Creating massive community involvement: 11,000 Medical Spa comments.

User generated content.

If I hear that phrase one more time... I'll have heard it many, many times.

It seems that it's what guys think you want to hear for some reason when they're pitching a deal that would necessitate the creation of mongo content.

Of course user generated content has been around for a while and it is the foundation on which distributed networks are built upon. Distributed networks that attain market saturation become extremely valuable. (The telephone is a perfect example.)

Now you can go ahead and build some sort of platform, but getting people to generate content for you is not easy. People generally don't want to spend their time helping build out your site. In fact, building out content for your site is just below... we'll, it's below everything.

Usage is king, and evangelists, fanatics are key.

So how do you get users to create content and build value? There are a few tricks and some insight but there's a fair amount of common sense to. You've got to provide value that exceeds the opportunity cost for the end users of staying with their know behavior. See, simple.

Therer are lots of sites that are attempting to build community. I have a site that does pretty well in that it's; generating lots of unique content, has real fanatics and evangelists that extole it's virtues at every chance, provides real value, and is in a niche. Medical Spa MD hosts forums, classified ads, and physician training information for plastic surgeons, dermatologists and medical spas. The forums on the site are by far the most active physician community of any blog on cosmetic medicine. It's received over 100,000 monthly page views and 50,000+ unique monthly visitors with a large majority being not-tech-savvy doctors.

More to the point, there are more than 11,000 comments, many of them are more than 500 works long and are more ariadite than the posts.

Here's a list of some of Medical Spa MDs active comment threads with the comment count:

Notice that last one? 1,151 comments and counting. That's buy-in.

Physicians are generally not technical, have severe time constraints, and are peculairly hesitant to disseminate information that could come back to haunt them at some time in the future. (Malpractice premiums of $100k a year will do that.)

But, it targets a niche that was not represented. Namely, information for doctors that doesn't come from the marketing and PR departments of technology companies. Previously, all the information available to doctors was provided by companies or advertisers whose revenue is paid by companies. Companies don't like any negative press so the information distribution channels were without any criticism or any meaningful content.

There are any number of ways to exploit current systems and take advantage of existing needs to create real communities of fanatics.

Social Media Usage: Technology clusters and social site membership

Read the research >

Social network site membership

One particularly popular type of social media that blurs interpersonal and mass media is the “social network site” (boyd and Ellison, 2007), or SNS. At the time of this survey’s administration, MySpace was the most popular Web site in the United States, claiming some 83 million total users (Metz, 2006) and 12 million unique visitors per day, as well as the most popular SNS (comScore.com, 2007). On SNSs, activities include sending of private messages, viewing of profiles, and leaving public comments. Boyd responds to this variety of activities by stated that privacy on these sites is not clearly delineated, and that, “social convergence occurs when disparate social contexts are collapsed into one.” Similarly, SNSs, particularly MySpace, also increasingly “collapse” other forms of mass media as they serve as venues and vehicles for online media. MySpace promotes music and video through placement on the site, and funding of original video series is an area of expansion for the company. In late 2007 they funded two series, the MySpace–created “Roomates” and the dramatic series “Quarterlife.” In the same year, MySpace musician and model Tila Tequila received her own series, “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila” on MTV. SNSs are increasingly used as part of media campaigns with both traditional and other new “social technologies” (Li and Bernoff, 2008). Advertisements, as games, videos, or other presentations, are frequently deployed in embeddable widget form to speed their propagation online generally, and through SNS profiles specifically. Given the popularity of MySpace, and the new ways it is being integrated with advertising and video, it was included in analyses to determine what other technologies these users are likely to use.

vSpring 100

Each year vSpring Capital publishes a list of the 100 individuals who are most likely to lead a successful venture as CEO or CTO in the next 5-7 years in IT or Biotech industries. Nominees do not currently need to hold titles of CEO or CTO, need not have current involvement in a startup, should have ties to Utah, but are not required to be a Utah resident, and candidates and v100 members from last year are eligible for voting again this year.

To submit your nominations (yes, you can nominate yourself) go here.

Simple. Please.

Siegel+Gale recently completed a year long study of 1,214 American
homeowners and investors that shows huge demand for simple, plain
English communications. 

Of note:

Fully 84% of all consumers say they are more likely to trust a company that uses jargon-free, plain English in communications. And 79% say they think it is “very important” that President Obama “mandate that clarity, transparency, and plain English be a requirement of every new law, regulation and policy.”

Three-quarters of survey respondents (75%) say that complexity and lack of understanding have played a significant role in the current financial crisis. Moreover, 63% of those surveyed feel that “banks, mortgage lenders and Wall Street intentionally make things complicated to hide risks or to keep people in the dark.”

The survey asked how much of an impact jargon-free, plain-English explanations and disclosures would make on consumer interest in a number of categories. Consumers reported:

79% increased interest in investing in a financial product,
73% increased interest in selecting a broker or a financial advisor,
67% increased interest in purchasing a life insurance policy,
63% increased interest in taking out a loan, and
63% increased interest in applying for a credit card.

Legalese, corp-jargon, ad-speak... they're all simply a way of covering bases and covering tail.

PPC Terrorist Attack Bots: Is the internet advertising system vulnerable to terrorist attack?

Is it possible that Google & Yahoo's PPC programs are susceptible to terrorist attack?

 
Here's a question for those more in the know than I; Is it possible to create a untracable bot network to attack the PPC market as a whole?

In reading about how Evil Bot Networks can be configured to any end, I've had a nagging thought that it might be possible for a motivated entity to decide to attack the entire internet advertising market.

From Wired: Attack of the Bots
PC owners have installed tens of millions of personal firewalls and antivirus programs. But bots are infiltrating even protected computers, and they have quickly become a bigger threat than virulent malware like the famously destructive Melissa, I Love You, and Slammer.

PPC fraud is usually perpetrated in one of two ways. False sites running PPC ads with illegal clicks designed to generate revenue, & and competition clicks designed to waste a competitors advertising budget.

Here's a different scenario: 

An network (terrorist of otherwise) decides that they could damage the internet economy by attacking the PPC models inherent vulnerabilites. The idea is not to gain monitarily or drain a competitors funds, it's to create such a glut of ad clicks that the entire model becomes suspect. Advertisers would no longer trust the system since Google and Yahoo would not be able to discern which clicks were valid and which were not. The underlying motivators (monitary or competitive) would not be there and Google / Yahoo would have no 'motive' by which to measure clicks.

A Bot Network Attack:

  • Randomly travels the net in ways that mimic consumer usage patterns.
  • 'Clicks' on PPC ads in ways that mimic consumers.
  • Does it on an incresingly massive scale.

As far as I'm aware, this is entirely possible.

Google / Yahoo have active programs to determine which clicks may be fraudulent, but those systems are predicated on being able to search by motive or other discernable factors. Bot networks use unsuspecting computers that are infected by viruses, screening them from most search methodologies.

Sendside: 2009 Digital IQ Awards Finalist

Sendside's been selected as a finalist for the 2009 Digital IQ Awards in IT Security.

Of course as I posted on the Sendside blog, I think we should also be included in Software, Business Services, Data Management, Online, Consumer Products and Marketing. (Some of the marketing bling we're about to release is uber-cool.)

2009 IQ Award Nominees 2008 IQ Award Finalists

Software: Omniture, AtTask, InsideSales.com

Hardware: Inthinc, ATK, Celio Corporation

IT Security: Sendside Networks, ContractPal, Spearstone

Business Services: Twelve Horses , ProPay, U.S. Translation Company

Data Management: eFileCabinet, Cemaphore Systems , Digital Gateway

Human Resources/Business Training: VitalSmart, EnticeLabs, Wi5Connect

Online: Interbank FX, MediConnect Global, Overstock.com

Green Business: Orbit Irrigation, AquaTrack, I-O Corporation

Consumer Products & Gadgets: Control4, Amber Alert , Provo Craft

Marketing: OrangeSoda, mediaRAIN, Blendtec

Foodzie: Marketplace for specialty foods.

Foodzie a place for artisan foods and a really well designed online store.

Foodzie solves the marketplace and aggregation problem for niche food sellers. As an online aggregation marketplace, Foodzie gives artisan food sellers a venue, and consumers choice, which is key. Sellers can't do this on their own and everyone loves a specialist.

Since they're development with TechStars they've gone on to receive 1m in founding and are looking to become the default distributer for niche specialty foods that have distribution concerns. (That's all well and good since they won't make much as exotic dancers.)

The design of their markeplace is first rate and I'll be interested to watch and see how they keep the simplicity as they begin adding content. One of the problems with marketplaces is that often new items are hidden, replicating the very problem online that they're looking to address... namely shelf space and visibility.

Information is only found two ways, through search, in which case you already need to know what you're looking for, and by browsing, when you only know that you need 'something'. Search is a technology challenge, browsing more of an aesthetic one.

I'm guessing that one of Foodzie's goals is to make niche food sellers aware that they now have this new aggregated marketplace. They seem to be a good young team and I certainly wish them well while they try to achieve scale and prove that a big market exists for people who want olive oil that's 'Grown, pressed and bottled 100% in Sicily' or 60% stone ground chocolate (is that good?).

Shmula: The Experience of Queueing Psychology

My bro Pete Abilla's blog, Shmula.

Pete is guru, formerly with Amazon, not with Google, making a difference at Ebay, teaching at BYU, and writing about Six Sigma and queueing theory.

Pete's given his blog something of an overhaul and initiated a series of company interviews with questions that originate with his readers.

(I'm thinking of ripping off that idea in the medical space.)

He's very aware of the psychology at work while waiting wich I find interesting. (His blog displays the 'average reading time' for each post.)

In posting about his most recent adoption, Pete touches on the psychology of waiting:

  1. Unoccupied time feels longer than occupied time.
  2. Process-waits feel longer than in-process waits.
  3. Anxiety makes waits seem longer.
  4. Uncertain waits seem longer than known, finite waits.
  5. Unfair waits are longer than equitable waits.
  6. The more valuable the service, the longer the customer is willing to wait.
  7. Solo waits feel longer than group waits.

It seems as though there should be a busines opportunity there for dealing with the cable company.

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Oddjob: Allan Young’s Incoherence

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★ ★ ★ ★ ☆


If you're among the RSS subscribers of this blog, Allan Young's blog, Incoherence, is one you might think about adding it to your feeds.

I know Allan. I like Allan. He's smart and a very critical thinker. 

I've recently been editing me RSS feeds down to what I consider something of a manageable level. (I had over 300 and it was not manageable.) Allan's blog is one of only two I've added to my feed reader in the last four months.