Google is a household name all over the world, probably even in the fields of agriculture here in Tianjin.  Gone are the libraries; gone are the people who hand down ancient practices.  Today, if you want to find out something, you go to the Internet.

There really is no avoiding the implications or the sheer need for such a creation.  However, the Internet has become a force of its own.  Bringing down newspapers and magazines, supporting huge networks of people, and creating giants who control information, the Internet is hungry for more power.

There is a huge gap between who wants advertising space, and how much there is to give. Anyone logging on to the Internet will be overwhelmed by the gigantic supply of adverts, which pop up almost anywhere you look.

It is this gaping hole which is creating problems for the advertising industry as a whole. This is because the gap is being filled by sneaky, sometimes underhand methods. It seems that most people don’t understand how this is being done or how it will affect them.

An example of this is “behavior tracking”. This is the Internet’s ability to generate targeted adverts based on the web user’s personal details. While 92 percent of young adults believe behavior tracking is against their needs, the practice is on the increase. http://bit.ly/2IGHT8 In fact, with Google leading the way with targeted adverts for Google Mail users, it is becoming a big problem not only in America but also here in China.  The biggest problem is that most people don’t realize it is happening – or what they can do to avoid being advertised to in this way. In the meantime, they will continue to receive adverts which have been generated based on their sex, location, and age. It’s no wonder that people are starting to become wary of the Internet advertiser’s increased power.

It is particularly when you put advertising into the mix, that the implications for the media become clear. Currently, advertising is the sole model for growth of all media. Figures show that on the web, only 8 per cent of all users account for 85 per cent of all ads clicking. This is down by half through this year alone. http://bit.ly/2IRICw

While it was once the model for tracking, clicking is becoming outdated and new methods of cookie tracking are in force and taking hold.  Now your presence online can be targeted from your initial search query, all the way to your brick-and -mortar purchase, and used for profiling.

Who is King? Display, Search, Print?

The Internet accounts for over 50 billion dollars in advertising every year, with the US alone accounting for 20 billion. This figure is continuing to grow.  Premium online ads are going up 32 per cent year over year with no end in sight. http://bit.ly/2fvISY

Nowhere is this better exemplified than here in China, where some sites are so heavily overloaded with advertising you wonder what content is actually being provided.  Have you ever tried logging on at an Internet café and felt frustrated by the number of pop-up adverts blocking your way?

However China also puts things very much in perspective for advertisers.  This is because for brick and mortar stores selling their wares, the print media is still the most effective vehicle for advertising. http://bit.ly/9nFtB It seems that the Internet has created a strange void between national advertisers and your corner bakery.

This is not stopping the Internet in China.  Sina, China’s leading Internet portal is expected to grow by at least 35 per cent in this year alone. http://bit.ly/htkZb This is like nothing else around the world.  The reason for this is that Asian countries are dominated by display advertising over the Western-preferred search method.  Display here is expected to grow by 60 per cent by the end of 2010. http://bit.ly/3kDJ1a If I were a surfer, I would call that a dangerous reef.

Part of the reason for this phenomenal surge is that display advertising has found a home on social community and networking sites. http://bit.ly/2G8yS3 However, social community sites only hold about 15 per cent share of all online advertising.  In fact the dominance comes from search engines.

Search engine Baidu (which is up from $100.50 to a yearly high of $439.90) is now garnering new power as it integrates its new search results system, known as the Pheonix Nest System. http://bit.ly/QymgF

According to Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt: “Five years from now the Internet will be dominated by Chinese-language content.”  This might be a free pass for Baidu to start leading the way in which search is created and delivered to the world, while Google continues to focus on its operating system and mobile technology.

My phone is their life!

Another cunning advertising-dominated strategy comes from HTC – the company that makes the nine different Google Android powered phones. By launching its new Quietly Brilliant ‘YOU’ ad campaign, they are promoting the idea that: “You don’t need to get a phone. You need to get a phone that gets you.” http://bit.ly/3jy3cf Of course, they aren’t doing this just to impress upon you their new little toy; this is again an advertising dominated strategy.  Lenovo is even buying back its mobile phone business to pursue mobile Internet technology. http://bit.ly/54jD8Q

While most people are not going to buy a phone with the thought: “Wow! My telephone is now the new ad rag!”  There are many people who would gladly see ads as helpful if it meant that in return they could lower their costs of purchasing the phones or even the service charges. http://bit.ly/6BnSNT People would probably get used to it very quickly – you may have noticed how most phones here in Tianjin are inundated with ad text messages every time you hang up or send a message.

For some people this doesn’t matter because they delete the messages every so often. However, you may be the owner of a new smart phone, which takes several steps to acquire the message and provides you with that dirty little message-notification bleep that won’t go away till you look at the message.  These days there too many able capabilities to deliver full screen MMS messages to your phone while the phone is idle. http://bit.ly/7rvdpj Therefore that is the first thing you see when you click your phone on from the black screen.

Like the movement in the US to stop dinnertime telemarketers, many hope there will be movements to remove these developments in stealth advertising.  Although nifty in concept, after a while the most noticeable thing about them is how annoying they are.  This is a story where again the percentages are low and most people, if they had the chance, would never opt-in.

Hey executives, I’m my own company

But what if you’re on the dark side? Perhaps you’re an advertiser looking to utilize the Internet for your business? The good news is that there are several ways to turn the world of Internet advertising to your advantage.

There are millions of bloggers in cyberspace telling you how you can make money by monetizing your blog.  With so many people claiming to be in the know, how come there are still so few who are actually reaping the benefits?

The bright spot is in the creative.  This year there was a man in the US who made $83,000 broadcasting himself on the Internet.  What he did was go to consumer product companies and said he would wear their company T-shirt for a day. http://bit.ly/1IoWDg Then he got out there, into the sunshine, and took videos of himself wearing it. At the end of a day’s catwalking, he would get on Facebook and share his thoughts, write something on his blog, keep everyone up to date on his Twitter, and basically become a one-man billboard.

This idea has also been demonstrated in effect here in China.  Thousands of girls are online on Taobao promoting the clothes that they buy.  These skinny little things have themselves followed around by amateur photographers as they pose and primp themselves, creating beautiful pictures that the other girls online just simply can’t get enough of – adoring them for all those pretty little pink dresses and haute couture jeans they wear.

This is the new content: Blogging and news feeds.  Whether it’s fashion, how to use makeup, or providing a fresh take on the news, social content makes up 40 per cent of all online traffic – outstripping community, communication, e-commerce and search. http://bit.ly/9m4n5 This content sharing is the premium space on the Internet and the giants are trying to control it.

However, the giants are having a tough time trying to create fair competition in terms of asset prices in the difference between online sales and brick and mortar establishments. http://bit.ly/48zdSS It’s certainly the case that many people now go out shopping with the sole intention of window-browsing and then returning to the Internet to buy.  This creates an even larger supply side window, as more people try to fill the small portion of demand accrued by the big retailers and girl’s shopping sites like Hers.

The ad focus is tried and true and will be

This is a very narrow view on the whole topic, because in reality the Internet population is spread roughly equally across all social economic backgrounds and age groups. http://bit.ly/1HEzxT This comes from better-developed Internet markets. However, eventually this will take place within all cultures. Yet even with the wide swath of consumer interest, advertisers tend to pick on the younger more affluent customers.  The power of the Internet should develop to accept this swath of population, unlike magazines and television have done.

In China advertising is very family-centric with the young heavily influencing the older generation.  Many Chinese adverts try to pull families together.  But in social economic struggles, as we are experiencing now, advertising should associate their product with positive emotions of calmness rather than happiness. http://bit.ly/14cquu China’s advertising is still a little giddy and focuses much on the happy family unit a little too much.  By diversifying the mother from the father from the daughter, advertising will become more effective.

For instance with the various super novas, Google is trying very hard to take over the mobile phone industry by attracting younger generations who understand more how to utilize smart phones.  Apple is hoping to come into China to reach the mature wives market with its advertised ability to help the home become a place of prestige.  In addition, Microsoft is focusing on the business end, looking mainly at the older generation with their Software as a Service (SaaS) and helping the businessman of the house create value in their business. http://bit.ly/Z6kex

You are there and I will reach you

The Internet is the key to all of these changes and ChinaNet (CHNT) a full-service media development has already shown third quarter results in an increase of 21.7 per cent. http://bit.ly/3uGBcc It seems strange that companies similar in the US are at such a disadvantage.  The US currently wants everyone to pay for their content and only 50 per cent of US citizens would be willing to pay a fraction for their media content. http://bit.ly/aW9us

In addition, the US is currently thinking of using tax-payers money to finance journalism. http://bit.ly/Aomdf There are now even algorithms that generate story ideas, which in turn predict the revenue they will generate, and determine how much they are worth. http://bit.ly/8zBqkY Where China already has government regulation on content, the US is now stepping in to see whether this area needs regulation.

This could sound a death- knell for Internet advertising and cause it real harm.  Recently there have been privacy hearing and briefings. http://bit.ly/2auIjL This is mostly due to the usage by the adolescent age group who are now picking up the Internet heavily.  The line between what adults use as content and what children explore is becoming more blurred, especially here in China.

In the US KidZui is a new web browser that maximizes parent and child computer time to connect and converse through shared content online. http://bit.ly/e4H1w Here in China it is all too obvious that the children own the computer and the parents watch television.  There is almost no interaction at all.  High school students can spend endless hours after school staring at the computer while parents cook dinner, clean up and make themselves ready for bed.  There is almost complete separation between the family members.

However, while the students are busy studying at school, the parents are busy developing their new business models around advertising.   In the US, 42 per cent of SMBs have websites. http://bit.ly/25Ld80 In contrast to those that build websites the smaller businesses advertise more.  It is difficult to say whether this will come to Tianjin.  While the small guy sees the need to advertise, or otherwise the family network is soon to run out, many of the smallest businesses do this by using stickers or plasters.  The Internet is seen as a domineering component in advancement.

Small families with small time shops see traffic as the people who pass by their shop, not the people who see them as part of the local online community.  It is the children in the family who are building these neighborhood bonds.  How to maximize them as an integral part of the family business, most likely dismays them, let alone their parents.

That’s mine: Give it back!

As for television in China, $1.6 billion will be spent next year on China Central Television – an increase on previous years. http://bit.ly/2yzE4C There is no doubt that China will watch television in the future, but the dynamics of television are limited.  This again only allows national television sponsors and major foreign influences to enter.  The message will be clear: Following the age-old tradition – family is always first.  The market is huge and the focus is limited, for this reason supply is low and demand is high, therefore higher prices.  This is a good strategy if you are in the television business, but proves to be a bad buy if you are in advertising.  There are alternatives but there are also other things taking place.

In the US there have been eight quarters of double-digit drops for the advertising industry in newspapers. http://bit.ly/8VQppo Here in China, newspapers are still easy to get, and much is the same online.  For some reason, online newspapers are not cannibalizing the printed version.  They are almost one in the same.  It is like reading the printed version, simply transformed online.  There is not an overload of spotted advertising and the screen is left resilient enough that you are free to browse your e-paper.

However, China seems to be one of the more outstanding economies when it comes to context.  In most areas of the world, content is copied between four and 15 times around the Internet.  That means that the same story is just copied over and over.  With this in mind, how does the Tianjin newspaper fare when the locals can find the same content on most of their favorite sites, without ever going directly to the news channel site?  The reason is that it really takes that much to reach that many people.

However, in the US the FTC has claimed that newspapers have lost $20 billion over the last year. http://bit.ly/6ySRUu This is not happening in China at all.  Newspapers are so easy to get and they come in morning and evening editions, and people have so much time to break open the paper, that advertising is still a very strong medium here in Tianjin.

Hey hey hey, you figure it out

Tianjin is not worried about advertising.  In fact it is accepted and well reputed here.  The age-old saying of breaking through the clutter is almost dust in the wind here.  Clutter provides a promise that people will notice it.  And yet people try so hard.

Compared to traditional advertising, product placement can arouse the least unpleasant feeling from the audience because it is naturally merged into the scenes of a movie or game and does not interrupt the user’s enjoyment.  Integrating commercials into games can create more influence to users because movie product placement is static while in games it is interactive. In fact, when a user finds a new ad in a game in China that they are familiar with and used to playing with it, the first reaction is to not to ignore the ad but to click on it and see what bonus one can get by acquiring this product because such a product always possesses some properties that can give a hand in the game.

So advertising in China is well accepted.  The rest of the world should watch as China takes over the first initiative to incorporate advertising into everything that is online.  It is admired as well as empowering.  The overwhelming presence of the fad will not leave China.  The rest of the world will find it difficult to leave these fads unnoticed.  Millions of people are being attracted to seemingly simple advertising tools.  Although they may be cloaked in games or cinema, it does not matter because this country prides itself on the incoming of gigantic pulls in seemingly unnoticeable emotions, like joy.

Advertising is a giant, so it must have a purpose.  In most countries, critics cry out that there should be none.  But the true-to-heart know that advertising is likely to be here forever.  It seems safe to say that advertising will drive the economy in 2010.  Advertising will be the first notifier for every industry that will once again re-emerge. When people have the money to spend on advertising, it means that things are looking up for public spending. However this time, advertising is no longer the indicator but the master. It creates a cycle: Advertisers spend money trying to get people to buy their products – thus granting them more money to spend on advertising.

Google, as always, is at the forefront of this wave. The company is always trying to develop and innovate their adverts. They want them “Bigger, Better, more Interactive. We’ll keep trying new things until we discover the ‘perfect’ ads.” http://bit.ly/5OFXjB And this is all going to happen in a blink of an eye – or the click of a mouse.

This graph shows the amount CPM’s cost per industry, some a little over $12 and some only $3.  I will have to go back and reference this factoid but only 2% of all ads on the Internet are clicked on only once.  So if we take the first ten industries giving us ten industry CPMs and say ten advertisers per industry that would give us 100 ads and 100,000 views.  Now only 2 of those ads would be clicked on.  The total for the ten industries is $76.13 and the total for the 100 ads comes to $761.30 for the 100,000 views meaning each click is then worth $380.65.  I could fly to Singapore for that.

Basically the cost per click method is way more valuable than CPM.  I don’t know why more people don’t use it!

If you want to find the future, you have to get back to the basics.  Think of it in terms of Word and SMS.  Would I literally write my grandmother a letter saying I used something?  Or would I literally write my friend that I love to rent movies from a certain place just because, and not because it is the closest?  The big big dollars are being mounted on less and less supports.  And yes there is strangely absurd correct placement of advertisements on the web these days with re-targeting technology and

This is starting to really get somewhere.  The interactivity is what it is all about.  The actions on the ad can be tracked.  However there is no user input.  I’m sure this will eventually be incorporated.  Another down play is that you still need to be directed to a third party website in the end for various options.  I know that is most advertisers point, but in the end it is unnecessary and is a draw back.

I want Clickboards to be much like the Google Gadget Ads and I think if I want to start I should probably just create them and become a client of Google and just use them the way I want to.  It’s not hard with this format to promote discounts and relay enough information to promise the user that when they disclose some information about the product they like that the next time they go to the store to purchase the advertised item, the discount will be waiting there for them.

So that said I needed new options, I was going to re propose to him but now that I think about it, that would have been futile.  So as the opportunity came to my attention when talking to Don Stewart, an indirect colleague of mine here in the office, who at one point offered himself as an angel investor, he brought to my attention several services that are in the same field I am pursuing.  One of which was mGuanxi.  Unlike the other text discount services he put before me, this media had a very unique web portal.

This web portal had the ability for people to come together and add contacts and join groups, take polls, blog, and send messages.  Much like other social media sites.  However this had no connection to their mobile outlet and the benefit to the users over Facebook and local forum websites was quite minimal.  But to me, this was a perfect platform to develop Clickboards.

By adding another tab which would represent Clickboards, using the clicker icon, users would enter a section of the website where they could manage their mobile coupons and acquire Clickboards.  Here they could share with their groups or contacts and friends and redeem points for luxury vouchers.  Really this is the high dive that could really put Clickboards on the map.  These are the top four reasons I had Don tell Alvin of mGuanxi why he should listen to me and my proposal:

Gives a reason for people to interact (to share their coupons, rewards, freebies and earn more)

Makes service free for user and adds performance for clients

Advertisers can decide what and to whom they reward

Breaches the gap between behavioral marketing and static impressions

So far, I have no response and neither does Don from Alvin Graylin from mGuanxi owner of the parent company mInfo.  He may think he is a little taller than me in his high heeled boots and can’t see the relevance of a Jin Magazine editor having come up with a good idea for him because he is a dual major MIT graduate.  But if he could stop himself a minute and so could the rest of you to review what I keep going on about, he may see the true validity that my project has.  Or maybe he is just on vacation and I need to sit back myself for a second.

The real reason I am going after my boss and mGuanxi is so that I don’t have to develop my own brand image.  Jin has a name which would make the Jin Card more recognizable here in Tianjin, and although mGuanxi isn’t a true silver dollar in terms of user interaction, it does have some strength in its name, something that I could definitely build upon.

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Searching for ‘social shopping’ I found several sites listed here.   They basically use words like Rave, Impartial Advice, Recommend, Community, Wish list, where people in the community act as promoters for products they bought.

Searching for ‘networking discounts’ and ‘network savings’ I found that networking basically means on the web or saving on getting your computer onto the network online.

All have nothing to do with a Social Savings Networked Utility.  The second search I did was the most relevant.  However it requires user interaction after the sale, which I would have to argue is a weak platform.  Even Wikipedia defines ‘social shopping’ as making informed decisions from information about products posted by the community.  However, coupons and deals are usually researched or collected prior to the sale, so this system relies on people finding the deals and then becoming self promoters of the products they bought.  And none have anything to do with creating a network where you begin to save more with the more people in your network and the common characteristics in shopping behavior you all share regardless of whether or not you actively promote your shopping behavior.  Network here still just means a group of people not actually webbed together.

One site had the ability to pass coupons to friends where you gain commission from the sale if your friends buy the product.  There was also a site that rewarded you for using the coupons with bigger coupons that you can cash in your points for.  There is still only one degree of separation in these methods.

None of these integrated mobile possibilities.  In the mobile media playground here in Beijing, China, there a system where you buy a card and get access to the discounts around the city as well as 1200 points.  Each time you buy the card you get 1200 more points. These can be used at some locations like cash.  The discounts you recieve are obtained by texting the store code and price of purchase to the number.  A confirmaion text is sent back and you show that to the teller.  There are several similar services.  Again no mobile media has anything to do with a network.

Newsletter

With the advancement of our Newsletter we can now incorporate more into this giving more reviews and news that we cannot otherwise in the magazine.  This also allows us to concentrate more on giving deeper information in the magazine that we cannot otherwise in the Newsletter.

The future of the Newsletter is to provide quick promotions to our clients as well as encourage them to interact with the magazine.  For example a current project I am working on is to have Newsletter recipients to write reviews for our Website and to promote our Survey and Subscriptions.  Rewards will be given in the form of Coupons for their participation.

Coupons

In the next six months it will become fairly important to collect Coupons and Gift items that we can give away to stimulate activity on the Website and Magazine.  The Magazine will act as the initial stimulus to any promotions we want to promote.  For example at the end of the summer there will be a party (probably at the Sheraton) where we will give away the prizes for the writing and photography contest currently underway.  Prizes have been sponsored by Hyatt Hotel Jing Jin City.

Coupons can also be used to stimulate activity on the Website.  Daily, weekly, and monthly prizes can be given away for the most involved.  Other contests we can have include tickets for concerts, dinners for special occasions at hotels, drinks at bars for special events, DVDs and CDs for new releases, talent contest prizes, best weekly news about the foreign community, and more; all of this will be funded by the Magazine promoting these reward programs for the various venues.

Radio

We will begin working with the local radio stations that have English hours.  We will invite the people in our focus stories to come to the radio with us where we will interview them on the air.  If there is a band that we focus on in the Magazine we will invite them to play.  The Radio also allows us to sell advertising on our show time and to help promote our sponsors and contests.

Website (jin-emag.com)

The Website’s main new focus will be to stream the Radio programs that we create.  Again we can sell advertising before and after the streaming of the shows.  We will modify the website to be a true emagazine and we also need to change the name to jin-emag.com because Tianjinexpats.com has bought jinmagazine.com and this redirects people to their website.

Also using a new service I have found we can sell advertising on other websites for our sponsors that will drive them to our website.  We will promote our sponsors through local advertising on major Internet sites that are frequented by foreigners.  So our Website alone does not limit us to the amount of web advertising we can supply.

JIN MEDIA
JIN Goal
To create interactivity in the community

JIN Card

In the next year we want to work towards making the JIN Card.  This will allow users to redeem any promotions that they hear on the Radio, see in the Magazine, or browse on our Website or the promotions we display through other local online media outlets.  The discounts will be easy to redeem and collect and I want to just bring this up at this point.  The JIN Card will be unlike other cards that only get you standard discounts like 10-20% at participating vendors.  Actually discounts can be quite varying depending on product and time the clients want to put something on special.

As I have recently read, people do respond quite heavily to numbers in the discounts rather than flat rates.  This is a promising market and I believe with the combination of these five factors we can put much greater value into the Newsletter, Magazine, and Website, as well as our Radio portal on the Website.

This of course would include my Clickboards especially with the coupons and the redemption process through the Website and using the JIN Card.

But when I start talking to local restaurants and stores and say you need to pay me to make you a Clickboard and pay for the space on the websites it will be posted, and make some sort of discount for the customer (and rent the portable receipt printing machine); well that begins to sound like a long shot.

The machines I will probably have to give to them, or like in the conversation I had last night, find a way to get rid of them and use something else.  Not only that try to find a way to get rid of the card.  Yes I want to do this, but the fact remains that although most stores already have their static discount cards for themselves, their cards don’t do what mine do; connect ads on the Internet to the users purchase.

So my model is probably not going to make money, at least not enough to pay for the machines.  And that is a big thing to think about.  How much online advertising can I give to a store that purchases the machine.  $400 dollars is quite a lot of advertising and also quite a big sale to sell to a small restaurant or store.  Although the machines are an easy way to prove my model works.  I need a simpler method.  Without the machine I’m afraid my idea is still long in advance.

Next option: create apps for phones that could bluetooth information to store computers and give the stores the software to run in the background.  Paperless transactions would be nice, but small shop owners may be wary of this type of coupon redemption.

So now, do I prove the model works, or do I proceed to the next step?

And if in the end they do connect the coupons and discounts to my site what am I to do.  Especially if someone keeps redeeming more and more coupons.

Well if in fact I find the technology to tag the coupons that are sent to my site, well guess what, they will also be tagged.  Just like the users who log in to my site, the coupons themselves when connected to my site will have to be logged in.  They will go into a bay at first to be authenticated.  After a few checks for multiples and validity they will then be sent to the users account.  This is in fact the downfall of my site.  Pre-authenticated Clickboards being sent to users profiles so they can earn points and basically live for free.  The bay is the most important element.

But if in fact mobile coupons and Clickboards do in fact get sent to my site there will be no problem.  What you have to see here is that websites will eventually be talking to one another.  There is no more static, there is no interactive, there is now multi-active.  Meaning you will be on more than one website at once.  They will be acting together to produce an end product. All from different suppliers, all for different users.

Just like credit cards verify account balances, websites will be updated continuously based on input, and the output will at the same time be updating a third site, or the congruous site which is the harmonious extension of the site that you are currently experiencing from the meld of sites which you are viewing.

Keeping people out is not a problem.  Having multiple sites acting together is.  But for now, you can practice hacking me when the site is ready, I enjoy the attention and don’t mind the mess, I have time to clean it up and learn from the experience. Hopefully this will happen in the beginning, but that is still a couple months down the road.