Websites | Robert Stinnett

Posts Tagged websites

Ruling the Online World

Oct 11

Posted by Robert Stinnett in web 2.0 | View Comments

A colleague of mine and I play a game on Facebook called Mafia Wars. It’s been probably a good 10 years since I really got into a computer game, but I’ve become pretty addicted to checking in on my Mafia several times a day. I find myself in a contest of sorts with others I know to see how fast I can grow my Mafia and outrank them. Call it healthy competition; and since winter is already starting to show it face around these parts it gives me something to do other than watch TV!

I got to thinking about the motivation behind Mafia Wars and why people visit sites in general online. We hear a lot of talk about social media and interaction online, but we often overlook one of the big reasons people keep returning to sites over and over again – competition with others.

Sure, one of the primary reasons we visit any site to begin with is because we have an interest in what the site is providing. Take me for example, I have a big interest in automotive, tinkering around the house, reading and (of all things) Kmart. So it should come as no surprise that some of the sites I visit on a daily basis are:

ManageMyHome.com – Sears site for getting ideas, sharing projects and finding out tons of information about things in and around your house. I just recently discovered this site and have been having a lot of fun building up my profile and finding new ways of doing things around the house.
CarTalk.com – Online home of Tom and Ray from NPR and their hilarious Car Talk radio show. Tons of great automotive advice plus forums full of tips, tricks and laughs!
Amazon.com – What can I say, every book (plus just about everything else) you could ever want.
MyKmart.com – Online customer feedback site for Kmart stores. Great way to relive memories of the home of the blue light special, as well as give feedback on what you think could make Kmart really shine.

Those are just four sites I find myself visiting pretty regularly. So I went to those sites and found out something rather interesting. Not only was I an active participant, but in many cases I was also engaged in “healthy competition” with others in a ranking scheme of some sort setup by the website.

Over on Amazon.com I checked and I was currently ranked 261 in the top reviewer list. Wow! I could hardly believe it – out of all the people on Amazon who have ever wrote even a single review, I was ranked in the top 500! Heck, I was even close to the top 250!

Of course this is now a motivating factor for me to come back to Amazon again and again and make sure that I continue to climb in the rankings. It’s like a badge of honor. In fact, as you can see in the picture on the left, Amazon already gave me a badge of sorts — “Top 500 Reviewer”. Talk about stroking a person’s ego and making them want to come back and write even more!

Over at MyKmart.com the competition was in full force – I was ranked #4! Wow! Now I’m in the top 5. If that isn’t a motivator for participation, I don’t know what is. Again as you can see below, there were plenty of badges of honor attached to my profile. At Kmart I’d earned the “President’s Circle” ranking as well as a Shutter Bug award.

So what’s my point about all this? Merely that a major driving force behind website loyalty nowadays is the ability to be ranked. We all know that sites must be interactive (Web 2.0) and non-static, but it seems when you add in an element of ranking – or even just adding in a rewards system where you assign badges or gold stars of some sort – then you really start increasing your customer/reader loyalty. People are more apt to return to a website where they have a way of checking up on things, such as where they rank or how many responses they have received since their last visit.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to get back over to Amazon – I have to break through to the top 250!

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Tags: interaction, ranking, web 2.0, websites

Why Do You Need My Address and Phone Number?

Jul 18

Posted by Robert Stinnett in Customer Service, Tech Stuff | View Comments

So I got yet another e-mail from another company, this time Elance.com, informing me that my personal data had been “breached”. Breached is the new term companies are using for stolen, swiped, copied and leaked out. Breached is somehow supposed to soften the blow and make me feel like it was a covert operation by a spy organization from the former USSR and that I shouldn’t fear because the Man from U.N.C.L.E. is on top of it.

Please.

Lately it seems like every time I turn around its my bank, or a credit card company or some online retailer or site sending me an “Ooops, sorry” letter. There was a time when this happened they at least offered to buy you a subscription to a monitoring service – but you don’t see that much nowadays, I guess they figured that it happens so often now that its just standard procedure to notify you and then ask for forgiveness. “We really, really promise to try harder next time!” Next time what? Next time you put my private data up for grabs?

Please.

It’s time that websites stop collecting personal data. Period. After all, most websites (I’d argue well over 95% of them) have no need for personally identifiable information. I shouldn’t have to share with you my home address and telephone number just to be able to browse your website. In fact, for most websites out there all the information they need is a way to identify me (a username) and a password to make sure its me. That’s it. They don’t need my zip code, my birthday – nada.

To be fair, some websites have already seen the light and are heading in this direction. Sears Holding Corporation, parent of Sears and Kmart stores, recently made it so you can login to their customer service sites using a plethora of identification services such as OpenID and Facebook. Even blogs are starting to get in the act and allowing you to “authenticate” with your Twitter or Facebook id to post a comment.

Of course, that’s not to say we should automatically trust Facebook, Twitter or even OpenID with our personal information. However, I’d rather take my chances with a small number of companies that adhere to strict data privacy guidelines than giving it to every Joe Six Pack on the Internet who starts his own blog. We can hold companies who setup guidelines accountable when they misuse our data or abuse our trust a lot easier than we can anonymous strangers behind a website.

If anything it encourages more interaction because we don’t have to interrupt our train of thought to create yet another account we’ll forget about or have to write down somewhere and keep track of. Ever since some blogging platforms started allowing me to authenticate using Twitter and Facebook I’ve noticed I’m more willing to jump in and participate instead of thinking about participating and then opting not to because “I have to create an account first <Groan>”.

It’s time we stopped giving out our personal data to websites and start asking questions about why they want it to begin with. Heck, I won’t even give out my phone number to people anymore, instead I give my Google Voice number to folks – even my friends. Heck, I’ll even give that out to you – complete Internet stranger – just look to the right of my blog for the link! I trust Google to keep my real phone number private (perhaps I’m being a bit too trusting?)

The past 16 years on the web has been the wild, wild west – but there is a new sheriff in town, and a whole lot of townsfolk who have had it with privacy “breaches”.