The Wall Street Journal’s Andy Brown on China’s economy. It is an interesting interview. As to the main question about whether China’s economy is about to stall or not, have a read around and make up your own mind.
The video is the Wall Street Journal’s own player so not sure if all readers will be able to see it.
Porn sites get more internet traffic in UK than social networks or shopping | The Guardian
Civil War in Men’s Shaving – Analyst Insight from Euromonitor International
Two Ad Giants Chasing Google in Merger Deal – NYTimes.com – While advertising agencies often work hand in hand with Google, Facebook and Twitter, those same companies can also work directly with companies like General Motors and Coca-Cola, including sharing data – add additional value or be canned (pay wall)
Worldwide gaming audience figures – Digital Intelligence
Reach of sports sites across Europe: Top 18 countries – Digital Intelligence
Texas students hijack superyacht with GPS-spoofing luggage • The Register
The ‘Australia tax’ is real, geo-blocking to stop | ZDNet
Google’s Gmail ‘Promotions’ Tab: Why It Won’t Hurt E-mail Marketing | TIME.com
Edward Snowden’s not the story. The fate of the internet is | Technology | The Observer – “If businesses or governments think they might be spied on,” Neelie Kroes said, “they will have less reason to trust the cloud, and it will be cloud providers who ultimately miss out. Why would you pay someone else to hold your commercial or other secrets, if you suspect or know they are being shared against your wishes? Front or back door – it doesn’t matter – any smart person doesn’t want the information shared at all. Customers will act rationally and providers will miss out on a great opportunity.”
China should probe foreign luxury carmakers over prices: Xinhua | Reuters
Uberflip | Behind the scenes of content marketing – (reg wall) free e-book
Google Glass is the next Segway says venture capitalist | T3 – not terribly surprised
WeChat took Facebook’s mantle in China and now it’s going global – The Next Web
Social Media and Consumer Empowerment Study | Social Media Today
OTT Messaging blossoms but SMS still growing and delivering the big revenues – “During 2012 and 2013 we have seen many reports that operators are losing $20bn – $30bn in SMS revenue to OTT messaging apps,” said Karl Whitfield, a Director at Portio Research. “We see reports that OTT traffic will be double that of SMS by the end of 2013. This is wrong on both counts. It may be true that SMS revenues are levelling off and that OTT is on the rise, but SMS is still generating revenues of $15.3m per hour, 24/7, that’s a massive $133.8bn in 2013. Worldwide SMS revenue has gone up year on year since the early 1990s and will continue to be above 2010 levels until 2017. SMS was levelling off before OTT apps came along, and now MNOs are gaining revenue from increased data usage instead.
Nokia blames Microsoft for poor Windows Phone app selection- The Inquirer
Evernote Wants to Become the Nike for Your Brain: 10 Questions With CEO Phil Libin | Wired Business | Wired.com – I am not an Evernote user but this is an interesting interview
The 6 Types of Digital Consumers and Their Paths to Purchase | Compete Pulse
Indonesia social media profile | Social@Ogilvy
The Power of Context and the Future of Real-time Marketing | VML – it makes sense
Newspapers: A decent proposal | The Economist – interesting comparison with the US market, however the UK doesn’t have the same infrastructure of important regional papers that the US does
Ballmer admits Microsoft built too many Surface RTs, disappointed with Windows sales | The Verge
BBC News – ‘Lads’ mags’ set cover-up deadline by Co-operative
comScore Releases the “2013 Southeast Asia Digital Future in Focus” Report – comScore, Inc
Spy agencies reportedly have a long-standing ban on Lenovo PCs due to back-door vulnerabilities – The Next Web – the interesting thing is that most laptop components come from someone else rather than the name on the outside of the machine
Insight: How Samsung is beating Apple in China | Reuters – you can make up your own mind on the conclusion but it’s a really nice overview of the divergence in MO between Apple and Samsung
Scientist banned from revealing codes used to start luxury cars | guardian.co.uk – the real question is what other dirty little secrets Volkswagen Group has gotten hidden in their technology?
China has had enough of singing competitions thank you very much: Shanghaiist
There is a creeping trend in the UK of that much derided phenomena the nanny state; which has now moved online. If one looks at coverage of the current government from his election onwards once can see how the nanny state rhetoric changes from something to be derided, to expanding regulation further. Looking further back one sees a similar pattern emerging with previous administrations; a common pattern that spans the whole of the mainstream political spectrum. The nanny state is derided whilst in opposition and implemented when in power.
Whilst this is meant with the best of intent, the measures paint a picture of an immature society unwilling to take responsibility for its own actions. The latest measure is the much derided default content filter designed to curb some 8.5 per cent of current UK internet usage, to put that into perspective – it is more than Facebook.
Search engines are forced to censor content by court order under the Digital Economy Act and Twitter is about to be grilled in the autumn when politicians looking with one eye to gallery berate them for not stopping Twitter users from being horrible to each other.
The thing is; as great as people can be, they can also be horrific in terms of what they think, what they say and what they do.
Technology won’t change this, it is merely a mirror to society; if it is restricted it will be circumvented and worked around. Technology has it’s own momentum what the author Kevin Kelly called The Technium. As regulatory measures fail, more draconian measures will be demanded. Delegating responsibility to technology rather than the individual isn’t smart. It disenfranchises people from the role they should play as a member of society and it wastes time and money for businesses that should be fueling economic growth.
If you want behavioral change to happen it needs to happen at the societal level – that means hard work over time with people on shared values. Not fast, ill-thought out ideas pursued without consideration for the likely secondary consequences. Legislation and regulation are only effective if they match the values of the majority in the country and there seems to be chasm between policy and the general public.
Let’s take the nanny state rhetoric to its logical conclusion: if adults aren’t responsible enough to use the internet properly and parents can’t take responsibility for their children’s behaviour, at what point do we decide that not all adults should be allowed to vote as they don’t have sufficient moral substance – as judged by…?
So what does this mean for the PR industry? PROs we will face greater challenges:
Archived from blog posts I wrote for PR Week