What the hell do I know?

A New TV World

2009-01-26T04:27:00.000-08:00

I recently saw a presentation by a major multi-channel TV broadcaster on the nature of the 21st century TV household and how new technologies are affecting TV viewing habits in the typical digitally enabled family.

Whilst the content of this presentation was useful in terms of providing stats and data to back up existing advertising behaviours to my clients, I did not feel that it really got to the heart of the changes that are happening at the moment and will continue to happen at an increasing rate.

The main point that the presenter wanted us to take out was that "Live broadcast TV is not dead and in fact continues to form the foundation of all AV viewing" and I assume by implication therefore "Advertising on broadcast TV is still a good way to spend your (decreasing) advertising budgets"

The two main pieces of evidence for this were:

1) Anecdotally, many consumers don't want the hassle that comes with computers to accompany their TV viewing. If you can't just switch it on and go, then they won't bother.

2) According to BARB more than 80% of viewing is still done "live" and only around 20% is timeshifted

Now I have issues with the conclusions derived from this evidence. The first point just means that the technology hasn't quite got to the stage that consumers are comfortable with it, but that is just a matter of time. The second point just seems to avoid the issue.

I'm not going to sit here and ring the death knell for Broadcast TV. Too many other people are doing it and I think they're wrong too. Since the earliest forms of media, it is incredibly rare for one form of media to be killed by another. New "formats" may have made old formats obsolete - DVDs have killed VHS, paper killed parchment, but that's just storage really. The media form is the content itself and paintings weren't killed by photos any more than the TV "killed" Cinema or internet will "kill" TV.

I believe that broadcast AV content has it's own unique role and is here to stay and will co-exist with on-demand services, but what is emminently clear is that broadcasters will have to adapt to the changing role of their product and market it to advertisers accordingly.

My reason for writing this blog at all is that the second piece of evidence - "80% of viewing is still live in PVR households" - rang completely false with me.

Having had Sky + for nearly 2 years now, I could no longer imagine being imprisoned by a broadcast TV schedule and being compelled to watch 3 minutes of TV advertising for every 15 minutes of content. My estimations of my own TV viewing were that I watched approximately 80% timeshifted and 20% live.

Because of this personal disconnect with the facts, I conducted a mini survey across friends and colleagues to see how much TV they were watching recorded and how much live. I also asked "what kind of programming do you watch "live" vs recorded", and in fact this turned out to be the more interesting question.

On average (sample of about 25 - so not that robust I know, but remarkably consistent within that sample), people with PVRs claimed to watch in the ratio of 60:40 for recorded:live broadcast content respectively.

This is clearly at odds with the official data and my survey of a few dozen people clearly is no match for the mighty BARB, but this backs up every conversation I've had with anyone who has a PVR.

When I asked what kind of programmes they watched when live, it became a bit more clear why the claimed behaviour is perhaps different from actual recorded behaviour.

4 distinct types of programme came out of the survey - 2 that are typically viewed as recorded and 2 that are viewed "live"

The two types of recorded content were

1)long running "appointment to view" series, often high quality US drama/comedy imports - e.g. Lost, Desperate Housewives, The Wire, and also Soaps. - "I don't want to miss my favourite show"

2) Films/long form one-off documentaries etc - " I want to start watching when it is convenient for me, not on the exact hour"

The two types of "live" content were

3) Live "event" type programming - News/Sport/Reality TV finales etc - Basically anything where it would be old hat by the following day, so needed to be watched as it happened

4) Background/Filler/browsing TV - magazine style shows -the latest re-run of Top Gear on Dave, Saturday morning Cookery shows etc - stuff where it really doesn't matter if you miss 5 minutes here or there and it doesn't suck you in so you're happy to switch off part way through

This could go some way to explain the disparity between claimed and recorded behaviour. My personal theory is that people don't accurately claim point 4) in their total claimed viewing. They are aware that they do it, but when they say "I watch about 8 hours of TV a week" it's likely they've forgotten that they had the TV on in the background whilst cooking dinner for at least an hour a day. If they forget about this then they only actively remember about 2/3rds of their viewing which explains the under-claim against live TV

Of the 4 different types of programming, I would suggest that in a PVR household only number (3) actually has advertising that regularly gets seen live by an attentive audience. For 1 & 2 consumers are likely to fast-forward over ads and in point 4, they are just getting on with other things and just passively consuming the TV in background.

Whether or not the ratios of recorded to live are being accurately picked up, this analysis poses some interesting questions about how advertisers buy and how broadcasters sell their schedules in the future.

a) In a PVR household what is the relative value of Sponsorship idents to spot advertising in a show such as Lost? In a future world where PVRs are the standard (not that far away) Is there any value to the middle of 6 30" spots in an ad break that is being fastfowarded?

b) Should we use the same copy in a break in the X-factor as we do for a break in Top Gear re-runs - One is likely to be consumed actively where one is much more passive - more like radio...

My suggestion is that broadcast TV is not dead, but it is to maintain anything like it's current share of ad revenue it needs to significantly re-think it's sales model and ad-agencies need to re-think how their ads engage their audience

For new high-quality serial and one-off content (1) and (2) (Movies and dramas etc) the sponsorship credit should be the highest value item in the schedule. If spot advertising is allowed at all, it should be one advert only to a maximum of 40" which broadcasters then charge a premium for. If we make the ad-break so short that it is more hassle to fastfoward over it than to watch it then we'll actually get significantly more high quality ad views. Under this model we could also consider including more ad breaks (although this has to be done with care)

For "event" TV (3), we could probably use the existing style of ad break model, and utilise our strongest and most entertaining creative to keep consumers engaged throughout the break, it might even be necessary to insist upon limited frequency per execution and a minimum "enjoyment" standard to preserve the value of the break

For "background" TV (4), we might have to re-visit the creative style of the advertising and take some learnings from radio about how messages can be absorbed more passively.

This may mean that some campaigns need at least 3 different pieces of copy plus sponsorship idents in order to cut through, or alternatively advertisers can choose to focus in different areas depending on their strategic communications objectives.

It also means that the supply of broadcast minutage is seriously depleted, but each minute massively increases in true value and so can attract a premium. If it is sold as 3 different types of advertising, we could see significant improvements in accountability as we no longer rely on a simple "X TVRs delivering Y cover at Z frequency", and can instead talk in terms of "association ratings" or "active and passive audience engagment points."

This is obviously an idealised model and is based upon a scenario where PVRs are in a significant majority of homes, but whatever a new model looks like, it's starting to become very clear that we just can't buy and sell TV in the way we've always used to. In an uncertain world the one thing that is certain is that staying the same is a route to obscurity.

Loyalty schemes - how rewarding are they?

2008-09-16T03:10:00.000-07:00

I've noticed recently a number of new brands from various categories trying to implement some of the thinking behind reward schemes to increase the consumption and loyalty levels of their consumers. We've had Coke Zone, the Telegraph subscription model and today I read about Nuts TV creating a rewards card for Sky viewers. http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/846153/Nuts-TV-links-MiCard-interactive-loyalty-card-offer/

Now it is understandable that brands such as these want to find a way to increase frequency of consumption whilst gathering data about their consumers, both incredibly valuable objectives. Coke is constantly battling against new brands eroding their share of throat, the Telegraph like all newspapers is desperate to find a way to stem the long-term decline and Nuts TV will never really show up on BARB so needs another way to prove to the media buying world that it does have an audience after all.

There's nothing new in this either - Loyalty schemes have been around longer than any of us, well before Boots, Tesco or Nectar. When I was a kid, pretty much every piece of glassware in the house was from Esso - I can still remember the collector's catalogue now, and my Mum always had a few books full of Co-op stamps. And they work - I know plenty of people who will only use Boots for anything that is possible to be bought at Boots.

However, I'm not sure that all of these new entrants are getting it right - the Nuts TV and MiCard idea is a nice one but I'm not convinced it is going to work, ditto Coke - so here are a few pitfalls I think companies need to watch out for and few pointers for how to make such schemes work.

1) The biggest and most obvious one is "MAKE IT SIMPLE".

This sounds like a no-brainer I know, but as companies try to maximise their data acquisition, minimise fraud, minimise cost per user and maximise PR-ability (and breathe...!), they end up putting in a huge number of steps and hurdles to take up which turn people away in droves.

With CokeZone you have to find a unique code under the label, then keep hold of the bottle, take it to your computer and then plug in the code. In the post MTV generation your typical Coke consumer just doesn't have the attention span to go through all that. The genius of the supermarket loyalty scheme is that collecting fits so naturally into your normal shopping habits and require no real effort on the part of the consumer.

If Coke Zone had a free-text number or even a mobile java photo application that could read the code, suddenly it would be so much easier for the consumer to do the collection

2) Make the rewards a real reward.

Don't make people collect large numbers of points just to get a money off voucher for something they didn't really want anyway. Most consumers are savvy enough to realise that they could probably get those discounts through online vouchers anyway or find the product cheaper elsewhere so won't feel like they are actually being rewarded by your brand, merely being shepherded towards one of your partners. The more cynical amongst them might even assume you're making some profit out of it. For example - "collect 5 points for free delivery on consolesandgadgets.co.uk" sounds like a bit of a non-offer to me.

If you are giving people a reward for their loyalty, don't make them spend more money to get it, actually give them something they would want for free.

3) Know your audience -

Nescafé have run a loyalty scheme for a number of years called "Pick-me-ups" where you collect stamps on the back of packs, stick them onto a collectors card and send them in to claim gifts from a catalogue. It's all very 1970s, but then the average Nescafe drinker is over 50 and this method of interaction works very well for them. They are investigating an online collection method, but if they know what is good for them they won't eliminate the paper and glue option because it is working and the collectors love it.

This point also extends to the rewards - make sure that you are giving people what they actually want. Give them a forum to feedback on the rewards, make suggestions or just say hello.

4) Don't mistake scheme participation for brand or product loyalty.

No reward scheme can be a replacement for true brand development, otherwise as soon as the reward scheme stops, the loyalty stops. A reward scheme should just be viewed as a way of maximising the share of pocket of someone who is already a consumer. It will never be motivating enough to convince a non-consumer to start consuming.

5) Give it time to succeed

You are trying to build a whole new habit in your consumers and one which requires extra work. It's clearly not going to happen overnight.

That's all I've got for now - I might add more later

2008-09-09T03:40:00.000-07:00

I'm loving this

http://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/

A Reminder that we haven't really changed that much at all.

Love the way the maps work

Summertime and the TV is shitty

2008-09-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

I recently returned from holiday, a wonderful 2 weeks in the pissing rain in a tent in Wales. After all that I was dying to sit down and have a few hours watching TV before going back to work and back to winter, it represented my last few hours of genuine freedom.

Imagine my disappointment then when I found my Sky+ pretty much empty. All my series linked programmes had finished and apparently been replaced with Big Brother and interminable re-runs of CSI. I know that viewing is expected to go down in the summer, but if you assume that no-one is going to watch and so don't put any decent programming on then you'll be proved right. Please spare a thought for those of us who don't get to spend 8 weeks on holiday and still would like to watch something of value of an evening.

Even worse - because I had to watch Live TV, suddenly I had to watch the ads as well. by the end of two hours of TV I was ready to gouge out my own eyeballs with a rusty spoon. Two hours of summer commercial TV = 20 minutes of the most half arsed, generic, bland 30" spots that it has been my misfortune to see. I guess I was being punished because a number of them were government campaigns that I'd actually been responsible for planning.

Anyway my point is that crap programming = crap advertising = no-one pays any attention to anything. Surely this is an opportunity for a brave broadcaster to buck the trend and bring out some great content just for the Summer. Yes people might be away, but at any given time there will still be 80% of the available audience just gasping for a breath of fresh broadcasting air. It would be a perfect sponsorship opportunity as it would allow a brand to be associated with the best thing on TV at people's favourite time of year.

Someone please? I'll sponsor it!

fluffy addiction

2008-08-07T06:41:00.000-07:00

In a previous post I lamented the overuse of violence in videogames as a substitute for innovation and inspiration. http://ginjaninjamedia.blogspot.com/2007/10/killer-applications.html

This little beauty however is the most violence free possible game and is frankly a little gem. I guess it demonstrates how the gaming world is expanding rapidly away from teenage boys towards older women and pretty much everyone.

Love it - have a go!

http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/bells.htm

Orisinal have been around for a while now creating some of the most beautiful casual games on the web and they still haven't gone commercial, I don't understand how it works - anyone with insight let me know.

Dirt is Good - Mums are evil tyrants

2008-08-06T04:32:00.000-07:00

There's been quite a lot of commentary on the latest Persil ad (Robot boy) and I've been trying to work out why this one just doesn't work as well for me as previous iterations and I think I've worked it out. Here's my thinking - for what it is worth

You don't need me to tell you that the "Dirt is Good" campaign is constantly held up as the epitome of a great "Big Idea". It shows a true empathy with mums and positions Persil as a brand that helps you be a great mum bringing up happy kids. That's about as emotionally engaging as advertising gets and has delivered huge levels of equity to the Persil brand.

The Robot boy ad should just be a continuation of that campaign, (which has been interpreted around the world with great effect, highlighting the fundamental human truth in the insight) so why do I come away feeling worse about Persil?

I think what has happened is that in this ad Persil has moved from the role of partner and confidant to Preacher and critic. The broad message "Getting dirty and having fun is what being a kid is all about, and Persil means that the dirt doesn't matter" stays the same, but the subtext has changed.

In the original "It's not Dirt" campaign the subtext was "You're a good mum and like to make sure your kids are happy and that means letting them get dirty from time to time. We feel the same and have made a product that means you don't have to worry about the dirt and can enjoy the results." The emotional take-out is one of being care-free and happy in the knowledge that you're doing the best by your kid.

In this new execution the subtext that I'm taking out is "If you don't let your child get dirty you're a bad mum because it won't ever learn to have fun and be a proper child. Keeping your child too clean will turn your child into a social recluse without any personality. Unless you use Persil you're a bad mum"

Or even more extreme "Preventing your child from getting dirty is tantamount to child abuse as you are taking away their fundamental human freedoms" The emotional take out here is guilt that you're not able to let your child play out as much as you would like because of all the dangers facing them today.

The line "every child has the right to be a child" echoes campaigns such as this from Global Water

Or this one from UNICEF

Obviously Persil aren't suggesting that mums who don't let their kids get dirty are on a level with nations putting guns and bombs in the hands of children or governments providing typhoid infected drinking water, but using this kind of language gives rise to those sorts of feelings.

Persil have to remember what they actually do well - They get clothes clean. The original "dirt is good" campaign connected Persil with all the positive emotions of having a reliable detergent to clean your kids' clothes and they had an absolute right to take that territory. However this new campaign places Persil in a role of social commentator, preaching to mothers about how to be good mums as if it were all about clean clothes. They do not have the right to do this and I think it backfires on them

Early Ad-funded content by Budweiser

2008-08-06T02:09:00.000-07:00

Just randomly stumbled across a Temperance website with lots of songs from the Temperance movement of 1905.

http://www.temperancetantrum.com/Under%20the%20Anheuser%20Bush.htm

I particularly liked this song though which seems to have been commissioned by Budweiser -

UNDER THE ANHEUSER BUSH
Talk about the shade of the sheltering palms
Praise the bamboo tree and it's wide spreading charms
There's a little bush that grows right here in town
You know it's name it has won such renown
Often with my sweetheart just after the play
To this little place then my footsteps will stray
If she hesitates when she looks at the sign
Softly I whisper, "Now Sue, don't decline…."

Rave about the place where you swells go to dine
Picture you and me with our sandwich and stein
Underneath the bush where the good fellows meet
Life seems worth living, our joy is complete
If you're sad at heart take a trip there tonight
You'll forget your woe and your eyes will grow bright.
There you'll surely find me with my sweetheart, Sue.
Come down this evening, I'll introduce you.

Come, come, come and make eyes with me
Under the Anheuser Bush
Come come drink some Budwise with me
Under the Anheuser Bush
Hear the old German Band
Just let me hold your hand YAH!
Do, do come and have a stein or two
Under the Anheuser Bush!

I bet Budweiser (or any other brewer for that matter)wish that they could still use themes like this in their advertising.

Update - Just found a clip of the original song. http://bestwebs.com/vaudeville/nindex.html - Enjoy

Cuil is so not.

2008-08-01T04:57:00.000-07:00

There has been general condemnation of Cuil - my personal reasons are below

OK, The sell in was good

1) Indexes 3 times as many pages as google
2) Groups into categories
3) Gives each one a picture

That all sounds very good and when you first arrive at a search results page it looks interesting and different, and that's when you realise it doesn't have a hope in its current form. The reasons it will fail are the reasons it thinks it is better!

1) 3 times as many pages as google - So what?! If it fails to discriminate between the quality of those sites and the relevance to your search then what's the point - 3 times as many pages means 3 times as much work for me to find the one I want. The search that I did on Cuil ("Guinness fake advert") did not return a single relevant result on Cuil - it only returned other paid for search sites - whereas all of the top 5 results on Google were 100% relevant to my search

2) Groups into Categories - This just makes it less accessible. The beauty of Google has always been its simplicity, and the whole world has been trained to use it. I don't want to have to re-train my brain to think in categories. (they don't seem to work anyway. )

3) Pictures - Irrelevant and small - they add nothing except complexity.

Saying all of this, it doesn't mean I don't think anyone can challenge Google. When Google first came along, it seemed like an impossible task for them take over Yahoo's dominance and we all thought it would remain a niche preference and look what happened there!

However the difference between then and now is that Google had a true product benefit which was recognised by the opinion forming niche. Can anyone explain to me the benefit of Cuil?

Guinness "fake" ad

2008-08-01T04:08:00.001-07:00

So what do we think? Is this ad (currently to be found on Youtube) a complete fake or is it a stunt by Diageo? By claiming no knowledge of it, Guinness do benefit from the viral without having to take the consequences.

Being the cynical chap that I am, it was easy to become suspicious on first viewing and agree with comments of people "smelling a rat" : http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/MostRead/836025/Diageo-demands-sexy-fake-Guinness-viral-pulled/ but in this instance I believe Diageo when they claim righteous indignation and horror that this is out there in their name.

The repercussions that would result from an alcohol company making anything even close to an ad like that would be immense. There is significant global momentum to try to ban all alcohol marketing and advertising and the only way that spirits, wine and beer manufacturers have managed to continue to advertise in markets such as the UK/US/Europe is that they have very strict industry wide self imposed rules about how and where they can market their products. If it was found that Diageo were the source of this ad or even that they had tacitly allowed their agency to "secretly" make it then you could be sure that they would find themselves subject to increasingly draconian laws as punishment.

Frankly, Diageo are one of the most responsible advertisers in their industry and indeed lead the way in setting down the responsible marketing guidelines, so I for one cannot believe that they would have anything to do with it.

Star over London - a Shining light in sponsorship opportunities

2008-07-31T03:11:00.000-07:00

So by now I'm guessing that most of you will have seen the fabulous Stella Artois Zeppellin flying over London, or even if you haven't seen it first hand you'll have seen the coverage in numerous newspapers and on the gogglebox.

Firstly can I just say congratulations to whoever at InBev decided to go with this opportunity. It's an inspired piece of sponsorship that fits perfectly with the brand personality that Stella has spent so long building over the years. The Zeppellin is a joy to see flying over London (especially during this mini heatwave) and epitomises the inspirational exculsivity that is the Stella Brand.

It's also a brave move because the venture was dreamt up and put into action by ex-bankruptee and former "Apprentice" candidate Rory Laing who was fired in just the second show of Season 3.(http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/apprentice_2007/can_rory.shtml) .

Considering the quality of the winners of The Apprentice, I'd understand clients being slightly concerned about committing considerable sums of money to one of the losers! However congratulations to Rory as well, he has definitely found an unique and differentiated way of cashing in on his 15 seconds of fame and he can definitely claim to be a real entrepreneur now.

Secondly I'd just like to say how jealous I am. This opportunity was brought to me by our sponsorship and promotions department before Stella had even heard of it. I was extremely excited by it and I virtually begged my client to sponsor the Zeppelin. They also got very excited by it but in the end their risk averse nature and their relatively small budgets meant that it never got off the ground (pun intended).

As my relationship with the client has developed since I now know how I should have sold it and I guess I'll learn from it for next time, but until that time I'll have a little cry every time I see it hovering over some of the most identifiable landmarks in the country.

You live and learn

Killer Applications

2007-10-09T08:26:00.000-07:00

I describe myself as a gaming enthusiast, saw when I saw that they are actually going to launch a study into the effect of violence in games (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7034179.stm), I felt that I had to contribute to the discussion

This piece will cover two main points

1) Actually yes - there is an overuse of gratuitous violence in videogames

2) It's just not a problem - chill out!

You won't hear this very often from gamers, but I actually do think that there is an over-reliance on violence to sell video games. I don't say this in a prudish, reactionary way, as I quite enjoy killing a few aliens and beating up a few comedy villains in my spare time but I just think that relatively poor games find a bigger market than they otherwise would just because they promise a certain level of violence. Violence in games has often been used to replace imagination, innovation, ingenuity and style. This is especially the case since graphical capabilities have increased the visual impact of that violence and so augmented their ability to shock.

This isn't to say that violence in games is at odds with all innovation and quality- (the excellent Bioshock is an example of an almost perfectly balanced shooter although the 18 certificate is appropriate due to some relatively disturbing scenes ) - but in games like Manhunt 2 "ultra violence" does seem to have been the complete raison d'etre and that is lazy games development if you ask me. They can't even claim some kind of tenuous artistic merit in trying to address shocking issues as they did all that in Manhunt 1, which itself wasn't a particularly great game.

My next comment was going to be that there are loads of great games over the years that haven't used violence at all, but if you exclude sports licences and racing sims, I struggle to find many games that don't use violence in some way. There are a few notable exceptions - Tetris, Breakout, Theme Park... but then I started to struggle. I thought "Lemmings! brilliant game, no violence in that" but then I remembered the best bit of the game - when you got stuck and couldn't get the Lemmings out there was always the hilarious "Nuke" option, and plenty of people took it. What about Super Mario, or Sonic then? but that involves jumping on the heads of small animals, how is that not encouraging violence?

Seriously though, games and sports by their very nature tap into a natural human competitive desire to win and since the dawn of civilisation games have existed as a metaphor for conflict and as an expression of how we have evolved beyond physical violence as a way of life.

This is a positive thing - by enacting conflicts through the medium of game we neutralise the need to enact it in real life.

No-one suggests that Chess Grand Masters or fans of Risk are actually frustrated warmongers. Videogames are fundamentally no different, so why do we suggest that players of these games are likely to run off and kill at the first opportunity

So there you go, the presence of violence in videogames is something that is inevitable as the next evolution in the centuries' old development of games. It represents a fantasy world that we have no intention of entering for real, but which highlights how far from our brutish ancestry we have evolved. It is not something to be feared or banned but frankly if games developers fail to find other hooks into their products, consumers will quickly become bored and that may be the driver that sees a wider variety of gaming genres that do not rely on gratuitous violence. In the meantime I'm going to keep killing aliens with a giant rocket launcher cos it's fun!

P.S This doesn't cover the issue of age-based certifications. Some games are clearly not intended for children and are clearly labelled as such. It is clear that these certificates are being ignored by sales staff and parents and this is a problem. However it is not the fault of the game itself, but a wider issue to be addressed by legislation.

End of Facebook comments

2007-10-09T08:22:00.000-07:00

OK, I hit 200 friends on Facebook yesterday. Initial I was pretty chuffed, but then I felt slightly embarrassed at actually being bothered about how many people have electronically linked to me on a website. I think this is the last time I'll talk about Facebook on here. It's pretty old news now anyway.

Just a couple of things

1) Please stop "zombie punching"/"vampire biting"/rating/ hugging me. Seriously, it's boring
2) Friends Circle is great. check it out
3) I can explain that picture, it's not how it looks

laters

D.

How did Facebook get in our faces like this?

2007-05-14T13:55:00.000-07:00

My main reason for starting this blog was to try to give an opinion of new media developments that are rooted both in my media industry experience combined with a first hand experience of the media in question. Well it is a testament to the power of Facebook that in just a week I'm truly in a position to give an in depth account of the Facebook experience.

Within 1 week I have done the following

Found over 65 people on Facebook that I consider to be friends - that's actual friends rather than "Friends".

Posted a number of different albums of favourite photos

Found myself tagged on 7 different people's albums

Discussed Facebook etiquette with complete strangers

I could go on, my point is that Facebook is so easy to use and so instantly accessible that in the space of a week it has become part of my daily habits and conversations

This should be a simple hygeine factor, but a number of websites like this in the past have not lived up to early promise. Whether it is glacial upload times, or multiple levels of registration/ complicated programmes to download, there are often two or three too many hurdles to overcome which deter the average user.

Facebook keeps it simple - registration can be as easy as inputting your name, e-mail address and picking a password if that is all you want to do.

So that's getting you registered covered, the really genius thing about Facebook is how it keeps you using it time after time.

By way of introduction, about 3 months ago I registered on MySpace (and my next project will be to go back and explore properly) but once I had done it I simply couldn't work out what to do next. I had a page with a photo on it and that was it. I haven't been back in three months

When I logged onto Facebook though, the difference was remarkable. As soon as I arrived I had three requests already waiting to be my friend, I also got e-mails telling me that friends of mine had pictures of me on their pages - Before I was on Facebook I was on Facebook!! That meant that I instantly had something to do as soon as I arrived, which in turn meant that I very quickly started to build up a base of friends which then meant that I started to get a constant stream of news of things that they were all up to.

And that is the magic of Facebook - it gets it's users to infect each other with the addiction of more usage. Just when you think you're about to get bored of it you get a request for friendship from someone you haven't heard of in ages, but are really chuffed to hear from, or someone puts up a terrible photo of you when you were at school, or invites you to join a campaign to protest against bloc voting in the Eurovision Song Contest. It can be very personal, surprising, intriguing and even emotionally engaging. It's organic and viral in the true sense of the word and unlike a typical "viral" e-mail which will fade away once we've all become immune through exposure, Facebook gets you to keep reinfecting each other with a new strain of the virus.

Finally there is the completely inclusive nature of Facebook - I'm nearly 30 and really thought I was too old for this "social networking" scene, but I get here and find that I'm one of the last of my friends to do so. Making personal connections in this way seems to be a pretty much universal desire and Facebook seems to have the potential to span a wide variety of backgrounds, ages and cultures.

That's it for now on Facebook. Next week I'm going to re-visit MySpace and see if it makes any more sense this time.

Thanks for reading.

Oh the agonising joy of Facebook

2007-05-10T02:08:00.000-07:00

OK, it happened. I said I'd do it and I did, I am after all a man of my word. I finally joined Facebook. I have resisted for a very long time now, but it was all in the name of research after all.

Things I expect to happen next:

Dan will spend approximately 3 hours a day checking his Wall for funny anecdotes etc from people who are his "friends"

Dan will spend approximately another 3 hours a day writing supposedly witty things on other people's Walls in the hope that they might come back and write on mine and make me look popular.

Dan will lose his job when his employers find out that the expensive laptop they bought him has only been used to manage his Facebook account for the past two weeks.

Dan will start to refer to himself in the third person as that's how he is used to writing his Status updates. Hmmmm.

On the plus side, I have really enjoyed catching up with people that I haven't spoken to in ages. My career in media has taken me through a number of different roles and I've made a number of good friends, but I can be quite slack at keeping in touch, and Facebook really has helped me to rectify that.

On the other hand, there are some people who I would quite happily never speak to again, who I have felt obliged to accept as a "friend" just so I didn't hurt their digital feelings.

My biggest gripe is that Facebook is seriously addictive. In my last post I mentioned that I'd noticed a marked similarity between facebook and smoking, although at that time I had only had direct experience of the latter, but now that I can talk from experience I can safely say that I was right. If anything, compared to smoking, Facebook is more addictive and more detrimental to your mental health.

Just like cigarettes, you visit facebook even if you don't really want to, just out of habit.

Just like cigarettes, you can make surprsing new friends when you visit facebook.

Just like cigarettes, it gives you instant social currency with people you would otherwise have nothing in common with.

Just like cigarettes, it makes you smell and turns your teeth yellow. OK, that last one is only true if you spend a bit too long on Facebook, but you get the point.

OK, if you've joined the realms of "the book" (as it was coolly described to me today" then you'll probably know all this already. What I need to do is get to grips with "why?". What is it about Facebook that has made it such a success where previous iterations of this concept (Friendster etc) failed to hit the mainstream in such dramatic fashion?

I've got some ideas, but I think I need to investigate more, so I'll leave that for my next posting.

Till then have fun.

D.

Finally a foray into blogging!!

2007-05-03T07:52:00.000-07:00

Hello all, and by all, I mean the two or three friends that I have forcibly pushed in this direction to read this. Thankyou so much for stopping by.

This particular posting is going to be pretty short; I'd like to say sweet as well, but feel that may be a little presumptious of me. Anyway, all I'm going to do here today is explain my reasons for doing this blog in the first place.

My main reason is that I don't feel that I can comment on the exploding media world(in which I work as a media planner,) unless in some way at least I am part of it, and right now I feel actually quite detached (as a consumer) from the way media is going.

Having once felt like I was close to the leading edge of the digital "revolution" (we got internet at home in 1995 which was pretty early) I feel like things really have overtaken me and although I'm a big fan of the internet, I'm actually very stuck in my online habits.

Yesterday my colleague sitting opposite was involved in a Q&A session with people working for him. This Q&A session was held on Second Life!! I realised at this point that whilst obviously I knew all about Second Life, I had no first hand experience of it whatsoever - How could I comment on these trends if I wasn't experiencing them.

It's not just Second Life. I don't have a profile on MySpace, Bebo, Facebook or any of those community sites which appear to have replaced smoking in terms of both addictiveness and the ability to expand your social network. The furthest I got on digital networking was Friends Reunited.

Anyway, this blog is my first step in rectifying this situation. I've been in countless meetings quoting the "POWER OF THE BLOG" and yet have barely ever read any blogs and have never written one.

So here is my blog. It is going to be an account of me endeavouring to drag myself into the 21st century of media and the weird and wonderful things I encounter on the way. It will probably be of interest only to my nearest and dearest, and to them only because they want to keep me happy, but as much as anything it is an exercise in discovery - if nothing else it might give me a chuckle when I look back at it in a few years.

I hope to write something here about once a week, probably on Monday when I'm procrastinating on my work, so if you haven't gouged out your own eyeballs yet and are of a particularly masochistic tendency then please do come back for updates.

Bye for now

Dan