It is quite an obvious fact that Twitter has become a very important tool for pharmaceutical corporate communications. However, what struck us as a question is how successful has Twitter been in driving engagement with all stakeholders.

To do this analysis we decided to look at 12 companies and do some kind of benchmarking on their activity on Twitter. There are 3 broad KPIs that we decided to look at:

1. Driving Engagement – How active is a particular company (# of tweets)
2. Passive Engagement – How many followers of the twitter page
3. E-Gage score – A composite score looking at various engagement parameters
   

Time frame of analysis: November 1, 2012 – April, 30, 2013 (6 months)

Sanofi US emerged as the most active company on Twitter followed by Boehringer Ingelheim. Novartis and Lilly (LillyPad) are quite close in terms of their activity in the last 6 months

However, the picture was quite different when we looked at the # of followers; Pfizer clearly emerged as the winner followed by Novartis and J&J. This is probably driven by the sheer size of these organizations and appears that employees and other stakeholders have opted to follow these companies. Hence, we considered this parameter as an indicator of passive engagement; followers need not be actively engaging with these company updates and clicking on follow was probably an “automatic” action

We defined a KPI for active engagement – we are calling this as E-Gage score which is a weighted average score of the following parameters:

1. # of Retweets – Weight 40%
2. # of Replies to Tweets – Weight 40%
3. # of Tweets made favorites – Weight 20%

This resulted in Novartis being the top scorer in E-Gage score followed by a cluster of companies who were almost at the same levels – Roche, SanofiUS, JNJ and Boehringer

This resulted in an additional question around what is the “ROI” of this investment by pharmaceutical organizations. Thereby we tried to explore how the investment (#of tweets) compares with the E-Gage score. The results were quite interesting and we observed these 4 segments of companies:

1. Low Investment High Return – GSK, JNJ, Roche, Abbott, Lilly
2. High Investment High Return – Boehringer, Novartis, SanofiUS
3. Low Investment Low Return –Pfizer, Astrazeneca, Merck, BMS
4. High Investment Low Return – None

However, this data is to be interpreted with caution because this analysis is only restricted to a 6 month time frame. The E-Gage score is influenced by the number of interesting posts on the Twitter page of the company.

The fact that no company fell in the segment of high investment and low return probably tells us that the social media strategy by big pharma has been quite a success, with some variation of shades. Top-line observation of the tweets of most successful companies tell us that these companies engaged with their audience to spread overall healthcare messages and provide early stage research related updates more than regular corporate news.

1. Sentiments around Switching
   A majority of the patients seem to have a very high motivation about a switch to Tecfidera. The patients and neurologists seem quite convinced about the efficacy of the drug and a majority of the patients seem to take the switch quite positively. Most patients seem to have a positive sentiment about the drug which is hugely backed by the convincing phase 3 results. Some patients mentioned being “eager to try” or “anxious to start” the Tecfidera therapy.Yet another observation made while conducting this exercise was that a higher proportion of patients seemed to have an upper hand in choosing Tecfidera as a treatment option. Of the 31 patients who discussed about the switch decision, 22 patients made their own choice to switch or continuing with current therapy without consulting their neurologist.
   
2. Current Treatment Profile
   Based on analysis of a limited sample in the time frame 1^st January 2013 to 30^th April 2013, a total 87 unique patients were identified, of which, 47 patients mentioned about their current therapy. Out of these 47 patients, 4 have already started their therapy with Tecfidera.
   • The split of their current treatment profile and planned switches to Tecfidera are mentioned below-
     
     n=43
   • The chart below depicts a ROA category wise distribution of current MS patients and those planning a switch-
     
     n=43
3. Reason for switching
   Some of the most commonly mentioned reasons for switches are mentioned below in decreasing order of their mentions-
   1. Side effects
   2. PML risks
   3. Lower efficacy of current therapy / higher perceived efficacy of BG-12
   4. Switch to an oral DMD due to site effects from injectable

   “Excited about no more injections (rebif 2002-present)”

   Apart from these reasons, some specific switching patterns were observed. Some of them are-

   Why are the Copaxone users switching to Tecfidera?

   • Most patients switching from Copaxone to Tecfidera are either seeking higher efficacy or feel the need to switch to oral DMD for ease in administration“Copaxone has done (is doing) it’s job (according to my Dr. & the MRI’s) but I’m chomping for something more effective”

   Why are the Tysabri users switching to Tecfidera?

   • For 77% Tysabri users planning a switch to Tecfidera, PML risks seem to be the root cause.“I would stay on Tysabri if I hadn’t tested JCV+”
4. Discussions about Tecfidera side effects
   Although not many concerns about side effects from Tecfidera were captured, based on experiences of patients who have already started with the therapy (n=4), some mentions about gastrointestinal discomfort and hot flashes were seen. Very few mentions of concerns about Lymphopenia were also captured.
5. Summing Up
   • A definite excitement about BG-12 approval was captured on online blogging and social networking sites
   • Most discussions on the Tecfidera and BG-12 dedicated threads were “switch” centric with patients discussing probable switches to the drug
   • Key attribute of the drug is its higher efficacy and oral route of administration
   • Our findings indicate that more Copaxone and Tysabri exhibited online activity and discussed about a probable switch to Tecfidera. Key reasons for switching is higher perceived efficacy and safety profile of the drug

With the entry of BG-12, Biogen’ rich MS portfolio now has one DMD each in the intra-muscular (Avonex), intra-venous (Tysabri infusion) and oral (Tecfidera) route of administration. Looking at the current MS therapy scenario, analysts around the world are largely expecting Tecfidera to garner most sales and become the most commonly used MS drug. Amidst all speculations, early figures indicate that the drug has been well received, both by patients and neurologists. The first weeks’ worth of prescriptions surpassed a figure that Novartis’ Gilenya didn’t hit until almost three months after launch¹.

At Value Edge, we conducted an independent social media analysis on a leading MS community, to understand some of the early signals from the launch including an analysis on Patient Switching.

The results of our Social media analysis are as follows:

1. The Online Buzz…
   
   Number of posts on BG-12 and Tecfidera dedicated threads (n=179)

   Multiple fold increase in volume of posts on Tecfidera or BG-12 specific threads was captured in the months of March and April 2013. Amongst these 179 comments, more than 75% were posted after the word about FDA approval for BG-12 became public. Thus, a markedly increased online buzz for Tecfidera was captured.

2. What are the patients discussing?Most MS patients are discussing about a possible switch to Tecfidera while others were seen discussing about the efficacy of the drug. Here’s a list of the most discussed topics -
   • Efficacy
   • Safety profile of the drug
   • Market availability of the drug
   • Pricing strategy of the drug and the co-pay / out of the pocket expenses for the drug

   Biogen’s middle road approach to price the drug at $54,900 per patient per annum (lesser than Novartis’ Gilenya with a list price of $60,000 per patient per year, but more than Aubagio, from Sanofi, which costs $48,000 per year) has not yet got the community convinced. Most patients are still discussing about the $10 co-pay and out of the pocket expenses for Tecfidera.²

   “I’ll be curious to see what happens with the $10 co-pay program. Even with Novartis’ co-pay assist, I was paying close to $800 a year for Gilenya” (MS patient).

3. Tecfidera attributes…A number of discussions about efficacy and safety profile of Tecfidera were captured. Key patient perceived attributes are-a) Higher efficacy
   b) Lower side effects
   c) Oral administration
   However, it may also be worth mentioning that some patients seem uncertain about efficacy and safety profile of the drug and seek some real world experiences of Tecfidera usage from the fellow patients.In sum, very clearly there is a lot of excitement re the launch of Tecfidera on online blogging and social networking sites. Most discussions on the Tecfidera and BG-12 dedicated threads were “switch” centric with patients discussing probable switches to the drug. Key attribute of the drug is its higher efficacy and oral route of administration. In Part II of this blog, we will explore the “Switching” in greater detail

Reference

• The Street
• Forbes

Today I provided assistance to some students from William Angliss Institute, a specialist centre for foods, tourism and hospitality in Melbourne.

They were gathering insights on digital marketing to complete an assignment on social media. They specifically wanted to know how social media and networking is used – incorporating the past, the present and how it is expected it to grow in the future.

I thought I would share my answers to the questions, and encourage any opinions out there on the topics covered!

What was the first social media and marketing platform used? 

Social media in its infancy first started with a platform called “Six Degrees” back in the late 1990’s. Then came Friendster a few years later. A great infographic that encapsulates social media history can be found here.

Platforms as we know it only became to surface during 2005 – 2007 when channels like MySpace and Facebook started to gain momentum.

I honestly believe businesses didn’t recognise the importance or have any demand for a corporate brand presence on any social media channel until 2007 and 2008, with our first client signing up to Facebook, Twitter and Youtube pages during this time. Even now we still require further education to CEO’s and the like on how to navigate online.

That said, blogging was certainly welcomed before this phase, yet understandably companies were not so keen on being early adopters of this and we probably saw the greatest pick up of blogging enquiries from 2009 – present. This was due to an array of issues ranging from resourcing to budget allocation.

How has social media changed over time? 

Content creation is becoming more and more rapid. It is often hard to keep up.

As user numbers expand we have to be increasingly mindful that our content no longer goes into a black hole of absolutely no-one seeing it. This has implications on risk mitigation and management.

From a client perspective, I am seeing more clients actively pursuing presence across all social media channels to date, rather than us suggesting it. Clients are also recognising the demand for location-based social media platforms, as well as optimising existing for mobile or cross-device viewing.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of networking through social media? 

• Advantages – expand reach, expand brand awareness, keep up-to-date with competitors, industry knowledge, and recruitment. 
• Disadvantages – legitimacy issues, reputation management risks. 

What are the advantages and disadvantages of marketing through social media?

Advantages

• Cost effective; 
• Dynamic content and creative possibilities; 
• Networks are high-reach – can reach all category buyers as opposed to segmenting and targeting;
• Positively effects search engine rankings;
• Possibility to learn about customer opinions (this is a form of valuable content);
• Retains existing customers as well as acquires new ones; and,
• Word of mouth (WOM) potential.

Disadvantages

• Costs time!;
• Employee risks;
• Confidentiality, bad WOM risks; and, 
• Resourcing implications.

What are the latest trends with marketing in social media?

• Mobile / optimising for multiple platforms (particularly ads); 
• Creation of flexible, reusable and consistent content;
• Optimising a range of tools to manage platforms; 
• Corporate expansion across platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn– continued growth; and,
• Companies learning more about dynamic content – like utilizing video (Vine) or music (Spotify). 

What is the most effective social media channel?

This depends on the client and what you are measuring success on.

Personally, I see a lot of traffic from my Facebook personal account whenever I post my blog links on there – however more engagement from Twitter and LinkedIn due to the nature of the topics I’m posting.

Have you ever had to handle a social media crisis? If so, how did you deal with that?

Personally – at a previous role. Had a case of defamation from a member of the public. It became a legal matter and I responded officially from the corporate account in public view, as well as via email. This incident shaped our risk mitigation policy and workflow process.

What do you think is the future of social media and where do you think its heading?

• Device-centric social media – to keep up with technological advances; 
• Monopoly– whereby one channels integrates functions of ALL other channels;
• Greater integration with e-commerce; 
• Social advertising evolves;
• Businesses expanding social responsibilities across all departments, not just marketing;
• Continued growth amongst educational and governmental bodies; and,
• Development or programs to turn analytical data into actionable policy.

image link http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicksee/4145708711/

All eyes are on Pinterest, the social network that lets users collect and share images found on the Web by “pinning” them on virtual pinboards. The images span a variety of categories, from fashion, crafts, cooking, décor, fitness, and more. Users can follow the pinboards of friends and brands for inspiration and “repin” the images onto their own pinboards. Today, Pinterest is quickly becoming the fastest-growing social media site based on its huge popularity with women, as well as its unlimited potential as a marketing tool for businesses. “Pins” help companies promote their products, develop their brand personalities, drive tremendous referral traffic to their websites, and gain exposure among the Pinterest community. Now, MDG Advertising has produced an engaging video highlighting the facts, figures, and findings from its popular “Pin It To Win It” infographic.

The video details the social site’s demographics, growth, and potential to drive abundant traffic to company websites. Pinterest is especially popular with the most highly coveted markets—about 60 percent are female and 80 percent are in the 25 to 54 age demographic. Plus, Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube combined.

The video goes on to cover the brands, both large and small, on board the pinboard phenomenon, such as Whole Foods, Etsy, West Elm, and Real Simple. These companies reflect the cooking, décor, and crafts interests that are prevalent among the Pinterest audience.

In addition, the video helps marketers navigate Pinterest’s features and terminology by demonstrating the “pin,” “repinning,” and “board.” It also shows how companies can leverage Pinterest for maximum response and referral traffic, whether by improving their image quality or promoting more than just a product line.

The Most Remarkable Instagram Chart You’ll See

The chart above plots both how many times Instagram has been downloaded, in gray, and how often it has been used to share photos over Twitter, in red.

Look at how, moving left to right, the red bars extend away from the gray bars.

Know what that means?

It means, in the words of the Distimo analyst who put together the chart, that “the average number of shares per users are increasing.”

That’s profound: The app isn’t just getting more popular, it is becoming a more important part of its users’ lives

Questionable!??! well as someone use to say “numbers don’t lie”

The Scariest Thing For Anyone Thinking About Buying The Facebook IPO

Here’s the scariest thing to come out of Facebook’s updated financials yesterday: The company’s growth is rapidly decelerating.

Last quarter it was only up 45%. The quarter before that it was 55%, and the quarter before that it was 104%. 45% is good for most companies, but for a company that’s supposed to be a hot IPO it’s underwhelming, as is the growth trend

Pinterest has blown up this year, and sorry guys – its not for you.

With women dominating the populace at almost 70% of registered users the content is mostly made up of clothes, food and motivational typography.

For now Pinterest is growing extremely fast without much help from the male demographic and maybe they won’t need guns and video games for a while. And why would they need men?! Women have always dominated the social media market where over 84% of popular social media sites have a majority female ratio. Facebook has always had more active female users than male and when Google+ launched, the girls seemed to stay away. Now Google’s attempt at Facebook is almost all forgotten.

I think the ladies know a thing or two about technology.

Unfortunately, Pinterest isn’t all fun and games. There is also a potential for a hostile litigious battle ground.

Why?!….well just because we’re still stuck in talking about an anachronistic concept called “copyright”.

Being myself into art (music, writing, etc) I know very well the controversy I’m about to touch (i may cover extensively the topic in an appropriate post): the problem is not related with the process of creation, or production of art….but with the concept of “Industry” that has barely nothing to do with art itself

Art has been here since forever…. it’s only in the last 60 years someone made an industry out of it… and that’s very typical: a self-empowered group try to make money on someonelse’s back, trying to keep things steady, to keep making money out of it… till the whole system they build… collapses under the pressure of changes…and the only thing that will remain from the death of this umpteenth falling empire….is Art itself

Be Angry Be Foolish

In my previous blog, I covered the first of three mega-trends hitting the social media marketplace for large Fortune level organizations.  In this blog, I address how the use of enterprise social monitoring and intelligence platforms are helping companies leverage key insights from an array of market activity and major trends including competitor activity & weaknesses, key opinion leader sentiment/needs, regulator trends and concerns, political leader and influencer sentiment, public opinion and key issues. 

This second blog is dedicated to the second social media trend hitting corporate America that focuses on the Intra-Social Media Application or Enterprise Collaborative Platforms (ECPs). In the same format as my last blog, I will cover this subject as follows:

A) What is an ECP or intra-social application
B) What are the benefits from using an ECP
C) What are the hottest tools/applications in the marketplace
D) How do you implement an ECP capability 

A) What is an Enterprise Collaboration Platform (ECP) or Intra-Social Application?

An ECP is a social media application much like Facebook, but exists entirely behind the firewall and is designed to increase intra-corporate collaboration, decrease time to market, and enhance overall corporate productivity. In direct response to this fear of implementing a full bi-directional (conversational) social media program that might trigger a negative market reaction or a warning/fine from regulators (Life Sciences and Financial Services organizations), companies are investing heavily into this new intra-social application since it sits entirely behind the firewall and is virtually risk-free from a market faux-pas or fear of regulatory consequences (particularly true for Financial Service & Life Sciences Companies).  The following illustrates the key features and capabilities of a best-of-breed ECP or intra-social solution/platform:

Intra-Social Enterprise Collaboration Platform Key Features:
•  Social Networking at the Department Level (Intra-Social Networking)
•  Internal & Secure Social Communications System – Behind the Firewall
•  Intra-Social productivity enhancement environment including :
•  Internal Chat
•  Internal Meeting Coordination & Management
•  Internal video conferencing
•  Internal document management
•  Internal blogging, wikis, team profile (expertise) profiling and locating

Capabilities include:
•  Out-of-the-box social networking capabilities
•  Pre-integrated enterprise communications
•  Business Systems Integration
•  Content Management System Integration
•  Enterprise-grade security and policy management

B. What are the benefits – Why are companies and government agencies adopting social Intelligence capabilities?

The following list represents just a few of the benefits of implementing an ECP or intra-social application:

1) Optimized Team Building – Environment increases team visibility, sharing and collective insights, and collaborative/virtual project development

2) Increased Knowledge Sharing – Enables collaborative knowledge development and sharing near real-time

3) Integrates Communications and Business Processes – Integrates and accelerates the use of chat, video sharing, teleconferencing, blogging, video conferencing, etc.

4) Accelerated Team Performance – Facilitates real-time and interactive participation via the right team expertise

5) Fully Engages Teams and Departments – Encourages team interaction and inter-departmental cooperation on programs and projects

6) Increased Control over Intellectual and Digital Assets – Single/integrated environment for asset management

7) Accelerated Return on Existing Application Investments – Integrates and accelerates the value of existing IT investments by seamlessly integrating enterprise content management, unified communications and business management applications

’8) ECPs allow companies to ‘cut their teeth’ on developing a social media capability without the risk of mistakes that would trigger a market or regulatory backlash. This social media indoctrination includes prototyping the following social media components:
1) Organizational Design
2) Policy and Standards
3) Process design & execution
4) Performance metrics & KPIs
5) Application standards
6) Support model and associated support structures

9) ECPs, when architected properly, can easily integrate with an external and fully bi-directional social media program

10) Companies who integrate and optimize ECPs with traditional market communications channels such as call center, web, mobile, e-mail, etc can benefit from a dramatic increase in the overall customer and stakeholder experience.

11) ECPs can dramatically increase the appetite for increased intra-organizational change and the appetite for innovation and entrepreneurialism. Complimentary to this is the need to support the implementation of an ECP with a heavy dose of change management as this implementation represents a new way of conducting business

12) The overall goal of the increased internal collaboration and productivity derived from the ECP is to decrease the time to market with products and services that have increased market relevance.

C) What are the hottest tools/applications on the ECP or Intra-Social Application market?

Almost all ECPs are relatively new to the marketplace and few software vendors have deployed to more than a several Fortune-500 level companies. 

Leading ECP Software Vendor & Tools:

* Cisco Systems – Quad. Cisco was well positioned for the intra-social market in that they had many of the existing components that are essential for a world-class ECP. Cisco already had many very capable collaboration applications such as the following:
a) Video teleconferencing and team conferencing
b) Instant chat features via their ‘Click-to-chat’ functionality
c) Instant meeting management via their ’click to meet’ functionality
d) Group management and profiling.

The Quad platform allowed them to effectively integrate these pre-existing capabilities with some additional ‘Facebook like’ features such as the following:
a) Community development and management,
b) Blogging and Wiki collaboration,
c) Team member or team activity broadcasting and management,
d) Team expertise profiling, etc. 

The integration of all of these components as well as the integration capabilities with existing corporate applications like document management, CRM system integration, social profiling for customer service and many other features brings Cisco to the forefront of ECP platform vendors and is well positioned to remain a leader in this space

* IBM – IBM Lotus Connections.  IBM was an early entrant into enterprise social tools, and this has enabled the IBM Lotus offering to remain in a leadership position.  IBM Lotus connections has many of the same features/functions as Cisco Quad such as Communities, file sharing, Wikis, team profiling, blogs, team activity tracking, home page activity and preference management, etc.  In addition to these features, the IBM offering has a Social Analytics function that facilitates the user on profiling those who might be good connections both on an individual level and community level. The IBM offering also provides mobile access to access the technology from a mobile device and also provides chat forums to share insights, ideas and concerns.

* Jive with Microsoft SharePoint & SharePoint Connector: Jive in conjunction with Microsoft SharePoint is a very powerful collaboration platform.  Jive is used as the hub for socializing and sharing content broadly across the enterprise. SharePoint can be used in conjunction with Jive with the SharePoint connector by integrating SharePoint with Jive, using SharePoint as the workflow and document storage system (what is was designed to be best at). Together, these two applications drive awareness of enterprise activities by socializing content and team activities, wherever it originates, to inform better business decisions.

* SalesForce.com – Chatter. Following on their success with their Sales application, Salesforce.com has developed a very robust intra-social ECP application called Chatter which allows all people within the company to interact and collaborate on projects. Many times the Sales Force of a company will be the first to adopt this technology due to the fact that the sales force is already using the sales application, hence is a good pilot group to pilot the intra-social application.  Similar to Cisco’s Chatter application, the features and functions are designed to maximize team interaction and collaboration so that teams can operate more efficiently by eliminating the need for many manual cycles to coordinate and conduct meetings, collaborate on documents and projects, and develop deep insights based on team specialization and expertise.

* Oracle  Beehive. Oracle Beehive is also a strong contender due to the size of the company, its existing installed base a relatively strong product line. Similar to many of the software vendors above, The Oracle Beehive product provides an integrated set of modular collaboration services including email, calendar, team workspaces, instant messaging, and conferencing.

Challenger ECP Software Vendor & Tools:

The companies below are considered challengers due to their smaller company size, relatively new entrance to the market place and/or their set of smaller customers that have their products currently installed.

* Atlassian Confluence: Atlassian’s confluence product is mostly seen as a productivity wiki tool, geared toward technology departments. However, the product is highly extensible with integrations into Microsoft SharePoint and Lotus Connections.  The product is also most geared toward content sharing, discovery, creation, etc.

* Novell – VibeCloud.  The company’s acquisition of SiteScape brought the company beyond email and calendaring and more into the collaboration space. Novell has many of the futures as some of the leaders above such as document management, social messaging, conversation tracking, group & community management, etc.

* PBworks – PB Works appears to be geared to mid-sized companies in providing collaboration Software for Smaller Advertising Agencies (PB Works Agency Edition), Legal Firm, Consulting, Medical, Associations.

* Socialtext: Socialtext was best known for bringing Twitter-like status functionality to the enterprise called “signals”.  Social text has many of the same features as the leaders above, but is a smaller sized company than an IBM or Cisco.  Socialtext also provides integration with Lotus Connections and Microsoft SharePoint.

* Traction Software: Traction software is highly focused on managing projects in that their own tagline is “Social Software meets Project Management” . Forrester lauds Traction for bringing blogs and wikis to the enterprise

D) How do you implement an ECP capability – what are the steps and considerations on implementing this capability within your organization and company

Social Media Implementation & Program success requires comprehensive visioning; with stepwise implementation, guided by a roadmap and integrated project plan.  I have developed this capability for several Fortune 500 companies and the capability can be enabled via three (3) Major steps as follows (Summarized):

1) Step #1: Develop a ECP and Intra-Strategy including the following:
a) ECP  Strategy/Vision, Objectives, Business Drivers, Critical Success Factors, Community/ Forum Listening Strategy, Key Metrics & Performance Plan, Organizational Plan, Change Management Plan, Communications & Risk Management Plan, monitoring policies, governance plan
b) Put together an implementation roadmap and a centralized PMO to manage the implementation of the roadmap/ECP vision
c) Form your intra-social strategy & vision with key stakeholders

2) Step #2: Social Media Technology Platform Evaluation & Selection
a) Identify potential ECP platform & community management vendors
b) Develop Needed ECP Requirements and Capabilities
c) Perform Technology Platform Vendor Selection
d) Onboard Vendor
e) Build a techno-functional architecture to support the roadmap

3) Step #3: Develop Social Media Program Pilots & Deployment Plan
   a) Develop Pilot Project & Deployment Plan
   b) Develop ECP management processes that provide organizational confidence and exercise process excellence transparency to solidify user/stakeholder buy-in and acceptance.
   c) Develop Technology Pilots
   d) Develop  Program Pilots
   e) Invest in Organizational change management to instill solid user/stakeholder adoption
   f) Develop Organization & Process Pilots
   g) Deploy Pilots and Programs including
      1.  Center of Excellence Deployment
      2.  Multi-Channel Integration
      3.  Policies/Processes
      4.  Roles, Rules, Responsibilities
      5.  Change Management, Change Management, Change Management

That last bullet point is not a typo as I would honestly say that the #1 main key to success in implementing this type of software is an extremely capable change management program. This type of software requires a behavior change on the part of your employees and management and it won’t come easily.   I can say this with confidence – If you are not considering a heavy dose of change management as part of this implementation, your implementation is most likely going to fail!

In summary, ECPs and intra-social applications are gaining a great deal of Momentum.  Many Fortune 500 companies are either planning to implement this capability or already have.  Is your organization planning on implementing this potentially game-changing capability? If so, give me a call, I call help you achieve world-class programs that enable you to surpass your competition and bring your organization or agency to the next level of market and intra-social collaboration capability.

In keeping a very close eye on the trends on the rise in the marketplace on how companies and government agencies are leveraging new social media capabilities and technologies, there are several on my radar screen that are coming up over and over again and again.  These trends are evidenced by the numerous requests I am receiving in these topic areas in the form of responses to proposals and information, requests for ‘lunch and learns’, requests to speak on the topic, etc.

Some of the hottest trends in the social media space from a corporate or governmental agency perspective are as follows:

1) Leveraging of Social Media and ‘Social Intelligence’ as a component to developing overall competitive and Market Intelligence Insights & Capabilities
2) The use of Intra-Social Enterprise Collaborative Platforms (ECPs) to enhance organizational productivity, internal collaboration and decrease overall go-to-market cycle time
3) The use of Intra-Corporate Social Crowd Sourcing ‘Innovation Acceleration’ Applications & Capabilities

Over the course of the next three blog entries, I will cover each of these social media mega-trend areas in the following format:
A. What is it – Description of the functionality this capability enables
B. What are the benefits – Why are companies and government agencies adopting and using this capability and how are they benefitting from its use
C. The hottest tools/applications in the market for this capability – who is leading, lagging, emerging
D. How do you implement it – what are the steps and considerations on implementing this capability within your organization and company

There are several instances where the use of social media insights could have helped organizations be better prepared for market shifts, product issues & defects, crisis management, and better able to spot trends regarding regulation, key opinion leaders, competitors, and go-to-market issues (sales, marketing, customer service, warranty claims, etc.). In the rest of this blog I will cover the first topic/trend of “Leveraging of Social Media and ‘Social Intelligence’ as a component to developing overall competitive and Market Intelligence Insights & Capabilities”:

A. BP Gulf Oil Spill – Admiral Thad Allen, Admiral from the Coast Guard who managed the gulf oil spill cleanup, indicated that if he had better insights into the issues and ‘mood’ of people through social media listening techniques, he would be much better prepared with action plans to respond to concerns, issues, inquiries, etc.

B. Toyota Stuck Accelerator Recall – If Toyota was monitoring the chat and commentary via many social media sites, it is very likely that they would have been able to spot potential automobile defect issues starting to trend and handle them earlier vs. blowing up in the media.

C. Egypt Social Unrest – Many of our intelligence agencies were caught off guard at the speed and magnitude of the protests that eventually topped the Mubarak regime. A few experts say that the information that this was going to occur was right in front of them in the form of Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. If they had a social intelligence platform and methodology to interpret the information, it is also likely that this would not have been such a surprise to the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

D. Drug Issues & Recalls – Had Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Companies had a social or market intelligence solution in place, many say that companies would have been able to spot very early the issues with Vioxx, Tylenol, etc. Many people were commenting about the problems with these drugs via social media, but many companies were not listening, hence unable to respond until the issue hit crisis mode.

A. What is Social & Market Intelligence – Social Intelligence is the collection, aggregation, assimilation and dissemination of information from social media forums, blogs, wikis, websites in order to spot key trends around topics of interest such as the following:
1. Key opinion leader sentiment,
2. Regulatory issues, news, public sentiment trends,
3. Consumer feedback on your products and services,
4. Consumer concerns with product safety or availability,
5. Public sentiment about current issues, political leaders, public policy, etc.
6. Public sentiment about how a crisis is being (mis)handled
7. Information on your company or brand activity such as consumer feedback, market issues, market facing issues or trends, new products/services, news, etc.
8. Information on competitor activity such as consumer feedback, market issues, market facing issues or trends, new products/services, news, etc.

This function is usually developed into a single Market or Competitive Intelligence portal as a one stop shop to all market insights. The information will also bring together functions such as text mining, comingling of structured and unstructured data and text, and trend analysis and alerting and will also integrate with Business Process Management (BPM) functions in order to make the insights collected – actionable.

B. What are the benefits – Why are companies and government agencies adopting social Intelligence capabilities?
There are many benefits to adopting this social and/or market intelligence capability as follows:

a) Ability to capitalize on competitor trending market issues or weaknesses
b) Ability to spot competitor trends or new market initiatives before they erode you market share
c) Ability to accurately spot Key Opinion Leader (KOL) issues, trends, or preferences in order to  respond with products/services/policies that are in-line   with these stated needs/preferences
d) Ability to spot consumer sentiment trends that will impact or change regulation that might impact your company or organization
e) Ability to gauge unmet market demand or needs via consumer sentiment
f) Ability to gauge trends in the social-political climate and mood of the country in order to accurately predict needed public policy changes
g) Ability to spot and respond to potential product defect trending issues early before they get to crisis mode and erode your brand image
h) Ability to have an integrated  ‘one stop shop’ repository for all market relevant information – news, blogs, web feeds, RSS feeds, structured data, unstructured data, text feeds, etc. 
i) Ability to accurately gauge social moods and perceptions during the time of crisis in order to develop responsive programs and messaging in order to demonstrate proactiveness and responsiveness
j) Ability to filter out social noise and one-off commentary vs. significant trends and market shifts

The trick in realizing these benefits is twofold. One, you must develop robust trending functionality in order to filter out the noise associated with a few comments being said about a certain topic in order to be focused on rapidly building or significant trends vs. sentiment blips.  The second is integrating the social insights with Business Process Management (BPM), so that actionable projects or programs are put in place once significant and impactful trends are spotted. Chart 1 Illustrates how the social media listening lifecycle should be structured in order to develop a robust social and market intelligence capability.

CHART 1

C. The hottest tools/applications in the market for this capability

Some of the hottest platforms in the social listening space are as follows:
Leading Social Listening Tools:
1) Attensity – Attensity Analytics Suite. Social Monitoring and Analytics
2) Converseon – Conversation Monitor, Conversation Miner. Converseon also performs outbound social conversation management via their Conversation Manager
3) Jive – Social Media Engagement Platform – Inbound Monitoring and Outbound Community & Conversation Management
4) Lithium – Social Media Monitoring Console (formerly Scout Labs). Lithium is also a leading conversation management platform.
5) Nielsen  – BuzzMetrics. Nielsen also performs outbound social conversation management via BuzzMetrics.
6) Radian6 – Radian6 Listening Dashboard. Radian6 also performs outbound social conversation management via the Radian6 Engagement Console. 
 

Next Tier (alphabetically):
1) Alterian – SM2
2) Collective Intellect – Social CRM Insights
3) Cymfony – Cymfony Maestro Platform
4) Dow Jones – Dow Jones Insight
5) Evolve 24 – The Mirror
6) Visible Technologies – TruCast Suite

In addition to the social listening companies and platforms above, many new firms are entering this space at an incredible pace. I recently performed a vendor selection for one of my clients with many of the above tools and the selection process was extensive.  If anybody needs additional insights into these vendor or platform capabilities, please feel free to contact me for assistance.

D. How do you implement it – what are the steps and considerations on implementing this capability within your organization and company

I have developed this capability for several Fortune 500 companies and the capability can be enabled via three (3) Major steps as follows (Summarized):

A) Step #1: Develop a Social Media Monitoring and Strategy including the following:

1) Social Intelligence Strategy/Vision, Objectives, Business Drivers, Critical Success Factors, Community/ Forum Listening Strategy, Key Metrics & Performance Plan, Organizational Plan, Change Management Plan, Communications & Risk Management Plan, monitoring policies, governance plan

B) Step #2: Social Media Technology Platform Evaluation & Selection
     1) Identify potential social media platform & community management vendors
     2) Develop Needed Listening Requirements and Capabilities
     3) Perform Technology Platform Vendor Selection
     4) Onboard Vendor

C) Step #3: Develop Social Media Program Pilots & Deployment Plan
     1) Develop Pilot Project & Deployment Plan
     2) Develop Technology Pilots
     3) Develop  Program Pilots
     4) Develop Organization & Process Pilots
     5) Deploy Pilots and Programs including
           a.  Center of Excellence Deployment
           b.  Multi-Channel Integration
           c.  Policies/Processes
           d.  Roles, Rules, Responsibilities
           e.  Change Management

In summary, Social Intelligence, Social Monitoring, Competitive Intelligence and Market Intelligence are gaining a great deal of Momentum.  Many Fortune 500 companies are either planning to implement this capability or already have.  The practice has gained so much momentum there are even associations and groups being formed like the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) group (http://scip.org/index.cfm ) in order for members to collaborate and share best practices. Is your organization planning on implementing this potentially game-changing capability? If so, give me a call, I call help you achieve world-class programs that enable you to surpass your competition and bring your organization or agency to the next level of market and social intelligence.

iPhone Apps

Over the past several years I’ve been following the endless debate about HTML5 vs. Native Apps. Most recently, I’ve seen this Techcrunch article comparing HTML5 to Native Apps and even seen a reference in a Kliner Perkins’ presentation about the importance of Social Local Mobile sector in the coming years. These comparisons are being made by people who just don’t know code and are misleading.

The real debate should be about Native Apps vs. Web Apps, not HTML5 vs. Apps, which if you are in the know is the same as a debate about Coal vs. Trains. Native “Apps” (or Applications as we used to lovingly call them before this Americanism was coined) started off as “Web Apps” or applications that run inside a web-browser and are inculcated into all things Web 2.0/Tim Berners Lee‘s “Read/Write Web”.

Image by Paul Watson via Flickr

Web Applications are basically applications that are characterized by rich user experiences and interfaces (often involving CSS, Javascript, HTML, Flash etc.) and web-service architectures (SaaS, Cloud Computing etc.) combined with social interactions. As our country’s federal and state governments do not think of Internet Access as basic foundational city infrastructure yet and our telecommunications service providers continue to provide sucky quality of service, we’ve come to want those type of applications in an offline form. Thus our thumbs have come to enjoy playing with offline versions of these Web Apps for our smart phones or “Native Apps” they are now known. Native apps do everything from the weird like generating Fart Noises to accurately answering a question asked in noisy bars the world over, “what’s that f**king song called!?“, living right on the device, often communicating with servers somewhere on the internet.

While Native Apps and mobile devices fit nicely into our busy daily lives where we’re ever increasingly being conditioned to communicate in 160 characters or less, these types of applications are hard to develop in a device-independent way. iPhone, iPad and Mac native apps are developed in Objective-C/Cocoa. Native apps for Windows and Windows Mobile are written in C#/.NET. Many cross-platform apps  and mobile apps for Android, are written in Java. Then there’s Blackberry OS, HP’s WebOS  and there used to be Symbian, which has just come to an abrupt end at Nokia.

Native App architecture

So how does one write a useful and fun native app in a way that spans devices without having to manage ported code multiple times? You guessed it. HTML5′s framework brings rich user experiences and interfaces — CSS3, HTML5 and AJAX , snappy off-line access — cache manifests and Javascript Databases, real-time functionality — web sockets, vector and animation capabilities — HTML5 Canvas, Javascript, standardized codecs for audio and video — HTML5 audio and video tags, and access to cool features like GPS without having to care about the underlying device in the form of newer Web Applications that can detect the type of device you are accessing the web with and change the user-experience to fit in a “thumbsthetic” way. You can even produce native apps from HTML5 web apps. Besides the device independent write-once run-anywhere nature of HTML5 apps, you have the advantage that you  can maintain your application easily by simply updating the code on the server and instantaneously see the updates on all the devices running the app rather than being subject to delays getting software updates deployed through native app market places; just one of the reasons why Netflix chose to adopt HTML5 as the framework of choice for their cross-platform apps. In fact, newer marketplaces like Open App Market are emerging as popular distribution channels for these types of apps. There are limitations such as the inability to access a device’s camera, compass, accelerometer etc. on some devices, but platforms like Android are exposing those features to web-applications so I am certain competitors will soon follow.

I’m the Founder and CEO at Sifr where we’re pioneering a new and unique free to play mobile social game called Hopskoch to help people play everywhere; alone, together and in teams, at home and on the go, regardless of the edge device or platform. You play on Facebook, while she plays a game with you on an iPhone and I play with the both of you from my Blackberry. No internet access? No worries. Hopskoch is a web app that we’ve taken native across 2 different mobile platforms so far in about 2 weeks with 4 code warriors. Its not an HTML5 vs. Native App thing. Rather the HTML5 framework is an enabler for both web apps and native apps.

Related Articles

• A Free Day of Javascript on Mobile at Google HQ (thenextweb.com)
• Ask HN: Best way to write an app for both Android and iOS? (news.ycombinator.com)
• UX Benefits to Building Mobile Web Apps (lukew.com)
• 9 Mobile Framework to Kick Start Your Mobile Development Career | Queness (queness.com)
• Using HTML5 Application Cache to Create Offline Web Applications (java.sys-con.com)
• Making It a Mobile Web App (smashingmagazine.com)

A visualization of the Internet c/o Wikipedia

I’ve been reading about Net Neutrality a lot as of late. Its bad enough that the telecom industry in this country is way behind the rest of the world in terms of providing high-speed internet access to every home and that the Quality of Service from many large ISPs just plain sucks and that the whole industry is monopolized. Apparently the same telecom companies that’d been dragging their heels when it comes to reinvesting their profits to improve infrastructure, now want to increase profitability by controlling which web-sites and content we can get to depending on the amount of tariffs that a content publisher and subscriber pays the ISP. Can’t afford to pay these ISPs for their double-dipping schemes?  Then best of luck getting traffic for your web-site  or reaching certain web-sites on the non-neutral Internet.

Since the inception of the Internet the premise has always been that the net is neutral to the edge used to connect to it. To put it another way, the internet does not care about how you get connected. That’s a matter between you and your ISP. If you pay X and I pay Y, we should both still be able to get to http://www.acme.com regardless of what X and Y amounts to be. Well, the wonderful sales and marketing geniuses at these telecom companies are trying to devise new ways to make money and change this foundational premise. Here’s their grand idea to squeeze even more money out of our wallets for their services illustrated:

A view to a non-neutral internet

The Internet is the latest form of communication medium that helps to connect people around the world. It has made history of the geographic divide in just two decades. The Internet is also home to a vast repository of knowledge intermixed with applications and services to manipulate that knowledge, that evolves as the human race evolves. I also think of the Internet as an extension of the Conscious Human Mind and perhaps the birthplace of a reasoning artificial intelligence to come; but more about those musings in a separate post. The Internet does not have any morals or intent or emotion. It does not impose judgement on the content publisher or subscriber. Each of us can push what we’d like to and take from it what we’d like to for the most part. This is the strength and life-line of the Internet; the reason why it has grown in popularity.

The Internet wants to be free but companies using it to distribute content or provide services, need to make a profit. We have seen the effects of the resulting friction on other forms of communication — dare I say social-media — that came before the Internet, like the published page and radio and TV/Film, all of which started off as bi-directional channels for information flow between publishers and subscribers, before commercial entities and governments turned them into one-way channels, resulting in heavy bias over the content being published through these channels.

Controlling or restricting our ability to reach content on the internet or limiting our ability to publish and subscribe content freely would spell the beginning of the end of innovation on the Internet and the ultimate demise of the Internet as we know it. We must fight to keep the Internet neutral.

Related Articles

• Choosing Sides Over Net Neutrality (waronterrornews.typepad.com)
• Deep Packet Inspection Firms Trying To Turn Net Neutrality Satire Into Reality (techdirt.com)
• ISPs should be allowed to abandon net neutrality, says Ed Vaizey (newstatesman.com)
• Founder Berners-Lee Sees Social Media Corrupting His Intent For The Web (searchenginewatch.com)
• UK to ISPs: Prioritize away! (so long as you tell users) (arstechnica.com)
• UK Government Thinks ISPs Should Be Free To Abandon Net Neutrality (paidcontent.org)
• Lawmakers Want Net Neutrality for Schools, Libraries (pcworld.com)

That’s not code for something personal and I’m not talking about implements to help pour a bit of liquid into something either. I’m talking about the patterns people follow as they arrive at a website and then decide to click on stuff. Their clicks may lead them to subscribe to your service or buy your widget and help you monetize your business. That click-trail is called a funnel. Your websites may have one or more of these funnels.

Sample metrics (Image via Wikipedia)

User experience is everything and really good statistics about how people interact with your site is key to understanding and constantly improving user experience. Fortunately there are a lot of good analytical tools out there to help with the ‘how to measure?’ part of the equation. Kissmetrics, Kontagent, Mixpanel are examples of newer, real-time tools for social applications and the venerable Google Analytics (which you can tie to your Google Adwords campaigns) is a more general-purpose tool that’s not real-time (yet) but is free.

So the toughest part as always is figuring out what to measure. Spend some time to figure out your funnels. Standard deviations, variance, running averages and more can then come to the rescue and help you tweak them to improve your ability to convert people into customers. Do your math teach proud and read up on the stats for your site. Like GlenGary Glen Ross’s ABC’s (Always Be Closing), for your funnels its Always Be Measuring.

Related Articles

• Mixpanel Brings Real-Time Analytics to Android Apps (mashable.com)
• Kontagent arms developers with better analytics so they can take on social game leaders (venturebeat.com)
• Google Analytics analysed (solidwebcode.com)
• What Everybody Should Know About Facebook Analytics – A Comparison of the Top 4 Services (socialtimes.com)

Being a long-time fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s analytical technique, I was shocked to read his article “Small Change” in your recent issue (Oct 4, 2010). Comparing the 1960s sit-down strikes across the American south to the recent uprisings in Moldova and Iran is a false comparison. For starters, the sit-down strikes were successful. But more importantly Mr Gladwell ignores the way in which media is evolving, and the definition of “activism” with it.

I was an active participant in the Iranian Twitter uprising. I was drawn to the cause for two reasons. Twitter enabled me to feel like I was making a real difference (whether or not the feeling was accurate is debatable). The feeling of participation, of a “fever” that “everyone was involved in” is precisely the same as the fever that drove the civil rights protesters half a century ago.

The Twitter event also opened my eyes to realities on the ground in Iran — realities you DON’T learn about through nearly any other news outlet in America (TV news media’s coverage later that week of the Ayatollah’s speech to the prostrating faithful is a prime example of what I mean). For a brief moment the veil of spin was lifted and those of us who participated in the Twitter event were able to see the very real machine of state repression.

The key here is that new media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have changed the way we participate in community dialogue. Strikes and protests have spun into PR stunts aided by our digital community-building tools. A good example of this are recent signs at Tea Party protests — “Look it up on the internet!” and “Read about it on Google!”. A new pattern of dialogue has emerged where content (truthful or fabricated) is posted on-line, given prominence thanks to SEO and spread to the masses via prominent signage visible on TV, print media and social media. Messages spread; fever takes hold; people rise up from all ends of the political spectrum.

Activism has moved into the digital age. I’m surprised Mr Gladwell missed the connection.

Facebook (Image via Wikipedia)

Back in August this year, Wired magazine ran an article declaring that the Internet was dead. Not to sensationalize or anything. Apparently we are to blame for abandoning the “unfettered web” in favor of the “simpler, sleeker services that just work” meaning applications. I didn’t know that unfettered or simple were the only two choices. The article while thought-provoking, is missing the point and so are the people quoted in the article.

It’s not about the Internet or the types of communication mechanisms that came before it. Sure, every communication medium we’ve developed over the years started off as a bi-directional channel to help exchange ideas between people divided by lack of technology, social order and more. Once people get connected en-masse, capitalistic mindsets step up and take notice and oligarchs like Yuri Milner (who is connected by less than two degrees of separation to the Russian Mob) claim that “Big sucks the traffic out of small” and “In theory you can have a few very successful individuals controlling hundreds of millions of people. You can become big fast, and that favors the domination of strong people”. Clearly Yuri and others like him around the world are ok with the idea of centralized control over millions of people using services like Facebook. Perhaps Yuri and Digital Sky Technologies also invested in Zynga because of their love of the masses playing mafia-related games

The documented history of humanity on this planet shows us that throughout time, there have been attempts by individuals and groups of people at centralizing control of knowledge, for the power that it yields. It works in the favor of these people, their corporations and their lust for blurring the lines between profitability and pure greed. Hey, if they can just tell you what to think and feel and eat, wouldn’t that make everyone’s life so much more easy? The controllers obviously don’t have to be part of the masses being controlled.

The Internet is not dead. I am using it to write this blog now. And Wired used it just then to publish their article on their webzine. I recommend that they use it more often. Especially to understand where the Internet came from. Not physically of course; everyone knows that the Internet is just a series of pipes that Al Gore invented The Internet was borne of the desire to connect people and information. Computers –which are dandy tools indeed– played a major role there because computer networks could facilitate the information exchange between people who were separated by geography, mindset and more. In publishing their sensationalized article, Wired Magazine has clearly demonstrated their lack of understanding of how mobile applications and web-services a.k.a Internet applications work together in synchronicity today over the so-called dead-medium to connect people, machines and information together. Before using phrases like “abandoning the web” they and others are advised to learn a bit out Tim Berners Lee and his work at CERN that laid the technological foundations for the internet.

Tim Berners Lee (Image via Wikipedia)

People will always want to control information flows between people. That does not mean that Internet can or should be controlled. Just because 500 million people are members of Facebook and millions each day consequently spend time on Facebook, that doesn’t mean that controlling Facebook equates to controlling the Internet or the 500 million people who are users of that app. Ask anyone who uses Twitter or the people on Facebook pressuring Facebook about Privacy. I dropped Facebooking over summer to enjoy my life and can tell you that I didn’t miss Facebook one bit. Let’s not forget how big MySpace and eBay was in their heyday. Big may suck the traffic out of small, but you’ll quickly find that a world with just Big and no small is a crappy world indeed. Human nature will ensure that we will always find ways of connecting with each other, whether it’s over the Internet or over two cups and a piece of string. The Internet is just part of Human Evolution. Killing the Internet would require killing the world’s spirit.

Matt McKeon's subjective study of the evolution of privacy on Facebook (http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/)

In my opinion, Facebook takes a very lax stance against privacy as evidenced by the fact that whenever it comes down to introducing new features that inevitably seek to monetize people’s information, its users are always opted in by default. Don’t agree? Just watch their 4 minute video on the changes you have to make in their cryptic configuration system to opt-out. Let’s think about that for a moment. If Facebook was to proactively police and protect its user’s privacy, surely it would not opt users in by default whenever a privacy-invasive feature was rolled out. I propose that the average Facebook user has little clue about how to manipulate Facebook’s configuration settings, no matter how easy or simple Facebook purports that process to be. Preventing use of that goldmine of personal user data for profit wouldn’t be a prudent business decision either. Or would it?

In case you were wondering, this post isn’t really about Facebook-bashing. Substitute Facebook with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon, Twitter or any other service-provider out there with a relatively large user-base and you’ll still end up with the same issues. The fact is that Web 2.0 permits a two-way exchange of information between service providers on the web and the layperson consumers of those services in an unfettered manner. As the data gathered by these services are inevitably mashed up into giant federated knowledgebases that provide the service providers ever deeper insights into user behavior to whatever end, ethical conflicts are bound to occur. Is the need for Profitability mutually exclusive with the need for Privacy? It certainly seems like there is friction between these two concepts.

I would argue that as technology makes it possible for us to consume all of these services with relative ease, the need to remain vigilant about privacy becomes ever important. Threats like Identity Theft pose a real problem even in the most limited circumstances in the real offline world. Ask anyone who has suffered from it and you’ll find out how difficult it is to clear up your credit report here in the US. There are a handful of credit-bureaus and insurance agencies with red-tape ridden processes to provide some recourse if your identity is stolen. Now let’s think of this problem on internet scale. I backup important documents on-line. I do my banking online. I watch TV online. I buy and store music online. I buy and read books online. I store my photos online. I order my groceries online. I buy consumer electronics online. I book my travel online. I blog about my ideas and opinions online. It gets harder and harder for me to keep track of the logon IDs and passwords to open doors to all these on-line services that I use. So I will naturally tend to gravitate to services that satisfy many of my needs at a single destination or to those that allow me to unlock all those doors with one key. I may maintain pseudo-anonymity but even then there are only so many pseudo-anonymous IDs I could be expected to reasonably manage. Open Authentication (oAuth), Facebook’s Open Graph protocol, services like Gravatar etc. assure — not out of malicious intent or design mind you — that anyone who gains access to my primary identifier (or valid session identifier) can potentially gain access to all of my info online since fewer keys unlock so many doors.

The problem is that when a breach occurs on-line compromising security, where do I go to as a recourse to clearing my Identity? More important is the effect a breach of security can have on my on-line reputation. Due to the interconnectedness of things on the Internet, the damage that is possible is a factor greater than the equivalent in an offline world. How sure are you that all copies of your data at all of the locations it may be stored at in transit and at rest are secure? The chain is as weak as it’s weakest link. I find it ironic that a lot of services offered on the web today advertise privacy-conscious user-friendly Privacy Policies — some even touting things like their “fundamental principles” — only to destroy all of those principles with their nazi-like Terms of Service, which to put it quite bluntly asks you to agree unconditionally to the service-provider’s demands, giving them perpetual, royalty-free access to your content while allowing 3rd parties access to that same content in order to perform loosely defined “Services for the user”. The problem I think is that  in the light of Facebook’s astronomical growth, it’s been easy to raise funding for businesses that have synthetic or no business models and that employ great marketing spin. Once funded  however and the pressure to generate revenue mounts, these businesses simply resort to monetizing its user data through advertising, which is a safe bet.

Projects like Diaspora are thinking along the lines that creating a social network that securely decentralizes your data and gives you control of it is a good thing; a peer-mesh for Social Networks. I tend to agree. If they manage to overcome the technical, marketing and execution hurdles they face ahead, we may actually start to see new business models evolve that embrace the idea of privacy while still making money.  I run a social games company called Sifr Inc. and we make a Social Game platform called Hopskoch which is in private beta.  We are sensitive to the issue of Privacy especially when it comes to the Location Bases Services we offer, which adds yet another dimension to this problem. But I’ll cover more about that issue along the creative ways we employ to protect our customers right to privacy in the next series of posts. In the meanwhile, I take comfort with the knowledge that I have garnered over the last two decades spent working in the Identity and Access Management market that this presents a unique opportunity for infrastructure and application security service providers to step up with Privacy protection services.

Related Articles

• Q&A: Getting People to Pay for Privacy (blogs.wsj.com)
• AOL Announces SafeSocial to Protect Kids on Facebook (socialtimes.com)
• Jeffrey Evans: If Only Irony Had a Privacy Setting (huffingtonpost.com)
• Google Streamlines Its Privacy Policy. Should Facebook Be Next? (techcrunch.com)
• In Social Media, Privacy Now Has To Be Part of the Sales Pitch (blogs.forbes.com)