How quickly things change.

Posted on February 17, 2012 by admin

I was browsing through old presentations I had done on Twitter and an article I co-authored with Andrew Lovatt from RedMoon Media for In Business and it made me realise how quickly things change and act as constant distractions.

I delivered the course below last year

Twitter for business

View more presentations from Eoin Kennedy.

I checked Twitter the night before the course and canned most of the presentation. After going through all the features I went live to gasps from everyone on the course as Twitter looked completely different, having changed over night. This only served to cement the feeling for some people that social media is too ever changing for them. These constant changes can be a real distraction as we need to keep on top of them but are they really the most important aspect. The story telling and listening elements are still among the most important elements but macro trends are also very useful especially when there is a temptation to constantly follow the bright shiny changing platforms.

I am slowly working my way through Don Tapscotts book “Grown Up Digital”. He identifies 8 norms amongst digital natives (dying term) which remain constant in a world of change. I will post a full review of them when I finish but whats most interesting about them is how he weaves them into every aspect of life from college, being marketing to and work. The books is well worth a quick read. The 8 norms are:

•Freedom.

•Customize Everything.

•Scrutinize Everything.

•Integrity & Openness.

•Entertainment & Play.

•Collaboration.

•Innovation.

•Speed

The calling of the west.

Posted on August 31, 2011 by admin

Today is my last day as an associate director in Slattery Communications.

After 11 years working on a variety of communications projects for large and small companies from product launches, profile building to event management and of course the odd crisis or two, I am also heading to the west of Ireland to set up home in Mayo.
Leaving a extremely good job in a recession to face considerable uncertainty may seem like an odd thing to do but the reasons lie only partially in new challenges and owe more to establishing a better work life balance.

10 years of my wife commuting from Dublin to Galway where she works was always going to be a challenge but add in two fantastic babies and it changes the complexity a huge amount.

The idea of county living has always appealed to me but the sacrifices were too great. I enjoy isolation but also enjoy being in the thick of things. Technology, collaboration and a more positive appreciation of remote working are now starting to breathe life in to the once fabled notion of teleworking and the assumption that it meant being cut off. Now with a decent internet connection location is pretty irrelevant for the vast majority of the work I will be doing.

Starting from next week I will be focusing a lot of my efforts on a new social advertising model start up that I am lucky to be involved with, while the remainder of my time will be in ad hoc consultancy and training to pay the bills (sounds like a lot of people I know).

I will share the details of this project once the initial beta test is complete but I imagine my blog will change for a while as I document the challenges of a city boy moving to a rural location where the nearest shop is three miles away.

In the meanwhile I would like to thanks all the staff of Slattery Communications and Padraig Slattery in particular for providing a rewarding, challenging and enjoyable workplace. I wish them all the best as they embrace the social media challenges ahead.

I will be in Dublin for the next two months and still engaged as chair of the Social Media Working in the Irish Internet Association. In reality, physically I will move to the west of Ireland but will probably still be back up in Dublin a couple of times a month.

Coffee anyone….anyone….

Quick peep inside Google Goggles

Posted on May 30, 2011 by admin

When Google Goggles was announced some time ago it was not available in Ireland and my phone did not support it, so I promptly forgot about it. I upgraded the phone a while ago but only stumbled on Google Goggles when playing around with Google Mobile on the iPhone.
In few short words it is described as an application that ‘uses pictures to search the web’. All you need to do is take a photo of an object using the camera phone. The application scans the image, looking for key identifiable information such a logos, places, landmarks, artwork, wine and contact information. It then returns some search results based upon this analysis. I imagine this list will eventually cover anything that might have a stored, tagged images online or in a searchable database. It is all very early stage for the service but processing power, content and proliferation of smart phone would appear to the key overcomeable problems stopping it from being incredibly powerful.

Still even at this stage there are some lessions to be had from it and likely SEO issues.

Here is a quick example.

Empty bottle of Evian water

Once in the application I took a photo of an empty Evian bottle in my kitchen.

Empty Evian bottle being scanned by Google Goggles application

This is how it looks as the application scoured the image for something identifiable. This stage only took a few seconds as the boxes floated up the image as a visualisation of it scanning for something recogniseable.

Search results from Google Goggles following photo of Evian bottle.

The results are pretty basic but it did recognise the logo, name of company and service and who it represented.

I clicked on the Evian logo result.

Organic listings from Google Goggles search

Interestingly the top result was not the Evian website but looks like another who registered an image as evian logo.

To me this and voice activated searches looks like a serious contender to typed searches especially in situations where you are looking at something visual and text just does not work. The ability to identify a building and its history by simply taking a photo or finding out the name and background to a painting in seconds is something that could be almost impossible with text alone. These are the popular uses that have been well discussed but there could be lots of marketing applications. Think about some really interesting competitions or posters that bring people to additional sites for more information. As Facebook, Flickr, Pix.ie, Instagram have all shown people are often happier to take and share photos than utilise text.

The bigger more immediate challenge will be optimising sites, images logos, company premises photos and key personnel so that when a customer does a Google Goggles picture search that there is a good library of comparison images and optimised text. As the Evian example shows you need to thing about how Google Goggles will display and analysise images in order to optimise organic searches. I would imagine there are lots of tagged images on their site but perhaps none or few that are tagged Evian logo.

Some simple top line observations.

increased need to have broader range of images on a company website or social sites.
think about your company from a customer view point – literally what they see, where and hence what Google Goggles sees.
optimising for Google Goggles with particular tags.
think creatively about promotions that could utilise the service.

The service is still fairly rudamentary but I can see that changing rapidly. The results are way off or fairly basic. It does recognise faces but the matching results seem almost random but similar to iPhoto Faces with better processing power combined with intelligent intuitive software then the abilty to identify someone from a photo and get psychological insights from an analysis of their social channel usage could be a few clicks away. A wonderful service or scary invasion of privacy but looks like its arrival is not far away.

My other experience with testing Google Goggles was more personal. I took a photo of a Peppa Pig DVD which brought me to Peppa Pig You Tube videos. I am now plagued with hourly requests by my daughter to play episodes of the programme she has never seen before. Very odd to see a 2 year old holding an iPhone in a tree house glued to a TV cartoon but thats the world of instantly accessible information, on any device, in any place whenever they want it, that they will grow up with.

Can Facebook Connect the Irish on St Patrick’s Day

Posted on March 15, 2011 by admin

One of things I love about Social Media is the way the community looks to rapidly fill gaps. With two days to go to St Patricks day there is a lot of busy chatter about the parades and other activities taking place over the holiday period. Most of the chatter online are discussions of real life events although there is some really nice work on the St Patricks Festival site and its mobile app and photo sharing competition.

On Facebook there are a host of pages dedicated to the festival including a cheeky infographic by Mashable on how social networkers celebrate St Patricks Day. However there was a gap in easily allowing people to express their pride in being Irish. Enter the arena ‘Shamrock Urself’ a voluntary social media initiative aiming to restore pride and positivity in Ireland by giving Facebook profiles a St Patricks Day make over. The initiative allows Facebook users to add a Shamrock stamp to their profile pictures through a specially developed application but people can interact at different levels from just liking through to sharing videos of them shamrocking themselves (think Facepainting etc).

The organisers have also approached businesses to get them to shamrock their pages and some nice tips on how to change a page profile by the DMI. The campaign is mainly being run on Facebook but there is a supporting twitter account also.

I was asked to give a hand, along with many other people, so it will be interesting to see the take up (mainly social media outreach and word of mouth) and what impact it can have on Irish pride and solidarity. It a big ask but why not?

Its good to get out of your bubble.

Posted on April 6, 2010 by admin

Social media and how different age groups view it can be very personal. In fact too personal and often you make decisions based upon how you view it rather than how others use it. Research can help overcome this short coming but talking to and seeing how students use it really brings it home.

In light of this I had the pleasure to judge some submissions made by cert, diploma and degree business course students from the Dublin Business School. The students were given a project brief from Repak on helping to communicate recycling to different age groups (focusing on the 18-24 segment) and to give an overview of their website properties.

8 groups presented their findings and the calibre was extremely high for students who have very little marketing training. In addition there was a strong balance of overseas students for whom English was not their first language. Some of the big takeaways were:

All groups came back with videos ranging from themed Captain Repak style to very well thought out versions using hands with writing on them as the medium.
Social media platforms were a strong distribution medium (Facebook primarily) but none really rated Twitter.
Traditional media was limited to free sheets and posters primarily in addition to bin stickers.
Reasons for returning was an observation by all. Content was useful but not compelling enough to revisit the Repak sites.
Most groups were happy to test something out before commiting to them. i.e. pull it together, upload, see how it goes and if successful then invest later on.
All the groups were happy to use their existing networks pointing to the importance of investing in building a wide community rather than just having the content uploaded and visible to search engines and then putting in marketing spent.
iPhone. One of the groups went as far as designing an iPhone application and also how it would be funded. Full screen shots were provided.
Games and quizzes were mentioned highly with some having researched rebranding existing games.
One group built a properly functioning website with branded games reflecting how they would like to communicated with and entertained.
Most groups were happy to take the tools that existed and to reuse existing content.

Overall there was a real sence of ease and familarlity with digital content especially video and how they are linked to social media. This is the space they all use on a daily basis and generating content for them was not seen as a major jump. They were all very comfortable with the background technical areas like hosting, editing etc and production was fairly seamless.

Here is one of the videos one of the groups produced, based on how you recycle – i.e. with your hands.

The presentations themselves were very well delivered with some groups really going a stage further in terms of the hadn out materials. Below is one folder that one group did up which had a very ecofriendly feels to it and took time to prepare.

Handouts by DBS students for Repak Presentation

In summary lots of relevant video that entertains and links to their lives with plenty of reasons to return.

Plenty to ponder!

Many thanks to Angela OhUiginn, DBS, Rob Reid, Cybercom, Darrell Crowe and Laura Byrne from Repak.

Could Augmented Reality Be the Answer To Newspaper Woes

Posted on October 20, 2009 by admin

Newspaper readership and the ability to translate younger readers into future buyers is a real tricky one for Irish media. The online habits of younger readers are well documented and last weeks announcement that the online had overtaken TV and other media forms as the most prevalent advertising medium in UK brought sharper attention to the topic.

Add on to this the heavy investment into the printing presses which compounds the problem for media owners. The Irish Times spent approx 50 million euro on its printing press while the impressive Independent plant was possibly similar.

Most articles on this topic focus on ploughing investment into the online product. Most media owners are doing this to some degree but not everyone is online and the investments in the printed press needs to be realised. Print is not dead and the popularity of freesheet and glossy magazines show they still have a good following even among the more digital native. The tactile physical and instantly portable nature of print means its still has great following and plenty to offer if it embraces real innovation.

Last weekend I was part of a panel at a creativity conference called ‘Creativity Rising’ in Fitzpatrick Hotel organised by MultiTalent. The 20 participants came from Spain, Austria and Ireland. Over the weekend people presented a ‘Work in Progress’ of some initiative they were undertaking in the realm of creativity. The group then peer reviewed each one and delivered feedback and suggestions.

During one of the breakout session I had a good chat with Humberto Matas from DNX in Madrid. We spoke abouts some of the challenges facing the print media industry in Spain and Ireland.

Two interesting things emerged from the conversation on how the print industry can translate younger readers into older buyers and not canibalise the entire print industry. The two areas were

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality is a hot topic at the moment with interesting experiments in Amsterdam with mobile technology. Check here for an earlier piece I did on AR. In simple terms augmented reality pulls together multiple layers of data to help present different version of the real world and allow new ways of interacting with it. One possible use for the print industry is that along side an article there is a symbol/bar code that could be scanned by mobile phone, web camera or event an interactive kiosk. Once scanned this would pull up a 3D interactive version of the story that younger viewers could manipulate or use to find more information or buy services. Rather than having all of this originate from online and stay online, this type iniative would anchor it to the physical newspaper with multiple modes for online interaction.

2. Embedded Video Screens

Very similar to the moving photos in Harry Potters Daily Prophet US publishers are experimenting with inserting tiny video screen in to magazines and newspapers. Entertainment Weekly will be distributing 2.7mm thick video screens that are integrated into the magazine. These rechargable screens can play up to 40 minutes of video. As video is the choice of younger demographics it has a good chance of attracting younger readers but also offers advertisers much more choice in advertising. Hopefully it does not become advertising platform alone but rather another editorial outlet. As the technology evolves and gets thinner it could in theory replace all the colour photos. Hopefully the recycling industry would catch up so it was unlikely to produce a waste nightmare but I imagine that short life easily recycled screens and batteries would emerge.

This shows the how the entire media industry is converging. Print publications becoming web portals becoming social media outlets becoming twitter channels becoming virtual radio and tv stations (with podcasting and YouTube). In theory the Irish Times would compete with RTE and YouTube only stations.

The next few years will see alot of media changes and its obvious that online will be the key driver. However there is still life in the print edition but only innovation will save the day.

- new post scripted information -

Just noticed this great video from TED India. Lots of interesting stuff but fast forward to 8 minutes to see how Six Sence technology can interact with newspapers.

IGO People Checklist

Posted on October 15, 2009 by admin

Most social media from Facebook, Bebo and Twitter caused lots of consternation for organisations especially when their membership mushroomed. Facebook now claims over 1 million, Bebo over 800,000 and Twitter looking like 26K to 45K depedning on who you read.

Everyone agreed that that they are wonderful platforms but how can organisations take a meaningful role in them was an enigma. As time passes the fog has lifted here partially as a result of experimentation, new applications emerging and platforms like Facebook taking a deliberate stance by establishing pages for companies and leaving profiles for individuals. Some of the rules of engagement have come from the community themselves. Essentially most of these communities jarred with the idea of companies engaging with the fear of over commercialisation. Now these is an acceptance that if an organisation can deliver value and entertainment then people will give them eyeballs in a pseudo transaction way.

IGO People Website

IGO People

is different. It was established with the very purpose of creating a medium whereby companies could interact with consumers and indeed a platform where people could group together to create change with an organisation. For example you have a problem with a mobile provider and getting no where with the company itself, then you can use IGO people to group people together to structure a more cohesive approach.

Like all social media the more you put in, the more you engage, the more you build your network base the better the result.

Below is a lits of some of the ways you could use and enhance your IGO People presence.

Beginner

Set up your organisation page with a vanity URL.
Add a map to your profile.
Add keywords to your ‘conversations of interest’ in order to monitor conversations that are relevant to your business.
Upload a profile photo, brand information and relevant collateral to your profile.
Create your first post by introducing yourself to the community and also describe the activities of your business.

Intermediate

Build Community – Invite your customers to your organisation page via the Go Connect features.
Join Groups of interest and add value to these groups.
Add organisations to your network.
Comment on other conversations where appropriate.
Post regularly on information that is relevant and of value to your customers.
Import your blog via RSS.

Advanced

Integrate the IGOpeople connect button with website.
Connect your twitter account to your IGOpeople account.
Assign multiple representatives to manage your twitter customer service on IGOpeople.
Use IGOpeople to manage your customer service, promote and market your products and services , collect feedback and to build social capital.

Any other experience or more ideas please let me know. Its worth browsing the site for some nice examples by FBD and Vodafone.

Eoin

Books I Read – No.2 – Free by Chris Anderson

Posted on October 1, 2009 by admin

I was asked to review the new book Free by Chris Anderson – Wired Editor and author of the Long Tail for Marketing Age Magazine. You can find the online version of the article here but you may need a subscription so I have included below also.

Its great to get a deadline for when you need to read and review a book as I find the books I should read mount up on the good intentions pile. So after a week of no TV and coffee after putting the baby to date, the results are below.

Free – The Future of a Radical Price – Chris Anderson

A quick search of Chris Anderson’s book shows up free online versions of the book from abridged audio versions to eBooks, iPhone, limited chapters, to limited time offers for the book which in a way explains much about what this book is about – utilising technology to give away something valuable for free while clawing back revenue in another form. Equally the book has spawned some long debates about plagiarising sections from Wikipedia which shows how raw and recent this debate is.
At first glance this book can appear quiet scary for a variety of industries whose main business model is now under threat but the deeper message is that free (mainly due to technology) is on a rapid rise and with it come huge changes in business structures but also new opportunities. Change is a painful process but those that can innovate and change will reap reward while those that don’t could witness the demise of institutions like Encyclopedia Britannica who yielded to Microsoft’s Encarta who in turn were usurped by Wikipedia.
One of the things that make this book easy to read is that it discusses many of the free services and products that we consume on a daily basis without really questioning how they justify their existence from Flickr’s photo sharing service to Ryanair’s free flights to free webmail. In addition the text is nicely punctuated with case studies explaining how a car be free, where stores in Japan give the physical products away free, how digital video recorders can be given away free through to how subtle changes in free bike schemes can result in one being successful in one city and not another (Dublin City Council may be interested in this one).
The book itself is an engaging and accessible read even if the author does take a purist line while staunchly defending the right of free. It initially covers the perception and history of the word free and he takes good amount of time to explain the 20th Century versions of free which was perceived as gimmicky in that you paid at some later stage. Early examples of Jell-O in 1902 being marketed with a free cookery book to the 1903 Gillette giveaways of free razors (you paid for the blades) show that free has a long history. He contends that in the 21st Century that free really means free especially as things become more digital. This is large due to the reducing costs of storage, bandwidth and processing power in that technological innovations have reduced so far as to be almost free and unmetreable. The book is peppered with examples to back up his assertions and point to the cliff fall of transistors cost from ten dollars in 1961 for a single transistor to current price of .000055 cents, a widely discussed implication of Moores Law. His learning is that “When something halves in price each year, zero is inevitable”.
Much of the book builds on the original thesis that ‘information wants to be free’ by Stewart Brand. The full version of Brands quote talks about information wanting to be expensive because its valuable but the cost of distributing it has reduced so much that is has relentlessly pushed to it to the free model.
He takes a fairly uncompromising stance on free in the music, publishing and software industries. This is even more interesting when you consider his role as Editor of Wired Magazine, an industry that has struggled great with the free expectations of the web. He contends that the celebrity status of the book will boost his charged speaker and consulting business. To the Music industry he explains that piracy should not be viewed as the killer of the industry but rather its potential salvation and that record labels need to look at their business in an entirely different way. Music itself will become the ultimate marketing tool while the economic rewards will come from other associated activities such as touring, merchandising and innovative licensing while CD or digital sales will still generate some income. This is an uncomfortable message for many artists who have relied on the current CD sales model, which in itself is relatively new.
In looking at the software industry Anderson points to the open source movement versus Microsoft and the protracted stages from Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression through to Acceptance that Microsoft have gone through to the point where some of its products are now offered free.
Free is fairly simplistic term and normally people align it to restricted set of examples. The book contains a lot of good examples of three different types of free models which he breaks into:
Direct Cross Subsidies, where one aspect is provided free but subsidised by another which generated the revenue. This covers products and services from free drinks at shows (e.g. casinos), free shipping over a certain amount (Amazon) to free parking at shopping centres. Many of these models are almost direct opposites to each other but have a built in mechanism to generate revenue by selling something else e.g. free software but selling the hardware (IBM, HP Linux Offering) to giving away hardware and selling software (games consoles sold under the cost price).
Three Party or “Two Sided” Markets where one customer class subsidizes another covers common place offers like free credit cards where merchants charged a fee, access for children being free but adults pay, through to giving away free readers (Adobe) but charging for document writers.

The final category of Freemium is where some customers subsidise another. This ranges from the giving away of low quality MP3s but selling high quality box sets (Radiohead and name your price), giving away computer to computer calls but charging for computer to phone (Skype), giving away online games but charging a subscription to do more in the game (Club Penguin) to giving away ad-supported services but selling the ability to remove the ads (Ning).
One would not want to make strategic business decision on the back of Free as the rapid changes that digital is making are still quite new. However for a thought provoking easy to access analysis of fast moving trends it has a lot of merit. Change has always been painful, especially when it has financial implications but the one certainty is that Free will bring major changes to most industries and those changes will be more rapid than we have experienced in the past.

ISBN 978-1905211470

Can you automate PR?

Posted on August 28, 2009 by admin

I wrote a while ago about new distribution services that were launched in Ireland mainly aimed at auotmating the distribution of press releases to media and others. Generally they range from posting press releases on a press release portal of sorts to closed systems where media are given access to closed stories similar to a reuters. Some are paid for, some are free and they are based on similar international models. Overall there is a general feeling that they are a useful supplementary service but unlikely to replace the time intensive pitching by public relations executives. Piaras Kelly also has some interesting insights into the different services.

Over the last week or so there has been more some more interesting additions to the debate. Last week Jill O’Herlihy from O’Herlihy launched a DIY PR Service whereby they would sell the media contacts for around 8 euro a name and charge a fee for writing the release. From an initial glance it would cost around 1,000 plus euro for the tools. This does not account for the time in tailoring the pitch, potential follow up, organising interviews, creating new angles and feedback. The reality of PR is that its not rocket science and if a company has time they could technically do it themselves although an experienced hand will always do it better, knowing the landscape, subtle messaging, particular media interests etc. The real value of this service would be getting access to the names and contact details (for future use) but again it is probably something you could do with Irish Media Contacts Directory. Although they claim they have been given permission to pass on the details I wonder what media think of their contact details being sold so overtly for 8 euro a pop. It will be interesting to see how the final service looks but if a company only has a couple of hundred euro to spent it might be a realistic choice for them. Just make sure you factor in a good amount of extra time to do it right.

Today Jack Murray from Media Contacts Directory fame launched a new service called Media Express. The handbook they produce has always been well thumbed addition in PR consultancies and they have since moved the data online. Media Express is a further development where you can upload your release and photos, select from a large selection of media lists (e.g. property) and the release will be sent by email to journalists whilst appearing to come from you. From one test it appeared you could do this for as little as 200 euro.

Interestingly the area where both struggle to automate is the scripting of the press release which naturally does take a human to do and does take time to do right. Although neither approach will be appreciated by the big PR consultancies as it does have a big impact on the value being offered, focusing on the distribution and media contacts makes sence as the easiest area to drive efficiences and reduce cost.

I am reading Free, the Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson and undoubtably the public relations industry will have to accept that aspects of their offerings where they place great value will become commodified and most likely free and that chargeable elements will be found elsewhere. Currently that elsewhere is the messaging development, judgement calls and follow on activities – things that take human interaction.

The odd thing about PR and press releases is that when I started in PR about 15 years ago the cost of a typical press release issue was almost the same in pounds as it is in euros today. The industry became a lot more efficient through technology and today I would imagine very few PR companies cover their full charge out costs on a regular press release. Consultancies who focus on media out reach alone could be facing tricky times in future.

Regardless of what you think of these services its great to see innovation in the industry. Overall I believe we are a long way off automating the PR industry but certain time elements and services will be replaced by technology.

What is your online reputation number?

Posted on May 15, 2009 by admin

How influential someone is in PR has alway been a bit foggy to say the least. It is easy to claim you are influential but proof has normally been in the form of being able to open doors or hidden in the infamous black book of contacts.

In theory online makes it easier to check how influential someone is. Things have moved on in terms of people merely using the web to increase their digital footprint. To date there has been a bit of land grab in terms of occuping certain spaces and putting up profiles and leaving them to gather dust. This was useful at the beginning where you could find someone’s LinkedIn profile when you searched for their name but its hardly an indication of their influence – its merely that they exist. Now as people gather and participate in communities around them it is easier to get a better sence of their consistent presence on the web but also their level of contribution.

Piaras Kelly posted about what your Facebook connections could indicate about you sometime ago and Tom Murphy has posted more recently about an Andrew Smith comment on how the media are using LinkedIn profiles to vet the credibility about a potential spokesperson.

There is no doubt that this will continue to evolve further but it is not an easy task to acertain someone influence as Micah Baldwin comments in Mashable.com. As a starting point he points to

Incoming Traffic – Pageviews, Incoming traffic from search engines, rss subscribers

Incoming Links – Primarily manual links such as blogrolls, in-post deep links

Reader Engagement – Internal searches, time on site

Recommendations – Retweets, share stats

Connections – Number of mutual connections, number of mutual connections on multiple sites

Track Record – Age of domain, number of blog posts, length of engagement

Engagement – How often and long a person has engaged with a service online

It is possible to get a manual snapshot of someone by using some of the tools that are available. By inputting someones blog url in Technorati you can get a numercial indication of their authority and ranking. By looking at their Twitter profile you can see how many people are following them and how many updates they have made. LinkedIn will show their connections, groups, length of time on the community and you can check how active they are in that forum. Similarly with Facebook and other social media.

None of these are perfect measures and having lots of stuff online does not equate to being influential but its a better start than taking someones word for it.

Surely there is good scope for someone to develop a FREE application that is comprehensive enough to take account of the different platforms (ie number of retweets on Twitter, pics through Twitpic etc to the strength of connections in Facebook rather than numbers) so that it goes beyond a popularity contest and give a genuinely useful figure. Following 500 people is very different to being followed by 500 people. It would encourage people to move from ‘I am online’ to ‘I participate and contribute online’. If there was an acceptance of the importance of a ORN (online reputation number) number and people could increase that number by engaging more surely this would lead to an uplife in genuine online activity.

I imagine such applications would be greately aided by people inputting their handles, user names for the different platforms with boxes to fill for a wide range of social media. This is probably especially true as people use different usernames and handles. There may be some issues with walled communities but technology normally finds a way around these.

I am sure that there are a few out there that come close to this but I have not found any to date. Let me know if I am missing the obvious. A simple tool could always progress into a more complex one.

Thoughts on Communications in Ireland

A Public Relations Perspective

Category Archives: Uncategorized