Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Author: Paul Wallbank

  • Local gets left behind by social and mobile in SoLoMo

    Local gets left behind by social and mobile in SoLoMo

    One of the tech buzzwords, or acronyms, a few years back was SoLoMo – Social Local Mobile. In reviewing the slides for the Future Proofing Your Business presentation next week, the term came up in one of the notes.

    It’s interesting look at the fates of the three different concepts over the past few years; mobile has boomed and redefined computing and social has become big business with Facebook growing into a hundred billion dollar company.

    Local though has struggled with Google, Facebook and a host of smaller and newer startups struggling while the Yellow Pages franchise dies. Despite the power of maps and geolocation, local just isn’t doing as well as the other two.

    This could be down to the difficulty in harvesting the massive amounts of disparate data available to any service trying to draw an accurate picture of what’s in the neighbourhood.

    Google Places tried to standardise that information for local businesses but the complexity of the service and its opaque, arbitrary rules meant adoption has been slow and merchants are reluctant to update details in case they fall foul of the rules.

    Local services’ failure to take off has also had a consequence for the media as its in hyperlocal services that publishers have possibly their best opportunity to rebuild their fortunes.

    That failure to properly harness mobile has also hurt merchants as many local operations are struggling to find useful places to advertise given Google Adwords and Facebook can be extremely expensive places to advertise.

    So the mobile space is still ripe for a smart entrepreneur – a new Google or Facebook – to dominate.

    Similar posts:

  • Webinar: Future proofing your business using cloud computing, social media and other tools

    Webinar: Future proofing your business using cloud computing, social media and other tools

    On April 29 I’m helping Flying Solo with a webinar on how small and single operator businesses can future proof their businesses.

    During the webinar we’ll be looking at how businesses can adapt and profit from a rapidly changing economy.

    Some of the things we plan to discuss include the trends driving the changing marketplace, some of the tools businesses can be using to harness a rapidly evolving workforce and methods to attract mobile consumers.

    We’ll also have a look at some of the ways canny business owners can use social media, cloud computing and other online services to make their businesses more profitable and flexible in a tougher business world.

    The webinar itself is free and you can sign up at the Flying Solo website. Hope to see you there.

    Similar posts:

  • Microsoft, Google and global astroturfing

    Microsoft, Google and global astroturfing

    Over the years Microsoft has been on the receiving end of regulators’ investigators, the New York Times reports the company is now using that experience to run a global harassment campaign against Google.

    That Microsoft are funding various groups to make complaints about Google shows how regulators, and reporters have to be careful about such campaigns.

    Similar posts:

    • No Related Posts
  • Building an accountable society

    Building an accountable society

    Making governments and businesses more accountable is ultimately the role for voters and consumers.

    Suzanne Snively, Chair of Transparency International’s New Zealand arm and Mick Macauley of Victoria University laid out the objectives of the Open Government Partnership at the Open Source, Open Society conference in Wellington today.

    The partnership, driven by the British government but endorsed by US President Obama, was launched in 2011 to make governments more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens.

    Underlying the partnership are four principles; technology, accountability, open participation and transparency.

    For governments the biggest challenge is probably in transparency in making information on government activities and decisions comprehensive, timely and freely available to the public.

    Probably the biggest challenge is accountability, a topic which goes far beyond governments, including both politicians and public servants, into the business community and society in general.

    “The role of civil society is absolutely crucial,” says Macauley while Snively adds “Democracy is going to have to start with the user.”

    Ultimately democracy and the markets will decide how transparent societies become, it’s up to voters not to tolerate secretive government and consumers not to tolerate untrustworthy businesses.

    Similar posts:

    • No Related Posts
  • Los Angeles finds the limits on school computers

    Los Angeles finds the limits on school computers

    Two years ago the Los Angeles school board proudly announced a $1.3 billion project to roll out iPads in some of its more disadvantaged schools.

    Now the contract has collapsed and the school board wants the money back from Apple and its partner, education publisher Pearson.

    It seems the program’s big problem was the software with Pearson supplying a poor product that was unusable for students.

    What we may well be seeing though is the end of the obsession politicians and education bureaucrats have with technology, something that ran ahead of teachers’ skills to use the tools and the capabilities of those tools – as we see with Pearson.

    Perversely though this may be the time that education technology starts to flourish as the sector falls into what Gartner describes as the ‘pit of disillusionment.’

    Similar posts:

    • No Related Posts