I’m writing this post on holiday so am rather out of touch with recent events in the tech world. However, being English, I’m never that out-of-touch with what’s happening in the world of football (or soccer if you’re American or Australian), and recent events have made me wonder whether there are lessons to be learned […]
There’s been a lot of discussion recently about ongoing changes that Facebook is making to its Newsfeed algorithms and how those tweaks impact brands. Notably, there was the release of a paper by PR agency Ogilvy discussing the notion of “Facebook Zero” and its potential implications, whilst food delivery start-up Eat24, in a more concrete and […]
Unless you’ve been hiding under the digital equivalent of a rock, or perhaps living in China, it’s almost certain that you’ve heard by now about Facebook buying mobile messaging app WhatsApp for $19 billion. There has been a huge amount of discussion and speculation about why Facebook spent more than it cost to put men […]
Last week saw the official launch of social news behemoth BuzzFeed here in Australia. In typically BuzzFeed style, they celebrated their launch with headlines such as “17 Kangaroos That Can Kick Your Butt” and by giving out bags and badges plastered with equally tongue-in-cheek Aussie catchphrases and clichés. But you don’t build a business that now […]
Much has been written about Facebook’s new video product, which is currently being tested by Summit Entertainment and Mindshare in the US. Much of the commentary has been around how much it will cost, whether it will affect users, data plans, and what its impact will be on Facebook’s future profitability. But one area that […]
Christmas comes round every year and so, it seems, do discussions about whether or not Facebook is still cool and/or whether it is being abandoned by teens. On a recent earnings call, Facebook’s Chief Financial Officer, David Ebersman, seemed to suggest that maybe younger audiences had started to tire of the social network: We are […]
What is social media? I know it’s a strange question considering the title of this column, but I think it’s one worth asking. Wikipedia, that great social encyclopedia, defines it as follows: Social media refers to the means of interaction among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Now, this is […]
For many years, the main question one would hear from people who worked at the major digital publishers and platforms was, “How can we take budget from TV?” Meanwhile, network representatives would ask how they could ensure that they didn’t suffer the same fate as the newspaper companies. But now, increasingly, the questions on both […]
I’ve written a lot here about the intersection between social platforms and TV, and as these markets continue to evolve, there are still a lot of interesting things happening in both. A couple of things happened recently that probably highlight where social TV is heading, suggesting some of the things that marketers should be thinking […]
When Yahoo spent $1.1 billion to buy social blogging platform Tumblr, there was a huge amount of discussion around what it meant. Whilst only Marissa Mayer and the Yahoo board can be anywhere near certain why the deal was done, what is clear is that this is part of an interesting experiment to decide what […]
Content marketing is one of the biggest buzz phrases of the moment, with many people talking about it as if it’s a new phenomenon. The fact that The Guinness Book of Records will be 60 years old next year should put paid to that suggestion — but so, too, should the creative work put out […]
The last few years has seen the rise of what are known as “acqhires,” where start-ups are bought for their talent and tech, rather than the product itself. The most recent and impressive example of this was the decision by Yahoo! to pay a rumoured $30 million to buy Summly, an app with less than […]
One of the biggest buzz-phrases of the past year or so has undoubtedly been Content Marketing. It’s the perfect piece of jargon: it’s rather vague, could have lots of meanings and is very hard to pin down. It’s also, as an idea, really not that new at all — after all, soap operas were so […]
Last month, I talked about how the major social platforms are increasingly trying to tie people to their own services, no matter what that might mean for user experience. As if to prove me right, Facebook then had its very own Valentine’s Day massacre, as well as launching a full-on competitor to Google, whilst Twitter […]
The end of 2012 saw the start of something that is likely to take up a lot of time and column inches in 2013: the true start of the social platform wars. It’s what I dubbed “Anti-Social Media” in my 2012 wrap-up post, and it’s likely to get just as messy as the mobile platform […]
As we approach the end of another year, it’s a good time to think about what we, as marketers, hope to achieve in the next 12 months. But to do so, we also need to think about the things that are likely to have an impact on our businesses, and the products and sites that […]
As you undoubtedly know by now, the 7th of November was an historic day. It was the day that saw an event which highlighted the changing world we live in, and the way that power is now channeled. I’m talking, of course, about the fact that within a few hours, a photo posted on Twitter […]
The Olympic Games in London were, I think most people would agree, a pretty stunning success. From the amazing opening ceremony, to the record haul of medals for the home team, it all went brilliantly. It was also, according to many, the first social media Olympics and so, as we pack away the memories of […]
Picture the scene: a two-person team of entrepreneurs, made up of a business head and a developer, had pivoted their original business into the hottest photo sharing platform in the world. With growth of over 400% in its first twelve months it was snapped up by one of the giants of the web for a […]
It’s become rather fashionable in the last year or so to talk about the post-PC era, most notably after Steve Jobs did so back in 2010. I’ve certainly been guilty of it, including during a presentation where I used to it to describe the fact that more smart phones are now shipped globally than desktop computers (whether […]
You probably heard already, but Facebook went public recently. Millions of inches of newsprint, and the digital equivalent, have already been written about what happened, but one thing that was mentioned time and time again, is that just prior to the IPO, General Motors decided to pull its ad spend from the social networking giant. […]
I’d just like to start this post by apologising to the poor person at Marketing Land who has to edit it (sorry Pamela!) You see, the thing is that I got this column in slightly late and whilst I could say that it was because I was incredibly busy, the real reason is that I […]
Why do companies like Toblerone or Pepperidge Farm bother having websites? As if people are going to say to themselves, “Gee, I wish I knew more about Milano cookies. I know! I’ll go to their site!” Just a thought. Many people have talked over the years about the gap between the amount of time that […]
Marshall McLuhan’s statement that “the medium is the message” must be one of the most over-used quotes of the last hundred years. I even used it (or misused it, depending on your opinion) as the title of a post last year. But because it’s such a flexible statement, which can be made to mean almost […]
Have you heard of Pinterest yet? There’s been plenty of buzz about it recently, and it’s even won an award. Why? Because its traffic figures are going “gang-busters” and so, obviously, according to the majority of tech blogs, it’s the “social media platform you have to get on board with in 2012.” Sound familiar? Well, last […]
January is traditionally the time when bloggers and commentators like to predict what’s going to happen over the coming months; I’ve even been known to have a go myself. But as I was trying to pull together my predictions for 2012, I couldn’t help but wonder whether I was wasting my time — after all, […]
The launch of Marketing Land dovetails nicely with the end of the year, a time when we’re all encouraged to reflect on the year that has just passed, and what life lessons we can learn from the previous 12 months. For tech bloggers and commentators, it means it’s time to make predictions for the coming […]