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Facebook Credits came out of beta in January this year. Since it was launched in May 2009 in alpha it was believed that Credits would be used solely by people playing social games such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars. Virtual currency would give gamers that added experience when competing with their friends on Facebook. Those thinking that might have missed the whole point about Facebook having it’s own currency and the opportunity that it presents to companies and causes.
Convergence. This was one of the keywords that came of out of this year’s 2011 Financial Times Digital Media & Broadcast Conference. It’s taking me some time to pen this, but I wanted to share some of the key points that were discussed.
KPMG reports that that consumers are "spending less on traditional and digital media than six months ago, but consuming more." The six-monthly KPMG Media and Entertainment Barometer released yesterday shows that average spend per UK consumer on traditional media fell from "from £9.19 in September 2009 to £7.46 in March 2010 and spend on digital media also fell (from £1.99 to £0.98)."
The Chartered Institute of Public Relation’s announced today that it has brought together some of the UK’s most eminent social media thinkers “to provide input into the Institute’s policy guidance, education and training.” Led by CIPR Board Member and Stainforth MD Rob Brown the advisory board is charged with looking at the impact of social media on “online reputation developments, convergence in marketing communications and best practice social media measurement.”
Senior media and communications executives met in London this week for the 2010 FT Digital Media and Broadcast conference (#ftmedia10). At the heart of the debate were the questions of how the sectors were emerging from the global recession and the impact of online and social media on the creative industry and its revenues. WPP Group Chief Executive Sir Martin Sorrell launched the opening salvo by questioning companies that, from an advertising perspective, were being over-optimistic about social media. Sir Martin described social media as a phenomenon that was “personal” and therefore “not suited to being invaded by adverts.” He was right. This phenomenon is personal and it works because it’s based on conversational marketing that’s more suited to public relations than advertising.
We all know how the downturn in advertising spend has affected the press and publishing industries. Newsrooms appear to have been decimated as publishers across all sectors laid journalists out to pasture. In far too much haste commentators wasted no time in penning the obligatory obituary for their own industry. But how wrong they appeared to have been. If there was one thing that came from last week’s news:rewired conference at London’s City University it was that journalism is rediscovering itself and using technology and it’s audience to do an even better job.
The BBC’s User-Generated-Content (UGC) unit will be celebrating its fifth birthday this summer. Since it was set up in 2005, the unit has quietly been transforming how the BBC gathers and reports news. The unit is now a hub of 23 journalists that sift through stories, pictures and videos sent in by people who either have a story to tell or find themselves at the centre of a newsworthy event.
It has been an interesting year for public relations. The recession has affected how businesses communicate. Reputation and issues management have been the watchwords as companies throughout the world battled to safeguard their image and reputation during what could be described as the first major downturn in this globalised era. And it has taken no prisoners as it spread across sectors and continents, highlighting how interconnected we all are today
A lot of rumours are floating around at the moment about how publishing companies are developing digital platforms for the print offerings.
Nic Newman summed up the impact that social media is having on journalism when he said that based on volume and time spent on site, “Facebook was six times bigger than CNN.” People today spend more time on social networking sites than on news sites, with industry commentators citing this to highlight the reason for the supposed death of news and quality journalism.
“Be human, all this is still experimental” is how Media140 founder Ande Gregson summarised everybody’s expectations of Twitter and social media at the end of the Media140 Brands conference in London this week. And he is right.
Remember when iTunes was released way back in January 2001? Really, do you remember? At it’s launch Steve Jobs was confident. He knew what he was giving us and how it might transform our music listening and buying habits. At the unveiling at Macworld Expo Jobs said: “iTunes is miles ahead of every other jukebox application, and we hope its dramatically simpler user interface will bring even more people into the digital music revolution.” With that straight to the point statement the landscape for the music industry and other associated creative industries changed.
The MacTaggart Lecture took place last week with News Corporation’s James Murdoch deciding at long last to take the stand at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International TV Festival.Murdoch wasted no time in setting his stall out to get support as he painted a grim picture of the state of the UK’s media industry. Pointing the finger at the BBC, Murdoch described the corporation as a villain that had a “chilling” hold on the UK media landscape.
The Government recently unveiled an advertising and communications campaign to promote the export opportunities that exist to British industry. Some might consider the timing to be odd given that the nation is in the middle of the worst recession in living memory. But a recent UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) conference in London at the beginning of the month proved otherwise.
I have seen the end of travel guidebooks, and I saw it in Vietnam. Travelling in Asia for over three weeks with a stack of paperback guidebooks, a Mac and an iPhone with Apps such as Trip Advisor’s Local Picks and Wikipanion for Wikitravel information, the end of the guidebook was affirmed.