Search Sense

I was using Facebook this morning to look at the new Facebook chat function and I started to think about data capture and the position of power that Facebook has attained. There is an underlying commercial exchange that occurs when we opt in as nodes in a network such as Facebook - in exchange for our position as a node we hand over personal data that can then be traded as a commodity by Facebook (Beacon).

I dont know if I like that, so I started to look for the ‘answer’. I came across an excellent post by Christoper Carfi on his blog The Social Customer Manifesto. He quoted his friend who had come out with a rather nice statement:

“Networks don’t have people. People have networks” - Demian Entrekin

These 7 words encapsulate how Carfi feels that the industry will evolve.

I think this is shaped and ratified by the concepts of web 3.0 and VRM. When I say Web3.0 I refer to the description put forward by Dave McClure as “the condition which exists when someone is always ‘logged in’ on the web, and can move from site to site without ever having to re-enter a username/password.”

This is a big step from web2.0 and is the most succinct description I have read to date.

If this is combined with VRM (Vendor Relationship Managment) where individuals choose what data they allow social networks to ingest then this may well result in a power shift. Instead of individuals having to enter relationships defined and controlled (sometimes from both sides) within each network controller’s silo, we can now become the point of integration. We reclaim personally controlled approaches to relationships, including the all important privacy variables. Sounds odd but is very simple when articulated by Carfi:

“Having my information (social network connections, preferences, purchase history, etc.) stored in someone else’s silo makes no sense. Having my information stored in (literally) dozens of silos makes even less sense. (Yes, dozens. Think about it. Your information is in Facebook, and LinkedIn, and innumerable CRM systems like Salesforce — one for each vendor you deal with — and in Visa’s systems, and in…you get the point.) The right point of integration is around the individual. Each of us is at the centre of our own universe!”

Here is a slick visualisation:

At the centre of our social universe (yes I am aware the image above is technically a solar system) we reposition ourselves as the gatekeepers of our data. We begin to reduce the power disparity and minimise the in your face commericialism that threatens to taint social media (until the next evil marketing scam….).

In theory this great, but it does come with some big buts (which I like):

- we can always just not use a site if we dont like its terms

- for this to work then social sites need to develop more efficient ways to monetize their offerings (if they dont have data collaterol and display isnt bringing in the bucks) - are the days of philanthropic networking sites behind us?

- does anyone care that people sell data other than when their mates find out what xmas gift they plan to buy them?

Our What is Social Media?: now available in Chinese thanks to three strangers who met via a social network and went on to create an eBook publishing platform.

In September last year Jia Liu, an MA student of marketing in Boston put out a call on an incredible communtiy site Yeeyan.com for people to collaborate on a project to translate the eBook into Chinese. Zhifeng Sun from Shanghai and Xinyu Mao from Qingdao answered and over about a month they created a Chinese version of the What is Social Media?, complete with illustrations of Chinese blogs and social networks where it was appropriate.

So far there have been 2,000 downloads and following the project the three have created an eBook publishing venture/platform called Innobook and have published five freely available eBooks, by authors including Seth Godin and Richard Adler.

The translation and adaption of the eBook is possible for anyone in any language without permission from Spannerworks because we released it under a Creative Commons licence.

Everyone on the team that worked on the eBook are delighted to see it spread even further. It’s also added extra impetus to our work on its sequel - watch this space…

A colleague and I had the pleasure of hosting two panel sessions for the IMRG last week and it was an interesting barometer on thinking in the retail sector.

The great and good of retail (practically every high street brand) and online assembled at the plush offices of the Royal Bank of Scotland on Bishopgate to explore developments in comparison shopping and social media with speakers from Google, MSN, Kelkoo, ReVoo, Yahoo! and Berry Bros. & Rudd, a wine retailer.

Comparison shopping portals have become very successful businesses by being useful to online shoppers in a straight forward way – “help save me time and money”. They can dominate search results because of the breadth of inventory at their disposal, but the mood in the audience was how can they help my business upsell, showcase new products and compare like for like e.g. “I know my mp3 player is more expensive than my competitor, but I include 5 free tunes and no delivery charge”.

Most of the audience agreed that consolidation in the comparison market was going to happen and that pure price comparison will disappear. At the very least “User Generated” reviews of the retailer will be widespread and Kelkoo are trying a star rating system for their retail trade partners right now.

The social media session was fascinating because when my colleague Dean asked the question “who is making money out of social media” nobody raised their hands.

The audience acknowledged that conversations were going on all over the place about their products, but didn’t really know how to take that first step and join the conversation, but more surprisingly they didn’t know if it was worth it.

Some of this stemmed from the retail marketers assembled not being comfortable at taking forward a proposal in their company for a social media programme.

Some expressed the view that Online was so measurable it had made a rod for its own back by not being able to measure the effects of social media. I smiled to myself when I heard this because it struck a chord from objections I’d heard several years earlier from other sectors regarding blogging. All sorts of things can be measured for social media programmes including:

• reduction in complaints as one panel member explained as one airline’s CEO recently experienced by apologising for a mistake on YouTube
• brand sentiment can be measured (come and talk to us for more information about this)

and any other measure you wish to track.

The conversations about you happen - some are good, some are bad, some give you ideas for product or service development, some give you real insight into your customers needs and behaviour.

If your corporation doesn’t listen, doesn’t join in, won’t be useful and authentic, then one of your competitors will and you’ll miss out on those great business growth opportunities. Or worse still, face very damaging PR (Cillit Bang) or a $200m law suit (Kryptonite). Ignore them at your peril.

There’s still a huge amount of technical language surrounding web 2.0, including the phrase itself… This week I had to present my thoughts on the future of digital to a large group of senior executives at a European airline. I decided that APIs (application programming interfaces) really translate into the new Aggregators of Personal Information. Once viewed in this way we start to look at our own data assets in a different and more human way. I think that leads to excitement, engagement from the marketing mind, and ultimately engagement of people’s attention.

It’s been a long week, that’s it for today.

Recent announcement by Facebook to expose a cut-down public profile for search engines to index, has managed to stir up the search, brand and privacy advocates.

The Facebook blog stated that in a couple of weeks they will allow search engines to crawl public profiles. But, an interesting article on Search engine land claims that this is nothing new. Search engines have always been able to index a profile, providing they could find it – a point proven by Tom Critchlow at Distilled, who linked to his public profile and managed to find it by searching in Google.

So the main difference is likely to be the integration of a people directory within Facebook, which would allow search engines to index the profiles without needing to find them through external links. But, those profiles that are likely to get more links will have a greater reputation and will outrank others with the same name.

Things could get interesting if online authors used Facebook as a people reference, in the same way people refer to Wikipedia.

From an SEO perspective, there’s unlikely to be any real link benefit from a profile – though it’s difficult to gage until we can see the implementation. Any external links allowed on a profile page is likely to have the rel-nofollow tag added to prevent link spam.

For reputation managers, a Facebook profile will provide yet another way to occupy more space on the home page for a search on a name or brand.