Social Networking & The Wisdom of Crowds

Leaving class last week, I was surprised to learn that there are over 200 social networking sites that exist.   I would have to say that my two favorite sites were bookmooch and kiva, especially kiva because of how you are changing and affecting other peoples lives!  I was telling my friends and family about these amazing sites, and came across another social networking site called baby plays, a site that rents out children’s toys.  You can rent the toys for a month or a year; they are tested and checked for safety…what a fabulous idea!   Thinking about social networking and the exchange of different, goods and services over the web, James Surowiecki brings up an interesting point in Wisdom of the Crowds regarding cooperation and trust.   Why are we willing to trust and cooperate with those we don’t know?   When you think of the word Trust, you associate at that word with people and qualities like honesty and integrity.  You have a history with people or businesses that you trust.  However, when you think of social networking and our everyday interaction with people and business on the web, we have quickly given our trust to a world of strangers.  As Surowiecki says, “We make donations to charity, buy things of eBaysight unseen, people sign onto Kazaa and upload songs for others to download, giving access to their computers’ hard drives.  These are all, in the strict sense, irrational things to do.  But they make us all better off.”    He concludes to say that in the end a good society is defined more by how people treat strangers than by how they treat those they know.  Is this because the benefits to us outweigh the harm and liabilities?

Online Friends

I wanted to comment on how entertaining it was to watch Scoble’s Kyte TV piece on “on-line friends.”  He was swearing when his phone started ringing in the middle of his mini lecture!

 Anyways I wanted to recap what he talked about so I have this info saved in a safe place.

An on-line friend is different from a real friend, their not always a close friend, but someone that you want in your social network.   How does Facebook tell if you are a real or fake friend?

1.  Are you participating with each other -sending messages, poking, writing on their wall, looking at photos, reading profile…etc

2.  Activities and Interests, do you have these in common, share the same things

3.  Friend Affinity -how many friends do you have and how many do you have in common with other friends

4.  Location, someone that lives down the street is potentially a better friend than someone in London

5. Messages and Calling -can be tracked when you click and send messages via Facebook

6.  Google feeds, do you have friends on your feeds

7. Applications -do you shared the same apps -do you add an application in close proximity to when your friend adds it also

8.  Events -do you have the same events profile

9  Work -did you work for the same company, similar companies…etc

10.  Other historical details -history, college…etc

Lastly…I never knew there was a limit as to how many friends you could have on Facebook.  Apparently its 5000!

Wiki, Wiki, Wikinomics!

MySpace vs Facebook  

By no means am am I expert at MySpace or Facebook, as I am still navigating my way through Facebook, and had it not been for class I would have never signed up! However, after looking at the examples mentioned in our class blog and taking what I have heard via my friends who are into social networking, MySpace appears to have a younger demographic, the majority of its users are not as educated, don’t make a high income…its younger, therefore maybe less sophisticated.  Many of my college friends had a MySpace page before joining Facebook and don’t use MySpace anymore for those reasons. Facebook appears to have a little older demographic, college, post college users, with a higher income, more sophisticated and savvy.  I find that I actually have many of my older college friends on Facebook, they are 30 +.  Also from looking at the “10 Best Facebook Applications for Business Professionals,” you can see the difference in this social network; it is catering to a young professional who not only wants to connect with friends, but networks as well.  A few of my favorite features that I want to check out are the Phonebook, Workin’It, & What I Do. the Defineme which creates like a “personality cloud” could be interesting to view as well.

Regarding friendship on-line, I think this works because it’s comfortable, you don’t have to pick up the phone after so many years to try and catch up and reconnect with friends and collegues…Facebook and MySpace really make it easy to find people you know and reconnect.  I think that is why it works.  I agree with Jeff Jarvis’s Buzz Machine blog on Friendship being complicated –you lump everyone together as your friend even though there are people you haven’t talk to in years, and probably wont interact with again, besides accepting them as a friend…its interesting!

Do we need a Bill of Rights for the Social Web

After reading Wickinomics and listening to the lectures in class, my vote on whether the social web needs to have a set of rules that govern it would be yes.  To what degree I am not sure.  Having a set of rules or laws may seem contradictory since the “Social Web” is about openness, collectiveness, and participation.  In this “new age” no where does it talk about the Social Web being restricted by rules or laws.  However, I think when you look at examples of N-Gens posting photos and having those photos and the information they are posting affecting them 5, 10, 20 years down the road that is something to think about. All the data being saved, and at the disposal of…well we don’t know who it raises some questions.   I had never really thought about all the repercussions of posting information, personal information, on the web, or interacting on the Social Web in that way.  When I think of my youngest brother who is 18, he has not really thought about the information he is posting and who might have access to that information, he is just being social.  So on one side you have this great new medium to reconnect with old friends, meet new friends, build relationships, network, participate, publish, have a voice, etc….but on the other hand there is this reservation about not posting to much information, not really expressing oneself fully, it holds you back.    Even further, will we find that we are being judged by employers looking at your friends on Facebook because they don’t fit the right profile?  I had no idea until it was mentioned in class that employers check you out on these social networks!

In regards to Wikinomics, a collaborative economy involving these 7 new models:

Peer Pioneers, Ideagoers, Prosumers, New Alexandrians, Platforms for Participation, Global Plant Floor, & Wiki Workplace

I think with time and more interest from companies wanting to jump in to this way of business there is going to have to be some regulations –especially in regards to the economic part, monetary compensation.  I had a hard time trying to apply this way of thinking to the industry that I am in, for software companies and companies like Procter and Gamble this social web environment makes sense and has proven to do wonders for these companies.  But how do you apply this to the trades and home-building?

Lastly, I think there is something to be said for companies like Apple and Sony not sharing and keeping control, right?

Google Ad Words

As an advertiser who uses Google Ad Wordsto push traffic to our website and track it, I wanted to comment on what Google has done for businesses trying to decide where to spend their $$$.  Google has found a way to provide tracking information that allows an advertiser to see the actual return on the investment.  Each month I can look at the Ad Group for example “Caruso Brand” and see the number of clicks that it received, the average click per cost amount, which is 0.17 and the total cost for that time period, and its average position -which is 4.1 -this would show up on the first page of the search.  This paid search opportunity has allowed us to reposition ourselves with in the search and be more in the fore-front when people are searching for Caruso, and even more so when they are searching for general terms such as New Homes.  Battelle says “This is the magic of intent-based marketing, it shifts the marketing dollars from the unknown to the knowable.”  Its changing the real-estate industry…its more competitive, if you don’t have the information available on the web that the customer wants, and within 3 clicks…you have lost them.  Studies have shown that 85% of the people have already been on-line to check out your site and product before they ever come into a sales center.  So the easier a customer can find us within the search the better!

 In 2005 Battelle mentioned that the average cost per click amount was 0.50 in 2005, our average CPC today is 0.91. 

Here is another statement of Battelle’s I found interesting -if the WHAT of the search “lies in the beauty and the potential of the search: driven by the unimaginable complexity inherent in human language -nearly infinite combinations of dialects, words, and numbers,” is it imaginable to think that Goggle could provide a “perfect search?”  Trying to provide perfection in any manner is a hard expectation to live up to!  Is this goal good or bad?

Google

Should we be afraid of Google? 

Battelle’s thoughts on pg 203 – best encompasses my opinion on how I viewed Google before I read this book and then how I felt after reading this book! 

“While Google’s public image is that of a sunny company that will never do evil, this policy give the company extraordinary latitude with regard to your personal information.  If Google decides that tracking and acting upon your private information is in its best interest, it can, and it will.”  This is a bit scary!

I had always used Google for my searches, maybe a few years ago I had tried Ask Jeeves, and WebCrawler-but never received the information I was searching for very easy…and have since always used Google.  I wonder if I have been narrow minded in just using Google all these years, as I had no idea the innovations these other search engines had implemented, specifically Yahoo with the “advance search” tool.  And then there was the Top 100 Alternative Search Engine link in our class blog this week!  I am a Googler, it’s a habit, do I have a reason to start using other search engines?

On another note, I thought this was an interesting discussion….When comparing Yahoo to Google and the management approaches of both companies, I wonder if this will have a profound effect on their, growth, success and discovery of the “perfect search?”  Yahoo is quick to delegate authority and responsibility to others, while Google is micromanaging from the top.  From my own working experience, being in a company where its micromanaged by one or two people makes for a very tough working environment.  If you don’t do it their way, then your not doing it the right way…and there are usually may approaches that will get you the right answer.  This environment is tough for employees to work under; I think it makes employees less confident also.  However, I can say that a good friend of mine that works for Google in NYC absolutely loves it, she loves the quality of life the employees have at work -a chef, and outside space…it’s an environment that caters to the well being of its employees. This is something that separates Google from Yahoo and others.

Search as a database of intentions -for better or worse? 

For better I think if focused on providing the best return of information for the user and not for the purpose of advertising.  I know that I have always had this negative perception of the listings that are advertisements I don’t click on them first because of the simple fact that they are advertisements.  I always go for the organic listing.  The better is yet to come according to Battelle.  “Search is at best 5 percent solved -were not even into the double digits of its potential.”  The more the media changes and our needs change I think the better search will become.   What is a perfect search?  I am not sure that would be the right expectation to set -because I would imagine that most searches are based on reading and looking at multiple sites, gathering different reviews etc -so how can you have a perfect answer to a perfect search?  It kind of takes the searching out of it right?

Google your dog!  Seriously!  The thought that everything will be connected to the web in the future is a bit overwhelming!

Comments on the class blog this week:

There were so many interesting links, I didn’t even know where to start exploring and reading!

The 5 Google tricks, I cant believe you can turn the ads off?  I have never used Google Earth before, but what a amazing tool -and when I went to the fun stuff -the pink bunny and bikinis from the sky…who would have thought…love it! 

When I Google Map my address…I only get my street as opposed to my actual row-house -bummer!

And  lastly Googlonymous -is this true, no wonder people are afraid of Google with this kind of site and information out there!

Podcasts

To be honest, I am not very familiar with podcasts, and haven’t really explored all of the different varieties out there.  If I traveled more I might have been more inclined to download podcasts.  This mini-exploration of listening to podcasts this past week, has definitely motivated me to try downloading a few onto my ipod to listen to at the gym.   I thought the mommycast was the most interesting, even though I am not a mom, I listened to the one today regarding germs -and the myths of germs and kids…very informative.  I must share with co-workers that are all moms!  Do podcasts like mommycast, as apposed to Dawn and Drew, have more of an audience following since they really target a certain demographic? 

I thought Ask a Ninja was a bit weird…and twit was okay.   I prefered watching the vlogs like,  webbalert or rocketboom, as they were more interesting,  providing a quick update of the days important headlines.

 Here are the best podcasts from 2007….thought this would be a good place to start downloading a few!

The Long Tail

 Choices…who doesn’t love choices, the more choices the better right!  As Anderson states “The Long Tail is nothing more than infinite choices, unlimited variety.  More is always better.”  If you’re anything like me, a total perfectionist and completely indecisive, the web can be a very big ocean, and I often find myself searching for the perfect gift or something and then looking at things that I was not looking for…  “as I go down the tail.”  Filters are such helpful tools, categories like ”the best of” or “the top 10.”  I find that I tend to use and trust post-filters, like ratings and reviews from editors and consumers to make my choices.  These are great when you are trying to decided where to go to dinner or what hotel to stay at.  “People do trust people” as Anderson says, so recommendations on blogs or websites have more credibility -one of my favorite sites is Condenast traveler, www.condenasttraveler.com.

It is amazing that one medium, the web, could have such an effect on businesses, mainstream media, and culture.  I think we are all becoming smarter, more curious, and more efficient, willing to research and find answers for ourselves. Marketers and business are learning how to have more of a presence on the web.  My company has completed shifted their advertising focus from newspapers and magazines to on-line advertising and other web opportunities.  There are many free website we have found to list on, which for us nothing free existed before the web.   You get more bang for your buck!  We are using tools like Google ad words, web optimization, banner ads, etc. to drive traffic to our website, and even the few ads we still run in the Washington Post and New Homes Guides are advertising our url… driving people to our website.  Since this is relative to our reading, I thought it would be interesting to share my Google Ad Word Click through Report I got today.  For the month of January we had:

Total Clicks of 1,059

Average Cost/Click =0.91

Average Position 5.97 

This kind of reporting is invaluable to an advertiser and company -this tracking and reporting is something that you can’t do in mainstream media -it’s more of a guessing game.  We had better position and clicks in January then in December! 

In the Long Tail, Anderson also talks about consumers researching on their own more because nothing on the web is authoritative.  It’s up to you to consult enough sources so that you can make up your own mind.  This lead me think of my co-worker who has introduced me to this website called Snopes, www.snopes.com, which is where you can go to post a question or a rumor, its researched and then the answer is posted.  You can also search the site to see if perhaps that same topic had already been discussed.  My coworker is a real stickler with facts, and she uses this site all the time to verify everything! 

Question:  Are vertical searches like Google Maps, Google Froogle, Google Images..etc considered types of filters? 

In conclusion, we have infinite choices right at our fingertips everyday, and with a few clicks of the mouse we can pretty much read the top stories around the world, order anything we want, sign up, subscribe, etc…Wouldn’t you agree that we are kind of spoiled!  I can’t image what the web will offer even in next few years and how that will change our daily lives.

Go Daddy Tonight!

Did anyone else see the Go Daddy Commercial tonight during the Superbowl…they just had Danica Patrick on the commercial…you would never know what they were advertising unless you were a blogger…