April 30, 2008
Here’s the latest buzz from around the Yovia network!
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Vent… a series of takes. I’ve always seen my life as a continuous movie. And each moment a series of takes. This is Vent…so grab some popcorn and enjoy the film. Thanks for dropping by!
It’s obvious, with the advancement of the computer, the way we communicate and the way we think is also adapting to the current times. It’s interesting to think about the people who run our world today and what the people of the future will be like. I have been thinking about this aspect in marketing and our society. Today people my age are constantly socializing. We are constantly plugged-in, communicating with all the technology we have been provided with, whether this is with our friends, family and acquaintances. It is known that humans are social creatures.
We want to hit the level of love and belongingness in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. But, with the changing time, this niche in communication in our lives is, I think, growing. More importantly, it is growing in an interesting and sometimes different way. When we look at kids compared to adults, I think we could say that this difference is definitely present.
I read this week in an article from Economist.com that, “[a] psychologist at MIT who studies the nexus between people and gadgets, believes that the tools of mobility are leading to ‘the emergence of a new type of person’. In the distant, landline-dominated past, she says, people thought: ‘I have a feeling so I want to make a call.’ Young people today, including Ms. Turkle’s teenage daughter, seem to be thinking instead: ‘I want to have a feeling, so I need to make a call’.” So as advertisers we should want to understand and possibly intersect this. What could be more appropriate than social marketing?
I have been thinking about how influential this is compared to other forms of advertisement. If the people of tomorrow are communicating differently and in different forms we should try to understand the importance in it and cater to it. If the people of tomorrow are thinking and using sentences that are structured differently we should try to understand this. And if advertising continues, don’t you think social marketing will eventually take a bigger piece of the pie in advertising? What do you think?
By: Matt Hite
Community Development Intern
Yovia.com
Article Reference: http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10950487
For the last three weeks, I have been hammering home the necessity of establishing friends and being active in the social networking arena to stay afloat in SMO. What I haven’t mentioned is the potential of sinking like a rock even after the establishment of what you might call ‘the venture out in the social arena.’
The reason for the rapid growth in social networking and SMO is due to the fact that everyone has a voice. Two weeks ago I said, “any traffic is good traffic” which is true from a certain point of view. If you are managing a youtube channel and one of your videos is confrontational and some viewers get their panties in a bunch your video will grow I assure you. However that is a youtube channel. What if we are talking about a blog or site that you have and use as a source of income (I must stress quality over quantity concerning content). If your network of friends is large that voice is large and all positive discussion can become more than negative with simple thumbs down stumbles.
Be pleasing to the network, b/c if you’re not, you are just web 3.0 spam.
Israel F. Swasnon
Community Development
So, if Web 2.0 is user-generated content, what is Web 3.0? There has been talk about ‘Authenticity’ as the new buzz word. It makes me sad to think that being authentic is a buzz word. The worst part is the people need to be told that authenticity works. Please tell me what schools are teaching how to be fake, and I will begin the letter writing campaign. Let’s get to the real message, “stop wasting our time with trash.” So, with that in mind, what will be the best way to get rid of the trash. Sort it, decide whether you like it or not and move on. As the push for ‘Authenticity’ grows, there will be a greater emphasis on content. Not user-generated content, but user-controlled content. The community will determine what they want to see and the rest will fall behind.
Enter StumbleUpon. A fairly new browser plug-in that lets you rate the content with either a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, StumbleUpon is the beginnings of the user-controlled content movement. Users determine what they like, and based on that feedback, the content is shown to more people to get more feedback. If they don’t like it…Thumbs-Down.
Right now, this idea is mostly attributed to content, videos, games, etc. What if this was applied to businesses and products? Imagine what would happen if every product you thought about or wanted to buy was filtered through the thumbs up or thumbs down process. What would happen to the multitude of mediocre companies following the “Its ok not to have the best product, we can just spend more marketing dollars” mentality. This model would increase the ‘Internet Effect’ on products, where only the best products are consumed.
Even more important, what will happen to customer service? I spent over an hour on the phone with Sprint’s customer service, was disconnected twice during that time, and I had to call them back. I imagine my experience would have been wholly different if I wasn’t a faceless consumer to them, but a thumbs up or thumbs down. It would be like leaving feedback on an eBay account. The technology is still a ways off to be on a large scale and may only be a pipe dream, but we would see a different world of people consuming the most highly ‘thumbed’ items. Wouldn’t it be great to see a company bend over backwards for good feedback the same way eBay sellers do?
Mike Palmer
Analyst
