This week in AdAge there’s an article on “How Marketers Tap Facebook and Twitter, Apps and Widgets”. If interested you can read the entire article here.
At the bottom of the article one of Anderson Analytics Facebook applications called “Compared to Me” is covered a bit.
We’ve started building widgets/applications for clients in certain cases. Some are more promotional in nature, but most do collect some sort of insights. I am fascinated by social networks and the cube of data they can provide. In the specific application here, we leverage the fact that we can pull in people’s friends, so when we ask a question of someone we can ask the respondent to compare themselves to a friend they know on that category/attribute. This way it also works as a bit of a projective exercise.
Feel free to try it out or share the link. This application is technically out of beta now, but we will continue to make changes/improvements to it. http://apps.facebook.com/comparedtome/aboutme.php
Tom
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5 responses so far ↓
1 Jeff // Mar 31, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Very cool app. One question - Are you violating the agreement by using an individual’s rating to inform the results of another? (I feel funny that my ratings are informing others about my friends).
The app tells me that the data will be used only in the aggregate, yet your response to the AdAge article says: “In terms of using social networking and widgets/apps for market research, it’s super exciting in that we not only get a sense of what people think about themselves, but what their friends think about them…. Rather than just asking a respondent directly what their level of social influence is, we can now actually ask this question from the very people these “influencers” supposedly lead.”
Additionally, your comment leads me to believe that once you have enough data, you will provide it to marketers for targeting me and others I have rated.
Very cool app, nonetheless (though I don’t agree with the personality dimensions, but that is another discussion). I am more concerned with the implications of sharing the data with marketers.
Good luck,
Jeff
PS: We met awhile back when you visited my offices at Chadwick Martin Bailey…
2 Tom H C Anderson // Apr 1, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Thanks Jeff.
No, I think you must really have misunderstood the article/my comments. We would never violate TOS. We also currently have a higher ethical obligation as market researchers. None of the data is shared with anyone else. This app. is one of our social network experiments. It is helping us with another piece of the SNS puzzle if you will.
In regard to the quote you mention, both comments about you as well as comments from you would fall under the ‘aggregate only’ category. And certainly no data will be sold an no one will be targeted for anything.
RE the personality dimensions, those were created a priori. We are currently doing a data driven segmentation to improve the categories.
Yes, I recall our meeting. How are your text analysis efforts going? Please give my best to everyone else in the office.
Tom
3 Jeff // Apr 2, 2009 at 8:48 pm
My assumptions reflect high sensitivity to the fine line researchers must walk in this area. Your point that social networking is taking market information to a higher level is powerful - the opportunities for marketers are immense, and consumers could rebel and run away in fear and anger.
As a researcher I’m a bit envious that you can conduct the segmentation analysis on such a robust data set (when you reach critical mass). That should be fun.
Still working text analysis - the one thing that is starting to sink in is the need for a very different analytical approach - one that “quants” are not accustomed to take.
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