Four years after the impressive Beijing Olympics the BBC has capitalised on the growth of technology and the rise in smartphone ownership to ensure that audiences never miss a moment.
Broadcasters have been living in fear of the fragmentation of the television market place, but because the BBC is tax-payer funded it has been able to take a leap and use technology that will put the audience truly in control.
For advertisers the segmentation of viewership has signalled confusion, forcing many to relearn how to reach and promote their brands to potential customers. Television, let’s not forget, is still the most dominant media when wanting to engage with an audience. But this is changing. Today, corralling people together is more difficult as more channels allows people to watch what they want to watch.
The BBC is using these Olympics to test out social features that will enable viewers to learn, comment and share about the event and athlete they watch.
By focusing on a platform agnostic belief, the BBC is putting the Olympics in the hands of the user, weather they are at home, work or travelling.
And if you are outside the UK overseas and want to see how it works then now is the time to get that VPN network up and running.
Data and analytics is shaping the media landscape. That is the message that came from the speakers at the first day of this year’s FT Media Media Conference in London.
While Jimmy Wales opened the two-day media gathering with insight on the power of the community, it was the FT’s CEO John Ridding and AOL Huffington Post Media Group VP Noel Penzer who pushed the importance of data in knowing your audience.
John Ridding said, ‘I didn’t think that when I went into journalism 20 years ago I’d get excited about data and analytics.’ And data is becoming as central to the media landscape as making the content seamlessly available across platform. Ridding himself added that HTML5 is a big deal for publishing as making content available across multiple platforms is very expensive, something that HTML5 resolves. This move to HTML5 highlights the growth of users receiving content while on mobile devices – phones and tablets. And it is this that gives the kind of real-time data that enables us to better understand the audience.
Many of the platforms that are becoming essential to those in media are funded by venture capital and it took Index Ventures Partner Neil Rimer to say that Facebook might not have yet exploited it’s full potential, before adding that it could become more valuable than Google.
Balderton Capital’sDharmash Mistry provided the strategic and focused insight by stating that Facebook’s strength is as ‘a powerful distribution network.’ Mistry gave the example of Spotify, who grew in the US by making the decision to embedded itself into Facebook’s open graph.
The audience has gathered in one place and it’s just a matter of time that this benefit is fully utilised by those in media and communications. I am not talking in a marketing sense either. I’ve been making this point for the past 12 months, about how a connected community can bring together an audience. This, together with using micro payments on Facebook, such as it’s credits offering could see revenues for publishers as for gaming companies like Zynga. Dharmash Mistry himself said that the future for Facebook is with micro-payments.
Data is no longer dull, but a currency that can help not just business understand their audience, but help the audience find the content that is of interest to them.
This year’s GSMA Mobile World Congress 2012 brought together last week in Barcelona an industry that has been working during the past year to guess and meet the mobile needs of consumers and businesses. Over 65,000 attendees and 3,000 journalists were asked ‘How do you redefine mobile?’ This theme was much more than about new handsets or associated technology. It was about how the industry can continue to embed itself in our daily life.
While handset manufacturers such as Samsung, HTC, Huawei, Nokia and BlackBerry grabbed the headlines at this year’s congress, it was the operating systems and the application of these that grabbed a lot of the discussion. Mobile commerce was one such subject that was hotly discussed.
Mobile connects people with people. It connects business with people, opening a host of opportunities for news and media outlets, as well as businesses that rely on direct to consumer sales. Just look at the new Guardian advert about the Three Little Piggies to see how new is now shaped by the opinions of people on the move.
While Google and it’s Android operating system was everywhere, Apple and it’s non-attendance were the still benchmark for the many handset manufacturers. Samsung unveiled not just the Note handset, but also a partnership with Visa that would facilitate it’s Near Field Communications (#NFC) capability. With a NFC-sim in place, Samsung will be providing athletes at the London 2012 Olympic Games with handsets through which they can pay for goods, educating the public about the benefits of contactless mobile payments.
Samsung London Olympics NFC enabled mobile
Athletes will just need to open a pre-installed app and with just the swipe of their phone over a RFID Visa reader they’ll be able to pay for purchases of up to say £20. Any purchases over a set preset amount will require the user to enter a security PIN number. Visa hopes to launch this NFC payment service to the public later on in the year, though with a few conditions: you will need a Visa debit or Credit card associated with the service, you mobile operators will need to send you an approved SIM card and your NFC enabled phone will need to be approved by your bank. Seamless it isn’t, but a step in the right direction it is.
Meanwhile, Japanese Mobile Operator NTT DoCoMo unveiled their own NFC offering, which was more consumer-friendly and has been in use in Japan since 2004.
NTT DoCoMo pioneered mobile payments by ‘encouraging’ Sony to design what is now the NFC FeliCa chips that have become the contactless default payment system in Japanese handsets. NFCTimes.com reports that today ‘more than 60 million phones in Japan pack the contactless FeliCa chip, which comes from DoCoMo’s joint venture partner Sony Corp. The chips and associated secure memory can support a range of payment, ticketing and other applications.’ The operator makes it’s money by collecting transaction fees every time a subscriber uses the NFC system.
Extending the service beyond payments, NTT DoCoMo unveiled services where NFC could be used across borders and for mobile ticketing through the Boardwalk Mobile Ticketing, which uses NFC on mobile devices to create a seamless way to engage with events that require ticketing and through which event promoters can further push additional content. In Japan, NTT DoCoMo also provides the subscriber with the opportunity of charging purchases to their monthly bill.
With the continued rise of geo-location marketing pushed by the likes of Foursquare and Facebook, the missing piece in the payment and promotion system is appearing in Asia, where seamless services have produced high consumer sign-up numbers, something that Samsung and Visa need to consider when they roll their own services in western markets
According to Ovum the ‘GSMA estimates that there are now over 100 deployments around the world.’ High-adoption for mobile payment in emerging markets is partly driven by the fact that mobile phone ownership in these markets vastly outnumbers payment card ownerships. In developed markets, the incentive to use NFC and other mobile payment options need to be established through promotions to the user – discounts and coupons that can be redeemed with ones own handset. Location services such as Foursquare could add value and increase sales.
Brands today require a mobile strategy as part of the communications activities. Reaching people wherever they are is going to be central, especially when you consider that at some point within the next 24 months more people will be accessing the web through a mobile device than a desktop. Views and opinions will be in real-time, offers made when target customers are in location.
Mobile and telecoms have embedded themselves in our daily life. They are the channel for business and real-time comment and opinion. They are wire that connects people on social networks. Mobile is redefining itself, and it will continue to do so. Develop a mobile strategy and accept that real-time business is already upon us.
Telefonica owned UK mobile operator O2 was this morning caught in a storm when a user discovered that his phone number was being sent to websites he visited when roaming through O2′s network.
System Administrator Lewis Peckover discovered the data and privacy breach when building a site and wanting to know the information that was being sent and possibly collected while browsing on a mobile network.
This breach in privacy creates a massive concern not just for consumers but businesses that use O2 for data roaming as sending users numbers might enable bots to harvest these for spam.
Twitter users have already been calling for O2 to be reported to both Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office (IOC).
The London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) last week released their social media guidelines for their 70,000 volunteers, in which they ban individuals from posting pictures or release details of athletes, VIPs and dignitaries in backstage areas at this summer’s 2012 Olympic games.
In the hope of keeping a tight-lid on the London 2012 brand and messaging organisers have made the outrageous statement that social media will be managed by its communication team. Such level of control is going to be nearly impossible given the number of individuals that will be operating behind the scenes.
A large majority of news outlets already use social media channels as a source that adds value and content to unfolding stories, so rather than control the possible behind the scene messages, why didn’t the communications team look to embrace these channels and empower volunteers add an extra layer of information? It begs the question, will volunteers have to hand in the mobiles before each day that they work, sorry, volunteer for free?
Surely empowering volunteers as behind the scenes crews would act as a way to bring the spirit of the Olympics closer to the people. Those athletes, celebrities and dignitaries that are caught in a scandal would only have themselves to blame.
As several other bloggers point out, the call by LOCOG goes against the International Olympic Committe’s (IOC) own guidelines and recommendation.
Hello. I'm Julio Romo. I'm a London-based independent PR, communications consultant and digital strategist. I am also a freelance journalist and trainer, providing insight and consultancy on how to secure better engagement through the changing media and digital landscape.
BBC Delivers All The Olympics
Friday, May 18th, 2012The BBC announced this week it’s plans for coverage of the London 2012 Olympics. Thanks to a dedicated Olympics Player, users will be able to access every single event online and by the press of a button.
Four years after the impressive Beijing Olympics the BBC has capitalised on the growth of technology and the rise in smartphone ownership to ensure that audiences never miss a moment.
Broadcasters have been living in fear of the fragmentation of the television market place, but because the BBC is tax-payer funded it has been able to take a leap and use technology that will put the audience truly in control.
For advertisers the segmentation of viewership has signalled confusion, forcing many to relearn how to reach and promote their brands to potential customers. Television, let’s not forget, is still the most dominant media when wanting to engage with an audience. But this is changing. Today, corralling people together is more difficult as more channels allows people to watch what they want to watch.
The BBC is using these Olympics to test out social features that will enable viewers to learn, comment and share about the event and athlete they watch.
By focusing on a platform agnostic belief, the BBC is putting the Olympics in the hands of the user, weather they are at home, work or travelling.
And if you are outside the UK overseas and want to see how it works then now is the time to get that VPN network up and running.
The Olympics, in your hand. Wherever you are.
Tags: audience, bbc, digital, engagement, hd, london, london2012, olympics, online, social, socialtv, television
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