Personalizing the web will make us stupider

Facebook has taken the web-swallowing step of adding a personalization platform, Open Graph, to as much of the web as will allow it. This means ads and content will be targeted according to your Facebook profile.

Yikes. The web shouldn’t be personalized for me. Here’s why:

1. My interests don’t encompass everything important that happens. The news is what is new and valuable for me to know to understand the world, but I’m not the best judge of that, nor are my Facebook interests a predictor of it. I prefer to rely on the professional judgment of news directors, editors, and journalists to make sure I know what’s up across the globe, not just in my narrow band of interest.

2. I keep very limited info on Facebook out of privacy concerns, and what is there may not reflect my real interests. I might fan a page because it belongs to a friend and I want to support them, or because I’m trying to win a contest.

3. Part of what I’m doing on the web is looking for new things I don’t know I want to find. Serendipity, syntopic analysis, and random discovery make you smarter. Finding more of the same, however novel, doesn’t.

4. I don’t want my biases confirmed or my stereotypes perpetuated. Feeding me what I like surrounds me with people who think like I do, talk like I do, and know what I know. The more insular our thinking and the fewer challenges presented to it, the more homogenous, boring, and satisfied we become. That’s not who I want to be.

5. My friends aren’t that bright either. (Just kidding, guys). Privileging news on CNN, for instance, that amused or captivated one of my friends would work if I was 14, but I’m an adult with a broad range of acquaintanceships. Their interests aren’t any better a source for my daily news than my own; neither would their shopping habits or music tastes necessarily suit me.

6. It impacts the fun I have on Facebook. I’m increasingly nervous about the things I post there. I lock down as much as I can, and think twice before private messaging anything I don’t want to accidentally show up on my wall due to some “glitch”. Now I have to consider the ramifications of listing a favourite book, as the tentacles of my professed liking spread throughout the web and potentially affect everthing I see and read thereafter. Holy pressure = a lot less fun.

Marketing in the age of unprivacy

Old school marketing, you’re so effed.

The motivations that used to work on people have to be acknowledged on some level, however subconscious, to inspire action. But what if we can’t admit our wants and desires because we’re afraid they’ll be catalogued and later exposed?

Let’s look at fear and the need to belong. The fear that you won’t belong, tribalism. Conformity. That’s the force behind a lot of product marketing: deodorant, makeup, toothpaste.

Wanna fit in? Sure we do. And oral freshness is key! So here’s a YouTube ad (or “promoted video”) that’s supposed to light up our social acceptance sensors and inspire a click.

We’re talking about some intrinsic psychological factors here. Second from the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, is, you guessed it, self-esteem, confidence and mutual respect. All of which perishes in the face of stinky breath. It’s practically vital that we check out this video and discover if we’re going to be outcasted social pariahs or what.

BUT…what if we were scared to? What if everyone found out we clicked that link? What if Google, who is totally writing this stuff down, spilled the beans and let the world know we’re stinky breath checkers?

Isn’t that more embarrassing than the problem it’s supposed to be solving (which might or might not exist)?

The motivation to fit in by not getting caught clicking embarrassing videos is actually stronger than the motivation to fit in by being Scopey-fresh. We’re pretty sure our breath is ok. But we have no idea what’s going to leak out of “secure” places next.

Who wants to own their insecurities? Ick!

This kind of exposure of our base intincts interferes with persuasion. It might be paranoia, but if the perception exists that my attention is being monitored, I’m not going to click.

Adventures in Locationland

Zomg, my husband finally got a new iPhone, so we can go GPS crazy! I’ve got an experiment all lined up for us.

In my generalized paranoia over personal #privacy, I thought I’d just run screaming in the other direction and force myself into exposure therapy with some location-aware mobile technology.

2010 is the Year of The Mobile, dontcha know. There’s been a lot of buzz about using the data that’s lying all over the place to make life more interesting, exploiting social networking to have more fun IRL, marketing to people in context, and coming to terms with never, ever being off the grid again.

That all sounds neat, so I fired up the ole’ App Store and downloaded me Where the Flock. This app does one thing: let you and whoever you authorize see where each other are on a Google map.

As I’m not a bar-hopping teenager, the only person whose whereabouts concern me on a regular basis are my husband‘s, so I installed the app and invited him to share. Would he think this coolio idea was convenient or creepy? I was like Hey, if this is too privacy-invasive, we can uninstall, man.

But he totally got it. Just as text messaging was a boon to those who’s lives are too time-sensitive to bear the pleasantries associated with a phone call, now no one has to be bothered answering the question “Are you still at work?”

The app not only shows you where your previously uncharted spouse is, it tells you how fast they’re moving. This is, in theory, so you know if they’re driving, stuck in traffic, ambling along procrastinatorily, or speeding (which I assume is reported instantly to the police. I hope I’m kidding). The practical result I can see of broadcasting my velocity is getting mocked mercilessly for my incredibly slow pace when I’m out for a run.

The Mr. did have a condition for using the app: that our location data was only shared between us. That’s cretainly my preference too, and my assumption. I turned on the app and saw that I had to log in with my Google account. Not to worry, the app assured me, only Google’s servers would have my information. Oh, just those guys, eh?

A little paranoid, I emailed the developers for clarification. I don’t have a Google Profile or use Google Buzz, on purpose style, and I didn’t want to suddenly find out the universe could see me flashing like a neon sign every time they used a Google Map. I’m famously, pointlessly stingy with my personal data where The Goog is concerned.

Troy, the app author, swiftly informed me that the hilariously-acronymed WTF doesn’t, in fact, actually share your location with Google, so we were all set.

While this was happening, I got a nice message from a Twitter followee, welcoming me to followerhood. I clicked through to her website, only to have it tell me exactly where I was located.

Well, that’s a pretty weird WordPress plugin or whatever, I thought, and unnecessary from a mar-com standpoint. There I am though. Little Canadian flag.

Not that I’m drinking the Kool-Aid, but this location pwnage on the day of my long-awaited husband-tracking experiment reinforces to me what I already know but refuse to admit: #privacy is dead, get over it.

I googled that, looking for a reference. Lots of YouTube results. I clicked through. And bloody spying bloody YouTube told me (based on the evening’s clickings) I might like to check out some Daft Punk, or perhaps my current flavourite Gogol Bordello, and maybe a drugged-up kid after the dentist.

Not because I’d watched the high kid video since 1985, but because recently I’d read on CNN that the dad who filmed poor David had retired on the YouTube ad income. “They” don’t admit that they watched me read CNN. “They” say it’s because I like Daft Punk.

Admittedly, I stay logged in to Google all the time. I have to; I’m a GoogleDocs turbo user. That’s how YouTube knows what I was reading on CNN. Now I realize that’s akin to asking Google to stalk me. I might go check out that “Sziget” song, though…

Good thing it’s Earth Hour & I’m blogging by candlelight. I have a powerful urge to go off the grid and go fabricate me a tinfoil helmet.

Video saved the radio star

I was really pitying music videos last year. MTV doesn’t run them anymore, focusing instead on the never-ending status update that is teenage reality tv. Spike Jonze is off doing feature length puppeteering, and the golden age of the 4 minute short film known as “the music video” seemed doomed to the scrap heap of audio history with the Sony Walkman, cds, and shopping at actual music stores.

Enter the freakin’ comeback. Lady Gaga and Beyoncé would like you to watch their new video Telephone, please, and rest assured you will, for it is epic. In the age of YouTube, broadband, and “share” buttons, music videos are big again. I first heard of Jonas Åkerlund’s gritty, Tarantinoey, hot gay sexy video on Twitter. The next day, a friend posted it on Facebook. So I clicked through and checked it out on YouTube, where it’s being banner-added copiously on everything even faintly relevant and has, I’m not kidding, 10 million hits in 2 days. So viral*, it’s sickening. Oh, & the song is about mobile technology, for Pete (Cashmore‘s) sake—a rebel yell at the privacy invasion of constant connectedness.

The video itself is also peppered, nay rife, nay fraught with good ole‘ fashion tivo-busting product placements. You must endure a Jennifer Aniston commerical before playback. Team Gaga are nailing every conceivable marketing opportunity, like you might as well do when you‘re getting that many eyeballs.

Kudos, social media, for inserting Gaga & Beyoncé’s single into my life. I don’t even listen to Gaga or Beyoncé. And that is the power of word of mouth through social media.

The other power will unfold as I get massive website hits for including the words “hot gay sexy” in this article. Let’s see if Media Temple can withstand the onslaught.

*Viral quality in direct proportion to ta-ta count.

Is location awareness too creepy to catch on?

Photo by jefield | Flickr Creative Commons | CC BY 2.0

I know, I know, I’m an enigma wrapped in a riddle. On the one hand I love social networking, work in social media marketing, and check in with Foursquare. On the other, I’m righteously indignant that Facebook insists on publishing my fan pages and friends list to make a buck. I think geolocation is so cool, but I’m worried that we’re cutting down the privacy forest faster than the hairy-legged tree planters of social convention can reseed it. If there’s no trees, we’ll all be able to see each other going to the bathroom.

Wired experimented with it, arming one poor writer with an armada of GPS-enabled tech & watching his psychological breakdown. Mashable terrified us with it, making us consider the looming specter of personal injury & property loss. Location sharing is the big cool thing for 2010. But is location awareness just TMI for the careful constrains of society as we know it?

It’s weird on a fundamental level to think that one day soon you might be found, contacted, hassled, marketed to, located at any time. People like time off. People need to pull the covers over their head at some point during the day and say “enough”. Blackberries, cell phones, the ominous eye of the Google Streetview car, all intrude on our personal domain and connect us, however inconveniently at times, to other people.

It’s not just that people know what movies you like and what pages you’re a fan of. The new location-aware web will let them know where you literally are. How to get to you at all times.

This is more than a breach of a general sense of decorous privacy. This is an encroachment into our most personal resource, our time. Our attention, our thoughts, are diverted, captured, required by others. A rising sense of panic accompanies the sensation you might never be alone again. read more

Buzz off, Google

Here are my two reactions to the fundamental non-usefulness (for me, at this time; I reserve the right to eat my words) of Google Buzz.

1. Email does not necessarily represent friendships

Remember when Hotmail went all social? I logged in one day accidentally (I keep the account around so I get a desktop alert through Messenger when something happens on Facebook—how steampunk is that?) and I saw “social” updates like “Paul changed his profile picture” and such. And I was like “Wow. Who cares?”

Email is pretty much a business communication in my universe. I have the Xobni plugin for Outlook, so when I get an email (from anyone) it skulks around and pulls in whatever social data it knows how to find. Typically I see a  professionally appropriate LinkedIn photo grinning back at me. I feel like I’m invading their privacy, for Pete’s sake. It’s uncomfy, because email just doesn’t foster relationships I wish to pursue in that kind of detail.

2. Can’t we just do this through Facebook Connect? Somehow?

I was kind of hoping Google would roll out social search and all that without me having to create a profile. It just seems like surrendering the very last shreds of even the pretense of privacy to get naked with Google on purpose. Google already knows a lot about me. I have an uneasy relationship with their ever-so-slightly-Big-Brother brand. It just feels wrong to give them any more info than I have to. I’m more comfortable spreading my identity out and making Google work a little to profile me, however naive that might be.

Listen, Google, it’s not you, it’s me, : I just don’t email my friends, & I’ve got too much social inertia on other sites to create another profile. Thanks, though!

Unreasonably searching: Is privacy uncool, and are we cool with that?

When I was youngster, our house was on a party line with another house across the dusty gravel road. The phone would ring one long for our house, two short for theirs. You answered it if it was for you. You could pick it up at any time and hear—heck, participate in—the conversation of anyone else on the line. Party lines functioned on respect, the honour system, and general good-neighbourliness.

My 8-year-old conversations didn’t have a whole lot of scandalous content such as might impact my future personal brand, but it was a pretty weird situation. That level of personal space invasion would be intolerable today. Within the same household, within the same family we all have our own phones. We hold our communications cards close to our chest. I squint with suspicion when my iPod picks up next door’s wifi network. What kind of person names their network Afrosizzle?

Facebook’s been making some big headlines with their new privacy settings, which include forced exposure of some previously private stats (name, gender, home town, your list of friends). This is ostensibly to appease Canada’s Privacy Commission, although completely removing the ability to hide your associations and personal details can’t be what the ole’ CPC had in mind. read more