Social Software Explored

A recent article was published by a very famous (and well liked) blogging network yesterday that really irked me in a way that is requiring more of my effort.  I guess it is a good thing and ultimately I am quite happy that they posted this article because it has fueled a thought I have had for sometime:

I am sick and tired of “non-targeted” advertising

I don’t really care if all of the product and marketing directors know everything about what I buy and read on the Internet.  Truly I do not.  I have nothing to hide and I would release my data under full disclosure if the following qualifications were met:

1.) No one comes up to me on the street and says to me “Hey wanna buy a new mic stand for RockBand” (I like playing RockBand)

2.) I don’t get a flood of e-mails from marketing departments asking me if I would like to test drive the new VW CC (I own a VW Passat)

3.) My information about me is not connected to me in any meaningful way (e.g. I don’t want marketing people to know that I am really Ron West and that I live at 57 Gro…. - ooops)

See in my mind I am just a number - a thing - a buyer/seller in this consumer driven market and the data for what I buy, sell and talk about is really just data.  It may describe my habits and what I am interested in but it is not me.  I want to remain FaceBook profile #66004104.

Your Data is For Sale (sort of)

You can read the post that irks me here but let me point out a few of the important details: (Well first let me start off by giving you the all important title)

Facebook Plans to Make Money by Selling Your Data

C’mon - really do you have to put it that way.  I agree it got my attention - prompted me to read and comment - and I am now writing about it but - ok that title is genius.  But the problem lies in the text:

Starting this spring, companies will be able to selectively target Facebook’s members in order to research the appeal of new products through a polling system called Engagement Ads as demonstrated at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

…

If the Telegraph report is correct, Engagement Ads have had a massive tweak; companies will be able to pose questions to and receive feedback from selected members in real time based on user information that Facebook provides.

Ok that statement “selected members” please - that is misleading.  If we were in the court of law I would simply say “I object your honor” and he/she would say “Sustained”. Then I would ask for the statement “selectively target Facebook’s members” stricken from the record - and the judge would agree again.

Facebook is not going to give companies the ability to target Ron West or any of my friends.  Facebook is not even going to allow companies to target profile #66004104 or #40034994 or any other profile because if you log out of Facebook and you type in the following URL: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=660041048&ref=name you know what you get? Nothing.  A login box.  Would Facebook be stupid enough to allow Pepsi or Coca Cola or any other company in to see that data? No.  That would be just plain stupid.

What Information is For Sale?

Ok - so now for the “shocking” news (at least for some of you):

YOUR DATA IS ALREADY FOR SALE

Well at least your likes/dislikes are already being used to drive advertisements.  Take a trip around Facebook.  Look at the ads in the right hand side of the page.  Notice anything peculiar?  I do.  They are all targeted to information about me.  Especially about where I live.  “Foreclosures in Massachussets”.  One of the commenter’s on the ReadWriteWeb blog post even commented about he is targeted by his sexual preference.

Take a look at the following public information about advertising with Facebook found here:

Target your exact audience with demographic and psychographic filters about real people. The targeting page defaults to people age 18 and older in the United States, but you are encouraged to modify this to reach the most appropriate people for your ad. Be sure to reference the top of the page for an estimate of the number of people who match your criteria. For more information, check out our FAQ for definitions of each target filter.

And if you actually read your EULA agreement (you do know what the EULA agreement is right?) you will see that the data you enter is not only yours but it also belongs to Facebook.  Check out some inserts from the Privacy Policy found here:

Facebook may use information in your profile without identifying you as an individual to third parties. We do this for purposes such as aggregating how many people in a network like a band or movie and personalizing advertisements and promotions so that we can provide you Facebook. We believe this benefits you. You can know more about the world around you and, where there are advertisements, they’re more likely to be interesting to you. For example, if you put a favorite movie in your profile, we might serve you an advertisement highlighting a screening of a similar one in your town. But we don’t tell the movie company who you are.

We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services, Facebook Platform developers and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile. Where such information is used, we generally allow you to specify in your privacy settings that you do not want this to be done or to take other actions that limit the connection of this information to your profile (e.g., removing photo tag links).

…..

We do not provide contact information to third party marketers without your permission. We share your information with third parties only in limited circumstances where we believe such sharing is 1) reasonably necessary to offer the service, 2) legally required or, 3) permitted by you.

So - why am I so fired up? One reason and one reason only - misinformation. I believe that the post by ReadWriteWeb was designed to get people fired up (it worked) and by not providing some of the facts actually misguided lesser informed people.  Isn’t this the reason we are migrating from the Media best now which is governing the mainstream?

Uncategorized advertising, Blogging, Data Security, facebook, Marketing, ReadWriteWeb, social media, Social Networking

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!

Google, Marketing, Social Bookmarking, Social Networking, Web 2.0, What I am reading, Wired Magazine, advertising, society advertising, facebook, Marketing, MySpace, targeted advertising