Browsing without a trail...

Some ruckus this past week about the how the new editions of Chrome and Firefox will include the ability to surf without a trace. No cookies, no clickstream, no IP address. No one would see you come and no one would know after you were gone. Or track you later. Sites would have to ask permission to identify you at entry, follow you onsite and then track your departure. Consumers think this sounds great.  Most don't know that online companies do this (and much more) today already. But governments do (or their younger aides do) and regulation is an election year away.

Most consumers blindly surf away today, 'friend' this, or 'like' that with reckless abandon. Almost 'surfing out loud' for all those to see. How many have Facebook 'friends' they have never met? I bet most do. And how many know that they are monitored throughout their site experience by savvy online marketers. If their site experience is rewarding, most probably don't care. They are getting something in return--a more relevant experience. The site has developed trust with the consumer. (Great overview of the current corporate trust barometer by Edelman PR.) In an online landscape where authenticity is difficult to establish and easy to lose, people are seeing value in trustful relationships (where credibility is cultivated) and cynical when its not (being 'defriended' or following someone disingenuine) and smart sites will attract trust by delivering value in exchange for identity.

I think there is a silver lining here. My prediction is that this anonymous surfing capability will be introduced by most if not all browser companies as self-regulation.  It will probably be an opt-in to block tracking. This will already limit its usage as most consumers are slow to upgrade browsers (how many of you out there on IE7.x?) in addition to those who won't or can't figure out how to opt-out. And larger online companies will sharpen their opt-in experiences by forcing authentication or log-in and messaging their enhanced site experience for those who identify themselves. That's where personalization comes in. Ever shopped on Amazon without logging in? It's OK but not great. If the site can deliver the goods--a more personalized experience--people will trust them. They will say, "I'll let you know more about me if you reward me for it." Good sites will. Bad sites will become strictly transactional, one-size-fits-all, one and done shopping sites.  It will be haves and have nots. Gated communities and open neighborhoods.

Privacy regulation could be the best thing that happens to personalization in the near future. Let's watch and see. 

The secret sauce of Pandora

Pandora has been a trailblazer in collaborative filtering and the ability to help music fans listen and discover music combed from their Music Genome Project. Fast Company has a great article this month to give a view behind the scene of Pandora including a video interview with their Founder, Tim Westergren. Here's the video:

What I like about the video is his acknowledgement that the secret isn't the matching algorithm that powers the music suggesting service, its the people who categorize the music. And the enormous effort that it takes. The video snippets of scores of people sitting at long tables ostensibly listening and categorizing music was a little sweat shop like...albeit one of many music lovers who are selectively screened for their musical knowledge and ability to discern musical genres.

This was doubt meant to be a favorable article for Pandora, it didn't acknowledge how Apple's iPhone and itunes saved Pandora by providing a scalable revenue stream to them. Pandora rounded the corner from good idea stage to personalization stalwart when Apple signed the deal to allow Pandora listeners to download songs heard for a cut of revenue from each download. The success of the iPhone pulled Pandora along for the ride to the good fortune of all of us. 

Personalizing the Car

As noted in a previous post, I recently acquired a gently used car. It is a '08 Honda Civic Hybrid and came with their navigation system. The "Nav" as Honda likes to call it, is a screen in the middle of the dash that provides GPS service and is the display for the audio system. This the trend these days on new cars, gives the car a personality, and provides the driver and passenger a richer engagement experience. Sounds good, in theory.... As you can see from the picture, the screen is lined with identical buttons with cryptic labels. If I need to keep my eyes on the road, I better know which button does what pretty damn well. This is the least of it's problems. (Would love to play around with Ford's new Sync system. Mark my words: every car will have something like this by 2013 models.)

The GPS map service is powered off a DVD and satellite service and works competently--it displays where I am relative to my surroundings. I can zoom in and out to different scale although the map looks a little cartoonish with jagged lines for most streets. My favorite worthless setting is the far out zoon with scale of 350 miles per centimeter of screen. This places me in North America on a screen showing the western hemisphere. Not very helpful for driving around town. I've never figured out (actually taken the time) to learn how to have the car talk to me and guide me to my destination. The manual is about 1 inch thick.

The audio system's UI is a nightmare. The 'designer' of the UI must have been an engineer who has never designed a user interface, driven a car or listened to music much less done two of these three at the same time. The primary interface shows the radio station, the assigned shortcut button, and then two large touchscreen buttons to choose the background of the screen or assign the station memory preset buttons. The reset button touchscreen option seeks the local stations and then assigns them to your preset buttons that line the bottom of the screen. Great, except that you are likely to do that once. Why would you do this often if you like the stations you've selected. Stations and tastes don't change that often? But that button is always there. And if you accidentally touch it, it will reset all your stations and there is no way to stop it. A painful inconvenience to reset them all and reassign each of the six presets. The music background lets you choose a equalizer background or a watter ripple that moves to the tone of the music--sounds cooler than it is. It is a black and white screen and lacks any sense of excitement.

The point is, why was this interface allowed to launch this way?! Here's a $1000 option with a terrible user experience. The product manager for this devise should be forced to reset every owner's radio preset buttons everyday for life. And, wouldn't it be great if Honda let you choose the skin of your Nav or at least refreshed it if you bought a new DVD (about $200 at your local dealership) to right this UI injustice? If anyone knows a hack to do this, I would be forever in your debt. 

I am my Cart

Great article in the New York Times Sunday magazine My Cart, My Self about what the personalization features of Amazon, Netflix, Pandora and the like say about knowing one's self. The author laments that some of the recommendations are uncanny and some are crazy. He states "The only thing worse than being misperceived by a machine is being expertly perceived by one." 

As product recommendation engines become better and power more content, they are every-hungry for the slightest behavior or inclination that could indicate a preference, bias, or proclivity to like something. That may work great in a vacuum when it is action and response but most people's lives are a little more complicated than that. As the author explains, he shares the account with his girlfriend and manages the Netflix family account which further muddies his eclectic taste in film 

What annoys me about the recommendation “engines” that drive e-commerce nowadays is their denial that I possess free will, or at least their denial that I often exercise it. I’m told that the programs rely on algorithms that mimic the workings of my cultural intellect, which must mean that I’m an algorithm, too. I’m not, though. I’m a complicated oddball, eccentric, eclectic and erratic — prized traits now reduced to irritable rejection of ubiquitous recommendations on my e-commerce sites.

As consumers move beyond the delight of relevant recommendations and start to notice the near and far misses, how will recommendation product engines react? Amazon has a nice treatment in its account management portal to allow consumers to review past purchases and declare whether a previous item was a gift (and therefore not relevant to personal tastes) or simply not to consider the purchase in future recommendations. This is a great feature I've used to view my 13+ years of purchases (like a time capsule of retailing!) but Amazon does nothing to promote this capability to the masses. Maybe because they don't want people to try to battle the algorithm. It will be interesting to watch Amazon's decision to communicate this capability to the public and decide that consumers are ready to guide their own recommendations or continue to be a victim of it. And of course it only works on purchases and not browsed items. You'll still get the recommendations on site and through email on that item you looked at once passively or researched but had no intent on buying.

Tell me what I'm getting before you bill me

I bought a gently used car this past summer with the tricked out navigation system and ability to receive satellite radio. I spent about an hour a day in my car on my typical round trip commute and happy with NPR, the radio or my iphone for audio company. One day not too long ago, I noticed while cycling through my audio options that XM radio was enabled. I had not asked to activate it but thought 'Hey, I'm getting something for free!" Had I stumbled into one of those consumer utopian moments when you receive a subscriber based service for free? (Sort of like free HBO!) Don't ask, don't tell and hope that it continues.

I haven't spent much time in a car that receives satellite radio so I had to explore the selection of this service. I didn't have a program guide so the trial error was  hitting the next button and then trying to decide if I liked the current song playing or could interpret something from the name of the station (cryptic  titles like 'The Loft' or 'Willie's Place', the genre (Rock, Hip Hop, Country, etc.) and then the name of the song and artist. Was this station worthy of getting a button assignment on my radio? Very trial and error. I suppose I could have gone to XMradio.com and found the guide but I managed to find a half dozen stations I liked and was content.

So, you see what's coming. I got a bill for the next 3 months of satellite radio service from XM the other day. I had been enjoying a 60 day free trial. I was disappointed. Slightly angry that my 'free' service was just a trial and now the gig was up. I would have savored it more if I knew it had a life span!

So, companies out there who operate off the subscriber or freemium model, follow these guidelines for happier participants and likely a higher sign up rate:

1. Tell people up front! Don't let them stumble into it. Consumers like knowing what they get.
2. Tell them what they are getting and how to get the most from it! I spent a lot of time educating myself on the service and where to find music I liked. And there were likely other stations I would have enjoyed that would have endeared the service even more. 
3. Remind me what I'm getting during the trial period! Check in with me. Am I liking it? Did I try this feature? And create some urgency to sign up.
4. Then, bill me. Offer me something compelling to continue the service. 
5. And don't forget to check on me. Nurture me. Make me consistently happy. This is probably the most important step companies forget. 

It would work. It does work. And I'm back to NPR.

Why are we not shocked?

Today The Wall Street Journal published an article stating that Google preferenced results in Google's favor when it offered a service that matched the visitor's query. For example, if a user searched for a cloud based email service, Google Mail will be listed first. Hello?! Any search engine worth its weight in pixels preferences results in favor of the provider or product margin or affiliate bias--you name it. Why should Google, the most sophisticated search engine on the planet do that differently? And not just do it different, likely better than most.

It is probably no secret that search-based web services --auction sites, online travel sites, sales bots, etc-- all have rules running in the background which push favored results toward the top. In my experience working in online travel agency (OTA), when search results were returned for a flight there is often price parity in the results. OTAs are traditionally compensated most by airlines and hoteliers with minor contributions from purchases and service fees. And airlines, for example, offer OTAs volume incentives for selling X number of flights per route per month and get $Y in compensation. So if there are 4 airlines offering flights from Dallas to Houston at $139, you better believe they are going to list the airline first with the best incentive terms since most customers click on the first result. (Wait until Google launches its own travel site powered by ITA in 2011!)

The article concludes intimating that the EU sees this as suspect antitrust. I don't think there is much of a claim as their are alternatives in the marketplace and that this is a common practice in the online industry. If white hat companies were getting excluded from results, then there are problems. Otherwise, Google is rightfully featuring its services and will continue to reap the harvest of providing the leading search service. Get used to being pushed down the list, folks.

Is this better or is this?

A modern day scenario in desperate need of personalization: I took my wife to the optomitrist this past weekend. We've gone to this doctor/storefront for a number of years because they have a great selection of frames. The process of getting lenses (is this good or is this better?) with one's doctor hasn't substantively changed in decades. Nor has the process of selecting a new eyeglass frame with prescription in hand. Many years ago, I went frame shopping with a girlfriend (way before I met my wife) who couldn't understand why I had to try on so many frames to find the 'perfect' one. She had never worn glasses. I told her that if she had to wear the same shirt everyday, she would spend some time making the selection as well. She nodded, rolled her eyes and wandered away to shop for something else.

So back to trying on eyeglasses... The process starts with just scanning frame candidates, trying them on, and looking in a mirror. Never mind if you are terribly near or far sighted and can't see yourself clearly in a mirror without your prescription glasses. Tedious, at best.

Wouldn't it be great to introduce some modern day personalized technology to this process? Could I upload my straight on head shot to screen with some basic measurements (space between eyes, etc.) and then have the frames appear on my face. I could spin through multiple frames a minute and see how I would look. Then narrow it down to a handful to actually try in front of a mirror to check for fit and proportion. This would be great in a storefront or even better on a website. Somebody make this happen, please!