Look out – the Web 2.0 Bubble is about to burst!

When Hollywood starts making films about business you know something is about to go horribly wrong.

Out soon (at good cinemas everywhere) is the Facebook story – “you don’t get 500 million friends without making a few enemies” – goes one of the tag lines – no doubt in a very deep voice.

I get nervous when film, TV and media generally start over-reporting or dramatising current business stories. Normally over reporting is accompanied by a false sense of security, or hope, or in some cases anxiety, in the public at large.  It typically happens in financial markets. As we all know (but seem to forget all too readily) market crashes in shares or in property are normally pre-empted with a clamour from the media to explain how best to make a safe, fast, buck. And then it all goes horribly wrong at a pace that ensures you can’t reverse your position until it is too late.

So what of Facebook and this Web 2.0 thing, is it about to fall from a similar precipice to those the over inflated financial markets fell from. I wonder.

The BBC News ran a news story the other night about Starbucks on Facebook and why they are there. News? Starbucks have been on it for ages – they have 14 million new latte drinking best friends for goodness sake. It seems to me we have reached a dangerous point in the Web 2.0 world when the BBC News starts talking about social marketing.

News? Main stream news? Starbucks use Facebook – so should your business – Web 2.0 is brill – oh dear it’s like the nonsense that went before the dot com market crash of 2000 all over again. Just keep that Jonah, Robert Peston away from the story - he broke the banks, remember?

I do, however, sense that things are getting a bit overblown – too much hype and too much coverage. So will the Web 2.0 bubble burst?

Could we really find ourselves trying to unwind our social media positions as we see the follies of documenting every skinny, tall, latte and the geographical location of our mobile devices.

The level of information that we present to an increasingly open internet audience grows by the minute – and surely that must be wrong. Do you really want everyone and anyone to know what you are up to now and what you were up to 5 years prior?

Facebook has shifted privacy rules regularly in its hunger to offer the public what it wants and to squeeze out the new kids on the block. Location information being the latest add in. But are we so addicted that this trend will continue? As a Stirling web design and web development business we have seen a remarkable adoption of the Web 2.0 world in business – it offers some fascinating new ways to engage with the market, to engage with people. Some of the tricks are also pretty useful in intranets for business… nice.

Undoubtedly, though, the release of the Facebook film is an interesting point in the history of the Web 2.0 world and that of Facebook – but are we reaching the high water mark of the Social Media web world? I sense we are.

But in true Web 2.0 style – let’s chat more about this on Twitter, Facebook, Four Square, Tumblr etc etc etc. 

LoL! (Thats laugh out loud – if this is being read by a News hungry BBC Social Media Correspondent.)

David Dimbleby – Glasgow v London

I stopped watching Question Time on the BBC a long time ago. I think it was probably shortly after Robin Day stepped down. QT without him seemed to become trivial and banal. Though maybe it was both those things before he left.

I laughed out loud when I heard that David Dimbleby was in the huff at the prospect of the QT production team being moved to Glasgow. I laughed (I think) for 2 reasons – (1) the notion of DD being obliged to move to the other side of the country to stay in employment… I don’t think he’ll be stuck for a decent and probably better job and (2) why on earth would BBC Scotland want a program that has more to do with Middle England/Earth than Scotland?

It’s all about spending the license fee in the places it is raised….. and about filling up the nice BBC building on the South Side of the Clyde. Personally I’d rather see some innovative programming coming out of the BBC Scotland building rather than the now very tired looking Question Zzzzzzz.

Red Hot Chilli Piper Tickets

We are big fans of the Red Hot Chilli Pipers and we reckoned it was about time we came clean and admitted it. So we are giving away free tickets for their Stirling, Scotland gig.

Many of the Chilli Pipers come from the Stirling area so we’ve known them for a while. Since their tour is passing by we felt we should help with the promotion stuff.

Its a free to enter draw open to folks in the UK. If you want to have a bash feel free >>> Red Hot Chilli Piper Tickets at our website development identity web wise business.

Would you like a cookie with that?

Increasingly websites are using cookies in a more and more sophisticated manner. Initially they were a handy way to keep things like passwords hanging around or perhaps some data that was specific to the user or visitor. Now however they are a powerful way to profile who your visitor is and what things interest them. For marketing and advertising purposes this is extremely valuable and for the visitor it helps them get the most from your website and business if used appropriately.

 

At the software company Objective Associates we are helping our customers make the most of things that normally come with milk and we are also making sure that the websites terms and conditions cover the use of cookies.

Software Scotland – double opt in

Most of us in the web world are familiar with the “opt in” requirement for email being sent to the public at large. But “Double Opt In” was a term I came across recently and as I read the description I realised we were doing that anyway.

 

The registration systems we supply from the software company Objective Associates obliges people to register to get a newsletter (opt in 1). We then send an email requesting a click confirmation (opt in 2). We did it to ensure we could communicate correctly with the visitor which we believed was best practice. In so doing we have also allowed them to “double opt in”.

Web Wise Business Newsletter System – a question of content

It’s all about the content. The newsletter system we have pulled together at the software company Objective Associates ensures that you get maximum use from the content you produce. Using one of our website newsletter components on your web site lets you put content on the website and then re-use it easily for newsletter purposes. That means your valuable content can get re-purposed quickly and easily and that makes your business more efficient.

Web Wise Business Newsletter System – are you in?

From the online marketing activities we carry out we can see that the best time to send out an email newsletter is when the recipient is at their desk. It’s much more likely to get opened and much more likely to get actioned or at least marked for action later. PC operating systems are very good at popping up little you have email dialogues and because we are a naturally curious species we tend to have a peek. But be warned if the email newsletter is little more than spurious junk email then your email newsletter is going in the bin – forever.

Online Marketing – Lets go gathering Nuts

The online world for media continues to grow like well… its just Nuts. Traffic at nuts.co.uk is up over 120% year on year – not bad for a lads mag whose TV campaign is perhaps not the most PC of ads. With 50 million page impressions in June 2008 alone its pretty cleat why the shift in marketing spend continues to head in an online marketing direction.

Software Scotland – Summer time and the living isn’t easy

It’s been a pretty busy time in the software business Objective Associates despite it being the holiday season. Normally the summer months allow us to relax a bit and plan out what we need to do in the second half of the year. This year has been pretty different. Enquiry levels are exceptionally high for online systems from a range of customers. When I finally find a quiet morning I’ll try and figure things out – maybe it’s because other companies are getting their systems organised ahead of a tight next 12 months  - or maybe its just our online marketing and search engine optimisation work that is creating results.

Online Marketing – first resort in a liquidity crunch

With our various online software systems we have seen good uptake with respect to things like email campaigns and Search Engine Optimisation work – I guess when times are tough it forces folks to think through where they are spending money and where the alternatives lie. For us we have found newsletters work well (if correctly targeted), and SEO works (as long as you can convert). So when money is tight start thinking creatively with the marketing budget – if it gets cut give us a call and we’ll help with some inexpensive and perhaps even more effective alternatives.