There has been a lot of mergers and acquisitions in the Caribbean Tech and Telecoms Industry these past 2 years especially rooted in Jamaica. Telecom companies once operating with a single focus for peddling calls, text and mobile internet are now evolving into multiplay and digital media companies to meet match the global trend of convergence and digital content plus meeting the new demands of customers.
The FlOW/LIME merger of this year now offers to its customers Four Play- Mobile, Cable, Broadband and HomePhones and Digicel has been pretty aggressive in defending its network from voip calls and online advertising. In fact, Digicel’s moves towards underscore their move into being a media company directly and also through its spin off brands.
Digicel bought Telstar the largest Cable Station in Jamaica, then Sportsmax a regional sports broadcasting company, which also does North American broadcasting with CEEN-TV.
Then under the brand Trend Media they now have Loop News and Loop Classifieds. And this is where most of our recent information is linked.
Trend Media Group launched in 2014 and describes itself as the Caribbean’s new digital media house with “Loop News is the first of our many content products that will launch in the Caribbean and Central America.” They plan to “revolutionise the advertising industry by providing brands with first in class digital advertising solutions from concept development through to full campaign reporting on all our products. They name their specialities as “digital advertising, mobile marketing, creative solutions, UX, graphic design, publishing, digital marketing, sales, digital advertising sales, content production, multi-media advertising, brand development, app development.”
That one company description puts into context what we’ve been hearing from the digital grapevine and we’re gonna give it to you in bullet form and in no particular order.
- Digicel or one it’s spun off brands is having a Social Media Summit in November this year and flying in some global hot shots to speak.
- A social media marketing and management company based in Trinidad with tentacles across the Caribbean (This could be Trend Media) is up and running, hiring like crazy, pitching companies, sending teams to the states to train in Hubspot software which is huge on inbound marketing, marketing automation and tracking.
- That a mobile social network/community is in the works, to create somewhat of a walled garden so they can benefit greater from online advertising revenue.
- They have bought a trailer load of video production equipment to of course create their own digital content for themselves and of course clients across the markets.
These moves are already creating movements in the Jamaican/Caribbean market place.
Now, a Social Media Summit is welcomed, it’s great for knowledge sharing and for them to seed the market with the sales pitches of their products.
Trend media as a Digital Media company that creates content and offer social media marketing/ management, apps development and online advertising plus the matching mobile, online, app, social platforms to distribute is going to shake up the market. Already smaller companies ( CGR/Shift Interactive; eMedia Interactive & Point Global Marketing; Toucan, Caribbean Ideas) in those sectors, are already either merging or battening down by also going on a hiring frenzy to build out bigger teams so as to keep their current clients happy and poach free. This within the context that also some medium to large companies have already started to pull their accounts from agencies and setting up teams in house.
Additionally, video production companies that once dominated the marketplace (Phase 3) will now have to get even better to keep current clients, recalibrate their sponsorship development and revenue strategies.
The idea of a mobile social network community is interesting, but one that will compete or at least create a distraction from Facebook and Twitter though? Remains to be seen.
Understanding Convergence
The theory of convergence in the telecommunications industry says that eventually all voice and data services will belong to a single data stream. For instance, mobile phones will handle calls, instant messages, streaming television, photographs and email. Converged networks usually employ Internet protocol (IP) — the architecture used by the World Wide Web — according to an Economist Intelligence Unit white paper. This is already a reality globally and now in the Caribbean.
According to chron.com ” Convergence in the telecommunications industry may make some services obsolete, such as cable television (cord cutting) and radio, but open up many new opportunities for existing service providers and entrepreneurs. Time has eliminated many of the technological hurdles to convergence. But profiting from new services and providing quality service are some of the toughest challenges for a business .”
It continues to be every interesting to watch how technology is changing businesses and the lives of customers and so fast.
