Worth A Read In NMA 13th September 2007

This is just meant as a way for those that don't subscribe to NMA find news stories that they may wish to research elsewhere.

P1/ GCAP shuns social network trend
Its nice to see a media owner not jump on the social media bandwagon. I'm getting fed up of every site trying to add a full-blown social media section. Most sites have social media aspects - they often have forums and "send to a friends". It's not always necessary to spend many thousands redesigning your site to "keep up with the Jones'".

P2/ Vue and Cineworld sign up to run Bluetooth ads
I'm getting fed up with "interruption advertising". There's been the story in the past with a bank that sends you a message via bluetooth if you walk past their branches and have bluetooth on. If cinemas want to send offers related to movie releases such as videos clips and a discount code to get the sound track from an online retailer this is marginally acceptable, but bombarding people with advertising messages when they're in the cinema is something different than when they're sat in front of the screen because they can ignore them. With you're mobile you'll either to have to turn bluetooth off (which would piss me off as I use it for my handsfree system in my car) or actively decline the message. I'm just generally getting annoyed with the pervasive nature of advertising these days.


P3/ Online gaming and gambling firms to invest more in SEO
I bet loads of SEO companies are licking their lips and rubbing their hands in glee. This will be short-lived when they look at the scale of the problem they'll be facing. The problem with affiliate marketing is that it encourages hundreds/thousands of people to compete with you on the SEO front. Granted, you'll have the PR advantage (both types) but you'll need a highly experienced and imaginative SEO company if you're going to get true ROI.

P3/ HMV offers voucher to promote new website
I didn't see any network or merchant emails about this (but I probably wouldn't have read it anyway). But HMV have changed their branding; the logo and nipper have changed and they're pushing people to use their HMV.com site. On page 9 (I don't know why they didn't put it on the same page, the new site has increased sales by 12%.

P9/ Barclays gets into social networking
Why-o-why-o-why?
Apparently "Barclays in the Community is expected to include user-generated content like videos and blogs. But when you look "under the hood"; they're doing a lot of hard work in local communities, funding sports projects etc. So they'll be adding videos about that effort and not simply videos from ordinary old savers talking about how great their interest rate is. Good on them!

P10/ Seeing the brand value of Faceboook groups
This is a good quick read from Robin Goad from Hitwise UK and looks at how brands can benefit and suffer from Facebook groups being created about them. He mentions that over 1,900 retailers received traffic from Facebook in August.