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Dr Search has found that, despite the warnings, some firms are still risking brand damage from cybersquatters by not protecting their Twitter account brand name.
While the social media gold rush continues, there remains a darker side to Web 2.0 that can potentially damage brand reputations through no fault of your business.

Last year a survey of Twitter accounts for 100 big brand advertisers revealed that few had ownership of the Twitter handles that corresponded with the name of their brands.

More worrying still, several big names had fallen victim to cybersquatters, including Mastercard and General Motors.

Several months later and some brands have still yet to heed the warning, as Dr Search discovered when I uncovered a worrying level of brand cybersquatting of one of the UK’s most recognised high street chains.

It all came about following a visit to a Bristol branch of the Costa Coffee last week. I chose that particular chain because I picked up one of the company’s new loyalty cards recently so that particular customer strategy worked. One strategy that didn’t though was a conversation I overheard.

Only last week at the European Customer Experience World, Kip Knight, president of Knight Vision Marketing, warned attendees of the dangers of cybersquatters.

In fact, after a session discusing the value of social media to the customer experience and emphasising how firms not involved in the practice should make it a priority, he chose to conclude his address with a warning about cybersquatting and the damage it can do to your brand.

“If you currently don’t own the brand name on your Twitter account, you’d better go and check that out, because a squatter might be sat on it right now,” he stressed.

You might have people writing things about your brand name that you don’t even know about! Dr Search asks- how pleasing is that for you?

It is a mistake to only focus on the location awareness aspect of mobile as its potential goes much deeper.

Mobile is a very personal device, the PC will often be shared but the mobile phone tends to enjoy a personal and monogamous relationship. It tends to be kept in close proximity at all times. A PC is turned on when needed a mobile phone is typically permanently on.

Whilst the web was about users surfing between brands, mobile offers the opportunity for a tighter, more valuable, relationship.

Search is replaced by one-off selection in an App Store. Organisations can now reach users at their point of need, pushing information outwards, and delivering services that are valuable at that precise time.

But the digital industry appears divided. Some argue that providing a web application tuned for mobile, accessible across many different handsets, is the most efficient and manageable solution. That is correct, it is, for the organisation.

Others understand that the future of mobile web is likely to lie in custom applications that the user chooses to download (thus removing future attention going to your competitors) and, crucially, fits in with the user experience of the handset.

A prerequisite to engaging the mobile consumer, is to provide an experience that is useful to them in their given context and fully meets their expectations in terms of usability.

The key to mobile engagement is to satisfy their needs immediately- by focusing on delivering utility and making life a little easier, better or more enjoyable.

Today we do see some blunt, early attempts at using geo-awareness. Websites and applications that try to combine the popularity of social media with the rudimentary functionality of recording where a user is, through the user checking in. Some, offer the potential for issuing reward vouchers based on location and other criteria.

Perhaps an interesting starting point, but hard to see how such applications really add value to the end user beyond a passing novelty. From an organisation’s perspective there is an intermediate brand now involved in the communication. This is undesirable and largely unnecessary.

So what could be done and what kind of applications really would drive deeper consumer engagement?

A typical application for a restaurant, today, will probably offer the ability to reserve a table combined with a location map and some generic content about the brand. But this does not really drive significant user interaction or show any thought for the end to end process.

Before arriving I would of course want to be able to book a table. But I also want turn by turn navigation to help me find the venue, or better somewhere to park. If I am delayed I would like the restaurant to know, automatically, so they can hold my table.

Once I have arrived at the restaurant I want the same application to become my menu, complete with specials for the specific restaurant that I am in, recommendations from my friends and actually, why not just let me order through it when I am ready?

Perhaps I would like to see what other dinners thought to the different menu choices in real time.

I want all of this through just one application.

That application now goes with me everywhere, and can receive notifications. This opens up a range of new ways for the relationship to develop, which may easily extend to beyond a place I just go to eat at occasionally.

Boarding the train of the future I anticipate my complimentary newspapers to be available online whilst I am on the train (yes they can pay for the subscription as part of my season ticket benefit). Before I board the train I would like to pay for my parking with a single press of one button. Payment can be taken via my pre-registered credit card.

The phone already knows where I am and when I return, so I can just pay for the time I use. Of course the same ‘train’ application is my season ticket, ad-hoc travel ticket, travel information and electronic concierge. One application extends and redefines my relationship with what was once just the train carrier.

Before I even arrive at the train station there are other new relationship opportunities. I may need fuel, a fact that surrounding service stations may find interesting.

The day of a real time reverse auction at individual consumer level is not far away. I would like my travel application to inform me of the best price that it has agreed for me.

Who provides the application? The manufacturer of my car, the petrol company, my mobile phone provider? The answer is who ever wants to own an ongoing relationship with me around supporting my travel. A very different, but viable, model that requires us to think differently about what engaging the consumer through mobile really means.

There are countless other examples; when the consumer is at home, at work, in a shopping centre, playing golf even! It is also important to remember that consumers maintain relationships with local authorities and other public services.

Mobile engagement provides opportunity for the public sector to improve efficiency.

The technology and the consumer are ready and waiting, how will your organisation engage them?

From: http://www.mycustomer.com/topic/customer-experience/engaging-mobile-consumer/107563?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mycustomer%2Fall+%28MyCustomer.com%29

An ongoing disagreement means hundreds of millions of Apple customers are unable to watch an estimated 75 per cent of online video on their cutting edge mobile devices.
With the iPad’s arrival in the UK imminent, the fallout has escalated, with significant implications for the future of the internet.

Almost all online video embedded in websites requires a programme called Adobe Flash Player to work. Despite the pervasive presence of Flash on the internet, Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, long ago barred it from working on his company’s iPhones, iPods and iPads.

In February, Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, accused Mr Jobs of building a “walled garden” around his products, arguing that the restrictions on Flash were part of a plot to ensure that Apple customers could only use software bought from the company’s own online store.

Others in the technology industry have accused the company of monopoly building.

But last week, Mr Jobs hit back. A 1,600 word post entitled “Thoughts on Flash” appeared on Apple’s website, in which he said the two companies had “few joint interests”, adding that “Flash has not performed well on mobile devices” and that “we also know first-hand that Flash is the number one reason [Apple's desktop computer] Macs crash”.

He added that Flash had a poor security record and that “we don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash”.

“Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers,” he wrote, before adding: “Adobe should focus more on creating great… tools for the future, and less on criticising Apple for leaving the past behind.”

Apple has reiterated its disapproval of Apps using a third-party development tool like Flash. The reasoning behind it is that development platforms target the lowest common denominator. Jobs writes “we cannot accept an outcome where developers are blocked from using our innovations and enhancements because they are not available on our competitor’s platforms”.

Mr Narayen responded by saying the post was “really a smokescreen”, telling the Wall Street Journal that Apple’s policy of blocking Flash had “nothing to do with technology”. He also pointed out that if the programme crashes Apple devices, it had more “to do with the Apple operating system” than with Flash.

Adobe’s chief technology officer, Kevin Lynch, said the company would create a “great landscape of choice” for other, Flash-enabled mobile devices manufactured by Apple’s rivals, including Google, Nokia, Palm and Microsoft.

But for the foreseeable future, iPhones users will just have to make do with static pictures.

Internet giant Google has threatened an Australian businessman with legal action if he tries to register his company Groggle as a trademark.

Groggle has nothing to do with search engines but instead lets consumers find the cheapest priced alcohol.

Cameron Collie has spent two years setting up the alcohol price comparison website, and was in the process of getting the name Groggle trademarked when he received a letter from Google claiming the name was “substantially identical with and deceptively similar to” its own trademarks.

The letter came after Mr Collie, 36, had spent thousands of dollars setting up the company and buying the relevant domain names on the internet.

The site, which allows consumers to search for the cheapest price alcohol – or grog – in their area, was in the beta test phase and Collie was planning a formal launch within weeks, as well as an accompanying iPhone app.

His trademark application had been accepted by IP Australia, which grants rights in patents, trademarks, and designs, when the cease and desist letter arrived.

The letter demands that Mr Collie withdraw his trademark application, change the company name and transfer all domain names to Google, according to the Sydney Morning Herald’s website.

If Mr Collie does not comply with its demands the letter said Google would “make an urgent application to the court seeking interlocutory injunctions restraining Groggle and its directors”.

Mr Collie told smh.com.au that he could not afford to fight Google in the courts.

“We don’t have the financial backing to fight them on this, we just want them to reconsider because it’s just crazy,” he said.

Mr Collie said that Groggle was simply a play on the word grog, Australian slang for alcohol, and he had decided on the name after discovering that grogger.com was taken.

“We want Google to reconsider and realise that we’re not a threat and never will be,” he said.