Half-Geek

friend fluctuations & management

Not that it really concerns me......but I have noticed that my total number of facebook friends has reduced by one after being quite stagnant for some time.

Given the fact that I have made a concerted effort to organise my facebook friend network using the limited profile feature, I am happy to let my list decline in a sort of organic way. Maybe, like me, some of my more 'distant' friends have realised the error of their ways in allowing some person that you haven't seen in 15 years to see a lot of detail about your present life.

Rather than deleting my more 'distant' friends from my network all together, I decided to allow them to see my limited profile, which includes only the very basics of my profile. No photos, no wall etc....

It took a while to go through and add everyone that I wanted in the limited profile group to the appropriate list under the privacy section of my facebook account. The fact is that the number of people that I want seeing my full profile is actually quite small.

On reflection, I am glad that I have done this as I can now use all the great features of facebook, like photo sharing, without being concerned that Every one I have ever met will see some photos that I don't really want them to see.

Managing my limited profile list moving forward will be a lot easier as any new friend requests include an option to only show the new friend your limited profile.

I'm not good at calling irony. However, is it not ironic that the it takes the most time to manage the friends that you want to socialize with least on facebook?

I have also arrived at a question that I could not find an answer to. Can you determine who has removed you as a friend on facebook without manually going through your friend network and sort of guessing who might have been there and now is not?

instant messaging protocol

Do you have any pet hates about the way that some of your friends use Instant Messaging (IM) services like AIM, Goggle talk or MSN?

I do. It's frustrating the hell out of me lately as Instant Messaging is one of the most simple tools for people to use for communication over the internet, yet I have a number of friends who I believe have some retarded IM practices that seem to have become habitual.

For christ sake people it's simple! I type a message and hit enter, you read it. You type a response and hit enter, then I read. This process is repeated until our conversation ends.

It's almost like IM applications are too simple for those of us in the Gen Y category. I find that the best Instant Messengers (from an 'ease of conversation' perspective) to be either people that are a lot younger than me or a lot older than me. My dad is a great instant messenger, he doesn't read too much into the technology. I type, he types, I type, he types and we say goodbye.

Here are a few tips for the IM retarded:

1 - No novels please

If you are going to type a long winded response, break it up into short chunks and use ........ (dot dot dot) between these short chunks to let me know that you are still typing and that I should expect more text. If you don't do this I end up waiting for ages thinking that you may not want to chat anymore, when you are actually typing something quite important.

2- Stop interrupting

When the IM client software tells me that you are typing, I am going to wait politely for you to finish before I type my response. If we don't both take this approach our order of instant text messages will get mixed up and we both get confused.

3 - Are you really laughing?

We should only going to type LOL (acronym for Laughing out Loud) when we are:

a) actually laughing out loud

or

b) desperately trying to not laugh out loud because we are at work

4 - It's rude to not say goodbye

Man I just had flashbacks of leaving for school each morning as my Mum yelled this at me. My justification for not saying goodbye would often be something stupid such as a distaste for the hand made lunch I had been provided with. If I only knew the value of someone making your lunch for you back then.....I digress.

If you intend to leave our conversation because you want/need to do something else, just let me know. Hell, you could even use a good old fashioned 'good bye'. If you don't do this I will think that our chat is still going.

Conclusion

It's a rant I know. However, surely you too have some pet hates with regards to IM habits that your friends have?
 

branding strategy

Wow, I love this presentation on combining the strategic and creative competencies of your business in order to develop a stronger brand strategy.

Well worth the 162 slides....trust me.....

| View | Upload your own

negative beats positive

Most online marketers can only dream about the massive benefits of having a website like facebook with a global community in excess of 50 million people.

Sites of this nature have the ability to improve their functionality with a very high degree of confidence given the extensive levels of feedback and advice that would be generated by the community itself. Most importantly of all, facebook must be getting enough feedback volume to generate the best customer feedback of all- the negative stuff.

Today I read a post by Dare Obasanjo talking about his discussions with Mark Zuckerberg. Dare got to speak with Mark in person at the recent Oreilly Social Graph Foo Camp. I can only day dream about how cool it would be to discuss the challenges of facebooks site function and usability with the man himself! Interestingly, Dare chose to talk with Mark Zuckerberg about everything that was, in his opinion, wrong with facebook.

Given Dare Obasanjo's reputation, I would suggest that Mark Zuckerberg listened very carefully to his negative feedback and would in fact probably exchange this single conversation for 1 million ego boosting back pats on some facebook forum.

Negative beats positive.....

Just yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine who has launched his own travel based web start-up here in New Zealand. In discussing the progress of his site we talked about conversion rate problems and he mentioned to me how he was almost sick of positive site feedback, he wants some (constructive) negative feedback. Sounds crazy right? Well not really when you think about it.

The thing is that positive site feedback is great for future marketing purposes and your ego, but thats about it. The fact is that you can use it to stick up on your testimonials or 'our happy customers' page, but it's not going to tell you why the other 98% of your site visitors are not taking the action that you want them to take.

The positive feedback tells you what you probably already know whilst negative feedback can potentially tell you what you need to know to make crucial improvements. Web analytics gives you some basics insights into negative feedback- people are leaving your site without doing what you want them to. But you want need to know why they are leaving.

So how do you get that negative feedback? Well for one, sheer volume of traffic will help. I was once told that my first piece of negative feedback on half-geek would be a milestone from an engagement perspective. Typically only 10% of blog comments are negative. So to get negative comments on your blog requires a certain volume of positive comments. The theory is simple:

lots of positive comments = some negative comments = nice level of site engagement

But that's blogging, people who visit blogs are used to engaging and communicating in collaborative online situations. How do you get that same level of engagement that will produce negative feedback on your new commercial e-commerce based start-up?

Competitions and give aways would probably be the most logical way to motivate engagement, but how can you be sure that the negative feedback that you get is legitimate?

Tapping into experts via forums is another way to get great site feedback, however, these experts are not your average customer......you want to know what motivates your average visitor to take that crucial desired action!

Online Chat software is another option to start engaging with your customers in real time, however, this requires an investment in human capital that may not be an option for some start-ups.

The more and more I think about this, the more and more I believe that getting that negative feedback that you need will be in the most part driven by the very foundation of your business strategy and initial strategic research-

providing customers with unique proposition around a product or service that is in demand.

Give your customers what they want at the right price and a portion of those customers will surely be a lot more inclined to engage with your website and potentially provide you with direct feedback, both positive and (hopefully) negative.

Do you value negative feedback? Would you like more negative feedback? Comments please...... ;-)

super targeted facebook ads

Since the launch of facebook business solutions late last year, I have been on the scout for some great examples of how the new 'socially targeted' facebook ads can be utilised effectively, providing ROI figures that convince me that facebook ads should be part of any online media mix that I am responsible for.

To be honest- I'm still looking.

From an ROI perspective, facebook ads are definitely a consideration when it comes to looking at additional channels to exhaust outside of the two core Google offerings (Adwords for search and Adwords for Googles' contextual network or 'Adsense'). I say this because facebook ads can be purchased on a cost per click basis, they have comprehensive online reporting and their network is significant and global.

So, as an option for online advertising, facebook ticks the most important boxes. But how do you actually develop an effective targeting strategy using this new channel. For those of us that cut our teeth in ROI media using Google Adwords, the facebook ad network presents a number of new challenges.

Targeting consumers who are using Googles search network with your paid per click text ad (adword) is a lot more closely related to old school direct marketing techniques such as yellow pages advertising. Targeting customers with a pay per click advertisement on a social network is a different story.

Early results suggest that whilst we can now buy advertisements on facebook in a more desirable way ( pay per click NOT CPM), experts are still struggling to replicate the success of their Adwords campaigns, particularly in the area of the first crucial online media metric- Click through rate (CTR).

Typically, great CTR's can be associated to creative that is as relevant as possible to the target audience. Achieving optimal ad creative and relevancy is reasonably simple in the case of Google adwords. You target a key word or phrase, someone types it in and you make sure your relevant keyword rich text ad pops up in front of them in a satisfactory position. With a facebook ad, however, the targeting becomes more complex.

With facebook social ads we need to re-visit marketing methodologies of the past, the ones that are driven by demographics. You need to know who you should be targeting before you place the ad, a question that is not necessary to answer in the case of Google adwords strategies.

Facebook have certainly identified this fact, which is surely why they offer a polling service as part of their overall business solutions offering. If I were to run a significant cost per click campaign on facebook I would be sure to consider the option of polling my perceived audience in the first instance, just to make sure that my intended audience are in fact who I thought they would be.

Apart from polling, I would also start to look more closely at groups and events networks within facebook. These areas of facebook are less restricted than individual profiles, yet they often give interesting insights into the lives and interests of specific indivduals. A great example of this approach is a recent piece of basic research done by Redeye VC in the USA who (using facebook ads) targeted Yahoo! employees who may be looking for greener pastures......

Have any other half-geek readers had specific experiences (good or bad) with facebok cost per click advertisements?

flickr hard cores: bugger off Bill!

I have resisted the temptation of posting about the potential acquisition of Yahoo! by Microsoft. Articles and posts on this topic are dime a dozen, sprawled all over the internet like Heath Ledger tributes.

I was, however, interested to learn of a new Flickr group running under the title of Microsoft: Keep your evil grubby hands off our flickr! The group is enjoying moderate community growth with close to 3000 members already.

This is a great example of the power that communities now have thanks to web 2.0 technology. As most readers of half-geek will probably know, Flickr is a photo sharing site that is owned by Yahoo! Obviously, should Yahoo actually be acquired by Microsoft, Flickr will be the property of Mr Gates and his mates at Microsoft.

Microsoft have a solid track record of flexing their financial muscles and acquiring successful start-ups and in turn winding them up or effectively ruining them. During the dot com boom, Microsoft would often acquire new web start-ups and shut them down immediately in order to permanently halt their positive progress as a potential Microsoft competitor.

The difference with the potential Microsoft acquisition of Flickr (via Yahoo!) is an element that was non existent in most dot com boom web start-ups........an actively engaged community. You see the value in Flickr is not technology, but the community itself- and it's great to see that this small part of the Flickr community are fully aware of this fact.

A closer look at the discussions amongst the members of this new Flickr group/community reveals threatening topics such as "Alternatives to Flickr" & "Right Microsoft, you can have flickr as long as you meet our demands".

buy iPhone for new zealand in 3 steps

Want to buy an iPhone that will work for you on Vodafones New Zealand network for less than $600NZD? Read on.....

I took delivery of my iPhone back in October last year and since then I have created a specific iPhone category here on half-geek. My post about where not to buy an iPhone has been quite popular, so I figured than in light of this I should probably take another look into the topic only this time from a more positive angle.

So here is my simple 3 step guide on how you can acquire your very own iPhone for the best price and 'adjust' the phone to allow to function perfectly using a vodafone New Zealand SIM Card.

Step 1 - Get your own US address

I decided to get my own US postal address back in 2004 using the myus program. If you are a prolific online shopper, you will have realized by now that there are many small and desirable items (particularly electronic stuff) that can be purchased online in the USA at a fraction of the cost of the same item here in New Zealand. This rule is particularly relevant given the current USD exchange rate.

Set up a merchandise only myus account for $20USD and they will provide you with your very own US postal address. You can keep the address for future purchases at a cost of $7USD per month.

You will use this address as your ship to location when you purchase the iPhone from the apple store (next step). Myus will accept delivery of the phone on your behalf, email to let you know that they have received it and then re-send the iPhone to via DHL (about a 3 day delivery from the Myus head office in Florida.

The best part about the Myus service is the fact that they will ask you what you want the declared value of the item that is being shipped to you to be on the DHL Airwaybill (AWB). It is important that you declare the cost of the goods at a reasonably low value as anything valued at over $400NZD will often be held up at customs- meaning you will pay extra for GST and handling. I mostly chose to put a value of $150 on my parcels that are valued over $400NZD.

Step 2- Buy your iPhone online

This is the easy bit- go to apple.com (not apple.co.nz) and purchase an iPhone using your credit card. At present there is no hack for the new 16G iPhones so I would suggest that you go for the 8GB model. Remember to use your US postal address that you have just acquired as part of step 1.

Note: Don't worry about all the babble on the apple site re: requiring a 2 year AT &T account to permit activation. Your phone will arrive with an AT & T SIM card installed, however, you aren't going to activate the phone using AT & T.

Step 3- Unlock your iPhone

So your iPhone has shown up and you want to start using it! Before you do anything like trying to turn it on, you should be well advanced in your understanding of how the phone will be unlocked. The best and cheapest way (free) to unlock your iphone is using the information provided on modmyiPhone.

There are a number of important factors that will determine the method that will be required for you to unlock your specific phone. The most important of these is probably the version of Iphone firmware that your new phone is running (1.01, 1.02 or 1.03). ModmyIphone has the latest and best information on how to unlock phones running any of these versions of the firmware.

Basically the older the version of the firmware your phone is running, the more tried and tested and simplified the hack will be. In saying this, each firmware upgrade does include small improvements to the phone, so some may argue that having a later version of the firmware is better value.

In any case, you can always upgrade your unlocked iPhone to the new version of the firmware. This is done by 'virginizing' your iPhone and then going through the complete hack process again.

If you can be assured that your iPhone is running either the 1.02 or 1.01 firmware version you may also want to consider going for the very low hassle approach of buying an iPhone sim free license. One of these bad boys will set you back about 100 bucks and thus blows the $600 NZD budget.

$$ COSTS $$

8GB iPhone $399 USD (aprox $510NZD)

myus postal address $20 USD + $7USD ( aprox $35NZD)

DHL shipping costs using myus - $50NZD

TOTAL - $595 NZD

google print ad barcodes

Last week I was reading some interesting stuff about Google Print Ad barcodes. Google believe that "technology can revolutionize traditional print advertising and make it even more useful for readers".

Google's plans to make print advertising more measurable by essentially converging 'old school' print media with the internet. Thanks to modern mobile phone technology, this can be achieved by using a mobile phone camera to snap an image of a barcode (see image above and left as an example) on the print advertisement which will in turn trigger your internet capable mobile phone to visit a specific URL.

Finally those shitty little mobile phone cameras we all have can be put to use, rather than being a gimmick that is fun to play with for a couple of hours after the phone is broken out of it's wrapper ;-)

Given the fact that I hail from a yellow pages back ground (in my early direct marketing days), I hold a certain level of interest in the future of print advertising. The general consensus amongst genuine online marketers of New Zealand has been that print ads have just been too expensive, not completely in-effective, just too expensive.

This assessment is made when we compare the costs and return of the tactic with the cost of acquiring and converting a customer using tactics such as Google Adwords to drive traffic to a website that converts a customer into taking a specific action such as a transaction.

If this barcoding print ad technology reaches it's potential and is adopted on an international basis, marketers should be able to measure the ROI driven from a print advertisement in the same way that we measure ROI from a text based Google search ad at the moment.

Similar methodology can then be applied to the investments that are made in print advertising and what we should see is a new era where clients control the cost of print advertisements in the same way that they now control the costs of paid placement search advertisements like adwords.

Whilst the idea of this new era of print advertising seems quite mind blowing, the technology that Google propose to maker it happen is not. A quick search on this topic will lead you to CueCat. These guys seem to have been a little ahead of their time?

I am not surprised that it will take the immense power that really only Google has to force such a huge change in the way that print advertising is valued, measured and sold.

Digital convergence marches on........