“We see things as we are, not as they are…” Isaac Asmiov
BBC NEWS | Technology | Net phoning starts to win friends
A Skype survey said:
Almost half of those questioned said they knew that they could make cheap phone calls via the net using so-called voice over IP (Voip) technology.
Other operators are also looking to reduce prices and encourage consumers onto VoIP.
A sea change? or is this purely a cost driven exercise? If so why are Telcos not responding in other ways?
Communities Dominate Brands: Don’t feed the lions?
Tomi highlights some great examples of engagement marketing using mobile phones from Alexey Chuikin of Admarplus ie Plastic Media of Moscow.
The Moscow Zoo. Like all zoos around the world they had signs at all the cages to the animals saying “please do not feed”. Don’t feed the monkeys, don’t feed the lions, don’t feed the tigers, etc. That is so typical of our society, with signs everywhere telling us what we are not allowed to do. No longer. If you visit the Moscow zoo, today you see signs saying “if you want to feed this lion, send an SMS text message to..” and you will be charged a premium text message fee.
And:
[The WWF started] a campaign to plant trees in Russia. The payment was again via premium SMS text messaging, and as a further gimmick, each participant received a picture as a return message, of the kind of tree they had helped plant.
As Tomi suggests, some fantastic ideas that can be used by companies with limited budgets to generate addition revenue streams, whilst engaging wholeheartedly with their customers.
Via David Isenburgisen.blog
Doug Mohoney writes:
Verso Technologies (www.verso.com) announced the rollout of a “carrier-grade applications filter” that can block so-called bandwidth drains such as Skype, P2P messaging, streaming media, and instant messaging.
So I pay for the service but I can’t use what I want over it? Good call Verso. I know of at least one other provider who was considering this; they may well still be. I hope they don’t go down this route…
As David suggests:
Clearly the best network is one that has no users and supports no apps
BBC NEWS | Technology | US broadband take-up slows down
A little surprisingly US broadband penetration slowed in the last year:
broadband take-up has grown by just 3% in the last year.
Of the 67% of Americans online, 53% of them are now online via a broadband connection.
The remaining half are going to be harder to convert thinks report author John Horrigan.
“There are fewer people hankering for high speed now and that means less pent-up demand for broadband,” he said.
Reading the article I can see why it would slow down, but it doesn’t augur well for the UK market which seems to follow the US by about year to 18 months.
The digital divide mentioned in the article can only get worse, as more organisations seek to put things online and not offer via other means. Personally I haven’t been convinced by government backed programmes to increase penetration or support less well off.
Perfect Path: Our Social World sampler
Lloyd has put up a sampler of video from Our Social World conference.
Haven’t looked at it yet but I’m sure its worth a view, to gain a flavour for the event. I was disappointed with the conference myself but I recognise that it would have had value for others.
Just listened to Lloyd’s lunchtime podcast from OSW which shows an interesting selection* of viewpoints about the whole conference. I think it would have been really useful to have had these views expressed at the conference itself. Could have given us all something to talk about, which may have led on to more interesting questions.
In fact the whole idea of dialogue, rather than discussion would have proved extremely useful.
*except for this strange person called Paul in the middle
I’ve been keeping a watching eye on Inifinty Games, primarily because I used them as a customer and then noticed that they had produced an RSS feed for new releases. Soon after they added a blog.
First few postings were a bit disappointing but recently they have started to expand into games reviews, an introduction to board games and an interview with a new games company owner / designer. This in addition to providing news updates on what’s going on at Infinity.
Its quite a niche area and you may argue quite geeky but the principle of utilising a blog to add value to your site, your customers and ultimately your business is there. They don’t have A list bloggers like Hugh promoting them, but they are using the same model that he has helped develop for English Cut and Stormhoek.
Be very interested to talk them regarding its success.
Lloyd provides excellent coverage of the podcasting conference in London. Fascinating insight into a variety of different factors within the podcast scene.
Personally found the overview of Milverton Wallace’s talk very informative. I have been trying to encourage my wife to use this with her infant class. Must point her at this.
As an ex-teacher it always fascinates me how people learn and perhaps more importantly how people learn outside of conventional approaches. This type of approach would have been excellent for the type of Open and felxible learning that I wished to advocate, particularly if you could mix and match topics that interest you whilst still gaining a good coverage of curriculum areas.
feedback loop does seem to be an issue but I am sure it could be overcome.I know I always learn more explaining something to other people - firstly becuase it clarifies it for me and secondly because they always have a different perspective and ask the questions I’ve missed - fascinating to do this via podcasts or comments around a lecture. An informal seminar. Brilliant.
Think I should try this…
Lloyd provides excellent coverage of the podcasting conference in London. Fascinating insight into a variety of different factors within the podcast scene.
Personally found the overview of Milverton Wallace’s talk very informative. I have been trying to encourage my wife to use this with her infant class. Must point her at this.
As an ex-teacher it always fascinates me how people learn and perhaps more importantly how people learn outside of conventional approaches. This type of approach would have been excellent for the type of Open and felxible learning that I wished to advocate, particularly if you could mix and match topics that interest you whilst still gaining a good coverage of curriculum areas.
feedback loop does seem to be an issue but I am sure it could be overcome.I know I always learn more explaining something to other people - firstly becuase it clarifies it for me and secondly because they always have a different perspective and ask the questions I’ve missed - fascinating to do this via podcasts or comments around a lecture. An informal seminar. Brilliant.
Think I should try this…
Note to self:
Tom Coates demo’d phonetag system for Radio shows at OurSocialWorld and comments on his blog (cool piece of work v.impressed).
James gets to emphasise how business, particularly PR are beginning to engage with blogging through search tools and Collaborate Marketing Services.
Can the two approaches - be combined to search folksonomies for blogs and perhaps more importantly podcasts and video logs?
There is probably something doing this already, but the idea of providing meta-data on such media must be very powerful.
Thinking about it someone at Headshift or the BBC is probably working on it as I type.
Happened to be purusing the Guardian Jobs section:
Publicity Co-ordinator
Surrey County Council
Surrey
£23,118
You are particularly interested in new media from web communications to pod casting. We need someone who will contribute creatively to the development of publicity campaigns.
Forward thinking lot at Kingston, or perhaps someone just read the term in the Guardian?
Sounds like a good job…
(NB you have to imagine the Prince song being played in the back ground as you read)
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