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January 2010

Who is the MVP of the Marketing Bowl: Social Media or Super Bowl Ads?

Posted by Augie Ray on January 31, 2010

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If you read this blog, you likely already care less about the Saints versus the Colts than you do about Super Bowl ads versus Social Media marketing. After all, the real money isn't earned from the battle on the field but in the battle that occurs during timeouts: Each player on last year's winning team earned a bonus of $83,000 while NBC earned around $213 million in ad revenue for the telecast.

A shift is occurring in the relative importance to marketers of Social Media and Super Bowl advertising.  Of course, the 2010 Super Bowl isn't the first we've seen of the marriage of Social Media and Super Bowl ads. Last year, Doritos struck gold with a UGC (User-Generated Content) ad produced by two unemployed brothers, and the brand is back this year with more UGC ads competing for even greater prize money.

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Virtual Network Segmentation for PCI?

Posted by John Kindervag on January 29, 2010

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Several clients have recently been asking about "Virtual Network Segmentation" products that claim to segment networks to reduce PCI compliance. They may use ARP or VLANs to control access to various network segments.  These type of controls work at Layer 2 and the hacker community is well versed at using tools such as Ettercap or Cain & Abel to bypass those controls.  We've recently written about Network Segmentation for PCI as part of the PCI X-Ray series.
While rereading the PCI Wireless Guidance document, I came across this nugget that puts a nail in the coffin of using VLANs as a security control:"Relying on Virtual LAN (VLAN) based segmentation alone is not sufficient. For example, having the CDE on one VLAN and the WLAN on a separate VLAN does not adequately segment the WLAN and take it out of PCI DSS scope. VLANs were designed for managing large LANs efficiently. As such, a hacker can hop across VLANs using several known techniques if adequate access controls between VLANs are not in place. As a general rule, any protocol and traffic that is not necessary in the CDE, i.e., not used or needed for credit card transactions, should be blocked. This will result in reduced risk of attack and will create a CDE that has less traffic and is thus easier to monitor."

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Do you require an email address or more before giving out collateral or ROI tools?

Posted by Peter O'Neill on January 29, 2010

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I've recently had several interesting discussions about one of the assessment criteria in the Forrester Vendor Positioning Review (VPR). A new VPR on IT Management Software Vendors should be out this time next week (it's been stuck in our Editing dept. for several weeks now.)

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Talking ECEM market evolution with PwC

Posted by Chris Mines on January 29, 2010

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The market for enterprise carbon and energy management (ECEM) systems continues its rapid evolution. Since publishing our Market Overview report last November, we have interviewed at least a half-dozen additional systems providers coming into this nascent market.

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Do CIOs Blog — And Should They?

Posted by Sharyn Leaver on January 29, 2010

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We’ve become curious ever since we interviewed Linda Cureton of NASA a few months ago, when we were a bit surprised to discover that she has an active blog (her Thanksgiving entry implores CIOs to give thanks to their “geeks”). And there’s Rob Carey, CIO of the Navy,  who has been blogging for the past two years.  So we decided to look around to see other CIOs who are actively blogging. Active implies recent — which takes quite a bit of time and thought, and is probably not for everyone. So who else besides Linda takes the time and thought? Here are a few who do, though not always frequently.

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The Data Digest: Trending Consumers' Interest In Netbooks

Posted by Reineke Reitsma on January 29, 2010

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Netbooks are one of the hottest consumer product categories in the consumer technology industry at this moment - at least from an industry perspective. And yesterday, after Apple's iPad announcement, consumer electronics analysts immediately started commenting and sharing their views via blogs, and twitter.

But what I've been missing is the consumer view. Let's take a look at how interested consumers are in small computers like netbooks in general, and how this has changed in the past year.

Note: I realize that the industry may not see the iPad as a netbook but both the netbook and the iPad serve the same consumer need: an easy to carry, multifunctional mobile Internet device. So consumers are likely to compare and contrast them in the product purchase consideration cycle.

Netbooks

What we see is that consumers are mostly interested in netbooks as a second or third PC that they could use while on the go, or that they consider giving one to their children. Netbooks serve a distinct purpose, for more insight please see the report 'Netbooks Are The Third PC Form Factor' by my colleague J.P. Gownder.

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The Future of Online Customer Experience

Posted by Moira Dorsey on January 29, 2010

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New technologies follow a pattern. They start by imitating older technologies before they evolve to their true forms. The first automobiles looked like horseless carriages. It wasn't until the Vintage Era of the 1920's that cars evolved to a form that we'd recognize today with features like front-engines, enclosed cabs, and electric starters. Televisions started off copying radios - they looked more like an armoire with a small screen stuck on the front.

In the process of working on my latest piece of research, it became clear that the Web has followed a similar pattern. Early sites imitated a much older medium - paper. And even though 'web page' still dominates our thinking, online experiences have begun to evolve away from the page-based metaphor. In the next 5 years, the evolution of online experiences toward their true form is about to take off at a much faster rate than in the previous 5 years.

Consider that today's default Web platform - a browser running on a PC - is rapidly giving way to diverse online environments. The types of devices we use to connect to the Web are proliferating. In addition to the growth of netbook adoption, there are new devices like the Chumby and the Energy Joule. Portable devices are rapidly getting more powerful - as a result, the tradeoff between mobility and capability is shrinking. And even as the hardware evolves, the interfaces on the devices we use to connect to the Web are becoming more and more customizable. And the reason any of this matters at all is because consumers are already adopting these technologies.

So what are the implications of these trends? What does it mean for the future of online experiences? At Forrester, we've concluded that the resulting online customer experiences of the future will be:

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Apple's iPad Reaffirms The Changing Mobile Operator Business

Posted by Charles Golvin on January 28, 2010

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In the firestorm of speculation leading up to Apple's debut of its iPad device was a strong thread regarding the company's ability to further accelerate tectonic shifts in the media industry, especially the print industry. Now, following its unveiling, some have pointed to the structure of the relationship between Apple and AT&T and posed similar questions regarding the mobile industry and in particular operators' business models. The iPad deal is just evidence of changes that have been accelerating for the past several years. These changes include:
  • New pricing models. As the U.S. market has saturated operators have reassessed prepaid, elevating it beyond the 'choice of last resort' for consumers, and introducing unlimited voice, data, and messaging plans like Boost Unlimited. They have also enabled prepaid for laptop and netbook data connections — which plans the iPad will exploit. European operators have gone further and introduced session-based pricing, such as per day or week. Devices like Amazon's Kindle rely on a wholesale model to make the cost of transport invisible to consumers (for books and the like, at least).
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The Heretech, episode 33: Chor-Ching Fan's major mash-ups

Posted by Tom Grant on January 28, 2010

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Chor-Ching Fan of Jackbe tells us how to build good mash-ups, the reasons for their adoption, and the kinds of solutions that are good fits for mash-ups. Plus, some quick research news (the Agile adoption doc is published!), and a great article on the value of failure. (c) 2010 Tom Grant

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Peace, love, and the IBM System 360s

Posted by John R. Rymer on January 28, 2010

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"Our vision for 2010 is the same as IBM's for the year 1960." So said Oracle's Larry Ellison from the stage at today's event to celebrate his company's acquisition of Sun Microsystems. With Sun in hand, Oracle will now take us back to the simple virtues of mainframes 50 years ago. Updated, these virtues are:

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