Global accesses employees via social media

By Siyabonga Africa, ITWeb junior journalist

Johannesburg, 09 Mar 2009

Global Access will use social media to stream corporate videos to individual employees. The company's MD, Rick Grantham, says current technology can be used to leapfrog imminent standards such as IPTV and digital video broadcasting - handheld.

“Videos have become cheaper to make because production sets don't have to be so elaborate and they don't have to broadcast through normal channels such as TV. This means they can be made into items such as iClips which are hosted on training video Web sites such as Videojug.com,” says Grantham.

Grantham explains that bytes of information can be downloaded at a time onto cellphones, computers or wherever people may want to view them. Global Access's service is similar to a mobi-site, whereby an SMS is sent to request a particular video and a link for that video is sent back.

The local corporate broadcasting company says the video to mobile service will use push and pull tactics by either sending links to videos to a database of employees (a push), or by encouraging employees to SMS in codes for training links (a pull).

Where to?

Gartner says although many organisations hasten to adopt and exploit social computing in marketing, sales and customer support roles, the research company has found human resources tends to lag behind.

Grantham believes this is the area in which Global Access can come in with its mobile phone video service. “This is where we think the strength of broadcasting is going. Computers and cellphones have the capability to play videos well and more than 90% of South Africans are connected via handhelds,” he says.

“Consumerisation has become a force of unmatched potency in the past and the same will be true when it comes to the explosive spike in the popularity of consumer online video, fuelling a similar interest in video within businesses,” says Gartner VP and analyst Whit Andrews.

Andrews adds video use on the Web is growing swiftly, with 73% of the Internet audience watching a video online at least monthly, which translates to more than 90 million viewers.