Talking Point

Why the Olympic social media police won't come knocking

By Craig Regan

Lawmakers often overlook the unintended consequences of their actions. Take the London Olympics for example, where the self-declared “first social media Games” could turn decidedly anti-social.

The Brits have pushed an Act through Parliament to ensure the intellectual property rights of the London Olympics are protected.

Nothing unusual about that – it happened in Australia long before Cathy Freeman went anywhere near a naked flame. It’s just part of the price countries pay to hand over a city for a fortnight to the private company called the International Olympics Committee.

The Guardian newspaper reports that the British legislation goes much further than existing copyright protection. Legal opinion is that someone in the London crowd uploading a photo or footage to Facebook could be prosecuted for breaching criminal law.

The Guardian says using “2012” in connection with terms like “London”, “medals”, “sponsors”, “summer”, “gold”, “silver” or “bronze” is another likely breach. An event called the "Great Exhibition 2012" was threatened with legal action over its use of "2012" but it was later withdrawn.

With ambush marketing in mind, Twitter has agreed to work with the London organisers to ban non-sponsors from buying promoted ads with hashtags like #London2012

Back in the years BS (Before Social), the Australian Government was so sensitive to its own legislation that it referred to the 2000 event as “the Sydney Games” and avoided using The O Word in official communications.

Owners of the Olympic Hotel in Sydney’s Moore Park, located a short stumble across the road from a Games venue, were threatened with prosecution unless they changed its name, despite having long known by the O name.

Common sense prevailed and the dogs were called off.

Much of the same will probably apply in London, even if the draconian law looks, sounds and smells like an ass.

It might say on your ticket that you agree not to “license, broadcast or publish video and/or sound recordings, including on social networking websites and the internet".

But does anyone think the Olympic Police are going to knock on the door after you go home and confiscate your smartphone?

Unless you’re working for a non-Olympic sponsor, the PR consequences would be dire.

More on the games and social media here if you're interested (and that's where we borrowed the image.) 

What's a hipster worth? About $33, it seems

By Craig Regan

The Urban Dictionary defines “hipsters” as “a subculture of men and women typically in their 20's and 30's that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter”.

Tight jeans, thick-rimmed glasses, shaggy or androgynous haircuts are a trademark of this mainly white grouping. Hipsters yearn to be “effortlessly cool”. The label has its origins in the jazz scene of the 1940s and in the ‘50s and ‘60s you might have called them “Bohemians” or “beatnicks”.

Why does this matter to a blog that’s about PR and media? It’s about Facebook buying Instagram.

Instagram is a free smartphone app that applies a filter to a user’s photo to make it look vintage, shadowy or a faded pastel colour. Yes, it’s that useful.

Instagram is like an extension of an arm for a hipster, smartphones being a pre-existing part of the same limb.

Many people are wondering why Facebook would pay a billion bucks for a company with no discernible revenue stream and barely more than a dozen employees. A company that still hasn’t worked out how to moneytize its service.

It’s about engagement.

Instagram has 31 million users. They upload an estimated five million photos a day. All of those users have email addresses and have given away snippets of information to use this free service.

In a digital economy information equals money.

You still have to wonder if Instagram users are somehow a premium commodity.

Thirty-one million people is a substantial customer base to build on in anyone’s language, but a back of the envelope calculation puts the value of each of those users at a tad over $33 each.

Even the dialect of Facebook - where they regularly deal in numbers with strings of multiple zeroes - that's a massive chunk of change to reach pretentious tossers in thick-rimmed glasses and ironic slogan T-shirts. 

Why live chat when you can go social and vent? A customer service tale

By Craig Regan

From the UK comes the revelation that 93 percent of businesses aren’t using online live chat to serve their customers. According to a media release, live chat is a tool to “help avoid call centre misunderstandings that arise from unintelligible accents”.

Putting aside (a.) news is what’s happening, not what isn’t and (b.) this nugget comes from a survey by a maker of – you guessed it – live chat software, it throws a light on the role of digital media in customer complaints.

I stumbled out of a peak-hour morning Sydney train late last week with a red paint smear on the back of my shirt after a close encounter with graffiti on a seat.

My first action was to vent on Facebook.  

My next was to click a link sent by a responder to my rant.

This link takes you to the CityRail website. Is it surprising to find a dead page?

Google eventually found turned up a website complaint form and in surprisingly short time a classic “we care about you” holding response landed in the inbox, promising that someone would investigate.

Big bureaucracies operate in ponderous ways and I’m due a further reply on the Tuesday after Easter.

I do know the dry cleaning bill will be in the electronic mail that goes back.

There’s something satisfying about venting and the best service organisations know that most complaints can be defused by listening and showing empathy - even when there’s no concrete remedy in sight.

There are customer-facing organisations using digital media well and others using it appallingly.

Telstra is in the former category. Its use of Twitter to respond to customers is one of the more creative uses of the microblogging tool and it works because it’s direct and almost instantaneous. (Disclosure: Telstra is a Lighthouse client.)

Back to that UK survey and there was one useful kernel in a finding that 71 percent of people who’d emailed an organisation for service were waiting for a reply.

Talk about hanging on the telephone (apologies to Blondie – and the Nerves who were the other New York band that recorded it first.)

Why have an email address if it’s ignored? Answering the rhetorical question in the comments section is entirely voluntary but it seems like having a post office box that you never empty.    

 

Online sole mates in six-inch stilettos

By Craig Regan

Working in PR throws up some interesting facts. One is that Malaysia is officially where retailing, social media and online lonely-hearts meet.

The New York Daily News reports that Kuala Lumpur retailer “Shoes Shoes Shoes” is offering customers a free date with every footwear purchase.

Women who buy a pair of shoes and leave their details are matched with potential partners by an online dating site. These men are selected from the agency’s database after nominating a pair of shoes that they like.

From there, it’s like an episode of Perfect Match, Malaysia-style, as the store’s Facebook site explains:

“Buy a pair of shoes from a gorgeous selection in the store and dating consultants will pair you with an eligible bachelor who likes the same shoe design as you and arrange for the two of you to meet. The end? Of course not. To prove that chivalry is still very much alive, a gift in the form of a shoe discount voucher awaits you on your first date, courtesy of Prince Charming. Sounds like a fairy tale? Well, who says life can't be one for real. So get to it girl! Let the shoes decide your destiny.”

At least there’ll be an icebreaker if both dating parties turn up in Prada pink and purple sling-backs.

Facebook comments have ranged from “brilliant” to “supremely creepy.” The media coverage is going gang-busters with 60-plus online news articles and counting.

Apart from consenting podiatrists engaging in mutual foot massages, does taste in shoes really make for compatibility? If there’s probably a scientific study that says so, you can bet the evidence will be as credible as last week’s horoscope.

Leaving aside puns about these shoe-focussed couples being toey or turning out to be heels, the reality is that shifts in match-making are as seismic as those in media. For example, a 2009 study found that nine percent of married Australian couples met online. 

While the date-and-dine thing looks more a quick grab for publicity than a way to put couples on the path to life-partner bliss, if the boot was on the other foot and you wanted to make a mark in retail, you might wish you’d thought of it first.

Photo credit: http://www.nextnature.net/2008/12/high-heels/

 

Facebook lactivism goes offline to take to Sydney streets

By Elizabeth Coad

Sydney lactivists, April Bevan and Lucy Allen, are calling for support in their fight against Facebook’s ban of images showing mother’s breastfeeding their children.

According to the Urban Dictionary, a lactivist is

Someone who considers him/herself an advocate for breastfeeding, whether or not s/he's nursed. Lactivism comes in many forms: choosing to breastfeed, choosing to breastfeed for an extended period of time, choosing to breastfeed in public, choosing to smile at a breastfeeding woman, encouraging other women to breastfeed, educating the public on the benefits of breastfeeding, lobbying for pro-breastfeeding legislation, etc. 

The protest will be held outside Facebook’s Sydney head office on King Street today at noon. At least 50 women are expected to participate, reports Practical Parenting magazine.

While Facebook denies an official ban on breastfeeding images and in fact states that they are suitable for posting if the breast is partially covered, it has temporarily suspended more than 375 users accounts worldwide and removed photos that other Facebook users claimed to be offensive.

Facebook’s official policy states;  “We agree that breastfeeding is natural and beautiful, and we're very glad to know that it is important for mothers to share their experiences with others on Facebook.”

Tomorrow’s protest is designed to support women like April and Lucy who highlight that despite Facebook’s positive and inclusive policy, breastfeeding images are being censored  - on the whim of a moralistic minority.

All 391 banned photos can be found on the US website of the Topless Equal Rights Association. 

I for one will be stopping by King Street at noon today.

 

 

The App that can be your digital tombstone

By Craig Regan

Want to leave a digital trace of yourself on the Web using social media when you kick the bucket? As they say in the advertising world: “There’s an app for that.”

If I Die  lets you to post a video message to all your Facebook friends after you shuffle off this mortal coil. Shades of Pauline Hanson’s infamous leaked message from the grave in that and more than just a little morbid.

Download the app, upload a parting message or video and nominate three Facebook friends as “trustees”. They need to confirm your demise and you’re good to go.

You have to wonder if the marketing gurus behind this thought about calling the app When I Die, just to add some inevitability to their message and promote a stronger call to action. 

That’s one app that might have come in handy for relatives of the NSW hospital patients in this story. Hospital took 765 days to write a referral letter by which time the patient had died. The family of another deceased received a $70 bill after 535 days.

If you want to say goodbye posthumously, watch the Ifidie promo videos here. There’s even a Southpark version. 

 

Operation Global Black-Out - a stunt or real?

By Elizabeth Coad

The internet activist group ‘Anonymous’ plan to take down Facebook at 12am eastern standard time on 28 January 2012. Or maybe not.

Alleged members of the group posted a You Tube Video overnight calling for people worldwide to join the ‘Greatest Internet Protest - the first official Cyber War’.

In the YouTube video they provide instructions on how to disable your local Facebook server. They claim that if enough people participate and simultaneously disable all 60,000 worldwide Facebook servers the system will collapse. They also claim you can’t get caught!

 

Called Operation Blackout this latest call to join their protest action or ‘hacktivism’ by members of the online community. As they profile in the You Tube clip, the group have previously hacked the CBS and Warner’s Bros websites amongst other sites.

Anonymous is a decentralised community that employs leaderless resistance which is a political resistance strategy in which independent groups and individuals, challenge an established adversary, such as a government.

In this case their protest is centered on the now-stalled US Government's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and their desire to uphold the Internet rights for people worldwide. As their You Tube video states “An online war has begun between Anonymous, the people, and the Government of the United States”.

This latest video posting could be just a splintered subset of the community or in fact a hoax. Other members of Anonymous also tweeted from their @AnonOps Twitter feed that they would not attack Facebook. Although as their motto states: "We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us."

Regardless of the outcome, the YouTube posting last night and other recent videos are some of the best entertainment on the internet – bring on the cyber war!