The biggest challenge in collecting information from users is finding the right level of friction. Too much friction and you have a product that people won’t use and no business. Too little friction and your product turns into a privacy nightmare. Users revolt and advertisers stay away.
Frequently in the media the debate gets boiled down to “opt in” vs. “opt out.” The reality is much more complicated than that. There are many nuances between the two.
I spent a lot of time finding the right balance when I was developing social media and search products at AOL. I also have first hand knowledge of privacy disasters as one of the people involved in analyzing and recovering from AOL Search’s data release in 2006.
Facebook’s reason for existence is to distribute information about your personal life to your friends. That’s what has made it popular to the tune of more than 40 million users and a lofty $15 billion valuation. People clearly want to share their information with their friends. Facebook Photos significantly reduces the friction in viewing photos; as a result it has quickly become the number one photo sharing site on the Web.
The problem with Beacon is that it virtually eliminates the friction.
Here are a number of different ways that information can be collected and distributed, starting from the most friction to the least friction:
- Allow people to indicate in their profile which movies, books, etc. they like. Facebook has long had a space in its profile box for people to enter this information. I suspect (based on the number of times I see feed items about profile changes) that most people touch this once when they set up their account and rarely change it.
- Allow people to add applications that reflect their interests. Applications such as Flixster, iLike and Virtual Bookshelf are vertically focused. They reduce the friction in entering information about your interests because they tie into content-rich databases. It’s like the difference between an essay question and multiple choice. And it’s a more engaging experience — if I enter a movie on Flixster, it comes pre-populated with the movie poster, actors, director and a capsule summary. But people still have to remember to go do it.
- Bring in information from other sites using applications. If someone is already using Yelp to write reviews or Google Reader to share interesting blog posts, bring that information in automatically. Before the launch of Beacon, I was using Yelper to import my Yelp reviews and Feedheads to import my shared items from Google Reader. This gets you a steady stream of information on what people are doing elsewhere. It requires people to find the appropriate application and then configure it. Unfortunately, not a lot of people are going to bother. Feedheads has 8,800 users and Yelper has 950.
- Aggregate information from other sources. You can just ask people to provide their flickr name, YouTube name, etc. AIM Buddy Feeds has been doing this for more than a year. Plaxo is also doing it with Plaxo Pulse. Eliminating the application requirement increases the number of people who will participate. Still, it requires people to come into a form and connect their other accounts.
- Ask people on partner sites if they want to send their information to Facebook. At the point of purchase, review, comment, etc. ask the user if he wants to send the information. With this approach, the user doesn’t have to manually enter account information, reducing friction. More importantly, they are making the decision at a time when they can see the impact of it. An option to “always send” for a given partner further reduces friction. There are some sources I’m happy to share information from and others that I’m not.
- Send all of the information automatically and then ask the user if they want to publish it. This is what Facebook Beacon currently does. Facebook gets all of that data and its unclear how unpublished information is used.
- Send all of the information automatically and publish it by default. This is what Beacon initially did, causing embarrassment for some and ruining surprises for others.
Finding the right level of friction is tricky because people have different tolerances. Most people probably wouldn’t perceive a difference between options 5 and 6, but for me, they are night and day.
This analysis doesn’t take into account development effort involved. It’s often the case that steps that improve user privacy take more time and resources to develop. You can guess what the result is.
See also:
- Coke Is Holding Off on Sipping Facebook’s Beacon (New York Times)
- Facebook’s Misrepresentation of Beacon’s Threat to Privacy: Tracking users who opt out or are not logged in (CA Security Advisor Research Blog)
It’s clear that both marketers and consumers can benefit when ads and promotions are targeted in an appropriate way. Marketers get the benefit of putting their products and services in front of interested consumers; while consumers learn about great deals and products that truly meet their needs.
The challenge is balancing consumer privacy with the ‘right’ amount of personalization. What do marketers really need to know that would help them decide that you might be interested in their product or services? Manay companies, large and small, have access to more data than they can manage and analyze. And its often the wrong data.
Zimini (disclaimer: here’s the product pitch) was developed to help marketers balance these needs. Consumers build a profile based on their interests and likes - things they probably already share with co-workers, neighbors and friends like the types of food, entertainment, and hobbies are just a few examples. Consumers profiles never include their name, email, address or phone; so special offers and promotions are kept separate from their email. And consumers retain control of what information is in their profile.
This is a better way to balance consumers need for privacy, while providing a mechanism for marketers to deliver relavant, interesting offers.
Comment by Robert — December 4, 2007 @ 4:35 pm
[...] I said the other day, finding the right level of friction when collecting user data is tricky. Among the scenarios that I outlined, this probably falls at 5 1/2. The partner sites are still [...]
Pingback by Facebook adds universal opt out to Beacon « reDesign — December 5, 2007 @ 4:19 pm