This is me, testing the app. It works great however any major blogging from my Blackberry with my giant hands would result in severe amounts of misspelling and amazing grammar. Onward.
Category: Technology
Open API’s: Good for Syndication. Bad for Safety?
Posted by – February 18, 2010
Unearthing Another Reality
I’m usually not focused on writing about breaking news but being a regular user of Foursquare and then watching all the press and online noise yesterday about PleaseRobMe.com, I really started to think about open API’s, their possibilities, the good, the bad, and the bigger picture. While I’m not necessarily offended by what the PleaseRobMe.com guys have done (after all, we all have access to that data), it does remind us how a little creativity + ingenuity + behavioral data = influence. Regardless of how truthful or how it’s spun, we can essentially do whatever we want. I think the PleaseRobMe.com dudes used humor to reveal how ridiculous our assumptions are that we can just use all these tools so lackadaisically and believe that nothing bad could come of it.
It’s Just Data, Right?
There is a data collection procedure that they have done with small children when it comes to their exploratory behavior. I saw it on Discovery Channel years ago but I haven’t found a photo, video or article on it online yet. I will link out to it when I find it, or better yet if you know, send it to me and I’ll append it to this blog post and credit you with the find.
Basically, they would put a toddler in a big playroom full of toys. There would be a camera overhead in the center of the room. The child would also have a small concentrated red light affixed comfortably and safely to the child’s back on his/her shirt or overalls. For about an hour or so, as the child ran back and forth doing things, playing with different toys, hitting several different areas of the room every minute, the camera would capture the patterns of the child’s movements over a specified amount of time, drawing it’s movement patterns for the camera. Child psychologists would then analyze this crazy light pattern of movement to better understand attention spans and other developmental characteristics during playtime.
I think apps/sites like Foursquare are collecting the same type of data about adults and probably tech savvy teens too. I have two teenagers that are under my guidance with their data-enabled phones but it’s a little unnerving to think about how much easier it is now for the underbelly of society to learn about them. I’m not much of a conspiracy guy but there are some evil (and intelligent) mofos out there that see this kind of data as the framework for their silver platter of chaos that they can feast on to their heart’s content. API = Open book.
We Are A Giant Research Project
Think about all the sites and online tools that we love. Think about all those sites and online tools that we love and interact with often through multiple means that have open API’s. Think about the amount of data we are giving them about ourselves, friends and family. Just like when an MRI creates a 3D image scan of your noggin by collecting data, these types of sites are doing the same with your behavioral patterns and those you associate with. The funny (or odd) part about all of it is that we are voluntarily (and excitedly in some cases) providing this information to whoever wants access to it for whatever reason. More interesting is the fact that we are connecting apps like Foursquare to our Twitter accounts, which we sometimes connect to our Facebook accounts and other publicly available accounts like Tumblr, Identi.ca, etc.
Foursquare was designed to be a fun way for us to keep track of where are friends are (hopefully only the ones we truly trust), incorporating the fun/reward factor with badges, mayorship, etc. If you are diligent about using the app, it also is giving people an idea of what your daily routines are, good, bad, ugly and indifferent.
This behavioral data collection phenomenon is not just limited to Foursquare either. Think about all the areas now in which people make available data about themselves. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and the fairly recent wider opening of LinkedIn’s API channels can you give you all the info you need, a 95% heuristic view of a person’s life, just shy of physically hanging out with them in their own living room. If you are a social/tech guy like me using all these services, people can now know your name, your aliases/monikers used (47project for instance), your work history, your hobbies, your music interests, what you look like, your schedule, social and business affiliations and the convos you have within those circles…..all of this is pretty much excessible through API’s. They can also, after finding all that out about you, wormhole into your friend’s lists and find out all of those exact same details about them if they’ve posted it anywhere online. This is a really gnarly concept. The gnarliest part about it is that we are feeding it by choice. It’s not all bad but there’s awareness and responsibility that comes with the use of all these cool apps and sites.
Mindfulness
If you are like me at all, waiting hungrily on pins and needles for the next new social app phenomenon to grace your news feeds, so you can be the first to slam it onto your Blackberry, iPhone, or Android, plugging in your login creds, getting on yet another grid, remember that the more of these sites and apps you use, and the more info you choose to reveal about yourself publicly online, should be kept proportionately equal to the amount of vigilance and proactive awareness you should have about the possibilities of your data being used and/or misused.
Other Great Articles on The Subject
ZDNet: Please Rob Me: Ethical or not? [poll]
Mashable: Are We All Asking to Be Robbed?
CNET: The dark side of geo: PleaseRobMe.com
Information Week: PleaseRobMe.com Solicits Social Theft
Onward.
Facebook’s Juxtaposition of Reality, Our Responsibility
Posted by – February 15, 2010
The Information Consumption Routine
Every morning I boot up my MacBook Pro, I start some coffee, throw together a quick breakfast, load up Gmail, Facebook, etc. and start observing, joining, or creating conversations. You never have any idea what you are going to be talking about every day on Facebook, it just happens. The access to these conversations every day is starting a huge cultural shift in personal communication and all of it’s different levels of value and meaning. While there is no replacement for the real deal, we’re learning very quickly how to “read” the correct emotional tone of Facebook statuses, Tweets, IM chat sessions, based on who we are talking to, when we are talking to them, who their other friends are on Facebook, and what your history is with them.
We’ve also started joining groups and fanning pages en masse, not even for the sake of the participating in the group or page itself, but just to have an opportunity to announce publicly in an information stream….to let the world know….(diminuendo to a dramatic pause)….that you’ve just become a fan of “Standing On Your Head While Stacking Golf Balls On Tuesdays After 3pm PST” and you don’t care who knows it!
The Needle
There are a couple things going on now that I think we really need to pay attention to. There are benefits and inherent flaws in the mobilization power contained within an environment like Facebook. The feelings of immediate connectedness can almost distract us from the thought of what it really means to be connected and reciprocal with others around us.
Benefit
Facebook on one hand has made it possible for us to amass quickly with like minded individuals for a passionate purpose. It puts those that have always wanted to make a statement or do something big with their opinion but never had the right medium for it. They were too shy, too localized, or too overwhelmed at where to even begin. All understandable of course. This has opened doors for them and given them a voice that puts them on the map. This is a very positive thing.
Caution
There is another side to this coin however, a price or cost that is being paid. Unintentionally I think we are training ourselves, to some extent, to feel morally validated by joining a group on Facebook called “Cure Cancer” and that’s all. It’s as if somehow we’re giving back by joining the group publicly and opting in to messages/news from the group or fan page. Now I do believe strongly that the dissemination and forwarding of information by supporters is awesome and will never be a bad thing. It’s a tangible contribution and good reason to join a group. Fans of a cause on Facebook can get the word out quick and promote. But we can ALL do that on Facebook, with just the click of a mouse, and then we update our status with how much we love bacon and then play Farmville (FB games are not my gig).
I don’t have the stats but I just wonder what the ratio is of people on Facebook that ‘joined’ a great cause to the amount of people that have actually either volunteered 1 hour of their time or $1 to any charity anywhere within the last month. I very much include myself in the group of people that wasn’t really giving, and did so without really realizing it. I was joining, and still do, online communities with a premise that I support. I share their posts on my wall, I retweet stuff to spread the word. I just started to question myself on how much have I actually tangibly given back or made any real contribution to any of these philanthropic institutions or initiatives. When I looked back at my level of giving back vs. what I took for myself, it wasn’t looking promising. I was out of whack and am still in the process of scoping out a way for me to contribute that allows me to also keep the quality of the other things I’m doing in my career and family life extremely high. Both can easily be done. You just gotta get creative.
Balance
I realized I really need to step it up in the area of real, actual contribution. Even a dollar a month helps, or donating an hour of your time at a teen center, a homeless shelter, an understaffed public school, or an old folks home giving some people your conversation time to brighten up the tail end of their existence as they get ready to move on. Look through one of the big charity fan pages or groups you’ve joined on Facebook and see if there’s something in your local area you can check out and contribute to every couple of weeks for an hour or so.
Reciprocation, Social Responsibility
Not to get all preachy here but the online world is permanently infusing itself with our psyches, our communication, sense of belonging and community, all at the click of a button. We need to be careful to not get complacent with a subconsciously perceived substitution for physical interaction and presence, for actually going somewhere to help a perfect stranger that could really use someone to talk to for an hour, a family that could use a $20 bag of groceries this month, a dollar to Haiti, or donating some old books you’ll never read again to a school or two.
You know me, I love social networking and yammering on about nothing more than most of you probably ever will but I am reminded constantly by my kids how important it is focus on the tangible.
Onward.
Social Media: To Rockstar or Not to Rockstar
Posted by – February 5, 2010
Ya Done Good Son.
You started out years ago as a newbie online marketer. Over the last decade or so, you’ve pulled off some amazing things with viral marketing campaigns, banner ad placements, eCommerce, and some huge partner promotions/campaigns leveraging everything under the sun effectively without spending hardly a dime and the revenue is rolling in. Your shrewd sense of where things are going next in the online marketing world has set you apart from your co-workers and your equivalents at other companies.
Your marketing cunning has been noted by journalists abroad and you’ve even done a few high-profile keynotes and panels. You’ve written for a couple well-known print publications with huge distribution as a guest columnist. You feel the momentum of your career getting more intense and gaining the kind of thrust you had always hoped it would finally get. Finally it is happening.
Then one year, the Social Media ship lands and an outpouring of tools and websites floods the online world. You quickly understand these new concepts, embrace them, become a master at manipulating them to sculpt yours and your company’s future and now you are right smack in the middle of the new era and excited about it.
After a couple more years of plugging away, you are a Social Media expert. A new opportunity arises. You get hired to do a job at a big company. You were hired under the assumption that you would be a bad ass at it because being a bad ass at it is what will make your employer happy by making them money. They will make money as a result of your genius strategy for garnering more social capital than their competitors could ever imagine. People are following you and the company that hired you on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and are engaged.
As doors start opening for you within the social media community, your frame of reference and circle of professional cohorts expands exponentially.
The Corporate Debacle
What should your company do with you when you actually become the bad ass they always wanted you to be? When directors and VP’s, who are also smart career opportunists like you, know that your success brings opportunity not just for their company, but for you personally as well? Should they be threatened by that? Should they embrace it? Should they be happy or annoyed with you that your blog has taken off, your Twitter following is through the roof quadrupling the company’s, and you are getting talked about in social media almost as much as your company is?
Due to the nature of social media if you are active, excellent at what you do, and involved in the communities, you meet LOTS of people, constantly and instantly. All the boundaries have lifted, the shackles of long distances geographically have been removed. We can find ‘like’ people right NOW. These people are from all over the world, many of them are smart as hell and respected in their industry and career space. There are so many benefits for your company as you mix it up on behalf of <COMPANY NAME>, getting involved, and being an evangelist for your company. Before you know it, the same amount of people are asking you about you as they are about your company.
A recent article from Sage Circle entitled, “Forrester tells analysts no more personal blogs with interesting implications for analyst relations” discusses how Forrester management had requested that all of their analysts shut down all of their own personal blogs. Forrester CEO George Colony was all down for non-competes that favored the employer because “… non-competes ultimately help new and established companies alike to retain the talent they’ve invested in, further nurtured and who have become star employees due to their rewarding tenure and success. …”.
Where do you draw the line though? How can you justify keeping your SM expert at bay BECAUSE they did such an amazing job and are naturals at what they do? You can’t tell a Social Media expert to not be social. You can’t tell an opportunist to not seize the best opportunities. Anyone with even a hair of ambition knows this.
My recommendation on how companies should handle this is to recognize their Social Media expert’s success. Stay close to them and help them facilitate their career growth. Like any role anywhere, if a company supports the growth of an outstanding employee, statistics have shown they will be loyal and stick with their company longer as well and will continue to be in good standing after an eventual split if it happens. Invest in the relationship with your SM rockstar and it will pay your company back in the short and long term, regardless if they end up working for you or not.
Just remember that a star can’t make you shine if you keep it in a box.
Social Media: B2B, It’s About Interaction Analysis Silly!
Posted by – November 30, 2009
Dude, Social Media for B2B, Everyone’s Talking About It, Bro.
One of the hottest topics in social media as it pertains to corporate, is how to incorporate social media into a company’s currently existing B2B strategy and initiatives. I’ve witnessed several discussions about this topic. The bottom line is that the solution is NOT in the tools available (Twitter, Facebook). The solution is not hiring some agency to set up an account on every social site.
Social media strategies and proposed solutions should only be created based on analysis. There are companies and agencies that have come to this conclusion on their own (a good thing), however the main issue still exists. Most of these entities are analyzing the wrong things to generate their strategy. Of course it’s important to know your audience/segment/demo…whatever you wanna call it. It’s important to understand what your top 3 competitors are or aren’t doing. That’s all standard blah blah blah…
The fruits of social media for any business, any type of business, in any industry, come from the enhancement of interactions. Enhancing the key interactions are the core of all social media successes in my opinion. Those key interactions are the ones that catalyze the rest of your efforts across the board.
Where Should You Start?
With B2B, it’s a little different. Don’t waste your time focusing on the hype of the currently popular tools like you would in the consumer world. B2B is a different beast because B2B customers, relationships and conversations are NOT typically the type that you share with the general public. When you are thinking about how to deal with your distys and the sales channel, remember that Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and the zillions of other tier 2/tier 3 sites were not created, nor have they thrived, because they had the nature of B2B in mind. It’s hard not to wince when I hear companies say stuff like, “I know we NEED social media in our B2B strategy, it’s the latest thing and we don’t wanna miss the boat.” What people should really be saying is, “I know we need to enhance our relationships and interactions with our customers on the B2B side. If social media has a place here, let’s use it.”
A Scenario
As the top social media person in your company, you are approached by some inside sales people that manage the big accounts. They heard about social media, have heard of Twitter, Facebook, and so on. They want to incorporate social media into their B2B program/marketing roadmap but aren’t sure how to go about it.
Here are some simple steps to get started that I’ve been using:
- Discovery Time. Set up a meeting with your new stakeholders so that you can discuss the entire process for the way they communicate and interact with their customers. Find out all points in the process with a customer that they have a direct interaction, human to human. Find out if there’s a site/application that they interact with where feedback or communications with those customers happens, like Salesforce.com, etc. EVERY touch point of interaction needs to be noted whether it’s a person OR a process that interacts with them. An accurate picture of this will help you get closer to identifying the gaps that need to be filled. Also it’s important to ask them if they know what their customers currently need and have, and what they need but don’t have. Your stakeholders should be able to answer those questions quickly. If they can’t, then they have approached you too early in the game.
- Get More Feedback. Your stakeholders will know a lot about their customers. If social media is new to their fold however, I don’t think it hurts to give them some homework. Have them pick out 5-10 of their most difficult and opinionated customers. They should let those customers know that they are exploring introducing some social media concepts into the relationship and process and would like some feedback on ways they could improve on communicating/interacting. Based on those results, it’s time to begin the construction of your plan.
- Choose Your Drug. You now have a list of interactions to take a look at, know who their audience is, and what their needs are. The next steps are to assess with the stakeholder what kinds of interactions seem to really work and which ones seem to fall on deaf ears (which we will throw out of the equation immediately for this new social media plan). Zoom in on the good stuff and research if there’s currently a social tool, site, or product offering that could help augment those things that currently work. Keep in mind that there may not be. Most social media sites were initially designed with nimble, chaotic, public conversation/interaction in mind so I can tell you right now that trying to bend and sculpt the public consumer factor of something like Facebook and Twitter, is not the right approach and will fail (unless of course Facebook/Twitter decide they want to change their whole model and reason for existence to serving enterprise level B2B marketing initiatives – probably not gonna happen). If you found something out there that works, then congrats and move forward with an execution for testing it out. If you cannot find a solution in a pretty little package with a bow on it somewhere then you may have to explore spending some budget on custom apps/sites that will serve your specific purpose. If you go that route, your risk better be pretty calculated as that path can get costly.
- Testing 1, 2, 3. Is This Thing On? Testing your new idea in a live environment is crucial and exciting. Remember that since this may be uncharted territory for your company’s B2B effort, you may run into surprising results. In some of my experiences, I’ve set up expectations and not only were they not met, I witnessed something completely new about my customers that I wasn’t aware of, just based on how they interacted. Take that stuff seriously folks. Those are the nuggets of social media decision-making right there.
- Execute. Analyze. Tweak. Repeat. If you are an experienced marketer, you know this routine well. If you don’t know this routine well, you shouldn’t be in marketing or any other line of work that requires analysis and ROI.
Go On With Yo’ Bad Self.
I hope some of this stuff helps you. These are some things that I’m doing right now and they seem to be working well as a fundamentally basic approach. I know that the variables in play for every company are so vast and at times amorphous. As I learn more and more through my experiences, running through these exercises with my current company and other clients, I’ll post the meat of what went down, regardless if what I tried succeeded or failed.
Onward.
Is Facebook Too Much Ying?
Posted by – November 26, 2009
Let’s face it, Facebook has no Yang. You can only “Like” something or “Share” with others. When an ‘unfriending’ happens, the ‘unfriendee’ is not notified so that the ‘unfriender’ can bow out of battle quietly, hopefully without anyone noticing. Socially, it’s almost encouraging denial of the fact that with all the average size multicolored elephants in the room (fun happy time content & conversations), no one wants to acknowledge the gigantic white elephant…..you know, that one with it’s left eye gouged out, open wounds from gunfire, and a severe limp.
The proof of a much needed Yang side of Facebook is obvious. With all the ‘positivity’ built into Facebook, human nature can’t hold the Stepford bridge up for long. We needed a Yang right now or everyone was gonna start freaking out. So we found a way with rampant Fan Page creation representing strong thought or opinion instead of something tangible like a product or service. Out of this came feature recommendations from users that made a pretty bold statement: We socially can’t all be living in a fuzzy sugar-filled land where everything is made of cotton candy, every living thing frolics instead of walks, and the house band for every club or venue is the Partridge Family, pounding out happy fun tunes with blue birds on their shoulders.
The creation of a fan page has turned into the 2009 version of protesting and marching with picket signs against the grain of Facebook’s intention. The difference is, a petition function and lead generation is built in and it’s global.
Let the bitchfest begin.
The Feature Set of Darkness
There have been some funny fan pages that I’ve seen. Here are a few of those:
The Dislike Button - This call for the opportunity to publicly insert your WAHmbulance into a conversation or on some posted content has been around for awhile. It’s not enough for us to just not say anything if we don’t like it. Is being a pacifist against our true nature? I don’t know but it’s funny to see the thousands of people wanting something like this so bad.
The Hate Button – I interpret this idea as not just wanting to let the world know you are offended by a conversation or content, but to let the world know that if given the choice, you would cripple this conversation with a baseball bat if it had two legs and could walk around.
The I Don’t Care Button - This is one that was ‘recommended’ to me today when I logged in. Isn’t this the same as inaction? If we publicly need to announce our apathy to everyone about a conversational topic, it’s no wonder that humanity accuses humanity of being a group of lazy, whiny, little brats.
The Boring Button - I saw this fan page awhile ago but couldn’t seem to find it again. Anyway, this to me represents our inherent need to be publicly smug about something, tapping our inner Kanye. Brilliant.
Let’s Heat Up This Petri Dish: We Aren’t “Friends” Anymore!
I think an interesting social experiment, and one that would surely make people either quit Facebook, or would at least quadruple the amount of thought going into deciding if you will confirm a friend request or not, is to automate the delivery of a friendly notification to the “unfriendee”, letting them know that person X just unfriended them. Hell, might as well take it a step further and put it publicly in their feed…something like, “So and so just unfriended So and so.” Imagine the awkwardness you could witness with functionality like this. You could cut it like butter. More funny would be people’s interactions with that feed activity, commenting or ‘liking’ it. Think about the conversations that would be generated on THOSE threads. I wouldn’t get ANY work done. It would turn Facebook into a virtual gladiator event! Where’s my toga?
Onward.
Being Informed: Be Careful What You Ask For
Posted by – November 26, 2009
What Have I Done?
I have a BlackBerry.
Sent to my BlackBerry all day, every day, are the following:
- Personal email (3 different accounts serving different purposes)
- Work email
- Personal/Work Calendar/Meeting updates
- Facebook activity
- MySpace activity (much less so now since I’m not on there very often anymore)
- Twitter activity
- News feeds via RSS that I’ve set up covering everything from entertainment to science to business & marketing
- SMS/MMS messages from my teenage boys, friends, and family across the world
One of my sons asked me the other day if I read all that stuff and while I can say that I don’t read through everything from top to bottom, I DO comb through every message, more or less snacking on the headlines that show up on my phone. It’s now a habit.
Sometimes it has really benefited me when it comes to getting tweets about traffic problems on a highway I was about to jump on, family emergencies, my boys letting me know where they are after school, or I get notified about a last minute meeting cancellation so I don’t show up and no one is there after my 30 minute commute to make it on time.
Sometimes it’s maddening. I end up reading (and having some sort of emotional reaction to, ranging from mellow to freak out) a ton of information all at once, almost sending me over the edge. Whereas before all this technology, we were generally receiving the major milestone headlines and information in “groups of 1” or 2 at a time..sometimes 3….a more palpable rate. That was at least what our brains were trained to take in and process effectively at the time.
I think that in a lot of ways it has gotten most people more stressed out than they are aware they are. Even if the information overload they’re receiving is positive, it’s still overload. Every message that triggers any type of mental/emotional response out of you removes you yet one more notch away from reality, the here and now slips away. In a corporate world where there are new movements of people trying to encourage a culture of work/life balance, are we effectively countering that ideal by checking all of our messages/tweets/emails on our iPhones right before checking into our visit to In-N-Out Burger on Foursquare?
I’m Not Alone.
The other day established journalist/editor Jennifer Van Grove (@jbruin on Twitter), Associate Editor for Mashable and NBC San Diego correspondent, had tweeted, “my feed reader is out of control… one day off & I feel like the world has moved on without me.” Nowadays, we are all so accustomed to getting so much information from so many directions. I wonder if there’s a battle going on inside all of us now; one side wants to be in the moment and think only about what is in front of us and tangible, the other side takes the concept prevalent in most journalists to know as much as possible as fast as possible so that we are ahead of the game.
I get teased by my less-than-tech friends often (or those friends that perhaps take time to smell the roses more often than I) but one interesting thing is that no matter how much info I have sent to me or that I go out and get myself, there are always 1,000+ more people out there that are taking in more information than me (and if they’re good people, they pass on the good stuff to the rest of us).
The Repercussions of High Volume Input
Are there any when you are plugged in, feeding your brain at the level that it can now fed? I know there are effects on certain chemicals in your body and brain that are known to get a boost or be negatively affected when watching too much TV or staring at a screen. Hundreds of studies have proven all kinds of things. I have to wonder, based on my inability to put my BlackBerry down without convulsing into a harsh moment of data withdrawal, how this has affected us in our physical and behavioral day to day.
My Two Cents
A long time ago in a small town probably close by, some dude would drop off stacks of newspapers on every street corner of every block. We’d all buy these newspapers and crack them open, reading our local news, snippets of what is going on with the rest of the world. I’m talking about back in the day when families would huddle around a radio listening to Howdy Doody. The amount of news back then was so minimal, simple-minded (to our social/cultural detriment in some cases when it changes to close-minded). The only life experiences and tidbits of global humanity we heard or read about back then were nebulous speculations at best. Honestly I think there was some value back in those days that will probably never be recaptured. The time spent to digest one piece of news was much more organic, made available to us at a pace that didn’t feel so Johnny Mneumonic.
I think that at some point (and now to a certain extent), the amount of information and the way we currently receive it (txt, email, Twitter clients, et al) has minimized a lot of the emotional value of most of the news that aggressively shoves itself across our new reader tools of choice. I think that previous eras in communication allowed us more time and more room to take in some information, process it, break it down, and then reassemble it so that our brains can make sense out of it and compartmentalize it for later use as a memory.
The current era in communication, news and information sometimes leaves me feeling numb. By the time I read a headline, decide I’m interested in knowing more and plan to check out the actual article, 50 more articles have just shown up that (now out of trained obsessive compulsion) I want to also scan and see if there’s anything interesting in there that I might also want to form a response. I then see one in that next batch and want to pursue it..but then more news comes down….and so on.
The Unstoppable, Inevitable Curve
I speak of the exponentially increasing sharpness of a curve that represents the rate at which information flows to people as technology and culture become more advanced and progressive. I wonder where it will land us in 10 years. Will we all have feeds piped directly into our subconscious so that we can continue to receive loads of information without “wasting” our conscious thoughts on it? Will diagnosed anxiety/depression become more prevalent as we are exposed to 100 times more bad news headlines via RSS/Twitter/Facebook.
Wikipedia even has an entry for Information Addiction.
Time to sign up for my 12-step program.
Google Has The Holy Grail
Posted by – November 12, 2009
Remember in Back to the Future II when Marty McFly got a hold of that Almanac from the future? I feel like Google, just shy of the factual history that was in that almanac, has the next best thing, something very close: Conscious and sub-conscious behavioral data of the consumer.
Controlling the Present, Generating The Future
They have access to a level of human nature and core behavioral patterns that not many see or think to try and notice. They get to also see that aspect of human nature at a depth that researchers, behavioral scientists, and marketers would sell their first born on eBay for, or at the very least drool heavily over. I’ve always wondered if this search data is protected somewhere similar to Dr. Evil’s volcano lair, masking itself as a search company, all the while it’s collecting and subversively controlling business relationships, retail purchases and trends.
The brilliance in what Google is doing, whether it was intentional or not back when they started ramping up, is that no one at Google had to go out door to door, getting other human beings to volunteer for a “study” for their “marketing purposes.” The Google machine, because of the fact that people have made them a necessity in their lives for acquiring information, has human beings populating their databases voluntarily via billions upon billions of web requests every day. Amazing.
Google has the power to decide what is popular next. People that have access to that data could predict the next trends in B2B, B2C, and C2C (Consumer to Consumer: The current marketing territory where most companies feel like they’re herding cats).
Here are some related articles of interest on this topic:
Gizmodo: Google and the Deadly Power of Data
GoLearn Skateboarding Hits #1
Posted by – February 8, 2009
I found out this morning that my iPhone app has hit #1 in top paid sports apps. I feel like finally some rewards may come from my hard work and the amazing work of my team. Yay! I had to show off the screen shot below.
Ok I’ll shut up about it already.
Launched My First iPhone App and Now It’s Featured at Apple!
Posted by – February 4, 2009
In 2008 I designed the UI for a How-To skateboarding iPhone/iPod Touch app called GoLearn Skateboarding. In December Apple approved the application, and this month they said they wanted to feature it! The feature went live yesterday and as of today it is ranked #2 in the top paid apps within the sports category at the iTunes app store! I’m super proud of and stoked on this project and we have a few more apps we plan on rolling out. I only did the front-end UI design so I have to give credit to Erik Florio/Giuseppe Taibi from Whagaa Software for providing the engineering expertise and the GoLearn platform. Credit goes to Danny Keith for all his help and support. Last but not least I need to thank Jarrod Allen and Jason Crum of Half Pint Skateboards for the video expertise and rider support. Everyone has been so awesome and I’m excited to see what opportunities arise for us in the near future. I’ve included some screen shots in this post.
Flock Social Networking Client
Posted by – April 9, 2008
This is my test blog post using the Flock “Social Browser”. Basically it’s goal is to effectively pull together all your standard social communities into a browser experience, automatically pulling in your feeds/accounts/etc. from Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. The main issue I see with it so far is that there’s no MySpace add for it. That seems silly to me.
Anyway. I’m blogging this post right from within the Flock blog post client and I was able to have it detect my blog type (WordPress) by just giving it the domain, it figured it out, probably looking to see if standard Wordpress URL existed, etc.
I was also able to add my gmail and yahoo mail accounts to it and easily use them through the browser alongside my social sites.
I’m really liking this so far and will grill it a lot harder of the next few weeks.
Peace and Grease.
-Rich
My First Seattle: A #140tc Recap
What an amazing experience.
Yesterday I returned from Seattle, WA. I had only been to this city’s airport a couple times but I had never had an opportunity to hang out, meet some people, shoot some photos and eat 800 pounds of salmon. Well I did get to do that but that’s not why I was there.
I was there to attend the 140 Twitter Conference put on by @TweetHouse and the Parnassus Group. Jennifer Leggio (@mediaphyter) introduced me to Jason Preston (@jasonp107), the man running the show. Jason was gracious enough to give me the opportunity to be involved and share a panel with some super smart and seasoned tweeps that anyone can learn from and should absolutely follow – Jesse Engle @engle (CoTweet), Shauna Causey @shaunacausey (Comcast), H.B. Siegel @twhb (IMDb.com), and Brad Nelson @bradnelson (Starbucks).
I won’t go into a boatload of detail about everything in this post but thought I’d mention some takeaways and things that I had learned that I thought were either useful, funny, or both.
New Things I Learned
During the Media Panel session we were given some great things to ponder and think about when it comes to doing media and news coverage using Twitter. I had never really thought about what the effect of Twitter would be on broadcasting and doing the news. In a world where people use Twitter to not necessarily double check their emotions before posting, Linda Thomas (@TheNewsChick) deserves kudos for being anti-spin and ensuring her facts are straight before tweeting. Major news media outlets would be doing the public a huge favor by employing more people like her.
Ayush Agarwal (@yush) did a killer job moderating the Dev/Biz Panel. Brilliant developers like the ones on the this panel have to keep all of us emo marketing people in check by ensuring that data, and the tools used to gather that data, makes sense and help support our business objectives methodically. Sites like Twitter and Facebook would not exist with these brilliant minds.
On the Brand Panel Shauna Causey and Brad Nelson both reminded all of us that when you are dealing with customers that are frustrated with your brand, spouting off on Twitter because of a bad experience they had, always approach them with positivity and a focus on treating them with respect. Treat them like you would want to be treated if you were in their shoes.
One of the most educational moments for me was the opportunity I had to learn about an industry that I’ve never known anything about. Even more intriguing was how these two guys I just met were using social media in an industry that I had no idea would have a use for it. I had the chance at the tweetup hosted at Seattle’s Hotel Andra (@HotelAndra) to learn how the farming industry needed social media. With some tasty local wine in hand, Greg Guenther (@greg_guenther) and I sat down with cattle rancher Jeff Fowle (@JeffFowle) and dairy farmer Ray Prock Jr. (@RayLinDairy). These guys are definitely visionary in their approach to use social media as a channel for educating people on the science and process behind where much of our store bought food comes from, how it’s marketed, what we don’t know as Joe Food Consumer, how it’s bought and sold, and the process for monitoring, maintaining and growing a lot of it – meat and greens alike. Great stuff.
Things That Made Me Laugh
Damon Cortese (@dacort) – “People like to click on shit.” and of course DBI, the Douchebag Index. That will be my next t-shirt purchase.
Dom Sagolla (@dom) – His late night red wine-infused Entourage story.
Johnathon Fitzpatrick (@jjtweets) – For his ability to get all “Mike Singletary” on the HootSuite Owl Mascot at 1:00AM.
….and the Magical Unicorn Story of the Night award goes to David Dennison (@DavidDennison) for his mace story. The first, second and third rule of David’s mace story is: “Don’t talk about David’s mace story.” If I told you, I’d have to….well you know.
Onward.