devil in the details: dunkin over starbucks?

now, if there's only one thing i learned in college about math--and i do believe there is only one thing i learned in college about math, actually--it's that numbers can be skewed to say preeeeetty much whatever you want. it was a class called Numeracy but instead of something out of Harry Potter, and though we did play with card decks, it was useful. analyzing statistics changed my world view.

something said in the commercial got me thinking: "hard working Americans." [disclosure: i fucking hate coffee. i can't drink it. i hate starbucks coffee and dunkin' donuts coffee. keep them both. so this is a completely impartial standpoint on the Coffee Wars. please hand me an Earl Grey.] in my head i'm already saying: this qualifier is interesting and where can i get the stats on the actual study?

surprisingly, NOT on the related web site, where the hoo-ha is the usual BS about south american beats and slow roasted whateverthefuck. after 5 mins of Googling, i came up with this link, which cites it was an independent double-blind involving "476 adults, each of whom had consumed regular, hot brewed coffee within the past week" in "10 cities."

honestly, if i cared a whole lot, the next questions i'd be asking are: what cities? what demographics? what are their jobs/income levels? what does 'city' mean? it's no secret that starfucks is more expensive and a status symbol. if you're polling New York City CEOs, i think your numbers will be skewed elsewhere. i'm not saying the study is fuxxor--i'm just saying having a study at all may be misleading unless this information is further qualified. i want to know there's an even split between people more likely to drink starbucks as those likely to drink DD.

porn and the search engine showdown

Google is on its game, with two shiny toys:
Google News, which enables you to search newspaper archives online [because you know, the interwebs will make newspapers extinct, until they're fossilized and preserved here] and Google Labs' Audio Indexing, which you must admit is pretty sweet, be it looking up the lyrics to Chocolate Rain or finding out what exactly the politician said during that speech or other [as it's currently being used for].

MarketingVox points out a new trend that Bill Tancer of global research at Hitwise discovered when analyzing the search engine data: millenials aren't so interested in porn anymore, compared to previous numbers. they're spending more time searching social media networks. wait.

you're telling me folks are less into porn because they're wasting time on facebook?

no no no, kind sirs. it's because they're busy finding porn on facebook, myspace, etc. don't get me wrong. i'm not saying there's actual porn on facebook. after all, they did take down pics of breasts. but the difference is proximity. you have no chance with Ms Giselle of whatever porn site. but you might actually get a chance to make porn with that girl you haven't talked to since sophomore year of high school.

in other SEO news, there's the Search Engine Rap Battle. i don't even have words.

first impressions: myspace, facebook newness.

Facebook redesign: shitty. too many tabs. sure, it was a little cluttered before, but i liked it. i went and i got a whole view of a person. i know it's silly, but it is honest to say: i don't have time for your tabs. i'm not going to check your apps, which sucks for those of us sharing Flair or using SocialVibe, to name a few. i also don't understand why the default tab is my conversations while my information is secondary. also, don't need to know about my friends' friends. should we just rename this Stalkers Unite? aka: "i don't care who you are, i just care about what you do." a message that seems to correlate to the advertisers, who think i need to Detox before the end of summer. hello. i don't think you could be talking to a "cleaner" girl. i just hope i can continue using the "old" format. take home message: this redesign verifies this shift.

MySpace openID: hesitant. it's not that i'm opposed to openID, in fact i'm sure it'll make a lot of folks' lives a lot easier. it's that i'm possibly (jury is still out) opposed to what it represents. at first i'm sure it'll be compulsory. after all, not everyone wants an openID. and all the merrier. openID, not openID, whatever. but people will push so that it'll function fully integrated. it will eventually become the only option. moreover, those who don't conform to the openID datamania will suffer from "inauthenticity." in a space where transparency is vital, it will be socially understood that those not authenticated with an openID have "something to hide." problematic for those of us who handle multiple IDs (corporate, personal, etc) unless we are able to use these services via multiple openIDs.

the stone gods, revisited.

alright, if you're a frequent reader of my blog, you may have noticed my references to "the stone gods" every now and then. it's actually a book by Jeanette Winterson, a wonderfully difficult current English writer. my favourite author, in truth. even though, like her other novels, it deals on some level with love triangles, gender roles, time variance, and other nuances of plot, i frequently find a lot of it relevant to advertising, marketing, and PR. that could also be because it's a futuristic book (see excerpt here, with the tour of the Blue Planet).

as i touched on briefly with the issue of transference in music, many things are becoming increasingly intangible as we move forward. American Shelf Life touched on this briefly with regards to money (and the decreased use of bills) but did not consider the same implications. it's something that the main character, Billie, in the Stone Gods had to deal with. all of their money was "theoretical" in the sense that ours is (with regards to cards). they had Credits.

problem with things you can't touch, that you can't own? problems with releasing data, this thing you can't take back? you don't know, can't control, where it goes. Billie falls into disfavour with the government. the Credits she "has" suddenly disappear. she can't park her car, her house is taken away. sounds familiar, right? like some case of stolen identity. except there's no law to protect that. any records of transference, done without her permission, have been deleted. as a friend once said in his blog, "What makes you think that because something is written down on a piece of paper it becomes true?"

i love this future we have coming. but in this theoretical space, i also have no issues around my own transparency and my own fear for it. i do use my debit card far more than cash. i had those same experience @SarahHutton described. but so what happens if our money becomes Credits? does that make you feel safer? or does it not concern you; does it not matter? i'd really be interest in the thoughts outside my own head on this one.

i have advertising thoughts.

so, after having the luck to engage in an interesting conversation with Ian Schafer, a very smart man, yesterday via Twitter, i decided to delve deeper into the advertising thoughts i initially considered in "huge tracks of land."

i asked what he thought of socialvibe and its implications, after reading something written in Adweek (wish i knew what it was, the link is gone now). he felt skeptical because it gives incentives for a given behavior, but felt that the fact socialvibe benefited charities may even it out. i replied that i liked it because it enabled users to choose what their profiles support, giving street cred to the ads.

he argued this would be problematic if all users were allowed to select their own advertising, because some advertisers wouldn't be selected, and users would inevitably support 'prom king' brands. which, naturally, has a lot of merit. because it's true.

but, nevertheless, the concept i'm talking about would only apply to a user's specific profile--not the apps page, or the main page, or 'common areas' owned by more than one person (ie, events or groups). in that way, less popular folks could still get the word out on the same platform, while making advertising more relevant on personal spaces. agreeing in theory, examples he offered were like nascar or skate decks.

i then asked him if he thought incentive was a bad thing to offer users, since it is the users who bring value (data) to the networks. after all, if the users weren't valuable, advertisers wouldn't be up in arms trying to sort out how to reach them effectively, and there wouldn't be such a bid on Facebook's ownership. and guess what? kids are starting to realize this. i wish i had the Facebook link, but kids were responding saying they wanted money for their data being used. i was floored.

in comparison to giving up cash flow, what's wrong with perk compensation for choice advertisements? ian replied saying that, "playing devil's advocate, isn't using a service for free compensation enough for seeing ads?" initially, i say, yes, by far it's compensation enough, even on a place like Twitter, where i'm not giving out a lot of data value. but on Facebook or Myspace? it seems the perfect way to solve the ad-relevance problem.

+ let users choose the ads their profile page sponsors.
[on social media sites in which the users offer up a lot of personal information, like Facebook and Myspace]
- give them the option of using socialvibe in its place.
[so that if they should want, they can donate to charity through their ads. not all users will opt for this, though, since i doubt socialvibe could host the multitude of sponsors kids will want, and i doubt those multitude of sponsors all want to donate to charity.]
+ use the socialvibe method for incentives
[each day the ad is up, you get 1 Entry. on a given day, there are drawings for incentives that support the user's chosen sponsor. IE, a $20 gift certificate to PacSun for those whose ads are for PacSun. this promotes brand value at the same time as not too much monetary loss. this also fosters elitism and competition, which also adds brand value.]
+ in this way, social space advertising becomes relevant
[if the ad reflects my friend's interests, i'm going to be equally as interested in his or her brand choices as their music choices. we show our sponsors on our tee shirts, from brands to clothing companies to coca cola; showing our preferences on our profiles will only add to this level of sharing. in fact, limiting the amount of sponsors a profile can have will become necessary, likely only 1-3. this increases response rate to advertisements. it also makes users feel like a worthwhile part of the cycle, rather than having ads be something purely ignored.]

these are my current advertising thoughts with regards to social media networks.
i'm already a walking advertisement. i'm supporting my socialvibe charity as i type this in my TWLOHA shirt while wearing matching MAC eyemakeup. why not capitalize on these tendencies and harness them to make advertising more useful without being more intrusive?

engaging in technographics

ahhh... posting this brings me back to my middle school livejournal days.
i wonder whatever happened to those "which icon are you?" quizzes. some were hella funny. anyway, so there's the "badge of honor" and the links are here and here.

Discover Your Groundswell Social Technographics Profile Your Result: Creator   With all the blogging and video making you do, I'm surprised you had time to take this quiz. Whether podcasting or maintaining a website, the amount of content you create makes your Groundswell Social Technographic group a valuable target for social media marketers. As a creator, you join an elite 18% of the US online population. Now turn off the computer, your family misses you.
Critic
Joiner
Collector
Spectator
Inactive
Discover Your Groundswell Social Technographics Profile See All Our Quizzes

it's times like these that i reflect on quizzes.

why do i post that? do i find it relevant or accurate to how i perceive myself? yes, actually. i'm big on creating. i hate inactivity (score of 0!) and everything else i like to take in at a balance. if i didn't find it somehow accurate, i wouldn't repost it. i suppose that's a given.

the only reason i don't outright resent that quiz for asking me about being a bride or having children is that if i click the radio button for "male" it asks me the same thing. kudos for that. extra kudos for referencing Lincoln Logs. i miss those. sad face for stereotypical questions, but i should know better than to hope.