Hyper-connected generation rises

Hyper-what?

that's right. we're part of a new generation, well those kids just younger than us at least. People are becoming hyper connected. That means every part of your daily activity can now be shared with your friends. From when you wake up to what you're eating, where you're going out, what TV station you're watching when, and when you are asleep.

This may seem a bit bizarre from the view point of do you really want people to know so much about you. But human psychology tells us that we do have a need for other people to feel connected to us, and whether this is at a superficial level or not. Jaiku is one such "microblogging" service that allows friends to inform each other of their activities across a range of devices. Comments can be sent and received via a cell phone or the web.

See for more details: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6637865.stm






http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6637865.stm

Young warned over social websites

Well, there you have it. A watch dog group in the UK has warned that young adults could damage their careers with details about themselves on social networking websites.

This is a real spoiler. If we all become conscious of what we're putting up because we think a nosy employer, school or parent will check us up, the beauty of online freedom is eroded. Social networking sites let you be you, and broadcast that image to your friends around the world. But when faced with a situation like this, people may button up and social networking websites lose their cache.

Personally, even though there is some concern in terms of posting those drunken club pictures, I think as society evolves, we will learn to separate professional and personal lifes. It will become less taboo. But until that times comes, better watch those postings while job hunting - you've been warned!

See the BBC article for more details:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7108627.stm

Facebook Backtracks on Beacon

The launch of Facebook's Beacon system a few weeks ago triggered an outcry among users and privacy advocates, who found the automated posting of purchases and other activities on third party websites to users' Facebook news feeds intrusive. Facebook was even likened to the Grinch, for ruining users' holiday surprises by posting the gifts they had purchased online for all to see. In response, Facebook has made important changes to the Beacon functionality. The policy for posting Beacon activity to a user's news feed has changed from opt-out to opt-in, and the opportunity to control one's privacy settings have been made more prominent in the site's interface. Score one for user privacy rights?

More on the development here: Breaking: Facebook Updates Beacon

Facebook's official Beacon FAQ

Yahoo and Adobe team up to put online ads in PDFs

http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20071129/tc_infoworld/93723_1

The way it works: "Publishers will upload to an Adobe/Yahoo portal the PDF files on which they want to display dynamic ads. The vendors will send the files back after reconditioning them to display dynamically generated Yahoo text ads whenever a Web site visitor calls them up."

Benefit for PDF publishers - Publishers will offer ad space to advertisers on their PDFs.
Benefit for advertisers: A new advertising channel for them.
Benefit for consumers: Publishers that were charging for their PDFs before may decide to offer their PDFs for free or at reduced prices.

One example that comes to mind is the Vault Career Guide books that consumers can buy and download in PDF form. These could be offered at reduced prices while showing ads for job-sites such as Monster.com, etc.

One major drawback I see (although it doesn't get much play in the article): "Situations in which the ads will not be displayed include if the user is offline when opening the document ... "

Netflix & the Value of Consumer Information

This is a little bit old but it's still going on and really shows the value of consumer data. Netflix has agreed to give $1 million to anyone who can improve their DVD recommendation system. They have a particular algorithm to evaluate how good the improvements are and have a target score that gets someone the million dollar prize. It's pretty clear that Netflix must believe that even incremental improvements to its recommendations will continue to drive customers to its service.

Facebook - Platform Applications Terms of Use

So a buddy of mine asked to add a separate application on facebook this week. I was going to add it, but i decided to read the terms of use firts. After reading the terms of use, i decided there was no way i was going to add the application.

http://developers.facebook.com/user_terms.php

Facebook clearly tells you in these terms what they are providing to the developer (it's different for every application) -- in summary, for this particular application, they provide your picture, name, b-day, hometown, political views, activities, interests, dating interests, relationship interests, and much more etc -- the full text is below. Facebook also releases itself from any liability from including this info --

I never used to pay attention to the "fine lines" of wording, but i will now think twice before adding any applications.




The Facebook Site Information may include, without limitation, the following information, to the extent visible on the Facebook Site: your name, your profile picture, your gender, your birthday, your hometown location (city/state/country), your current location (city/state/country), your political view, your activities, your interests, your musical preferences, television shows in which you are interested, movies in which you are interested, books in which you are interested, your favorite quotes, the text of your "About Me" section, your relationship status, your dating interests, your relationship interests, your summer plans, your Facebook user network affiliations, your education history, your work history, your course information, copies of photos in your Facebook Site photo albums, metadata associated with your Facebook Site photo albums (e.g., time of upload, album name, comments on your photos, etc.), the total number of messages sent and/or received by you, the total number of unread messages in your Facebook in-box, the total number of "pokes" you have sent and/or received, the total number of wall posts on your Wall™, a list of user IDs mapped to your Facebook friends, your social timeline, and events associated with your Facebook profile.

Have fun with extra phone numbers

I was reading another blog and found a reference to this awesome online service.

Basically, you can get a free phone number to give people that you can then retire at any time (even within an hour). You can see who's called it and they can leave messages and everything.

Applications for this sound great - you could link it to your business and retire the number and change it regularly to avoid spam callers. You could use it for managing interviews.

Ladies - you could even set up a number before hitting Jakes Dilemma so that you have a plausible one to hand out to leeching banker sharks...

http://www.numbr.com/

iTV? Not so fast my friend.

Perhaps you have wondered how to go about navigating the entirety of your home entertainment experience from the comfort of your living room sofa through your HDTV. Where can you go to get your very own iTV?

Not surprisingly, there are a lot of big players in the entertainment space with a lot to lose when the iTV begins to takeover households all over the world. Not surprisingly, most of the technology that is needed for the iTV already exists. Surprisingly, the iTV still doesn’t exist.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_47/b4059401.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

Yahoo to put adverts in PDF files

Yahoo has reached a deal to start running advertisements in PDF documents - a further example of advertising developing on the net.

The service will allow publishers to make money by including adverts linked to the content of a PDF document in a panel at the side of the page.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7118363.stm

What Is Web 2.0

There is a huge amount of disagreement about what Web 2.0 means amongst the geeks out there. And for the jocks that don't even though what that means, well, this is an interesting article to read.

http://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

Doodle

I just used this website to find a common meeting time for 7 people and it worked quite effectively.

The way it works is:

1. Create a poll.
2. Forward the link to the poll to the participants.
3. Follow online what the participants vote for.

http://www.doodle.ch/main.html


Not going to be the next biggest thing, but still is a handy tool!

Can Facebook Make Me Rich??

I have long wondered this and thought of many ideas that could generate revenue from this mega social website. However it seems the very next time I log in, there's already a "Ilike" or "xmas tree" or "amazon books" application. But this is a good article on "howstuffworks.com" on how to make money on facebook.

http://money.howstuffworks.com/facebook-rich.htm

If you're a software developer with a little ambition and a good idea, then Facebook may be the company that makes you a very wealthy person. The social networking site that began in 2004 as a way for college students to keep in touch has expanded to allow everyone to create their own Facebook page. Since then, Facebook has carved a niche for itself in the tech world as a company that is willing to break through the traditional barriers of business.

Facebook Feeling the Heat

Looks like the execs at Facebook are finally getting the message from its users that they feel uneasy about their new Beacon system. Changes to the system could be announced as early as tomorrow. You figure they're going to try and doing everything possible to maintain that $15 billion valuation.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2007/tc20071128_366355.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

Search Marketing Tools for The Long Tail Advertisers

If you weren't paying attention then you would have missed the fact that 2007 was the year that online advertising started getting serious with major players (ie. -- Google, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, etc.) acquiring the large companies responsible for aggregating banner ad inventory and/or delivering that advertising to publishers.

Well, while the heavy hitters of the ad network industry were finally realizing their "exit strategies" a new company has sprung up to help deliver big agency campaign management to the thousands of firms in the long-tail of the search advertising marketplace. Over the last several weeks, executive announcements have been made regarding this new firm, Clickable, a company that will help micro advertisers and mid-size marketers optimize their search campaigns across the major search engines and advertising networks with minimal complexity.

According to Max Kalehoff, who was vice president of marketing at Nielsen BuzzMetrics and is assuming the same role at Clickable, "the top 1,000 search advertisers [the Google 1000], ....comprise about half the online search advertising marketplace. The balance, is the so-called long-tail, ranging from micro advertisers to mid-size marketers, who comprise the other half of the search advertising marketplace. The problem is when small and mid-size businesses start to scale up, they very quickly start to run into complexity in terms of managing different spreadsheets, dashboards and payment systems."

This new agency's campaign management engine will help these small advertisers compete with the Google 1000 companies that have dedicated agencies managing their campaigns. The Clickable "engine" will launch in 2008 and should help the search marketing field become even more robus by leveling the playing field further for the myriad of small advertisers.

Some recent articles on Clickable include:
BuzzMetrics' Kalehoff Joins Search Start-Up, Wants To Bring Optimization To The Masses
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=70987&Nid=36372&p=430092

Former AOL Chair Backs New Search Tech Startup 'Clickable'
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=71293&Nid=36546&p=430092

Talk about the end of privacy...

If you thought what Facebook is doing with selling our profiles to advertisers so they can target us better, how about Google's new investment in healthcare: 23andMe? It's a self-administered genetic test you can get online for $999 and mail in your spit so that you can learn about your genes and your families' genes (and so pharma companies can advertise to you better).

See the full article in the IHT: DNA testing comes for the masses

Cyber Monday - Survey data with some interesting notes

Spurred by study saying that up to 3/4 of web shoppers were unsatisfied with the experience, Future Now designed a survey to see who was leading in online retail. They then sent out an army of mystery shoppers to rate the sites. There were some very interesting results.

To analyze the extent to which websites focus on the customer experience, Future Now sent mystery shoppers and Conversion Analysts to over 300 retail websites to gather information for our 2007 Retail Customer Experience Study.

What the Customer Focus Study Reviewed

The study consisted of visiting a retailer’s website and answering a series of Yes/No questions about the availability of 69 different factors that reflect a focus on customer experience. These factors were weighted based on our 10 years of optimizing retail website experiences and totaled to arrive at an eventual score for each site. The features we asked our shoppers and analysts to address include:

• Quality and detail of images (e.g., “Could the shopper zoom in?,” “Did the retailer provide product images from multiple angles?”)
• Product copy description answering the shopper’s implicit questions
• Whether the retailer offers customer reviews
• How the retailer met the shopper’s gift buying needs (e.g., “Did the retailer offer gift wrapping, messaging or gift certificates?”)
• Ease and simplicity of checkout (e.g., “How many pages did it take to check out?” “Did the retailer provide a progress indicator?”)
• Retailer’s ability to address the shopper’s concerns (e.g., return policies, guarantees, third-party seals and security assurances)
• Ease and clarity of retailer return policies
• Providing of shipping and tax totals early in the checkout process
• Offering multiple payment options (e.g., pay-by-check, PayPal, etc.)
• Offering estimated delivery times and showing in-stock availability for items
• Offering in-store pick-up where physical stores exist

We specifically asked the mystery shoppers to ignore:

• price points (inclusive of tax, shipping and handling);
• the ease in locating the products;
• the efficacy of the brand in conveying confidence;
• the impact of overall design on credibility and sales;
• the entire customer experience from search to purchase fulfillment.

Rather than evaluating the entire customer experience, this study provides a benchmark for retail sites based on more objective criteria. Therefore, our 2007 Retail Customer Experience Study provides a thumbnail view of how businesses speak to the needs of their customers.

There’s much work still to be done and plenty of opportunity for improvement. The top-rated site in this study scored only 67 out of a possible 100. Even the top-rated company has plenty of room to grow before it has thoroughly delighted its customers and improved its bottom line.

More data can be found here:
http://www.grokdotcom.com/2007/11/26/cyber-monday-future-nows-2007-retail-customer-experience-study/

Interestingly, a whopping 35% had a checkout process with more than 4 steps.... As we all go online to buy presents, helping us speed through the process should be a priority...

Be careful what you post on Facebook

A security company has contacted Facebook to improve its settings to keep network members from seeing so much information about other people in the same network, even though those members may not be that user's friend. For example, if I join the "New York City" network and put my full birthdate on the site, another "New York City" network member who is NOT my friend could view all the info on my profile, and potentially use my birthdate to commit identity theft. Yet another example of being aware and savvy of how your information on the net can be used against you. More details: http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=QZMSPJCMDFJL4QSNDLRSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=202200395

ABC News teams with Facebook

ABC News is helping power Facebook’s politics section with video, polling, surveys, and discussions. This is Facebook's first formal partnership with a news organization. ABC News’ political reporters are also on Facebook.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/technology/26abc.html?_r=2&ei=5088&en=0195c7c10f17aeb5&ex=1353733200&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1196049876-uRv/KEmSU+LQhl/ya8Lp0g&oref=slogin

Will it Blend? WSJ on youtube marketing:

The Journal has an article on youtube viral marketing and features my favorite viral marketer, the Blendtec guy. This nut is in my parents neighborhood, I don't know if they should be concerned. Certainly they shouldn't leave stuff lying around. Here are a few good ones for the unfamiliar:

Guitar Hero III
Chuck Norris
iPhone
Glowstick

How facebook stole christmas...

So, with facebook's beacon advertising program, online retailers can track the purchasing habits of facebook subscribers then broadcast recent purchases to all their friends in the hopes to leverage the Joneses theory

The result?
My friends can now figure out exactly what I got them for Christmas...

Thanks alot facebook.

linky