Blogger Andrew Trench recently presented a theory on the threshold of when Internet penetration starts to matter, writing:
Social networks have also been given plenty of credit for the revolution unfolding in Egypt.
So I went and had a look at the numbers over on www.internetworldstats.com to see what they could tell us about these two scenarios. Well, fascinatingly, both Egypt and Tunisia have seen a massive growth in internet users and internet penetration over the last 10 years.
Both have now got internet penetration of over 20% and in Tunisia's case it was as high as 34%.While it is clearly simplistic to over-state this factor and there must be many more drivers contributing to such a rapid political uprising, it is obviously a factor as evidenced by the Egyptian regime pulling the plug on the country's internet access to try and block the rising tide of revolt.
My back-of-napkin theory is this: that a rapid increase in internet penetration in a repressive regime does play an important role as it provides an unfettered channel of communication allowing disaffected citizens to share views - and more importantly - to rapidly organise and mobilise.
If Egypt and Tunisia are valid case studies, it looks like internet penetration of around 20% is the mark.
Geopolitics & Macroeconomics adds:
Internet penetration: Social networking sites were critical to sustaining the momentum in the recent protests. The internet penetration in Egypt is 16%. In Libya, it is a meagre 5% [1]. The unrest in Libya has thus far remained concentrated in regions that are geographically distant from the seat of ‘real' power (see more on this below). The dependence of momentum on internet communication is far greater in Libya than in Egypt where protests began in Cairo itself.
Taking the conversation to Pakistan, Sabene Saigol writes, on BrandRepublic:
Perhaps one reason for this is that we're still not that used to communicating via the ‘net - maybe we need greater broadband and internet penetration. Personally I think it is more to do with culture - while Pakistani internet users are savvy to using social media to connect with friends, I feel they have not yet ‘crossed over' to seeing SM as a means for professional communications - or even wider social communications that go beyond their immediate circle. Yes, there are no doubt savvy people - both within marketing and tech circles, and outside - however, these people are likely a tiny proportion of the total number of ‘net and social media users.
Blogger Andrew Trench recently presented a theory on the threshold of when Internet penetration starts to matter, writing:
Social networks have also been given plenty of credit for the revolution unfolding in Egypt.
So I went and had a look at the numbers over on www.internetworldstats.com to see what they could tell us about these two scenarios. Well, fascinatingly, both Egypt and Tunisia have seen a massive growth in internet users and internet penetration over the last 10 years.
Both have now got internet penetration of over 20% and in Tunisia's case it was as high as 34%.While it is clearly simplistic to over-state this factor and there must be many more drivers contributing to such a rapid political uprising, it is obviously a factor as evidenced by the Egyptian regime pulling the plug on the country's internet access to try and block the rising tide of revolt.
My back-of-napkin theory is this: that a rapid increase in internet penetration in a repressive regime does play an important role as it provides an unfettered channel of communication allowing disaffected citizens to share views - and more importantly - to rapidly organise and mobilise.
If Egypt and Tunisia are valid case studies, it looks like internet penetration of around 20% is the mark.
Geopolitics & Macroeconomics adds:
Internet penetration: Social networking sites were critical to sustaining the momentum in the recent protests. The internet penetration in Egypt is 16%. In Libya, it is a meagre 5% [1]. The unrest in Libya has thus far remained concentrated in regions that are geographically distant from the seat of ‘real' power (see more on this below). The dependence of momentum on internet communication is far greater in Libya than in Egypt where protests began in Cairo itself.
Taking the conversation to Pakistan, Sabene Saigol writes, on BrandRepublic:
Perhaps one reason for this is that we're still not that used to communicating via the ‘net - maybe we need greater broadband and internet penetration. Personally I think it is more to do with culture - while Pakistani internet users are savvy to using social media to connect with friends, I feel they have not yet ‘crossed over' to seeing SM as a means for professional communications - or even wider social communications that go beyond their immediate circle. Yes, there are no doubt savvy people - both within marketing and tech circles, and outside - however, these people are likely a tiny proportion of the total number of ‘net and social media users.
Surface Encounters
Fiesta Bowl fires CEO amid internal report; BCS status in jeopardy
The Fiesta Bowl has fired its longtime CEO John Junker after a scathing internal report found "an apparent scheme" to reimburse employees for political contributions.
Surface Encounters
REPORT: <b>News</b> Corp. In Talks To Hand Over Control Of MySpace To <b>...</b>
News Corp. is in preliminary talks to give control of Myspace to Vevo.com, the site partly owned by top record companies, including Universal Music and Sony Music, according to a Bloomberg report. News Corp. has been looking to unload ...
Surface Encounters
New York Yankee <b>News</b>: Granderson, Chavez, Joe West and Barry Bonds <b>...</b>
All the Yankee news you need. ... New York Yankee News: Granderson, Chavez, Joe West and Barry Bonds. Dsc00073_tiny by jscape2000 on Mar 29, 2011 6:00 AM EDT in News � Tweet. 12 comments; Story-email Email; Printer Print. "I got it! ...
Surface Encounters
Apple advertises its products as magical. They’re at the intersection of “technology and the liberal arts,” Steve Jobs said today. Something that moves your heart, not just your lust for technology. Will consumers still buy that in 2011?
The big picture question of the day is whether Apple has done it again. With the original iPad, Apple crushed its rivals, taking more than 90 percent of the tablet market in 2010 and selling more than 15 million units. Jobs predicted today that 2011 will be the year of the iPad 2. Based on what I have seen today, I think he’s mostly, but not entirely, right.
Competitors will discover that Apple has a lot of inherent financial advantages, including being a low-cost leader. That may not sound intuitive, but I believe it has to be true. It is selling so much volume of its products that it can get discounts on parts and manufacturing services that no one else can get.
When it sells its products in stores, it also doesn’t have to give away 20 percent of the margin to a retailer. That is a huge financial advantage. Carriers are also willing to subsidize the costs of Apple products in a way that they won’t with other tablet vendors. All of these things may explain why the Motorola Xoom, a very cool product, is selling for $800 while Apple has priced its new devices at $499 to $829, (and dropped the price of the old iPad to $399). Apple has also left very little room for rivals here, since it has signed up both AT&T and Verizon. Perhaps there is room for rivals to sell $199 machines, but users probably aren’t going to like them.
Those are reasons why any cool Apple mobile product could beat other rivals. But Apple has also done some smart things with the iPad 2. It has created another rev of its microprocessor, the A5, which has two cores, or computing brains. And it has nine times faster graphics than its old A4 chip. Since Apple designs this chip itself, it doesn’t have to give away much margin to a chip design firm. It only has to give a small margin to a chip manufacturer such as Samsung to make the chips.
Apple has also custom-designed the A5 to run Apple applications on a device with a 10-hour battery life. Apple should have an edge there, as it won’t sell the A5 to rivals. But if this is an advantage, it isn’t likely to last long, as Nvidia is being very aggressive with a new quad-core chip that it could sell to any Android rivals.
The design of the iPad 2 is where Apple has more advantages. The iPad 2 will have faster web-browsing with a new version of Safari. It has two cameras that will inspire a lot of video and photo-related apps. The availability of the Mac applications — iMovie, Garage Band, and Photo Booth — on the iPad 2 will make a lot of users happy. More interesting features will come with new releases of the iOS, or Apple’s operating system in the fairly near future.
There are some users who won’t like the restrictions of Apple’s ecosystem. If they want universal serial bus (USB) and SD card ports, they are out of luck. Apple didn’t change the resolution of its screen either, leaving it at 1024 x 768. Competitors could add these options and put emphasis on them as selling points. (Critics are disappointed that Apple did not improve the display, but that’s a big cost issue others have too).
Apple has also made great improvements in the feel of the product. It’s 33 percent thinner, 2 ounces lighter, and it has a wonderful new screen cover that doubles as a stand for the device. (It wakes up the device when you peel it back and it has micro-fibers that clean the screen when the cover is on).
Now here is why Jobs is not entirely right. Apple has come up with a stunning machine at prices that the competitors will have a hard time beating. But it is almost inevitable that Android-based tablets will gain market share on Apple.
So far, I don’t see the Android machine that will beat the iPad 2. But the potential is there, given ingredients such as Android 3.0, Nvidia Tegra 2 chips and other fast microprocessors, and 4G LTE. The latter is the main weakness in Apple’s armor.
LTE is fast, with a minimum speed on Verizon at around 12 megabits a second and actual speeds running much higher than that now. Getting access to 4G LTE is as big a benefit as having access to lots of cool apps, from my point of view. Right now, the timing of the still-young LTE technology means that Apple cannot yet put it into its mass-produced, lowest-cost tablet computers.
If LTE costs come down sometime soon, then Apple can launch a new version of the iPad to incorporate the technology. But it’s not a simple upgrade, as it means that the hardware of the machine — including the radio chip — has to change. And for now, LTE chips are larger than their 3G equivalents, so the heat dissipation and product size are affected. In other words, LTE can force Apple to redesign the iPad.
Apple can do that. But Android tablet makers might be able to move faster than Apple directly into the 4G LTE tablet market. If they do that, then they will have found a scenario where they could steal a march on Apple. Apple is not likely to let that gap last for a long time, but it might be enough for Apple to lose some share this year.
Apple’s leadership position in this market will be hard to beat, but the collective weight and reach of Android rivals could erode it. And here’s a sobering thought: If Apple eventually winds up with only 30 percent of the tablet market, it could still be No. 1, and its place as the largest technology company in the world will not be at risk.
Check out Apple’s overview video on the iPad 2 and Jobs’ comments on technology and the liberal arts below.
Next Story: Loot Drop banks on talented game designers as it takes on social gaming’s giants (exclusive) Previous Story: Electric car startups to square off against Big Auto competition
Editor’s Note: Jim Dalrymple has been writing about Apple for more than 15 years. You can follow him on Twitter @jdalrymple and on his Web site at The Loop.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday introduced the iPad 2 at a special event in San Francisco, taking even more momentum away from its competitors.
I’ve had a lot of people in the last 24 hours tell me that the iPad 2 isn’t as revolutionary as the first generation device. Yes, that’s true. But not every device a company releases has to be or can be revolutionary.
Apple has released three revolutionary products in the last decade alone: iPod, iPhone and iPad. I really can’t think of any products from Apple’s competitors that fit in the revolutionary category in that same time period.
People also said that Apple wasn’t very forthcoming with the specs of the iPad 2. Again, that’s true, but there’s a good reason for that—nobody cares.
Well, some people care. Those of us who are geeks care about specs. However, have you ever noticed that when you sit with your non-geek friends and start listing off specs their eyes glaze over and they rest their chin in their hand.
That’s because they couldn’t care less.
The iPad 2 is no slouch either. It lost one-third of the thickness of the previous generation, and therefore it is one-third less than the size of the iPad competitors too. It also has new technologies like a gyro built-in that will launch another round of cool apps.
Yesterday’s iPad 2 announcement wasn’t about the geeks—it was about all the other people who will buy an iPad. What those people want to know is “what can I do with it?”
If it fits into their lifestyle, most people are good with that. Apple showed many ways how the iPad 2 can fit into your lifestyle.
From the very beginning, Apple was very smart with how it marketed the iPad. The first thing it did was get the device into businesses and promote the fact that it could be used to get work done. And it was quite successful with that.
In an analyst call in October 2010, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said the iPad was already being used in 65 percent of Fortune 100 companies. That was four months ago and the iPad has grown since then, so we can only imagine where that number is now.
This strategy allowed Apple to do two things. If it came out with the iPad and pushed the gaming capabilities of the device, the business world would have looked at it as a toy. That would have certainly meant slower adoption. It also allowed them to work on some consumer software, two of which we saw yesterday.
In addition to the iPad 2, Jobs also unveiled iMovie and GarageBand for the iPad. This is what people want to know about—what can I do with the iPad that’s exciting and new.
Obviously, creating movies and being able to edit and share them with friends and family is a very popular thing to do these days. iMovie makes that easy.
Creating music, whether a novice or pro is also a cool thing to do. GarageBand is a great app to get that done and you can move your projects to your Mac and continue working on them.
It’s not just about the hardware. Apple delivers the whole experience that nobody else can. Jobs said yesterday that there are 65,000 apps on its App Store specifically designed for the iPad. That’s a lot of things you can do.
If you think Apple’s competitors are jumping for joy because the iPad 2 isn’t revolutionary, I believe you are wrong. I think they’re scared. Yesterday, they figured out Apple’s strategy too, but a little too late.
Surface Encounters
Surface Encounters
Ask yourself, what are my company’s core capabilities? If your answer is simply, restating the product you sell, you are most likely incoherent. The coherence premium is a high level strategy used by some of the largest (and most profitable) corporations in America. Companies that are “coherent” can define 3-6 capabilities internally that differentiate them within their industry, build a deep workable strategy focused on “winning,” and develop product portfolio based around their capabilities.
What makes the coherence premium such an interesting topic? The fact that companies who are “coherent” are healthier, more profitable and better set up for long-term growth. Coca-Cola, a poster child for coherence, (almost 100 on the Coherence Capabilities Score) sees on average 20% higher earnings before interest and taxes than profiled companies with a Coherence Capabilities Score of less than 20.
Take Wal-Mart for instance, they’ve aligned all of their capabilities:
- Aggressive vendor management
- Expert point-of-sale data analytics
- Superior logistics
- Rigorous working capital management
Simple, but to the point, Wal-Mart understands their internal capabilities, which stretch from logistics all the way to IT. Capabilities should be specific enough that they exact a point of where you stop competing and start excelling your industry. A more thorough example of a capability would be, “A company’s ability to use customer-data mining to develop new products.”
Benefits
- Strengthens a Companies Competitive Advantage
- Companies are Better Prepared For The Future
- Produces Efficiencies of Scale
- Aligns Strategic Intent and Day-To-Day Decision Making
Steps
1. Ways to Play- learn how your company provides value and the way you will face the market.
- Are we investing capabilities that matter to the way we play?
- Are we clear about the way we choose to create value in the marketplace?
2. Capabilities System -determine your 3-6 core capabilities.
- Have we defined how these capabilities work with our system?
- Do all of our businesses draw upon this superior system?
3. Build a Strategy For a Balanced Portfolio – Build your future growth and product initiates to maximize your core capabilities.
- Have we found our product and service “sweet spot”
- Are new products and acquisitions determined on the way the fit within our capabilities system?
Understanding your core capabilities and becoming coherent is not necessarily the easiest thing to do. Your capabilities should be assessed with a healthy mix of both internal and external information and careful thought. All of this is worth the hassle; coherent companies consistently reap more profits, are better prepped for the future and place themselves atop their industries by innovating.
What is your social media brand? Do you have one? Sure, many small business owners and entrepreneurs are coming around to the enormous importance of social media as a marketing, customer service, and, yes, even sales tool. But if you haven’t thought about how social media can define your brand, you are probably missing a HUGE part of what social media tools can do for your business. Here’s more…
Tools & Techniques
Creating a great brand with these blog tools. Tools that improve the look and functionality of your blog also improve your brand. A well-maintained small business blog is one of the most obvious and least expensive branding tools at the entrepreneur’s disposal even more so than social media channels like Facebook and Twitter because of how a blog can be customized to fit your needs and personality. This list of tools is a great way to start. EpicLaunch
What Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi can teach you about social media. One of the stars of the hit reality show “Jersey Shore”, “Snooki” is a perfect example of personal brand, but social media entrepreneurs could also learn much about building their own online presence from Snooki. Being yourself and using a simple, short tag to indelibly brand your identity are also great techniques in social media. One site is already trying to apply the starlets techniques in the social media space. Brand-Yourself
Tito Philips doesn’t want your comments on his blog! At least, not if they’re the wrong kind. And the wrong kind would be comments left for no other purpose than to get the blogger and his/her readers to visit your blog and perhaps comment on it in return. Why is comment trading bad? Don’t get Tito started! There are many ways to engage in social media marketing. Be sure you understand and respect some of the attitudes you may face. Blogging Bookshelf
News & Trends
The best of the best. Want to get a look at arguably the 20 best Facebook fan pages for business on the planet? By now you should know the value of a Facebook fan page to your branding efforts. What’s also true, however, is that not all Facebook sites are created equal. If you want to take your social media marketing to the next level, have a look at this list of cream of the crop sites. Inc.com
Even churches use social media marketing! In this article on the growing market for tech services among religious organizations, we learn that many churches have also already entered into the social media space. As houses of worship, particularly huge mega-churches, expand and build congregations, it’s easy to see how social media can work as a marketing tool here as well. Is your religious organization using social media for branding? WSJ
Tips & Tricks
20 tips that will make you a Twitter star. Among the tools popular in the new digital space is Twitter. The microblogging platform can be used for business or non-business purposes and it can be the key to your small business’s success. Learn how to use Twitter like a pro and you may be surprised at the benefits your small business gains as a result. Global Copywriting
Valuable lessons in social media. Gary Vaynerchuk, author of The Thank You Economy and a successful social media entrepreneur in his own right, has many insights to share with small business leaders seeking a new way to define their brands in an age of social communications. Read some of the takeaways Vaynerchuk shares with those trying to define their businesses with social media. E-Marketing Associates
Success Stories
Doubt the power of FB to create brand for almost anyone? You won’t after you read the story of Princeton English Professor Jeff Nunokawa and “Jeffbook”, a collection of 3,221 brief literary essays on Facebook, that have created an incredible cult status for Nunokawa in the process. His motivation? Not too different from those of most marketers. Nunokawa simply started sharing where he knew his audience already spent lots of their time. The results speak for themselves. Fast Company
Increase exposure with niche social media. Blogger Mavis Nong talks about the importance of niche social media sites including social bookmarking sites as a key method of creating exposure for your online business. Mavis talks about her experience with our sister site BizSugar.com (thanks for the shout out! ) and explains how smaller more focused social sites can sometimes have a surprising impact even larger than the big guys. Attraction Marketing Online
Opportunities
Sponsors wanted for new SugarTone Sweet Business Blogging Contest. Put the power of social media to work for your brand. We’re looking for sponsors to help with a brand new blogging contest involving two of the fastest growing small business communities on the Web, BizSugar.com and Bloggertone.com. Learn more about the contest by reading the full announcement and get in touch today! BizSugar Blog
Surface Encounters
Murder Victim's Parents Sue Facebook Over Crime Scene - AOL <b>News</b>
The family of New York murder victim Caroline Wimmer has filed a civil suit against Facebook and others, including ex-EMT Mark Musarella, who posted a graphic picture of their daughter's body to the social networking website.
Surface Encounters
Surface Encounters
Surface Encounters
New York Yankee <b>News</b>: Granderson, Chavez, Joe West and Barry Bonds <b>...</b>
All the Yankee news you need. ... New York Yankee News: Granderson, Chavez, Joe West and Barry Bonds. Dsc00073_tiny by jscape2000 on Mar 29, 2011 6:00 AM EDT in News � Tweet. 12 comments; Story-email Email; Printer Print. "I got it! ...
Surface Encounters
No comments:
Post a Comment