If someone needed a solid proof that new media is the king, Econsultancy gathered more statistics about social media services. The fact that facebook is the 4th largest country in the world is already known, but I was blown away from the fact #5:
It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners. Terrestrial TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users. The internet took four years to reach 50 million people… In less than nine months, Facebook added 100 million users.
Just 4 years to reach 50,000,000 users (now there are some 1,200,000,000 global users), and in only 9 months facebook rounded up 100,000,000 new users. Unbelievable numbers!
Between those public stats lie some corporate stats as well, that emphasis the importance of new media and the impact it has on businesses, regardless of industry:
80% of companies use, (or are planning to use), LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees during the course of this year. The site has just celebrated reaching their 45-millionth membership.
So yes, if you just landed on Earth, don’t waste your time and money buying 50″ LCD – get a laptop or netbook and start working the web.
Watching this video over at Jon Burg’s blog made me realize I have something in common with the advertising professionals filmed – I too was laid off (wasn’t a surprise though) and it opened up new opportunities for me, not to mention that it made me start cooking, which I kinda love :-))
It’s not easy leaving a workplace you call home after 8 years, paving a new path in one of the toughest economical times the world has known. And still, much like the guys at Lemonade, I feel good about myself and the decisions I’ve made, knowing I’m doing something that matters for my future.
I hope Lemonade will find its way to Israel as well..
Feedback is an important part of any learning, in both personal and business life. I have a serious problem with people who think they are perfect and have nothing to learn from others – that’s a red flag. And if you ever gave or received feedback, you know the 2 basic rules:
Start with the positive, to ‘break the ice’, and then go negative (up to 2 points in each)
Say something new – don’t ‘strengthen’, ’emphasis’ or ‘agree’ with points already mentioned.
I do hope some folks over at Finland are reading the reviews and taking notes. Regardless of all the people around me carrying an iPhone – I’m a Nokia lover deep down. The Nokia N97 has been with me for 3 weeks now, and now it’s time for my official review, which I’ll open with the bottom line:
Positive
Great multimedia phone (audio, video and online), with superior technical specs
Intuitive Nokia UI wrapped in a very cool package.
Negative
Resistive touchscreen is a mistake. Multi-touch rules and resistive fits the ‘Palm Pilot’ era, not 2009
I can do without the QWERTY keyboard. iPhone killers don’t need a physical keyboard.
Nokia, much like the rest of the mobile world, was rudely awakened by Apple’s iPhone (can you believe it’s only 2.5 years old?). The idea of a phone with only a touchscreen and no keyboard was revolutionary and innovative, and kicked Nokia/LG/SE/Samsung where it hurts: the bottom line. So Nokia was forced to answer, thus came the 5800, which didn’t even tickle the iPhone but gave the Finns some breathing room to design the proper adversary – N-Series Touch.
Keyboard Someone at Nokia took a bold decision by introducing the first QWERTY keyboard into the N-Series, and for me at least – it’s not working and I would boldly state even un-necessary. The side-sliding keyboard is very roomy (unlike the E71’s), but sports only 3 rows of keys, along with a left-mounted Nav-Key which acts like a mouse. After 3 weeks of usage, it’s still not intuitive for me, and Nokia is usually very intuitive in other stuff (Menu, UI, etc). The ‘spacebar’ is located to the right of the ‘M’, and all punctuation marks require ‘Shift+x’ to operate. But wait, why put a keyboard in an iPhone killer to begin with?! Even in the 5800 you get an on-screen QWERTY keyboard when tilting the phone into landscape – so why not adopt it at the N97 as well? Hardware On the bright side, this 150gr device packs some serious specs, looking the iPhone in the eyes, with some advantages even: 3.5″ resistive touch screen with 16.7m colors, 640×360 resolution, oreintation sensor, internal compass, 434MHz ARM CPU with 32GB internal memory and microSD support of additional 16GB, BT 2.0 with EDR, 3.5mm headphone, microUSB for charging and PC connectivity, 5MP Carl-Zeiss lens with dual LED flash and auto-focus, 30fps video quality, A-GPS, FM reciever (with RDS) and transmitter and much more. The N97 has nothing to be ashamed in, and although it shares the same optics as the N95 – pictures and videos are amazing, day or night. Storage is virtually unlimited, with the 32GB in-house and infinite (in mobile terms) when adding microSD card. Casing may look fragile, especially the side-sliding keyboard, but it’s solid enough, and even ‘survived’ a 1m fall (by accident), straight on its screen. My only feedback is aimed at the CPU – it struggles under pressure and even with just 2-4 apps running in the background, response time is slow, slower than the N95 and definitely than the 3G/3Gs. Screen Similar to the keyboard, I fail to see the logic behind the decision to go with resistive and not capatitive touchscreen (like the iPhone has). Nokia’s reason of appealing to the Asian market that prefers handwriting recognition to keyboards is understandable but somewhat un-clear, especially when iPhones grab #1 and #2 in a recent Smartphones best sellers survey in Japan. The 3 impacts of using resistive on the N97 are: a) no multi-touch feature, like using 2 fingers to zoom-in/out; b) the screen ‘responds’ with a feedback to your touch; c) some menus will work with a single click – like launching an app from the Apps folder, while other menus need double-click – like picking ‘Inbox’ from your Messages folder.
Software and OS This N97 has the first Symbian S60V5 Touch OS, and Nokia are trying to do what worked so well for Apple and its iPhone: building a developers’ community that will enhance the phone. OVi now comes built-in and there are some nice free apps there, and you can also share any content you have in your OVi place. Building such community is a MUST for Nokia, as the iPhone’s massive success should be greatly attributed to Apple’s App Store and its 65,000 applications. For Nokia’s sake, I only hope this rumor isn’t true.
Conclusion The N97 is a big leap for Nokia, but a small step compared to the mobile scene and the market’s expectations of the device. I can only hope Nokia will accept my feedback, because I believe the N98 can lead the pack, instead of merely joining it.
All screenshots are from my own device, the N97 White Keyboard shot is from GSMArena.com. All screenshots are available at this facebook album.
—————— Disclaimer I recieved the Nokia N97 for 1 month, as part of N97Unboxing – Nokia Israel campaign. I was under no obligation to post anything regarding the device and all the content I created and uploaded was my decision only. Nokia Israel are not paying me in any way and the device I got will be returned to Nokia Israel.
Going through Netflix’s latest ‘Culture‘ presentation I came across that line (slide 34), under High Performance, one of the seven aspects at Netflix. The 128 pages presentation is A MUST for any company’s C-Level and HR, and it details what matters at Netflix, paying special attention to workforce efficiency. It also deals quite bluntly with stuff other companies keep inside, like layoffs and employee retention (slide 27):
We’re a team, not a family. We’re like a pro sports team, not a kid’s recreational team. Coaches’ job at every level at Netflix (is) to hire, develop and cut smartly, so we have stars at every position.
Clear out 30min of you day and learn this presentation. You won’t regret it.
Run into this survey at eMarketer.com in one of my Google Alerts the other day. With all the plethora of information sources, I find it more difficult to focus on topics and trends that interest me, as well as joining in on conversations, so it’s good to know GAlerts still has some benefits.. 😉
The survey in hand was conducted between some 1,800 social media marketers in the US, asking them about the effectiveness of their practices – meaning which tactics they used, how effective those tactics were and how accurately can they measure such tactics. The results are not that surprising, but I would like to focus on next steps – how can we make those practices more effective and measured more accurately.
The first issue we’re seeing is the negative correlation between a tactic’s effectiveness vs. our ability to measure it accurately (graph below). The 3 most effective tactics are User reviews or ratings (47%), Blogger or online journalist relations (46%) and Forums or discussion groups (42%). When looking at the ‘Very accurately measured’ column, those tactics are ranked 3rd, 4th and 5th, respectively. With the expansion of broadband and the coming of web 2.0, everyone is a publisher, and thus consumers are more suspicious and don’t believe everything they read online. In the US the FTC are targeting bloggers’ freebies (PDF guidelines), and in the meantime there are some un-official guidelines on how to disclose and authenticatea sponsored conversation. In Israel on the other hand, things are moving slower (article in Hebrew).
The second issue pertains to hooking financial success with social marketing (graph below). It’s pretty obvious that social marketing is most effective for Brand reputation (39%), Brand awareness (37%) and Search engine results (38%). I’d like to point your attention to the Sales aspects of social marketing, Generate leads and Increase online sales. The marketers who were surveyed said that social marketing is not effective at Generating leads (35%) and Increasing online sales (46%). For social marketing to become bigger and better, we have to add revenues to the game, and being able to measure it. Dell are already showing the added value of their social activity on twitter, a new study finds correlation between social media and financial success and George Colony urges CEO to understand that social marketing is here to stay.
If we want social marketing to rock, Sales indicators must be inherent to any social campaign. It’s OK to start small, but start somewhere. Move the conversation from brand (only) to revenues as well. And one last request – be honest to your readers.
This is my personal blog. The postings here do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my past employers or of my clients. It is solely my opinion.
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