Category Archives: Online Trends

Digging Still Deeper into the Search Branding Question

First published June 12, 2008 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I love debate. I love defending my ideas, and in the process, shaping, refining and sometimes discarding them as they prove to be too unwieldy or simply incorrect. My last two columns have generated a fascinating debate around the concept of branding in search. Fellow Search Insider Aaron Goldman, comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni, his senior vice president of search and media, James Lamberti, Erik du Plessis, Millward Brown executive and author of  “The Advertised Mind” (fascinating book, by the way), as well as a host of others, have taken up the debating gauntlet on this particular topic.

As luck would have it, we just wrapped up a study with Google in Europe — and data there seems to show that I’m dead wrong about the inability of unclicked search ads to build brand, reinforcing the view of Gian and Aaron (Aaron has his own research, and ours seems to support his findings). We saw brand lift (based on traditional metrics) of anywhere from 5 to 15% on even unclicked ads. And this was with thousands of respondents across four different product categories in three different markets, so I don’t think it’s an anomaly.

The easy thing would have been to toss in the towel and admit I was wrong. But I’m not so sure about that. I’m convinced the neurobiological underpinnings I outlined in my column two weeks ago are sound and that the reasons for the apparent contradictions lie in some aspects of the search interaction and brand recall that I overlooked and the metrics we use to measure them.

But, in looking at this, I realized that this topic lies at the heart of a fundamental and not-yet-explored aspect of search: how does it influence our brand relationships? In one regard, I’m wholly in agreement with Aaron, Gian and James. There’s a tremendous amount of branding value being left on the table with search. Where we differ is in the nature of that value. But that’s not an easy thing to explore. It’s certainly beyond the scope of a single column. So yesterday I sent an email to my MediaPost editor asking if I could use this column over the next several weeks to lay out my hypothesis for how we interact with search. Thankfully, she agreed. So, beginning this week, I’d like to begin unraveling that knot.

In my weekly columns over the next few months I’d like to explore several questions:

Why do we search: This goes to Aaron’s comment that we don’t always search for information about a purchase. And this is absolutely true. We search for many different reasons. I’ll look at what motivates us to search and our mental frame of mind when do so. Is searching a conditioned behavior?

Why we search the way we do: Through all Enquiro’s research, we have found very consistent search patterns. Why do we search the way we do? How do we forage for information? And why is a search engagement “thin,” while a Web site engagement is “thick”?

Why does searching trigger information retrieval, but doesn’t necessarily create new memories: I’ll look at how memory works, specific to the act of searching, and how this differs from other types of advertising.

Why we use search differently at different stages in our purchasing behavior: The way we use search early in the process can be significantly different than the way we use it later. And it’s not the classic search “funnel” you may think.

Why the traditional brand metrics used are not accurate measures of likelihood to purchase, especially when applied to a search interaction.

Why search can be the most important brand tool in a marketer’s arsenal, if it’s used in the right place. It’s a matter of understanding what search can do and what it can’t. And, even more importantly, understanding how to measure that value.

And finally, will the changing nature of search change the way it acts as a branding strategy?

In this process I hope to provide supporting research where I can (there’s little empirical research in this area). I’ll also be reaching out to others, including my debating partners, to capture their views as well. And, as always, I invite you all to join the conversation.

How Much Would You Pay for this Unclicked Search Ad?

First published May 29, 2008 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

As David Berkowitz mentioned a few columns back, comScore CEO Gian Fulgoni pondered the implications of the fact that 95% of Google’s search advertising inventory never gets clicked. All those millions and millions of impressions get thrown out there, just to fade away as a non event as soon as one leaves the results page. Our own research, which Fulgoni refered to, shows that presence at the top of the page does have an impact on brand awareness and propensity to buy. So, logically, even if a link is not clicked, there must be value there. Fulgoni wondered if perhaps Google was leaving significant amounts of money on the table with their cost per click model.

David looked at the implications of Fulgoni’s musings from a business model. I, staying on more familiar ground, would like to explore this from the user’s view. Ironically, although Fulgoni used our research to prove his point, I’m not so sure there is a latent brand impact from search if a link remains unclicked. Let me explain why.
Will You Remember Me?

There’s a distinct divide between the impact realized from interaction with the search results page and interaction after the click-through, on the Web site. And the difference lies in how the interactions get loaded into our brains. When the spotlight of attention is turned on, things go directly into the executive function mode of our brains, which is commonly called working memory. This is like a white board, where we gather the details needed to make decisions and store them. There are two limiting factors to working memory, capacity and duration. We can only load so much on this whiteboard, and it will remain only as long as we’re actively using it. After that, the board gets wiped clean, ready for the next decision.

When we’re using working memory, we’re fully engaging our rational loop. Things go directly to working memory. Depending on the importance of the information for us in the long term, we’ll either start creating the long-term memory hooks to retain it, or it will be left to be erased from short-term memory. Think of when you look up a phone number. Obviously, there is lots of other information on the page or Web site where you go, but you’re focused on just the number you need. You find the number and begin repeating it to yourself, effectively beginning the transition from short-term to long-term memory. The rest of the information you saw on the page, even if you were actively focused on it during the task, is almost mmediately wiped from your memory.

The memory hooks you create will depend on how long you need the number, and how often you use it. If this is going to be an oft-used piece of information, it will get stored for the long run in your semantic memory. If not, it will eventually wither away in memory purgatory, caught between the transience of short term and the enduring stability of long term.

Focus of Attention

When we interact with a search engine, our working memory is in high gear. We are very much focused on the task at hand, “berry picking” our way through the information presented on the search page. In split seconds, we filter our way through incredible amounts of information, seeking the cues of relevancy, or information scent, required to indicate which result best matches our intent. We don’t spend a lot of time qualifying the quality of the match. Click-throughs are low-risk investments. If we click through on a listing and it doesn’t provide what we’re looking for, we can easily click back to the results page and try another one. So we don’t spend a lot of time considering the results. We scan, filter and click. There’s little opportunity for unclicked messaging to pass beyond working memory and stick.

Fulgoni’s theory has one other thing working against it. Much brand impact is acquired implicitly. Even when we’re not focused on acquiring information, images, sounds and messaging are filtering into our brains at a subconscious level, there to help create our brand perceptions. But all interaction with the search results page is explicit, a very focused acquisition of information. Everything passes through executive function and working memory. There is no opportunity for brand messaging to sneak past the guard and find a nook or cranny of our cortex to lodge itself in. We’re diligently wiping the slate clean.

Fulgoni’s theory is interesting, but I’m not sure it holds up when we look at the neurobiology involved in the process. There is a tremendous branding opportunity in search, but unfortunately, it doesn’t lie in the unclicked ad. But more on that next column, when we look at the interaction on the search page, and what happens after the click-through.

Great Summit – But What Will We Call It Next Time?

First published May 22, 2008 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Less than 24 hours ago, my fellow columnists were sitting on a stage on Captiva Island, Fla., recapping the events of the three-day Search Insider Summit. It was Insider Aaron Goldman that first noticed the dilemma. “You know,” he mused, as he looked at his famous Summit Buzz Index list (more on this in Aaron’s next column), “I don’t see the word search in here.” We realized, together with the attendees, that in three days of earnest, thoughtful, engaged and even passionate discussion, we had talked about a lot of things: marketing, branding, conversations, engagement, intent, convergence, communities, mobile and local. But somehow, search remained implicitly rather than explicitly present in these conversations.

The Essentially Human Nature of Search

Perhaps we had outgrown search. But no, that wasn’t it. Search had outgrown us, or, at least, the box we kept trying to stuff it in. It went to something that I had touched on a few times over the past three days. Search isn’t a channel. Search is glue, search is ether, search is a synapse, a connection, a completion. Search is a fundamental human activity. Search isn’t a marketing tactic. It’s how we express ourselves.

Perhaps it’s the human need to categorize things. We tend to pigeonhole search and put labels on it. It’s direct response, it’s transactional, it’s pull rather than push. But search isn’t a noun, search is a verb. And it was only on the plane ride back that I started to realize how important that is.

Battelle’s Big Idea

John Battelle did a great job of poking at the import of this in his book “The Search.” But I’m not sure people realized how mind-boggling Battelle’s “database of intentions” is. It’s a vast concept, and that scares the hell out of most people. Similarly, Google’s goal to organize the world’s information can be as deep as you want to make it.

Let’s dissect this a bit so we can start to put appropriate scope to it, and you’ll realize that Google’s goal is maybe the biggest, hairiest, most audacious corporate goal in history.

There are few things humans need on a daily basis. We are biomechanical machines, so we need oxygen, water, food and sleep. We are social creatures, so we need to communicate. And we are rational beings (or at least, we come equipped with the necessary equipment for rational thought) so we need information. Given that, organizing the world’s information sounds like a good thing, right? It makes our life easier. But whoever organizes the world’s information also controls access to it. We pass at their pleasure.

A Toll on Information

Recently I had the opportunity to cycle up the Rhine Valley in Germany. Dotted along the valley are dozens of castles overlooking the river. The castles exist because the Rhine was the primary navigation route of central Europe, and robber barons realized that if they could control even a small part of the river, they could exact tolls and become fabulously wealthy. But even as bold as the baron’s were, their plans pale in comparison to Google’s goal. Imagine the ability to impose a toll on every single bit of information that we, as humans, need on a daily basis.

In a remarkably short time, Google has created a connection to the biggest repository of information ever collected, and each day, the company adds to it. Each day, our ability to access the information we need to function relies more and more on search, which means it relies on Google.  For almost any decision we make, we need information. Sometimes, the information is at hand, but when it’s not, we have to search for it. And, we will take the easiest possible route to do so. That’s why for more and more of our actions and decisions, there are corresponding searches. Search is not a channel, it’s how we act on our intentions and aspirations.

Search Centered by Default

Gerry Bavaro, another Search Insider, said it best. If you truly put your prospect at the center of your marketing strategy, it can’t help but have search at the core. It’s a given. When your prospect reaches out for the information required to make a buying decision, it’s highly likely they’ll reach out through search.

So, as we tried to put the wraps on three days of high-level thinking about search, we realized we had actually unwrapped something bigger than any of us realized. I’m not sure what you call it, but one thing’s for sure. It won’t fit in any pigeonhole.

Don’t Crown Google Yet – The Rules of Engagement are Still Being Determined

First published May 15, 2008 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

According to an article in the Financial Times, the search war is already over. Google’s won. Everyone else can go home now. Microhoo was the last potential challenger, and now that that deal is in shambles, the victory has been ceded to the search empire of Mountain View. Even fellow Search Insider Aaron Goldman has been searching for a Google Killer, and so far hasn’t found one. I myself said Google was going to be an extremely hard habit to break (in five parts, no less).

It’s true that these are dark times for desktop search. There is barely a whisper of resistance to the Google juggernaut. But to declare unconditional victory is a little premature. As Google itself is fond of saying, we’ve barely begun to play the search game. To declare it won now would probably be as myopic as awarding the crown to AltaVista in 1997. True, Google has a huge head start, but we’re not even sure which route the race will take.

Microhoo never could have won…

I’ve never been a fan of Microhoo. I think the acquisition would have been a huge mistake. The strategy seemed to be that by tying two sinking boats together, you could somehow catch Google. But the outcome was inevitable. Both Microsoft and Yahoo have fundamental issues in corporate direction and strategy, cultural cohesiveness and respect for their users. They have to get their own houses in order before they can challenge anyone. Putting two dysfunctional families together doesn’t make things any better. It just doubles the number of people yelling at each other. If the Microhoo deal had flown, it would have blown up in under a year. Google would have won regardless.

I’m not sure where Google’s competition is going to come from, but based on what I’m seeing (and the unfortunate Ballmer video that David Berkowitz made me aware of) it’s not Microsoft or Yahoo. In their hearts, they’ve already given up on Web search and are hoping to use ad networks as the next battleground.

Against the Rising Consumer Tide

Giving up on search and falling back on ad networks is monumentally stupid. I’ve said this so many times I can’t believe I have to keep repeating it, but I will. Ad networks are firmly rooted in yesterday. They’re an extension of an advertising mentality that’s based on disrupting prospects and keeping control in the hands of the marketer. Search propelled Google to its current status because it’s a discontinuous innovation. It’s customer-initiated marketing, marketing rooted in tomorrow, where the prospect is in control. By focusing on ad networks, you’re ignoring the voice of billions of consumers that have already spoken loud and clear. Yes, you can target. Yes, you can segment. Yes, it’s a whole new take on marketing, but it’s still marketing. It’s not innovative or paradigm breaking.

So, if we ignore search for a minute, and think about other ways that customers can exercise this control, we start to understand how vast the potential is. Mobile is often touted as The Next Big Thing, and I tend to agree. But really, mobile is just one channel. The really big thing is that now the masses have control, and they will exercise it. The winners will be the ones that figure out new and innovative ways for consumers to do so — and that requires a different kind of thinking. That, first of all, requires acceptance of the power shift. Ironically, Google started here, but the user-side focus is becoming a little blurry with the acquisition of DoubleClick. There is a mix of religions now in Mountain View, so even the Googleplex is starting to have signs of dysfunction.

Just When You Least Expect It

I think Google’s competition will come from the same place Google did. It will sneak out of nowhere. It won’t come from the stuck-in-yesterday mind ruts of Microsoft. It won’t come from the desperation of Yahoo. It will come from someone small enough, visionary enough, obsessive enough and ballsy enough to still do great things, without those great things being picked to death at the boardroom table. But, even here, Google might still win. Google’s greatest success came from not being swallowed by one of its competitors too soon, because no one was smart enough to recognize the threat. Despite Google’s not insignificant hubris, I think its executives are still able to recognize when their lunch is in danger of being eaten.

A Search Summit for the “Hidden” Experts

First published May 8, 2008 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

In just over a week, I’ll be the emcee at my third Search Insider Summit, on beautiful Captiva Island, Fla. This time around, I also lent fellow Search Insider, David Berkowitz, a hand in putting the program together. We started by asking some past attendees what they liked and what they’d improve about the shows. With the search show calendar as jammed as it’s becoming, it’s important to find a niche that attendees find valuable.

In these conversations, the almost unanimous response was “more conversations!” The size, scheduling, location and intimacy of the Summit are among its best features, in that they allow attendees to actually talk to each other. So this time around, we’ve allowed for more conversations than ever, by bringing attendees together for roundtable brainstorming breakouts on topics ranging from local and universal search to social media and cross channel optimization. Each table will be hosted by one or two experts in the area.

Search conferences are usually crawling with “hidden” experts who have just as much to add (maybe more) as the people presenting up on the panels. Often, these attendees lurk, remaining silent, and, if you’re extraordinarily lucky, you might sit next to one at the bar after the official show shuts down. This is when many attendees’ real education begins. These sessions are valuable because you can ask specific questions and get relevant and targeted answers. This was the value that our informal research uncovered.

At this Summit, we want to facilitate as many conversations as possible. Rather than vague generalities, we wanted to drill down to real-life scenarios, involving the people that are executing within those scenarios on a day-to-day basis. We’ll have plenty of the high profile experts at the summit, the ones who speak at the big events, but I encourage you to seek out the hidden experts as well. Talk to the people who are executing large campaigns for some of the big brands. Their sophistication is often amazing. Swap tales of tactics that have worked. Ask questions and generate discussions. This is what the Search Insider Summit is all about.

I’ve mentioned in the past that some of the best conversations I’ve ever had in this business happen at the Search Insider Summit. I’ve had great talks with many whom I’ve since stayed in contact with. I’ve been pretty involved with both the SMX and SES shows in the past, and I think both show organizers do a great job in providing packed tracks full of information. I’ve also presented at a few PubCons. But the size of these shows makes it difficult to facilitate conversations. They happen organically (most search marketers are not shy) but it can be tough to connect with people. I think the size and atmosphere of the Summit helps encourage that.

I hope I’ll see you there. I’m sure we’ll have some great conversations!

Making a New World Up as We Go

First published April 10, 2008 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

The frequent flier blitzkrieg continues. This week’s stop, Sydney, Australia for SMX. In the opening keynote, Danny Sullivan asked Google’s Marissa Mayer what keeps her at Google. Her answer was that there are just too many really interesting, really hard questions still to be answered. She likened it to the world of scientific discovery and pegged the current state of search and online as analogous to the 15th or 16th century. Sir Isaac Newton has just discovered gravity.

From a timeline perspective, I think Marissa’s analogy works. There’s no doubt we’re at the early stages of something, but what that something is remains to be seen. The difference between us and Isaac Newton is that Newton was exploring the guiding principles of the real, physical world. We’re building a new world up as we go. More correctly, a new world is emerging organically from the efforts and thoughts of millions of people. It’s a world defined in an ethereal middle space, a world of mind-spawned musings and accomplishments, shared and propelled one packet at a time. We’re not discovering anything, we’re building something entirely new. At any given moment, hundreds of millions of us are making it up as we go along. It’s a Darwinian experiment on a grand, grand scale.

The other difference is that the physical world afforded us a certain leisurely pace of exploration. Apples were falling from trees for millions of years before Newton finally got around to wondering why. Even Darwin had the luxury of time to define his theory of natural selection. Not much happens in the way of evolution in any time scale that we can perceive.

But this online witches’ cauldron we call the Internet moves much quicker. It is a world driven by innovation, and it is the fastest innovators that will not only survive, but prosper. Mindful musing is a luxury we can’t afford. Things move too fast.

Despite the seemingly blank canvas that stretches before us, there are limits to the world we create, and these limits are those imposed on us by our human nature. The virtual world we create must fit within the sphere that defines us as a species. It must not take advantage of our foibles and failings. It must empower the best of us. The human mind is a convoluted, complex mechanism that is only 5% rational. The other 95%, the really fun part that makes us human, brews under the service, messy, murky and sometimes manipulative. And the truly scary part is that we know almost nothing about this dark underbelly of our minds. We’ve discovered much of the world that lives outside our skulls, thanks to Newton, Darwin, Galileo and their scientific brethren. But we’re only beginning to discover the world that sits locked in our three pounds of grey matter.

Humans haven’t really changed much in 250,000 years. Yet man’s greatest creation, our society, has changed by leaps and bounds — and the pace of that change is still accelerating. The creation of the Internet is perhaps the most significant leap forward yet. We are literally redefining the structure we use to build society. This, I suspect, changes everything. Our challenge, then, is to use our technology, our passion and our intellect to create a society that breaks the restrictions imposed on us not just by our physical world, but also by our baser human instincts.

I can understand why Marissa Mayer still wants to get up and go to work in the morning. She’s driven by the same thing that drives many of us who have chosen to dedicate our passion to this new online world that is the biggest group project in history.

Maybe, just maybe, this time we’ll get it right.

Wireless in Waikiki

First published April 3, 2008 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Having just dragged my butt off a beach in Hawaii, my mind has not fully settled itself back in the search groove. But I did come to a realization in between snorkeling (highly recommended) and hiking the Na Pali coast in Kauai (even more highly recommended). Mobile is going to change our lives in amazing ways.

I’ve visited this topic  before, but this time, in addition to my beautiful wife and two charming daughter, I traveled with a new companion, a brand new HTC TyTN II with an unlimited data plan. While this may sound “ho-hum” to you Americans, unlimited data is an impossible dream here in Canada. Our mobile providers are still holding us hostage for daring to check emails while on the road. It’s a sad state of affairs for an otherwise civilized country.

All Wired Up And No Place To Go

The combination of 3G speeds, a relatively powerful device and the elimination of worry about a roaming data bill spinning upwards faster than gas prices proved to be a heady and intoxicating combination for me. Unfortunately, I found that although (metaphorically) I was all dressed up, there were still precious few places to go. A couple of times I found myself saying, “surely there must be a WAP site for that” only to find myself trying to negotiate non-mobile-friendly interfaces in a horribly glitchy browser. While the potential was so intoxicating, the reality fell far short.

This was a topic I touched on briefly in my opening remarks at the last Search Insider Summit. Mobile is the place where discontinuous innovation is most likely. There must have been a dozen times over the last two weeks where I said, “it would be so great if someone could…” and completed the sentence with something that seemed so obvious to me yet apparently was unavailable at this time.

So Much Potential, So Little Functionality

Now, much as I’d like to say that it’s my incredible vision that brought all these great possibilities to light, I suspect these are not undiscovered ideas. I’m sure that many companies are sitting on them, just waiting for the right convergence of device horsepower, input and output performance enhancements, bandwidth and standardization to roll these mobile killer apps out. Once some of the current bottlenecks are solved, or at least relaxed, I believe there will be a rush of mobile innovation that’s been sitting on a shelf, biding its time.

Here’s just one example. While on Kauai, I started dreaming of actually owning property there. I indulge in this little fantasy (the huge gap between my income and Kauai property prices unquestionably defines this as a fantasy) ever year. So I did a little searching on Zillow.com just to see how out of reach my dreams were. Now, on the laptop, Zillow is a rich information resource for real estate shoppers. But when you go mobile, its functionality is limited to texting an address to Zillow, and it sending back the current market price of the property as a return text message. While intriguing, this falls far short of Zillow’s total online experience. How amazing would it be to drive through neighborhoods, GPS-enabled PDA or smartphone in hand, and have maps instantly updated with available properties and details. You can almost hear the words coming out of my mouth: “It would be so great if…” Well, you get the idea.

Google: A Map In The Right Direction

I used Google Maps on the mobile a lot while I was away, and I have to admit, I’m pretty impressed with the functionality that has been squeezed into this little app. But we’re barely scratching the surface of what’s possible. Using it to look for a good Mexican restaurant while hiding out from a downpour in Waikiki was an experience that would have driven a lesser man to tears. It’s not really Google’s fault, it’s the lack of online, mobile-friendly presence on the part of almost every business on the planet. Yes, I’ve heard all the market rationalizations about early adoption, critical mass of markets, bandwidth required to mobilize local advertisers…yadda, yadda, yadda. But dammit, the potential is just so tantalizing!

So, my expectations of mobile nirvana fell a little flat, but you’ll be happy to hear I made a full recovery after intensive and repeated beach and Mai Tai therapy.

Mahalo!

More on Why Google is Habit-Forming

First published February 21, 2008 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

In last week’s Search Insider, I introduced the idea of habits, and why they can be hard things to break. This week, I want to explore how search engines can be habit-forming as well.

Cognitive Lock-In

Habits form and stay formed because there is usually a cost associated with discontinuing the habit. In a commercial interaction, this is referred to as the “cost of switching.” These are the lock-in mechanisms that companies hope will keep you from walking across the street to their competitors. In theory, the cost of switching on the Internet should be negligible, creating a frictionless, “perfect” market. There’s no financial penalty. The Internet erases geographic boundaries. And this should be especially true in search. After all, other search engines are only a click away. But researchers (Johnson, Bellman and Lohse, 2003; Brynjolfsson and Smith, 2000) actually found the opposite to be true. It seemed that customer stickiness can actually be greater online. So, if it’s so easy to switch, why aren’t more people doing it?

It appears, based on research (Zauberman, 2003), that there’s another cost of switching, the cost of learning new interfaces. This has been called “cognitive lock-in.”. As you become comfortable navigating through a site, the cognitive cost of learning new interfaces tends to build your loyalty and keep you “locked in” to the site. This happens in the real world as well, and could explain my wife’s seemingly irrational loyalty to the bad grocery store I described last week. She knows where everything is. She knows where to park. And she knows who to argue with when products don’t meet her standards (as well as how to get her point across — it’s an Italian thing). It may not be great, but it’s familiar!

Will Differentiation Increase the Power of Lock-In?

A recent study (Murray and Haubl, 2007) found that cognitive lock-in comes from habits of use as well as habitual choice. Both are relevant in the search space, but let’s put habitual choice aside for a moment. Habits of use form when we become familiar with using a product, the actual mechanics of how it fits us in realizing our goals. We know how to use Google, for example, and how to refine it to get the results we’re looking for. We know which links take us where, which tabs to hit and even through we never use it, the “Feeling Lucky?” button reminds us we’re on Google. When Google tried to remove it, based on lack of usage, there was a huge user backlash.

This sense of familiarity meant that until recently, all search engines looked the same. The same ten blue links, the same treatment of sponsored ads, the same basic layout. But in a recent set of interviews with all the major engines’ design and usability teams, it was made clear that we can expect more differentiation among the engines. Ask’s departure was just the first step in this movement.

It’s Not Just a Tool, It’s a Badge

But it’s not just the utility of an engine that increases lock-in. There’s also habitual choice. This comes from our lock-in to a brand. We always drink Coke, we always drive a Honda, we always fly Southwest, we always search on Google. Yes, even something as utilitarian as a search engine engenders brand allegiance. We identify with brands because they help define us as individuals. And this has happened to varying extents in the search space.

There Will Never Be Another Google in Search

You might ask, if Google became a habit, what’s to stop another engine from also becoming a habit? Well, first of all, it won’t be nearly as easy for a new player as it was for Google. Think back to when you first used Google. No one engine had established itself as the user’s choice, creating the “lock-in” effect. I used to hop back and forth between four or five engines, depending on my objective and the closest engine at hand. I’d perhaps start at Infoseek or AltaVista, and if I didn’t get a great result (which was pretty much always true) I’d try Excite or HotBot. Then, finally, in desperation, I’d sort through the hierarchal jungle that was Yahoo. No engine had become a habit.

Google’s genius was in providing pretty good results for a wide variety of searchers. Suddenly, I didn’t have to hop from engine to engine, because nine out of 10 times Google provided better results. By the time the rest of the engines had closed the gap, I was already locked in. Now, arguably, other engines provide better results for certain types of searches. But Google is habitual. It’s going to be an uphill battle for the competition. In fact, Google is such a habit; its name has even replaced the word “search.” We now “Google” it.

So, where does that leave the competition? I have some ideas, but they’ll have to wait till next week.

Interview: Branton Kenton-Dau of VortexDNA

In this week’s Just Behave Column, I had the opportunity to interview Branton Kenton-Dau from Vortex DNA. I’ve posted the complete transcript here for those that are interested:

Gord: 
So I think what we’ll do in this interview is cover off on a basic level what VortexDNA does, and then we’ll get into a little bit more about the potential I think it has for users.  So, it’s obviously an interesting idea using core values to try to determine intent. Maybe I’ll let you just walk through a little bit about how VortexDNA works, and why your approach is unique.

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
Yeah, thanks Gordon. I think that is a great place for us to start, and I think for us, it probably would go back to the human genome project itself, where we initiated as a society this project to map our human DNA.  And the great vision around that was that once we knew what our physical DNA was like we would be able to define the characteristics of your world and in particular help prevent  serious illnesses.  And one the outcomes of that project, was actually we found that there weren’t enough genes.  We found too few genes to map the 100,000 chemical pathways of our body; and that since then, where science is taken us is that it’s demonstrated that our physical DNA actually doesn’t determine who we are, but the whole science of epigenetics is saying actually it’s our environment, you know what we eat and particularly what we believe about ourselves which determines our propensity to be ill, to be healthy, to be successful or not.  So, actually our belief system is a major impact in determining who we are, and what is exciting about that is basically it represents a shift for us as a society from the very deterministic view of ourselves; that we are basically physical machines. Either we’re broken or not, depending on what our parents gave us, to the idea that we are actually beings that are creating our own lives with much more build out of what we  believe about ourselves at any moment and any time. That’s exciting because what we believe about ourselves can obviously be changed.  And basically what VortexDNA is is a technology that came out of the insight that the way we structure our beliefs is governed by the mathematics of complex systems.  What that means is that we know the structure our beliefs, and because of that we can then map out the structure of our intentional DNA, the intentions behind the world we create, and that’s basically the breakthrough, the technology. It provides a map of the way people organize who they are, literally who they are, through their belief systems.  And out of that, then comes the opportunity to create a better world for yourself whether that’s finding your best life partner or finding better research results or finding better car insurance rates because your particular belief system has a low propensity for accidents. It actually touches every part of your life, because we are actually mapping human characteristics.  The true genome, if you like, based upon the new science.

Gord: 
Okay, this is an interesting approach and undoubtedly a unique approach. I don’t know anyone else who is doing this. But you know, I approach this with a fair degree of cynicism saying, okay, obviously if you learn more about my belief system you can try to map that against the content of the internet. But how well does that actually work because my beliefs are the foundation, but on top of that, there are a lot of layers of intent for a lot of different things. How granular can your belief system be in disambiguating intent?  In some searches, I would see it working very well where it points to sites that you know resonates with my belief frame work, but in others where it is a much more practical “looking for information”, will trying to anticipate with my beliefs might indicate would be a good site, will that really be a good indicator of relevance?

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
That’s a really good question Gordon; I think that the answer to that is that we don’t know yet.  I think that we are at very early stages of really what is the science of human intention, I mean, that’s really what’s it about.  And what I can share with you is that we validated the technology last year against Google search results, and that’s where we were able to show that we can improve Google’s page rank by up to 14% which would improve it by a 3% improvement in click rates.  And, what that seems to be saying to us is (it does help), and that’s across the board, people obviously searching for anything and everything that’s possible on the web, we were analyzing that data.  We haven’t been able break that down to say whether or not if you’re hunting for a job, we are able to provide better recommendations than when you are looking for your recipe for custard or something; we just don’t know yet enough about it.  One of the things is interesting is that when we had our expert review done on that data by a Rhode Island consultancy firm, they said that they the way that the technology works, because it’s iterative, i.e. it learns as it goes.  He said that we probably have no idea yet of how efficient the system is, we don’t know because we are dealing with a very small sample and as more and more users and more DNA is selected on links of the net, then there is no reason that it can’t actually be more effective than we’ve demonstrated, but we just don’t know yet.  It’s just early days yet.

Gord: 
You made the comment that this is iterative and it learns as it goes, and from going through your site I see you answer an initial questionnaire; and I’ll get to the whole privacy question, or the perception of privacy question is probably more accurate, I’ll get to that in a minute. But you answer the questionnaire that creates an ideological or a value-based profile of you which then gets mapped against different sites.  But then, at anytime you can go back and answer more surveys to further refine what that profile looks like.  How much of this refinement process or this learning process is incumbent on the user as opposed to transparent in the background just by VortexDNA watching what are you doing and how you are interacting with different sites?

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
The answer is this system actually learns that every time you click on something, because every time you click on something, if you have downloaded the extension, the MyWebDNA extension, basically every time you click somewhere it’s a statement of your intentionality, so if other people have also clicked on it, it helps build up a map for that link of the intentionality that has been focused on the link.  So, we can feedback that intentionality into your own profile and therefore you don’t have to do anything.  Actually this year we will probably do away with the survey, so then you will won’t even need the survey to get started, that was just like a pre-heat process.  So, all we have to do is just surf as normal and you will be monitoring the state of your intentionality moment by moment with each click you make.

Gord: 
Okay, so let’s deal with that a little bit.  If you are monitoring my activity, in some ways this overlaps with what Google is doing with their web history and their search history, where they are tracking your usage and trying to learn more about you as an individual, theoretically, and then altering the results on the fly based on the personal signals it’s picking up. What you are doing is you are layering this outline of core values and what our belief systems are over and above that to say, “Okay well, not only are we watching what you are doing; we are trying to understand what’s important to you as an individual.”  Now, if we take that and we say, Okay I am in a business where at any given time for any given hour I’m working, I may be doing research, I might be writing the column on hate literature in North America, so I am going to be going to the sites of Neo-Nazi groups, trying to find information..that’s just part of my job.  How do you know that that doesn’t reflect my belief system, how do you know that this is just something that I happen to need to find information on right now?

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
There are two parts to that.  One is that I feel we are very respectful of what Google and Yahoo, and their analysis in the whole semantic web push are doing in terms of trying to make the web more relevant to people and we do believe our technology is complementary to those approaches.  We don’t believe we are competing with any of those and, as you say, it’s overlay, it’s additive to those.  Having said that, we are really completely different to that because, it’s actually the structure, the pattern, the way your beliefs are organized that we are interested in, and what that means is that we actually turn your answers to your questionnaire, what you click on, into just a set of numbers.  There are seven numbers that correspond to different aspects of that pattern of organization, that makes up your intentionality.  And so, really when you are going around, what we are doing is as you click on something, we will compare your number, it might be 7632416 say, with the numbers that are held against that link.  So, what we are doing is we are comparing numbers, we don’t know whether you’ve gone to a Nazi site or whether you are looking for apple pie recipes. We have absolutely no idea and maintain no record of where you’ve been, in all those sites. So when your genome is updated, because you’ve gone to this site,  we might update your genome because you’ve been to that site to change one of your digits in one way, by one point or so, then that digit could be changed from any site you ;  the news or Yahoo! or whatever.  So, what makes us really truly unique with this approach, which we think is really important, is that we absolutely protect your privacy because we do not track your searches in any shape or form because we are just adding or subtracting numbers from that seven digit identifier.  So it makes no difference to us, and I think that’s a really powerful thing, because you know there is concern with people for what information people hold on them and all we hold is a seven digit number, and you could be anywhere, it could have been Walt Disney Movies, it could have been finding out about the players in your favorite football team, it makes no difference to us.  So we can’t tell even if a law enforcement agencies came to us, and asked to us, “hey, where has Gord been”, we would have no idea, we could not tell them.

Gord: 
So what you do is in your identification of all the sites, you look at the sites and you assign each of those a profile and then your profile is altered on the fly based on the profiles you are matching up with against your content then, right?

Branton Kenton-Dau:  That’s correct and they’re all number, those profiles are numbers so…

Gordon: 
Right.  So there is no history retained, it’s just a constantly updated value which in turn, with every time you go out, is compared against all the values of the sites that come up in a search engine for instance, and the best possible matches are highlighted in the search results then.

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
Thank you, that’s absolutely perfect.

Gord: 
That’s interesting.  And now, obviously, that’s a totally different approach and one that should put some fears to rest on the privacy side, but I’ve got to tell you when I checked out VortexDNA and went through the process of the download, the whole idea of filling out a  questionnaire identifying my belief system, it gave me cause for concern. It was funny because as far as identifying me as an individual, the demographic information I fill out here and there across the web is potentially much more of a cause for concern for my privacy, because there is identifiable information in there.  I don’t usually have a second thought about but something about putting my beliefs down and sharing them with somebody else was very hard for me to do. Are you finding..and you said that you are probably going to drop the questionnaire…but are you finding that as a sticking point for people signing up for VortexDNA?

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
I think some people never think about it.  We get up in the morning, brush our teeth and go to work and make our daily bread.  Sometimes we don’t have time to think at all, “why am I here?”, and when you ask the question, “what’s your purpose in life?” Well that’s a pretty profound question.  What we found is that some people don’t fill in (the questionnaire) correctly or too quickly or they just answer anything, they don’t really think about it deeply and therefore, because noise goes in, they just get noise out.  That’s where over the course of last year we actually developed what we call this idealized genome. We can just infer your genome by what you click on.  We think that’s a much better way, and we can do that for instance, by just playing a game.  We can show some images, pick some of your favorites, we can infer your genome that way.  So, lot’s of more, less mentally taxing and more fun ways that we can get you started in creating your genome, your profile, which we think would work a lot better.

Gord: 
Well, you mentioned this whole approach may limit your potential market just because a lot of people haven’t thought about what their core values are or what their beliefs are, so the whole appeal of VortexDNA might be lost on them.  Unless you are a fan of Stephen Covey or you’ve read Built to Last, or Good to Great, you may not get it.  What are your thoughts about that?

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
I think you are right, and I think that the technology is broad enough, so it can serve anyone, whatever their focus is in life, and that it’s our responsibility to make sure that it’s that easy to use. We like to be able to do it (transparently), say, if you want to play Pacman, this way you are building up your profiles, and we can enable you to do that.  And we should be able to that shortly.  At the same time, I think one of the really key things about the technology, and certainly from my point of view of what, you know, gets me up in morning is the fact that I think it really is empowering for people to understand that the lives that they create, they literally do create it, it’s not given to them. Who you are is not determined by your upbringing, or your life experiences, or by the genes your parents gave you; but it is actually created by you moment by moment.  And, it’s my hope that the technology would help. It’s really a very American thing, in the sense that there is all about human freedom ultimately, and it gives people more freedom as they realize, “well, I am the creator of my life and if I am going to keep stuck in this rut then it is what I believe about myself that is keeping me there.”  That’s what I find exciting about the technology, so I hope that may dawn on some people faster than others and that’s okay, there is no problem with that.  But I believe the technology has the ability to make a contribution to human freedom ultimately.

Gord: 
So, you are climbing up Maslow’s hierarchy to the top level?

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
Yes, I absolutely believe that and I think that  we as human beings are always trying to really understand our true ability to create reality, and that our intentionality is, if you like, part of ourselves that we probably put less effort into training than anything else.  We spend a lot of time on the fitness machines or jogging to keep our bodies in shape, but we haven’t spent a lot of time in what actually seems to be a real key factor in determining the success of our life, which is our intentionality; and so I am hoping the technology will help focus us on that.

Gord: 
We’ve talked about some pretty lofty ideals for a technology here. About  helping people with self-actualization, and become better people, and become more aware of both what’s important to them internally and externally.  All of which is great for any fans of Collins or Covey who might be reading this or listening to this. We are getting to the hedgehog concept here; you are obviously passionate about this, you’ve got something different that you can be unique in, possibly best in the world at.  Now, comes the money question. How does this drive your economic engine? What’s the business model for VortexDNA, and how do you see that playing out over the 2 years to 3 years?

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
We have given a lot of thought about that and made a lot of mistakes as well and I think U-turns on it.  But basically, the company I represent, we basically have a technology which we issue licenses to other organizations and participate with them as strategic partners. For instance, in rolling out the technology.  And there are two kind of key parts for that, two key aspects of the technology, one is that the technology can be used by any ecommerce sites, whether that’s an e-tail or social site, in order to provide better recommendations, using their algorithms.  So, that’s a pure B2B solution, and we have the company incorporated in United States at the moment in order to do that. We would be interested in anyone who would like to partner with us to roll that out.  And then, the other side is that we feel we can create a better web by harnessing the power of mass collaboration, just like Wikipedia, to map the genome of the web and out of that, will come better search engines, will come a better ability to find people like you anywhere you are, enhance your blog, pretty much a holistic upgrade if you like, of the web itself. And that, we believe, like search engines themselves, is a pure advertising based free service to users.  So, we see there is an application there and in fact within next 30 days, we will be launching the Web Genome Project with its own website, and that would be an advertising based play again.  We believe that that has potential in every country in the world and we are open to issue licenses to partners that would like to take up the opportunity.

Gord: 
This territory has been somewhat explored in the past, you know the one example I am thinking of with the Music Genome Project where Pandora tried to use your past songs you like to recommend more songs you might like.  So, is this somewhat similar to that except obviously a much broader scope. Anything that could be on the web, right?
Branton Kenton-Dau:  That’s correct, I guess the difference would be that what’s great about the Web Genome Project is that while you sleep, millions of other people will be clicking on things that will make the web better for you in the morning.

Gord: 
Right.

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
That’s what’s so cool about mass collaboration. You do your clicking, you click on whatever, a thousand links in your day, but while you are sleeping well there are millions of links that have been updated and have better DNA against them, so that you can find what you want better when you wake up in the morning, and that’s really exciting.
Gord:  It’s definitely one of those big idea things.

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
Yes.

Gord: 
To flip this on its side, as a community we are all clicking away, and this DNA matching is going, so it’s making the web a better place, as you say, collaboratively, but on the flip side of that, once you’ve identified or a profile has been built that’s been refined over time based on the sites you found interesting or you’ve spent time with.  That’s a unique identifier that says something about you so, theoretically, down the road, if somebody comes to a site, if the owner of that site can identify what’s important to that person based on the profile, it could on the fly serve up content matching those beliefs, is that another possible application for this?

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
Thank you, that’s what I was attempting to describe in the first application, that’s the B2B solution.   So an e-tailer or search engine can now take out a license to run the application, the user would visit the site, you won’t see anything different through your Google search or through your Amazon book recommendations, but that’s all being added to the recommendation engine behind, so you are just going to say “hey, for some reason, I just feel that I am getting better recommendations now”.  So, it’s our way of making the web more efficient and that technology is available right now. We’ve got three installations in United States currently progressing, and that’s the other, that’s the business-to-business model, and we believe that has applications around the world as well.

Gord: 
So, for any business applications the big question is critical mass, how many people will be downloading the plug in and using it?  This is fairly new, how long has the Firefox plug-in been available?

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
About a year now.

Gord: 
What has the adoption been like to this point?

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
At this point, it’s been slow because what we’ve actually done is that plug-in was actually built initially to validate the technology.  That’s what we had to do last year, and then we spent the rest of last year really building enterprise-grade technology that enabled to be used by clients. So we really start the year, as I said, the next 30 days will see the Web Genome Project being launched, so we are only just at the start of the technology coming online.

Gordon: 
Are there any plans to accelerate the adoption either through partnerships or bundling or other ways to actually get people to download the plug in and start using it?

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
There are, I mean for each of the people, partners, e-tailors that would like to use the technology, we’ll be producing custom versions with extensions for their users, so that, they will encourage their uses to download the extension, because that will help map the DNA of their links quicker.  So, that will speed the application and we have also got plans to provide custom versions of the extension also to people of different social networks, so that they can enhance the experience within social networks as well.  And then, also if you’re logged in to any service, if you have an account with Amazon or some other e-tailer, you actually don’t need to use the plug in because when you login they already know who you are, so you already will be able to get better recommendations from that person without using the plug-in at all. You won’t see it. It would be completely seamless and invisible to you, and you just get a better web experience.

Gord: 
So, if you log into Amazon for instance, I guess it just keeps the profile so that profile would not be portable then.  It would stay with Amazon, and I think to get to the broader context of what you are talking about, the portability of that profile, the fact that it goes with you from site to site, would be an important part of that, right?

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
That’s why we see the extension would be great if people did use it or it just became embedded in web browsers generally.  Because it will give you a more universal better experience. 

Gord: 
Okay so looking forward, you’ve done a lot of development on the backend to build the infrastructure, and the theory is there.  Now, it’s just a matter of having it proven out in real world situations, right?

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
That’s exactly what we are about to see. That’s why these installations are taking place at the moment in the United States to validate that, and we are getting started with the Web Genome Project, it is all about delivery this year.

Gord: 
Well, it’s fascinating, like I said it’s one of those big idea things that is fascinating to contemplate.  Is there anything else you wanted to add before we wrapped up the interview?

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
We’ve worked on this  pretty much, well, it’s been an 8-year project, so it’s not been a fast thing for us, but I just thought I might share  a couple of books that have been really important to me which you probably know about anyway. One of them that I just finished reading is The Intention Experiment by Lynne McTaggart who is also the author of The Field. What is nice about that is she just documents all the rigorous science that is basically saying that we are shifting our paradigm, to understand we are more like any energy fields, if you like, than physical bodies, that’s the definition of us.  And just the science has come out of Stanford and other places that validates that, is just awe inspiring.  And then, the other one is The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton, which gives that whole transition process from us believing we are physical genes to the whole science of extra genetics, if it’s actually our environment including our beliefs which is a key factor in determining who we are; and I just wanted to share those because I found those two books very inspiring.  They happened after the fact. We didn’t build the technologies because we read the books, but with the books now, we say “oh yeah, that’s why our technology works.

Gord: 
Well, it’s interesting you mentioned that because it seems like anytime I ‘m talking to people about really interesting things there has been this almost renaissance of understanding about what makes us as humans tick, starting in areas like psychology, neurology, and evolutionary psychology and a whole bunch of different areas.  And it all started to happen in the early 90’s, and just for the last 10 years to 15 years, it seems like so many paradigms have shifted.  We’re just looking at things in a whole new way and I agree with you, it’s very inspiring and exciting to know that everything seems to be in such flux right now.

Branton Kenton-Dau: 
I absolutely agree with that, and that’s been our sense as well.  It’s just such a privilege to be part of that process.  I know your comments and what you are doing is aligned with that as well.  You know, we are all doing it, but when we are creating together, we are creating something which is new and exciting, I think, and we all have our parts to play in it.  I find it a privilege to participate in this, really, it’s human movement in taking us forward at such a rapid pace as well, so we are now absolutely aligned with what you were saying there.

Why Google is Habit Forming

First published February 14, 2008 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

My wife Jill was the victim of another drive-by “why-ing” — and I, of course, was the perpetrator.

There’s a small specialty grocery store where we live that Jill visits every week or two. And almost every time, she complains about the experience. Outdated stock is repackaged. Food is rancid. The staff is surly. But she keeps buying there. After listening to another long-winded vent, I dared to go where no man should go. I asked her “why?”

There were a number of reasons that she gave. It’s on the way on her daily route. Parking is convenient. Prices are low. But the biggest reason was one she didn’t express, because she didn’t know it. It had become a habit. And habits are tough things to break.

Why We Have Habits

Like almost everything else, habits are a way we cope with the world. They’re cognitive shortcuts so we can save our brains for more appropriate work. And most times, they work pretty well. When things work the same way the majority of times, we don’t have to think about them every single time. We relegate them to habits. It’s why we have such difficult times with doorknobs, even when we’re given instructions (“push” or “pull” –and thanks to SI reader Peter Simmons for the example). Our brain is in short-cut mode, so it’s not taking the time to read signs. Based on the shape of the door handle, the presence or absence of push plates, whether we’re entering or exiting and other cues, the brain makes a decision to push or pull without really consulting our conscious mind. We won’t even see the sign (which would engage our consciousness) unless we don’t get the result we expect.

Habits are grooves worn in the brain, and they tend to be relatively durable because of that. The rule of thumb seems to be about three weeks. So, if you moved a light switch from the right side of the door to the left side, it would take about 21 days before your brain stopped telling your right hand to turn on the switch.

The Hand is Quicker Than the Brain

Here’s the important part of that circuit (the one in the brain, not the one that turns on the light). The loop between the brain and the right hand is an unconscious one. It’s made of synapses firing on autopilot. At a conscious level, you know the switch is on the left side, but the conscious loop is slower than the unconscious one. It’s the laziness of the brain at work. If we don’t have to think about everything, why should we? So your right hand is already patting the wall looking for the switch before your rational, thinking brain catches up and says, “It’s on the other side, idiot.” This has to happen a couple dozen times before the new groove in your brain is established and you can go back to not thinking about turning on the light switch.

Why Incumbents Usually Win

Now, in my typical, roundabout way, I am getting to why this is important in search. If we think about habits, it starts to become clear why Google has such a huge market share advantage. I’d like to introduce another idea called the “incumbency effect.”   When it refers to politics, the incumbency effect means that once you win an election, you have a greater chance of winning subsequent elections for the same office. This is due to several factors that give you the edge in the eyes of voters: familiarity, experience in the role, access to funding and the ability to call in favors racked up during the previous term. All things being equal, incumbents are tough to beat.

But in other arenas outside politics, the incumbency effect can also be driven by the fact that habits are formed. It’s not just the rational reasons why an incumbent can be tough to dethrone; it’s also the irrational ones. The incumbent has worn a groove in our brain. And to knock off an incumbent, with all these things in their favor, you can’t just be a slightly better alternative. You have to be significantly more attractive. Either the incumbent has to screw up badly, or you have to offer a dramatic improvement over them.

As per usual, my weekly allotment of words has run out before my idea, so I’ll pick this up next week, when we look at the incumbency effect and a parallel concept, cognitive lock in, and how they’re playing out in the world of search.