Credibility of User Review Writers

Up till recently, one could post a review powered Bazaar Voice or PowerReviews or the like to a product with a blurb and an ID like 'Dan W. Austin, Texas' And that was that. One didn't know Dan's trustworthiness any more than anyone else. Maybe because he was authentic, grammatically correct, a good speller or explicitly gave a clue to his identity that lent him credibility or trustworthiness. For example, dropping the line 'I've tried them all and...' or 'As a medical professional, I appreciate...' or the like.

So it was with some curiosity that I read a short article in Internet Retailer this month about porting Facebook info into a user reviewer's signature. See article.  The tool, from consumer ratings and reviews vendor PowerReviews Inc., enables willing shoppers to integrate their Facebook profile content, such as gender and age, into their reviews and their reviewer profiles on e-commerce sites. 

So Facebook is offering to push info to another site in addition to the pull it typically does. And, ever the opportunist, Facebook will ask if you would like to publish the user review on your Facebook page.

Would you be more likely to read a review posted by a doctor, professor or other esteemed professional? Or be biased toward a younger or older poster? One who lives in New York City or one who lives in Wyoming? One is intrigued with how far this could go and whether more than demographic information would be used.

Maybe the review would be signed like this: ".... I wholeheartedly recommend this product" -- Dan W., Austin, TX, age: 52, Computer Programmer, likes pepperoni pizza, Siberian Huskies and photography.

The article states early adopters as Diapers.com, Campmor and Abe’s of Maine but I was unable to see a treatment on these sites. Might be too new.

How much information would you amend to your review? Would it sway you the next time you read a review?  Hmmmm

Trading Privacy for Personalization

I've enjoyed the recent series of posts by IDEO on Fast Company's design site. Their recent article entitled "Why Would Trade Away Your Online Privacy? 6 Case Studies" is a terrific explanation of the trade-off with some relevant examples of companies doing this well. Personalization at most any level requires the input of some information (often provided as behavior at the least, and explicitly provided data at the most) and then we hope there is value in return. Think of a astute sales person who you have done business with over time. And that relationship, whether virtual or personal, establishes trust. To borrow IDEO's succinct explanation:

As people share more, their expectations are evolving from archiving services to personalized services that adapt to them, and even anticipatory services that nudge them in positive ways. This has resulted in services that capture people's history, filter their information, and turn it into tailored recommendations, options, alerts, and connections.

And then provides 4 tenants of trading data for personalization:

1. Make people feel safe
2. Support the moment of decision
3. Nudge, don't push
4. Don't be obtrusive

This list could be lifted from a recent Sales 101 training brochure but is well articulated for use in the online world. Sounds so basic but so difficult to execute, particularly in the online world. The article proceeds to give some great examples of new apps or sites that utilize these tenets to craft a more personalization user experience--mint.com, flickr, Netflix, FoodFlex, and Zumelife.

The web on a Hunch

Great story yesterday on NPR on Caterina Fake, the CEO of Hunch.com. Fake was also recently featured in an article in WIRED.  Hunch's 'decision engine' collects answers to seemingly random questions to help visitors answer their own queries. She states that the average number of questions answered is 120. That's an amazing level of contribution to the collection of data hunch has amassed--for free. And if participants don't give enough info in these 120 responses, the login is through Facebook or Twitter (although Twitter wasn't work when I just tried it.) I imagine that if you got an opportunity to ask someone you had never met 120 questions and poke through their Facebook page, you could infer quite a bit about someone's life!

In any case, it's a provocative business. I'm curious to learn more about their business model.

700 billion minutes a month

Wow, that's over 11 billion hours! What does this time represent, you ask? Amount of time the US population sleeps in a month? Maybe watches TV? Or amount of time Spongebob episodes occupy the airwaves?

No, it is the number of minutes the world population spends on Facebook. Per Month.

This was the most astonishing stat I heard at shop.org last week as stated by Facebook's VP of Global Sales, Mike Murphy.

Assuming that time spent on Facebook is not a measurably productive past-time, that number is a serious drag on the world's GDP. Sure, there is value in creating and maintaining relationships, in many cases over great distances, but there is no economic benefit to reading what friends had for lunch--except maybe to Facebook. Do we really have the time to spend on Facebook given the world's current economic doldrums? Can someone find a way to make that time productive and benefit people and places (other than Facebook employee stock options?)

Shop.org 2010 Annual Summit Summary

Great to attend the shop.org conference in Dallas with about 3000+ of my online colleagues. The broad themes of the conference probably have not changed that much from last year. The difference is learning from some early adopters and success stories of these media while also working on basic blocking and tackling practices to optimize the business as they go. (Here’s the official shop.org summary here and several good blog posts). Themes and thoughts below:

·        Mobile will be huge. No surprise here. Companies are still figuring out how to leverage this new medium while the mobile platforms gain more widespread adoption. Some companies are doing interesting things to integrate phones with loyalty programs at brick and mortar stores to supplement their online relationships. As people get more comfortable doing online transactions, this platform is poised for tremendous growth.

·        Social Media & Community is getting mature. Companies are still working to leverage the strength of their brands in a community environment and also measure results. There was a great keynote featuring high level execs from Groupon and Facebook. Both talked to the hyperlocal geotargeting initiatives they have underway and the power of group think or swarm activities at the grassroots levels.

·        Multichannel is still a good idea but difficult to implement. E-commerce really is Everywhere commerce. Several presentations on how to execute this well (and not so well.) Customer are coming to expect that brands offer multichannel commerce and services and don’t care about how it works on the backend. Many companies are busy revamping infrastructure and accounting practices to accommodate this customer centric-everywhere movement.

·        Personalization was an underlying theme—Certona was the “Diamond level” sponsor. But these companies are still focusing on product recommendations and not the boarder level personalization experience. (Good video preview of the future of shopping.) Really personalization is the expectation of all 3 themes above integrated and relevant to me.

·        Expo-Vendor show—really great concentration of relevant vendors, particularly those in the personalization space (Baynote, Monetate, RichRelevance, Certona, Amadesa) as well as some vendors concentrating on predictive analytics and ‘customer valuation management.’ I expect an onslaught of sales calls.