This is illogical (Mr.) Spock

I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine about this web site called “Spock”. It is designed to provide easy searching for people. Essentially the site will query Facebook and LinkedIn and other Social Networking sites for information about a person. For instance, my page on Spock displays information from my LinkedIn site and some information from things that I have done (which they pass on to Google).

My main argument (originally) against the site this was not the information that it grabbed from my public facing profiles or information that i have written about, but rather the other tools provided by the site. If you look in the right column, you can do things like “Claim your profile”, “Upload a Picture” and “Add a Website” (among others).

This took me back to the old Yahoo days when you had to register your site for the search engine. Placing it in categories that you felt applied. Originally, you could plaster your site in many categories, eventually they only allowed you to post to a few categories at a time (catching on to the cross-posting for exposure). My feeling was that this site would not promote true organic growth. By adding to this site, the information was much like Facebook or MySpace in that “I” produced the content. Not very organic.

What would I wasn’t aware of was a little “trick” Spock played on unsuspecting Facebook people (found here):

These kids have a few things in common: They, along with 12,000 other people, recently downloaded a “Mad Libs”-like Facebook application and wrote stories about themselves and their friends, filling the blanks with scandalous terms.

But they didn’t realize the application was created by Spock, which debuted last week. And they were horrified to discover that Spock used the terms they supplied to build public profiles on them and other Facebook members. (After being contacted by Wired News, Spock erased the tags from many of these profiles, but some were still visible at press time.)

So when these people started filling out this application to be funny (and many high school kids did), the Spock website listed that information as “fact”. Very embarrassing! And not a great way to make a first impression.

I can now say that not only is this site not Organic, it is not professional. I do not see Spock catching on.

Let the “targeted advertisement” race begin

I have been anxiously awaiting this day. My Space has begun a “targeted ad” campaign which if successful, I think will revolutionize the advertising world. The benefits of targeted advertisements is simple:

Deliver more meaningful advertisements

It is a fact of life that quality content must either be paid for (Cable channels) or supplemented through advertisements (Network). We have been living with advertisements on television since it’s inception. Although TV/Cable content providers have become more intelligent about their ad placements (My wife does not understand half of the humor displayed in the advertisements during a Football game on Sunday), there was no real way to determine who was watching television.

Enter “Cookies” – no not your mom’s chocolate chip cookie. Imagine the Nielsen Ratings group – only in EVERY household. Essentially every visitor to a web site can be tracked. And with sites like Facebook and MySpace your content retrieval habits can also be tracked. Imagine watching television and getting an advertisement that said: “Goes great with the new pair of brown pants you just bought last week from the store”. Freaky yes, but I would rather have this ad then a bunch of ads completely unrelated to what I am looking for.

Targeted advertisements hold the key to increased click-through rates and even higher completion rates (someone actually purchases). I know this topic represents a mixed bag – but I think that this is the best thing to happen to the Internet. Among its benefits:

• Potential for less advertisements – key concept here is that the websites sprinkle a ton of advertisements in hopes that one of them is clicked
• Advertisements are more successful – no more campaigns with unknown return value
• Freak the hell out of your Mom – ha- no seriously, though, remember the Minority Report? Imagine an ad directed towards your mom? I know mine would freak out. “How’d they know that I just remodeled my kitchen”?

There are certainly some challenges and I think that the general privacy community will certainly have problems with statements like this:

“If someone’s been identified as someone who’s interested in fashion, we target ads to them that have nothing to do with fashion, and then ads that would direct them to say, the MySpace fashion channel.”

How do they determine someone is “interested in fashion”. Do they look at my MySpace messages? At my “Blog” posts? Surely someone will want a public deceleration of the data collection policies used to determine the targeted advertisements.

At any rate – we are on our way, so we shall see!

Gathering thoughts about SN, Web 2.0 and everything else

http://www.calacanis.com/2007/07/27/facebook-bankruptcy

 

 

One of my “friends” on Facebook posted a link to this BRILIANT blog post which has filled me with a ton of energy.  I am trying to figure out where to aim this and I guess I am hoping that you can help.  I have a few angles of discussion from this post and I need to know where to focus (may help to actually read the post =) :

 

1.) These applications that are popping up (Facebook, LinkedIn, Pownce, Twitter, ???) – are they opportunistic software application developers taking advantage of the hype of Web 2.0 to make a buck (or million) or are they opportunistic software application developers taking advantage of the shift in our societies decision to communicate more openly/freely over the Internet to make software that helps enable true “enhanced connectivity”?

 

2.) Is his disgusted with the Social Network System and his inability to internalize what is going on here (we are completely shifting our Communication techniques).  Is he part of the “older” generation that just can’t understand how to fit this into his daily actions?  Hyper connectivity anxiety disorder?

 

3.) Is he trying to get people to think further down the road?  Can we honestly think that the current state of Social Networking is the “Way it will be”?  Why do we have to travel around to all of these different sites?  Why do we have to post on other people’s blogs (only to loose that communication later when the user decides to close up shop?)  Should we think about shaking up the model a bit and leverage the Internet to communicate in a whole new way?

 

4.)Unrelated – I have travelled quite a bit over the last 2-3 years and I have met a ton of young professionals who either don’t know that much about social networking or find it to be a  waste of time.  To be honest I am not sure that I would have learned as much as I did if I hadn’t been on the road.  With a wife and two children, time is a precious commodity.

 

One of the conversations that I have been having recently is how we as a society is not interested in information for the long term anymore.  We are “experience” animals that search for the “next best thing”.   We revel in the challenges to achieve it (getting from A to Z is half the fun) but are disinterested as soon as we do.  Moving on to the “next best thing”.  We are an ADHD society who have been transformed into “minute-memories”.

 

Our means of communications have shifted towards this – IM, Text Messaging, Blogging etc…  We are very interested in the now – and NOW moves faster then any of could believe.

 

The nagging question for all of this – what does it mean to the next generation of “communicators”?  When they have grown up on Text Messaging, IM and {gasp} Twitter?  And more importantly, how can we establish these new levels/channels of communications so that these new communicators are capable of achieving more then we have.

 

I am certainly not claiming “Facebook Bankruptcy” but I have denied the Zombie requests and I continue to edit my “iLike” portion of my site (and encourage others to do the same).

When will we outgrow our current Social Network applications?

I will be the first to tell you that I am glad that MySpace is in trouble. After working with Facebook for the last few months I have decided to pull all of my content off of MySpace and just link to My Facebook account. However it and a recent article (LinkedIn to Open Platform in Response to Facebook) it has become clear that we are rapidly outgrowing the services available in some of the earlier Social Networking applications that we have been using. LinkedIn is a great site (I use that as well) and I think that both Facebook and LinkedIn have their values.

However as the networks grow and the companies producing the applications understand more and more about how their software is used things change. Sometimes the change for the worse (Wis.dm)! What has become increasingly clearer to me is that we will begin to outgrow some of these applications rather quickly. I agree with Michael – LinkedIn is here for the near term. They do however have some interesting challenges as applications which provide similar capabilities begin to produce more user retention.

The problem LinkedIn faces is a market suffering from too many social networking options; Facebook offers a one stop shop that for many is becoming their main and in some cases their only choice in social networks. LinkedIn must evolve to compete, the move to open their platform is a definite step in the right direction.

Evolution is key and we are already beginning to see the challenges ahead as “applications” like Twitter and Pownce begin their trek through the uncharted waters of social networking.

As the fundamental communication process is transfered to the Web we will see a myriad of options available to us.  Who knows maybe some day instead of posting to all of the sites, we may actually have a “LifeComputer” at home which publishes strategically to social network stations which publicize our lives for those that are interested.

Live television and “Extreme Sports” – a match made in heaven?

By nature I am a pretty reserved person but there is a special place in my heart for “Extreme Sports”. You know – freestyle motocross, snowboarding, skateboarding, BMX etc… I was a part of the inaugural X-Games which was held in Newport, RI. And was in attendance when Corey Hart (married to pop artist Pink) attempted the first ever back-flip on a motorcycle. It was absolutely insane and everyone in attendance was in disbelief. The sport had elevated (as if jumping 100 feet at 45 miles an hour on a dirt track needs elevation). That was back in 1997.

ESPN has been televising the X-Games since it’s inception back in 1995. In previous years they always edited the footage and televised the events a few weeks after it happened. As the sporting event became more popular (moving from it’s “try-out” spot of Providence Rhode Island to its now more larger venue – Los Angeles California) the idea of “taped” games wore off. So a couple of years ago they started to televise these live. Which brings us to today and what I witnessed last night.

The Setup
The event is called “Big Air”. One can only imagine what “Big Air” actually means to these insane athletes who feed on adrenaline. The inventor of this competition is Danny Way (he was part of the third generation skateboard phenomenon’s who helped pioneer mainstream skateboarding and helped make skateboarding what it is today). The idea is this:

Stand on top of an 80 foot ramp (yes I said 80 feet) and then get on your skateboard. Travel down this ramp (it is only about 8 feet wide) at speeds of up to 40 mph. Then make a selection between 3 different jumps with varying angles and “gaps”. The shortest being 40 feet the largest being 70 feet (no exaggeration) remember this is a skateboard and it is going 40 mph. Then once you have safely “landed” on the other side of the gap, you go down another ramp until you make your way to a huge 30 foot “quarter pipe” ramp. The entire distance traveled from end to end is over 250 feet (yes almost as long as a football field). Then when you hit the quarter pipe you get air (i.e. you travel upwards of 20 feet higher then the top of the 30 foot ramp – psst. 50 feet in the air). You then come down and “land” on the wall of the quarter pipe heading back the way you came (still traveling 30 mph). Ok, so if that is not enough add this in: Over that 70 foot gap you do a 720 (2 rotations) and when you hit the top of that 30 foot quarter pipe you do a 540. INSANE

This “sport” has evolved over the last couple of years and has now become the sickest event at X-Games. If you have the chance to see this “setup” on TV, look in the foreground of the “ramp”. You will see the Motocross “Big-Air” jump. It looks like a sandbox.

So on to my question – is this good for television. I can tell you I do look forward to watching both the Summer and Winter X-Games since neither of them are near my house any more and my kids are not old enough *yet* to travel to see one of these events. I would say they are pretty popular. Then last night put doubt in mind.

When I watched this on TV I got out of my seat and almost lost my breath (my body still produces chills when I think about it). I said to my wife (who was not watching) “Oh my god, that guy just died on TV”. She asked me “Is it live”. I said “yes”.

I have witnessed several other “gross” events in T.V. history – I remember when Joe Thiesman’s leg was broken on Monday Night football – I remember when Napolean Kaufman appeared to be cut in half when he was stopped at the line of scrimmage. The X-Games has had it’s fair share of accidents – I have even seen people like Ryan Nyquist break is nose in practice only to get stitches and place second in the competition an hour after – so I guess this ranks up there. But for godsakes the dude’s shoes fell off! The most “amazing” thing about this was that within 15 minutes he “walked” off the ramp. I have not looked yet to see what his status is but I can say that he broke several bones in several places.

What is going to happen when we see the first live death on television? We all know the impact Steve Irwin had on the web’s video revolution. I still have daily hits from search engines for my Steve Irwin post.