1. A huge Facebook campaign was launched by the anti-X Factor contingent after the show to ensure the winner doesn’t top the Christmas charts – as a result Rage Against The Machine are the unlikely and foul mouthed favourites for a Christmas No1

2. ITV will be feeling good about the show anyway as their advertising revenue for the TV show is estimated at £18m and an additional £1m from telephone call-ins during the show. As such it must have been one of the most successful TV events in the UK. But importantly, it wasn’t just the TV ratings that were soaring: twitter and facebook also achieved substantial bursts of traffic discussing the progress of the contestants and celebrity guests during the show.

So ITV must feel they are getting the hang of this social media thingy – better than they did with Friends Reunited.

Examples like Crowdstorm are a new way for consumers to find what to buy based on the buzz around products. Users recommend products, and the crowd defines the best products by recommending what they know and like. Popular products go to the top of the list, weak products disappear. It works rather like the popular news website Digg.

What is buzz? Well for social shopping sites it is measured by the amount of activity surrounding a product: how many times a product has been viewed, how many bloggers have written about it, and how many users have commented about it.

Friends can be added which helps build the crowd effect, and these friends can be people they already know or those they’ve met on the site and whose product recommendations they trust.

Expect in the future; users posting their own product images and videos, and top-rated members being invited to beta-test new products from big brands.

UK-based Crowdstorm was founded by Phil Wilkinson, who also set up online price comparison sites ShopGenie and Kelkoo, and aims to be one of the internet’s best sources of impartial product information.

Another social shopping network to have launched recently – but in the US – is ThisNext. Featuring slick design and sending visitors down one of three paths: Discover, Recommend and Shopcast. The discover section lets users browse products recommended by others. Clicking on a item allows them to add it to their wishlist, recommend it, or find out where to buy the product. Users can recommend products by creating themed lists (from ‘Japanese Snacks’ to ‘Things I Cannot Do Without’), or simply by clicking on an easy to install ‘Add to ThisNext’ browser button.

Appealing to the blogging crowd, ThisNext’s standout feature is shopcasting: bloggers can create small banners for their website. These so-called shopcast badges either display their own recommendations or those of the ThisNext community, broadcasting the products they love or must have.

The latest news to feed into your digital strategy – Online video is poised for explosive expansion in viewing.

Recent figures on digital media consumption in the United States (from investment bank Bear Stearns) say over 70% of internet users now stream video, watching an average of 7 minutes a day.

Based on my own non-scientific research of talking to my 20 year old son, his peers at university and the friends I have still in their twenties and early thirties I can see a real shift in behaviour where the viewing of US TV programmes/movies is often on PC rather than TV.

For me and probably most of my generation the real shift is unlikely to take a grip until we have a simple solution for getting our content from the internet to our big screen TVs. See my recent blog about Placeshifting.

Meanwhile back to the Bear Stearns report, and while video advertising spend is projected to reach $4.3 billion by 2012, they say that nearly 90% of internet users in the United States will be watching video online by then (that’s just four years from now).

According to comScore, the number of online video viewers in the United States rose by 15% over the last year to over 140 million. YouTube was the top site, attracting over half of them.

The number of streams viewed has grown even faster, by 40% over the last year, to over ten billion streams. Nearly a third of them were from YouTube, way ahead of any other site, growing by over 200%.

Video advertising spend has been growing accordingly and is projected to reach $4.3 billion in the United States by the end of 2011.

The Bear Stearns analysts conclude that internet video already has vast reach and is growing. Video advertising is acceptable to the majority of viewers and provides engagement that offers compelling value to advertisers. The viewer base is maturing and there is still much room for growth in monetisation.

So, have you given enough thought to the question of if/how online video fits in your digital strategy?

The new Ofcom report on the International Communications Market is very revealing on the multi-tasking habits of TV viewers who are also Internet surfers – some 74% of UK Internet Users surf whilst they watch TV – and 28% do it most times.

Hitwise reports that UK Internet searches for second hand goods have increased by 22% over the last 12 months, while Classifieds websites have experienced a 47% increase in traffic over the same period.

The number of UK Internet searches containing the word ’second hand’ increased by 22% between the weeks ending 13 October 2007 and 11 October 2008. During the 12 weeks ending 11 October 2008, UK Internet users searched for over 22,000 distinct terms containing the phrase ’second hand’ with searches for ’second hand cars’ proving to be the most popular.

Top five UK Internet searches containing ’second hand’, 12 weeks ending 11 October 2008

1. second hand cars

2. second hand books

3. second hand car prices

4. second hand furniture

5. second hand bikes

UK Internet visits to Freecycle  the website that enables people to recycle their unwanted goods by passing them on to others, increased by 35% between September 2007 and September 2008.

“The community aspect has played an important role in the success of Freecycle and lots of people are searching the web for lists in their neighbourhood,” commented Robin Goad, Director of Research for Hitwise. “The site is currently most popular in Wales and the West Midlands and is used most by people with families”.

In one quote from the Hitwise press release they say “Property searches have fallen, but traffic to House and Garden retailers has reached a new high as people look to cocoon themselves in their existing homes”

Well that’s interesting but I don’t think the DIY Retailers are feeling the benefit just yet!

A new warning just out – social networks may not drive online sales! You don’t say….

I was asked to talk about this area of online strategy at an LBS event a few weeks ago – the theme – monetizing social networks. There is a lot of interest in this right now and for good reason, we all want to make sure we are investing in stuff that will drive sales. This particular session was interesting, there were many bright individuals in the room and together we were able to highlight a few cool emerging businesses but we weren’t weighed down with examples of big brands leveraging social networks to drive online sales.

Now I see that Forrester are offering up a note of caution, claiming social networks have been considered more effective for brand-building and less proven for driving revenue or sales conversion. They say that retailers therfore need to continue investments in proven techniques like e-mail marketing and free shipping promotions to drive sales.

Well yes that’s a safe conclusion to draw because it’s a classic case of “get the basics right before adding the frills”. But it’s a big generalisation and we should all be working on improving the basics everyday anyway – I think it’s still important for anyone who owns online strategy for a retail brand to be thinking about how their customers might benefit from well thought through innovations and in some cases that will draw on social networks or on offering interaction that fits the customers mission.

This story summarising recent research with retailers in the US about their plans for online spend in 2008 suggests most aren’t thinking any further than placing ads on social network sites. I do hope some of the bright sparks in retail are thinking abit more ambitiously than this…please say yes.

BTW – i almost forgot to mention the headline news of this research from Forrester and Shop.org – Retail online sales (US) are set to grow again to $204 billion in 2008 from $174.5 billion last year. This despite the recession! All I can say is some brands are going to have to work harder to maintain growth and that means challenging the assumptions and thinking futher ahead – online strategy designed to deliver something of value to your customers and within a multi-channel retail strategy.

First it was reaching mass adoption of Broadband, taken for granted now but it felt like a long jouney.

Then the war of Music Downloading, a series of tough battles leaving few standing and most not where they wanted to be, that established a download/on-demand expectation for entertainment consumers.

Along the way much posturing and occasional stuttering progress in the transition from DVD to download, and that feels like another journey that will,be long and painful.

But at the same time the way we watch TV programmes is going through perhaps the most exciting changes. We now take for granted multi-channel TV with a choice of services – the choice of which will extend even further in the UK with Sky introducing services via the ariel and Freeview being joined or superceded by Freesat. Not to mention the fact that BT are making progress with their Vision service, and unfortunately Virgin Media seem to be taking three steps back for every step the others take forward.

In addition to all that we have Timeshifting and Placeshifting – two concepts that sound like they belong in a dodgy Sci-Fi movie but actually are happening in more and more households right now. Timeshifting is easy enough now with the introduction of PVRs like Sky+ mean that we are increasingly making our own decisions about when we want to watch our favourite programmes rather than being dictated to by the programmers schedule (also of course many of us fast forwarding through the ads) which is causing much disruption in the industry. The next step is Placeshifting, and I’ve decided I need to rise to this particular challenge in my TV viewing this year. We have multi-channel TV at home (no need to go into whose service it is because that’s not the point here) and we are lucky enough to spend a few weekends and some of the summer in an apartment we own in Southern France – I want to Placeshift my TV choices from the UK to my place in France. It’s early days but already I know it’s technically possible (I can install a Slingbox at home aand recieve the programming via Broadband on my PC in France) but how and when is it going to become easy and convenient? I want to watch it on a decent sized TV screen and that means I will need Fast Broadband (something I can’t rely on currently) and I will need to port what i recieve from Slingbox across to the TV (not exactly a convenient and easy user experience). So my challenge for 2008 is, will this become possible with a decent user experience and without a technical training course for the average punter?

I will be keeping my eyes on it!

I’ve been singing the praises of Facebook recently (despite the Microsoft investment) simply because it’s great fun and after a start with college age kids it has gained massive momentum with those of us way past that stage in life. So imagine my surprise when I come across a debate (albeit based in the US) in Publishing 2.0 about the age factor for online social networking.And then I find a great article (this side of the pond) in Times Online called “Forget Facebook – this is social networking for the silver surfer”. There is apparently a new wave of online social networking for the more mature web user and at the forefront of this is Saga, the travel-to-insurance company that specialises in serving those over the first flush of youth. A trial run of the Saga Zone website started four months ago and about 13,000 people signed up.

Now it is live and we will see how it grows. On it, those over their half-century can find forums on subjects ranging from gardening to relationship advice. They can enter their personal profiles and hope that a like-minded mature citizen will respond. What the site clearly trades on is that maturity is not in every case the handmaiden of contentment. Contact with the outside world is a necessity at every stage of life, and romance does not necessarily die with the sprouting of the first grey hair. Andrew Goodsell, the group chief executive of Saga, said: “The internet is a place where the over50s are thriving. Saga Zone is a place where they can mingle and chat about issues important to them, be they amusing or serious.”

Already, the Saga Zone website has signed up an 87-year-old. A poll of more than 15,000 people aged over 50 in the United Kingdom showed that the so-called grey pound was a significant driving force in the online economy. Nearly three quarters of respondents had bought flights online, a similar number had bought books, and two thirds had bought electrical items. I love the way these survey findings support this natural selection of social netorks.

• 50% of over-55s have access to the web
• 7% look for love online
• 22% play games such as bingo
• 43% regularly buy and sell on eBay

I’m reliably informed that the term Web 2.0 was first coined at an O’Reilly Media conference in the States in 2004. According to Wikipedia Web 2.0 “attempts to define a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies….which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users.”

In 2006 “You” was awarded Time Magazine Person of the Year, in praise of the accelerating success of on-line collaboration and interaction by millions of users around the world. Wikipedia was the first particular Web 2.0 service mentioned, followed by YouTube and MySpace. Over the last few months Facebook has become the No.1 social networking tool in the UK. Latest stats from Alexa (www.alexa.com) show that the site is now second only to Google, and in the last few days Microsoft invested $240m for a 1.6% stake, valuing the firm at $15bn. What next for Facebook? Who knows really? But let’s remember the root of its success is that Facebook is for fun. It was created by and for college kids, and now it has extended to those of us who didn’t grow up with the Internet.

Have a go – it’s easy to set yourself up with an account. Just go to www.facebook.com and click on ‘Sign Up’. If you haven’t yet tried it and you want to practice by adding a ‘friend’, feel free to search on Bill James and give me a ‘poke’ (don’t worry, it’s a Facebook term for attracting someone’s attention). Now even as an older, business-minded generation sign up, I continue to insist this is a network for fun and I like to use it to joke with, and keep in touch with friends. If you feel you want to mix work and pleasure there are some business-related tools amongst all the goofy comments and photos available to members. For example, Facebook makes it easy for anyone to start their own group on whatever topic they like, so businesses can create a company events board, staff intranets, recruitment forums and even customer feedback areas. For a small fee, users can post surveys on any topic and make them available to the Facebook network of their choice – a great market research tool for companies targeting the Facebook demographic of 25-40 year olds. Users can also post events free of charge, invite all their friends, and publicise them within their network and groups. As well as creating a company group with recruitment functionality, companies can also use Facebook to headhunt. Looking for a C# Web Developer in Belgium? Go into the Belgian network and search with C# in the ‘job’ field, and see what you can find. And what about LinkedIn and Myspace? Well not only is Facebook overtaking Myspace but my kids tell me that never really worked for them as teenagers anyway. As for Linkedin, well it is a great business network and useful for making professional contacts – I use it a lot and find it really useful but it doesn’t keep me engaged when I visit the site. The reason for that is that it’s very functional but really quite boring – and who wants that even in business?

Ten things you didn’t know about Facebook:

1. Oxford University proctors have used it to monitor the activity of their students

2. There are over 34 million Facebook users worldwide – the largest group is in London

3. It is the second most visited site in the UK

4. A recent survey found that 43% of UK employers block access to Facebook

5. A court ruling in September ‘07 means that members’ profiles could soon be available to search engines

6. 41% of Facebook users are willing to divulge personal information to strangers

7. Facebook holds over 1.7 billion photographs

8. Miss New Jersey was blackmailed by someone using photographs she had posted to Facebook (involving pumpkins)

9. A university in Pennsylvania denied a teaching degree to a student for allegedly promoting under-age drinking on her Facebook profile

10. Facebook has only been available to the general public for 13 months

Disruptive Technology: Obviously a strong or dominant position for EMAP brands in the rapidly emerging digital distribution channels puts them in exactly the right place to grab the lions share of customers and cash. One thing that’s clear is that when new and exciting technologies emerge we see new entrants creating disruptive business models. Look at ebay, skype, BitTorrent, Tivo etc. Some business models worked, some didn’t, some are purely disruptive rather than commercial – many achieve high usage volumes with little marketing commitment. Once the early adopters are on the bandwagon these new brands typically have trouble building on the momentum to reach the mass market. This is where companies like EMAP with strong brands can achieve big success. Be the entertainment brand/s that late adopters and mass-market consumers can go in the confusion of new technologies. That’s what’s happening with DAB so what else should EMAP be considering?

Broadband & Online Entertainment: We are at the stage BT calls “crossing the chasm” in broadband market development. With over 6million users in the UK the importance of “always on fast access” diminishes in the consumers’ mind. As the emphasis shifts from utility to entertainment – content, services and applications will drive the mature market.

So the Broadband Service Providers are beginning a transition from Access to Content. The late nineties was about web and email access, the early noughties have been about enhanced web access as we discovered what we can do with digital photos and music downloading. The next two to three years will be when we discover rich media for real, with enhanced music services, video streaming and downloading becoming more mainstream, gamers discovering the power of connecting with each other in a meaningful way and home networking that enables non-PC devices around the home.

Rising broadband penetration is helping online entertainment cut into the traditional entertainment distribution market. RHK forecasts the global online entertainment market is likely to reach $36 billion by 2009. With a CAGR of 101%, video is the fastest growing sector, followed by music. My own analysis of the UK online entertainment market (various sources endorsed by Accenture) shows it is set to grow by 360% over the next five years (CAGR 29.2%).

Broadband TV (IPTV): On the back of all this we will also see break-throughs in digital TV. EMAP is well aware of broadcast digital TV (Freeview & Sky) but we all need to watch what happens with Broadband TV or IPTV. Broadband TV is coming in several guises;

• IP Enabled Set Top Box (STB)
• Microsoft Windows XP Media Centre
• Home Entertainment PC
• Next Generation Games Consoles.

IPTV is a similar idea to VoIP services, like Skype. Both use broadband net connections to carry information, like video and voice, in packets of data instead of conventional means. Since it uses Internet technology, IPTV could mean more choice of programmes, more, more interactivity, tailored programming, and more localised content outside of conventional satellite, digital cable, and terrestrial broadcasts. It is all part of the larger changing TV technology landscape and, like personal digital video recorders (PVRs), gives people much more control over TV. Broadcasters see IPTV and PVRs as both as a threat and an opportunity. Many believe it opens opportunities for other content players to enter the fray.

Because IPTV uses huge centralised servers to deliver video into consumers’ homes, it can support a nearly unlimited number of channels and allow customers to pick from an à la carte channel selection. It can even offer multiple camera angles for sporting events and make thousands of old movies, TV shows, events and magazine style content available “on demand” at the push of the button. IPTV differs from earlier forms of Internet-based TV in that, while the video signal is encoded just like data over the Web, it travels solely over the telco’s own servers and network. Viewers will find the experience akin to watching digital cable, rather than streaming video on the Web.

These developments will impact the traditional TV model significantly. Timeshift (e.g. Tivo) and trickplay (eg. Sky+) challenge conventional thinking about broadcast advertising. Personalised and on-demand both create new opportunities for targeted and interactive advertising.

There are several new formats to plan for in this next evolutionary phase of TV;

• Community or Niche TV – sharing local or special interest content
• Personalised TV – create your own content and on-demand broadcast content
• Interactive TV – more granular contextual targeting, red button services using the broadband back-link
• Broadband TV Interface – pushing the design of the epg for enhanced content browsing.

Read more here, Me TV: All shows, all the time