Soon to be joining the mobile think tank

So a day to go and I'm in the office, on a Saturday when the weather's fine, making a couple of last minute preparations. But such is the trade off for this trip I guess.
Some reassuring news is that the MD of C-Scout, a highly respected trends company we're meeting, seems to know most of the people Matt has organised us to meet! Not that their calibre was ever in doubt!
Time to sack this off, enjoy a final bit of English sunshine in a park before entering the experience of Tokyo!
Gareth

Newsflash: Dark forces don't want us to know the truth

I have been here less than 48 hours and so far there has been two earthquakes, reported to be 6.7 magnitude and a radioactive leak. Might be a good time to ask for the ACOM travel insurance policy, I'm pretty sure they're both excluded.

The social media conference I'm attending is taking place in Marunouchi, the political, imperial, economic and geographical centre of Tokyo which due to a variety of foreign architecture was once dubbed 'London Town'. So if we gave them our architecture the least they can do is help out with a few mobile and social media insights don't you think?

Day one of the conference covered....

The day kicked off with a Taiwanese chap brought up in Seattle and now working for Microsoft in Japan who should therefore have been able to give a very rounded view. Talking about social networking he conceded it's more of an art than a science, and that it supports the online evolution of web 2.0 + bringing the online experience closer to the physical experience.

Whilst Social Networking (SN) is still relatively new to many, social interactions are not. And so to be successful SN needs to support human interactions and not the other way around.

Mixi was discussed by him and other speakers today, it is Japan's largest social network and is entirely invitation only. It's success stems very much from that characteristic since people feel more engaged because of this exclusivity to which they are part of.

Mixi also seems to show a higher stickiness than sites from UK/USA and that is because it is more about connecting with like-minded people.

What can Social Networking do?

Mark Brooks of socialnetworkingwatch.com talked at length about social networks around the world and their differing approaches and success. The Korean Cyworld actually seems to have cracked the profitability model with $10 per active member compared to Facebook's $2.50. This stems from their, and similarly Mixi's success ($7) is based upon the use of digital goods as well as advertising to earn revenue. More on this later, sufficeth to say one site left you in your underwear for all to see until you paid up.

So Mark's belief in Social Networking for brands is to harvest the evangelists and encourage connectors. BMW for example has 4000 blog entries in Japan per day. To get the attention of the connectors you need to show you are listening and responding to their views.

Apparently 32% of the Japanese population use SN sites, and more of these are using mobile than computers to access Mixi.

There was some discussion about corporate SNs, companies such as Japan Airlines are using them successfully in Japan to connect with their employees and for them to connect with senior management who might not otherwise hear the word from the shopfloor. Had we had such a forum might we anticipated some of the recent problems since there is no shortage of people claiming they would have told you so?

A key benefit of these internal, firewalled corporate sites is that they offer an outlet for disgruntled employees that prevents them needing to air their dirty laundry on public forums. Companies in Japan introducing employee SNs found public rumours spread on specific public internet sites dropped significantly.

Corporate SNs also offer the opportunity to benefit from the experience, expertise and knowledge not only of the whole disparate organisation, but also retired employees if you wish to include them.

Datemypet.com

The conference also covered on a smaller scale some developments in online dating industry, quite different to SN in it's financial model, but experiencing trends which could well reflect the future for SN.


The key focus was on niche, largefriends.com, scientist.com, cyclingsingles.comdatinginwales.com, christianmingle.com, rugbylovers.com, blackchristianpeoplemeet.com, and datemypet.com.

The latter I believe is not quite as alarming as it sounds, and the dates occur with the pet owners as opposed to the pet themselves. But the reason these niches are being embraced by content owners is because as a smaller audience they are cheaper to reach, a higher relevancy means higher conversion (and easier to get a domain name) and because it is more relevant it has higher retention. All contributing to higher profitability potential.

These factors could equally be applied and may already do so to SNs. The dating sites are growing rapidly in these niches because they can utilise white label technology and one company will be launching a white label SN engine later this year which will no doubt fuel the same diversification in SNs.

All together now

Zude presented their ability to be the daddy of all SNs with the functionality that enables users to pull together content from all their social networks to a single place as easily as drag and drop. It is also used by bands to create a web hub of their SN pages since it allows you to take the best of everything (e.g. Flickr, Youtube) and bring it all together.

It is an impressive tool and one worth exploring. It also enables what they call 3D ad targetting based upon the deographics of the user, the content of the page, and the demographics of the visitors to the page.

It's all pants

And finally some detail about Mobagetown (pronounced Mo-ba-ga-town).

This is a mobile only SN, it has become profitable and sticky through the use of games which you earn credits to play by clicking on ads, or digital content you can buy to spruce up your Avatar.

An avatar is a character that represents you whenever you leave a comment or when you are playing a game. So imagine the shame if your friends were to see you just in your underwear on the www. Well on signing up for Mobagetown that is all you are provided with until you buy some clothes. 50% of their revenue comes from such sales.

Ad funded content is seen as the biggest opportunity since the market for paid for content is limited. Ad funded games is seen as the main development, and Dentsu the largest ad agency in Japan has licensed a range of games for its clients.

Mobagetown will also allow a brand to create a totally branded version of the site, as coca-cola has done, with branded digital goods. Uniqlo also ran a campaign with money off coupons to use in store which also gave you the same free outfit as you bought in-store for your avatar. It was also supported by a game which allowed you to see some of the current range and try it on your avatar.

Search and go

Another emerging trend is the use of search within SNs, Mixi is working with google to provide search functionality embedded in Mixi, and Mobagetown has developed it's own, including highly targeted location based functionality which we will be finding more about next week.

And the final thought, it was predicted that mobile advertising will outstrip online advertising within a few years.

True or false: Here is something to leave you with overnight before the next thrilling instalment.

In Japan, the sky is green and the leaves are blue.

And so to bed

Whilst the primary objective of this trip is to learn about mobile and social networking, it has also provided an opportunity to experience first hand Terminal 5 and the Club World service.

And by making the most of this opportunity and engaging with willing crew and passengers this has already provided valuable insights for our Premium Leisure campaigns which challenge our current view and provide new territories to explore.

Terminal 5 met it’s promise, from arriving at the terminal to reaching airside took less than eight minutes, in fact in total from disembarking from the Heathrow Express to passing through security took less than 15 minutes in total.

The lounges were spacious, stylishly furnished, and a calm oasis in this travellers day.

You know how futuristic the terminal is when you overhear a receptionist advising a passenger wishing to use the Elemis Spa that there are no therapists available but they can have a massage by a robotic chair. And whilst that passenger may have been sceptical I thought it really was very good, squeezing, and kneading and generally reaching the parts other chairs and many masseurs probably don’t even consider looking for.

On board the journey was smooth, you can't legislate for the slightly drunk Australian snorer so I was grateful for BA having provided such effective noise reducing headphones.

So having landed at Narita airport I arrived at the airport express train to be met by the little known welcoming ceremony of the dancing chairs. The train having just pulled in was preparing to change direction, with all seats facing the same direction, unlike Club World, the Japanese solution is to automatically swivel them all around and like sycnronised swimming it was a bizarrely interesting to watch.

And it is this passion for technology, with toilets that are so sophisticated they need an instruction manual it is no surprise we are here to learn from Japanese innovation.

The final stop for me on the Narita Express was Shinyuku, as the worlds busiest station with 50 different exits it is a challenge to just find around it. And our challenge is no different, we will not be short of possibilities in our path ahead, but the key is to know which route to take.

So the jet lag has won and I am retiring to bed 24 hours after my journey began at Heathrow Terminal 5.

Why come fly with me?

It’s coming, it’ll be here soon, any day now, it’s this year for sure….

Mobile hasn’t shown the promise in the UK it has been expected to do for some years, but a number of factors such as capped pricing for dats mean in the world of mobile internet surf’s up.

And we need to be at the crest of that wave, not behind it. So what better way to understand the opportunity than to examine it in situ in the world’s most advanced mobile marketplace, Japan. To see first hand how examples of best practice and inspiration from: brands, academics, and product innovators who have embraced and benefited from the opportunities mobile provides.

And so with the help of Katherine Whitton’s Come fly with me initiative, myself, Merran, Gareth and myself are accompanying Chris Davies on a research trip to delve deeper.

It is clearly a model we should look at, if not in some ways at least, follow.

And whilst we’re at it, many know about Japan’s leadership in mobile innovation, but it is also a hotbed for Social Networking. Whilst Facebook, and MySpace may seem to dominate they are a drop in the ocean when compared to developments in Asia.

After all QQ dates back to 1997, and Cyworld 1999, more than five years before Faceook and MySpace entered our psyche. And they are dwarfed by the 300 million active accounts of QQ.com, Facebook stands at just 60 million.