broadstuff

Very good post here by Doc Searls on the issue of who owns our data now and in future.

For too long we’ve lived with “relationship management” that’s asymmetrical and one-way. Creating the grounds for symmetrical relationships cannot be the job of Facebook, Google, Microsoft or any big company. They can’t do it, and they won’t. We can’t petition those lords with prayer, blogs, or anything else. (Well, we can, but it won’t be enough.)

We need to create our own new rules — ones that protect our privacy while making us better members of the social and business systems we create together. I say “better” because that’s what we’re bound to be when we cease being eyeballs and start acting like whole human beings.

We'd agree with everything he says (in fact we wrote similar awhile back - try here and here for example). As you can imagine, quite a lot of this is stirred up with Facebook's Ad system running the cluetrain off the rails

Very interesting therefore is the start of the US A List bloggers coming to bury Facebook, rather than praise it. Some weeks ago we (of small, independent blogging mien) wondered why it was that US A List bloggers were seemingly accepting everything Facebook did as The New Great Thing. In fact it was interesting to see how few of the A-List really weighed in early when the Facebook Ad hoo-ha strted. This has now changed, with Jason Calacanis, Dave Winer, David Weinberger and Howard Lindzon among others weighing in against it.

The thing about this is that these sort of guys are pretty influential - of these things are tipping points made.

Last year we predicted that 2007 would be the year that Privacy really hit the headlines, though we never believed Facebook would be the catalyst - my money was on Google or some small rapacious startup. Facebook was then a very benign player.

How things change....now, on the one hand, we have a desperate-to-monetize-at-$15bn company with (observably) less humble management, on the other a mounting storm in the blogosphere, increasing legal/regulatory interest, and early reports from customers about being caught by their friends with their wallets open being less than happy!

This, as they say, will get interesting

3-2 that Facebook recants before December...any takers ?

A further thought on this - reading a few more posts on this debate, there is an issue which is summarised by GammyDodger in the comments below:

Judging by the number of notifications I am getting on my Facebook from my network doing stuff, my money is on Facebook not recanting. As individuals whose information has been co-opted for many years by banks, insurance companies and retailers, we are proverbial frogs in the pan of cold water and it's just getting pleasantly warm.

In other words, the vast majority of users don't care squit.

That may be true, but I think this is a Tipping Point thing as noted above. A year ago it was Identity nerds like us who were exercised about all this, and the evidence of what we were complaining about was hidden in Google algorithms. Now its A Listers and thanks mainly to Facebook its very clear what the risks are. I think this is moving from a "Fool all the people some of the time" stage to where the People start to realise they have been taken for fools. Its not an overnight thing, its a geometric growth (socially networked ironically) viral meme, and I think we'll only see major impact in a few months' time - but we think its on its way.

The other thing that will move this along is to give people tools to counter the social network datahogs with - hence our interest and involvement in the VRM movement

Update...speaking of the A List...even TechCrunch is weighing in now. I wonder if we are seeing a case study in tipping points?

Update the 2nd...and now Cory Doctorow reckons creepy ex workers will kill Facebook

Update the 3rd...Dave Weinberger is adding 100:1 against...I guess I'm still in the Doc Searls camp that thinks these guys will see the risks, but with every day that passes.....

There is a piece today in the NY Times about the problems with Planet Mobile:

...at a recent conference, 3G was called “a failure” by Caroline Gabriel, an analyst at Rethink Research. She said data would make up only 12 percent of average revenue per user in 2007, far below the expected 50 percent. (The 12 percent figure does not include text messaging, but you don’t need a 3G network to send a text message.)

Similarly, surveys by Yankee Group, a Boston research firm, show that only 13 percent of cellphone users in North America use their phones to surf the Web more than once a month, while 70 percent of computer users view Web sites every day.

We'd agree with these notes. We've been conducting interviews with players up and down the mobile media value chain over the last few months, and the story emerging is essentially that:

(i) There is limited collaboration across the value chain (content standards, distribution standards on Mobile TV, handset standards etc) which makes the "friction" in the supply chain high compared to alternative (IP based) plays.

(ii) This means that the user audience finds mobile multimedia hard to use, they tend to try it out and then (apart from a small subset) by and large give up on it.

(iii) In addition, the economics of "pay as you go" drives people to minimise service / content usage - and there is still a lot of fear of "sticker shock" from big data transfer charges for content usage. Even though "as much as you can eat" deals are emerging there is still a strong

(iv) This small audience means that the economics of new content and service creation are less enticing than they should be. Exacerbating this is the small share of these small revenues that the upstream players typically get in most schemes.

That the mobile multimedia market has a high potential is not disputed - the problem is that the traditional players in the industry seem unable to collaborate to "sort it out". Many observers categorise the industry today as AOL type closed service models, on pre Wintel devices. No one player has been able to impose a Microsoft style de Facto standard across the delivery chain, and neither has the (OECD based) industry shown much willingness to work on open solutions.

The irony is that successful models do exist for the industry, eg Japan's DoCoMo, which imposes standards across the value chain (and shares revenue more liberally with upstream service providers)

The new US/European supply chain solution is emerging slowly - in an earlier post we noted that players outside the traditional "Planet Mobile" - operators, handset makers etc - such as Google and Apple are starting to make plays to end-run the current mobile value chains.

Building mobile services is harder - its a new medium, and demands a new user experience - unfortunately at the moment all the content is on the older formats (WWW, digital video etc) and as noted above the pull through right now makes any major expenditure on new service development - or even major content repurposing - hard.

This impacts the mobile web experience - there are currently 2 main schools of thought - (i) define a unique "mobile web", and (ii) make devices better at coping with existing web content. The problem with the mobile web option is the expenditure given the low pull through (plus the soiled reputation of WAP, the first attempt at this). The problem with the One Web option is the ergonomics of a small screen and limited key functions.

We suspect the endgame will actually be more "One Web" owing to the economics - its easier to build a better webphone (iPhone and successors) than to get millions of websites, digital media playesr etc to write for a "mobile web" - but with players designing web services specifically for mobile functions. In fact, in response to the NYT article Dave Winer points to their own "River of News"

Dan Ackerman Greenberg, he of the Dark Arts post, has written an update comment in the TechCrunch comments section. Its worth reading, so here it is as its way down in the comments section:

To all of who who’ve commented, positive and negative: thanks for being part of the first round of a much longer discussion.

The internet is changing, and it seems that this post has really struck a nerve. Hopefully we can use this as a jumping off point for an open discussion about the future of truth in advertising online. Whether we are talking about gaming strategies for YouTube videos, SEO strategies on Google, review optimization strategies on Yelp/Amazon, or any other behind the scenes guerrilla marketing that’s happening online, there is a lot to talk about.

The goal of this post was to pull back the curtain on some of the strategies/techniques that marketers are using online every day, on YouTube and beyond. The way I see it, if we can identify and understand the marketing strategies that are going on behind the scenes, we can move forward towards a more open, honest internet, where content truly does prevail.

That goal has certainly been hit - and as we noted earlier, the naivete of some users was frightening. He goes on to note that this is a Machiavellain Text, not a list of his Dark Arts:

That said, there were some facts in this post that I’d like to clarify. This post was intended to be a how-to for marketers on YouTube, morals aside, in an attempt to bring to light everything that could be (and is) going on on YouTube and beyond. However, I DO NOT EMPLOY OR ENDORSE ALL OF THE STRATEGIES USED IN THIS POST. I’ve been holding myself back from responding to each and every commenter because I want to let this discussion play out on its own, but there are a few key things I’d like to clarify.

1) We do NOT spam email lists. This would be an effective strategy, but unless you have a list of people who have opted in to receive email of that nature, it would be illegal.

2) We do NOT pay off bloggers to post our videos as if they were real blog posts. Rather, we pay bloggers to embed clearly marked video ads in their sites, with no false endorsements of any kind. Again, it would be an effective strategy, but I don’t endorse it.

3) We have NOT manipulated any of the comments in this post. (Though I do wish that all those deeply negative comments about me were actually fake.)

Take them as a bit of messenger shooting....

Again, I want to thank all of you for participating in this discussion, particularly those of you who offered calm, reflective criticism of some of the techniques described in this post.

I’ll be posting a longer followup to this later on my blog, and I hope that we can all engage in a positive, constructive discussion about marketing, advertising, and the future of our interactions through the internet.

As we all continue to develop our thoughts and plans around internet marketing, it is important that we all many of these views into account, as I surely will.

As noted in this earlier post, we think the 1st Generation Advores / PRTards / Marketeers risk bringing regulators crashing down on their heads, and these sort of descriptions of what is going on behind the scenes are very illuminating - hopefully all those incensed commentators will reflect that, having shot the messenger, they still have to think about how they will deal with the message....

Fun article on NewTeeVee here on stuff for fave Videobloggers. We've just been involved in helping to set up UK Financial Vodcaster iBall, so from our deep experience here are a few extras for the UK Holiday Season.

Waterproof Makeup - for those rainy days filming outside in Soggy London. Yahoo Answers has the scoop here..

Electric Cattle Prod - for clearing all those Christmas shopping grockles out the way....The Register has the gen.

A Nice Cup of Tea and a sit down...solves all those "Green Room" ills. Well, this is the UK after all....

And acres of green cloth of course.....

It's no secret that we believe the unsubtle application of targeted Ads by the current "Generation 1" players is both an unacceptable invasion of users privacy, and also not commercially sustainable. What has worried us is the lack of any serious challengers to the rush to pillage our online relationships - until now. The EU is taking an interest:

Recommendations from the working party have been used by the European Commission to get Google (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) to curtail the amount of time it stored past Web searches to 18 months.

We noted at the time that Google had no reason to keep data that far back at all, if the purported uses were as claimed, but Facebook's recent actions - and the backlash - have heightened concern:

Brussels' heightened awareness comes as more than 13,000 Facebook users have signed a petition protesting against the networking site's new advertising system which alerts members of friends' purchases online.

Addendum - we also believe therefore (as do others) that the correct approach for Facebook, to show good faith, is to move to "Gold Standard" - ie Opt In - as soon as possible, to take the heat out of the backlash. The temptation to "hard monetise" should be resisted as it is - in our view - no longer tenable given the potential it has to drive regulatory opposition (and actually drive lower value in the medium term).

There is increasing concern in the EU as well that some of the recent actions by players such as Facebook also contravene European Data Protection Laws....and with some reason. For example, this blog was thrown off Facebook a week ago (see here) and we still have had no information about whether our data on the site will be deleted (which is required by EU law) or not.

In a related move, the UK's Information Commissioner has issued a warning about putting data on Social Nets, and is starting a new website to get kids more aware. Pointing to confusing youth behaviour - in surveys 71% don't want employers trawling social nets, 95% don't want advertisers to get their details, yet they seem to blithely input all sorts of personal data on the sites - deputy commissioner David Smith notes:

"We have to help teenagers wise up to every aspect of the internet age they're living in. It may be fun but unfortunately it is not the safe space many think it is."

The problem responsible Advertisers have is that there is a "tragedy of the commons" effect going on - the irresponsible Advores will pile in now, make whatever money is on the table, but create the customer and regulatory backlash that will destroy value for all ongoing. "Tragedy of Commons" situations typically tend to only stop when the ecosystem collapses.

Thus, this may sound strange, but a "Deus Ex Machina" in the form of regulation may be good for the Ad industry overall.

So now we know...we thought that the iPhone wasn't exactly flying off the shelves (despite puff to the contrary), and Andrew Orlowski now confirms that. We don't think it's going to take off anytime soon either - a highly unscientic survey by Broadsight (aka asking your "social graph") reveals that for many Brits, we think:

(i) Its too expensive...
(ii) They will cut the price anyway in 3 months like in the US (esp if it isn't selling), and
(iii) The 3G version will be out c May 2008 so we'll wait for that.

Most people just aren't prepared to jump contract early either.

Don't get us wrong -we think this is a revolutionary product and its given Planet Mobile a well needed kick up the *rse, but at those prices and the limits on it, its just not compelling vs the "good enoughs" yet.

In the first "London VRM session" we had a few weeks back, one of the areas we were mulling over was how the "VRM" Social Net would interact with Brands so that the User had control, and were kicking around ideas based on Amazon and eBay systems. Thus this article caught my eye:

Facebook Beacon is an attempt to capitalize on that by using the social graph to make advertising more useful for the customer and more profitable for Facebook.

Unfortunately, they got it wrong. Instead of advertising, they should have focused on recommendations. No one is going to say “please show me more ads based on what my friends like.” But plenty of people will ask a friend to recommend digital cameras or books to them.

This may seem like two sides of the same coin, but there are subtle and important differences. First, there’s the asking. Asking someone for recommendations puts both parties in a position of giving permission. That changes the feel of the transaction.

I think that as well as the "pull" nature of the approach, the writers are right in saying it changes the feel of the transaction - and thus probably the whole feel of the Social Network it is in to one of more trust - and, as study after study of behavioural economics shows, we humans really start to rock online when trust between us is high.

It would also change the way Brands would interact with us - the Dark Arts approaches they clearly are trying will not really work in this world.

Good "passive service" examples are BlogFriends on Facebook, and the various Library display functions on the SocNets that allow me to see what books / blogs my friends are reading.

(Tip of hat to Umair Haque for link)

...of the Virtual Hosting Top 100 Social Media bloglist....here it is.

And we used no Dark Arts or SEO optimisation....

No doubt you will all feel incensed by various inclusions, exclusions, categorisations etc etc.

We follow the Oscar Wilde principle - there is only one thing worse than being talked about......

This is simply the best article I have seen on TechCrunch in months - its a "Dark Arts" PR company running through all the tricks used to create those "viral" effects.

I don't know what is worse - reading the comments and seeing the astounding naivete of so many of the commentators*, or Mike Arrington's comment that:

I will post a longer response to this later, but frankly I’m disgusted by this.

Oh c'mon Mike - methinks you protest too much. We talk to PRtards and they tell us this goes on, and we're total outsiders compared to the big sites. Frankly I'm glad its up there, its back to having real conversations (which Howard Lindzon relishes**...)

(For the record - we don't do this stuff, but have helped clients see when it is being used by competitors)

However, now that its in the open its bad news for the Dark Artistes

The Wild West days of Lonely Girl and Ask A Ninja are over. You simply can’t expect to post great videos on YouTube and have them go viral on their own, even if you think you have the best videos ever. These days, achieving true virality takes serious creativity, some luck, and a lot of hard work. So, my advice: fire your PR firm and do it yourself.

* I often wonder about some of the blog commentators on things like Beacon etc - are they astroturfing, fan-sumers or just thick - now I know - many are just totally naive.

** Tip of hat to Howard for this discovery - truth be told I don't read TC very often anymore, it seems increasingly to be PR puff...more of this stuff guys!

Postscript...tsk tsk...GigaOm's NewTeeVee (another thing I read far less often) has only now (a day later) covered this story....but in the comments section there is a list of the companies served by said company (apparently they were pulled off Linked In - but you'd think a Dark Arts company knows about caching)

Uh Oh...Sir Tim Berners Lee has (I think) just re-jigged the Semantic Web to be the embodiment of the Social Graph.

I must admit to being a bit nonplussed...maybe its just us, but while they both run on a connected Network (Why, oh why, do we have to now use the word Graph for a Network these days?) it seemed to me that the Semantic Web was much more of a taxonomy play, around making the edge data interchangeable and easily parsable, than being an analysis of the interactions of the network connections themselves.

I think what he is getting at is to make the structure of all and any User Data - the stuff you put into your Social Net profile - the same, so it is readable and transferable wherever you have it located, and then functions that make use of it and work on top of it can be standardised - sort of what Google is trying to do but a de Jure, rather than de Facto standard. This would abviously make it much easier to hit the whole net with the maths of social network analysis. In that respect the GGG is a Special Case of the Semantic Web - a vertical application - and that makes sense, as our analysis is that the General Case of the Semantic Web is horrendously complex to execute.

We will look at it in more detail, but I must admit to having the same initial reaction Nick Carr has had:

Well, it looks like there'll be no escaping the "social graph" term. World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, in a blog post last evening, not only bestowed his blessing on the social graph but elevated it to the capitalized Social Graph, a sign that we have a New Paradigm on our hands.

The Unified Theory of Networking no less