How Are Canada’s New Wireless Players Doing?

By Mark Evans in Wireless No Comments Tags: , , , , ,

Looking at Rogers Communications’ third-quarter results, the “new competitive reality” (aka new low-cost wireless rivals such as Wind, Public Mobile and Mobilicity) is starting to have an impact on Rogers’ profits.

Faced with the reality that consumers now have more choices, Rogers has been forced to lower its prices, cough up better deals to existing customers who threaten to leave, and launch a low-cost wireless service of its own, Chattr. This may be bad news for Rogers but it’s good news for consumers who are paying some of the highest wireless prices in the world.

Amid the doom and gloom about Rogers, there’s one key metric missing: Other than the fact Rogers is being forced to play nice, how many consumers are actually signing up with Wind, Public Mobile and Mobilicity? Is the competition winning lots of business or simply forcing the incumbents to offer sweeter deals?

There has been little subscriber information from the new players other than a press release by Wind in August that it had “welcomed over 100,000 customers in our first two quarters”. You need to figure out what “welcomed” means before getting too excited. Does this mean subscribers? Does it mean people who asked for information about what Wind is offering?

As much as it may be easy to dismiss Wind, et al, one lesson I learned an important lesson a few years ago that a a lot of business can happen without a lot of horn-blowing. I went to a Virgin Mobile event a few years ago, and told their PR person that I was going to guess how many customers they had. I wrote “25,000″ on my hand, and then showed it to her. Much to my surprise, Virgin had 250,000. When Virgin sold its stake to Bell, there were more than one million subscribers.

For all we know, the new players could have lots of customers or very few customers. As privately-owned companies, they don’t have to disclose any information unless it’s to their advantage. At some point, they may have to tip their cards to demonstrate to analysts and consumers they have enough traction to become viable and long-term players. But I think until they get a healthy amount of subscribers, don’t expect to hear any updates.

A Daunting Visit to the Apple Store

By Mark Evans in Apple/iPod No Comments Tags: , ,

I was in New York City last weekend to take in the sites. While my companions were more interested in shopping and tourist attractions, my interest was checking out the flagship Apple store on 5th Ave. Ironically, this toy store for adults is located right beside FAO Schwartz, the multi-story toy store for children.

First, the Apple store isn’t really a store but a beacon for anyone who is part of the Mac Nation or aspires to be part of the Mac Nation. With a large cube sitting atop the subterranean store, the store is impossible to not notice.

Getting into the store is an adventure as you carefully walk down a spiral staircase while a steady stream of people head up the stairs. Once arriving at the bottom, you arrive in a large room that is teeming with people. It is difficult to know where to start given there are people everywhere. This makes it difficult to tell where anything is located.

If you want to actually buy something, which seems like a major challenge, you need to literally tackle one of the Apple Geniuses and tell them exactly what you want to purchase.

It goes without saying that going to the Apple store is a fascinating experience.

It’s fascinating to see so much enthusiasm for a company seen as dead that long ago. It’s fascinating to encounter so much consumer frenzy at a time when the economy is still volatile and the prospects are, at best, uncertain. It’s just fascinating to see first-hand how Apple has captured the imagination of consumers.

And perhaps what is most fascinating is not so much the coolness of Apple’s products the way that the company and the brand have been embraced as a lifestyle, a fashion statement and a form of self identity. It is something that crosses gender and demographics. The Apple store had children playing on iMacs, hipsters checking out the new 11″ Mac Air, and older people looking at iPads and iPhones.

This is perhaps the most striking part of the Apple “wave” in that it’s a long way from its roots as a computer for geeks. Apple has become everyone’s company or, at least, the company that makes products that people aspire to have.

The Downsides and Dangers of Geo-Location

By Mark Evans in Social Media 2 Comments Tags: , , ,

A couple of weeks ago, I did a lengthy interview with a reporter doing a story on geo-location. The angle was how geo-location services was the next, big thing but it was easy to tell my answers weren’t what she was seeking because my focus was how people need to be aware of the negatives of broadcasting your location.

Perhaps it’s my personal approach or my demographics but the idea of broadcasting my location has never captured my imagination. I just don’t see enough benefits to surrender one of the few remaining bastions of personal privacy. When I hear “check-in”, it conjures up images of George Orwell’s “1984″.

It does make me wonder whether I’m on the outside looking in given the tremendous willingness to share anything and everything via social media services. Foursquare may have two million users but you have to ask who are these people and why are they so enthusiastic about telling the world where they are.

Sure, Foursquare awards badges so there is a gaming element, and the tips can offer some information about different locations. But is there really an upside to broadcasting your location so friends and family can possibly meet you at that spot. Isn’t that what phone calls, e-mail or text-messaging accomplishes?

While geo-location has tremendous potential, Foursquare is simply a small, initial step that could be looked back upon with “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time”. It could be that broadcasting your location is the wrong use of the technology.

The right services may be those in which you provide your location on a when-needed base to get information at the right time and place. For example, Yelp’s iPhone app is a great way to find nearby restaurants, stores, etc. so I have no problem telling Yelp where I’m located when required.

This explains why I rarely use Foursquare, although I do feel some obligation given part of my consulting business is social media strategy. It is hard to provide clients with advice either way without knowing what the services offers. While I’m active on social media and share a lot of information, it’s mostly professional, and rarely about who I’m meeting or where I’m located because it’s something that needs to be shared.

Meanwhile, there are many people in my digital circles who are enthusiastic Foursquare users. They broadcast their locations on a regular basis so I know only know what they’re doing and thinking but where they are located. To be honest, it feels like too much information.

The inspiration for this post was a blog post by Ari Herzog on why he deleted his Foursquare account. He talks about a couple of people who had some troubling experiences with Foursquare after recognizing people they didn’t know had lots of information about them.

Herzog’s decision may be drastic or an anomaly but it doesn’t surprise me. My sense is the geo-location pendulum swung way to far in one direction because of the novelty, and that it’s now going to swing back when more people start to realize there is a downside to broadcasting your location.

Using these services isn’t like sharing links about interesting blog posts or newspaper articles, which may provide people with a sense of your interests or thoughts; geo-location provides information about your location, personal habits and activities. They can provide a detailed snapshot of how you’re living your life – something you may want to think twice about.

Forget Foursquare, Yelp’s Where It’s At

By Mark Evans in Social Media 1 Comment Tags: , , ,

As you might have discovered in previous posts, I’m not a big Foursquare fan.

My lack of enthusiasm has much to do with the fact it doesn’t seem to provided much value other than the “thrill” of getting badges. TThat’s not enough to go through the trouble of broadcasting my location. Granted, Foursquare appears to be getting better as it makes deals with content players and corporate partners but I still don’t see enough “meat”.

A service that has a lot more appeal while offering many of the same features as Foursquare is Yelp. Until recently, I hadn’t been much of a Yelp user but the more I user it, the more value delivers. For example, I’m visiting New York this weekend and despite doing some research, I’m unprepared when it comes to knowing where to go and what to eat.

This is where Yelp comes into play, particularly when using the iPhone app. By using the search or nearby features, Yelp makes it easy to find places to eat, visit, drink, have coffee, banks, etc. There’s also reviews from users, and, get this, the ability to check in when visiting places.

The biggest challenge facing Foursquare is it needs to move into places where there’s already strong competition. The fact Foursquare has built its foothold on being able the check-in may not be enough of a differentiator to fend off players such as Yelp, Facebook and Google that are moving into the location-based market.

Foursquare’s growing popularity has always been puzzling to me because the original value proposition was so one-dimensional. And despite Foursquare’s continued growth, the reality is it still doesn’t have the traction that everyone expected when it burst onto the scene.

To me Foursquare feels like a lot like Friendster, which had its day in the sun before becoming a second-tier social network.

Facebook Should Give Up on Privacy

By Mark Evans in Social Media 5 Comments Tags: , , ,

After watching Facebook make so many missteps when it comes to privacy over the past couple of years, including how some leading game developers passed along user data to marketers, I’ve come to the conclusion it should just throw in the towel.

Forget about tweaking privacy settings so they’re easier to control, manipulate, configure or understand. Forget about having to worry if new services make more personal data public so that search engines can discover it so Facebook can serve up more pages to display more ads. Forget privacy settings altogether.

Facebook should just make everything public. Anything you post, share, like, comment on or message would be public data, available to anyone. It would make Facebook’s job so much easier not having to worry about pesky issues such as privacy. And it’s what Mark Zuckerberg really wants to create a more transparent, open world.

If Facebook went completely public, life would be easier for everyone. First, we’d all know the rules. There would be no ambiguities, no confusion, no surprises. Anything posted on Facebook would be public, making it even social because there’s nothing like sharing everything with 500 million of your closest friends…or friends of friends.

For Facebook, privacy is a headache so let’s turf it. Right now, Facebook wants to eat its cake and have it too when it comes to privacy. It wants to make a lot of data public to drive its business needs but, at the same time, it needs to meet the needs of consumers who want the ability to make some or most of their information private.

Perhaps the solution is a new service called Facebook Private. On FBP, everything is private other than what your friends can see. There’s no worry about privacy settings because anyone you decide to let into your FBP network would have access, putting the onus the user to be selective about who let in to their inner circle.

With FBP launched, Facebook could then make the old Facebook completely public because users would have a clear about what service best fit their needs. At the end of the day, everyone would be much happier.

Does this make sense or what?

Could Facebook Become MySpace One Day?

By Mark Evans in Social Media No Comments Tags: , ,

If there’s anything constant on the Web, it’s change.

New technologies emerge, new services are developed, people use the Web in different ways, and companies come and go, even those with strong brands and lots of users. Who could have imagined a few years ago that MySpace would become a second-class social network, or that Digg would become irrelevant, or that AOL would no longer be a dominant online player.

And despite Facebook’s dominance, the fact of the matter is it is as vulnerable to change as any online service. Sure, Facebook seems so embedded, it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine it not being omnipotent but as quickly as some services jump into the spotlight, they can disappear.

One of Facebook’s biggest dangers could be its emergence as a corporate marketing platform. As more companies establish Facebook Pages, Facebook is, in some respects, moving away from its social network roots. Facebook Pages aren’t really social networks but marketing vehicles that let consumers have some sort of engagement. As much as brands want to think of themselves as social, can anyone really be social with a company or a brand.

Another reality is how people want to use the Web changes. While Facebook is seen as a way to stay in touch with and communicate with friends and family, there will be new players that may resonate with consumers in different and better ways. It could be that people get tired of Facebook after spending so much time with it.

This may explain why Facebook is pushing so aggressively into new areas such as phone service, wireless and location-based services because it believes that its users need new, shiny toys to stay engaged. The worst thing Facebook could do is become fat and happy. The risk, however, is that Facebook attempts to become so many things to so many people is it becomes confusing, cluttered and unfocused.

You may be saying to yourself that Facebook is too large to lose its position as the top dog. That may be true but nothing is guaranteed online.

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