How can Web 2.0 help you make more profit and get a girlfriend

It has been a while since I am able to post something, and I am sorry for that…it is just that I have been in Final Exams and IE is very demanding school, however Prof. Dans (www.enriquedans.com), my professor of “WEB 2.0 and Customer-Driven Innovation” has asked us to talk about how we believe that Web 2.0 (for a definition refer to my first post) can be useful to companies and of course post it in our blogs. 

So I am really happy that now I can write in my blog and at the same time , work on one of my school assignments. Ok, so lets go to the main topic of this article… How can Web 2.0 help a firm?

In order to answer this in “simple terms” I will first talk about the importance of knowing your customers or potential customers….I will use an analogy to avoid sounding like a marketing textbook cause I think that would be boring for both, you  and I. 

Ok…so… let’s start on why would firms want to know info about their customers? well….firms need to know their customers, the same way a guy needs to know information about a girl when he is trying to get her to be his girlfriend.

When a guy is trying to date a girl, he will try to find out as much as he can about the girl in order to pretend (yes…we pretend sometimes…we really don’t like “The Notebook” movie) or to see if what he has to offer is what the girl is looking for. So a firm is like a guy, and the girl is like a potential customer… firms would love not only to “date” their customers but also if possible, marry them forever! That is why marketers use the fancy term Customer Lifetime Value or CLV (How much money you are going to make from a customer through the entire period that he/she remains as your customer)

Getting back to our analogy, in order to find as many information as possible, a guy would ask his friends, her friends, some guys will Google her name in order to find out what she likes, dislikes, past relationships what she wants from a boy etc etc. What the guy is doing, in Marketing we call it… Market Research, and Firms do that (or supposedly do it…there are firms like GM for example that launch products that nobody likes!) for every product or service they are going to launch in order to tailor or customize the product or service to the needs and wants of their potential consumers. Hence, increasing the probability of the product being liked by the consumer, the same way a guy would say that he loves “The Notebook” if he finds out that the girl absolutely loves that Movie. 

Firms have been doing market research in various different ways, increasing its sophistication in order to get better results. Guys have also increased their sophistication of their Market Research, now we use WEB 2.0 tools!

Nowadays, some teenagers don’t ask what is your mobile number? They ask…Are you in Facebook? Why do they do that? Because Facebook is a great way to perform a great market research… although it is great for keeping in touch with friends, I will focus on my analogy. So today, a guy can just ask a girl for her Facebook name and add her as a friend… immediately he would see who her friends are? What she likes, dislikes, past relationships, where has she traveled to, favorite movies, sports and even (with the new Facebook Homepage) what is on her mind!!

Facebook provides a tool to perform great market research, not only is constantly updated, it includes what she wants to say about herself as well as what her friends say about her! If you think about it that way, it is no wonder why Facebook has become so popular (130 Million active users worldwide). What makes it great is that you need to create your own profile in order to see other’s profiles, and since you know that others will be checking out your profile, most likely you will put some effort in adding interesting information (remember the girl will also check your profile). 

Companies could also use WEB 2.0 tools to perform market research, there are big debates on whether Facebook or similar portals should or could “sell” the information they have to companies, however that is a complicated topic so maybe I will save it for another post. But leaving Facebook out of the game does not necessarily leave companies without the option to use Web 2.0 tools. Another Web 2.0 phenomenon are Blogs and today many companies are debating whether to Blog or not to Blog?

A company’s blog could potentially provide a way to interact directly with your consumer, you could allow consumers to comment about your products or services, ask them what they would like to see from your firm and what they don’t like from your firm. So you might be thinking, “Off-course they should do it” however a blog needs to be taken seriously by a firm. They cannot provide a way for customers to give their opinions and then never do anything about them, it would be like a girl telling you that she doesn’t like sushi and then you take her out to a sushi restaurant on the first date… for sure you will get the famous line “You never listen to me!”… and consumers will do the same to a firm, but they will not tell you by screaming at you but by not buying your product…so you can forget about their CLV!

Something else that companies need to consider is that consumers might complain about your firm, and you should never try to control or censure your blog (only of course if a person is using bad words or something like that), hence you need to be ready for customers telling you that you suck and allowing all other consumers to read that somebody thinks that you suck! 

However if a firm is ready to take a blog seriously (an example of taking a blog seriously is DELL Computers creating the position Chief Blogging Officer) and is ready to receive honest opinions, then a blog could be very beneficial to a firm. It provides a great way to have a direct relationship with your customers and potential customers…. and of course improving drastically a firms Market Research.

As we said before, a good market research can help a firm (and a guy) better satisfy the needs of a consumer (or a girl), increasing the probability of “marrying” that customer forever, and of course getting profit along the way. 

GSMA- "The Bad"- Sony Ericsson IDOU

As I said in a previous post, I will be talking about what I consider ‘The Cool”, “The Bad” and the "Let’s See" of the GSMA 2009 in Barcelona. My previous post talks about the introduction of MIFI by Telefonica as “The Cool” however yesterday night I came across something that as of now, it seems that it deserves the not so cool title of “The Bad”.

It is the Sony-Ericsson IDOU, the new handset introduced by the Japanese/Swedish handset manufacturer (can’t wait for the news saying that this is the new iPhone Killer!... some journalists love to write that without even wondering why is it that the iPhone is so successful). Ok…so, lots of you might be thinking why is it that I consider the IDOU a bad product, it looks pretty cool on the pic; and the truth is that it does look really cool and I am sure that it has some awesome functionalities (I own a K790 and it is a very good phone).

Also, I should say that the IDOU is not even in the market yet, Sony-Ericsson is just showing it off at the GSMA (IDOU is not even the commercial name… most likely they will launch it as something else), so a good judgment of the phone cannot be made as of right now.

Now taking this in consideration, the phone does have a feature that I believe makes it bad…a 12.1 MegaPixel (mp) camera!!... yes I consider that a bad thing! Why?? Because the only thing that a 12.1 mp photograph does is occupy memory in your phone or memory card and increase the price of the handset. Photographs with such high resolution only are needed if you are going to print the picture in huge dimensions…let’s say a billboard or a poster…and I really doubt that you will be making a poster of the picture that you took of your colleague sleeping in his desk or you and your buddies in the middle of a bar.

Most pictures that are taken with a phone are for Facebook or your computer…that is if they make it out of your phone!… just think about how many pictures you have in your phone that you haven’t transferred to your computer. In fact, why don’t you try this…. Just start browsing right now, I promise you that you will laugh… it is like taking a drive down memory lane.

And even if the pics do come out of your mobile, how many have you printed? and of those… how many have you printed in a size bigger than a standard A4 piece of paper?...  Very few right?? So would you need a phone with a 12.1 mp camera?...don’t think so… a 3.2 mp camera is more than enough resolution for the use of mobile generated photographs.

So why pay the price of a high-resolution camera and need to buy a high capacity memory card to hold the super heavy photos of your drunk buddies? At least I don’t see the point… 

GSMA- "The Cool"... Telefonica launches MIFI

I am sure that most of us (if not all) have used WiFi at some point. The benefits of connecting wirelessly are enormous! You can work, chat or do whatever you want wherever there is WiFi coverage. However the big limitations are that somewhere near your laptop (or iphone, PSP, Blackberry..etc) there is a router or access point connected to an ethernet port (the access point is a device that transforms the internet that is coming from the small plug in your wall (Ethernet Port)  into a wireless signal so that you can enjoy it from your laptop or Wifi device, think of it as a lamp (which takes electricity from a plug in your wall and spreads it through the room as light), an Access Point does the same but instead of light it spreads data)

So Wifi has a physical limitation, you need to be near an access point and that access point needs to be connected to an electricity plug and an ethernet port, limiting where you access the internet. At the GSMA Mobile Congress, Telefonica has launched MIFI, a very interesting attempt to challenge the physical limitations of Wifi... and at the same time leverage the fact that the big Spanish Telco has invested millions of euros in a high speed network with coverage in almost every place in Spain (and the world if you think about all Telefonica's Operations worldwide) 

MIFI is the device that you see in the picture above, it is basically a small Acces Point that has its own rechargeable battery (4 hours of use) and uses the cell phone network to connect to the internet (nothing new right..?) ... the interesting part is that the MIFI creates a WiFi network which can serve up to 5 devices, meaning that you can just turn on one MIFI device in a train car or in the middle of the beach (wherever there is cell phone coverage) and let 5 laptops connect to the Internet using their WiFi capabilities. 

I love the idea because it is a simple one, Apple with its "Airport Express" already introduced the idea of a portable mini-Wifi network however even though you could take the Express with you everywhere, you still need to connect it to an ethernet port. So Telefonica has cleverly identified that they can take advantage of something that only mobile operators have... a big network with coverage. So if the speed of the MIFI is "good enough" and the prices are reasonable, the MIFI could be a product very attractive not only to business users but also to households. I would venture an say that most households have less than 5 laptops, so people could buy the device and use it for Internet access at home, and take it with them if they decide to travel, or go to a restaurant or coffee shop and want to continue browsing the net and what is best, they can share the connection wirelessly. 

So good job Telefonica! you will have an edge over the competition.... for now!!... I am sure that a MIFI device is being developed in China right now to sell it to the Vodafone's of the world! but for now! Very very Cool!

3GSM..."The Cool", "The Let's See" and "The Ugly"

I should start by saying that I should not be sitting in my room writing on the blog but in Barcelona walking around the exhibit hall in the GSMA Mobile World Congress (formerly known as the 3GSM). So for all of you that don't know what it is, here is my attempt to explain it:

Think about a HUGE supermarket of Mobile Technologies! everything from handset vendors, entrepreneurs hoping to get their big break to the big software giants, such as Microsoft, Google or the big Telecoms such as Telefonica or Vodafone. It is a great place to see what is going on in the mobile world and to take a peak of what is coming tomorrow!

However, I am in school now so I cannot attend (I have had the opportunity to attend one Mobile Payments Congress in Amsterdam and two CTIA Wireless (The American version of the GSMA) and let me tell you....it is great, so if you ever have the chance...don't think twice and go!)

Even though I am not there, I will try to follow the Congress through the media so if you have any links or interesting articles about the GSMA please post them as comments so that we can all benefit from them, as for me, I will try to write about "the cool", "the let's see" and "the ugly" things I read or hear about (from my master professors or friends of mine that are attending the congress). So make sure you visit my blog for new posts if you are interested in this!

Mobile Marketing and Politics...

Although this might sound like a natural combination nowadays (Due to the success of Obama's Mobile Marketing Campaign), this is something that is far from new. I have to admit that I don't have an idea on who was the first politician to use mobile marketing tools to promote their campaigns, but the first time I heard of such a concept was from my good friend and business partner... Juan Carlos Holguin.

When I started this blog I said that I will have guest bloggers that will add value to "The Red Pill", and Juan Carlos is certainly a person that will add lots of value to the Blog. Since I always try to keep this blog very personal let me give you some background info on Juan Carlos (Juanca from now on!) and how we know each other. 

I have known Juanca since I was a kid, how I met him??...no idea... he is just one of those guys who I have know my whole life. Now, the interesting part begins when he calls me up to WashU( My undergrad school)  and asks me if I want to start a business with him...of course I said yes! and of course the company went bankrupt. However we learned a lot!!! and we tried it again..and again.. until we finally started a firm that today is successful (www.tuboleta.com.ec). However while we were trying to become the next Bill Gates, we worked together in a Mobile Marketing company (www.net-people.com), in fact he taught me everything I know about Mobile Marketing and Mobile Content, and in those days he told me about a mobile campaign that he did for a former Major of Quito. 

Juanca now is the General Manager of Net-People Ecuador and is one of the pioneers and responsible for introducing Mobile Marketing in Ecuador. Besides great entrepreneurial skills Juanca has always been passionate about politics (Hey! nobody is perfect!)  and when I was discussing Obama's Mobile Campaing in one of my classes I realized that Juanca would be the perfect person to describe to us what Obama did to successfully use the mobile channel in the road to become the most powerful man in the world. 

So Juanca.. Please in a few paragraphs (Believe it or not he writes longer than I do...sorry for the long posts!!) tell us what you think were the key success factors of Obama's Mobile Campaing....we will be waiting! (2 days at the most please!!) 

Monetizing Meneame... tell the users and sell the software!! (ok and some online ads as well)

Many of you might have visited www.meneame.net before or www.digg.com, or maybe you have seen the little elephant in the bottom of some news pages such as www.elcomercio.com or www.elpais.com  . Both Digg and Meneame bring enormous quantities of traffic to their sites as people go there to check the latest “news” or just plain interesting articles on the web as voted by other internauts (people that browse the internet)

So why am I talking about these pages? … first because one of the assignments for my “Web 2.0 and Customer Driven Innovation” is to talk about how could we come up with a business model that will make the page owners some money, so yes…I am obliged to do it because it is mandatory for my class, but I have decided to post it in my blog because I believe the meneame case represents a problem that many other Internet Portals are having nowadays…lots of traffic, lots of popularity but little money. Some examples of this are twitter, diigo and would even go out and say Facebook (For the amount of active users they have, they should be swimming in money) 

So let’s talk about meneame, just for you to know, this was a page that was developed by Ricardo Galli because he wanted to practice his programming skills. He did most of it in 10 days and the purpose of the page is to allow registered users to find interesting news or articles in the internet and publish the title of the story with some comments in the meneame page. Once the story is in the meneame page, other meneame users (you don’t need to be registered to do this) can vote for their favorite stories, the more votes a story gets the closer it gets to the homepage and to the top. The more votes a story gets, the more “Karma” (yes…that is how they call it!) the person that published the story gets…becoming a more respected “meneador” (This word…I did made up).

Today the page is getting around 200000 visits a day…however those impressive numbers are not translating into $$$$ for the founder. If you go to the page you will see that there are some Google advertisements (Using Adsense- Refer to my previous post about Adsense), so some of you might be thinking why a page with such high traffic does not get advertisers directly instead of doing it through Google, well it is because it is hard for a brand to say yes…I want to advertise and then having stories about sex, violence or complaints in the page (remember the users are the ones who vote what news go on the page and that cannot and should not be controlled) and potentially associating the brand to those stories. 

So how do we make this page profitable?? First there needs to be a focus on CPM and not CPC. (For those of you who don’t know CPM is what online advertisers call Cost per Impression, meaning how much does the page charge for just exposing the brand in the page, While CPC means how much does the page charge per click each user makes on the advertisement- Cost per Click). Why CPM? Because the user does not spend much time in the page, it just uses the page to find interesting links…and then go to the page that hosts the story, making it very difficult to have people enough time to read the advertisement and then click on an interesting one. Meneame should focus on a brand that stays away from the mainstream and allows users to create or choose themselves, Linux pops to my mind, since it is a brand that is basically created and maintained by the users (just like meneame is) and since the users are choosing the stories in meneame I don’t think that Linux will have such an issue about being associated with what users voted on, since Linux always tries to position its brand exactly like that.

The next action meneame should take is tell the Meneadores the problem, tell all the users that meneame is not making money, communities are very strong for some brands and should not be underestimated, the only reason why Linux is alive today is because the Linux community has invested time and effort (Ok…IBM  has donated lots of money as well) to keep the brand alive, just think about all the donations that were given to Wikipedia(My friend Tamer made a very good comment about this, so please check the comments below). So meneame users should know that it takes money to develop and host the site that they use so much. Maybe a program in which users get more Karma if they get other people to donate money should be implemented, by doing so you meneame will stay true to the concept that users give the value to the page, it is just that the users will bring money instead of news.

My last suggestion has nothing to do with online marketing but more about selling the software (selling licenses or maybe provide the software as a service). More and more companies are beginning to use Web 2.0 tools to promote innovation, customer care or just stay ahead of its competition by pretending to be techie. Besides high web traffic, Meneame has another big asset, its software and experience managing the tool, this could be very useful for a corporation which wants to promote innovation by asking its employees worldwide to vote on interesting upcoming technologies that the corporation should look into (for example). By establishing a personalized “meneame” tool in the corporation’s intranet employees would be able to “publish” articles on specific topics or simply vote on what other peers have “published”, then the Karma that each employee has could be transmitted into…let’s say a bonus or some other incentive.

The concept can be applied to any industry (even in universities), and could be very useful for a company that wants to set up a process to hear what their employees are saying, both encouraging employee participation as well as potentially identifying trends or opportunities for the firm. 

Gmail...why is it free? phenomenal advertising!!

It came as a surprise to me, when in one of my Information Systems class last trimester many people did not know that Gmail "reads" your emails in order to better advertise to you... I know it may sound crazy that a big corporation is reading your emails. 

However don't worry, people are not reading your emails...computers are, why??? because they want to identify potential interests you might have in order to advertise to you better. The better they advertise...the more money they get...the more money they get, the more services they deploy to keep us returning to Google. So lets analyze this from a Gmail user perspective and from an advertiser's perspective. 

As a heavy Google user myself I have to admit that there has been sometimes when I have worried about my privacy, not because I have anything to hide but more because I sometimes read all this privacy advocates talking about how Google will destroy our lives in the future. However, it is important to remember that we (users) still have the power to decide if we want to use Gmail or not. We are just one-click away of protecting our privacy! we don't need privacy advocates protecting us, we can just close our accounts and that's it (Google does keep a copy of your emails in their servers, just for you to know)

So what happens if we stay in Gmail... how will Google use my info?... well its simple! to target me better. To bring me advertising that is relevant to me. Do I care? I personally don't, first of all it is not intrusive, sometimes is useful, and more importantly it lets me use Gmail for free!! in fact it let's me use all the Google Applications for free! Just think about how many times you have used Google Maps... no, even better.. think about how your internet experience would be without the search engine (Back to the Altavista days when the results where far from what you were looking for) 

So in conclusion, the advertisement that we get on the right side and  top of the pages is the price we have to pay to use Gmail, if you have studied economics I am sure you know that "there is no such thing as a free lunch" (nothing is for free!)... and Google needs to pay for all the servers that hold the thousands of gigabytes (A lot of storage capacity) where our emails (with all the pictures, videos and presentations) reside, and they pay with the money they get from the companies that are advertising to us. 

Now, from an advertising point of view, Gmail advertising is great! as you can see in the picture above Gmail "read" my email in which I was talking to some of my classmates about a project on Mobile Marketing. As you can see in the blue circles, I mentioned Mobile Marketing twice, and then, the next time I opened my email (53 minutes later- See Yellow Circle) I had 5 different advertisements from Mobile Marketing Companies (see red circles)... Just Great!! 

Just think about going to a supermarket and getting some Oreo Cookies, after walking around for 53 minutes you go to the cash register and you have 5 different types of milk for you to complement your Oreos with. It benefits you and the type of milk you decide to choose (and of course, if you don't want to, you don't have to get the milk) and what's even better, since you were "exposed" to the 5 different types of milk, you get the cookies for free! it doesn't matter if you buy the milk or not

So to me this is a model in which everybody wins, at least this applies to me because I use a lot of Google services, in fact my blog resides on Google servers since Google owns Blogger. Now if you don't like it, don't get mad, just don't use Gmail anymore... there are plenty of email services nowadays! as for me... I rather stay

If you liked this article I encourage you to check the video from this link:

http://epic.makingithappen.co.uk/new-masterfs1.html

The greatest part is that it was made around 2004/2005... when you see the last minutes think about the recent introduction of Google Latitude (an application that you install in your phone and you can broadcast your location to your  friends using your phone's GPS) will it come to this? you be the judge

In Spain...Generation Y cannot get a cell phone contract!

As crazy as it may sound! it is true...I tried it myself...In times of economic recession, one may think that every business will do anything to get new customers, including mobile operators. However in Spain, this is not the case... Some of you might be thinking that it is crazy, and it is...so let me tell you the story. 

I am self-declared Blackberry addict, so whenever I came to Spain and saw that Vodafone was selling the new Blackberry Storm I wanted it. A month ago I went to a Vodafone store and filled some paperwork and signed the contract. A nice lady told me that I had to wait one week to get my phone, she said that I will get a call from Vodafone the day I was supposed to pick it up. 

A week and a half later, there was still no call, so I went to the store again but the lady was not there. So I talked to a fellow named Diego, who after a few minutes of looking for my contract, he told me that they were about to call me (I just laughed, he had my contract under some boxes of used mobile phones so there was no way he was planning on calling me that day) to tell me that my contract  could not be processed because my ID number started with "Y" (so it is not the generation Y that you guys were thinking... since October last year all spanish IDs start with a Y, since they already used all the number combinations for IDs that previously started with an X) 

It seemed weird to me so I asked him what should we do... and he told me that I should try another company!! How can Vodafone turn down an 18 month contract with an unlimited data plan from a person that was willing to buy a high end phone from them??

No idea, but they did... as some of you know I am doing a Master in Telecom, so we are always studying how operators can reduce Churn (the amount of clients that leave the mobile operator) and increase ARPU (Average Revenue Per User---basically how much money they make from each of us).  So I find it funny that these huge companies complain about this but then have people like my buddy Diego telling me that he doesn't care that I want to give money to Vodafone and that I should try another company. 

Luckily there are MVNOs in Spain (it stands for Mobile Virtual Network Operator, just think about a cell phone company that rents a network from a bigger Operator and sells plans and phones with its own brand- they usually target niche markets). After my frustration I went online and tried www.studentsphone.com and so far they have answered all my questions. Although they cannot offer me a Blackberry Storm, they offer me good customer service and answers, so it seems that I will get a contract with them. 

Too bad Vodafone... now I am looking for an unblocked Storm...I already found hundreds of them in Amazon. However this makes me wonder...Are traditional operators ready to tackle new generations? the Storm attracted me to Vodafone, but it doesn't mean that because they have the phone on exclusivity I have to beg to be their customer. The internet brings us abundance of everything, they don't want to sell me the Phone...hey! no problem!...I will buy it from Asia, the US, or maybe  England. Who knows...let's see who gives me a better price! 

this is the real Generation Y!

 

 

Why Google and Apple are thriving while Nokia, Microsoft and Sony suffer?

As a marketer I can say that Google’s advantage during the crisis is their “one to one” targeted marketing. By profiling most of us, Google can definitely offer advertisers something that traditional media cannot, and what is most important, at a very competitive price and business model in which an advertiser only pays when the campaign is successful. (adwords)

Marketing budgets around the world are being reduced in every industry as companies implement cost savings plans, however, nowadays, a company cannot stop getting its message across, and since mass media is still very expensive, Google provides an excellent option to budget constrained marketers worldwide.

With the introduction of services as Google’s Docs, Apps, Maps, Calendar….and so on, Google is getting more and more attention in their pages, providing Google with more channels from which to advertise as well as expanding the potential target market. 

Adsense also provides what seems to be a “Crisis Proof” Business Model, opening a blog, webpage or even launching an internet based company is easier every day, and people all over the world are looking for more revenues streams, and if I can build an interesting enough page and get some money from Google by letting them advertise…Hey, Why not? I don’t care if Google is also making money of it…

As far as Apple is concerned, it has already been 25 years since their world famous 1984 commercial ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8 ), and what surprises me the most is that they have been able to maintain their brand personality, always positioning themselves as innovative and away from the mainstream. The fact that they enjoy less than 10% market share in the OS industry (http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/12/01/mac-internet-share-hits-record-882-windows-drops-below-90/) proves that having a hip brand personality is not enough to be number one, but what Apple has done properly is leverage its Brand Equity and of course their innovation, to introduce new very successful products and services (iPod, iPhone, iTunes) to reach a more massive market.

Besides providing Apple with more Revenue Streams it also allows them to get into consumers that were unreachable with just offering a Mac, allowing Apple to successfully use “Product Bundling” to reach new generations. An example of this is the fact that if you are a student, you get a free iPod Touch if you buy a Mac, making it a very attractive deal for students that have to buy a laptop for school anyway and of course would love a free iPod Touch not to mention that the student will now be a member of the hip Apple community.

A proof of the success of this, is the fact that 60% of the freshmen class at Brandeis University in MA, USA took a Mac to school, (http://www.palluxo.com/2008/09/02/brandeis-university-40-percent-students-use-mac-computers/) of course “forcing” the school to use Mac friendly applications, hence lowering the “barriers of entry” of getting a Mac….creating a virtuous circle for Steve Job’s company.

One last very important fact in the current success of Apple…is of course Vista, the failure of Microsoft latest OS also contributes to Apple’s success. Why would you buy a Vista computer if you can buy a Mac (which actually works and it looks cool) and get a free iPod on top? Maybe Microsoft should start giving away iPods with their Vista computers; I don’t think that getting a free Zune will help much…

As far as Nokia and Sony (Computers and Mobile Divisions) goes, I believe they have failed in creating synergies among their different products, I can get a Sony-Ericsson mobile and I don’t get any benefit if I buy a Vaio. More importantly they have failed to turn their mobile devices into something more than just a mobile, an iPhone for example is a mobile, a PDA, an MP3 player, a browsing device and more and more a gaming device. While a Nokia is still a mobile, and in face of crisis, people will take longer to update their mobile, therefore reducing profits for the mobile manufacturer giant. 

The Red Pill....why and how??

Hello everyone! (although I believe, as of today the only readers are a few of my classmates from the amazing Master in Telecom and Digital Business at IE Business School). Although this blog has started as an assignment for my "Web 2.0 and Customer Driven Innovation" class, I am overly excited to be able to put my thoughts into a blog (which I have to admit, is my first one ever). Especially since I will be writing about technology, new trends, the present and the future and how this affects our everyday life and of course the way we do business ( I am at a Business School and absolutely love business). 

So.... why "The Red Pill"? as most of you know I take this from the movie "The Matrix" when Neo has to choose between the blue or the red pill in order to be able to see "The Matrix", as you also probably know, Neo took the latter and became the savior of the world. 

My plan with this blog is not to save the world (very hard to do it with a blog), but more to talk about the new technologies that are becoming part of our daily lives, hence changing the way we live them. I will try to keep it very informal, since I believe that it is more entertaining and has a personal touch as well.

My purpose with this is to be able to "translate" technological innovation  into simple language. I am not an engineer, I actually did Marketing for my undergraduate studies (I will be updating my Bio soon), but I have worked, lived and studied with Engineers, and I feel that there is a knowledge gap between all the great innovations that are happening and the knowledge that the common citizens have on the innovations. More specifically, businesses, since the common citizen really doesn't need to know more than how to use a tool such as Twitter or Facebook (although I plan to talk about how this companies make money out of our strange passion to know what is going on with our friends and the friends of our friends...etc etc, cause at the end of the day, these are companies and companies are here to make money).

But as we spend more and more time writing in our blog, updating our Twitter account, looking at pictures in Facebook, we are spending less and less time watching TV, listening to the radio, walking in a shopping mall, making it very very difficult for companies to reach us with their very expensive marketing campaigns. 

This poses a great challenge to all companies worldwide...the internet, and more specifically WEB 2.0 (it is not the version of your browser!!.., it is how we, geeks, engineers, IT guys or however you want to call us, refer to the way we use the internet today! , so in very very basic terms...WEB 1.0 was when you would go online and read the content of the web pages, WEB 2.0 means that now people go to the internet and upload their  "User Generated Content- UGC" another fancy term that we like to use, so just think about You Tube, Facebook, Delicious, Wikipedia and all those sites where users are the ones who create the content). 

So going back to our main topic, WEB 2.0 and the technologies that have been developed to be able to enjoy and even exploit WEB 2.0 (broadband, iPhone, Net PCs), have changed our lives, many new generations think that spending hours on the net is much more fun than spending hours watching TV. The problem comes when, companies, which want to sell stuff to these generations, want to reach them with their marketing message or how we marketers like to call it the "Value Proposition" but cannot because these potential clients (Mostly Generation Y) are spending their time in a place called "Second Life" and trust me, most of the Corporate Executives have no idea what Second Life is....so if they don't know the place how are they going to reach them??

So my plan here is to provide the Red Pill to all of my readers, show them the reality of our world today in terms of technology.  Since I am a strong believer of the power of goals and dreams, I should state that my dream and goal with this blog is to be the place to go for businessmen all over the world, I will try and  strive to make this the reference point for people that want to understand what is happening in the world in terms of technology and business. Since I know that I am not an expert in all the topics that I will be discussing about, I will love to hear your opinions and comments, also, I will try to have "Guest Bloggers" which I believe will add a lot of value to The Red Pill. 

Please check my related blogs as well, since this is an assignment for a class, I have 9 other very  smart classmates that will be writing about similar subjects, and of course if you want to read a professional blogger I encourage you to read our Professor Enrique Dans (www.enriquedans.com), he is actually the one who introduced the idea of the Red Pill to us, he even showed us the video from the movie so I just borrowed the idea from him. 

All right fellow readers, I will try to keep this as updated as possible, looking forward to hearing from you!

Alberto Sandoval Ponce