Isabel Walcott Draves

What Net Neutrality is All About

The broadband infrastructure providers, cable and phone companies are another group that doesn't want to lie in their own bed.  They're watching Internet startups eat their lunch, both with interesting content and VOIP services like Skype.  They got themselves into this problem by relying on canned content, failing to innovate in time with society, and overcharging for phone calls.  Of course, entrepreneurs stepped into the void. 

Now, broadband providers are inventing new ways to charge content and application providers, because they're watching the innovators get rich. A new bill just passed in the House would allow "phone and cable providers [to charge other] Internet content providers a premium for carrying services like video offerings that could rival those of the telecom companies."  Get it?  If Google offers movies competitive to AT&T's movies, and they want those movies available over AT&T's broadband, they'll have to pay AT&T whatever AT&T wants just to be able to show them.  A toll for offering competitive content or applications.  Over and above the high prices they already pay to use the infrastructure. 

In the future, going online may well be just like ordering a cable channel.  You won't ever see the "whole internet" again; instead you'll see certain websites if you have one broadband provider and other websites if you have a different provider.  If you live in a place where one broadband provider has a monopoly (newsflash: most places in the US), that "other Internet" won't even be available to you over broadband.  Of course, many innovative Internet applications and content providers - like you perhaps, with your video of your gravity-defying tricks - will never even get started, because the costs of going into business will be too high.

Why do I consider this (information super)highway robbery and not just free market goodness?  The companies that manage the Internet infrastructure have already taken our money based on common carrier assumptions.  They've been paid to provide something that they never provided.  They made their bed; they should lie in it.  If they're not going to be common carriers, then we should get our money back.  But government officials will probably help them out of it, because our representatives know what gets them elected.  "The House bill reflected the considerable clout of the telephone industry in the House, and in particular its ties to the Republican leadership there", says the NYTimes.

Do you want General Motors to buy up America's roads, and prevent you from driving on them if you have a Honda?  Do you want Sony to own our power lines, and charge extra to power up non-Sony appliances?  Do you want Continental and United to own all the airports, and charge USAir and Jet Blue planes exorbitant prices to take off and land there?  It just doesn't make sense for the government to give the utility companies control over the content and applications that run on top of the network backbone.  Internet connectivity should remain a utility-like, common carrier infrastructure.  This "Barton bill" should be voted down, or the Markey Net Neutrality amendment to it supported, despite its flaws.  Or, give me my money back, AT&T.

You Made Your Bed

When I was a kid, my mom used to say, "You made your  bed, you lie in it."

I didn't actually make my bed very often, but I knew what she meant.  You're responsible for dealing with the situations you create.  And you're responsible for having created them.  Don't blame others for your problems, or expect them to help you out of it.

When I look at the situation with media today, I see large media, retail and telecom companies trying to blame others for the problems they got themselves into.  And they expect others to help them get out of it.  Take this article in AdAge: "Survey: 48.9% of Marketing Execs Have Paid for Placement in Content".

Traditional media companies wonder why ordinary Americans would see any value in a blog, written by an amateur?  Well, of course we would, if the published, edited, "professional" content we read is nothing but a big ad.  According to this article, 65% of "consumers" assume product mentions in editorial are bought and paid for.

I've mentioned here before that retailers spend millions trying to get customers to "switch" brands, and then complain that "there's no customer loyalty anymore".

Hey, you guys teach us stuff, we learn.  You made your bed, you lie in it.  And don't come crying to me if you need to figure out how to handle the fact that your traditional ad campaigns aren't working anymore, or you need to learn how to do user-generated content or build an online community.  Oh wait... do come running to me.  That's my job, after all.

McDonald's Smackdown

Someone did an amazing hack of McDonald's for the International Serious Games event.  An Italian group called MolleIndustria made an interactive game in which you can simulate running McDonalds, mowing down rainforests and spreading heart attacks in your wake.  The hoaxsters presented their game at the Gaming event, pretending to be McDonald's executives.

They claimed they learned their lesson - that McDonald's threatened to destroy the world if it keeps up its current business practices.  Now, they said, they were going to spread the message until they were fired.  They claimed younger recruits at the company who played the game as a management exercise "got it" right away, while the entrenched executives refused to see the light.

The hoax, initially reported in several spots as real, and corrected by Consumerist, is being picked up in blogs all over the web.  Now the hoax has gotten so much organic word-of-mouth buzz that the Serious Games site is down - I assume it couldn't handle the traffic it was getting.  Or did they get a C&D?

So, what is the lesson here for those marketers who avidly try to generate Word of Mouth? 

One, the internet populace cannot be controlled, so companies can't expect to control their corporate messaging.  Customer needs must now be thoroughly incorporated into business plans and product development to prevent any negative activism from gaining popularity (McDonald's has actually done a good job of getting salads and healthier sandwiches onto the menu, so kudos to them).

Two, it's SO IMPORTANT for companies to develop their own online community that can say good things about them when the going gets rough.  I call this concept "WOM anti-virus".  I would highly recommend that every CSR department start a community -- perhaps with one of my top clients, Communispace -- that will help them understand public sentiment, and begin to genuinely and organically spread good buzz for them if they deserve it.

Need I point out that the community won't back up the corporation (Two) unless the corporation backs up the community (One)?  I wish that went without saying.