links for 2009-05-30

• Where is Everyone? – Articles – Baekdal.com
  Pretty visual representations of media and information development
  (tags: marketing socialmedia social web web2.0 media internet magazine visualization journalism data news information trends advertising history infographic communication infographics)
• disambiguity " Practical Solutions for the (lack of) Women in Tech issue
  Couple of practical solutions for encouraging women in tech to talk about themselves. Having just been to Thinking Digital – a great conference but only 3 women on the stage over 3 days in a conference that was drawing from the US as well as the UK! – this is very much on my mind.
  (tags: technology tech inspiration computer women gender careers usability internet web)

IAB Social Media debate

I’m part of the IAB Social Media Council and one of the things we are thinking about is coming up with some meaty and controversial debate ideas.

They have to be arguable from both sides and fire enthusiasm.

So far I have come up with
“Social Media is the worst way to reach your audience”

Got any suggestions?

links for 2009-05-13

• News: Online: where context is king – Marketing Week
  Push and pull work best together in online communications – seems like a no-brainer but surprising numbers of comms use only one or the other, not both.
  (tags: marketing online digital statistics advertising)
• Number of adults using social networks quadrupled since 2005 – Social …
  The interesting thing in this report is what adults are using social media for – 90% for keeping in touch with existing networks, but 40% to make new ones. Stop smirking!
  (tags: marketing statistics socialmedia facebook demographics)
• Report: Consumers more engaged with verticals – Advertising – BizReport
  (tags: statistics marketing content engagement research verticals advertising)
• Consumers spend most of online time with content – Research – BizReport
  Content is king my friends, content is king!
  (tags: content time online marketing advertising brand communications)

links for 2009-05-06

• " Online Demographics: The Generations Explained | mcvaynewmedia.com
  (tags: statistics demographics trends online use resources advertising)

Norton’s appalling customer strategy

This is going to be a rant.

I uninstalled Norton 360 from my pc a year ago, after I realised it was seriously clogging up my processing power and also was ineffective in finding and location a virus I had found through another piece of software. Why pay for something that doesn’t work?

You can only reach their customer service however through an online chat – presumably because their customers are frequently inclined to swear down the phone at the hapless operators in their frustration. You can also only do this via Internet Explorer. So i had to do this from work – and it took me about 1 hour!!!

I was not happy, but at least I wasn’t using Norton 360 any more and eventually got my money back. Oh yes, and it took me 2 hours to do that because I had to contact them twice – this is my own money and time I am spending here, which was of course not refunded to me.

Today, I tried to download an Epson printer driver. Bundled with it came a Norton installer, it was not clear that this was for Norton 360, I thought maybe they were there as a way of installing the printer driver. There was no clear messaging, nothing to ask you if you wanted to install the software,nothing to explain that you DIDN’T HAVE TO but I assumed that I did. Yes, that may be my own stupidity, but I would defy anyone who is not incredibly net savvy not to draw the same conclusion.

So eventually it transpired that not only had I in fact installed the same useless anti-virus I had before but also that I can’t turn it off unless I actually cancel my subscription and finally that I have been CHARGED AGAIN. Because they asked me at a certain point to register, and put in my own details – again it was not made clear when I put in my old details that I would be charged, I didn’t at any point get asked if I really wanted to be doing this.

So Norton has kept my details online and now charged my account and I am going to have to spend another hour online with them (but not now because I don’t have internet explorer on this computer only Opera) at their convenience, not mine, not remove a charge for a piece of software that was bundled, not explained and that I never even wanted.

Their customer service strategy sucks and I am so bewildered by why they think that this is an appropriate way to treat people that I wanted to post about so that at least some other people might know how little they actually care about how their product is perceived and what they are actally delivering to the public.

I would be interested to know of anyone else who has had a similar experience of Norton and their obfuscating, self-centred and deliberately difficult customer strategy and their frankly irresponsible method of selling their products.

links for 2009-05-02

• The Top 100 brands in social media – immediate future
  Share of voice
  (tags: marketing web2.0 brands brand statistics research ranking analytics)
• James Montier: The Psychology of Happiness | GreenLightAdvisor Views
  Want to be happy? Most of us do. Check out the rules from a financial advisor, and if can be happy now then they must work!
  (tags: happiness finance)
• Asia Pacific the hot location for social networking
  Surprising? I don't think so, given population size and social structures. We have to think globally though, Orkut rules!
  (tags: statistics marketing data information asie comscore)
• ComScore: Internet Population Passes One Billion; Top 15 Countries
  Interesting statistics with a breakdown of country and continent.
  (tags: marketing web culture internet trends 2009 statistics development population comscore world)