marginally subversive

Google + Digg = ???

I had a bit of a discussion with our digital lead in the office about Google and Digg.  As of early last week,  talks are probably making some headway.  TechCrunch had even had a stronger 'pronouncement' that the talks are in the final stages with Google paying 200Mln USD (only?) for the deal.  Of course, Digg had to respond to such talks.  Its CEO, Jay Adelson, denied that these talks are in place.

As of the latest news, there seems to have been a breakdown in the negotiations.  Google, apparently, walked away from the deal, according to TechCrunch.

What's driven Google to this?  Well, we can only speculate.  But this perhaps could give us a glimpse:  It seems that Google is experimenting with integrating user-votes into their algorithms to further refine the search results that the search engine churns for its users.

This entry from TechCrunch demonstrates how some early tests that Google has been conducted in the area of "social/user-votes-integration" into search results.

All these are of interest to me as a campaign planner - and for marketeers.

First, the idea of integrating a social-dimension to search results is probably a good idea from the end-user perspective.  Right now, Google's PageRank and other technologies (Microsoft's Browserank, which debuted on SEOBook.Com) are dependent on "referral links". 

(Microsoft's BrowseRank looks at user's behavior and the time spent per 'referring link' to ascertain the importance of the 'target link'; OK - that's putting it simplistically...)

Adding on a social component to search results is essentially "sourcing the wisdom of the crowds" - crowds, who I should add would be or are going to be very likely to be interested in the same things that any individual user is looking for.

The technologies of referring links (and other metrics gathered through sophisticated algorithms based on web-crawlers and others) will have an added, truly-interactive dimension - which means that with this, users get to have a say on what's relevant and what's not.

Will it lead to better results?  I am no algorithm expert - but I would think so.  If I were searching for "Ducati motorcycles" (which I have been doing for the past 2 weeks), I would want to have more relevant information on Ducati - way beyond what the corporate website of Ducati says (which always comes up tops on the list).  And right now, I will have to follow every single link that the Google search results page spews out.

With this added dimension of "vote-ups/downs" from other end-users who may have searched the same keywords as I have done, it might just make my life a little easier.  The ones that were voted up by people who did the same search earlier than I did would most likely be relevant to me, too.  It may not be perfect - but at least it is a starting point.

The end-user, I think, will benefit from this greatly.  She may lose out on a few interesting websites - but even then, she can vote-up/down on her own volition results which she may have found to be relevant to her search.

On the other hand, there are questions on "search results manipulation".  If we had incidents of "click-fraud" in the CPC model - then we'll have to live with (or at least get Google to put a lid on) fraudsters who will be exploiting the possibility of artificially bumping up/down ratings.

On a cost-basis (which in these troubled times are beginning - or are becoming a more frequent point of discussion in marketing meetings - traditional or digital), costs per click or costs per acquisition are probably going to increase.

The results no longer are just dependent on Google's algorithms - with the social dimension of the search results, the crowd contributes.  Essentially, people who have done similar searches as I am now doing, for exaple, will have already paved the way for me to the most relevant results - which could potentially be relevant to me, too!

Now, isn't that more valuable than pure, algorithm-derived search results?  If I were google, I would do the same thing.  I would put a premium to this - whilst controlling the possibility of fraudulent vote-ups/downs.

Bottom-line:  Google is living up to its vision - "to oganize the world's information".  And if and when this incorporation of the social dimension comes through, it would have been a step closer to realizing that vision.

For now, Google + Digg is probably not going to pull through.  But it seems, Google has got its head around the issue.  And it seems that they are on the right track.

Conversation Snippets: On Leadership and Management

In my conversations with some friends today, I gathered the following:

The best kinds of leaders are those who see a future that goes beyond what is and what will be in the immediate term, capture that future in a vision of what could be, enroll and enlist others to that vision, and empower them to reach that vision on their own .  That's what leadership is all about.

Thoughts?

More on Zaltman's Research Approach and Psychoanalysis, Marketing, and Brands

A few more interesting links about Zaltman's Metaphor Elicitation Approach can be seen here.  I think what is intriguing here is the use of metaphors and psychoanalytic concepts and techniques to understand what really goes on in the minds of the consumers - it's going way beyond what consumers think they think and dives deep into their subconscious mind.  Zaltman's website should contain more information.

How far will this technique go?

I think this could go far.

Alongside fMRI which is now being deployed in the field of marketing and consumer behavior/decision-making modeling, as well as physiological psychology or biopsychology being used ot help model behaviors and responses to different messages, brands, and situations, I think this could go very far.

Of course, one has to be conscious of the typical questions and reservations that biopsychologists/physiological psychologists had with Freudian, Jungian, and similar approaches.

Psychoanalysis, Metaphors, and Marketing: Going beyond the surface

I have always been interested in attitudes that people have about certain phenomena that they encounter everyday - and how these attitudes are formed, how these attitudes influence and shape their own behaviors - and those of others.

This is something that I picked up from the Harvard Business School's blogs - the use of psychoanalysis (and/or similar techniques) to get to the bottom of one's relationships with and perceptions of brands in general.  Unlike in ethnology where a researcher may be relegated as an observer and the 'subjects' and their interactions and their expressions observed from a distance, this technique developed by Jerry Zaltman, uses interviews that are founded on the psychoanalytic disciplines of psychology/psychiatry.  (Think Rorschach inkblots or word-associations or draw-a-tree/person test.)

 

Interesting approach.

Here's a link to the video.

agency executives are not doormats; we're people, too...

There is a fine, fine line between questioning a person's professional capabilities and attacking her/him personally.  There's also a fine, fine line between "client service" and being a "client's doormat".  Between service and slavery.  Between being demanding and being unreasonable.

For awhile now, I have been holding this thought in my mind.  A lot of marketeers think of agency executives (like myself) as "mere agency people" - "people who take my orders (or my boss') and get them done because we want to get things done".

For a long time, I have thought that this was the responsibility (the fault?) of agency people - both current and past players in the world of advertising, media and communications planning, and even research and other allied services.

Then it dawned on me that no, it's a shared responsibility.

We all have a shared responsibility to treat each other respect.

Agency executives ought to demand respect from their clients - and clients ought to respect their agency teams, regardless of whether they are from the media company, the research,or the creative teams.  No amount of "incompetency" is sufficient to warrant a 'personal attack'.  Specially if such attack is based on preconceived notions on races, genders, age, skin color, and types of passports.

Not because they deliver the goods and they get things done "the way we want to get things done".

But because it's the right thing to do.

Simply.

 

(Picked this up from Flickr)

We all come into this world naked.  And we all die, too.  We breathe the same air - and we look up to the same moon at night.  What makes you different is just in your head.  And life is too short to be concerned about your next bonus, the boss' accolades, or winning the next 'political bout' in the office.

 

(Photo from Flickr.)

At this juncture...

It's quite interesting how things have been in the past few weeks.  The past few weeks have perhaps been the most relaxed that I have been - and most driven.  With my imaginings and thoughts running wild, I had the time to look at things that are working and things that were not.

And I guess, I am ready to get on with the world.

Hopefully, wiser.  Though only time can tell. 

For now, I can only hope. 

(And as opposed to my AsiaWorks Advanced and Leadership Program Trainers - "There is hope...  There will always be hope.  Without hope, we are nothing but mere flesh and bones.  But with hope, there is humanity in us.  Without hope, we are mere automatons - it is hope that drives us, it is hope that makes us dreams and that moves us.)

Picked this up from David Cook on imeem.com.

Paid Search Ads Not the Holy Grail

This is a very interesting video from Yahoo! Tech Ticker, an interview with Jonathan Yarmis of AMR Research conducted by Sarah Lacy.  Yarmis believes that there are four pillars to disruptive technologies that will define the future - not in silos but in terms of how each pillar interact:

1. Social Networking Phenomenon, powered by the technology
2. Cloud computing
3. Mobile access to data
4. Monetization beyond the traditional search ads

Yarmis also suggests that "paid search ads in a social networking phenomenon" (and I will add, in other technologies - for example in mobile access to data on a phone or a wireless device) are not the only way to monetize all these.

(Think of it this way:  If you are talking/networking with your friends on your PC or on your mobile device, would you really click on a text ad that's irrelevant to what you and your friends are talking about?)

The internet, Yarmis says, will remain to be free - and I do agree.  Capex from tech companies that are funding these "free" internet services won't be able to maintain these levels of interest.  Monetization will be critical.  However, most companies are still very much stuck to the old "advertising mindset" of capitalizing on "inventory" rather than creating new ways of monetizing these.