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Dear Proximus, Dear Belgacom,

I would really like to be a good customer of yours. In my wildest dreams I spend ridiculous amounts of money on internet connections, ADSL and through my 3G equipped mobile phone, if only you would let me.

So Mr./Ms. Proximus, would you please allow me into your world and let met spend my money? I tried calling your call center, but if after entering 10 menu options I only get a tape that explains that you sell high speed internet over a 3G network. I knew that, I only want help to start using it. So I went to your site, Mr/Ms Proximus, and it has nice shortcuts. However, I'm a Mac user and in Safari or Firefox the pop-up shortcut menu disappear again as soon as I move my mouse in the direction of one of the shortcuts. So I tried logging in to MyProximus, but that doesn't work. I'm 100% sure my password is correct because two weeks ago I had the same problem and then I asked a new password, en saved it in my inbox as if it was the key to heaven. But today it doesn't work anymore, I probably make a mistake (like entering my phone number in an incorrect format). Problem is, I can only try 3 times and then you block my access to MY(?)Proximus. I'm desparate ... please talk to me (like, on the phone, you have my number I suppose). I just want to know why my quad-band phone doesn't connect to your 3G network, and how the issue could be solved. I promise I will keep on spending more then €400 per month with you. And I'll be a Vodafone Live ambassador and avid 3G users. All the time, really promised.
Oh and yes, I had this nice guy on the phone one day, and he promised would send me the correct configuration by SMS, buy I never got the SMS. So if you can locate the guy, tell him to call me back please. Because there is no way I can ever get back to him call your call center ...

Mr./Ms. Proximus, I hear you have good relationships with your sister Belgacom. I've been a Belgacom internet customer since 1995, I've had dial-up (huge bills), ISDN (even huger bills) and was probably one of your first ADSL customers. In fact, I have two ADSL lines with you today. I always pay my bills, but I would like manage my account settings. Problem is I lost my password, I tried to login to your site with another account you made me make (so I could access the invoices you stopped sending me on paper and I have to go and pick up myself online now). But again, there was something wrong with the password, and I had only three attempts so you kicked me out. And you won't answer the phone in the evening and now I can't login and I don't want to go photocopying my ID card again and send it to you to prove I exist ... after having paid my bills without delay for years now ...

LET ME SPEND MONEY WITH YOU GUYS! And don't use it to pull in some expensive consultant to think about how you can make sure you have as few direct contacts as possible with your customers, but open up a few phone lines, hire some people with a positive attitude and make them pick up the phone. It's as simple as that.

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A new mobile payment platform: Tunz.com

In Las Vegas Brice was bragging that he is now is officially a "Banker". He took the exams and got the license so he could realize a new mobile payment idea, and I just got a mail that Tunz.com has started:

Tunz allow completely new ways of doing electronic transactions :
users could buy and pay while in SecondLife, buy the live music during
a concert and get it on their email before the end of it, buy a product
instantly advertised on a banner, on a poster in the street, on a tv
commercial..., Tunz allow users to share the bill at a restaurant,
parents to load their kids mobile, visitors to donate (see the TunzMe
widget) for content on your blog, ... all this without a credit card, just
with any mobile phone.

Somewhere in the back of my head I have the feeling I already heard or saw this concept ... Anyway, it looks like something simple, easy and practical. So I'm going to give it at try.

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"De Zevende Dag" about YouTube

Today I'm participating in a panel discussion on our national TV during De Zevende Dag. Watch met at 12h30 on één. The subject is YouTube, which was triggered by a movie of an NMBS controller giving somebody a fine for traveling without a valid ticket. That as such is not much of a problem, but there were two gun-shots at the end ... which is totally over the top.

They asked because I was interviewed in Het Laatste Nieuws on Saturday about the movies politicians put online in view of the upcoming elections. And that interview was the result of an article on Friday in De Morgen. Talking about a snowball effect :)

Ine made a nice roundup about 'new journalism' yesterday, ideal preparation for my 'performance' later today.

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Ello, mobile calling with a good feeling


Today I was talking to Luc Robijns and he told me about an initiative he launched with a number of partners. It's a mobile phone service of which all the profit goes to charity. It's call "Ello".

Well, I think this is a creative way of doing fund raising. We need more ideas like this, and I'm having at least one account switched at home (I think they don't offer 3G, so I can't switch mine).

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Second life after the hype (yes, already)

Today I did another presentation about Second Life. It's funny to see how people get really enthusiastic about SL if you present them with all the possibilities. To prevent all these marketing pro's from asking my business card because "I want to do something in Second Life" I included a slide that literally says "Don't believe the hype!", but in vain ... they just keep asking (usually not ordering in the end).

The morning session was fun too, Clo, Christian and I did a completely improvised marketing café. We were literally at the bar answering questions about e-mail marketing, blogs & communities and ... Second Life (again).

And tonight I read this post by Steve Rubel which kind of summarizes my point of view:

So why am I still enthusiastic? The reason is that avatars tap into the human need to fantasize and socialize - most likely not as ourselves. Lots of gamers, for example, spend hours playing games like Tiger Woods 2007 so they can win bling for their virtual golf bags. Yahoo Avatars is another site that appears to be thriving, judging by the custom icons I have seen popping up over on Yahoo Answers.

Second Life is like Geocities was in 1998 - a big idea, but a little ahead of its time. I suspect that within a year or two robust 3D virtual worlds will eventually get far easier to use and run completely in a browser. Then they will become more mainstream.

And now ... leave me alone about Second Life unless you have something really interesting or a huge amount of money to get rid of :).

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Five Additional Ways to Watch TV

The Center for Media Research reports the following:
According to a soon to be released study by E-Poll: "Multi-Platform Viewing of Video Content," the youth are leading the way, with 26% of males 13-34 frequent viewers of video on devices other than a TV. Teens are by far the most prevalent users of mobile video devices such as iPods and cell phones.

"The proliferation of user-generated content and expanding viewing platforms makes for a dizzying array of viewing choices," says Ken Walker, Director of Marketing, E-Poll Market Research. The study of consumers 13+, to see what they are doing with this freedom to choose, found that among those that view video content away from the TV:

  • 75% view on a desktop computer
  • 46% view on a laptop
  • 16% view on a portable video player
  • 13% view on iPod
  • 13% view on cell phone

On iPods and cell phones, viewing of video content happens almost anywhere (traveling, school, work outdoors, social events), mostly in the afternoons and evenings. Most watched content includes: music videos, TV programs, movies, videos on websites.

Considering television viewers, 13% currently transfer video content from their computer to their TV. In addition:

  • Almost half didn't know it was possible to transfer video to their TV
  • About 50% would like this functionality but only 17% would pay $100 or more for a device
  • Almost 1/3 would still be interested, even if it required a complicated installation

Over half of those who watch video content online (55%) say they are interested in transferring this to their television sets. New devices to make it easy to transfer from computer to TV are hitting the market. Increased awareness and education will increase the adoption of moving content from computer to TV.

More information here.

What I learn from this: TV is changing FAST, unfortunately TV programs are not changing at the same pace. There are loads of opportunities 'new' TV (or TV 2.0). Short engaging formats straight to the screen of your mobile should looks like one giant opportunity to me ... it's time YouTube make a neat little mobile client (like the Gmail client) that allows consumer to search/browse video's quickly on a mobile and then choose which they want to watch.

Any programmer out there who want to give this a go?

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Inside Column: Are you ready for the Pagens?

You have for sure met them, be it in your family or at work, in a bar or at the theatre, you meet them more and more in a business context, they are everywhere: the PAGENs. We used to have Yuppies, DINKS and BOBOs but now we are starting to be flooded by the members of the PArticipation GENeration. This newest generation ignores the conventions of traditional media and communication channels, chooses where they direct its attention and actively takes up its place in the conversation.

The Pagens were brought up with a massive choice of content, ranging from over a hundred TV channels, through thousands of podcasts, to millions of movies on YouTube. They can choose from a rich mix of professionally produced content and creations made by consumers. The course of an evening is not longer determined by the format of the leading TV station, the Pagens make their own choices: watch the news fifteen minutes delay, in the mean time they hang around in Second Life which then in turn blends in with a soap playing in the background, to then end the evening with an hour of Prison Break (downloaded via BitTorrent). Traditional advertising is ignored, zapped away, skipped or deleted. Especially if the advertising creation is does not reach the level of engagement as "24", "Heroes" or the Diet Coke/Mentos movies on YouTube.

But choosing from a broad offer is not enough for the Pagens. They want to be part of the conversation, they want to be able react and interact with the producer of the content or with their peers. They demand the space to let their creativity flow. Whenever there is not possibility to get into contact with the maker or the brand behind a website, they will direct their questions, or worse: their frustration, towards the blogosphere. In this way a networked communication cloud comes to life. Next, through online networks and communities the Pagens will vote certain content to heaven and discuss how good or bad your product is. So they are not alone, they are the biggest lobby-group in the world.

The Pagens have seized back the power over their time and the public opinion, two things that had been silently stolen by the media.

And you, do you know what the Pagens say about your brand? Is your website ready to receive the "PArticipation GENeration"? Is there room for conversation? Is your next campaign open for the creativity of the consumer? If not, then do not expect to get any attention from the Pagens.

I must admit, it's not easy to start the conversation. There are many uncertainties, and there are no rules. That is why intelligent experimenting is the message. In that way we have opened up all content for discussion on our own ONE Agency website. Do you feel inspired by our references or do you want to congratulate us on a realisation, then you can simply leave a trace on the site. We also welcome critical remarks, the only thing we ask is to identify yourself and respect the basic rules of politeness.
Whether such a model would work for your company is not certain. But the important thing is that you have to be open for conversation and learn how to handle the participation generation.

If you are interested in the PAGENS and how they influence marketing, check out our PAGEN blog: http://pagen.one-agency.be

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Mix07 - Leaving Las Vegas

Back in Belgium with a small jetlag. Wednesday was the last (half) day of Mix07 without much spectacular highlights. I attended a presentation on Agency 2.0, nice but nothing special and especially an extremely arrogant presenter ("is this being taped, you may not tape this" and "a copy of the presentation? that is something I did not reach an agreement over with Microsoft" ...). Then there was a session about making money from RSS, but there was only one slide actually addressing that subject.

The rest of the day was filled with enjoying the pool, shopping, a party and packing suitcases.

We left early thursday morning and back in Belgium on friday. Lot's of good news at the office, new projects launched, new wins, etc. More about that later.

If we find the time we may still make a Las Vegas video with all the footage we captured with our phones. If we do you'll read about it here.

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Mix07 - A busy day 2: Radio 2.0 & PURE party

Day two of the conference was one with many small highlights. The action was in the many breakout sessions, impossible to summarize in one post.

Mix07 has also prove to be a good way to get into contact with people within Microsoft and discuss how we can work together to make all of this new technology work for our customers. That is what we did most of the afternoon, thanks Geert.

The official part of the day ended with a plenary sessions where we got some more impressive demo's of Silverlight (or Sliverstring as we've come to call it after a few drinks) and it's off-line counterpart (which has a abbreviated name I can't remember). Online video and all kinds of interactive layers on top of video is for sure the number one subject here, but an interesting number two is for sure radio. We saw the demo of the interactive player from the BBC and I can tell you ... radio is going to move into the 2.0 era BIG TIME over the coming months.

Next there was a panel discussion about interactive marketing with Winston Binch (Crispin Porter + Bogusky), Carol Kruse (Coca Cola), Andrew Rashbass (The Economist) and Gayle Troberman (Microsoft). The guy from The Economist was great, he had a critical view on everything which gave the whole discussion a lot of dynamism. However, there was nothing much to learn really, good entertainment though.

http://images.soapbox.msn.com/flash/soapbox1_1.swf
Video: View from the PURE terrace during Mix07
"PURE" - the nightclub was the location for the big evening party. Imagine 1500 nerds (Microsoft T-shirt, too short pants) and 500 geeks (fiddling around with their smartphone) in the hippest place in town. It's a strange sight for sure. But the view over the strip from the terrace was impressive (see movie), great food and drinks and 'charming' waitresses. At 10pm the club opened to the general public, which meant we were no longer treated as VIP's but as weirdos not having to pay for their drinks as opposed to idiot's spending $350 usd to be able to sit down with a bottle of something. So we moved back to 'our' Venetian hotel for some gambling ... lost $100 in 20 minutes, no more gambling for me :(

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Mix07 - Rounding up day 1

The afternoon sessions were a mixture of demo's, presentations and discussions. The most remarkable event (which I missed as Jo and I were writing a press release about "ONE Agency launching a stunning new Radio player for VRT" near the swimming pool) was Dave Winer fundamentally disagreeing with David Hachez after he misunderstood his remark. David thinks (and I agree) thinks there should be an easy way to switch between podcasts while listening (some kind of hyperlinks) but Dave though he wanted to listen to two podcasts at the same time. A clash between generations ... is Dave Winer a digital immigrant after all? (isn't everybody who is over 21 of age).

In the evening the Belgian crowd went out for "MEAT", huge steaks at Morton's Steakhouse. I ate the best steak ever in my life (see picture)! It was a lot of fun once again, with loads of pictures being taken. There are a number of group pictures but I did not bring my camera so to the guys who made pictures >> send them, post them, comment them, Flickr them, whatever.

And the phone ... it's getting better by the minute. All the pictures here were taken with the Blackjack. I finally decided to do the sync-ing through "The Missing Sync" and that seems to work quite OK. Although some items (particularly the ones for which I aborted the sync) have switched to "Idle" mode which means I can't use that item anymore. And the pictures synced well until a few minutes ago :( But the phone itself ... it's a beauty. If you have a Windows Mobile 5 phone you should check out the Live Search client. It actually works (e.g. Find a strip club near the hotel (theoretical example) > show satelite pic and map > get directions including traffic info.

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Mix07 - Opening Keynote: Silverlight


The day started with Ray Ozzy (Chef Software Archichtect) and his friends launching Silverlight, Microsoft's alternative for flash.

If you want know all about Silverlight, there's loads of info online.
http://www.silverlight.net

What remember is that it's cross browser/cross platform from day one. Proof is that I installed the plugin for Firefox on my Mac during the speech and it works seamlessly. Although I must say the install process is a bit too complicated (download, extract, install, restart browser).
Second is the attention they give to video. Extremely high quality streaming (up to HD), watching video sync-ed with friends over the web and chatting about it, uploading user generated movies (out of the box), etc. Looks like a strong competitor for Flash media server.

Go download the plugin (beta):
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/downloads.aspx
Check out some demo's (although they do not seem to work, maybe due to low bandwidth in the room here):
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx (works, but not really spectacular)
http://silverlight.net/fox/ (THIS ONE YOU WANT TO SEE)
http://silverlight.net/showcase/Default.aspx (doesn't work)
http://ds.pilot.serving-sys.com/BurstingRes/WPFE/msn_tech.html (doesn't work)

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Mix07 - Blog dinner with Dave Winer

One would think that letting 15 people have dinner at one table in one of the biggest hotels in the world would be easy. Not in the US though, these guys here are so "organized" that they can't get anything done. So, the blog dinner was split over three tables and I did not sit at Dave's table.

But, no worries, my table was full of interresting bloggers. We had a cosy table of 6 with two guys from Switserland/Germany, two Americans and a Britt. We chatted about this and that, two notable subjects:

API's
Microsoft is announcing loads of possibilities to hook in to the Windows Live platform through API's (we heard in the morning). As long as you have no more then 1 million users on average per month, you can use the API's for free. One million is plenty for a small country like Belgium, so we need to have a closer look at that. The discussion at the table was about why Pandore (Tom Conrad - CTO @ Pandora was at the table)does not offer API's. The answer is simple: money. It's very difficult to monetize API's, if you're not Microsoft with HUGE traffic and deep pockets.

Startups 2.0
Tom had an interresting angle about the difference between startups in 2000 and startups today. Back then we had guys in smart suits with fancy business plans in a business they had no feel for. Today it's enthusiastic people who solve a problem they experience themselves, then find out other people may be interrested in that solution and then bring it to market.
That's probably one of the prime reasons why the current 2.0 investment "hause" is not a bubble.

Other issues ... I'm trying to get the Samsung Blackjack to sync somehow with the addresses on my Mac. I'm down to installing Outlook on Vista now ... . There are a number of tools (The missing sync and Pocket Mac)that offer kind of an ActiveSync for Mac. But I'd like to test them it before buying any of them.

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Mix07 - Pre conference day


(Chris Hoet in action)
Pre-conference here in Las Vegas, an easy day with some introductory sessions in the morning and I chose sports for the afternoon. So we learned some baseball basics and had fun carting.

First Highlight of the day:
We all (well, I guess the EMEA crowd) got a cell phone (Samsung Blackjack, a Blackberry lookalike) with the Agenda for the coming days. Cool! So I spent every minute in between sport activities configuring the phone. It's windows mobile and I'm getting the hang of it already. Chris pointed me towards Windows Live search, we installed it and indeed it has amazing possibilities. Withing a minute I had an map + satellite picture on my screen of the hotel and it's surroundings.
I also installed the Gmail client but it doesn't seem to connect with Gmail.

Second (and even bigger) highlight is a surprise Blog dinner with Dave Winer. I wonder what this is going to be like. On one hand I'm thrilled to meet this celebrity of modern time media in real life. But on the other hand I wonder what I will get out of it that may mean something to my customers and the things I'm working on daily.
Anyway, you can expect a report here (need to get a shower now).

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Mix07 - First stop in London (Covent Garden)


Our trip started early today (got up at 4 am) and in the mean time we arrived in London with the group. As we have more then half a day for the transit for our US bound flight, we decided to go into the city. So now we are here on a terrace in Covent Garden with 11 geeks abusing the Diamond Films Wifi for Skype, Joost, mail checking and of course Windows Live Messenger :)

The atmosphere is great, all 'competitors' chatting about and having fun, evaluating gadgets, etc.


Remarkable piece of advertising here in Covent Garden: The museum of old technologies (or something like that), which are a number of boxes showing replica's of 'ancient technologie' which is about to be replaced by the Nokia N95 (desktop computers, cars without GPS, CD-shops, etc.). The boxes send an ad via bluetooth (but nobody succeeded in receiving it, which is a pity) and there's flyers in the shape of old floppy's. Cool idea.

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