360DigitalInfluence

This is currently doing the rounds on the Internet - A girl wanting to marry her notebook.

If this is true, then it could be a very sad reflection of the environment the girl is in.  Do attention seekers know no bounds?

If it is a hoax, it is a good one as the video is doing the rounds on the Internet, and everyone’s talking about it.

But if it’s a viral campaign from Apple, I’d say it’s brilliant.  A girl who loves her machine so much that she wants to marry it.  People are reading, watching  and commenting, like I am.  Speaks volumes for the brand.

Btw, I don’t work for Apple.

We at Ogilvy believe they should, as long as they have a strategy and/or  objective behind it. We have blogged about them here and here.  Always there must be a strategy, and not to do it for the sake of doing it.

Here’s an interesting blog discussing whether your B2B organisation is even ready to engage social media in the first place - a checklist of points.  How many of those points apply to your company?  How often has someone said to you, “Our competitor has a Facebook page, we must have it too.”?

Common sense, most of those points and I think they also apply to all businesses, and not just B2B.

Point #10 raises the most pertinent question for me. How many marketers and PR folks today are ready to listen, talk with their customers, rather than the old-school marketing world of “talking to”, or “telling” their customers?  How prepared are we?

Graham White from our Australian office picked up this piece coming from the UK.  The Archbishop of Westminster believes that social networks “..led young people to form “transient relationships”, which put them at risk of suicide when the relationships collapsed.“

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/facebook-myspace-put-teens-at-risk-of-suicide-church-20090803-e6hh.html

This piece follows an earlier discussion in Indonesia earlier in the year among the Muslim ulamaks, saying social networks promote promiscuity between the sexes, and there were calls for Facebook to be made “haram” (forbidden under Islamic practices).  Facebook, mind you, is the top-ranked site in Indonesia, with more than 800,000 users.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/indonesia-gives-facebook-the-nod-but-no-flirting-please-20090522-bi9v.html

Compare the thoughts of the Archbishop and the Indonesian ulamaks (whom I assume are not digital natives), with those of these commentators, (whom I assume are digital natives). 

http://www.alarabiya.net/views/2009/08/01/80498.html

http://www.bt.com.bn/en/analysis/2009/07/07/facebook_is_it_halal_or_haram

The reflection here is that social media and networks are not just secular or technology or mass media or marketing phenomena, it’s impacting religious practices, so much so that religious leaders have started commenting on them. 

What’s clear is that social media/networks are truly affecting and changing society (well, at least in the developed nations with Internet access). 

With social media becoming such an impact into our lives, shouldn’t we embrace it more, and look at the positive aspects of it?

On a separate point, here’s some stats from Nielsen on the growth of Twitter, and the split in the age group.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/teens-dont-tweet-twitters-growth-not-fueled-by-youth/

Wouldn’t it be great to have a sixth sense when you go out shopping, knowing which tissue paper is environment-friendly, immediately getting the reviews of a book you’re flipping through in a bookstore, or more controversially, immediately knowing the background of a person you meet in the street.

How will digital cameras and mobile phones of the future possibly look like?  Or while reading a newspaper, you can get immediate related videos shown to you, without having to have a computer screen with you?

I came across this clip on what some MIT engineers have been working on.  Something right out of  Minority Report.

How we interact with computers and mobile phones and information, and how they all affect our decision making, will definitely evolve, if this technology becomes mainstream.  The real kicker is that to produce this technology, it doesn’t cost more than your average mobile phone!

While this technology may take some time before becoming commercial, the lesson here is that this technology underlines the importance of our work in social media and word-of-mouth.  People will have easier and easier access to information, in their daily decision-making, and we must be able to provide them with the right info.

Recently, facebook has been going on a PR campaign saying that it will be profitable within a year.

Times Online from the UK, just a few days ago, recently listed the “10 dumbest dot-com ideas”. It lists Twitter at the top of the list. Presumably, the “dumb” comes from a zero profit-making point-of-view, this post being the Money Central section of Times Online.

http://timesbusiness.typepad.com/money_weblog/2009/07/the-10-biggest-dot-com-disasters.html

I’m not too sure whether I agree that Twitter is a “dumb” idea. It certainly is a great tool, if used wisely. But yes, some questions do arise - if it’s not profitable, how much longer can it continue? Are they getting more VCs in? Have they devised a profitable model surrounding their business? Will Twitter have to change to make itself profitable? What happens if Twitter goes bust - what happens to the millions of users?

Recently, Businessweek wrote a piece about CEOs who twitter.

Now, new research says they are still shunning Twitter and Facebook.

Which leads to Businessweek writing a follow-up story. Some of the comments to this piece are interesting observations.

Do CEOs REALLY have to blog/facebook/tweet? How much of an impact do they make? We have seen President Obama use them successfully. Whereas businesses need a different objective and strategy?

So what is the real intention of that survey? One wonders…

There’s been a spate of postings in YouTube, of videos capturing people throwing tantrums. Hong Kong especially, with the infamous “Bus Uncle” and “Lady at Hong Kong Airport”. Those clips became stories in mainstream media, and Bus Uncle became so well-known that he tried to run for the Hong Kong Legislative Council.

Two more clips are seen recently, with very high hit rates.  One is a woman who almost drove a car out of a showroom, forcing her partner to buy the car.  And another, where the lady drove her SUV away, pulling the tow truck with it.  Are these real clips, or are they viral videos? 

If they’re the latter, then making use of a topical theme of “throwing tantrums” to soft-sell a brand seems to be working.  If they’re real clips, then…wow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RDVbO1320I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlLC1Iy1UkE