Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

Do We Need Another…

Here's today's column published in MediaPost.

It often seems like there's zero correlation between how much a technological innovation matters and how much press it receives.

Take Cuil, for example. The search engine's launch was such a spectacular flameout that it may well go down as a verb. "What happened to that Eddie Murphy movie that was supposed to win him an Oscar?" "It came and went — it got totally Cuiled."

In the first six months of the year, Google Blog Search found 78 English-language mentions of "Cuil," most having nothing to do with the search engine. From July 1 to July 25, there were 56 mentions. On Saturday the 26th, there were three. The first news hit on Sunday when Cuil got 86 mentions. Then on Monday, there were over 10,000 posts, and on Tuesday and Wednesday, another 8,600 combined. By September, we'll read stories headlined, "Whatever happened to Cuil?"

One question that I kept wondering about Cuil is whether consumers need another search engine. Perhaps here the model of network TV will take hold. A few dominate for a long time; after a while, another may come along and gain traction (think Fox); then there's room for dozens of other smaller properties to achieve success (cable). Changing search engines may be as easy as flipping channels, but consumers are in no rush to make a switch.

Do we need another search engine? There's plenty of room for improvement, as evinced by semantic search challenges that Hakia, True Knowledge, and Powerset (acquired by Microsoft) are all addressing. The vertical and specialty engines are too numerous to name. Yet for most everyday searches, consumers seem content with the existing engines, and especially with the one most use.

What about other forms of technology and media?

Virtual Worlds: I love the potential for Second Life and its vision, but most people don't know what to do with it, and it's way too cumbersome. Google's new world Lively is cute but also doesn't provide anything beyond avatars and a chat room. There are some worlds that work; I've met with some of the team at Gaia Online, and their virtual world /gaming /social network hybrid model is an engagement magnet with room for brands to join. The concept of virtual worlds should impact a range of consumer and business applications, and some worlds will at least grow to the size of small nation-states.

Social Networks: In the U.S., there's MySpace, Facebook, and, quick, name the third largest. It depends on how you define it. Classmates, Reunion, MyYearbook, Bebo, Club Penguin, and others can all stake claims, and plenty have a sizable audience, but there's no clear third-place winner. The two most popular activities on MySpace and Facebook are communicating and screwing around — but in a social way (like poking and mouse hunting), so it's important for a couple to scale. Tons of others then can hold their own as tools, niche communities, temporary hangouts, local meeting posts, and other means.

Web Browsers: I tried using Flock for awhile, with its social media features built in, and then I gave it up the day Firefox 3 came out. Flock has since emerged with a pink Gloss Edition  for fashion and gossip lovers. Then there are 3D browsers such as  SpaceTime and   AT&T's Pogo . With all the add-ons available for Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari, outside developers keep improving the browsing experience for consumers, limiting the need for something entirely new.

Mobile Phones: The iPhone's here. Can everyone else retire now? Please don't. Consumers want an even faster mobile Web browser, a longer lasting and replaceable battery, a pull-out keyboard, gigs and gigs of upgradable storage, scratch resistance, endless customizability, and operability on every carrier. Yes, we need another phone.
Microblogging Platforms: Along with Twitter, there's Plurk, Tumblr, Pownce, and Jaiku (owned by Google), to name a few. We do need one that works reliably with a critical mass of users. Microblogging would benefit tremendously from Twitter surviving, since marketers are just getting familiar enough with Twitter to know they don't get it, and that's a great start. Once there's a fully functioning proof of concept, then the competition can ratchet up.

It's hard to find the line between innovation and supersaturation. Even if Cuil worked perfectly, it would have a hard time convincing consumers they need a new search engine, but there's untold opportunity in categories not yet defined.

Facebook's Jewdar Blackout

Someone at Facebook mentioned to me at F8 last week that they were cracking down on questionable ads. I'm sad to report that Katan Adventures' "Hey Jew" has been nixed by Facebook. Why? It gets really interesting as you read on below; Facebook seems to imply "Jew" is a dirty word.

To start though, as background reading, you can read my original post on Jewhavioral Targeting, and then the follow-up Jewdar column that ran in MediaPost.

As a reminder, here's the ad that caused such a stir (click to enlarge - What, you can't see it so small? Nu, are you not eating enough? What, you don't like my cooking? [Sorry, I can't help but channel my grandmother here]):

Ben from Katan Adventures just sent me this notice from Facebook:

Disapproved ad(s):

-----------------------------------
Hey Jew

[Photo]

Adventure travel that's
worth the schlep!
Action-packed adventure
travel itineraries around
the world. Visit our
website today!
-----------------------------------

Ad Issue(s):

*  The text of this ad contains language that is unacceptable or inappropriate. Per sections 3 and 8 of Facebook's Advertising Guidelines, ad text must relate directly to the content of the landing page and may not include any user attribute unless it is directly relevant to the offer. The text may not contain, facilitate or promote offensive, profane, vulgar, obscene, adult or inappropriate language. An ad for a health product must follow the relevant guidelines in section 9. If you choose to submit this ad again, please make the necessary changes so that it adheres to all of Facebook's Advertising Guidelines.

 

So now I'm left to wonder, which of the guidelines did this ad violate? It may be ballsy and even poorly planned targeting - Katan targeted everyone in large metro areas that have large Jewish populations - but what are these Sections 3 and 8? I checked Facebook's Ad Guidelines; here are the relevant sections:

3. Ad Copy

• Ads must directly relate to the content on the landing page.
• Ads must clearly state and represent the company, product, or brand that is being advertised.
• Ads may not utilize a user attribute, such as age, gender, or location, unless it is directly relevant to the offer.
• Ads may not insult a user.

8. Language and image content

• Provocative images will not be accepted.
• Ads may not contain, facilitate or promote adult content, including nudity, sexual terms and/or images of people in positions or activities that are excessively suggestive or sexual.
• Ads may not contain, facilitate or promote offensive, profane, vulgar, obscene, or inappropriate language.
• Ads may not contain, facilitate or promote defamatory, libelous, slanderous and/or unlawful content.

So, which guidelines did Katan violate? For Section 3, it's hard to say. The ad copy relates to the content on the landing page. Perhaps Katan should have used its own name in the copy, so it wouldn't violate the second bullet. User attributes weren't used in the copy. Is calling someone a Jew insulting? Well, I know a lot of Jews and non-Jews who'd say yes, so that's probably the biggest problem, but I hope Facebook isn't calling Jew a bad word.

As for Section 8, the image isn't provocative at all; it's a nature scene, and Katan's a travel company. There's clearly no sexuality going on here (if Jews were associated with that kind of thing, there'd be many more converts to the religion). The other bullets are just as puzzling. Is "Hey Jew" offensive, obscene, vulgar, defamatory, lielous, or unlawful? I'd love to find out from Facebook what Katan could have possibly violated from Section 8.

Cuil-ing off the Volcanic Buzz

Yesterday, Google Trends called the buzz on Cuil-related searches "volcanic." Their PR team is brilliant, scoring press in all the major papers and trades by playing up the size of its index and how it's run by ex-Googlers. Surely a couple disgruntled former employees are the ones who can overtake the Googleplex, right? I mean, think of all those ex-PayPal guys who started that new payment platform, or ex-Amazon guys who started that major retail site... oh, umm, that hasn't happened? Well, there's always a first time, and why not do it in style by taking on the Google?!

Alright, I can relax a bit. I already wrote something on Cuil for Ad Age, but I'll give you a little something extra here in a sec, and maybe I'll still have some more material for MediaPost on Thursday. I really hope there's something left to say by then, otherwise you can skip that. Here's how the Ad Age piece starts:

In this superhero-obsessed summer, it's about time everyone found an underdog to root for. In a feat as inexplicable as Tony Stark fashioning scrap metal into an Iron Man suit in an Afghan prison, Cuil.com gained almost iPhone-like levels of publicity for its launch yesterday. Yet Cuil (pronounced "cool" -- get ready for a new swath of Web 2.0 words that don't sound anything like how they're spelled) is due for a run-in with Mr. Freeze as its media mojo gets put on ice.

I first found out about Cuil 12:31am Monday, when the press release came my way, and I happened to be online at that hour. I was underwhelmed from the release; I wasn't expecting it to go anywhere. If I thought it was the story of the year, I'd have blogged about it right there.

What I did was write back the sender. The release says it has the biggest index of any engine, beating the nearest rival by three times as much.

Thanks for the update. I'll try out the engine.

Yet how do you justify the press release when Google says it indexes over 1 trillion pages? http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-knew-web-was-big.html

The contact there responded:

Google "knows of" 1 trillion links. That is not the size of its index.

I reread Google's post, and she's right. The size of the index is debatable. Google hasn't seemed to report on it in awhile. That's because Google doesn't seem to care.

I responded to the contact:

What is the size of its index then? And what's Cuil's perspective on the comments below from Google regarding how it isn't important to have the biggest index?

"We don't index every one of those trillion pages -- many of them are similar to each other, or represent auto-generated content similar to the calendar example that isn't very useful to searchers. But we're proud to have the most comprehensive index of any search engine, and our goal always has been to index all the world's data."

Now we have Cuil calling itself the "biggest search engine" with the largest index, and Google saying it has "the most comprehensive index." As I noted on 360i's Digital Connections blog, the real size that matters is the user base, and then the size and share of ad revenues. Index size means nothing.

Meanwhile, several bloggers and journalists are reporting that Cuil is returning fewer search results for certain queries than Google. Several others have noted that the results are often irrelevant. In the categories to drill down for a search on "Cuil," you get Towns and Villages in Sligo, French Cuisine, French Breads, Lochaber, and Glens of Scotland. Cuil.com doesn't even rank on page one. If it thinks it's irrelevant for Cuil.com, then why would it be relevant for anyone else?

Kiss Your Registered Users Goodbye

Here's today's column, originally published in MediaPost:

Kiss Your Registered Users Goodbye

If a user registers on your site but does so through a third party, can you count her as one of your registered users? This isn’t a theoretical question. Publishers will have to ask this, and many related questions, as this era of openness and portability creates new challenges for digital media.

Some hints of what’s ahead emerged this week at Facebook’s F8 event in San Francisco, where I stocked up on T-shirts, nachos, and “Rock Band” tips. It was like summer camp, except the cool kids were developers rather than athletes, and the camp happened to be worth billions of dollars.

One of the highlights from F8 was getting more information on Facebook Connect, which will debut in the coming months. Here’s a rough idea of how it will work for Citysearch, one of the program’s launch partners:

1. Someone visits a restaurant listing Citysearch. She’s not currently a registered user.

2. She wants to contribute restaurant reviews but doesn’t want to register for Citysearch. Fortunately, Citysearch lets her log in with her Facebook information.

3. By logging in that way, she now has a number of features open to her on Citysearch, such as seeing which of her Facebook friends reviewed that restaurant, and the ability to share her ratings on Facebook.

Citysearch can expect a number of benefits from such an implementation of Facebook Connect:

1. More visitors should participate since there’s no longer the registration barrier, at least for the visitors with Facebook accounts.

2. Those visitors logged in through Connect will probably spend more time on Citysearch than they would have otherwise.

3. Connect-registered visitors will wind up sharing some of their Citysearch activities back on Facebook, exposing Citysearch to a broader audience, with potential to build traffic and brand awareness.

As more people spend more time on Citysearch, pageviews will increase. Citysearch can then push its local and national advertisers to increase their ad spending, especially for businesses targeting the 18-35 demographic that should disproportionately take advantage of Connect-enabled sites.

Facebook Connect is just one example of how the registration model is changing. Google has the similarly named Friend Connect, MySpace launched its Data Availability Project, and then there’s the OpenID platform. All empower publishers to let consumers log in to their sites with an existing third-party account.

It’s still too early to tell exactly how all of these authentication options will affect the relationships publishers have with their audiences. Think of how site registration works currently: publishers can request as much user information as they want and then choose how to communicate with those users, whether through enhanced ad targeting, email newsletters, personalized site functionality, or other options. What happens when publishers give up that control?

This will all present three overarching challenges for publishers:

1. It’s unclear how publishers will be able to communicate with users who register through third parties.

2. The third party has the right to change the rules along the way. What may be acceptable when a program launches may not be down the road. All of the third parties will be able to set different rules.

3. The changes won’t happen overnight; there are many limiting factors. Some publishers will choose not to participate. Others won’t have much of a reason for users to register and thus won’t be affected. With Facebook Connect, any consumer who’s not on Facebook will have to decide whether to register the old-fashioned way.

As much as publishers will benefit from third-party registration, the biggest beneficiary is going to be the third party. It’s the third party that will set the rules and control the nature of the relationship between the publisher and consumer. That gives these third parties infinitely more power than they’ve had previously — when they were publishers, just like everybody else.

Facebook F8 Live Blog

Frost & Sullivan Marketing World 2008 Live Blog

Human's Eye View of Eagle Creek

I'm here in Avon, Colorado at the Park Hyatt in Beaver Creek for Frost & Sullivan's Marketing World 2008 where I'll be a track chair. Yesterday I flew into Vail and drove through Eagle Creek where I took a few photos along the way, first stumbling into a small town where there's a fun public art project, then driving alongside the creek, and catching an outdoor art show full of Native Americans, landscapes, American flags, and wildlife sculptures.

While I plan to blog more about the conference itself, here's a snapshot of my own take on Americana, some of it taken through the car window while driving. Next time I want to do that, I should probably let someone else drive.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

The Chutzpah of Facebook's Jewdar

I covered this on the blog yesterday, and there's more coverage from AdFreak (via David Griner) and WebMetricsGuru (Marshall Sponder's blog). Here's today's column on it in MediaPost in case you can't get enough of Facebook's run-in with the Catskills.

The Chutzpah of Facebook’s ‘Jewdar’

I swore I wasn’t going to write about Facebook again this week. Then a Facebook ad started up with the name-calling again. It wasn’t a bad name, or inaccurate, but such ads do have a knack for getting noticed.
From the responses to last week’s column, people really don’t like getting called fat on Facebook - or bald, lazy, or desperately single. Amanda P. commented on the post, “As a 22 year old female, I get really tired of seeing the engagement, ‘tired of being fat at 22,’ handbag and shoe advertisements.”

What makes Facebook so interesting is that while it can be used for large-scale campaigns to target millions of users, it’s also simple for any advertiser to create a targeted campaign for a few dollars. That can lead to some surprises, like what I encountered this week.

The ad’s subject called out, “Hey Jew.” I was caught off-guard by the supposition from this marketer, which was hawking “adventure travel that’s worth the schlep!” For self-service Facebook ads, most commonly used by smaller advertisers, you can’t target by religion (more targeting options are available when spending enough for full service), but you can include keywords that relate to it, as expressed by what users mention in their interests on their profiles. It’s a mixed bag of keyword targeting options for religion. You can target people who mention “Islam” but not “Muslim,” “Hindi” but not “Hindu,” and “Jesus” and “Buddha” but not “Muhammad.” A swath of keywords incorporating Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism nets about 560,000 U.S. users, a small fraction of Facebook’s audience.

Yet I don’t mention anything about Judaism on my profile. There’s no sign of the words “Jew,” “Jewish,” or “Judaism” (which reach a combined 67,000 users) or even “Israel” (which would up the total to 139,000). My profile shares a ton of information, though I generally keep religion and politics off it. My name and picture are prominent; it’s not like I’m trying to hide my identity to get into a country club. But how did Facebook, or at least one marketer on Facebook, finger me? What kind of Jewdar was at work?

I started exploring the mystery on Twitter and then on my blog, which includes a snapshot of the ad. I wrote, “Some plausible theories are that the marketer used some combination of targeting around my city (New York), alma mater (Binghamton) and entertainment interests (’The Daily Show,’ ‘Seinfeld,’ ‘Everything Is Illuminated’).” I misspoke, as you can’t target by alma mater with self-service. Targeting my location and those combined interests would net 46,000 people — though most of course wouldn’t be Jewish.

I then thought out of the lox, I mean box, a little, positing theories about Jewhavioral targeting algorithms. Adam Broitman chimed in, “Definitely Jewhavioral… It actually uses macaroons instead of typical third party cookies.” Others wondered if Facebook allowed targeting by surname. Alex Sicre added, “I am listed as an Agnostic and have never seen any ‘Hey Non-believer’ ads.” My wife, a bit jealous that I was being profiled, told me, “I never got the ‘Hey Jew.’ Is it because I’m from Dallas?” She has a point — my grandmother doesn’t believe Cara’s Jewish, so why should Facebook?

The real answer behind all this is somewhat anti-climactic. It’s true that the advertiser, Katan Adventures, was using self-service ads to reach “Jews and friends of the Jew,” as it notes on its site. There was also some basic targeting, though the net was cast wider than I expected.

A Katan representative emailed me, “I assume you are from NY? In order to reach Jews who haven’t listed their religion on Facebook (which, by the way, is the vast majority) we run ads in metro areas with large Jewish populations and try to grab their attention with ridiculous lines such as ‘Hey Jew,’ but we obviously get a lot of wasted clicks with this strategy as well. And some angry emails. Seinfeld fans is a good idea though. And maybe Zabar’s fans, but I’m sure that is a small group.”

Most marketers aren’t going to follow Katan’s lead verbatim, though the traditional ad model is to knowingly waste the vast majority of impressions while trying to reach a very specific target. Katan’s experience also offers a few reminders when advertising on Facebook:

1) Self-service targeting options are limited to begin with. You can’t target by religion, or surname, or Upper West Side market preference.
2) Much of your target audience may be incognito. Sure, I’m a stereotype, a bookish New Yorker who likes Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, and Woody Allen (”Annie Hall” is listed as a favorite film), but I don’t use the J-word. You’re going to have to either live with that or make some sweeping assumptions, as Katan did.
3) Facebook may not be the most efficient marketing channel. It’s one thing to know your audience is on Facebook. It’s another to decide that’s where it’s best to reach them.

The most amazing thing about Facebook is that anyone with $5 can launch a campaign like this, democratizing media in a way that follows Google’s footsteps in empowering the long tail of advertisers. Clearly, sometimes that power goes to their heads.

Now, someone just needs to figure out how to target Pastafarians.

How Does Facebook Know I'm Jewish?

UPDATE: See below for Katan's answer

The ad nailed it.

"Hey Jew" it called out.

But how? How did it do it? I don't list my religion (or my politics) on my Facebook profile. I don't even have those Israeli flag Facebook apps.

Some plausible theories are that the marketer used some combination of targeting around my city (New York), alma mater (Binghamton) and entertainment interests (The Daily Show, Seinfeld, Everything Is Illuminated).

Some less plausible theories: top secret Jew-havioral targeting algorithms... perhaps that's what'll be unleashed at Facebook's F8 next week. Or it's just targeting people who look Jewish.

I tried calling and emailing Katan Adventures, which ran the ad. I'll let you know when I get to the bottom of this.

Still, it's better than Facebook calling people fat.

Update: Katan responded to me. I like the theories listed in the post and comments better, but at least we have an answer. I wrote:

Random question for you...

I just saw your Facebook ad where it says "Hey Jew" and it cracked me up.

I happen to cover online ad targeting on my blog and through the trade pub MediaPost, and I'm wondering how you targeted it, as I don't list my religion on my profile. Are you just targeting fans of Seinfeld or something?

Best,

David

Here's what Katan wrote back:

Hey David -

I assume you are from NY?  In order to reach Jews who haven't listed their religion on Facebook (which, by the way, is the vast majority) we run ads in metro areas with large Jewish populations and try to grab their attention with ridiculous lines such as "hey jew" but we obviously get a lot of wasted clicks with this strategy as well.   And some angry emails.

Seinfeld fans is a good idea though.  And maybe Zabar's fans, but I'm sure that is a small group.

Thanks for your interest and if you ever want to pass along any online marketing ideas, we'd love to hear them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Facebook Presentation I'm Not Giving Today

This is a little unorthodox for me. Tonight, I was supposed to be giving a keynote presentation at an event in NYC where Facebook developers and advertisers would get together. The event has been postponed until September, and I'm still going to be speaking there, but two months can be a long time in this business. The presentation will probably evolve a fair amount by then.

So what should I do with the presentation?

In case it's useful to anyone and perhaps remotely thought provoking, I'm posting it here, via Slideshare. I've added some annotations to make it a bit more coherent, although if it's really meant to accompany a talk rather than stand on its own.

I welcome your thoughts on what's here.

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