Content ownership versus Information ownership

As has been predicted, the Premiership/World Series battle between the content owners and the information distributors is now on us. With Yahoo! in so much trouble, Rupert Murdoch is considering chucking Yahoo! MySpace and $12Bn dollars for a 25% stake, there by taking the fight direct to Google.

Google versus Yahoo! was an unfair fight. Google versus NewsCorp looks like the Ali/Foreman "rumble in the jungle." Who will win?

I remember a chat with a friend who is an IT/Telco consultant strategist a few years ago about the new world...

To the left of the A4 sheet were the content and application providers - Sony, Universal, Disney/ABC, the BBC, etc.

In the middle were the distributors - ATT, Deutsche Telcom, Google, Yahoo

To the right were the devices - from a simple 2G text mobile down to a 100inch plasma backed with a PC

And he said to me - "None of these guys will control the new world Ian - the guy who controls the billing will!" And then he wrote three groups of names - HP/IBM, Visa/MasterCard - and NewsCorp.

Google don't charge you or I at present for content - we go there because its free, but all have complained in the last few years that SEOing is more difficult because the revenues are wholly dependent on advertising revenues: bit like the ITV model in the UK. And guess who's sent them into an advertising crash dive, with a service we pay a premium for which still has adverts? And who did the same in Asia?

My view is that Google's brand and model has further to go than NewsCorps in revenue exploitation from the customer. Accepted that Google is more internet savvy, but NewsCorp has a vacuum willingly attached to your wallet.

The SECRET behind the Secret ..... its Pyramid marketing

As paid up sceptics, I have heard all the thoughts on and debated the various pro's/con's and proponents/detractors of the DVD "The Secret" and followers of LoA.

My personal view, and I'll state this for clarity again, is that its positive thinking with goals - and if someone said that, then I am happy to believe that. Positive thinking is a good thing - it makes you happy, its makes people around you happy, it attracts people to you (I call that flirting), and if you are goal orientated then you will meet the people you need to meet and get to where you want to get to. Pretty simple!

But personally as a professional sales person, that is not easy to sell or get people to write large cheques out for - many a time during my membership here I have seen good coaches and therapists offer interesting and different services, but not many for what one might term big bucks. OK, the services being offered I may not have believed in, but the belief they had in what they had professionally learnt and qualified in (often) over many years made a number of people including myself think and respect them - you see, positive thinking does work!

But from a sales persons view point, most therapists/coaches try to sell what they do in a very dull/boring and unengaging manner. So its with those in mind that I believe the creators of "The Secret" formed it.

For anyone who has read Espen Bardsens book "The Naked Sales Person," or anyone who has read one of those self help books about spicing up your love life, the answer is - seduction. A sale is simply a signature on a contract, or even better a banked cheque - great sex is not about what goes on in between the sheets (that's mostly reaction and learnt technique), but what went on from breakfast to closing the bedroom door. Its the mind you have to captivate to complete the capture.

So, personally "The Secret" is just a wonderful piece of semi-fiction-seduction, wrapped around some dubious history and poor science, selling the art of positive thinking. Its so well written that it does capture peoples hearts and minds, and like love sick teenagers or cultists (depending on your view point), they come and preach and try to convert their audience to see the love - Ah!

Problem is, as any good lothario or sales person will tell you - or almost all women - is that the same chat up line doesn't always get you a signature/ruffled duvet! Some just won't fall for it, much as though they may listen and you may therefore believe they are falling for you/your product.

The answer for me came on reading this website - http://thesgrprogram.com (deactived link - copy and paste). I didn't find it that surprising, more very disappointing, that the SECRET behind "The Secret" is an MLM Pyramid system - they set up a duplicate website for you, you do a few blogs/links/spam eMails, and each person who signs up they pay you and your second level introductions a total of $750 USDollars commission out of every mug who signs up with a payment of $1,995. What's more disappointing is that they believe their target audience is so dumb, that they put the wonders of the secret AND the pyramid MLM in the same website page - clearly the attention span of the average target client is so short, they have fallen hook line and sinker by the time they pay their $1,995.

Personally, its sick, and an insult to all, let alone those who sign up. Its also a complete insult for those who believed in LoA, and thought/believe it a force for good - well, in part it still could be, but its also about your dollars and ripping you and other off: welcome back the scum of pyramid marketing. And its a big black tarred brush for positive thinking.

Summary of blog - never try to sell to a sales person - we just ask too many questions!

Got insomnia? Read a blog...

I am here to declare publicly, that I am fed up to the back teeth with blogs!

Much like Viagra, blogs are presently the be all and end all of all problems of people finding you and your services on the website - apparently. They not only attract and educate, they also (by themselves) sell. They are the universal Duck Tape to all your problems, and the way to make you millions. And all you have to do is write, and the great Google/SEO will find and do it all for you - WOW!

But seriously, have you ever read any of this tosh? Do I really want to know what coffee a lady in Seattle had this morning? Do I need to know what razor a guy in New York used? Why would I care what newspaper a financial analyst read (I just want to know which shares he bought)? Why do I need to know what desk a secretary in Paris sat at? Accepted that knowing the fitness guru suggests I choose a nice healthy salad over a burger is very useful, but if your latest and greatest customer wants to go to a burger bar to eat burgers are you really going to insist that the staff remove the standard light blue cheese sauce in front of him? And why would I want to know the sexual exploits of a Japanese Geisha?

If you happen to need a new razor/car/more life insurance, then the next problem is reading this stuff. Most of it is a conglomeration of: pushed product, personal biases, and their state of mind written by an untrained writer who thinks they are the next JK Rowling: except, they read more like JRR Tolkein re-writing the second draft of Lord of the Rings! After you have ploughed through twenty pages of football teams and how your latest girlfriend was impressed by the smoothness of you skin, you need a cut throat more than a triple bladed safety.

And that brings me to my third point - does anyone read past the third page of Goggle or any Search Engines results? NO! So your recommendation on which ISA to buy and how to choose it is mangled with every other IFA's blog on ISA's and how to choose them. Its like one great big "five o'clock on a summers day, everyone wants to get out of the city to the beech" traffic jam. So the guy who wins is the guys with more typing Russians/Chinese or more dollars in his marketing budget, gaining him more exposure eventually. Yes, there may be more information, but there's also too much information.

And that brings me to my final point - honestly, people do do business off of the web still. Billboards work; magazines work; telephones work - in fact, much as though the web is great, its still not the universal I-ching key. Its like one piece in a child's twenty piece jigsaw puzzle of a marketing plan - essential, but not everything, and doesn't spoil the overall picture if lost. If the average Joe/Josephine is faced by a log jam of blog, then he/she goes back to what and who he/she knows, and what he/she see's around him/her in their daily life, and most importantly in this modern world what the Jones's have - honestly, simplicity works.

To my mind, the blog has simply created a larger volume of traffic on the web, but in the same percentage proportions of when no one was blogging: more traffic, same overall percentages of brand awareness.

Do blogs work? Yes, I know they do - they work to differentiate. My sister implemented one at her university (its in twenty languages so far, not one of them English) written by students about their course experiences - sales are up 10%. My brother in law implements them all the time for political parties to create debate, and they find out the weight of opinion at a quicker rate of what we are all thinking about/what their parties now need to talk about and in what tone in a far quicker cycle. And Graham Jones says that his attracts people to him, and gains him speaking bookings - I'm sure his does, its easy to read and light on touch, and gives potential customers a good view of him.

But blogs as a universal answer - No! Blogs as an answer to creating your millions - No! Blogs as part of an overall marketing plan - Yes! Blogs as a differentiator - Absolutely! Blogs as presently a homeopathic cure to insomnia - Oh, definitely!!!

TPS: Global Telecom - here we go again.....

Global Telecom are a UK telco, with a registered address to a PO Box in north London, who use mass cold call techniques. They are well known in the industry for their rather callous calls and "blind" switching techniques - ie: they switch you without your knowledge from existing supplier, most often BT.

I have just had call from these idiots on my TPS registered home line (been registered for two years, so they can't exactly claim it wasn't), and this is just a warning to those of you who, even if you are TPS registered, these people will still call you. Don't what ever you do give out any information - their cold callers blindly (to you) switch you to their services. Their contracts include wonderful "must give notice in a window" type exit clauses, and often as the internal bonus multipliers increase on length of contract, the cold callers will advise internally that you agreed a three or five year contract. If you don't notice the switch, its pretty difficult to get out of.

The only line I am TPS registered on is my home line. The cold caller who called me when I immediately advised I was TPS registered, in return asked for my bank details to confirm my ID - Doh! Honestly, there are no limits to these people! And people wonder why cold calling is seen as such a yucky and underhanded technique, and when they use it why you are bound to get a few "sex and travel" responces!

I have just filed a TPS complaint against Global Telecom, and rang my telephone service provider so they can put a note on my file to advise of the call and block any switch. If you get unsolicited cold calls on TPS/CTPS registered telephone lines, please do the same thing - such underhanded techniques need to be stamped out for the good of all.

Why free newspapers are good, and why you should never add sugar to your drink!

Returning yesterday from a long day in London, I jumped on the 16:45 to Swansea for my trip back to Cardiff. I found a table seat in a busy commuter train, and was having a pleasant conversation while the guy on the opposite side of the table wrote his diary in long hand.

A chap comes in to the carriage, and wants the spare window seat next to the diarist/opposite me. The diarist gets up, and the chap dumps his briefcase and coat on the seat, and meal bag from the sandwich shop on the table. He gets in to his seat, sits down - and leans forward enough to dump his grande capucino over me/table.

Said coffee makes it way expressly over table towards me, but is firstly resisted by "London Lite" a freebie newspaper made of poor qaulity but highly absorbant paper - dam the editorial quality, it saved my shirt/tie! Two London Lite's later and a quick wipe with a wet-wipe from an adjacent table, and all I have now is a warm/damp left leg and a coffee soaked mobile and PDA which both still worked.

The mobile lost its speaker capability, but after a night on top of my boiler on a spare ceramic tile is now functioning perfectly. The PDA worked until I turned it off for the Vespa journey home, after which it gave up. I got home, opened the back (it was damp towards the top with coffee) and placed it on the same ceramic tile - it now also works.

Lesson1 - always travel with a freebie newspaper. At worst its great protection against fool's who try to eat on packed commuter trains, at best its highly absorbant. The fact it also claims to be a newspaper is a useful side benefit

Lesson2 - sugar conducts electricity, while water and most liquids once dry are pretty poor at it. Not only is sugar bad for you, its leathal to any piece of electronics. If you must dump your coffee over someone, make it a sugarless one - the compensation payment will be lower

NB: in the end I couldn't decide if this chaps greatest sin on that train was dumping the best part of a cup of coffee over me, or subjecting the rest of the train to his open-mouth eatting habits, or leaving his rubbish on the table when he departed at Swindon - perhaps the subject of a later pole!

The best of British - but who?

I was posed a question today by a friend, and I thought it an interesting debate.

He (an American) suggested that the most popular/best (?) US bloggers are diarists - while the most read/best British bloggers are political activists. The conclusion interested me, as if correct that should mean that the sub-30's will rengage with the political system.

Thoughts? Of all the well-known British bloggers I could come up, almost all were political - apart from the infamous Chief Constable of North Wales police! Does anyone know of any provable media stat's for popular British blogs?

Online social networking - costing UK companies £6.5M AND as unstoppable as gravity?

From the recruiters stand point, I have watched the debate on online social networks with some interest.....

It's the bain of corporate life - sucking precious hours from the day, and distracting employees to a 24hr water cooler conversation

It's an essential of modern life - as much part of life as texting, pop music and fast food

For the recruiter, its a godsend! As this article suggests, ANY employer who now doesn't Google all applicants is missing out on essential information. I interviewed a guy a few months back, who on his CV and a few background checks seemed a 10 out of 10 applicant - however, his MySpace page suggested he enjoyed a regular joint and the odd bit of white powder: oh, and an active social life at the local swingers club.

I personally still believe that all should have the right to a private life, and what goes on behind closed doors/in the bedroom is your choice as a consenting adult. But if you plaster it all over the web, what would you do if you were the employer?

I pointed out to my interviewee that there was much information on him in the public domain, and much as though drugs were more acceptable and part of modern life, the employer I was searching for as a result of their customer contract required all employee's and hence applicants to under take a drug test on application, and then after at the customers behest. This generally meant that applicants would need to be drug free for at least three months prior to the test - could he make that standard? He understood the requirement, and withdrew his application.

I think employers blocking social networks is quite a childish and naive manner in which to address something which is quite essential to the lives of those under 30. I remember when internet access first became widely available to all employees in my former corporate employer, and they introduced a "key word" blocker which meant that (for instance) search strings associated with sex were blocked. My innovative group of engineers found that searching on related words they found in Roget's Thesaurus allowed to still access such sites - not that they wanted to, they just wanted to prove it could be done.

Today, the number of young people coming into the market is reducing, due to a highly decreased birth rate. Hence, employers wanting new recruits need to take broader attitudes to attracting and retaining employees - cellphone bans in entire campuses, lunching at desks (because there's no where else to go), and bans on social networking sites all add up to signs of an oppressive/control freak employer. Getting employees to recognise the problems of ringing cellphones to customers and their work mates, providing some form of rest area or access to online entertainment/education, advising on monitoring of networks and expecting employees to only use social networks and MSN messenger during break times - are all signs of an employer trusting employee's to be adults and make sensible choices. Happy employees attract more happy productive employees, and put recruiters out of a job (Ha - if only! Its interesting to think I have a job because of a low birth rate, and people wanting career development...)