GMOOT and the Folly of Crowds

Several people have told me over the last few years: "Steve, you never met a technology you didn't like." That's fair. There have been a few. But for the most part, they're right. Nick Denton is one of those people. He makes fun of my wide-eyed enthusiasm for Second Life.

That said, I don't sit in the camp that every new gizmo is right for every client. We work hard to match the clients' needs up with the right solution. Sometimes they come in asking about a blog. We think about their situation and often show them another approach that is better suited for their goals and audience. That's the way marketing consultants work.

However, there is definitely a problem in this Web 2.0, enthusiastically charged time we live in. Scott Donaton at AdAge calls it GMOOT - short for "get me one of those." That's the cry that marketers often hear from their executives. They get wind that their competitors have viral videos so then they want one too. It's the opposite of the Wisdom of Crowds.

GMOOT was the first thing that popped into my head when I read this AP story about the gold rush to grab land in Second Life. Again, I love Second Life. Our company has an island in the metaverse for many months now. Nevertheless, I wonder just how many consultants are selling Second Life to marketers without thinking it all the way through. They simply are aiming to please. They're giving the customer what they asked for.

The facts are clear, however, who is on Second Life and who isn't. For example, it's common knowledge that you need a computer with a fair amount of horse power to run it. I don't think a lot of Moms are on it. I could be wrong, but that's my gut based on the data I have seen.

Eventually Second Life and other virtual worlds will run in a browser, thanks to technologies like Apollo, WPF, Ajax, etc. That's when it will really take off and reach a much broader audience than it does today.

Comments

[Jeremy Pepper]

Steve, you're joking right? You jump on every bandwagon, right when you see it's starting to take off, and then hype the hell out of it.

Look at Second Life. For a long time, I asked you who you were in World, and you refused to say. Others would IM me or flat out say to me that you are not in World, and if you were, you wouldn't have written half the stuff you had written (btw, that was at SLCC, when people asked if I knew who you were). Edelman has a cute build, by the way, and was a nice way to jump onto a meme, but what else have you done?

And, now you are on to Twitter. It's a great idea to blog less and Twitter more (when do you have time for work?), and now you are, well, hyping and whoring the hell out of it.

Have you thought of any real-world applications for either of these services, and sold them into clients? Or, do you just like to be a pundit, and write about them on AdAge, but provide no real value or thought? Go deeper than the shallow end of the pool.

Just wondering, though. Is there a meme out there that you have not fallen in love with?

[Steve Rubel]

Jeremy, you're right. I will go crawl under a rock and quit my job because I add no value to society. Thanks for the reminder!

[David Scott Lewis]

Steve, don't get defensive. Although I don't like Jeremy's tone, I agree with his general observation that you (and Robert Scoble, for example) tend to be "way-to-early" adopters. But I think that's great: I like the idea that we can have an open forum to discuss new things -- and you deserve a lot of credit for providing this forum and your informed opinions.

Honesty, you do seem to get overwhelmed and blindsided by new gee-whiz technologies, but I personally believe that it's great that you're this way. Some of us may rip you to shreds, but I suspect that there's a lot more agreement with you than disagreement.

For myself, I agree with you 80+% of the time. But it's misleading since you focus on things like your Twitter Jihad ... and since you do, you're more open to criticism.

IMHO, we're all in a massive learning process -- and nobody has all the answers. Hence, why Micropersuasion is a great blog and why you're a great blogger. It's not that you're an Alpha blogger (as you are), but that the quality of what you write is compelling. And, quite frankly, you choose interesting topics. That's why I read your blog, not because I'm in the PR industry (which I'm not) and need to track you or Edelman.

[Jeremy Pepper]

Sorry about the tone, David, but there is a history of me calling Steve out on empty or shallow posts, asking him to take a stance and he responding in a typical way.

Are we going to see the same post about Twitter in a few months? He has hyped it on this blog and AdAge (wow, just like he did with Second Life), but has yet to come up with any real commentary.

And, well Steve, your response is appropriate and fitting. Your brush-off epitomizes the thought process here.

[Wayne Porter]

a) I share Steve's bullishness on SL- despite its problems. SL is just one metaverse among many- and very nascent. My notes here-

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?ident=29916

b) I share Steve's bullishness on Twitter too.

Actually Twitter is the one area where I have actually been "micropersuaded" by Steve Rubel and I am well known to disagree with Edelman as a company. :)

"And, now you are on to Twitter. It's a great idea to blog less and Twitter more (when do you have time for work?), and now you are, well, hyping and whoring the hell out of it."

Some might call it evangelism and this is part of Steve's work. I scoffed at it until Sam Harrelson drug me on board. Now I see the change agent that it will become.

Micro-chunking, micro-blogging.

If that isn't enough analyze the composition (The MEDIA composition) of Google's Top 20 SERPS. All I need to see to know what is coming down the pipe.

respectfully,
Wayne Porter

[Daniel R]

Steve,

I think its great that you're open to changing your position. I have to admit that I sometimes feel that you're "a way too early" adopter, but I think you have role of pushing the edge, while others like me play the role of the skeptic.

Metrics and measuring consumer engagement will rule the Internet, and I think Second Life has been somewhat opaque on both issues. Back in August 2006, I was wondering what exactly were Second Life's metrics but found nothing on it:Second Life Marketing Rush: Why?.

The Web is great because you can take small bites (e.g. "let's see what's new on TheSuperficial.com) of the media to consume. But Second Life is inherently not, its very immersive and takes a lot of investments to meet SL friends, hang out etc. That I think will limit its popularity.

On top of all the distractions we already have - I can't imagine the regular internet user also adding 30-45 minutes a day to really be apart of the Second Life community.

As for twitter, I think it has its uses but not very scalable. If everyone had 50 or more friends they followed and everyone "twittered" 5 times a day - that's 250 messages. And I know lots of people who twitter 10-30 times a day.

Twitter is only useful for a small circle of friends who actually have something witty, interesting or relevant to say. Not "I just missed the bus. man that sucked" or "My shirt got wrinkled before a big mtg. OMG!".

That said, I'm left wondering what their monetization model is. Twitter users' attention span are seemingly way to short to have any sort of customer engagement (at least in conventional marketing approaches). Ditto for most social media websites, like Facebook - which ValleyWag claims has one of the worst CTRs.

[Josh Bernoff]

At Forrester we had a radical idea -- first check out which technologies your customers are using, THEN decide which social technologies to support.

Report coming out on this soon . . . but I think it might be more useful than generalizatons about which stuff will "win".

[Ed Lee]

Wow, another stand off between Pepper and Rubel and no one's selling pop corn.

I'm somewhere in between the two. We need the ultra early adopters to look at new/emerging technology with wide eyed enthusiasm (venture knowledgists if you will)and we need people who take a more hard nosed view of things.

Ed

I call the

[Randolfe]

Beware. Don't go actually trying to test claims about Second Life, or you're likely to end up getting email threats on your family from those upstanding vanguards of the net's future which inhabit the game. Or maybe they just didn't like my graphs.

[Laura Thomas aka Pyrrha Dell]

Hey Steve -- I'm a mom in SL! My four-year old asks to change my avatar's clothes and hair every time she sees me in-world. It does take a reasonably good graphics card and a broadband connection to work well, but I think you'd be surprised at who's really in there . . .

[Nik Cubrilovic]

"Eventually Second Life and other virtual worlds will run in a browser, thanks to technologies like Apollo, WPF, Ajax, etc. That's when it will really take off and reach a much broader audience than it does today."

No, they would actually run a lot slower and not have as much capability. They run on the desktop so that they can have direct access to the OS API and 3D/graphics libraries like DirectX and OpenGL.

The requirements to run Second Life aren't all that great - if you have bought a new PC in the past 24 months you could certainly run Second Life, if not earlier models as well.

I also don't think its correct to assume that 'mothers' don't have access to newer PCs, but you are obviously referring to the stereotype rather than the demographic.