Archive of thenextweb.com
Written on 15th December 2008
3 COMMENTS 
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
The Influential Marketing Blog wants us to consider a piece of data that leads a new Forrester Research report (register to download): only one in six consumers (just 16%) trust company blogs. In other words, 84% of corporate blogs today probably suck.
I’m not surprised, most corporate blog I stumble upon are blogs without a soul, but with press releases. Moreover, the pieces of personal PR are often isolated, living a life within the .com domain of the company. No outgoing trackbacks, social media presence, or articles about phenomena outside the safe haven of the offices.
Therefore, Forrester Research argues that a blog has to be part of a larger social media strategy. Teach a PR person the fine art of community management 2.0. Give him a free pass for Twittering, Digging, Stumbling, and blogging all the day. Read Naked Conversations, for crying out loud.
Oh, and don’t forget to have a look at some fine examples. Quintura from Russia (read the story behind it here) and Digital Nomads by Dell (another story here).
Read more:
Written on 4th September 2008
7 COMMENTS
Ayelet Noff, Next Web WebTipr Israel
ReadWriteWeb recently published the results of a one year follow up on a study of social media adoption at 500 of the fastest growing companies in the US done by The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. According to results:
“familiarity with and use of blogs, podcasting, wikis, online video and social networking has skyrocketed in 2008 to nearly double what it was in 2007. 77% of respondents now report at least some use of a social media tool in their business.”
Here are some more interesting stats for you taken from Robin Good’s blog:
1) 39% of these 500 companies are blogging currently – a 20% increase since 2007.
2) The social media that was most familiar to companies both in 2007 and 2008 was social networks. However 57% claim to be “very familiar with it” this year as opposed to 42% in 2007.
3) Familiarity with wikis jumped ahead of podcasting this year.
4) Even though podcasting was found to be the least familiar media this year, it still has a 21% adoption rate.
5) Adoption of all six forms of social media is rapidly growing. An astounding 77% of these companies report usage of at least some social media tool.
6) 44% of respondents in this year’s study feel that social media is “very important” to their business and marketing strategy as opposed to only 26% in 2007. We can see that companies are truly beginning to understand the importance of social media to their business strategy and goals.
Here’s the early majority
Given these figures, it is obvious that social media is no longer only familiar to and used by early adaptors. America’s fastest growing companies are turning to social media because they understand that by using these tools they will they be able to achieve success in today’s online world.
In related studies, Universal McCann found that half of adults in the US now use some form of social media online and the April prediction from Forrester Research is that “Enterprise 2.0″ will become a $4.6 billion industry over the next 5 years.
So my question to you is: Are you incorporating these tools yet in your business strategy?
Written on 20th August 2008
4 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
29 percent of Internet users have purchased something they were pointed to via spam, according to a study by Marshal. Not surprisingly, the most commonly purchased items include Viagra and porn, but also software, and luxury items such as watches, jewelery and clothing – the counterfeit type.
622 visitors of the Marshal site took a poll, which asked ‘What purchases have you made from spam?’. Quite a tendentious question if you’d ask me. ‘Have you made purchases from spam?’, would have been a more balanced question.
Anyway, a similar poll from Forrester Research from 2004 showed that out of 6,000 respondents, 20 percent had made purchases from spam. So the problem is getting worse. A reason for this could be that Internet users have gotten more used to making online purchases. Or that spam has become more sophisticated (in a negative way), like blog spam.
If taken seriously, this study shows that spam is a matter of supply and demand. “The poll highlights an inconvenient truth,” said Marshal’s Vice-President of Products, Bradley Anstis. “Many of us often question ourselves, why is there so much spam? The answer is, enough people are purchasing products from spam to make it a worthwhile and profitable endeavor for spammers.”
Marshal’s Website poll indicates that the number of respondents who admitted to making a purchase through spam have made multiple purchases; on average, more than two different types of purchase per person. This supports the conclusion that those who buy from spam make a habit of it. My guess is that people buy stuff via spam which they wouldn’t dare to buy in public.
So spam turns out to be a rather booming business. No wonder the number of spam emails already make up for 85 percent of all email traffic. Anstis: “There are approximately 250 million people out there who are interested in these kinds of products and have made purchases from spam in the past. That’s equivalent to double the population of Japan mixed in with every other Internet user. As a spammer – how do you reach that market without knowing specifically who these people are and with the bare minimum of expense? Easy, send lots of emails to everyone.”
Written on 23rd April 2008
12 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
During the “Short Attention Span Theater: The Birth of Microblogging & Micromedia” Web 2.0 Expo session, attendees were able to ask questions by sending a Twitter message to @micromedia2. As you can imagine, updates like “the man next to me smells a bit” and “Thank god Scoble isn’t in the room..” appeared on the two screens. Yet some folks of the audience managed to influence the topics Gregarious Narain (Blue Whale Labs), Jeremiah Owyang (Forrester Research), Stowe Boyd and Brian Solis discussed. They asked for some business insights, and they got it. So gentlemen, how CAN we use Twitter for business?
Brian Solis praised Dell. The computer company follows the Twitter conversations by using Tweetscan and reacts when (potential) customers ask questions or complain about the Dell products. Forrester research does the same thing. “We listen to what people are saying and usually engage in the conversation when we notice one. Other companies like Jetblue, Marketingprofs, Zappos and Comcast do the same thing”, Owyang said. “That’s the immediate benefit”, Boyd said, “Yet the big picture here is that streaming services like Twitter are potentially very big for enterprises. People can follow projects or other companies by having things streamed to them. They don’t have to look it up anymore”.
But what if companies don’t keep an eye on Twittter, like the majority does now. What will they loose? Solis: “The conversations will take place anyway. With or without you. And hopefully, the Twitter conversations might become even more more substantial. When you ignore questions then, especially the one full of hate, you leave the answers to other people.”
Stowe Boyd pitched a pitch concept of his own: TwitPitch. The amount of emails from start-ups who wanted his attention drove Boyd mad, so he came up with a short ‘n’ sweet Twitter format. Now start-ups can pitch to Boyd with one update. That saves him time, and he actually noticed some good ones which he then retweets. “It’s very interesting, the whole pitching process is now in the open discourse. Followers are getting to see the pitches, it’s more of a performance now. We took pitching out of the smoky black room that is email”.
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