John just posted an interesting bit concerning Facebook and what he calls the social contract:
The social contract is not yet baked. By that, I mean the mainstream of society has not yet come to terms with the power/responsibility of our clickstream/digital social capital.This cannot be underestimated. AdWords came at the right time, in the right circumstances. It’s not like Bill Gross didn’t have it mostly right…
This he takes as one of the reasons that Facebook might be on the right track, but they also might not have the perfect solution for leveraging the social graph in advertising. The social contract is something that sounded familiar but what I actually remembered was managing the psychological contract in managing people:
This includes the expectations set forth by the above (normal work-) contracts as well as the wider picture, unspoken expectations. These might be taken for granted, only seen when they are broken or hard to discuss.
This is exactly what he means with the social contract. We all read (or rather don’t) terms of service but what is important once it touches our personal lives, is that the social contract is fitting, that we are feeling we are gaining as much as we are giving. Problems with the social contract are only visible when they are broken really. Allowing for targeted ads based on my entire profile on Facebook might be seen by the users as breaking that contract as this is not what they (think they) signed up for.
This is very important in monetizing the social graph and we are putting a lot of effort on this here at Ormigo, taking on step at a time. At the moment a lot of it is still not visible, but only clearly enabled in the backend of the entire platform. We are coming from the lead generation market which is still a very unclear market where user data is traded left and right. Say yes to a terms of service (you did not read) once and your data is out of your hands. This is something we are working against in giving every user their own login to the platform. The thing is that this brings additional benefits, in that those users can build up their social graphs on the platform, willingly, to allow us to better find a local merchant for them. It is all part of what they signed up for, getting help by professional merchants in their region, strengthening the local market, getting personal connections to real people that help them with their very real problems.
It’s a huge market, and a huge opportunity, trying to help people be more successful, both people looking for help, and those running and business and being shut out of the global advertising market. Through bundling of their buying power we become a global powerhouse that has lead generation as the underlying business model but an independent playing field to optimize the generation, management and usefulness of those leads for all parties involved. As a side effect, big and small publishers can suddenly make money from the local market. It’s an intricate system but it’s great working on something that you believe will improve the life of many.
