The connected consumer code of ethics

[Mike Stopforth] There is much being said about how brands should engage with customers in social media. Words like "authenticity", "transparency", "immediacy", "personability" and others are bandied about as we as consultants, together with our clients, figure out the rules of content and community online. 26 Sep 2011 13:31

The next step for social media

[Mike Stopforth] The honeymoon is over. Much of the hype and noise surrounding social media and its meteoric rise (especially in the USA) has abated. Perhaps owing to the global economic crisis, arguably due to the apparent lack of sustainable business models and possibly as a result of some semblance of reasonable thinking, we're no longer reading about $1.6 billion investments in YouTube and $15 billion Facebook valuations. 18 Nov 2008 12:51

Why employees should use Facebook

[Mike Stopforth] Lately the press has been reporting that corporates in South Africa are starting to block employee access to social networking site, Facebook. If you're looking for a business reason why you should allow them to, I'll give you five... 7 Aug 2007 19:03

How to harness the networking power of del.icio.us

[Mike Stopforth] Have you arrived here hoping to take over the world the del.icio.us way without reading part one? For those of you with your del.icio.us accounts ready and raring to go, let's dive back in and discover the power of its networking functionality. 19 Mar 2007 08:46

How to use del.icio.us to take over the world

[Mike Stopforth] The value of del.icio.us - a social bookmarking application - is often misperceived, and its potential underestimated. You see, just being able to store your WWW bookmarks remotely is not sexy enough. Being able to share them with millions of other users, and in turn being able to interrogate the collective bookmarking efforts of those millions of other del.icio.us users in a very powerful way, is. 9 Mar 2007 16:54

The power of customer evangelism

[Mike Stopforth] I felt like a Reach for a Dream candidate. I kept looking over my shoulder to check whether or not I was being followed by a Candid Camera crew. What am I going on about? A few weeks back I wrote an article for The Citizen about things I wanted to do before I die. One of my goals was, and is, to drive an Aston Martin. 22 Nov 2006 17:34

Half-baked - the Stork margarine blogging advert

[Mike Stopforth] Well done to Stork and the agency behind its new TV ad for picking up on a progressive trend - blogging - and attempting to reach a target demographic with it. But I must agree with a friend's sentiments that they have lost out on an enormous opportunity to capitalise on the significant Web buzz created by the first few screenings of the advert. 14 Nov 2006 19:31

Web 2.0 for beginners

[Mike Stopforth] There's HEEEUUUUUUGE hype and buzz (650 000 000 Google search results) all over the Internet around Web 2.0, but very little explanation. So what is Web 2.0 really, and why should you care? 7 Aug 2006 17:00

GooglePedia

[Mike Stopforth] One of the many reasons I like Firefox - the free, open source web browser - is that the community supporting Firefox continually comes up with little applications, called extensions, that through a simple installation process add great functionality to my browsing experience. One such extension, a very recent addition to the stacks of existing Firefox add-ons, is GooglePedia. 19 Jun 2006 12:03

Why aren't you using RSS?

[Mike Stopforth] RSS is everywhere. It is possibly the biggest breakthrough in web technology since HTTP (hyper text transfer protocol) first enabled us to browse the world wide web. So why aren't more companies using RSS? 18 Apr 2006 12:02

US car rental firm takes blogging to the next level

[Mike Stopforth] Budget car rentals in the United States, www.budget.com, is making waves in marketing and advertising circles with the launch of Up Your Budget, www.upyourbudget.com, a 16-city treasure hunt campaign with total prize money of $160k ($10k per winner, per city). The concept is significant as it marks the birth of the first entirely blog-based viral contest campaign in marketing history. 31 Oct 2005 13:22

Your customers are doing it - are you?

[Mike Stopforth] To blog or not to blog... your customers are doing it. The question is - are you? Blogs ('weblogs') are a force to be reckoned with. They have exploded onto the global scene, evolving rapidly from a miniscule technical fad to a media phenomenon. Businesses need to know how to deal with blogs, and must decide if and how to use this powerful new technology. 30 Oct 2005 17:21

Blogging: A Multi-Million Dollar Industry

[Mike Stopforth] News broke on 6 October 2005 that media monolith AOL forked out $25 million to acquire Weblogs Inc., a network of just over 80 popular, industry-leading blogs. All this happened while rumours spread of talks between Gawker Media, another prominent blog network, and News Corp. Hundreds of venture capital investors are watching fast-growing blogs and blog networks (9rules, as another example), searching relentlessly for the next big thing. Without question, blogging has evolved from geeky fad to mainstream medium. 18 Oct 2005 12:58