The Web Difference

Talk will be in Ames Courtroom, Friday 4/4 at 5pm, and will be on the subject of “Building the Change Congress Movement.” More information on the event is here.

Sort of a big picture question - does “fine print” actually help anything? Disclaimers and Terms of Use have a nice lawyerly appeal, but how much work do they actually do? Think of how prescription drug ads now have to have a prominent voice-over listing the side effects instead of just flashing some text at the end of the commercial. Is there anything that would lead us to believe that conventional fine print would be more effective on the web than in TV, print or other mediums?

There is a good follow-up discussion to the FCC hearing on Comcast and the state of US broadband industry.  Many speakers at the second annual Tech Policy Summit are calling for a free market in the broadband industry. 

In what could have been the second in a series on “The Future of [insert traditional form of accessing information here]“, The New Yorker has a piece on “The death and life of the American newspaper.” And like Grafton, its author, Eric Alterman, thinks that we should be worried.

The Economist has a good article about the perpetual battle between those who think Wikipedia ought to err on the side of including trivia vs. those who think its articles ought to be on topics worthy of inclusion in a very very big encyclopedia.

Personally, I am an inclusionist. “Wiki is not paper,” as Jimmy Wales says. The Web — including its encyclopedias — is different.

And you?

Lisa Stone has blogged a transcript of her Berkman talk here, and pretty soon the video will be up here. Sounds like a great talk…

It seems that New Jersey is joining the fight against gossip websites that target students. The AP reports–in a particularly skewed article–that prosecutors have subpoenaed JuicyCampus.com because of concerns related to offensive content. In what amounts to a disingenuous (or ingenious depending on your outlook) move, NJ prosecutors are actually targeting Juicycampus.com under the state’s Consumer Fraud Act because the website “suggests that it doesn’t allow offensive material but provid[es] no enforcement of that rule — and no way for users to report or dispute the material”.

It seems that not only is the Web changing the world, it’s helping to stop the world from changing. Al Gore gave a speech via videoconferencing today to show how we can use the web to cut down on our contributions to global warming. (See an article on this here)

1:05pm: No need to talk about the Cluetrain chapter. Doc Searles says there’s “no market for messages”. What is marketing? Evidently, no marketing types in the class. One student with PR experience, working for a non-profit.

What is marketing?
–PR harasses media for a living. Always bring it back to the sound-bite. But it’s different for a smaller organization, a non-profit. I.e. media relations.
–Positioning = identifying the demographic, targeting(?) the demo. Branding a company w.r.t. a specific group.
–Branding. The brand should evoke feelings, images. For 30 years, branding has been the focus of marketing. A brand is money in the bank.

1:12pm
How do brand-marketers feel about the web?
–the fresh and young love it. Perhaps not “old-school” companies.
–a new channel of communication is opened up. A new avenue for getting the brand out there.
–the web is a network of associations, this opens up a new way of creating associations for a brand.
–the net is a positive thing for branding because it saves time and thinking. Brands do work for people using the net.
–branding creates a public image for the brand-user. i.e. signaling, conspicuous consumption.

–Famous anti-Howard Dean commercial doing 2004 listed the various “brand” adjectives which labeled the man as a Vermont liberal. Branders like this lifestyle association.

1:17pm
What’s the difference between reputation and brand?
–the reputation is based upon the actual products
–the brand is something created by marketers. It’s simply made up, not (necessarily) tied to the product itself.
–Mountain Dew should not intrinsically be linked to Gen X (nothing in its reputation would suggest this). A marketing simply decided this.
–Reputation management is a growing field, it’s no linger simple to create a brand out of the ether.

Back to the web. How do marketers feel about?
–It goes both ways. It’s easier to get a good reputation, and easier to get a bad one. Loud consumers can more easily express their views to the world—this hurts and helps.

1:22pm
Suppose you need to market a new camera with a new feature—how do you market it before the web?
–you stress that it’s revolutionary and new.
–what’s the sweet-spot? Consider the 2×2 – there are people who care about quality and those who care about ease of use. The sweet-spot captures both groups—a middle-aged demographic who want great pictures, aren’t knowledgeable about cameras, and have disposable income.
–“professional quality at the touch of a button”
–celebrity athlete endorsement.
–how do we get the news out? *Magazine ads with the same demographics, *limited offer to say platinum amex holders, *maybe direct mail (2% acceptance rate is good), *targeted tv ads, *in-store marketing, *pair up with airline companies, *product placement in movies and tv shows, *celebrity swag/freebies.

1:30pm
All of this marketing operating before the web on an assumption: everyone who sees the ad hasn’t asked to see, and in many cases would rather not see. The premise of marketing has been how do we get people who don’t want to see the ad pay attention to it.
–Jingles are unforgettable. There’s a reason why ads use them—marketing needs to rise above the background noise.
–But then what about infomercials? Why are they so long? See also David Ogilvy, “Confessions of an Advertising Man”, created a car ad with three ads of solid prose, broke all molds for magazine ads.
–And infomercials are also the point of sale.

1:37pm
Now, we will attempt to market on the web. What techniques will we employ?
–(Will it blend? See WillItBlend.com, a popular web meme with lots of product placement.)
–the four P’s = Product, Place, Promotion, and Price. (from a course at MIT on marketing, the link is on the Wiki).
–Shills in a camera tech forum. This is the (in)famous “astro-turfing” technique (i.e. fake grass-roots).
–Banner ads? Yes, if they’re targeted correctly. Has anyone ever clicked on one? A few. There are points programs that get you free stuff for clicking on them.
–Create your own website. Tech specs, pics, a forum. Will you be liable if you get those specs wrong? Consensus = probably.
–What’s on the forum? A place to ask questions, discuss the product, meet other users.
–Other forums? Ask the expert. But the messages may be controlled. Mix the bad with the good news so the forum seems reliable. Spin the bad questions.

1:50pm
–What about user-to-user communication? It’s cheap, but what control can you exert over the message? Perhaps it’s better for the company to host the forum, gives them the ability to reach out to dissatisfied customers.
–But perhaps the message board shouldn’t be on the site. The positive reviews induce skepticism, and the negative ones are surely right. The same strategies can be employed on public message boards.
–Take a look at the Apple site review for a mag-safe power adapter. The reviews are sorted by usefulness and not all are positive. How skeptical are we about the reviews on the site? And why are there so many reviews for a product for which there is apparently no competition? Will Apple respond to the feedback?

2:00pm
–Take a look at newegg.com, a computer hardware and software retail site with many user reviews. The reviews ask for consumers to indicate how long they’ve owned the product and they break down in a histogram the different reviews.
–Does Amazon lose sales based on bad reviews of a given book?
–Some banner ads are very effective, like the ones on Facebook.
–An effective banner targeting by the Obama campaign: every half-way positive article about the candidates links to the website and the donate button. Find out where the “product” is named and buy advertising on those pages.
–How effective are google context-sensitive ads? Can they interpret the tone, positive or negative, of the context? A few infamous stories of their ineffectiveness.

2:11pm
–Perhaps we’ll permit reviews, but we’ll certainly pay attention to them.
–What do we do about the blogosphere? A threat and an opportunity.
–Do we have a blog on our site, run by our employees? Photo blog creates excitement about the product, it’s a visual example of the products effectiveness. But it must be moderated. Also, direct customers to positive blog posts, even try a scavenger hunt. Or a testimonial section.
–Why not include all blog posts, positive and negative? What’s the expectation of the consumer? Perhaps the consumer only expects to see the positive reviews.

2:18pm
–On the other hand, allowing negative comments makes it more believable.
–Do we allow comments on our users’ submitted photos? What’s the worry for offense here?
–Connection with Naomi Klein’s No Logo. Sprite took the negative energy associated with overbearing celebrity-sponsored ads and made it into their own anti-image image.
–Do Amazon’s reviews control us by giving us the illusion of control?
–3rd party reviews are more intuitively trustworthy. So why do we have the forum at all?

2:27pm
–Have we discussed conversational marketing sufficiently? Do corporate shills lurk on these boards? Microsoft MVPs, amateurs who are nevertheless expert at their products, still provide helpful and frank information to consumers and have been embraced by the company.

What is the The Web Difference?
–offline is about control, shorter messages, simple, one-way interactions (them to you), “theirs”
–online is not necessarily about control (though this is an open issue), longer messages, complexity, two-way and multi-way interactions, “ours”

1:05: Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We have guests today. 1. Kim, The head of Harvard’s Library. 2. Admitted students 2011. Introductions all around.

1:10: The future of (law) libraries. Palfrey is going to lecture for the first few minutes.

Do we think about libraries differently now because of the web? Consider three perspectives: 1. What is the role of the student? Digital natives (students) approach information differently than in the past 2. What is the role of a teacher? 3. What is the role of the law school library?

1:15:
Section 1: Students
Digital natives born after 1980. Things about the digital natives that may affect how we think about libraries: 1. The notion of “connective-ness”. In any given setting we are getting information from all angles. Leads to multitasking. 2. We perceive information as being of a digital nature, as opposed to analog. 3. Most important is the movement from consumers to creators. In the past, the only person doing cataloging in the library was a librarian, now the web could enable anyone do the cataloging.

1:20:
Pressures that come from this. Section 2: Teachers (Professionals)
How is the job of the teacher evolving to adapt the digital age? What are the “literacies” that teachers should strive to teach students? There is a huge gap between skills in the digital age (digital gap).
How do students and teachers connect? Is it appropriate to be friends with teachers on FB? How do we use emergent tools?

Section 3: The Harvard Law School Library
Information: There is a reorientation of what it is that the library is providing, Digital information. Does the Law School have an obligation to change how it presents its information? E.g. Open Access

In the world of non-rivalrous good, is there a need for constructive scarcity?

How would a digital library interact with copyright? If you spend all of the money on books, you own some at the end of the day. However, if you spend all the money on digital access, you may not be collecting anything. If someone turns the switch off, you don’t have the physical books anymore. You may be left with nothing.

How do we fund the credible creation of information? Should we partner with Google to digitize the library? Is this a good arrangement for libraries? Will this info be searchable to the public? Kim: only one million (7%) of books in Harvard are being scanned because Harvard is only scanning books not in copyright and a there are a lot of fragile or cumbersome works that Google will not scanned. The million works copied by Google will be searchable by Google library project and a “gold disc”, with the works digitized, may be created for Harvard to distribute as they see fit. Very secretive.

What is the role of those who work in libraries? Should it be different from the card catalog role of the past? Should libraries be copyright activists?

Palfrey: Libraries should continue to do what libraries did in the past and pair with new technologies. End of Lecture portion.

1:35
First, what would Grafton of the New Yorker say about the lecture? The digital revolution is helpful but the books will remain. He would says that it is a difference of degree or an addition to library - not a replacement. A lot of stress is placed on the physical nature of libraries. You can find things out be physically touching the books that you can’t find by digital means.

1:40
The annotations are on the physical pages. His view of the library experience is more of a museum experience. Do you go to a museum for different purposes than a library? Shopping v. Appreciating.
Libraries purposefully invest in the aesthetics of themselves. They make themselves nice study areas with high ceilings.
Information can be found in different ways. The quality of the paper for example may indicate that it is a credible book.

1:45
Museum v. Library reveals the difference between the lay person and the historian. Makes us think about who the users are. Scholars will still go to libraries but therefore what?

1:50
All students use the digital form of works when they are available. The Harvard Law Review is the only example we can think of that actually needs the physical copy.

1:55
The meta data about the design of the book, the fact that it is at the book store and not out of print, the quality of books, etc can only be found in the physical form.
There is a mystical nature about books: Books signal knowledge. There is a long history of books being sacred knowledge.

2:00
Distinction of forms. The WSJ is created in a series of digital files then it is out-puted in two ways, the newspaper and the digital form.

2:05
Browsing and bookshelves are different online than in the analog world. But it is still there say DW. For example, “people who like this also like…” is an example of a digital bookshelf.

Push-back on DW’s article. DW insists that the the staying power of libraries is being stressed by the author, but maybe not. Maybe the author just got carried away with his writing.

2:10
What about the comfort of a book? You can’t curl up with your laptop. People will continue to want the physical form of the book.

Imagine you are designing the library of the future. What would be the attributes?
-Does it need a building? Yes, with tables and chairs.
-Reporters? No. Unless you are on law review or the reporters are really old.
-Librarians. Yes. But what are their roles? Helping research. Navigators. Experts. Do they have to be physically there? Yes.
-Digital Rights and prints.
-Physical books.
-We don’t need law reviews or anything that is categorized on Hine or Westlaw
-AV center
-Computers, really big screens
-Printers, pay for printers
-May want to hold off for quite awhile to see what the next technology is.
-What about the History, Prestige?

2:30
Is copyright law a road block to great libraries? It seems like there should be some sort of first sale doctrine in the digital library. Licenses would probably take then place of copyright.

Remember the next two classes are switched. Marketing is tomorrow. Come in with one example of really good or really bad web marketing.