Q&A: Steve Rubel

I recently caught up with Steve Rubel, Ad Week contributor and Edelman’s Director of Insights, for a quick chat.

According to the AP: How would you tweet your role at Edelman?

Steve Rubel: I am charged with identifying emerging digital trends, channels and technologies and helping our teams and clients fuse them into programs.

ATTAP: You've developed a very specific niche for yourself at Edelman and within the communications industry. Could you briefly describe how you got here?

SR: I have long been fascinated by technology. I got my first computer back in 1982 and was online in 1988. It's been a central part of my life since I was a boy. I have also been in public relations more than 15 years and have long been a fan of the industry and its prospects.

Until about 2004 these were separate. I ran technology PR accounts in the 1990s and early 00s. But other than that I really didn't connect the two.

That changed, however, as publishing technology became easier to use and approachable. I started dabbling with blog software in 2003. I then launched my own blog in 2004 and began to work with my current employer at the time to integrate blogs into client programs. We received a fair amount of media attention at the time because the programs were innovative.

After that I decided I need to go somewhere where I could effect broader change and that landed me in my current role with Edelman. It's my hope that I one day will end my career here and retire as an Edelman employee.

ATTAP: Nearly 70 percent of Americans object being tracked online by advertisers, according to a recent study from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkley and a according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 60 percent of Americans restrict access to their online information.

Overall, it looks like people are becoming more savvy and more cautious with how they engage online, while at the same time jumping more enthusiastically into social networking with various Google products, Facebook and the like.

How do you see this impacting the communications industry? If information tracking is so important to the marketing function, should the real questions be around how we can better establish and maintain trust?

SR: Overall I think the data masks a lot. For example, there was a recent study that people don't want to store their data in the cloud. However, the reality is that most of us use web-based email services whether we know it or not.

The younger generations - having grown up in an American Idol culture - seem to be more predisposed to sharing their lives online. There will always be introverts. And more might become cautious as they see the potential risks involved with living a public life.

The upshot for communicators is that there will always be more data and information to contend with from more sources of authority. It might be a small subset of the audience (under 50%) but there will always be people who covet attention that we need to make sure we engage around shared mutual outcomes. That is the key to building trust - working win-win and out in the open.

ATTAP: Assuming trust is really the key to effective communication both online and off, could you briefly describe the rules of the road you live by and counsel to clients?

SR: The rules of the road vary by client but I generally advise, and myself focus, on 10 "c's": curiosity, creativity, content, consistency, confidence, connection, collaboration, commitment, communication and class.

ATTAP: Many of us are highly Google-dependent (at least I am) - from search to email to blogging and everything in between. What do you see as the biggest pros and cons to hosting so much of our personal business and online identity on a single system like this?

SR: There's more upside than downside here. The more they know about us, the more value the system becomes in helping us surface critical information in real-time. The downside is that there's a single point of failure but Google seems to manage this quite well.

ATTAP: Again, while nearly three quarters of people object to being tracked online, people seem more willing to give up their data if they see a reward of some sort. We've seen grocery stores doing this for a while - swiping your discount card for 5 cents off soup. Online privacy is a value proposition; the more information you give up, the greater (or at least more tailored) the user experience.

What have you seen is the threshold for consumers willingly and happily giving up their data for the sake of experience? Are there certain triggers sites like Facebook or Google use more effectively than others to persuade an increased level of sharing?

SR: It really varies by user and by demographic, geographic. Over time there's more value if the system learns from you as Facebook and Google both do. However, the minute they violate that trust they can lose everything they've gained so they need to walk this carefully - and they both do (Facebook is getting better at this every month). The way they can persuade is by keeping the data safe, private and secure while letting you remove it you want to. Google does this quite well. (http://www.dataliberation.org/)

ATTAP: In your recent AdAge column, you talk about the two faces of Facebook, predicting a more Google-like approach to development down the road. But recently, we've seen the company stumble. For instance, the failure of its Beacon advertising product, which broadcast members purchases online.

What would you say is the Facebook's biggest vulnerability as it grows? Should it be more concerned over how to effectively and responsibly leverage user data, developing trust and loyalty - or about competitor platforms like Google Wave?

SR: Facebook's greatest liability is in developing advertising solutions that are too aggressive. Ultimately, I think we'll see them get more into the data services business as their customers begin to realize that engagement buttressed by ads as "air cover" offers the best approach.

The jury is stil out on Google Wave. It's interesting but also incredibly complex. If developers improve on it then it holds potential.

Where are my pancakes?

Maybe giving up a little privacy to Facebook is a good thing.

At 11:49 a.m. on October 17, 19-year-old Rodney Bradford’s Facebook updated his Facebook status from Harlem, asking “Where are my pancakes?” according to the NY Times. A moment later, someone was robbed at gunpoint in Brooklyn.

Bradford, who has other robbery charges pending was brought in for a line-up and wrongly identified as the assailant and detained.

But his father knew better, and was on the hunt for evidence – and that’s were facebook came in.

According to CNN:

It wasn't until Rodney Bradford Sr. discovered his son's Facebook update that the young man's defense attorney realized he had an unbeatable alibi.

"Throughout that week," said the attorney, Robert Reuland, "I worked with the district attorney's office and made them aware of who our alibis were, presented the Facebook evidence and generally tried to convince them that it would be wrong to proceed to an indictment in light of this evidence."

The district attorney subpoenaed Facebook for documentation that would prove Bradford had updated his account from his father's home in Harlem. It worked.

Confirmation of the time stamp on the update and the location from which it was entered showed he could not have been at the scene of a robbery in another part of New York City. After he had spent almost two weeks in jail, the case against him was dismissed.

Read the full story here.

Inconsequential to the alibi story, Gawker has clarification on the actual status update here.

Outed by Facebook?

Facebook has certainly been a helpful tool in the coming out process for many. Simply set your interests to “men,” and you can cause a flurry of interest.

But what if you want to be a little more discrete for whatever reason? Maybe you’re uncomfortable, maybe you’re shy, maybe it’s nobody’s business. That’s a discussion for another time – but OK, you want to keep your sexuality private.

Well, two MIT students recently came up with a program that can accurately predict whether someone is gay, based on otherwise innocuous information on facebook.

Here’s how it works, via The Boston Globe:

Jernigan and Mistree downloaded data from the Facebook network, choosing as their sample people who had joined the MIT network and were in the classes 2007-2011 or graduate students. They were interested in three things people frequently fill in on their social network profile: their gender, a category called “interested in” that they took to denote sexuality, and their friend links.

Using that information, they “trained” their computer program, analyzing the friend links of 1,544 men who said they were straight, 21 who said they were bisexual, and 33 who said they were gay. Gay men had proportionally more gay friends than straight men, giving the computer program a way to infer a person’s sexuality based on their friends.

Then they did the same analysis on 947 men who did not report their sexuality. Although the researchers had no way to confirm the analysis with scientific rigor, they used their private knowledge of 10 people in the network who were gay but did not declare it on their Facebook page as a simple check. They found all 10 people were predicted to be gay by the program. The analysis seemed to work in identifying gay men, but the same technique was not as successful with bisexual men or women, or lesbians.

Interesting. So that raises the question of whether Facebook then allows advertisers – like Atlantis Cruises – to specifically target the LGBT community.

Surprisingly, the short answer is no. The longer answer, via Slate, is this:

When companies advertise on Facebook, they're allowed to choose a range of demographic characteristics that determine which people see their ads. It's possible that Atlantis didn't choose to limit its ads just to gay people but, say, to all single men under 40 who live near San Francisco. This way the company gets to people like you—folks who aren't out on Facebook but who might still be in the gay-cruise demographic.

The Facebook rep added a couple other points: Ads aren't selected based on groups you've joined or based on your friends. You weren't shown the gay-cruise ad because your friends are gay or because you became a fan of the group "No on Prop 8," for instance.

But there is one caveat: If a friend of yours presses "Like" on an ad, Facebook will show you the ad, too, plus a note saying which of your friends liked it. The company also uses the "Like" feature to determine which ads to show you in the future.

Facebook continues its tightrope walk

Long plagued by issues of digital privacy, Facebook continues to navigate the fine line between protecting its users personal data and maintaining a profitable, ad-based business model. This past week, Facebook tried to appease both sides of the argument – those pesky, privacy-demanding users, and the oh-so attractive big-money advertisers.

In a blog post on the site, Facebook’s vice president of communications and public policy, Austin Haugen announced that the company was making its privacy policy open for review and comment – the same way solicited user feedback on its statement on rights and responsibilities in February.

He said, “Our primary goals remain transparency and readability, which is why we've used plain language and included numerous examples to help illustrate our points.”

According to InternetNews.com:

The controversy that set the democratic process in motion at the beginning of the year stemmed from concerns that Facebook was asserting perpetual control over its users' information and content, even after they deleted their account.

In response, Facebook has stated unequivocally that users own their own data, and further fleshed out its position on the ownership issue with the privacy policy released today.

Haugen’s blog post continues on with a detailed and straightforward explanation of how user information is used and the differences between deleting and deactivating an account – and the privacy implications with each – as well as how it collects and leverages user data with its online advertising.

And at the same time, Facebook was standing up for the little guy and offering a shade more transparency, simultaneously, it unveiled a “roadmap” for developers and to create and implement applications to tap into the FB user base.

According to MediaPost: Among the key updates in store, Facebook will enable developers to ask for users' primary email address within applications to facilitate direct contact. At the same time, developers will only be able to send notifications and invitations via email, a user's Facebook Inbox or the News Feed and other activity streams.

But Haugen addressed this in his blog post, saying “Keep in mind that applications will never be given your email address unless you explicitly grant them permission, and like other websites you can always choose to unsubscribe if the service is no longer of value.”

Facebook is certainly chasing a moving target, as the web develops and people become more savvy about internet privacy. But it sounds like they’re continuing to walk the tightrope for now.

Kanye West is not dead

Several reports today confirmed that Kanye West is not dead. Yay?

While rumors surrounding his death circulated through Facebook and Twitter, fake news sites with reports of the singer’s demise quickly sprouted up, appearing on Web searches and ultimately infecting searchers computers with malware.

According to The Toronto Star: Using search-engine optimization, the hackers pushed Web pages claiming to have information about West's "death" to the top of search engines. When worried fans clicked on the pages, their computers would be infected with fake anti-virus software.

For better or worse, Kanye’s alive (sorry Taylor). Regardless, as Counter Measures blogger Rik Ferguson points out, this showcases how quickly criminals can capitalize on Internet memes. Kinda crazy.

Scandalized by the Web ... or ... Shooting Yourself in the Foot

Sometimes maintaining your online privacy is a matter of defending yourself against aggressive online marketers or unethical insurance companies. And sometimes it's just a matter of using some common sense.

Via Switched: In the age of social media, college athletes have it rough. Unlike the pros, these undergrads aren't getting paid millions, but they're under just as much scrutiny. Sometimes, they just can't handle the pressure, and with help from a cell phone, their mistakes get plastered across the Web. Of course, scandals are like catnip to us here at Switched, so we dug up a few of the more embarrassing examples of recent memory.

Read the full story here.

Beacon of Hope

So maybe Sean Lane got what he deserved having purchased his wife’s engagement ring on Overstock.com, but what was intended as a pure act of love became the hallmark example in what ultimately unraveled what Facebook saw as a viable advertising system.

Lane, who’s internet privacy is now shot because of this incident, purchased a diamond ring for Shannon, his bride-to-be, on the high-volume discount website (classy). But without his knowledge or permission his purchase was published on his Facebook news feed through Beacon, one of FB’s advertising products.

The resulting class action court filing, Lane et al vs. Facebook, Inc, describes how it works (via CNET):

"[Whether or not] the user was not a member (of Facebook), Facebook still obtained the notification from the Facebook Beacon Activated Affiliate. Information regarding user activities was sent in real time to a third party Web site--one which was not open or active in the user's browser, and one which, in many cases, the user may never even have visited or heard of."

Got that? So basically, Facebook’s Beacon gathered personal data without users’ permission, or even their membership in Facebook, to sell to their advertising clients. And Overstock isn’t the only one, just the main whipping boy. A similar class action suit against Blockbuster Video is being heard in Texas, and a full list of Beacon clients can be found here.

In 2008 Facebook CEO had this to say about Beacon (via LA Times), "[Beacon] might take some work for us to get this exactly right, [but] is something we think is going to be a really good thing." Nevertheless, Lane et al vs. Facebook was settled last week, and not only will Beacon go dark, but Facebook will donate nearly $10 million to establish a foundation to address online privacy and safety concerns.

So chalk one up for the little guy and the privacy advocates. But what does this mean for the marketers? Will cases like this push them toward greater transparency, or further under the radar of everyday consumers? Only time will tell, but for now, privacy advocates see this as a beacon of hope.

And for my Next Trick

So picture this: Your job sucks, your over-worked, over-extended, under-paid, unappreciated and in debt up to your eyeballs. Your relationship is self-destructing and is quickly becoming toxic. You just want out. Now.

We have all been there on some level. And as things are crumbling down on top of you, we think about how great it would be to just disappear, go totally off the grid and start fresh someplace else with a new identity.

Easier said than done, unless your plan is to become a mountain man and life off the land.

Nevertheless, it is a tempting idea – and one that Mathew Alan Sheppard thought was his best option when he realized he was being investigated in connection with a massive extortion case. So in mid-February, he faked his own drowning and vanished, successfully living under the radar for nearly six months. But it all came undone when he started to miss his family, and the authorities used Sheppard's communication with his wife to track him down in South Dakota.

So Wired Magazine’s Evan Ratliff took this as a challenge. He wanted to see if he could go off the grid, living a “normal” life under a new identity – and whether today’s technology would make this easier or more difficult. His editor acted as the “lead detective,” feeding readers only clues actual law enforcement would have, and offering a $5000 award to whoever could locate Ratliff. His entire experience is documented here.

Ratliff left New York, altering his physical appearance and creating alternate online personae on Facebook and Twitter to evade the growing crowd hoping to find him. He posted contradictory and misleading messages, disguised his IP address, arranged fake UPS deliveries and even deceptively used his EasyPass. But it was his online footprint that was ultimately his undoing. His hunters organized on Facebook and Twitter to stitch together bits of information he left around the web to ultimately track him to a gluten-free pizza parlor in New Orleans. He describes the chase here in a great interview on NPR’s On the Media.

So what does this mean for us – those who will only fantasize about quitting life? Well, a lot actually. Ratliff was undone by a series of details he left on the web, such as his love of “The Great Gatsby” and his allergy to wheat. And we can similarly undo ourselves if we’re not aware of our digital footprint and what is out there for everyone to see. What was once heard as a parental admonishment to clean up your MySpace page, is being heard far and wide across industries and age groups. Recently the Journal of of the American Medical Association released a study showing that medical students are increasingly “unprofessional” on social networking sites

Teyana Taylor may have over-simplified it with her single “Google Me Baby,” but that is the long and the short of it. In today’s networked society, we are all findable, and whatever we put on the web stays on the web.