Finally, it’s the end of the week. But what have we been reading and sharing around the office? Here’s a quick round up of the content that grabbed our attention.

Pop back later to see what our UK and US offices have being checking out as well.

 -

China launches its own Pinterest for purchasing luxury items

Since Pinterest’s debut, a bunch of copycat sites have flooded the web in China. The most recent clone called Buykee takes the platform one step further, showing-off luxury items and also adding an e-commerce aspect which Pinterest currently lacks.

Originally published 04-May-2012

Young moguls in the making 

Has the review of Australia’s media landscape missed a crucial point?

Originally published 05-May-2012

Waiting for the other shoe to drop: Digital in Indonesia

Soon, really soon, perhaps this year, or perhaps in five… digital will be big in Indonesia. Advertisers and marketers alike say that Indonesia, the world’s fourth largest Facebook and sixth largest Twitter market has so much potential. So what is holding things back?

Originally published 10-May-2012

Marketers outsource traditional before online marketing

The number of businesses outsourcing traditional marketing functions is expected to jump over the next 12 to 24 months from 9% currently to 21%, according to IBM’s Australian Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Research 2012.

Originally published 08-May-2012

Wired into an online world of opportunity

Overseas expansion and global-player status may no longer be a pipedream for China’s Internet companies, as several have already taken steps abroad and a small number have tasted a modicum of initial success. 

Originally published 08-May-2012

Destination NSW launches new ‘Love every second of Sydney’ campaign

Destination NSW, via agency Banjo Sydney, has launched a new campaign promising visitors they’ll “Love every second of Sydney”.

Originally published 09-May-2012

Under-pressure Japanese gaming giant DeNA posts record annual revenues – $ 1.82bn sales

DeNA is one of a number of mobile gaming firms under pressure in Japan – where authorities look set to rule a lucrative social game genre illegal – but, casting that aside, the company has announced record annual revenues.

Originally published 09-May-2012

GMIC 2012: Lei Jun and Pony Ma talk mobile

The opening sessions of GMIC 2012 were, unsurprisingly, all about mobile. Tencent CEO Pony Ma and Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun are both men with extensive experience in PC-based web development, but if the two of them agree on one thing, it’s that mobile is the future.

Originally published 10-May-2012

Innovate, learn, deliver: Staying ahead in turbulent times

Quarterly Tech Briefing by Scott Shaw, Head of Technology, and Jason Furnell, Principal Experience Designer from ThoughtWorks Australia.

Originally published 09-May-2012

Sina Weibo to introduce ‘user contract’ as China’s microblog crackdown continues

Fresh from admitting that it hasn’t fully implemented China’s new rules for microblogs, Web giant Sina is set to introduce a ‘user contract’ for its popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo service at the end of May, as it continues to battle to control sensitive information on the site.

Originally published 09-May-2012

Posts from the Econsultancy blog

Almost 70% of tablet owners make a purchase on their device every month, according to a new study by InMobi and Mobext.

Around one in ten of these consumers were also happy to use their tablet for ‘big ticket’ purchases and over 20% of tablet users claim to shop less in bricks and mortar stores since purchasing their device. 

‘The Role of Tablets in the Consumer Sales Journey’ report also shows that tablets are no longer niche – 3.9m people in the UK own one, equating to around 13% of households.

This highlights the fact that it is imperative for brands to have a tablet strategy in place.

Our comprehensive blog post, tablets: the opportunity for marketers, has a number of tips for how advertisers should seek to target tablet users.

The InMobi report also found that more than 50% of tablet owners spend at least an hour a day accessing media content on their tablets, and 72% use it while watching TV.

InMobi sales director for EMEA John Stoneman said advertisers need to include tablets as part of their multichannel strategy.

“People in the UK dual-screen more than any other nation in the world, so you’re missing a trick if you don’t have a tablet strategy to sit alongside your TV ads.”

The report suggests that media planners need to exploit the fact that tablets are “used at home, have larger screen sizes, apps, and unique features such as accelerometers to provide far richer and more innovative engagement experiences.”

Half of respondents said they shared their tablet with family members, which also has implications for advertisers.

“Advertising big-ticket items such as cars and holidays are usually joint decisions; tablets can be a great way to reach multiple decision makers in a household through ads and social media.”

The report also found that:

• 51% use a tablet to fill what would previously have been ‘dead time’
• 63% of tablet users in the UK agreed that it is easier to access media content on a tablet than on a mobile or laptop/desktop
• 44% said they would not want to be separated from their tablet
• 42% said that their tablet device has revolutionised the way they communicate with friends/colleagues

The InMobi and Mobext survey, run across mobile and tablet devices, examined the media consumption habits of over 8,400 respondents across seven different global markets.

Posts from the Econsultancy blog

Technology has disrupted a seemingly countless number of industries over the past decade, from advertising to real estate. When looking at the industries grappling with technology-driven change, however, arguably few have been more affected than the multi-trillion dollar payments space.

The advent of mobile phone, and the smartphone in particular, has created significant opportunities, many of which upstarts like Square are trying to exploit.

In courting businesses and individuals, many of the Davids have some compelling selling points: they cost little to nothing to get started with, are easy to set up and use, and provide a refreshingly higher level of customer service.

But Square, one of the most prominent and heavily-funded new players on the payment scene, is learning the hard way that you can’t please everybody in the payment processing space. According to one Square customer, Jason Gullickson, a chargeback situation turned into a customer service nightmare that sounds an awful lot like the customer service nightmare stories you have probably read about involving larger, more established players. Gullickson’s post, which details his experience, has attracted the attention of Hacker News readers, landing it on the Hacker News front page.

All payment providers are facing challenges

Whether he’s ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ (or neither), Gullickson’s blog post highlights the challenges facing payment firms — established players and upstarts alike — as individuals gain access to a wider availability of payment processing services.

Here, it’s fairly evident that Gullickson had a limited knowledge of the chargeback process, which is something providers like Square have little flexibility to change because of the rules that govern credit card transactions. Could Square have provided a more responsive customer service experience to Gullickson?

Perhaps, but the type of hand-holding he seems to have expected is time-consuming (and therefore costly) to provide. When you’re processing billions of dollars in transactions, the $ 200 chargeback that may matter a lot to a single individual is probably just one of hundreds or thousands of similar chargebacks being handled at any given time.

Payment options will continue to grow

At the end of the day, there’s little doubt that the rapid pace of evolution in the payment space will continue to grow the number of payment processing options in the hands of businesses and individuals alike. That’s a good thing, and it’s creating huge opportunities for entrenched players and startups.

But upstarts like Square, some of which are trying to compete, in part, by creating the belief that they’re a friendlier alternative to supposedly less-friendly corporations like VeriFone and PayPal, may find that avoiding the type of criticism frequently leveled at their battle-scarred competitors is simply not possible.

Posts from the Econsultancy blog

Today, LinkedIn launched its inaugural Financial Services Summit in New York which focused on the role social media is playing in the financial services industry. The first panel brought together representatives from American Express, Citi, Fidelity Investments, Prudential Retirement and Hearsay Social to talk about using social media in financial marketing.

It was curious to see a panel on social media where only two out of six individuals on the panel have Twitter accounts. One was Clara Shih, who runs the agency Hearsay Social, and the other, Frank Eliason, SVP of Social for Citi. The panelists’ lack of Twitter accounts felt like a microcosm highlighting how most financial service organizations are behind in social media.

Not that Twitter is the be all and end all of social media, it is a communication channel for 140 million active users. Saying that, in LinkedIn’s new findings released today, financial advisors are mainly reaching out to prospective clients on LinkedIn with Twitter only used by 8% of them. Even brand identity building primarily takes place on LinkedIn over Facebook, Twitter and Google+ for those working in an advisory capacity.

Though the panelists did mention communication on all platforms, a lot of the issues they are facing aren’t about where the conversations are taking place. It’s rather that financial institutions need to put customers at the center of their decisions as well as enable their employees to do the same.

Below are a few of the key takeaways from each of the panelists. These points could be taken across any organization, especially those who have to deal with compliance issues and regulatory bodies:

Clara Shih, CEO, Hearsay Social

There are two main things that Shih highlighted about how social media is shifting the way financial services market themselves:

1) Proliferation of online identity where people freely sharing what they do, who they are, etc. is very valuable for the financial world. When people get married or have a career change, these are great triggers for financial services discussion and this is when financial advisors and institutions need to reach out to customers.

2) The online social graph (social networking) shifted us from a base founded in search. Today the way we get information is discovery based with more links coming from social media than Google now. Shih stressed that Twitter is mainly used for retail, customer service, offers and deals, Facebook is a perfect place for retail cards and insurance and LinkedIn is used most by ultra high worth individuals. It’s more than a social graph, it’s a decision graph. We need to figure out how consumers use connections and rich information to make the best choice for them and give them the facility to do it.

Most importantly, we have to find a way to enable the advisors, whatever the device they are on and wherever they are. We’ve seen this movie play before many times before. There was a time when it took convincing to get employees to get computers and email. We’ve proven what can be done with technology so once we can ensure compliance, we have to look at ROI.

Kara Segreto, CMO, Prudential Retirement

Segreto is seeing a real trend to shift to more thought leadership with the generation of enough content to completely regenerate and be one step ahead. You also need to commit as a whole institute or it won’t work. There has been a shift from spending time with sales and product to spending more time with technology and tech law and compliance. There’s also been a shift in media mix and spends and financial institutions need to have an integrated approach to the market place.

Audrey Hendley, General Manager, New Customer Acquisition, American Express

Social Media has provided a greater opportunity for deeper engagement with customers at American Express. Social media amplifies brand messaging across different customer touch points and aids with customer service, engagement and retention. It is looking to engage more with small businesses and American Express puts on Small Business Saturday once a year to engage with customers and the community. Hendley stressed that it’s important to know who you are talking to and and correlate your messaging and content to that audience. The more connected customers are to the brand, the more they will use it.

Sean Belka, SVP Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, Fidelity Investments

The goal at Fidelity Investments is to help customers achieve big goals. 20 years ago meant calls and mail, then web and email. Social media is part of the large evolution to be where the customers are. We need to look at technology and try to figure out how that will help your customers. Think – is this going to help them in their financial lives? It’s less about the channel and more about what the customers need.

People want to aggregate multiple sources when making a financial decision instead of a single source like they did in the past. How do we enable that and bring that all together in a low cost way? One of the things Fidelity brought to market in the last year, was to enable customers to deposit checks through their mobile. This way the company can be where the customers are, make it easier for them and create new opportunities.

Frank Eliason, SVP Social Media, Citi

For Citi, social media shifted the control. Now the control is more in hands of the customer and the hands of your employee. This is changing the culture at all companies and we’re forced to be more open. This openness will help build the trust that is lacking in the financial world at the moment.

The huge thing that is under discussed is how we can help facilitate conversation. How can financial institutions listen in the space and understand what is happening in all brands in the marketplace. They then need to take this information to see where they can change things internally. Also how do you build that trust and build those communities? Traditionally, financial services was about community and relationships and that is what social is. Ultimately, you have to find ways to connect the dots. It’s not about the brand, it’s about finding out more about your customers.

In the financial services world, we need to shift from the product perspective and look how customers are using it and doing it. All social spaces are different. First, you need to listen in each space and then ask customers where to communicate, what they want and then keep adapting as the platform adapts. At first everything may be cool with how a platform is used and then elements may not, so you need to adjust accordingly.

A big problem is that most financial firms push messages out and no one cares. We have to remember it’s about human dialogue. When you’re dealing with compliance, traditionally it’d take 3 days to have approval but taking three days to approve something makes for really funny Twitter conversations. To help with this, Citi has 2 social lawyers.

As for trying to stop employees from speaking online, you can’t. They are speaking there and they are connecting to other people. This is not a bad thing, we just have to start doing it in the right way. Regulators are just as confused in this space as financial services are so we need to have the conversation with them. This is important as the real world has changed since the time regulatory laws were first created in 1929. Now is the time to rethink them.

Posts from the Econsultancy blog

The Harry Potter series is one of the most popular series of books ever written, but if you’re looking for your fix of wizardry, you’ll have to put your Kindle down.

That’s because Harry Potter’s author, J.K. Rowling, has refused to sell her books in digital format directly through companies like Amazon.

When Rowling decided to bring Harry Potter to the digital world, she was able to do something most authors don’t have the clout to do: cut out the middlemen and go directly to the customer.

The launch of her Pottermore venture was big news for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that it put booksellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble in a very tough spot. Amazon, which isn’t used to finding itself in the position of least leverage, was forced to do without selling Harry Potter books through its website. When Pottermore launched, the Harry Potter books became listed on Amazon, but the ‘buy now’ links took customers away from the Amazon site to Pottermore to complete the purchase.

That, apparently, will be changing. Today, AllThingDigital’s Tricia Duryee is reporting that various Amazon pages, including the homepage of the Kindle eBook store, are promoting the fact that “Wizardry is on the way.” The implication: soon, Amazon customers will be able to purchase Harry Potter titles directly through Amazon.

While it’s clear Rowling doesn’t need Amazon (she may be the most financially successful author of all time and Pottermore saw more than £1m in sales in its first three days), allowing Amazon to sell Harry Potter ebooks on its own could prove beneficial to Rowling. After all, Amazon will almost certainly promote it more heavily under this scenario, and Harry Potter titles will be eligible to appear on Amazon’s bestsellers lists, providing more exposure.

The question is just how much Amazon will really benefit. There’s a very good possibility that the ecommerce giant is giving Rowling stellar terms, and one might even argue that it could afford to give her most if not all of the revenue in an effort to bolster its Kindle ecosystem. While Amazon’s business is in selling content – not e-readers and tablets — the significant slowdown seen in Kindle Fire sales must be disconcerting to Amazon executives. So disconcerting that they’d bend over backwards to gain the ability to sell most popular book series ever directly to Kindle owners? It’s not out of the realm of possibility.

Posts from the Econsultancy blog