Another bite coming from the Finnish giant of mobile phones… Nokia is suing Apple for allegedly infringing ten of the company’s patents in the iPhone…
The hot news in more detail will be all over the news so I won’t go into details but yet another slash in the mobile phone war for the bid to dominate the world!
Yes, we have Nokia & a hand full of other pretty big tech firms but announced today – that by July 2010, it will be your god given right to have high speed broadband in the comfort of your own home! Yep, we’re making having access to broadband a legal right, ensuring that every
single one of these lovely Finnish citizens has an Internet connection of at least 1Mb/s
by July 2010. Pretty cool no…
No, I wasn’t banned by Facebook, rather I banned myself from Facebook & TV for the past 48 hours – and wow what a difference!
Reason for the Ban:
Simply put, I felt Facebook & Television where taking up too much time – Yes, they essentially become addictions of everyday life! Even at my ”young” age many people are permanently logged in… Spare time is being spent in Facebook instead of something useful & we all know the ”Girlfriend & Boyfriend scenario: Honey, what are you watching… Be quiet babe, I’m watching TV… What is it your watching?… Oh for fuck sakes, I don’t know babe – just be quiet”
The effects of these two combined are detremental if you ask me! I am as such a victim who easily finds himself in front of the TV at night time with laptop permanently on Facebook, while offcourse I scroll and study other sites also…
I decided it was simply high time to see what happens without either & in the long-term my ambition is to find the happy medium – somewhere between the latest technology and old fashioned ”face-to-face” communications. Simply put, its about finding a balance & the right tools that benefit your life, without sacrificing life offline!
So I put together a few positive / negative thoughts on FB & following that I’ll give a brief of what can happen in 48 hours
Positive effects on work life:
Is there a positive effect? Yes we can network but this isn’t work life… this is essentially personal life. As an entrepreneur their are ways to network and FB is not one of them…
Yes as a digital marketer I need to know whats happening in Facebook for the sakes of my clients and their positioning to the consumer within social media, but this once again is not worklife – its is a requirement of my profession to ensure clients maximize their position online/offline etc…
Negative effects on work life:
- Less hours a day spent on actual work
- Less thinking time (I am a solid believer that FB fills in the gaps between work but shouldn’t thinking do this?)
- On-going distraction – “whats happening in FB – I’ll just check”
- Friends wanting to chat in FB chat (which hardly works anyway). Yes, friends overseas are a positive effect but your local friends? Really guys, pick up a bloody phone or go meet them…
Positive effects on personal life:
- Keeping in touch with friends everywhere made easy. Especially friends from abroad who are difficult to keep in touch with otherwise.
- Self learning through groups/clubs…
- Dating (various dating tools which actually work kinda….)
- Games (if your into that)
Negative effects on personal life:
- Less hours a day spent on actually doing something
- Reduced motivation to see your friends face-to-face
- I think a mix of old & new communications works. Many are using Facebook for everything – in some cases its even taken over the horrible SMS which we all know we use too much.
- Relationships are being managed from FB. People are loosing touch with the need to see each other or at least speak over the phone. People are dumping each other in FB & having relationships that never make it outside of the cyber world – is this honestly healthy?
- Why see my friends? Lets hang in FB & have a beer…
- Less motivation to work out…
- Combined with TV the overall effect is just laziness
- Future generations will be pail white, fat & munch of unlimited amounts of sugar and junkfood while they couch potatoe themselves with a laptop on their laps with FB
The last 48 hours
Just briefly instead of sitting on my sofa starring into the TV & speaking to 20 people in Facebook while I update my status every five minutes I’ve read 200 pages of a book which by the way, I rarely allocate time to myself for reading, I’ve done a lot of thinking (which otherwise I would have been telling people in FB that I’ve done alot of thinking instead of doing alot of thinking), opened up my eyes to various music groups via Spotify (now that is a good online source), had coffee with two friends in the evenings, been to gym, been shopping & essentially just spent more time doing what we used to do… Active ”offline” stuff!. Oh yes, offcourse I have been working as one always does anyway…
Please note…
I am not at all saying Facebook is no good but I think what I am saying is that we need to be self indepedant from things like Facebook & TV. I will use Facebook everyday in the future, just to communicate with friends abroad & yes, I am sure I will speak a little to my local friends but I will ensure I keep my distance & only spend a short time in there everyday. I don’t need to say anything about the combination of this & TV – I think that one is obvious!!!!
Seems to change dependant on which company you ask. I have personally seen here in Finland most major ad and media agencies lay-off people. It’s very difficult to fire someone here in Finland without real cause & hence in some ways the economy has helped these agencies to go into this process called “cold termination” – which essentially is a BS way of saying we are gonna fire a whole bunch of you and give you some legal mumbo jumbo that its up the company to decide who goes! It has given agencies the opportunitiy to review their strategies & get rid of the old useless people who have no understanding of the ad/media landscape today.
SPAMBOOK – Is Facebook becoming the next SPAM medium?
Facebook… the new giant that has a generation almost attached to it. Generation F some call it! The 70′s were “free love”, the 80′s were “rock”, the 90′s were “grunge”, and now… “Social networks – FACEBOOK”.
So is this new so-called generation soon going to get angry? Why? SPAM…. While many successful brands are moving forward & embracing social platforms and new avenues of reaching their consumers, many are misusing these channels & quite frankly just ruining them for other brands. I’ve noticed an influx of brands in particular one or two in the Nordics simply attacking Facebook & using it as a personal source of SPAM. At this stage I am really narrowing down my friends in Facebook and what I see on the homepage. I really don’t want to see 20 updates on my homepage about one brand – SPAM SPAM SPAM. Too some extent its becoming a little like MySpace but at least we as the user, do have somewhat control but seems rude to delete all your fan pages and friends.
In the past 6 months a massive explosion of brand pages have been created. Facebook has become like the web during the dotcom boom – brands then said “we need a website – just create us a website” & now they are saying “we need a Facebook page – just create us a Facebook page” – So what’s the long-term strategy, what’s the point of difference, how will Facebook align with all your other marketing channels, how will you engage your consumer more so than other brands, without spamming them? Yes, another SPAM giant was email – no segmentation, no behavioral targeting, no strategic approach at all – just spam those consumers and hope for the best – What ever happened to first impressions last? Well it seems to me like Facebook is slowly moving towards this & if brands don’t follow a marketing strategy to align all their mediums and have “original concepts” to apply to Facebook then well… soon We’ll be seeking the next “anti-spam” platform.
One thing is clear that we need to build up our brands across all channels – and yes, we have to start somewhere, but not SPAM. Somewhere means having an in-depth long-term strategy as to how you will use these new channels of media to promote your business. Being marketing professionals we are obviously much more critical of the way brands place themselves to the consumer, but the consumer remembers – they are not dumb! Assume the consumer is smart, savvy, and intelligent – tell them what they want to hear, give them what they want to see… Target them & be their friend – But guys… Stop and think & ask yourselves one question – What are you trying to do in the long-term and are you going to achieve it with your current approach? I for one object to being spammed in anyway – email, facebook, telesales, forums… – Leave me alone 
Love to hear anybodies thoughts on this on a regional level. Examples would be great but I am personally trying to stop myself from attacking individual brands.
Developing markets are becoming somewhat of an interest to me now. I plan to continue my work in East Africa, maybe sooner than later as its now boom boom boom! In all honesty though, its not such a nice market to work in because politicans in Africa are a different breed all togther and essentially any big business guy in East Africa is in some way or another very connected to the politicians = which in many cases equals criminal activity in some manner. Now I wouldn’t expect most to understand this, but go down there, network your ass off and then get back to me. Please don’t comment til you know the market.
OK, normally I write about Digital Marketing in the Nordics but I just spend 2 months in East Africa and wanted to take a look at a few of the crucial factors that are playing a role in its future development. My sincere apologies for being away for so long but my new found combined profession with digital marketing includes my photographic works at michaeltrenerry.com.
Not to sound like a broken record or a teen following trends, but Facebook is totally heading down the same path as the likes of MySpace in my opinion.
The new layout sets the path for more paid advertising both on the homepage and profile page, removes any white space that the previous version had & has even gone to the extent of removing elements that allowed one to easily customize what they see. Too take it even one step further downward I would love to know who is concepting for the platform now. Functionality on your profile page below each of the “commercial” banners, allows one to skip forward and see another banner. I mean, are we developing for the 1990′s or are we moving forward…? Thumbs up, down and skip on a banner?
Who has a Jaiku account out there?
Jaiku was a product of Finland and when it came out some 2 odd years ago it was quite ahead of alot of other mobile devices. Essentially you can use it on the web but the key is to download it as an app to your mobile phone. Essentially you can do status update stuff but the winner here was the whole location based mapping – showing where you are so your friends could see on a map via GPS exactly whee you are via their mobiles (on the basis you are their friend).
Positive buzz was moving around yesterday about the
Skittles website taking on the social media genre quite nicely. Not even a day later they move the homepage to the static Facebook group page due to negative chatter about skittles on Twitter. So the big question I am asking is:
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