The Future Place Blog

Students on FaceBook beat HSBC bank

The BBC reports that the bank, HSBC, has made a u-turn on its plans to charge UK students interest on their loans when they graduate. HSBC had planned to introduce a 9.9% interest rate on overdrafts for students graduating this summer (up from its previous rate of 0.0%).

When HSBC first made its announcement, students and the NUS (the National Union of Students) protested that the loans had been taken out by people who had joined the HSBC bank believing that there student-type interest free loans would tide them over between graduating and getting a full-time job, and they mounted a campaign to change HSBC’s mind. But the protest was going nowhere.

Enter FaceBook and a number of groups urging a boycott of HSBC. One group “Stop the Great HSBC Graduate Rip-Off!!!Global” has over 5000 members.

To HSBC’s credit, once they saw the way the wind was shifting they moved quickly. The bank has scrapped its plans for interest rates on graduate loans of up to £1500 and says “It is not too big to listen”.

If HSBC really learns the Web 2.0 lesson it could be a very valuable lesson.

Free notepads for students - simple really

Springwise have a post about one of those ideas that once you see it you think "yes, that's how it should be done". The idea is that advertisers put their message as a banner ad on the top of each page of a notepads for students. The advertising pays for the notepads, students will prefer the free notebooks (unless students have changed a lot since I was an undergraduate), and advertisers and students will both win.

One of the trends, that Chris Anderson of The Long Tail has highlighted, is a move towards free stuff (there is also a trend towards very expensive stuff - e.g. organic, fair trade, niche, imported, small portions of things you could grow at home), this idea is a good example of a move towards free stuff.

Why is FaceBook so successful?

Blue Whale Labs have put a really useful presentation on SlideShare, which outlines the recent success of FaceBook and provides useful information about FaceBook applications, a facility that was only launched in May 2007.

via Christine Qian

Tips for the corporate blogger

Wired have a post offering tips for anybody hoping to create or improve a corporate blog. The tips are provided by Steve Rubel, a senior vice president at the Edelman PR firm who blogs at Micro Persuasion.

To add my thoughts, here are my top three tips:

1. Decide on whether you are going to post daily, weekly, or monthly, and then stick to it. You can add the odd extra post, but you can't miss. If you are blogging weekly, try to make Monday your blog day (its easier to avoid it slipping a week that way).
2. Get somebody to proof read your blogs, and always use the spell checker as PART of the checking process.
3. Don't tell too many people you are blogging until a) you find that you can stick with the schedule you created in step 1 above, and b) you have found your voice. Roughly speaking, finding your voice means you have settled on your style, your use of 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person, past or present tense, precise or broad, amusing or serious. After 20-30 posts you will find your style settling down - that is finding your voice.

How much paper would Wikipedia need?

Boing Boing has a post and the graphic below showing how much paper would be required to print out the English language version of Wikipedia. However, it is a bit of an underestimate since it does not include the history or discuss pages, and makes no allowances for images or tables.

Is FaceBook devaluing the word friend?

Richard Scoble has a post, with links to other posts as his videos, that looks at the issue of whether the term and indeed the nature of friendship is being devalued by social networks, such as FaceBook. Traditionally a friend is somebody you know, you trust, and who has shared experiences with you.

In FaceBook the term friend is bandied around with abandon, some people accept every offer of friendship, whilst others try to mimic their 'conventional' friendships.

Ofcom report on the UK communications business

Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, has released its 4th Annual Report, and it is packed full of useful information.

Key points from the report include:

• More than 50% of households have broadband access to the Internet
• More than three-quarters of 11 year olds have a television AND a games console AND a mobile phone
• Bundled communications services are increasingly popular with consumers, with 40% of households now taking more than one communications service from the same provider (up a third on last year). A majority of broadband customers take it as part of a bundle.
• Each person now consumes more than seven hours of media and communications services cumulatively per day. However, the tendency to consume some media simultaneously means that the actual time spent on media is likely to be less than this.
• The alarm is the mobile handset feature which has the highest substitutional impact on stand-alone devices, followed by the camera. A significant minority of people also say their mobile is substituting for their stand-alone portable music player or games console.

I am still working my way through the full report, and like its predecessors it is really useful and I strongly recommend it.

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BTW, my parenting tip of the day is to not allow your child to have a TV in their room. As a parent you ought to be checking what they view, your child ought to be in the company of the rest of the family, and nobody should watch TV in bed if they are going to get a good night’s sleep.

Useful PowerPoint about Web 2.0

Here is a really usful PowerPoint about Web 2.0, lots of ideas and links to other sources.

via Christine Qian

Shift Happens Video

I've blogged about the shift happens video before. But I looked at it today in order to use some ideas in a project I am doing with my son, and I had forgotten just how good it is. So, in case any of you have not seen it, or like me have forgotten how good it is, here it is again.

The creator of the video was Karl Fisch, and his blog is here.

The day the Internet failed

Interesting bit of humour in the form of a YouTube video about an hyppthetical Internet metldown.

However, the Internet will crash one day, and will hit commerce and government very, very hard.

via Mike Gray