Worlds apart

Imagine only being able to see in two dimensions, to move in two dimensions, to measure your world in two dimensions?

Imagine I told you there was a third? That not only was it possible to move left and right, but also up and down.

Imagine you are a hunter in two-dimension world, that what you do depends on movement. You had no idea that up and down stuff existed, let alone was possible for you. And then I tell you there are loads of hunters just like you out there right now moving up and down as well as left and right.

And they are doing better than you.

They don't just fish where the fish are in two dimensions, but in three.

The scale of their world is infinitely more vast. The opportunities infinitely richer.

All you have to do to join in is look up. Or wait to get swallowed whole by something you couldn't even conceive of.

Google holds the key to conversational marketing

Image via CrunchBaseI like where Stowe is going with this
He draws the conclusion from the Google shakedown ( Google Ends Google Video Uploads, Shutters Notebook, Catalog Search, Dodgeball & Jaiku ) that the big G is lining up a bid for Twitter.

Interesting, because if there's anyone with the volume of advertisers required to make a business model work in Twitter, it is Google.

Interesting too, to imagine how a half-way house to the fourth dimension of marketing (co-creation with real-time adhoc communities of purpose) could be delivered with something very similar to google adsense.

Think of conversational marketing, think of people being rewarded for recommending products or services where-ever they (digitally at least) talk about it.

Think how we are all advertisers and all marketers now. How the only way messages are passed on in social networks is peer to peer.

Think how trust in you as a source of recommendation could be enhanced rather than damaged by payment (a la ebay's reputation system) when your recommendations aren't broadcast, but shared in peer to peer networks of trust.

If I spam my friends, if I fool my friends, if I fail my friends - then pretty soon they aren't my friends any more.

And if the value of your recommendations are ranked by the reach of your social graph - that should keep the spam down: Lie to make a quick buck if you like. But trust is your currency in this world - and you've just blown yours.

Mechanically how might this work? Perhaps I register with Google Conversation Sense (tm!) and I pick out a series of brands and products I actually like, use and would recommend to peers.

After this if and when I do recommend these in digital p2p communication, I get a micropayment. The size of payment depends on how many people follow/read/interact with me online (which correlates with trust, of course).

There are details to be overcome, for sure. For example, should your use of a specific term become a link whenever you use it - to a particular vendor, depending on bids of the kind used in adsense/adwords.

A simpler proposition would be that you get rewarded for the mention - those receiving the recommendation will use search (likely google) to find a vendor for themselves anyway!)

And I'm thinking beyond single networks. Google could track the conversation across all open networks - and reward participants where-ever the conversation is happening.

Which explains why Facebook (with its conversations beyond the reach of google) is seen as such a rival for them.

Ultimately that may mean that Facebook is the more glittering prize for Google to go after - since they can get at the conversation in Twitter anyway.

• I want to thank Farhan Rehman for the thinking around adsense and conversational marketing.

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