WediaBuzz

 A common theme I heard throughout the day was that we need to understand who our customers are and what they want.   Many ways this can be done, but social networks appear to be the best way to collect data regarding customers.  A lot of emphasis was put on understanding the problem and getting our users involved in creating the solution.  We would have more success if we stopped creating ideas that we think will work and get our community involved.   Exciting times are ahead and the more we involve our customers the better the solution and our success.

Consumer 2.0: How web 2.0n is changing moods, metrics and monetization was a discussion with Raef Needleman and a panel of experts.  Consumers will ever change.  We need to increase 2 way communication and understand that conversation is content…How can we do this? They discussed the fragmentation of the web and this makes it difficult for advertisers to purchase.  They discussed technology and how it is changing and in their opinion think the technology to watch is mobile, widgets and blogs.  They think searching is here to stay.  Consumers are not just wondering around – they know what they want and do not always know where to find it.  Web makes it easy to get “another view” and search plays a key role in this.  Search will continue to make branding difficult, but if you know who your customer is you can help your advertisers get the return they are looking for.  Brands can also tie into search by offering solutions – Consumers not looking for tide stick, just looking for ways to get the stain out.   A move needs to be made from demo based advertising to interest/ social based.  Stressed the sooner you can collect and connect consumers interests to advertisers the more opportunities you will have. My space does a very good job of collecting and leveraging this info.  POWER IS IN THE DATA!  We need more consumer DATA

Web 2.0 feature adoption- 95% to video, 85% to browse most popular, 66% to social networks, 56% to subscribe, 40% posts blogs, 31% access mobile, 35% use tag clouds (user generated tags) 80% of clicks done by 16% of the people and 30% -42% of users delete cookies.

Rael Dornfest talked about email marketing and how powerful this can be if done right.  Main points he focused on were :

·         Deliverability issues – don’t abuse!

·         Engagement is the cornerstone of email marketing’s value to a business. All the things we love about the channel exist to support and foster engagement with brands. Email is cost effective, relatively real time, and it is ubiquitous — it is continually ranked as the number one Internet activity performed. People spend more time answering email during a day than they do using any other channel, surpassing browsing the Internet and even watching television.

·   From a business perspective, email engagement can be classified as the ability of a brand to reach consumers over a given lifecycle and reinforce the values extended in this brand connection. It takes on many levels though and email is a facilitator.

·         We must remember one thing about customer engagement and email: there is a finite group of consumers that will truly engage with you through email and some, only in degrees. Our job is to find those people, foster the relationship, optimize the cadence of our communications and help our clients understand the worth it has for their business.

Jeff Berkier discussed Emerging ad Exchanges – bidding on banners and beyond.   As an industry non premium inventory is abundant and sells at a fraction of the cost as premium.  We often give it away.  As we move forward non premium display and social banners will be bought and sold in a biddable marketplace.  This would be a place where consumers would identify who they want to reach and purchase inventory accordingly.  This is a different than the ad network.  The exchange would bring buyer and seller together in an automated billable, efficient way. 

Key note speaker – Tim O’reilly

Deep trends –

·         internet is a deep platform

·         Harnessing collective intelligence

·         Data as the intel inside

·         Software above the level of a single device

·         Software as a service

Areas of opportunity –

·         Collective intelligence – gets better with constant interaction, mining of data and real time interface.  Find meaning in data and turn into interface services. 

·         2.0 evolves into cloud computing and the internet .  Be a part of the info and database.

·         Data everywhere – censors in tires to determine pressure…where else is their data that our consumers want to see?

It’s all about the consumer!  I would be happy to share all of my notes if interested.

All for today – Borelli Out!

At yesterday’s opening remarks Tim O’Reilly talked about big problems the world still needs solved that cool technologists are in a great position to be a part of the solution.

The internet, O’Reilly said, is quickly emerging as the platform of choice for everyday life. Those comments lead me to some thoughts after taking part in an ad-hoc session at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco this morning titled “Social Responsibility”.

I realize I am in the heart of tree hugger country, and there is no shortage of headlines about activists with a loud megaphone coming from theses parts, so bear with me.

The discussion was open, but led by two guys who started the Facebook group Geeks Doing Good.

Geeks Doing Good brings together geeks from all walks of life to socialize and network while providing service for the community with which they live.

The main focus of the discussion was this: Businesses should have a social responsibility strategy and practice what they preach for the betterment of their community, their employees and customers.

Very interesting, I thought. We, as part of a media company, should embrace this idea of having a social responsibility strategy. Not only for the health of the employees but for the overall good for the community.

So, who at Gazette Communications will help me form a social responsibility strategy?

Looks like there are some of Web 2.0 Expo presentation slides available on SlideShare.net
Here are three of the talks I (Becky) sat in on:

Creating a Coherent Social Strategy for Business

Adding “Where” to Mobile and Web Applications

Google Open Social Platforms: Orkut and iGoogle

Tim O’Reilly at Web 2.0 expo in San Francisco 2008 “Goals”

The term micromedia, a panel here at Web 2.0 said, is only about a year old. It’s about those bit size bits of information floating around the web that’s beginning to take shape at a very rapid pace.

This panel was comprised of Gregarious Narain, Jeremiah Owyang, Stowe Boyd and Brian Solis.

The perfect example of a micromedia tool, obviously, is Twitter. The 140 characters of telling others what you are doing right now has taken off especially within the last month.

Micromedia examples are a great way to engage in conversation in real time, share content, learn, and ask questions. It is something completely different than blogging. I get more responses within Twitter than my blog posts.

Micromedia and microblogging are very different experiences, and require a different mindset. The cool thing about it, the panel said, is that you don’t have to dedicate your full attention to it, which makes it appealing to a more broad base of people and for different uses.

One person in the audience brought up a good question: How can you use Twitter for your business?One way is customer service. For example, Dell and other major companies monitor Twitter and can respond in real time.

Twitter, or any micromedia tool for that matter, allows for instant participation.

Oh, and we were told to look for this in the coming weeks. A version of Twitter for the enterprise, full of new features geared strickly for business, project management and customer service.