Google’s Ad Scan: Stupidity, Madness or Mere Insanity?

The blog Silicon Valley Insider has an extraordinary item today about Google’s latest ad scheme, which works this way:

1. Advertiser buys ad in newspaper; a Google barcode appears on the ad

2. For reasons unrevealed and hard to imagine, a newspaper reader wants so badly to have the ad on her mobile phone that she takes a snapshot of the barcode with her device (she has previously installed special software to permit this)

3. Her mobile phone takes her directly to an online version of the ad–which presumably has more value in mobile, digital form than it does in its mobile, analog print version. Maybe it’s more information, or a chance to sign up for, oh, I don’t know, an e-mail newsletter or a sweepstakes (which is to say an e-mail newsletter)

4. The newspaper advertiser can now capture data about that potential customer which is uncaptureable in a print environment

5. Google sends the cell phone user an e-mail message, which she is invited to print out and attach to her forehead with duct tape. The e-mail says “I Am Verry Stupid.”

Actually, I made up No. 5.

I know, I know, they do this printed-bar-code-and-cell-phone thing in Japan. But in Japan they also watch those game shows where people hilariously incur significant internal organ damage by competing in contests involving mud, spinning platforms and immovable objects. “I Am Verry Stupid” indeed.

Business Rule No. 1: If you want to get consumers to do something that benefits you (like give you money, or merely identify yourself as a reader of an ad so someone else gives you money), you have to offer them something of value in return. This “value proposition” seems to be missing in this Google scheme.

Please, right now, close your eyes. Try to imagine seeing an ad in the newspaper so utterly compelling that you’re willing to stop whatever you’re doing, take out your cell phone, and view another version of that ad–maybe an interactive one, just like on the web!–in the tiny screen of your cell phone.

I know, I can’t either.

I prefer to view a money scheme this spectacularly wrong-headed as another hopeful sign that Google has entered its Late Empire phase, when the emperors drink arsenic at orgies while the lean and crafty barbarians consolidate control of the provinces and plan the ultimate pillage.

Or maybe (alas) it’s just another sign that Google has so much money now it can make big bets on slim chances and put nothing more at risk than a quarterly earnings rounding error.

In any case, if you know anyone who works on this particular project at Google, please send them the following message as an e-mail and ask them to tape it to their foreheads.

I AM VERRY STUPID

User-Generated Content: Can You Find the Pill Shill?

New comScore data suggest that about 30 percent of women consider user-generated content on the web when making decisions about birth control methods. Twenty-three percent said they wouldn’t consider UGC, and 46 percent said they’d consider it but haven’t tried the chat/forum method.

The data make sense. With a whole new wave of birth control products on the market—including drugs that permit women to have menstrual periods monthly, quarterly, or even once per year (!)—women are checking with those who have been there/done that for some straight talk.

UGC can let sisters do it for themselves—at least with a new form of a product women have been using for years, and is heavily advertised with direct to consumers suggesting it’s a lifestyle choice rather than a medical decision.

The survey, like so many, was done on behalf of pharma companies. The back story raises familiar questions about UGC with consumer products

Hmmm…pharma companies learn that a majority of women either are or would consider UGC to make decisions. So let’s see, what’s a more effective method of reaching these women–more direct-to-consumer advertising or hey, maybe a posse of online “brand ambassadors” and “superusers” who slyly create UGC on behalf of drugs?

The implication, well known to students of 2.0 marketing, is clear. In the world of UGC, it can be hard to tell the difference between a girlfriend and a pill shill.

Digging Itself (Maybe) Out of A Hole

Digg, the original “wisdom”-of-the-crowds web content filter, has caved.

It’s abandoning–”tweaking” would be the kindest description–its earlier policy of allowing users alone to elevate or demote web content to visibility. By making changes to its algorithm,  it will essentially diminish the impact of the votes (aka “Diggs”) of a hardcore group of power users who have  disproportionate influence over what content sees the light of day.

Founder Kevin Rose has a  sly, even disingenuous, blog entry explaining the change.

Scott Karp, author of the Publishing 2.0 blog, offers an insightful explanation of what’s really going on–and what it means to the whole wisdom-of-the-crowds concept.

HealthCentral PoliGraph, Cont’d.

When I committed the sin of self-promotion by writing about the HealthCentral Healthcare08 PoliGraph, in which I had a hand, I really had no idea I’d need to come back to the topic.

But the project, which plots the presidential condenders’ healthcare views on a snazzy interactive graph, has generated a bit of controversy in electroland. I’ve responded on the HealthCareBlog site (to which I have recently been invited to contribute), where most of the comments have collected.

See also a very thoughtful (if deeply critical) analysis at Ezra Klein’s excellent American Prospect blog.

The Atlantic: Finding Its Sea Legs

I’m delighted to report that as of today the website for The Atlantic magazine has stuck an epee in its self-infatuated, self-destructive policy of permitting only subscribers of the print edition to read articles published in the printed magazine online.

A New York Times story reports on the change of heart. The Atlantic’s policy, while not entirely uncommon, is so dunderheaded it’s hard to know where to start.

• People who subscribe to the print edition don’t need to read the stories online–so they essentially receive nothing of value for their patronage.
• Potential new readers are punished and insulted when they go to read an article and get stopped by the dead-tree police. Subscribe or pay $2.95 to read any further, pal. You got a problem with that? 

This kind of policy begins when someone in a corner office sputters, “But we can’t give it away for free, we’ll erode our subscriber base!” and turns into reality when others in the room lacking the courage or brains to  explain why this is a terrible way to treat high quality content these days.

Atlantic’s operators got religion when they realized, hey, the site’s excellent blogs were getting enough traffic to sell–they’ve even hired some people to sell ads for it now!  

Go to theatlantic.com and you can–if you’re feeling like a chair in front of a computer is a good way to spend the next 45 minutes or so of your life–read every freaking word of Jeffrey Goldberg’s excellent piece on the Middle East after Iraq. Or  the usually brilliant Dana Milbank’s not-all-that-funny excerpt of his new book about lifeways along the Potomac.

Interesting fact in the Times story: 308,000 visitors hit the Atlantic’s web site last month; 400,000 subscribe to the magazine. (Atlantickers say the web site traffic really a lot higher. Wish I had a Facebook stock option for every time I’ve heard that one.)

The last time I looked at Atlantic’s site, I cited them for highbrow contempt of reader–not even having the decency to  publish a most read/most e-mailed listing to allow their readers to have some sort of say in what appears on the site.

Well, that’s changed too.

There is now a lipstick red box that squeals “Hot Reads” and includes most popular items from the magazine and online, and the items with the most comments. Good move, but now they’re trying too hard to be with the smart set: Lookit, kids, I get it now! 

Where are the candidates’ heads on healthcare?

[Warning: I have assiduously avoided using this blog to promote my own work. Until today. I promise this will be a rare, if not singular, experience.]

I just completed work on a campaign dataviz (data visualization) project for Health Central network, called the Healthcare08 PoliGraph. It plots the presidential candidates’ positions on six health care issue on both left/right and most important/least important axes.

The whole point of the project is to use interactive technology to help people extract themselves from the candidates’ rhetorical mush and actually see their differences in policy positions on issues like stem cell research and drug price controls.

I leave it to others to determine how successful the application is at accomplishing this goal (to say nothing of how accurately we’ve mapped the candidates’ positions. I suspect the campaigns will weigh in on that).

But I will let three utterly biased observations onto the page:

• The application lets you see, pretty easily, when GOPers drift into Democrat territory on certain issues (Rudy Giuliani on stem cells, John McCain on drug prices). Oddly, no Dems, except for the, how you say, difficult-to-pin-down Mike Gravel, drift into the Red Zone.
• I love the way the candidates’ heads reorganize themselves when you click from issue to issue. And the way they get bigger with mouseover. Our Flash guy deserves a case of Stoli and a case of Red Bull, ideally to be enjoyed simultaneously.
• The applications lets you map your own views on the PoliGraph with a little quiz–and then change their answers if you find out you’re close to Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul or someone scary like that. [Don't worry: Changing your answers is only called a "flip-flop" if you're the one running for office.]

Any comments, especially constructive criticisms, warmly welcomed.

Meantime, thank you for indulging my self-promotion. We will return to our regularly scheduled harsh critique of others’ work tomorrow.

Next Page »