Winning by Sharing

Barely anyone clicks on banner ads anymore

*****Fast Forward to 2013*****

A study by eBay Research Labs economists Thomas Blake, Chris Nosko, and Steve Tadelis — analyzed eBay sales after shutting down purchases of search ads on Google and elsewhere, while maintaining a control set of regions where search ads continued unchanged. Their findings suggest that many paid ads generate virtually no increase in sales, and even for ones that do, the sales benefits are far eclipsed by the cost of the ads themselves.

Natural born clickers

2009: With the recent historic news that the UK's advertising industry now spends more online than on print and TV comes a reasonably authoritative report from Comscore that 'barely anyone clicks on banner ads anymore'.  The findings are breathtaking;

"The number of people online who click display ads has dropped 50% in less than two years, and only 8% of internet users account for 85% of all clicks, according to the most recent "Natural Born Clickers"

Shock horror.

In 2006 academics reached this conclusion a while back, as far back as 2006 but Techcrunch picked it up earlier this year here.  Their research is based on the analysis of large datasets from Youtube, Flickr and others and concluded that the current model is unlikely to survive, principally due to lack of trust. Forrester predicted this scenario as early as 2002.

Isn't it interesting that banner ads are really broadcasts.  They don't speak with a human voice or meet a specific need.   Despite all the warning signs, brands still broadcast while consumers connect and they continue to 'preach' to people whose attention is focused elsewhere.  So the £1.75 billion size of the online ad market is a total waste of money.

So where's it going?  There's a glimpse of the future of advertising here - Pick 'n' mix business.

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From banner ads to banner apps

General Motors spends $40m a year on Facebook presence

eBay study dismisses value of advertising on Google

The network is female

In general, my experience of participating in online communities over the last ten years is that despite the initial dominance of male members the posture, attitude and expression of these communities are predominantly female.  By this I mean people are genuinely welcoming, offer unsolicited benevolence, guidance and assistance and freely give the most valuable thing that anyone can give; their time.  This isn't normal for other types of patriarchal organisations.

Recent research by academics using large Facebook data sets concluded that both males and females direct 60% of their profile viewing activities to female users.

The network is most definitely female.

How do I build brand me?

Slides from the talk I gave at the BBC's Creative Diversity Network in December 2012 summarised in this page:

How do I build brand me? from Sei Mani

My wish in 2013: Greed as the basis of society loses its appeal

Inspired by my good friend Frank Dunn, who says;

One of the key discoveries of this century is that co-operative processes in general seem far more likely to survive than isolated, rampantly selfish entities wherein survival is all about group or team effort.

....leading to a future of "Doing better with less"; 

Let's stop claiming to dominate nature and the world; let's stop making possession a superior end. Let's put our cherished deviancies, such as the manufacture of desire and its bulimic satisfaction, back in their place. Humanity's progress must be situated on the side of being rather than of having.

...and for our so called leaders;

Let us dream: A politician takes the side of talking to us about the world as it is, as it risks becoming; he or she forecasts not sweat and tears, but difficult tomorrows; she or he proposes that we talk about it, as responsible citizens, and allows us to perceive robust paths along which to advance, with a smile, towards the era of less ... A less that will consequently take on the character of better. Robert Lion, France, circa 2007

Peace.

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The collaborative economy emerges

What is progress?

Size isn't everything

Just in case you thought 'size is everything' in social networks here are some links to research that suggest having the most followers does NOT necessarily make you influential. Quality of people seems to count for more.

1. Best Connected Individuals Are Not the Most Influential Spreaders in Social Networks

2. Opinion leaders are impotent in ideas economy

3. Physician 184 "was not the most important in the number of connections he was getting, but he was vitally important in linking the networks."

There is a lot more research in this are of what is being termed 'Network Science' that suggest the 'quiet silent types' are just as likely to be 'super connectors' as the more obvious people.

The social workplace. Is there another kind?

Excellent event from the folks at the Social Media Leadership Forum with some interesting views from IBM, BUPA, Pearson and Virgin Media on 'going social inside'.

 

Socialising the Workplace from Pepper Rafferty on Vimeo.

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Social business: Can you really handle it?

How valuable is Twitter's heartbeat?

Amazing analysis of 500m Tweet by SGI Global in an attempt to monitor the heartbeat of a nation in real time in terms of their feelings and sentiment.  In this case, the outcome of their voting preferences in the US presidential election in 2012.

 

The collaborative economy emerges

This is probably the most comprehensive research on the emergence of a new type of economy resulting from the ability of human beings to connect with each other on a scale previously unimaginable. Not everyone will get through 346 pages but in summary I think it says:

"In the future, there will be no jobs, no careers, no corporations, no institutions .... There will simply be things that need to be done ... And the right people coming together to make them happen." Frank Dunn

Winning by sharing is a state of cooperation that exists between companies, individuals and nation states where there is a continuous fair exchange of value as opposed to business and government which is based on the notion of I win, you lose.

Hat tip to Michel Bauwens and his team at the P2P Foundation.

"There's a spectre haunting the world. The spectre of peer to peer." Michel Bauwens

Enjoy.

Download Collaborative-economy-2012

The BBC in crisis. A word to the wise. Decentralise.

I love the BBC.  They don't need any more bashing from me but is there an opportunity for it to now take a completely new approach to organising themselves?  Consider this short story from Kevin Carson's book, Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective:

One of the executive vice-presidents of the Union Carbide Corporation remarked in a private conversation that he and his colleagues "had no idea how to manage a large corporation." He said they simply did not know enough of the corporate workings, nor did they know what to do even if a clear problem was identified.

Sound familiar?  His book makes a compelling case for organisations to dentralise and move away from a command and control structure.  Other research asks the question: How much does productivity decrease as the organization grows? The answers are frankly frightening.  When the size of an organisation trebles, its productivity halves. 

The Economist article today, What's gone wrong on Planet Beeb, is worth a read but why no debate around the system used to organise themselves which can never be challenged?  Yes find fresh blood and leaders from outside the BBC but this won't be enough to prevent fundamental knowledge and information problems in large organisations.