Who Controls the Pipes, Wins

By Mark Evans in ILEC News, Analysis, Media 2 Comments Tags: , , ,

Given some of the recent transactions, convergence has come roaring back after being considered dead in the wake of some disastrous deals earlier this decade. Can anyone say AOL/Time-Warner?

Despite the renewed belief that content and connectivity are a magical pairing, my take is it’s much ado about nothing all over again. At the end of the day, the pipes are much more valuable than content. Why? It’s simple: There are only a limited number of pipes but lots of content. This may live in a 500-channel universe but there’s limited way to access all of this content.

If consumers want content, they need a way to get it, and they are willing to pay higher prices for better, faster, more convenient connections. Look at how broadband prices continue to be increased with nary a whimper from consumers, who are loathe to pay anything for online services, even those they find valuable and useful.

No one talks about it much but he/she who controls the pipes, wins. It’s as simple as that.

There’s at least one person who seems to share my thesis: Rogers Communications CEO Nadir Mohammed, who provided this juicy quote to the Globe & Mail:

“We think there’s a lot of glory in dumb pipes,” he says. This is shortly before he also says, “There’s no such thing as dumb pipes.”

This quote come from the leader of a company which owns large broadband and wireless businesses, as well as radio stations and TV stations, magazines, Web sites and a baseball team.

The sudden need by pipe owners such as Bell Canada and Shaw to own content sounds like the same arguments pipe owners were making a decade ago, and we all know how well that turned out. The difference between then and now is there’s so much more content being created, which has made content is more of a commodity.

Meanwhile, the number of pipes has stayed relatively the same. Sure, there are a few more wireless carriers but it’s not like billions of dollars being poured into building new broadband networks being created. As long as pipes are in short supply, they will remain an extremely valuable asset – much more valuable than content.

The Dangers of Too Much Social Media

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

Last weekend, I went golfing. In fact, I played 27 holes in one day.

I’m not a particularly enthusiastic golfer these days. When I do golf, my interest begins to wanee after about 12 holes. In fact, it’s my opinion that if golf were 12 holes rather than 18, it would probably a more enjoyable sport.

While golf may not be my cup of tea, there was an upside to playing that much golf: it forced me not to think about work. It’s difficult to do when you’re trying to get a tiny white ball into a small hole, while hanging out with friends who want to talk about other things than social media.

Social media can be terribly consuming, particularly if it’s how you make a living. It can be a non-stop, 24/7 world with constant demands on your time, as well as mental and physical energy.

This can make it easy to get a bad case of social media burnout. When it’s all social media all the time, it is difficult to keep going for long periods of time.

This makes getting away from social media so important and necessary. It is just not viable to continually think about, create and consume social media without taking a break – no matter how smart or proficient you are.

While social media burnout doesn’t get a lot of attention, it’s a fact of life. At some point, you will get to a point where the job stops being enjoyable. It becomes work, and the work is all about feeding the machine that doesn’t sleep.

So how can you prevent yourself from social media burnout?

Perhaps the easier thing is walking away from the screen – and not just for a few minutes.

It means doing something that physically and mentally takes you away from tweets, updates, posts, comments and likes. It could be golfing, fishing, reading, spending time with friends and family, playing sports, cooking or going out for dinner.

Whatever you do, it’s not social media – and that’s a good thing.

No matter what anyone tells you, doing or even thinking about one thing most of the time isn’t a healthy way to live. It is not physically or mentally possible to have a full life when a single interest is always front and centre.

Yes, there are people who are happily online all the time but they are anomalies or freaks of nature.

The rest of us need time to do something else…even golfing.

One more thing: walking away from the screen doesn’t mean it’s okay to continually check your smartphone. If you’re doing something else, do something else rather than also doing social media.

The truth is social media will be waiting for you so give it and yourself a break.

(Note: This post originally appeared on the Sysomos blog.)

More Control from Facebook. Really!

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

So, Facebook has some introduced some new tools so you can have better control over how and with whom you share information, as well as a bunch of other goodies.

There’s plenty of other places dissecting the nitty-gritty of Facebook’s announcement but what is perhaps most interesting is how Facebook continues to wrestle with the public-private issue. On one hand, it wants more of its users information to be public so more page can display advertising. Facebook’s advertising business is based on volume, volume and more volume given many clients use a pay-per-click formula.

On the other hand, Facebook has continued to get slapped for trying to make more user information public, which is well deserved for ill-advised moves such as making some personal controls public as the default. It has also forced users to opt out of new features as Places.

What makes today’s announcement intriguing is how Facebook has been forced to continually address the privacy thing. For whatever reason, it just can’t seem to get it right. Maybe it has to do with Mark Zuckerberg’s belief that total transparency is a good thing so why would anyone want to make anything private. The only problem is that not everyone is ready for total transparency – at least not yet.

Maybe Facebook’s new controls will address some of the concerns about the company’s approach to privacy. Maybe it will mean that I won’t be forced to check my privacy setting on a regular basis just to make sure Facebook hasn’t been fiddling around with my settings as part of a “new and improved” privacy policy.

Still, this is probably not the last time we’ll hear about “new controls” from Facebook. Count on it.

Social Media is All About Carrots

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

There’s an awful lot of talk within social media about engagement – the idea that companies can create vibrant and active relationships with consumers.

This happens by having conversations with existing and potential consumers, and providing them with relevant and interesting content that encourages interaction.

And while content, in many ways, is still king, one thing that I have learned over the past few months is the important role played by carrots in getting consumers excited or interested in what a company is doing with social media.

In an ideal world, we would be talking about carrots – the crunchy, nutritional kind loved by rabbits – but in this case, I’m referring to the different incentives that companies must use to convince consumers to participate and participate in an online community beyond simply appealing to their interest in a product or service.

This is why things such as contests have become such an integral part of social media marketing. Offering consumers a “carrot” such as the opportunity to win a prize (and it doesn’t necessarily have to be anything significant), significantly increases the chances of them engaging with your company and brand. If companies can insert some creativity into the mix such as what Dunkin’ Donuts did with its create-the-next-donut contest, so much the better.

The focus on the “carrot” is no different than the off-line world in which incentives have always played a role in getting the attention of consumers. But the carrot’s role within the social media ecosystem has not attracted a lot of attention amid all the focus on the tools and how consumers are embracing them.

At the end of the day, carrots will become a significant of the social media marketing landscape as more companies get into social media. At some point, standing out from the crowd will be increasingly difficult so companies will need an edge to appeal to consumers. It could be terrific content but it could also be carrots.

Someone Save Flickr from Yahoo

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

The Blog Herald had an intriguing post on whether Twitter should buy Flickr.

A bigger and more interesting proposition is whether someone will step up to the plate and wrench Flickr from Yahoo so Flickr can regain its mojo. Despite the fact Flickr has more than five billion images and it has managed to grow despite growing competition from rivals such as Facebook, it is also a reality that Flickr is not a a vibrant player within the social media ecosystem.

While Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs get all the love and attention when it comes to social media, Flickr sits quietly on the sidelines. For many companies exploring social media or expanding their digital footprints, Flickr is an after-thought. It’s a place that could be used to run photos contests, for example, but Flickr offers little else that would make it a must-have part of a social media strategy.

Meanwhile, Facebook has become the place in which users share their photos. Even TwitPic, which Twitter should purchase, has stolen Flickr’s thunder by becoming the tool used by Twitter users to post and highlight their photos.

In some respects, Flickr has gotten the same kind of treatment that Google gave Blogger for far too long after it acquired the popular blogging platform. It has only been in the past couple of years, that Blogger has gone some much-needed love. Since Yahoo bought Flickr in a steal of a deal in 2005, little hasn’t happen at Flickr. Yes, it moved into video but that’s been about it.

Of course, some people could argue that Flickr’s strength is its focus on being a great photo-sharing service but my take is Flickr has so much more potential that isn’t being realized under its ownership by Yahoo.

The big challenge facing anyone interested in Flickr is the price-tag, which could be in the billions of dollars rather than the hundreds of millions. It means there are likely only a handful of players who have the financial muscle to take Flickr away from Yahoo. Another issue is whether Yahoo would have any interest in selling Flickr given that Flickr is an attractive asset that is being used to suppor other Yahoo services.

With the IPO and M&A markets showing signs of life again, maybe the time is right for Flickr to move in a new direction under a new owner(s) or senior management team.

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