Ged Carroll

Blog

  • Thoughtful China & other things

    Thoughtful China

    As ever, the guys at Thoughtful China have come up with some quality content. In this episode David Wolf talks about how Chinese brands are looking to go global. It’s brands but not as you know them

    Beauty

    Beauty products brand Kiehl’s outreach to men could school a lot of luxury brands. Just check out this mini-film which highlights the use of space age materials in its products with a small spacecraft sent to the edge of space

    Culture

    The Asia Society posted this presentation by MTV World General Manager and Senior Vice President Nusrat Durrani on cross-pollination of popular culture. While New York was considered to be a global city, Durrani was surprised by its cultural isolation and introspection compared to other parts of the world.

    Japan

    Lastly, Sanrio’s Hello Kitty celebrated her 40th birthday in a collaboration with Bandai to create a Hello Kitty Chogokin mecha

    More marketing related content here.

  • CML Earth sunset

    CML Earth – the sudden disappearance of a social network

    Yesterday Novartis Oncology sent out an email to the subscribers of a small global community called CMLEarth.

    Dear Subscriber,

    Since the launch of CML Earth in December 2008, the mission of the social network has been to provide members of the CML community with a place to give and receive support, make valuable connections and share personal experiences, and connect with members for further support.

    At this time, Novartis Oncology, sponsor of CML Earth, has decided to close the social network. The platform is not optimized for current technologies (such as mobile devices and tablets), which compromises the user experience and lessens the value of the platform.

    Thank you for your participation, dedication, and support of the CML community.

    Sincerely,
    Your CML Earth Team

    CML Earth was designed to support a small global community of patients, healthcare professionals and patient families – all of whom were dealing with a rare form of leukaemia (Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia).
    novartis
    What’s interesting about this is:

    • How sudden the shutdown seems to have come
    • Where was a migration strategy? There was a community that had value to each other, if not to Novartis, what about having a Facebook group that they could self-administer?
    • That there wasn’t an opportunity to hand the community over to the members, nor a migration strategy articulated to say form a Facebook group, there are a number of existing groups on there

    It also is a classic example of the transitory nature of platforms. What seemed hip just a few years ago is now a technology that is no longer supported (Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight – not that Silverlight was ever hip outside Redmond, WA).

    It was even odder, that this decision was not shared on the home page of CML Earth, here is a screen shot that I took this evening.
    CML Earth

    More related content here.

  • UC Web + other news

    UC Web

    Alibaba buys up UC Web in ‘biggest merger in the history of China’s Internet’ | VentureBeat – or really expensive deal to get on the chrome. UC Web made a web browser that was popular in China and South East Asia. UC Web has created a joint venture with Alibaba that will help with Alibaba’s international expansion

    Beauty

    How red lipstick helped win an election | CNBC – interesting involvement of oligarchs in Korean politics

    Consumer behaviour

    Seven Digital Deadly Sins – really nice build by The Guardian; some nice consumer insights

    Meet the Chinese Parents Who Go On Dates for Their Kids | VICE United Kingdom – interesting insight into Chinese marriage culture

    Ethics

    Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People – really nasty shit

    Finance

    Safaricom’s M-Pesa Turns Kenya Into a Mobile Payment Paradise – Businessweek – interesting article on how the service works from the perspective a of a neophyte

    Ideas

    Rage Against the Machine: The Rise of Anti-Politics Across Europe | The New Republic – the headline explains things better than most articles that I have seen

    Japan

    43.3% of Japanese use LINE Professionally, 29.6% use Facebook | PixelBits – interesting stats from Mona Nomura

    Legal

    Google may soon let you know when it’s required to hide something from you | VentureBeat – this could be interesting as knowledge of the void could be more damaging than the content

    Media

    The Works Recruitment – How recruiters use LinkedIn – no real surprises but handy primer

    RIAA tax filing reveals a record industry that’s less interested in paying for piracy lawsuits | VentureBeat – music industry preparing for new reality

    The truth about Paddy Power’s stunt in the Amazon rainforest | Paddy Power Blog – cutting things uncomfortably close

    Nike And Amazon Explore And Experience Big On Small Screen NKE AMZN – Investors.com – Larry Weber on social. Very much on the ongoing activity rather than campaign school of thought

    Online

    百度保障 – Baidu launches verified programme on it’s knowledge search / Q&A product

    Introducing Secret Dens — Secret Den — Medium – this sounds like an internal comms person’s worst nightmare

    Sogou Launched Wechat Search — China Internet Watch – this is big, adds a little bit of a window into the black hole of OTT messaging platforms

    No Logging Into Flickr Via Facebook After June 30 | AllFacebook – smart move by Yahoo!

    Retailing

    Amazon expands middleman role in latest online payments push | Reuters – Amazon already does payments, for instance KickStarter projects. This is about recurring payments

    Security

    Privacy As A Competitive Vector | AVC – Fred Wilson on the market for privacy. The difference that I don’t think Wilson addresses is the demand for privacy and the price people put on it. I think that there is a market, but the business model is critical as I don’t think consumers put a high price on privacy yet

    Life sentences for serious cyberattacks are proposed in Queen’s speech | theguardian.com – call me cynical, but is this is much about ringfencing GCHQ’s domestic activities or the UK governments lack of digital savvy? Park your data and services outside the UK, move R&D or quality assurance for digital services outside the UK

    Software

    A tiny technical change in iOS 8 could stop marketers spying on you – Quartz – does this you also can’t a lock out devices to a wi-fi network based on MAC address as well as password?

    Technology

    Sony tops game console sales for 1st time in 8 years- Nikkei Asian Review – Nintendo slide 31 per cent in Japan!

    A fast look at Swift, Apple’s new programming language | Ars Technica – interesting overview of Swift

    Sharp reveals concept products for new business plan | Asahi Shimbun – some of this stuff sounds really cool. Also good to see that they are innovating out of trouble rather than letting loose a bunch of management consultants

    Web of no web

    Japanese carrier Docomo wants to move your phone’s SIM card into a wearable | Engadget – this is really interesting. More related content here

    Google Now Has The Perfect Feature For Sleepy Commuters And Late Night Party Animals – smart use of contextual location based data

    Wireless

    ZTE to cut smartphone models by half | SCMP – cut half of its smartphone models available in the domestic market this year, while expecting total shipments in the world’s biggest smartphone market to remain stable, a company official said yesterday (paywall) – potentially smart move to reduce number of SKUs

  • IPSec Flaw + more things

    Expert calls for network security protocol vetting – Xinhua | English.news.cn – I don’t blame the sentiment expressed given OpenSSL vulnerability Heartbleed and IPSec flaw; however it would be good if the Chinese government contributed positively to the open source community rather than it being a one-way street. What the great unknown is how often the MSS has exploited zero day flaws in protocols in the way that the NSA used the IPSec flaw. There is also a presumption that bugs are deliberate in nature. Which makes one think about the sloppy code in Huawei products

    China denounces US tech ‘pawns’ | FT – expect huge government backlash against non Chinese brand devices, this gives them a free hand while still being within WTO guidelines

    WhatsApp usage among Baby Boomers up 60% in last 6 months | GlobalWebIndex – what little cool WhatsApp may have had is gone

    Interview with China Luxury Research Lead Emma Li | L2 ThinkTank – some interesting reading here

    STOP THE MADNESS! Samsung just unveiled a smartphone that’s bigger than some tablets | BGR – the Samsung photo says it all. BGR on phablet backlash

    How fashion geeks turned a blog into a business | Marketing Interactive – good to see my friend Virginia getting some kudos

    McDonald’s Has Unwillingly Been Pulled Into the Thai Protests | VICE News – interesting how McDonalds was appropriated against its will, something other brands should consider and plan for

    Cavium Thunder Rattles Xeon | EE Times – the challenge would be coding to use that many cores efficiently

    Why Chinese Booze Costs More Than Fine Wine at Auction – WSJ – 540 milliliter bottles of Moutai produced in the 1980s sold for between 60,000 yuan ($9,700) and 70,000 yuan ($11,300). That was up from between 50,000 and 60,000 yuan last year, and around 30,000 yuan at the end of 2012. – Aged Moutai does well as new bottles get cheaper

    US Firms Walk PR Tightrope As China Clamps Down | Holmes Report – the bell tolls for some of the larger US agencies in China?

    A Media Mogul, Alone on the Island | Foreign Policy – Jimmy Lai and Apple Daily. No real surprise; HSBC has an almost monopolistic position in Hong Kong anyway

  • Fuerdai futures + other news

    Fuerdai

    ‘Fuerdai’ groomed to become China’s next business leaders｜WantChinaTimes.com – damned if they do, damned if they don’t kind of scenario looking at the criticism online. Fuerdai or ‘rich second generation’ are the children of China’s nouveau riche. Their parents were called ‘tuhao’ and were known for their over the top consumption. This trait has been passed on to many of the fuerdai

    Business

    End of ‘Golden Age’ for Multinationals in China? – of course, growth is lower, but what we could see is different European businesses doing better as the focus moves towards domestic consumption in the Chinese economy

    Korea

    Korean Pop Culture’s Considerable Influence on Chinese Shoppers | Red Luxury – yet another article citing My Love From a Star

    Online

    Instagram Is The King Of Social Engagement | Forrester Blogs – because its a new advertising format that only five brands have been let loose on?

    YouTube Is 20 Times More Engaging Than Facebook | TubeFilter – likes for brands don’t necessarily mean sales

    Security

    Ain’t no party like a cryptoparty: IAB Future Trends Report – Brilliant Noise – good read here by Anthony Mayfield

    Software

    Windows Store: China Generating 2nd Highest Number of Downloads on Windows Phone – this could still be happening without a meaningful amount of market share just on scale

    Technology

    Qeexo and its touchscreen software spin out of Carnegie Mellon, land $2.3M | VentureBeat – I hope that they get a rebrand before they become famous, that name is going to be difficult

    Wireless

    China wants to kick its Android habit in three to five years | Techinasia – that’s a third of the android installed base gone then

    Web of no web

    Creating location services that understand you with Desti – HERE Three Sixty – thought that this was a where2.0 type business but it seems to be more about vertical search. Interesting point of cross over

    The revolution continues: what’s next for the Web – The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) – byline by Mark Pesce