Online video sharing, and youtube in particular, embodies the classic web 2.0 predicament; a hugely popular platform, with no real profit model. While video sharing is fastly becoming one of the most popular activities online, the leading players are still struggling to figure out how to monetize its audience (I wrote an article which is in Adnews magazine today (pg. 13), which touches on this very problem.) Read more »

Is social media really suitable for all brands? Irrespective of its growing popularity, there are any number of low involvement categories that don’t really seem to fit the social mould. The insurance industry is one of the first that comes to mind. As Forrester’s prominent social computing analyst, Jeremiah Owyang writes on his blog “social media isn’t great for everything, let’s use our heads, not everything is a nail . . . in general, most financial and insurance industries are going to fall ust behind the curve of mainstream adoption when it comes to social media tools, they rightfully will wait and vet out what works and what doesn’t” Read more »

Mildly regulated accessibility and freedom of information have allowed for some interesting sub cultures online. From simple sceptics to luddites, there have been many that have voiced their concern for this level of freedom. When it comes down to it though, the internet is just a vessel, and what people use it for is their own business. Though some do indeed use it for strange purposes, it could be argued that it’s just a reflection of the diversity of humanity. Does it become an issue though when anyone can dig into the details of anyone else’s lives without permission? Have we spawned a new level of voyeurism? Read more »