Broadcast Model, Being Relevant & That Dude On The Corner Handing Out Flyers
I find concepts that connect to the aggregation of consumer data, interests, passions, transactions, habits (in an opt-in environment of course) in the interest of enhancing our collective lifestyles/experiences (allow me to introduce…Foursquare, BeeZag.com, Mertado.com etc.) to be massively interesting.
Honestly, who likes it when that dude walks up to you on any given corner in NYC and throws one of those flyers in front of you and waits until the very last second to pull it away when he realizes that you’re not having any of it. In a way, that’s an over simplified version of the Broadcast model right? Go where you think your customers/prospects are and try to get something in front of them that “might be useful”, “might be relevant”, “might lead to a transaction” etc…but we’re getting real close to being able flip that model around.
Empower consumers to share what they’re into, where they go, who they hang out with and invite relevant aka the right brands into these environments in the appropriate way so that they can join the party and make it better.
If you want to talk to consumers, maybe you should just ask them?
Personally, I feel good about sharing an appropriate amount of information about what I’m into so brands can engage me in a real relationship by enhancing my lifestyle…of course, you’re always going to have people shouting about privacy concerns(could they be the same people who back in the day said buying stuff over the Web was for crazy people??) but if the right platform exists, I’ll opt-in to engage with brands like Heineken, Virgin, Nike, Apple, Yankees, MGMT, Patagonia etc ALL DAY over the guy on the corner trying to get me to buy something that I’m clearly not in the market for…relevancy relevancy relevancy.
Speaking of relevancy(I realize that’s a little bit of a choppy transition…) and how the social graph can be leveraged to impact commerce, check this NYT article out, love the quote below about “lens of your friends”…
“We will help people discover a great restaurant or movie through their friends and make it easy to recommend their own purchases,” said Angus Davis, 32, a veteran of Netscapeand Microsoft who is testing Swipely with a limited group of users. “I really believe that the lens of your friends is fast becoming the most powerful way to discover things on the Internet.”
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/for-webs-new-wave-sharing-details-is-the-point/
It’s “A Brand New World”…
Thanks to Jason Adler of Park Avenue Post and Carl for the heads up on this great article!
