Communication

Mobile Vikings allows you to make free phone calls using wifi

As you can see from the banner on the right, I am a Mobile Viking - and proud to be! Two months ago I transferred my number from Mobistar to Mobile Vikings and ever since I've been calling and sending free text messages for only 15 euro per month. Of course, this is what the average provider is offering you, but with Mobile Vikings I'm surfing the web completely free. No little than 2 (two) Gb are included in the 15 euros!! This matches Mobile Vikings philosophy of providing free mobile internet everywhere.

Facebook, the movie

In 2009, Ben Mezrich wrote a book called 'The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal' and depicted how Facebook's founders invented Facebook and saw their social network become the biggest in the known universe. Mezrich was not unequivocally positive, as can be deducted from the book's title. Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, is said to visit decadent parties and have sex with tons of girls. As you can imagine, this upset certain Californian billionaires...

Now that the book is turned into a movie called 'The Social Network' by David Fincher Zuckerberg and Co. are even more pissed. They are constantly lobbying the movie's producers; but without result. The rumour goes that one scene contains Sean Parker, co-founder of both Napster and Facebook, with in the background some topless teenage girls serving coke to partygoers.

Can't wait to see the movie!

Telenet test breedbandinternet in je auto

Sinds juni voert Telenet tests uit over het gebruik van breedband internet ...in je auto! Dat meldt De Standaard. De mogelijkheden zijn legio.

De technologie is gebaseerd op het 4G netwerk of Long Term Evolution (LTE) netwerk.
Telenet verwacht dat 4G een realiteit is in België tegen 2012.

Summer trends on Social Media in Belgium

According to Alexa, Belgium can be considered rather conservative concerning social media websites. With a second place in its Belgian Top Sites rankings, just behind Google, Facebook is omnipopular in Belgium. According to GoogleAdPlanner some 3.800.000 Belgians visit Facebook regularly.
Youtube is the third most popular website among Belgians. Wikipedia is on spot 8.
Compared to January 2010, with a ranking 13, Belgian Netlog switches places with Blogger that becomes number 12.

Compared to January 2010, Badoo is the top winner, with a gain of 36 places on Alexa's Belgian Top Sites list. Badoo is a UK based international social networking site available in 16 languages (also in Dutch).
Twitter use in Belgium nearly doubled the passed year. The website jumps 26 places and becomes the 21st most popular website among Belgians.
LinkedIn, which is mostly aimed at professionals and business networking jumps 23 places and hits spot 44.
Other winners are blog service WordPress (8 places) and photo sharing service Flickr (5 places).

Big loser is MySpace (that loses 24 places in the Alexa ranking compared to January 2010). Netlog loses 1 place.

Use Social Media for Investor Relations?

Is it possible for a company's Investor Relations department to use Social Media? Of course, not every platform will be as efficient to communicate an IR department's message. Also, today, traditional IR management remains possible without Social Media. What is more, a lot of financial analysts and traders indicate they do not use social media, because their bosses won't allow them access to websites like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.

However, already today, these media are being used for IR by some international companies. If Stock Exchange Enlisted Companies want to be pioneers, or want to keep up with the pioneers, they have to be present on Web 2.0.

What follows is based on my own research. Let me begin with Wal-Mart who started tweeting with @walmartnews only since January 13, 2010. The account is used on a daily basis; mainly for tweeting on Corporate Social Responsability but also on Industry related news like the company's strategy and, when relevant, on Q or Y results. The Wal-Mart account is followed by 1,740 people and promoted on investors.walmartstores.com. To control the account, an application called CoTweet is used. Wal-Mart also has several other (local) Twitter accounts that are used for Marketing and Customer Relations.

Wal-Mart also has a YouTube channel which exists since February 11, 2006 and is of course used for distributing commercials, but also features clips on CSR. At least every day, someone comments on a Wal-Mart video clip.

Although Wal-Mart has several Facebook pages (one has has about 1,193,000 people ‘liking’ it and almost every hour somebody posts to its wall), it does not use Facebook for IR.

Companies that do use Facebook for Investor Relations are Cisco and Lafarge. The Cisco Facebook Page also links surfers to a myriad of other social media accounts. Several other Facebook Pages, several Twitter accounts, several blogs, two Flickr accounts and two Youtube channels. One of those channels has a ‘Financial’ playlist, which features clips with CFO Frank Calderoni and CEO John Chambers discussing the quarterly Results. Allegedly, Chambers prefers video to text because of his dyslexy.

Other companies using Twitter for IR are KBC Group (a bank and insurance company) and Bekaert (a steel manufacturer) who post links to their press releases on their Twitter account. Bekaert even launched a separate 'annual report' website which constantly links to social media.

Interactive billboard against agression

Public service employees in the Netherlands face aggression and violence on the streets more and more often. Onlookers unfortunately do not intervene often enough when they encounter a situation like this. A live interactive billboard in Amsterdam and Rotterdam is used to place people in a similar situation witch confronts them with their inactivity. A great idea!!