I’m not an obituary writer…

…nor am I a medical professional.  However, I have to call “BS” on the increasingly popular notion that social networks are “dying.”  Growth, especially domestic growth, may be slowing, but according to ComScore, the number of people joining social networks is still growing at an 11.5% rate.  That’s incredible, given how many people are already participating in social networks. 

I was surprised that in a recent blog post, Greg Linden (of amazon, findory.com, and now microsoft fame) seemed to be jumping on the bandwagon, saying that Social Networks are in trouble.  I thought Greg would share my view that this isn’t a positive occurence, and a sign that social networks are maturing (or being forced to mature).    While I don’t see social networks dying anytime soon, they are definitely primed for change.  Users are fed up with certain aspects and wanting more.  In particular, they want personalization. 

As outlined in this Businessweek article, users are fed up with irrelevant advertising.  Spencer E. Ante and Catherine Holahan make this all real, when the describe the woes of Chris Heritage.  They write:

If you want to socialize with Chris Heritage, you won’t find him on Facebook. The 27-year-old Port St. Lucie (Fla.) business analyst joined the social network last year after his buddies bugged him to get an account. But he soon became fed up with the avalanche of ads, especially those detailing what his friends were buying, and he quit the site in November. Now, Heritage expresses himself through a blog, happy to pay $6 a month to publish on a promo-free Web site. “It’s worth it to not have to look at the ads,” he says.

I’m not sure the masses are moving away from Social Networking because of irrelevant ads.  I’ve always been surprised how little users care about ads being relevant.  But, I hope that I’m wrong — because consumer demand for relevant advertising could be a huge growth opportunity for online personalization. 

At the same time, it seems like the whole social networking/contact management is in desperate need of personalization intervention.  This was one of the major focal points at O’Reilly’s Graphing Social Patterns conference.   Charlene Li’s presentation hit this topic directly, in her presentation entitled “The Future of Social Networks.” 

 Hmmm…so, the death of social networking may lead to the rise of online personalization.  I like the sounds of that…

Seth Godin is like good wine…

…he keeps getting better with age.  Even though he’s been driving the same fundamental message (at the highest level) for years, it stays fresh, innovative, and increasingly relevant.  That in and of itself is truly “remarkable.” 

I keep his various books lying all around my office.  Often, when I come in each morning, I’ll pick one up…open it to a random page…and just read a few lines or paragraphs.   The message is always spot-on.  This morning, I picked up Purple Cow and read the following:

Nobody says, “Yeah, I’d like to set myself up for some serious criticism!  And, yet…the only way to be truly remarkable is to do just that.” 

Maybe I just find it relevant because I’m truly a dork and set myself up well for criticism.  But, when I look around at the various companies I’ve been part of (or part of starting)…Seth’s notion of being raised with a false belief that criticism leads to failure certainly seems “spot on.” 

Criticism leads to being remarkable…so, I’m going to go out in search of some good criticism today (and hopefully everyday).   Apparently, I’m not the only one thinking this way (or perhaps there are just a lot of other dorks, like me).  I noticed that in an end-of-year wrap up, Advertising Age cited an Anderson Survey which showed Godin (more so than  folks like Steve Jobs, Peter Drucker, & Tom Peters) is en vogue for 2008.    

Transparency is a beautiful thing…

I love when companies/corporations are transparent with their customers. It goes a long way in building trust…which is essential for any hope at customer loyalty.

Check out thise end of year blog post from Zoho…it’s transparent to the nth degree:

http://blogs.zoho.com/general/recap-zoho-in-2007/

 I long for such transparency…that will be a sign I’ve made an impact, but I fear it will be some time until that sign is a visible, outward one.  Sigh…

I want to target people…not buckets!

It’s a very interesting time to be participating in the monetization of online audiences.   There is so much activity going on…all at a time when folks are needlessly starting to fret that the online advertising growth is diminishing.  What’s interesting to me is that I’ve been incredibly underwhelmed with what has been made available to date in terms of monetizing consumer audiences.  I guess I was hoping for some more sophisticated targeting…the ability to reach the micro-segments that I want to reach with a very low-cost, highly targeted message.   More importantly, as a consumer, I was hoping for the ability to have somebody reach me with advertisements and messages that are of interest. 

In talking with some folks about the advertising in social networks such as Facebook, I’ve often heard phrases such as, “yeah, but their targeting is already very good.  It’s quite contextual.”  And, while I agree that it is contextual — it doesn’t mean that it’s relevant.  To oversimplify, relevance has two key dimensions:

1. It must be a topic of interest to me and
2. It must be delivered to me when I’m in the mindset to absorb it. 

When I went to visit my “University of Pittsburgh” group in Facebook this AM, I received an ad for 10% off my next purchase at a local brewpub — Fuel & Fuddle.  I’m well out of college…and am now living in Seattle.  I still do enjoy a good brewpub and actually used to frequent the place that was advertised.  So, this ad definitely meets relevance criteria #1 above.  But, it certainly doesn’t meet criteria #2 — tough to drink a fresh poured amber ale from 3,000 miles away.  I’m definitely not in the mindset (it was 6:44 AM) nor in the physical locale to absorb this ad. 

 Unfortunately, when I look at Facebook’s latest advancements in buying advertisments for their site, I’ve got to agree with Tom Hespos in that I was left wanting more.  Tom writes:

I want to be able to overlay multiple targeting criteria and have the database tell me every time how many people are in my potential universe.

Somehow, the entire Facebook approach to targeting buckets (vs. individuals) seems to miss the real power of social networks — they are amalgamations of diverse individuals loosely bound by common interests at a given point in time.  Hmmmm….sounds eerily similar to my 2 criteria for relevance doesn’t it?

The notion of “buckets” on Facebook is a step in the right direction…but it is inherently flawed when it comes to relevance.  But, then again, didn’t we all learn this when we were kids…as Henry once said to Liza…”there’s a hole in that bucket.” 

Wow…it’s been a while

So, I haven’t posted in a really long time.  I’ve been doing a lot of internal blogging…trying to change mindsets to ensure that we are all “wrapped around the customer” at Microsoft Office Live.  Good news…as an organization and as individuals, we very much are, which is very cool in and of itself.  However, it’s especially cool because perhaps now I can find time to start working on my own blog again. 

When starting up again, I debated about getting a whole new blog and just starting over.  But, the topic of interest is the same now as it was then — individual relevenace.  So, what do I mean by individual relevance? 

In this case, it means delivering a truly relevant online experience.  Amazon does it (well, most of the time).  Netflix is paying $1 million so that they can do it.  Not sure why Google’s not doing it (as John Battelle stated — they do have the world’s largest database of intentions).

Is Office Live doing it?  Well, I’ll be covering that here, perhaps.  But, more importantly, I’ll be covering other companies (startups, established entities, large corporations, not-for-profits, etc.) that do it well.  And, from my perspective, doing it well means treating users as an individuals and providing an experience that is on time and on target….errr, relevant. 

With that, welcome (again) to Individual Relevance… 

google recommendation widget

As folks like Niall Kennedy and Greg Linden have written, Google has a new recommendation widget that leverages past search behavior to make search result and web page recommendations.  Niall compliments the “Interesting Items for You” module while Greg expresses some serious concerns. 

One thing that struck me was a comment in Linden’s blog, “Geeking with Greg” from Ionut Alex. Chitu who states that the recommendation widget only updates once a week.  If this is true (and I’ll start my testing of it tonight and go for a week), then I agree with Greg — “That’s not good at all.” 

Recommender Systems ’06

Right now, the conference “The Present and Future of Recommender Systems ‘06” is taking place.  This evening, I found a great new blog via the mSpoke Adaptive Personalization Engine that is covering this show.  You can check it out at:

http://blog.recommenders06.com/?p=13

Seems like a great conference…wish I was there.  Seems like all of the key issues with recommender systems/personalization engines are being discussed — scalability issues, cold-start problems, etc. 

User generated content…the personalization driver

I read recently that User Generated Content (UGC) now accounts for more than 50% of the content on the web.  I’m not sure how valid that number is, but one thing is clear…the amount of UGC continues to grow at a rapid pace.  For example, Technorati is now tracking nearly 54 million blogs.  And, sites like Digg and YouTube have certainly been key to driving this proliferation of UGC. 

If you are like me, then you probably value the insights, perspectives, and opinions in much of this UGC.  However, if you are like me you probably also hate crap.  Hell, even plumbers hate crap. 

The challenge with UGC is wading through all of the crap to find the few good nuggets that are worth reading.  Lars Rabbe, CIO of Yahoo!, understands this challenge.  At the Information Week 500 Conference, Lars stated:

“There’s absolutely a danger that more crap will bubble up from [user-generated content].”

Blog search engines like Technorati, Feedster, and Ice Rocket help…if there is something specific I am looking for, but are of little value at recommending things of personal interest.  There’s simply not enough time in the day to wade through crap.  So, if you are like me and hate wading through crap…then, you’ll soon find yourself seeking out personalization solutions to filter UGC and find you those nuggets. 

Fred Nails it — User Friendy Opt Out

Over on his blog, A VC, Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures nailed the debate in yesterday’s New York Times about stored search queries.  In the NYT opinion piece, the author argues for tighter controls over gathering and using search query data. 

While I’m certainly a HUGE proponent of enforcing the proper notification, privacy policy, and adherence by companies with regards to individual search query information — the Times opinion piece argues for some heavy-handed government involvement.  And, while I agree, the companies gathering and using such search query data, need to be monitored and kept in check…we need to be careful to not go to far.  We need to place the burden on the corporations collecting and using this information. 

Fred makes this point brilliantly when he writes:

I believe that what’s needed is user friendly opt-out, not opt-in.

IMHO, it is all about giving the user transparency and control.  Why not give consumers access to their own search query data.  Why not empower them to delete that which they don’t want to be used.  The company that I work for, mSpoke, is built on the fundamental tenants of transparency and empowerment.  It’s this sense of consumer control that makes mSpoke such a great place to work.  I also believe that it is this sense of consumer control (and it’s real control, not just lip service) that positions mSpoke well for the future. 

Don’t believe me on this?  Then imagine a world of search and user query history with FTC involvement.  The only value the FTC could bring to the table is stifling both innovation and value creation — something none of us should be interested in.  Hell, if we are going to do that, then maybe…just maybe we should get the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) involved in all of this.  After all, look out what they did for the online music world during the last internet boom. 

engagement is the new…err old black

It’s been interesting to sit back and watch the term “engagement” become the new black…the new buzz word in marketing circles — especially online marketing circles.  The reason that I say it is “interesting” is that it has always been about engagement.  So, why all the fuss…and why now? 

I’m sure it has been brewing for much longer than I recall, but it seems to me that the term engagement and using it as a success metric for a campaign or an individual piece of collateral became all the rage about a year ago. 

I remember Peter Blackshaw, the CMO from Nielsen BuzzMetrics (go figure?), writing a great piece in ClickZ about this topic about a year ago.  Gary Stein, formerly of Jupiter and now part of WOM Agency Ammo, has written much about this topic as well…noting its importance, but also the difficulty associated with measuring true consumer engagement.  And, the term engagement has become so popular in today’s marketing circles, that it’s now central theme of an alleged sex crime as noted by George Simpson, in his Online Media Daily commentary coverage of “The Quiznos Guy — Scott Lippitt and his recent arrest.” 

So, engagement is everywhere.  It’s the new black.  But am I missing something?  Hasn’t advertising and media ALWAYS been about engagement?  We’ve moved from static billboards along the highway to dynamic ones.  Why?  To increase engagement.  We’ve migrated from advertising on the packaging of video games to advertising within the animation of the games themselves.  Why?  To increase engagement.  We’ve moved from running :30 ads between programs on network television to product placements within the programming itself?  Why?  Well to beat TiVo…and to increase engagement. 

Engagement is not the new black…but rather the OLD black.  The new black will be  a way to easily and accurately measure consumer engagement.  Better yet, the new black will be transforming behavioral targeting from a medium designed to target people deep in the buying cycle to one that focuses on engaging the consumer across all phases of the buying cycle — even brand awareness/identity. 

If that’s the case, then who knows, maybe mSpoke will become the new black???