Re: Is personalization really personal

From: David Yancey <dyancey_at_intergen.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 10:48:07 -0500 (CDT)

While I agree with Tim Lee, Marcia Yudkin, and Tom Kuegler,
that most of what passes for "personalization" is actually
just detailed market segmentation or grouping, Tom makes a
statement that I think we should consider in much more
detail than we typically have:

"...True personalization would require the Web site to
target you on specifically who you are and what you like to
do. This is extremely difficult in a real time fashion. It
is also an extremely touchy subject. I am not so certain
that most people want the true personalization...."

Like, probably, most of the readers of this and similar
lists, I have assumed that "real" personalization was, as
Tom, puts it "touchy". We've all seen examples of big sites
and marketers burned by their crossing of this
still-undefined line into the user's or customer's or
prospect's "privacy" zone.

But our recent work in my group on a new site and
business-oriented web service has raised this question
again, in a, perhaps, new light:

1] What if the user/visitor *opts* to supply the
personalized data? Inotherwords instead of just assuming as
so many Netizens do that they never would, that they won't
trust the site, that they don't want the site operator to
infer things about them from their volunteered info, that
they *do* want this sort of relationship.

2] What if, instead of having to develop as Tom says
"extremely difficult" methods to capture the necessary info,
the user was openly invited to supply it, in order to gain
the full benefit of the service or site or product. Even
better, what if the service was clever enough to use
whatever portion of the desired info the user chose to
volunteer, even though this might mean that the full benefit
of the service could not be enjoyed?

3] What if, in such a data capture setting, the service was
able to assure the user that the data would truly not be
sold, or, if the user so stipulated, not even used to
trigger offers from the service itself?

[I grant that few website operators have thought how to use
such data to shape and drive their service beyond the
obvious use for direct selling, but they will, they will,
believe me.]

Let's call this sort of voluntary association of the
user/visitor with the site/service "opt-on", that is, after
they have "opted-in" to the essential idea of an ongoing
[usually emailed, but it could be another form of contact]
relationship with the site/service, they now "opt on" - - as
in "on board", so to speak, and agree to trust that the
site/service's intent is to supply the user with useful,
time- or money-saving information and services, and, of
critical importance, that the site/service has the necessary
competence to do this in a professional and confidential
manner.

What I am suggesting is that, instead of all of us in the
web-development and publishing and e-commerce business
simply *agreeing* that the average Netizen is suspicious of
data-collecting sites and ad servers, or big media empires,
or monster retailing companies, or whatever, we try to think
of what attributes a site/service would need to develop, and
then *verify* in the user's mind that would induce the user
to trust the site with the data in question.

Is this heresy? I doubt it. After all, you "trust" your
offline service providers already - - doctor, banker,
accountant, boss, credit-card company, lover,
drinking-companion, etc - - with far more important
information than whether you prefer leather top shoes to
canvas, or peppermint to raspberry, or bought three of your
last four books at Amazon.com, or, in the context we are
working in, whether your company has more than 50 employees,
etc.

In parallel with the whole question of what would motivate a
user/visitor to "opt-on", why don't we consider the impact
on this privacy versus performance question of the changing
web demographic?

- What happens when and if, as the web continues to explode
internationally, the average *typical* user is much more
prepared in future to give over detailed personal
consumption and similar data? - What happens when more and
more people experience the [possibly vastly] improved and
more efficient service a "smart" e-biz site will be able to
provide? - What happens when more sites discover ways to
allow the prospect to "opt-on", without then *automatically*
pumping their particulars immediately into a target
marketing database?

What I am suggesting is that positively reinforced usage
experiences and changing web demographics make it vital that
we be less defensive and even "knee-jerky" on the subject of
privacy, and more realistic and thoughtful of ways in which
an "opt-on" user can benefit from *much* "smarter" web
sites.

David Yancey - - Managing Director, Intergen Associates
Internet Business Planning, Development & Management

"If you want an Internet presence, create a website; if you
want
an Internet *business*, create an Internet Business Plan."
mailto:dyancey_at_intergen.co.uk
or call our office in Japan at 81-42-943-2637

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Received on Wed Jul 28 1999 - 11:19:37 CDT