April 16, 2008
Attention through Status Message Update (SMU)
Through the Psychology of Facebook and Data Mining and Electronic Business classes at Stanford, I propose the term:
Status Message Update (SMU).
SMU is a unit and mechanism of asynchronous light weight communication distributed to an audience. SMU can be a currency and service, similar to SMS.
Communicating "status" is essential to our most valuable source of capital- attention. We are experiencing a temporary attention micro-economy right at this moment if you are reading this. However, attention does not come in precise, indistinguishable units. SMU is a metric emerging from social media that can potentially help us better understand attention.
How to persuade attention through the Facebook SMU?
Getting attention is more than a momentary thing because you build on a SMU stock. For example, if I post a SMU to "BUY THIS VACUUM CLEANER!" every five minutes, my network of friends would change their privacy settings and think some combination of the following:
a. I'm wasting a 100k at Stanford
b. I have OCD
c. Some advertiser is paying something worth more than my soul
However, if your SMU is new, real, original, or provocative then you might start acquiring subscriptions exponentially through Facebook's various viral channels. Thus, obtaining attention through SMU is obtaining a kind of enduring wealth, a form of wealth that puts you in the VIP seat to get anything the attention economy offers.
"Contrary to what you are sometimes urged to believe, money cannot reliably buy attention."
-Michael H. Goldhaber
Stay tuned for the next addition of Kairos through Status Message Update (SMU). Please feel free to contact me and shred this post to pieces!
Thank you for your attention,
Enrique Allen
Mark reviews services like ping.fm, hellotxt, MoodBlast, and Socialthing that hopefully facilitate valuable SMU for you.
Facebook, if I get your attention, I would greatly appreciate analyzing your status data and comparing it with Super Status lol!
Posted by Enrique at 04:09 AM | Comments (0)
January 30, 2008
Social Platform Sustainable Game Mechanics
Following a post by Max Levchin, CEO of Slide, platform teams must sustain a developer friendly ecosystem by manipulating elements that compose a mass multiplayer game of persuasion.
Platform developer goals:
1. Earn money
2. Acquire fame
3. Procure intellectual stimulation
Platform Owner Goals:
1. Attract and keep top developer talent
2. Encourage development of net-positive products
3. Maximize constructive competition among developers
4. Minimize objectively net-negative developers & products
--Enrique Allen
Posted by Enrique at 02:07 AM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2008
Video - Stanford Facebook class insights
The day before our Facebook class gave final presentations, some of us shared work at BayCHI. This event was probably better than the final. It's shorter and more direct.
You can watch the video below (with many thanks to BayCHI).
http://www.archive.org/details/baychi20071211v
You'll see how Facebook is a persuasive technology, what the students did to reach millions of users in a few weeks, and how this relates to the larger projects in our lab, including Peace Technology.
--BJ Fogg
Posted by BJ Fogg at 09:24 AM | Comments (0)
September 28, 2007
105 students join Stanford Facebook Course
Yesterday we taught the first Facebook class at Stanford, with over 100 student crammed into a temporary room that still wasn't big enough.
My co-teacher Dave McClure, my trusty TA Dan Ackerman-Greenberg, and new Team Coach Yee Lee helped teach the 3-hour class. We had a lot of fun.
We've set up more info on the course here: http://captology.stanford.edu/facebook.html
You'll see that our course isn't about the code part of FB apps. We're focusing on the psychology and metrics of Facebook, and how understanding these two pieces can help developers create superior applications on Facebook--or on whatever platform opens up next (and apparently more are coming soon).
What's new here is how Facebook Platform has brought the creator and user close together through Facebook product features like Reviews and Discussion Boards, as well as built-in metrics of uptake and engagement. Anyone can see exactly how people are responding to a Facebook app, both individually and collectively.
The feedback loop between creator and user is so small now that we've crossed a threshold--an important one. I believe we're entering a new era for designing interactive products. And that's why this course matters.
That said, we all agree our new course is risky. It could turn out to be a disaster, not just for a few students but for over 100 students, some of whom came back to school from academic leave to enroll in the course.
So I gotta hand it to Stanford University. This is an institution that welcomes innovation, like this new course. I hope our students appreciate this fact. I sure do.
--BJ Fogg
Posted by BJ Fogg at 02:10 PM | Comments (1)
September 17, 2007
Picture Persuasion in Facebook
Part 1 of 3
Written for the Facebook Group Psychology of Facebook with Dr. BJ Fogg
This Facebook image has persuaded millions. Here's how . . .
-------
Picture Persuasion in Facebook
BJ Fogg
Persuasive Technology Lab
Stanford University
Our young friend Facebook would have died long ago if the site didn't push users to upload Profile Pictures. Yes, it's true: on Facebook our mugshots are much more than decorations. The images we post do more much than amuse our friends.
As a psychologist I'm intrigued by Facebook's approach to Profile Pictures. In fact, I believe this little feature has been the launching point for Facebook's enormous success.
In this post I'm not talking about the photos themselves. (I'll write about that later.) My intrigue is in how Facebook leverages Profile Pictures to start people down a long path of future persuasion.
When you upload your mugshot in Facebook, you signal to yourself--and to your friends--how you'll respond to influence attempts farther down the Facebook road. With that confirmation, your whole network creeps forward, a caravan of compliance.
Think about it: On Facebook almost no one refuses to post a Profile Picture.
Who can resist?
Here's the situation: You've already joined Facebook, you see all your friends have posted photos, and then you post one too. At that point none of us is thinking about being persuaded or manipulated. We just want to move on to the real business of Facebook: accumulating friends.
But wait!
Something important just happened, and we didn't even notice.
At the point we posted our mugshot, our friends could all see we said yes to "Upload a profile picture." Ah, the joy of social complicity! But even more important, this simple act changes us, deep inside. Our relationship with Facebook gets cozier. Facebook is no longer a stranger; it's a friend. And as such, we become much more likely to agree to future requests on Facebook. Yes, the picture compliance seems small, but the timing is ideal for training us well.
That's the genius of Facebook. The pattern of persuasion is established early and often. Indeed, this pattern has made Facebook, Inc., enormously wealthy.
I find the whole thing fascinating.
Facebook is a persuasive technology. By this I mean that Facebook is a interactive system designed to change human behaviors.
I've investigated persuasive technology at Stanford since 1993. I can say that during this year, in 2007, no other technology system has been more powerfully persuasive than Facebook. That's something I admire. I must say that if my Stanford Lab were giving prizes in persuasive technology, we would award Facebook this year's gold medal.
---
Here's the technique behind Profile Pictures . . .
When you first join Facebook, your Profile Picture is a large, ugly question mark. This was an excellent default choice by Facebook. The question mark naturally calls to be replaced. And this act is important: Every time someone uploads a new picture, they add value to Facebook, Inc.
But what happens when someone doesn't upload a photo?
Maybe you've seen this before . . .
When deviants don't upload a Profile Picture, their friends may start to apply pressure, enforcing the culture of Facebook. Friends may write comments on the deviant's Wall. They may say, "Hey, upload a photo!" or "Where's your face pic?"
Eventually, the compliance rate is almost 100%. That's remarkable. I can think of no other persuasive technology that performs better than Facebook's Picture Profile system.
The universal compliance is even more remarkable when you consider what a big step it is to upload a photo. First, you have to think of a photo you want to post. Then you have to find the digital file. And then you need to upload the photo and set your thumbnail. (If this sounds easy to you, then you've joined way too many social networks!)
Most Facebook users replace the default question mark with their own photo, not of Mickey Mouse or Madonna. This is important to Facebook's commercial success. Every upload of a real photo enhances the credibility of Facebook. And it's precisely this--credibility--that sets Facebook apart from most other social networks. In practical terms, the cumulative credibility allows Facebook to charge more for advertising.
Facebook credibility, of course, is not the end user's goal when uploading a real photo. As users we don't care much about what Facebook can charge for ads.
When we post a photo, we're trying to achieve our own goals, not enhance Facebook, Inc's bottom line. Even though our personal goals vary, it seems clear we all select a photo that we hope affects how our friends think about us. In other words, mugshot selection is a persuasive act. This is a topic I'll address later.
So . . . until we open that new can of worms, I'll wrap up with this teaser: Your mugshot is the most important element on your Facebook Profile Page, even more important than your name.
--Dr. BJ Fogg
September 2007
----------
For more on the psychology of Facebook, see our lab's Facebook page here: http://captology.stanford.edu/facebook.html
Posted by BJ Fogg at 03:49 PM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2007
New Stanford Course on Facebook Apps (well, sort of)
So I can finally announce that I'm teaching a new course on Facebook this fall with Dave McClure and Dan Ackerman-Greenberg.
Students will focus on creating Facebook apps and using metric tools (like Google Analytics) to optimize the apps. We'll grade students in part on how deeply their apps engage users.
I proposed the new course because I believe we've entered a new era of interaction design. The distance between creator and user has become extremely small, thanks to Facebook Platform. This is the shape of things to come, and I want to understand it early.
Persuasion plays a key role in all of this. Facebook is the most persuasive technology of 2007. Studying the psychology of Facebook and the new apps available there should be both fun and enlightening.
I've posted a bit more on another page.
--BJ Fogg
Posted by BJ Fogg at 05:45 PM | Comments (0)