Did I kill search?

By Shana | Published: August 20, 2010

As bizzarre as this sounds, my favorite piece of bcon email are the statistics sent by Comscore (send more please).  Yesterday, they released our favorite montly nunber- core search.

Wall Street got it right- Google‘s core search by the number is either flatlining or slowly shrinking.

By my watch, I suspect a new paradigm of search is going to rise.  First off, there is Blekko, which I don’t use often enough.  That’s a self-curated (and possibly over time, mass-curated) search.  Then there is the whole concept of social media playing a role here.  More and more people are needing to “find” before they “search.”  I don’t go out to eat without knowing if the food is tasty anymore in advance (it is so hard to be cool now).  I don’t shop without knowing they’ll have clothing that I will like.  All of this information is online.  And it isn’t really “searchable” although it is “findable.”  It is far too up the funnel to be involved in the searchbox in the immediate sense.

I feel like I am turning to my inbox or to a flash sale site way before I turn to search to see what I need before I turn to any search engine.  Plus now I am getting specialized aggregator services (super annoying creepy service.)  to fill in the last gaps that search did.

I don’t know where search went in the last year.  It is so strange, I feel like I need to search so much less often.  So where will core search go from here, if people like me, over time, just stop?  Or just change the way we search so much that we kill off Google’s business?

 

Posted in Advertising, Internet | 7 Comments

Sometimes, get a friend to review a product

By Shana | Published: August 1, 2010

So, the last big player of last months (Gasp!) New York Tech meetup just came back from San Diego, Comixology.  Interestingly, so did my friend.  He’s in the middle of selling off all of his old school stock of his (now closed *sob*) comic book store at Comic-Con San Diego!  (hence the San Diego Connection)

I held off the review knowing this.  Sometimes, you want someone in the know to tell you some sort of truisms: One of the coolest New Yorker you’ll ever meet, cigarettes, beer, and comics, generally can give you a tell all if you ask politely.  It’s worth it to ask your friends for knowledge you don’t have.

Comixology had gone to the New York Tech Meetup to present the web version of their Iphone App. (I’m not rewriting how this thing works, they’ve been to the NYTM already.).  They’re impressively in partnership with Marvel (oooo).  But does it stand the test of my comic book friend, straight back from Comic-Con?

No.  For really legitimate reasons.  Apparently the algorithm Comixology uses is better for comics with more standard panels.  The way it works is as follows:

Panel with text bubble, Panel with text bubble, (If weird shape panel) Only text bubble and skip the art?????, panel with text bubble, etc.

To not see a really important panels, because they are odd shaped or sized, is an unreasonable demand on the user.  Comixology fails the test of extremities, and one that would only be found by the serious testers (comic book people who are willing to tell you this stuff)

Goodbye R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Plastic Crimewave, Chris Ware, David Mazzucchelli, or Craig Thomspson.  If you break traditional Panel Form ever, you’re screwed reading with Comixology: It’s this type of lack of respect for the the form that drives my an0nymous* source, a true comics book connoisseur, crazy.

So, yeah, fix that, you’re piss off your hardest core audience.  And prevent interesting growth the drawing form of the art, at least as a paper bound by the box art art.  (As an ex-drawing student with said friend saying, yeah, go back into drawing when you are ready^, paper as a square is a limiting factor.)

That, or fix the algorithms so that we can understand the boxes.

 

*He’s trying to strip as much of himself from the internet as a way of gaining control over the net.  On some theoretical level he’s right.  Since I am going to email this to him: Dude, I can do a deep web search on you and find your non-existent criminal record, your address, and all sorts of crazy info.  You may want to SEO the hell out of your name instead.  Just sayin’.  Besides, it will help you get rid of that ultra-cool vintage stock of comic books you went to Comic-Con for!!! (*sigh* some friends don’t get the internet)

^Drawing, it’s complicated when you like to go into semi-surrealist style states.  It’s complicated.  it will be good for me, but it’s complicated.  it’s under don’t ask don’t tell.

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Conde and McKinsey, you still suck

By Shana | Published: July 25, 2010

McKinsey finally finished up their overview of all things Conde.

And they missed the mark, totally, about falling revenue in the print editions.

Lets go into why.  There are a bunch of very cool bloggers cutting deep into sharing content about what is slylish, literary-ish, cool, whatnot.  We can move on and slowly Ignore Conde if we have to.  They don’t move with content fast enough, at a cost needed to compete.

Then, stores/ads are merging (see Gilt Groupe, it’s as much a fashion guide as the ability to buy stuff.)  Meanwhile, books are now being sold digitally faster than as paper (sorry New Yorker).

And, for all the Legal questions, FlipBoard repeats the magazine like layouts that makes looking at ads worthwhile in magazines, but not on the web.  (called it, that is going to be the business model! Really beautiful ads on the Ipad)

So telling people: hey you have to pay more for the paper, doesn’t solve anything.

And while I understand that your online advertsing margins are being eaten away by the ad exchanges, I don’t understand why you all don’t take control of the situation.

When you see an ad on paper, it is as much of the content as the editorials.  When you see an ad on the internet, its not, it’s a distraction.  Further, for whatever your lame reasons are, no one is being bold enough to say, if we are going to be granular about selling/buying ads, why not act like this is a true market and make some money off the buying/selling process.  Act a little crazy Wall Street-ish and build some derivaties (I know a great, nice banker if you need one!)

Just for Gods sake, stop being wussy and blaming the loyal customers who buy/read your magazines both in paper and in digtal form.  Figure out that if you kill the audience by shrinking it down too much, you kill the goose entirely.

Give the customer what they want- not ugly content!!!!!  Not ugly ads!!! Things that fit digital land! They will click if you give them bacon!!!  That’s all!

Gah, I don’t understand why they hired Mckinsey, they are acting like know-nothings and are saying the things that everyone knows.  Hire someone who can tell you something helpful, like Fahrenheit 212.  For changes sake….

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On the Internet we all know…

By Shana | Published: July 23, 2010

I happened to stop into a tweetup last night.  Happenchance (really happenchance) I ran into an old friend of mine, BZ (BenZion in case you all are curious), a phd History Candidate at Ohio State, in for the summer to do some more phd thesis writing.  He’s been an active blogger on a number of issues (science finction, early modern religious history, Asperger’s syndrome and Autism, changes in Orthodox Jewry.  His blog covers a wide range of topics, really…)

We got to talking about his blog.  In my bad bad behavior, I had to fess up that I had missed a number of posts.  It turns out that for (completely logical, trust me you have to know this guy and the fact that he’ll lean extremely heavily on the classics) argument about how libertarianism should work with the very prominent economist, David Friedman, of UCSJ (and son of Milton Friedman, yes, that Milton Friedman).

 

How, he read David Friedman’s book, and decided he was going to discuss it (politely).  Dr. Friedman was kind enough to argue back (politely) on the particulars of the argument my friend BZ was arguing about the book. Interestingly, they also discovered in the process that they like the same novels….

 

Apparently, on the internet, no one knows you are a _____________. BZ is the son and grandson of a pair of prominent rabbis who went to get a docturate in history (not economics or political theory).  His biggest achievement right now is being almost done (and on time with the almost done) while being funded through the process.  His whole life is ahead of him.  And yet, apparently even he can make an impression on a really good economist.  He got the attention because he was smart and is using the internet to reach out.*

It is a situation that can happen to anyone, with enough effort.  Expertise seems to be slowly shifting to those who will open themselves up as both being open to learn, open to criticism, and open to creating real resources for scholarship.  Further, it will both make scholarship communities both smaller (IE, Dr. Friedman and BZ talking about sci-fi) and larger (IE BZ is now connected, even if only peripherally, to mainstream Economics scholarship).  It means that the production of scholarly material will be produced by a mixture of experts, ameteurs, and in betweeners, with a lot more community sorting taking place.  It sounds, from reading the post, that there is a large amount of space to develop tons of new ideas because of these odd connections that others will make with each other while they find some new commonalities.  I expect a sudden level of research to explode as we move to a cross-displine, post-university structure where there is far more partipation in learning than just degree getting.  And I doubt I am the only one who thinks all of this.  We should  find ways of developing more interactions and stronger community structures to improve these interactions in order to push various disciplines further.

 

Now if only Dr. Friedman can help find him tenure track teaching placement post phd so that BZ can help this process (Being an engaging blogger and all, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind).

 

*Since I know you are going to read this BZ- I am proud of you :-)

Posted in Media Theory, Random, Responding, Starting Out | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

A study in Contrasts

By Shana | Published: July 19, 2010

From the New York Tech meetup, Jetsetter and Stuffbuff are a study in contrasts.

Jetsetter is the travel emails/section of Gilt Groupe.  They tract purchases, clickthrough, types of photos, everything.  And it is an up front purchase and an experience they control.  They choose lux places, they control the prices, the photos, everything.  it looks and feels like what it is, a fantasy website for your fantasy getaway at what appears to be rock bottom (or close to it) deals.  By giving up certain elements of control, you get a deal and amazing amazing choices, the same way Gilt Groupe brought amazingness through a similar rush of choices/lack of choices.

It makes you feel sure you got a deal, and it’s rush its truly addicting.  The guarantees make you feel good too.  The sell is in the content.  And that content, is always sexy.

 

Stuffbuff on the other hand is based on the premise that you and me are going to buy-sell one item with each other at auction through a flash widget that can be placed anywhere on the web.  If I am the seller, it is to my advantage to progate my auction wherever I can.  If I am the buyer, it is to my advantage to not tell anyone I have found a deal, though I do need to legitimize that the item is of quality and a deal.

Basically, this is a Go F*** Yourself system.  The sell is being the last one standing.  Both the buyer and the seller know the other party in theory can be screwing the other person.  There is no way to control who else is buying (truth of auctions) or who will show up (also truth of auctions).  However, it’s worse when you add to the system from the sellers point of view the ability to have at any point the auction extended, extend, extend, and for it to be placed anywhere.  (Would you want to buy in an auction where you weren’t sure where the item was even vaguely from, and you weren’t sure where the auction was “being held” and people could come and go from the auction as they pleased?)  For an individual seller, it’s a lot of work to get to the best price when an ad on Craigslist or Amazon already specifies what you are willing to sell for, rather than starting at the near zeroth cent.  Because of the way the bid system is set up, the only way for StuffBuff to make any sort of real money (if they gain adoption) is to have a Swoopo! like fee system. (you can’t do minimum bids of a penny and not have that happen)  And everyone will be pissed, because Swoopo! is a bit of a scam.

If you can’t figure out the pieces of who and how you are selling to, you are in a bit of a mess.

The other alternative:  Ebay is losing marketshare.  There is no reason that someone couldn’t do a white label, high end auction site that is stable and somewhat closed (no putting little widgets all over the internet!)

 

The pleasure from buying for both, is knowing you got a deal.  Stuffbuff takes a lot more research for the 15 minutes in the time a bid exists.  Jetsetter is knowing your choices are closed off, however those given to you are guaranteed.

 

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Some websites are actually impossible to judge

By Shana | Published: July 14, 2010

Dear All,

 

There is a website category  out there that is impossible to judge.  This category: Dating websites.  For someone out there, even the most craptastic dating website is perfect.  Even the worst dating website probably caused a couple or two, who are out there, happy.  For them, it was perfect, a match made in heaven to make a match made in heaven.  Which is why dating websites,are in this category of impossible to judge websites.  Who am I to frown upon others happiness?

Lucky for the one presented at the New York Tech Meetup, it was a wonderful dating website as both an idea about how to meet people to date and a conception of a design.  It’s beautiful.  It seems like a lot of fun to meet someone through dates you suggest.  HowAboutWe.com seems to have interesting eyecandy galore (if you are based in NY)  both in the guy department (even in the Jewish guy department, hi mom)  and in the visuals of the website.  And you definitely don’t feel locked into a boring profile (secret thing that my mom would like you to know! Love love love).  Meanwhile, it is still a popularity grouping of insiders waiting to be, overblown by dates and people.  Too many and people will be frustrated (again) (Eternal problem of all dating websites, eventually there are too many people who sign up.  it creates too many choices, overwhelms people.  it’s the same problem as not enough people, you end up feeling like there is little in the way of choice, and that you are stuck.)

The only fault of the website is that they don’t block people from messaging out their email addresses.  (obvious, you need to force people to look at messages that so that you can charge)

Yet, does it make a good dating website?  Who knows?  For all of it’s amazing sophistication and at the same time cuteness, are people, you know, getting into relationships, and you know, dating, and you know, marrying?  Always a useful metric!  (how many dates have people been on that were successful?  Not that anyone seems to know….)

And in case you are curious, I am totally trying to get a friend of mine to get a picture of me.  Because yeah, who doesn’t want to be part of the awesome dating website???  Rather than the unawesome one.

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The end is near- (or not)

By Shana | Published: July 8, 2010

So, while in the middle of taking a look at all things New York Tech Meetup (even if this requires admitting to myself that I am single, gawd), one of the realities of All Things Social Media has taken on reality.

It’s name is Hot Potato.  It reminds you of that game, Hot Potato, that we all (or at least I did) played in 3rd grade.  Or does it?

The essential premise- let’s list what we do, so we can find someone else doing the exact same thing.  let’s follow each other so that when I inform you of what I am doing, you know, you can do it with me.  Apparently the Usecase of the Moment is lifescrobbing- with umm, umm?

Lifescrobbing is now social media.  Informing everyone is now social media. Especially with your Iphone   Except it isn’t.

And this is where the words social media get depressing.  You see the failure of how all these trends, when added together, can just be a pile of fail, even if the web product is made well.

Choose what you want and how you want it to share- however, most people want to use a simpler medium to keep track of each other when it comes to text.  Prompts often take the voice out of the person.

Because of this, we all have weird limits about what we will be able to tell to the world.  Telling the world what one is doing right this second in order to find others and converse with them digitally, is awkward.  How will I hide my (pretend) binge ice cream eating habit that resurges in the heat?  How do I inform them of my (lack) of wry irony about the subject.  The prompt is limiting.

Further- I rather just eat the ice cream^ with you, in person.  I “get” the “sell” that this is supposed to be microconferencing around events- however, with only Iphones having an application (or being forced into the mobile website- which is bad for a “streaming” service to some degree), and with its deeply cute interface*, its the limited choices and ultra-cutesy prompt, Hot Potato doesn’t have the feel it should for gathering around some sort of “event” (beyond the fun, cute ones that seem to be integral to being young).  Besides, at the event, I don’t really want to be attached and looking away from you, my ice cream buddy.

It’s an application trying to hard to be every possible trend (barring video) – and when you try this hard, without thinking it through, you end up with a group of people who are going to ask, why?

Or, in other words, do I really need another app to say something that is being said for me, when I can give my voice out elsewhere how I want.  Further, do I need to be attached to events- when I want to be doing, rather than attached to the screen (already it is so hard to break away).

There won’t ever be an App for that.

Note: The pendulum can swing back- it may find its legs somewhere, somehow- as people find out how they are going to deal with social media in their lives.  A limited use-case isn’t bad if it is one that fits.

*Not totally against the cute-it’s just overdone now.  Move on people.

^Something chocolately if you must know- however, I prefer salads to be totally honest.

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On Sam Lessin and Email

By Shana | Published: July 8, 2010

Sam Lessin, of Drop.Io fame and fortune,  has built on top of drop.io (if I had to guess) a service that allows you to charge to send emails.  Sam’s a smart guy.  One of the few in NY who I can honestly say is well thought out.  We’re in a minor disagreement over a very theoretical proposition about the web*- beyond that, he’s a guy I would say to listen to.

He’s using his service to shut down his blog, and is now charging $2.99/month to read his thoughts (his reasoning is here, in case you are curious.  It is well worth the read. if you see this Sam, kill the cursing in the URL next time you pull a stunt like that…)

This is, of course, a complicated idea.

On one hand, the internet deserves to be paid- No money, no websites, no content.  There is labor going into all of this, you know.

On the other, the very nature of the internet’s structure is that of link to link to link (or item to item to item).  Creating walls, while possible, right now seems unnatural.

His choice of email, even more so.  It would be one choice to be providing a walled off website, as the provider of said website:  You are forcing the user to engage with you on your grounds.

However, choosing to engage beyond the fold, into their email inboxes, means choosing to engage with them on their terms.

The internet doesn’t provide the freedom to get rid of power structures when it comes to terms of engagement.  This choice, to send out emails, and let the user handle at will, puts Sam (and others) in a weak position:

Is the value of any of these emails worth the price?

Interestingly, one of the critical ways to measure if the emails are valuable is

1) if there aren’t tons of the same repeating message (aka lots of paid emails that say pretty much the same thing from either the same or different people)

2)if there is a critical mass of people to recieve the emails

3)That critical mass of people is still too small to pass some sort of tipping point where your email would be forwarded to oblivion.

 

Why these choices in particular:

Much like paper media, information only gets expensive when you have a group that needs some information, and that group is too small to be supported by advertising.  Remember, Vogue watchers watch how thick the September issue is: Most of the content is not Content, it is Ads.  Meanwhile, you bet that some of those readers (how many, I don’t know) probably do subscribe to whatever the equivalent to “Immunology Today! for Lower NY.”  Meanwhile, in contrast, the cost of a print version of a law journal (1 issue) can run about 70 dollars.

(1 is just about oversaturation of your market, too many and why should I listen that advice is everywhere, after all.  I might give a pass at certain elements of dating advice, all things considered.)

Letter.ly in a big positioning gaffe- seems to forget that very simple rule still applies to the internet.  It’s aimed too much at prosumers, and right now, the content seems to be very similar to the type covering the walls of the business section of Barnes and Nobles (or the business section of books of your Kindle- are you happy digital people?)

Or maybe I am naive enough to think that even if lots of content creators can write well, and say something original: Without regularity and a known (probably niche) audience- what is the point?  Most bloggers, most users of Letter.Ly, aren’t that.  They’re none of the above.  And to assume otherwise is a mistake.

Just because Advertising is crappy on the web doesn’t mean the form won’t evolve into high art one day either.  And just because it is easy and cheap to put up information on the internet, causing a problem of overwhelming abundance, doesn’t mean that some of this too will change- not all information will be treated the same, and most of it, without  very much in curation at all, will never pass through the mind’s eye of the user.  So what is the user paying for exactly?

Another easily spread linkable form: They just get to be the first to pay.

As for Sam’s paywall: I’m thinking about it.  I don’t think of the blog as a sample of what is to come, it’s too blogger-y- if he can turn it into cheap magazine quality, except of pro material that very few of us want^, we’ll have a whole different story now.

 

* I case you are curious- we both agree that the internet is a “culturally normalizing/homogenizing” force.   Given that there are all those people out there, how will they react to that homogenization- I take it to be a black swan type curve, he takes it to be that the ends of the distribution are much flatter.  If it is black swan, there will be a far greater number of groups who feel either a need to hyper-embrace technology and homogenization or alternatively groups that are rejectionist (primarily culturally, not necessarily in use) being created.  If he’s right, we’ll see drops in both of those areas.    Truthfully, parts of that model are wrong anyway: however it is useful.

^Doubtful when these are Mashable’s numbers.  Sam has an economist’s spin to be sure, that may not be enough.

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Posted in Business, Economics, Ideas, Internet | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Oh The Lateness for the #NYTM

By Shana | Published: July 5, 2010

And I lost the first version too.

 

Inexcusable.  It didn’t help that I was burnt out and sick either.

 

The June NYTM everyone:

 

SnackSquare- They track your checkins.  And then they send you the possibilities for coupons if you checkin somewhere near by.  Umm- this is SMS spam.  A very new kind of SMS spam that is innocuous now.  Imagine a time, in the future, when vast majorities of businesses are sending out messages when you checkin somewhere else.  That’s when you get problems- and why it is inherently spam-ish.  People will get irritated.  There is no way to opt-out.

That’s bad.  Very bad, annoyingly bad.

 

Knowmore – The bitchy side of me says you talk in buzz words.  The interesting thing is that you did do is connect one person to the stuff they do no matter what network they are at, and then push it back to the original network when you answer or search.  But that got lost in the message.  It also doesn’t help that people have a bazzlion combo platforms that lots of people are attached to (lets start with Tweetdeck)  Why another?  That question was never answered.

 

I doubt I will feel :

Reported side effects of using knowmore include sudden and lasting feelings of joy, enlightenment, connectedness, and serenity.

Also- you really should know about the other KnowMore.  Considering they run a large Wiki.

 

Fareshare-

A) You don’t integrate into google voice txt messaging (this is a shanda)  As in, where did my confirmation text message go?

B) Other that that- this is a  very local taxi application.  Essentially, it’s a social network to locate who is near you that also is going to where you are (relatively) in New York.  And then you rate the person.  It’s a discrete (in both the math term and the manners term) social network. Much like Taxihack, the yellow taxis should pick up on this to keep track of what is going on.  Then they can pre-empt all these people and send them taxis.

I want them to know one thing-you aren’t competing with Taxis.  You are competing with the subway.  Subways are really cheap, and plenty of people take them at ridiculous hours of the night (Like, uhh me)

And interestingly- they did correct market analyst- and made the Android and Blackberry App first.  You therefore go.

Tynt- Tynt, despite the daring fireball controversy, is installed here (2x).  It will be taken down.  (Please leave an opinion in the comments)

It’s trying to leverage the power of copy and paste for the sake of SEO and search.

It assumes that all of us when we copy and past large chunks of text are going to either put it in an email, blog, or somewhere and the link will need to be there to be quoted to bring traffic back.  (or at least to know where we sent all that material)  If they are about to highlight a short set of words (under 8) a search popup jumps up at you.

Short chunks of text-duh, we’re searching for something, and we shouldn’t want to leave the site!

A) Unless the web can promise to figure out how it wants to logically attribute and keep itself readable, stop that!  There is a reason the Chicago Manual remains supreme in all that is print when it comes to citing (or print like, and sorry MLA, you know it is true…)  It’s superbly organized of a huge amounts of text data without putting stuff in your face (IE that link)

B) You all assume that searching is the same as finding.  The start of the funnel is associative.  You may be looking at a group of people who see 1 thing, and are thinking something totally different.  They are using some set of words as a jumping off poing.  Searching does not equal looking which does not equal finding.

If you don’t believe me, ask the retailer of a big store (or even a small one) Most of their moneymaking purchases are impulse buys.  Finding stuff or all sorts is associative.  It doesn’t really help anyone fully to just give them a search without knowing how that associative process works. (Like umm definitions of words, which isn’t really working on SF gate.)

 

The big ones

 

Forrst:

It’s an ultra-cute site for designers and coders to hang out and share their stuff.  By ultra-cute, I mean it’s landing page got featured on Smashing Magazine for Great Design Cute.  It breaks from the StackOverflow model by not being about asking/answering questions and instead being about the sharing and hanging out. It’s popular cause it’s hard to break through the wall to the site and it is so so cute.  Q?  What happens when the design isn’t cutting edge cute anymore?  And the technology behind it isn’t so “amazing” and we don’t want to sit around sharing that way? (not unheard of, perhaps a question 5 years from now)

(And even sillier, I don’t feel cool enough to put myself on the waitlist…yeah)

Thumbplay went through it’s secret HTML5 alpha. It’s HTML5-y.  There was an excellent question by someone in the student group.  Apparently, the way HTML5 (in all of its Buzzy Goodness) works, there is Localized SQL to host your music (for the next say 10 songs) that you will stream so that there is no interruption when you open/close the window.  Why not write a script and download from that Localized SQL?  That question was brushed off, and actually is an excellent question.  Otherwise, very cool.  I mean, the music player looks amazing, it plays music loudly…

Perpetually is one of my faves of that night.  It takes your analytics, and compares them to visual data shots that it regularly takes. By visual data shots- all visual data that can be taken from right before the “onload” characteristic of Javascript.  And it does regularly.  It obeys all robots, unless otherwise specified.  So you can really trace your data.  You will know what went wrong. All you need to add into this package, is some sort of visual heat-map overlay.  Then you will know possibly everything you will need to know about changes in your website from a visual point of view on an ongoing basis when it comes to mass analytics.

it’s genius.  it really takes analytics packages and makes them useful because you finally have the website to compare them to.  Plus, since unless you work with them, you can take your competitors Compete Data and do visual shots of their page, and know what they are doing too.

It deserves it’s round of applause.  It is one of the few software packages that puts data back in the hands of the users and makes that data usable again, rather than letting it sit there and waiting for people to drown it.

It’s also mucho cash.  Well worth the price.

Meetup.com launched Meetup Everywhere in public.

My one critique, having used Meetup.com as an organizer and as a participant.  Once certain locations get a lot of users, you need to get people paying otherwise they won’t show.  However, since external organizations are running, it gets ehh about how to organize payment.

Further, even though I sent this to my college so they can run Alumni events (it seems brilliant for that), taking that idea a step further, this is not a brilliant tool for the same reason (no payments yet attached) to organize fundraisers (say for Breast Cancer).  Certain groups where it is obvious to give them this product (my college, Susan B. Komen) how will they raise money?

It’s one step short.  Just take the next step, and it will be perfect.

 

Then- we introduced two more events-Scott Smashes the IPad, which was amazing to watch.  We should do things like that more often.

Scott then introduced the non-failure the Point.  I’m letting you figure out what they turned into.

It was a good speech about pivoting.

And if you are their chief designer who I had that conversation with about a/b testing shorter, catchier email subjects to a so what to coupons (because beyond a deal, why bother): I was at the Jelly Christmas Party- don’t draw on my sketchs.  It still makes me :( . (I recognize y’all were teasing me)

 

Oy, I’m seeing everyone tomorrow at the Next NYTM (and that’s how you know this is late.)

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Searching Versus Finding

By Shana | Published: June 25, 2010

(Or where we need to go in the future of search)

One of the most problematic parts of Google (and in fact, on some very basic level all search engines, including the new Facebook one), is that it’s business model is built on search plus placed advertisments in that search.  At first, this seems very effecient.  Knowing what people are searching for is an indicator of their interests, thier hopes, their dreams.  Adveritising via placed links as a way of getting through to that need that has already been expressed.

This seems a little backwards.  Although it is profitable to place ads in the middle of the sales funnel, issues arise if your search term never pops up.  In theory and in practice, your search term is the end all be all of what could be.  If you have a truly revolutionary process (or even a not so revolutionary one, but one which requires finders to get to you nontheless because you face many competitors), how do you make sure that your term comes up.

That process is generating want.  In other words, how do you generate want, continually, seasons after seasons, the way Hermes does with their scarves.

That process, is the process of finding.  It is the process of exciting the audience to want to engage with your product way before they engage with your product.  They have to find your product, and find it appealing.  Remember that most puchases (even online ones, dare I say it) are strate from the gut, impluse purchases.  Placing your object in the way of a person to be found is a skill, an art, and a science.

One of the critical starting points for getting found is to be places on a list of some sort, some sort of way of placing oneself as exclusive.  Another is to short supply of your object.  A third is to soft launch with tastemakers.  In the end, all of these require reach: They require a build of buzz so that one wants to go and use that search term.  Advertising can be used to further highten the atmosphere of your object, your thing, as desirable and elite.

In the end, this is where search fails: It can’t find your want: it can only capture what is already there.

Posted in Advertising, Ideas, Internet | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment
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