Four Click Freedom

When you see all the worry warts and their efforts to make the internet privacy part of the experience and warn everyone about how they are being targeted, you can really see where I might start to worry.  I too would like to help facilitate marketers in targeting an audience on the Internet.

I believe what I am doing is much different than what is on the market, especially what is hyped up to be the next big thing like Feeva.  Targeting based on bla is still bla, I don’t care how big of a computer you have.  If people aren’t going to actually give you information and you are only going to take the scraps that they leave you or the bits and pieces that the Internet commissioner says you can legally use without having Internet users getting their hair standing on in, then how can you say you are the best behavioral targeting genius that is on this side of the hill?  Well you can’t, and that is what I have been discovering.  This not so new term called behavioral targeting is really a bunch of hoopla and it’s making a lot of people worried just because of the terminology.

I do agree with the part that you have to let people know what you are doing and saying how the information is used.  But if you actually create a platform where people get to tell you how they want the information used, haven’t you saved the people from going into tale-spins worrying about who sees what and what they know?

By giving the user options and control over their information is the real key.  Instead of people running in circles wondering how you are you going to use the information from late last night when they were searching for a honey on the Internet to target them, you should actually give them a choice about how they want to be profiled.  Ask them a question!  Say hey I saw you man, what are you up to, I know this isn’t your market and it doesn’t have anything to do with who you are, but even though you are here, what kind of information can you provide, your age, how many friends you have on Facebook, you like to party, you really keep to yourself and are pretty simple, what would be the one thing you would tell me if I knew you looked here?  I’m going to use it to get rid of all the crappola that surrounds your surfing habits now and give you something that might make a little more sense to your life.

Maybe this is th only way to get information out of people.  But the main purpose is say I will not give you more crap based on your habits, I will give you something you want me to, but to do so you have to reveal who you are in one little bit.   Much like twitter, would you be afraid to twitter as to what you are doing late this one night?  Maybe you won’t tell me exactly but that little tweet would be enough to change your experience and what is then given to you in return.  Something much more in line with who you are.

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This is really where the ‘social’ part comes into the social shopping networking utility.  As much as you would like to use all the coupons that come to you via Clickboards.net and all the ones you save to your account using Clickboards, you are probably going to get more than you need.  They do expire, but why not make the most of them?  In this format you can forward on coupons to friends and people in your network, earning you points.  You can also get points from using the Clickboards around the Internet, and even each time you use the Clickcard when you purchase items.

So what do these points do for you and why should you take the time to manage them and share them?  Well you can use these points for special discounts.  It is like a store where you purchase coupons using your points.  The more points you hand over, the bigger and more special the discounts you can select.

Advertisers can give you points for using the Clickcard on their site and basically the more you get involved with Clickboards.net the more points you get.  So the more you control your account and the better the targeting and more sophisticated your filters and the more you open your privacy settings, the more benefit there is for you.

For instance if you sign up your phone with the account you could earn a designated number of points each month.  Imagine going grocery shopping and paying for half your items with preferred customer points.  With more people in your network and the more integrated you become with them, the more potential there is to acquire shared savings.

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At this point there are no stakeholders, not even myself.  I am creating competition.  Without competition and everyone vying for a piece of the Clickboard pie, then there will never be a Clickboard that is effective.

What I would like to see is major advertising agencies bringing their clients to the table, the main table. Basically Clickboards.net is advertising space.  Clickboards.net Kiosks are advertising space.  In the future the personalization of magazines, newspapers, television, and even the Internet will be space for Clickboard spawned ads.

The information from the Clickcard is advertising statistics which is for sale.

The Clickboard however is free.  But, the Clickboards that I link to Clickboards.net will be allowed to put a small icon at the bottom right hand corner of the online ad to denote that it is a Clickboard and not a banner.   Right now I am thinking a star with a mouse pointer on it.

Linking the condoned Clickboard to Clickboards.net and all the other services is fee based.  This is determined individually upon client based on their requests and depth of use on this site.

So everyone is a player, everyone can make a Clickboard and make it link to anything.  You can free of charge make Clickboards work with your own site.  But you can’t use the icon and you can’t make it link to this network.

The stakeholders are the the same people.  As an advertiser you have just as much say as to how much you are involved within the Clickboards.net network.  Advertisers are the overhead.

If anyone out there is starting to be dismayed by Social Networks, you are probably not the only one.  First of all, you have to have a different network for everyone you know.  Some people you don’t want on your MySpace for sure, some people you call friends and want them on your Facebook, and still others you only want to have a professional network with them on LinkedIn.  And then all those other networking sites like Twitter and Friend Feed can really seem like a joke to most people unless they are really close to you.

So what is a social network looking for? A bridge between all of these.  Although many of these allow you to cross reference your contacts along all these networks, that is not what people are looking for.  People don’t want to be pigeon holed by their boss about what they did on the Fourth of July, and they don’t want there friends to be out of their loop because their professor wants to keep in touch in a marginally sensitive way.

So what can people do to stay connected to everyone.  That is a very tough question.  People have to be rewarded for being in touch with one another.  If I am connected to someone on the fringe, well that should benefit me right?  Shouldn’t I be able to invite every single person in my gmail contacts to join some network of mine, one without boundaries?

The answer is yes.  How?  Well believe it or not we all have a lot in common.  I think the most important thing we do is purchase items.  This requires most of our concentration and effort when designing who we are.  The second most important thing we do is design our resume and profile.  I say resume because that used to be the old way of telling someone who you are.  Now you can have online resumes that link to all your other profiles, and if you really believe in your blog that too.

So what platform can bring these two together.  I believe it is Clickboards.net.  First and most important, you once again create a basic profile and that is it.  Second you use your Clickcard.  Like some credit cards, your shopping history will be cataloged.  You can then be rewarded for sharing the same interests as those in your network.  So the more people in your network the more likely it is you will be rewarded for having a common interest.

This could be the movie you go see, the theater you see movies, the restaurants you visit, the happy hour bar you go to, the office supplies you buy, the advertising you buy, the websites you visit, the clothes you buy, the ingredients for food you cook at home.

The more you interlink yourself with your community the more you save.  Thus you are rewarded for anyone that is in your network.  There fore even connecting to those strangers brings you rewards.  But remember it is up to you to set your privacy and filters.  But the rewards are yours.