Two Weeks Of Travel and Marketing Dataportability
I just returned from a long (but enjoyable and very valuable) two weeks of travel. It began at SXSW where I got to hang out with Rynda Laurel of Jet Set Studios, C.C Chapman of The Advanced Guard, John Swords and Giff Constable of The Electric Sheep Company, Mark Wallace of Wello, Kristin Cruscius (Kroosh) of Morpheus Media, Steve Hall of Adrants, Ian Schafer of Deep Focus and many, many others.
It was awesome!
We even got to hit a local Flickr meetup where we scoured through a massive tower of trash (one man’s trash…)
I got back to NYC and in two days it was travel time again. This time on to the iMedia Breakthrough Summit where I was to be speaking on a panel with some brilliant industry leaders.
Here was the breakdown of my panel:
“Data Portability and the Social Graph”
Presenters: David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy, 360i
Adam Broitman, Director, Emerging and Creative Strategy, Morpheus Media
Ben Pashman, VP, Business Development, Gigya, Inc.
Leader: Peter Shankman, CEO, The Geek Factory, Inc.
It was my estimation that the panel was a success, but I cannot say that the panel was a big hit (I am actually not sure, but about 10 people walked out so I know it was not a favorite) even though I got great feedback after the panel was done.
The questions were posed, “What is Dataportability, and Why Should Marketers Care?”
While the answers were not even apparent to myself and the other panelists, I have and will continue to explore the marketing implications of the distributed web. I feel this concept is paramount to any modern marketing strategy and we all must be aware of what this entails.
All of you out there that are working on the Dataportability movement from a purely technical side, I would love to hear what your thoughts are in regards to how this notion impacts marketers. In many instances these days the marketers are at the mercy of the software engineers and programmers (many do not realize this but I certainly do) and we could use your help.
Let’s get a conversation started!
Technorati Tags: dataportability, the distributed web, marketing strategy, interactive, SXSW, iMedia, Breakthrough Summit
Mar 21, 2008
Hi Adam I might be able to help. Here are two implications off the top of my head:
1) It examines the relationship a user, vendor, and advertiser has over a user’s data. Our Policy action group is looking to answer some tricky questions like what is data and who owns what. For example – the e-mail address of your friend in your addressbook: who owns that? And what rights do you have over it, if your friend owns it? We’ve been researching into this type of stuff – looking at European law, international accounting standards and I’ve even dug into my old university text books on database theory, marketing and statistics! The outcome of our research will be a a sort of policy blueprint, that will have large implications to how vendors use customers data.
2) Interoperability. The DataPortability project is about opening up silos and making them work together. An explanation Chris Saad and myself have used to the media so far is the analogy of Wi-Fi: think how with the flick of a button you can connect wirelessly to the internet (and is because of some heavy standard setting back in 2000). Imagine being able to do that with your data – you can access it anywhere. So imagine storing your data in a bank, and using electronic funds you can transfer it to multiple applications at the click of the button. Data is the currency of the information age – and marketers I imagine follow the consumer where the data is. This data is now going to be distributed across the web.
I am sure there are more, but I’ve got to run!
Mar 23, 2008
Elias
First of all, you are awesome!
Thank you so much for adding such great insight. I have been talking to a number of marketers to try and crack this but and it is great to get some insight from more people.
In response to your first point, whether or not it is legal to mine “friend of a friend” email addresses, I think this will be murky waters for marketers. There has already been a backlash by consumers against unsolicited emails, I can only imagine what would happen if marketers leveraged the social graph for the purpose of direct marketing (at least in the form of email). Please keep my me updated on your research. I would love to hear more about how relational connections can be leveraged for consumer insight.
In regards to your second point, I am still a bit fuzzy on how data as currency can be a useful concept for marketers. I love the notion of a data bank that stores all your information, and the notion that you can use this bank to feed various other platforms, but I am still unclear why marketers should care.
I am going to marinate on that second piece for a little while. I am probably going to write a piece for iMediaconnection on this subject so any other input would be great.