Paul Coyne :: Feeds

Brandstreaming: What Is It & Who's Doing It?

If there's a hot new social media trend happening, you can bet that companies are trying to find a way to use it too. It happened of course with blogging, it happened with Twitter, and it is now happening with FriendFeed and other lifestreaming apps. Indeed RSS vendor Pheedo has coined a neat term for this: brandstreaming. It defines a brandstream as "a consistent flow of content created by a brand". According to a recent report, 53% of online users are consuming content outside of a publisher's site - through the use of widgets, RSS readers, social networks and mobile devices.

Web accessibilty is becoming a key consideration for mobile users, with 60 per cent of respondents saying mobile web access is important according to joint research conducted by AKQA Mobile and dotMobi.

Their survey of 2,019 consumers from the UK and US found that 65 per cent of those who intend to buy a phone in the next year will demand a good mobile internet experience. A fifth of respondents use mobile internet daily.

• Forty-six per cent claim a previous poor mobile internet experience has put them off trying to access the web again - the biggest problems were slow connectivity and poor site design.
• Fifty percent of respondents were unaware that there are mobile sites purposed-built and optimised for use on mobile phones
• Eighty-six per cent of participants said they were interested in knowing which sites are easily accessible on a mobile phone.

Reserving and paying for tickets for gigs or shows via mobile was of interest to 65 per cent of those surveyed. Finding local bars and restaurants and comparing product prices each scored 3.9 out of 5 for usefulness.

Consumers would be more likely to choose an airline with mobile check-in facilities over one that did not offer them, with over 90 per cent of respondents confirming as much.

The study highlights the current demand for well-produced mobile internet websites.

First found this report via a site i visit regularly, the TrendsSpotting blog. It has produced a thorough overview of Online China, collected from a variety of sources such as Universal McCann, CNNIC, Pew Internet, Hitwise, comScore and more. The report focus on three key themes:

1) China as an online leader,

2) the competitive landscape in Search, IM & Web 2.0, and

3) Business in Online China.

TrendsSpotting says that these are "key indicators of the ongoing development of the dynamic Internet market in China." It's a great report, embedded below.

This ring any bells for anyone else? Thank you St. Josephs RC Comp for making me believe that education was the biggest chore in the world and to be avoided at all times.

 

The European eLearning summit is happening right now at the East Midlands Conference centre. I gave one of the talks yesterday, 'Emerald, Web 2.0 and our experiences in providing spaces for collaboaration, networking and informal learning'.

I hope it was ok, sometimes it's difficult to tell. I think it was good that the guy from Oracle who went before me (Jonathan Vinoskey) talked a lot about Web 2.0 in the workplace too, I think I was ble to build on that. 

Unfortunately not able to make the whole 3 days - other commitments - but they should have a good time. It was kinda pleasing to learn that this was a re-incarnation of EuroTAAC, the old authorware conference and one I have attended in past (I still hold a bit of a torch for authorware, dear old thing).

Still, it also reminded me why I bailed out of elearning 4/5 years ago. I mean I love the fact that a conference attracts really enthusiastic and commited (and very expert) practitioners I really do, but Oh My God!! don't let them present in  public - ever. Seriously.

Presenting to any group is hard, it's pretty nerve wracking stuff but don't make it harder on yourself by trying to hack code in front of everyone and race through your logic line by line at the speed of light then test the stuff LIVE - you really are asking for trouble and awkward silences. An informative and useful hour this does not make. 10 out of 10 for effort but really...

 

 

pretty quiet here today with lots of people taking advantage of the Bank holiday and taking an extra long weekend. Good for them.

I get the feeling things are settling down a little now, after the recent org. changes. Working with a pretty good bunch of people againand with InTouch in very capable hands of Christina and Chris my own thoughts turn to other challenges.

Tentatively floated the idea of conducting an internal session introducing Web 2.0 to my Emerald colleagues; I'm wondering if I'm missing something here? Does Web 2.0 mean 'free beer and chocolate cake' in Yorkshire?? I say that 'cos the speed of people accepting the open invitation was truly suspicious. I can only conclude that my magnetic  charm and winning personality had a part to play. We'll see in a week or so's time when the event actually runs.

Some nice developments coming up, and particularly looking forward to making headyway with issues of mobility, improving the discoverability of our content and of course always developing tools and services (citation integration, sharing services, and so); things that might really add value for our users.

 

 

Had the pleasure of a first somewhat scratchy and patchy conference call with the European Learning Industry Group earlier today. Chaired by Richard Straub the group is positioning itself as a leading platfrom and channel regarding the eLearning Industry in Europe, publishing is an important poart of that work I think.

There are some working groups underway and this was related to those. Didn't quite catch all the names (waiting for minutes for that I guess), but it was good stuff. More questions than answers (fair enough) but they were good questions and more sophisticated than I imagined they would be - some great insights in fact.

There's much that overlaps the work of the groups - copytight, content and business models, role of the publisher, learning models for 21st century education, community and context - but I'm looking forward to the coming months.

There's a great fluidity of thought about these challenges within the group and it's interesting to see how the industry is beginning to react to the really quite powerful drivers for change that are gathering in the form of web 2.0/social media.

 I Heard a rumour about this development some time ago, looks like it was true.

http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2224721/version-amazon-kindle-target

 If this pans out then Amazon becomes a substantial part of a College’s Book library – no further storage or maintenance costs for the Institution with content purchasing done by the students downloaded to the device. I suspect many colleges would also enter into affiliate deals with Amazon and claim a couple of cents on each sale – reduced costs and a revenue stream to boot, who’s going to oppose that?