Event: State of the Browser – free ticket!

Different one from me today. Booked myself a ticket to this event a while back, but overlooked my daughter’s birthday tea party… clearly more important! I don’t want the ticket to go to waste though… this event will take a great look at how different browsers are being used, the impact of mobile, gaming, TV, etc. There are representatives from the major browser firms on hand too. The event is in London (Greenwich) on Saturday 28th April.

Here’s the deal:  leave a comment below. One paragraph only on where you hope the browser will be in two years time.  I’ll review at noon BST on Friday 29th April and whichever I think is the most intriguing answer gets the ticket.  If the winner wants to write up thoughts, reflections or an event summary afterwards, I’d very much like to post it up here as a Guest Slot next week, but it’s your call.

Ready…. Steady…. Go!

Blog: Facebook charging developers? IPO 17th May? #smir

Toddling along to the Social Media in Recruitment event today and a few bits of news have caught my eye.  Thought I’d round them up!

The first follows the recent furore about charges and ownership of content over on Pinterest. It prompted someone to take closer look at the Terms for a number of the big sites out there, including Facebook’s. Under the developers and applications section, Facebook specifically state

“We do not guarantee that the Platform will always be free”

Clearly, this is different to the “free and always will be” statement on the Facebook homepage – but that’s aimed at users, not developers. Facebook are providing a huge commercial platform, developing rapidly in the mobile space (see acquisition of Instagram!) and with the forthcoming IPO, need to ensure future revenue channels are available for growth.

For the full story, head here.

From a user perspective, it would still appear Facebook will remain free. Indeed, this graphic explains perfectly why that will remain the case!

On the subject of that IPO… latest speculation remains a target valuation of $100 billion, or a trading price of around $40 per share.  Most recent date I’ve seen for the action is May 17th, as reported in TechCrunch.

Blog: Using WiFi for Recruitment? #rcvs #mobile

Attended an excellent Reconverse event last week focussed on use of mobile apps, websites etc. (candidate survey results here). This post though, is a slight tangent to that session.  Much discussion of SMS, bluetooth and so on. Got my head ticking over and started me thinking about wifi hotspots. They’re more widely available than ever but still seem under-utilised.

Many free hotspots I see require the user to go through a quick splash page, clicking to agree to terms and conditions. Fair enough, you’re using a free resource.  However, that’s pretty much all they ever do. Seems like an opportunity to me.  If you can throw up a guest wifi access point in a talent-specific location (say for a skills-focussed conference or at a coffee shop near a major IT employer), the splash page can be:

• Branded
• Device optimised (tab, laptop, phone)
• Location specific

When asking people to accept the terms of use for free wifi, it’d be more than possible to add a few check boxes. Opt out of job opportunity messages? Opt out of future offers? For details capture, either a single email address box, or implement Facebook Connect.  Indeed, no reason a reward mechanism couldn’t also be considered – give us your details, get 60 mins free wifi with a cloud wifi provider to use any time you like.

Seems a relatively untested area so far, but not an expensive one to explore. I’ve only come up with two real challenges so far:

1. Splash pages can be annoying on a phone if you don’t realise you have to go sign in. Messaging around the venue can resolve that.
2. Clearly, skills-specific locations will limit the breadth of application.

Final thought – for event organisers – why is the wifi never branded in any way? Often you’ll see “Wifi sponsored by XXX” in the programme. Why not set the password for the day to the brand name in question? If I actually have to type that company’s name to get on the Wifi, I’m far more likely to remember it!

Thoughts, comments, challenges appreciated!

Blog: Looking forward to Social Media in Recruitment event #smir

I’ve been a keen delegate at a couple of Mike’s events in this series before – indeed, the longest running series of recruiting Social Media events in the country, I believe. This time round, for the first time, I’ll be there without a company t-shirt to wear.  Looking forward to focussing on the content of the event and I’ll be live-tweeting the highlights as I go.  At the 2010 event, I went through the Twitter stream after and extracted some highlights – this year, I intend to contribute quite a few more!

The full programme for the event is available here.  Personally, I have a few highlights picked out already….

Vasco Castro – Head of Research at PotentialPark.  I’ve seen him present before and was impressed by the detail and evidence he was able to provide. Engaging and entertaining, it was a session with real depth, not simply theories that others could take away and test.  There’s much talk of the Candidate Experience at present, so it’ll be great to see Castro’s take on what the candidate perspective of social recruiting really is.

Steven Ehrlick – Global VP at the aia ad agency. Not seen him present previously and the ad agency world is one of the few parts of recruitment I’ve not spent time delving into. Should be a great learning experience for me, especially with the transatlantic nature of Steven’s experience.  UK and US recruitment practices seem to constantly be dancing around one another, but never completely aligned. Looking forward to seeing what trends Steven pulls out.

Adam Templeman – an actual practitioner, Head of Resourcing for a power company.  Having introduced social recruiting over the last year there, I’m hoping for a warts and all tale – the value for me is not just in the success stories (every supplier has a client they’ll use for that!) – I want to hear about what went wrong, how that was identified and fixed.  Should be great!

The organiser has already put up a few interviews with key speakers – if you want to join on the day, head on over here.