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Nick Garner Unibet EIG presentation

Born Digital introduction 5 mins

I’m here to introduce John Palfrey

He is Professor of Law and a Vice Dean at Harvard Law School.
He is a faculty director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

He has published extensively on the Internet’s relationship to Intellectual Property, international governance, and democracy.

He chairs the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, made up of leading Internet service companies and nonprofit groups focused on children’s safety.

He’s regularly comentating on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News, NPR and BBC.

He has testified before the United States Congress on issues relating to child safety in a digital era.

His co-authored book on youth and their use of technology, Born Digital, has been called “a landmark sociological study of today’s early adults.”

Library Journal named Born Digital as one of its top Science and Technology books for 2008, the only computer science book named to the prestigious list.

Nicholas Negroponte, author of Being Digital
“Born Digital offers an excellent primer on what it means to live digitally. It should be required reading for adults trying to understand the next generation.”

The Guardian Newspaper
‘(A) serious and engaging study of how “digital natives” (people who grew up with the Internet) actually behave online.’

The Independent newspaper
‘Born Digital a diligent attempt to chart the lifestyle of `millenials’”
and
“satisfyingly comprehensive in its coverage of the social and civic movements enabled by the Net.’

The main theses of Born Digital:

• The desire to post personal information
• The dangers of lifelong “dossiers” of medical, legal, and purchase data
• The problems of children viewing obscene and violent content
• Copyright violations and copyright holder over-reactions
• Online harassment and stalking
• Young people’s predilection toward sampling content, whether in music, news, or education
• Information overload
• The urge to create and to collaborate
• Online political activism

Initially this would not appear to have much to do with iGaming, but when you dig in deeper into the root theme of this book it’s about digital literacy,

Increasing digital literacy has fundamental implications for our whole industry.

iGaming is in its infancy  and the born digital are, our new customers.

European Gaming and Betting Association say:

“The European online gaming sector accounted for around 7% of the total European gaming market in 2008.Independent forecasts expect online gaming’s market share to rise to 12% in 2012.” (http://www.egba.eu/pdf/EGBA_FS_MarketReality.pdf)

In other words about 90% of all gaming is done offline in Europe.

It means there are  emerging generations of individuals won’t understand the strange concept of, forinstance:

• Travelling to a building
• So they can place a bet on odds far inferior to an online gaming website.

iGaming will only grow, as these ‘born digital’ citizens emerge as adult consumers.

Our greatest challenge is to communicate effectively with the ‘born digital’.

If we assume the ‘born digital’ generation began life from 1980,

• By 1997 when the internet became properly commercial, they were 17 years old.
• By the time they were 24, broadband was widely available
• Now in their 30’s they’re our core demographic.
• But bear in mind, these people remember a time before the Internet.

We’ve yet to meet those first born into the broadband age. They are 12 years old now.

Apart from the on-site changes that will emerge with the event of ‘web 3.0’ and more effective CRM, the other immediate to-do is marketing.

Now… the Internet is ‘first nature’ to a growing block of consumers.
i.e. instinctive, rather than learnt.

Those who are ‘born digital’ understand the subtle signals that help them find

• the best operators
• with the best service,
• the best experience
• and best odds.

They sense the difference between one operator and another, driving up market expectations and weeding out poor offerings.

This understanding of what to look for, where to go and how to feedback to others online has driven the emergence of social proof online.  It is a marketing game changer and is only here because of how the ‘born digital’ natively communicate and feedback on the online space.

The ‘Born Digital’ book gives us all a wake up call, on who is coming and what they care about.

When (you)  iGaming operators intuitively understand the ‘born digital’ you will

• You will create online experiences the ‘born digital’ love
• And you will communicate with them in a way they natively feel comfortable
• You will also manage the threat from emergent companies like Zynga
• And so hopefully you’ll go on to thrive in the decades to come.

So please welcome John Palfrey and Born Digital!

Social media acquisition ha sbeen a waste of time – now what?

View more presentations from Nick Garner

The second presentation is a lighter one about protecting brand from affiliates. I did this with Paul Reilly of Media Skunkworks an SEO agency who specialises in iGaming clients. (Someone who I have a high opinion of) We both took opposing stances, me of the operator and Paul of the Affiliate and argued our respective cases. We then put 2 questions to the floor:

So the consensus was that affiliates will rank on brand despite it being seen as unethical.

Personally I see affiliates as commission only salespeople who make money off the inefficiencies of operators, so if they rank on brand its because operators hav’nt done a good enough job on their own marketing. And yes I am on the case with Unibet

Counter Brand Protection

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