VOF Week 3: “THE PULSE WIRE HOT SPOT”

Queries may abound on the topical subject “Pulse wire Hot spot”, my response welcome to Kenya, land of innovative marketing strategies. Hot spots in Kenya are innovative technological gimmick by Kenya’s best and largest mobile service provider Safaricom of selected areas where wireless internet access is available. Hence the similarities with pulse wire, it’s a hot spot in its global right.

Blogs are systematically arranged entries that are frequently updated for the general public within a particular web forum and are impending and interactive new generation websites. Corporate and social networking forums such as face book and my space just to mention but afew.Challenges facing blogs include the fact that they are time consuming and at times certain blogs may be negative and since they lack an expiry date negatively impact on the image of the subscriber. Restrictions, additionally corporate blogs may limit free flow of information within an organisation as individuals seek to retain the corporate image of the organisation. In the case of fallout with management in certain situations blogs may be a cause of victimisation within an organisation. Problems further arise with questions on what is to be posted to keep the blog alive interesting to regularise flow of traffic. Poor Indicators, Necessity may prompt one to utilise blogs as indicators on a topical issue or marketing response which in essence may prove inadequate as the comments, trackbacks and qualitative intangibles cannot be easily quantified to measure success. Influential individuals, interesting is that blogs such as Face book in Kenya managed to attract the political elite but the problem is how to attract and retain people in positions of authority; corporate and political leaders to act as a bonding point with those directly under them. Hackers, tend to use the web as a point where they misuse personal post data for evil purposes by people like psychopaths, paedophiles, child and drug traffickers. Plagiarism of work posted on the web poses acts as an additional impediment to blogs.Geographical coverage where restrictions to immediate access to the web also poses a challenge to blogs.

Barriers to blogs include the posting of biased perspectives on the blog.Other factors hampering blogs include the appeal of the blog,the online application used, writing guidelines made to the users, lack of immediate response cultivated through personal touch, relevance of what is posted on the web, monetization of blogs.Legal barriers include the unavailability of codes of practice and socially, social rigidity in reception of information technology to transcend cultural barriers through blogs.

Solutions to overcome challenges and barriers include first and foremost a paradigm shift from the conventional communication methods to embrace latest technologies hence blogs(Social re-engineering).Great networking, knowledge sharing and perspective inspiring topics should be retained to keep the blog iron hot. Filtering parameters such as the security settings on face book should ensure restriction on hackers. Emphasis should be to enhance the “value add” that blogs promote and increase mentorship as initiated by world pulse in the use of blogs.