This piece highlights that profile fatigue is well and truly with us.

If nothing else it made us laugh :-) More...

PRESS RELEASE

The UK’s longest running moderation company celebrates birthday with industry retrospective & predictions

• From Second Life to the YouTube law suit: Tempero names the turning points which shaped the interactive community industry
• Tempero predicts the future of branded communities: “Online Social Media will take over from the hated call centre” and only expert moderation can unlock monetisation potential of user-generated content
• Five years old this month and new deals signed with; Marks & Spencer, C4, and the Reading Agency

Tempero, the UK’s longest running moderation company, turned 5 years old this month*. MD and Co-founder, Dominic Sparkes, took a look at the events which shaped the industry and makes some predictions on interactive community trends we can expect.

FROM SECONDLIFE TO LAW SUITS: HOW THE INDUSTRY’S EVOLVED

2003 Second Life Launches:

• “Within a few weeks of Second Life launching, Tempero re-launched independent from ITV. While Second Life suffered its share of controversy we knew on the whole that Virtual World and Social Media concepts were going to open people up; from the flat message board communities we’d been seeing, into a defined yet genuinely innovative industry.”
• Second Life on Wikipedia

2004 Interactive TV takes off:

• “While it may now seem fairly staid to have viewer comments displayed during TV shows, in 2004 it was revolutionary to allow consumers to engage live, within mainstream media. Our challenge was to find moderation solutions without losing the feeling of immediacy.”
• Media Guardian wrote interactive TV had ‘come of age’ but hadn’t delivered commercial rewards yet

2005 Landmark ruling on unfair bank charges:

• “This triggered a highly driven online consumer movement via the forums on MoneySavingExpert.com. Previously forums were seen as the domain of a few tech heads then all of a sudden every ‘man and their Gran’ was going online to download a template to reclaim bank charges.”
• At one stage MSE founder, Martin Lewis, was even sent a gift from Lloyds press department congratulating their efforts with the community

2006 Formation of CEOP:

• “At the height of MySpace mania the media were reporting daily on the online risks to children. CEOP centralised reporting so the industry could work together on minimising risk and they played a pivotal education role.”
• The Independent ran a feature entitled “The secret world of the net” examining victim identification techniques including partnerships with clothing companies to work out where potential victim’s outfits had been made and place their location via the stores in those areas

2007 Viacom sues YouTube:

• “Copyright law relating to online sites which simply hosted content was finally tested in court and brands started to feel more protective of their content spreading online without management. We knew that we had to act sensitively with regards to enforcing copyright issues or risk generating bad press for the corporations involved.”
• Viacom attacked YouTube publically calling their business model “unlawful”

THE FUTURE OF INTERACTIVE COMMUNITIES & ENTERPRISE

Community sites will take over customer service call centres in the next 5 years:

• “The hated call centre is declining as more consumers turn to the web to solve product and service issues amongst themselves. Corporations want to manage where their customers receive information from, whilst also seeing the cost benefit of making customer service web-based. The challenge is to make online customer engagements feel as ‘personal’ as a phone call and listening to the hidden conversation will reap rewards.”

Community management will become one of the most highly paid brand manager and/ or marketing roles within corporations

• “Moderators are evolving from administrators to highly skilled community managers with a broad remit from front-lining customer service issues to content creation. Far from the cliché of students who are willing to work odd shifts, moderation and Community Management are now bona fide careers. • The next stage is to see more roles created within Enterprise 2.0. These employees will be at the frontline of customer engagement and highly valued for their ability to communicate and collate content and feedback.”

The evolution of a new concept called “Content enrichment”:

• “With so much content circulating the web, the current hot topic is ‘discovery’. We believe as moderation evolves into content management, our role will include collating, sorting, and tagging the mass of online community content available. Marketers, Advertisers and the SEO industry will then use the content effectively and the true value of user-generated content will be released.”

More social media mergers and acquisitions by agencies particularly in the media agency space:

• “This year has already seen numerous mergers and buyouts, a move which will kick start the consolidation of Social Media providers to boost revenue, market share and service offerings.
• In addition we’ll see media agencies with money teaming with Social Media specialists to create unique value propositions. WPP have already dabbled with Liveworld but it’s tougher for top tier agencies to force their imprints to use one supplier. Watch this space for a host of interesting developments and deals – we think it’s the niche agencies, with the vision and flexibility to diversify rapidly, who’ll make the first moves.”

Enterprise 2.0 agencies buying Social Media solutions:

• “More companies are updating their outdated intranets and saying ‘let’s create a Facebook for our employees’. If their investment is to provide a real return they’ll need support to maintain momentum and create true long term value.”

FIVE YEARS OLD AND NEW DEALS TO CELEBRATE

Marks & Spencer:
Tempero has won the contract to provide Marks & Spencer with specialist moderation for their new ratings and reviews service across their website. The project aims to optimise the online M&S customer experience and provide customers with a more informed retail environment.

C4 Knife Crime:
Channel 4 has set up four Bebo profiles to run in conjunction with their ‘Disarming Britain’ season. Tempero pre-moderates user generated content on these four profiles (comments and ‘whiteboard’ submissions). http://www.bebo.com/disarmingbritain

Reading Agency – Summer Reading Challenge:
Tempero will moderate the website associated with the Summer Reading Challenge, called Team Read. Children comment on blogs (by authors and librarians), submit jokes, send messages to a giant ‘stadium screen’ and talk on the Extreme Read forum. www.teamread.co.uk

-----

*Tempero formed in 2003 after running for four years previous within ITV.

###

About: Tempero is the UK’s longest running online community management company and has consulted on the creation and moderation of branded communities for a number of blue chip clients, such as the BBC, Lloyds TSB and Unilever as well as many within the public sector. The company’s expertise is minimising risk and maximising the benefits of Social Media as a customer service and marketing channel.

www.tempero.co.uk

For further information please contact:

Darika Ahrens

darika@tempero.co.uk

Office: 020 7636 1200

Mobile (preferred): +44 (0) 7960 528 480

More...