Why do I do what I do? The possibilities that this will happen:
And you?
Filed under: Everything Else , herd, tipping point
June 5, 2009 • 4:11 pm Comments Off
Superfresh Web
Post by Steven Johnson at Time.com. Nicely captured by John Batelle. Well phrased and worth a read:
“Skeptics might wonder just how much subversion and wit is conveyable via 140-character updates. But in recent months Twitter users have begun to find a route around that limitation by employing Twitter as a pointing device instead of a communications channel: sharing links to longer articles, discussions, posts, videos — anything that lives behind a URL. Websites that once saw their traffic dominated by Google search queries are seeing a growing number of new visitors coming from “passed links” at social networks like Twitter and Facebook. This is what the naysayers fail to understand: it’s just as easy to use Twitter to spread the word about a brilliant 10,000-word New Yorker article as it is to spread the word about your Lucky Charms habit.”
“Put those three elements together — social networks, live searching and link-sharing — and you have a cocktail that poses what may amount to the most interesting alternative to Google’s near monopoly in searching. At its heart, Google’s system is built around the slow, anonymous accumulation of authority: pages rise to the top of Google’s search results according to, in part, how many links point to them, which tends to favor older pages that have had time to build an audience. That’s a fantastic solution for finding high-quality needles in the immense, spam-plagued haystack that is the contemporary Web. But it’s not a particularly useful solution for finding out what people are saying right now, the in-the-moment conversation that industry pioneer John Battelle calls the “super fresh” Web.”
I’m more interested in the impact of moving links around, and less about the meteoric rise of Twitter. The popularity of news feeds, microblogging and retweets makes it easy to circulate links, information and commentary. But is this a permanent shift in how we use the web to search for information? The algorithms of search are clearly having to take notice of the power of friends and communities when it comes to finding stuff.
Search capabilities to cope with this real time data is lagging. And there lies a big opportunity. Perhaps the days of having all the web under one point of access – a search engine using indexes, keyword queries and algorithmic ranking – has reached its zenith.
So how should the search players respond? Speed up the web crawlers? Not sure this is the right response. Become more community driven? Not sure the general user base is ready for that. Linked based advertising, sponsored links and affiliate programs are either about to die or experience another boom.
ont
Filed under: Search , Google, Realtime Web, Search, Twitter
June 3, 2009 • 10:17 am Comments Off
That crap’ll cost ya
On a different note about customer service, Brand Replublic are reporting that Ryanair is to start charging for using the toilet (Becky Wilkerson, marketingmagazine.co.uk 03-Jun-09).
This could be a ruse. However, I like poking fun at the airline we all love to hate. Apparently, Ryanair has confirmed that it plans to charge for toilets on its aeroplanes. According to Brand Republic,
[Michael O'Leary]…denied that Ryanair was trying to profit from customers needing a toilet break. The plan aims to discourage passengers from using the toilets onboard, which could then be replaced with additional seating on the aircraft; losing two toilets can create six extra seats.
It seems the ‘cattle class’ jibe is almost a reality.
I respect any business looking for ways to improve their bottom line (no pun intended). But this squeeze is what happens when an industry thinks it has no option but to be free. When it tries to make money from any other source but the core proposition. Ryanair wants to transport us around Europe for £1 a ticket, knowing that they can make some money on other services and offerings along the way. Is this really what their customers want? Because it’s pretty clear it leads to awful customer service and, at least in my family, a desire to avoid using Ryanair.
The pressure to give everything for free in the online world can learn some lessons here. If the proposition is worthwhile, customers will pay money. If customers won’t pay, it tells you something about the value of the business and the loyalty of their customers.
As the saying goes, you pay for what you get. And in this case, it isn’t enough for a toilet. Just as well they removed those air sick bags already!
Filed under: Everything Else, In Practice , customer service, free, Ryainair
June 1, 2009 • 10:32 pm Comments Off
But It’s Not Great
I won’t be the first person to write that about Bing; the new search engine from Microsoft due for global launch this week.
Although I hear ‘Bing’ is meant to stand for ‘But It’s Not Google’, I’m not quite sure what the proposition stands for. If this is meant to be a Google competitor for my everyday search activity, the message why I should switch is not reaching me. General searching looks the same. Image and Shopping searches have some nice touches in filtering results by category (Google hit that mark earlier). But most disappointingly:
- shopping directs me to Ciao;
- maps directs me to Multimap;
- I can’t see any of the semantic technology that made Powerset such hot property
.
It’s almost like Bing is some high level wrapper for Microsoft’s last 12 months of web acquisitions.
So far, I’m not that impressed, but I concede I may have missed something. It’s certainly not a step towards the ‘decision engine’ they are talking it up to be. Have you given it a try?
Filed under: Search , Bing, Search engines
• 4:14 pm Comments Off
The data is free?
Recently watched a TED broadcast of Tim Berners-Lee talking about Linked Data. I’m a big fan of linked data and the possibilities it opens up. It makes huge sense for public services, being social online or personal productivity. But I’m still struggling to understand the commercial realities.
We were brought up to think information advantage = power = profit. Take away the advantage, and the power and profit collapse. Every market runs on this principal. The faster I can access, understand, and analyze large quantities of data, the quicker I can trade or act on it. Which means the faster I can lock in my profit and ramp up my volume. I can see this working in the world’s financial markets as well as my own personal decisions.
The question is this: does linked data eventually result in free data? Does free data remove the information advantage and therefore destroy the potential to profit from it?
Consider online advertising. The drive to open up and link data seems to be running into a headlong crash with online advertising. We – the person – want linked data online. We want it free and we want the tools to use it.
Businesses running on a staple diet of online advertising will soon have to decide which side of the fence to play: ‘linked data’, or ‘walled garden’? Walled garden means trapped data that can be sold for ad revenue. But users want to take the data anywhere they please…nobody wants walled gardens. Ultimately this means those businesses not getting paid in the same way anymore! Witness the discussions on revenue around Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin…and so on….
I don’t believe that the economics of the web over the next decade can be dominated by advertising spend. Trading the attentions of our users. Trafficking eyeballs. Affiliate Programs. Call it what you like. Online advertising as a means to sustain media businesses on the web is broken and over. The drive to linked data is arguably the main cause.
Don’t get me wrong, advertising is essential to bring about a relationship between buyer and seller. Anyone is an advertiser anytime they have something to sell. But I think the industry has become obsessed with specific types of advertising and it is hurting the future health of the web. We need linked data to move forward.
But why should I make my data open, linked and free if all that will happen is that it drives my margins to zero. At the end of the day, revenue has to pay the hardware, staffing and utilities bills to keep us running. Profit gives us the motivation to keep doing it.
I see 2 possible futures for smaller companies in the web world: (a) become service providers to those that have the scale already, or (b) help your clients or customers to access, understand, analyse and manage data to allow them to act faster, smarter or cheaper.
So what can smaller businesses do to create open, free data and still create healthy growth and revenue?
I need to confess my background in finance and trading may be interfering with a ‘media’ view of the world. I can’t help but think of the massive opportunities that exist when 2 people (or businesses) want to trade. Tools that help create demand. Businesses that create or manage markets to match supply and demand. I bet if we spent a little more time on this (rather than being consumed by advertising), we’d do a lot better than eBay and Amazon Marketplace.
Why haven’t more web businesses embraced business ideas that result in real advantages for their users:
- better recommendation systems to manage the huge choice we have?
- price discovery and analysis tools that’s better than the poor price comparison we have now?
- watching and alert tools?
- better serving of local communities focused on quality not scale?
- better control over distribution?
- total lifecycle relationships with businesses we buy things from?
Perhaps these needs aren’t that important yet for the average web user? Perhaps the tools are still stuck in the B2B market and yet to be presented easily enough to capture the imagination of the consumer market? Maybe that’s our challenge: creating open, data-rich systems that are fun and sexy to use.
Free massage with your well-priced DVD purchase, sir?
Filed under: Advertising, Everything Else , business models, business opportunities, linked data, online ecommerce
May 23, 2009 • 9:49 am Comments Off
Trends and Tracks
Reading a post from the respected ReadWriteWeb on trends. In summary, Richard MacManus calls out some trends we are seeing on the web:
- Open data
- Structured data (and therefore smarter)
- Filtering content
- Real-time
- Personalization
- Mobile (location-based, so you could say that’s smarter use of data too)
- Internet of Things (the Web in real-world objects)
I like that list. It highlights 3 needs I can identify with:
- everything interconnected, not silo’d
- accurate real time information
- presented, filtered and sorted just for me, using my preferences and where I am in the world
When you consider all the goods and services we consume or trade, it’s easy to realise we’ve got a long way to go before we feel these needs are catered for online. Think about the last time you paid for something….or booked at an unknown restaurant….bought a birthday gift….paid for a newspaper….rented a car….searched for something to watch on TV…..took out insurance….
Perhaps we are starting to approach these everyday decisions differently. As more relevant information becomes available: would we make the same trades? At the same price? I can see it making a huge impact on how we spend our time and money and who we trade with. Importantly, raising our confidence and making competition that much more healthy. Why? Because each of us could bring together all the relevant factors that we need for a decision, easily and quickly, adjusted for your location and time.
A big impact for business. Greater opportunities, better targeting, less time and money wasted, keener prices, higher quality. Surely an interesting future for us all. Agree?
Filed under: Everything Else
May 18, 2009 • 10:34 am Comments Off
Extremes
I have eagerly awaited the launch of WolframAlpha. I love that web search is becoming more about asking questions and getting answers and less about surfing web pages. Many times we don’t need a web page, we just want the answer.
WolframAlpha is – from their website – a computational knowledge engine. Their offering – like UK’s True Knowledge – aims to answer your question, not provide many web pages that might contain the answer to your question (like most search engines today). They went live over the weekend and I’m quite impressed.
Want to give it a try? Enter your birth date, or request the height of a famous building, the atomic weight of your favourite chemical, or the answer to e^x (1-x) x. They have some great examples here.
I think they did a good job of navigating the hype machines that automatically wanted to see a bare knuckled contest against Google. It’s clearly not a search engine and won’t handle ‘Who won the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest?’. I saw one forum comment about some guy who tried ‘Is there a God?’. Fair enough if you’re bored and concerned about your life after death from a purely computational point of view. Seriously though, WolframAlpha is not built as a super fast indexing and result ranking machine like Google is. It’s built to use existing models of maths and science, available web data and some natural language intelligence to answer your question. I would encourage you to bookmark them and give it a go the next time you could do with the help of a university professor.
I then went over to Twitter to post that I was quite impressed. Saw someone else posting about Zombie Pinups.
And there you have it. The 2 extremes of the internet! God bless the internet.
Filed under: Everything Else, Search , answers, knowledge, Search, Wolfram, WolframAlpha
April 17, 2009 • 8:02 am Comments Off
Back at the Desk
This is my first post after a 2 week break: my family and I went to celebrate an important family birthday in Cape Town.
Besides the catching up on food and sleep, I even managed a quick half marathon while I was there (perfect weather this time of year for those wanting to plan a trip to Cape Town and don’t like excessive hot weather or wind).
We returned to an empty baggage carousel at Heathrow and discovered British Airways had pretty much forgetten to put our bags on the same flight back home. There’s a lesson about not taking your full wardrobe on holiday with you!
One of the things we all struggle with is those first few days returning from vacation. The mountain of emails and RSS feeds to wade through, getting excited about the tasks at hand, reconnecting to your ideas, friends and industry. I’m thankful I enjoy what I do. How much more painful when you hate your job (I’ve been there too!).
My wife and I both work a lot from home and with 2 young kids, it’s often quite chaotic, disrupted and noisey. I’m always looking for strategies to cope with this. I’m the type of person that likes peace and quite when I work. My wife is the opposite. So you can imagine this creates a certain amount of stress. I’d pay generously for a cloak of invisibility and noise cancelling sound bubbles during school holidays. Anyone else appreciating my struggle here?!
While I was working through my RSS feeds, I stumbled across the perfect excuse to stick some headphones on. New app for your iphones called RJDJ. Uses the microphone and accelerometer on the iphone in various sound generating ’scenes’ to create ever changing soundscapes and tracks. Trippy stuff.
Will post next week on the progress with the new release on Pintarget and some lessons we are learning on how our team is setup.
Filed under: Everything Else , Cape Town, Pintarget, RJDJ, working from home
March 24, 2009 • 10:11 am Comments Off
TwitchHiker
If you don’t know who this is: the story so far…
Paul Smith from Newcastle is attempting to travel around the world in 30 days. The twist is that he is doing it on the kindness of Twitter followers. You can read his rules on his blog, but in essence, he only moves forward on his journey if he is offered accommodation or travel by someone on his list of Twitter followers. As of writing this, he has made it from Newcastle to New Zealand.
Two immediate thoughts come to mind. Firstly, it’s hard not to be inspired by this guy (did I mention he is raising money for Water). Secondly, what amazing publicity for each business/ organisation that helps him out on his journey. After all, why not?
There are handful of pretty famous people who are known for their challenges and adventures and using them as great opportunities for branding and PR. The likes of Richard Branson come to mind. But here we have a guy with no claim to fame, lighting a path around the world. A path full of local people and businesses willing to help. It’s a great idea and signals yet again the sea-change of how accessible and open the world can be, with a little help from the web. He establishes a vibrant community with some awe-inspiring experiences and creates a valuable personal brand for himself. In return, those that helped along the way get some love, limelight, business, PR, or whatever got them to offer in the first place.
Of course there is a danger in excess. I shudder to think of the copy-cat exploits that will now follow all looking for freebies to fund their silliness. And of course, one can’t wax too lyrical about Twitter and its importance in society. Twitter are, to all intents and purposes, an innocent bystander.
But think how far we have come. 10 years ago you could do what Paul Smith is doing. Travelling around the world, drifting from place to place. Many a gap-year student can tell the story. But your ability to publicise your need and find the right information at the right time was severely limited. Now we see it happening in much faster time, with more effectiveness, and less personal cost. Paul Smith shows us that it’s as easy as mobilising your Twitter community and you’re pretty much covered around the world.
I am in the business of search, recommendations and research. So it is hard for me not to get excited about things like this. Finding a web page on Google that may have the answer I was looking for suddenly seems so old-fashioned. Will communities start to dominate aspects of search that a search engine could never match? I think so. I hope so. Will Twitter dominate this new way? I hope not. We don’t need another giant. Besides, I have trouble keeping up with my small community on Twitter as it is. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have 10,000 followers all DM’ing you and expecting some sort of acknowledgement.
One thing is for sure, if you’re not building your own community yet…you had better get a move on. Forget about your CV. The future is all about mobilising your communities and tribes to make things happen.
Good luck, Paul!
Filed under: Everything Else , Travel, TwitchHiker, Twitter, Water
March 4, 2009 • 12:10 pm Comments Off
Who do you think you are?
I was watching an episode of the popular TV series “Who do you think you are?”. For those not in the UK, a celebrity is invited to research and uncover their lost ancestry and family tree (with the help of a few well-placed experts and archives). For some celebrities it is an entertaining ride, for others a very emotional time. In either case, it’s pretty good watching.
Last night, as old dusty books and documents were pulled from archives around the country, it struck me how little we knew about the lives people lived 400 years ago. All that would remain of your life from the 17th century would probably be 3 or 4 entries for your birth, baptism, marriage and death.
Fast forward to the year 2409…
Assuming digital records aren’t lost in some global meltdown, our lives will be preserved in glorious detail. Every transaction, every email. Every social occassion, party and conversation will be leaping from the pages of Twitter and Facebook to recount the highs and lows of our lives. How fantastic for the historians of our future.
I do seriously hope they are good at databases.
The privacy debate
Thinking in this sort of timeline makes the debate about online privacy, cookies and the behavioural targeting of ads all seem a little small. Do you think in 400 years time, they will look back to 2009 and conclude: “they were obsessed with maintaining and managing their privacy”?
I don’t think so.
The truth is that privacy – online or offline – is pretty much ignored until something happens to us personally to take it away. We only appreciate the value of privacy when our lives have been invaded and we suffer.
How many people rally into action to remove the latest neighbourhood CCTV camera? How many people read an online Terms of Service agreement before clicking ‘Yes, I agree’? How many people check to see if their online transaction is covered by suitable security before clicking ‘Proceed to Checkout?’
I would guess not many. And why should we? Is it not reasonable to expect fair treatment? Do unto others as you would do unto them…and all that?
The shadows that lurk online
And so we come to the one area that gets our attention: online advertising. Perhaps it gets this attention because advertising is so visible? Perhaps it’s because the motivation is profit, not safety or national security.
It’s been pretty clear to me that there is a widening gap emerging between technology and the user. Specifically between what the technology on a web page is doing, and what the average user understands is going on. This ignorance or, perhaps more fairly, lack of interest is a situation ripe for exploitation. Research firm Forrester reports 26% of online advertisers in Europe in 2008 using some form of behavioural targetting.
Quite right then that the online ad industry has recently released a set of guidelines (lead by the IAB and signed by the likes of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo) that puts pressure on online advertisers to make sure our privacy is still in our control:
- Notice: clearly inform a consumer that data is being collected for this purpose
- Consent: provide a mechanism for users to decline behavioural advertising and where applicable seek a consumer’s consent
- Education: provide consumer with clear and simple information about their use of data for this purpose and how users can decline.
See more from the IAB’s website.
Let’s talk about Pintarget and privacy…
Pintarget is designed to be an online service that provides you 3 things:
- search results that are ranked for you, the individual;
- ability to bookmark results using our special pins and to collect these in a research folder;
- for that research folder to send you alerts when new information is found by our search technology.
In an effort to make you the centre of our universe, the technology uses your profile, past activity and stated intentions to rank search results and filter up the best alerts. Our service is by membership only, locked behind SSL encryption. We don’t sell your data nor allow big search engines access to your content unless you have given permission to make it public.
We make money from advertising when you are researching something to buy. But we believe that if the advertising is useful and relevant and there to help you make an informed decision: why wouldn’t you allow your data to be used? It’s for a specific purpose and controlled within our environment. Full notice. Full consent. Full education.
We’ve taken the high road on using your data for online advertising because we believe trust is key. With your help we can make Pintarget the best enviornment for online advertising. Imagine being able to cut through all that online noise you suffer now!
So what can we do in Pintarget to make your privacy easier to monitor?
Easier to manage?
Filed under: Advertising, Pintarget, Privacy , IAB, online advertising, Pintarget, Privacy
March 1, 2009 • 6:08 pm Comments Off
Great marketing is being invited to join the conversation
Ten years ago, the Cluetrain Manifesto crashed into existence, subtitled ‘The end of business as usual.’ Its ideas attracted a vast amount of attention and as many passionate adherents as defensive detractors. Drafted by four business and technology experts, it offers up an exceptionally disparaging view of marketing.
“Every one of us knows that marketers are out to get us, and we all struggle to escape their snares….We know that the real purpose of marketing is to insinuate the message into our consciousness, to put an axe in our heads without our noticing.”
As so often with the voice of the dissident, it was over-stated, flamboyant – yet it remains influential since great gobs of truth hide within its occasionally objectionable propositions. Even the name belies a conspicuous superiority – it’s from this quote- “The clue train stopped there four times a day for ten years and they never took delivery.” The fundamental message is that markets are conversations. This is how things were in the beginning when buyers would engage their suppliers – Mr Baker, Mr Smith and Mr Carpenter, to go off and make what they needed.
Industrialisation begat mass production, so mass marketing had to be invented to persuade us all that ‘any colour you like as long as it’s black’ isn’t as disappointing as it seems, because we love black, thanks. Over the years marketing has got better and more entertaining so the axe is less obvious, but, say the authors, “the message that gets broadcast to you, me, and the rest of the earth’s population has nothing to do with me in particular. It’s worse than noise. It’s the Anti-Conversation”. Ouch. See what I mean?
But if markets are conversations, broadband technology and web inventions have created something the manifesto writers could not and did not anticipate.
Twitter has turned out to be rather more than the pre-teen drivel bazaar many of us first thought, now connecting thinkers, creators, influencers. ‘Retweeting’, forwarding an idea to one’s ‘followers’ has created something unprecedented – a mass conversation.
Twitter, Facebook, instant messaging, email, blogs, Skype – the internet is alive with conversations. Tempting for marketers to think that today’s challenge is to find a way of inserting themselves into these exchanges. No, that’s rude and it doesn’t work. Our challenge is the much more interesting one – to allow customers to have a conversation with us on their terms and whenever they choose.
Click for more on Cluetrain or Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) championed by Doc Searls, one of the original Cluetrain authors.
Filed under: Eyre at the Top , Cluetrain Manifesto, mass marketing, Twitter, VRM
February 25, 2009 • 8:59 am Comments Off
What can make searching better? Part 2
I love reading articles that hint at a future I believe in. Take a read of this from the NYTimes, “Everyone Loves Google, Until It’s Too Big” by Randall Stross. The bit I like comes towards the end:
“Whether we’re slightly ahead or slightly behind Google in core relevance is not a game changer in search,” said Prabhakar Raghavan, Yahoo’s chief search strategist. Yahoo’s best opportunity, Mr. Raghavan said, is to offer radically new ways of presenting information that will help users finish whatever it is they started before the search, like finding a job or buying a plane ticket. “People don’t want to search; it’s a digression,” he said. “They want to complete a task.”
I want to complete a task. Sometimes that task is immediate. Sometimes it takes weeks.
I would argue that the tools used to search are different for each type. Google is brilliant at ‘immediate’. We’re building Pintarget to be brilliant at ‘weeks’.
I believe the future of ‘our’ type of search relies on 3 things:
- a place to find and collect information;
- technology to bring updates and new information to you; not you having to do all the legwork all the time;
- a place to have conversations and ask questions about the things we are searching for….with people you trust (you can no longer deny the huge impact and influence we have on others!).
Would you agree?
We’re excited that the new release of Pintarget in a couple of months time is going to hit a home run on all 3 points. Especially in the world of researching things you want to buy. More of that later.
Filed under: Pintarget, Search , Google, NYTimes, Pintarget, Search, Yahoo
February 2, 2009 • 8:24 pm 1
What’s wrong with this picture?
One of the facts about running a young business is getting so sucked into work that I don’t manage a blog post for a while. Since the beginning of the year, we have been redesigning parts of Pintarget as well as developing a major step forward in our strategy. Sorry the blog has been a bit quiet!
Related to the designing of things, I’ve become fascinated with how the commercial design process is starting to change. Especially with web and software companies. I’ve started to wonder how we should be adapting to this change.
The established (old) model goes something like this:
- get an idea (or recognise a problem)
- gather some data (anecdotal or otherwise) to build a business case
- bring in the creatives to do some designs
- test them with your boss
- build it
- close your eyes and unleash it to your customers
- congratulate yourself on the 5% increase
Now that online communities are starting to dominate how we see the web, how we search and how we socialise online: it’s no surprise that designers are encouraging their communities to work with them during the design process. Design is notoriously hard and fickle to get right.
I was fascinated to read more about this on Bokardo.com. Companies like 37signals use their followers and communities to test design ideas and validate design decisions way before anything hits their buying public.
Seems the new model is starting to bring validation of the new ideas much earlier in the process. This would seem to point to a stronger and more cost effective process as well as mixing well with the need for deeper customer relationships and continuous innovation.
Naturally this needs a trust in your community to make the effort worthwhile as well as giving the community the confidence to know their feedback will be taken seriously. It also needs guts to change your views if your future customers are telling you something else. A glorified PR exercise this is not. And finally, a healthy awareness where the competition is heading so that senior management doesn’t choke the process.
Not for the faint hearted.
Do you get great design this way? Or do you just minimise the times you drop a terrible product or service on your customers?
I was reminded again what great design means when I received my Apple iPhone early in January. I had been waiting patiently for 18 months to ditch my old phone and contract. The iPhone arrived and I was awe struck by the packaging: someone had thought long and hard about the series of emotions they wanted me to follow. First was the embossed image on the black box. Teasing me on what was to follow. As the box lid yielded – staring back at me wasn’t a plastic sleeve of useless instructions, nor some pink slip telling me how many standards the thing complied with. Not a brown bit of dirty cardboard in sight. Apple set me up to be delighted and then delivered the goods by cradling the perfectly clean screen of my shiny new iPhone in full view. Nothing else got in the way. The strength of the emotional attachment I now have with this great product started when I laid my eyes on the box. Great design.
Does a design process that is built around collaboration with future customers result in that same sort of emotional attachment? Perhaps the simple fact of being involved would make a future customer more open to being delighted when the new thing arrives.
Sitting at the drawing board with our own designs, I’m inspired to do better and be more open. Time to put a little community spirit into this great industry. Any volunteers for Pintarget’s new designs?
Filed under: Pintarget , 37Signals, Apple, Bokardo, design, design process, iPhone, Pintarget
January 12, 2009 • 2:17 pm Comments Off
Change in Familiar Clothing
Change has a terrific track record at taking us by surprise. Over and over again, it goes unseen or unidentified over long periods when we should have been adapting our thinking to deal with the new.
It is a physiological fact that we tire quickly when processing new information, which is why the first days in a new job or a long journey are so draining. So we prefer the familiar. And our operating systems are so much better at it that we try and dress the new in the clothes of the old, the garb we know. ‘Twas ever thus.
In 1764, James Hargreaves invented a machine that could spin yarn eight times faster than a person. It devastated the textile economy and put thousands out of work. So what did they call it? The ‘Spinning Jenny’. We picture a cheery lass from Bolton and all feel rather better about it.
The steam locomotive, an invention that would change the lives of billions of people forever, was originally dubbed the Iron Horse. Just like a horse, only iron. Much the same surely.
The motor car was christened the ‘horseless carriage’ as if it’s a sort of line extension; as opposed to a device that would take just 50 years to demote the horse from two and a half millennia as essential travel equipment to the purely recreational.
Where reference points don’t exist for something completely original, it is understandable to draft in terminology from the familiar. Anyone still talk about ‘taping’ a show on Sky+?
But getting stuck on outdated or inadequate language demotes the scale of change and sedates a reaction that should be bigger. So once again, real innovation takes us by surprise.
Look at the mobile phone. Internet browser, camera – still and video, satnav, MP3 player, calculator, alarm clock, diary, address book, games console; and soon a wallet – already in Korea and China, you can make payments with the mobile.
In Western Europe there are more registered mobile phones than people, and in the developing world the mobile handset will leapfrog the computer since it’s cheaper and doesn’t need wires in the ground.
But for all its capacity, still we call it a mobile phone. We all know mobile phones – had them for years. The same goes for the social network – a clumsy and inadequate label. See the trap? Our soothing, lazy language demeans inventions that will change the world.
Filed under: Eyre at the Top , disruptive technologies, inventions, language, Managing Change
January 9, 2009 • 9:30 am Comments Off
Liked your Gift?
Did you receive loads of presents over Christmas? Have you fallen in love with 1 or 2 gifts in particular?
How about putting in a recommendation into Pintarget?
Next time someone is searching for your thing – your recommendation will help them make a decision. What goes around, comes around. It could be you doing the research next time and someone else’s recommendation saves you a bundle of cash!
Log into Pintarget. Go to Recommendations. Click ‘Add to Heaven’ from the small target menu in the top right of the page. You can add a title, description of what it is and why you like it, a web URL for others to click. If you have a photo or image of it, load it in using our easy to use photoloader.
Is your thing on a web page somewhere? Then it’s even easier is to use our Toolbar. Using the Pintarget toolbar, you can upload the recommendation directly from another web page.
What did you get for Christmas?
Filed under: Pintarget , gift, heaven, hell, Pintarget, recommendations, toolbar
January 7, 2009 • 12:07 pm Comments Off
What can make searching better? (Part 1)
Firstly, let me say welcome to the Year 2009! I hope it has been a fantastic start to the New Year for you; filled with enthusiasm and promise. And if too much eating and drinking has dulled that enthusiasm and promise, I’m sure the ‘getting into shape’ resolution is only moments away.
For people like me, the start of a new year is an opportunity to plan and imagine the best of the next 12 months. Nothing unusual there. The hard part is focusing on the most important thing. It doesn’t take long before my enthusiam for change has me signing up for another trip to the arctic, piano lessons, perhaps even a course in Mandarin. Maybe not this Year; because the most important thing for this Year is SEARCH.
I’m not talking about the search you do when trying to find a page that you think has the answer to your question.
You’ve done it thousands of times already: you need an answer, you think of 2 or 3 keywords that best describes what you need, you type it into Google. Google delivers back to you the most popular web pages with the most relevant match to your keywords. Great. We all know this and silently, unknowingly, thank Google for making the web small enough to fit on a page (what do you mean there are 1,965,450 results? Mmm, maybe I got the keywords wrong. Pfft).
No, I mean something more. I want ’search’ to do more for me. Especially when it comes to the big things that cost me. I’m talking about the things I want to buy and want to spend some time researching in order to
- avoid making the wrong choice,
- missing out on something better,
- wasting money,
- looking a fool in front of people that matter, or
- all of the above.
Assuming you didn’t believe Google had already achieved perfection and the search game was over (shame on you if you did, what little imagination you have!): what do you think a search engine could do better?
Knowing your location, sure…but how about knowing what mood you’re in?
Easy to use on your mobile phone, sure….but how about the girl walking past you stopping to tell you the answer you were looking for?
Reaching the deepest corners of the web, sure…but how about tapping the stores of information you already have access to, but which are stuck in unconnected, locked pools of files, pictures, maps, documents, phone numbers, social networks, online stores….?
Searching, finding answers and making decisions can be better. Want to know how?
…to be followed in Part 2!
Filed under: Pintarget, Search , 2009, future, Pintarget, Search
December 22, 2008 • 2:32 pm Comments Off
Happy Christmas!
We’re taking some time to be with our families and friends, remember the best of 2008 and ready ourselves for the best start to the New Year. Thank you for your feedback, your praise and your support. From everyone at Pintarget, we hope you have a fantastic Christmas and the best wishes for 2009.
Filed under: Everything Else , Christmas
• 2:30 pm Comments Off
2008 has been a year of uncertainty – but it will pass
Staggering innovation and breathtaking entrepreneurialism? No, the story of media 2008 was uncertainty.
Above all, the hideous economy cast its shadow. Until April, it was pretty much business as usual, but around Easter the fog suddenly descended, giving no visibility on future revenues and ushering in a second half where we first glimpsed the confidence void ahead.
As always, we media disciples occupy our gloomy place at the front of the procession into recession.
The downturn came at a bad time for some of the most impressive innovators in our sector, just as they were grappling with a second uncertainty – the changing behaviours of audiences.
The social networkers had not convincingly resolved their conundrum of how to raise revenues to match the scale of the habit they founded and all the talk about online video didn’t spare YouTube from the same malaise of fabulous audiences but miserable revenues.
This is a change in the rules because the gathering together of an audience used to be a de facto advertising opportunity. But apparently the enlightened digital audience is not so compliant. The personal appeal of such spaces is because they’re “ours”, not “theirs” – and ads are outsiders. Ironically, therefore, the commercial malfunction of such places is directly attributable to their social success.
Uncertainty of a third kind wrapped its strangulating hand around one of the most important innovations in our sector. Behavioural targeting is a game-changer for advertisers. Finally, we get beyond the desperately poor technique of shovelling widely disparate humanity into huge socio-demographic silos where they can be counted.
Regulators have been worrying about the use of data unobtrusively collected through our internet use to improve the relevance of ads.
This is simpler to attack than defend. But the fact that a machine somewhere is serving me more interesting ads because it has logged my online behaviour is no more an infringement of my human rights or my privacy than a superb concierge knowing enough about me to recommend me a great restaurant. Or Amazon using my previous purchases to suggest books and music I might enjoy.
So we’re working hard to find an approach that is not bombed out on principle by privacy zealots – media vegans who want to deny the rest of us steak. This is important because the digital public has largely set its face against paying for internet content, making advertising the energy in the online economy.
Behavioural targeting redeems us from a rubbish, geriatric technique, and potentially makes advertising a more welcome part of the experience.
There is no doubt it will become our normal way of interacting with people, so let’s get the rules of engagement sorted quickly and with the support of agencies and advertisers.
Next we must consider the mobile, the increasingly smart device we all own. Its future is centre stage in the media world, but the uncertainty is over who goes first. Most publishers are waiting for the public to catch on, but it will be compelling content that will invite the change in behaviour we all know is coming.
Such boldness in the teeth of recession is asking a lot, but in 2001, when public companies went quiet on the internet, the organisations who pressed on, such as The Guardian and the BBC, won themselves a six-year advantage.
Confidence is a fragile treasure – it underwrites all innovation and entrepreneurialism, and we lost it in 2008. It seems there has never been a time when we know less than we know now, but this is a season of uncertainty. It will pass.
Filed under: Eyre at the Top , 2009, behavioural targetting, online advertising, Outlook, Richard Eyre
December 18, 2008 • 12:55 pm Comments Off
In Practice: Axe
News from the US about Axe, the male grooming brand, launching a group of ‘tools’ designed to help guys flirt and meet girls: nice idea for us mere mortals (by the way, Axe in the UK goes under the brand name ‘Lynx’, part of the Unilever portfolio). The Axe Arsenal tools – still in beta – consist of Hookupedia (encyclopedia of flirting, dating and relationships), Connect-a-friend (involve your friends), and Datecreator (to help find ideal venues for your next date). See them in action here. I like the idea of combining a cosmetics product with the allure of overcoming dating insecurities, and making it social and fun in the process. But in the context of improving the relationship and conversation between Axe and its community, I don’t believe it goes very far. Agree?
It was developed for Axe by BBH New York, Thyselius & Wiström in Stockholm and with Hookupedia content by The Art of Charm.
Thanks to Arry for the heads-up!
Filed under: In Practice , Axe, Axe Arsenal, dating, Unilever
December 8, 2008 • 5:41 pm Comments Off
How much would you pay?
It’s no secret that the majority of websites, search engines and social networks rely on advertising revenue to make money. You use the service…you get shown ads; in a number of different disguises. You will also no doubt be aware that the tide is beginning to turn. Users are getting fed up with the endless stream of ads. Take the ads away from their business models and these online services dry up. Unless they can get you to pay in other ways.
The most obvious alternative is a fee, membership, or saas (software as a service….which is effectively ‘pay-as-you-go’). So the question continues to be asked: “Would you pay to have ads removed from your favourite site? If so, how much?”. Maybe it’s a boring question, but it will affect how we use the web for the next decade.
How much to get rid of dating ads from your Facebook page? Or beer from your football site? Or money offers from your daily news? Or ringtones, or software, or…or…or…
Repost of an article from Advertising Age (thank you Alley Insider) on whether internet users would pay to have advertising removed from web pages.
Their conclusion?
We, the public, wouldn’t pay much at all.
I think they’re wrong. I think we’d soon miss all the good stuff and be prepared to pay something. It may not be the same for everyone…but we all have a price.
What do you think? How about taking our quick poll?
Filed under: Advertising , Advertising, poll
