The Buffalo Blog

BEBO goes to Gliese 581c to break intergalactic PR boundaries

BEBO is breaking into new markets like never before. Rather than limit itself to Europe or even the Earth, it plans to build the social networking phenomenon Gliese 581c.

In a classic PR stunt, the networking site has announced plans to send 500 messages, to the nearest planet able to support which happens to be Gliese 581c, a mere 20.5 light years away.

Whether the market conditions are right for this hubris-laden move is yet to be ascertained. However, it is hoped that the iPhone will be well-established on the planet, vastly enhancing the chances of starting one or two BEBO communities, when the messages finally get there in 2029.

To sum up a rather ridiculous post I can only say it’s nice to see the old PR tactics are still going strong in this time of change – well done to the BEBO comms team.

Mediaset sues Google

Interesting to see another big company dive into a costly YouTube copyright lawsuit without fully assessing the opportunities that may be at hand. Mediaset, an Italian media group is suing Google for 500m Euros for alleged "illegal commercial use" of copyrighted clips on YouTube.

While Buffalo in no way condones dodgy copyright dealings and thinks it’s wrong for others to benefit from other people’s hard work, Mediaset could really benefit from taking a more ‘laissez faire’ approach. In a similar vein to my previous post 'A word on music piracy' there are obvious unexplored avenues that could turn situation into a great opportunity.

As with most forms of Social and Web 2.0 media it can often be great marketing to simply let go of the message. Doing so in YouTube is likely to be the best policy. This doesn’t mean just giving in, rather attempting to turn a bad situation into something really profitable.

There are also numerous benefits to be had by doing this. For example: why doesn’t the company strike a deal with Google for instant click-through purchases where its clips are featured?

It’s also true that many YouTube users check out the latest trailers, view an episode of a programme or even listen to music before moving onto an actual legal and profitable purchase. In this sense the site becomes a showcase and ‘try before you buy’ mechanism, complementing rather than negatively affecting the company’s sales.

While the likely recompense for Mediaset, should they win the lawsuit, is large, the rewards could be much greater if they tried a more canny approach…

Cuil to cull Google?

News reports today on the launch of Cuil, a new search engine set up by a band of Google defectors, in a bid to challenge the domination of their former employer. Apparently Cuil boasts a page index three times the size of Google, but this unsurprisingly is denied by its big brother.

The first thing is that it’s great to see some kind of new life is still left in the search industry, where AltaVista, Ask, MSN, and Yahoo, while representing fair-sized companies, have still failed to capture a decent portion of the market. There has also been little sign of a challenge to the incumbent from these existing players – the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo deal, that could give it the scale and cash to mount a real challenge, continues to blow hot and cold.

However, while search mutineers obviously have the inside track on the invincible Google, it remains to be seen if they’ll ever be able to truly lock horns with such an established player. Technology and algorithms they may have, but Google grew up in a time where it was obviously far ahead of its rivals. At the time those customers demanding quality and relevant search results were there for the taking and Google took the opportunity.

Cuil is attempting to steal a march in what is a veritable monopoly in the search space. ‘Googling’ is well engrained in the mentality of today’s internet user and will be a hard habit to break – anybody fancy ‘Cuiling it’? So to have any chance of success Cuil needs to offer something substantially different and substantially better than Google – a mammoth task.

Whether a group of ex-Googlites have the scale, investment or the technical knowledge to do this still remains to be seen. For all we know they could be sitting on something that could blow the industry wide open, of they could just be another ‘me-too’.

What I will say, is that for an industry desperately needing some healthy competition, I wish Cuil all the luck in the world.

A word on music piracy

News in the Guardian today reports on a government-backed drive to crush internet music piracy by targeting severe offenders parents.

The move, backed by BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali and BSkyB, will see stern ‘disist or face the consequences’ type letters dropping unhappily on to people’s doorsteps in hope of simply scaring kids out of the illegal downloading game.

Of course illegal music sharing is a bad thing and does lose the industry large amounts of money each year. However, I can’t help thinking that this is approaching the problem in the wrong way.

Yes the problem is rife amongst young people but generally this kind of thing is frowned upon in adult society. The result is that that kids usually graduate from the world of Bittorent and other P2P file sharing into the paying and legal world of marketplace of iTunes.

Microsoft has the right idea in this area – it actually uses the proliferation of illegal Microsoft software to inform its future strategy and seek out new markets. Growing use of pirated software in a developing country can then be developed into a paying and profitable customer base.

Adopting a policy of fear to get kids out of illegal music, rather than turning the situation into an advantage, runs the future risk of losing possibly long-term and lucrative customers.

TiVo lost in the Amazon jungle?

An interesting Slashdot post today notes a new deal struck between Amazon US and TiVo (the popular US advert-zapping set top pox much maligned by the advertising community). Rather than partnering to deliver video content from Amazon or something similarly innovative, it seems that TiVo has sold its soul doing a full circle and become a product pushing device in its own right.

The deal it appears is to serve up instantly buyable merchandise around certain top US shows so that viewers can watch and buy right away. Of course this is better than simple scattergun advertising but will TiVo users see it this way? After all, they bought the box to escape from adverts only to find themselves being served adverts through the very same device.

I have heard chatter about some new and more exciting developments in the IPTV advertising space. One such example is being able to provide targeted ads alongside web delivered content relating to their content and previous purchasing tastes. Such a service could technically serve different ads to different people even thought they were using the same IPTV service and watching exactly the same show.

This is a great idea and is likely to garner greater response and be much less intrusive than traditional methods. However, the way this kind of IPTV ad is delivered and the data used to target consumers obviously will have to be implemented smartly to avoid flak from internet privacy advocates.

Either way, surely this is where the market should be looking? Somewhere infinitely more effective than an advertising killer starting to provide adverts..

A giant leap for BT; a medium-sized step for the internet

A giant leap for BT; a medium-sized step for the internet

Just weeks after Ofcom’s announcement that it plans to back up companies that need to make ‘risky investments’ in next-generation broadband networks, BT has confirmed itself as the first on the scene. The announcement? That it plans to invest £1.5bn in the rollout of fibre optic networks to 10 million homes by 2012.

While the timeframes of the move means that the man on the street may not see the benefits of the move for some time, the announcement will be celebrated widely and rightly so.

The UK is currently lagging behind many other countries on network infrastructure but has a burgeoning music download and IPTV industry. These companies increasingly use more and more of the UK’s limited available bandwidth. As a result, iPlayer (mentioned in the BT announcement release), Joost, 4OD, Kangaroo (if it makes it through competition investigations) are all on course for a collision in the fight for bandwidth.

Ofcom’s support and BT’s move couldn’t have come at a more fortuitous time. While fairly late in the day where Europe is concerned, this move will do much to kickstart further investment in infrastructure from those telcos and ISPs that don’t want to be left behind in the fibre optic stakes.

The move is also the first step in shifting the super size brick that looms ominously on the horizon of IPTV providers, paving the way for next generation web services. Streaming personalised music stations comprehensive on-demand video, increased take-up of online ‘games’ such as Second Life and Google lively and many other services that require a lot of bandwidth should all result.

While we could be talking years for some of these developments it should be an exciting time for the internet as a whole.

All networked out? Social network dissonance might not be long coming

As if to confirm Gartner’s assertions about the growth of business social networking/CRM applications, covered in a recent post, BT has snapped up Ufindus, a popular social directory, for a mere snip at £20m.

While the valuation of these types of businesses is always shaky, BT’s move marks another interesting development in the drive to truly engage customers in a purchasing process.

However, while the intentions are good and buisness case for the purchase sound, it will be interesting to see what kind of interface will be used by BT and the other companies that start to dabble in social network-type interfaces.

The worry is that with so many different sites doing this kind of thing, trying to get information out of customers via sign-up mechanisms could become increasingly difficult. Indeed, the company and service-specific social network could become the online equivalent of the much maligned store loyalty card. Recent research from Pigsback.com, an online cashback company, found that people are increasingly disengaged with cards due to the sheer number that they have to manage and the poor rewards that are usually offered.

Companies investing in social networks are usually going to be looking for ad revenue. However, in the drive to create increasingly specific user profiles and thus more attractive databases for advertisers, they may be in danger of putting people off. Consumers only have a limited amount of time, patience and enthusiasm to give over personal data. As a result companies will need to become increasingly savvy about exactly what they need out of customers and manage the implementation of their social networks very carefully.

The 3G iPhone

Although I will inevitably get one in the not too near future, I plan to come fashionably late to the 3G iPhone party. A couple of weeks or a month should do it.

While I appear a little blasé about the launch of Apple’s latest big (updated device), I am still filled with admiration for the immense power of what is one of the biggest brands in the world.

One cannot help but be impressed by a brand that brings queues this morning, to the door of every O2 shop in the country. As a marketer it has to be an awesome feeling, knowing you’ve done a pretty damn good job as the sales come flooding in.

However, after below-projected sales of the initial, slightly slow iPhone (are they offering trade-ins now?), Apple executives may well be a little less relaxed than expected.

Still going with the limited distribution strategy (O2 and Carphone Warehouse) it is easy to wonder if Apple is doing enough to capture that lucrative business market that it secretly covets.

The iPhone’s kudos with the coolest of execs is undoubtedly growing but is it doing enough compatibility-wise for the more mainstream business user? Difficulty of linking up with traditional business programmes – Outlook, Microsoft Office etc – means Blackberry is likely to maintain its edge for sometime yet.

However, doing too much to covert the business market could also spell trouble for Apple’s traditional trendy heartland – will they be increasingly turned off by an overly business-centric iPhone?

The possible and likely future solution to this conundrum, after an inevitable period of fence-sitting, is likely to be some sort of tie up with someone like Google. A move away from workstation-specific, Microsoft-dominated applications, towards web-delivered, cross-compatible programmes, like Google Apps, is likely to be more palatable to both audiences.

This would also mean that Apple wouldn’t really have to choose between audiences and could continue its mission to be top dog in the cool and innovative company stakes – a title which it unquestionably owns outright. Ah, c’est la vie!

A Lively World For Google

Today we have the announcement that Google is launching a virtual world ‘Lively’. The new initiative will pose as Google’s answer to Second Life, where users can indulge in an alter ego life through a user-created avatar.

Google thinks Lively will encourage even more people to dive into alternate realities because it isn't tethered to one website like Second Life, and it doesn't cost anything to use. After installing a small packet of software, a user can enter Lively from other websites, like social networking sites and blogs.

So what are the implications for the future? Well one could argue that, as Google’s main mission is to provide information to web users, we may all, one day, access our information in virtual environments. Will we see the virtual Wikipedia Grand Library where we access user generated information (in a beautifully constructed virtual building) with our avatars and discuss our findings in the Wikipedia Café situated next door? Rather than inputting text into a search engine will we put our questions to a virtual character at the Google Information Centre?

How about the marketing sphere? While wandering around the virtual world could we see animated billboards contain adverts meant directly for you, based on information stored on your avatar?

P.R. businesses may see a shift in how campaigns are delivered. We all know the problems one can have with conference calling, we may one day see journalist interviews take place in a virtual meeting room with avatars representing each party. Product launches taking place in a virtual town hall where all can come and be privy to new information.

Already social networking and blogging are at the forefront of how people receive their daily information, putting a face and a 3d, interactive, world to that is surely just around the corner. Alternate realities? I think Google are being modest, this may soon be reality for us all

Microsoft ups the pressure on Yahoo!

Microsoft has announced its intention to re-open talks for a takeover of Yahoo!, according to the FT But only if the existing board is shifted first. This is likely to have profound implications for the future of Yahoo! if the deal were to finally take place.

Other questions arise over Yahoo!’s recent deal with Google ads if it is finally acquired by the computing giant:

·        Is it in Microsoft’s interest to purchase the main viable contender to Google now that the Yahoo! is effectively in bed with the company?

·        What would be the future of the Yahoo!/Google deal were an acquisition to go through?

·        What would the future of the search marketplace look like if things go ahead?

Of course a healthy search industry demands more than one key player and Microsoft’s purchase of Yahoo! could undoubtedly mount a strong challenge to the incumbent. It is certain that a new Microsoft-apointed board would have their sights on growth and put their all into such a challenge. But would they have the new media nous to do what existing Yahoo! execs have failed at?

What’s clear is that shaking out the deal and mounting the challenge in this increasingly incestuous market is going to be increasingly difficult.