The Bloor Perspective: viral marketing switchboard style, OpenView sees further, and the cross-fertilisation of media

No matter who you are, you've probably done time on the maddening carousels of the automated telephone switchboard. The switchboard operator is increasingly being replaced by the studied diction of a voiceover artist, who thoughtfully presents an audio menu of choices and destinations that can be navigated by using a touch-tone phone.

If you would like to speak to a member of sales, press 1. If you have a technical query, press 2. If you have a billing enquiry, press 3. If you'd like to hear a duck quack, press 4.

Well, technically that's a misquote. The instruction, which was actually tacked onto the end of the audio menu for the National Discount Brokers in a moment of jest, should be 'If you'd like to hear a duck quack, press 7'. It made sense. The company's mascot is, after all, a mallard duck.

And automated switchboards do have a knack of putting a glassy-eyed stare on even the most caffeine-fuelled, go-getter of a caller. The quacking addition to the menu not only made the callers smile, it kicked them out of the automatic trance people go into once they realise they are talking to a computer.

A nice humorous touch to an arid everyday experience? It's a bit more than that. Pre-quack, normal traffic through the NDB switchboard was 5000 calls a day. Post-quack, NDB has received over 2 million calls a week from people solely interested in the service behind call button 7. There has been, in parallel, 75 per cent growth in new accounts with the company while the duck has been doing its stuff.

The company has estimated they would have needed 300 TV commercials to generate that level of growth through normal marketing and advertising channels. The freephone number costs between $8,000 and $10,000 a day.

The viral marketing of today thrives on the dead time of the desktop surfer. The surfer receives the mail from a mate, sniggers and forwards it on to three more contacts. It can be argued that it provides a social service, of sorts. It provides an excuse to break email silence, something to giggle about in the coffee break, and a brief respite from that stalled spreadsheet or report. Cumulatively, millions of working hours are spent each day, in this exact way, on free internet mind candy.

*OpenView undervalued?*

OpenView was the first enterprise management tool to reach the market. Then it drifted slowly away from the leading edge as HP nudged the product down its list of priorities. Now, it has announced changes that could mark the beginning of a renaissance period.

OpenView has always been seen as a technical solution. This reputation was built upon the strength of Network Node Manager as the best management tool of its type. The only dissenting voice in its market space came from Riversoft - a fledgling network management company that claims to provide intervention-free management. It would appear that HP agrees because it has just taken an equity stake in Riversoft in return for a licence to use the technology.

At the same time, HP has just announced a whole range of support products for mobile users. The main thrust of this is the release of its Smart Plug-In technology for WAP servers. Initially, the only server supported is Nokia's but partnerships with Tantau and Nextenso should result in Smart Plug-In technology for their WAP servers by the middle of 2001. Support for other wireless technologies is expected in the longer term. The plug-in technology will extend the OpenView capabilities onto wireless networks and allow them to be viewed as a part of the overall network infrastructure.

HP has come up with advanced technology that continues to strengthen its management solution. What is more, HP is never very good at blowing its own trumpet. It was one of the first vendors to come up with an architecture for Service Management based on SLAs. It has developed technology partnerships with just about every leading niche solution so that OpenView can be the glue in a broad best-of-breed management approach. It has good products and a good services operation (despite giving up on PwC) but it doesn't stand up and shout about them. Perhaps that is why it has just announced lower than expected revenues for the last quarter.

*Visual media gets digital*

Television is one of the most influential inventions of modern history. But broadcasting grew up mostly owned by corporations and even with the advent of the public service broadcasting model the airwaves were not completely opened up to the general public.

With the advent of the internet the world shrank again and now with the advent of broadband we will see the advent of true public broadcasting which, as with corporate productions, will be a mixture of good and bad.

With DVD came the director's commentary, behind-the-scenes documentaries and a host of technical information that all demystified the art of the cinema. Video editing now takes place through the PC rather than spaghetti of cabling between video camera, editing box and video recorder. Video cameras are becoming digital and now there isn't an analogue piece of equipment in sight.

Broadband technology will allow video streaming into the home. No longer will we have to suffer small screen sizes and pauses in the entertainment as the player buffers the next 30 seconds of action. The PC screen will be full of moving pictures.

The professionals are already providing content. Websites such as AtomFilms (http://www.atomfilms.com ) and iFilm (http://www.ifilm.com ) are providing high quality content consisting primarily of short films. LikeTelevision (http://www.liketelevision.com ) shows classic TV shows, weather, news, musical performances and full-length films.

The amateur market will contain both good and bad. Last year's Blair Witch Project showed just what can be done with a few thousand dollars and the future Martin Scorseses or Steven Spielbergs out there will show us just what the medium is capable of if used well.

The bad will be the "reality TV". This is already established. For sometime now any individual with a web cam and exhibitionist streak has been allowing anyone else with a modem to take a voyeuristic part in their life. Jennicam (http://www.jennicam.com ) started it all and during the summer we saw the transfer of the idea to the TV screen with the phenomenal success of Big Brother.

The democratisation of media is happening - with mixed results.