Getting Ogled

I use Google a lot. I hate when I use an internet explorer search bar and it takes me to Bing.  I have no idea how different their search algorithms are but I know I'm not compatible with Bing. I think I'm a pretty good searcher. I know the key words to throw in there to find what I'm looking for. That being said, I haven't like the recent changes Google has made to their pages. I hate the beta search that automatically starts searching while I'm typing. I feel like it almost interrupts my train of thought. Maybe that just shows how focused I am when I'm in search mode. I also don't like that when I push the down button it doesn't scroll like a normal page. It bumps from listing to listing. I need that flow. I also don't like Google's creepily aggressive business model. I'm pretty sure Google might become involved in the regime change business here pretty soon and start buying up countries. So why do I keep using Google? I need it.

I crave information. I eat it up. When I was little my dad was like Google. I asked him tons of questions every night at dinner. Eventually I began to reach the limits of his knowledge and he'd say, look it up. I had to walk over to the encyclopedia and spend the next 20 minutes trying to figure out one useless fact that would satisfy my curiosity. Those days are over. I want information, I get it. I get it immediately, courtesy of google. When my roommates and I get into arguments; the laptops come out and, fueled by our confirmation bias, there's a race to gather information and data. Let's take a sample argument and see how companies are missing opportunities.

My roommates are from all over the country so we've got California, Texas, Virginia, Minnesota and Ohio represented. The military aspect can skew the politics a little but we've still got a pretty diverse group. We're watching Tosh.0 and we see a video of someone doing something that will probably remove them from the gene pool. We applaud it. Then we start to talk about who should and shouldn't be having babies. We talk about the movie Idiocracy and how lower socioeconomic groups typically reproduce at a much higher rate. We've got reverse natural selection. Then we start to discuss federal funding of birth control methods. Now we're typing birth control into google. Nothing from anti-birth control people. The Catholic Church doesn't have something to say here on Google's top 10? Abortion is the most divisive birth control method and I want to push the argument so that's what I go to now. My confirmation bias will push me to type in late term abortion, I know how google works. Jackpot. Priestsforlife.org has pictures of aborted babies. I won the argument.

But let's get a novice googler in there, or someone who is a little bit more neutral. They just type in abortion. Now they've got tons of results offering free abortions. Just "Call to Qualify" at www.ru486ishere.com. That's in the advertised results too. I scan those. They're at the top of the page. Where's priestsforlife.org? Maybe they're budget can't get them in on this one. But focus on the family should be able afford it. Google and Focus are both missing an opportunity here. Google needs to be selling these spots! Sell it to the highest bidder. You think newly pregnant teenagers aren't going to google abortion after they take their pregnancy test? Well maybe not all of them. But I'd say you're missing a decent amount. And you're not even sacrificing the sanctity of the perceived neutrality of the search results because it's in the sponsored results section.

The 2012 elections are coming and Barack's $745 mil in '08 reveals what's on the table. Here's what I would do if I was on Mitt's campaign. Two searches, "unemployment" and "unemployment application." There's only one sponsored result and I paid google a couple grand for it. The result is a page drawing a link between Obama's presidency and high unemployment numbers. Let's say you reach 1% of the 14.1 million unemployed. Employment is probably the number one issue to these people. You just got 100,000 votes for a couple grand.

And now Google has had a little taste of regime change and they want more...

Getting Noticed

To me cookies seem like a little invasion of privacy. I hate when people are pooling data and anticipating my moves. Maybe it serves me better, I find more things I apparently need. According to my facebook ads, I need a new job and I'm in a ton of debt. And I used to get a lot of suggestions for dating websites but that went away with the relationship status change. Certainly the level of automation involved in this diminishes the feeling of privacy invasion. It's not as if some creepster is in his mom's basement reviewing my rottentomatoes history so he can see what movies we both like. There might be, but it's unlikely.

To be honest, the statistical side of things doesn't interest me all that much. Developing algorithms and regressions can be effective but when dealing with people it only goes so far. For advertising, it goes far enough. They claim that they're seeking the individualized information necessary to focus on one person but their thought processes are geared towards mass trends. They're still lumping and categorizing people as rom-com movie goers. That works, but just not for everybody, and I don't think it ever will. I know, computers will get more powerful, more data will be gathered on people, but as long as we're often irrational creatures, I don't think you'll be able to create those individualized ad campaigns.

I went to the Air Force Academy so I still don't have any student debt. I'm locked into a 5 year commitment that doesn't expire for another two years so I'm not looking for jobs in California.  To be honest I'm not really in browse mode on facebook. I'm in browse mode when I'm reading the news which is why I like the dailymail.co.uk way of advertising. I recently noticed that hovering over their pictures of celebrities will reveal where you can buy the clothes they have on. I thought it was ingenious! I haven't used it. But it caught my eye. That's what they're trying to do anyways, right?

Getting Paid (after a while)

Recently a couple of my business partners (slight exaggeration) and I were discussing how to monetize our website. We've yet to build it but we aren't building it just for fun. I had an idea, an idea that we felt could drive some traffic and then we went from there. Unfortunately our monetization strategy was driven primarily by having advertising and lots of traffic.

Realistically though I think a huge amount of traffic would have undermined the purpose and effectiveness of our site. It's obviously difficult to discuss this without me sharing the purpose of the site, but my buddies probably wouldn't be really happy with me blogging about our business idea. I mean, I've had 45 page views...

The articles this week really helped organize my thoughts on the model for the site. Though we had developed ways to make money, we didn't really have a cohesive strategy. Fortunately our site was geared towards building and encouraging membership, a free membership. I think that generates a little bit of commitment from people, or at least gives you an idea of how committed to your site people are. When I'm using a site for something and it pops up and tells me I must be a user to perform some action, I'm typically just going to close the window. But there are a few times when I don't close it. One of those times is when I feel like I need to say something, post a comment to a news article. I'm not a serial poster. But some people say some things that warrant a response from me. Then once I begin the registration process I can get discouraged pretty quickly if it's tedious. I want my voice heard and I want it heard now typically. Of course this doesn't imply any long term commitment. Typically I'm just committed to saying something in the moment. But now that I have registered, it's easier for me to post so there aren't those barriers that would normally discourage me from doing so. I think one of the biggest problems is a tedious registration process. I think we'll do ours in tiers. The initial registration will be a password and email, nothing more. I don't need to gather customer data about age and gender. Most people lie anyways. I'm not saying I lie about my age... But aren't you supposed to? I don't want my birthday all over the internet. I know it's out there, but I'm not going to make it as easy as possible.

This post is moving away from the business model aspect of things, but I think my buddies and I kinda got that part figured out a little better. The important part is getting those loyal customers/members first. Some websites approach it like fishing. As soon as you nibble on the bait, they yank the line, set the hook and you start thrashing and maybe you eventually succumb, or maybe you break the line. I look at it more as getting a stray dog to come to you when he's a little skittish. You start by tossing those treats out to him. And slowly bring those treats in closer and closer. Before you know it he's eating out of your hand, hopefully not biting you, and you're best friends. From a consumer perspective, I'd rather be a stray dog than a dead fish.

Have a happy 4th of July! Happy Birthday America!