The Bright Lights of Google, Trapping Us Like Fireflies

Why is GooglePlus so much fun right now?

The answer’s a lot simpler than the ex-Twitterati would have you believe

It's the old rats and the water bottle in the cage trick: every time we leave it alone for an hour or two, we come back and it's got that red notification light blinking.  Holy cow, someone wants to circle me. Someone commented on my post. Someone else commented on my friend's post. Someone found a Twttter/Facebook add-on for Chrome that really works.

And it's all there brothers and sisters, if you keep the faith and push the little red button.  That's how Twitter first became addictive.

And so it was with  Facebook too. Used to be every time we logged in there was some new piece of news that greeted us. "Fire up those endorphins captain, there's another @ message coming in! And look! Carl from middle school wants to be friends again!"

Right now those places are a little too overrun with strangers and random friends respectively. That takes much of the fun out of the experiences and creates the perfect storm for imaginary Seinfeldian dramas, the kind that convince you not to post that you accidentally closed the door on the cat and how funny his reaction was lest you become a lightening rod for outraged animal lovers who don't find it, or your reaction, the least bit humorous.

Or worse, you start to post pictures to Facebook about the rocking time you're having at the ball game, and stop because you're pretty sure that the guy down the street, whose wife is Facebook friends with your wife, had tried to pass off opera tickets on you for tonight and you can't really remember what sort of excuse you gave him.

GooglePlus will face those kinds of issues soon enough. But not yet. Right now it's just an amusement park full of shiny red lights, rolling circles and ever increasing numbers, so we're all busy coming back to see just what we've won  today.     

The Feel-Good Social Web

Like many women of her generation, my grandmother was a good cook. She mostly prepared the recipes her Hungarian mother had passed down to her, but the food was good enough that I was soon bugging her to teach me how to prepare it.

Like most home cooks, she never actually measured anything. You put in “enough water to cover it”, “a couple of pinches” of salt or paprika and it wasn’t unusual to rely on some pre-made American staple (breadcrumbs comes to mind) as a base.

And so I learned to cook. I mostly created my own recipes based on what I liked to eat. There were never any exact measurements and I usually based whatever I made on whatever I happened to have in the house. My friends seemed to like what I made them, and, more importantly, I enjoyed doing it.

Then, about fifteen years ago, I started to run into people who called themselves “foodies.” They’d ask me questions I didn’t have the answers to, like what farm the cheese I used was from or did I know what type of mushrooms I had in the salad. They had “celebrity” chefs they followed and seemed to make frequent use of their catchphrases. 

They made cooking seem a whole lot less fun.

I bring this up, not to slam pretentious foodies (although that’s certainly apt) but because it feels a lot like the current state of the social web. Where lots of self-appointed authorities are telling people the “right” and “wrong” ways to use the new GooglePlus platform and getting all in a huff if they don’t listen.

They make GooglePlus seem like a whole lot less fun.

One of the best things about social networks is that I can make groups/lists/circles of just about anything I want and no one will be any the wiser. So I can have a circle of “People With Funny Looking Noses” or “People With Red Hair” and amuse myself by trying to find patterns in their conversations. It’s completely pointless, but that’s one of the great joys of life: the ability to do something pointless just because it’s fun. And there are plenty of other ways to do that on GooglePlus or any other social network. It's one of the reasons they're so addictive.

As for GooglePlus, the platform is still a work-in-progress, they've announced they're weeks if not months away from introducing a platform for brands, but that hasn’t stopped the flow of SEO-friendly blog posts on “10 Best Practices for Brands on Google Plus!!!”

A curious statement to make, but one that the ecosystem seems to support. (They wouldn't be writing them if other people weren't reading them.)


What's most fascinating to me about GooglePlus is something wisely noted by Frederic Lardinois, writing on SiliconFilter: GooglePlus is a planned platform - it’s supposed to be a global social network 


That's something YouTube, Facebook and Twitter were not. 


But human behavior is not all that easily planned and if previous social networks are any indicator, users quickly adopt behavior that’s markedly different than what the platform's builders had planned. Then mainstream users come along and start using the platform is ways that are markedly different than the early adopter crowd. (e.g. why your mom and her friends make lunch plans by posting on each other’s Facebook walls.)

What’s needed now is a lot less prognostication and a lot more observation. Let people figure out their own best way to use the platform. Before anyone starts telling them they’re doing it the wrong way.

Google Plus: The Anti Twitter

Privacy advocates have gotten Facebook users attuned to the idea that not everything should be shared with everyone. So many, if not most, Facebookers have changed their default settings to ensure that their birthday party photos are shared with their friend list rather than the (default) entire world and some have even gone the extra step of creating distinct groups of work contacts, family members and the like.

It is this desire to only share certain things with certain people appears to be one of the main drivers behind the new Google Plus

Which makes it not the anti-Facebook, but the anti-Twitter.

Because Twitter is all about sharing everything with everyone. Particularly people who don’t know you. At all. Which is one of the things that causes certain people to have such a visceral reaction to Twitter: this notion that someone would give up all notions of privacy willingly, rather than because of an easily-corrected flaw in the technology.

Now the good news for Google and Twitter is that there is likely room for both. Right now use of the various platforms is largely based on one’s degree of tech savviness and willingness to be an early adopter. But as these social platforms become even more ubiquitous, I think we’re going to start selecting them based on what fits with our own personalities.

This often overlooked fact - that we are unique beings who feel more comfortable in some situations than others - is going to be a big factor in the future of social platforms. People will start to spend more and more time on the platform that best conforms with their sense of how much a person should share with the outside world. And it seems as if there will be a continuum, with Twitter and Google Plus each grabbing one side of the privacy line and Facebook in the middle.

I’m not seeing an either/or situation: plenty of people will be active on all three. But like the old chocolate, vanilla or strawberry ice cream dilemma, they’ll always have a favorite among the three.

A Few Words From Our Sponsor

Tell most brands that their users are looking for "content" and their eyes light up at the prospect of being able to once again send out "push" messages, because to them "content" clearly means "all that stuff we want to tell consumers but can't because we're supposed to be having 'conversations' with them." (Today's euphemism for that is "storytelling" as in "we've got a story we want to tell you... regardless of whether you actually want to hear it.")

The savvy strategist will guide them past this momentary lapse and explain that by "content" they mean something the consumer can actually make use of, something that their broader audience is actually interested in learning about, often in a PBS/Bravo kind of way.

At which point the brand will inevitably turn to Senior Vice President X, who was part of the team that invented the nuclear widget, the greatest advance in widgetology since 1983.

Which is, in and of itself, not a bad idea, since people really do want to hear from Ms. X. The problem though, is the Ms. X is a brilliant engineer and a horrible writer.

As are most business executives. This is not intended as a slam on executives, but snazzy, journalistic style writing is no more a trait needed for success in business than the ability to run triathlons.

So what to do?

The obvious answer is one too many brands miss out on, primarily because it involves spending money (and everyone knows that social media is free!) And that answer is to hire a journalist - there are certainly a multitude of out-of-work ones-- and have said journalist put Vice President X's words into sparkling prose.

Now this is something that PR agencies often claim to be able to do, but they have self-interest - they're an outside vendor, and the journalist should ideally be working directly for the brand, interviewing staffers, becoming intimately familiar with the industry and, above all, creating "content" - stories and videos - that are (at minimum) as good as what's being put out by the industry trade magazines.

But that's not the hard part: brands have been hiring out of work journalists for decades. The trick is to take those articles and videos and put them out there in a way that gets the broader community talking about them. They should be conversation starters, not conversation hoggers. Get people talking about a topic, but give the community members, the people who really care about the topic, a forum to express their views and opinions.

Because Senior Vice President X, she's already famous. She's not looking to make her mark on the world. But all all those people who spend an hour or so a day on the message boards? They're still looking for a way in. And if you give them something to talk about, something that lets them show off their ideas and thinking, you've done a whole lot of storytelling.

It's their story, of course, not yours, but I don't think that's really a problem.

Try it.

The Lemmings Are Back! (And This Time They've Got QR Codes With Them!)

Marketers and Bright Shiny Objects. You’d think at some point the attraction would fade. But it only seems to intensify over time. Having just abandoned their domain sites for Facebook, marketers are busy slapping QR codes on every square inch of white space in their offline arsenal – print, outdoor, DM, in-store handouts, kiosk screens-- you name it, it's got a QR code on it.

And once again, we are all left wondering just WTF they are thinking.

I have yet to see anyone “in the wild” actually using a QR code, and a quick (and decidedly unscientific) polling of Twitter reveals I am not alone. It’s not too hard to figure out why: it’s not an easy thing to do.

To begin with, you need a QR code reader app on your smartphone. Lots of people still don’t have smartphones. And of the people who do, I’d venture to say the majority have never heard of a QR reader or know that it’s needed to read that funny hieroglyphic thing in the ad.

But let’s take the small subset of people who actually do know that QR readers exist and the even smaller subset of people who have actually bothered to download one.

The apps are not particularly intuitive. And snapping the photo is not all that easy. QR codes are sort of square, smartphone screens are pretty rectangular. So there’s a whole lot of adjusting to do to make sure you have the hieroglyph properly in view and once you’ve nailed that part, you still have to make sure you’re holding the phone steady enough to snap a clear picture and that there aren’t shadows from the overhead lights or anything mucking it up.

Let’s just say you’ve managed to figure all that out and have the actual QR code on your phone. And that you have a working 3G or WiFi connection. And that you actually get to where the QR code is going to take you.

Cool! It’s the brand website! And you can watch their TV commercial on it! At full 3G download speed! Then you can download a PDF of their latest brochure and figure out what program on your phone you can open it with! Fun!

So there you have it: a whole lot of work for a seriously disappointing payoff.

And the ability to say “Yeah, we tested using QR codes back in ’11. They don’t work.” without ever questioning why.

NB: I get that QR codes have the potential to be a very successful tactic, and that there are already case studies on how well they’ve worked. It’s the “we need one of these QR things now” way they’re being implemented, without thinking through any of the implications, that’s the problem.   

Media Blitz Continues: DigiDay Daily

A Word In Defense Of Social Media Gurus

Last week, I stumbled upon the latest blog post urging right-minded people to take up cudgels against the evil caste of "social media gurus" infecting the land. The ironic part is these posts are often written by people whose main expertise lies in social media. This is more of a sales pitch than argument: hire the author and you too can be saved.

 

But to paraphrase the old Garrett Morris skit, “Where are these social media gurus? I want some names! I want some phone numbers!” I’ve never actually met one. That is kind of odd, given that my job is to provide strategic advice to companies that are purchasing one of the social media or social video solutions my company sells. We’re primarily a software company. I generally get to meet everyone involved in the decision making process, either before, during or after the decision is actually made.

 

Most of the people I meet with are either in marketing or at the C-level. They generally have an idea that they should be doing more with social media than they currently are and some may even have a plan in mind. Sometimes the plan makes sense, other times it’s overly ambitious. But the problem, if there is one, has never involved a Rasputin-like “social media guru” bewitching the company into spending their entire marketing budget on tweeting recycled press releases. (It does make for some pretty funny material for an XtraNormal video.)

 

The problem, rather, is exactly what you’d think it’d be: Companies want a social media presence. They just don’t want to incur the costs and make the necessary infrastructure changes. Call it fear of commitment.

 

We also forget just how many companies are locked inside an IT version of North Korea. They don’t have Windows or Mac, they have a “packaged proprietary interface” that gives them a choice between icons marked “email” “word processing” and “calendar.” If they actually do get an “Internet” icon to click, it’s a strictly moderated version of IE6 that allows users to visit a handful of (mostly work-related) sites.

READ THE REST ON DIGIDAY.COM

BeanCast Again: Harder Drugs Like Facebook

The title of this episode comes from my reference to LinkedIn as the "gateway drug of social media" during a discussion of their recent IPO.

For that and more, listen to the most recent episode of the always excellent BeanCast podcast, with host Bob Knorpp, me, Joe Jaffe, Bill Green and Matt McDermott.

LINKS BELOW:

LISTEN TO THE SHOW NOW OR SUBSCRIBE FOR AUTODOWNLOADING

GUESTS

Bill Green. Creative Strategist, BFG Communications (Read MTLB and listen to AdVerve)

Joseph Jaffe, Author/Speaker/Entrepreneur (Find out more at JaffeJuice and listen to Joe with Mitch Joel)

Matt McDermott, Copywriter, ADG Creative

Alan Wolk, Managing Director of Social Media Strategy, KickApps

TOPICS

The LinkedIn IPO

• Washington Post Examines the Offering
• NYT Reports on the Doubled Share Price
• Ad Age Warns of a Bubble

Netflix Traffic Volume

• Washington Post Reports

Facebook Phototagging For Brands

• Fast Company Reports

Tablets Beating Phones for e-Commerce

• Mobile Commerce Daily Reports

The Call to Kill Ronald

• Chicago Tribune Reports on the Legal Moves

STORIES TO WATCH

• Apple's Enterprise Penetration
• The Upfronts
•  What Happens Next With Oprah
• Viacom vs. Time Warner
• Bing Adding Facebook Recommendations

Dotting the I's and Crossing the T's

So last week I took the kids to the American Museum of Natural History and was happy to find a link on their website to their new iPhone app.

I downloaded it and was impressed by how well-designed it was and the functionality it offered: it would locate exactly where you were in the museum and take you on a guided tour or give you step-by-step instructions on how to get to a particular exhibit. (For those who haven't been, the Museum of Natural History is extremely labyrinthine.)

One problem though: While we were at the museum, I opened the app about 8 different times from 8 different locations within the museum. It did not once register where we were or even attempt a guess - it just told me it could not locate me.

As frequent readers know, apps that count on the fairly unreliable GPS systems of American smartphones are one of my shibboleths.

So why didn't the Museum of Natural History think to test this out?

Did they consider installing WiFi of some sort in the museum so people could actually use the app? If it had worked once, I'd have given them a pass and figured there was just a lot of traffic in the museum that day. And it did prove very useful when I asked for directions from the main entrance to the Easter Island statue-- I've been to the museum enough times that I had a good idea of where I was in relation to the main entrance-- and it provided excellent step-by-step directions. So I couldn't help but think how great the app would be once the GPS tracking actually worked.

Everything is great until it isn't. Products need to work in reality, not just in theory. And OPT (other people's technology) is one of the things you always need to factor in the equation.

(NB: FWIW, I have a Verizon iPhone 4 - in the inner depths of the thick-walled museum, I was getting one or two bars at most.)

UPDATE: One of my co-workers told me that he had a similar experience with the app, only to discover the museum's free WiFi network by happenstance and that the app worked perfectly once he'd logged in. BUT: There are no signs at the museum informing you that there is a free WiFi network and the app, the most logical place to let users know about it, is similarly mum.