post it to your Instagram account, with the option to post your photo to your choice of social networks. This functionality, aside from an aesthetic change here or there has been pretty much the norm for Instagram since the takeover. Until now… Smartphone users, have you been given the option to update your Facebook phone app over the past week? If you haven’t updated it, and particularly, if you’re a fan of Instagram, you might want to consider it. Why? Because they’ve only just gone and integrated Instagram functionality into Facebook photos! So, you can now crop and manipulate your photos accordingly…
And what’s more, you can also change the tint on your photos with Instagram manipulation:
So obviously this is all good for Facebook but what does this mean for the stand alone Instagram app? Hard to tell with Facebook sometimes? I think it’ll exist for the time being as a means of bringing new people into the Facebook world, but I would expect that in the long term it’ll be killed off. Whilst it’s got a long way to go before it starts delivering a return on investment for Facebook, this new functionality is only going to increase user experience satisfaction on Facebook. Zuckerberg, you’ve done it again!
What a day for Apple eh? New iPhone released, new iOS6 rolling out, killing off the original iPad and a split with Google.
What topic to address first? I’ll park the death of the original iPad and the new iPhone for another day and focus on the new iOS6 software and the split with Google.
Oh, you missed the split with Google? Funny that Apple didn’t really want to make big deal of that isn’t it?
If you upgraded your iPhone to iOS6, you’ll have noticed at least three things have happened.
Firstly, Facebook upgraded itself with a new contact sync, which, if you didn’t manually update your contact details on your Facebook page, when Facebook slyly gave you an @facebook.com domain back in April, which will in effect remove your Gmail as a method of contact, from your friends contact list.
Secondly, and this is a good thing, they removed the Youtube app. Let’s not beat around the bush, it was crap. Had about a third of the content of Youtube available and wasn’t really mobile optimised in terms of functionality.
Thirdly, and this is the really crap thing, they removed the maps app. Big mistake as the new Apple map is poor. It’s out of date, has poor imaging, wrong locations and inadequate search. As soon as Google launch an actual map app, I’ll be downloading it. Yes, the Apple map will improve, but it’s going to be tough to improve on something that is way ahead of it.
The real disappointing thing is how out of date it is. Just look at the below photos. On the left is the Olympic park on Apple maps and the right is Google. On the right you’ll see an all singing and all dancing Olympic park and on the left you’ll see a contruction site.
Poor show Apple. Poor show.
I’ve said it before and considering the number of people whining about changes to Twitter, advertising on Facebook, updates to your iPhone or any other changes to a digital platform, blah blah blah, over the past week, I feel a need to say it again…
If something is free, it’s because you are the product.
If you don’t like it, you can leave. You have the choice. Now, stop complaining please.
Remember how literally 8 people were up in arms at Facebook having the temerity to change their contact email address from gmail/hotmail/yahoo to @facebook.com earlier this year? How dare they? And it only takes a second or two to change your email address back. Outrageous that you could have read 2 lines of a blog post on squirrels or cyber stalked someone for 30 seconds in that time!
Anyway, for those of you whom I’m connected to on Facebook, from time to time, we do engage on the Facebook messenger system, which is essentially the framework of the Facebook email. Earlier today, I received an email which amused me and rather than email it to people directly, I decided that I’d forward it on to my ‘Facebook’ email address and circulate it amongst my Facebook friends. Except that you can’t. As I have set up my Facebook settings so that I can only accept email from people I’m connected to, my email bounced back, as my social self is obviously not connected to my work self. I appreciate that from a messenger point of view, you don’t want to be contacted by complete randoms, but having a restricted access email address just seems nuts to me. Or is it? Just think, when was the last time that you logged into your gmail/hotmail/yahoo and had to filter through spam (not as much as before), Groupon updates, Ticketmaster updates and emails from apps that you’ve already received on your phone (talking to you Songkick!) before finding that email from a friend? Instead with Facebook email you get unadulterated, filtered contact with actual people that you actually know and are connected to! Put that way, it sounds ace doesn’t it?
Email is dead, long live the Fmail!
By the way… if any of you want to see the aforementioned email, DM me with your non Facebook email address and I’ll forward it on to you…
Now, there’s a controversial statement if ever there was one. I’m really going to have to work hard to convince you of my argument. But I’m not going to focus on the fact that Romney is a robotic, tax dodging, vacant, venture capitalist who would probably sell his own mother, with zero social skills, as, surprisingly, some people quite like those qualities in their politicians. No, I’m going to focus on Romney’s spectacular failure to understand, embrace and apply digital channels and social media to his campaign. The consequence of this is that he is failing to speak to young voters, which leaves him looking incredibly out of touch with the country as a whole.
The 2008 Presidential election was the first election where social media played a part in campaigning. Barack Obama did a sterling job of motivating the youth and the disaffected of the USA to vote for change. And he succeeded. The key to his success in my opinion was to take his message direct to those who he wanted to vote for him. So, he took his campaign to Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. The next campaign is already focusing on old friends such as Facebook and Twitter, but Obama now has a presence on Foursquare, G+ and Pinterest. Rather than take a lead on social platforms, Romney really looks like a follower. And not just a follower, but a follower of Obama. The following trends take place across all platforms that the candidates have a presence on however, to keep things simple, I’m going to focus on their respective Twitter profiles:
As Roy Walker used to say on Catchphrase, say what you see. First things first, look at the summaries of the two individuals. The President has his campaign hashtag, and mentions the fact that he’s actually the President! Romney’s profile mentions that he used to be the governor of Massachusetts. Clearly it wasn’t worth him mentioning that he’s got something important coming up in November, or who he represents or why you should vote for him. Very poor. Secondly, let’s look at the followers. Obama has over 17.5m followers. That’s 17.5m who want the latest news and updates from the Obama camp. 17.5m million people that Obama will be able to send a direct message to on the day before Election day, reminding them to get out and vote. Romney? Well 669k followers is nothing to be sniffed at however compared to Obama, he isn’t at the races. Now, Twitter followings are not the be all and end all. In the Republican Primaries, Newt Gingrich had the most Twitter followers however Newt is clearly a lunatic who would just say anything to get votes. Bases on Mars for instance.
The key to success for the candidates is the actual engagement that they have with their followers. Let’s look at the below messages. Obama’s messages focus on inspiration and hope (quotes from Nelson Mandela) and transparency – links to tax returns from both candidates. Romney however is all about blame. It’s everyone’s fault, the Fed, big government and Obama. In fact, why not tell Obama. Here’s how to contact him. Hello, now this is interesting. Does Obama ever use Romney’s Twitter handle in his posts? No, of course not. Why should you go and check out the other guy when he’s the authority. Romney however is actually directing people to Barack Obama! And those disaffected that are following Romney are being directed to messages of hope and positivity with Barack Obama. Talk about an own goal!
When it comes down to it, I’m not surprised. Romney is not an A-list candidate. And the Republicans have not put together a media support team which skill and expertise for winning the election. Candidates that stand against a sitting President tend to be poorer candidates as the A-list candidates want to have a clear run, not take on someone with an established media presence that is likely to win. Which is why your Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and other ‘heavyweight’ candidates are not standing. Romney reminds me of a kid that will do anything to get what he wants yet rarely gets. Kind of a bully in all honesty. But he doesn’t quite fit in with the whole American good ol’ boy image that Republicans love, which is why Republicans are happy to let him stand. If you asked a red blooded Republican, what they would prefer, 4 more years of Obama or 8 years of Romney, I think they’d plump for the former. Obama is such an inspiring figure yet Romney comes across as someone that you’d tell you could’t come out because you were washing your hair. Romney is a whiner and a blamer. He’s spent his whole life ducking and dodging and this comes across with his online profile. He throws money at problems to make them go away but all this does is make him seem even more out of touch with the man on the street.
One final point on Mitt Romney. Mitt’s family spent some time South of the Border and he has an extended family of Mexicans. Now what if Mitt was Mexican? Well if you want to know what would happen in the freaky parallel universe, why not follow MexicanMitt on Twitter. He’s the most Mexican man in the world and you can follow his campaign to become President of the United Estates!
Obviously I’ve predicted that Barack Obama will win the 2012 Presidential Election. I’m really going to go out on a limb here but I predict that George P. Bush will one day be President. Maybe not in four years. Maybe not in eight. But he will be. With an ever increasing Latino population in the United States, it’s almost impossible for not just a Bush, but a Mexican Bush to fail in a bid to become El Presidente of the United Estates! Ajua!
Back in the digital stone age (pre-facebook) I often found the digital footprint of those online to be quite fake and false. Kind of like a dating site where people describe themselves as being how they would like to see themselves – then ultimately failing to live up to those expectations in real life. Then came Facebook and we all became totally transparent, sharing, commenting, saying who we’d dated and not really giving a shit about privacy and what we were revealing. Then came LinkedIn (in a bigger way, it’s been around longer than you think) and we upped our game professionally, enhancing our CVs, whilst at the same time, restricting who saw what on our Facebook. Somehow Twitter sort of sits in between, but that’s a discussion for another day.
My point is, is that we now have quite separate and distinct online profiles. Or personal and professional if you like. You don’t talk to your boss about the new band that you like so you don’t post links to tour dates on to LinkedIn, and you probably don’t talk to your friends about your company’s new brochure, so you don’t post it on to Facebook. We know the rules and boundaries and generally, we’re all a lot more savvy than we were 2-3 years ago (raise your hands if you lock your Twitter when applying for a new job? Thought so 
).
So, we’ve got the personal and professional lives nailed, in a social networking context. But there’s one area of our lives that is difficult to transfer online, and it’s not something that we give a lot of consideration to – your private life.
Earlier this year I made a decision that has completely changed my life. Those of you who I see in real life on a regular basis know what I’m talking about however this is a complete mystery to the majority. It really hammered home to me how important it is to manage various aspects of your life and ensure that all content that you produce online really is relevant to your audience – whether it you brand you, or brand business. As a business, you keep the internal stuff internal. All the politics and hassle that goes into producing the final product is all kept in house and all that the audience sees is the finished product. And I think the same applies when you are posting content on to social media as an individual. Is what you are saying relevant to your audience? If you start posting really personal things, you’ll turn your audience off and you’ll stop getting through to them.
If you ever have any doubts about whether your postings are relevant to your audience, maybe don’t post it. It probably should be kept in house.
If you’ve been on any news site today you surely can’t have failed to spot an article about Facebook removing any non Facebook email addresses from your contact page, and replacing it with your username@facebook.com email address. Did you feel outraged, violated and used? How dare Facebook do this to you? In fact, how dare Facebook do anything that you don’t like, from changing the timeline, layout, how you engage and connect and view your connections and likes? How dare they.
Before you wipe that froth from your mouth, I think you should check the terms and conditions. You’re not going to like this, Facebook own you! When it comes down to it, when you get something for ‘free’, you are the product, being sold on to those who want to know more about your likes and dislikes, in order to tailor their marketing campaigns to you. You are effectively a sheep, being fed grain by a farmer. You eat the grain. Then the farmer changes the grain to fatten you up and get you behaving differently so that he can get a better price for you at the market.
Now, as a marketeer I don’t think this is a bad thing (the getting customer information part, not the sheep part), and Facebook is just a conduit for connecting products to customers however if you object, you can always leave…
…except you can’t. You may have noticed over the past few weeks that you’ve suddenly got about 10 more friends. Have a look through your friends list. Can you see friends of Facebook past who ‘deleted’ their profiles? You can’t actually view their profiles however Facebook have helpfully kept their profile on life support, ready for the day when your friend returns.
Epilogue:
I noticed this about a month ago and I really wish I’d written about it at the time, so that I could have ridden the wave of moral outrage and generated some serious traffic for my humble blog. Oh well, next time eh!
This morning, as is now my routine, I was listening to the Today Programme on Radio 4 when I heard a rather peculiar article about Yell rebranding as Hibu. That’s Yell, as in Yellow Pages. Y’know, with the Yellow branding that’s really recognisable in the UK. Now, the new identity has been developed by Landor to be rolled out across all offline and online channels to reposition the beleaguered company. To make matters worse, Mike Pocock, the CEO of Yell/Hibu has claimed that the name Hibu ‘doesn’t mean anything’. Pretty shocking considering how powerful the Yell brand is within the UK.
Now, I mentioned above that the company is ‘beleaguered’. Let’s just say it isn’t doing very well. However, not so badly that they can’t scrape together a few shekels to appoint one of the costliest agencies around. But there’s a bigger issue at hand here. Have you tried to use Yell? It’s shit! Seriously! I tried to use it to search for the service of my present organisation, using the office postcode as my location and guess what? My company was not top recommendation. In fact the top recommendation was for a firm based in Bromley – over 9 miles away! Obviously this firm has bought this space to promote it’s business but I don’t really care whether they can serve me or not. I want to use a location based site to find an organisation as convenient to my location as possible. Yes, paid ads must be a consideration to make the business work however failing to deliver results that suit customers just isn’t going to wash. Which leads me to conclude that the problem is not the extremely recognisable brand, but the service that’s actually on offer. Rather than spunking a fortune on appointing an agency, Mr Pocock would have been better investing said fortune on improving the service.
Which leads me on to GM. Last week GM announced that they were pulling $10m worth of ads from Facebook because they just weren’t working and that it was so hard to get cut through via social media.
Yawn!
Seriously? They attempted to back up this claim with an illustration of social media to demonstrate how difficult it was to get your head around social media and make that impact. Oh, woe is me GM. Poor you.
Now, isn’t this the same GM that is rife with bureaucracy and incompetence, that had to drive to Washington 4 years ago, cap in hand, looking for a bail out? It’s it also the same GM that produce crap cars.
But obviously, it’s not GM’s fault that their social media campaigns are not working. How could it be? They only produce crap cars and those that use social media are clearly incredibly stupid. Yeah right. Conversely, those that use social media are incredibly savvy and if GM had decided to listen to what people were saying about their brand rather than picking up the metaphorical megaphone and shouting at them, maybe, just maybe, they might get an insight into the issues that people have with their cars?
Ultimately, it’s easier to find a scapegoat for your company failings however blaming social or digital channels for your failings is simply not on. Rather than attempting to ride the social media wave to guaranteed profitability (as realistic as the American dream), why not invest in listening to what people say about your brand, harvest this data and use it to improve your product. If you listen to your audience and apply their (tested) suggestions, you’ll create an army of brand advocates who will be more than happy to talk about your brand in a positive way on social and digital channels.
After hoovering up your personal data for advertising purposes, one of the chief aims of social networks is for you to ‘connect’ with as many people as possible so that you can be used as a conduit for advertisers to tap into your network for advertising purposes. Cynical? Moi? Anyway, I digress, on the majority of social networks, you’ll find features to enable you to connect with people you may know and expand your network. It’s usually on the top right hand side of the web page and probably has a thumbnail of the individual and some sort of reason why you may know them – usually through other people. On Facebook I’ll be suggested a variety of people that I went to school with, socialised with or some other activity. However on LinkedIn, it’s a bit more business focused with colleagues, recruiters and potential profiled prospects appearing on this feature. I tend to not pay too much attention to this feature however if I log into LinkedIn, I may give a cursory glance to this feature to see if I recognise any names or photos. And then once I’ve concluded that I don’t know the suggestions, I move on to whatever my initial intention for being on the site actually was.
This week however, I stopped. There was a name sitting there that I knew and recognised. I kid you not, I was dumbfounded, just staring at my screen wondering if the appearance of this individual was some sort of joke. I’ve never met the man but I know who he is, and if you are a resident of the British Isles, you know exactly who he is! So I clicked to investigate more. There was no photo however the job title that I knew him for was correct. And he had over 500 connections which suggested that there was a degree of legitimacy to this profile. Now, you’re all champing at the bit wonder who it is right? Well, I’ll tell you:
Gary Speed
For those who don’t know, Mr Speed was a very successful and eloquent footballer who had retired and was manager of the Welsh national side. Late last year he committed suicide. Now, Gary Speed’s appearance on LinkedIn would not have surprised me as he was an intelligent individual who undoubtedly had a network that extended beyond football into other business sectors. But there are a few things about this profile that don’t make sense. First things first, if the profile is legitimate, why has no one in his 500+ strong network informed LinkedIn of his passing and requested the removal of the profile, or amend into a memorial? Now, don’t forget, I’m cynical. I may have mentioned this. Looking at the profile, the email address appears to be the domain of Sheffield United FC. Gary Speed was manager of Sheffield United however there was over 15 months between him leaving that role and his untimely death. Furthermore, looking at the names of people who have looked at other profiles, there’s a faint whiff of the bogus profile about it. I can believe that Nick Clegg, Cherie Booth and Dean Holdsworth are on LinkedIn, but ‘fernando torres’, and ‘Rafa Banitez’ (sic)?
The creation of the bogus profile is certainly nothing new. Just look at those on Facebook and Twitter masquerading as Justin Bieber or Brad Pitt. At a lower celebrity level, I actually witnessed an uncomfortable Twitter argument between Richard Fearless of Death in Vegas and his impostor, which Mr Fearless effectively issued a cease and desist as the fake Mr Fearless was posting music, which was not to the taste of the real man. I often wonder why people create fake profiles. Are their lives so worthless that they have to live theirs vicariously through the online profiles of others. This is very misleading for fans and also quite uncomfortable for those who are victims.
In a way, it’s a form of identity theft. But traditionally, it’s been the preserve of Facebook or Twitter, or other ‘social’ networks. Going back to the original example, LinkedIn has built up a reputation of trust and legitimacy by connecting people who have done business together, have worked together and will work together in future. If however, LinkedIn is infiltrated by those pretending to be others, the legitimacy of LinkedIn is called into question. How do you know for instance that the profile of former head of RBS, Fred Goodwin, is not controlled by a spineless, dishonest individual that is looking to exploit you for their own selfish gain? You don’t. LinkedIn is a powerful network right now but if the legitimacy of those using it is compromised, LinkedIn’s power will diminish.
For those interested, you can view Gary Speed’s profile here: http://ow.ly/b1EKp
