Some interesting research today on the BBC today reporting results of the Oxford Internet Survey (OxIS), based on interviewing 2,305 people aged 14 years and older in England,

Headline stats from the survey were:

- 67% of the population were current internet users in 2007, up from 59% in 2003;

- There has been a big increase in the use of broadband, with 85% using high-speed connections, compared with just 19% four years ago

- Mobile internet use has also seen a sharp increase, with 29% having wi-fi wireless access, compared with just 1% four years ago, and 21% accessing the internet on a mobile phone or PDA, up from 5% four years ago.

- OxIS finds that 42% of students have created a profile on a social networking site such as Facebook or MySpace, but just 15% of the employed and 2% of retired people.

- There has been an enormous increase in the use of search engines such as Google to find information - with 57% mainly using search engines, compared with just 19% in 2005.

For internet users, the web is now a more trusted source of information than television - and the amount of television they watch has declined. According to Bill Dutton, the internet continues to be a "transformative" technology, changing what we know, how we know it, and who we know in profound ways.

Whats our take: we are seeing higher and higher levels of internet use as it becomes more pervasive in peoples lives.

One question we would like to ask: is there any question that people would’nt turn to the internet for an answer to?

More details can be found at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6913918.stm

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I have just been going from some new research findings from Forrester (the Global IT Research Organisation) on how b2b marketers are starting to dip their toes into emerging tactics using the web.

For us, this is extremely interesting as we are very much positioned as a business that is helping companies to utilise and get value from many of the emerging tactics discussed in the report. Without this sounding like a blatant sales pitch for what we do, we wanted to share some of the most striking areas for me from the research were:

1) More than 75% of CIOs in a recent survey say they visit a company’s Web site to learn about and substantiate product decisions - putting it ahead of all other choices.

2) Whilst search marketing and online advertising delivers new visitors to corporate sites, there is a big question over how well marketers engage visitors once they are on the site. In a study conducted last year, only two of 16 major B2B Web sites passed Forrester’s Web Site Review. B2B Web sites typically suffer from missing or buried content, inefficient task flow, illegible text or wasted space, poor performance, and hidden privacy and security policies.

3) Forrester surveyed 569 B2B marketers online in May 2006 and found that most B2B marketers cling to traditional tactics like PR and trade shows despite little evidence that those channels are as effective as interactive ones.

4) B2B blog readers aren’t used to participating in open forums, and instead of posting comments directly to the blog, they may contact the blog author directly via phone or email to address their questions. The point of a B2B blog is to gather buyer feedback about products and move prospective buyers farther down the funnel.

5) Measuring value can be difficult - setting goals and measuring outcomes of early experimentation helps marketers project the impact these emerging tactics;

6) In terms of encouraging b2b marketers to adopt new channels to market such as Behavioural targeting, blogs and RSS, the most compelling factors identified by the Forrester Survey group would be:

• Proof of customer use;
• Case studies;
• Measurement tools.

7) One of the survey questions was how do you currently measure success and value around these new channels - the main answers were:

• Linking activity to sales
• Increased site traffic
• Increased brand recognition
• Increased loyalty

B2B marketers sometimes forget that people, not companies, make product choices, and buyers’ personal aspirations, motivations, and needs influence their buying decisions.

For us, this is all about making company information easily accessible and ensuring the language is appropriate for the audience;

The conclusion from Forrester is TAKE THE INTERACTIVE PLUNGE - because interactive marketing is inherently more addressable and measurable, B2B shouldn’t wait for further proof that online channels pay off. Marketers who fail to adopt these tactics will fall behind with the online buyer acquisition as competitors move ahead with more engaged prospects. To gear up their interactive marketing plans, B2B marketers should:

Follow the interactive crowd. B2C marketers lead B2B in interactive marketing use and companies like General Motors and IBM offer cutting-edge illustrations of how technologies like blogging, video, and podcasting engage buyers or build community. Avoid  Advergames and virtual worlds that need more time to mature with consumers before business marketing opportunities start to develop.

Integrate online tactics into traditional channel planning. Many B2B marketers ask Forrester if they should start blogging, podcasting, or using other emerging tactics. These questions can’t be answered in isolation because most interactive channels help engage buyers after they are aware of a firm’s products or services. Instead, B2B marketers should determine how new tactics will support existing campaigns, reach new audiences, or move buyers through the purchase process more quickly.

Use emerging tactics to engage buyers once they visit your Web site

With the Web site becoming the No. 1 place buyers go to find what they need, B2B marketers should use emerging tactics to support online experiences and engage buyers after they visit the site. For example, Change Artists, Hewlett-Packard Development’s community site for CIOs, incorporates multiple interactive elements: video, podcasts, RSS, and interactive tools.

Augment, but not replace, demand generation activity with emerging tactics. B2B marketers want to abandon channel experiments that don’t generate leads within a quarter. Because "emerging" means "unproven," we believe B2B marketers should set aside a portion of their budget to experiment with emerging interactive channels but cap this amount at 10% or less of program spend. When using a new tactic for the first time, B2B marketers should set expectations and measure results as usual but should not count the tactic’s contribution against their compensated objectives until they have at least two-quarters of data collected. This baseline data helps determine where the tactic shows the most potential to influence or support the rest of the marketing mix.

All these sentiments accord with our beliefs and we are developing an increasing number of case studies around how we are helping companies to engage with and extract value from these techniques - if you would like to know about any of these, please let us have your thoughts here or you can contact us directly at Rewarding Dialogue

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Sitting in the Trovus Southern office - for anyone who knows how we work, thats the Eat cafe on the South Bank of the Thames. As a web based business, office space is not a neccesity for us right now.

On the plus side, it enables us to invest all our funds in high quality people - our latest recurit about to be announced formally next week …expert profile coming soon and developing software applications…more coming soon also.

It is also the most fabulous balmy summers day - the Thames is looking fabulous and all is well with the world.

On the down side, lots of tourists and distractions.

Long live the virtual office…well until it starts raining anyway.

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Two quick snippets for today:

The Real Time Generation press release from one of our clients Logicalis is going down well - we have picked up today 3 main stream IT publications who have headlined articles on the subject (below):

Silicon Networks Web Watch

VNU Logicalis Student Survey

Computing - Real Time Generation

More later as we digest the feedback and comments on these articles.

On a related note, we have confirmed the date of one seminar that we are working with Cisco on - it will be on 31st October at Cisco HQ near Heathrow. We will be sending out invites, but if you would like to pre-register please contact us. The author of the research on the Real Time Generation, Chris Gabriel will be one of our speakers talking about the research and findings from above.

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One of our clients, Logicalis has just published a fascinating piece of research into what they have termed the Real Time Generation - defined as the 13 to 17 year old generation. The full research can be found through http://www.theitsanctuary.com/pages/66-real_time_generation, but having been through the findings, I just wanted to pull out a few things I found fascinating:

1) 91% of UK 13-17 year olds use Instant Messaging at least once a week, and over 50% use it every day.

2) 47% of UK 13-17 year olds have read other individual’s Blogs (Web Logs), and 35% have already written entries in their own Blog.

3) 31% of UK 13-17 year olds have regular Internet contact with individuals they have never met in person.

It is the last point that I find most interesting - it ties in with someone Ed wrote about a week or two ago on creating virtual working relationships. To reflect the internet didnt exist for most people some 10 to 15 years ago and all relationships existed in the "real world". This research is now showing how pervasive it can be for creating relationships for this demographic at least. Of course, we dont think that this can be a substitute for real world relationships, but it is changing the way people communicate, share and form relationships -both on a personal and business level.

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It’s been talked about for some time now, but Trovus are appointing the core team of advisory board members - not your usual non exec directors, but the real experts in our field - the people at the coal face of the next generation of the internet.

Affectionately known to us as the 19 year olds, when these guys say things, the guys in the boardroom look up - these are the Digital Natives who are driving the adoption of new technologies and behavioural changes on the web.

Our bottom line - if you want to know how to use Facebook, Wiki’s and Second Life, ask a nineteen year old.

More to come as we make some appointments…..

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Things move fast in the world of generic communities. One of the first communities to market was Friendster - it was in fact the community that inspired me to launch my first communities here in the UK when they were only 3 months olds.

A good friend of mine (the same one who originally mentioned Friendster to me several years ago) has just sent me a link http://www.scribd.com/doc/80907/How-to-Kill-a-Great-Idea. The article describes how the first to market here grew spectacularly and then with a wealth of expertise and funds thrown at it managed to lose its way to subsequent market entrants Facebook and Myspace.

Reflecting on the consumer social networks and why they can fizzle out reminded me of a question we have been asked on occasion when we are looking at building focused networks for businesses. The question is simply, dont they networks have a shelf life and will burn out like Friendster.

My answer to this is several fold:

1) the consumer market for social networks is more of a fickle fashion item than focused business networks targetting particular niches;

2) the generic networks (friendster, myspace, youtube, facebook) are just that …generic networks which are trying to address the needs of millions of people at the same time - there is space for a few of these, but there cant be space for all of them;

3) Perhaps most importantly, the question we raise is one of focus - what is the niche you want to target, what are their information needs, what problems are they looking to solve. It is far easier to make sure that you are answering questions for a very specific group of people and engage them on topics in which they are interested. 

One thing is for sure, Jonathon Abrams has started something which will continue to evolve and even in the short 4 four years of online social networking, the web has come an enormous distance and we look forward to being a part of it over the next 4 years.

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Not my words, but the headline from an article in last Thursdays (26^th July) Independent.

In the article Michael Savage looks at the pro’s and con’s of joining sites like Facebook and questions whether the whole thing around social networking is just a fad. He concludes that the bubble shows no sign of bursting and points out that if Rupert Murdoch (News International is the owner of MySpace) and others such as Yahoo and Microsoft are coming into the market, then big business should take note.

Whats my take:

Social networking sites (such as the ones I used to be involved in like Linkyourfriends, mates4dates and Casual Relationships)  are just the tip of the iceberg. The consumers are pointing us in the direction to go and showing us what the web could be used for.

As an example, we listened with great interest to Jon Bernstein who heads up Channel 4’s Digital strategy out at the seminar we attended last week.

Channel 4 have been embracing web 2.0 (see Ed’s blog for the debate on titles) for over 2 years now, and we have to say we are pretty impressed by the things they have been doing. The pic at the top is the picture they drew to show the areas they are involved in, but let me summarise:

Social Networks - there are over 30 channel 4 groups existing on Facebook

Virtual Networks - C4 had a a virtual interview with Vince Cable (Lib Dem) on Second Life

Crowd Sourcing - this is an area that they are seriously looking at

Blogs - these are open to everyone on the network

There were more examples, but I think these make the point - these guys are using the web to reach out to people in the new mediums where people are spending their time. The adoption of the web and the latest uses of technology are more than a fad - they are becoming more pervasive all the time.

I will leave the final word to Adam Boulton (who incidentally interviewed both David Milliband and Ed Milliband in Second Life) when he said that when it comes to all the latest things that are coming through: “what we know is that we don’t know”.

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Most of you will have seen what my partner Caspar has posted in his "What makes a good blog" piece earlier in the month - and I for one am someone who will listen to him.  You see,  I don’t know why or how, but he just has a feel for what makes people interact with the web.  All I can add to the piece is honesty in your writing style.  You have to come through in the piece - your personality.

So now I sit here thinking, what is this blog going to say about me…and will my personality show through - love it or hate it?

We are only a few months old at Trovus and it has taken us a bit of time to get "rewarding dialogue" up and running, but now we are here and this is our business, we are going to have to make sure that we buck all the norms and survive for more that 3 months, find a unique voice that can be heard amongst the 100 million strong throng and somehow make this blog a place that people want to engage with! 

Easier said than done. Still all we can do is write this blog with the honest aims that we carry.  For me it is to show my passion for what we do - educate businesses on the power of connectivity and collaboration over the web and as a record for us and anyone who is interested on what happens to two blokes with young families who set out to try to make a living in the real world.  Lets see how it goes eh!

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Just picked up this company, http://www.10duke.com/ who use similar language to us, but actually provide a different type of service. It was in the Times Business Section talking about an online community they have launched for the ATP (Association of Tennis Professional) called 30love.net.

We couldn’t find the actual site, just a redirect through to the ATP site; we did have a good look at the 10duke company though and they look to have a very impressive management team and software application they have developed.

For us it always great to find other people in a similar space and to see what they are doing; it looks different to what we are doing and our focus on the enterprise market, but we will certainly follow them with interest and would love to hear from any of their management team on what they are doing.

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