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Social Media bombs on Black Friday

by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) Despite all the hyperventilating over social media, people with open minds and judicious temperaments are still unconvinced that it has significant impact on commerce.

We know that display advertising on social media sites, notably Facebook, has delivered a whole lot less than promised.

But defenders of social media marketing tell us that it is not the advertising value of social media networks that makes them so magical. It’s the content value.

The story goes that the real strength of social media is manifest in the feeds and updates on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Linked In. Here people see marketers’ posts and they also see the endorsements and referrals from members of their “community” and are powerfully influenced by them.

It’s a lovely little story. Unfortunately, it’s all bullshit.

Weekly Top 10: Fastest rising search terms from South Africans on Google

With the help of Google Trends we are publishing the top 10 searched for phrases (minus the sexy stuff of course) by South Africans on Google over the previous seven days.

The 2012 Tax filing drew to a close on Friday and searches for and about the SARS efiling system dominates our list for fast rising web search terms on Google by South Africans. End of the month and the upcoming holiday season seems to have given retailers a boost – Pick n Pay, Game stores and Woolworths all headed higher in the fast rising searches list.
Fast rising searches
psl +150%
sars efiling +150%
efiling +140%
sars +90%
pick n pay +60%
computicket +50%
game stores +50%
supersport +50%
weather cape town +50%
woolworths +50%

The Man In The Gray Flannel iPhone

by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) In the 1950s there was a very popular book and movie called The Man In the Gray Flannel Suit.

It was a complicated tale, but one of the key threads was about conformity.

The icon of 1950’s conformity was the suburban male office worker, commuting by train to “the city,” trapped in an unfulfilling life of materialism, social climbing, and status anxiety.

Like all cliches, this had elements of both truth and fiction. Even though most of us weren’t there to experience it, in our mythology this caricature has served us well as a short-hand for the zeitgeist of the period.

While commuting to “the city” the other day, it occurred to me that there is a new and evolving type of male big city office worker.

I saw this person a lot last week. There was a very large tech-related convention in San Francisco and public transit was jammed with these guys. They wore clean jeans and had colorful oxford shirts with their tails out. They had expensive eye wear and messenger bags thrown over their shoulders. They were thumbing away on their iPhones which were attached to their heads via earbuds.

Tech Law: Changing privacy norms

by Paul Jacobson (@pauljacobson) In many respects, privacy and the social Web or antithetical notions. The social web, is by definition, requires degrees of publicity while conventional notions about privacy encourage secrecy. One of the fundamental shifts in privacy, as a concept, is what it has come to mean on the social Web. Many people, when they think about what privacy means to them, they think of privacy and secrecy and that greater privacy means less of their personal information is made available to the public on the Internet. This is not the dominant privacy model on the Web and this is, I believe, the source of considerable consternation.

Weekly Top 10: Fastest rising search terms from South Africans on Google

With the help of Google Trends we are publishing the top 10 searched for phrases (minus the sexy stuff of course) by South Africans on Google over the previous seven days.

The massive fire that burned down dozens of homes at St Francis Bay in the Eastern Cape made the list of fastest rising web searches several times over as did the Momentum 94.7 Cycle Challenge which took place yesterday. The release of computer game “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2,” released on Nov. 13, also made the list.
Fast rising searches
gmail login access Breakout
black ops 2 +300%
st francis bay +250%
94.7 cycle challenge +200%
st francis fire +190%
diwali +180%
94.7 +80%
junk mail +50%
clicks +40%
die burger +40%

Social Media Effect: “Barely Negligible”

by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) If you’re in the business of selling stuff, according to one big-time research firm social media marketing is a waste of your time and money.

Forrester Research has released a report recently that concludes…

“Social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers. While the hype around social networks as a driver of influence in eCommerce continues to capture the attention of online executives, the truth is that social continues to struggle and registers as a barely negligible source of sales for either new or repeat buyers. In fact, fewer than 1% of transactions for both new and repeat shoppers could be traced back to trackable social links.”

Now think about this for a minute. This study is about the influence of online social media on online sales. If the influence on online sales is “barely negligible” can you imagine the influence on traditional retail sales (which account for about 94% of everything sold?) What’s below barely negligible? Strongly negligible?

Online Video: the experience is here

by Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) A powerful clue has emerged that South Africans are finally beginning to get affordable broadband: one of the three most popular international web sites in this country is YouTube – beaten only by Google and Facebook in amount of traffic from South Africa. YouTube also happens to be the third most visited site among Internet users globally.

That highlights another trend that is so significant, it is an information revolution in itself: video has become one of the most popular forms of accessing information online. The trend has enormous implications for education, health, business and even politics.

Real estate agents are using video to showcase properties, the tourism industry is using it to offer virtual tours of prospective accommodation establishments, schools and universities are using it to share the lectures and courses of some of the world’s great teachers, and business are using it for training and communications.

Weekly Top 10: Fastest rising search terms from South Africans on Google

With the help of Google Trends we are publishing the top 10 searched for phrases (minus the sexy stuff of course) by South Africans on Google over the previous seven days.

The US presidential elections, and the win for President Obama, dominates the fastest rising Google web searches list from last week. The Linkin Park concert tragedy in Cape Town, test cricket and a search for alternatives to the now stranded budget airline 1time also makes the list.
Fast rising searches
us elections +900%
linkin park +650%
barack obama +600%
obama +600%
cricinfo +250%
cricket +100%
psl +60%
speed test +60%
british airways +40%
discovery health +40%

Tech Law: Content piracy and a panicked industry

by Paul Jacobson (@pauljacobson) We’re so accustomed to the term “content piracy” in the context of copyright infringement that we just accept that it is an appropriate term for what is going on.

Triumph Of The Anti-Language

by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) There is a talk I give to groups from time to time called “The Golden Age Of Bullsh*t.”

The talk has a few basic themes. One of which is that we are living in an age in which business bullsh*t artists have invented an anti-language. Its objective is to confuse rather than clarify. This is the opposite of what language is supposed to do.

Yesterday I received an email from from Oracle. The headline said:

Architecting Business Continuity Essentials for Enterprise Applications

Eager to find out how my enterprise applications could be architected for business continuity I read on.

I learned that I could…

Facilitate capacity planning and performance tuning. And effectively consolidate and virtualize enterprise application environments.

All I can say is, if you’ve never virtualized your enterprise application environment, dude it’s awesome.