Nortel buys Diamondware

Last week, Nortel announced its $7million acquisition of Diamond Ware, to enhance its multimedia, voice conferencing and voice-over-Internet solutions portfolio. I found this to be a very promising acquisition which proves their persistence with their strategy to place their bets on some really emerging areas of unified communications.

There are a lot of critics of Nortel, many of them have written off the Great Canadian Telecommunications giant for the dead. I have not done enough analysis to have a strong opinion, but i do know a lot of people working at Nortel, and from my anecdotal conversations with them, i feel that there might be a spark of hope. Needless to say they all have their complaints about the new strategies, and many of them are still on the edge of their seat waiting for a pinkslip. But i have noticed that two of my contacts have moved from old Nortel products (optical, GPRS) to new groups such as IPTV and Project Chainsaw (web.alive) mentioned above. They seem to be putting their money where their mouth is, and that is encouraging. You can not expect a company with the years of excess malpractice to change overnight. Mike Z has a lot of cleaning up to do, and that isn't going to be immediate. It may not be immediate enough for shaky, unseasoned investors--but i see hope. I really got to give it to John Roese not only for his vision, but for his courage to leave sunny california to endure the Ottawa winters. He must really see something special in this company.

But getting back to the point of web.alive and the use of virtual 3D envionments to enhance the experience of the web, and particularly the use cases mentioned on e-commerce stores..... I honestly wonder whether or not we are ready to shop like that. But lets not forget the Milenials. This is their cup of tea after hours playing virtual 3D collaborative games with friends from around the world. This isn't the old Nintendo A + B cursor pads, that i grew up with. We are talking very advanced games and concepts that are ingrained in the milenial mindset. These are the guys that think that the 3D web is as intuitive and normal, as we feel booting up windows every morning. This is really for them.

With the baby boomers retiring in the hoards, the new workforce is going to be full of Milenials, and what do you think their barriers to adoption will be for a 3D Conferencing and Collaboration solution?

Hang in there Nortel--i think you are onto something.

Second Life Adventures

Ok so i finally succumbed to my curiosity about the possibilities of the virtual world Second Life. The possibilities seem endless. More than that, i feel there is a spiritual angle to virtual worlds. We are in fact playing God, like God plays for us. But anyways--i won't get into that before i lose all credibility with the rational people in this world.

So i created an avatar. I tried to keep the guy looking as close to possible to me, with some obvious enhancements (i.e buff, nice straight and stylish hair, and clothes). But what frustrates me is the sheer amount of time it takes to get ramped up. To learn to walk, and more specifically to build items, and script animations. I enabled voice chat and literally took part in a party yesterday. At one point i felt like i was having a conversation with a bunch of people at a party. We danced (some groovy steps), had drinks and engaged in some mindless chit-chat. That was my Friday night. But i honestly felt like i went to a club!

I could tell as i spent more time on it, i was getting more immersed into the experience. The voice chat, and the views really pull you into the experience. Before long, hours have passed.

I can't help wondering whether Second Life is an outlet for people who like to fantasize about a life they could of had. Just like how i created an avatar with certain physical attributes, based on a wish list of my own perceptions of how i should be. Or how i was when i was younger.

Now we take away the obvious limitations in social settings (i.e everyone is beautiful). And all of a sudden, we create a common denominator. How people express what they perceive to be their ideal self differs by individual--and avatars become expressions of creativity, that comes from deep within. People you meet on the road are not judging you based on an appearance you have no control over, rather by how you choose to express your appearance, and how you communicate your inner self. Doesn't that sound ideal? Wouldn't you want to spend more time socializing in such an environment than in the harsh world where appearance and a number of other variables outside your control inhibit people from truly understanding you.

I have a sinking feeling that we are on to something here, and Second Life and other virtual worlds is going to come in to fill a very deep void in people today. People will want to spend more time socializing on SL rather than RL. And this is scary and exciting at the same time.

Scary because--we do in fact have real lives that we are escaping from. And perhaps not solving problems we might have control over. Exciting because the immersive experience in itself reveals a great revenue opportunity for the right entrepreneurs creative enough to unleash it.

I want to spend some more time understanding virtual worlds from not only as a market opportunity, but as a psychological/sociological shift happenning in the world today.

Wish me luck!

UK Social Network Ad Spend to Grow 148% 2008-2012

This release summarize some of the key findings of an e-marketer study conducted on social networking market in the UK. Some of the findings i feel were most interesting are:

• e-marketer reports a 148% growth in Ad spending on social networking sites in the UK between 2008-2012.
• 30% of UK internet users visit social networking sites such as Bebo, MySpace, Facebook.
• Social Networking sites only consist of 3.4% of all ONLINE AD spending in the UK

These numbers are very optimistic, however i do understand how e-marketer creates its market estimates, which is basically by analyzing the various findings of a variety of research sources, and coming to a consensus. Its methodology is not unique, but it takes into account a variety of methodologies, and finds that common ground.

Although i don't doubt that ad spending will grow rapidly (especially since it is coming from a low base)--i also beleive that much of this ad spending is being done soley based on intuition, and not on hard facts. I am not entirely sure that companies launching campaigns on social networking sites have got to a point where they understand how they will be successful. This spending must be from "brand" budgets, where all they are concerned about is that their brand meets as many eye-balls as possible.

However i really think that this is only the tip of the iceberg of so-net marketing. The possibilities are endless, when you can leverage the power of peer influence through these social mediums to not only get your brand seen, but more importantly, let your brand interact with people in social settings. I am on the lookout for success stories of brands that were able to leverage these so-net platforms to drive consumers to an action of some sort--or even a purchase?

I am waiting for the real direct marketing impacts of so-net--especially when you start linking it to e-commerce and online sales. For these apps to be truly 'killer'--they have to be able to drive measurable action, in order for marketers to experience true ROI. If anyone can point me to some good examples of success of so-net in direct marketing efforts---that would be greatly appreciated.

Asia-Pacific countries largest share of SoNet applications?

I was reading a post on Charlene Li's Forrester Research blog, which is based on her book Groundswell (which i am still yet to read), which conducted a study of online consumers and their use of social networking.

The study indicates that 35% of South Korean online consumers were visiting SoNet sites, as suppossed to 10% in Germany and 3% in France. This is not the first time i have heard of the prevalance of SoNet applications in Asia. I also beleive that mobile penetration and usage is higher in the Asian countries, and therefore their propensity to adopt applications for the mobile phone is higher. On my frequent trips to India alone, i notice how advanced consumers are with the use of SMS text messaging. People rarely pick up the phone and talk to eachother there. The increased propensity for both mobile phone usage and social networking makes Asian countries a potential hotbed of opportunity for MoSoNet players.

Food for thought. Hoe Naengmyon anyone?

Second Life goes MOBILE!!

Volee announced that they have now created a beta version of Second Life over 3G handsets. I think this is important for the following reasons.

1) It will allow existing SL addicts more access to the game, and therefore allow the ecosystem to develop further.
2) It will provide an opportunity new players who have very little time, to spend more hours on the game.
3) As adoption increases, this becomes an even more compelling medium for companies to get their message out.

Second Life, however fun it may be is a major time suck. I tried to get into the game, and quite frankly, since i have a Real Life to live, i just couldn't make it happen. I want to explore further the business benefits of Second Life and get real life examples of how companies have leveraged the virtual world to their benefit. If anyone has any examples of this, please let me know.

Location-Based Services combined with analytics will be the key to unlock the potential of MoSoNet success

I have always felt that Location-Based Services (LBS) was the key differentiator of the mobile phone from the PC as a information retrieving device. Many social networking sites are assuming that they can replicate their model from online to the mobile device. This is the same mistake that many print and broadcast advertisers made when they initially came online--spending big bucks for static banner ads on high traffic websites--with the end effect of a big "0" in ROI.

Mobile is a new medium completely--and companies wishing to engage and participate in this new medium really need to understand the inherent dynamics that make this platform compelling to end-users. Imagine the possibility of being able to know when your good friend is in the same city or even same building--and being able to impromptu meet them at a local restaurant for lunch which is walking distance for both parties and satisfies both your culinary preferences?

I feel this is a truly innovative MoSoNet scenario.

However there is hope to bring this kind of innovation to market--and it seems to be led by a number of new start-up companies (which supports my beleif that true innovation comes from small companies). Check out this article in CIO magazine that describes the initiatives by a number of promising start-ups.

Communicating with the next generation

Here is an interesting article about the growing popularity of mobile social networking, and how the milenials (people born between 1981-2000) are going to be the primary driver of social mobility moving forward.

"The implications for mobile go far beyond Facebook and MySpace. Not only is there plenty of room for others — including online players moving into mobile as well as mobile startups looking to go cross-platform — community will increasingly influence the spectrum of wireless content and services. If Coulton’s observations hold true, social networking components will figure more prominently in all sorts of things mobile, from gaming to music to simple news sites. "

I agree that that MoSoNet platforms are a perfect opportunity for advertisers to reach the milenial segment--but i wonder if this is the only audience they can reach. Considering the massive penetration of the blackberry within the enteprise smartphone market, with the older yuppies and baby boomers---is there not any opportunity to these older segments who advertisers are equally concerned about, especially since they have the biggest wallet of all segments? Is it unrealistic to assume that us old folks won't change our ways and embrace the MoSoNet revolution?