Octave OC

Does the tech revolution signal the end of privacy?

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:02:40 00:00

It appears the Blackberry is the latest technology brand to be embroiled in the current privacy backlash. Last week a number of Gulf state governments including The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia made the surprise announcement that they were restricting use of the Blackberry, citing security concerns. It appears both governments are unhappy that they are unable to monitor internet and text communications via the handsets.

The Privacy Storm 2010

The Gulf Blackberry restriction is the latest in a long line of privacy issues to reach the top of the news agenda. In July 2010, Facebook incurred a storm of protest from users over a series of changes on the social networking site that left its members unsure about how public their information had become. In the same month, Wikileaks freely uploaded 90,000 classified documents on the conflict in Afghanistan highlighting cases of military excesses against civilians and details on Afghan military informers.

What unites all the recent technology privacy scares is the surrounding debate on wider issues about how online data is now used in society. There is now a virtual free flow of information on the internet that in previous ages would have been very difficult to reveal and disseminate. The implications of living in an information-saturated world accessible at a click are both liberating and terrifying. On the one hand, unparalleled access to information and technology has allowed us to transform our businesses to reach new markets and freed people to communicate well beyond their own locality by engaging with new social groups worldwide. But there is another side the data overload in the Information age. Previously confidential information can be revealed very rapidly and effectively creating privacy headaches for individuals, business and governments.

On one level, the online information debate mirrors wider views in society on personal responsibly and democracy. The most recent Facebook privacy scare revealed two opposing viewpoints. The first, is that Facebook have failed to protect their users online and that their personal details can be easily compromised. The second view, stresses personal responsibility of the user maintaining that it’s quite easy to adjust your Facebook privacy settings and in the same way you wouldn’t freely share confidential data on paper, don’t do it online.

Online Freedom of Speech vs Secrecy

Political and democratic debate raged on the Wiki-leaks Afghanistan leaks. On one hand we have the passionate defenders of free speech who argue that the leaks have revealed a reliable picture of the real situation in Afghanistan. However the information freedom warriors at Wikileaks would have a tough job convincing the few dozen Afghan civilians named as informers in the documents who, in all likelihood, are being hunted down by the Taliban following their exposure. What makes their unmasking and possible fate even worse is the fact that the champions of ‘Data-journalism’ at Wiki leaks seemingly didn’t check all classified data they released, it was just uploaded on-mass for all to see.

A Privacy Backlash?

While you can’t put the online information genie back in the bottle, its scale and volume is fast becoming more of a threat to governments and the military. It’s clear that they are becoming less tolerant of security lapses and free information that compromises their security and selfish interests. In fact the US government called in the FBI to hunt down the alleged source of the Afghan military leaks and have announced they are confident they have their man – a 22 year old intelligence analyst who freely boasted about his responsibility on the internet.

Affiliate Marketing - a double sided coin for business?

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:04:39 00:00

Sometimes called ‘the ultimate form of marketing’, affiliate marketing is a commission-based deal between a merchant and a seller.

Think of it as pay-per-performance marketing. Internet based affiliate schemes have grown rapidly in recent years mainly in higher priced consumer products including financial services and package holidays. However, although internet selling offers huge opportunities to brands, there are always caveats to embracing any new online marketing tool. So what are the main benefits and challenges posed by today’s affiliate marketing environment?

Affiliate Marketing: The basics

The affiliate model, as shown by the diagram, is based around four players: the merchant, the publisher (website), the affiliate network and the customer.

So for instance, a company offering Italian villa hire could have an affiliate deal with a well known affiliate network such as Commission Junction (www.cj.com), who can place and track Villa adverts and details on leading Italy travel sites. If someone looking to hire an Italian Villa booked a holiday through the affiliated travel site then the company would pay the affiliate company a percentage – typically around 10% of the sale value.

Affiliate marketing is now big business. The latest figures by marketing Sherpa suggest that over £5 bn in commission fees are generated each year through affiliate marketing arrangements.

The Benefits

The advantages of affiliate selling are closely rated to search engine marketing (which raise visibility in the search engines for your products or services) and include:

Target niche sectors online including travel, finance, education, health and gaming.

Reach customers through generic phrases (eg. ‘Italy holidays’) at a much lower cost that trying to gain visible interest exposure yourself.

Vastly improve your brand reach by displaying your brand adverts on third-party sites.

Return on Investment – Affiliate schemes are easy to track and measure as it’s a pay per performance model.

Rapidly improve brand awareness, particular for business new to online selling.

…And the down side

Marketing and selling on the internet is not easy, despite the puffed–up claims of certain unethical marketers. The affiliate market is characterised by extreme competition as new entrants embrace the online pay per performance model. The main disadvantages of affiliate marketing include:

Management fee: Fees charged by the affiliate network ‘middle men’ vary but can be as much as 30% of the sale. That’s fine if you still have a good margin, but may leave little room for profit.

Limited Effect: There’s a big debate among internet marketers around the real benefits to affiliates. Some marketers avoid or stop using internet marketing because they fear it has a limited actual impact on sales. The electronic retailer Dabs.com stopped their affiliate scheme because they feared affiliates were gaining too high a percentage of their sales. In 2007, Nick Robertson CEO of ASOS the online clothing retailer famously described affiliates as “grubby little people in grubby little studios”. Ouch!.

Paul McGarrity is director of Octave Online Communications

www.OctaveOC.com

SEO Northern Ireland: How local online listings can help improve your SEO ranking

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:00:45 00:00

I wonder how long the Phone Book and Yellow Pages will continue to be printed for? Think about it, is there any real need for a 5Kg printed directory in the era of internet search technology?

The last five years have witnessed fundamental changes in the way people seek and find business information. Search engines and internet business directories have rapidly replaced printed phone directories and the popularity of local internet search has sky-rocketed. Recent figures form comScore, show the use of internet search tools such as Google and Yahoo to find local business information grew 58% to 15.7 billion searches. This compares with a smaller, but still impressive, 21% rise in general internet searches. So what does this trend mean for business relying on a local custom?

Local search tools

There are two main types of internet tool used by consumers to find local information online: internet search engines and online business directories. The last few years have witnessed very significant innovation and financial investment by leading search engines especially Google and Yahoo and by companies such as BT and Yell to capture larger percentages of the local search market.

It’s interesting to know that the consumer choice for local business information seems to have shifted from business directories to search engines. Studies by Neilson and comScore show internet directories only have a small percentage of overall searches. In fact 85% of internet searches are through search engines rather than online directories.

How does local search work?

If you are trying to source local services or suppliers, whether it’s an accountant or a car mechanic, chances are you will perform a quick internet search. For most local searches, such as ‘Belfast restaurants or ‘Wedding photographers Northern Ireland’, the major search engines will display a small number of local results linked to a map. What’s significant about the local search results is that they appear right at the top of the page as shown in the example search result.

Naturally there is a huge level of competition for these slots. Many businesses now rely on experienced internet marketers who can provide local search marketing services and produce professional local search profiles.

The value of local search

If you aren’t visible for local online searches you can guarantee some of your competitors will be. Business owners and marketing managers in competitive local business environments are starting to take notice of the importance of local search. In fact, you only need to look through a few local search results to view evidence of businesses who have created search optimised local business listings.

Creating a local search profile on Google or optimizing your existing profile, is, in my opinion, one of the most important and cost-effective ways to increase relevant leads to your website and most internet marketing professionals now offer this service to clients.

The future of local search

Local search is still growing and evolving. The one dominant factor that has increased its importance in recent years is the arrival of smart phones. Devices such as the iPhone can only increase the importance of local search as people crave more geo-targeted and location relevant information.

Paul McGarrity is director of Octave Online Communications

www.OctaveOC.com

How to increase ranking on Google - Article link

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:59:25 00:00

Check out my new article on how to increase ranking on Google published on business startup site Business Wings: http://www.businesswings.co.uk/articles/How-to-increase-ranking-on-Google

What is Permission Marketing and why is it important?

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:13:31 00:00

‘Permission marketing’ lies at the heart of new marketing and business in the internet age. Find out how your business can improve its relevance to customers and markets.

Business Marketing Advice

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:02:15 00:00

Internet Marketing Northern Ireland: New Research on NI Internet Usage

Wed, 19 May 2010 11:45:10 00:00

Online Usage Increases 65% since 2007

Wed, 19 May 2010 11:26:25 00:00

New research from Online Measurement Company shows UK internet usage has increased 65% in just three years. Huge rises in social media usage and blog use. check out the full BBC news story on Online Media Trends

Social Media Gets 'Thumbs Down' from Northern Ireland Voters

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:23:00 00:00

Social Media and Northern Ireland Elections 2010

It appears that Northern Ireland voters haven't joined the 'digital election' bandwagon. Social media Northern Ireland research by Virgin Media Business, showed a clear najority of people here still wanted their news about local politicians from newspapers, and weren't really that interested in channels like Twitter. However, at least voters in Northern Ireland were more positive about e-voting than social media use. Maybe we could even find some virtual politicians to replace the current bunch!

Half of Northern Irish voters calls for e-voting, finds Virgin Media Business

Support for e-voting jumps in Northern Ireland, but voters still prefer their local newspapers to Twitter

Half of Northern Irish internet users say e-voting would make them more likely to back a candidate in next week’s General Election. The 2010 Virgin Media Business E-Politics Online Study found that 53 per cent of the Province’s voters digitised ballot over the traditional paper system.

Yet while Northern Irish voters were enthusiastic about e-voting, they wanted their prospective MPs to contact them via traditional channels rather than digitally. 44 per-cent of respondents said they wanted to hear from politicians via local newspapers or radio, and 47 per cent said they preferred the post.

Social media, however, got a resounding thumbs down from the country’s online electorate. For example, only ten per cent of respondents said they thought MPs should be using Twitter to communicate with voters. In fact only 21 per cent felt that MPs should be more active on the internet, showing a need for politicians to adopt a balanced communication approach.

“Technology looks like it could be critical in helping to ignite more interest from the public,” said Alan Worthing, head of business markets for Virgin Media Business in Northern Ireland. “The absence of an e-voting system is ironic when you think how many people will schedule a visit to the polling station in their digital calendars, and check their emails, texts and Facebook while they’re queuing to vote.”

The 2010 survey was conducted by YouGov Plc and used a sub-set of questions from the 2005 study. The total sample size was 2,170 adults, questioned online between 1 and 6 April, 2010. The figures have been weighted and are representative of UK adults of voting age.

Digitals Staring Role in Election 2010

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 09:58:13 00:00

In the aftermath of the 1992 General Election many journalists, pollsters and Labour politicians were left scratching their heads wondering how John Major’s Government had managed to cling to power. It wasn’t long before senior Labour Party figures publicly pointed to the power and influence of the right-wing tabloid media. Kelvin MacKenzie, Editor of The Sun obviously agreed. ‘It’s The Sun Wot Won It.’, crowed the first page headline – its two-fingered response to democratic concerns about media power in Britain.

Fast-forward 18 years to the 2010 General Election and we start to see a very different media landscape. Although I don’t doubt the continued influence and power of the tabloid media on voting behaviour, there is no doubt that the growth of the internet has changed the media environment forever and will have a very significant impact on fundraising, turnout and even voting patterns before May 6^th.

The Obama Connection

Barak Obama’s use of innovative technology helped The Democrats build an unstoppable election machine based on grass-roots support. Smart marketing by the Obama team ensured their campaign amassed a very loyal and dedicated team of supporters and ensure the Democratic voting base turned out in force. It’s a point not lost on the communications units within the Labour, Conservatives and The Liberal Democrat parties. Over the past few years, political parties have successfully embraced digital technology to help reach and influence people online.

Digital Campaign Trail

The 2010 Election will be characterised by fast-paced news announcements across a wider spectrum of media. Rather than wait for the broadcast or print media to cover a story in-depth, parties and individual candidates can post comments and break news directly to their followers. Just as in business, political communication is now slicker, faster and better targeted. As a digital broadcast tool, Twitter is proving a highly valuable way for politicians to communicate to the media and keep supporters up-to-date with interesting developments. Twitter has already played a big role in driving some of the best news stories of the last year including the Gordon Brown Bullying affair and the M.P expenses scandal. Even the prime minister’s wife uses it to help the Labour campaign. In fact Sara Brown now has a highly impressive Twitter fan-base of 1.2 Million.

ePolitics

In my view the most exciting and far-reaching media development in recent years has been the growth and use of internet communities. Just as businesses and brands can listen to and monitor what people are saying about their products and services online, political parties can use internet communities to feel the political pulse – assessing what people think about a variety of issues, from the state of the NHS to the latest government tax hike on businesses.

Labour and Conservatives have used social networks such as Facebook to build and influence their support bases. Social communities have become a great way to ‘activate the activists’ by sharing news and, in turn, using the support base to encourage fellow supporters to actually turn out and vote – which is what really wins elections.

Internet Airbrushing

Finally, any debate on the power of the internet in politics wouldn’t be complete without reference to the new political website – mydavidcameron.com. The site has been developed by a Labour-supporting graphic designer and allows you to ‘invent’ your own Conservative poster. A very addictive tool for anyone interested in the election, and surely a sign of how digital is changing the face of politics.

www.OctaveOC.com