by Rob Cottingham | Jan 25, 2010 | Social Signal
If you use Facebook, you’ve almost certainly noticed the ads on the right-hand side of most pages. And chances are you’ve also noticed the little “x” in the upper right-hand corner of each ad.
It’s the “I don’t like this” link (the opposite of that little thumbs-up icon under each ad), and I use it regularly. I let most Facebook ads slide, but some either offend me (usually with a gratuitously sexist photo, or a clearly misleading come-on) or are just so clearly not intended for me (thanks, but I’m not in the market for a condo) that I end up clicking – more to alert Facebook than for any other reason.
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Click it, and up pops a dialog box saying “Tell us what you think. Why didn’t you like this ad?” You can then choose from a range of reasons, such as “Irrelevant”, “Offensive”, “Misleading”, “Repetitive” or “I DON’T WANT TO PLAY #@$&ING FARMVILLE OR MAFIA WARS!” (Actually, that last one isn’t an option. It desperately, desperately should be.)
Click “Okay”, and then… what?
Truth is, we don’t know. Facebook says that “over time, this information helps us deliver more relevant ads to our users.” But they won’t tell you how… and it isn’t unusual to see the same ad you’ve just dissed pop up again in a minute or two – complete with the little “x” link.
Which is just so last century.
Asking people for their input, and then sucking their suggestions into a black box and never letting them know what happened to them – that isn’t going to fly much longer. Not for governments that conduct “consultations” around issues they’ve already decided, and not for businesses that want to get valuable targeting information from their audience and customers without giving them any value in return.
That goes for organizations large and small. If your web site invites input from the public, you want to be doing something more than just nodding politely while they talk; this is an opportunity for interaction that looks less like the old suggestion box and more like conversation.
What if your users could see the list 20, 50 or 100 items they’ve liked or disliked? What if they could meet people who’ve liked and disliked similar things? What if they could talk about what they like or dislike, make it part of their profile, and tell advertisers how they do and don’t like to be approached?
At the very least, what if they could click a button that means they would never see that particular ad again?
If you’re going to ask your users a question, you need to be able to show them you’ve actually heard their answer. It’s perhaps the most basic skill in conversation – and so far, Facebook hasn’t learned it. Has your site?
by Rob Cottingham | Jan 18, 2010 | Everything Else
Mike Kelly (of Strangely Entangled fame and partner-in-crime of friend-of-Social-Signal Natasha Scott) (see how I got that little bit of disclosure out there so subtly?)… where were we? Right. Mike has just beta-launched a new and highly cool... by Rob Cottingham | Jan 18, 2010 | Everything Else
That’s the lesson of 1994, the conservative and moderate Democrats who killed health care reform derived not an ounce of benefit for having done so. Indeed, they were slaughtered en masse. via talkingpointsmemo.com Posted via web from robcottingham’s... by Rob Cottingham | Jan 16, 2010 | Everything Else
(Cross-posted from Social Signal) Like many people, when I heard about the disaster in Haiti, I wanted to help. And I wanted to give others a way to help, too. Here’s what I decided to do: go to a relief agency’s web site, and set up a peer fundraising... by Rob Cottingham | Jan 16, 2010 | Social Signal
Like many people, when I heard about the disaster in Haiti, I wanted to help. And I wanted to give others a way to help, too.
Here’s what I decided to do: go to a relief agency’s web site, and set up a peer fundraising page (along the lines of what Convio, Blackbaud and DemocracyInAction create for their clients).
These are pages where you can collect donations on behalf of the charity; they handle the credit card transaction and tax receipts. Health charities in particular have become adept at creating those pages – think Run for the Cure or our friends at BC Children’s Hospital Foundation – and the breakout success story for peer networked fundraising was the Howard Dean presidential campaign.
My thinking was, for every donation over a certain amount – say, $50 or $100 – I’d send the donor a signed print of their favourite Noise to Signal cartoon. While I can’t handle credit card transactions or charitable receipts, I can handle printing, signing and mailing prints.
I’m all ready to go at this end. But I can’t find a Canadian relief agency that would let me do this.
Pretty much everyone takes donations online, but whether I’m missing something or it’s just not there, the fact is I couldn’t find one enabled for networked fundraising.
So I’m turning to Social Signal’s readers and the nptech community: can you help me find the right agency? Here’s what I’m looking for:
- Ideally, I’d like to work with a Canadian charity. But if I can’t find a Canadian partner, I’m happy to support another agency. (Ammado looks like a possibility.)
- I need to be able to track who has given how much (or at least who has given more than the threshold amount).
- I need to collect their contact information – at the very least, an email address – so I can send them their print.
Suggestions?
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