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June 30, 2004
We're not so different from the monkeys
"Bogota, Columbia--Police apprehend a monkey alleged to have pickpocketed wallets, cell phones and other valuables from residents in the south of the city. Police claimed the sticky-fingered simian had been trained by its owner, who rewarded it with bananas when it returned home with pilfered valuables."Posted by at 05:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
We're not so different from the monkeys
"Bogota, Columbia--Police apprehend a monkey alleged to have pickpocketed wallets, cell phones and other valuables from residents in the south of the city. Police claimed the sticky-fingered simian had been trained by its owner, who rewarded it with bananas when it returned home with pilfered valuables."Posted by at 05:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 22, 2004
Message from my best friend
I got e-mail from my friend in New York. She has MBA degree and has been working on financial business. In the real world, she is more persuasive than I.She has moderate level of computer experience, better than typical woman, but less than geeks like me. She says:
I'm updating my address book. Please take a moment to update me with your latest contact info. Click the following link to correct or confirm your information: https://www.abccompany.com/edit_abcde_contact_info?***************
# I changed the link from her original message. Name: Chika
Job Title:
Company:
Work E-mail: chika@
(deleted)
Mobile Phone: Home E-mail:
Home Phone:
Home Address Line 1:
Home City, State, Zip:
Birthday:
*** message ends *************** This shows that she is storing my personal message onto a server that I have never known. Once my information is stored, I will lose my control; then I will get more and more spam and advertisement by e-mail. I understand that such kind of database service would be helpful for us in a sense. But it is a big trade-off between taking a risk to distribute personal information and convenience. Anyway, I have to think how I respond her without hurting... -Chika
Posted by Chika Ando at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 21, 2004
AT&T Privacy Bird
I stumbled upon this add-on to Internet Explorer called AT&T Privacy Bird (http://privacybird.com/) which is this little colorful birdie that sits in the upper-right corner of your browser window (along the title bar, next to the buttons) and gives you both visual and audio feedback about the privacy policy of the website you're currently visiting. I really applaud their efforts on this project because I feel that it is an elegant solution and a wonderful proof of concept. People generally ignore privacy policies because they're long and boring, but we still do care about what is happening to our personal information. To give a very quick summary of the interaction: when you install the Privacy Bird, you specify your privacy preferences explicitly. Then, for each website you visit, the Privacy Bird looks at the privacy policy for that site and turns green and chirps if it matches your preferences, turns yellow if the policy can't be found, or turns red and chirps if the policy doesn't match your preferences. I have found, however, that in practice few sites have their privacy policies encoded in the P3P standard which the Privacy Bird requires in order to read them and so the bird is yellow (and therefore useless) most of the time. I do like the idea though, and find the ever-present bird and reminder chirps to be very persuasive in my surfing habits and what info I'm willing to give a site. Yahoo.com, for example, comes up red with lots of violations of my privacy preferences, and so I'm going to be much more careful about what info I give them in future. -JonPosted by at 01:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 19, 2004
Gmail: Google's got your number
The paranoia of being at Stanford without a Gmail account finally got to me and I got myself a Gmail account, thanks to a well-wisher who was distributing free invites on a mailing list. More than peer pressure (read: excited geeks friends) and the need for storage space (rediff.com also gives 1 GB of space), it was Google's marketing -- giving out selective accounts, creating a word-of-mouth -- that made me do it. Yes, I accept it, I fell prey to excellent marketing practices, but then, I've always been appreciative of such tactics. Moreover, given my interest in HCI, I wanted to try the interface which I heard was a little different than other email applications. Yet, it wasn't the interface that caught my fancy when I finally got the account but 4 bullet points on the login page:- Search, don't sort.
- Don't throw anything away.
- Keep it all in context.
- No pop-up ads. No untargeted banners. Moreover, there was a link under the fourth bullet -- "relevant text ads" -- that got me really concerned about what Google is trying to achieve with Gmail. Here is an excerpt from the linked page:
The matching of ads to content is a completely automated process performed by computers. No humans read your email to target the ads, and no email content or other personally identifiable information is ever provided to advertisers. Here is my interpretation and understanding of what Google is trying so hard not to say:
- Don't sort your email and become completely dependent on Gmail's search function, what can be better for us than to permanently change your habits to our advantage.
- Don't throw anything away and automatically build a database for Gmail about your personal tastes, friends, and interests. In this way Gmail can serve its clients much better by selling your demographics to advertisers.
- Keep it all in context so that Gmail can match your interests to people you correspond with, even if they don't use Gmail, and improve upon its database and charge advertisers even higher prices.
- No pop-up ads, no untargeted banners and only relevant text ads, we know you so well we don't need to waste a penny of our advertisers money. And by the way we didn't promise no spam so the relevant ads are in addition to any spam you might start to get. Gmail is trying to make a big deal of putting only text-ads and not multimedia or graphic ads. Advertisers know quite well that with the right audience, and positioning, text ads can be as powerful and influential in persuading people, and sometimes even more, than graphic or multimedia ads. So, by only placing text ads, Gmail isn't doing any social service. Moreover, relevant ads are still ads. They are designed with an intent of not only to inform but also to persuade the reader. And, is there any guarantee that as bandwidth increases with time Gmail won't start giving non-text ads? So, am I going to use Gmail on a regular basis, "Hell, No!" I might use it to store large files if I need to access them over the Internet or if I need a backup, but beyond that I'm saying goodbye to Gmail. I might be wrong, but I see another tech company turn into a marketing organization.
Posted by Aditya Johri at 04:26 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 16, 2004
More Internet activism -- faithfulamerica.org
It may be hard to remember now, but not so long ago computers and the Internet were rarely used for political influence. In the last two years the tide has shifted. The latest example comes from FaithfulAmerica.org, which has posted a TV commercial they hope to share with the Arab world. Online you can view the TV ad, endorse it, and make a donation. You can view the ad here: America ApologizesPosted by at 12:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 13, 2004
Leaders gain power by manipulating emotions.
When a leader can instill trust and fear at the same time, that leader wins submission. This is the fastest path to power. The only defense against the trust+fear control strategy is to turn trust into distrust, and fear into anger. This combination leads to rebellion. An enlightened culture will face this reality: Leaders gain power by manipulating emotions.Posted by at 09:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 10, 2004
Winners Announced -- Captology Story Contest
Congratulations to the winners of the Captology Story Contest. Students in my CS377 course created short movies to help us explore how computers manipulate and motivate people. Last week I asked Notebook readers to help judge these online stories. We received 684 evaluations in six days. Here's how the voting turned out: How Computers Manipulate People 1st Place: Your Computer is Watchingby Mike Brzozowski, Stephanie Dee & Harrison Osaki
How Computers Motivate People 1st Place: Pam: Your Personal Fitness Coach
by Alex Cochran, Nirav Mehta & Jung Jae Seu
Posted by at 08:48 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Winners Announced -- Captology Story Contest
Congratulations to the winners of the Captology Story Contest. Students in my CS377 course created short movies to help us explore how computers manipulate and motivate people. Last week I asked Notebook readers to help judge these online stories. We received 684 evaluations in six days. Here's how the voting turned out: How Computers Manipulate People 1st Place: Your Computer is Watchingby Michael Brzozowski, Stephanie Dee & Harrison Osaki
How Computers Motivate People 1st Place: Pam: Your Personal Fitness Coach
by Alex Cochran, Nirav Mehta & Jung Jae Seu
Posted by at 08:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Winners Announced -- Captology Story Contest
Congratulations to the winners of the Captology Story Contest. Students in my CS377 course created a number of short movies to help us explore how computers manipulate and motivate people. Last week I asked Notebook readers to help judge the movies. We received 684 evaluations in six days. Here's how the voting turned out: How Computers Manipulate People1st Place: Your Computer is Watching
by Michael Brzozowski. Stephanie Dee & Harrison Osaki How Computers Motivate People
1st Place: Pam
by Alex Cochran, Nirav Mehta & Jung Jae Seu
Posted by at 08:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Winning Movies -- Captology Story Contest
Congratulations to the winners of the Captology Story Contest. Students in my CS377 course created a number of short movies to help us explore how computers manipulate and motivate people. Last week I asked Notebook readers to help judge the movies. We received 684 evaluations in six days. Here's how the voting turned out: How Computers Manipulate People1st Place: Your Computer is Watching
by Michael Brzozowski. Stephanie Dee & Harrison Osaki How Computers Motivate People 1st Place: Pam
by Alex Cochran, Nirav Mehta, Jung JaeSeu
Posted by at 08:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 04, 2004
Making you view online commercials -- Salon.com
After unsubscribing from Salon over a year ago, I returned today because I was looking for fresh content. The top page gave me two choices: subscribe or get a "free day pass." I chose the free day pass. Once I clicked this option, a flashy page came up and confused me. I realized what I was seeing was an ad, very similar to a TV commercial. I couldn't go backward or forward. It lasted about a minute. After enduring this distraction, I could then click through to "Salon Premium" and get the content. Of course, I didn't watch the commercial. I started answering emails instead. two things struck me about the experience: 1. The ad was so much like what you'd see on TV.2. I can't imagine people really watching the ad, because your computer offers you so many other things to do -- just a click away. But I hope it works for Salon. I like their content. Would I rather endure the distractions or just re-subscribe? I don't know yet.
Posted by at 08:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 03, 2004
Situations that promote learning
A colleague at Stanford asked me to explain something I said about how people are more receptive to learning in certain situations. The answer I emailed back is my quick response, not perfect work. But I figured my Lab team and some notebook readers might find this topic interesting. Better still, perhaps others can improve these ideas or offer citations. -------------I define learning as behavior change. People are more likely to change their behavior (or learn) in a variety of situations. 1. When dissatisfied
When people realize their actions are not leading to their goals, the seek a new solution. They try new behaviors. 2. When in a good mood
When people are happy, they are more open to thinking new thoughts and trying out new behaviors. It's not just about mood, it's really more about activating "approach" rather than "avoidance," engaging the parasympathetic nervous system rather than the sympathetic. Don Norman's new book, Emotional Design, is probably the best resource on this topic. 3. When rewards, such as fun, are immediate
People will do most anything to achieve a short-term pay off, like being amused. So when fun is a near-term reward, people can also be induced to try new things; along the way they may adopt new behaviors. This is one reason I bring fun into my Stanford teaching and industry talks: I want people to learn.
Posted by at 12:29 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 02, 2004
Judge movies now --> Captology storytelling contest
I'm inviting readers of our notebook to judge some short movies about how computers can change what people think and do. Students at Stanford created these stories. They would appreciate your feedback. Please help by sharing your opinion. Here's how . . . 1. Go to http://credibility.stanford.edu/377movies/ 2. View and evaluate some movies, as many or few as you like (each movie is 1 to 4 minutes). Thanks! -------------Note that the judging ends at midnight on Monday June 7th.
If you have problems or questions, please email info@captology.org
Posted by at 01:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 01, 2004
Top Web Behavior #8: Set some preferences
The BehaviorIt seems like more and more websites are giving you the opportunity to customize things. Have a favorite football team? Then they should be on the front page! Like to follow certain stocks? Then why read news about others? Don't like navigation bars down the side of the page? Then move them to the top. Although this customizability can be expensive to provide, it's growing like wildfire. What they gain (and you lose)
Site operators want you to customize your experience for two main reasons. First, they believe that you'll come back more often -- after all, the site is just the way you like it, and you've already done the hard work. But there's another, more subtle reason why site operators seem so flexible: it's free usability testing. For example, if a website is considering a major new feature they might conduct focus groups and field trials with a marketing research firm to see how the changes are received. This works well, but it costs money. Instead, many companies simply roll out the new feature, and give you the opportunity to turn it off. If most people leave it on, then the change is a success, but if too many shut it off the company knows to reevaluate. And all without spending a dime on research. Gallery
There's no gallery for this entry simply because the behavior is so pervasive. On nearly every page of nearly every top site, there are opportunities to hide and show features, change languages and toggle settings.
Posted by Adam Wright at 05:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack