Underscore Marketing's president thinks social media aggregators may have the answer to the platform's scale and relevance issues. See why.
Whoever said that the media business was about re-aggregating fragmented audiences probably knew what they were talking about.
As an internet user, one of the most frustrating things about social media is its lack of interoperability. Facebook and LinkedIn do a good job of helping me keep track of and develop my social network, but aside from some apps that will let me import my contacts from one to the other, the two networks can't be used interchangeably.
Similarly, social news sites like Digg, reddit and StumbleUpon work in a vacuum. If I have a profile on one, it doesn update the other. So anyone who wants to see what I post to any of those sites would have to look me up on each.
Fragmentation exists across many categories in the Web 2.0 world. RSS aggregators, blogs, photo galleries -- you name it. These things tend to operate in a vacuum and attract their own user bases. These user bases may duplicate to one extent or another, depending on the application and the need it fulfills.
Whenever a disruptive technology pulls audiences apart, something new emerges to try to pull things back together. Aggregators like FriendFeed may just represent the glue that holds the Web 2.0 world together.
FriendFeed essentially lets people see what their friends are doing online, much like social networks like MySpace and Facebook do. The difference between it and a run-of-the-mill social net, however, is that it's fairly platform-agnostic. Sign up on Friendfeed and tell it all about the social media apps you use, and it will aggregate your actions within those apps, making it easy for your friends and legions of fans to follow what you're doing and see the things that you find interesting online.
FriendFeed has a model something like that of Twitter. Users follow their friends, and whenever they check in with FeedFriend, they can see their friends posting stories to Digg, photos to Flickr and musings to their blogs. And if your favorite friend uses these services but isn't yet a FriendFeed user, you can still follow their activity by creating an "Imaginary Friend" -- a sort of placeholder representing that person's social media activity.
To me, this is where it gets interesting. People follow the people who are interesting and influential to them, so aggregators like FriendFeed will attract users quickly. And where there's re-aggregation, there's an ad opportunity.
But there are two caveats:
- I have no idea what FriendFeed's business model is. I'm speculating here.
- It will be a crying shame if FriendFeed gets peppered with untargeted advertising.
There. Now here's my assessment of the company's opportunity.
FriendFeed aggregates many important data points about lifestyle and interest. Thus, it could become a very powerful behavioral marketing play. This wouldn't be the place for demographically targeted brand advertising, or for FreeCreditReport.com to whack prospects over the head with direct response ads.
It would, however, be a good place for ads targeted by interest. Perhaps when someone reads that a friend posted a link to a product, or commented on a story about said product, or otherwise interacted with it, there would be an opportunity for a targeted online ad, once FriendFeed observed an interest in it.
For instance, if Jim Meskauskas twittered a link to a blurb about the new season of "Battlestar Galactica," and I followed that link, I might start seeing ads for tune-in in my feed. In this way, targeted advertising would not only be able to inform, but it also could amplify viral effects, and we could avoid much of the criticism of online ads by steering clear of the shotgun approach.
I see an interesting ad play here, provided it's managed such that the ads are kept relevant.
译文:
如何把社会媒体铸造成货币？
Underscore Marketing的总裁认为社会媒体聚合器的出现可能为社会媒体的标度把握等相关问题提供了参考。看看就知道原因了。
那些说媒体商务其实就是关于重新聚集零散的观众/听众的人应该理解得比较到位。
作为一个网络用户，最让人沮丧的事情之一莫过于社会媒体缺少互用性的事实了。Facebook和LinkedIn能很好地帮我追踪信息并发展个人社会网络，但是除了通过一些应用程序的使用实现个人信息的共通外，两个网络是不能被交换地使用的。
同样地，社会新闻网站（譬如：Digg/reddit/ StumbleUpon）的有着同样的效用缺失。我在其中一个网站上上传了档案，另一个网站不会因应着更新。也就是说，谁要想了解我在这些网站上都上传了什么东西，必须要每个网站都浏览一下才可以。
网络2.0世界中很多类别都有信息分裂的现象。RSS聚合器，博客，图片库等等的事物像被架设在真空中一样，单独吸引属于他们自己的用户群。取决于它们的用途和满足需求的范围，它们的用户群会有不同程度的增长。
每当出现一些破坏性技术把观众/听众分开，随即便有一些新生事物把他们重新聚集。像FriendFeed这样的聚集器就是这样一个代表――它是粘合网络2.0世界的胶水。
正如社会网络MySpace 和Faceboo一样，FriendFeed的本质上是让人们看见朋友的在线行为。然而，它和其他一般的社会网络的不同之处在于它是一个相当不确定的平台。在Friendfeed上登记，并且列出你使用的所有社会软件，它便会整合出你使用这些程序的行为。这样一来，你的朋友和粉丝们就可以跟踪到你的行为，知道你对网上哪些信息感兴趣了。
FriendFeed和Twitter的模型有某种程度的相像。用户也可以跟踪他们的朋友。登陆FeedFriend，他们就可以看见朋友了发表了什么“掘客”故事，网络相册又多了什么图片，或者博客上又多了什么感言。如果你最好的朋友使用这些服务，但是还没成为FriendFeed的用户，你依然可以通过创建一个“虚拟朋友”实施跟踪――其实是建立一种位置标志符以代表了那个人的社会媒体活动。
对于我来说，有趣之处就在这里。人们选择跟踪那些自己感兴趣或者对自己有影响力的人。因此，像FriendFeed这样的聚合器可以迅速吸引用户。而且，哪里发生用户的重新整合，哪里就会有广告商机。
但是有两点要注意的：
1. 我并不是很清楚FriendFeed的商业模型。我只是在做猜测。
2. 如果FriendFeed将来被不定向的广告掩埋，于我来说会是奇耻大辱。
那么你知道了，以下只是我就这家公司的机会发表的一些评估而已。
FriendFeed整合了很多生活方式以及兴趣相关的重要数据点。那么，它可以促成一个非常强大的营销行为。这里不会是基于人流量而发布的品牌广告的栖息地，也不是FreeCreditReport.com发放直销广告以获得光明前景的选择。
这里会是以兴趣定设的广告投放地。想想吧，某人在朋友的文章中看到了一个产品链接信息，或者阅读了朋友陈述的和产品相关的故事，又或者是接触到了其它和产品发生的互动… …一旦FriendFeed发现了其中的利益点，对象化在线广告的机会就出现了。
譬如说，假如Jim Meskauskas发布了一个关于Battlestar Galactica新季产品的链接，我点击了那个链接，那么我的feed频道会显示我正在看广告。这样，对象化广告不仅仅实现了咨讯发布，其广告效应同时被放大。而且，这样的方式还能大量避免在线广告撒网式投放引致的指责。
如果管理得当，使得所有广告都具有关联性，那么我可以说――我在这里看到了一次有趣的广告机会。