Flattened by MySpace

Corporations have already promoted their brands using social tools. In the past, they were paid sales reps, and they were expensive because they had to do messy human things like have families when they weren't glad handing potential customers and asking them how their own kids were doing in little league. As a result, companies tended to deploy sales reps in areas where a small number of decision makers influenced a lot of commerce, which meant a focus on big ticket items, and influencing the recommendations of doctors, and other respected professionals.

It's awful to imagine where things might be heading now. I imagine cyborg sales reps who prowl social cyberspace, commenting on peoples blogs and MySpace profiles using text that was pre-personalized by automatically merging personal content from the users online persona with a scripted message.

It's really just the Web 3.0 version of a spambot.

Oups

Nick, you are wrong about fakesters: the first ones (and for a significant length of time) were actually user created, and non-commercial; think: Jesus, Georges W Bush, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Burning Man and Bay Area Funky Club. Friendster killed them against the users' wish -- maybe because they forecasted the comercial use; but I beleive it was more about "controling" a space that was not entirely them anymore.

Commercial introduction might have two origins:

- some users made up fakesters that where cool, but commercial; think: PSP, Apple, Video games, etc. This happend on most sites: some clever companies though they could use that.

- ads were seen as "grown-up" stuff, filtered out, nott relevant by the poplation on MySpace; having them profiled, hence being able to participate in the tanks-for-the-add game, was a very efficient move --- provided they had some support, and were ready to fight their way in.

I dont know about doctors (or rather, I know, and I'm appaled) but I'm more confident that teenagers are too much network-addict and fashion-whores to get into any badly crafted trap. What an actual efficient SNS strategy will bring to those companies is a strategic shift, to acknoledge the non-linear dynamics in there, more than a real free, unfair marketing strong-hold.

So I now see what I knew all along. It's not the technology that will change us, but we ourselves. I do believe that technology might help; "might" being the operative word.

I don't share your optimism, Bertil. People are heavily adapted to be social. As a result, there are a lot of buttons that can be pushed to persuade them to do things they'd like to think they can't be manipulated into doing. I think network-addicted teenage fashion-whores are going to be particularly easy to manipulate using synthetic social cues, and social media makes it possible at a scale that wasn't practical in the past.

Bertil, Thanks for clarification regarding fakesters. I have revised the text to make it clearer. Nick

Isn't the issue the ownership of the relationship? Fakesters were made by other users, who were equal in status to each other. The problem with MySpace is that it allows corporations to define their relationship with you as a "friend". It's clumsy and leads to the abuse of social relationships. In our system (and others) users define their relationship to products more precisely, for example, by defining a shared list of favorite movies. The distinction is that on MySpace the movie is owned by the movie company; on systems like ours the corporation cannot define and control the social relationship. A movie is not owned by the company - it's a shared resource, and advertising for the item is one step removed from the friendship-type relationship.

Mark,

Teenagers (or any users for that matter) really don't mind about what the name of the relationship: they mostly use three words:

- "[Thanks for the] add", showing that the initial acknowledgement is key (and proving a much better sociological insight that most academic on what makes a relationship) ;

- "[Thanks for the] comment", showing interaction is essential to get closer ties; companies will have difficulty leveraging this aspect, keeping it "personal"; I'm having an argument with danah boyd about whether this is key, and any one who is interested by MySpace should follow her blog (she doesn't hide other aspects of her life, but she is the clearly the leading expert on those issues)

- "[Why aren't I in your] Top 8[?]" hierarchy was made relevant by features, algorithms and usability; and it is still so for users --- though most of them just know relations are not about popularity. That's an old teenagers' issue, though. And brands are pretty much out of that game too.

None of this depends on a certain idea of friendship.

On the upper side, this allows richer, more open conversations; look at how Lonelygirl15 creators draw they plot lines, look at how Gmail and other Google products features are rolled out: a close ear to the public. But most of you already know the argument from the blog Naked Conversation, right?
It's an old meme, and not all companies will transform or die --- but as I am working in a companies that is dying because of this (an ISP), I can assure you that this is not irrelevant.

EAS,

I understand you point: teenagers are greatly and easily influenced (I have 15-y.o. cousins to recall this on a weekly basis) but they are too easily enthusiast for anything for this to be a long term asset for any company --- unless the company really tries to innovate, and make sense. Just count how many cloth brands were trendy for the last five years: I don't know anyone able to list them all. Those would survived either make use great fabric, or offer a constant edge.

Hi-

I think the main issue is these large sites like mySpace do not have a better marketing system in place. We all know these sites need to make money and thats why sites like youtube are getting $1 billion-

Therefore I think there should be a point system in place. People post stuff or participate and earn points. They can have an option to turn it off or on. But the ability to categorize a blog posting for example or to view an ad or not view an add. Then points can earn stuff like concert tickets, movie tickets, food, mp4 player, etc.
The need to monetize these sites is very important. But connecting profiles as product is completely against common logic and good will. The real problem is OLD SCHOOL media. Old School media /marketing people cant get out of the box.

My company is building a new social networking self-service solution and these issues are important. I appreciate this candid discussion. Thanks!

I think we're still a long away from having cyborg marketers walking among us

I think we're still a long away from having cyborg marketers walking among us

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