There’s no such thing as a free lunch
Having used WordPress.com to host this blog for nearly a year now I was shocked when I recently looked at an old blog post to see Google ads running at the top of the post and at the bottom.
These ads it seems are placed there by WordPress and sneakily enough are not shown to the owner of the blog - I’m usually logged in when I’ve visiting my own blog. From doing a little digging around it seems that this is WordPress policy and they only show ads on your blog to first time visitors to your blog. Great first impression that makes - blog over-run by Google ads.
WordPress, like many other Internet businesses, are built on a revenue model that charges absolutely nothing for the basic service, but makes a killing anytime you want to do something extra. This is very clever really. Get people in, get them using your service, get them used to it, get them liking it and even dependant on it. Then as they think about something else they want, charge them. It will be easier for them to pay that to walk away after all the time and energy invested.
WordPress charge you if you want to have a different web address than the default one. I wanted brendanhughes.ie instead of hews.wordress.com. I paid the domain registry but I also had to pay WordPress. If you want to change the look and feel of the site, there’s a fee. If you want more storage space, you pay. And so on. Now I’ve discovered that they’re also making money by advertising on my blog without me knowing.
Personally I really don’t want advertisements on this blog. I’m not making money out of this and am already paying WordPress enough in “upgrades”. The time has come I think for me to move on and find a pay-for service. This may take me a little while, so in the meantime apologies to anyone who is seeing ads all over this blog… it’s not me. It’s part of the new economics of the web.
2 comments August 18, 2008
Souls touching
If you only read one blog post this year read this one from K8 the GR8…
3 comments August 10, 2008
Blogging, China, Censorship
While a great number of people are disappearing into cyberspace, it is wonderful to witness how many individuals are finding a voice through this technology.
The Guardian have published an interview with China’s “first blogger” Isaac Mao which illustrates in many ways the democratising power of the Internet. Mao speaks in detail about the “Great Firewall of China” - a powerful image harking back to the great construction of the Emperors to keep invaders out. This construction is turned on the people of China to keep information (the new enemy) out.
It is probably worth our while as Irish people remembering that it is only a few decades since we had draconian censorship policies in place in order to protect us from external “evil” influences. In the first 20 years of the Free State up to 1942 a total of 1,600 books were officially banned in Ireland. Until very recently a number of magazines and newspapers with sexually explicit material were banned. I can imagine that if the Internet was around in the 1950’s in Ireland John Charles McQuaid would have had a very busy staff identifying “dangerous” sites and emailing the state authorities to have them blocked.
Thankfully this era has passed for us. But for Mao:
“At the same time, this shift of media power has transformed many bloggers into a new generation of celebrity in the past six years. China has a long tradition of people trying to fit into the group, moderating their behaviour to avoid standing out conspicuously - a culture reinforced by the man-made collectivism of the past half-century.
Blogs have leapfrogged this tradition, acting as a catalyst to encourage young people to become more individual. So this and other grassroots media are now emerging strongly to challenge China’s social legacy.
Even so, it’s not entirely easy to blog freely, especially in a country with media controls like China. In 2005, my blog was blocked because I posted an article relating to the Chinese censorship system - probably the most complicated in the world.”
Mao has some strong words for Google’s China division which he sees as complicit in the state censorship of individuals. He asks Google to review its policies in this matter which he suggests are contrary to their own motto of “Don’t be evil”. Everyone has a role to play, including big business.
Is blogging a human right? In so far as it grants individuals the freedom of expression I believe that it is or at least greatly contributes to the realisation of a core human right. As such it should be defended by all of us who already have a voice.
Add comment August 6, 2008
Ireland’s newest radio show is Online
PodCamp Ireland have just launched a really interesting new online radio show hosted by Krishna De and Bernie Goldbach (who I’m glad to say are both members of the IIA Social Media Working Group which I’m currently chairing).
Officially the show is called a podcast but, from my work previously with Helen Shaw I figured that the easiest way to understand what a podcast is is to call it a radio show that you can subscribe to. Subscribing means that each new show is automatically downloaded to your PC or portable music player, so there’s no more tuning in or missing out. If you like radio you’ll like podcasts even more.
I was listening to episode three of the weekly Podcamp Ireland show the other evening while tidying up the kitchen after dinner. The show had been released that morning, but because it is online you don’t have to be sitting by your radio/pc at a specific time. And because the format is radio you can listen in the same way as you listen to traditional radio - while doing the dishes… Funnily enough, I discovered that Keith Shirely was listening at the same time and we had a bit of a chat about that on Twitter. (I’ll be having a post over the coming weeks on Twitter as I’ve only just started to get my head around it.)
The Krishna and Bernie Show opens with a bit of a catch up from the hosts, with what’s been going on in their lives and in the online world over the past week. There are also some tips from Michele Neylon from Blacknight on hosting.
The parts I really enjoy however are the conversations with business people who have made a stab at using social media to engage with their customers. There is plenty of noise in the blogosphere but it is refreshing to listen to an interview where the interviewer understands both technology and business. Furthermore, Krishna doesn’t just offer a light touch that you might expect to hear on traditional broadcast or print media. She digs deep enough to engage marketers and business people who are interested in exploring social media beyond the sound bites.
If you are interested in digging a bit deeper on social media do tune in and subscribe. As an aside the Podcamp Ireland event which is taking place in Kilkenny on September 27th looks like it will be well worth the trip. The promo says that it is the “very first stand-alone event to promote the use and provide guidance and tips on the subject of social media in Ireland.” I’ll be there.
2 comments August 4, 2008
Time-off(line)
I’m just back from a two week break in the Costa del Sol - a lovely town called Nerja where friends of ours graciously let us use their apartment. It was a much needed break from Ireland (weather included) and this year for the first time a break also from the Internet. In the past year or so I’ve spent more personal time online. I have Internet access on the phone and on my oh-so-portable Asus Eee, with the result that there is hardly any time I am not ‘networked’. To be fair, I don’t bring these devices to the bedroom and they’re not much use to me on the bike for the 20 minutes it takes me to get to work… but at most other times I am tapped in to the web.
I did bring the phone and the laptop with me on the hols, but (thankfully in hindsight) I didn’t manage to get any form of Internet access where we were staying. I’m not an Internet junkie, (well I’m certainly not as hooked as a lot of people I know) but the first few days of cold turkey, of not knowing who was doing what, of being afraid I was missing something, were a little harder than I expected.
What’s different is Web 2.0. In Web 1.0 land, the Internet was my job and proved useful for finding out things and buying things. In Web 2.0 land, the Internet has become much more personally meaningful. I do things that have much more personal or emotional significance. It is another place for me to express myself, share ideas, chat, engage, catch-up, have a laugh and so on. I used to do this in the pub, but I don’t seem to go there as much these days. The Internet certainly won’t replace the pub or other offline (traditional) ways we interact with each other, but it is complementing and supplementing them.
This new social dimension of the Internet is great, but it does mean that we never/rarely switch off. As the network grows there will be fewer places we can go where we are not online. When time-out means socialising with friends, this is fine. When time-out means chilling out in my own space, ‘me-time’; it now involves switching off all our devices. How long have you gone recently with all your devices switched off?
Add comment July 20, 2008
Where have all the people gone?
Traditional bricks and mortar businesses in Ireland and elsewhere are increasingly selling to and serving customers that they have never met or even spoken to. Their customers are disappearing out of their retail outlets and off their phone lines into this new place called cyberspace.
How do businesses attract the attention of this new breed of customer? How do they sell to them or serve them? How do they build lasting relationships with customers they never meet? If business owners are not already asking themselves these questions, they will be very soon as greater numbers of their customers vanish from their doorsteps.
Am I overstating the case? Well, read each of the following statements and keep note of how many you concur with:
- “I can’t remember the last time I queued in a bank or building society.”
- “I read a lot but haven’t actually bought a book in a bookshop (or borrowed one from the library) in ages.”
- “Travel agents book flights for people. Really? And you actually pay them do do that?!”
- “Buying CD’s in record shops is a rip-off.”
- “I do all my grocery shopping online.”
- “I always buy my perfume/cosmetics online. Bargain.”
- “Can’t say I’ve ever walked into the local branch of an insurance company or a broker’s office.”
- “Television? Oh, you mean YouTube?”
- “What, you’re not on Bebo or Facebook?!”
- “You can actually TALK to people on mobile phones??”
- “I don’t buy newspapers - I get all the news I want online for FREE.”
- “When was the last time I wrote a letter? Your having a laugh! I’ve got two email accounts, instant messenger, Skype - who needs letters?!”
How did you do? If you found yourself agreeing with more than 50%, you can call yourself a member of “Net Gen” - the young ones who are disappearing into cyberspace faster than the rest of us. If you’re over 25 you can count yourself an honorary member of Net Gen. If you are over 25 and don’t find yourself agreeing with most of these, try putting these statements to someone under 25 and see what the difference is.
The point I am making is that the way customers interact with organisations is changing. We live in an age of technology-mediated consumer interactions, and that technology is increasingy Internet-based. The age of face-to-face encounters with customers where you can “eyeball” each other, “press the flesh”, have “the bit of banter” and so on, is passing.
Consumers who want to book flights, pay a bill, or buy products no longer have the inclination to head into town to do these things. Increasingly they don’t even want to have to ring a call centre and be bounced around an IVR maze for 20 minutes before they speak with someone. If they cannot do it online with you, you can be sure that they can with someone else; and because they’ve never met you they’ve certainly got no sense of loyalty to you.
As a generation disappears from the highstreets to a rapidly changing and unfamiliar place, we are all having to adapt, learn and keep up. The time for wondering if “the Interweb thing” will ever take off has passed. In order to stay relevant, meet expectations, succeed; we must all be digitally aware, skilled and engaged. In so doing we’ll not only know where all the people are gone - we’ll be there with them.
As I put this blog post together I’m experiencing a sense of the enormity of this. As a person working in the Internet industry I get the challenge for business. I also see that this is going to have much bigger implications across society as a whole. People are not just disappearing from business’s doorsteps, but from the traditional places we meet and interact in society. The Internet presents wonderful opportunities for greater collaboration and mutual understanding; however it also presents a challenge to how we understand ourselves and our relationships with others.
Having been blogging for nearly a year I’m reviewing the direction of my blog. I’ve used it mainly for clarifying things about business and new media in my own mind and then hopefully making it easily accessible to others. If there were to be a theme for the direction I would like to take I think it would be teasing out the impact the disappearance of a generation into cyberspace will have on businesses and society at large. So the brief might widen a bit, but hopefully some will still find it interesting.
3 comments July 2, 2008
Web 3.0 (already)
Earlier today I went to the symposium at the Darklight Film Festival entitled “Web 3.0: Where Next for the Internet?” I’m just starting to get my head around what Web 2.0 means for me and others in business, but I reckoned that it would be no harm to keep an eye on what’s around the next corner.
So I went hoping to learn a little about what Web 3.0 might mean, only do discover that what I really need to get to grips with is in fact “Web 3D”. A 3D web is an “all-pervasive experientially immersive” web. The example was given of a schoolchild that wants to learn about the planet Mars; they will log on to the web, search and read various documents, look at images and maybe videos on Mars. They may even talk to others online to find out more. This is where we are now. The child of the future will be able to “experience” Mars. 
The Internet will enable them to visit the surface of Mars (virtually); look around, move around, feel things and even feel the effects of lighter gravity. This will all be made possible by the convergence of applications and new input and output devices. We will move on from web browsers, LCD screens, mice and keyboards to virtual worlds with wireless receptors embedded in our brains. “Organic technologies” will become commonplace.
In the world of the future it was postulated that the virtual and the real will converge. Already the real is represented virtually, but increasingly what is happening in virtual reality is spilling over into concrete reality. Participants in Second Life for example can sell virtual objects for virtual money which can subsequently be cashed-in for real US Dollars. Our world of the future will be a complex blend of the real and the virtual. While today we can easily tell the difference between what is concrete and what is virtual, this will not be so easy in the future.This may not even be something that we think about too much as the next generations are likely from birth to live in a such blended world.
Personal identity will become even more confused in the future. Currently the 9 million Second Lifers have an average of 1.7 avatars (virtual representations) of themselves. This figure is expected to grow to 5 in the coming years. In both the virtual and real worlds it is suggested we will all be able to change our personas (and even our genders) as easily as we change our clothes.
I got a strong sense that the discussion was focusing on what the Internet might be like forty to fifty years hence, and even at that there was plenty of scepticism from the audience that what was being propounded was ever likely to happen. There was some attempt to bring it back to the next couple of years but that seemed a bit too mundane for the panel. Given that the context was the film festival, the discussion did not focus for too long on what any of the changes might mean for businesses, except for a brief discussion around how creatives can go about monetising digital content. The term “freemium” was introduced to describe the business model whereby what is unlimited is given away free in order to promote sales of what is limited. Radiohead giving their album away free online was seen as a way to promote their concerts, which, of course, you had to pay top dollar to attend. There was a rather glib, if true, remark that people will always find ways to make money out of the Internet. The difficulties often for businesses is in identifying where the opportunities lie in this constantly shifting landscape.
I think it would be worthwhile trying to put together a similar forum as this Darklight symposium, but for a wider audience and perhaps looking a little less far into the future. Web 3D seems a long way off, and there will be a lot of change over the next few years that we should be pre-empting.
No one asked the question about where do we want the web to go… all the talk was about where it is going. No one asked is what is being mapped out good or the right direction for us to take. There is an inevitability about all this. And perhaps we also need to grapple with these question.
Was talking to Roseanne briefly afterwards and she pointed out how the panel was noticeably missing any women. Perhaps this is why the discussion did not stay grounded in concrete reality for very long…
3 comments June 27, 2008
Asus Eee - Travelling Lite
It’s caffeine free, sugar free, calorie free. It’s the all new Eee, and I have one. In fact I’m writing my first blog post on it. I’m not a gadget freak, but I only heard about this two weeks ago in the SBP and I knew I had to have one. Its amazing. Just look at it:
The Eee is laptop computer that weighs less than a bag of sugar. It has a 7-inch screen which is the size of a screen on a portable DVD player - much bigger than the mobile phone screens I’ve been browsing the web on of late. And the best bit… it cost only €300.
I’ve been talking for some years about the ultimate device - the one that has everything you need in one place - phone, music player, Internet, email, camera. Well when I got a present of the Nokia N81 I thought I had arrived, only to be frustrated by the size of the screen - too small for any serious Internet work. The lack of a qwerty keyboard (a regular computer keyboard rather than a mobile phone keypad) is a real problem. My appetite for now is satisfied however with this little purchase today; I’m happy for now with just two devices that between them give me everything I want. Someday someone clever will bring it all together at a price point that makes sense for everyone else aside from techno-junkies.
So what’s it like?
I’ve bought the 4GB version which I thought would give me plenty of memory to keep me going for a while. However I’ve just spotted that there’s actually only about 1.3GB free - the operating system and applications take up about 65% of the space. I can stick on an external memory drive giving me 120GB for about €80. There’s an SD memory slot which gives me some other cheaper options. It comes wireless ready and I had it connected to my Eircom wireless broadband in a couple of minutes. It’s also network ready and if I had a home network set up I’m sure I could easily connect into it.
At first I thought it had no applications on it and you would just use it to access the Internet and use online applications such as Google Docs. But to my delight it has a whole range of applications that you would expect to find on any new computer. The base operating system is Linux, and all the applications are thus open-source (free), and compatible with Miscrosoft. So I’ve got a version of Word, Exel, Powerpoint and Adobe PDF reader. The real beauty is that it has a whole host of Internet applications pre-installed. So with one click I can get into Skype, iGoogle, Messenger, and Internet Radio.
It comes with a webcam, microphone and speakers pre-installed. The guy in the shop (Dixons) didn’t actually know this until I played around with the voice recorder application and played mine and his voice back. LOL - we’ve a friend staying at the moment and she’s amazed with this and can’t believe I bought it in Dixons which (her words) “isn’t even a computer shop”.
Other things you’ll find (on your first day) include games, educational software (for the kids), and music, photo and video file managers.
Any down sides?
Well the memory might become an issue. I’ll let you know in time, but I guess I’ll just have to be ruthless about storing things online. Got my invite from Joe in PutPlace today, so that should help.
The keyboard is taking a little getting used to - only really for caps though as the shift key is in the wrong place. I’m writing this though so it can’t be that bad. (Apostrophe key is in the wrong place too - that last “can’t” was a bit tricky.) Okay, and the screen is a little smaller than you might like on a laptop, but I’ve done F11 (full screen) in the browser and I get a good bit more space.
The guy in the shop (I’ll leave him be now, as he actually was quite pleasant) told me that there was no anti-virus software installed but that I didn’t need any. The rationale being that all viruses are targeted at the Microsoft operating system and applications. Can this be true? Is the open-source world free from from the evil of worms, bots and viruses? Sounds too good to be true.
Anyway I’m going to enjoy the new liter site of life for a while with my new white Eee. If you’re at the Darklight Web 3.0 gig on Friday (cheers Darragh) I’ll be the guy with the white Eee trying to look conspicuous.
2 comments June 24, 2008
Innovation starts here
As Ireland strives to develop into a Knowledge Economy there is increasing focus from both industry and policy makers on Innovation. On the world stage we are finding it evermore difficult to compete in either manufacturing or food production – two of our economy’s key strengths in the past. An innovation culture, it is hoped, will position us to compete as individual businesses and as a nation at a higher level, providing greater opportunities both in terms of differentiation, exports and inward investment. For anyone who operates a service business the Internet stands apart as perhaps the biggest opportunity for innovation and differentiation.
Innovation
Innovation is the process that seeks to bring (often significant) improvement to the way things are currently done. Successful innovation ultimately brings value to both the business and their customer. Businesses usually innovate in order to improve their product or service offering or to improve how they do things internally.
1. Innovating to improve products
Apple have changed the way that consumers think about personal computers and more recently about music devices and mobile phones by constantly pushing the boundaries in the design of their products. Gillette continuously innovate in the design of their products continuously improving ease of use and functionality on what are very simple devices.
2. Innovating to improve service
Dell Computers changed the way they sell their products, empowering consumers and developing increased brand recognition and loyalty at the same time. More recently they have introduced Ideastorm to gather customers’ feedback on how to improve; leading to direct changes to their offerings.
3. Innovating in how things are done
Henry Ford significantly changed the way that cars were manufactured. The shift in the internal processes had a dramatic impact on costs and ultimately on the availability of cars to the general public. Ford motor cars continue to pride themselves on their culture of innovation more than 100 years later. Southwest and later Ryanair significantly changed the way that they provided air travel to their customers. These two companies have changed the landscape of air travel in the US and Europe for millions of passengers.
Ireland, Consumers & Internet
Irish consumers are changing the ways they consume media and the expectations they have of organisations they do business with. 2 out of every 3 adults (aged between 16 and 44) are now online and the numbers are growing by several percentage points each year. Broadband penetration finally seems to be gaining momentum, even if the costs and quality are still largely unacceptable. Mobile broadband take-up is starting to register as a significant trend. Gaming consoles are increasingly clambering onto the network. 10 years ago we described ourselves as living in the Information Age. Today we could say that we are living in the IP Age (IP = Internet Protocol, the platform upon which all Internet content and traffic moves). The technology is no longer merely giving us easier access to more information. A high-bandwidth high-speed IP network gives us the potential to access and interact with media, applications, systems and people in ways that we have only started to imagine.
It still feels like we are still at the start of things. We are witnessing a revolution in how we live our lives and the measure of our participation in this revolution is how hooked-in to the IP network we are. I have friends and acquaintances who I rarely see but who I know more about what they are doing and how they are feeling than some of my family. It is not just novelty or utility that engages, but increasingly it is social and emotional necessity. The ramifications of this for society are profound.
Organisations need to understand that consumers now expect much more of them in the IP Age. When was the last time you went to an airline website and were not able to book flights because they didn’t have a booking engine? When was the last time you tried to find out about a hotel only to discover that they didn’t have a website? Its unheard of.
There’s doing the bare minimum, and then there’s seizing the opportunity to differentiate your consumer offering by leveraging the potential of the IP Age in innovative ways. And many, many Irish companies are already doing this, in both small and major ways. From SME’s such as Tipperary’s worldwidecycles.com building awareness through blogging, to large corporates such as Vhi launching podcasts, to big media companies such as RTE making TV available on mobile phones, to startups such as Daft.ie meeting the needs of both business and consumer in an unrivalled manner. The list goes on, but one feels that the surface has barely been scratched on the opportunities that exist.
If you’re looking for a little inspiration on where innovation can lead have a look at the Innovate or Die project and then the beautiful multi-media micro-site of co-sponsor Specialized Cycles.
Add comment June 11, 2008
Building a great website
We had some good conversations at the IIA Congress on how to go about building a great website. Not claiming to be an expert I was happy to share my thoughts on what I think makes a difference.
For me it’s a question of where to start? What process should you put in place and what skills should you apply to the process. Take the phrase “the best thing since sliced bread” – invented in 1912 the sliced pan epitomises for me a simple invention that really delivered convenience to consumers. The process of invention is different from that of design or development. These are part of it but not where you start. An inventor sets out with a problem or a clear need in mind and innovates in order to meet that need. The sliced pan came out of a clear need – consumers wanted slices of bread without the hassle.
When it comes to websites, the great websites (Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay, BBC, and in Ireland the likes of RTE, Daft, and love-it-hate-it-Ryanair.com) are the ones that that identify their customers needs AND then meet those needs most effectively or better than anyone else. So if you want to build a great website you must first really understand your customers/users.
Morgan and Matthew (the two experts I was privileged to share the afternoon with) very much focused on the “user-centered design” process. This comes back to what I’m saying here. Understand your user and design around their needs and expectations. For design read innovate.
There are a number of ways to go about understanding your online customers. Begin by clearly identifying your target audience. Who are they? What age, gender, location, occupation, social class, education? This may seem like overkill but the more you can pin them down the less likely you are to try and be all things to all users.
Once you’ve profiled your users go and talk to them. You can meet them face to face – get a few of them in a room – or carry out surveys, online or offline. Bring them to the pub and buy them pints if it really comes to it. But don’t pretend that you know what your customers want if you haven’t asked them. YOU are not a typical customer. If you’re setting up the website you already have preconceptions about what you think would make it a great website.
So what are you going to ask your potential users once you’ve got their attention? Well what you’re trying to figure out is what do they need from you, and more specifically from your website? What can you give them that would really meet a need, overcome a frustration, or make their lives easier? What other websites do they use that nearly deliver on their requirements but maybe fall short in some way? What do they enjoy doing on the web? What websites do they really hate? And why? Get beneath their skin when it comes to your product/service and the web. Don’t lead them. Don’t give them suggestions. Ask questions. Listen. And write it all down or record it, because you’ll probably forget some of the nuggets.
Another great source of information on what customers like/dislike/expect/want from websites can be found by looking at your competitors websites or similar websites elsewhere. Ask yourself who is THEIR target audience. What specific need are they trying to meet. What’s enjoyable about their website? What works? What doesn’t? And if you don’t feel qualified to pass judgment yourself, search far and wide for comments about those sites. Whether it is blogs, boards or research papers you’ll find plenty of others who are commenting/bitching/praising websites and their owners.
So far, all of this is free. You could invest plenty in focus groups, market research, expert reviews, usability consultants and so on – and in some instances you certainly should. However, if this is going to be YOUR website to meet YOUR customer’s needs then YOU really need to be immersed in it. I could be wrong but I don’t believe any of the great websites came from consultants’ recommendations. Get help in where you need it, but only you are going to be close enough to your business and your customers to know what will be really deliver. If you have an idea and want an independent FREE opinion please drop me a line at hewsdotbiz [at] gmail [dot] com; I’m always interested.
Add comment May 20, 2008
