My job involves working on the internet. When people ask me what I do, I tend to mutter something about digital marketing. I’ve found it’s best not to go into details. Most people just don’t care enough to decode the technical details. Look at the upcoming raft of legislation relating to the internet and it seems that this willful ignorance is shared by the Irish government.

The snappily entitled S.I. No. of 2011 European Communities (Copyright and Related Rights) Regulations 2011, (aka. Ireland’s SOPA) intends to curtail access to websites in Ireland, without a vote in the Oireachtas. Households may be soon called on to pay a broadcast fee for the privilege of watching TV on computers, phones or tablets. And then there’s the proposal in front of the Oireachtas health committee to place a potential ban on alcohol advertising on social networks.

Online advertising may or may not contribute to the misuse of alcohol. As a nation, we certainly abused it long before Facebook came along. In 2010, five of the top ten Irish Facebook pages belonged to alcohol brands, and you can be damn sure that they were advertising to gain such popularity. Pull the advertising and the marketers, media buyers and designers who were kept gainfully employed will be out of a job.

Our political classes, it seems, have only the vaguest grasp of what the internet is, and what it means to business; from multinationals to online entrepreneurs and humble digital drones. The desire to introduce this sort of legislation without proper debate and discussion shows our legislators will pay lip service to a smart economy, while they pull the plug at the same time.

Ireland has a fairly robust digital sector. It’s taken a while to get there, but it’s growing. International companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Ebay, and Paypal have all set up European bases of operations here. Plus, there are a huge number of SME’s for whom the internet is a lifeblood, there are many more for whom the internet offers avenues for growth. Sadly, our politicians, having had their heads turned by an ailing and anachronistic music industry and conflicting judgments from Europe, are in danger of spoiling the party.

How big is this party? Well, figures revealed by Facebook’s chief operations officer Sheryl Sandberg at last weekend’s DLD conference in Munich showed that Facebook and mobile apps support 232,000 jobs to the European Economy.

Facebook alone contributes €15.3bn to the European Union’s gross domestic product. Unfortunately, no figures are available for the Irish Market. But we do know that CD sales in the Republic of Ireland amounted to €56 million last year.

Our legislators are in danger of aligning Irish industrial practices with the past rather than the future. Rather than fostering an entrepreneurial attitude to the biggest upheaval in communications since the printing presses started rolling, they are kowtowing to vested interests and vague European rulings. The really disappointing thing is that apparently the likes of Sean Sherlock have willfully ignored business people and industry bodies like the Irish Internet Association in the planning of this legislation.

Of course, Intellectual property rights holders should be protected. But such protection shouldn’t impinge on freedom of speech, freedom of information and the freedom to do business online. I don’t trust the government, the European courts or EMI to tell me what sites I can visit. Surely protecting rights holders is not mutually exclusive with allowing people to go where they want on the internet.

There’s one other thing that needs to be considered. Local legislation can’t cope with the freewheeling digital frontier that is the internet. To think it can is laughable – an Irish solution to a global problem. Those who want to engage in piracy will always find a way. According to UK regulator Ofcom: “For all blocking methods, circumvention by site operators and internet users is technically possible and would be relatively straightforward by determined users.”

So the pirates will be free to sail the high seas of illegal music downloads, while the rest of us will be hampered from participating fully in an international online marketplace. If the government removes the level playing field, Irish businesses will suffer. SMEs will be at a disadvantage to overseas competitors. Online media spend will be spent elsewhere. The likes of Facebook and Google may well leave these shores, and go somewhere where all websites can be accessed freely, where the threat of litigation doesn’t hang over their heads and where legislators understand what the internet is.

That will leave an army of developers, designers and smart digital professionals with inexplicable jobs looking overseas for gainful employment. Hopefully, Skype won’t be blocked by Ireland’s SOPA legislation, allowing us to stay in touch with friends and family from wherever we end up.

This article originally appeared in The Sunday Business Post, January 29, 2012.

Online & Onscreen

So you’re a fan of Twitter. Well, you’ve probably got nothing on the good folks of Indonesia, who are taking their love affair with micro-blogging to new heights with a film called Republik Twitter. If you can speak Bahasa, you might enjoy the trailer, above.

Kuntz Agus’ film has nothing in common with David Fincher’s The Social Network. It’s a romantic comedy that examines how young people use Twitter and social media in general. Like Short Cuts or Love Actually, it features a range characters; a politician on the election trail, a journalist, a schoolgirl, workers in an ad agency. The twist is that they all use the microblogging service. No doubt, the pay off is that we’re all connected.

A Nation of Twitteratti

Indonesia is the world’s fourth largest user of Facebook and has been singled out by online research firm comScore as the most Twitter-addicted nation on the planet. Twitter has a 20.8% reach. In Ireland, the figure was 8%.

“The silent majority of middle class Indonesians who are so busy with their careers, with their family now have found the place where they can just say what they like, what they think and what they feel, online,” said Indonesian blogger Enda Nasution, explaining the platform’s popularity.

Republik Twitter opens after Valentine’s day, and will hopefully do better than 2010’s I Know What You Did on Facebook, which failed to set Indonesian box office tills rining.

Year of the Dragon to get off to a Good Start

For millions of people across the world today is the first day of the New Year – the year of the Dragon. The Dragon is one of the most auspicious symbols in ancient Chinese culture and those born during the year of the Dragon are thought to be brave, innovative, highly driven and more likely to make it to the top of their professions. We’re jumping on the positive vibes and are predicting that the Year of the Dragon will be more prosperous than the year of the Rabbit.

Flash ‘arry to Get a Grilling Over The Next Week or so

It look as though Harry Redknapp is going to branch out of the back pages of the papers and into the front this week as accusations of tax evasion during his Portsmouth days are heard in the Crown Court this week.

2012 Britain’s Got Talent Winner to Remain on Earth

As mad as it sounds Simon Cowell has revealed he plans to offer the winner of this year’s Britain’s Got Talent show the chance to perform in space by partnering up with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Space venture. Despite the bonkers offer we’re predicting that this is one PR stunt that fails to get off the ground.

Iran to lose it’s Barbie Battle with the West

According to Reuters the Iranian morality police are focusing their efforts on the pressing matter of banning Barbie Dolls citing the “destructive social and cultural consequenses” her sale has on their country. Iran’s approved alternative to Ken and Barbie, a couple known as Sara and Dara, are attired in traditional Islamic dress as shown above. We’re predicting that despite the couple being outlawed that they’ll continue to outsell Sara and Dara by means of the Black Market.

The “Are you busy” chat with Taxi Drivers to be replaced by “Fuel’s gone mad expensive hasn’t it”

We all roll out the same small talk with taxi drivers or variations of it but with the recent fuel and VAT hikes we’re predicting that taxi drivers will be assaulted with mile per gallon, diesel vs petrol and where’s the cheapest petrol station rants.

Interesting fact – the last time average fuel prices in Ireland were under €1 was as recently as January 2009. Click here for a historical breakdown of fuel prices.

Brian Kennedy to Steer Clear of Reality TV for 2012

Nice guy Brian Kennedy managed to undo 20 years of swooning middle aged women in the space of ten days with two outbursts on national TV. We’re predicting that after his public eruptions he’ll take sound counsel and politely decline any reality TV offers or Paul Martin interview requests for the foreseeable future.

Continued Happy New Year emails

People often ask the question “Is it too late to say Happy New Year?” I’m of the opinion that the festive email opening line is only valid for the first two weeks of January but am predicting that it’ll continue to infiltrate our inboxes for at least another week.

The International Consumer Electronic Show (CES) takes place in Las Vegas every January and sets the consumer gadget tone for the year. However it is starting to be seen as less relevant by a lot of technology companies (2012 is the last time Microsoft will be at the show).

That said, if you like gadgets or like me, a unreconstructed and unrepentant gadget nerd, there is a lot of things to want. They include smarter yet simpler TVs, dozens of new ultrabook thin laptops, and mobile phones from Nokia and Sony with new features designed to help win more fans (albeit in the US market.)

2012 – the year of voice and gesture

The latest models are on a diet of voice commands, gestures and even facial recognition that will be enabled by faster processors, built-in cameras and microphones. We could finally see the death of the remote. Justin Timberlake (looks like he got presentation training) launched MySpaceTV (as a co-owner, he needed to make an impact).

Slimmer, Faster, Better

Ultrabooks were the other big story of the show, with PC makers backing Intel’s new standard for thin, light, instant-on laptops. HP Envy Spectre oozes class and glass – it uses toughened glass for surfaces such as the lid, as well as for the display.
Lenovo showed the shape of “thins to come” with its Yoga laptop, which has an innovative hinge and a touchscreen that flips over into an easel position or flattens to become a hybrid tablet – and runs Windows 8

Massive flat screens

Sharp announced new 80inch flatscreens, while Mitsubishi showed off an award-winning 92in set. Both would allow anyone to pretend they’re in Minority Report.

If you want to blog and talk live

Watch for the Sony Bloggie Live, which streams live video over a WiFi connection and even shows viewer comments right on your Bloggie’s three-inch LCD screen so you can engage with your audience on the fly. This is where Flip should have gone, but alas…

iPad gets Tabbed

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 – this could be the year that Samsung topple the all powerful iPad

Cameras

Instagram has become a phenomenon that urges people to look at the world in new ways. The Panasonic Lumix GX1 helps you easily move from cameraphone pics to serious photography with a 16MP sensor, mirrorless interchangeable lenses, and a cool retro feel, while still keeping those Instagram-like qualities, thanks to built-in filters, TiltShift effects, and a 1:1 square shooting option.

Smartphones you might really want (other than the iPhone)

Sony and Nokia trying to strengthen their appeal to US consumers. Sony’s Xperia Ion looked highly desirable and is its first phone to run on AT&T’s 4G LTE network, while Nokia’s Lumia 900 is its biggest Windows-based phone to date.

Time to start saving, or pan handling outside NAMA…

The company didn’t bury it’s head in the sand. After initiating “action in accord with our disciplinary policy” against the employee in question, they fought back on the same channels where the crisis spread; online and YouTube. In a blog post called absolutely, positively unacceptable, Matthew Thornton, III, senior VP of FedEx Express U.S. Operations, said: “As the leader of our pickup and delivery operations across America, I want you to know that I was upset, embarrassed, and very sorry for our customer’s poor experience. This goes directly against everything we have always taught our people and expect of them.”

A Cautionary Tale

Without a huge amount of charisma, but with undoubted honesty, Thornton goes on to describe how FedEx responded to the customer in question – Face to face meeting and a replacement monitor courtesy of FedEx – and how the video is now used in employee training to make sure this kind of thing never happens again.

Honesty is the best Policy

It’s common these days for online crisis comms to revolve around Machiavellian tactics like URL buying, or even bad photoshopping. But FedEx held up their hands, said sorry, revealed how the issue had been resolved and showed how it was using this episode as a lesson to ensure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. The real lesson to be learned from FedEx is that sometimes a simple apology is best.

There are lots of good emailers and online newletters out there. Some of our favourites are Hacker Newsletter, a compendium of online bits and bobs, the designer and developer’s favourite, Smashing magazine’s weekly mailer, and for Irish news, Silicon Republic’s E-Monday is also worth an honourable mention. But this week we came across something that takes the humble online mailer to another level. It’s Google’s Think Quarterly, a collection of insights, articles and musings. And wouldn’t you know it comes out quarterly. The aim is to give a snapshot of what inspires and interests Googlers and other industry leaders.

The real strength of Think Quarterly is how utterly gorgeous it looks. It feels like an online magazine. Actually, it feels like a real magazine that just happens to be online. It boasts simple navigation, beautiful layout, typography and illustration and great content. If it were on newsagent shelves, I, for one, would buy it.

Plus, the content is really strong. The first edition examined the idea of innovation and featured Macy’s CMO Peter Sachse on the future of mobile retail marketing. The second focused on people, and contained some nice insights from Virgin supremo Richard Branson. The latest issue focuses on Speed. It’s about this acceleration of everything – what is changing and how it works, why it matters and when it doesn’t.”

So, to quote Ferris Bueller: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Think Quarterly is a great way to pause for a bit of perspective. Make sure you don’t miss Think Quarterly.

European Economic Woes to Continue

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are meeting up again this week for a chin-wag. They’ll be trying yet again to sort out the European debt crisis by developing plans for increased fiscal coordination among member states. All sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it? Plus the Euro continues to plummet in value, falling to an early low around $1.2676, before steadying at $1.2701 last week. Despite the Merkel/Sarkozy love in, we’re predicting it’ll continue to slide.

Emirates Crowd to Welcome Henry Back with Open Arms

Henry wrote himself into Irish sporting folklore with his blatant handball in 2009 and joined Schillaci (knocked us out of Italy ’90), Vincent Clerc (scored a last gasp winning try in the 2007 6Nations) and Wim Kieft (knocked us out of Euro ’88) as the least likely people to take a holiday in Ireland.

Despite our dislike for the man we’re expecting he gets a run out and a rapturous welcome when he takes to the field tonight against Leeds. The NY Red Bulls player scored 174 goals in 254 appearances for Arsenal and is 4/5 with Ladbrokes (excuse the client plug) to score a goal.

“Surprise” Fire Drill Tomorrow Morning in Slattery Towers

We take a safety first approach in Slatterys and schedule regular fire drills to keep us on our toes. There’s only one thing we take more seriously than safety and that’s client service.

To maintain seamless client service and our impeccable safety record we’re predicting a “surprise” fire drill at 10am tomorrow morning as we’ve no visitors for an hour or so. We’ll be emailing from the carpark if you need us

In the UK, a former employee (Mark Ions) of recruitment firm Hays has been ordered by the High Court to hand over business contacts built up on his personal page of the social networking site LinkedIn. His employer maintains that as he built these contacts through work, it is a customer data base, the court agreed, especially when he tried to use his followers and contacts in his new job.

Phonedogging Your Followers

In the US Noah Kravitz, a review for Phone Dog moved to TechBuffolo in late 2010. With one slight change in his Twitter handle, he took about 17,000 followers out the door with him. (He’s now editor-at-large at tech news-and-reviews site TechnoBuffalo.) In response, PhoneDog filed a lawsuit against Kravitz last July in federal court, alleging that those followers are, in effect, a customer list and PhoneDog’s property. The company wants Kravitz to cough up $340,000: $2.50 per follower per month for 18 months. A hearing in the case, PhoneDog LLC v. Kravitz, is scheduled for January 26 in San Francisco.

Following the fight

As 2012 rolls on, we may see an increase in tension between businesses encouraging employees to use social networking websites for work but then claiming that the contacts remain confidential information at the end of their employment. You may be able to mitigate the risk by not having a personality front the brand, but many successful online channels have been created by someone in an organisation acting on their own initiative, so this could be a divisive issue when it comes to who actually owns the followers (and if they are either followers or a customer database by another name).

From a business perspective, encouraging employees to build online networks makes sense, but with such a grey area around who owns the contacts at the end of the day, we could see this issue emerge here. It will be worth waiting to see how the Phonedog LLC v. Kravitz is resolved.

95% of brands don’t respond to wall posts from Facebook likers. That stat is from All Facebook, and feature in this nice infographic.

At the same time, Facebook analytics firm PageLever has revealed stats that show on average, only 7.49% of page fans see posts daily. And that could be overstating it, as this figure only measures the number of impressions served. It doesn’t take into consideration that most users won’t necessarily pay any heed to the posts that they’re served.

Put these two stats together and what do you get? A strange picture where fans don’t engage with brands and brands don’t care about their fans. It’s apathy all round. Can this really be the case? Is Facebook wrong when it tells us that fans want to interact with brands?

What Likers Really Want

Well, not entirely. It certainly indicates that there’s a gap between likers and brands on Facebook. But is this really surprising? What it tells me is that brands are failing to live up to fans’ expectations and completely failing to understand why consumers are on Facebook on the first place. For someone to like a brand, it needs to make them look cool or showcase a genuine interest . Some products and services just aren’t going to fly on Facebook. Halitosis mouthwash, gastric banding, STD clinics; these guys are going to have a hard time amassing likers.

Brands, especially in Ireland, are also very ill-informed regarding the platform itself. Consider also how few Irish Facebook pages comply with Facebook’s promotional guidelines. A quick scout will reveal numerous pages running competitions on their wall, announcing winners on their wall, and flaunting the rules in blissful ignorance.

Better throw some money at the internet

Too many businesses still see social media as a frill, an afterthought for when they’re done with the above the line stuff. You know, TV and print, the marketing stuff that matters. Their approach to online marketing (remember, there’s more than just Facebook out there!) is piecemeal for the most part, lacks any commercial element. Likers, fans and followers aren’t seen as assets, rather a quantifiable manifestation of online popularity.

So if brands aren’t talking to fans and fans don’t care, the fault lies clearly with the businesses and their marketing teams who are devising online strategies that fail to inspire. Great digital communication (whether marketing or not) can entertain, surprise and delight. So that’s a new year’s resolution for all digital marketing professionals out there: convince clients of the need to make their community care, and burst that bubble of apathy.