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Me.dium is Ma.rginal

I just read about technically impressive social browsing app Me.dium taking a boatload of funding, courtesy of R/WW. R/WW’s Alex Iskold takes the position that Me.dium is filling the fourth corner in his scope vs. speed/size chart - i.e.: that there are usage scenarios for collabortive browing in both productivity and casual discovery.

From what I understand of Me.dium (I’ll be honest here - I’ve gotten most of my knowledge of it from the RW/W postings), using the app would be akin to doing all of your reading at the bookstore: I’d be in the science fiction section reading whatever, and everyone else in the section would be able to see what I was reading and vice versa - a cluster of people around a particular book could drive me to check it out, or others could look at the pile of read books beside my seat and “discover” new reading.

That’s cool, and there are definite applications - trip planning is one of Alex’s examples which I’ve experienced first-hand, collaboratively browsing the travel section with my wife. Generally speaking, however, my inner-curmudgeon makes me think that I’d prefer to do the vast majority of my browsing at home, interacting on my own terms (Blog comments, etc.) - i.e.: I spend very little time reading at the bookstore trying to meet people.

Me.dium has niche appeal, but the marginal benefit of using it, relative to more-focused social networking (Facebook) or discovery (stumbleupon, cluztr) tools is compartively low from where I’m sitting. Perhaps I need to spend more (any) time in Me.dium - I’ll add it to the queue.

Other Coverage

1. R/WW’s orignal me.dium post, with privacy concerns.
2. alarm:clock points out the interest Elon Musk family connection.
3. Rex Dixon sums up my feelings better than I did.
4. Feld thoughts is bullish, looking at me.dium as one facet of the next stage of internet evolution.
5. Venture Beat sees me.dium as a big source of value to advertisers.

browsing, cluztr, firefox, me.dium social

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How to Make Cluztr the Next Big Thing in Four Easy Steps

Yesterday, Mashable pointed me to Cluztr - a new “social” browsing site that, through a browser add-on, tracks your and surfaces your clickstream. Cluztr incorporates elements of Digg, Del.icio.us, and MyBlogLog into what is effectively an in-the-cloud, social browser history. Cluztr uses this social history to introduce you to others in style of MyBlogLog.

Business Model & Privacy

The first thought I had was that whatever business model Cluztr has must revolve around selling the clickstream data they collect. Which it does:

We may provide aggregate statistics about our customers, sales, browser type, operating system, Internet, domain, demographic and profile data, traffic patterns, and related site information to reputable third parties, but these statistics will not include personally identifying information. [Privacy Statement]

Cluztr’s privacy policy also describes a retrograde-sounding “opt-out” spamming policy, whereby Cluztr will use your clickstream data to target you for advertising until you email them to opt-out:

We may use personal data to let you know about products and services that may be of particular interest to you. We may also want to provide you with related information from third parties that we think may be of interest to you. If you would rather not receive this information, please send an e-mail to: info@cluztr.com. [Privacy Statement]

Hmmmmm. So, Cluztr is in fact a market research house and advertising engine of the sort that regularly raises such hue-and-cry, when - for instance - someone finds out the DoubleClick uses cookies to track your clickstream across the internet.

And that’s OK - you’re trading your clickstream data for the value proposition of online history and social browsing, and by downloading and installing the Cluztr add in, you’re explicitly accepting this (compared to DoubleClick’s cookie tracking that took place unknown to most). Additionally, Cluztr does promise to aggregate/anonymize data, offers the (cumbersome) opt-out option, and allows you to identify sites in your history as “private” - though apparently you cannot set your entire clickstream to private.

Spam and Gaming

Cluztr has a great feature that creates a Digg-like popularity list of what sites are “hot” at any given moment. Unfortunately, this list is game-able. See the blurred out ones above? Those are pr0n sites - “sex latin chick gets ——” is not the sort of internet gold that I want to stumble across.

How to Make Cluztr the Next Big Thing

Cluztr has a great peice of infrastructure, and a social/viral model to potentially take it big. A few tweaks to the business model and site functionality could make it a very useful tool - and drive adoption.

1. Get a new name: “Cluztr” is awkward and goofy sounding. I’m sorry, but it is. The equation worked for Flickr as novelty propelled awareness, but that easy brand-equity has gone away. Additionally, Cluztr doesn’t really speak to what the site does, it looks awkward, and its more difficult to describe the spelling of than Flickr.
2. Ditch the Vocabulary: This is an addendum to the first point. Cluztr refers to popular sites as “cluztrs” - presumably because users are “clustering” around them. Jeff Nolan summed up the folly of creating your own lexicon when I called out Teqlo for using “Teqlets” instead of widgets:
   

   Every startup wants to develop their own vocabulary and at some point they realize what a stupid idea that is. We figured that out about 2 months ago…

3. Flip your Advertising to Opt-In: Credibility will drive adoption, and going the opt-in route as opposed to the current negative-enrollment (you’re signed up unless you do something) model will drive credibility. This isn’t Columbia House (the king of negative enrollment sales) - this is the brave new fronteir. Kick it up knotch.
4. Automated Categorization & Filtering: Yeah, its going to be a bitch to do, but it needs doing. GMail, Google Reader, and Porn shouldn’t be in the top “cluztrs,” or listed anywhere on the site for that matter. Neither should fully parameterized domains with people’s user id strings and hashed authentication tokens. This could be done with machine intelligence if Cluztr took the time to build the database that would feed it, or could be done with community filtering via a “flagging” system.

Summary

Though this profile may sound pessimistic, I do think the idea has legs. With a filtering system and a few tweaks, Cluztr has the potential to bring together the best of del.icio.us, Digg, and MyBlogLog in a simple to use fashion with a viral model that drives membership - real value can be delivered to Cluztr users, and Cluztr advertising/research clients alike. That’s compelling.

browsing, cluztr, delicious, digg, mashable, mybloglog social

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