Identity / Profiles / Trust

We predicted last year that 2007 would be the year that the Trust / Identity / Privacy issue hit the mainstream, and the last week or so has seen an interesting situation - the emergence of the "more private than thou" play as a differentiator.

Google has been resisting anonymising (or in any way limiting really) its ability to trawl the behavioural data of its user base, but was earlier this year (March) dragged to a position where it agreed that after 18 months it would do so, and earlier this month agreed to limiting cookie lifespan to 2 years after usage of Google stopped. That this is unimpressive is best expressed today in an FT article asking Google to please consider doing no evil, as it says on the tin.

However. this has also opened up the very interesting opportunity for Google to be sideswiped by less evil competition. Ask.com and Yahoo now have a mere 13 months stored individual data

Last week Ask.com went for the ability to erase the trace of a search, and now Microsoft is allowing people to toggle the privacy of their searches (see the New York Times Article)

(Update - A similar view has been put up here on Search Engine Journal)

However, we expect the pressure to continue, as people become increasingly aware (i) how intrusive these systems can be and (ii) they are creating value that others are taking off the table.

So where will it all end?

We suspect that the more the players try to vertically integrate the value chain, the more that legislative bodies will take an interest. Google by its sheer size is already exciting interest

But if you asked the average person to toggle for:

(i) erase vs record a Search
(ii) anonymise v personalise your Search results

...then we would hypothesize that a rapidly growing majority would go for these, and to offer (more intrusive) others one would need to "incentivise" the user. In other words, we suspect that the arms race to "do the least evil" will continue for quite a while.

Where this leaves a player that makes all its money from targeted Ads is an interesting question, so one can expect players like Microsoft or Yahoo to push this quite a bit harder yet.

Postscript...noted that both the WSJ and FT picked up this story...a meme of the times !

Now this is fascinating, it picks up on something we've blogged about a number of times (here for eg) - ie that the subtlety in social network personae is too low at present, and more nuance is required to manage the complex web of our friendships. This article thinks about what may be required to do this, and what may occur if it were so....

First, the background, a paper by Judith Donath of MiIT MediaLab that we can't see but is blogged on Ars Technica:

Donath notes that even seemingly simple human behaviors are accompanied by collections of body language and expressions that can reinforce or undercut the messages we intend to send. For instance, she suggests that we signal our intention to engage someone in conversation by a complex suite of gestures, mostly nonverbal: "You carry out this goal not only by walking across the room but also by making eye contact, smiling, raising your brows, adjusting your clothes—a complex set of communicative behaviors that indicate your intention to start a conversation, allow you to gauge his willingness to do so, and show your level of determination."

Right now, even the most sophisticated avatars accomplish only a small subset of these behavioral collections. But that's beginning to change, at least within the research community. Although putting all of the components of these behaviors under user control is viewed as too complex, Donath cites work in which entire suites of behavior could be controlled by a single command. For example, an avatar commanded to end a conversation can nod its head, wave, and break eye contact. Users of such systems found them natural and more engaging, and they found their conversation partners to be more expressive.

Looking at many computer games there is no doubt that this technology is not only in the research world but in the market, it just hasn't been applied to Social Nets yet> I've been quite intrigued by the number of people on facebook using "lookalike avatar" representations of themself already, a la Second Life.

Although these sorts of advances may make for a more appealing virtual experience, Donath suggests that they have some disturbing implications for issues of trust and credibility when future avatars are used for communication. She notes that we interpret many behavioral collections in light of what they tell us about the person who is doing the talking. For example, we tend to view someone who doesn't make eye contact as more likely to be lying, providing uncertain information, or simply uninterested in talking with us. A well-programmed avatar can be commanded to engage in behaviors that simulate honesty, regardless of whether the speaker is trustworthy.

Research is also revealing that other factors play into an avatar's trustworthiness and credibility. For example, simply making an avatar appear more human (including providing it with a clear gender) caused them to be rated more trustworthy. Other research has shown that trust can also be manipulated via more subtle techniques. Teams of people paid greater attention to an avatar that was created with a "team face," one that combined features from the members of the team. Individuals found political messages more persuasive when they were delivered by an avatar with a subtle resemblance to the listener's own face.

And this is the killer thought I was really intrigued by...

Donath specifically raises the disturbing possibility of, "a world in which you are bombarded with oddly compelling ad campaigns presented by people just like you." But she also suggests that current trends, if they continue, may leave us with avatars tailored to the contexts where they're used. After all, we demand detailed and elaborate avatars for our online fantasy games but will happily accept far less for what's billed as our "Second Life." It's possible that we'll actually wind up demanding less sophisticated avatars to deliver the most critical information in order to avoid the potential for manipulation. But only, of course, if we're aware of the danger.

Rory Cellan Jones has written this piece on the BBC:

This week I received this intriguing message from a man who moves in London's new media circles.

He wrote: "I met somebody the other day who told me that online networking was so important, and he didn't have the time, he was paying somebody to be him online. To blog, network, post etc . £1,000 a month too.

"Apparently it's a new occupation which he reckons already numbers hundreds of people, paid to be other people!"

I rang the sender of the message - a real-world friend as well as a Facebook contact - and he gave me more details.

"This guy is a busy entrepreneur and he says that wherever he goes, people marvel at the energy he still manages to put into blogging and networking - and he then tells them it is all being done by a guy he pays to do it."

(Rory had it up on Facebook last week, don't know the form about publishing what's in private groups so didn't blog till he published)

£1,000 pm to be someone else....hmmm....lets see about the economics - I wonder how many people one can be in a month .

My first thought was that same as Brent Hoberman's:

"I think if I could get someone else to manage my e-mail then I could outsource social networking," he said.

"But I can't, and think one has slightly lost the plot if that happens."

As Rory also points out:

It's well known that Chinese workers spend long hours earning "gold" on the online game World of Warcraft, so that busy Western gamers can buy a new sword without putting in an excessive amount of time in front of their computers.

Hmmm...maybe outsourcing our virtual Mii's to China will be the next New Thing.

This is a very interesting development however......the whole point of the original social networks like Facebook is that you are supposed to be known to your friends (thats how they are designed) rather than explicitly anonymous (as some others are).....thus there is a real opportunity to game these systems, and - judging by events in previous social media systems - it is sure to occur (if it isn't already)

I'm Spartacus......