Say what you want about the copyright infringement issues, Mattel still missed the boat. Think about your own business. Are there tech communities in which your product/service could do well but you’re hesitating because you’re unsure or uptight? Could someone else compete with you in those spaces if you wait too long? How much will the damage to your reputation cost if you allow someone else to deliver your product better?

Think about it while you jam to this ditty.

Scrabulous

I’ll post the slides and notes a bit later. Hope to see some of you there!

• What is a virtual world? what definition works best to aid research? Is it different than a virtual environment?
• How does the ability to see others’ friends list change our perception of them? How is that perception different in a space where we can’t who someone is friends with?
• How can identity formation mechanics be made interoperable? Should they?
• How is the style/goal of the world or environment tied to expected avatar behavior (ex. Miis with guns?)?
• What are the trust implications of communication in multiple virtual spaces? (ex. Do I trust someone more who I know in SL and on Twitter?)
• Are social networks virtual worlds?
• Identity: does more information = more trust, does more or less choice allow for more succinct identities?
• Are we more or less immersed in spaces where we have more choices in identity formation?
• Does less identity = less immersion?
• Does greater choice in identity formation result in more accurate identity portrayal? more trust worthy identity?
• How would MUVEs and MMORPGs be changed if more SNS mechanics were added to them?
• What influences greater number of friends in an MMORPG/MUVE? mechanics of friendship? purpose or advantage of friendship? personality expression?
• Do SL or FB users have more friends? How does introversion or extroversion influence number of friends in each space?
• Is FB a more powerful social network because it can incorporate multiple identities and connections? Pull info from other spaces?
• Do we “know” people more if we”know” more than one of their online identities? If one of those identities is a SNS rather than a MUVE or MMORPG?
• How do we verify someone’s identity? What info do we need to feel that we know who they are?

These are pretty disorganized but you probably get the drift of where the ideas are going. I haven’t had a chance to think through any one of them to the point of satisfaction but Mark and I have been wrestling with the definition of virtual world because we just don’t feel that the definitions offered by others are prepared to deal with the multitude of spaces that are popping up online. So far we think that a virtual world is one in which:

• the world goes on whether you’re logged in or not; you can’t pause the world
• digital
• hosted remotely
• capacity more multi-user
• users are represented by some kind of avatar, identity that they create (even if it’s text-based or very limited in construction)

What would you add? Would you take anything away?

According to the Facebook blog:

“Engaging with businesses and buying things are part of your everyday life. Advertising doesn’t have to be about interrupting what you’re doing, but getting the right information about the purchases you make when you want it. We believe we’ve created a system where ads are more relevant and actually enhance Facebook. “

This is radical thinking in the world of marketing and advertising. But before I explain why let me give you a little case study/example of how this will work.

Bob has a Facebook profile and adds an application for, say, Amazon. Every time Bob adds a book to his wish list on Amazon an item goes into his News Feed announcing “Bob just added Brain Surgery for Dummies to his Wishlist” and all of his friends are notified. When they click on the feed they’re connected to Bob’s page and then to Amazon to see the book and are offered a discount on the book because they arrived through Bob’s recommendation. (Please note that not all Facebook advertisers will be offering discounts etc. but it would be nice!) Maybe Bob gets a nickel off his next order for every friend who purchased one of his recommended books.

It’s a pretty straight forward recommendation advertising scheme already in use on lots of sites. But here’s the kicker. There’s a difference between going to Amazon, for example, and clicking on “What my friends are buying” and having that same information delivered to you in another space, your social network.

There are a couple big ideas in play here:

1. The power of recommendations: We all know that we’re more likely to buy something recommended to us by a friend than based on advertising but I think it’s interesting to ponder the responsibility associated with recommending a product. How many times have you told a friend “Oh, man! That movie was so great! You HAVE to see it!”? They then see the movie and tell you “OMG! That movie sucked! I thought you had good taste!” The result? You stop recommending movies to your friend. Offering recommendations reflects not just on the product, but on the person offering the recommendation as well as on the person receiving it. “You thought I’d like that sweater?! Do you even know me?!”

2. Context of ads: It’s all about context. There’s a huge difference between someone shoving a coupon in your face as you walk down the street and the cashier saying “Did you know there’s a coupon for this? I think I have an extra one here. You’ll save a dollar.” In the first case the ad is unwelcome, even if it is for a product you’re interested in. In the second, you’re already interested in the product and you welcome the coupon. In another example, if your friend called you every day to tell you what he bought last night at Target you’d probably get annoyed. But if you were at Target and you could see a hover over products that said “Your friend Bob loves this soap!” you’d probably be grateful (or at least understand why Bob smells like Lavender and Honey all the time). Context determines whether an ad is welcome and helpful or annoying and obtrusive. The question is are ads from friends on Facebook welcome or intrusive?

I have to conclude that the level of intrusion and the power of the recommendation depends on who the friend is and how often they shove recommendations in your face. So, will you be a Facebook ad-whore or will you reject them and reject the friends who use them? Will you be able to ignore the ads like you would a sidebar ad or a banner ad? Do you think this kind of advertising is useful? powerful?

This will be huge! Why? Because it makes Facebook more powerful and more of a “one stop shop” for communicating with contacts. Most social web 2.0 sites would like to create a platform that you’d never leave, where everything you want to see or know is delivered right to you (along with ads and other revenue generating tools). Giving us the mechanics to manage multiple identities in one spot prevents us from leaving FB to go to another site to communicate with people associated with another facet of our lives. So smart!

The downside is that sorting like this might change the way some recently added apps will work. I’m sure we’ll see some quick “version 2.0″ adjustments made to apps that send info to friends to accommodate choosing which groups of friends see the updates you add to your profile.

What Social Networks can learn:
Be straightforward and transparent: Tell users what you’re going to do with any information they provide on the site. Be clear about policies and procedures. Don’t bury details in a hard-to-read TOS and expect people to find them.
Take criticism: Apologize when your site or your staff do things that make users upset and STOP the practice immediately. A bug shouldn’t function for a minute more than you know about it. Take your site down if you have to but don’t let a bad idea or a mistake become a PR nightmare.
The only invites should be personal invites: Online trust relationships are difficult to establish at best whether they’re between people or between users and a site. Automated invites are meaningless. Don’t send an invite to a user’s contact unless the user has been asked (or at least allowed) to send a personal message along with the invitation.

What Social Network users can learn:
Research a site before you join: Unless the invite you receive is personalized assume it’s spam and check up on the site, send an email to the person who invited you, and do a quick search for stories related to the site.
Screw-ups happen: The internet moves fast. Great ideas can spread just as fast as bad ideas. A few years ago email viruses were the big thing. I don’t know anyone who didn’t become a victim of at least one.  I felt horrible every time I received an email from a friend who said they became victim of the Quechup mess when they signed up because the invitation came from me, someone they thought was on top of all of this. Surely, if I invited them it must be a worthwhile site. Each email made me want to club further and further under my desk. Then I realized “Hey! Crap happens” I sent out as many apology messages as I could and tried to let as many people know that they should disregard the invite.
Networks are migratory: Though you may build your network on one site, if a majority of the network moves somewhere else you might follow. Some members of your network might function like scouts, going out to find the new spaces, and report back to the collective about what’s out there. I’m proud to be such a scout but there is responsibility attached to that function. I think I failed in that this time by allowing myself to be tricked by a bad site. Se la vie! We live. We learn.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m certainly not claiming that I followed this advice when I made the mistake of signing up but I’ve always believed the only bad experience is the one we don’t learn from. What insight do you take away from this mess?

First, let me say. Robert…Mr. Scoble…you’ve been under a lot of heat lately. I don’t want to add to that. You’ve been extremely graceful while under fire. BUT! Wow, do you miss the mark with your latest Kyte video about the “blog of the future.” Let me tell you why.

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If you don’t have time to watch the video, here’s the lowdown. Scoble says that blogs have become cluttered with ads, widgets, sidebar calendars etc. Lots of elements that take attention away from the central content of the blog. Up to this point I agree with Scoble. Then he goes TOTALLY AWRY!

Scoble suggests a blog interface where all of the sidebar bits (Facebook links, Twitter widgets etc) are relegated to “books” that zoom in and out similar to CoverFlow.

If you’ve never seen Coverflow, it looks like this:

How pretty! How very Iphone! How very useless and against the whole concept of a blog! Who are blogs for? Are they for the blogger or the reader? What Scoble describes is the ultimate personal homepage. I’d love to be able to see all my daily goodies on one easy-to-navigate page but this is not a blog. A blog faces outward to an audience. It should be easy to read, easy to navigate, and the text shouldn’t be buried in some snazzy Flash interface. My blog page isn’t perfect; there’s some junk on it but the purpose behind everything on it is to help the reader, not help me.

I know Scoble is brainstorming here and I think he has some good points but not to apply to blogs. I agree with him about the need for simplicity on the page so the content is featured but that’s about where the agreement stops. A blog should be simple, uncluttered and created solely with the reader/audience in mind.

Is it egotistical to think that readers are really dying to see your Facebook profile so easily? Or that they’re dying to be able to see your Flickr page without leaving your blog? There’s nothing wrong with linking to other iterations of your identity to allow your readers t find out more about you. Doing so contributes to your ethos and your trustworthiness but it should be subtle. Not “in your face.”

Blogs are not personal homepages. If we’re going to redefine how a blog would work best we need to keep two things in mind: 1) easy to write 2) easy to read. That’s it.

Back to the whiteboard, Scoble. Give it another shot.

Sincerely,

Intellagirl

Give it a try and come back to tell us all what you think.