Google looks to measure ‘influence’ and the ‘influencers’

Dirk van Graver at “Record | Preserve | Share” has commented on a business week article that asks us to imagine one number that sums up how influential we are.  It is a subject I discussed some time ago, when I was craving a golden ratio in relation to social networking.

Back then I said;

It is pretty obvious Trust would be a great dimension for social networks to embrace. So would Influence or Buzz (or both). And when elements like this are developed I believe Social Networks will be onto something very significant indeed.

If you didn’t follow the link, according to the Business Week piece, Google has a patent pending “for ranking the most influential people on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.”

It is a great idea.  Clearly if this works, it would finally make adverts on social networks relevant and potentially profitable.

It would seem (if the report is to be believed) that Google is applying the same approach to social networks that it has used to dominate the online search business (it would be like a page rank).  Apparently the Google approach would take into account all manner of aspects of influence, from ‘how many’ people you know, to ‘how frequently’ you talk with them, to ‘how strongly’ they value your opinion.  So your ‘score’ could be compared with that of pretty much anyone in the world.  A personal Google ‘influence score’ if you like.

Hear are my hopes and fears:

FEAR #1: I worry that if an influence score is used to justify, or generate a monitization strategy for social networking sites, the emphasis on what constitutes ‘influence’ must start on a sound footing.  This is an area that I really don’t want to see messed up – as I’m not sure many social networking sites can withstand high profile failures at monitization.

FEAR # 2:  If influence is measured by Google, (or anyone else) surely everyone will be able to find their (or their companies, or their competitors) biggest advocates or doomsayers?  Yes?  Well I cannot see that happening accurately.  I would be very surprised if your biggest influencers are known by you (i.e connected to you) and so how do Google propose to measure or track that?  And in fact, surely influencers by definition are 3rd parties (i.e. are unconnected to you) in the first place?

Hey, maybe I missed something and that is the whole reason why Google is exploring this.

Which brings me on to my great hope.

Hope #1: I hope how ‘many’ people you know (‘follow’, ‘connect’ with, ‘add’ as a friend) is not closely related to your degree of influence.  Those fools who have adopted a strategy of following ‘en-masse’ in Twitter (in the hope that a high percentage will return the favour) must not be seen by advertising buyers and sellers as ‘influencial’.  They are not.  Bob with 1000 friends is not necessarily more influential than Susan with just 85.

Equally seniority isn’t the be-all either.  John the 46 year old bachelor & CEO is not necessarily more influential than Raphael the 28 year old IT Manager, who is a father of two.  And postcode xyz, doesn’t bear higher influencers than postcode 123, in the same way that an OxBridge student shouldn’t be seen as more influencial that a 2:2 student from a ‘lesser’ ranked university.  My hope is that an influence algorithm doesn’t arbitrarily look at volumes and a set of pre-determined values and rules.

Influence is, I believe, far more multi dimensional and complex than that.

If this becomes a reality what are your hopes and fears for ‘Influencer’ tracking?  I’d love to here your views.

Bad design can be beneficial

Craig Stout a creative director at Interbrand NY, together with his colleague Scott Milano, have authored an interesting byline that has appeared in Interbrand’s www.brandchannel.com online newsletter this morning.

In it, they outline why some of the world’s most successful websites are so ugly and adored: Google, eBay, Craigstlist and Wikipedia, I am sure you have read pieces like this before.

And whilst they raise a number of very important arguments – I think they missed one key point that Seth Godin raised in May 2006.  That being, “bad” design (that is to say, slightly bad design), can facilitate engagement and might actually be a good thing!

Slightly bad design isn’t familiar. It’s off. It demands attention. (Very bad design demands the ‘back’ button, of course). One of the reasons that experienced power tool users–like table saws–can still lose a finger is that they don’t pay attention… it’s too easy to turn the thing on and just use it.

A phrase I have always enjoyed is “you can break the rules, when you know all the rules” and I think this applies here. There is hope for us all it would appear, but there are many rules to learn on the path to web design enlightenment.

1000 Paintings on youtube

Regular readers will remember I have posted about the One Thousand Paintings project before; here and here in fact.  I even bought my own 956.

There is now a Google Tech Talk video about the project, which really demystifies the whole thing, and adds a tonne more too.

Earning a living, in appalling rendering conditions

For all the email marketers out there – earning a living in appalling rendering conditions – This is for you.

Hat tip to the author Mathew Patterson.

You may also want to check out, or join the Email Standards Project.

Google your way to being wacky. Or pretentious?

You decide…..

Thanks Laura :-)

Lazysphere. An Idea spreading fast

I really didn’t know whether to write this. But ho-hum. Here goes….

On his blog Micro Persuasion, Steve Rubel explores technology and its impact on marketing communications. One of his posts The Lazysphere and the Decline of Deep Blogging has really struck a cord with bloggers, journalists and online observers. And me.

The essence of his original post is that the lazysphere is a group of bloggers who, “rather than create new ideas or pen thoughtful essays, simply glom on to the latest news with another “me too” blog post.”

Shortly after his post was made on the 8th January, there were just 10 Google search results.

Today, 13 days later there are 10700.

10700 bloggers, journalists onlookers “regurgitating the story over and over again” at various levels and with varying intellectual input.

Amazing stuff.

It just goes to show how a new phrase, and a new idea can grow exponentially. But, and it’s a big ‘but’, according to Rubel there has to be “value add”.

I’ll leave that up to you to think about. Frankly I am amazed that lazysphere.co.uk and .com remain available at the time of writing, and if I’ve passed the thought onto someone new that is enough for me!

Why next year will be make or break for traditional media

I’ve never copied anything into my blog verbatim so I really want to reference the source on this one……so for the absence of doubt what follows is taken entirely from The Business, and was authored by David Crow (Not me). It is a great piece, and I think you should read it.

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It is hard to overstate the changes that took place in the media in 2007. In Europe, this was the first ever year that 16-24 year olds – the consumers behind today’s technological revolution – accessed the internet more frequently than they watched TV. Now, nearly eight years into the millennium, even the heretics who dismissed the internet as a flash in the pan are realising just how wrong they were.

While 2008 will be a year of flux, some things are unlikely to change. Circulation figures for daily paid-for newspapers will continue to dip, with the odd exception; the best editors will be the ones who adopt a two pronged approach of managing the decline in print sales – instead of trying to avert it – while investing more and more resources in their digital operations.

The Daily Mail – one of the few papers to post a year-on-year increase in November’s ABC figures – will continue to be the envy of all on Fleet Street. Last month’s assurance by editor Paul Dacre, 60 next year, that he has no plans to step down came as a relief to shareholders; it is hard to imagine the paper reading the mood of modern Britain so expertly without him. In 2008, the title will build on its newfound digital success after it hit the ground running earlier this year.

Sunday titles will continue to fare better than their daily counterparts in 2008. The Observer – which reported a 1.41% year-on-year increase in November’s ABCs – is testament to the fact that the peculiar British relationship with Sunday newspapers will remain strong. All eyes will be on how its integration with The Guardian goes, however.

Daily freesheets will be one of the few print products to see increasing revenues in 2008. Metro, owned by Associated Newspapers, is likely to be the star of the sector; its combined regional distribution – currently at around 1.4m – will continue to rise and, at some point in 2008, overtake the Daily Mirror’s circulation.

The latter, along with nearly every other daily and Sunday red top – with the inexplicable exception of the Daily Star titles – will watch The Sun continue to demonstrate that it is possible to build a successful red top brand online and in print. Hopes that the Mirror will be able to follow suit are fading.

Across the pond, staff at the Wall Street Journal will realise that Rupert Murdoch’s plans to turn the title into a global power brand can only benefit the newspaper. Media coverage of the presidential election – like Australia’s recent vote – will be increasingly defined by web giant Google, which will come into direct competition with newspapers and broadcasters by reporting the contest first hand.

DAB digital radio will continue its march to become Britain’s preferred radio platform. By the end of 2008, 30% of households will own a DAB radio, with sales rising by 26% to 2.6m units worth £200m. 4 Digital – the consortium behind the 10 new digital radio stations that will launch next year – is hoping to open up digital radio in the way Channel 4 boosted the fortunes of digital Freeview TV.

The new stations will provide some much needed competition to the BBC. E4 radio, which will focus on the youth market, will go head to head with Radio 1 while Channel 4 Radio – a contemporary speech station with what the consortium call “public service values” will provide an alternative to BBC Radio 4. Earlier this month 4Digital poached the controller of BBC Radio 5 Live, suggesting it is serious about taking on the Beeb. BBC radio stations account for 54% of all radio listening and a massive 86% of speech-based listening; 2008 will be the year that this starts to change.

For established broadcasters, next year will be one of unlikely alliances, formed in an attempt to see off the growing threat from new competitors. The BBC, ITV and Channel 4 will launch a joint on-demand service, enabling customers to download content from all three broadcasters on one platform. The trio hope that the on-demand service – codenamed Kangaroo – will provide an alternative to Sky+ and Virgin On Demand.

In America, Murdoch’s NewsCorp and NBC Universal will officially launch their joint internet TV effort, Hulu, a website hosting popular shows such as Saturday Night Live and Journeyman alongside user-generated clips. Google’s YouTube will continue to be the product to beat.

In 2007, social networking sites finally reached the tipping point, becoming truly mainstream for the first time. In 2008, they will be increasingly counted alongside TV, newspapers, magazines and radio as the fifth staple of the consumer’s media diet.

Facebook will continue to be the social network to beat, although top-dog status will bring new woes. Mark Zuckerberg, its founder and chief executive – once the poster-boy for the Facebook generation – is fast becoming a scapegoat for the increasing panic over social networking and privacy. Having bungled its attempts to reassure customers over their concerns, Facebook will have to get better at managing its success.

The firms that succeed in 2008 will be those that focus on the needs, desires and interests of their consumer in the contemporary marketplace – and discard their archaic, elitist prejudices born of a different era. For those still referred to as the “traditional” media, 2008 will be the make or break year.

Facebook’s crime (and PR nightmare)

Facebook is having a public relations nightmare, and it is great spectator sport for the neutral! But just how is this going to pan out?

Just a few weeks ago Zuckerberg said, “Facebook Ads represent a completely new way of advertising online.“ He also said that historically (advertising) media has been “pushed out to people” but marketers would now “become part of the conversation.“Great words. Awesome sentiment. Very savvy. And correct too. So how the hell did Facebook get lost along the way?Whilst Social Ads are great conceptually, Facebook is having to backtrack fast. Is this due to the fact that they didn’t listen to their customers very much? Probably. What a crime.

It just goes to show you can be on the edge of greatness – have an idea that can change an industry – and still get it very wrong.I’m really looking forward to the next instalment though.There is sure to be a lot of lessons I can learn from this.And I can’t help but think that Open Social will be in the mix somewhere.

Edit: 03/01/08 And it goes on.