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Tue, Jul 3, 2007 12:33 EDT
The Dark Side of Web 2.0
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Posted by: Bernard Golden in Rants Topic: Partner/Vendor ManagementBlog: The Open Source
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There's a right way and a wrong way to do Web 2.0, and, unfortunately, too many companies are finding the wrong way.
Case in point: I took my son to see Ratatouille Saturday. Expecting it to be crowded after the rave reviews in the paper on Friday, I thought it would be prudent to purchase tickets beforehand online on Fandango, since the last time we just showed up we had the opportunity to watch Happy Feet from the front row, which was a unique and unpleasant perspective.
(Funny artifact of living in Silicon Valley: I asked my son earlier in the week if he'd like to look at the online trailer for Ratatouille, he glanced at it and said "I've already seen it." Since I didn't think the site I was looking at was one he ever visited, I asked him where he'd seen the trailer. "At school a while ago." Brad Lewis, the producer of the movie, lives in our city (and even, heaven knows why, is a member of the city council, a vital but thankless task) and it seems like the children who live here get early access to upcoming Pixar content. A year or so ago we attended a community showing of Toy Story and Lewis let us see the music competition video that accompanied Cars; he explained we were only the second audience that had seen it -- the first was the Oscar judges! ).
We saw the movie. It was great. Much fun.
Then the next day I got an email from Fandango asking me, a member of the Fandango community, to review the movie. Member of the community? I bought some tickets. A transaction, not a relationship.
Today, another email reminder that I hadn't, as a member of the Fandango community, taken the opportunity to review the movie.
I work with lots of companies on open source stuff as well as Web 2.0, and community is a common thread in all of them. When I talk to companies about building community, I always stress that first you deliver value, then you ask for engagement.
Fandango didn't do that. We engaged in one kind of relationship -- a transaction -- and then they assumed that it meant they could treat me as a friend. How is unwelcome email addressing you as a community member significantly different than
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The review would benefit other people in the community whether the movie is worth it or not, and that is value to the community.
The world will be so much better place to live when "an attitude of what I can do for you/others" persists rather than "what you can do for me before I do something for you."
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You're missing the point.
Whether one should have "the right" attitude or not, it's good manners - and good business - to ask people to take part in something, not include them without their explicit agreement.
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This is one of the pitfalls of 2.0...the 'adoption gap'...we've found that the acceptance of this type of transaction is most often age dependent. Those who have grown up not realizing the Internet hasn't always been there and hasn't always been GUI-based don't understand why those old timers (including me) see this as an intrusion. The 'kids' see it as a completely normal transaction that they, now, mostly do via text messaging!!!
Nice post, Bernard. I think that this is a good example of when we assume to much, it's like going on a first date you shouldn't automatically expect a kiss goodnight but you are always hoping. The guy who doesn't get slapped is the one who doesn't push an unwelcome advance.
I like Seth Godin's "Permission Marketing" as a resource on how to figure out how to turn a stranger into a customer or a willing recipient of your message, perhaps Fandango could use the read.
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I fail to see why this is "The Dark Side of Web 2.0".
This is just bad customer service. This is no different than if you bought your tickets at theater, saw the movie and were asked to complete a review on the way out.
While I agree Fandango over stepped the bounds of customer engagment as well as proper Netiquette, I think you may have over stepped the bounds of good journalism with an overzealous penchant for the dramatic ;-)
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