Michael O’Neill

It turns out Facebook is taking measures to bring back some old features.  It once again will tell you when your friends update profile information like about me, relationship, etc.  They also added some filters to the status update.  On the surface it seems like they are trying to satisfy their base, but all it really is doing is reminding everyone that they miss the old facebook.  Any real marketing expert will tell you that the customer has no idea what they want, it is up to you to convince them they need your product.  Now I admit that is a bit of an exageation, but the concept is valid.  Facebook appears to be defensive, retreating from a battle with twitter.  When they change their features back it sends a message that they dont know their cutomers.

The co-founder of Flickr has a new project called hunch.  It is in beta form right now and you have to ask to join via e-mail.  I did it and just played with it.  I am not 100% on how it works but basically is uses machine learning and affinity rules to help you answer questions.  similar to pandora recommending artists I suppose.  you ask a question like, “what blog should I read?”  it then asks 10 questions or less and offers an answer.  it actually suggested 3 blogs for me; tech crunch and two Apple related blogs.  I particularly loath anything that comes from Apple so I am undecided about hunch. 

It seems interesting though.  It offeres elements of twitter too, like followers and following.  you can also send messages and stuff.  But…again, I dont see a way to value it monetarily (unless there are unethical practices like recommending a certain hotel even though the machine had a different answer). 

Check it out, I am curious about what everyone thinks.

Of the many things we have been addressing lately, Google’s attempts to squeeze tangible value from YouTube has been the most interesting to me.  I came across a blog that said YouTube is now making it easier to access and manage the user data surrounding your videos.  They called it YouTube Insight and it allows you to export that user data to CSV files, which can be moved and analyzed using relatively common spreadsheet software.  Here is a quote from the article, “That means all of your view counts, comment counts, demographic data, and other stats that YouTube tracks can all be exported to any platform that supports .CSV imports.”  This seems to be an attempt to demand more advertising dollars per user, or perhaps raise the monetary value per monthly user in lieu of a potential sale?  I have no clue, what do you think? 

Also, what is stopping Google and YouTube from requiring users to create a profile?  It seems to me that the more information they can siphon from users the more they can demand in advertising dollars, as advertisments would exhibit better targeting.   Would that create some backlash?  I doubt it, as long as it was free and relatively uninvasive.

Judd Bagley offered a riveting and suspenseful lecture, as most of us would agree, and we even learned a bit about the stock market and journalsim practices.  I bet what most of us left the lecture thinking about was that we should adopt a new way of thinking about the internet and social media: a skeptical view perhaps.  While his story was entertaining, those issues seemed trivial to me.  Did we all forget that several large companies were killed as a result of illegal activity that seems to have been ignored by everyone that matters.  Sure, transaction transparency is poor at most levels, but the SEC has access to the records.  It seems as simple to me as finding who bought those “put” options and investigating them, but action was either not taken or not publicized.  This seems to be the issue to me.  Its too bad that there doesn’t seem to be people out there as devoted to uncovering the truth behind these trades as Judd was at making sure Gary Weiss didn’t sell quite as many books.

That being said, there was a question in class presented to us that I feel was not really answered.  We were asked what we thought about Gary Weiss’ activity, basically, is it right or wrong to pose as someone else, or for companies to hire “fake” users to give positive reviews.  As a consumer I would be angry to find out that was the case, and it is likely I would stop using the product or company.  However, I wouldn’t go as far as to say it is wrong.  User reviews are ultimately opinions any anyone has the right to express their opinion however they wish, be it truthful or otherwise.  So, I think companies should be allowed to continue these practices legally, however I would not recommend it becuase they risk alienating their consumer base if discovered.  As a consumer the best way to end this would be to push for less anonymity on the web, or hire Judd Bagley.

Jeff is/was undoubtedly a visionary, but I am not sure I completely agree with all the conclusions from the class discussion; particularly regarding the merit of advertising on social networks.  Unless I misunderstood, the general conception, shared by Jeff, was that advertising on networks like Facebook was not attractive enough to warrant much more attention.  I agree with the points that were made, but I think we focused mostly on the collaboration and networking aspects of social business and ignored the breadth of information that these networks make availible.  Assuming the information is made available to advertisers, it allows them to drastically narrow their target market (targeting specific individuals), which makes their advertising more efficient and ultimately raises return on advertising investment.  It seems to me that it would be prudent to consider this when selling a business on the need for “social readiness,” but when asked, Jeff made a stronger case for cost reduction, effectively denouncing advertising on social networks as well as the metrics involved.  Granted he would know better than me.