Written by:
Mihai Moscovici

 

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Business models of the new web

It seems micropayments are the general trend on the web. Early in September, Google announced its micropayments platform that could save the newspaper industry, or to help monetize the all free new/social media. On the other side, there are many local/regional players betting on micropayments. For instance, micropayments.dk is a new initiative in Denmark that already managed to attract on their side some of the biggest national content producers.

Yes, the micropayment system has a huge potential, but there are other solutions that offer new business opportunities and call for innovation. This is one of the perspectives found in a recent study on "Business models of the new web: The economics of content, software and social networks" by Nikita Gazarov. The research paper is about 30 pages, but it's totally worth the reading. Here is a brief summary of the study with its main concepts and statements:

The micropayment problem
There are various payment methods which balance between convenience, security and minimizing technical costs, but ultimately there is a tradeoff between them, and the overall transaction costs are generally too high to use per-article pricing. An obvious solution would be to sell access to bundles of articles... but as the demand for such content is really thin, it's never a significant part of the total revenue.

Links and visitor multiplication
Increased number of visitors means increased number of links which means that the number of visitors is further increased (both via links and searches) (the loop goes on). This effect makes it much more costly, than an oversimplified economic analysis may show, to hide the content behind a paywall. Free content would significantly increase traffic to newspapers' websites, but it would be worthless if it could not be converted into revenue.

Advertising
The fundamental problem with current advertising technology, however, is that it prevents the spread of information. It relies on pageviews and thus restricts the use of content/information to a particular website. However, if the copyright holder had a way to get significant revenue from republishing, it would be in his best interest to allow to republish their content. Actually, it's a solid business opportunity to create an advertising platform that would take the origin of the article into consideration and split the revenue from page-views between the copyright holder, the republishing website and the ad platform.

P.S. Indeed, it's easier to manage and handle a micropayments system, but it's not clear whether it would be good enough to save the newspaper industry. Having a more complex approach, like the one mentioned in the research-paper, could provide an alternative way to capitalize on online content. Anyway, the web is about openness, collaboration and socialization.

Image: feedhenry.com

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Written by:
Mihai Moscovici

 

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How to motivate employees to adopt the new social media

The web is social now. Businesses adopt the social media, people build social networks, and everyone's looking to gain attention, which is not easy at all.

We were looking to find a way to improve Propeople's online presence and decided the best way for a company to adopt the new social media is to motivate its employees to spend more time online and to use the new social media extensively.

Motivation cannot be imposed, and we decided to do it in a fun way. It was the beginning of the summer and we thought it's a good idea to make our Propeople+Twitter t-shirt. We hoped everyone will want a free t-shirt and will submit their twitter user-names to appear on the t-shirt... but we got few responses.

The main problem was our employees did not see the benefit of being on Twitter. Then we published some articles and testimonies from people using Twitter in our monthly internal bulletin and repeated the call. More reactions followed, but we knew there can be more.

The last thing we did was to show employees the useful resources available on Twitter. Everyday, Propeople shares about 10-15 tweets containing extremely useful resources for designers and developers, and there are virtually endless resources shared everyday by other users. This time we had an enormous interest from employees to explore Twitter.

Motivating employees to adopt the new social media is challenging. The real motivation for people is to see the benefit of the new media in their personal and professional life.

The Propeople+Twitter t-shirt is ready and everyone with his name on t-shirt will have one. Follow us on @Propeople.

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Written by:
Mihai Moscovici

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The Ultimate Drupal Showcase

Drupal is a great open-source CMS suitable for virtually any kind of websites. This Ultimate Drupal Showcase contains over 150 Drupal based websites grouped in six major categories: business, media, government, non-profit, university & research and entertainment. Enjoy.

Business
Ubuntu

ConsumerSearch

Nesto

Favorite Things

Sanyo Australia product catalog


Adobe Flex | Ads of the World | AHOLD | AOL Corporate | AOL Developer Network | Approva | Brico Depot | Eclipse Live | FedEx News | Ferguson Photography | Fiberline Composites | Jones of Washington | List Pilot | MIC | MyFineJob | Novell Communities | Previa Sunhed | Propeople | Randstad | SourceForge | Sun Learning Exchange | Wexer | Zappos

Media
MTV UK


Virgin Radio


Indymedia Belgium


Florida Times Union


TV Festival


24 heures | 43 Folders | ABC Family | BusinessLiv | Business Spotlight | Die Zeit Community | Fast Company | Femina | Forbes Office Pranks | France24 | IFRA | InfoWorld | Ketnet | LA2DAY | Lifetime TV | Lime | Mac Geekery | Mother Jones | NowPublic | OStatic | Playboy Germany | P-Magazine | Popular Science | Radio Donna | Radio Netherlands Worldwide | RadioDays 2009 | Red Room | RTBF | Slate France | Studio Brussel | The Brussels Journal | The Industry Standard | The New York Observer | The World | Welt Debatte

Government
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act


French Government


Dutch State Service for Cultural Heritage


Belgium


Mike Bloomberg


Belgian Prime Minister | Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Joëlle Milquet | Christian Democratic and Flemish Party | Federal IT Dashboard | Fredericia C min ide | French Ministry for Health, Youth and Sport | Global Forum on Migration and Development | Green Party of Canada | New York State Senate | New Zealand Government | Only in Belgium

Non-profit
Amnesty International


UN End Poverty Campaign


The Seed Company


Returning Heroes


Linux Foundation


Echoing Green | Electronic Frontier Foundation | English Online | Faith Connections | Fresh Brain | Greenpeace UK | Human Rights Watch | ICANN | Kom op tegen kanker | Open Source Initiative | Oxfam International | Sejourn | Spread Thunderbird | UN Anti-Poverty event | UN World Food Programme | VDAY | Whole Grains Council | Writing Matters

University & Research
Harvard's Science and Engineering Department


University of Calgary


Antwerpen Student Organization


Agenzia Spaziale Italiana


Yahoo! Research


Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University | Google M-Lab | MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory | MIT Media Lab | Nokia Research Center | University of Prince Edward Island

Entertainment
Universal Music


Pink


Miami


Battlefield Heroes


Teen SecondLife


AOK | Avril Lavigne | Beyounce | Bob Dylan | Boekenbeurs | Britney Spears | Flip Kowlier | Francesca Battistelli | FRI | GameZebo | Jennifer Lopez | Led Zeppelin | Metallica | Michael Buble | Michael Jackson | Moby | MotoGP | MyPlay | NHL | Ozzy Osbourne | Pearl Jam | R.E.M Tour | Rock Band | Royal Flemish Philharmonic | Team Sugar | Tipsbladet | Warner Bros Records | XGames Energy

Feel free to add your Drupal based website to this Ultimate Drupal Sites Showcase.

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Written by:
Mihai Moscovici

 

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5 Crucial Elements to Consider When Developing a Corporate Twitter Strategy

Despite the fact Twitter is an easy tool, it is difficult to find the best way to use it for your company's own good. Before diving into the Twittosphere, a company needs to take into account several crucial elements: culture, statistics, public, tone and interaction. Each of these elements is an important foundation to develop a rock solid strategy.

Culture
Culture is a mixture that consists of the country's culture, the product culture and your corporate culture.
The Internet is full of advices and resources for using Twitter to address the North American and Western European countries, but it's a challenge to find your way in a different culture. Moreover, each Twitter community has it's own culture, unwritten rules and authority twitterers.
Needless to say your product will determine people's first reaction when they'll find you're following them on Twitter. More than likely they'll take a look on your website and then will decide whether to follow you back. thus be prepared to present your product in the best light. There is a big difference between selling fashion clothes or web services.
Your corporate culture will pop up in your tweets. Share your corporate values, reveale the atmosphere in the office, tell your followers about your current projects, ask for feedback on different products. Make your corporate culture clear to your followers.

Statistics
Twitter is growing tremendously lately. Millions new accounts opened every month and billions tweets shared daily. Twitter is a huge market, but is it also in your country or region? The truth is there are countries and locations with only a handfull of Twitter users. Despite the Twitter fever, there are a lot of places where people still don't know about Twitter. Use segmented statistics to find out users' trends, behavior patterns, gender, age and location.
A local store in a mountain village somewhere in Spain doesn't need a Twitter account, except there are at least 10-20 villagers on Twitter.

The Public
The public is the core of a Twitter strategy. Target the public that fits your product line. You can follow thousands, but your public will filter itself based on their impression about your company and product or service. In this case, quality is better than quantity.
The public is your treasure and you have to learn to be a value generator for your followers.

Tone
Twitter is a space of personal interaction, very simillar to a face-to-face conversation. Talk on Twitter as you would talk to a real audience: friendly, polite and open.
Once on Twitter there is no way to avoid uncomfortable questions and harsh critique. You'll need to learn to react fast, provide help and solve issues... all of this in 140 characters or less.

Interaction
Somebody was comparing Twitter to a chat. Indeed, Twitter is a platform for near real-time social interaction, thus you'll need to directly interact with your followers. However, sometimes it can get very difficult to quickly respond to your followers' inquires. Even a short answer on Twitter can imply legal issues, bureaucratic procedures, administration approvals, etc. Time is crucial and you need to be ready to face this kind of situations. Make your Twitter procedures work quick and to avoid delays. Your followers will appreciate your timely reaction.

P.S. No doubt there are more important elements to be considered when setting up a Twitter strategy. What elements did you consider when developing your Twitter strategy?

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Written by:
Mihai Moscovici

 

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Community input for your business

In our first post about Twitter we made several important statements about the business opportunities on Twitter. One of the statements said: "Twitter is a space to gain real time feedback and a perfect research tool when it comes to find out customers’ needs and wants." We wanted to experience the potential of Twitter for our business.

Five days ago, we asked our almost 600 followers a simple question "What to-do applications do you use? Would you recommend it to your best friend?" As a full service creative web agency with a busy schedule we wanted to know what are the best to-do lists our employees can use.

We got about a dozen of great recommendations, while the first reply came in only three minutes:
@Uffekoch: "I have tried almost every possible method and app for both win and mac, but I keep going back to good old mindmaps in freemind."
@ppmw: GTDTiddlyWiki Plus, yes I do recommend it. I am also on GTDAgenda and Nozbe but they make limits I don't like
@hansnilsson: "The Hit List, just missing syncing with iPhone, otherwise the best app yet."
@mmartinov: todoist.com totally rocks! ;-)
@tbertram: Omnifocus for mac and iphone they are cool
@jonasmaaloe: nowdothis.com er min hemmelige nødbremse når alt andet fejler. til daglig bruger jeg things til mac (nowdothis.com is my secret thing, when everything else fails. On a everyday basis I use things for mac)
@perusio: My TODO app: Org Mode http://orgmode.org with Remember Mode http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/RememberMode #emacs is required.

In addition to great recommendations, our followers shared some of their oppinions about to-do lists and their utility:
@renejsum:  the perfect TODO app has yet til be invented, for a short while 10 year ago the Palm did the trick...
@ohhansen: @renejsum @uffekoch @propeople I keep thinking that TODO list is more like a guilt list - and what about all that is not on the list?
@Uffekoch: @ohhansen @renenejsum @propeople I agree to an extend, but as David #GTD Allen says: its great to look at a prioritized list of everything on your mind & know you are focusing on the most important, and then be able to say to the rest: you are not it!

In the end, we received a request to share our findings so our followers could benefit too. @ohhansen wrote us: "let me know what you find. I'm currently working on http://veloc.it/y and I want to add something great for #todo management" We love to share with the community and hope these findings will help @ohhansen make a better to do list.

Twitter is a great tool to get people together so they can help eachother. Our followers helped us to identify the best to-do lists, while we shared with them our findings. It's a win-win situation both for us as a company and for our followers on Twitter.

Keep tweeting and follow Propeople on Twitter.

P.S. Special thank you to everyone responding to our inquiries. You're helping us one tweet at a time.

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Mihai Moscovici

 

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Twitter for business

Twitter is the real buzz and the big thing on the web. Just take a look on the facts:  Twitter is ranked as the third largest social networking site more than 700% in 2008 and reached a peak of almost 8 million American visitors in February 2009. Twitter is everywhere and everyone is on Twitter. following Facebook and MySpace, Twitter’s traffic increased.

All these facts testify the success of a three years old web project that is so simple to describe as it really is: a social networking and micro-blogging service that enables users to send and read other users' text-based updates of up to 140 characters in length. Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. In other words, Twitter allows people to interact through messages of 140 characters or less.

Twitter is both simple and sophisticated. It is so simple that even a child can use it, yet sophisticated as a business and marketing tool.

Companies can use Twitter to communicate in real time with their customers. Announce your company’s last news, new products and services, ongoing sales, new openings, job opportunities, as well as to respond to your clients’ inquiries and to build a virtual community of followers and supporters.

Use Twitter to find out what people say about your brand, about your completion, and about everything related to your business. Twitter is a space to gain real time feedback and a perfect research tool when it comes to find out customers’ needs and wants. Ask questions on Twitter and you’ll be amazed how many valuable answers you’ll get.

Being on Twitter will help your business gain a human and personal approach toward your customers. Twitter is a space of personal interaction and socialization. Reach your customers in a simple and personal way, yet don’t forget to have a clear vision and strategy about it. It’s also true anyone can criticize you on Twitter, but you have the opportunity to study the critique and find solutions.

Still hesitating about Twitter? Look for others successful experience on Twitter. Whole Foods Market extensively uses Twitter to inform and interact with its virtual community of 289,217 followers and growing. Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh is using Twitter to regularly tell his 286,339 followers about where he is, what he's doing, and what he's eating and of course, doesn’t forget to promote his business. Use Twitter in your own way by finding your approach in the 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business article proposed by Chris Brogan. Also, don’t forget to explore the web to find useful and innovative uses of Twitter.

Being only three years old and extremely popular, Twitter is far from reaching its peak. Furthermore, there will be lots of new and better opportunities to use Twitter for business. Don’t miss the opportunities Twitter may deliver to you. Start twittering.

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