UBank Australia has launched a webisode called “Moneybox” that provides financial information in a way that’s easy to undertand and quite funny too:
The first episode has had about 7000 views so far. Not spectacular, but not a bad start either. You can tell by the comments on thier YouTube channel that a lot of people enjoyed it and are looking forward to the next one.
They also participate on Twitter, and have a decent Facebook page with a few fans. I think that their slow but steady approach to social-media is a natural way to acclimatize to an online social-media environment that can be hostile towards brutish corporate entrances.
One of the great things about UCT GSB is its location: historic buildings, walking distance to the Waterfront, and with epic mountain views. Hence it’s very rare for an open-enrollment course to be hosted away from the home turf. This year, however, we’ve decided to try bring the highly successful Nomadic Marketing programme to Gauteng.
It’s going to be happening a little sooner than I expected though, due to a very tight academic schedule this year: 17th – 19th February. Due to this, we’re expecting a smaller class than normal, which will make the learning context more personal.
Nomadic Marketing is targeted at Media and Marketing execs who need to know how to integrate social media into their current campaigns and strategies. We approach the subject from three perspectives:
1. Tools and Technologies: Learning the basic technical components of new-media marketing and social-media communication
2. Management and Optimization: Ensuring that the tools and technologies are used effectively, managing and optimizing their performance
3. Strategy and Integration: How to integrate the Nomadic Marketing approach into traditional campaigns.
The lecturing faculty have been chosen based not only on their knowledge and experience in Social Media, but their ability to communicate their insights. Among the confirmed faculty are: Khaya Dlanga (transmedia storytelling); Arthur Goldstuck (the stats on social media); Melissa Attree (Social Media PR); Walter Pike (integrating Social Media into a holistic brand strategy); Mike Stopforth (explaining social media); Nic Haralambous (Publishing and Filtering); Jon Cherry (Experiential Social-Media); and Vincent Maher (Mobile Social Media); Gregor Rohrig (Avusa iLab case study); Ingrid Rubin (ORM); Scott Gray (BMW Case Study) and Jarred Cinman (Measurement and Tracking).
The course notes are drawn from leading experts from around the world, and include reference articles that are gathered up to the week prior to the programme running to ensure freshness and relevance of the content and informaton. Additionally, delegates all receive a prescribed textbook that covers the basics of e-marketing.
There will also be a number of case-studies from entrepreneurs, big-media players and corporates who have used social media.
Please mention the course to anyone who you think may be interested in it, as we need to have a certain amount of people signed up to go ahead with it. Also, feel free to contact me directly, or click through to the course website for more info. I will, of course, keep you posted with updates.
In 2006 the telecoms and tech author Tomi Ahonen coined the term “Seventh of the Mass Media” to explain why services on mobile need not be copies of internet or TV content – it describes the evolution and convergence of mass media from print to mobile. It’s an interesting concept that I often get asked to include in introductory presentations about Mobile Marketing.
The seven mass media in order of their introduction are:
1 – Print (books, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, etc) from the late 1400s
2 – Recordings (records, tapes, cassettes, cartridges, CD’s, DVD’s) from the late 1800s
3 – Cinema from about 1900
4 – Radio from about 1910
5 – Television from about 1950
6 – Internet from about 1990
7 – Mobile phones from about 2000
There’s fascinating stories about these all along the way, but we’re going to focus on Internet and Mobile.
The internet was the first “inherent threat” mass media channel. Inherent threat means that the internet could challenge any previous media and cannibalize it – for example, print articles can be read online, tv shows viewed online, radio shows listened to etc. Additionally, the internet introduced three powerful concepts:
1. It was the first interactive media,
2. It offers search, and
3. It enables social networking
Mobile wasn’t born as a “Mass Media” until Radiolinja (in Finland) launched the first downloadable content to mobile phones – the downloadable ring tone – in the Autumn of 1998. This started the shift of mobile from telecommunications to media.
Ahonen points out that there are seven features that distinguish mobile from all the other media:
1. Mobile is the first personal mass media
2. Mobile is permanently carried
3. Mobile is always-on
4. Mobile has a built-in payment mechanism
5. Mobile is available at the point of creative inspiration
6. Mobile has the most accurate audience measurement
7. Mobile captures the social context of media consumption
Many may claim that the internet offers some of the benefits (personal, payment, audience accuracy and social context). However, as Ahonen states:
The internet is only semi-personal such as shared computers at internet cafes, home and the office, and the ability for example of employers to read content consumed by employees. The internet in its native form cannot handle money or payments, and requires work-arounds such as Paypal accounts and using credit cards. On mobile payments can be enabled on the click, such as with downloading ring tones.
Mobile is also often referred to as the “fourth screen”, the first three being Cinema, Television and PC. Nokia sums it up quite nicely in this advert:
Are all your profiles up to date? Are you tired of filling out your profile on websites and online applications? Wouldn’t it be useful to just maintain one or two central profiles that would automatically update all the others?
The promise of “portable profile” is just that. You can use one profile across the web, and sign into sites without having to fill out all the usual registration stuff.
Of course, this raises major privacy concerns. Each site that you use your portable profile on will have access to your full profile information, as well as possibly knowing what other sites you’re registered with.
As a website owner, there are benefits to allowing users to register with their portable profile:
1. You can personalize their experience by knowing more about them,
2. There’s a lower cost of password and account management, while drawing new web traffic.
3. It lowers user frustration by letting users have control of their login.
There are a number of companies offering portable profile, internet ID, and single sign on services already such as Verisign, OpenID, and my favourite Chi.mp
However, Facebook Connect seem to be leading the way with regards to the promise of taking your network of friends and connections around the web with you. There are, of-course, concerns about whether we should trust a commercial enterprises with our precious identity. Nevertheless, I’ll highlight Facebook Connect as the principle is important.
Facebook Connect is a single sign-on service that competes with OpenID. The service enables Facebook users to login to affiliated sites using their Facebook account and share information from such sites with their Facebook friends.
The following presentation illustrates the potential of Facebook Connect, but could just as well apply to Chi.mp if you used that as your hub.
Here is Facebook’s own list of all the sites that have implemented Facebook Connect (partially only) with a full scale implementation of it at Brainfall.com
The price of Personalization is Privacy. I don’t mind sharing my information if it’s going to get me more relevant information and personalized service, but I would expect to be able to control what different people (and sites) can see on my profile. Another concern with single-sign on is the danger of someone getting hold of your one password that opens the doors to your life online. I guess these are the risks we all have to live with. I’d like to get Dominic White’s perspective on this.
I'm a Digital Media and Marketing educator based in Cape Town, South Africa.
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