Social Network monopoly - the death of Bebo

It appears that the 'winner takes all' predictions about the social networking market are becoming truer by the day.


Yesterday the news that AOL would sell or close the social site, Bebo, effectively signaled the end of another once-successful social network which simply cannot compete with Facebook.


A couple of years ago Bebo was the only website that mattered in the playgrounds of the UK and Ireland when it hit the peak of coolness in 2007. Among 13- to 16-year-olds, Bebo was the place to be seen online, where members could blog, email each other, upload videos and design quizzes – while many adults just didn't quite get it.


AOL saw the potential in the site launched from a San Francisco living room by a husband and wife team and gobbled it up for an eye-watering $850m. Which even then analysts saw as a triumph of ego over due-dilgence.


It was the sites positioning and content that orginally set it apart from other sites and drove traffic to a peak of 40 million unique users in early 2008. An example of such content was the online drama serial Kate Modern.



However, it looks like AOL uninvested and misunderstood the brand Bebo. Compared to Facebooks 2,000 engineers; Bebo employed 40 - leading to technical issues which todays social networker has little patience for.

AOL aim to broaden appeal failed also. Moving away from a small but loyal audience was clearly an error. Figures from comScore show the dramatic shift – Bebo's monthly users in the UK fell by 60% from February 2009 to February 2010 to 3.8 million, while Facebook's grew 24% over the same period to 28.1 million.

So the still privately owned Facebook can count the passing of another social rival backed by big-spending corporates. ITV recently sold Friends Reunited for a mere $42m (just 14% of the purchase price). NewsCorps' My Space, a $580mill Murdoch punt, is struggling to re-position and losing share. And now Bebo goes.

Which all goes to show, people want to hang out where there friends are. So is there any hope for a non-monopolistic market in social networking?

Viral Video - why getting it right as a client rarely means zero media spend.

I was in a pitch meeting recently with a local Polish creative agency. As part of their impressive creds, they showed a viral campaign they had developed about a year ago. It was a subversive and quirky idea in a category untouched by usual viral work - pharma.

Clearly the client was impressed with the idea and, rather predictably, was even more impressed when the agency proudly annouced that there had been zero media spend behind it - it just happened.

This irritated me slightly as it showed a lack of ambition and knowledge on how to really use the media - beyond the most important aspect - having a great idea.

Yes of course viral often means 'free'. There are 1000s of now globally famous virals that have just 'happened', they caught the public imagination, were shared and spread before they are consigned to the library of 'remember that one with the fat kid / kid cute / sexy girl / exploding coke bottle / guy falling off the tread mill ....'

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However the vast majority of these are classic UGC that did not have the brief to sell / build awareness / create Excitment in a brand. They were simply a fun way to spend 10 secs to 3 mins.
When you are a brand in this space, it seems to me you have to follow a few rules. Here are some rules from some guys who do know what they are talking about in the viral space -- The Viral Factory. I found their words of wisdom in the BA Business Life magazine March 2010 edition and thought they were worth sharing, I have paraphrased a little bit so forgive me:

Rule 1: Respect the audience

If traditional advertising has been occasionally guilty of treating people like idiots - avoid this tendency line. People can and will talk back to you and about you - through blogs, comments etc.
And while the size of potential Internet audience has us delirious with excitement, bare in mind that if you get it wrong - it can go really really wrong.

So...

Rule 2: Audience 1st, Marketing 2nd

When you buy a 30 sec TV spot - you want to Squeeze every last penny of value from the investment. And why not, its yours and you control it in an environment of apparent focused attention (the commercial break - however we've been talking about Ad Advoiders for 15 years)

With viral you have to earn the audience attention by giving them something they want to watch. So start with that and then figure out how to get key marketing messages across without ruining the idea you thought was so good in the first place.

What do people like? Well Hollywood has a pretty good grasp on this: people like to laugh, they like romance, they like watching people in jeopardy, they like sex, heros, cute things, and they like things that make you go WOW!

Rule 3: Get rid of barriers

If you want people to share what you've created, then make it easy and fun for them to do so. Use content-sharing tools and platforms like You Tube, Flickr, Facebook, Blogger. These are freely available and people are comfortable using them. Of course you can make you're own but that is an additional expense, when money spent (beyond creating the idea) should be focused on....

Rule 4: Promoting your viral

This should be done shamelessly and relentlessly especially in the 1st 2 weeks after realease. By getting into the 'top 100' of viral, work does disproportionately better as more people see and share.

You can focus on getting influencial people - journalists, commentators, well-followed bloggers etc - to spread your message.

However, a greater chance of success sits with having a viral promotional plan and budget in place. We use people like Go Viral to seed brand content- via social networks, content placements, SEO with behavourial targeting. There are 2 main approaches; "pull" seeding - one to many, or "push" content placement in high volume/traffic spaces.

Both are essentially charged on a pay per view model which adds some accoutability to this area and shows that great viral marketing campaigns don't just happen and they like any great marketing campaign, they need focus and investment.

The difference being, if you get it right in viral the idea will fly and your ROI is almost unimaginable - a was in the case of Evian's Rollerskating babies - which was 'planned' to get 2millions view and is currently on 58 million.

TEDx Warsaw - session 2

The second session of the inagrual TEDx Warsaw event. I was 'live blogging' so expect a few typos and the odd loss of thread.....

Kicking off session 2 - Jonathan Ornstein


Jewish life in Krakow

How HRH Prince Charles helped to build a Jewish Community centre in Krakow -but now the need to attract Jews back to Krakow given there are only 150 Jews in Krakow.

Interesting view on how most Jewish people come to Krakow on hertiage tours - and go from ghetto, to concentration camp, to another camp to a cemetary. He compared this with a 2nd generation Japanese going back to Japan - only to visit Hirosima and Nagasaki.



2nd speaker - Noam Kostucki

How selfishness is the best reason to cooperate

3rd - Marek Minakowski - chief scientist at One.pl - a leading local portal

He's going to have a stab at predicting the future - excellent

Bascially nothing will change as human brain will not change. Its still going to be a case of Pull and Push - as we pull from Google now and Push to Facebook

Pull might become the 'crystal ball' to which you can pose any question. And push will become some kind of 'perfect secretary' who protects you from the over-burden of infomation.

Hmmm interesting guy but not sure I caught all he said.

4th Speaker -Sandra Bichl

2+2 is less than 4....how we are not predisposed to teamwork (apparently in German TEAM stands for "great, someone else to do the work")

Moving on to our hidden talents as individuals - either you've found them and its working for you, or you have yet to discover them (thats nice to hear!)

5th - Sebastian Straube

At current rate of development - we need 3 more Earth's to keep us sustained. That could be a problem

Sustainovation is the answer he tells us.

Bottom of the Pyramid innovation - focusing on the worlds 4 billion who have less than $2/day



Cradle to Cradle innovation - closed cycles for zero footprint



Catalytic innovation - disruptive innovation for social change - such as giving up your time for free



Next - Alek Tarkowski - given I have about 20 mins of battery left, might not get thru the session.



How do you protect culture in the digital age.



It seems that building culture actually means building another building - cultural institutions could use the internet to supplement whats missing.



If instituations move online, they need:



Openess - making stuff available so someone, somewhere can help and find an answer

Sharing -

Sustainability - find ways to support creators over a long time

Durability - what would a 100 year Wikipedia look like?




Indeed the battery did cut out half way thru this talk - shame as it was one of the best (in my view) so far. He went on to talk about cultural curation and how this will become more and more important yet easier - even creating a playlist is an act of curation.

Session closed with an amazing recital by a cellist and acordian player - playing a modern composition by a young Polish musician. Excellent - there is more music to come later. Probably better to see that on http://tedxwarsaw.com/

TEDx Warsaw session 1 - live from Warsaw Uni Old Library

The lecture theater of the Uni Old Library building in Warsaw is pretty much packed - that makes 376 keen souls pushed through the morning snow to be at the inaugral TEDx Warsaw.

Its 10am - And as promised we're off with a video from the founder of the TED TEDx why it was set up

Now its the organisier Ralph Talmont-brief housekeeping

1st speaker for precisely 18 mins-Ian Hernandez. "Ever been to the circus?" Trapeze Acrobats and flying

Its all about collaboration. 3 stages
1) Competition: In a positive sense, going the extra mile, self-imporvement

2) Co-operation: its all about agreement

3) Collaboration: its all about creation

Summing up - lifes lessons come from very unusual places, and that achieve remarkable things you need the same trust and committment as an acrobat.

2nd Speaker - Lori Kent - importance of the arts in human culture

30.000 yrs of art in 18 mins - here we go - Cavemen, The Greeks, Dark Ages, Renaissance artists = as superstars, Modernism, right up to the post-post modernism now.

7 things to love about artists: they ...

1 - see well ... have vision - imagination
2 - aritists find a problem
3 - are self-aware
4 - are experts at play - like finger painting as a child
5 - embrace difficulty - Michalango imagine looking at a block of white marble
6 - oopps missed that one
7 - reflect and critique. well before 'crowd sourcing'

By the way - its great seeing an artist present using her own pictures rather than ppt.

Asks us to make our own day more artful, and put it at center of what we do

3rd up - Sergei Sawin - how to build an innovative organistion

1 Have courage to explore - from rubber to nokia phones
2 Know where you want to be in 10 years - if you can not predict the future invent it
3 See the world through your clients eyes - get out of the office
4 Focus on the job people are Tyringe to get done not on the product itself --
5 Discover your non-customers - eg use of the Wii by over 60s - bowling on you tube
6 Find out your lead users --
7 Foster collaborative creativity - Dutch ministry of transpostation has an amazing creavtivty facilty
8 Be open to new ideas
9 Prototype - helps turn ideas into a reality - try and fail a few times - this helps
10 Prepare for tough resistence - innovators are like Rambo - limited resources and no support.

"When the wind of change is blowing you can either build a shelter ... or a windmill" syas the chinese proverb.

4th speaker - Hodge Hodgson

Building carbon-neutral economies. A project at Berlin University - building a building that produces more engery than the inhabitants consume

A solar decathlon architecture in Madrid in June 2010

Oh quick one - all done in 4 mins

Number 5 - Jacek Olechowski

Networks and Trust - can we trust the networks that bring us together?

Toyota, Anderson, Madoff - lose trust, lose everything

Efficient ways of building trust? Because lack of trust is the biggest barrier
Thats why networks can be efficient and builder of trust - eg simply being TEDx event at a level of trust develops between strangers

Effective networks

Peers vs. Hierarchy - everyone feels at the same level
Long term goal v deal driven - not common vision quick deal
homogeneous v too diverse - a few set of rules and values that people can agree on

The social networking sites that are winning are fulfilling certain needs

6th Speaker - Stephen Kines - we're flying through them - do not think everyones getting close to their 18 mins, certainly no buzzer used yet.

Man walks on stage with a cucumber and a condom - this is getting random now - whats the metaphor - oh he's a lawyer and its about protection.

How rules can kill and constrict the entrepreneur - hence a new biz model for his law firms without Billable hours - is that one going to catch on?!

And last up this session - Michal Malinowski

A story teller dressed in traditional Papua New Guinea outfit- setting up a digital repository for stories from all over the world. Quite a trippy end to the session.

when suffering writers block....Wordle

Superbowl 44 ads - winners and losers

I wrote last week about Pepsi and Coke taking different appraoches to their use of social media and specifically about using the Super Bowl as a kick-off point for their respective campaigns.

So although us UK viewers were provided with excellent coverage by the BBC - it was obviously an ad-free environment. So today i had a review of the ads which wounds last night, ads costing c. $ 2 million for a 30 second spot.

With the Oscars, the Superbowl half time ad break is the U.S. creative industry's chance to really shine to an enormous audience live and recorded. And with eye-watering media costs - you'd expect some really great work.

But as ever, there were (in my opinion) winners and losers, saints and sinners. I reviewed the ads here at mashable.com

My clear favorite was from Homeaway.com - renting a home service which seeks to encourage holidayers away from hotels and into peoples rented home.

For me they got it spot on. Great creative idea, good use of celebs, and 30 sec media buy which leads you (and you really do want to see more) that are online to see a short film which Heralds the return of the most infamous family holidaying, the Griswalds of National Lampoon fame . I'm not going to provide a narrative -- just have a look here t0 watch / play more

Google Trends updates has not quite yet for last nights activity, but I'm sure Homeaway.com will see a surge in traffic, plus a boost in awareness and consideration after this campaign kick off.

I also liked Vizio for its interactive enabled ads - they no doubt understood the longer-tail effect and ensured their You Tube version was interactive, creating a deeper experience with this Internet over TV brand

Doritos ran numerous 'crash the superbowl' ads again. Good to see a big idea from 3 years ago (UGC for Superbowl) still going stong.

The losers - well its hard to say this objectively, its more the ads that I found to stand-out because of their poor execution rather than outstanding work around them.

Dr.Pepper Cherry with Kiss...plus a bunch of midgets. Just lame.

Sketchers...new 'MBT' like show - pretty much looking like a hastily arranged powerpoint create ad for 120 million people to see

And what of Pepsi and Coke? Well Pepsi had the year off to focus on social media, and Coke, well Coke threw money at the problem and invited the Simpsons to create some happiness. Nice enough but somehow left me disappointed.

The Cola Wars - this time it's social

They will be a massive break with tradition this coming Super Bowl Sunday. Yes as usual Americans will be glued to their screens (mostly TV screens) for 4 hours or so. There'll be 2 teams trying to outwit and out-muscle each other on the pitch and yes there'll still be a Mamouth spectacular half-time shows, led by the Who.


But there will be a difference during the now legendary half-time TV commercial breaks. For the 1st time in a quarter of a century one of the 2 soft-drink giants will not be there to compete. PepsiCo - home of Pepsi, Gatorade, Mountain Dew and various salty snacks - this year will not be paying in the region of $ 3 million for a 30 second spot. This year, PepsiCo is putting everything into a $ 20mill social media led campaign called The Pepsi Refesh Project.



As part of this CSR scheme, the Purchase-based firm will give donations, ranging in value from $5,000 (€3,592; £3,140) to $250,000, to good causes in the US, with a budget of $20 million in all. Web users will be able to vote for the individuals, groups and organisations which they consider worthy of receiving this funding, with up to 32 grants being awarded every month.



AOL, MTV, NBCU Universal and Yahoo are among the media partners for this communications drive, while Pepsi will also sponsor a reality series, If I Can Dream, on Hulu, the video-on-demand platform.Facebook and Twitter will be among the other services Pepsi will employ in spreading its message.

What is interesting here are two things.

Firstly that Coke is also using social media to promote a huge CSR programme this year. But it is buying into the Superbowl airtime in order to promote its own scheme. Visitors to a dedicated page on Facebook will be able to view a sneak preview of one of these ads if they send a branded "virtual gift" is one of their friends on the service before the Super Bowl. Each time such a "gift" is delivered over duration of the month-long scheme, the beverage maker will award $ 1 to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, with a total budget of $ 500,000.



So these two behemoths of FMCG marketing are attempting to play the same game but with different tools. Will Pepsi's purely social punt (delberate pun) see them victorious by creating a larger 'reward' pot and letting the power of the idea generate the traffic required. Or will Coke's 'shock and awe' tactic of using the immense Superbowl audience (ranging from 80-130 million individuals), who tend to deliberately view the half time ads (and indeed PVR them to play again and again), see Coke generate big numbers to this site.



Either way, heres the second interesting point. Both companies are now talking about a new post-digital age where 'experimentation is over'. A recognition of the value to them of digital media that allows and encourages a two-way dialogue.


Clearly it will be interesting to track the evolution of these 2 similar campaigns, sowing the seeds of interest in different ways. It will also be interesitng to see how may of the Superbowl ads (generally always especially created for the event) will have a social media elememt or at the very least a Facebook URL. And look out for more of the same at the next global event of this scale - FIFA 2010 in South Africa.