The fully public internet: how much is too much?

Recent Facebook privacy changes and comments by Mark Zuckerberg have highlighted the increasing public access to our online lives. Proponents of increased public sharing of formerly private content say that any privacy tradeoffs are necessary to give people increased interaction and targeted services.

To understand whether we would really benefit from the world that Zuckerberg paints for us, let's imagine a world where nearly every service and website we use is publicly trackable back to us.

Envision the near future, where advertising companies troll the web to find all traces of your online life. They find your facebook profile (with publicly available profile information and friend lists). Next, a Google search reveals the news stories online that you've visited and commented on, which pieces together your personal and political preferences. A search of public troubleshooting forums reveals what technology you own (and what you might likely buy). Your streaming radio preferences are recorded; you public Amazon wishlist downloaded; even your credit report could be added to make a comprehensive view of what might be within your budget.

It's easy to imagine how advertisers will use this information, but will it only be advertisers who make use of it? It could easily be a prospective employer who pays a company to get a "true" profile of a top-10 interviewee. Or, it could be your bank that is looking to make a judgment call on your mortgage; or, an online stalker who is obsessed with finding every piece of information about you, and can now do so with ease.

Facebook envisions a world where all personal information is available for enterprising companies to make money from. This is already a reality on Facebook.com itself, where all you have to do is take a "free" quiz for your "private" information to be available to fly-by-night companies who have no qualms violating privacy policies.

Is Facebook's vision also America's vision, as Zuckerberg implies? Or, is private enterprise taking advantage of lax security and privacy rules to profit on an ignorant American public?

Facebook's new friend-driven advertising: a step in the right direction, or a callous invasion of privacy?

Facebook recently announced that advertisers can now target friends of users who are already a fan of their brand. These "two degrees of separation" users will also see in the ad that their friend is already a fan of the brand. This is a strong step towards microsponsorships, where companies will go directly to their fans to ask for endorsements that can then be displayed to facebook friends and ostensibly other users in the same geographic area and cultural demographic.

Marketers who take advantage of this are capitalizing on something that's been well-known all along: word of mouth (even if it's the company's word's coming from your unaware lips) is powerful.

As a Facebook user and consumer, does this long reach of fan pages make you uncomfortable? I can imagine situations where a user might react negatively if they knew their likeness was being directly used to sell a product. That is why I strongly recommend that companies strengthen their relationship and brand message by reaching out to existing fans in a respectful fashion by (1) asking permission before they advertise using a fan's likeness, and (2) crafting an even stronger connection by asking that fan to post a custom message explaining why they're a fan of that brand.

Is personal relationship-driven advertising hitting all the right buttons for brand connection, or is this getting too close for comfort?

How social media and marketing could change human evolution

Social media and social advertising have been making unprecedented gains in the consumer marketplace over the past few years, helped largely by a better understanding by marketers of the human psyche. Social media and advertising through social media have found dramatic new ways to hook into the deepest parts of our brains to influence consumer behavior, whether it's checking twitter every two minutes or playing Mafia Wars incessantly. Not since the invention of the scratch-off lotto ticket have we been so manipulated by marketers who have found our "addiction" buttons and are pressing them constantly.

Those who respond to the siren's call of social media and social advertising find themselves spending multiple hours every day locked into social media platforms. The question of whether this is a good thing is not something I will attempt to answer here, but what is inevitably happening is that those with a greater propensity for addictive behavior are being drawn into social media like never before. These peoples' lives are being inexorably changed simply due to the fact that social media is so amazingly persuasive habit-forming and can devour hours per day.

There are already distinct societal lines being created around those who are connected to social media and the those who either have not been introduced to it or who have purposefully turned away from it. Depending on the big-picture impact (positive or negative) of social media on society, we could see people with a predisposition for using/abusing social media change the daily structure of their lives in such a way that it could affect their social circles and even mating.

Is social media and advertising on the edge of influencing the foundations of society, and even the evolution of humanity?

perception of value through "exclusive" services

I am a USAA member (a service offered only to members of the armed services or passed down to offspring of members of armed services..I am the latter).

USAA offers a variety of different services by sponsors. For example: discount car rentals. USAA members get a good discount on car rentals from several agencies, so one would think of it as a good value. However, our perception of high value can get in the way of clear judgment. For example, It would be approximately $400 for a 5-day car rental near Newark Airport in New Jersey with the USAA discount. This is a sizeable chunk of money. However, a nearby car rental agency called Rent A Wreck (an ominous-sounding name, but they refurbish slightly older cars and rent them for cheap) rents cars for the same period of time for $150. So, a different deal ends up being a better value, even though the USAA deal was much more of a mental attraction ("a deal? just for me? what a great value!).

The moral to the story in my opinion is not to cloud your mind with advertising from any company, and always keep your mind clear when looking at such offers. It may just be that you're not being sold on the value so much as the mental ego-boost of knowing you're in an exclusive club of savers.

How do people create an emotional attachment to brands?

I just saw an article on Advertising Age. It talks about the building of a relationship between a brand and its consumers. The truly great brands build an emotional connection with readers that extend far beyond the physical product that the brand is selling. The article gives the example of Starbucks. At one point, Starbucks was about so much more than coffee. It was a place to exist, be cerebral, embrace culture, and (oh, right) drink coffee. In the consumer's mind, the coffee turned into little more than an afterthought.

What creates this kind of brand image? Another brand that evokes this kind of passion is Toyota, especially with its flagship Prius. It's not just a car. It's an idea, a vision, and a cultural spark that catalyzes emotion at its mere mention, regardless of the physical characteristics of the product.

These products and services simultaneously shape and are shaped by culture, becoming alive in their own right. It might be easier to understand this phenomena by zooming in to a micro perspective and looking at a local brand. Here in Asheville, the Jack of the Wood is a local pub. They serve local beer, drinks, food, and have live music on most nights, much like many nearby bars. But the bar evokes an opinion from most residents. It's got a flair that people either love or hate (much like Starbucks). And, it gets great business. It's nearly always crowded.

What's the magic sauce makes these companies so special?

neighbor-driven microsponsorships: the future of advertising?

The recent Facebook debacle of an individual's picture being used without permission for an advertisement brings up an interesting idea: the power of normal people to sell products is being leveraged by social advertising. It wasn't Michael Phelps or Britney Spears hawking a product: it was just a normal person, with a twist: it was someone you knew.

Accepting the premise that having your product promoted by friends to friends is powerful (and it is), imagine what the future could be like. Think about the average suburban block, and each person on that block connected to the same website (a social network like Facebook, or even a search engine like Google). John Smith logs on and sees an ad that indicates his neighbor and friend Joe likes Smuckers crunchy peanut butter. Or, he sees a video of another neighbor enthusiastically setting up his new HD TV.

Here's the kicker: the current (intimidating, insulting) current situation of advertisers hijacking peoples' pictures and personal information to do their advertising work can be turned on its head: we just need to pass along some of the profit to the normal people doing the advertising and be transparent in the way the deal is set up.

Imagine one more scenario: you're a Mac user. You love your computer. One day a message pops up from Apple saying that if you'd be willing to take a picture with your computer or make a video about how you feel about your product, they'll put it in relevant ads to people you're acquainted with and give you a cut of the profits!

In an era where people are becoming increasingly passionate about the products and brands that they use and associate with, it's only a matter of time before we see these kinds of microsponsorships appear.