Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

How Facebook Can Fix Beacon Once and for All

For everyone following the game of Beacon Chicken that Facebook's playing, you can catch a great recap on the NY Times Bits blog with a "historical" perspective courtesy of MoveOn.org (note that it's been less than four weeks from Beacon's launch until this latest change). Check out The Evolution of Facebooks Beacon - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog. The article concludes:

Facebook executives say they do not want to add a universal opt-out button because then users would not be able to try out Beacon on different sites to see what it can offer. One Facebook executive predicts that consumers may “fall in love” with Beacon once they understand it. Only time will tell.

The blog lets Facebook off too lightly there (maybe the Times worries it will find itself opted out of scoops). It's a haughty, self-serving attitude from Facebook.

YET... There's some truth to it too. Look at cookies, or what Amazon does with your purchase history, or just about any online innovation with personalization. All of that leads to a much better experience for most users most of the time, and if people universally opted out, they really would miss out on much of what makes online media so engaging. Some degree of education is required. Additionally, most people don't need to know every last detail; some degree of ignorance is bliss.

YET... There's a middle ground, and Facebook has not gone nearly far enough. Here's how to make this go away: offer the universal opt-out from Beacon, bury it a bit among the other settings (make it accessible, but not front and center), and before the user confirms universal opt-out, explain the value proposition. If the user still wants to go ahead with it, then after it's confirmed, show how easy it is to opt back in (and if the user opted out of a couple sites first before universally opting out, save those settings so if he/she opts back in to the system, he/she won't get updates from the sites that were deselected).

The saving grace for Facebook is that if it's right, users will still see friends' Beacon updates in the News Feed, and if the user's so enamored with seeing what his friends are doing, he may well participate too. Facebook still has the News Feed as its most powerful marketing channel. It can even advertise Beacon in its sponsored stories.

Last note on this: if you want to see Beacon in action and don't want to purchase anything, log in to Facebook, and then in a separate window go to Kongregate.com and play a game like Desktop Tower Defense. You should see a Beacon alert when your game ends. Go back to Facebook and you should have the opt-in alert from Beacon there. (Check my profile for an example in my Mini Feed).

Take SEMPO's Definitive Survey on Search Engine Marketing

SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, wants people involved with SEM to take its 4th annual State of the Market survey. Marketers have come to eagerly await this, as it's the single most thorough resource on SEM trends that any firm puts out, and the past few years it has kept getting better in regards to the depth and breadth.

From SEMPO:

Why should you take the survey?
 

• Taking the survey will actually stimulate you to think about the    resources you devote to SEO and paid search - which is a valuable exercise    in itself.
• First dibs - you will receive the preliminary survey results before    they are released to SEMPO's membership.
• Support the SEM industry - this survey is highly regarded as a valuable    resource for the industry.
• 10% discount to Sprinkles Cupcakes with every five entries

Okay, the last bullet's mine, not SEMPO's, so don't hold them to it. The other three reasons are good enough.

 

Retail Research - 2 Great Releases from Compete and comScore

Today's a fun one for retail research.

First, I received an update from Compete's blog deconstructing the myth of Cyber Monday:

There is a significant ramp up in both Attention and Reach from the period of November 15th through the 23rd, before both begin to trail off. On Thanksgiving, nearly 30% of every U.S internet browser visited one of the top 50 online retailers.

There are lots of great nuggets, so read the full post. I heavily recommend subscribing to it too. (I just added it to the Best Blogs Ever blogroll to the right.)

Minutes later came a press update from comScore which, in partnership with The Kelsey Group, showed how consumers will pay more for service for businesses that are highly rated by others.

Consumers Willing to Pay at Least 20 Percent More for 5-Star Service than 4-Star Service

comScore asked the study participants how much they would be willing to pay for a particular service based on the quality of the service. The results showed that consumers were willing to pay between 20 percent and 99 percent more for an Excellent (5 star) rating than for a Good (4 star rating), depending on the product category.

Legal services had that highest 99% lift. Medical services were much lower at 26%, but such services had a much lower price point than I'd expect, so I'd have to see specifically what types of services were involved in these scenarios.

Conversation Analysts: Comparing Social Media to Search

Colleague Kelly McCoy Williams sent me a great story in the Chicago Tribune about "conversation analysts," which features friend and blogger Jeremiah Owyang. The article writes:

For consumers, social media "gives them an opportunity to tell us exactly what they want and what's important to them in an uninhibited environment," Andy Markowitz, Kraft's director of digital media, said in an e-mail. "We're listening and learning as we go."

It's interesting comparing this to search engine marketing and what 360i refers to as Search Informed Research. Search engine marketing is all about meeting consumers' explicit needs as they're expressed (even though some queries may be for future needs, such as researching purchasing a car, which can have different types of searches over several months).

With conversation analysis and social media, there are two kinds of needs and wants expressed by consumers:

• Fleeting: Someone posting a message in a group or on a blog about something that matters to them right now
• Lasting: These are slower to change and generally are posted on parts of their profiles that don't change as frequently, from their relationship status (on Facebook, a number of great ads have targeted me as someone who's engaged - a status that has lasted a year but will ultimately change) to they're favorite sports teams and TV shows. On Facebook, you can target these interests with their ad platform, rather than the immediate needs.

What's important for marketers is to appreciate the difference between those types needs and interests and tailor their marketing accordingly. When I say that I'm engaged and a fan of The Office and Philip Roth, I'm expressing who I am. When I say I thought the last episode of The Office was pretty good is more useful as one opinion aggregated among many others.

It's a good point, but it will push the bounds of the creepiness factor even further. On one hand, it's part of the evolution from your queries to your mail to your files, but each level gets more and more personal. It's also interesting that Google hasn'

Jeremiah's comment on yesterday's post about Google's upcoming storage service is worth a post of its own. He wrote:

The big opportunity (if users will allow it, or skip terms of service) is the ability for Google to sell ads on top of content within a Gdrive. Eventually, this will continue to become a commodity market, and could flip over to beg for consumers to upload content (data is key for serving ads). I still predict that some online data storage company will figure out how to pay customers to upload data to serve up ads. Have you ever seen those advertisements that give away computers for free to lower income folks? They get access to a 1000 dollar laptop in exchange to being exposed to heavy advertising.

It's a good point, but it will push the bounds of the creepiness factor even further. On one hand, it's part of the evolution from your queries to your mail to your files, but each level gets more and more personal. It's also interesting that Google hasn't tried monetizing its free Google Desktop in any direct way; rather, it nets Google more registered users and more user loyalty for its services.

Interestingly, this came up in a column a couple years back, "Google Talk Pays For Itself":

Once you’re registered for one service, the barrier to register for another is minimal. As a Gmail user, I didn’t think twice about trying the personalized home page, Google Desktop 2, and Google Talk. All of this keeps me in a Google bubble.... That means it keeps getting easier to search on Google - another barrier lifted. This gives Google’s advertisers more keyword inventory. And that’s just step one.   

Steps two through 50 involve ad targeting, starting with demographics and then going by search history and then graduating to behavior and, one day, Google discovers it’s so darn smart it just starts telling you what you’re looking for before you even search. It becomes your personal valet.

Search Insider Column on Brief Hiatus

In case you tend to check back here Tuesdays (or shortly after) to see the weekly Search Insider column, mine are on hiatus right now as I prepare for my wedding December 8. I'll also probably have some lighter blogging times ahead, though generally the blog will keep going and will hopefully pick up steam in time for the Search Insider Summit December 12-15 (my honeymoon's not until January). Thanks as always for your readership.

Discount to Search Engine Marketing Standard Magazine

As a special treat for readers of this blog, Search Marketing Standard, the print magazine covering the search industry, is providing a 56% discount so you can get a full year of the magazine for $4.95, or $6.60 internationally. Use coupon code HOLIDAY67 when you subscribe at https://www.searchmarketingstandard.com/subscribe.html .

I am a regular reader of the mag, and it usually has at least a couple articles I'll read in full, if not more, so even if you find just one per issue, it's worth the price and time to skim through it.

As a bonus, the publication is donating $1 to Toys for Tots for every subscriber who uses this coupon code between now and the promotion's expiration December 10.

And in case there's any confusion at all, for full disclosure I'm just a reader of the magazine and a blogger; I gain nothing at all from this other than having my readers more informed about search engine marketing.

Thanks to the standard's Boris Mordkovich for the discount.

Google's Storage Store on Its Way

Jeremiah Owyang, my mentor for all things related to Online Data Storage (worth capitalizing for the time being), sent me the Wall Street Journal story about Google reportedly offering a paid data storage service soon. Given the distribution of Google Desktop, it will instantly be a formidable competitor here (moreso than when it entered new markets where it didn't have as strong a foothold such as Google Checkout).

Of course, there's a big difference between free file searching and paid data storage. It would also be interesting to see how well Google's done with its paid storage for mail (Gmail) and photos (Picasa), Google currently offers 10GB for $20/year, 40 for $75, 150 for $250, and 400 for $500, so we'll see if those prices stay in place. Gmail already offers nearly 5.3GB for free.

Here's the competitive landscape Google's entering, according to WSJ:

Social Network Insecurity

Why are social networks so insecure?

If Facebook was completely self-confident, then why does it send emails letting you know you have a Facebook email that don't tell you what the message is?

MySpace is at least as egregious, and in some ways is more irksome. Consider their birthday alert email. The subject is "One of your friends is having a birthday this week," and the text says:

Birthday Reminder One or more of your friends have birthdays coming up this week --
 
Visit MySpace to check out who!

I tried going to MySpace to opt out of these alerts, but there's no way to do it, even though they give you control over a number of other settings. I'd create a filter in Yahoo Mail, but it's a tedious process, and you get a limited number of filters for free (I may well switch my MySpace account to my more frequently used Gmail address so I can at least better filter the messages I receive).

Yes, every pageview counts, but so does the experience of networks' members.

Dark Spot for Brightspot (Sheep Shed Their Wool)

BrightSpot.TV, a site covered here before, has shut down. I wrote back in August, "...You'd think the one thing we need a break from is advertising. Yet sheep that we are, we can't get enough of it." I guess we can get enough of it after all.

Yesterday, BrightSpot sent members this message: "BrightSpot Media would like to thank       all of our valued members for participating on BrightSpot.TV and taking       advantage of the partnerships that we had established. We regret to       inform you that as of Monday November 19th, 2007 the BrightSpot.TV site       will no longer be available."

We'll see if some other ad-focused sites can avoid BrightSpot's fate, including Didja, VeryFunnyAds, and Firebrand. The major difference is that BrightSpot was trying to reward people to watch ads that, for the most part, weren't very good, and the functionality itself was pretty poor, as the ads weren't designed to go viral. These other sites provide the reward of entertaining advertising rather than anything monetary, and they focus on providing a good experience to watch, interact with, and share the ads, with each site offering its own twist. That sounds both less complicated and more promising as a model - as long as the ads are really that good.