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.

What does Google know about you?

Google reminded us again this week of exactly how much it knows about us all, when it unveiled Google Dashboard.

Dashboard is a nifty tool that shows you all the information Google has on you. Well, maybe not all, but some. Or maybe just a sliver.

You can get to Google Dashboard through a link in the “personal settings” section the “my account” page. According to the Google Systems Blog:

The dashboard lists some of the information associated with the Google services you use: your name, your email address, the number of contacts, the number of conversations in your Gmail inbox, your Google profile, the most recent entries from the web history etc.

It's a long answer to the question: "What does Google know about me?".

Yeah, except it really doesn’t answer that question at all, according to many. Google knows a lot more about you than that. Of course they know your email address and Gmail history. But what they’re not telling you is what they know about server logs, cookies and internet-based advertising systems that pull various pieces of data about all of us.

Dashboard is a good step in the direction of transparency and reinforcing a level of trust among Google users. But this service raises more questions than it answers and it will be interesting to see how high Google is willing to raise the curtain on the data they keep.

Incidentally, all these links track back to Google. Think they know that? Probably – but they won’t tell you.

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.

Into Thin Air

It’s amazing how much trouble a click of a mouse can cause. In one click, you can send that poorly considered blazing email, or submit an ill-advised comment to a blog. Through that one click, you’re creating an indelible online record that can be tracked back to you forever.

I think we’ve all probably been there. You’ve pounded out that angry email and hit send – only to think about the consequences hours or days later. You think to yourself, maybe I shouldn’t have called him a **** or brought so-and-so into this. Did he read the email yet? I wonder if I can hack his computer and delete it before anyone notices. And then, all you want to do is disappear… or better yet, have the email vanish.

Well, we’re getting close. Researchers at the University of Washington recently introduced Vanish, an open source program that allows users to completely destroy online text – like email, documents, posts, etc.

As we move further toward Web 3.0 and the use of cloud computing, private information is scattered around the Internet. Vanish allows us to regain a bit of control over any text entered into a web browser. InformationWeek describes it better than I can:

Vanish allows users to specify that all copies of any text-based data they're creating disappear in a certain amount of time. The software takes advantage of the same peer-to-peer networks that allow people to share music files online. It encrypts data, breaks the encryption key into pieces and scatters them on machines across the network. Since machines are constantly joining and leaving peer-to-peer networks, pieces of the key disappear and it can't be reconstructed.

Pretty neat. But Vanish is in its infancy and comes with some limitations. The biggest, I think, is that both the sender and the recipient must be using the program for it to work. So you still can’t quietly retract that drunken email you sent your ex last weekend. Not yet at least.

Certainly, this isn’t a sure-fire tool either. Vanish’s developers stress that it is a prototype and warn that bugs and nuances are still being worked out. So users beware.

And just because the online file may be destroyed, does not necessarily mean the text is truly gone. Copy/paste remains one of the oldest tricks in the digital book, and can thwart all the peer-to-peer document destruction software in the world. And a few steps beyond that, developers at the Universities of Texas at Austin, Princeton and Michigan have created Unvanish – basically the yin to Vanish’s yang – proving that it is possible (although difficult) to reconstruct destroyed content.

So while developers battle it out, of course Google has at least a partial solution to our dilemma of a hastily sent dilemma: Mail Goggles, which is active late Fridays and Saturdays by default, forces the sender to answer five timed math problems to ensure they’re of the right frame of mind to be sending a late-night message.

Google Execs Face Jail in Italy

Apparently, Google isn’t watching you as closely as some people would like.

Two senior executives from the search giant could face up to three years in prison if they’re convicted for violating Italian privacy laws.

According to the BBC, the charges stem from a 2006 YouTube posting that shows an Italian primary school student with Downs Syndrome being bullied by four classmates with at least a dozen others looking on.

The video was posted just before Google acquired the video-hosting site, but Italian officials argue that there were inadequate content filters in place to remove the post and that the video itself violates Italian law since it was uploaded without the consent of everyone involved.

Google, of course, maintains that it has broken no laws. The video was up for several months, but Google says it was removed after they received complaints. They also maintain that no laws were broken, as the video was hosted in the U.S., where privacy laws are much more relaxed.

Some people are looking at this as an opportunity to take a (potentially, but not yet) high-profile anti-American or anti-Google stance. Whether or not that's the case this underscores at least one thing: We are living in a global society where technology is outpacing the law and we need to coordinate and cooperate across boarders with a modicum of reasonability (hello Italian courts) and responsibility (looking at you, Google).

A decision is expected in December.

Riding the Wave

Google is riding the wave of world domination with its next product launch ... uh ... Google Wave, which is billed as an online portal that blends email, instant messaging, social networking and workplace collaboration in a single application.

Wave was first debuted in May, and according to C-Net is set to be rolled out to a much wider test audience today.

Tech geeks apparently had their minds blown when they first saw the application a few months back.

Again, according to C-Net, developers “compared Wave to how Google Maps (perhaps not coincidentally developed by the same people behind Google Wave) awoke developers to the possibilities presented by Ajax technologies, which had been around for some time but had yet to gain traction as some of the core technologies used to build the modern Web.”

So again, the question is what is your privacy worth? Can Google have just a little more information in exchange for some more personal data? Broadly, I’d be OK with it. Wondering what all five of my readers think.

Google v. Skank

While it’s easy to hide behind your keyboard in a veil of anonymity, the expectation of privacy may be a thing of the past.

Last month, Google faced a subpoena to reveal the identity of an anonymous user of its Blogger service (i.e., the one I’m using now) posting to the blog “Skanks in NYC,” which has since been removed. The blogger, now identified as Rosemary Port, had called model Liskula Cohen a “skank” among other choice names.

Cohen decided she wanted to sue for defamation, and pushed the New York courts to issue subpoena, forcing Google to unmask their otherwise anonymous user. Unlike the California courts, which said that “skank” is a “derogatory slang term of recent vintage [and] has no generally recognized meaning,” the New York courts determined that “skank” is a specifically defined word and that the case could move ahead.

Yet, as soon as Google revealed Port’s identity, Cohen dropped the charges. Now Port is planning to sue Google for $15 million.

And as much as I like working the word “skank” into an academically focused blog, there are some real and significant implications here. According to Matt Zimmerman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “If average users on the Internet think that they can use the court system to just figure out who is being mean to them, I think you really open the door for abusing the court system.”

We’re still very much in Wild West phase with the web, adjusting norms, expectations and regulation as it evolves. The courts need to quickly catch up to adequately protect the First Amendment and our rights as private citizens, while understanding the threshold for should and can be legitimately enforced.

(Photo of Liskula Cohen, accused skank, via New York Daily News)

Ten Unread Messages

The other day, I opened up Gmail and Google told me I had 10 unread messages. But soon I realized that wasn’t quite accurate. They’ve all been read – just not by me.

With the start of September comes the beginning of classes at Columbia University, as well as the stark realization that tuition is due. One of the 10 unread messages in my inbox was a friendly reminder from the bursar to get my act together and cut a check.

But it turns out Google got to my mail first and let their advertisers know that I am a graduate student and I might need a loan. There was a subtly placed ad for a student loan at the top of my screen.

I clicked on another message, this one from a friend telling me about her job search. Google had gotten to this one too, and served up an ad for Monster.com.

But the thing is, this doesn’t really bother me. It freaks some people out, but I’m OK with a little targeted advertising in exchange for a pretty decent and free web-based email service. Not everybody agrees, and some think this is one step toward a dangerous scenario where users’ personal data is misused and vulnerable.

But all this got me to thinking: Where is this going, and where does it end? What data should remain private, and what is a fair exchange for increased usability and new services on the web?

Started as a project for a graduate class at Columbia University, this blog will take a look at the changing landscape of online privacy.