How’re We Doing?

Today’s event: DMCNY luncheon at the Yale club (very enjoyable). One underlying question of the event: How does direct marketing improve its relationship with consumers? My take: Much of the issue revolves around how marketers deal with consumers’ private sphere (e.g. in sending direct mail to homes). My question: So is the consumer relationship problem the same for traditional DM as for online marketers?

Answer 1: Yes. They’re both about how companies deal with consumers’ personal sphere—there’s little real difference between sending junk mail to your home and, say, online behavioral targeting.

Answer 2: No. When it comes to the home (traditional DM’s turf), the idea of the private sphere is highly defined (say, by the walls of your house). When it comes to the Web, ideas of a private sphere are still very fuzzy.

Year-End Interview with Webmaster Radio

Webmaster Radio’s Jim Hedger interviewed me about goings on at Didit and the industry at year-end.

(Interview starts about 6 minutes in. And you’ll want to fast-forward 5 minutes through the drunken santa segment, from about 16 minutes into the show. To download the MP3 rather than listening from the Webmaster Radio site, click here.)

Wikia Spam = Good

This week’s launch: Wikia Search, the user-edited search engine from the folks who brought you Wikipedia. An algorithm does the “heavy-lifting” to find information; users do the refinement to perfect the rankings. As Michael Arrington observes and Silicon Alley Insider opines, Wikia Search sucks.

But the human editors haven’t started work yet (editing features aren’t even turned on)—so it’s unfair to pass a hasty judgment. Indeed, my prediction is for good things from Wikia Search. And spam will be the reason.

As 360i’s David Berkowitz noted in Search Insider last year, the ease of human editing will make Wikia Search a spammer’s delight. But enough spammers may just cancel each other out—and crowd wisdom will lead to the best results.

Sure, the engine sucks now. But that’s because it hasn’t been sufficiently spammed yet.