Contemplating Curation

Though the buzz around e-books and mobile is deafening right now, I'm hearing another word entering the buzz zone at rocket speed, and it's a word much more relevant to our businesses: curation.

Yes, it's become trendy and mainstream to acknowledge that with so much information so readily available these days, there is real value in plucking out the information that really matters. Malcolm Gladwell, speaking at the recent ALM LegalTech conference, reportedly summed up the problem beautifully, saying "Until search engines can filter as well as they can find, they only add to confusion."

Filtering is something of a geeky way to describe curation. Others may be more comfortable with an older term: editing. Yes, as I have said so many times before, there's not much on the Internet that's really new: it's mostly old ideas sporting flashy new names.

We've spent the last fifteen years on the Internet focused on aggregation. Everyone was trying to build huge pots of content, the most notable examples of this being the search engines. Now it seems that after this frenzy of aggregation, we're starting to stand back and say, "Well that's not very useful." Hence the race to curate.

Another interesting thing to note about this interest in curation is that the experts seem to agree that it's a task for humans. Only a few years ago, we would all have automatically assumed that "there's an app for that," or more precisely, some algorithm or technology that would solve the problem with point-and-click ease. Now, we're starting to appreciate how much nuance is involved.

Of course as data publishers, we have long been practicing a form of curation. We analyze, interpret and add value to information by normalizing it and fielding it. Further, we typically limit ourselves to standardized subsets of information that won't solve every need, but are amazingly powerfully for specific applications. Even better, our selected, normalized and fielded data is easily filtered, meaning that users can easily get to the nuggets most valuable to them. The lesson I take away from this is that it's easier to extract meaning and value from smaller, focused sets of information rather than trying to find small needles in large haystacks.

Love Them Books!

It's 2010, but client research we recently completed revealed some users still prefer print.
Had we simply discovered the last of the Luddites? It doesn't seem that way. In fact, one of the markets in which we conducted research depends very heavily on online systems to do business. We have said many times that different markets get online religion at very different rates. Even so, to find so many enthusiastic fans of print at this late date was surprising.
Here are some of the reasons we heard about why print still retains its appeal:

The Wall of History - There is apparently a sizable population out there who still collect directories. Over the years, they purchased every edition published and have amassed a wall or shelf of them. This group maintains that it's important to have a "history of the industry" as expressed through print products, and don't want the print version to end. It sounds pretty loopy on the surface, but in fact very few data publishers have addressed the issue of archival information, and in fact their online version isn't satisfactory to those who wish to look back for various reasons.

The Traveling Salesman - It's a classic stereotype but there's truth here as well. When a directory is used for prospecting purposes, we regularly hear that salespeople who live on the road like print because they can throw the directory in a briefcase or in a backseat. We may all live on our iPhones, but it's dangerous to assume everyone else does as well. Related to this, we often hear mobile access being dismissed by users - salespeople in particular - because "you can't really browse." Being able to page through a directory to pick your prospects still means a lot to this group.

The Swiss Army Knife - Forget the purpose for which print directories were designed, there are a surprising number of people who turn them into virtual filing cabinets, appending Post-It notes, marginal notations, memory jogs, names of new personnel and more to the pages. We find this particularly pronounced where the print product has a comb binding or otherwise lies fairly flat on the desk. Sure, many online databases allow users to add private notes, but as print users correctly point out, they tend to be an afterthought: often not convenient, not highly visible, not searchable and not customizable. And the nagging thought of losing it all should the user fail to renew a subscription haunts many of these folks.

The Speed Racer - Don't ever contradict a print directory user who says print is faster to use than online. Right or wrong, they believe it, and passionately. And sometimes they are right. Print directories that get used in large part for quick contact information can in fact be faster and easier to use than elaborate online databases that sport lots of bells and whistles and incredible power, but whose designers forgot that fast contact information look-up was important to the user base.

There's more of course, but these are some common examples. More importantly, they point up that while online is better, online isn't automatically better.

Taking the LEad

An interesting article in Search Engine Land reported that Google is offering a sales lead form as an option to its AdWords advertisers. A user will be able to click a special link at the bottom of an AdWords advertisement, and a pop-up form will ask for the user's name, phone and some specifics about what they are looking to buy. After submitting the form, the user is promised a call back from the advertiser.

You can see a screen capture of the form here. It's worth a look.

Implications? At first I thought this was another of what I have come to call the Google Daily Disrupter™, a new product or feature from Google that knocks still another industry on its ear. But perhaps not. Consider the following:

1. This lead gen form comes awfully early in the selling process. Can you really generate this high level of interest from a six word advertisement?

2. Success in lead gen depends on the user getting a quick return call from the advertiser. This can happen, but it's not easy to guarantee, so it is questionable how well this will scale, especially given Google's well-known aversion to talking to either its advertisers or users.

3. As the article notes, the call-back process is a bit convoluted, with Google not releasing the prospect's phone number to the advertiser. I can see where this might appeal to the user, but I don't see any great appeal to the advertiser. Further, there is an implicit "we'll protect you from our untrustworthy advertisers" message here.

4. Google will apparently let its all-powerful algorithms, not you the paying advertiser, determine exactly what will display on your lead gen form.

So is Google's new lead gen feature fatally flawed? I am not sure I would go that far. It's a nicely designed form, and the offering is sure to evolve. What may be more important is that over time an offering like this will help to accustom more users to take advantage of sales inquiry forms, which should be good news for B2B buying guide publishers. Lead gen is a Godsend to B2B data publishers, because not only can they charge stiff premiums for every lead delivered, they can also document the power and efficacy of their products to their advertisers, and that's the essential foundation of every successful buying guide.

News Notes

DATA.GOV GETS A BOOST - In a directive from the Office of Management and Budget, all federal agencies have been ordered to place at least three high-value and not previously available datasets online within the next 45 days, and register them at DATA.GOV. This has the potential to start changing the landscape on public data availability, and it's just the beginning. Read the entire directive here.

GOOGLE TAKES STOCK - Word has it that Google Product Search (formerly Froogle) will soon start offering retail store inventory information, both in online and mobile formats. Find the vendor, find the nearest location, see if the product is in stock - this is powerful stuff. Intriguingly, Google is playing catch-up in the retail inventory space, as a number of fierce competitors roll out similar offerings. And where B2C leads, B2B will surely follow.

THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW - A blogger has unearthed the fascinating fact that the U.S. Department of Justice spends well over $4 million buying public domain court decisions from the federal court system each year, using a creaky online site called PACER. Apparently the federal courts rake in over $50 million annually selling public documents to the public (and those other pesky co-equal branches of government). Don't like it? Tell it to the judge. Of course, being the federal government, there's even more to this story. Since PACER doesn't have comprehensive case coverage, the U.S. Department of Justice also pays legal publishing giant Thomson-West $5 million a year to get access to the rest of those cases.

Steal Smart!

I've always considered the identity theft protection business to be a bit tawdry. After all, the main players in this area, the big credit bureaus, created the problem in the first place by relentlessly pushing the notion that somehow we are all better off with access to instant credit. This has created a state of affairs where an unscrupulous person, with just a few bits of personal information about you, can become you, at least to the extent of tapping your good name for credit purposes, leaving a trail of wreckage that can destroy your credit and seriously disrupt your life. One would think that credit cards would serve ably to deal with impulse purchases; only in America it seems can credit itself become the impulse purchase.

So how have the credit bureaus dealt with this issue of identity theft, which some reports suggest impacts nearly 10 million Americans each year? Rather than addressing the root cause, they've created lucrative paid services that let consumers monitor their credit files for suspicious activity. Yes, not only has the problem been handed off to consumers to deal with, consumers get to pay for the privilege!

Also, to date, there hasn't been much room for commercial data publishers in this market. After all, the dissemination of credit data is regulated, and virtually all of it is the proprietary content of the big three credit bureaus. But that's not enough to stop a determined data entrepreneur, and what's emerged in this case is a breathtakingly ingenious new product.

A company called Lucid Intelligence, working with another firm called TrustedID, have created a website called StolenIDSearch.com. It's a searchable database containing stolen personal information. Yes, the owners of the website visit hacker sites and have compiled a database of stolen personal information being offered for sale online. Now, you can easily check to see if your personal information may have been purloined. Obviously, if information about you is being offered for sale to criminals and others, you've been compromised and need to take defensive action. The database, by the way, contains stolen information on over 42 million people, 95% of whom are Americans.

This venture may sound a little dodgy, but it's not. It's run by former law enforcement officers who work closely with the police and other investigative agencies and simply want to provide individuals with a proactive read on the safety of their personal information.

The business model is simple: a basic search of the database is free. Full details on your stolen information can be had for a small fee. If you determine you have a problem, TrustedID, the identity protection partner in the service, is right there to offer paid support.

You have to admit it: this one is fiendishly clever, beating the bad guys at their own game.

Labels: lucid intelligence, stolenidsearch.com, trustedid