Rogers, Bell, and Telus blow their big chance. By being their same old big-Telco selves…
My friend Ottawa blogger and media commentator Mark Blevis has put out a couple of smart and incisive critiques of the “Fair for Canada” campaign by Canadian telco mega brands TELUS, Rogers, and Bell. Please do go ahead and read the MarkBlevis.com and Full Duplex posts.
But I think the many, many problems with this PR blitz can be summed up in one picture – brought to you by your three friendly Canadian mega corporations.
Actual screen capture from the Fair for Canada mini-site:
In case you missed it, there’s a new buzzy social media tool in town called RebelMouse. And even in its early release phase, it’s not perfect, but it looks awesome and works (almost) flawlessly. So why is that grumpy branding guy DenVan going to complain about the name? Didn’t the almighty Seth Godin and his equally legendary counterpart Shakespeare say that names don’t matter? I Beg to Differ… and so does the world!
But first. What I like about RebelMouse
Here’s the DenVan “dashboard” page with all the bells and whistles.
Okay, before I get all Scrooge-y hater on the Mausketeers, let me just say, this is the slickest, most impressive looking new social media product I’ve seen in, well, ever. The team at RebelMouse knows exactly what they’re doing, and they’ve earned the incredibly effusive praise they’ve gotten from across the social echo chamber – from this rave in Mashable to this one in PandoDaily.
Here’s what they do right:
Frictionless sign-up: I’ve never found it so easy to set up a service. Never. Try it yourself to see how quickly you can go from tire-kicking to driving off the lot wondering how you’re going to explain this to your wife. It took me no time to set this DenVan page up.
Effortless blending of social channels: my page displays my Tweets, my blog posts, my Instagrams, and custom links – all in a format that’s as easy to scan as Pinterest. Many services do that in many different ways – as TechCrunch tries to explain in this taxonomy: 1) Social graphs; 2) Vertical content channels; 3) Aggregators. But it’s bloody hard to do elegantly.
Beautiful design: did I mention how clean and elegant it is? Well the mobile site is just as good – something most established social media stalwarts like Facebook and Twitter haven’t managed yet.
The team: and though the product has a way to go in terms of living up to its promise as a real Social Media network and/or tool set – and becoming more useful than a glorified “About.Me”. I’m impressed by the great pedigree and corporate story this startup has built for themselves. So I have confidence they can nail the product end of things.
The name: Huh? Wasn’t I supposed to be slamming the name?!? Wait for it. What I like about the RebelMouse name is that it’s not Squidoo. Or Jugnoo (sorry Danny). Or ShooBooBeeLooBeeDoo… okay I made the last one up. But I had you going didn’t I? RebelMouse is at least a clever and memorable memory hook. But…
The name isn’t helpful
Sorry Mouse. The name RebelMouse just doesn’t help people understand your product at all – not even as a metaphor. In my product naming work, I try to help clients understand the tricky balance between the descriptive qualities of a name and the metaphorical / iconic qualities of a name. Strong names need a bit of both. Not everybody has to be a “Facebook” or heaven forbid “Friend Feed”. There is room in our brains for strong metaphors like “Google” or “Apple”. And that’s not to say RebelMouse can’t become a household name. As I say, they’ve nailed the product so far. It’s just that it will have to work a lot harder than a Facebook or a Google to equate that name with their service.
What do you think?
Are you impressed with RebelMouse? Confused? Does the name work for you? Comment away!
A couple months ago, I got a call from one of Ottawa’s smartest tech leaders, Paul Emond, CEO of Versature. And like a fool, I ended up pitching him on the idea of a quickie “elevator pitch tuning session” for his executive team. I’m not a fool because my company couldn’t help him. I’m a fool, because the session went so well, and I got so excited about Versature’s brand, that I broke every rule of consulting and solved all his problems at once…
Versature’s new identity – with a little help from the DenVan and Brandvelope Consulting.
Okay, I’m joking… mostly
It was actually an amazing little project, and I was really happy we nailed it – and gained a happy customer – so quickly.
Paul goes into much greater depth about what we did together in this glowing post on the Versature blog, so if you’re interested, do give that a read. But here’s the high view.
First a brief description of the process:
A month or so ago some of the staff and I had a mini-retreat to discuss Versature’s elevator pitch, or more generally, Versature’s story. We were led in our workshop by Dennis Van Staalduinen, whom I would highly recommend for work of this type.
We ended up getting a lot out of the experience, but for me the most exciting piece was that we were finally able to tie a lot of marketing pieces together that had been a little bit disjointed. Dennis did that with 4 little powerful words that will become part of our marketing materials going forward. “Business Phone Service. Evolved”.
See what a difference a bit of evolution can make?
Later Paul talks about why he likes those little words so much, and why, for him, they form such a clean and efficient brand positioning line for Versature:
The words “Business Phone Service” succinctly tell the casual prospect what exactly Versature does… The last word, “Evolved” speaks volumes.
First of all, it’s a tie in to the dolphin and the main reason why we chose this particular animal – because the dolphin is the most highly evolved communicator in the animal kingdom next to humans. It’s also “evolved” because this definitely isn’t your parents phone system solution…. Versature offers a radically improved experience over what people have been used to. Finally, we like the fact that these words tie in nicely with our dinosaur campaign, which pokes fun at the traditional telco’s for being stuck in the dark ages.
So there you have it, my business triumph and failure in one package
Again, mostly joking about the failure part. Much better to have a clear win on a project than drag it out for months and months. Even if that would also stretch out the billable time for my business. Ah well, I’ve always said I’m much better at my clients’ businesses than my own.
If you’re interested in replacing your old dinosaur phone system, check out the smart mammals at Versature (new logo coming soon to the home page).
If you’re looking for an easier way to tell your story? Call me maybe.
But we can’t promise to take eons to help you out.
So yesterday, more about I accidentally exposed my naughty bits on Facebook. It was okay though, buy more about because it was a Private Group. You know. Members only. But to my shock and dismay, viagra 40mg a new Facebook notice appeared out of nowhere that told me 55 people had seen my naughty bits. But only four had Liked them. You might think I’d want to know that. I Beg to Differ.
Exposing the naughty bits
Like me, Facebook has been exposing its naughty bits lately. And yes Facebook, they were Seen Bymany. And not all of us Liked them.
You see, Facebook has this odd way of suddenly adding “features” to its site and mobile apps with little or no warning or explanation. They just appear. And some just make you scratch your head. Now, let it be said: I’m not the type to just complain about change, because some Facebook updates are brilliant, and actually useful things – like Tagging, which appeared in late 2009 to much joy and thumb-upping. Or user friendly names for users and pages. Or Pages themselves. Or Groups. All good.
And some are structural revisions like Timeline– which was disorienting and caused some ripples when it appeared. But largely this kind of change make sense as a step in the evolution of the platform, so the furor died down. And I for one, became a fan. Because Timeline was helpful.
But then there are the others, the “features” that appear suddenly and randomly, but don’t seem to serve any real purpose, and actually hurt Facebook’s usability and simplicity. Or even worse, increase the sense that Facebook is being sneaky or Big Brotherish. So without further ado:
Ten Facebook features we didn’t need
1) “Seen by” in groups
This is the one I mentioned above. Where Facebook tells you how many people have supposedly “seen” your post in a group. And then, if you hover over the “Seen By” message, it tells you who saw it, and what time / date. I say supposedly, because it’s unclear either a) how Facebook defines “seeing” – i.e. is scrolling past something “seeing” it? or b) why that is even important or relevant information – i.e. to anyone but the most anally retentive admin?
Weird. Creepy. And makes users feel like they are losing a little bit more control over how they interact within a group. Just a bad, anti-social idea.
2) Find Friends Nearby
If you hadn’t heard of this one, it was a mobile feature Facebook tried to introduce quietly that was designed to instantly find friends in the vicinity based on mobile GPS location data. But then, when it rapidly caused a privacy stink, Facebook killed it the same day because it was too obviously creepy-stalkerish, even for Facebook.
3) Your picture in other people’s ads (a.ka. “Sponsored Stories”)
This one has been making the news lately because of a just-settled, then un-settled, lawsuit. Here’s what Facebook officially says about this “feature”. Basically, because you “Liked” something – say OB Tampons – your photo can appear in an OB Tampon ad in my stream. Again. Creepy. And in this case, feels unethical too because Facebook is using people’s faces without permission to endorse products and make money.
Do you remember back when Facebook wanted to revolutionise the way we message one another by giving us all @facebook.com email addresses? Yeah it was pretty “meh” and no one really cared. Well now in an attempt to make our Facebook inboxes more relevant Zuck and the gang have got rid of your regular email addresses and replaced them with a Facebook one.
Again, silly, creepy, and bad strategy.
5) Editing comments
The problem here is not that you can edit your typos and screw-ups. You could do that (kind of) for a while – but it was time limited, so you could make small changes if you were quick, but after a while, they became permanent. Which worked. My problems are 1) the bizarre “edit” history thread that tracks your edits forever, and 2) that they didn’t aply this behaviour consistently – as Techdrink points out.
But here’s what you can’t do. You can’t edit your comments on the Comments Box plug in used by many websites like TechCrunch (and even TechDrink at one stage). You can’t edit your comments on mobile where it would arguably have been infinitely more useful (isn’t that right, auto correct!). And you still can’t edit original posts!
Also, there is the potential for abuse. Say I post a comment that says “I like kittens!” and 520 people “Like” it. I could then go back and write “Kill all the kittens”, and it would look like all 520 people were secret kitten murderers as well.
The “Ticker”: oooh look! Another place to see Farmville requests!
6) Sidebar “Tickers” – all those bloody right hand sidebars.
Back when I first saw them last August, I thought the new sidebars were kind of cool and an interesting addition to Facebook. That is, until they actually appeared on my Facebook screen, constantly moving as they scroll by, and created an exponential increase in the clutter and “Wall of Noise” effect you get from Facebook.
Gah!!! Again, it made me feel less in control of Facebook. Not good for Facebook!
7) Facebook messages popping up like chat requests
Yeah. That. We didn’t ask for that one either. It sucks because we could ALWAYS tell when we had a message through that little red icon at the top. But you could ignore it until you actually had time to look. Now it’s in your face and you feel rude if you don’t answer immediately.
8) An iPhone mobile app (and other mobile apps) that really suck
Okay, this wasn’t a feature they chose (I hope), but it’s one of my biggest sources of Facebook frustration. I’d love it if they pulled every engineer from the useless projects above and assigned them to fixing their wonky, slow mobile apps. And maybe letting us tag people and do other basic stuff? Huh? Please?!?!
9) People who complain about every new feature on Facebook.
I agree, in that this annoys me too. But I’d also argue this is actually a “feature” of how Facebook rolls stuff out. By changing so frequently, radically, and in many cases with a tin ear for how the changes may be received, they are constantly shaking the platform. Which makes people feel unsteady.
1o) <Add your own Facebook feature here.>
What do you think? Are we being fair to Facebook? Do they deserve the constant criticism? Please share your pet peeves, your faves, your tirades or praises in the comments.
Hey kids! Tired of the same old influence metrics? You know, click boring stuff like intelligence, expertise, relevance (ho hum) – the stuff your grandpa used to figure out if people were worth listening to?!? What if there were a system that let you make anybody look influential about anything online? Well there is, and it’s called Klout! (And we Beg to Differ.)
That’s right kids! On planet Klout, I’m a Unicorn expert!
Wait Dennis, when did YOU become a unicorn expert?!?
Well, funny story. I never did. And I barely ever even discuss unicorns – apart from this one blog post. But I was young!
No, my Klout page says I’m influential about unicorns because I’ve been hit with a #KloutBomb. Other folks playing #KloutBomb (like Jeff Esposito or Amy Vernon – both excellent targets by the way) told Klout I was influential about Unicorns, and so, like magic, I am!
And sure, all of this *may* just show how hollow and game-like the whole Klout ranking system really is. But rather than railing against it, opting out, parodying it like Klouchebag by the brilliant British wag Tom Scott, or even taking a measured thoughtful approach (yawn), why not just game the Klout game for pure, deviant fun?
And here’s how you can play #Kloutbomb too!
Go to a friend’s Klout page – preferably not one of those stuffed shirts who actually takes their Klout score seriously. On second thought, yeah, especially one of those! I recommend Jeff Esposito. He adores getting a good #Kloutbomb!
Click the “See All…” link that appears under “Influential about (X) Topics”. This will take you to their Topics page.
Give them +K. If they’ve already gotten a #Kloutbomb, you’ll see odd and humourous topics like some of those shown at right. If so, just click on the “Give +K” button to add to their score and bump up the #Kloutbomb topics in their list. You get five +K points to give out for every day you visit Klout, so don’t blow them all in one place!
OR: You can add new topics by clicking on the “Add a topic”. So for example, today I gave Jeff a new topic: “Fabricated Rubber Products, Nec (Rubber Toys, Except Dolls)”. But note, this costs you five imaginary Klout bucks, so you can only do this once a day.
Announce your #Kloutbomb to the world by Tweeting under that hashtag.
Then, please let Beg to Differ know! Share your favourite #Kloutbomb topics in the Comments below.
Important caveat: Keep them 1) clean and 2) as obviously ridiculous as possible please!
While it might be fun to tag your boss with “Masturbation” (yes it’s really a topic), this is the public Internet, so don’t be a total jerk or commit professional suicide. Or if you do, just don’t tell them we sent you.
Give them +K. If they’ve already gotten a #Kloutbomb, you’ll see