Social media gets… well, anti-social

 location, online advertising, Reviews, social media marketing, web 2.0  1 Response »
Feb 192009
 

I wish I could be more surprised about this news, but there’s a local/social media site in the US (and as of last year I believe over here now too) call Yelp who have been accused of some, let’s say ‘anti-social’ business practice.

There are a few sources for this, but this article in the East Bay Express (with thanks to them for the excellent illustration I’ve borrowed here) sums up the allegation pretty well.

Sandlines has a lot of interest in the intersection of local information with reviews/user generated content and to me this is up a level from what I’d feared about this intersection. I’d been concerned about customers using their ability to post bad reviews as a negotiating stick as something that fundamentally undermined the integrity of review services – much as happened on Ebay before ‘negative feedback’ was banished.

But Yelp appear, from this article, to have taken this to a whole new level.

Qype, who’ve been cast as a company who’ve, erm, borrowed liberally from Yelp’s business model have, I hope, left this element Stateside?

As I was writing this article Yelp’s CEO published a response on the Yelp Blog – sandlines is not qualified to offer judgment on which side of this dispute is correct.

However, I remain firmly of the view that – if your business is publishing customer reviews (whatever the business) – then editorial integrity should dictate that you do not mess with those reviews for reasons other than decency and accuracy. You certainly should not (IMHO) massage results in return for commercial consideration.

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 Posted by Sandlines at 14:43  Tagged with: , , , ,

Social Media Marketing

 engagement marketing, Manifesto  No Responses »
Nov 172008
 

Last week I got into a discussion that started over on LinkedIn about whether simply placing ads on social networks sites was enough to claim that you are engaged in Social Media Marketing (SMM). The question was linking to a post over at Windchimes which does into more detail.

Of course, my view is that all you are doing is advertising in this instance: you are not engaged in SMM unless you are, ahem, engaging with the audience. And that takes a lot more work.

So I was interested to read that online video upstart Hulu is outgunning YouTube in terms of revenues over in the US. Forecast revenue, that is, for 2009.

This is on the back of 6m users compared to YouTube’s 83m.

That would appear to be a useful measure of the ad-revenue-value of ‘professional’ content versus user generated (or, dare I say it, pirated?) content. 14:1 – not a bad multiple… and wholly understandable.

So, the question remains: what is the revenue model for social media? Doesn’t look a lot like it’s advertising as we know it… it must come down to engagement marketing. I wish I had some great examples to share wtih you but they are still too few and far between IMHO.

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 Posted by Sandlines at 15:08  Tagged with: , , , ,

Chasing bubbles in a water bed

 engagement marketing, Manifesto, Reviews  No Responses »
Nov 132008
 

I read a tale of woe from the Economist this week, about how both Virgin Atlantic and British Airways had flown into turbulence over their respective employees’ use of blogs and social networks. Seems that passengers took a dim view of being described in less than flattering terms online.

Odd that a similar furore didn’t arise when Air Babylon was published, yet the idea is essentially the same. Hence, I guess, the use of ‘Anonymous’ as the alleged source of the insider’s view.

It’s amazing how badly some organisations are dealing with the democratisation of production and distribution of content that characterise the web 2.0 world.

I recall a couple of years ago being on a panel at a marketing conference at which we were asked by a marketer from a University how he should handle the fact that students were using social networks to actually tell prospective students what life was like at his university. Should he ‘control it’?

My jaw is still bruised from it’s severe drop when a fellow panellist told him “Yes!”

That is, not just contribute to the discussion, but actually try to quash genuinely expressed views.

I wonder if the same answer would be give a couple of years later? Surely to do this is merely chasing bubbles in a water bed. You might stop them appearing in that location, but the commentary will merely appear somewhere else – and probably with deeper bitterness.

Anyone remember f***edcompany.com? I wonder if we’re due a version of that for social media snafus.

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 Posted by Sandlines at 12:47  Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,
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