Archives for posts with tag: bbc

Social Media – Making us all a bit less sociable

January 14, 2009 //
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I read a worrying post on the BBC the other day which discussed the evolution of social media and how it spanned the age demographics.  The author described a scene in his house on Christmas day in the living room.  With the TV showing the Christmas special of choice, for the family you had dad (the author) sat on an arm chair laptop on lap, twittering and blogging away.  Mum, similarly adding comments to her forum of choice whilst checking her news feeds for updates and the two children, iPod Touch in hand, using Facebook and messenger to chat with friends and engage with their own private networks.

Now I’m as big a geek as the next man.  I love finding the latest social tool to have a play around with.  I Twitter, use messenger, have a Facebook and a MySpace account (although the latter as been redundant for a long time).  But the thought of a family sat around on Christmas day silently tapping away on iPods and laptops depressed me slightly.

I don’t think I’m being too old fashioned when I say that Christmas should involve spending time with the family and actually engaging in some form of non-digital communication!  And it is not just in this scenario I see this happening, the workplace is just the same.  People emailing and messaging colleagues a question when they are sitting on desks less than 5 yards apart.

It seems strange that the ability to engage and communicate with people thousands of miles away means we communicate less with those closest to home.  Is this the way of the future?  Digital chat and social media replacing old fashioned speech and face to face engagement?

I sincerely hope not.  As much as I love using online social media tools I’m also rather fond of meeting and speaking to people face to face.  I have technophobe friends who refuse to have a Facebook account or personal email address giving the response, “If I want to speak to someone Ill just ring them.”  Whilst I am not going to go to that level of extreme as I see the benefits of social media tools away from connecting with friends, I hope for all our sake that the picture painted by the BBC reporter is not a sign of things to come.

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Categories Social Media

Social Media Wins Barack Obama US Election

November 5, 2008 //
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OK, so maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but it may well have contributed.  Whilst reading through the news surrounding Obama’s historical victory this morning on the BBC website I found links to both candidates own campaign websites.  So I had a quick look over the websites out of interest and to see how the different campaigners were utilising an online presence in their bid for the white house.

Both websites contain a blog (although McCains doesn’t load very well) but the striking difference on Barack Obama’s is that he has utilised social media elements to allow tagging and sharing of the website content and individual posts.  He also provides links to his various official social networking pages including facebook, linked in, myspace, twitter, flickr, youtube and many more.

This shows a candidate who is using all the modern day tools which are at his disposal to good effect and potentially shows a new approach to political campaigning which we will see come to the fore in forthcoming elections.  It might not have been the main reason he was elected, but it at least shows that the power of social media is reaching out past its usual boundaries and more into the mainstream.


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Categories Social Media

The Battle for US Presidency Enters the Digital Age!

October 17, 2008 //
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The battle to become arguably the most powerful man on earth has entered the digital age this time around as both candidates for the US presidency look to utilise digital channels to gain votes in the election race.  The BBC reports how both Barack Obama and John McCain have used the web as a medium for the election campaigns.  Both candidates have used the power of YouTube to broadcast debates and speeches from their campaign creating their own channels with Obama going as far as integrating Google checkout for charitable donations! Barackobamadotcom johnmccaindotcom

Barack Obama has even gone as far as using in game advertising to try and reach the youth audience taking out ads in 18 video games including Guitar Hero, Burnout Paradise and Madden 09!  The ads were to promote his website, vote for change, and are an openly stated as an attempt to “reach young males 18-34″.  How successful these campaigns are remains to be seen, I suspect YouTube is a far more useful medium than Guitar Hero!  I can’t say that I’m concentrating on anything more than rocking out the next big riff and thrilling the crowd with some smoking solos! But maybe that’s just me!

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Categories In Game Advertising, Online Video

BBC iPlayer leads the way in on demand online

March 6, 2008 //
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BBC’s iPlayer service is wiping the floor with its rivals in the on demand TV market recording up to 500,000 programme downloads a day. 11m TV shows were streamed or downloaded through iPlayer in January in comparison to 2.7m for channel 4′s system 4od and 2m for ITV. The massive amounts of advertising dollars spent promoting the service have no doubt prompted its dominance but will also have given the on demand market as a whole a boost as people become more aware that you can watch your favourite shows from your laptop at any time of the day and night.

The opportunity and issue now facing BBC iPlayer is how to monetise this growing service without annoying its users. Advertising in online video files has been debated far and wide and yet the most appropriate format is yet to be decided upon. Pre-roll, post-roll and overlay are the main considerations with the option of mid roll placements as well but all interfere with the user experience in some way. The key is to strike a balance between the exposure of the ad and the interference with the viewing.

Youtube are still to achieve this and at a recent seminar they were still asking the advertisers what their preference would be for the ads. Youtube have gone with an overlay style ad for in video but admitted trialling preroll and post roll with both showing negative results. I wonder whether the BBC will be able to crack the code?

Service

Unique streams Dec 2007

1

YouTube.com

20,207,947

2

BBC sites

5,129,442

3

ITV sites

1,727,567

4

Channel4.com

769,927

Total Internet

28,686,485
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Categories Digital Marketing