Apple has been having a field day with its cheeky, funny and smart Get a Mac ads but you have to wonder when Microsoft finally counter-punches. Is this new Apple ad, the final straw?
More: Microsoft recently launched an ad agency review involving a $300-million creative assignment. Apparently, the goal will be to improve Microsoft’s image, and it may be targeted at Apple’s Mac vs. PC campaign.
Technorati Tags: Advertising, Apple, Microsoft
Ever wondered why Canada’s online advertising market is lagging behind the U.S.? eMarketer is puzzled as well, although there are signs of life.
“Canada’s online development has been a paradox, The country has one of the best broadband infrastructures in the world and higher household Internet penetration than the United States. The online population is engaged, tech-savvy and independent-minded. Canada is home to a cutting-edge computer games industry, assisted by substantial tax breaks. The size of the country and its pioneer heritage encourage efficiency and progressive thinking. Yet Canadian companies have generally been slow to advertise online.”
- Karin von Abrams, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report Canada Online Advertising.
Technorati Tags: Canada
For all the speculation about Google launching a browser (aka the GBrowser), what about Facebook doing it?
Is it a crazy, far-fetched idea? Maybe, maybe not. Among other things, Facebook wants to establish itself as a platform for other services and applications. In some ways, that sounds a lot like a browser. Facebook is all about getting people to spend lots of time using it, which is what many people do every day using a browser.
So how could Facebook get into the browser biz. Easy: it could snap up Flock with some of its Microsoft cash. Voila, the FBrowser.
Flock? You mean the browser that wants to be all things to all people? The social browser? Yup, that’s the one.
The idea struck after reading Daily Bits’ mixed review of Flock 1.0. This sentence jumped out at me: “The bits of Flock that shine the brightest are the Facebook sidebar and the browser’s integration with online photo storing sites Flickr and Photobucket.”
Interesting. The social browser meets the social network.
What if Facebook bought Flock, got rid of some of its superfluous features such as the blog editor and RSS reader, enhanced other features such as photo-sharing, and then added some Facebook stuff, including a few popular applications?
You have to think a healthy number of the more than 40 million Facebook users would think about migrating. Let’s say it’s two million or five million. That’s a large group of die-hards to launch a browser business.
I can’t believe Flock would cost much – perhaps a few million dollars; something that’s spare change to Facebook these days. It might even be Flock’s salvation, and give it a chance to live up to the huge hype it once had.
Update: Rick Segal weighs in with some thoughts on Facebook, including the “redefinition” of the word “friend” – something I recently blogged about here. Meanwhile, TechCrunch reports that Facebook is attracting scores of smart Google employees. Maybe some of them have been people working on the GBrowser, who will now focus on the FBrowser.
I was spending some time recently exploring the seemingly bottomless world of WordPress plug-ins – looking for a sidebar widget to showcase most popular posts.
One thing that popped up on a number of sites were requests for donations. They seemed pretty reasonable given that someone had spent the time to develop a plug-in, and wanted to be compensated for their work. In an ideal world, everyone would happily comply by throwing them, let’s say, a buck or two for something they could potentially use for months and months.
Unfortunately, donation and tip boxes across the Web probably gather an awful lot of dust while they patiently waiting for someone to click on them. Right now, the FreeWeb is alive and well in which no one seems willing to pay for anything no matter how valuable or useful it might be. (The exception being high-speed access, which has become a utility).
Few people people are willing to dig into their wallets (or Paypal accounts) for a great Web service or software or content. Instead, we’re counting on advertisers to foot the entire bill.
But what if free started to slowly disappear? What if Google wanted to charge a $1/month for GMail; would you pay it? What if WordPress wanted $2 to download its platform and $0.25 for an update; do you think bloggers who adore WordPress would consider it a worthwhile investment?
While I think the FreeWeb is a short-term gain, long-term pain scenario, it’s not going to disappear for awhile as long as service and content suppliers think they can get their fair share of the advertising pie. At some point, however, something is probably going to give – and we, the consumer, may have to start giving rather than just receiving.
Who knows, maybe the answer is a great micro-payment system – aka a mini-Paypal.
Technorati Tags: Paypal
When I lived in Hong Kong in the early-1990s, it was teeming with North American and European executives on their way to explore business opportunities in China, which had just embraced “social capitalism”. Everywhere you turned, there was a CEO or a senior V.P. bullishly talking about the potential size of the Chinese market, and how if “we could just get 1%….”.
Today, I wonder if the same thing is about to happen when it comes to China’s controversial Web market. With 172 million people online, China has, by far, the world’s largest Internet population so any company looking for a huge potential market will find it difficult to resist.
That said, the number of online players establishing footholds in China has been, at best, modest. Google has a high-profile stake in Baidu and Yahoo owns a chunk of Alibaba, but it’s not like there’s a flurry of investment activity happening.
So, it’s interesting to see Facebook apparently make an $85-million bid to buy Zhanzuo.com, a Chinese social network with seven million users. Given how difficult it can be to operate in China, you might have figured Facebook would have gone deeper into existing markets before establishing a foothold in China. Then again, if Facebook could get “1% of the Chinese market….”
While ripe with potential, China’s online market is also chock-a-block with risk. This is a country that makes no bones about have a giant firewall to block content and keep content from leaving, it conducts active surveillance on Internet users and restricts online activity, and has no problems about closing data centers that knock thousands of Web sites off-line.
While foreign companies have been mostly on the outside looking in, a number of domestic companies (many of them with relatively low profiles outside the country) have become major players. This includes Baidu (search), Sina (portal), Tencent (instant-messaging), Tudou (video), Alibaba (auctions), ctrip (travel), dangdang (books) and Shanda (games). (Hat tip to China Net Player).
I’ve been told that one of the reasons domestic companies have become so large is Chinese consumers favour them over foreign entrants. eBay, for example, is having a tough time in China because consumers prefer Alibabay, while Yahoo struggled before selling Yahoo! China to the Alibaba Group in 2005.
It could very well be that the China’s massive online market have minimal prospects for non-Chinese players, even major players such as Google, eBay, Amazon and Yahoo.
Update: IAC is going to invest $100-million in China, including the launch of Ask.com China. (Nov. 23)
Technorati Tags: Alibaby.com, China, puppy, Zhanzuo.com
It’s hard to believe but the Santa Claus Parade is happening in Toronto today. It’s such a part of our local culture that people were setting up chairs along the parade route three hours before the 11 a.m. start. And if you weren’t already aware the holidays are upon us, the first eight pages of Canadian Tire’s weekly flyer are devoted to outdoor and indoor decorations.
And pretty soon, we’ll start to feel the pressure to start shopping because that’s what the holidays are all about, right?
Maybe this year, it’s time to do something different, something positive, some good. What about spending $399 on the One Laptop Per Child Program? One laptop gets sent to a child in a developing country, while the other one is sent to you. And you get a $200 tax receipt. How cool is that? The give one, get one free offer ends Nov. 26. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
For more, check out Telecom Trends.
Technorati Tags: puppy
