Let’s do a quick comparison of Yahoo! Buzz (beta) and MSN xRank (beta) …

You will see below that Miley Cyrus is right up there in terms of Top Searches on Yahoo! as a result of the Vanity Fair photo shoot (Annie Leibovitz was the photographer) … not earth-shattering stuff … Paula Abdul’s latest antics and American Idol cover 20% of the Top 10 … not a mind-bending result either ... Note that the Giant Squid wins!!

MSN xRank however, doesn’t even have Miley Cyrus in their Celebrity xRank - despite listing over 6,000 celebrities.

‘Buzz marketing’ is not a new concept. I recall working with a client around twenty years ago in the PR industry. The PR firm rented out a bar, hired some models / ‘beautiful people’, invited the ‘who’s who’ and the media … and then generated buzz about the new vodka being launched. Marketing 101, right?

The big difference between the vodka party twenty years ago and buzz marketing today is a dramatic change in media. The ability to reach, engage and mobilize large audiences at low cost has been super-charged. Additionally, broad participation via social media and user generated content have dramatically changed the engagement and marketing landscape.

Buzz marketing has now been renamed Word-of-Mouth Marketing and has it’s own association, WOMMA – you guessed it, the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association.

This is the ‘real world’ equivalent of a bouncer at the front of every retail store, restaurant, library or little league ball park … Fill out the paperwork, sign the waiver - oops, I mean agree to the Terms of Service - and you’re in.

We’ve become numb to ‘opt-in’ … largely due to the fact that we’ve learned no click, no participation. Over time our pavlovian numbness also extended to co-opt, not opt-in techniques … No click, no data (this field required), no participation.

In short, we have direct marketers to thank for the words opt-in and opt-out. However, once turbo-charged by the Internet, they take on a whole new meaning. The one word that is noticeably absent in the interaction conversation is co-opt …

Co-Opt … to take or assume for one's own use; appropriate

Well, if someone has opted-in, they’ve agreed to give us their data (this field required), correct? It says so in the Terms of Service.

Comscore Logic ≠ Google Revenue Growth …

restated as … Comscore ≈ Σ(measured clicks)+/- {insert margin of error, PR spin}

Blogosphere … Google 1; Comscore 0

Comscore is in the business of measurement of clicks. Google is in the business of monetization of clicks. The big disconnect over the past 24 hours was that Comscore had effectively convinced the market that Google search was down – predicting that digital advertising revenues were ‘off’ … and well, err, seems they were wrong.

Here is Comscore’s analysis and position …

Comscore Blog - "Why Google's surprising paid click data are less surprising" by Magid Abraham (James Lamberti, SVP of Search and Media at comScore, is a co-author of the post) on February 29. 2008

The industry had well covered Comscore’s position – refer:

While the FTC assesses the impact of behavioral advertising, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hearings continue on Net Neutrality. Refer article by Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service on PC World Business Center entitled "FCC Net Neutrality Hearing Draws Diverse Views".

As reported by Lawson:

"The dynamic Internet, perhaps the most expansive and liberating technology since the printing press, is, in fact, under threat," said FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. "We will keep it open, we will keep it free, only if we act forcefully to make that happen.”

Many of my colleagues have cautioned me about the time it takes to blog. They’re right. Time, energy and discipline. So far, so good. Actually, quite enjoying it …

Naturally, next step is to seek out some tips from pros … No shortage of input here across the blogosphere.

To spread the ‘linklove’, a few of the better sites for blogging tips are … drumroll please … BloggingTips and ScoutBlogging (corporate blogger tips)– both from Scout Media out of Boston ... and Problogger.

However, to go with the power of the blogosphere (mathematically aggregated – SEO, SMO gamed or otherwise), Problogger seems to be the community fave … Source: DailyBlogTips

The FTC Behavioral Advertising submission process has essentially divided into two camps (not a surprise outcome) … industry self-regulation or the consumer advocacy position of a (recurring) call for a ‘Do-Not-Track’ Register. Refer Reuters article by Diane Bartz entitled Consumer groups urge "do not track" registry.

The economic stakes are high for advertising networks and behavioral targeting …Multi-billion dollar revenue streams. They should be focused on the case for self-regulation given the stakes.

The case for privacy and choice for the consumer is equally strong. Tracking online activities and ‘behaviors’ – especially the extent to which this arises as well as correlation of ‘offline’ data sources – at best, can be a little creepy. Similar to say, eavesdropping all of my phone conversations … or tracking everything that I watch on TV via say, a set top box / DVR …

This is not a new debate – the positions have not changed from either side, nor are they likely to … It is good to see that a middle ground of ‘sensitive’ is emerging.

Following on from yesterday's post, here is the National Adverstising Initiative draft Principles RoadMap. Their efforts have come a long way in their stated objective ... "Helping you protect your privacy online." Couldn't be simpler.

What is "Sensitive"? ... Here is the proposed list:

Certain medical/health conditions:

• HIV/ AIDS status
  Sexually-related conditions (e.g., sexually transmitted diseases, erectile dysfunction)
• Psychiatric conditions
• Cancer status
• Abortion-related

Certain personal life information:

• Sexual behavior/orientation/identity (i.e., Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender)
• Criminal victim status (e.g., rape victim status

The challenge that I will reiterate is that someone needs to know this information to PROHIBIT the advertising ...

The Behavioral Targeting conversation continues … Last Friday was the deadline for public comment on the FTC’s proposed self-regulation guidelines issued in December 2007 … refer previous post on Greater Transparency and Consumer Control.

Saul Hansell hit many of the issues on the head in the NY Times article on April 10, 2008 entitled “Ad Industry Bans Targeting People With Cancer; Ads to Widows and Orphans Allowed” …

The Economist recently published an article on Online Social Networks entitled “Everywhere and Nowhere”.
The article leads with … “ Social Networking will become a ubiquitous feature of online life. That does not mean it is a business.” Moreover, it concludes with … “ Social Networking may end up being everywhere, and yet nowhere.”

Online / Digital Marketing Spend – not a business? Check again. Over $20 billion in revenues in 2007. Amount targeted towards niche social venues? – over $2 billion in 2007 (with this sub-segment projected to grow at a staggering 75% per annum). Why? They build targeted, relevant communities of interest. Conversations aggregate around communities of interest … not brand web sites. Savvy marketers understand the difference.

Refer video below on The Google Privacy Channel. In short, it demonstrates the issues that Google and the Internet community are struggling with ... notice how many times Peter Fleischer (Google's Global Privacy Council) goes out his way to explain new advancements in the first half of the video and how they apply only to "unauthenticated search" ... meaning, if you logged in to GMail of any of the other Google products, this doesn't apply ...

The big controversy over the past week was over the video footage posted to the Internet of six teenage girls beating up another girl while two other boys watched ... allegedly over content posted on MySpace. Refer video below from Salon.com (apologies in advance for excessive violence and potty-mouth language):

Great video from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Jennifer Stoddart ... entitled "What does a friend of a friend of a friend know about you?"

So, do you really know how your data is being used? shared? correlated? Do you really read the Terms of Service? Oh, and by the way, ever tried to use the service without clicking through the (non-negotiable) Terms of Service?

Time to mothball the flux capacitor (Back to the Future) ... As we rapidly approach Web 3.0 the team over at Time Machiner really has really nailed it. Send me e-mails in the future. Why didn't I think of that? ... Go ahead, cue them up - It's not like I'm not receiving enough e-mail now ... Guys, how about about future tweets on Twitter as well?

Check out the Time Machiner Beta web site ... Very cool. Kudos the the Time Machiner team ... LOL

If you have more than ten minutes and really want to explore Google's position on privacy, head over to The Google Privacy Channel. Remember, it is not just search ... think DoubleClick, Picasa, Orkut, Google Checkout, Google Talk (IM), GMail, etc ...

It's late Friday night night after a long week ... Here's an "oldie, but goodie" from Stephen Colbert ...

Posted August last year, here is Google's "information we collect and why it is safe" video ...

I connected with Rajesh Setty, CEO of Suggestica yesterday. We were discussing blogs and blogging … after clicking over to his blog (Life Beyond Code) I couldn’t resist riffing a little more on the New York Times article by Matt Richtel entitled In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop.

Sellers are customers, eBay.

Go with the force. The community is your power. Don’t silence market participants … empower them to manage and govern themselves with better tools than words and thumbs (up or down).

eBay plans to cut sellers out of their feedback system in the mid-May timeframe … allowing only buyers to participate in the feedback system. OK, so maybe I am missing something here. eBay is a marketplace. Buyers and sellers come together to make the market. Economics 101 … However, let’s assume the seller has no voice – what will the impact be?

For those of use who do not spend all day in the Social Media scene, there has been an interesting spat playing out over YouTube, the blogosphere and Twitter ... and frankly the blogosphere stepped in and took sides. Community 1, Shel Israel 0.

Michael Arrington and the team at TechCrunch have covered the whole affair very well ... A Case Study in Personal Brand Destruction.

An otherwise inside joke and 'jab' at Shel Isreal (of Naked Conversations fame - personal blog now renamed Global Neighborhoods - Social Media's Impact on Business and Culture) turned out to be a well publicized digital event.

Note to self ... did we ever have a Transparency 1.0?

If you're a publisher ... sure. Terms of Service. Privacy Policies. PGP. Third party attestation authorities. Trust deeds. Trust certificates. If you're a consumer, you were educated to delete cookies in your browser - (know how to DoubleClick cookie opt-out?) ... and educated to Trust certain web sites.

Refer 'grab' above from Visual Thesaurus (btw, great product!) ... Transparency ... free from deceit ... easily perceived or understood.

The Internet is a powerful medium - for marketers and participants alike. For most participants, however, digital marketing is anything but easily perceived or understood.

OK, it’s bad enough that websites track my ‘behavior’. Behavior is ‘tracked’ via your interaction with the website as expressed by the ‘clickstream’ … what you view, where you click, how often you come back, how long you dwell on the site or a page, whether you watched a video clip, data you enter, search terms you use. (BTW – this is big business – players such as Omniture, Coremetrics). However, it is another thing when ISPs (internet service providers) propose to track and correlate the web sites you visit, including deep packet inspection.

The FTC is proposing ..."greater transparency and consumer control" ... These are the most important elements in any proposed self-regulation framework. It is NOT just about behavioral advertising. Greater transparency and consumer control should be applied to a wider construct than just behavioral advertising. Data is not being collected just to provide ads targeted to the consumer.

For example, data is also collected for interchange between social networking sites (which may later be used for behavioral advertising). Data is also collected to be sold (either raw or anonymized) - are you OK with someone else making money from selling your data without paying you even a penny?

Digital marketing is not bad. Lack of transparency is …

I’m an advocate for greater transparency in digital marketing. Transparency isn’t buried in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. Transparency is in actually telling people what you are doing – in plain English. Whether on the web, your cell phone or your HD DVR, providers want more and more granular data about … YOU and WHAT YOU DO. We’re being instrumented and correlated at a rate that most folks just don’t understand. We’re going to experience a whole new wave of issues once we enter the realm of “deep-packet inspection” … keep checking the (revised) fine print from your service provider.

I’ll blog more about this over the next few months.

Benjamin Franklin – (btw, my personal fave founding father) – was the poster child for “good citizenship”. His commitment to civic duty and community was clear. He helped establish or improve institutions such as public libraries, public hospitals, mutual insurance companies, volunteer fire departments, agricultural colleges and intellectual societies … when he wasn’t busy flying kites, inventing bi-focals or the smokeless fireplace (would he have time for a Twitter account? … @bfranklin something in this lightning thing …)

Ofcom (Office of Communications - the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries) released a research document entitled Social Networking - A quantitative and qualitative research report into attitudes, behaviours and use. The full report can be found at: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/advice/media_literacy/medlitpub/medlitpubrss/socialnetworking/

"Greetings to the mystarbucksidea.com Community" announces Starbucks proudly ...

Community, coming to a community near you. Here's the catch - the community is a virtual global community. Unlike the 'real world' where communities evolve, communities here can seemingly be built overnight. However, the overnight communities need to deal with 'real world' legislation.

The privacy policy below caught my eye ...

π ... The April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter contained an article claiming that the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the 'Biblical value' of 3.0. Before long the article had made its way onto the internet, and then rapidly made its way around the world, forwarded by people in their e-mail.

It only became apparent how far the article had spread when the Alabama legislature began receiving hundreds of calls from people protesting the legislation. The original article, which was intended as a parody of legislative attempts to circumscribe the teaching of evolution, was written by a physicist named Mark Boslough ... Happy Tuesday.