Caught by Facebook & Twitter

31

October

2013

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Two weeks ago I read an article about a manager of a gas station who caught a thief with help from Twitter and Facebook. A guy refuelled his car and drove away without paying for the gas. The manager posted a tweet and a Facebook tweet with the guys’ license plate and a screenshot of the camera images and asked who recognizes the car, license plate and person. The message was retweeted and shared a dozen times. A few people recognized the person and car and the guy is now sued for stealing.

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Another gas station manager happened the same thing. He also decided to post a tweet and Facebook message with a screenshot and license plate. Within a few hours he received many phone calls from people recognizing the perpetrator. That same afternoon the phone rang and a man asked the manager whether he could remove the screenshot from the internet because it was violating his privacy. The manager told him that he would remove the screenshot, if he would come by and pay the €96 he owned him. Finally the guy paid the €96 and the manager removed the screenshot.

Both managers recommend doing this, because they think it is way more effective then calling the police. I think it is actually pretty amazing what social media can do. It is so easy to share stuff with so many people at the same time. And of all 16 million people in the Netherlands, within only a few hours there were so many people who recognized these guys. However the question is whether it is allowed to violate people privacy like this.

Do you think that social media should be used more frequently in cases like these, or do you think that peoples’ privacy is more important?

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The comeback of B(l)ackberry messenger (BBM)

31

October

2013

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Last week on Facebook I saw many people posting messages such as “add me, new PIN 29E9114C!” and I thought ‘Since when is everyone using BBM again and why?’. So I googled and found that since last week BBM became also available for Android and iOs. In the meanwhile the amount of active users increased with 20 million people. Which makes a total of 80 million users.
bbm

Blackberry was the first who made it possible to send free messages by mobile phones. It became very popular among the youth and for some of them became The reason to buy a Blackberry, since BBM was only available for Blackberry. But then there came substitutes for BBM, such as WhatsApp and Facebook messenger, which could also be used on other smartphone then Blackberry. From this moment BBM became less and less popular.

So now they made the app available for iOs and Android as well, but Whatapp is still more populair with their 300 million users and other services are raising popularity as well.

What service do you use to send free messages and will you use BBM (again)?

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Mobile app-vertising

19

September

2013

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This week is about digital marketing and advertising. I wrote a piece about mobile advertising as a part of digital advertising.

People often experience advertisements as irritating, because they are often interrupting the consumers while connecting with their friends or playing games4. According to Gupta’s article people simply don’t like ads on their mobile devices. His research showed that smart phone users spend most of their time with apps, so he said the best way to reach and engage the consumers is by creating apps4. Besides the effectiveness it’s also more cost-efficient than many traditional ad-campaigns4

In the next two examples creative minds thought of an idea to advertise by creating applications.

Retailer Tesco had a grocery delivery business called Home Plus. They were number two in Korea and it was their challenge to become number one without increasing the number of stores. To accomplish this challenge they created virtual shops at the subway stations.

This video shows how the virtual shop works.

This in an example of a firm who created an app that was convenient, timesaving, unique and entertaining This strategy was attracting people’s attention and it made grocery shopping a fun thing to do. I turned out to be a huge success and within three months the new registered members had rose by 76%, the online sales increased by 130% and they became number 1 in Korea, so their mission was accomplished5.

The second example is Coca Cola and their ‘Send a free Coca Cola across the world and share a little happiness with someone you’ve never met’ campaign. Coca-Cola and Google created an app where you can send a Free Coke to someone you have never met somewhere around the world.

In this video they demonstrate the application.

Now you can save a stranger a bucket or two and share a little happiness.

Coca Cola and Google provided a social value to the application and they made it entertaining by adding the personal message and video. The results were amazing and the campaign was awarded the first Mobile Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions festival and they earned the title of Creative Marketer of the year. The weakness of this campaign is that it was a very expensive campaign. Although it does show the incredible power of the internet to connect people6.

Mobile advertising by creating apps has become one of the most powerful ways to advertise and with creative minds as in the examples above great success can be attained.

 

References:
4. For mobile devices think apps, not ads – Sunil Gupta
5. South Korean supermarket chain opens virtual grocery stores in subways – Jeffrey van Camp
6. Google buys the world a Coke via mobile ads – Michael Crider

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Digitization of the world

16

September

2013

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The average time we spend online is 96 minutes a day and 11.3 hours a week. We cannot imagine a world without Internet anymore. I remember the time that my parents bought their first computer. It was huge and made lots of noise, but we had a computer!  In the past few years a digital revolution has taken place and since this revolution we cannot imagine a world without internet, computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones and web-shops anymore.

Nowadays everything happens online and you can do everything online. Even the lectures are streamed online and tests are taken online. Is it someone’s birthday? Just send him or her a message on Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter or send a postcard via Hallmark or Greetz. No need to go outside anymore.

Earlier you could make a kid the happiest kid in the world if you would just give him or her a marble ball, a jumping rope or a coloring page. Nowadays they only settle for iPads and  smartphones. And when the battery of our smartphone dies we feel disconnected with the world. We cannot live without Internet anymore.Image

But don’t you think we exaggerate? Are we really not able to live without Internet, smartphones etc. anymore? I actually think it is nonsense and we should really just put away our smartphones for some time and spend some quality time together.

During my last holiday abroad we only had Wifi at the reception. At first I was like ‘oh my gosh no Wifi at the apartment?!’ But then I actually enjoyed it. No internet for a week! What a rest! It was just me and my family and no one else. And we had a great time.

What do you think? Are we becoming too dependent on our smartphones and Internet, or should we continue living the way we do and digitize more further?

Can You live without internet and your smartphone?

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