The warmth of 'Social Objects,' or why you care about Twitter

If social media will soon be like air, why are we still huddled around brands? Think of the irony. While everyone is hyperconnecting via wireless internet, we still use 1950ish big brands to deploy ourselves. MySpace. Facebook. YouTube. Flickr. If something new comes along with slightly better features, we're not sure we want in, cause man, we love the Twitter brand.

Hugh MacLeod suggests that humans may need brand focal points to begin social conversations. MacLeod calls these points "Social Objects," or devices similar to a bottle of wine or campfire that people tend to gravitate around ... objects that somehow begin the social process.

MacLeod writes, "Social Networks are built around Social Objects, not vice versa. The latter act as 'nodes'. The nodes appear before the network does ... granted, the network is more powerful than the node. But the network needs the node, like flowers need sunlight."

Maybe there's hope for Facebook monetization yet.

(Photo: Jeff Casillas)

Twitter: How deep is your love?

How many people do you need to touch?

This is the key question about Twitter. The little texting engine gives you the simplest possible on-ramp into social media, reaching as many or few people as you like, and that means you really need to decide -- what do you want out of a human network, anyway? The most brilliant minds we know can't figure out how to use it. Seth Godin avoids it entirely. Darryl Ohrt promotes tracking hundreds. Robert Scoble follows the entire planet.

None are right or wrong, but we see five simple approaches for using Twitter:

1. Personal -- some use Twitter to follow, and share news, with just 10 or 20 people. As in, "Team, I'm running late for the game."

2. Promotional -- Ryan Kuder of Yahoo fame laments that some simply game the Twitter system to spray the masses with links, hoping to attract a few "nibbles" to their sites or press releases. We've been guilty of this. "Hey, check out my great post!"

3. Celebrity hunting -- you can "follow" William Shatner and Robert Scoble and others, for a brush with bigger brains or whiter teeth. Occasionally Captain Kirk will write you back.

4. Cool-hunting -- many bloggers are using Twitter to toss the latest trends and finds from the web back and forth like footballs, with compressed TinyURL links saying, "Hey, check this out!" Closely related to No. 2 above.

5. Mass friggin' madness -- the only term we can think of to describe the people who follow 20,000 others ... which turns your cell phone into a ticker tape of human attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

So which do we choose? We want to be personal, we want to expand our networks, we want to learn from others, and we all want a bit of self-promotion. And at different times, we want different things.

Hey Twitter: how about including a volume dial?

Hey! Nielsen ... we like you

OK, we were skeptical about Nielsen's new social network. But it's mesmerizing. Visitors to Hey! Nielsen give Digg-like rankings to actors, television shows, movies, internet sites and video games, and can soon access a TV Guide-ish calendar of entertainment options across channels.

Nielsen, in turn, is gathering real-time qualitative research about consumers' preferences that it may resell to advertisers. Plus, Nielsen may have the will and skill to build an actual media portal -- this has been tried before, but Hey! Nielsen offers an intriguing compilation of entertainment options across almost all media formats.

Nielsen gets bonus points for the widget application, which allows Nielsen's new site to go viral among thousands of users.

2008: The year web marketing moves into the woods

The Internet used to be a way for people to just find information. Now, it's turning into a free platform for doing things such as connecting with friends, writing documents, storing photos and editing home videos -- and that has radical implications for how you market online in 2008.

1. It is no longer enough to have a web site. If your web site is a cottage front door, your target customers are now off playing deep in the forest.

2. It is also no longer enough to rely on keyword search or SEO to hope customers find you on search engines. New, free web services allow people to "do" and not just "search." And people will not find you online if they are not in search mode.

The source of this shift is amazing. Customers can now do things online that used to require expensive PC software. Picnik allows you to store and edit photos, Jumpcut edits videos online, Mint will balance your checkbook, and Google is rumored to be preparing a Gdrive online backup service for everything.

Chris Anderson predicts in The Economist’s 2008 outlook that free online services are the wave of the future, because technology, not strategy, is driving this. As the cost of storing and manipulating data falls to zero, it makes sense for service providers such as Google to compete with incumbents like Microsoft by giving utilities away at zero cost. Of course, these “free” online service models are supported by advertising. So paradoxically, even as interest may wane in advertisements that appear next to a free online widget -- leave me alone, I'm balancing my checkbook! -- the company that provides the free online service wants advertisers more than ever before.

The solution to this huge shift in how people use the Internet is to move far outside of your web site. Robert Scoble points out in Fast Company that U.S. presidential candidates are getting online marketing right by avoiding single web sites and instead casting a wide net to reach people as they do other things online:

Rather than expecting a Web site to be a destination all by itself, the candidates are employing what I call the "starfish" approach. A starfish has many legs radiating outward from its central core. It uses its legs to move toward its prey, which it will ultimately devour with one of its stomachs. The analogy should be clear. Social media--blogs, text messaging, video, and social networking--are the legs of your online strategy. Your Web site is the belly of the beast, where you convert visitors into customers.

The only way to get to someone who is not in search mode is to intercept them when they are doing something else.

We recommend to our own clients that they allocate at least 5% of their advertising budget to test a range of online communications in 2008 -- keyword search on Google is a prerequisite, followed by behavioral targeted ad networks and tests with social networks and emerging widgets. Not every aspect of this new online ad portfolio will pay off. But it is vital to learn what works and what doesn't as more consumers move their working lives and social connections online. Fail to navigate the woods, and you may never see these customers again.

As social nets get closer, advertisers are pushed farther away

What happens when social networking turns out to be an interactive feature and not a single company's web site? Andreas Kluth has a brilliant essay where he notes social nets are today where the web was back when we needed AOL to get in. Eventually, just as web access and email became commodities, social networks will be a feature of every node on the internet. Your contacts and news will talk with our contacts and news. And Facebook will go away.

We call this going ambient, meaning social nets -- like the web, and like electricity before it -- will just become part of our environment. You don't walk into a room today and go, wow, man, this room is electrified! There is no single electrical company or single web company. Same will go for social networks, in which our little personal sphere of communications will plug in to everyone else, without a single company making it happen.

This trend explains the slipperiness of today's social media race. Friendster plummeted. MySpace got buzz before it got ugly. Facebook was valued at $15 billion before it bungled Beacon. Now, everyone is launching new social nets. Even Penthouse invested $500 million this month in sex-related communities. Kind of reminds you of Earthlink and Prodigy chasing AOL back in the day.

The trouble for advertisers is if social networks are just the new email--a new mode of communication, not a specific web portal--then advertisers are going to have difficulty intercepting our messages. Consider this: No one has succeeded in placing ads next to email, even the contextual attempts by Google. For example, if this blog post was an email to you, dear reader, a computer algorithm from Google might pick up the word "sex" in the above paragraph and insert text ads to the right of this copy block for Viagra. Is that relevant? Do you even care? Or, more important, if your mode of thought at this very moment is communicating with us on a personal level, aren't you a bit removed from the hunting-shopping mode you enter when you search for products on Google.com?

We think Kluth is right--social networks are here to stay. About 83 million U.S. consumers visited social networks in October, or about half of all people who went online. As networks become unbound, and as we begin whispering with each other in new ways, advertisers may have a hard time bending our ear.

Boss, we'll discuss it on Facebook ... next to the lingerie ads

If you don't want ads of women in panties next to your job discussion board, congrats -- you've just found the flaw in Facebook advertising. Alex Iskold has written a brilliant analysis of the problems with Facebook advertising, which boil down to three things: Facebook doesn't really know us, its data is not well structured, and users of social networks aren't there to click on ads.

The combination of these failures is why Alex recently saw the above ad as he conversed with colleagues online. He notes:

The (Facebook) site does not really know what I like. It does not know my book tastes, does not know that I am running a startup, does not know that I like Cabs and Pinots. It does not know that I am a Netflix user, that I am increasingly less tolerant of cold weather, or that I have 3 beautiful little daughters.

So Facebook does not really know sophisticated things about me. But even basic information that it ought to know is beyond its grasp. For example, if I add the Flixtster application and start displaying movies that I've rated on my profile you'd think that Facebook would learn that I like movies. But it wouldn't. Facebook's system has no idea that the Flixster application is about movies and has no idea what kind of movies are being displayed.

There are many other problems, especially the unexpected hostility over the Beacon news feed ads which alert all your friends that you've just bought jock itch ointment. Facebook will figure it out. Until then, the social party at Facebook remains miles away from the cash register at the mall.

What if Facebook threw an ad party and nobody came?

Facebook took it on the chin this week. The online social network launched a new advertising scheme on November 6 to much applause, because advertisers were champing to get at Facebook's wildly growing user base -- 20 million in April and up to 45 million in October. Last night, Facebook removed a key element of the program that could cost it billions of dollars in missed revenue.

The heart of Facebook's new advertising program was something called "Beacon," a variation of its News Feed. News Feed sends a little post to all of your friends inside the Facebook system every time you update your home page, and has become extremely popular. The sense you get when you log in to Facebook is it becomes The New York Times of your personal life -- you get an entire page of news that Sally bought a dog, Henry ran a 5k, and Johnny found a really cool video. Facebook News Feed makes you and your friends the center of the news universe.

Beacon attempted to give advertisers a line into this News Feed, and tapped data about users from 44 sites partnering with Facebook. The targeting possibilities are wonderful, because users log in names, addresses, genders, ages, and even employers and job titles. The idea was Beacon would fire off a little email blurb to all your friends inside Facebook every time you bought something, so they'd get a "referral" of sorts that you like a certain product. Advertisers loved this idea -- virtual word of mouth! Automated! Among 45 million consumers!

But big trouble came when Facebook launched it as an opt-out program for users, rather than an opt-in. Suddenly, if you bought underwear, every friend and business colleague you know on Facebook gets the news notice. Order a racy movie? Perhaps pharmaceuticals? Your boss, on his Facebook page, just got the update.

More than 50,000 Facebook users filed complaints, so Facebook reversed course late last night and changed Beacon to an opt-in model. What's missing from most news reports is this will strangle Facebook's new advertising model -- because Facebook just went from offering advertisers a universe of 45 million consumers to a universe of, oh, the few people who think telling buddies they just shopped for acne cream is a good idea.

To put this in context, imagine what would happen to the direct mail industry if homeowners had to "opt in" to receiving unwanted junk mail. Hmm. Eddie Bauer might go broke. NYT says Coke is holding off on joining Beacon until it sees how the ad model shakes out. Media planners are going to have to understand exactly what audience we are getting before we tell clients Beacon is a bright idea.

Advertising a happy reunion for the Klan

A big boo goes to Reunion.com for what has to be the most asinine, daft, half-witted, moronic, ill-conceived creative of the year. Reunion.com is running horizontal banner ads showing figures hiding under white sheets, close cropped to dark eyes staring out from white hoods, with the slogan, "who's searching for you?" Sure hope it isn't the KKK, friends. Here's hoping that everyone who finds this ad offensive clicks on it 100 times to drive up your marketing costs.

eBay starts flirting to rebuild sales

You probably know that eBay is the place to find strange items such as these lovely, used, plaid Playboy bunny socks. What you may not know is eBay drives more than 10% of all online retail commerce in the United States. Ka-ching. The online auction house lists $14.6 billion in retail items, compared to total U.S. online retail sales of $130 billion in 2006.

eBay has been feeling a pinch, though, with declining listings perhaps because finding buyers is getting tougher. Every item you try to sell on eBay must compete with 559 million other auction items. So-called "power sellers" who run eBay stores are down 25% from last year. Fighting back, eBay has launched a social networking site called Neighborhoods to get users to share photos, post reviews, and hopefully stay a little longer.

Don't know if it will work, but we hope so. What kind of world would it be without used Playboy socks?

Your home page is dead. Just ask AOL.

Here's a screen shot of AOL.com from way back in 1998. Dig it. AOL was trying, like everyone else in the universe, to create the "sticky" portal that consumers would start the day with, sort of like the front page of The New York Times. Look! Sports! Travel! Lifestyles!

Home pages don't exist anymore. Most web users start with a Google search, and Google in turn throws the consumer deep into the bowels of your web site -- in front of the content they want to see, not the nice path you set up from www.homepage.com. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Time Warner spent $10 billion in total this year to acquire online ad networks that cast a wide net over the hundreds of thousands of web sites consumers may frequent. AOL's current chief admitted it.

"We're not interested in building yesterday's portal," said Ron Grant, AOL's president and chief operating officer. "Consumers are finding what they are looking for is coming from more and more fragmented places. We need a way for advertisers to take advantage of that fragmentation."

There are two messages here. For advertisers, you need online BREADTH tied into smart ad networks. Your online communications need to bob and weave across the entire net playing field, using tactics such as behavioral targeting (to reach key demos), retargeting (to reach unsold site visitors), or social network ad tests (young viewers spend more time on Facebook than on traditional web sites).

For marketers, the message is to think beyond your product-based HOME page. Your next web redesign should make every page deep in your site relevant, with clear links to other content, because chances are users will land there first. Your home page doesn't really matter anymore. No one will see your Flash animation. No one is coming to the party through your front door.

A gorgeous look inside the soul ... and plastic Lego

Thanks WSJ for introducing us to Cognizance, a feringing brilliant "brickfilm" about a hitman who has second thoughts, repents, and then peacefully meets ... well, you'll see. The film is part of a stop-motion craze in which students move Lego pieces slightly, ever so, from frame to frame to build entire video masterpieces. Seems there's an entire community making brickfilms. There is beauty here, and something will break through to mainstream.

Biomed scientists target themselves

Health care professionals, biomed scientists, grad students and other brainy types have a hard time keeping abreast of the 16,000 new science publications indexed by PubMed every single week. The internet, crowded with commerce and YouTube, makes it hard to sift through the abstracts and papers. How to keep up?

SciVee has launched a brainiac site with the science class version of YouTube: researchers post video introductions with the text of their papers, users easily find digestable content, and the web community (one hopes) makes the most brilliant research float to the top. SciVee was thought up by Philip Bourne, prof at University of California at San Diego, with NSF seed funds and major wattage from the UCSD Supercomputer Center. No word yet on how or if advertisers can crack in to this sweet audience, but we're sure they're trying.

If you want to know how Arabic medical texts addressed pericardial pathology 900 years ago, SciVee is your thing.