First Impressions and Last Logins

There's a saying along the lines of  "the amount someone spends talking about themselves is inversely proportional to how interesting they are". Beyond first dates and keynote presentations, this opinion directly affects social network services.Users drop off at an accelerated rate from accessing/signing up for a new site to actually using it. Even if the sign-up process is super slick and the site is easy to use and helpful with telling users how to get started, more often than not companies forget one significant thing:If the first impression is a ghost town until the user interacts with the service more (e.g. adds friends, follows feeds, etc.) - that will be their impression of your service and most likely their last login to it.For Pownce, a social network I was a community manager for, this was a known weakness. I don't have the data to show the drop-off rate from users who signed up for Pownce, but as with any social network, there's always a large divide between active users and total users - and keeping the divide as small as possible plays a large role in the longevity of a site.(original screenshot via Chris Messina)Comparatively, when users sign up for Flickr, they're shown the activity that is being created by other users on the site immediately:(original screenshot via Chris Messina)Additionally, Flickr always shows content other users are contributing on their service on your personal dashboard, regardless if you've added friends or uploaded photos of your own. In this way, Flickr is communicating that they have a live and constantly active ecosystem to participate in - making the user feel less uncertain about adding to that activity and interacting with the site.The recommendation being - don't use emptiness as a motivation for users to interact more with your site, even if you have super friendly instructions. Displaying example content not only shows that your site isn't dead inside, it shows users what's interesting without saying it.

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Side note: I've been looking for other blog posts or links to data that discuss the ratio of sign-ups to returning users. My insight on this topic has mainly come from discussions with various social network developers. If you know of any links I should check out, please leave a link in the comments!

SWAT Summit: Advertising in social networks

The first ever SWAT Summit kicked off this last week in San Francisco. The aim of the conference was to help advertisers effectively enter and work with social networks.Due to unfortunate scheduling, I was only able to make it for the last half of the one-day event (earlier in the day I was attending PSFK's conference). My friend and colleague, Steve Hall of Adrants, had the honor of speaking at two sessions, one of which was The Science of Measuring Campaign Success (User Metrics and Engagement). The session included Ian Swanson (Sometrics), Kim Kochaver (Federated Media), Troy Young (VideoEgg), and Anna Banks (McCann Worldgroup). Steve grilled everyone on if the case studies they were presenting actually worked at the end of the day, and it was obvious that some of the panelists were agitated by this question.The panelists discussed how demographic targeting/analyzing tools in Facebook were making it easier for clients and ad agencies to measure success in social media. I couldn't help but raise my hand and ask if this was actually considered progress. By these standards, it seems like advertising is making little to no progress by taking the same solution (demographics, impressions, etc.) and trying to force-fit it into a new problem (social media). I've been ranting for a while that demographics are dead. It seems like advertisers are taking the easy way out by using traditional metrics and refusing to spend effort towards educating clients about what is relevant in social media. Additionally, I never once heard the panel mention the idea of building custom metrics based on social media analysis and relevance to the individual project.I think it's important for conferences like SWAT Summit to talk about these issues, but I wish there was more representation from the social media side (for the half of the day I was there, it seemed very advertiser-heavy).

Supernova 2008: Privacy and Security in the Network Age

Day 2 of Supernova 2008 kicked off this week with a variety of panels to choose from. While many of the Web 2.0-ers were getting settled in the Open Flow Track, MC-ed by Tantek Çelik, , I joined the alternative crowd for the Privacy and Security in the Network Age panel.The session started with the overarching ideas around privacy. Online, everything we do creates data and/or a transaction. A lot of privacy concerns are no longer about who you are, but what you do. Typical "duh" factors exist such as technology is always moving faster than laws. Even when laws are made, they risk being ineffective, as many have seen in the case of the CAN-SPAM Act, or lacking true protection, as with the company-not-user-data-protection under Sarbanes-Oxley. Bruce Schneier, of BT Counterpane, brought up various points about how he views the reality of privacy. In the "security vs. privacy" argument (e.g. you have to give up your privacy to gain security) Schneier stated that you should call bullshit on that false dichotomy, giving examples such as burglar alarms, and that the reality is about "liberty vs. control".Fran Maier, of TrustE, went on to elaborate that a lot of the current architecture for privacy online is a question of "choice or consent". Examples like Facebook were given as case studies of more granular privacy controls. I have recently made similar remarks about FireEagle's consideration of location privacy. Focusing on overall online privacy (not just focused on social networking), the panelists agreed that intrusion issues of spam and phishing were not about privacy, but rather about control. With issues of control, entrepreneurs can often take advantage by providing anti-spam/virus products. This made me question why, with the open APIs on social networks, no one has built a similar solution for blocking spammers/trolls/stalkers from friending you? It has been discussed before with all the chatter around data portability and XFN to include the ability to port your "block list" from network to network as well, but we've yet to see this come to fruition.More importantly, the panel called for a system of accountability for privacy and security. It was stated that security includes how you live everyday (e.g. living in fear). Public shaming of companies used to work as one of the only ways to get them to increase their lack of security measures, but with data breeches being reported more often now, the press barely makes a mention of it anymore. While that is certainly a negative, the positive effect has been that it's now a lot easier to resolve identity theft. Since identity theft is so common, companies know how to deal with it. On average, a victim of new account fraud loses only about $40 and 10 hours to clean it all up. Again, I have to wonder if the Web 2.0 companies will ever reach a time where dealing with identity theft, stalking, harassment, abuse, etc. will become so common that they (like credit card companies today) will know how to deal with it without putting their victim consumers through more trouble? I raised this question to the panel, who seemed pessimistic about that prospect. Unlike credit card companies, social networks have little if any financial incentive to provide security, and as such, it will most likely always take a second priority.In the end, Schneier said that society may not be ready to handle privacy - similar to pollution, it may take a good 20 years or so for the masses to truly wrap their heads around it and do something.