When Morrissey sang “some girls are bigger than others” was he singing about their size or their generosity?

Talking of size, there’s been a lot of talk about the death of the network agency recently. Amusing though Sir Martin Sorrell’s denouncement of his own agencies’ leadership at AdTech was (for the record – he reminded us that too many of his agency top management knew too little about digital) it can only be part of the picture. Digital isn’t the only thing many of them don’t get. Now I’ve always talked about the creative product, and how to encourage a better version of getting it. This is a common principle that unites many across the industry. Sadly there aren’t many large agencies that think it that important in practice, and would rather run and hide than get an honest debate about agency added value out on the table.

I’ve been lucky enough to have created a very successful digital agency, run a very large network agency, and now operate as a consultant to both clients and agencies in how to improve the way in which they go to market and how to get the best out of each other. I’ve also spent time over the last year reviewing a wide range of creative product for an award or two. Oh and have an experimental creative business model on the go as well. My evidence is broad and deep. And we shall see in the published results of quite a few agencies in the coming months just how poor performance has got.

It’s all too easy to lay into the paranoid nature of agency leadership and the too often disconnected nature of network agencies in particular as they are forced to sign up to targets they can’t reach and client commitments they can’t meet. Many of them are good people caught in a trap. Right now, clients are holding back budgets left right and centre and finding it harder to take risks. The business model encourages internecine warfare, which is, apart from anything else, a shame and waste of energy for sometimes very clever and talented people, and clients’ money. There are of course notable exceptions to this, and I tip my hat to all of them.

I don’t think the agency is dead, by the way. But I do think it has become stale, and forgotten that, as Alan Moore puts it, “the best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Wouldn’t it be rather more fun if we all spent more time thinking about that? How to inspire others. How to create. How to imagine. How to invent. How to argue for quality, and how to improve. And did it. That’s what I’d like for Christmas. I’d like to be reminded that there others in the industry that want it to get better, by being a better, cleverer, more agile industry.

And by thinking of ideas, not excuses.

The Daily Mail has been in trouble again recently over its policy
of how to moderate user comments on its site. Malcolm Coles, writing for The
Media Blog,
reports that despite (in this case) user comments supposedly being moderated before going live on the site, extremist
racist comments got through the moderation system, and despite being reported
for abuse (by MailWatch and the Media Blog in this instance), were left on the
Mail’s site from 6.30pm to 11am the following morning, before being taken down.
MailWatch has the details, including the comments that were allowed through.

The Mail changed its moderation policy earlier this year 
(its policy can be viewed here),
and now selects when to moderate comments (whether and how comments are
moderated or not is made clear under each article). In unmoderated sections,
the onus is on readers to report abuse. Judging by the example cited by Coles,
this policy isn’t working, as racist or abusive comments are clearly getting
through the system, being stopped by neither pre- nor reactive moderation.

There’s another interesting twist to the Mail’s comment
system: readers can vote for their favourite comments, and can view comments by
the most ‘popular’ (i.e. the most voted-for). Many of the people who care
enough to vote on other people’s comments will be those who have passionate, or
extreme views on an issue. Racists, bullies, political extremists all fall into
this category – as is made very clear by the example above.  This has the (intended?) effect of bringing
the most reactionary comments to the top of the pile, and stoking the fires of
the debate.

It seems to me that if you are going to allow your readers
not just to comment on articles, but to vote on those comments, you must have a
moderation policy that is consistent and effective, to prevent abusive (in this
case, racist) comments from becoming the ‘favourites’ on a site. The site owner
will be associated with that racism. Ethics aside, on a purely commercial basis
this association could harm advertising revenues – how many mainstream advertisers
will want to be associated with racism on a news site?

These days, news sites are not just about delivering news
that has been researched by journalists. They are interactive communities,
where readers can join the discussion. The media owner has a moral
responsibility (if not a legal one) for content on that site, whether it is uploaded
by its journalists or its readers – all of whom publish within that community.

There is also evidence that users prefer to comment in a
moderated environment. A study in 2006 from the University of Missouri-Colombia’s
school of journalism found that users preferred to comment in a moderated
environment.  Interestingly, this was not predominantly
because users were concerned that they’d be exposed to abusive messages, but
because they didn’t want a discussion to get sidetracked (by spammers, or thread
‘hijackers’, for example). The study found that moderating news comment sites
actually helped to encourage more people to participate.

All the major news sites have strict user guidelines to
attempt to control user behaviour and comments. Most sites post moderate (i.e.
check that comments comply with site rules after they have gone up on the site)
and reserve the right to delete anything that breaks the rules. The
Independent, for example, makes it very clear that it will ban users who break
these rules from participating on the site again .
All the major news sites state that they accept no liability for comments that
break guidelines; the FT explicitly makes users financially responsible for any claim resulting from a
breach of site rules.

But these rules are meaningless if they are not enforced.
What the vociferous minority of your readers think is acceptable, and what you
and your advertisers think is acceptable may be worlds apart. Whilst traffic is
undoubtedly up, the Mail may yet rue its decision to change its moderation
practices.

Only a matter of a year or so ago it would have been almost impossible to see the nature of Microsoft’s demise.

Sure,
Google was the new force dominating the world of search & display
advertising with the will and resources to keep pioneering:
…Maps…Earth…Docs…Analytics
…Wave. The list goes on.

Although
Microsoft has tried and failed to compete in some of these areas, most
especially in the search market with Bing, there has been no real
threat to their overall stranglehold of the desktop operating system
market with about 90% share (and with that, dominance in the office
software market).

But things are not quite as rosy in the mobile/handheld operating system market. Recent figures from Gartner
show that Microsoft’s Windows Mobile lost 28 percent of its smartphone
market share between the third quarter of 2008 and the third quarter of
2009. Microsoft is really being squeezed by open source operating
systems (such as Symbian and Google’s Android) and the core proprietary
smartphone operating systems of RIM’s Blackberry and Apple’s iPhone. To
put this in context Blackberry gained a 20% market share in Q3 this
year and the iPhone 17% (source).

However
it’s the open source platforms that Microsoft has most to worry about.
These are predicted to grow to around 62% market share by 2012,
according to Gartner – and Android proves possibly the biggest threat.
In under a year it’s grown it’s marketshare from zero to 4%. Handset
manufacturers such as Samsung are attracted to Android as there are no
software license fees – and this may ultimately limit Microsoft’s
ability to charge license fees in this market. Considering around 80%
of smartphone purchases are private, rather than corporate, Microsoft
cannot bank on revenues from the lucrative business market here.

And
it’s not only in the smartphone market that Microsoft faces a challenge
from Google. Last week Google announced the open source launch of its Chrome Operating System
(OS). Chrome OS will be based on the look & feel and architecture
of the Chrome web browser. Chrome OS is specifically designed for
notebooks and plugs into Google’s cloud computing vision – with
applications and data stored on the internet.

The beauty of
the Chrome OS is that again there are no license fees. Considering that
the hardware manufacturers largest direct cost is the the Microsoft
Windows license how long will it be before Google launches an assault
on the Windows market?

Yes, this is a long way off. There’s no
doubt about that.  But looking at the way the mobile operating system
has evolved in the last 12 months, I wouldn’t bet against it.

Image (c) Softpedia 2009

Back in 2001, I started out life as a bedroom internet publisher.  Me and a couple of University buddies decided to set up a political satire website called “Spinon” in the run up to the 2001 General Election – in a similar vein to Jib-Jab in the US.

Spinon became massive.  It was an instant hit.  First in Westminster.  Then around the country, as we progressively worked our way up the media-ladder, first with appearances on local news (Bristol Evening Post), then radio (Radio 5 and Radio 1) and then TV (BBC 9 Nine O’Clock news).

We had an idea.  We created some buzz.  We generated a ton of traffic to our site.  We became famous (for 5 minutes).  We made a sh*t load of cash (from advertising).  We bought a fleet of Ferraris.
This is the classic model for successful internet entrepreneurs.  Apart from the last 2 point s didn’t happen.  We didn’t make sh*t loads of cash through advertising.

And we didn’t make sh*t loads of cash through advertising because of one major problem – lack of relevant advertising inventory.  Of course back in 2001, internet advertising was still finding its feet – however the situation still stands for broad entertainment-based (not issue-based) publishers, that it’s still much more difficult to make money finding “relevant” advertising for your site and making money from it.

As a reader of an entertainment website – be it a satire, gossip, celeb or otherwise – as I’m reading / watching the fun on the site, the most relevant kind of advertising you can deliver me would be “fun advertising”.  I’m having fun on the site, so I want the advertising to be equally entertaining – NOT some bland direct-selling banner shouting BUY BUY BUY at me.

That’s why after our failed publishing venture – we got into viral advertising, and a couple of years down the line launched the Viral Ad Network.  An ad network which allows publishers – from Twitterers to Bloggers to giant publishing networks – to make money through publishing fun ads next to their fun content.

And it works.  Publishers like having viral ads next to their content, and are happier to embed it more closely within the actual content of their site.  Advertisers are happy, because viewers engage with their ads.

And I like it because I get to drive a nice shiny red car at last ; – )

**Monitored alarm systems** Mmmm, tasty!

The New York Times focus on paid content is turning to its e-edition in a deal with Samsung that gives readers a discount on a netbook computer for subscribing.

According to Paidcontent, the New York Times is offering a $100 discount toward the cost of a $400 Samsung Go netbook if they take out a one-year subscription to Times Reader 2.0.

A subscription to the Times Reader 2.0 costs $3.45 a week or just under $180 a year, The e-paper, which resembles the print edition, launched first two-and-a-half years ago with a new version out in May. The paper has a demo on its website and offers a seven day archive.

Perperami has done it and now IBM, Microsoft and others are turning to crowd sourcing to develop new ad campaigns and incorporate the findings with traditional research.

The Wall Street Journal reports that IBM, Microsoft and other brands, including casino operator Harrah’s Entertainment, are experimenting with developing their new advertising campaigns based in part on what consumers are talking about online.

They are using key words searches to find out what consumers are and what they are not saying about their brands. One example is IBM’s Lotus brand. A new ad created by Ogilvy North America reflects findings “that consumers tend to talk online about meetings, rather than the technologies that enable them”.

If you have ever struggle to find your favourite TV shows online a new service called Clicker has been launched to make that a whole lot easier.

According to the Wall Street Journal free website Clicker (where did I leave it again?) aims to be the "TV Guide for all full episodes available to watch on the web" whether you are looking for Gossip Girl, 30 Rock or Flash Forward or Fringe.

The site searches over 1,200 sources and indexes some 400,000 episodes from 7,000 shows. Clicker will then either take you straight to the content or allow you to watch it on its own site.

The arrival of Twitter has led to many talking about blogging dying as microblogging took over, but blogging platform WordPress is showing growth while Twitter slumps.

According to a report on Techcrunch, Twitter is seeing growth to Twitter.com slow (third party clients like TweetDeck are still going strong) as numbers fall by 100,000 to 58.3m unique visitors worldwide based on comScore estimates.

WordPress.com on the other hand gained 10m unique visitors to end the month at 151.8m suggesting that traditional blogging is far from dead.

It’s over before it’s even begun….well not quite, but Christmas is well and truly here. I’m getting a lot of retailers asking whether it’s too late to launch a site in December to take advantage of the Christmas peak period. The reality is, you’ve got nothing to lose even if you launch on the 24th December, but don’t expect to take advantage of the volume that other retailers will be getting.

With the above in mind, here are a few numbers and dates to be aware of:

NOW: people have already started researching their Christmas purchases. They’ve probably already come on to your website and either made a mental note of it or disregarded it from their options. Retailers with their full offering on show right now will have the best chance of ensuring customers see them in all their glory and potentially come back in the next 3 weeks for a lovely purchase.

The ’10′ days of Christmas: these are the 10 days preceding Mega Monday (see next item). Last year this peak in traffic commenced on Saturday 29th November and ended on the 8th December. This year, if it follows the same pattern, will run from Saturday 28th November to Monday 7th December. Still with me? 

Mega Monday/Cyber Monday/Monster Monday: Ok I made the last one up. I hate these terms. Makes me cringe. So 80′s. But cringe away Mr Shuman, as this is quite literally the biggest day of the year for online sales. This year it falls on the 7th December 2009 (woop woop, my birthday). It’s traditionally the 2nd Monday in December and for at least 3 years in a row, has been the biggest online shopping day of the year. In 2008, online sales were £320m on that day alone.

Wednesday 23rd December: this is traditionally the peak pre-Christmas footfall period in the bricks and mortar stores out yonder in the real world. Last minute rush before heading home on Christmas eve. Makes a lot of sense to me.

Boxing day, 26th of December: for the last 2 years, this has been the busiest day in online traffic (not sales) for etailers. Bargain hunters looking for deals. Unwanted gifts looking to be exchanged. Whatever it might be, just make make sure your hosting is up to scratch.

And here are some stats to note:

- UK shoppers spent over £4.67bn online in December 2008, which equates to £76.67 for every person in the UK, and is an increase of 14.2% on December 2007 (Source: IMRG / Capgemini, Jan 2009)

And here’s the kicker:

- Online spending is to reach a total of £8.9bn this Christmas, representing 20p in every £1 spent, and a 24% increase on previous years, according to research carried out by the Centre for Retail Research for Kelkoo. (Note: this is implying Christmas is not just December but is not clear which period it does include)

- 93% of UK consumers plan to shop online for their Christmas gifts this year according to e-Customer Service Index (eCSI) from eDigitalResearch and IMRG

So there you have it. Will online sales break all the records once again? Will the pre-Christmas sales skew the results? Will people shun the high-street in favour of on-line? Will I get what I want this Christmas?

As it cuts thousands of jobs AOL is looking to hire students to blog on its hyperlocal blog network Patch.

According to Business Insider, Patch’s president Warren Webster was recently at an NYU Journalism event along with Darien Patch editor Cecilia Smith where they were doing short interviews and collecting CVs.

The news comes after Sky News in the UK advertised for student journalists to contribute to its General Election coverage. A story on the Centre for Journalism website says students will be “paid a fee. And we’ll DOUBLE the fee if you get the results to the Sky News Centre first, beating all the opposition”.