The ‘Psychology Of Sharing’

In an online survey of 2,500 self-identified “medium-to-heavy content sharers,” Latitude Research and the New York Times found that users generally fall into six “personas”: altruists (mostly female, attached to causes), careerists (it’s all about the job), hipsters (younger altruists and careerists), boomerangs (people who share simply to stir up controversy), connectors and selectives (related to careerists and altruists, respectively).

While people who are younger and view themselves as more tech-savvy have begun to forego e-mail as a communications tool, for the most part, e-mail remains the most popular way users choose to share news. Email also is viewed as more secure and private and therefore more “personal.”

As such, people tend to want to have a one-to-one conversation about news that moves them rather than a one-to-many. Social media, the study says, is all about “serendipity,” where a post can lost in the shuffle of a Twitter or Facebook stream.

NYT On The ‘Psychology Of Sharing’

Verizon LTE Phones Probably Incompatible With AT&T

Verizon Wireless says its LTE phones will not be compatible on other LTE networks in the United States because "the phones will be on different frequencies," according to Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney. Of course, in principle, and at some risk of cost or complexity, the range of supported frequencies could include the AT&T bands. But that would lessen the customer lock in, and it is a rare company that really wants to make it too easy for a customer to defect to another.

The new 4G LTE system used by Verizon, MetroPCS, and soon AT&T runs on SIM cards much like the ones for GSM networks, and GSM phone owners are used to being able to switch phones from network to network, as long as they're unlocked.

But Verizon may be designing its phones to only run on Verizon's very specific wireless frequency, locking out all other possible carriers.

Verizon LTE Phones Probably Incompatible With AT&T

Mobile and E-Commerce Get U.K. Retailer Attention

For the first time ever, top retailers' priority for information technology investment is e-commerce and mobile commerce, according to the latest annual IT in Retail research of the UK's leading 100 retailers by Martec International, sponsored by BT Expedite.

The study of retailers with annual sales totalling more than £180 billion, representing 50,000 stores and 71 per cent of the total UK retail sector, which is valued at £254 billion.

The main IT investment priority for leading retailers is e-commerce and mobile commerce, growing from 17 per cent last year to 23 per cent this year, outdoing investment in store systems, which has been the focus for the previous nine years.

In many ways, those moves are the inverse of the growing efforts by many other companies, inside and outside the ecosystem, to shift from online commerce to physical location retailing. Retailers, in part, want to harvest more sales from the online channel. Many other participants want to create new sales platforms that use online tools and applications to capture more of the retail transaction volume.

In many ways, both trends represent a deepening of the "bricks and clicks" strategy that developed in the wake of the first big wave of e-commerce starting in 1999.

Read more here.

Consumers Embrace Social Media for Brand Feedback - eMarketer

Many social network users are using channels such as Twitter and Facebook to discuss shopping decisions and experiences with their peers. Although often this means they are using social networks as another channel to hunt down the best deals, consumers are also turning to those sites to provide feedback about their experiences with brands, according to ROI Research.

The majority of respondents to a recent survey said that when discussing products and services, they are comparing prices and talking about sales and specials with their social network friends and followers. Fifty-three percent of the surveyed social network users said they provide feedback to the brand or retailer via social network sites and 47 percent said they express disappointment with the brand when they see fit.

So every brand should be using social media, right? Probably. But not every brand likely has the opportunity or "downside" from negative reviews. Social media seems to work best, across the board, for consumer products and services. It isn't so clear how well it generally works for most business to business brands, especially when those brands are not household names.

Consumers Embrace Social Media for Brand Feedback

Google+ Email Address Changes an Issue?

Some will note that the email address used to set up a service, such as Google+, is a "forever" issue, in the sense that Google+ apparently does not support changing an email address later. The obvious example is signing up using a work address, instead of a web mail account.

"Another issue I ran into is that I got my initial invitation to Google , and built my Google network around a Gmail address (s3kur3@gmail.com). Whenever an update posts from one of my circles, or someone sends me a message, or some new person adds me to one of their Circles, Google sends me an update. The problem is that I don't use Gmail, and I don't want to use Gmail, so I never see those updates."

Of course, some of us decided to use Gmail, as the permanent address of record, precisely for that reason. When I use any other work-related email, I always have the mail automatically resent to my Gmail account. I do have some work addresses that are active, but unused simply because I don't even want to bother setting up the forwarding.

Address permanence is an issue for lots of people, though. So be careful, if you haven't already joined.

Proceed With Caution: Google Is Forever

Opposition to Telco-Lead Mobile Payments in Nigeria

Government permission always plays an important role in just about any fundamental role a telecom service provider wishes to play, everywhere in the world. Against the backdrop of plans by some telecommunications companies (telcos) to go into mobile payment services, some analysts say the move is against Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) regulations.

The analysts cited regulatory framework for mobile payment services in Nigeria issued by the CBN in 2009 which identifies three acceptable models for the implementation of mobile payment services: bank-focused, bank-led, and third party-led. Mobile service providers would seem to fall into the third category. Predictably, though, some think the mobile service providers cannot be allowed to lead the mobile money business, as it will mean putting two major segments of Nigeria’s economy in the hands of a few companies.

Telcos cannot lead Mobile payment schemes, say analysts

Is Innovation a Process or a Skill?

"Not long ago, creativity guru Todd Henry recommended to one of his consulting clients, a high-ranking manager, that he set aside one hour a week to generate new ideas -- 'one hour, predictably scheduled, no exceptions and no violations,' Henry says in his book, The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice. 'This is not time to do work. This is time to think about work."

That executive's reaction, Henry recalls: 'He fired back at me, 'What?! You just want me to sit around and think?!'

In today's wired, 24/7 business climate, most people can relate. Who has time to sit and ponder? Yet, Henry writes, companies pay employees, particularly leaders, for the value they create, and 'you can create infinitely greater value for the company in an hour of skilled, focused thought about critical problems than by responding to your email slightly faster.

It would be helpful indeed if innovation were a process, not an innate ability. Still, there's a difference between Steve Jobs and most people, one would have to argue.

How great business innovators are made (not born)

Is Google+ Similar to Facebook, or Something Else?

Is Google+ an improved or different version of Facebook, or is it something else? And if it is something else, what sort of "something else" might lead to financial success or failure? One view, probably the most popular, is that Google+ will succeed or fail as an alternative to Facebook. Read more.

Another view might be that Google+ is something different, but might be the "wrong" something different. See Read more..

It's likely too early to tell, either way.

Apple Offers App Volume Purchasing To Businesses

Apple has launched an App Store "Volume Purchase Program" for businesses.

The business VPP represents an expansion of the Volume Purchasing Program introduced last August for schools.

That program allows educational institutions to acquire apps by purchasing "Volume Vouchers," fixed value cards offered in denominations of $100, $500, $1,000, $5,000, or $10,000 that be redeemed only by an authorized program manager or program facilitator. Purchases of 20 or more apps by educational institutions are eligible for volume discounts, offered at the discretion of the developer selling the app in question.

Apple Offers App Volume Purchasing To Businesses

Ericsson to Launch Mobile Money Service in Phillippines

Ericsson is launching a money transfer business in the Philippines, connecting Filipinos to networks in seven European nations.

Ericsson Money Services began in February 2011, and the new extension will allow mobile phone users in the Philippines to send and receive money to and from their families and friends in some countries in Europe.

The service also can also be accessed online through a dedicated website and through Facebook and Twitter, but in the Phillippines, virtually everybody seems to use a mobile.

Ericsson to launch mobile remittance service in Phillippines

Indian Mobile Money $350 Billion in Activity in 2015

Mobile phones are now poised to usher in mobile money as an everyday form of currency in India, with $350 billion of payments and banking transactions flowing through them by 2015.

However, mobile money will not be a large generator of fees for telecom operators, as the total fee pool of $4.5 billion will be split across several entities, according to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Just over $235 billion of annual credit and debit card transactions occur in India today, a figure dominated by around $215 billion of cash withdrawals at ATMs.

Mobile payment, transactions to touch $350 billion by 2015

Sony’s Android Tablets Aren't "Slates"

Sony is betting you’ll buy one of its upcoming tablets for one big reason: They look like nothing you’ve seen before, especially the clamshell S2.


Codenamed the “S1″ and “S2″ for now, Sony’s two unreleased Android tablets depart from the usual square, flat slabs we’ve seen so far in 2011. Instead, the S2 design comes as a dual-screen, clamshell device, while the S1 is similar to many current tablets with one significant deviation — its funky, wedge-shaped form factor, which tapers from one end to the other.

“It looks like a magazine with the cover folded backwards,” a Sony spokesman said at a Wednesday event in San Francisco. “And the tablet’s center of gravity rests on the wider end with the hand holding the device.”

Forget Slates: Sony’s Android Tablets Come in Funky Shapes | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Google+ reaches 10 Million Users in 2 Weeks

Only two weeks after launch, Google boasts 10 million users, making it one of the fastest-growing social networks ever. Additionally, people are using Google to share content over one billion times a day, Google reported during its earnings call. Here's the transcript of the conference call, published in record time, I'd say: https://plus.google.com/u/0/106189723444098348646/posts/dRtqKJCbpZ7

Google reaches 10M users after just two weeks

"It's 1999," Says Stephanie Tilenius, Google Commerce VP

About "80 percent of commerce is offline and local,” Tilenius said. "Stephanie Tilenius, Google commerce VP. As for where the market is, she likens it to 1999, in terms of e-commerce development with eBay and Amazon. "We’re at the beginning of 10 years of innovation and competition,” she said.

Google’s plan for mobile and online payments

Customer Experience Is Personal, But Difficult, For That Reason

Forrester Research analyst Harley Manning points out that "customer experience is personal. It comes down to a pilot who holds a plane, a phone agent who makes a problem just go away, or a barista who anticipates a customer’s order."

He's right, of course. But any executive, product manager or operations manager knows that even good advice has to be qualified when put into practice. "Personal" activities do not scale very well, by definition. They are "one-to-one" events. So the problem for many providers of goods and services is how much money and time the organization can afford to spend to really "personalize" a product or experience.

In many cases, in fact, organizations really cannot afford to do much of anything without destroying their profit margins. That might explain why some businesses routinely get lowish markets for "customer experience," "satisfaction" or "customer service." And there are times when a firm has to invest more heavily in such interactions or risk market failure. Most mobile services firms, and Sprint in particular, have discovered that truism in recent years.

But lots of firms probably struggle with the margin implications of "personalized" experience, except for providers of digital goods, where software can be used to highly customize and personalize many aspects of experience, with the end user actually doing the tailoring. Experiences built around physical products are a harder problem, by far.

But even there, as the saying goes, more of the value and experience of most products these days is embodied in software. And some of us would include the content wrap-around to a product as a "software" enhancement. You might include "frequently asked questions" and user forums, blogs about "how to get more value from your product" and so forth as part of the value wrap-around that, if not completely "personal," create a more-personal, more human, "higher touch" feel about a product.

In that sense, content marketing is about more than lead generation or branding. Content marketing can be part of the way a product that is hard to support in a genuinely "high touch" personal way, can be made "more personal."

Customer Experience Is Personal