Setting up fake band / actor profiles to drive traffic to businesses anyone?

A friend of mine experienced some social media bandwagon jumping a while back. I still don’t get people that jump on bandwagon’s they don’t even understand!

By the way your idea for a network – I think has a niche!

There’s an illusion of safety on the web though – when registering with most sites all you really give away is your email address (and you can always block any junk emails) – so any “preferences” become largely irrelevant and somewhat anonymous. You also don’t bother so much when you give your address details when ordering something as it’s a necessity. Connecting the two is such a small step but opens up such a huge potential for marketers – I don’t think most consumers will realise this.

Ah well – if it works out for HMV we might see an explosion of micro / niche / vertical / in house / pseudo social networks! How funny would that be? The concept would be so devalued because there would be so many “networks” to join that people would lose interest lol!

Watch this space – everyone can join my “Beligerant, slightly sarcastic, Scottish SEO network”!

Scott

As for forum spamming *rolls eyes* – what were they thinking?

I’ve commented on my blog that if Phorm was an opt-in system I probably would opt-in but the approach they’ve taken is just plain greedy. Allowing an opt-out in this context opens so many debates.

http://getcloserbeta.blogspot.com/2008/02/getclosercom-how-hmv-are-spamming-you.html

I’ve read some forum threads on the subject and one of the main criticisms is that they are requesting user information but registering on forums using different names and alias’s – not exactly what you’d like to see from a big brand! I wasn’t too happy when Jobsite spammed my forums!

Big brand hires agency. Agency comes up with concept. Project is underway. Everyone is happy. Someone decides forum spamming is an acceptable form of “marketing”. No one really cares how bad it makes big brand look. Big brand is oblivious to the negative PR.

It’s a classic tale.

Yup I agree this post is mainly me ranting a little! But I do think the intent behind any activities is important. A prize draw for example is clearly a marketing activity – I don’t think anyone participating in these things have any doubt about that. But a social networking site setup simply to farm that data is slightly more insidious IMO – it has the facade of a “real” site but a different underlying intention.

Sure we’re always going to get online adverts so relevance is preferable to most people (which is why I quite liked the Phorm concept to be honest, but I understand the privacy concerns). But look at the difference between Phorm and Get Closer – Phorm is 3rd party and no associations are made between users and habits. Get Closer is a company – the second you purchase anything from them then all your profile information is associated with your payment and contact details. Phorm has no facility to profile by estimated disposible income – or by postcode – or by prefered film genre – or by how often you purchase music gig tickets – or by how many reviews you’ve written – Get Closer *could* do all those things.

That’s a much more serious level data farming. That’s not just about serving relevant ads when you are browsing the site – it enables direct email and postal marketing which is venturing into the area of becoming much more obtrusive. Phorm just tracks habits and serves results based on that (and possibly location or other suitably generic factors) – Get Closer is serious consumer profiling.

My problem with it is that Phorm is very up front – some people may not like their concept, but it is open and honest and that allows debate, discussion and investigation as required. Fair enough.

But Get Closer is a glossy front to a potentially more elaborate privacy concern. My concern is that it will fly under the radar and frankly I don’t see why companies like Phorm should face public scrutiny for being open and honest about their intentions, while ventures like Get Closer sail by Scot free!

I read their T&Cs – it’s the same generic crap that all T&Cs have – “we may use information for marketing purposes” (possibly the most overused and meanlingless statement in the history of marketing). That could mean anything from someone simply looking at the data to compile a management report to them sending some sales people ’round to the home of every individual registered on the site with the intention of flogging DVDs to them! OK that probably won’t happen, but all the same there’s no disclosure there really.

Bebo was setup because the founders wanted to setup a social networking site – ditto Facebook, LinkedIn and so on. Sure they have since made use of their user data in different ways, but that’s no different to making use of customer feedback. Get Closer is being setup with the intention of capturing that user data in the first place – that’s the purpose of the site. It’s a marketing driven project – just like competitions and surveys – and IMO it should be treated as such. People should be going in knowing this – but I can’t help feeling most people won’t.

I guess time will tell. It’s probably one of the few new ventures I’ve seen that I’d be happy to see some random 3rd party rip off the idea and do a better job. But then again think about the numbers – social networking sites are hard to monetise – HMV can monetise Get Closer much better than you, me or the next guy could from ad revene – that’s the whole point of it!

Scott

All the fuss about Phorm is the fact that the system in it’s current form (pardon the pun) it is an opt-out system which is surely against all sorts of data protection laws you would think. Most people wouldn’t even be aware of Phorm so therefore wouldn’t realise their data is being monitored. Phorm is at the ISP level so is close to phone tapping in my opinion.

Going back to GetCloser if this the website is providing a real benefit most users won’t have exception to their data being used to profile them. After all there are millions of websites doing this already with data they capture.

I understand the privacy debate but as long as this data is used respectfully it can actually improve the online experience. Online adverts are always going to be there – why not actually have adverts that I might be interested in?

Yes it is a honey trap for HMV but how does this differ from other methods such as online prize draw surveys etc. really?