der Ackermann (on media)

China will win

2010-12-08T10:56:00.008+08:00

Hong Kong rocks. Walk in between the countless towers and feel the throbbing and buzzing. Honkers describe Singapore as dull. My first impression of Hong Kong was “messy”. Chaotic. But now I believe that it’s cool. Hong Kongers are cool and über-trendy, Japanese-style. You don’t find that in Singapore.

The economy is strong and businessmen powerful. Just last week the Wall Street Journal launched a city edition, featuring the most influential CEOs. The Hong Kong Power list has been prepared by my team of fine Media Analysts. Fancy that. These are things we are doing. Even Bloomberg was mentioning it.

The main motive for the trip was a workshop with PR people. We talked about digital media, measurement and reputation. How do Chinese companies curate their brands? It’s very simple. They are hiring armies of internauts to spread positive comments on Twitter, Facebook or whatever. The government does it. Even a simple golf club is doing it. In China there is a perception that the web can be controlled and so they act accordingly. Sometimes even by hacking sites of western companies. But for that you better ask Julian.

It’s time for the Social Media Rock Stars

2010-07-20T11:32:00.003+08:00

Here we are. Finally there seems to be a real demand for Social Media strategists as more and more companies figure out that it makes sense to have dedicated staff who understand Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the alike. Some companies pay even US$ 120k and more at director level according to this interesting background story published by Businessweek.

It sounds so like a new “New Economy”:

“A swarm of self-proclaimed social media rainmakers has appeared at job interviews, aiming to parlay a high number of Facebook friends or Twitter followers into salaried positions with benefits—all of which is vaguely reminiscent of the frenzied hiring during the first Internet boom in the late 1990s.”

Most likely companies won’t be fooled again this time as there are now clear expectations linked to these jobs:

- Reputation Management and Metrics: A broad range of tools allows tracking of Social Media mentions and puts it in relation to the industry peers. But even more important: Companies want to know how their brands are being treated. How to respond in the case they have been damaged?

- Social Media Marketing: The company is reaching out to the influencers and makes them brand advocates. How to engage and maintain this relationship?

Felix Salmon looks at how the age of Twitter is changing corporate communications: Good for PR, bad for journalists.

“What’s more, Twitter gives companies the ability to speak directly to the public without going via journalists (or even mere bloggers); and it also allows them to keep tab on what the public thinks without using journalists and media commentators as an imperfect proxy. Public relations is, after all, the art of relating with the public: journalists are just a means to an end. And the public has never been as easy to relate with as it is now, in the age of Twitter.”

It will be crucial if the company is able to maintain this constant dialogue with the public and to have an adequate infrastructure in place. Salmon is optimistic as he believes that executives like Twitter, and they want to keep the company’s presence high profile because other executives are looking at it as well - in a similar way they are looking at the Wall Street Journal. Looks like there is a bright future for qualified Social Media experts.

Monitor - Analyse - Discover - Engage

2010-05-12T13:33:00.004+08:00

After having been pointed to it by three of the people I'm following, I'd like to recommend an extremely well-done video that describes the semantic web in an entertaining and thought-provoking way...

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

My personal (and simplistic) conclusion and take-away:

- there is more and more data in our lives

- there is a need for experts who filter, analyse and interpret this data to get a meaning out of it

- there is a need to discover the relationships behind: The data has been created with a purpose. There is typically a human being behind it and this person engages with other human beings in real life. The more people are listening to this person, the more influence and power he or she has.

Just making sense of my day-to-day job...

The era of the Cloud 2

2010-04-03T13:23:00.008+08:00

I'm still typing this blog comment on my laptop, but both blogs as well as laptops are "old school" again. Just read a remarkable article from Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff. According to him we are just transitioning to the "Cloud 2" and the iPad, on sale this weekend, is the most obvious manifestation.
From Pull to Push: "Pulling" information from databases and newspapers is declining, our friends and trusted sources push the news to us instead. Information appears in streams and feeds. The prevailing tools are Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.

I'm currently receiving three different information feeds, a "paywall" feed, that I'm getting via Factiva, a blog/web feed on Google Reader and a Twitter feed, where I directly follow thought leaders of the areas I'm interested in. With this I feel prepared for the era of the Cloud 2. Just need to upgrade my hardware...

Update: In the same context, Jeff Jarvis is commenting on one of Benioff's postulates, the move from creation to consumption. It is nothing else than a strategy of the media companies to regain control about the democratised social media space. The iPad "does not include a simple (fucking) USB port, which means that I can’t bring in and take out content easily."

From this angle, apps are also appearing in a negative light:

"This shift to apps is a move in precisely the opposite direction. Apps are more closed, contained, controlling. That, again, is why media companies like them. But they don’t interoperate — they don’t play well — with other apps and with the web itself; they are hostile to links and search."

The iPad is the Trojan Horse that lures us into the paywall castle, with the gates firmly shut down.

Twitter's intrusion into the newswire business

2010-03-15T15:40:00.006+08:00

Is Twitter turning into a powerful newsfeed, instead of just being a “social network”? Reuters contributor and blogger luminary Felix Salmon makes an interesting point. Celebrities, thought leaders and experts in no matter what bear the brunt of the Twitter action. Average Joe and Jane limit themselves to following passively in lieu of acting and growing their network.

Professionals, like journalists and analysts are also increasingly making use of the social feed that offers a direct line to the sources.

How does that affect the traditional newswire business? It will be struggling, as intermediaries are apparently no longer needed. I saw that Reuters, one of the endangered species, just released new social media guidelines. Some highlights of what could be a role model for the industry:

- Journalists should not forget to break the news always first on the wire, and not on Twitter.

- Always be aware of the possible reputational risks. As the journalist is employed by Reuters, unfortunate posts can backfire on the brand. Line manager approval is therefore required.

- There is a risk that personal data could be exposed. Sources could be revealed to competitors if they are followed or friended on Facebook.

Reuters also explicitly encourages its journalists to use social media and to capitalise on the advantages. Because at the end it will allow the promotion of own work and it helps shaping the image of a trusted and competent news brand. And that’s what is selling.

US internet giants still struggling in China

2009-11-07T10:46:00.005+08:00

I’m back in Asia, Singapore again, taking a breath from recession-plagued Spain where “la crisis” is still dominating conversations and now comfortably beating discussion topics like the wheater and football. With China around the corner, some interesting media news were grabbing my attention in the last week.

First of all there was the lackluster launch of Apple’s iPhone by China Unicom. The company reported having sold only 5,000 devices during the first days in a land that has 720 million mobile phone users. Probably a 6,999 yuan (US$1,025) price tag is a tad too high for Chinese middle-class households? Another possible reason might be that the real iPhone fans already have theirs, either through Hong Kong or from overseas.

Google has also its issues with the Chinese market. Today we hear that its 7 month old Chinese Music Search is still behind target. It’s hardly possible to make money with a legal download service in a country where 99 percent of music files are pirated, states the PaidContent article. Google’s biggest competitor Baidu, still with a two third share in the Chinese search market, owes most of its popularity mainly to this illegal traffic. Yes, it’s difficult to sell quality content in Asia, just ask our Dow Jones Sales team here.

Additionally for Google, some of its search functions had been blocked earlier this year by the Chinese authorities, as it was supposedly giving access to pornographic content. The global leader in search remains still with a marginal share in the largest market, with 338 million active Internet users, according to numbers from the Chinese government.

During the turmoil in the Xinjiang province this summer, Google’s video database Youtube has also been taken partially down, along with Twitter and Facebook. It’s expected that those services will be accessible again very soon, now that the celebrations for China’s 60th birthday are finally over.

But the shocking news for Facebook has been a drop of its user base from one million in July to 14,000 at the beginning of October, as Inside Facebook reports. “There are a lot of extremely popular domestic sites with social networking features, after all, such as Tencent”. Now we understand a bit better why those local sites are so popular in Asia.

China and the future of Media

2009-05-05T17:32:00.003+08:00

I'm back from an incredible trip to Beijing. This city is simply huge and extraordinarily fast-moving. Some surprising aspects for a first-time visitor:
- Primarily you see the middle class - even if there are also many rich and many poor people. But I had the impression that most of the Beijing denizens are driving middle class cars and go shopping to H&M and Nike (or Li Ning, the local version).
- China isn't at all appearing as the authoritarian state one might expect. It's the complete opposite to Singapore. Beijing is just chaos. Everything seems to be allowed here. However, the society is prospering and currently doing significantly better than other countries. What's the secret of success? The confucian value system?

At the Foreign Correspondents Club of China I met some people from the regional Media space. The event was supposed to offer career transition ideas for journalists. Ironically, most of the attendees were quite happy with their current job, even if a very pessimistic view prevailed. Insecurity and a lack of ideas on how to respond to the structural changes in the Media were widely dominating. The PR industry was named as a possible exit for journalists who still prefer to get paid for their writing.
Fortunately, a New Media expert was also attending and lightening up the scene with his fresh ideas. I talked with Benjamin Joffe, a strategy consultant who counts among his clients Microsoft, Orange and China Mobile. Benjamin told me that the Media companies in the US and Europe are still not fully aware about the potential of the Asian markets. When he visited Facebook in Silicon Valley, they didn't know that the Chinese online community Tencent QQ quadrupels the number of registrated Facebook users. Revenue margins of these platforms are impressive too. The data of Benjamin's company +8* reveals China as the number one market for internet and mobile usage, with a still very low penetration rate.
On the other side, John Bishop works as a rather traditional reporter for the China Economic Review. This is a monthly magazine, published in Hong Kong and covering Business, Finance and Economics issues in China. I don't have any data on this but my gut instinct is telling me that demand for good-written stories on China will keep rising and that there will be a market for this type of information. And it will also provide income to journalists and other Media professionals.

Photo: CCTV building in Beijing, middle class cars

Destination Beijing

2009-04-20T05:41:00.002+08:00

I will head for Beijing this Wednesday, what will be the start of a two week trip. Many are seeing in China the superpower of the 21st century. Beijing is rapidly gaining an important strategic position in the global space, mainly thanks to its ever-booming economy. The Chinese government recently pledged 40 billion US-$ to refund the the International Monetary Fund. It is at present the main lender for the US of A and just kicked off a discussion if the Dollar is still worth being the world's reserve currency. And these are only a few examples...
In Europe, we are still quite ignorant about the country, its culture and the Chinese people at large. Westerners use to think first in the communist regime and lack of freedom. In a recent article, Oxford professor Timothy Garton Ash is reflecting on the role that our Media are playing here:
"Most western newspaper readers and television viewers with a mild interest in China probably do see a lot of stories about Tibet, the upcoming anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen protests, corruption and popular discontent. They see fewer stories about the extent of popular support for the system, bright students still joining the Communist party, or experiments in economic and political reform, especially at the provincial and local level."
According to Ash foreign journalists' motivations are mainly of an economic nature. Stories on social and political unrest are simply selling better. "They report so much about Tibet not because they are ideological China-bashers but because their consumers are fascinated by and care about Tibet."
One of his conclusions points slightly into another direction and here I fully agree with him:
"The larger problem with regular China coverage in the mainstream western media is not its negativity; it's simply that there's too little of it, given the growing importance of China and the fact that Chinese culture and society is so different from the west's."
I plan to meet some foreign journalists next week and I'm eager to discuss and learn more about these issues. But first and foremost, I'm looking forward to talk with locals and get their point on the changing environment and about what is supposed to be the Chinese century. I'll report in this blog over the coming days.

Is Twitter killing Blogs?

2009-04-06T05:19:00.009+08:00

Venture capitalist Howard Lindzon was voicing the provocative thesis this week. The convenience of the 140-character microblogging service will result in the demise of “personal diaries” or will at least leave many posts unwritten.
There is a clear tendency to a more concise way to broadcast information, not only in the personal space. Newspaper editors are slashing the length of their articles, for example. Personally, I would rather use the Facebook news feed in order to ping my friends (or followers, if you prefer)… also because most of them are probably not aware of this blog and would never find it.
Twitter is gaining traction, not only in the US. The website received in February 9.8 million unique visitors, up from 6.1 million in January, according to comscore.
Twitter is allegedly now the third most popular Social Media service after Facebook and MySpace, and catching up rapidly.
It is developing an incredible commercial value. Rumours appeared on Friday that Google is pondering an offer, significantly higher than the $255 million price tag that has recently been attributed to the service.
Twitter is talk. If you follow the discussions on Twitter, you know what millions of people are saying. That’s something companies or publicly exposed persons are caring a lot about. If not, they should do it, in order to be able to preserve their brands. Little tools, like Tweeting Trends, Hashtags or Monitter are able to analyse and measure the “talk” and figure out trends. Twitter itself was recently incoporating a search function that makes it easy to monitor specific issues or names.
Its value is probably that Twitter “owns” all this chatter. At present, there is no competitor in sight. After the recent relaunch, Facebook is aspiring a share of the short message revolution and wants to be a tad like Twitter.
I just read by the way that “nanoblogging” is already around the corner…

The Year of the Ox

2009-01-27T21:12:00.004+08:00

Chinese all over the world are kicking off the Year of the ox this week. In recent times, at the start of the new lunar year at the end of January, the media like to explain us what this entails, especially for the economy.
Nowadays nobody would dare not to take seriously what’s coming out of China. Even more. In these days, where we are desperately waiting for the Chinese to save our ailing economies, we are in earnest analysing what the ox represents for our spoiled lives. So let’s have a deeper look.
First of all, Chinese astrology analysts are aspiring to make sure that the ox is not a bull. What we can’t expect at all this year is a bullish economy or a quick recovery.

Far from it! The recovery will be tough, grinding, dreadful.

So, the astrology analysts are telling us that we need to slip into the skin of an ox. Because oxes are tenacious, willing, persistent, patient. The ox is a symbol for hard work and fortitude. Never giving up. Striving for the impossible. Changing the unchangeable.

Having said this: Gong xi fa cai!

The Wall Street Journal moves closer to the NY Times

2008-05-24T06:43:00.004+08:00

Two stories about our flagship paper Wall Street Journal were breaking this week. First the announcement that Robert Thomson, "a man of Rupert Murdoch", has been named Managing Editor of the paper. And today, we hear from Dow Jones' CEO Les Hinton that the Journal will leave Wall Street and move to the News Corp. building in 1211, Sixth Avenue, "within a few blocks of New York Times" as paidcontent.org points out.
Over the last weeks, I followed the discussions in the blogosphere. Even if many bloggers clearly don't like Murdoch, the better arguments are coming from commentators who are in favor of his strategy.
Where is Rupert Murdoch taking the Journal? That was the first question and most of the experts were guessing that he wanted to position the paper against the FT, with a global focus.
Now we know better. The fight will be a local one. Murdoch is going to challenge the New York Times with more political, cultural and general news.
"That's exactly what American Newspapers need right now", writes Simon Constable in The Street.com. At the moment, the US is suffering from "a lack of internal competition" and that's - according to him - the reason for the declining number of readers. The positive example is the UK. Murdoch appeared in 1981 when he bought The Times. Nowadays the country has a broad range of high quality papers: The Financial Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Daily Express, The Daily Mail, The Mirror, The Independent and The Daily Star.
FT's John Gapper believes that the strategy will face a couple of problems. First of all, the Times has more experience in covering general news. Secondly, it will dilute the brand. "The Journal has a dominant position and a clear and unambiguous image as a business and financial paper." And Murdoch might lose the battle if he turns it into a "watered down and right-wing version of the New York Times".
Ironically it's the commentator from the New York Times itself, Tim Arango, who defends Murdoch: "WSJ's business readers won't desert it, because they can't and because its business coverage is better and more comprehensive than ever. But at the same time, Murdoch's trying to attract new readers, who might only want to read one newspaper and who might prefer the WSJ to the NYT."
You might not like his attitude to streamline an organisation but it could be the way to bring back the old glory of the Newspaper business.

Presentation in Barcelona

2008-05-22T05:07:00.010+08:00

Dow Jones' EMG Portal was covering this morning the presentation I gave this Monday on our Insight Department. The main idea of the conference, organised within the "Breakfast Briefing" series, was to explain the essence of our business. An attentive crowd was listening in the renovated offices at Avenida Diagonal.

Since last month I'm leading the European Dow Jones Insight analyst team. The main focus of our work is on Media Measurement and Reputation Management. Our clients are the PR departments of the biggest Global companies.

Principal objective for myself will be to grow the Barcelona team over the rest of the year and to build an intact relation with the entire global organisation. That's a challenge.

Berto meets Buenafuente

2007-11-26T03:39:00.001+08:00

Alberto Romero, "Berto" is on the way to be the David Letterman of the Spanish television. This Thursday he was presenting the Late Night Show "Buenafuente" in La Sexta, in substitution of Andreu Buenafuente, anchorman of this program. This wouldn't be worth an entry in this blog if Berto wasn't only 4 years ago one of my colleagues at Factiva. What also proves that Factiva can be a good starting point for a successful career in the Media Business.
For several years now, Berto is running every Friday night his own show "La Apoteosis Necia" (the foolish apotheosis) in the small and alternative Teatreneu in the Gràcia district of Barcelona. Here is where TV star Andreu Buenafuente discovered the young show talent and invited him to participate with an own section ("Bertovisión") in Buenafuente's TV program. Finally this Thursday, Berto had been assigned to present the entire show, as Buenafuente was absent.
Berto's debut was no flash in the pan. As this blog heard from a good informed source, it is planned that there will be more occasions where he is going to step into the breach of the TV star. A rosy future is looming for this show talent...

The music group Marlango was Berto's guest in his Late Night debut

Leonor Watling, singer and actress (Almodovar's "Talk to her"), last Thursday in Buenafuente

South Africa World Champion

2007-10-22T05:01:00.002+08:00

The Springboks will bring it home finally. For a second time after 1995, South Africa has been proclaimed Rugby World Champion. A very solid performance was assuring the 15-6 victory over England, entirely obtained by penalties transformed by Percy Montgomery and François Steyn.
President Thabo Mbeki joined the celebrations in Paris. Captain John Smit who lifted the trophy said later: "We've now won a World Cup away from home. We had our president sitting in the changing room. He was saying how proud he was of being a South African.''
It is expected that the whole nation will stand united and celebrate the team on its return next Tuesday. But some commentators are already predicting an uncertain future for South Africa's rugby. There have been harsh critics in the past due to the fact that black players are still under-represented in the national selection. A quota system has been discussed. The departing coach Jake White said that his successor will need a thick skin. "You know, it's such a great privilege, but it is the toughest job in world rugby, it comes with a huge amount of connotations that you have to look into."
The South African community in Barcelona was mainly congregated in the central George Payne pub. And very happy as you might imagine...

South African girls smiling for the photograph...

...and meanwhile I tried to tackle two of the fat boys on the way to the bar.

Bye, Singapore!

2007-08-18T04:22:00.001+08:00

As you may have noticed, there are no more Asia reports on this blog. The simple reason: I left Singapore two weeks ago and I'm currently on holiday. To pay my homage to this city, I've collected some pictures of its incredible skyline.
Please keep in mind already the 28th September 2008. On this Sunday, the Formula One will celebrate its first night race in those streets. That day, the sound of the grumbling cars from Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen will shake these buildings and swing the bridges. That must be spectacular!
Finally a personal word to clear some doubts about this blog. Many of you may have asked yourself if it will continue. The answer is YES! Der Ackermann is still on tour, now in Spain...

200th Visitor!

2007-07-31T21:31:00.001+08:00

I just saw in my Google Analytics statistic that I'm already above the 200 visitor mark. Thanks to all of you!

That's a fantastic milestone after only two weeks of life for this blog. Even better: The visits are coming from four continents.

Most of them are originated from Singapore, where my most loyal readers are living. Germany is very stong too. On the other side, Spain has still a lot of space to recover... vamos.

The statistics also show that many of you are returning visitors.

That's an extraordinary picture! Thanks again.

Spanish Lollipop

2007-07-22T21:57:00.001+08:00

Visto en uno de los infinitos centros comerciales de Singapur: Una isla española! Un parque temático con sabor latino, para el paladar asiático, avido consumidor de todo lo que viene de occidente. Se pueden encontrar allí un Desigual, Chocolat Factory, Muchacha y también una "FC Botiga" del Barça. Hay cava, turrón y queso manchego.
La directora del pabellón Spain2Dream es Cristina Camps, un culé de 36 años. Dice en una entrevista con el diario local "The new Paper" que además le gustería dar la bienvenida al Real Madrid. "Hemos visto como crece la popularidad de marcas como Zara y Mango entre los Singapurenses, así pensabamos que era una buena idea de empezar con una tienda basada en el estilo de vida español."
Una posición prominente dentro de esta tienda tiene Chupa Chups. Marta Bernat, directora de Marketing, habla hoy en la edición dominical de Straits Times, el diario más leído de Singapur, sobre sus proyectos de futuro. "Me gustaría diseñar un boutique hotel que tiene como objetivo las famílias. Va a ser un país de las maravillas con piruletas, habitaciones diseñadas para niños, sofas, bean bags, asientos comodos para un sitio dónde los niños pueden jugar con los adultos." Marta Bernat estaba recientemente en Singapur para acompañar el lanzamiento de una línea de ropa infantil con el nombre del famoso bombón con palo.

Singapore Views

2007-07-22T21:39:00.001+08:00

Es la vista desde la oficina de Dow Jones en Singapur...

esta última foto no es un montaje, es real (si no lo crees, mira las manchas en el cristal!)