From now on, every company with an online presence can be the target of attacks

This article was written by Fabrice Perrin, a Practice Manager at blue-infinity, and was published in the April/May edition of Market magazine. The original French version can be viewed here.

Recently, the world saw a rise in the power of social networks in Middle Eastern countries, where the sites played a role in the coordination of demonstrators and the dissemination of information on the activities of the authorities. But this progression was also felt in Western countries, with a key example being the group ‘Anonymous’.

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Having recently announced our new Social Media monitoring and engagement services, which were showcased alongside our new Social Media Lab at this year’s LIFT conference, blue-infinity were asked to contribute to the ‘Social Intelligence’ file for the ICT Journal, a Swiss information technology business magazine.

The file, published in April, consisted of three key sections: the sectored approach to social networks, the utility of a control centre for social networks and an interview with the CEO of HyperWeek, Raphaël Brinner.

View the full article (in French)

Smart phones are becoming ever more prevalent in today’s mobile phone market and the development of m-commerce is increasing rapidly, along with the popularity of these phones. Internet banking, location mapping and the purchasing of luxury goods are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what m-commerce is able to provide to its users. In the following article, Fabrice Perrin explains what trends can be expected, and what possibilities can be anticipated, in the fast-advancing world of m-commerce.

Please click here to view this article (in French).

This is the question  a lot of marketing directors are asking themselves these days. Twitter allows to “blog” short messages (less than 140 characters), to let people know what you are doing, at the moment you are doing it. There are loads of reasons to love Twitter, but a company should carefully evaluate its objectives before facing this brave new world.

Here are 4 cases when you should NOT use Twitter to promote your company:

1. If you want to use Twitter like an RSS feed. The tweet itself has to say something. It cannot just be a teaser.
2. If you are not able to answer to incoming tweets. If you want to start a monologue without any dialogue, your clients interest will shorten as fast as the credit crunch.
3. If you need your legal department to validate every tweet. Twitter is the kingdom of the snap, of the ephemeral…
4. If you think that having thousands of “followers” is the goal. What is really important is the quality of the relationship you can create with your clients. If the noise you generate is not manageable, it will not be usable, and it will just result in a loss of time.

Read the whole article on Social Media appeared in “market” (french)

Luxury brands invest more and more in their web presence and are shifting their marketing strategy. 10 years ago, the focus was on showcasing products, without really engaging in a dialogue with the consumers. Today, the luxury industry is placing the customers in the center of their e-marketing projects. Some are even selling online. This is a risky business: counterfeight products are looming around the corner, the brand is in danger of losing its high-end image, and last, but not least, the existing sales channels might get disrupted.

While e-commerce might not (yet!) be for everyone in the luxury business, using the web to build or maintain relationships is a definite trend: more then any other media, the web offers direct ways of communicating with the customers and makes it possible to forster long term relationships with existing and new customers, who might not be the standard “boutique clientèle”.

View article in market January 2009 Luxe à portée de clique (french), based on an interview with Fabrice Perrin.

How would you feel about the ideal workplace:

Where the information structures itself automatically.

Where the information produced by the employees is referenced, commented on and shared across different working groups with similar interests….Where know-how and experience is shared in a secure way.

Where the employees are valued and autonomous, while enjoying their work more.

In the world of Enterprise 1.0 (as on the web 1.0), only finished things are published.

In the world of Enterprise 2.0, the user is not isolated anymore: he or she can share information with a couple of clicks. The author can ask others to participate, review and enhance the content and follow the evoluation of infomration. Unfinished work is published, but also quickly modified and corrected.

In the world of Enterprise 1.0, the intranet will allow you to find the telephone number and email of a colleague.

In the world of Enterprise 2.0, the main contacts of a users are in one spot, accessible from any location. New contacts are also suggested to the employees: “This new colleague has done the same studies as you have, and he has the same interests. You may want to contact him.” Personal information is updated by the users themselves and they have a vested interest in them.

There is a trend that enterprises are migrating towards these forms of collaboration. It won’t be quick, because the cultural change is important: employees expose a lot more of themselves in an enterprise 2.0 setting. However, the time saved, productivity gain and increase in quality of the work are so important that this model will impose itself sooner or later in the corporate world.

Read this article about Enterprise 2.0 (French) by Fabrice Perrin.