Kony 2012: Successes and Failings in the Stop Kony Campaign

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The Kony 2012 video has attracted a huge amount of attention – but the 70+ million views is only half the story. Incredibly, theWashington Postjumped in to the Kony debate with an analysis of what Kony 2012 means for viral marketing (though it didn’t say a whole lot). The Guardian and The Atlantic both weighed in by criticising the video and the campaign for their apparent naivety and the damage they were doing. This is from The Atlantic (Iquoted from the Guardian a couple of days back; see this Foreign Policy piece too):

….the story of Kony2012 is not only about a video, it’s about the waves and waves of pushback from scholars like Zuckerman [of MIT]; journalists on sites likeForeign Policy, The Guardian, and this one, writers such as Teju Cole, and activists and other stakeholders in the West and in Uganda. On many of these sites, the critical posts have been the most-viewed work over the past two days. Cole’s tweets were widely retweeted and storified. Visible Children, a Tumblr critical of the campaign, received 2.2 million views and the author has had requests for interviews from major media outlets such as Al Jazeera, the BBC, and NBC. 

Another line of criticism is that the Stop Kony campaign is really a shield for American intervention in Africa, and resonates with a colonial view of the region.

A more considered Washington Post piece looked at the actual campaign:

To get the campaign off the ground quickly, the group had users send messages to 20 “culturemakers” and 12 “policymakers” with influential Twitter accounts urging them to support the effort. The list included names such as U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and former President George W. Bush, as well as celebrities such as Angelina Jolie,George Clooney, Mark Zuckerberg and Lady Gaga.

Max Fisher in The Atlantic has this to say:

Kony 2012 is so seductive for precisely the same reasons that make it so dangerous. The half-hour video, now viewed 40 million times, sets viewers up for a message so gratifying and fulfilling that it is almost impossible to resist: there is a terrible problem in the world, you are the solution, and all you have to do is pass along this video.

Fisher also argues that the campaign is damaging, because it decreases the amount of funds that might go to Central Africa, as young people in America now spend their money on Invisible Children wristbands.

How much money has Invisible Children soaked up that could have gone to actually effective campaigns or more experienced NGOs?

What are we to make of these criticisms if we are supporters of the Internet as a medium for people to forge, share and voice opinions? My own view is that the people who shared the video did indeed do so naively but a naivety in politics is where you start to frame your understanding of the world. The video’s largest audience segment was young people who are not yet adults. Naive, perhaps, but to a large degree it was a phenomenon among 13-17 year olds.

One of the least redeeming features of the past thirty years is that so much discourse tends towards polarised opinions, left and right, at the expense of creating rich dimensions in public reasoning. We have not been able to voice or sustain the full range of potential opinions that make up informed and responsible democracy. It would be healthy to think initiatives like this can take us a step beyond those polarized politics. Young people got a chance to be engaged in an issue that isn’t left or right.

Rather than criticise Invisible Children, I think we might celebrate that growth in awareness  among young people. We should also ask just how the Internet can be a force for framing popular viewpoints that have as big an impact politically as the views of special interest groups with an inside track in Washington. I think that’s the transformation point a lot of us are looking for – what does this campaign tell us about what is changing more broadly? 

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Sorry Google, I don't Want Your Answers

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At a recent “insiders” event at Google headquarters, the company confirmed that it was revamping its search algorithms to make better use of semantic web. That’s “geek speak” for teaching a computer to understand the context of what you’re searching. Over the last few years, Google has been pretty good at figuring this out and serving up relevant results. But its latest announcement makes me question if Google’s growth strategy has jumped the shark.

Google rocketed to success in the late 90s because of the efficient way it found other people’s information. That was key; every other search engine (remember Webcrawler?) relied on what webmasters put in special tags. The system was easily abused as webmasters stuffed keywords in order to get on top of search results. Often a page that would show up in search was totally unrelated to what you wanted: the webmaster successfully duped the search engine and you. But he registered the page view, which, for many in the infant web, was all that was necessary. Google was different.

Google figured out how to search all of the text in the page. This huge change allowed quality content to flourish online because webmasters weren’t so hung-up on creating search-engine filled gobbledygook (but it does still happen in some parts of the web today). Businesses like Amazon and Wikipedia were built because of this. Google had successfully organized the internet (which is still its corporate mission) in a way that was easy, fast and without clutter.

With semantic web, Google is changing that philosophy. Instead of organizing other people’s information, it wants to make a decision for you and give you an answer it thinks you will want. As a user, that’s not what I want. As a marketer, that’s not what I want. I know it’s not as black-and-white as that, but deep down that’s the core of this effort if Google wants “to be more like” Bing and Facebook as many have claimed. The search giant was recently accused of chasing after social by a former (disgruntled?) employee now at rival Microsoft. Is Google become so enthralled with competitors that it will destroy the very essence of its success? It seems like we are regressing from a world of open internet where you can find anything, to a more closed internet where you will find what a computer thinks you should find.

In some instances, “answers” do make the search experience more enjoyable. For example, being able to get a measurement conversion ratio or a word’s definition from Google is helpful, and the answer is a clear fact. But in general, information isn’t as neat and tidy. I’m far from a conspiracy theorist, but who is Google to decide what answer I should get on things that are not necessarily black-and-white? Many AdWord keywords are already becoming too expensive for entry-level businesses that aren’t local or brick-and-mortar; will semantic web marginalize them in favor of large corporations that have the money to spend? Is semantic web a way to kill the long-term value of long-tail SEO, which generates no revenue for Google? Even worse, what if the system is corrupted and we’re only served information someone wants us to see for a specific reason? It may sound far-fetched, and I think in this case it is, but it’s happening in other countries.

I understand Google’s desire to stay ahead of the game: its shareholders (I’m one of them) demand it. However, if Google decides to chase down Bing and Facebook search in this way, it’s simply commoditizing its best and most market-dominate product: a simple interface that organizes the world’s content, making it easy to discover new things. Many look to Google to search, discover and surf the web. With semantic search, that discovery process begins to go away. Where is the discovery in being delivered what the Googlebot thinks you want? How do truly new, radical and inspiring ideas get discovered? Through the social web? Maybe. But that requires me to have “internet friends” who span every single topic known to man. With the increasing fragmentation of social networks (they are more niche than ever), how am I supposed to make sure I get out of my own information bubble?

Semantic search absolutely has value with interfaces like Siri. But do we needevery search engine to be semantic? I believe there’s value in different ways of finding information. The homogenization of the entire internet’s search into one method will likely give rise to the next great killer search startup, which will be a bigger problem for Google down the road. Maybe that’s a good thing, an opportunity for a new player to enter the search market since all of the big boys want to play the same game exactly the same way.

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Forget The iPad, The Next iPhone Will Be Apple's Biggest Launch Ever

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In a bullish note lauding Apple, UBS’ investment research team said it expects the coming iPhone5 to be Apple’s “biggest launch ever.”  Apple is headed into “the biggest and strongest product cycle in the history of consumer electronics,” and could possibly return cash to shareholders this year through a dividend, the analysts argued, as they raised their price target on the stock to $675.

Apple launched its new iPad on Friday, fueling further interest for a stock that appears to defy gravity.  And while the launch of their latest tablet, coupled with expectations for a dividend this year, have helped fuel Apple’s skyrocketing rise, it’s the coming launch of the iPhone5 that is the real catalyst, according to UBS.

The new iPhone is expected to be a fully redesigned product, fueling higher than average “excitement and buzz,” but more importantly, a stronger than expected “upgrade cycle for existing iPhone users and continue to encourage other smartphone and non-smartphone users to make the switch.  At the same time, the company is expected to accelerate the number of initial carriers it sells into in order to drive a big launch.  They expect it to hit shelves around October.  From the report:

Apple has been consistently accelerating the pace of each successive iPhone launch, expanding both country and carrier rollouts within a shorter timeframe. For the iPhone 4S Apple launched in 29 countries within 2 weeks of the initial launch, the iPhone 4 was launched in 22 countries within 6 weeks of launch, and the iPhone 3GS was launched in 14 countries within 1 week of its initial launch.

UBS expects Apple to sell an estimated 156.5 million iPhones in fiscal 2013, up from 149.5 million previously.  This could also be bullish for major network providers like Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint as users flock to into the newest version of Apple’s blockbuster product.

Despite the analysts’ hype surrounding the last-generation iPhone, the new iPad should help as well.  The company expects 12 million deliveries in the March quarter.  The number could be higher, but Apple faces supply-chain constraints, particularly related to the new display, UBS’ analysts explained.

More importantly for the stock is the possibility of a dividend.  Apple is sitting on about $100 billion in cash, according to Forbes’ Eric Savitz, fueling calls for the company to return capital to investors.  “We continue to believe it is simply a matter of time and believe general expectations for at least a 2% dividend yield are reasonable,” wrote UBS’ analysts.  Apple still has way more cash than it needs to run its business, make acquisitions, invest in innovation, and pay its shareholders, they conclude.

There doesn’t seem to be much to stop the stock from continuing to climb.  Among the major impediments are supply-chain constraints, which evidence massive demand.  On a valuation basis, the stock isn’t expensive, currently trading around 14 times future earnings. Sales growth doesn’t seem to slow down and margins, according to UBS’ estimates, will increase in years to come.  Despite increased competition from Samsung phones and Android-powered devices, Apple’s growth is solid.

Still, with so many people bullish on the stock, investors should take a minute to assess the stock before jumping in.  As Warren Buffett famously said, be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.

Beyond speculation, Apple’s stock marches on.  The company has already established itself as the largest publicly traded firm in the U.S., definitely pushing Exxon Mobil off the top, and has seen its stock hit $600 this week.  While the shares pulled back a little, closing the week at $585.57, Wall Street seems set on seeing Apple push even higher.

Source: HERE!

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