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Microsoft, Social and Gaming

April 3, 2010 in Online, Social by Anthony | 1 comment

Microsoft is the least talked about company in social media, yet they are involved in email, online gaming and provide personal profiles to millions of accounts. Windows Live is the online space that ties Windows Live Messenger, Hotmail and Xbox Live profiles together. This also includes their blog platform, online groups and other social tools.

All users of Hotmail, Messenger, or Xbox Live automatically have a Windows Live ID, a single login that gives the user access to many Microsoft services. From ComScore’s 2 Million More Australians Go Social in 2009 report, Microsoft Live’s web presence had 1,962,000 unique visits in June 2009, just behind MySpace in Australia.

This does not include people using Microsoft’s services such as Xbox Live and Windows Live Messenger. With the addition of more web services to Xbox Live, Microsoft is certain to increase the use of their social platforms.

The first thing that struck me about the Microsoft Live profile pages and tools is the lack of opacity within its network. There are not many tools for sharing content or for finding new connections compared to sites like Facebook. It is easy to aggregate content from Flickr, RSS feeds and a number of other sources on the profile page but there is a lack of third party tools and applications. Microsoft’s main strength lies in their other products, and not in their web presence. In future it is their gaming platform and email services that will expand their reach.

In this regard, the most significant development for Microsoft will be cross platform gaming, encompassing Xbox360, mobile and desktop computing.

Xbox Live gives its users the ability to find new connections, share relevant content and access a lot of third party content via DLC games. It also provides a structured environment with engaging tasks, much in the same way that MMORPGs do the same for the social environments they create. There are other platforms that incorporate a gaming mechanic (Foursquare.com), have third party developers build one (Facebook.com), or have seen one emerge from user interaction (Twitter.com). It will be interesting to see how cross platform gaming, and applications in general, evolve in both their functionality and in how they are used going forward.

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Email’s post mail-out effect

November 19, 2008 in Advertising, Online by Anthony | No comments

For most of the commercial internet’s life, email has figured prominently as a major moneymaker for a lot of operators, both site owners and affiliates. Its use has continued despite the obstacles and bad reputation has been because it does make money.  Most of the time.

In a recent campaign using a third party list I observed something interesting. The mail-out was moderately successful in its first two days, generating a fair few hits and sales. What was novel was that the promotional code continued to be used over the course of the next two weeks, following a consistent sales and traffic curve over the course of the week. The traffic over this period took a sharp drop and roughly equalled the sales figures for volume. Over the post campaign period, almost everyone that visited the page, bought the product.

The creatives used in this campaign were all focused. They consistently communicated a single offer that was relevant to the list used, and from the creative to the single landing page and the cart, limited onsite leaks. While sales were limited to a small percentage of the people mailed, the value per customer was high.

The initial result, and the ongoing traffic and sales confirms that this campaign did deliver something of value to the customer. Like other good campaigns, this one was a success because it offered a targeted promotion that provides real value to the right customer.

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