The Facebook effect: MySpace to ope...

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1. The Facebook effect: MySpace to open up - 2007-06-29 08:27:59-04
   MySpace may soon open itself up to third-party developers -- in a similar strategy to Facebook -- which would see outside companies able to "plug" their web services into the number one social networking site.
   
   
   
2. So, You Really Want to Integrate Search? - 2007-06-29 11:30:26-04
   The Ontario tourism board and I have been butting heads a little bit in the blogosphere as of late. It all came about from an article I wrote a few weeks ago saying that perhaps Canadian advertisers have their "heads up their ass" with search marketing. I used the Ontario Tourism Board as an example of a major organization that was not doing search and was quickly corrected by Nick Pedota fro...
   
   
   
3. My Condo For Sale in Monsey - Home For Sale - 2007-06-29 11:44:41-04
   Who knew that when I bought my condo in Monsey that I would be looking to sell a year and a half later? Well I am potentially looking to sell my condo now. It was a scary decision but I think the right one. Why is it scary? Well, I simply bought at the peak, so I will have to take a loss on the condo. But at the same time, I don't think the loss will be more than what it would have cost to...
   
   
   
4. Google Janitors Clean Up Facts on the Web - 2007-06-29 12:24:08-04
   Google described some of its janitors in a recent patent application. Here are some of the different kinds of Google janitors, and the things that they do: Blacklist janitor - These janitors look at patterns, and eliminate any facts that match certain patterns. So, they may be responsible for cleaning up some of the [...]
   
   
   
5. Powerset: Is There More Than Buzzwords And Patent Threats? - 2007-06-29 12:24:47-04
   There's been so much hype around search startup Powerset that it seems like it's going to be quite difficult to live up to it. The company kicked off by raising a lot of money at an insanely high valuation for a seed stage company, and then used some of that cash to license some natural language technology from PARC. Of course, natural language search has been tried and failed many times bef...
   
   
   
6. MySpace likely to open up a la Facebook - 2007-06-29 14:13:10-04
   
   
   
   
7. 2 Ways to Get Started With Personas (Part 1) - 2007-06-29 15:44:44-04
   

   I was having a conversation with the experience team at a major "entertainment" company after my presentation at the Internet Retailer conference a few weeks back. We were discussing ways they could get started on Personas, and how to overcome the challenges they'd faced thus far. Given that this dialog took place just off-stage, we had no expectation of privacy. Then again, I had no expectation that well over 100 retailers would be so interested in this conversation as well. It became "the presentation after the presentation"–so much so that the conference producer had to politely ask me to take the impromptu mob outside into the main hall… sorry again, Kurt –and I promised all those who wanted to listen in that I'd write up my thoughts and take them to a more appropriate vehicle. So, without further ado…

   There are 2 ways to begin a Persona project:

   1) Hire a firm to conduct research.

   Level of difficulty: easy
   Likelihood of success: minimal

   Expect to cough up tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on this research–and the wise marketer would do everything in her power not to entertain discussions of ROI (at least positive) from this exercise. Expect the resulting research to create beautiful-sounding Personas and make excellent posters to put up on the wall. In some organizations, you may even expect a raise for a job well done, but you'll profit more from selling all your company stock short. ( Bryan chronicled this approach in his ClickZ column, but it's worth diving into even further, because the underlying question marketer's are asking when they hire a research firm is an understandable, but flawed one.)

   The question being asked of the research is, "How do we know which types of people make up our audience?" Cough up the dough, create a survey, and you'll find out something absurd, like your audience is made up of "Info-Driven types," "Conquerors," and "Browse-2-Buy" types. How did they determine that? They asked about past purchases, of course, and–naturally–those are good predictors of future behavior, right?

   Let me know how that works out for you.

   Our clients undoubtedly tire of hearing us over-communicate, "Believe what they do, not what they say they'll do". Why? It's simple. People lie. Not intentionally per se, but between people telling you what they think you want to hear (in America, there's a bias against being "wrong"), people telling you what they want to be perceived as (what they wish were the case), and finally, people telling you something they simply don't know (the right brain makes the decisions, and the left brain articulates & rationalizes them, yet both sides of the brain "speak" in different languages. Ever played the telephone game?), it's virtually impossible to separate the signal from the noise.

   "Who makes up my audience?" isn't the question to be concerned with; rather, "How will each different type of person approach and buy my product?" The smart marketer uses this last insight to align the sales process with their customers' buying process.

   Let's look at a concrete example of why "who" makes up your audience is irrelevant, while understanding the "buying mode" they're in is essential.

   My mom is a Methodical personality type, meaning her preference dictates a logical process, and one that is rather deliberate in its pace. She works professionally as a bookkeeper and routinely catches oversights by the auditors of her books. She remarks with bewilderment that someone whose singular concern is maintaining hyper-accuracy of the data can so easily miss the details. Notice, she wouldn't qualify the details as minute, though to many they would be. To a strong methodical no detail is too fine. When she buys, chances are she'll ask 10 - 20 extra questions than most other buyers, and with each successful answer, she'll gain a touch more confidence.

   My preference shares her bias towards a logical process, but has a much faster pace; what we call a Competitive personality type. Whereas Methodicals need a sense of order (or structure) to their process to gain confidence over time, Competitives are perfectly comfortable living amongst the chaos, and letting intuition guide their decision making process. The Competitive type can quickly dismiss logical-sounding fluff (you know, the statistical correlations marketers present when they have no actual causation to report). Think like "The Donald," and you're probably closely resembling the Competitive's approach. When he buys, he's in a hurry, and just wants the bottom line.

   The key word in the examples above, is preference. My mother doesn't methodically choose where to get her nails done, or where to go for a special dinner. In both of those cases, she buys more experientially, favoring more of an emotional process, and eschewing her normal deliberate pace for a much quicker one. She's quite comfortable giving it a whirl. After all, "How bad could it be"? (Spoken like a true Spontaneous type, she's operating outside of her typical buying mode.)

   I went to buy my first car right out of college and, despite my bias toward a logical process, did zero research on the 'net–and never checked out a consumer report. I also didn't use my typical fast pace; I was much more deliberate. I talked to other people who'd owned the car previously and asked for their opinions and experiences. I considered the car to be an extension of my personal brand. My process was almost purely emotional and, with the deliberate pace, was the complete opposite of my typical buying preference.

   Had the manufacturer done market research and decided Competitive types were their #1 audience segment, what would they have done? Built a micro-site catering only to fast-paced, logical thinkers. If they did, the conversion rate would've likely been the same anemic 2.4% we see today (because, after all, that's what most sites today do: cater to one type of person, usually resembling the CEO/founder or IT professional who put the site together in the first place).

   The point is, knowing your audience's type doesn't tell you which mode they'll be in once they buy your product. That's what you want to know and, unfortunately, research can't tell you the answer to that question. If it can, it's totally different research than anyone has ever done before. It involves using live test subjects, and not in some contrived listening lab. It involves designing the experiment so that the subjects don't know they're participating, they're actually operating according to their own motivations. It involves making the experience become the experiment.

   Planning the customer experience in advance, so you can hypothesize motivations, will drive their buying process (read: what mode they'll be in). Once you've properly accounted for motivations, you can test their actual behavior–in a real environment–thus proving your assumptions about their motivations and optimizing the experience accordingly. The level of difficulty is far higher than simply hiring a firm to conduct research, but the likelihood of success is infinitely higher. And there's a process to it, so you don't have to bite off the entire approach in one sitting. This process leads me back to where I started, the second way to get going on Personas.

   To be continued . . .

   [Stay tuned for Part 2 to learn how you can build Personas from the ground up without costly research, and build in the feedback loop necessary to know where you're right and where you need to focus additional energy.]

   buying modality, optimization, Personas, research

   Do you know which sells best? Learn more about our latest ebook

   
   
   
8. I Am 98% Addicted To Blogging - 2007-06-29 16:43:24-04
   According to a 13 question test I just took, I am 98% addicted to blogging... 98%How Addicted to Blogging Are You? Give it a try yourself at mingle2.com/blog-addiction. But notice how they want you to link to Online Dating I removed it, I am sorry.
   
   
   
9. NetSol, PPA 2.0, Panama, AdSense, Direct, ContentAds, Auctions, 302s, YSM, Bad SEO, Defame, Pics, 25% Guess - 2007-06-29 17:11:44-04
   Network Solutions is guaranteeing search rankings. AdSense referrals 2.0 is out. Yahoo updates Panama. Top ad is best paying ad. Drag your driving directions around Google. ContentAds are available to all on adCenter. Online auctions are lower in rankings. 302s are explored once more. I discussed negative SEO again. Google sued again for defamatory. Google Q & A in Russia. Search ...
   
   
   
10. Daily Search Engine Roundtable Link Finds: June 29, 2007 - 2007-06-29 17:12:34-04
    This is the June 29th issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the Search Engine Roundtable. All links I find throughout the day that ad some commentary to the posts written over at the Search Engine Roundtable, will be in the Daily Link Finds. The purpose is two fold: (1) To help people find discussion around our articles and (2) To thank people for li...
    
    
    
11. Google and Wikipedia Breaking Up & Other News Shorts, June 29 - 2007-06-29 17:21:54-04
    Are Google and Wikipedia breaking up? Google Docs to Offer Free Encyclopedia Britannica? - New Google plans discovered Google Universal Search and Ask 3D both have video search results; Search Engine Watch helps you get there: Video Search Optimization Tech Tips â€" Knowing the 4 P’s A novelty: Profitable Web 2.0? That’s Probably Worth $5.35 Million A [...]
    
    
    
12. Walking Down the Wedding Aisle to Bron-Yr-Aur by Led Zeppelin - 2007-06-29 17:52:41-04
    iTunes started playing one of my favorite all time acoustics, Bron-Yr-Aur by Led Zeppelin. That reminded me... I walked down to this song as my wedding. The wife wasn't too pleased with my music selection, but I thought it was a nice song to walk down to. Check out this kid playing it: Now, if you want to see made young talent, check out this really young kid playing the song. Amazing......
    
    
    
13. iPhone Mania, the Geeks at the Palo Alto Apple Store - 2007-06-29 18:48:38-04
    I stopped by the Apple Store last night, then went home to my nice bed, I’m not buying an iPhone but am impressed by the buzz that a company has been able to generate for a handheld computer. Steve Jobs is a master marketer, and his technology is ok too. I stopped by again this [...]
    
    
    
14. Help Google Help You - the Google webmaster guidelines - 2007-06-29 22:17:35-04
    A couple things about the Google webmaster guidelines… First off, Matt Cutts is asking for comments on how to improve the help documentation supporting the guidelines. Leave suggestions in the comments of his blog, or on the thread at Google webmaster help group about how to improve Google help documentation. There have been some great suggestions [...]
    
    
    
15. Hmmm - 2007-06-29 23:36:32-04
    So I checked the iPhone availability chart, just for curiosity, and didn’t see a single place where it’s sold out. Did that mean all those people were fools to sleep out and wait hours? I report, you decide.
    
    
    
16. [TS] Talking Business: iPhone Spin Goes Round and Round - 2007-06-30 00:09:04-04
    A question about battery replacement is usually easy to clear up. But at Apple, there is no such thing as a straightforward answer. There is only spin.
    
    
    
17. Catching Up: Hedge Funds, Cocaine, Old TeeVee, and iPhone Teardown - 2007-06-30 12:04:47-04
    Catching up and emptying my ever-overflowing link box:First iPhone tear down validates Skyworks component speculation (iFixit)World Wealth report 2007 (Capgemini via ResourceShelf)New Yorker primer on hedge funds (New Yorker)Cocaine prices around the world (Economist)Wall Street firms starting to allow wireless trading (WS&T)When's the last time you watched "old TV"? (NewTeevee)
    
    
    
18. Keeping track of the Pownce Reviews - 2007-06-30 12:21:14-04
    I don’t have an invite to Pownce, and that’s ok because everyone else is reviewing it. I’m going to keep track of all the reviews in this “clip report†. Let’s see how it performs, and maybe it will shape my interest level: In Favor Mashable: Pownce: Against All Odds, Pownce Blew Us Away Allen Stern of Center [...]
    
    
    
19. Google to HMOs: pay us and we'll defuse "Sicko" - 2007-06-30 13:04:01-04
    Cory Doctorow: Google's "Health Advertising Team" is trying to sell the health industry on buying ads to be shown opposite searches for "Sicko." The idea is to counter Michael Moore's amazing, enraging, must-see indictment of the health industry's grip on American society by running ads over search results for Sicko. Another approach would be to reform the practices that Moore criticises in t...
    
    
    
20. Google Gives 'Sicko' Two Thumbs Down - 2007-06-30 13:48:57-04
    Readers of Google’s Health Advertising Blog awoke this morning to a post that has stirred up both confusion and controversy. Lauren Turner, Account Planner for Google Health, has boldly gone where no Google blog has gone before by putting on some movie critic shoes and attacking Michael Moore’s “Sicko.†Several Google Blogoscoped readers were shocked [...]