Thinkervine

Un peu plus tôt ce matin, en naviguant sur Facebook, je me suis rendu compte qu’il y avait une nouvelle bannière qui faisait son apparition (probablement dûe au fait que je sois au Maroc en ce moment): une bannière Meditel ventant les mérites de sa clé 3G+.

Le ciblage publicitaire du couple Microsoft/Facebook (le premier gérant les campagnes publicitaires du second) a l’air de faire son petit bonhomme de chemin. Je me demande dans quelle mesure, il s’appuie sur les informations publiques du profil, et dans quelle mesure il s’appuie uniquement sur mon adresse IP.

La contre-partie, est que cette bannière à l’air de s’inscruster. Elle constitue désormais 70% de l’affichage publicitaire que j’observe à travers les pages, sans parler de son “apparition spontannée” entre deux pages, ce qui laisse présager un ciblage très axé sur la provenance géographique et un peu moins sur le contenu que présente mon profil (contrairement aux campagnes que j’observe depuis Paris).

Reste à voir combien de personnes vont effectivement souscrire un abonnement via Internet en général et via Facebook en particulier.

Fun video by the train of thought

A short moment of humor with this video by Lex Friedman

People tend to think that social networks actually expose you to the world.

It might appear that through your shares, you expose personal and professionnal informations, allowing people to have an insight on your deep self, but this only partly true.

This is what I would call a public profile selective exposition . These platforms act as a PR agent for each of us. I will explain myself.

When publishing new pictures, for example, you will carefully choose those who are in your best advantage in order to reflect a controlled image of yourself. You will even untag yourself from those of your friends that will shed a dark light on your profile. The same goes for  published articles, short messages and interests.

The publisher will leverage every possible information that will provide the targeted image of himself depending on his audience, on the other side, he will bury any pain point. Digging the matter deeper, we will notice that depending on the platforms and their context, this image might change over the pages, and the interests that were to be highlighted on facebook will be different from those listed on LinkedIn or Plaxo.

This schizophrenia is not a new born that has appeared with social platforms. It has made a long way since usenet, forums and IRC networks, only in a better controlled environment.

The informations provided through social platforms, including blogs, are filtered and distilled. This is even more true for people making money through these platforms such as company founders or professional bloggers.

The idea behind is to attract a population of readers and increase the traffic on the profile/page for one part but also to provide a synthetic overview of the person for diverse goals (professional and acquaintance network expansion, opportunities, desperate quest for the sister soul), the spirit of sharing tend to come as a secondary matter,  this is ultimately emphasized with Digg-like networks.

The exposition on the web is real for some matters. Identities are carried over the sites and it is possible to trace someone’s activities on the web thanks to Google’s smart indexation. I have known recruiters and partners typing people’s name on Google to know who they were. But anyone who has been on the place for some time will know how to control the output of the search and let only selective information pass through as a result of the search.

So far the idea about being more exposed than before is not so relevant that people will have to worry about their boss knowing what they’ve been doing over the week-end.

I have the feeling that he’s not totally wrong, don’t you ? I just love this (old) strip from Dilbert.

Il y a des moments dans la vie qui ne sont pas comme les autres. Un sentiment nouveau qui jaillit au plus profond de vous même et qui vous indique que quelque chose d’important est en train de se passer, à tort ou à raison.

Chaque fois que je rentre, c’est pour moi l’occasion de respirer cet air pur, qui me manque tant dans la foule parisienne. Cette odeur, bien qu’elle soit fermement putride et carbonique à souhait, regorge de senteurs que l’on n’oublie pas. Celles-ci mêmes qui sont ancrées au plus profond de votre inconscient, et qui se réveillent d’un coup pour sussurer à votre oreille des bruits familiers, déverser devant vos yeux des images dont on ne se lasse pas.

Et puis il y a également cette réalité qui vous rattrape, qui vous happe… Celle d’un creux, d’un vide, qui vous envahit de plus en plus… Cette impression de se voir de l’extérieur, de se décrire à la troisième personne, car l’on ne se reconnaît pas, que l’on n’y croit pas et que l’on espère être dans un songe touchant à sa fin. Ce sentiment est provoqué par ce départ. Un Adieu ? Non, un au revoir, un au revoir car tu ne me quittes pas, tu m’habiteras jusqu’à la fin… Il y presque 2 mois que tu n’es plus là, mais quelques jours seulement se sont écoulés depuis que je t’ai dit au revoir, t’accompagnant sur les sentiers de l’éternel dans un marbre d’ivoire et d’émeraude. Toi qui as incarné la sagesse, toi qui as incarné la famille, toi qui as incarné la bonté et la générosité, nous portons ton héritage et nous le transmettons.

Ces sentiments refoulés… Toutes ces choses que je revis depuis quelques jours et qui ne cessent de me ramener à toi. Je les laisse aujourd’hui s’extirper de mes entrailles et voir le monde tel un nouveau né, dans une pleine candeur et une formidable sérénité.

Google ? General Electric ? Gazprom ? Microsoft ? Ever wondered which of these was the most powerful company ? Which of these was ranked #1 in the charts.

Of course Forbes would give you its hearsay, based on its criterias, most of which are financially based. But come to talk about dominance on a market, some companies have their own distinctions.

Restricting to the world wide web, Google has un undisputable place as it is the starting place to the Internet for most people.

Now It would be interesting to see something based on people’s opinion, say like the grammy’s or oscars, where you have a community of people voting for which is the most powerful company. Furtherly add a pinch of Christies auctions. The companies would have to buy an entry ticket, bidding themselves into the game.

Have the auctions run 50 days and win a one-year title re-challenged year after year. Get into the competition, keep the track and run for the gold.

This is the idea behind The World’s Most Powerful Company. Created by three students from a reputed business school, the company aims to provide an alternative way to elect the most powerful company in the world, through auctions and polls.

The most important idea here is that the results are not financially driven but are rather the employees, customers and external observers’  view of the entreprise, their personal notes and ratings.

The winning company gets an interesting counterpart:

- One year free ad on the website

- The site’s design could be adapted to the winning company’s needs

- A guaranteed matching of the words “Most powerful company” to the company on most popular search engines

Although enterprises could raise their bid to increase their popularity, the polls mirror the real public opinion on the company, which represents a pretty good KPI of customer relationship.

The idea behind this concept is innovative. Coupling principles of collaboration with most prized web strategy and marketing actions as a reward, the idea should represent a real benefit to the winning company when exploited to its full extent, and ROI should be fast.

But most importantly, when you look deeper into this, it is not really the money generated through the ads that is the most important.The challenge is to be entitled as “the most powerful company”. The challenge is the capacity to keep the title over the years as it is put back into the arena year after year.

The running companies will be able to promote their image to a large user base through an unprecedented experience. Large campaigns could then be organized around this yearly summer event and have people vote for them.

These guys are on the starting blocks but are running on the fast lane. It would be interesting to get some more companies involved and see the results of this, have yours involved and see how popular it is. Visit The World’s most powerful company and support them!

It is impressive to see how viral marketing makes its own efficient way on the Internet.

Unless you have been away for some while, you have probably heard of the Download Day initiated by the Mozilla foundation.

That was one remarkable marketing action.

The objective: join the Guiness records as the most downloaded software in a day.

Fact: the objective was achieved.

I have received this email a couple of days ago:

The real objective behind this campaign was undoubtedly to gain some more marketshare over Internet Explorer, and 8 Million downloads represent quite some part of it.

There were two main factors that lead to this success:

- Mouth to ear communication, through friends invites, blogs and media coverage

- A wide competition between countries as people were screening the number of registered candidates in each country and were getting their friends on, to take their country to the top of the charts.

Many successes have gone through buzz or spam (most social networks), but yet, the download day idea is just brilliant. The one federating factor of success is the cause, and it has proven to be successful.

I think the example is worth an in-depth analyzis and perhaps have someone leverage all the social, ethnic, marketing aspects of this campaign.

Rumors announced an important price drop for the new Apple smartphone. Expectations were around 199$ for the 8GB model with a new contract.

At&T announced their new prices today:

- 199$ (8B) and 299$ (GB) for subscribers who qualify and wish to extend their contract (2 years)

- For new contracts and customers who don’t qualify, it will cost them 399$ (8GB) and 499$ (16GB)

- The latest case is to opt for a pay’n'go, in this case the prices will be respectively 599$ and 699$ for 8GB and 16GB.

The plans will remain the same, ranging from 69.99$ to 129.99$.

This is quite anecdotal as the price of the first generation iphone was judged excessive (400$ for 8GB version) but was partly justified as Apple set the price and forbad the ressellers to sponsor the smartphone.

The new business model has seen quite some changes:

- 30% of revenues sharing with Apple : gone

- Non-ability to sponsor the smartphone : gone

- Contracts are signed in-store : black-market gone

All conditions are there to enable a fair introduction of the iPhone 3G on the market and gain a significant market share, but eh… come to think lust for profit will never be satisfied.

This sets the tone. Now let’s see how Orange will react.

Now would you exchange a ticket to Tokyo against this iPhone ? I wonder.

Geekement correct a web cast TV show will be shot in public tomorrow at the O’Sullivan by the Mill (Place de Clichy, Paris).

For their final episode (season 2008), the whole team is glad to invite and interact with their public, in a cheering mood.

The event is sponsored by several actors such as Microsoft, VMWare and Jiwa. More information on their RSVP page.

Event info :

Paris blogue-t-il ?

The 13th edition of Paris Blogue-t-il is coming to the 14th Arrondissement of Paris this wednesday.

Blogs presentation, live music and a whole lot of bloggers sharing this unique experience will be at the heart of this event.

To RSVP visit their Hive O’Clock page.

Event info:

Hope to see you there