Whenever Google launches a new tool or service there’s much chatter and blogging. What I’ve found though is that many bloggers just give you the news and don’t really discuss the implications.
One interesting tool that was launched earlier this month was Google Insights For Search.
You can type in a search phrase or a number of phrases and then see the trends of usage of this term over time.
Some fun examples; You can see how the phrase ’Beijing Olympics’ has massively ramped up in August (well, no surprise there then). Or how about the decline in interest for ’Tony Blair’ over the last year?
I think there are more interesting applications for an e-commerce business to consider.
Here’s 3 suggestions to get you started.
1. Competitor Analysis
There’s usually a positive relationship between a company’s brand recognition and the number of searches it gets on it’s own “brand” terms. You can use this to your advantage by comparing the volume of searches your own company brand is getting compared to your competitors.
For example, compare the following 4 flight/rail companies for UK searches over the last 4 years: British Airways, Eurostar, Ryanair and Easyjet. You can see the search spike relating to the launch of the new Eurostar terminal in November 2007, but much more obvious is the share of interest that BA has lost to Easyjet and Ryanair over the years.
2. Regional Demand
If you are entering a new market it’s useful to see where in that country your potential customer base exists. In which cities will you find your new customers?
For example, in the online restaurant reservations business, if you were to search for ‘restaurants’ by French region you’d see (as expected) that Paris is a top location. Which city would you have guessed as next most important? Of the other major cities it’s not Bordeaux, Nantes or Lyon where there are most diners online, it’s Toulouse and Nice. If you cross reference this data with population data, you get a good market research tool.
3. Seasonal Trends
Many businesses are seasonal in nature. If you a a growing business (and I hope you are), determining what parts of your monthly figures can be attributed to growth and what are caused by an underlying seasonal trend is difficult to gauge. Say we did well in August. Is that because more people are in the market for our product generally in August (compared to July) - or did we actually take a bigger share of the market?
For example, if you are a retailer selling gifts, what sort of trend do you see for gifts? A little spike in February (Valentine's Day), a big spike in November (Christmas). No surprises there then. If you are unsure of your seasonal demand trends, this is quite a quick and easy way to take the pulse of your consumer base.
So - there you are, a couple of different ways to use this great new tool. I'm sure there are many more. Please feel free to leave a comment if you've gained insights in other ways.
Monday 18 August 2008
Thursday 14 August 2008
Mobile Online Restaurant Booking From fonefood (lastminute.com)
Booking a restaurant online on your mobile.
I'm excited. Today sees the launch of fonefood, a new beta mobile restaurant booking service from lastminute.com.
You want to find or book a restaurant. Nowadays one of the easiest ways to do that is online. You don't need to wait for the restaurant to be open, you don't need the restaurant to answer your call. You can book there and then online and in real-time.
Increasingly though people are taking the internet with them in their pockets and more of us expect to be able to get online anywhere at anytime.
That's what's great about fonefood. You can book tables on the move! You're on the train, you're in a taxi, you're at the airport. Wherever you happen to be it's easy to search and book with your web enabled mobile phone.
fonefood is available at http://m.lastminute.com/fonefood
Try it out. You are given descriptions of nearby restaurants, with currently over a thousand available deals, discounts and promotions. It uses Google Maps to show restaurants near your chosen location. Once you’ve chosen a restaurant there is no need to call, you just book directly on your mobile (for free!) and receive an instant confirmation via SMS. (This is especially handy if you're abroad and don't speak the local language).
It is available in 12 countries and gives users access to over 6,000 restaurants. The restaurant reservations technology is powered by Livebookings Network.
lastminute.com even put a cool little video together on Youtube to market the service....
I love progress!
Wednesday 30 July 2008
How Much Should I Get Paid?
Increasingly, employees want to make sure that they work on a good team, and on the winning team. It's not enough to get a great job title, a fancy office and a big salary.
Good people need to work with good people. Success breeds success.
Personally, I believe in really working hard on getting the right people on board. If you recruit well, everything else follows. However, it's not just about you finding a person to do the job well. The best candidates need to find a company and team that they really want to join. It's a marriage every time you hire. If done well, the divorce rate is low (few people leave).
So, I was very interested to see a website that is helping prospective employees find out about prospective employers. It's called glassdoor.com.
Sign up to the site and you can rate your current and previous employers. You can also find out salary ranges for each company by job type. The catch? To read reviews or to see salaries, you need to add a review or leave your salary details.
If this takes off, we could have a free, easy to access salary benchmarking service. Working out whether you get paid the market rate becomes easier and easier. HR teams will have a cheaper source of compensation data for benchmarking. Asking for a pay rise though will still be nerve racking.
I'm cautious. I certainly won't be posting my current salary or giving feedback on my current company, mainly because there's only one of me (COO) and so it'd be pretty obvious who left the comments. I would probably leave comments on previous employers though, given that the risk of getting into a comprimising situation is lower.
It's defintely one to watch. I think it will take off in the UK simply because we're so nosy about each other.
In the long term it could change the job market in that workers will have a totally transparent view of what it is like to work for a company before joining them. That can only be a good thing: employers will create a reputation by actually being an effective organisation, not by marketing HR hype.
Good people need to work with good people. Success breeds success.
Personally, I believe in really working hard on getting the right people on board. If you recruit well, everything else follows. However, it's not just about you finding a person to do the job well. The best candidates need to find a company and team that they really want to join. It's a marriage every time you hire. If done well, the divorce rate is low (few people leave).
So, I was very interested to see a website that is helping prospective employees find out about prospective employers. It's called glassdoor.com.
Sign up to the site and you can rate your current and previous employers. You can also find out salary ranges for each company by job type. The catch? To read reviews or to see salaries, you need to add a review or leave your salary details.
If this takes off, we could have a free, easy to access salary benchmarking service. Working out whether you get paid the market rate becomes easier and easier. HR teams will have a cheaper source of compensation data for benchmarking. Asking for a pay rise though will still be nerve racking.
I'm cautious. I certainly won't be posting my current salary or giving feedback on my current company, mainly because there's only one of me (COO) and so it'd be pretty obvious who left the comments. I would probably leave comments on previous employers though, given that the risk of getting into a comprimising situation is lower.
It's defintely one to watch. I think it will take off in the UK simply because we're so nosy about each other.
In the long term it could change the job market in that workers will have a totally transparent view of what it is like to work for a company before joining them. That can only be a good thing: employers will create a reputation by actually being an effective organisation, not by marketing HR hype.
Saturday 19 July 2008
Asia By Bike
This is why I love the internet.
Good things being done by good people. Who was it that said "happiness is only real when shared"?
My brother and wife are off soon on an epic cycle journey from Kyrgyzstan to Vietnam.
You can check out the neat site that they created here: Asia By Bike.
I'm looking forward to following their progress, online (of course!)
Good things being done by good people. Who was it that said "happiness is only real when shared"?
My brother and wife are off soon on an epic cycle journey from Kyrgyzstan to Vietnam.
You can check out the neat site that they created here: Asia By Bike.
I'm looking forward to following their progress, online (of course!)
Tuesday 17 June 2008
Court Says You Don't Own Your LinkedIn Contacts
From Telegraph.co.uk...
"A former employee of recruitment firm Hays has been ordered by the High Court to hand over business contacts built up on his personal page of the social networking site LinkedIn...
...Mark Ions, a "middle ranked" consultant operating in Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh, allegedly used his LinkedIn network to approach clients for his own rival agency called Exclusive Human Resources, which he set up in May last year, three weeks before resigning from Hays Specialist Recruitment.
Mr Ions' solicitor told the court that Hays encouraged his use of the site and that once Hays' contacts accepted his invitation to join his network they ceased to be confidential as they could be contacted by anyone in his personal network.
Mr Justice Richards last week ordered Mr Ions to disclose his LinkedIn business contacts requested by Hays and all emails sent to or received by his LinkedIn account from Hays' computer network.
Mr Ions was also ordered to disclose all documents, including invoices and emails, that showed any use by him of the LinkedIn contacts and any business obtained from them."
This is a groundbreaking case and for anyone involved in sales, commerce or business development, it provides case law that should be noted.
If you use your LinkedIn network, during working hours, on your employer's IT network, for the purposes of soliciting business from your employer, you should be aware that in the eyes of the law, the fact that you use a "personal" email account, this doesn't let you off the hook.
Employment law is what it's always been - designed to protect employers from rogue employees - and the law just caught up with the latest technology.
"A former employee of recruitment firm Hays has been ordered by the High Court to hand over business contacts built up on his personal page of the social networking site LinkedIn...
...Mark Ions, a "middle ranked" consultant operating in Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh, allegedly used his LinkedIn network to approach clients for his own rival agency called Exclusive Human Resources, which he set up in May last year, three weeks before resigning from Hays Specialist Recruitment.
Mr Ions' solicitor told the court that Hays encouraged his use of the site and that once Hays' contacts accepted his invitation to join his network they ceased to be confidential as they could be contacted by anyone in his personal network.
Mr Justice Richards last week ordered Mr Ions to disclose his LinkedIn business contacts requested by Hays and all emails sent to or received by his LinkedIn account from Hays' computer network.
Mr Ions was also ordered to disclose all documents, including invoices and emails, that showed any use by him of the LinkedIn contacts and any business obtained from them."
This is a groundbreaking case and for anyone involved in sales, commerce or business development, it provides case law that should be noted.
If you use your LinkedIn network, during working hours, on your employer's IT network, for the purposes of soliciting business from your employer, you should be aware that in the eyes of the law, the fact that you use a "personal" email account, this doesn't let you off the hook.
Employment law is what it's always been - designed to protect employers from rogue employees - and the law just caught up with the latest technology.
Sunday 8 June 2008
Don't Be Mediocre, Be A Generalist
Here's a problem. Most e-commerce websites suck. They're average, sub-optimal.
They suck. If they were high street shops you'd see what I mean. Some would not be signposted. My mother would not be able to find anything she wanted in the store, let alone figure out how to pay. They might not even be found if you called directory enquiries. Lighting would be poor, there would be no space to park and you'd be unsure if you were being served by rip-off merchants or a legitimate business.
Sure, there are some great websites out there. A few. However, because web customers are in many ways "invisible" to the businesses that are trying to serve them, site managers running these sites get away with mediocrity.
Small businesses or large businesses, the problem is the same.
In small businesses you need an all rounder running your web business: he or she needs to be able to do a bit of everything and do it really well to be effective. These all-rounders are few and far between. So - good websites for small businesses are few and far between.
In a large web business, you end up with different "specialists" taking on different roles. You get the design team, the merchandising team, the online marketing team, the tech team, the product planning team, the analytics team, etc. They are all brilliant at what they do. Brilliant.
Just why does the site that you end up with suck if they are brilliant? The really great websites are the ones where the teams do "joined up thinking". The site design team know something about SEO. The analytics team knows something about PPC. The product planning team understand affiliate marketing. If they all understand the basic principles behind all of the main disciplines, you'll do fine. If not you can end up with mediocrity. Division of labour brings pockets of excellence and general mediocrity.
The solution to me is clear: every person involved in delivering the website and running it should be familiar with the basics of how all the main disciplines work.
I will give somple examples of what are these "key disciplines" that are needed to overcome mediocrity and suggest 5 tips on how to acquire those skills. I don't for a moment suggest that anyone can be an "expert" in all of these areas. What I am suggesting is that everyone in an ecommerce business that can affect the business results needs to be a "generalist" and be fluent in the basic principles.
This is true whether you are a one-person site manager doing everything or whether you are a specialist in a big company.
Consider ecommerce websites to be like high street shops. If you are running a traditional "bricks and mortar" business, you need to do three things...
1. Attract customers
2. Persuade them to buy when they come through the door. (And ideally, maximise this so that they
buy more than they would normally have done).
3. Encourage them to come back to shop again and become a regular "repeat customer".
Quite simply, running a website / web service is all about customer acquisition, conversion and retention.
Acquisition
Retail is all about selling the right product to the right person at the right time. So to get this right, there's some preparation needed in terms of customer insight / research, developing a brand, building a proposition, product planning & strategy, business case modelling. Then once you have a product you need a communications plan, (including, but not excluding online PR). On a technical side, you need to understand search engine optimisation (3 core pillars; site structure, content and reputation), search engine marketing (paid search), affiliate marketing, social media optimisation, RSS, blogs, ad serving.
Conversion
Here, the most important discipline is user-centred design, also information architecture, followed closely by merchandising techniques and understanding effective calls to action. Think about good error handling, optimising shopping "funnels", accessibility, compelling copy writing, tactical promotions and you might just have scratched the surface.
Retention
Plenty to learn about here too, from email marketing to direct mail (CRM), use of confirmation emails, special offers, customer database management and that's just scratching the surface.
And more...
Underpinning all of the above is a good understanding of web analytics (for traffic sources, keyword analysis, conversion tracking - and a whole lot more).
And to get stuff done, to make it all happen they also need to understand a little about technical things like technical architecture, software development methodologies, project management techniques, be a great tester.
To add some real flavour to the mix, key principles of many academic disciplines come in useful, economics, sociology and psychology.
And to be effective in business generally, you need to know about HR issues for the countries in which you operate, be a great manager, have good negotiation skills, know a little bit about contract law.
If you find someone who does all of the above well and them let them loose on your website - now you're talking! Also, point them my way, I'd love to meet them!
So - if you're just starting out...
5 tips to become a great E-commerce "generalist"
1. Work with great people
We learn so much from working with other people. Put yourself with the best you can find and learn from them. Soak it up.
2. Apply yourself
This industry is only about 10 years old. Most of the so called experts became experts by just applying themselves and learning from their mistakes. You can too.
3. Attend training
If you can, go on specialist training courses. There are few places such as e-consultancy.com where you can get a kick start
4. Read, read and read
You can never read enough. Some of my favourite books are listed here if you need ideas.
5. Have a go
For me this is the most important advice of all. Have a go! I didn't know anything about setting up RSS feeds until I had to do one for this blog. Figure it out, and just try.
One day, most websites will be great. Until then, if you are a "generalist", go make some money!
"The General"
They suck. If they were high street shops you'd see what I mean. Some would not be signposted. My mother would not be able to find anything she wanted in the store, let alone figure out how to pay. They might not even be found if you called directory enquiries. Lighting would be poor, there would be no space to park and you'd be unsure if you were being served by rip-off merchants or a legitimate business.
Sure, there are some great websites out there. A few. However, because web customers are in many ways "invisible" to the businesses that are trying to serve them, site managers running these sites get away with mediocrity.
Small businesses or large businesses, the problem is the same.
In small businesses you need an all rounder running your web business: he or she needs to be able to do a bit of everything and do it really well to be effective. These all-rounders are few and far between. So - good websites for small businesses are few and far between.
In a large web business, you end up with different "specialists" taking on different roles. You get the design team, the merchandising team, the online marketing team, the tech team, the product planning team, the analytics team, etc. They are all brilliant at what they do. Brilliant.
Just why does the site that you end up with suck if they are brilliant? The really great websites are the ones where the teams do "joined up thinking". The site design team know something about SEO. The analytics team knows something about PPC. The product planning team understand affiliate marketing. If they all understand the basic principles behind all of the main disciplines, you'll do fine. If not you can end up with mediocrity. Division of labour brings pockets of excellence and general mediocrity.
The solution to me is clear: every person involved in delivering the website and running it should be familiar with the basics of how all the main disciplines work.
I will give somple examples of what are these "key disciplines" that are needed to overcome mediocrity and suggest 5 tips on how to acquire those skills. I don't for a moment suggest that anyone can be an "expert" in all of these areas. What I am suggesting is that everyone in an ecommerce business that can affect the business results needs to be a "generalist" and be fluent in the basic principles.
This is true whether you are a one-person site manager doing everything or whether you are a specialist in a big company.
Consider ecommerce websites to be like high street shops. If you are running a traditional "bricks and mortar" business, you need to do three things...
1. Attract customers
2. Persuade them to buy when they come through the door. (And ideally, maximise this so that they
buy more than they would normally have done).
3. Encourage them to come back to shop again and become a regular "repeat customer".
Quite simply, running a website / web service is all about customer acquisition, conversion and retention.
Acquisition
Retail is all about selling the right product to the right person at the right time. So to get this right, there's some preparation needed in terms of customer insight / research, developing a brand, building a proposition, product planning & strategy, business case modelling. Then once you have a product you need a communications plan, (including, but not excluding online PR). On a technical side, you need to understand search engine optimisation (3 core pillars; site structure, content and reputation), search engine marketing (paid search), affiliate marketing, social media optimisation, RSS, blogs, ad serving.
Conversion
Here, the most important discipline is user-centred design, also information architecture, followed closely by merchandising techniques and understanding effective calls to action. Think about good error handling, optimising shopping "funnels", accessibility, compelling copy writing, tactical promotions and you might just have scratched the surface.
Retention
Plenty to learn about here too, from email marketing to direct mail (CRM), use of confirmation emails, special offers, customer database management and that's just scratching the surface.
And more...
Underpinning all of the above is a good understanding of web analytics (for traffic sources, keyword analysis, conversion tracking - and a whole lot more).
And to get stuff done, to make it all happen they also need to understand a little about technical things like technical architecture, software development methodologies, project management techniques, be a great tester.
To add some real flavour to the mix, key principles of many academic disciplines come in useful, economics, sociology and psychology.
And to be effective in business generally, you need to know about HR issues for the countries in which you operate, be a great manager, have good negotiation skills, know a little bit about contract law.
If you find someone who does all of the above well and them let them loose on your website - now you're talking! Also, point them my way, I'd love to meet them!
So - if you're just starting out...
5 tips to become a great E-commerce "generalist"
1. Work with great people
We learn so much from working with other people. Put yourself with the best you can find and learn from them. Soak it up.
2. Apply yourself
This industry is only about 10 years old. Most of the so called experts became experts by just applying themselves and learning from their mistakes. You can too.
3. Attend training
If you can, go on specialist training courses. There are few places such as e-consultancy.com where you can get a kick start
4. Read, read and read
You can never read enough. Some of my favourite books are listed here if you need ideas.
5. Have a go
For me this is the most important advice of all. Have a go! I didn't know anything about setting up RSS feeds until I had to do one for this blog. Figure it out, and just try.
One day, most websites will be great. Until then, if you are a "generalist", go make some money!
"The General"
Friday 6 June 2008
Do I Know You?
This really made me laugh.
One of our senior guys (he shall remain nameless) showed us the perils of working in such a fast growing company.
We share our offices with many other companies, we're on the 6th floor...
He said, "I guess there are quite a lot of people that have joined us lately. On the way up in the lift this morning I spoke to a girl that I was convinced is working for us. I introduced myself and asked her if she was enjoying her new job. She answered a little hesitantly. Actually, she looked slightly shocked but I thought she was just a little apprehensive about speaking to one of the bosses. However, I was a little perplexed when she walked out of the lift on the 4th floor and said, “Bye-Bye, nice to meet you John”
(Names chamged to protect the guilty).
One of our senior guys (he shall remain nameless) showed us the perils of working in such a fast growing company.
We share our offices with many other companies, we're on the 6th floor...
He said, "I guess there are quite a lot of people that have joined us lately. On the way up in the lift this morning I spoke to a girl that I was convinced is working for us. I introduced myself and asked her if she was enjoying her new job. She answered a little hesitantly. Actually, she looked slightly shocked but I thought she was just a little apprehensive about speaking to one of the bosses. However, I was a little perplexed when she walked out of the lift on the 4th floor and said, “Bye-Bye, nice to meet you John”
(Names chamged to protect the guilty).
Wednesday 4 June 2008
Q & A on Restaurants and E-marketing
I recently had a chat with the guys at e-consultancy.com about Livebookings Network (My day job).
We talked about which types of restaurants are making the best use of online marketing and what other opportunities are out there for its aggregated reservations model...
Livebookings has been around for a while now, as has the idea of online bookings for restaurants. How well has the idea caught on with consumers and what types of restaurants have made the biggest strides on the web?
Livebookings Network as it currently exists has been around for two years, having been created in 2006 by the merger of two restaurant reservation system providers – Livebookings in the UK and Loghos in Sweden. The ambition then was to build the business model and prove it would work in our core markets of Sweden and the UK.
Having done so, the plan was to go for a second round of funding and take the business model further geographically. That’s what we are now doing. We are now focusing on expanding through Europe – to France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and throughout the Nordics.
Our most mature market is London. There, there is a wide range of very sophisticated, fine dining restaurants that are looking to maximise their covers. It is obviously better to get two guests per chair in an evening than one, as it doubles your turnover. So a lot of those restaurants are using complex software solutions to manage their reservations and many of them are then connected to online distribution networks, such as ours.
The more advanced restaurants are also using a lot of online promotional activity to drive bookings, such as special offers to fill their shoulder periods. It is often difficult for restaurants to fill every session throughout the week so if you can put together offers for those periods, such as between 6pm and 7pm for the pre-theatre dining crowd, you have more chance of maximising your profitability.
What about consumers?
Consumers are getting used to the idea of booking online. The majority of our bookings come through a la carte bookings but we do see major spikes in booking levels when we run a significant promotional campaign around events. Many bookings also come from secretaries that are reserving tables for their bosses.
In terms of how big the market is, we do know that around 62% of UK consumers are searching the web to decide which restaurant to visit, according to a study conducted by the American Express Hospitality Monitor last year. So that’s a lot of people deciding which restaurant to book online.
Our mission is to make sure that when people have made that decision, our services are in front of them. We focus on a B2B model, rather than spending a large marketing fund on creating an audience for our own site. We focus on people that already have the audience and visitors that are willing to book.
Read the rest of the article at e-consultancy...
We talked about which types of restaurants are making the best use of online marketing and what other opportunities are out there for its aggregated reservations model...
Livebookings has been around for a while now, as has the idea of online bookings for restaurants. How well has the idea caught on with consumers and what types of restaurants have made the biggest strides on the web?
Livebookings Network as it currently exists has been around for two years, having been created in 2006 by the merger of two restaurant reservation system providers – Livebookings in the UK and Loghos in Sweden. The ambition then was to build the business model and prove it would work in our core markets of Sweden and the UK.
Having done so, the plan was to go for a second round of funding and take the business model further geographically. That’s what we are now doing. We are now focusing on expanding through Europe – to France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and throughout the Nordics.
Our most mature market is London. There, there is a wide range of very sophisticated, fine dining restaurants that are looking to maximise their covers. It is obviously better to get two guests per chair in an evening than one, as it doubles your turnover. So a lot of those restaurants are using complex software solutions to manage their reservations and many of them are then connected to online distribution networks, such as ours.
The more advanced restaurants are also using a lot of online promotional activity to drive bookings, such as special offers to fill their shoulder periods. It is often difficult for restaurants to fill every session throughout the week so if you can put together offers for those periods, such as between 6pm and 7pm for the pre-theatre dining crowd, you have more chance of maximising your profitability.
What about consumers?
Consumers are getting used to the idea of booking online. The majority of our bookings come through a la carte bookings but we do see major spikes in booking levels when we run a significant promotional campaign around events. Many bookings also come from secretaries that are reserving tables for their bosses.
In terms of how big the market is, we do know that around 62% of UK consumers are searching the web to decide which restaurant to visit, according to a study conducted by the American Express Hospitality Monitor last year. So that’s a lot of people deciding which restaurant to book online.
Our mission is to make sure that when people have made that decision, our services are in front of them. We focus on a B2B model, rather than spending a large marketing fund on creating an audience for our own site. We focus on people that already have the audience and visitors that are willing to book.
Read the rest of the article at e-consultancy...
Friday 16 May 2008
Copywriting Using Personality Types
One of the most useful tips on copywriting I've seen in recent years was from "Call To Action" by Bryan Eisenberg and Jerrfey Eisenberg (2005, Wizard Academy Press).
They start from the assumption that when you sell a product or service, different buyers need different information depending on their personality.
The Eisenbergs describe 4 personality types. I am really going to oversimplify this, but in essence the different personality types are best reached through different communications.
The Competitive. This person wants accomplishment. Goal oriented folks, who want to know why your product will solve their problem.
The Spontaneous. This type of person likes the personal touch, hates cold hard facts. They like to know why your service/product is the right fit for their need. This person wants acceptance. The approach best used with these types is to provide assurances, guarantees, an emphasis on personal service.
The Humanistic. Creative types who enjoy helping others and socialising. They want to know who else has used your service to solve their problems. They value testimonials, reviews and the knowledge that others have already used your product successfully.
The Methodical. These types like accuracy. Facts. Figure, statistics, methodology. They like logical information displayed in detail.
The Eisenbergs give an example of one paragraph that addresses all 4 types in 3 sentences.
"Our approach is personalised to meet your objectives. The bottom line is that your results are guaranteed. Explore our methodology to discover how thousands of clients just like you have been delighted"
Here's the same sentence with the personality types that are addressed highlighted...
"[Our approach is personalised to meet your objectives]*2. The [bottom line]*1 is that [your results are guaranteed]*1. Explore our [methodology]*4 to discover how [thousands of clients just like you have been delighted]*3"
1 = Competitive
2 = Spontaneous
3 = Humanistic
4 = Methodical
I thought I would give this a go myself.
I found this copy about Hummus Bros, one of my favourite lunch spots in Soho.
"Hummus Bros is about feeding you homemade hummus with mouth watering toppings, scooped off your own individual bowl with warm pitta bread, and accompanied by refreshing salads and juices. We focus on taste, value for money, freshness and simplicity. We are proud to be the only place in the UK to concentrate solely on what we love most - hummus."
So, here's my attempt to re-write it using the personality type approach...
"Tasty, great value for money, fresh and simple. There's a reason why the Soho locals fill our seats every lunchtime. Take homemade hummus and add your choice of a range of hot or cold healthy toppings to create your personal feast. Add brown or white pitta bread (hot or cold, small or large) and accompany with a refreshing salad or juice and enjoy with friends. We guarantee you will leave you feeling nourished and satisfied and will want to come back for more. We are proud to be the only place in the UK to concentrate solely on what we love most - hummus."
Here's where the personality types are addressed:
"Tasty, great value for money, fresh and simple. [There's a reason why the Soho locals fill our seats every lunchtime]*3. Take homemade hummus and add your choice of a range of hot or cold healthy toppings to [create your personal feast]*2. Add [brown or white pitta bread (hot or cold, small or large)]*4 and accompany with a refreshing salad or juice and [enjoy with friends]*3. [We guarantee you will leave feeling nourished and satisfied]*1 and will want to come back for more. We are proud to be the [only place in the UK]*1 to concentrate solely on what we love most - hummus".
1 = Competitive
2 = Spontaneous
3 = Humanistic
4 = Methodical
What do you think? Does it work better? Comments welcome.
I would imagine that better copy should lead to better conversion.
They start from the assumption that when you sell a product or service, different buyers need different information depending on their personality.
The Eisenbergs describe 4 personality types. I am really going to oversimplify this, but in essence the different personality types are best reached through different communications.
The Competitive. This person wants accomplishment. Goal oriented folks, who want to know why your product will solve their problem.
The Spontaneous. This type of person likes the personal touch, hates cold hard facts. They like to know why your service/product is the right fit for their need. This person wants acceptance. The approach best used with these types is to provide assurances, guarantees, an emphasis on personal service.
The Humanistic. Creative types who enjoy helping others and socialising. They want to know who else has used your service to solve their problems. They value testimonials, reviews and the knowledge that others have already used your product successfully.
The Methodical. These types like accuracy. Facts. Figure, statistics, methodology. They like logical information displayed in detail.
The Eisenbergs give an example of one paragraph that addresses all 4 types in 3 sentences.
"Our approach is personalised to meet your objectives. The bottom line is that your results are guaranteed. Explore our methodology to discover how thousands of clients just like you have been delighted"
Here's the same sentence with the personality types that are addressed highlighted...
"[Our approach is personalised to meet your objectives]*2. The [bottom line]*1 is that [your results are guaranteed]*1. Explore our [methodology]*4 to discover how [thousands of clients just like you have been delighted]*3"
1 = Competitive
2 = Spontaneous
3 = Humanistic
4 = Methodical
I thought I would give this a go myself.
I found this copy about Hummus Bros, one of my favourite lunch spots in Soho.
"Hummus Bros is about feeding you homemade hummus with mouth watering toppings, scooped off your own individual bowl with warm pitta bread, and accompanied by refreshing salads and juices. We focus on taste, value for money, freshness and simplicity. We are proud to be the only place in the UK to concentrate solely on what we love most - hummus."
So, here's my attempt to re-write it using the personality type approach...
"Tasty, great value for money, fresh and simple. There's a reason why the Soho locals fill our seats every lunchtime. Take homemade hummus and add your choice of a range of hot or cold healthy toppings to create your personal feast. Add brown or white pitta bread (hot or cold, small or large) and accompany with a refreshing salad or juice and enjoy with friends. We guarantee you will leave you feeling nourished and satisfied and will want to come back for more. We are proud to be the only place in the UK to concentrate solely on what we love most - hummus."
Here's where the personality types are addressed:
"Tasty, great value for money, fresh and simple. [There's a reason why the Soho locals fill our seats every lunchtime]*3. Take homemade hummus and add your choice of a range of hot or cold healthy toppings to [create your personal feast]*2. Add [brown or white pitta bread (hot or cold, small or large)]*4 and accompany with a refreshing salad or juice and [enjoy with friends]*3. [We guarantee you will leave feeling nourished and satisfied]*1 and will want to come back for more. We are proud to be the [only place in the UK]*1 to concentrate solely on what we love most - hummus".
1 = Competitive
2 = Spontaneous
3 = Humanistic
4 = Methodical
What do you think? Does it work better? Comments welcome.
I would imagine that better copy should lead to better conversion.
Saturday 19 April 2008
Timing Is Everything
Email marketing can be a powerful tool. Like all tools, you need to use it carefully.
This example wasn't a disaster, but it did make me laugh...
I was sitting on the Eurostar train in Paris, waiting for it to leave and my Blackberry buzzed to let me know I had new emails. So, without much else to do at the time, I checked the email.
It said "Just got back from Paris? Tell Ted all about it."
Great timing eh? I know the new train link is fast, but it's not that fast!
The email continued....
"You've walked down sun-filled
boulevards. Dined in some of Europe's
finest restaurants. Watched the sun set
over a city, spread before you like a
bejewelled cape.
Now you're back in the real world
and bursting to tell everyone about
your experiences. Even Ted from the
accounts department.
Try telling Ted and you could win a
weekend break to the Eurostar
destination of your choice"
It should have read....
"You've walked down crowded metro
platforms. Dined in one of Paris'
cheap creperies. Dodged the rain
through narrow pavements to get back
to a cheap hotel room.
Now you're heading back home to your
real world and dying to see your family
again. Work is over for another week
and Ted from the accounts department can wait.
Tell Ted how little you spent on your trip
and you could go back again soon to the
same fleapit for another meeting, (but
you'd rather not if you had the choice)"
Two lessons learned:
Email marketing should always
- have content relevant to the audience
- be sent at an appropriate time
I don't mind though, it made me laugh.
This example wasn't a disaster, but it did make me laugh...
I was sitting on the Eurostar train in Paris, waiting for it to leave and my Blackberry buzzed to let me know I had new emails. So, without much else to do at the time, I checked the email.
It said "Just got back from Paris? Tell Ted all about it."
Great timing eh? I know the new train link is fast, but it's not that fast!
The email continued....
"You've walked down sun-filled
boulevards. Dined in some of Europe's
finest restaurants. Watched the sun set
over a city, spread before you like a
bejewelled cape.
Now you're back in the real world
and bursting to tell everyone about
your experiences. Even Ted from the
accounts department.
Try telling Ted and you could win a
weekend break to the Eurostar
destination of your choice"
It should have read....
"You've walked down crowded metro
platforms. Dined in one of Paris'
cheap creperies. Dodged the rain
through narrow pavements to get back
to a cheap hotel room.
Now you're heading back home to your
real world and dying to see your family
again. Work is over for another week
and Ted from the accounts department can wait.
Tell Ted how little you spent on your trip
and you could go back again soon to the
same fleapit for another meeting, (but
you'd rather not if you had the choice)"
Two lessons learned:
Email marketing should always
- have content relevant to the audience
- be sent at an appropriate time
I don't mind though, it made me laugh.
Friday 4 April 2008
Restaurant Online Marketing Workshops
According to the American Express Hospitality Monitor, 62% of customers search the Internet to decide which restaurant to visit.
If you are in the restaurant business, there's a great new free workshop that you can go to start learning about how to get your business online. Not only is online marketing now an essential part of the marketing mix, but it is the most cost effective and successful form of marketing that a restaurant can engage in.
Livebookings Network are running a series of workshops around the UK, focusing on providing practical advice to restaurateurs on the topic of online marketing.
London, Thursday 24 April
Topics being covered...
Email Marketing - Creating and measuring email campaigns to your existing restaurant customers, capturing valuable data and delivering promotions.
Expert speaker: Matthew Kirby, UK Managing Director, Fishbowl Marketing, www.fishbowluk.com
Search Engine Marketing - Basics and benefits of search engine optimisation for restaurants looking to attract traffic to their websites and capture more customers as a result of improved search engine rankings.
Expert speaker: Warren Cowen, Chief Executive Officer, greenlight search engine marketing, www.greenlightsearch.com
Effective Web Design - Implementing effective web design, the importance of maintenance and maximising opportunities available through your website.
Expert speaker: Keith Davie, Creative Director, Salad Creative, www.saladcreative.com
Time: 9.30am coffee, croissants and networking
10am start – 11.30am
Venue: Slug and Lettuce, 80-82 Wardour St, London, W1F 0TF
Cost: FREE to Livebookings Network members. Membership is free.
£25+VAT for non-members (includes breakfast)
If you sign up to the Livebookings Network on the day, you are refunded the cost of your Workshop place.
Booking: Book Online: www.livebookings.co.uk/workshops
If you are in the restaurant business, there's a great new free workshop that you can go to start learning about how to get your business online. Not only is online marketing now an essential part of the marketing mix, but it is the most cost effective and successful form of marketing that a restaurant can engage in.
Livebookings Network are running a series of workshops around the UK, focusing on providing practical advice to restaurateurs on the topic of online marketing.
London, Thursday 24 April
Topics being covered...
Email Marketing - Creating and measuring email campaigns to your existing restaurant customers, capturing valuable data and delivering promotions.
Expert speaker: Matthew Kirby, UK Managing Director, Fishbowl Marketing, www.fishbowluk.com
Search Engine Marketing - Basics and benefits of search engine optimisation for restaurants looking to attract traffic to their websites and capture more customers as a result of improved search engine rankings.
Expert speaker: Warren Cowen, Chief Executive Officer, greenlight search engine marketing, www.greenlightsearch.com
Effective Web Design - Implementing effective web design, the importance of maintenance and maximising opportunities available through your website.
Expert speaker: Keith Davie, Creative Director, Salad Creative, www.saladcreative.com
Time: 9.30am coffee, croissants and networking
10am start – 11.30am
Venue: Slug and Lettuce, 80-82 Wardour St, London, W1F 0TF
Cost: FREE to Livebookings Network members. Membership is free.
£25+VAT for non-members (includes breakfast)
If you sign up to the Livebookings Network on the day, you are refunded the cost of your Workshop place.
Booking: Book Online: www.livebookings.co.uk/workshops
Tuesday 1 April 2008
I Must Be Getting Old
According to recent research by Jakob Neilsen, older web users take longer to complete web tasks. In fact, he's actually calculated a decline of 0.8% per year for every year you get older after the age of 25.
He says "The human aging process starts around age 25 and causes erosion of cognitive resources, loss of visual acuity, degraded reaction times, and reduced dexterity. People need more time for the same mental operations; they have less memory capacity and take longer to process the same perceptual input."
That makes me feel really great as I approach my 39th birthday. Ouch.
So, am I 8% slower than I was 10 years ago? Wow, I wonder if that's true?
Well, I just know I'm faster overall. Maybe my brain is slower, but I am sure that 10 years of internet usage have brought massive gains from experience. Slow brain maybe, but a very efficient one!
See Middle-Aged Users' Declining Web Performance for the full article.
He says "The human aging process starts around age 25 and causes erosion of cognitive resources, loss of visual acuity, degraded reaction times, and reduced dexterity. People need more time for the same mental operations; they have less memory capacity and take longer to process the same perceptual input."
That makes me feel really great as I approach my 39th birthday. Ouch.
So, am I 8% slower than I was 10 years ago? Wow, I wonder if that's true?
Well, I just know I'm faster overall. Maybe my brain is slower, but I am sure that 10 years of internet usage have brought massive gains from experience. Slow brain maybe, but a very efficient one!
See Middle-Aged Users' Declining Web Performance for the full article.
Saturday 29 March 2008
The Ego Has Landed
Another day, another new social networking site invite in my inbox.
Naymz.com... is this Linkedin Version 2? What a crappy name. It's sounds like "waynz wurld". Anyway, I'm test driving it at the moment, simply because it gives me yet another link to my blog therefore might just help with the SEO. You never know.
Enough cyncicism. It could just take off because it hooks into that perfect incentive mechanism: the ego.
Here's how it works: I link to loads of people. They link to me. The more people that link to me and endorse me, the bigger my reputation (and ego I guess). As you grow in stature, you gain points. Top tier users (rating 9 and 10) get a free Google promotion.
Let's see if it booms or dies. One to watch.
Naymz.com... is this Linkedin Version 2? What a crappy name. It's sounds like "waynz wurld". Anyway, I'm test driving it at the moment, simply because it gives me yet another link to my blog therefore might just help with the SEO. You never know.
Enough cyncicism. It could just take off because it hooks into that perfect incentive mechanism: the ego.
Here's how it works: I link to loads of people. They link to me. The more people that link to me and endorse me, the bigger my reputation (and ego I guess). As you grow in stature, you gain points. Top tier users (rating 9 and 10) get a free Google promotion.
Let's see if it booms or dies. One to watch.
Thursday 6 March 2008
News: Livebookings Network wins £6.5 million of investment led by Balderton Capital
Online restaurant marketing and reservations will be boosted by new investment.
Today, Livebookings Network welcomed a £6.5 million financial injection led by leading global VC firm Balderton Capital.
This investment will add fuel to Livebookings’ drive for international growth and will strengthen plans to recruit talent from countries all over the world. The funds will also be used to build the success founded in existing markets (UK and Nordics), in addition to the development of Livebookings’ tech infrastructure.
Niklas Ekland, CEO says “With this investment, we can further expand our partner network and extend our reach as hungry guests go online to make their next reservation.”
London-based Balderton Capital is one of Europe’s largest venture capital organisations, with an investment strategy focussed on finding and helping talented entrepreneurs build great companies.
Notable investments include
Tim Bunting (partner at Balderton Capital) said, "Livebookings is a fantastic, easy-to-use service for the restaurant sector. By bringing together
booking agents, restaurants and diners, it fulfils a vital reservations and marketing role. We’re really looking forward to working with the Livebookings team as it builds the business across Europe.”
The Livebookings Network is a global marketing and real-time restaurant booking service. With millions of reservations made since its conception in 2001, Livebookings has successfully welcomed almost 17,000 restaurants into the network.
There will be more than a few million reservations made in the next few years. Watch this space...
Today, Livebookings Network welcomed a £6.5 million financial injection led by leading global VC firm Balderton Capital.
This investment will add fuel to Livebookings’ drive for international growth and will strengthen plans to recruit talent from countries all over the world. The funds will also be used to build the success founded in existing markets (UK and Nordics), in addition to the development of Livebookings’ tech infrastructure.
Niklas Ekland, CEO says “With this investment, we can further expand our partner network and extend our reach as hungry guests go online to make their next reservation.”
London-based Balderton Capital is one of Europe’s largest venture capital organisations, with an investment strategy focussed on finding and helping talented entrepreneurs build great companies.
Notable investments include
- Bebo (the leading social networking site)
- Betfair (online betting exchange)
- Codemasters (video games developer and publisher)
- Habbo Hotel (teen social networking site)
- MySQL (open-source database business)
- Setanta Sports (the European sports broadcaster)
Tim Bunting (partner at Balderton Capital) said, "Livebookings is a fantastic, easy-to-use service for the restaurant sector. By bringing together
booking agents, restaurants and diners, it fulfils a vital reservations and marketing role. We’re really looking forward to working with the Livebookings team as it builds the business across Europe.”
The Livebookings Network is a global marketing and real-time restaurant booking service. With millions of reservations made since its conception in 2001, Livebookings has successfully welcomed almost 17,000 restaurants into the network.
There will be more than a few million reservations made in the next few years. Watch this space...
Monday 3 March 2008
Review: Flock, Social Firefox In A Box?
Is Flock really a new web browser?
Flock, a new browser that is built around "social" browsing, is an interesting alternative to the mainstream Internet Explorer and Firefox.
It pitches itself as a "social web browser"
Actually, you could argue that it's not a new browser at all because it's built on Firefox technology. Look closely and it's really just Firefox with a skin. It's a mash-up. A good one.
Firefox has been successful because of all the custom "add-ons" that you can choose to use according to your needs. If you a developer for example, there's great tools to help check code, optimise for SEO, and many more. Firefox has succeeded in this area because it has an open source development community that continuously add to the features available without adding weight to the basic browser. You can download the basic version which doesn't have too much complexity and just add on the bits that suit you.
Flock however could be seen as a "social Firefox in a box". Take all the great web 2.0 add-ons for Firefox, package them up in a neat user interface, and it actually looks like a different product.
What sort of features do you get?
Neat sidebar options, for example for your favourite RSS feeds
Add feeds by just clicking an icon in the address bar
People sidebar: If I sign into my Facebook account, all of my friends appear in my sidebar with easy to access actions such as send a message
A clean homepage "My World" that includes your favourites, your feeds, favourite media
Web clipboard, so you can copy as store snippets from useful web pages
Instant blog posting from your browser
Coming soon: webmail in the browser
Yahoo! search in installed by default, there's tabbed browsing. It's all good.
Well, it's good to a point.
If I only used one computer and one web browser, I could easily see myself being a fan of Flock. The trouble with Flock is that you need to configure the browser on each machine you download it onto. So - say now I start getting all of my favourite RSS feeds in one place, I have to do the same thing again on each browser that I download and configure.
Also, I have to work for a living. Going to a web browser pre-loaded with a whole load of distractions isn't great for productivity.
I can see myself using Flock at home and Firefox at work. To keep my favourites in one place I'll probably still use Google bookmarks, that way I can access them on any machnine. If I had a Flock account where I could store all of my settings in one place, now that would be better.
It goes to show: in the future, any successful software needs to be truly portable.
Flock, a new browser that is built around "social" browsing, is an interesting alternative to the mainstream Internet Explorer and Firefox.
It pitches itself as a "social web browser"
Actually, you could argue that it's not a new browser at all because it's built on Firefox technology. Look closely and it's really just Firefox with a skin. It's a mash-up. A good one.
Firefox has been successful because of all the custom "add-ons" that you can choose to use according to your needs. If you a developer for example, there's great tools to help check code, optimise for SEO, and many more. Firefox has succeeded in this area because it has an open source development community that continuously add to the features available without adding weight to the basic browser. You can download the basic version which doesn't have too much complexity and just add on the bits that suit you.
Flock however could be seen as a "social Firefox in a box". Take all the great web 2.0 add-ons for Firefox, package them up in a neat user interface, and it actually looks like a different product.
What sort of features do you get?
Yahoo! search in installed by default, there's tabbed browsing. It's all good.
Well, it's good to a point.
If I only used one computer and one web browser, I could easily see myself being a fan of Flock. The trouble with Flock is that you need to configure the browser on each machine you download it onto. So - say now I start getting all of my favourite RSS feeds in one place, I have to do the same thing again on each browser that I download and configure.
Also, I have to work for a living. Going to a web browser pre-loaded with a whole load of distractions isn't great for productivity.
I can see myself using Flock at home and Firefox at work. To keep my favourites in one place I'll probably still use Google bookmarks, that way I can access them on any machnine. If I had a Flock account where I could store all of my settings in one place, now that would be better.
It goes to show: in the future, any successful software needs to be truly portable.
Monday 18 February 2008
Growth In Online Restaurant Reservations - Why?
What is driving the increase in online reservations for restaurants?
Demand is being driven from both customers and from restaurants.
From Customers
From calls to clicks, the world is changing. According to The 2007 American Express Hospitality Monitor 62% of UK consumers search the internet to decide which restaurant to visit. Restaurants, that’s over half your potential customer base.
When they find the restaurant they want, how do they book? How they book and how they want to book are two different things. Many customers book on the phone because they have to. Restaurants that can be booked online are booked online. Why? Because web booking is quick, it’s easy, and it’s free.
From Restaurants
The phone is great. But wouldn’t it be good if the phone only rang when you are there and when you’re not busy? The worst time to take a booking by phone is when you’re at your busiest.
The best time to take a booking online however is anytime. Anytime means: when you’re closed as well as when you are too busy to answer the phone. You can’t answer the phone 24 hours a day 7 days a week, but the internet is open for business anytime.
Looking at our 2007 data, at Livebookings Network we've found that 18% of online bookings are made between 10pm and 10am - that’s 18% of bookings you might have otherwise lost. On the other hand, 44% of online bookings are made during busy service times. The most popular hour of the day to make a booking online is between 1 and 2pm - that’s when you want to be focussed on service, not answering the phone.
More and more customer reservations behaviour is changing and the internet is proving to be an important channel that is being adopted by both restaurants and their customers in increasing numbers.
Demand is being driven from both customers and from restaurants.
From Customers
From calls to clicks, the world is changing. According to The 2007 American Express Hospitality Monitor 62% of UK consumers search the internet to decide which restaurant to visit. Restaurants, that’s over half your potential customer base.
When they find the restaurant they want, how do they book? How they book and how they want to book are two different things. Many customers book on the phone because they have to. Restaurants that can be booked online are booked online. Why? Because web booking is quick, it’s easy, and it’s free.
From Restaurants
The phone is great. But wouldn’t it be good if the phone only rang when you are there and when you’re not busy? The worst time to take a booking by phone is when you’re at your busiest.
The best time to take a booking online however is anytime. Anytime means: when you’re closed as well as when you are too busy to answer the phone. You can’t answer the phone 24 hours a day 7 days a week, but the internet is open for business anytime.
Looking at our 2007 data, at Livebookings Network we've found that 18% of online bookings are made between 10pm and 10am - that’s 18% of bookings you might have otherwise lost. On the other hand, 44% of online bookings are made during busy service times. The most popular hour of the day to make a booking online is between 1 and 2pm - that’s when you want to be focussed on service, not answering the phone.
More and more customer reservations behaviour is changing and the internet is proving to be an important channel that is being adopted by both restaurants and their customers in increasing numbers.
Friday 15 February 2008
Get More Traffic To Your Blog From Facebook
One way to get visitors to your blog is to get your blog posts in front of an audience that might want to read them.
And one place that your audience might just be hanging out is on Facebook.
If you have a Facebook profile, there's a neat application that you can add to dynamically display your blog posts on your profile.
First of all get an RSS feed set up for your blog. A good place to do this if you haven't already done so is at www.feedburner.com.
This will give you an RSS feed URL for your blog.
Then, log into Facebook and go to the Blog RSS Feed Reader application and add it to your profile.
In the configuration, add the details of your RSS feed url (For example, mine is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/davidnorris), and configure how you want the feed to appear on your profile.
Then, every time you add a blog post it will appear on your mini-feed. It takes your blog to your audience rather than asking your audience to come to you.
Checking my Google Analytics account, I can see I'm now regularly getting referrals from Facebook as a result. Nice.
And one place that your audience might just be hanging out is on Facebook.
If you have a Facebook profile, there's a neat application that you can add to dynamically display your blog posts on your profile.
First of all get an RSS feed set up for your blog. A good place to do this if you haven't already done so is at www.feedburner.com.
This will give you an RSS feed URL for your blog.
Then, log into Facebook and go to the Blog RSS Feed Reader application and add it to your profile.
In the configuration, add the details of your RSS feed url (For example, mine is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/davidnorris), and configure how you want the feed to appear on your profile.
Then, every time you add a blog post it will appear on your mini-feed. It takes your blog to your audience rather than asking your audience to come to you.
Checking my Google Analytics account, I can see I'm now regularly getting referrals from Facebook as a result. Nice.
Thursday 14 February 2008
Virtual Flowers, Whatever Next?
Now you can send your loved ones a "digital bouquet" of flowers.
This is weird. Call me old fashioned, but there's something lacking when your flowers are sent by email!
What's even more weird is that you might want to actually pay for it!
In the States, www.bokayme.com/ are offering you the chance to send your loved one a digital bouquet. Woopy-dee-doo! AND -you can pay $3 to customise your bouquet. Bizarre.
Still, it will create lots of inbound linking for their parent company, news chatter, blog posts, viral marketing.
Wednesday 13 February 2008
It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know
How recruitment is changing to use social networks and "Web 2.0" technology to source candidates.
The recruitment business has always been about matching supply and demand. Candidates and Employers.
In the old days, this would involve newspaper and magazine advertising to source potential candiates. Then along came the internet, which allowed for three important changes:
1. Aggregation of supply
Websites sprung up that posted jobs from many different employers and agencies, allowing for a one stop shop for candidates.
2. Employer direct advertising
With the internet employers can advertise directly themselves with ease and source lots of candidates with a simple online listing.
3. Candidate driven demand
Candidates can search for jobs using search engines. This allows employers and agencies to advertise using paid search (e.g. Google Adwords) to fish for candidates that were stating their interest.
There have been a few winners in this first round of the internet revolution. A good example is Monster.co.uk, a jobs listing site that when I checked last had over nearly 2000 jobs in London for just one sector: IT/Software Development.
HR Managers and the recruitment industry have adapted to this new world. Can they adapt to what's coming next?
Get A Haircut And Get A New Job
The next round of change is being driven by online social networks and "web 2.0" (community driven) applications.
Here's 5 examples of what's coming next...
What connects them all is that increasingly we will be referring each other for jobs and sites will facilitate this.
1. Niche Community job boards
Specialist communities have built up over the last few years. Owners of these sites realise that their audience might be interested in jobs in that sector. An example that I've found to be successful was http://www.e-consultancy.com/jobs/ which is an online marketing and ecommerce resource. I posted a job here for just £99. I only got a few candidates, but one of them was the one we hired. Result.
2. Linkedin.com - professional networking site
Linkedin is a networking site that allows you to keep in touch with your professional contacts. It's like an online contacts list that is automatically kept up to date. There's over a million users in the UK. By my calculations, there's probably only 200,000 that are "power" users.
Anyway - linkedin has job ads. As an employer I can list a job for only about £100 (Monster is about £500). What's clever is that when a user logs in, jobs in their "network" are shown. I've found many of the jobs advertised that I've seen when I log in to be highly relevant: they're in the right sector and are interesting job roles.
What's also clever is that if you apply for a job, Linkedin will tel you how you might be connected to someone at the hiring company. You know "John Smith" who knows a "Jane White" at "Company X" where company X is the job opportunity. It gives you a chance to knock on a few doors, ask John to have a chat with Jane to find out more about the job, put in a good word for you. The power of a personal introduction is always and will always be a useful door-opener.
3. Facebook pages and applications
Facebook has a number of jobs applications. Companies are trying to find one that works. I'm not sure that Facebook is the right place for job hunting, but lots of companies have tried to make it work.
There are two main types of applications: "refer a friend" and "search for a job". The trouble is with the "search for a job" type applications is this: why would you want a "David added the search-for-a-job application" message to appear on your profile, especially as so many of your "friends" are probably your colleagues. Who can you trust these days?
Refer-a-friend type applications are potentially interesting, but the whimsical nature of Facebook means that it doesn't lend itself to a decent referral audience. If you are going to refer a friend you need to put some effort into it. See Zubka.com, below.
4. Zubka.com - referral reward site
This is a very interesting start-up and it's private equity backers are the same guys that backed eBay, Betfair and Bebo.
Zubka’s approach is that a user will log on to their website, see a job that they think that their friend may be interested in, and make a referral. If the friend gets the job, the user gets a fee. The fees are substantial. For a £50,000 role, the referrer stands to make £3,600 if the candidate is successful. That's a pretty big carrot. It does require some effort from the referrer, but not too much. 10 minutes work could land you a couple of grand.
5. Notchup.com - get paid to interview for jobs
Taking things one step further is Notchup.com. Let's see if this one works out, but it sounds interesting. Here, you register and employers can invite you for interview.
What's great is that they PAY YOU to go on the interview. How great is that? According to their "interview calculator, I'm worth $610 an interview. Could be worth an afternoon off? I haven't really test driven this site myself, so I'd be interested in feedback from anyone that has.
So - what success have you had with finding candidates or jobs through community based websites?
I'd be interested to know. Comments welcomed....
The recruitment business has always been about matching supply and demand. Candidates and Employers.
In the old days, this would involve newspaper and magazine advertising to source potential candiates. Then along came the internet, which allowed for three important changes:
1. Aggregation of supply
Websites sprung up that posted jobs from many different employers and agencies, allowing for a one stop shop for candidates.
2. Employer direct advertising
With the internet employers can advertise directly themselves with ease and source lots of candidates with a simple online listing.
3. Candidate driven demand
Candidates can search for jobs using search engines. This allows employers and agencies to advertise using paid search (e.g. Google Adwords) to fish for candidates that were stating their interest.
There have been a few winners in this first round of the internet revolution. A good example is Monster.co.uk, a jobs listing site that when I checked last had over nearly 2000 jobs in London for just one sector: IT/Software Development.
HR Managers and the recruitment industry have adapted to this new world. Can they adapt to what's coming next?
Get A Haircut And Get A New Job
The next round of change is being driven by online social networks and "web 2.0" (community driven) applications.
Here's 5 examples of what's coming next...
What connects them all is that increasingly we will be referring each other for jobs and sites will facilitate this.
1. Niche Community job boards
Specialist communities have built up over the last few years. Owners of these sites realise that their audience might be interested in jobs in that sector. An example that I've found to be successful was http://www.e-consultancy.com/jobs/ which is an online marketing and ecommerce resource. I posted a job here for just £99. I only got a few candidates, but one of them was the one we hired. Result.
2. Linkedin.com - professional networking site
Linkedin is a networking site that allows you to keep in touch with your professional contacts. It's like an online contacts list that is automatically kept up to date. There's over a million users in the UK. By my calculations, there's probably only 200,000 that are "power" users.
Anyway - linkedin has job ads. As an employer I can list a job for only about £100 (Monster is about £500). What's clever is that when a user logs in, jobs in their "network" are shown. I've found many of the jobs advertised that I've seen when I log in to be highly relevant: they're in the right sector and are interesting job roles.
What's also clever is that if you apply for a job, Linkedin will tel you how you might be connected to someone at the hiring company. You know "John Smith" who knows a "Jane White" at "Company X" where company X is the job opportunity. It gives you a chance to knock on a few doors, ask John to have a chat with Jane to find out more about the job, put in a good word for you. The power of a personal introduction is always and will always be a useful door-opener.
3. Facebook pages and applications
Facebook has a number of jobs applications. Companies are trying to find one that works. I'm not sure that Facebook is the right place for job hunting, but lots of companies have tried to make it work.
There are two main types of applications: "refer a friend" and "search for a job". The trouble is with the "search for a job" type applications is this: why would you want a "David added the search-for-a-job application" message to appear on your profile, especially as so many of your "friends" are probably your colleagues. Who can you trust these days?
Refer-a-friend type applications are potentially interesting, but the whimsical nature of Facebook means that it doesn't lend itself to a decent referral audience. If you are going to refer a friend you need to put some effort into it. See Zubka.com, below.
4. Zubka.com - referral reward site
This is a very interesting start-up and it's private equity backers are the same guys that backed eBay, Betfair and Bebo.
Zubka’s approach is that a user will log on to their website, see a job that they think that their friend may be interested in, and make a referral. If the friend gets the job, the user gets a fee. The fees are substantial. For a £50,000 role, the referrer stands to make £3,600 if the candidate is successful. That's a pretty big carrot. It does require some effort from the referrer, but not too much. 10 minutes work could land you a couple of grand.
5. Notchup.com - get paid to interview for jobs
Taking things one step further is Notchup.com. Let's see if this one works out, but it sounds interesting. Here, you register and employers can invite you for interview.
What's great is that they PAY YOU to go on the interview. How great is that? According to their "interview calculator, I'm worth $610 an interview. Could be worth an afternoon off? I haven't really test driven this site myself, so I'd be interested in feedback from anyone that has.
So - what success have you had with finding candidates or jobs through community based websites?
I'd be interested to know. Comments welcomed....
Tuesday 12 February 2008
What, Why, Who, When and How
The 5 senses of getting things done.
Think about it, at a very basic level, a lot of human communication really is about these 5 simple words.
What - describes the situation (past, present future) and whether you want it to change or stay the same.
Why - the logic (or not) that explains the situation or need
Who - person or groups of people that are responsible, need to know, are to blame, are the audience, stakeholders, participants or enablers
When - is this now, in the past or in the future, specifically; either a date or a time
How - How did it happen, how does it happen, or how will it happen?
When you are putting a project together and you want to "get stuff done", it's good to always remember these 5 words. Whether it's building a website, running a marketing campaign, setting goals for an employee or making changes to a system or process, these 5 words are to a project what the 5 senses are to us in everyday life.
To be effective we use our senses all the time. Sometimes we use our sight more than our smell, sometimes our hearing more than our touch. If you want to get things done, you need to use your 5 communication channels of What, Why, Who, When and How.
So every time you write an email asking for something, write a project plan, or present a business plan, make sure you've thought about all 5.
Say I want to ask my tech team to build a new webpage for a promotion. Sure, I can say "what" I want. However, if I miss out "why" I might not quite get what I wanted.
Adding "why" allows my audience to understand the reasons driving the "what", and makes it more likely that they understand the context. Also, if you tell someone why you want them to do something, they're more likely to do it than if you don't.
What if I miss out "when"? Of course, that's pretty obvious, I might get it late (at which point I'm going crazy), or the page is useless.
I might not know "who" needs to build the page, (my CTO might decide that), but I can say "who" the audience is and "who" the stakeholders are. This will help the tech team to gather further information that will make the project a success.
Again, I might not have all of the answers to "how" it will get built, but I can give my own "how" we will prioritise it, "how" we will get information and content, "how" we will market it and link it through the site, "how" we will pay for it or get paid for it.
What, Why, Who, When and How
A good communication includes as much useful detail as possible for each of these 5 words.
Think about it next time you write a project plan or ask for something in an email.
You might just get what you wanted.
Think about it, at a very basic level, a lot of human communication really is about these 5 simple words.
What - describes the situation (past, present future) and whether you want it to change or stay the same.
Why - the logic (or not) that explains the situation or need
Who - person or groups of people that are responsible, need to know, are to blame, are the audience, stakeholders, participants or enablers
When - is this now, in the past or in the future, specifically; either a date or a time
How - How did it happen, how does it happen, or how will it happen?
When you are putting a project together and you want to "get stuff done", it's good to always remember these 5 words. Whether it's building a website, running a marketing campaign, setting goals for an employee or making changes to a system or process, these 5 words are to a project what the 5 senses are to us in everyday life.
To be effective we use our senses all the time. Sometimes we use our sight more than our smell, sometimes our hearing more than our touch. If you want to get things done, you need to use your 5 communication channels of What, Why, Who, When and How.
So every time you write an email asking for something, write a project plan, or present a business plan, make sure you've thought about all 5.
Say I want to ask my tech team to build a new webpage for a promotion. Sure, I can say "what" I want. However, if I miss out "why" I might not quite get what I wanted.
Adding "why" allows my audience to understand the reasons driving the "what", and makes it more likely that they understand the context. Also, if you tell someone why you want them to do something, they're more likely to do it than if you don't.
What if I miss out "when"? Of course, that's pretty obvious, I might get it late (at which point I'm going crazy), or the page is useless.
I might not know "who" needs to build the page, (my CTO might decide that), but I can say "who" the audience is and "who" the stakeholders are. This will help the tech team to gather further information that will make the project a success.
Again, I might not have all of the answers to "how" it will get built, but I can give my own "how" we will prioritise it, "how" we will get information and content, "how" we will market it and link it through the site, "how" we will pay for it or get paid for it.
What, Why, Who, When and How
A good communication includes as much useful detail as possible for each of these 5 words.
Think about it next time you write a project plan or ask for something in an email.
You might just get what you wanted.
Monday 11 February 2008
Mile High Club
Marketing was always meant to be this simple: pimp up your campaign with some sexy images and you're onto a winner.
In response to the age old problem, "how do I get more subscribers for my email newsletter", Cheapflights.co.uk go viral with a saucy microsite that let's all of your air hostess (or air steward) fantasies come true.
I won't say anymore except to be careful about getting too excited, this is pretty hot hot hot.
Click on www.enjoyyourflight.co.uk and have a cold shower at the ready.
In response to the age old problem, "how do I get more subscribers for my email newsletter", Cheapflights.co.uk go viral with a saucy microsite that let's all of your air hostess (or air steward) fantasies come true.
I won't say anymore except to be careful about getting too excited, this is pretty hot hot hot.
Click on www.enjoyyourflight.co.uk and have a cold shower at the ready.
Thursday 7 February 2008
Why Can't I Find You On Google?
Yes, we've all done, it, Googling our name.
I'm as guilty as the rest of them, but I have the challenge of competing with a footballer, a sculptor and a senator for getting a ranking. David Norris - it's hardly a unique name.
More and more "name searches" are taking hold as we "Google" our future employers, our future employees, dates, friends and celebs.
Can you be found if you Google your name? If so, what do you get? If you're in business, your professional repuation will increasingly depend on what people read about you online.
A new start up has just launched that aims to help us all get found. The site is still in Beta, so if you get in there now, you might get a listing for free before they start charging.
It's called lookuppage.com.
Here's how it worked for me:
1. Sign up
2. Create a simple profile
3. I received a call the same day enquiring about how I heard of the service and they explained more about their plans
4. The next day I found my page at www.davidnorris1.com through Google - it was listed in the paid ads! (I didn't pay for the ad - they did)
Interesting business model here. They buy me a domain, pay for PPC, it won't cost them much. I tell all my friends, they sign up, and soon their user base expands fast virally. When they get enough critical mass, they start charging for premuim services and work with corporate accounts. If this works, sales focussed companies and small businesses with low web presence will be eager to get a quick low cost visibility for their key people.
It's great too because I get a legitimate link to this blog from the new page, every link helps!
So - you've nothing to lose, go get your page now before they start charging.
I'm as guilty as the rest of them, but I have the challenge of competing with a footballer, a sculptor and a senator for getting a ranking. David Norris - it's hardly a unique name.
More and more "name searches" are taking hold as we "Google" our future employers, our future employees, dates, friends and celebs.
Can you be found if you Google your name? If so, what do you get? If you're in business, your professional repuation will increasingly depend on what people read about you online.
A new start up has just launched that aims to help us all get found. The site is still in Beta, so if you get in there now, you might get a listing for free before they start charging.
It's called lookuppage.com.
Here's how it worked for me:
1. Sign up
2. Create a simple profile
3. I received a call the same day enquiring about how I heard of the service and they explained more about their plans
4. The next day I found my page at www.davidnorris1.com through Google - it was listed in the paid ads! (I didn't pay for the ad - they did)
Interesting business model here. They buy me a domain, pay for PPC, it won't cost them much. I tell all my friends, they sign up, and soon their user base expands fast virally. When they get enough critical mass, they start charging for premuim services and work with corporate accounts. If this works, sales focussed companies and small businesses with low web presence will be eager to get a quick low cost visibility for their key people.
It's great too because I get a legitimate link to this blog from the new page, every link helps!
So - you've nothing to lose, go get your page now before they start charging.
Monday 4 February 2008
Portabilty Of The Social Graph: Google's new Social Graph API
One of the trends to look out for this year online is the "portability" of the Social Graph.
The Social Graph is a term used to describe the mapping of relationships between people. Many of us have relationships on well known social networking sites such as Facebook and Linkedin, as well as more obsure forums and specialised communities.
In terms of usefulness, to be able access these relationships is a great starting point for all sorts of website applications.
What's really needed though is a way to be able to get a "meta" view of all of these relationships so that you don't need to declare them all everytime you land on a new site. I don't really want to maintain 20 different "friends" lists when I only really have one set of friends. (OK, some contacts aren't friends, and some friends are not in contact online, but the point is that mapping out these relationships time and time again can be tedious).
Wouldn't it be useful if a website already knew about my contacts and suggested relevant useful topics according to my contacts and interests? What if say, website X knew that I was already "friends" with my friend on website Y and suggested that we connect on website Y as well? I might not know that my friend also uses website Y, and so with a simple prompt we could find each other.
It all sounds a bit big brother right?
Well, our masters of the universe, Google, are having a go at solving this problem in the form of the Google Social Graph API.
How does it work?
Quite simply it gives developers tools that can analyse the links to and from the from any public "profile" page of a website and start to infer from the links who is connected to which networks.
For those of you who know your HTML, there is an anchor tag attribute "rel" which can be used by social sites and blogs to clarify further the type of relationship.
For example if I were to link to this blog from one of my sites I would write [a href="http://www.david.norris.co.uk" rel="me"]. The rel="me" attribute says that the site I'm linking to is one of my sites.
This is just one way that Google can read the link patterns to identify relationships.
Trying it out
Google offer a couple of example applications that show how the API can be used.
One of these is called My Connections. Here I entered 3 of my sites in the input box; this blog, my linkedin profile and my Gooruze profile.
On clicking "My Connnections", the script analysed the links between those sites.
Here's the link: http://socialgraph-resources.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/samples/findyours.html?q=www.david-norris.co.uk%2Bwww.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Fdavidnorris%2Bwww.gooruze.com%2Fmembers%2Fdcnorris.
It can tell which of the my "claimed" sites can be reached from each url.
Interestingly it found out that I had put in livebookings.net as one of "my sites" on Linkedin. This is the website for the company for which I work. It then identified a possible connection of another site that links to one of mine "claiming" to be me. This was www.linkedin.com/in/hultberg, which also links to livebookings.net.
This is because www.linkedin.com/in/hultberg is a linkedin page from a colleague at livebookings who also put livebookings.net as his company site on linkedin.
Will it catch on?
For Google, more accurate mapping of the Social Graph will require that websites enable the code in their links from profile pages to contain the REL attribute or other methods of categorising links out.
If anyone can encourage the uptake of new coding habits, Google can.
The question is
- will we reach critical mass of enough sites using these attributes so that relationships can be correctly inferred from the links?
We'll see. In the meantime, this is clearly a strategic effort by Google to have some control over how the Social Graph is made portable. Whoever cracks this nut is going to have significant advantage in the next phase of the internet's growth.
The Social Graph is a term used to describe the mapping of relationships between people. Many of us have relationships on well known social networking sites such as Facebook and Linkedin, as well as more obsure forums and specialised communities.
In terms of usefulness, to be able access these relationships is a great starting point for all sorts of website applications.
What's really needed though is a way to be able to get a "meta" view of all of these relationships so that you don't need to declare them all everytime you land on a new site. I don't really want to maintain 20 different "friends" lists when I only really have one set of friends. (OK, some contacts aren't friends, and some friends are not in contact online, but the point is that mapping out these relationships time and time again can be tedious).
Wouldn't it be useful if a website already knew about my contacts and suggested relevant useful topics according to my contacts and interests? What if say, website X knew that I was already "friends" with my friend on website Y and suggested that we connect on website Y as well? I might not know that my friend also uses website Y, and so with a simple prompt we could find each other.
It all sounds a bit big brother right?
Well, our masters of the universe, Google, are having a go at solving this problem in the form of the Google Social Graph API.
How does it work?
Quite simply it gives developers tools that can analyse the links to and from the from any public "profile" page of a website and start to infer from the links who is connected to which networks.
For those of you who know your HTML, there is an anchor tag attribute "rel" which can be used by social sites and blogs to clarify further the type of relationship.
For example if I were to link to this blog from one of my sites I would write [a href="http://www.david.norris.co.uk" rel="me"]. The rel="me" attribute says that the site I'm linking to is one of my sites.
This is just one way that Google can read the link patterns to identify relationships.
Trying it out
Google offer a couple of example applications that show how the API can be used.
One of these is called My Connections. Here I entered 3 of my sites in the input box; this blog, my linkedin profile and my Gooruze profile.
On clicking "My Connnections", the script analysed the links between those sites.
Here's the link: http://socialgraph-resources.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/samples/findyours.html?q=www.david-norris.co.uk%2Bwww.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Fdavidnorris%2Bwww.gooruze.com%2Fmembers%2Fdcnorris.
It can tell which of the my "claimed" sites can be reached from each url.
Interestingly it found out that I had put in livebookings.net as one of "my sites" on Linkedin. This is the website for the company for which I work. It then identified a possible connection of another site that links to one of mine "claiming" to be me. This was www.linkedin.com/in/hultberg, which also links to livebookings.net.
This is because www.linkedin.com/in/hultberg is a linkedin page from a colleague at livebookings who also put livebookings.net as his company site on linkedin.
Will it catch on?
For Google, more accurate mapping of the Social Graph will require that websites enable the code in their links from profile pages to contain the REL attribute or other methods of categorising links out.
If anyone can encourage the uptake of new coding habits, Google can.
The question is
- will we reach critical mass of enough sites using these attributes so that relationships can be correctly inferred from the links?
We'll see. In the meantime, this is clearly a strategic effort by Google to have some control over how the Social Graph is made portable. Whoever cracks this nut is going to have significant advantage in the next phase of the internet's growth.
Saturday 2 February 2008
Raja-Fashions Tailor-Made Hong Kong Suits, Online Meets Offline
The joys and perils of buying a suit from the other side of the world.
Here's an example of where the internet and modern communications have transformed what's possible. Online meets offline, personalised service in a mass-market, off-shore manufacture, on-shore sales - it's a whole world of opposites.
If you know me, you'll know I'm tall and slim. The "slim patroller" they used to call me in the day. Getting clothes to fit me is very difficult, never mind a suit. I can get the fit on the shoulders only to find no length in the sleeves and a tent around my middle. Trousers that fit my waist don't reach my ankles.
Recently into a new job, I thought it was time to invest in a new suit. I managed to squeeze 10 years out of the last one, but the poor old thing had had it's day.
This time I thought I'd try a tailor made suit (for the reasons mentioned above), but I didn't want to spend a fortune on Saville Row.
I'd heard of Raja Fashions before having seen their adverts in the papers. You might have seen them too - they talk of a Hong Kong tailor, Mr Daswani, who travels the world (mainly the UK and the USA) to measure up clients for his team of tailors in Hong Kong. You're promised high street prices, but tailor made quality.
(Offline advertising for brand awareness)
I recalled the name so I went online and searched Google for "Raja" and "Hong Kong Tailors" and sure, soon enough I found their site. On the site, I found a list of dates when he would be in London, and I could make an online reservation from the site for the date and time that suited me. As it happened I had a 3 week wait before my Saturday appointment at a Kensington hotel suite.
(Online lead generation and appointment facility)
I was kind of expecting to see Mr Daswani, but no, the room had 4 younger guys from his team, with suitcases of fabric samples, tape measures and credit card swipe machines. Very quickly I was being seen to by "Dennis" (I'm sure that's not his real name) who very quickly started to take details about what I wanted. I said I wanted 2 suits, one simple black one and a slightly more fashionable brown pinstripe. He measured me up, and asked questions about various options I had such as type of vents, width of lapel, angle of pockets, number of pockets etc etc. To be honest I wasn't quite sure what I wanted, it felt uncomfortably fast and I was getting flustered. Maybe that was his technique. Moving so fast I was caught off guard on the negotiation front. I was expecting to pay £300 to £400 per suit. In the end, with upgraded fabric, nice lining etc, I was looking at £650 a suit. I also went for a white shirt (only £50), so the total bill was a whopping £1350. Ouch. Whilst I was being distracted by a guy taking my photo, my credit card was already being processed and only 25 minutes after walking in I was leaving wondering how on earth I managed to just drop that kind of money and would I get what I wanted?
(Old fashioned pen and carbon copied paper, and a "tiger" for a salesman)
I was told to expect my suits within 4-6 weeks. 3 weeks in and the shirt arrived. Great fit, just that it was a little tight around the collar. I don't usually wear a tie, so I let it go. It was great to have a shirt that didn't flap across my chest and was long enough on the sleeves and tails.Being cotton, it has shrunk a small amount too. I thinkif I were to order more of these I'd get and extra 1/2 inch on the collar.
(International parcel delivery)
I waited for the suits, but they didn't arrive. 7 weeks in I emailed Raja Fashions in Hong Kong and was told by reply that they had despatched about 3 weeks previously. I was given a Parcelforce tracking number which I looked up online. It's at this point that I started a period of 4 weeks of stress trying to get my suits. I don't think I'll go into the full details here (it warrants it's own blog post) except to say that the parcel had the wrong house number on it, it was apparently signed for and delivered at an address 4 doors down, by a name not heard of by the owners of the house, with the suit no-where to be seen.
Given that this happened at Christmas time and I was having to deal with Parcelforce's customer service centre (think: impossible call routing systems that have none of the options that relate to your situation).... well, you can imagine.
(Automated UK customer "care" - nothing of the sort!)
Three weeks later I had manage to confirm that the suits were not where Parcelforce said they were and was just about to call Mastercard to re-claim my outlay, when Raja Fashions confirmed that they would re-do the order and send the suits over within 2 weeks. I had almost given up.
(Email Hong Kong customer care, this time with results)
Sure enough to the day, my suits arrived and I was this time given an SMS to alert me of the delivery with a choice to choose a different day if the proposed day didn't work for me. Nice touch. Shame they didn't do this first time around and I might have managed to get the suits.
(SMS customer alerting)
My suits arrived in a cardboard box, slightly crupmled after their journey. I tried them on straight away with some nervousness. It was 3 months of effort, a signficant amount of stress and a fair chunk of change to get this far.
The result? Spot on. Absolutely fantastic fit. I sighed a big sigh of relief and looked forward to wearing my new threads.
I had to take the jacket of one suit to the local dry cleaner to get the crumples steamed out of the arms, but that was no big deal.
I've since enjoyed wearing my new suits and I must say, the feeling of tailor-made has me converted. It's lovely good quality wool fabric, feels very sharp. There's no going back to M+S again now.
Would I use Raja-Fashions again?
Yes - I think I would. I am very very happy with the end result. The process to get there was very stressful, but I think to be honest I was just unluckywith the delivery. Raja-Fashions redeemed themselves by re-doing the order once they were sure that it had gone missing.
I've got my next appointment in 6 weeks time. A supply of shirts is in order I feel!
Apart from my personal story, the story here is of a very successful business that is a real mix of all possible ways of doing business: offline advertising, online lead generation and appointments service, face to face sales, old-fashioned payment systems, off-shore manufacturing, personalised goods, international delivery, email customer service, SMS delivery alerting. By locating in Hong Kong but by travelling to their customers around the world, Mr Daswani has created a compelling business model that is going from strength to strength. Good for him I say. Good for me too, the lanky odd-ball that I am.
Here's an example of where the internet and modern communications have transformed what's possible. Online meets offline, personalised service in a mass-market, off-shore manufacture, on-shore sales - it's a whole world of opposites.
If you know me, you'll know I'm tall and slim. The "slim patroller" they used to call me in the day. Getting clothes to fit me is very difficult, never mind a suit. I can get the fit on the shoulders only to find no length in the sleeves and a tent around my middle. Trousers that fit my waist don't reach my ankles.
Recently into a new job, I thought it was time to invest in a new suit. I managed to squeeze 10 years out of the last one, but the poor old thing had had it's day.
This time I thought I'd try a tailor made suit (for the reasons mentioned above), but I didn't want to spend a fortune on Saville Row.
I'd heard of Raja Fashions before having seen their adverts in the papers. You might have seen them too - they talk of a Hong Kong tailor, Mr Daswani, who travels the world (mainly the UK and the USA) to measure up clients for his team of tailors in Hong Kong. You're promised high street prices, but tailor made quality.
(Offline advertising for brand awareness)
I recalled the name so I went online and searched Google for "Raja" and "Hong Kong Tailors" and sure, soon enough I found their site. On the site, I found a list of dates when he would be in London, and I could make an online reservation from the site for the date and time that suited me. As it happened I had a 3 week wait before my Saturday appointment at a Kensington hotel suite.
(Online lead generation and appointment facility)
I was kind of expecting to see Mr Daswani, but no, the room had 4 younger guys from his team, with suitcases of fabric samples, tape measures and credit card swipe machines. Very quickly I was being seen to by "Dennis" (I'm sure that's not his real name) who very quickly started to take details about what I wanted. I said I wanted 2 suits, one simple black one and a slightly more fashionable brown pinstripe. He measured me up, and asked questions about various options I had such as type of vents, width of lapel, angle of pockets, number of pockets etc etc. To be honest I wasn't quite sure what I wanted, it felt uncomfortably fast and I was getting flustered. Maybe that was his technique. Moving so fast I was caught off guard on the negotiation front. I was expecting to pay £300 to £400 per suit. In the end, with upgraded fabric, nice lining etc, I was looking at £650 a suit. I also went for a white shirt (only £50), so the total bill was a whopping £1350. Ouch. Whilst I was being distracted by a guy taking my photo, my credit card was already being processed and only 25 minutes after walking in I was leaving wondering how on earth I managed to just drop that kind of money and would I get what I wanted?
(Old fashioned pen and carbon copied paper, and a "tiger" for a salesman)
I was told to expect my suits within 4-6 weeks. 3 weeks in and the shirt arrived. Great fit, just that it was a little tight around the collar. I don't usually wear a tie, so I let it go. It was great to have a shirt that didn't flap across my chest and was long enough on the sleeves and tails.Being cotton, it has shrunk a small amount too. I thinkif I were to order more of these I'd get and extra 1/2 inch on the collar.
(International parcel delivery)
I waited for the suits, but they didn't arrive. 7 weeks in I emailed Raja Fashions in Hong Kong and was told by reply that they had despatched about 3 weeks previously. I was given a Parcelforce tracking number which I looked up online. It's at this point that I started a period of 4 weeks of stress trying to get my suits. I don't think I'll go into the full details here (it warrants it's own blog post) except to say that the parcel had the wrong house number on it, it was apparently signed for and delivered at an address 4 doors down, by a name not heard of by the owners of the house, with the suit no-where to be seen.
Given that this happened at Christmas time and I was having to deal with Parcelforce's customer service centre (think: impossible call routing systems that have none of the options that relate to your situation).... well, you can imagine.
(Automated UK customer "care" - nothing of the sort!)
Three weeks later I had manage to confirm that the suits were not where Parcelforce said they were and was just about to call Mastercard to re-claim my outlay, when Raja Fashions confirmed that they would re-do the order and send the suits over within 2 weeks. I had almost given up.
(Email Hong Kong customer care, this time with results)
Sure enough to the day, my suits arrived and I was this time given an SMS to alert me of the delivery with a choice to choose a different day if the proposed day didn't work for me. Nice touch. Shame they didn't do this first time around and I might have managed to get the suits.
(SMS customer alerting)
My suits arrived in a cardboard box, slightly crupmled after their journey. I tried them on straight away with some nervousness. It was 3 months of effort, a signficant amount of stress and a fair chunk of change to get this far.
The result? Spot on. Absolutely fantastic fit. I sighed a big sigh of relief and looked forward to wearing my new threads.
I had to take the jacket of one suit to the local dry cleaner to get the crumples steamed out of the arms, but that was no big deal.
I've since enjoyed wearing my new suits and I must say, the feeling of tailor-made has me converted. It's lovely good quality wool fabric, feels very sharp. There's no going back to M+S again now.
Would I use Raja-Fashions again?
Yes - I think I would. I am very very happy with the end result. The process to get there was very stressful, but I think to be honest I was just unluckywith the delivery. Raja-Fashions redeemed themselves by re-doing the order once they were sure that it had gone missing.
I've got my next appointment in 6 weeks time. A supply of shirts is in order I feel!
Apart from my personal story, the story here is of a very successful business that is a real mix of all possible ways of doing business: offline advertising, online lead generation and appointments service, face to face sales, old-fashioned payment systems, off-shore manufacturing, personalised goods, international delivery, email customer service, SMS delivery alerting. By locating in Hong Kong but by travelling to their customers around the world, Mr Daswani has created a compelling business model that is going from strength to strength. Good for him I say. Good for me too, the lanky odd-ball that I am.
Saturday 26 January 2008
A Simple Overview Of The Product Development Cycle
This is a simple guide to terminology used in product development.
If you are "not a technical person" and you want to understand the process of building a web project, this hopefully will be a good place to start.
Product
What's a product? It can mean many things to many people. In the world of ecommerce it usually refers to a either a service, a website or a software package. I like to think of a product as being something that you can market to others.
Examples might be:
Microsoft Word
Skype
Google Adwords
lastminute.com restaurant booking
Facebook for Blackberry
Intranet or Extranet site
To build or improve a "product" there are several disciplines that come into play. Each discipline requires certain skills and should have an owner.
In small companies one person may take on many of the roles required. In larger organisations, there can be teams for each discipline.
I have identified 9 different roles below. You don't necessarily complete one area before moving to the other. They overlap and have a different emphasis at different phases of the project.
1. Product Strategy
Research and planning is needed at the beginning of the project. A Product Strategist would evaluate opportunities, seek out customer and business needs and keep an eye on the competition. The initial output from the product strategist is a "Product road-map" which clearly states the products and features that need to be developed over the coming year and more. This is a high level overview.
Rarely does an organisation have unlimited resources, therefore also in this phase, new products, product improvements and competing new features need to be prioritised.
2. Product Planning / Business Modelling
Here, a Product Manager (or Business Analyst) would articulate and elaborate the features needed in a new product (or an enhancement to a product) and prioritise these needs in the form of a "business requirements" document. They would also complete a detailed financial cost-benefit analysis for the project and engage in discussion to prioritise their product improvements.
3. Program Management
Once a product or feature has passed the first prioritisation hurdle, it needs to be prepared for development. A Program Manager would assess Functional Requirements, build use cases (and related test scenarios). They would also work with the technical team to clarify technical requirements and project manage the project through to go-live. Essential the Program Manager is in charge of realising the project.
4. Architecture and Design
A Technical Architect needs to build a model for how the product will be built, ensuring that it is compatible with existing systems, can scale and uses best practice software design principles. A User Interface Designer needs to create wireframes to model the experience that the end-user should receive. After that, a Graphic Designer can prepare designs that bring to life these wireframes.
These designs can be changed and altered as the project progresses, according to feedback received from the business owners, customers and technical teams.
5. Development
For development, read "build". This involves many skills, depending on the project, from database administration to programming as well as creating front-end code ("mark-up"). A working prototpe is evolved and passed back for review so that any changes or tweaks to the design can be captured. Developers would also run unit tests that test specific sections of code and create full documentation of how the product was built and operates.
6. Quality Assurance
For QA, read "testing". Testers test the product / application / feature against the functional requirements and the relates use cases. They also run regression testing to ensure that the code is compatble with existing systems and stress & load testing to ensure that there is sufficient server capacity and that the system can handle high volumes of activity without comprimise. Finally, the tested product needs to be "signed off" in acceptance testing by the Product Manager.
7. Configuration / Deployment
Once the testing is complete, the developers can integrate the code into the live environment and "go-live". Depending on the nature of the system and the complexity of the product, this can be a fairly simple operation or highly complex.
8. Measurement / Analytics
Once live, the Product Manager is responsible for measuring the impact of new features / products. Typical measures in Ecommerce would be things like changes to subscribers, visitors, conversion, transactions, revenue and profit. Feedback from these measures will determine the success of the project and need to be compared to the initial forecasts to validate them. This could then generate further product changes.
9. Project Management
Pulling all of the above disciplines together, the Project Manager is responsible for keeping the project on track, securing resources and removing impediments. They are the communication hub between all the other people involved and will keep plans up to date and report on progress.
Pulling it all together
On way of viewing how these roles interact at different phases of the project are captured in the following diagram of what's known as the Rational Unified Process (iterative software development process framework created by IBM).
Image source: http://www.msc-inc.net
That's pretty much it. Who is responsible for each of these areas in your organisation? If you don't know, hopefully the above overview can help you figure this out. Remember - you don't need to have a different person for each discipline.
You just need to make sure each role is covered.
If you are "not a technical person" and you want to understand the process of building a web project, this hopefully will be a good place to start.
Product
What's a product? It can mean many things to many people. In the world of ecommerce it usually refers to a either a service, a website or a software package. I like to think of a product as being something that you can market to others.
Examples might be:
To build or improve a "product" there are several disciplines that come into play. Each discipline requires certain skills and should have an owner.
In small companies one person may take on many of the roles required. In larger organisations, there can be teams for each discipline.
I have identified 9 different roles below. You don't necessarily complete one area before moving to the other. They overlap and have a different emphasis at different phases of the project.
1. Product Strategy
Research and planning is needed at the beginning of the project. A Product Strategist would evaluate opportunities, seek out customer and business needs and keep an eye on the competition. The initial output from the product strategist is a "Product road-map" which clearly states the products and features that need to be developed over the coming year and more. This is a high level overview.
Rarely does an organisation have unlimited resources, therefore also in this phase, new products, product improvements and competing new features need to be prioritised.
2. Product Planning / Business Modelling
Here, a Product Manager (or Business Analyst) would articulate and elaborate the features needed in a new product (or an enhancement to a product) and prioritise these needs in the form of a "business requirements" document. They would also complete a detailed financial cost-benefit analysis for the project and engage in discussion to prioritise their product improvements.
3. Program Management
Once a product or feature has passed the first prioritisation hurdle, it needs to be prepared for development. A Program Manager would assess Functional Requirements, build use cases (and related test scenarios). They would also work with the technical team to clarify technical requirements and project manage the project through to go-live. Essential the Program Manager is in charge of realising the project.
4. Architecture and Design
A Technical Architect needs to build a model for how the product will be built, ensuring that it is compatible with existing systems, can scale and uses best practice software design principles. A User Interface Designer needs to create wireframes to model the experience that the end-user should receive. After that, a Graphic Designer can prepare designs that bring to life these wireframes.
These designs can be changed and altered as the project progresses, according to feedback received from the business owners, customers and technical teams.
5. Development
For development, read "build". This involves many skills, depending on the project, from database administration to programming as well as creating front-end code ("mark-up"). A working prototpe is evolved and passed back for review so that any changes or tweaks to the design can be captured. Developers would also run unit tests that test specific sections of code and create full documentation of how the product was built and operates.
6. Quality Assurance
For QA, read "testing". Testers test the product / application / feature against the functional requirements and the relates use cases. They also run regression testing to ensure that the code is compatble with existing systems and stress & load testing to ensure that there is sufficient server capacity and that the system can handle high volumes of activity without comprimise. Finally, the tested product needs to be "signed off" in acceptance testing by the Product Manager.
7. Configuration / Deployment
Once the testing is complete, the developers can integrate the code into the live environment and "go-live". Depending on the nature of the system and the complexity of the product, this can be a fairly simple operation or highly complex.
8. Measurement / Analytics
Once live, the Product Manager is responsible for measuring the impact of new features / products. Typical measures in Ecommerce would be things like changes to subscribers, visitors, conversion, transactions, revenue and profit. Feedback from these measures will determine the success of the project and need to be compared to the initial forecasts to validate them. This could then generate further product changes.
9. Project Management
Pulling all of the above disciplines together, the Project Manager is responsible for keeping the project on track, securing resources and removing impediments. They are the communication hub between all the other people involved and will keep plans up to date and report on progress.
Pulling it all together
On way of viewing how these roles interact at different phases of the project are captured in the following diagram of what's known as the Rational Unified Process (iterative software development process framework created by IBM).
Image source: http://www.msc-inc.net
That's pretty much it. Who is responsible for each of these areas in your organisation? If you don't know, hopefully the above overview can help you figure this out. Remember - you don't need to have a different person for each discipline.
You just need to make sure each role is covered.
Wednesday 16 January 2008
Will The Real Facebook Please Stand Up?
Right wing, neo-conservative, big brother....
A ruthless attempt at global domination?
The Guardian's Tom Hodgkinson tells us what he really thinks of Facebook's investors in this enlightening rant. Worth a read.
Make up your own mind:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook
A ruthless attempt at global domination?
The Guardian's Tom Hodgkinson tells us what he really thinks of Facebook's investors in this enlightening rant. Worth a read.
Make up your own mind:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook
Wednesday 9 January 2008
Yahoo Email and the Social Graph
One of the big stories this year will be how the "social graph" becomes liberated from destination sites such as Facebook.
I am current a "member" of at least 5 to 10 online networks of significance to me, from LinkedIn, to Facebook, to my local cycling club, not to mention my Skype list, my email contacts and my IM contacts.
Many of my contacts exist in all of these lists, some in one but not another. My "social graph" is actually still quite fragmented.
It would make sense therefore to liberate my networks from these applications and sites and allow them to be used across ANY online community that I want to be a part of. I would just need to be able to tag the status of a contact as being a friend, a professional contact, a family member or anything else I want. Then I could drag a tagged list to any application on any device. That's where we need to get to.
In order to do so, someone, somewhere is going to figure out
1. How to extract the social graph from the applications
2. Make money from doing so
Google's strategy in this area is with it's "Open Social" project. Facebook has Facebook, Microsoft has MySpace.
Yahoo are hot on their heels.
Yesterday at the CES (Consumer Electronics Show), Jerry Yang from Yahoo presented Yahoo's ambition to become the start point of choice for consumers by adding social networking power to Yahoo mail (currently the world's largest email supplier with over 250m users).
Yang said. “At Yahoo we want to be most essential starting point for your life,” and “take the complexity of the Web and simplify your life through very powerful technologies.”
The new Yahoo user experience will centre on Yahoo Mail and will integrate email, social context, tagging and a whole host of "Web 2.0" features.
The "Friends" in the Facebook world are just your "Contacts" from your email address lists. Based on the frequency of your contacts, email can be ordered in terms of social importance rather than say date.
3rd party apps can be accessed in the same interface giving the opportunity for friends to collaborate
Yang an example of planning a dinner. You would drag the thread into a map and it will bring up the profiles of those on the mail, note preferences (for food in this case) and suggest restaurants in the area. You can also take an email message, pop up the profiles of those on the message, takes an address from email and show it a map.
That's great. A collaborative decision making tool for a group of people to book a restaurant.
However, wouldn't it be even better if the social graph required to do this were not hard-wired into Yahoo. Or into Facebook for that matter?
Surely the application "restaurant booker" should be platform neutral and could exist on the web, on a desktop, on a mobile or a TV, and that the social graph that powers the "connections" would be transcendent and available for any developer to use.
Maybe, if Yahoo opened up their social graph to as an API for developers to use (and maybe charge a tiny fee to make it worth their while), we might have what we need.
News source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=7503, by Dan Farber & Larry Dignan
I am current a "member" of at least 5 to 10 online networks of significance to me, from LinkedIn, to Facebook, to my local cycling club, not to mention my Skype list, my email contacts and my IM contacts.
Many of my contacts exist in all of these lists, some in one but not another. My "social graph" is actually still quite fragmented.
It would make sense therefore to liberate my networks from these applications and sites and allow them to be used across ANY online community that I want to be a part of. I would just need to be able to tag the status of a contact as being a friend, a professional contact, a family member or anything else I want. Then I could drag a tagged list to any application on any device. That's where we need to get to.
In order to do so, someone, somewhere is going to figure out
1. How to extract the social graph from the applications
2. Make money from doing so
Google's strategy in this area is with it's "Open Social" project. Facebook has Facebook, Microsoft has MySpace.
Yahoo are hot on their heels.
Yesterday at the CES (Consumer Electronics Show), Jerry Yang from Yahoo presented Yahoo's ambition to become the start point of choice for consumers by adding social networking power to Yahoo mail (currently the world's largest email supplier with over 250m users).
Yang said. “At Yahoo we want to be most essential starting point for your life,” and “take the complexity of the Web and simplify your life through very powerful technologies.”
The new Yahoo user experience will centre on Yahoo Mail and will integrate email, social context, tagging and a whole host of "Web 2.0" features.
The "Friends" in the Facebook world are just your "Contacts" from your email address lists. Based on the frequency of your contacts, email can be ordered in terms of social importance rather than say date.
3rd party apps can be accessed in the same interface giving the opportunity for friends to collaborate
Yang an example of planning a dinner. You would drag the thread into a map and it will bring up the profiles of those on the mail, note preferences (for food in this case) and suggest restaurants in the area. You can also take an email message, pop up the profiles of those on the message, takes an address from email and show it a map.
That's great. A collaborative decision making tool for a group of people to book a restaurant.
However, wouldn't it be even better if the social graph required to do this were not hard-wired into Yahoo. Or into Facebook for that matter?
Surely the application "restaurant booker" should be platform neutral and could exist on the web, on a desktop, on a mobile or a TV, and that the social graph that powers the "connections" would be transcendent and available for any developer to use.
Maybe, if Yahoo opened up their social graph to as an API for developers to use (and maybe charge a tiny fee to make it worth their while), we might have what we need.
News source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=7503, by Dan Farber & Larry Dignan
Tuesday 8 January 2008
Domain Registration Challenges
A key objective of the European Union is to create a unified, barrier-free market for it's members.
Domains however seem to provide a few hurdles for entry into a market that are more difficult to overcome.
It's not always easy to just buy up domains. In France for example, to get a .fr domain name, you need to be a French registered company.
This makes it more difficult that it should be to buy domains across the whole EU for each market in which your (EU member state registered) company operates.
A Swedish friend of mine has just told me about a newsflash about a company challenging a country registrar to the EU for discrimination and unfair competition practices.
"Swedish company Gents wanted to register a Finnish domain but were denied since the rules in Finland say that a company must be local to get a .fi TLD. They then registered through a third party but had that registration removed by the Finnish registrar saying it was against Finnish law.
So Gents filed a complaint, saying it is discrimination of Swedish citizens and companies…
...Gents says it forms barriers of entry and unfair competition advantages since “domains are so important for search engines like Google"
I tend to agree. Creating restrictions on domains is a restriction on free trade.
I'm interested to see whether this challenge is successful or not. Good luck to Gents!
Here's the original article in Swedish
Domains however seem to provide a few hurdles for entry into a market that are more difficult to overcome.
It's not always easy to just buy up domains. In France for example, to get a .fr domain name, you need to be a French registered company.
This makes it more difficult that it should be to buy domains across the whole EU for each market in which your (EU member state registered) company operates.
A Swedish friend of mine has just told me about a newsflash about a company challenging a country registrar to the EU for discrimination and unfair competition practices.
"Swedish company Gents wanted to register a Finnish domain but were denied since the rules in Finland say that a company must be local to get a .fi TLD. They then registered through a third party but had that registration removed by the Finnish registrar saying it was against Finnish law.
So Gents filed a complaint, saying it is discrimination of Swedish citizens and companies…
...Gents says it forms barriers of entry and unfair competition advantages since “domains are so important for search engines like Google"
I tend to agree. Creating restrictions on domains is a restriction on free trade.
I'm interested to see whether this challenge is successful or not. Good luck to Gents!
Here's the original article in Swedish
Saturday 5 January 2008
The Long Tail Of Social Networks
The long tail distribution curve of social network usage.
Two things came together this week.
Firstly, I was reading Chris Andersson's excellent book - The Long Tail, which if you haven't read it a must read. He quite clearly explains what the effect of lowering distribution and production costs have done to modern day retailing and the related success of ecommerce businesses. One point he makes is that the when the cost of distribution is low, the spread of available inventory increases.
Secondly, I came across an excellent site that graphically represents the social graphs of on-line communities and social networking sites. http://orgnet.com/community.html by Valdis Crebs shows how most networks have a core of heavy, dedicated users, a second group that are loosely connected and a large outer ring of "disconnected nodes, commonly known as lurkers". He notes that communities have various levels of belonging and contribution.
The graphical representation by Valdis Krebs seemed to me to be an indication of a Pareto distribution of usage. That's to say that the highest intensity of usage comes from the smallest proportion of users and that the lowest intensity of usage comes from the highest proportion of users. I had also heard the same pattern described by a friend who was researching her MBA project on online communities.
So I asked myself the question: can I test to see if social network usage has a "Long Tail"?
To see if this was the case, I ran the numbers from my LinkedIn network. (For info: If you are not a member of LinkedIn, it's a free to join professional networking site).
I looked at all of my 227 connections to see how many connections each of them had. From Valdis' observations I expected to see that there would be a very few "highly connected" users and exponentially more users that had fewer connections. What I wanted to see however was whether the resulting chart would result in a Long Tail distribution curve.
My reasoning was: given that it was free to join, there are zero "costs of distribution" - therefore I would expect to see a "Long Tail".
Sure enough, there were only a few top end users. On Linkedin, once you go over 500 connections it displays as "500+". So the top end of the pattern is slightly distorted in that not all of the 500+ users will have the same number of connections. Some will be in the 500's, but I imagine that one or two might even reach to 700 or even 900. In total there are only 6 users with 500+ connections (out of 227).
What about the bottom end of the scale? It turns out that just over half are low usage users. 115 people have less than 50 connections.
Here's what it looks like if you break it down:
If you plot it on a graph, the "Long Tail" curve is most definitely evident:
The curve extends right out to the right where there are 8 users with just 1 connection. These are people that I invited to join my network, who accepted, but have done nothing since. They have not added their own connections. Note that there are more people in this category than there are those with 500 or more connections at the other end of the scale.
Of course, I have only plotted the data from one network, for one node (me). It would be interesting to know if other networks also follow the same pattern.
Despite my limited analysis, I'm pretty convinced that most online social networks and communities will display similar Pareto distribution curves. This is because there is no barrier to entry. There is no cost to join a network. It's free. Therefore, it's no big deal to join up, trial it out and see if if you find it useful. There are no costs in extending the tail.
I assume therefore that I'm probably in the top 10 to 15% of users of LinkedIn and therefore most probably one of the "core" users as described by the graph on orgnet.com.
However, if I consider my half-hearted efforts on Facebook, I'm definitely not in the core. I'm probably floating around "loosely connected" in the bottom half of the curve. (As are, I expect the majority of registered users).
Conclusion? Everything so far points to a long tail distribution curve of social network usage.
Two things came together this week.
Firstly, I was reading Chris Andersson's excellent book - The Long Tail, which if you haven't read it a must read. He quite clearly explains what the effect of lowering distribution and production costs have done to modern day retailing and the related success of ecommerce businesses. One point he makes is that the when the cost of distribution is low, the spread of available inventory increases.
Secondly, I came across an excellent site that graphically represents the social graphs of on-line communities and social networking sites. http://orgnet.com/community.html by Valdis Crebs shows how most networks have a core of heavy, dedicated users, a second group that are loosely connected and a large outer ring of "disconnected nodes, commonly known as lurkers". He notes that communities have various levels of belonging and contribution.
The graphical representation by Valdis Krebs seemed to me to be an indication of a Pareto distribution of usage. That's to say that the highest intensity of usage comes from the smallest proportion of users and that the lowest intensity of usage comes from the highest proportion of users. I had also heard the same pattern described by a friend who was researching her MBA project on online communities.
So I asked myself the question: can I test to see if social network usage has a "Long Tail"?
To see if this was the case, I ran the numbers from my LinkedIn network. (For info: If you are not a member of LinkedIn, it's a free to join professional networking site).
I looked at all of my 227 connections to see how many connections each of them had. From Valdis' observations I expected to see that there would be a very few "highly connected" users and exponentially more users that had fewer connections. What I wanted to see however was whether the resulting chart would result in a Long Tail distribution curve.
My reasoning was: given that it was free to join, there are zero "costs of distribution" - therefore I would expect to see a "Long Tail".
Sure enough, there were only a few top end users. On Linkedin, once you go over 500 connections it displays as "500+". So the top end of the pattern is slightly distorted in that not all of the 500+ users will have the same number of connections. Some will be in the 500's, but I imagine that one or two might even reach to 700 or even 900. In total there are only 6 users with 500+ connections (out of 227).
What about the bottom end of the scale? It turns out that just over half are low usage users. 115 people have less than 50 connections.
Here's what it looks like if you break it down:
| Connections | People | % of total |
| 500+ | 6 | 3% |
| 201-500 | 12 | 5% |
| 101-200 | 40 | 18% |
| 51-100 | 54 | 24% |
| 1-50 | 115 | 51% |
If you plot it on a graph, the "Long Tail" curve is most definitely evident:
The curve extends right out to the right where there are 8 users with just 1 connection. These are people that I invited to join my network, who accepted, but have done nothing since. They have not added their own connections. Note that there are more people in this category than there are those with 500 or more connections at the other end of the scale.
Of course, I have only plotted the data from one network, for one node (me). It would be interesting to know if other networks also follow the same pattern.
Despite my limited analysis, I'm pretty convinced that most online social networks and communities will display similar Pareto distribution curves. This is because there is no barrier to entry. There is no cost to join a network. It's free. Therefore, it's no big deal to join up, trial it out and see if if you find it useful. There are no costs in extending the tail.
I assume therefore that I'm probably in the top 10 to 15% of users of LinkedIn and therefore most probably one of the "core" users as described by the graph on orgnet.com.
However, if I consider my half-hearted efforts on Facebook, I'm definitely not in the core. I'm probably floating around "loosely connected" in the bottom half of the curve. (As are, I expect the majority of registered users).
Conclusion? Everything so far points to a long tail distribution curve of social network usage.
Thursday 3 January 2008
Web Marketing Tools 2008
Jeremiah Owyang, a web-strategist and Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, has just published a useful up to date at a glance guide of the many forms of web marketing.
If you want to check in on what all of these terms mean and how they can be used, his article is an excellent reference point.
The Many Forms of Web Marketing:
1) Corporate Domain
A) Corporate Site
B) Portal Strategy
C) Microsites for Segmentation
D) Interactive Web Marketing
E) Intranet
F) Extranet
G) Regionalization
2) Search Marketing
A) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
B) Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
3) Out Bound and Syndicated Web Marketing
A) Email Marketing
B) Invasive Marketing
C) Syndicated Content and RSS
4) Brand Extension
A) Web Advertising
B) Contextual Advertising
C) Sponsorship and /Cross branding/Affiliate
D) Social Advertisements
E) Widget Advertising
5) Community Marketing and Social Media Marketing
A) eCommerce/Rating Sites
B) Social Networking, Forums, Wikis, Collaboration
C) Syndicated Marketing
D) Podcast Marketing
E) Blogging
F) Widget Marketing
G) Online Video and Live Streaming
H) Instant Messaging, Presence
I) Tagging, Collective Tools
J) Voting Features
K) MicroMedia
L) Infinite Other Flavors
6) Virtual Worlds
A) Virtual Worlds
B) Online Massive Multi Player Games
C) Online Games
7) Related Mediums
A) Internet TV (IPTV)
B) Mobile Content
8 ) Experimental: To Watch
A) Portability of the Social Graph
B) Vendor Relationship Management
Read the full post with detailed explanations at www.web-strategist.com
If you want to check in on what all of these terms mean and how they can be used, his article is an excellent reference point.
The Many Forms of Web Marketing:
1) Corporate Domain
A) Corporate Site
B) Portal Strategy
C) Microsites for Segmentation
D) Interactive Web Marketing
E) Intranet
F) Extranet
G) Regionalization
2) Search Marketing
A) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
B) Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
3) Out Bound and Syndicated Web Marketing
A) Email Marketing
B) Invasive Marketing
C) Syndicated Content and RSS
4) Brand Extension
A) Web Advertising
B) Contextual Advertising
C) Sponsorship and /Cross branding/Affiliate
D) Social Advertisements
E) Widget Advertising
5) Community Marketing and Social Media Marketing
A) eCommerce/Rating Sites
B) Social Networking, Forums, Wikis, Collaboration
C) Syndicated Marketing
D) Podcast Marketing
E) Blogging
F) Widget Marketing
G) Online Video and Live Streaming
H) Instant Messaging, Presence
I) Tagging, Collective Tools
J) Voting Features
K) MicroMedia
L) Infinite Other Flavors
6) Virtual Worlds
A) Virtual Worlds
B) Online Massive Multi Player Games
C) Online Games
7) Related Mediums
A) Internet TV (IPTV)
B) Mobile Content
8 ) Experimental: To Watch
A) Portability of the Social Graph
B) Vendor Relationship Management
Read the full post with detailed explanations at www.web-strategist.com
Wednesday 2 January 2008
Tripadvisor, Facebook and Restaurants
Restaurant reviews on Facebook with Tripadvisor.
Towards the end of last year, Tripadvisor launched a Facebook application called Local Picks.
As I write this, on Tripadvisor there are 252,835 restaurants worldwide and 823,248 reviews already written.
Wow. That's a lot of restaurants and a lot of reviews.
So... is it any good?
Well, according to Facebook, there are 25,297 daily active users. I noticed however that this is down from the 100,000+ daily users that they were gaining a few weeks ago. I guess that's partly down to the holiday season. Also, it could have had a wave of adoption and is now slowing to a natural plateau of stickiness. Personally I can see myself using it once in a while, but not every day. I mean, I eat out a fair amount, probably once a week, but even that wouldn't warrant a daily visit. Maybe once or twice a month.
Anyway, I thought I'd add it to my Facebook account and try it out.
Is it easy to start using?
Overall, it's pretty intuitive. The design is simple and easy to use. Nothing too flashy or complex. Nice. The only think that threw me is that although it recognised my hometown to be London (from my Facebook profile), it still set the default map view to be Boston, USA. Once I'd saved my settings and re-started the app from the menu, it got it right.
So - I get a map of London and a list of top rated restaurants listed below it. I couldn't really see much on the map. There were apparently 1690 restaurants in London, although only the top 20 show on the map. Also, the map markers were a discreet grey (not the usual red I expect on a Google mash-up). I figured out after a while that you need to zoom in to see the detail. I mean, if you had 1690 map markers, there would be no map left!
I zoomed to my local area and saw 4 restaurants. I know for a fact that there are about 20 restaurants in our area. 20% coverage is OK, but it still has a way to go.
Is it easy to add a review?
Yes - very easy. All you need to do is to rate the restaurant on a scale of 1 to 5 stars by clicking the star. You can also choose if this is a "Favorite" (Shame - why can't they use "Favourite" for us Limeys?), and whether this is a place you "Want to go". You can also add free text.
As with all questionnaires, the more detailed the questions, the lower response rate, but the better quality of data. Conversely, the easier the questionnaire, the less meaningful the data. In this case, because you can just rate a restaurant and not leave a comment or state the reason why, it's difficult to know why a restaurant does so well or does not do well.
I should think that a rating for a business lunch would be very different to a rating for a night out with friends, a family lunch, a romantic date or a pre-theatre meal. Speed of service, childcare facilities, wine lists, atmosphere, food quality and choice - these all matter to greater and lesser extents depending on the occasion.
In terms of adding a review - yes - it's very easy. Too easy maybe?
What about restaurants that are not already listed?
I wanted to add a review to a restaurant that I enjoy visiting regularly, but found that it was not listed.
I could enter the details of the restaurant, starting with the name and the address. In my example the address was not recognised from the postcode, so I had to manually pinpoint the location on the map. There were a couple of other screens to go through after the address screen.
I was all set add my review. Too bad then that I now have to wait 24 to 48 hours before restaurant is added to the listings.
How significant is the social angle?
Right or wrong, I trust my friends more than I trust the rest of the unknown folks in the world. So - if I can get reviews from my friends for restaurants, because I know them, what they like and who they are, I can "trust" their reviews more than an anonymous user. Good idea then.
To be honest I'm not a heavy Facebook user. I don't have that many "friends" registered and only one of those has the application on their account. However, the idea seems to make sense. Every time I am shown a restaurant review, it shows me the reviews from "everyone" and from "friends".
My reviews are added to a page called "My Picks". My friends "picks" are listed on a separate page.
For the social angle to really work, all my friends that I regularly eat out with would need to add this app to their profile and we'd all need to rate restaurants as we visit them.
I really doubt that many Facebook users actually use it in this collaborative way.
Still, it makes sense that you start off using the app by yourself, get reviews from the wider world and then as your friends start using it, get their opinions too.
How useful is it for choosing a restaurant?
Say I just use the app to help me find restaurants. How useful is it?
On all of the three primary filters (Geographic, cuisine and price, see below), you then get to see restaurants listed by highest rated (either by friends or by everyone). You can also choose by most ratings, most favorites or most want to gos.
Geographic. Well, I can zoom on the map very easily. If I want to find a restaurant near a certain place, it's great. Many restaurant search tools still could do better in this area, so top marks here.
Cuisine type. Yup, good filter here if I am after a certain cuisine type.
Price range. Shame this is in dollars for some of the restaurants in London. Because of that I'm not sure how much I trust it to be honest.
One more thing I'd really like is to be able to filter on are some of the restaurant attributes such as business, child friendly, outdoor seating, romantic etc. These are all features offered when you list a restaurant, so it would be good to be able to search by these too.
Can I book online?
Alas, no. It seems that the good old telephone still rules for most these restaurants.
Some have website links though, which is a good start.
Overall impressions
Overall, this application seems to deliver on volume and spread. Almost all major cities have a decent spread of restaurants listed. Where it lacks (I feel) as a truly useful decision making tool, is the level of detail available against each restaurant.
So, to improve?
1. Make it so you could easily rate the restaurant on a number of additional factors such as:
- menu
- service
- atmosphere
- comfort
- wine list
- value for money
2. Add further clarification on suitability for categories such as
- families
- business lunches
- romantic setting
- party atmosphere
3. Enable searches and filtering on the following dimensions
- Geographic (done)
- Price range (done)
- Cuisine type (done)
- Occasion categories (see point 2 above)
- Ratings (done)
- Sub ratings (see point 1 above)
- Friends ratings (done)
This would really create a very powerful restaurant recommendation engine.
Finally, add a facility to link to a restaurant's website or some other way of enabling a booking. Tripadvisor would want to figure out how make this lead generation pay for itself with whoever they partnered with to deliver the booking interface.
Even better, add a tool that allows friends to collaborate over the decision making for the restaurant, and once booked sends all of them the confirmation details.
There you'd have it. A truly one stop socially enabled decision making and booking system.
Good effort from Tripadvisor.
Once again, another step towards distributed, user centred content and a step away from destination sites.
Towards the end of last year, Tripadvisor launched a Facebook application called Local Picks.
As I write this, on Tripadvisor there are 252,835 restaurants worldwide and 823,248 reviews already written.
Wow. That's a lot of restaurants and a lot of reviews.
So... is it any good?
Well, according to Facebook, there are 25,297 daily active users. I noticed however that this is down from the 100,000+ daily users that they were gaining a few weeks ago. I guess that's partly down to the holiday season. Also, it could have had a wave of adoption and is now slowing to a natural plateau of stickiness. Personally I can see myself using it once in a while, but not every day. I mean, I eat out a fair amount, probably once a week, but even that wouldn't warrant a daily visit. Maybe once or twice a month.
Anyway, I thought I'd add it to my Facebook account and try it out.
- Is it easy to start using?
- Is it easy to add a review?
- What about restaurants that are not already listed?
- How significant is the social angle?
- How useful is it for choosing a restaurant?
- Can I book online?
Is it easy to start using?
Overall, it's pretty intuitive. The design is simple and easy to use. Nothing too flashy or complex. Nice. The only think that threw me is that although it recognised my hometown to be London (from my Facebook profile), it still set the default map view to be Boston, USA. Once I'd saved my settings and re-started the app from the menu, it got it right.
So - I get a map of London and a list of top rated restaurants listed below it. I couldn't really see much on the map. There were apparently 1690 restaurants in London, although only the top 20 show on the map. Also, the map markers were a discreet grey (not the usual red I expect on a Google mash-up). I figured out after a while that you need to zoom in to see the detail. I mean, if you had 1690 map markers, there would be no map left!
I zoomed to my local area and saw 4 restaurants. I know for a fact that there are about 20 restaurants in our area. 20% coverage is OK, but it still has a way to go.
Is it easy to add a review?
Yes - very easy. All you need to do is to rate the restaurant on a scale of 1 to 5 stars by clicking the star. You can also choose if this is a "Favorite" (Shame - why can't they use "Favourite" for us Limeys?), and whether this is a place you "Want to go". You can also add free text.
As with all questionnaires, the more detailed the questions, the lower response rate, but the better quality of data. Conversely, the easier the questionnaire, the less meaningful the data. In this case, because you can just rate a restaurant and not leave a comment or state the reason why, it's difficult to know why a restaurant does so well or does not do well.
I should think that a rating for a business lunch would be very different to a rating for a night out with friends, a family lunch, a romantic date or a pre-theatre meal. Speed of service, childcare facilities, wine lists, atmosphere, food quality and choice - these all matter to greater and lesser extents depending on the occasion.
In terms of adding a review - yes - it's very easy. Too easy maybe?
What about restaurants that are not already listed?
I wanted to add a review to a restaurant that I enjoy visiting regularly, but found that it was not listed.
I could enter the details of the restaurant, starting with the name and the address. In my example the address was not recognised from the postcode, so I had to manually pinpoint the location on the map. There were a couple of other screens to go through after the address screen.
I was all set add my review. Too bad then that I now have to wait 24 to 48 hours before restaurant is added to the listings.
How significant is the social angle?
Right or wrong, I trust my friends more than I trust the rest of the unknown folks in the world. So - if I can get reviews from my friends for restaurants, because I know them, what they like and who they are, I can "trust" their reviews more than an anonymous user. Good idea then.
To be honest I'm not a heavy Facebook user. I don't have that many "friends" registered and only one of those has the application on their account. However, the idea seems to make sense. Every time I am shown a restaurant review, it shows me the reviews from "everyone" and from "friends".
My reviews are added to a page called "My Picks". My friends "picks" are listed on a separate page.
For the social angle to really work, all my friends that I regularly eat out with would need to add this app to their profile and we'd all need to rate restaurants as we visit them.
I really doubt that many Facebook users actually use it in this collaborative way.
Still, it makes sense that you start off using the app by yourself, get reviews from the wider world and then as your friends start using it, get their opinions too.
How useful is it for choosing a restaurant?
Say I just use the app to help me find restaurants. How useful is it?
On all of the three primary filters (Geographic, cuisine and price, see below), you then get to see restaurants listed by highest rated (either by friends or by everyone). You can also choose by most ratings, most favorites or most want to gos.
Geographic. Well, I can zoom on the map very easily. If I want to find a restaurant near a certain place, it's great. Many restaurant search tools still could do better in this area, so top marks here.
Cuisine type. Yup, good filter here if I am after a certain cuisine type.
Price range. Shame this is in dollars for some of the restaurants in London. Because of that I'm not sure how much I trust it to be honest.
One more thing I'd really like is to be able to filter on are some of the restaurant attributes such as business, child friendly, outdoor seating, romantic etc. These are all features offered when you list a restaurant, so it would be good to be able to search by these too.
Can I book online?
Alas, no. It seems that the good old telephone still rules for most these restaurants.
Some have website links though, which is a good start.
Overall impressions
Overall, this application seems to deliver on volume and spread. Almost all major cities have a decent spread of restaurants listed. Where it lacks (I feel) as a truly useful decision making tool, is the level of detail available against each restaurant.
So, to improve?
1. Make it so you could easily rate the restaurant on a number of additional factors such as:
- menu
- service
- atmosphere
- comfort
- wine list
- value for money
2. Add further clarification on suitability for categories such as
- families
- business lunches
- romantic setting
- party atmosphere
3. Enable searches and filtering on the following dimensions
- Geographic (done)
- Price range (done)
- Cuisine type (done)
- Occasion categories (see point 2 above)
- Ratings (done)
- Sub ratings (see point 1 above)
- Friends ratings (done)
This would really create a very powerful restaurant recommendation engine.
Finally, add a facility to link to a restaurant's website or some other way of enabling a booking. Tripadvisor would want to figure out how make this lead generation pay for itself with whoever they partnered with to deliver the booking interface.
Even better, add a tool that allows friends to collaborate over the decision making for the restaurant, and once booked sends all of them the confirmation details.
There you'd have it. A truly one stop socially enabled decision making and booking system.
Good effort from Tripadvisor.
Once again, another step towards distributed, user centred content and a step away from destination sites.
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