Here is a blog I wrote about how your likes can be gamed and when they are they become less of a signal and indeed can become worthless to a company.  But thinking further....What if when you bought a new tech gizmo, the price was higher because your "Likes" or  "tweets" constantly referenced your love and devotion for the product - and you did this as you wanted to win one? This is called online behavioural pricing (under the banner of behavioural economics.)  Whilst if there was one supplier in the market, it could be a consumer’s worst nightmare as it uses the traces of your Digital Footprint to maximize prices on the products and services you want most. However, it rather directs us towards Doc Searls work on VRM - where we set the terms and the price.

image source : http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Gd6AxrhM2wE/TUcs7oE6EfI/AAAAAAAABUU/Tpp2fb6jeYM/s40...

Some scenarios to think about

Digital footprints are about how your data describes you - but as we start to game (gamification) with you and how you react, do we loose the purity of the signal?

Example....

option 1; your "like" is being bought by the competitions that say "like me and get a free iPad"  - you have been bought

option 2; your "like" is earned as you decide that you "like" something for a reason

             the original reason "A Facebook Like is supposed to show a user’s approval of a brand, product or piece of content"

option 3; Your "like" brings value to you and the community - self interest

Experian Hitwise calculated that a Like generates 20 visits to brand sites;

Deals platform ChompOn reckons a Like is worth $8, a Twitter follow worth $2 and an individual tweet worth $2 in additional sales of deals on its services.

A study by the CMO Council shows your likes can be gamed by asking you to enter a competition. Incentives are a common way to drive up Twitter followers, get positive "customer" reviews, posts and tweets and generate word of mouth. Sites like ReviewMe and Buy Twitter Followers even allow you to skip the incentive and buy results.

The outcome

Your SIGNALS are not pure and "Like" become  meaningless. Back to the drawing board - how do I find out what you "like" so I can sell you more?

Marshall Kirkpatrick has written an interesting post on RWW (Jan 2012) on Why Facebook's data sharing matters!  

Starting out he states that Facebook has cut a deal with political website Politico that allows the independent site machine-access to Facebook users' messages, both public and private, when a Republican Presidential candidate is mentioned by name. The data is being collected and analyzed for sentiment byFacebook's data team, then delivered to Politico to serve as the basis of data-driven political analysis and journalism.  Whilst the move is being widely condemned in the press as a violation of privacy but if Facebook would do this right, it could be a huge win for everyone. Facebook could be the biggest, most dynamic census of human opinion and interaction in history. Unfortunately, failure to talk prominently about privacy protections, failure to make this opt-in (or even opt out!) and the inclusion of private messages are all things that put at risk any remaining shreds of trust in Facebook that could have served as the foundation of a new era of social self-awareness.

He moves on to talk widely about the market and the importance of data and ends with a person note "The world's largest social network, rich with far more signal than any of us could wrap our heads around, could help illuminate emergent qualities of the human experience that are only visible on the network level. Please don't mess up our chance to learn those things, Mr. Zuckerberg."

Spot on - We don't have an issue the collection or storage of our data now - but we still don't know what signal to look for..... loving this space

http://futureoffacebook.com/ Facebook is a social phenomenon that’s sweeping the globe, enabling people to connect across geographic and cultural boundaries, share information, and build meaning and value together in new ways. What are the implications of a technology relentlessly embedding itself into our everyday social fabric?

Contributors include Kevin Kelly (What Technology Wants, founder Wired), David Kirkpatrick (author The Facebook Effect), Howard Rheingold (author Smart Mobs), Nova Spivack (web innovator, co-founder Bottlenose), futurist Jamais Cascio, Doug Rushkoff (author Program or Be Programmed), Doc Searls (Berkman Center, author The Cluetrain Manifesto), social network research pioneer Valdis Krebs, cyborg anthropologist Amber Case, web anthropologist Stowe Boyd, innovation strategist Chris Arkenberg, Suzanne Fischer (curator Henry Ford Museum).

Original article is on Read/Write Web http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/study_why_do_people_use_facebook.php

A new study entitled "Why do people use Facebook?" from Boston University's Ashwini Nadkarni and Stefan G. Hofmann proposes that the social network meets two primary human needs: (1) the need to belong and (2) the need for self-presentation. The study also acknowledges demographic and cultural factors as they relate to the belonging need, and the variation of personality types on Facebook usage.

Comment : Neither of these are new or revolutionary and continue to show that our digital self is just us – warts and all

Abstract

The social networking site, Facebook, has gained an enormous amount of popularity. In this article, we review the literature on the factors contributing to Facebook use. We propose a model suggesting that Facebook use is motivated by two primary needs: (1) the need to belong and (2) the need for self-presentation. Demographic and cultural factors contribute to the need to belong, whereas neuroticism, narcissism, shyness, self-esteem and self-worth contribute to the need for self-presentation. Areas for future research are discussed.

So data can tell us what we know

<p></p><p>Help for Depression</p>

A survey carried out by MyMemory  in Oct 2011 involved 1,781 Facebook users from all over the UK and suggests that the presence of alcohol is in 76% of British Facebook photos which may or may not determine a certain level of inebriation.  Further the study found that the UK's adult Facebook users were drunk in three out of every four images that they were tagged in. Of the users who were polled, only 12% of them don’t let anyone see their photos, while 58% allow their friends to look at their pictures. However, over a quarter say that their photos are viewable by anyone on Facebook. 8% went as far as saying that their photos might lead to “serious trouble at work”.

Another fact that came to light was that 93 per cent of UK Facebook users admitted to deleting tags on those images considered as compromising and "embarrassing."

In a separate study my MyMemory, it appears that ex-lovers aren’t always consigned to the past amongst Britons, and has revealed that over a third, 36%, of adults in relationships around the UK admit to keeping a ‘secret’ photo of an ex-lover; without the knowledge of their other half.

Image source www.stickycomics.com

Right now I have way too many applications that interact with each other from Twitter and Facebook for login credentials to many sites, deep integration with PayPal, Google and Posterous, and how my credibility, reputation or influence as measured by Klout or PeerIndex will change depending on what I connect.  As my social media tools has swopped from the destination (connections and updates) to authentication, so in my laziness I have become stuck (in a rut). I want a new key stoke to the above; “Laziness”

But I find division and confusion reign in all directions. As I post from my Blog here at My Digital Footprint, as this gets carried across G+, Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook – comments come back from every angle which means spreading the message is easy (distribution and broadcast), collation of comments input and feedback is hard and difficult.  Everything is linked but just enough to make it sticky, if Sticky is too difficult to move (e.g Bank Account) - then I am stuck.

I am not worried about getting my data back (download/ backup) or deleting it.  I am concerned that I no longer use some sites, but as they are linked together I still need them, but have no idea about what connections are where.

Here is a Christmas project for someone.  Can you write a visualisation that runs in Chrome that shows all my social media connections and linkages (application level), data passed etc and then what I can remove or what I could change?

What I am thinking is that I would like to be able to use two of three login credentials and that I can choose which ones to use at any time. 

Interesting Huffington post article Would You Login to Your Bank Using Facebook? asks the question….

The traditional players say "it will take time for people to trust these new mechanisms."

• I'll never login with Facebook to my bank.
• I won't pay with my mobile phone unless I understand how secure it is. This NFC technology is too new and there's no common standard.

Assuming they are the same that said

• I'll never use email, there's nothing like calling someone or a face-to-face discussion to solve a problem
• I'll never use an ATM machine, I don't trust a machine to give me money.
• I'll never get a cell phone -- I don't want people to be able to call me whenever and wherever I am.
• I will never put my credit card details on a website online -- are you crazy?
• I'll never bank online. Not in my lifetime...
• I'll never need a Facebook account -- it's a waste of time, it's just for college students.

I say the same about using the mobile as a payment tool and the response is that the battery will run out. I usually ask the question “Do you drive a car?”, “ Can your car run out of petrol?”, “Has your car every run out of fuel?”

Next observation “I don’t need a digital identity”

So a while ago I posted 33 new digital rules about living in a digital age and one of them was unfriending is real.  Love this video and the second annual “National Unfriend Day,