Spam, spam and more spam

Monty Python invented a monster. Spam, spam and more spam. Luckily in Europe the data-protection laws and enforcement do a fairly good job of protecting us from spam. Most professional companies are well aware of the consequences.

I don't mind the odd miss guided email e.g. when I've registered for something. But in Vietnam email harvesting and spamming is used by legitimate, big professional companies. I just got this from YuMe.vn, blasted out to a temporary email we use for recruitment. Guy's, you do more harm than good, maybe 1% click through, but that's 99% of people you just annoyed.

Hi abc@x.vn,

Nhân mời bạn cùng tham gia chương trình Dự đoán kết quả cuộc thi Vietnam Idol trên YuMe.vn
Với lời nhắn :
Biết tin gì chưa? Giải thưởng vô cùng hấp dẫn! Cùng dự đoán kết quả VietnamIdol trên YuMe.vn để trúng lớn nè!

Để Đồng ý lời mời của Nhân, mời bạn click vào link dưới đây:
Dự đoán trúng thưởng

Tham gia chương trình Mời nhiều Trúng lớn, bạn có cơ hội giành giải thưởng lớn hàng tháng và chung cuộc với tổng giá trị lên đến gần 50,000,000 đồng
Xem chi tiết tại: Mời nhiều trúng lớn
Thân,
YuMe.vn

Strangely, there is a kind of spam I quite like. I quite regularly get emails from various former kings, dictators, presidents and CEO's. Usually they need my help, they've got large sums of money to transfer and need to use my bank-account. Jolly nice people that they are, they will even give me a %. These guy's have got no brand to lose, and a 1% response rate will pay them a tidy sum in scam money.

In terms of email marketing, over the years these guy's have really perfected their emails in to powerful, responsive marketing tools. The use of English is pretty compelling, you almost want to respond :)

Greetings,


Before I start, I must firstly apologize for this unsolicited proposal to
you. I am aware that this is certainly an unconventional approach to
starting a relationship, But as time goes on you will realize the need
formy action.
[it's ok John, i don't want a relationship with you] :)

My name is Mr.John Moore, Audit Manager of National Westminister Bank
and account officer to Late Edward Han,who died with his wife and the
only daughter in an Automobile crash on the 28th January 2001. Before the
death of Late Edward Han, he maintained a fixed deposit account with my
Bank(National Westminister Bank)

Based on this discovery,I now seek your permission and support to have you
stand in as a next of kin to the Late deceased, as all documentations will
be carefully worked out by me for the release of these funds, all amounting
to the tune of (£20,000,000.00 GBP) Twenty Million British Pounds Sterling
Only to any nominated account of your choice.
[Wow]

I propose an offer of 40% of the total amount to be yours after the
transfer has been successfully concluded.Let me have your Full Name,
Confidential Telephone, Fax and Mobile Numbers and also your Contact
Address in response to this proposal if you are interested.
[Dear John, how could i not be interested. But I think you are too generous. I would be happy with 20%;)]

Please reply immediately to my private email address

Thanks and God bless.


Sincerely Yours,
Mr.John Moore
Tel:+447045717278

The Art of Honda - "Viet Nam Style"

Totally off-topic. This morning, whilst riding my little boy to his nursery school, we turned a busy intersection (CMT8/Vo Van Tan). Next to us, on his Wave-S, was a guy majestically wavering the bike slowly to oneside, then the next.

As we went past him, I noticed he was drifting into a deep sleep! Riding motorbikes in Vietnam is a skill at the best of times, but managing to catch some ZZzzz's at 30kmph is genius.


"I don't think he was in full control of his vehicle officer".
We got past him pretty fast!

The familiar versus the cutting-edge

People...Vietnam, UK, France, US, Brazil... We're becoming so similar in our habits, our likes, our technologies, our media and yet we're still so, so different. As a marketing guy I spend a lot of time getting into the mindset of the target audience, with groups as different as low-income frequent online gamblers, to Aston Martin driving readers of Clarkson.

Vietnam is, by far, the hardest challenge yet. I speak the Vietnamese. I've travelled here countless times, I now live in Saigon. But still the nuances of what makes people tick is illusive. I can almost see it, but I'm not yet sure. With a web application, this nuance is vital to understand.

In Europe, in 2008, we can assume a lot about our visitors abilities online. They'll comprehend a social network very quickly, they'll identify the benefit to themselves (or not) within a few clicks. In Vietnam you can't assume anything. You can build a service for the masses, but it will need to be toned right down, look familiar, have familiar features and functions. Familiar is mass market, but a crowded competitive space. Or you can build it for the tech-aware, and hope it 'tips' from there into a bigger audience.

Taking advice on this nuance from some of the very talented locals that really do 'get it' is very difficult too. Because an opinion is an opinion, and it's based on that own persons tech awareness and abilities. So it probably does not represent the wider, mass of users who are some years behind.

The hardest part of this is striking something in the middle. Something new, something unique, something useful...but that is strangely familiar and easy to adopt.

My tendency is to want to bring something fresh and new. But that's also a lonely place to be. So I am listening to views of lots of people from all backgrounds to get an instinct on what they like, how far to push design, functionality... This is something that, as an onlooker, I think VinaGame have got. That's one reason they've taken Zing up against Yahoo so strongly.

The best analogy I can make is with the coffee shops of Saigon. There are hundreds of standard coffee shops. They play famous Vietnamese love songs, have good cheap lunches and are generally popular. (I struggle to name one because they are all so similar). Then there are a few funky, fashionable new guy's, like NokBox, SOHO. They have pushed the boundaries in design, style and atmosphere. Prices are a little higher. And they're doing pretty well at it, and you remember them. Even talk about them.

When is a site ready for open Beta?

Hmmmm. So we tested everything. We fixed everything.
buzz.vn
Features.. check.
Functions..check. Graphics...check. Speed...check.



We turn the site on, and discover 101 things that we need to optimise, fix, shore-up. So when is a site ready to unleash. There's nothing like a strict deadline to force the site to be ready. And we did that. But in reality, putting Buzz.vn live sooner rather than later is/was an even better thing to do.

Traffic from search spiders, random global users, members, always turns up some 404/403 errors you never knew existed. And the fact the site is live, means the urgency to fix is much greater.

But we have the luxury of being a new site that know one knows of, and in Vietnam where users can be a little more forgiving. I've worked on some huge 'relaunches' which have hundreds or millions of unique users already. And in UK/USA the user "expects"... it's a huge business risk. Get it wrong, and it doesn't take more than a few clicks for loyal users to find a substitute.

However big or small the site. There are always 404/403's. There are always unexpected problems. So when is a site ready for public Beta?... Probably, when it fulfills all the basic needs of it's users, but definitely well before it's is perfect. (don't tinker, launch!).

Bored, bored, bored!!

Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Google...Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Google.... arrrgh.

I've been in this business 10 years now and the blog inches (including my own) given over to these leaders is becoming quite boring. We used to get excited about new innovations, risky new business models, funky new technologies. Where has all that gone?!

I'm heading to BarCampSaigon.org tomorrow, and hopefully will get excited about some of the ideas and businesses I meet there. I met some of the guy's organising it earlier this week, and they're a fun, smart crew, so it should be a good day. There's some good stuff (web business, that is) in Vietnam. Here are some of my current favourites:

thodia.vn - it's cafe, bar, entertainment listings and user reviews with nicely integrated maps. Very nicely executed indeed. It doesn't blow you away with features, which is great, and exactly right for the audience. I hope this one pulls through over the next few years.

skydoor.net - we're creating our own travel site, so I am flagging the competition here. But hey, the guy's have done a great job. It's all based around Gmaps, with plenty of resources for the reader. Good work guy's!

Further afield, I'm liking:

deviantart.com - a long-time favourite of mine. Any site that has over 50million user created artworks, and is still independent of the big boy's, deserves respect. If you like art or photography, you'll lose your life to this site!

GoodGuide.com - it's just a shop, right. Actually, it's a very fast, simple guide to environmentally friendly products. Apart from an iPhone app, there's nothing technological to get excited about. It's just a very relevant, good start-up for the future.

pibb.com - it's twitter, facebook, IM, actually it's everything might want and need for a collaborative, communications tool for work, friends, social. I'd love to see something like Pibb integrated into big, mass media like TheSun.co.uk, the freeflow of discussions and topics would be fascinating, perhaps a little too fascinating!

What I do love about the big-web guy's is the platform wars, Open Social, widgets, apps...long may it continue. It has allowed companies like slide.com to appear from nothing to be the innovators and money-makers of a new widgety world. Interesting stuff.

Do you feel the Buzz?

We'll it's been a while, 6 months in fact. Bad bad blogger that I am. So what's happened for me:

- Left London for Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
- Set-up VEO Media
- Launched Buzz.vn
- Working on some others...
- Got a pet turtle for the roof garden :)
- And some lovely classic motorbikes

Vietnam's one hell of a colourful, exciting, frustrating, fun, hard, easy place to be. Ok, full of contradictions, but that's what it's like.

I here experts say that there's no real Social Media in Vietnam. Actually, you couldn't find a bigger market for it. But it lives here in a different form. People meet and chat with mates through Yahoo 360, they hangout in forums like Game-VN(675,000 members in this forum alone!). So what of Web 2.0 in Vietnam. Well meeting in online games is surely Web 3.0. So there's a generation that skipped 2.0 but plenty are also still back on Web 1.0 forums. (more contradictions)

Generally people here accept what is familiar, rather than something that challenges them, so the normal social networks need to make a real effort to get take-up. Facebook probably has the biggest opportunity, because as a platform it is fully customisable, and the bedroom/backstreet developers will go to town on creating VN widgets which are fun and familiar.

Right now, we're just rolling out Buzz.vn. It's for hot news, hot links, for your bookmarks and to share with your friends. I guess the best way to describe it is Digg marries Delicious, has twins and comes to Vietnam. It's been a hell of a journey to make, a truly global collaboration between London, Vietnam, with Eastern Europe in between. It's for local Vietnamese and for Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese) too.

Will Vietnamese get the Buzz? Who can be sure. These ventures are forever speculative. But we've got some great, interesting content already posted from Khoa and Nhi, our editors. And I hope that visitors will keep discovering the Buzz through cool, fun, challenging, shocking, useful content they find on the site.

There are loads of features and functions we'll add, but for the start, we've stripped it back, to make it easier for new users to find their way. You can post, you can save links, you can have buddies and you can vote. Or you can just read.

Now the challenges ahead lie in getting the word 'buzz' in the vietnamese language, getting good members, good traffic, getting good content. But we've got some fun marketing ideas that might just help that along. (Some things that have not been done in Vietnam before). I'll share them here very soon.

Oh, and the slogan - It's only hot when you make it Buzz!

Verticals: Collaborate or Die

It's easy to be distracted by the 'big guy's' in digital right now. But the innovation in this industry is always driven by the small garage ventures.

I came across GameSkoot today which is a really simple nice implementation of a vertical search engine for Video Games. Nothing ground-breaking, just a simple service that looks good and works. Whilst Google scoops the volume, there has to be a space for specialists to work with their industry peers, bloggers, advertisers and make this work.

Video Gaming is the perfect industry for this, it's a 'niche area' that's bigger than Hollywood, it is dominated by 'otaku' (obsessive designers, players, fans) but published by heavyweights such as EA, UbiSoft. There are a million blog sites, fan sites, gaming sites set-up by the 'otaku' that combined, makes up the perfect advertising vehicle for the next console, MMO or gambling site. But where will EA advertise? On big brand portals and AdSense.

The difficulty is none of these 'industries' are collective or collaborative enough to combine the power of their members. They don't combine forces they compete with each other. That's where Google is both smart (it's become the enabler via a one size fits all AdSense and now Open Social), but Google is vulnerable here too..

If the gaming industry adopted GameSkoot (for example) as it's search engine, they could create a market, an advertising industry and a distribution platform. And because it is run and developed by 'the otaku' it could beat the one-size fits all of Google hands down.

The big guy's have the advanced technology and the volume of audience to combine in an 'impartial' way. The small players love what they do, they just need to find a way to work together. Why not make that the focus of the next industry conference for... News, Travel, Games, Finance, Motoring...

Disrupting the Hosting Industry

Google have done it again...perhaps. Following Amazon's lead into 'cloud computing' last night they launched the Google App Engine. And unlike Amazon's it's a free (so far) application hosting and development environment. Google get your data, personal and business, you get free hosting.

The established hosting industry will be reeling from this move. How do you compete with a free service provided by arguably the most reliable web-service in the world?

In international trade terms this might be called 'dumping' - they are peddling something below cost to take over a market. The approach is no different to what they did in Analytics, Books, Docs...

In all cases Google are helping bring costs right down. However, they are also crushing the infrastructure services and businesses that underpin internet business (payment, advertising, analytics, hosting). Where next? Content?

Strategic Heavy Weights

Wow, 2008 has begun with a bang, following some late action in '07. The big digital guns are playing a game of top-trumps to make the most informed acquisitions and strategic moves.

Google's "hand" includes:

- Bids for Wireless spectrum in the US
- Google Universal search
- Google Mobile (Android Software Dev Kit)
- Google Open Social

Yahoo has been busy shutting services down and consolidating its position, whilst Microsoft, the slumbering giant, has been licking its lips at the prospect of Microsoft-Yahoo double-team.

Whilst these are huge plays, the big one for me at this moment is Facebook, and their "open" application platform. By allowing developers to create applications (and retain revenue generated from them) last year Facebook made a subtle master-stroke. (subtle because it was ignored by the competition). But in recognition of awakening industry competition (G Open Social, MySpace, Bebo), Facebook's move to allow these apps to run across other sites may make them the defacto platform....

...A whole profitable and creative industry has been created out of these Facebook apps, so allowing them to be unleashed on the long-tail of personal sites is a master-stroke. e.g. fancy adding a fun-wall to your blog?..Other platforms will probably be more open, more flexible, less controlled, but Facebook has first-mover advantage, and that could be the key to success.

If the future goes this way, Facebook becomes a distributed data platform, rather than a social-network per se. A platform for distributed widget advertising, in much the same way that Google's Adsense is the defacto contextual ad network.

Facebook's success in this gameplan depends entirely on getting us bloggers and publishers to start plugging in their apps to our pages. They have enough audience and apps to do so. But they'll need to be fast, because Google along with MySpace have a bigger audience to seed the same strategy through.

It's the HD/Blue-Ray (or BetaMax vs VHS) of online. A top-trumps battle to own the dominant platform by the industry heavy-weights. First blood to Facebook. But we, "user", will decide.

SEO: The light and dark side of the force

A storm brewed last night in the world of SEO. Unfortunately the storm revolved around Times Online, a site I'm proud to say I played a part in growing until mid 2006. They, or more specifically, Sitelynx (the search engine consultants) have been accused of Link Spamming social news sites. A rogue employee admitted spamming and the rest is history.

In my days of marketing Times Online, with Sitelynx, we alway's stuck strictly to the 'light' side of the force (open, approved search techniques only). It's a shame to see this happen and the reputations get muddied against a lot of hard, legitimate graft.

This whole storm does really raise some important questions of anyone involved in internet media and marketing:

Where is the line between link building and spamming?

Should site-owners always disclose their intent on posting to sites like digg.com?

Is it legitimate for a Journalist to post a link to their own work?

Do the Guardian, The Mail and other similar organisations deny doing the same?

As a site-owner, I hate spammers. It's a constant battle to find intelligent ways to stop morons writing ever more sophisticated scripts that get through your filters.

At the same time, we would all be a little naive to think that blog owners, music companies, publishers, consumer technology businesses, car companies, wont want to spread the word through posting to social sites. In fact, talk about online PR and your already in this grey area. Offline word-of-mouth or Buzz marketing is a similar grey area and it's a technique employed by thousands of consumer technology and product companies.

So what's acceptible? It's down to the individual reader I guess and the company putting the messages out. The beauty of social news sites is that the user en-masse decides what's hot, and what's not. So people can spam all they like but if Joe Blogs isn't interested, it'll do the promoter no good.

It's hardly the stuff of a Soc Gen Rogue trader, but it's as good as it gets online. I wonder how many other rogue spammers will "come out" or whether they're busy changing IP addresses and deleting user accounts!

2 Months in Internet Years

I've been travelling (Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam) for the last two months, so I've got some catching up to do.

Right now, it feels like the calm before the storm for digital natives (in Murdoch terminology). We had Ebay, Google Maps, YouTube, MySpace and Facebook (I think World of Warcraft Online deserves to be in this list). But nothing really new and innovative has recently has seemingly exploded into the mainstream.

The reason, IMHO, is that we've had the luxury of a deluge of innovative, useful and well finished applications over the last few years...and the mass market (the late majority) are now gradually catching-up. So the sites that were showcases for us in the industry are now adopted in the mainstream.

So what comes next? Well, with this mass market acceptance and use of internet applications comes the notion that the internet is more than just shopping or browsing content. Again, this is obvious stuff, but right now it actually matters because the mass market will finally use sites as applications. So Google Docs, Spreadsheets, Microsoft Picasa, Joost etc have a chance to grow exponentially.

Plus, I expect in the next 18 months, finally, web on your mobile will become accepted, useful and cheap. And as a result it will be the next boom in digital business. Nokia, Vodaphone, Google, Microsoft have been betting on this for years through acquisitions and marketing. But now the UK public are really beginning to accept it and this is the key.

Devices are suitable and easy to use (we can thank the iphone for forcing the hand of manufacturers/networks). Contracts are getting sensible pricing for internet data (the wifi threat forces the networks hand). And useful applications which people are already familiar with are available; cashless payments, maps, photo storage, skype...

All of this points to a new phase of digital entrepreneurship - growing from new uses of the web, on new devices, by new people. Most of these new future success stories are already out there as alpha/betas. And as with all digital successes to date the winners will be chosen by the public, not the corporates.

Google, disruptive and dumping?

There's lots of talk of Google's push into ad-serving, with GoogleClick offering 'free display ad-serving' for publishers. So Google wipes out the economics of the ad-serving business in one short-sharp hit.

In the offline world there's an ugly word to describe these economics - "dumping" [offering a product below the costs of production to attack a market]. In digital we call it "disruptive".

Obviously it's not strictly free, as Google will make it's cut from the arbitrage in market pricing, but it wont charge the publisher for the priviledge. It's a master stroke if they get scale, which they surely will, and will crush ad-servering businesses all over the world. That perhaps, isn't quite in line with Google's moto "don't be evil". But it is certainly dispruptive (online), dumping (offline).