Haven’t heard of this truly intelligent data-mining agent? Well, if you don’t start planning your strategy for this hot emerging technology now, you may miss the most personalized marketing opportunity yet. Get the latest word on the buzz here.

Title: Why Sprockets will change advertising on the internet forever.

By Sean X Cummings and Adam Broitman

There has been an incredible buzz over the coming of Sprocket technology, and many people we have spoken with agree that it will fundamentally change the way we approach the interactive space at large. Much in the way the explosion of Facebook enabled breaking down the barriers around content and engagement as it relates to mining your casual friend network, Sprockets will, for the first time, provide us with a holistic picture of what our consumers are doing online, while providing the first truly intelligent data-mining agent for ourselves.

More interactive than widgets

Sprockets are not widgets 2.0 any more than Facebook is MySpace 2.0. They are, however, a technology that finally moves beyond the two-way conversation with consumers, creating an enhanced, multi-directional conversation among the consumer, company, site, data and — more importantly for advertisers — among the Sprockets themselves.

Allow us to get technical here for a minute. Sprockets use passive preference profiling (PPP) and interpretive semantics (IS), giving them the ability to learn. What do we mean by that? Well, remember all the talk we heard about “intelligent agents” or Google’s dream of “artificial intelligence?” Sprockets are the first applications to truly approach that level of automated, interpreted content collection.

The beauty does not stop there. If all Sprockets did was provide consumers with a way they could accomplish more online in less time, and have it be more relevant, it would be a substantial breakthrough. The beauty of Sprockets is that they provide advertisers, marketers and analytics groups with the same type of automation through semantic interpretation; the data, however, is passed along in the reverse direction.

Most companies are keeping their current strategy regarding Sprockets fairly quiet, but by Q3 2008 anyone with a decent online presence will be pushing ahead full-steam. If your company has not figured out how to implement Sprockets, or you don’t have a full-time Sprocket strategist on staff by the end of the year, you are almost definitely going to be on the tail end of this beast, and this is one place where you don’t want to be riding the long tail.

Benefits: real or imagined?

We are often asked, “Are Sprockets really going to change the economics of the internet, or are they just another overhyped technology?” and “What’s so game changing about Sprockets?”

First: we have seen Sprockets work. We have seen them work in the real world, not a demo. We have observed as Sprockets learn and grow in complexity over the first two weeks of usage.

Second: Sprockets define simplicity. Anyone can develop a Sprocket. The Sprocket Developer’s Kit (SDK) has a simple drag-and-drop, single-screen user interface. The user just connects tubes, called “synaptic tubes,” linking their basic interest points. This process takes 15 minutes, tops!

From there the Sprocket takes over, filling in the gaps with your internet persona while tweaking, augmenting or modifying the few data points given. It does this by monitoring surfing habits, online purchase activity and time spent on content, semantically absorbing the it. The genius is that Sprockets do not store all this data. They retain meta-types of the data in real time. In essence, every page you hit is crawled, indexed and semantically related to your entire history. It is then meta-typed and discarded, retaining only the meta-data.

An open-source legend is born

This is one of the most important developments to ever come out of the open-source community. The initial kernel was programmed by Alexander Dorsay III over the summer of 2006; however, community did not adopt the concept initially. It wasn’t until Anya Khait, an environmental architecture student with a Ph.D in genetics decided to apply techniques and theories from the Biomimicry Institute to the Sprocket kernel that the true power of Sprockets was realized. She developed the “synaptic tubes” and the core engine behind the algorithm modifier based on the growth of Ivy, which is able to grip around any surface and adapt to its environment.

Without getting too deep into the science, let’s say that Sprockets, by design, have a “public you,” and a “private you” setting. By nature, most consumers exhibit a personal dichotomy — their private and public selves. With some, those two personas are almost identical; with others they are quite divergent. Other Facebook-style properties treat you as one self, but you are never just one. The Sprocket dynamically adapts to your activity, not the other way around. You do not choose to tell it “I want to be private today.” The Sprocket dynamically adapts “on the fly” to activity that obscures your secondary profile. They are not separate, but they are distinct. A single synaptic tube links the two personae as it grabs information.

When a Sprocket shares any of the data in the outward direction the entire profile is made anonymous, even down to erasing IP histories, or what is referred to as digital public memory. The intelligence sits in a data-hash in the Sprocket, changing the internal Sprocket algorithm. That is what is different about Sprockets, the algorithm itself dynamically adjusts; not just parameters, but the fundamentals of the algorithm.

The same Sprocket you develop for a website, can be used on any mobile device, or converted with the Sprocket converter to any computer as a standalone app — although you will lose much of the semantically dynamic algorithm modifying aspects of Sprockets that way. They are what the promise of Java was supposed to be before Microsoft derailed it with their own version. However, since Sprockets were built on the foundation of the web, that fear is somewhat mitigated. In fact, it takes advantages of some of the same AJAX technology framework that Web 2.0 does.

Sprockets are not AI

They are merely a highly sophisticated algorithm that uses the collective intelligence as a decisioning engine. The advantage is they don’t make the mistake of using the collective intelligence of the web as it exists now. The sheer volume and mess of the organization of website content makes the collective intelligence there somewhat. well, stupid. If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t need search engines like Google or Ask.com <http://ask.com/>  to make sense of it. Instead, they use the collective intelligence of the “Sprocketosphere,” which uses only the intelligent decisions in the data, and not the data itself.

Take a look at comparisons to other popular platforms:

Standard website: one-way pull request from the consumer

Rich media: one-way pull request from consumer, with engagement

Widgets: customization by consumer and selective identification of interest

Sprockets: multi-directional conversation with consumer and website, customizable ad tracking, alignment checking and reporting, semantic web gathering and inter-Sprocket communication.

The user no longer has to request the web pages; the Sprockets talk amongst each other, among the web, among your email, SMS, address book and social networking to dynamically deliver to you the zeitgeist of you. When you choose to surf manually, the Sprockets learn your behavior and communicate in-between the other Sprockets to adjust your “algorithm” on who you are and what your interests are online. Best of all? They can do it with the existing structure of the web, requiring no more tagging or special codes to be inserted.

We have heard many promises of the next ‘big’ thing. We have heard about many hyped technologies. Let’s hope that Sprockets don’t go the way of Cold Fusion. In the end Sprockets can only be as intelligent as the user they are learning from. Hopefully, the users reading this article will be one step ahead.

Sean X and Adam were so taken with the potential of Sprockets that they formed SprocketX.com. An open-source company that will produce tools to leverage the potential of the Sprocket kernel.

 www.sprocketx.com

-:-)

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It is my extreme pleasure to announce that LearningCraft has been acquired by the Laredo Group (www.laredogroup.com). The Laredo Group is the top training company in the area of training advertising professionals how to buy and sell digital media. We are now actively adding a number of new courses to explore ways to help advertisers learn how to better take advantage of rich media advertising technologies, understand search engine marketing and effectively measure campaign results so that data can be used to optimize campaigns.

Here’s the official press release:

The Laredo Group Acquires LearningCraft

Market Wire

Posted: 2008-02-25 12:57:25

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL — (MARKET WIRE) — 02/25/08 — The Laredo Group, Inc., the leading agency, sales and marketer interactive advertising and media training and consulting firm, today announced that it has acquired LearningCraft, LLC., a company that specializes in Media Development Training, including how to use the latest interactive technologies such as Flash 8 and CS3 and video to produce engaging media content and ad units.

Rob Graham, CEO of LearningCraft, will join The Laredo Group as Vice President of Creative & Technical Training and help drive a newly expanded training curriculum. Terms of the deal are not disclosed.

The acquisition accelerates The Laredo Group’s growth that includes the appointment in July of Jason Heller, the co-founder/CEO of Mass Transit Interactive and later, Managing Director of Horizon Interactive, as Executive Vice President, and head of the firm’s newly opened New York office; and Maria Harrison, founding board member of the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association and Director of Online Marketing for Interval International, an IAC company, as Vice President of Marketing.

“Both companies have long been focused on creating the highest quality training materials for online marketing professionals,” says Leslie Laredo, Founder and President of The Laredo Group. “With our new synergy, we’re able to expand the types of instruction we offer to include marketing channel specific topics along with interactive media training designed to meet the needs of creative teams. Over the next few months we’ll be introducing a number of new training programs designed to get publishing and advertising teams of all types up-to-speed with the latest online marketing technologies and methodologies.”

The Laredo Group is already offering new courses for 2008 focused on Search Engine Marketing, Email Marketing, Emerging Digital Media and Interactive & Integrated Advertising. Among the new offerings that incorporate LeaningCraft’s knowledgebase and expertise are: ‘Online Ad Campaign Measurement and Analytics,’ ‘Behavioral Targeting Application and Best Practices’ and ‘Whole Team Marketing,’ a new course focused on bringing Creative and Media teams together to create flawless online ad campaigns. The Laredo Group will also continue to offer LearningCraft’s existing online courses which provide self-paced and hands-on instruction of interactive media development using Adobe Flash.

“This move made sense for all of us and puts The Laredo Group in a position to expand its leadership in online industry agency, marketing and sales training,” says Mr. Graham.

Mr. Graham, who has been active in interactive marketing since 1990, is the author of two books covering online marketing topics. His latest book, “Fishing From a Barrel,” takes an energetic and foundational look at how behavioral targeting is changing the face of advertising as we know it and introduces readers to the fundamentals of behavioral targeting technologies and how advertisers and publishers can use BT to achieve greater campaign and ROI results for their online advertising. Mr. Graham is also an adjunct professor at Harvard University Extension and the University of Massachusetts - Lowell where he teaches informational and instructional design, online marketing methodologies and e-business classes.

“Having Rob on our team goes a long way towards building out areas of training that the market has demanded,” says Laredo Group CEO Jeff Leibowitz. “He has a proven track record of training excellence and we look forward to his involvement and guidance as we continue to grow our curriculum and staff. There continues to be extremely high demand for our training from the agency, publisher and marketer worlds that is transitioning from traditional to digital much more quickly, and with much higher stakes, than in the past.”

Hi Res Photo of Mr. Graham available on request

Founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1996 and now headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, FL, The Laredo Group (www.laredogroup.com) is the leading training and consulting firm dedicated to helping clients increase sales and decrease costs through knowledge and efficiencies related to online advertising buying and selling, search engine marketing, and site optimization. The Laredo Group provides customized general sales training & coaching for companies and individuals, media training for buyers and sellers, and custom consulting services designed to increase the revenue potential and production of staff and products for both traditional, online and cross-platform sales and marketing activities. The client list of The Laredo Group includes many of the world’s largest and most successful companies as well as smaller firms, start-ups and many industry associations.

Contact:
George H. Simpson Communications
203.521.0352
Email Contact

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One of the most powerful tools that online marketers have at their disposal is the ability to directly target those consumers they want to receive their marketing materials. This isn’t to say that marketers haven’t had direct targeting approaches prior to the Internet (think direct mail and contextual targeting in magazines and newspapers) but the advantages that online marketers have include not only advanced targeting parameters but also the ability to accurately measure the effectiveness of that targeting.

For many marketers, contextual targeting makes a lot of sense. In essence, you put your targeted message on sites that cater to the same consumer interests as your products and service and they will come to you. While this is a great and tried and true marketing solution, the biggest hurdles that online advertisers face is that the inventory on sites that cater to the interest of many consumers like those checking out automotive sites) is very limited and for an advertiser to get a message in from of this audience generally means high competitive pricing models and limited exposure due to the thin slicing of the available inventory.

Because of these limitations, some ad servers now offer contextual tools that will automatically match advertiser messaging with contextually relevant site content. At least that’s the idea. Sometimes things can go terribly wrong.

In my experience, Iomega offer great products. Unfortunately, in this pairing they come across as highly insensitive and more than a little oppotunistic.

Here’s another:

Most brands like the opportunity to be associated with current events and news updates. This example? Not so much.

How about this?

Yup, as they say, timing is everything.

While these examples can be fun they are also damaging to the marketer’s brands. While no sane marketer would put their brands in harms way, as you can see, its not hard to get there accidentally. Bottom line: work with the ad servers to make sure that these unfortunate match-ups don’t occur buy using negative keywords and other things to negate possible bad relationships.

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One of the advantages of getting older is you’ve had more time to make mistakes than your younger colleagues.

For me personally, the path to this point in my life has been strewn with the same bad choices that many of us face from time to time along with those that reinforce our confidence in ourselves and others. Along the way I’ve made some bad decision and have become wiser as a result.

One of the lessons I learned early on is that there is no such thing as getting rich quick. Sure, I want to believe that every new cutting edge solution leads to megamillions (c’mon, I’ve seen the pictures of the nice houses and fancy cars!) if I’m willing to fork out a few bucks to get started, but time and experience has also shown me that instant wealth is utter crap and generally financial rewards are commensurate with the effort you’re willing to put behind them.

The reason I bring this up is because I’m pretty cautions about any marketing programs I stumble across that seem to be too good to be true. I think my BS meter is pretty well tuned by now.

During the middle of last year I saw an online ad for a company that offered online direct marketing expertise. It was one of those ‘send us your email and we’ll send you some great marketing resources’ offers. Curious about the angle they were taking, I did sign up and, as promised, the email lessons started showing up.

I have to tell you I was impressed. Not only was the information actionable, but I didn’t feel like I needed to take a hot shower every time I read a new installment just to wash the sleaze off. It wasn’t all about them making money – it really was about sharing knowledge with me.

As a result, I decided that it would be a good investment to enroll as a monthly member so I could receive the monthly newsletter and other great resources that had to do with direct online marketing (especially in areas of search engine marketing) and I have continued to be pleased with the materials and ideas they help me generate.

To that point, I wanted to share this finding with you. If you ever find yourself in the market for an inspired perspective on online marketing and some solid knowledge surrounding search engine marketing, I encourage you to check out http://www.perrymarshall.com/. I’ve never met Perry Marshall but I have taken advantage of his experiences and wisdom and will continue to do so in the future.

What Perry shares is tried, tested and real. The hype is almost minimal. Also, like most of us, Perry started his journey doing things the ‘dumb’ way and has learned volumes by hitting the pavement a few times.

His newsletters are extremely well written (which causes just a twinge of jealousy because I’m not sure I’ll ever develop copywriting skills that superb) and share both life and business lessons. So far what I’ve learned is worth every penny I’ve spent.

You should check him out. I’m not unhappy with what I’ve learned and I doubt you will be either.

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If you haven’t yet read about it, I would recommend taking a look at the new Kindle electronic book reader being offered by Amazon. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI73MA/ref=amb_link_5892762_2).

While this device offers an interesting breakthrough in easy access to written content, my initial thought was one of how this was going to change that way that periodicals are positioned in the future. 

It’s hardly news to anyone that newspapers and magazines are having a hard go of it in the post-Internet world. However, it has been my contention during the past few years that newspapers need to re-think their role in the information providing business in that ‘newspaper’ is really the distinction for the method of delivery. Using devices like Amazon Kindle in the future means that traditional newspapers can still provide relevant content as media providers without needing to print a single word. Not only that but the arcane model of ‘yesterday’s news today’ can also be exchanged for content that updates itself whenever relevant. Think of it as the modern version of the Afternoon Edition.

As far as advertising is concerned, an increase in ‘wired but offline’ readers may mean greater readership overall by people who don’t already spend their days in front of a computer. Dominantly placed ‘print’ ads mean greater brand exposure and perhaps will allow for better contextual positioning as well. I imagine that before too long the ability to customize your delivered newspaper will be a reality as well. 

While the Kindle and other devices certainly won’t replace the importance of dynamic web content, the ability to take textual material with you wherever you go and read it in a comfortable an unplugged setting is a nice thing. There’s some real potential here to reach people who want to take content on the go.

As a side note, 2 of the features that I really appreciate about the Kindle are it’s ability to do text searches (for those of us who have spent way too many hours of our lives looking for a particular reference this is a godsend) and the ability to boost the font size to increase readability (defined as: growing older sucks). 

While devices such as these may not save newspapers and magazines from being replaced by dynamically updating periodicals, it is more in line with how people interact with textual content today. As a side benefit having a device that can be updated may also mean harvesting fewer trees for paper to print on.

Rob Graham

LearningCraft

emerging ideas, New Products | No Comments »

Here is another excerpt from my FREE e-book ‘20 Things that all marketers must know’ which you can download at http://www.learningcraft.com/books.html. This time around I explore the changing needs of consumers.

————————————————–

Because we’re always striving to bring balance into our lives, we’re constantly changing what our needs are as we look for opportunities that can help us meet those needs.

It has long been said that people buy things not for the items themselves but also for the emotions related to owning those items. Think about it for a moment. If you need a car to get back and forth from work then pretty much any car will do. However, there are dozens of different types of cars, trucks, vans, SUVs and variations in between available to choose from because consumers have personal reasons for why they buy specific automobiles.

While the underlying function of a car may be to get from point A to point B, there are a number of characteristics that come with owning a specific type of vehicle that has little to do with its actual function.

For example, you may drive a truck because it gives you a sense of freedom to drive it ‘off-road’. You may drive a mini-van because of the convenience and safety it offers you when transporting your family around. You may drive a luxury car because it’s quieter, handles well and passively tells your neighbors that you’re successful.

A few years ago I did some research into the driving forces behind consumer decisions and was able to identify 7 clear areas of demarcation that consumers use to determine value when making a purchasing decision. These are:

Giving the consumer a sense of possibility

Giving the consumer a sense of well-being

Offering the consumer a sense of convenience

Offering the consumer a sense of security

Making the consumer more productive/effective

Providing the consumer with a sense of continuity

Enhancing the consumer’s social standing

It’s also important to note that most people don’t take actions which run counter to these advantages.

For example, most of us care at least a little about what other people might think about us even if we don’t know who they are. We actively avoid doing things that might cause people to think that we’re ‘a little off’. Walking into the nearest mall wearing only your underwear or even skipping happily down the sidewalk while whistling the theme to ‘The Andy Griffith Show’, are activities that present no harm to others but would certainly make it difficult for you to come across as normal.

Musings, Stuff you need to know, Online Training, Behavioral Targeting | No Comments »

The following is an excerpt from my FREE e-book ‘20 Things that all marketers must know’ which you can download at http://www.learningcraft.com/books.html. This time around I explore the needs that consumer generate during their day to day lives.

————————————————-

All consumers have one thing in common – they have problems and are looking for solutions. These needs don’t have to be earth shattering and can be as simple and mundane as thinking “All my socks are old and have holes in them. I need new to buy new socks”.

The truth is, we all have needs and these needs are consciously and unconsciously trolling for solutions. As a result, we have conversations with ourselves that often sound like “I really need to do something someday about these ugly kitchen cabinets” or “I’m almost out of shampoo”.

For marketers looking to make a connection with consumers, the ability to understand, identify and join these conversations is paramount. A simple offer that gets to the core of the need has greater weight with consumers already involved in conversations with themselves as they are already receptive to any information that leads to a solution for their problems.

For Search Engine marketers this concept is a vein of gold. Consumers typing in a search term and hitting the enter key already have their antennae tuned toward finding a solution. If it’s your organic listing or even the paid ad that comes through as the most direct solution to their current problems then you have struck pay dirt. Of course the real trick is making sure that your ads and listing effectively join the conversation the consumer is already having.

Interactive Advertising, Online Marketing, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Perhaps it’s a bit subversive of me but I absolutely love that fact that anybody with a computer, a little talent and some creative spirit can create media that’s inline with that that’s the large media vendors produce, often at a much cheaper cost.

A recent example is the new TV spot for Apple’s new iPod release. The ad is catchy, has a great soundtrack and is based on a consumer generated video that was created by an 18 year old student from England. In one day. For nothing.

Here’s a link to the full story in the New York Times.

Rob Graham
LearningCraft

emerging ideas, New Products, Online Marketing | No Comments »

Privacy is a tricky thing to define because we all have different and very personal, definitions of what privacy is. People who grew up in a house with a lot of siblings have a different perspective on privacy compared to a single child, for instance.

The root of each definition is often less about how data about us is being collected than why it’s being collected.

As consumers we understand that advertisers want to know more about us. For years we’ve been asked to sign-up for newsletters and subscriptions. We’re asked to weigh in on issues by filling out questionnaires. We’ve redeemed retailer rebates and traded personal info in exchange for a cheaper price. We sign-up for store credit cards to save money at the register. Overall, we are generally very amenable to sharing personal information when it directly benefits us.

And benefit is the key word here. As consumers we demand to know ‘what’s in it for me’ before taking any action. Relevancy is king. If I’m going to give you something I expect to get something in return.

I mention this because of the new battle that’s emerging surrounding BT and privacy issues. The bottom line for many privacy advocates is to force publishers and advertisers to stop using any type of behavioral tracking for the purpose of ad serving.

I want to mention that, like many of you, I’m also an advocate for privacy. I don’t want my personal information being bought and sold and I would rather not have people know things about me that I consider private. However, I’m also not a big fan of untargeted advertising. I don’t want to see endless ads for products and services that I will never, ever buy. These messages aren’t relevant to me or my needs. By using BT to target me based on my exhibited interests marketers have a much better chance of reaching me as a receptive consumer and I receive messages that are relevant

This battle for privacy isn’t about personal information. In most cases, the ad serving community is working with anonymous data that knows nothing about the individuals receiving the targeted ads but instead has a profile of the user of the computer receiving those ads.

If you want to be concerned about privacy then go after those vendors who have our actual names and mailing addresses. These people not only know who we are but can also hop in the car and come visit us if they want to. Talk about an invasion of privacy.

Rob Graham
LearningCraft

Musings, Stuff you need to know, Behavioral Targeting | No Comments »

As a scholar of the world of behavioral cognition, I generally keep my eyes open for new approaches to data collection and usage that I think might have some bearing on the way we communicate/do business in the future.

The concept behind the Semantic Web has been around for a few years. Basically, this concept is about finding meaningful links between seemingly different chunks of information. Whether we read magazines, watch TV, listen to radio/blogs/podcast or surf through numerous pages of content on the Web, we all collect gobs and gobs of data, much of it free form, and pack it into our brains every day. While this loose assortment or facts and figures might give us the edge during a killer game of Trivial Pursuit, it’s often hard to connect the loose pieces together to create some sort of coherent thought pattern that might actually be usable.

The Semantic Web is more about finding intelligent ways to take the heaps of knowledge we acquire and group like tidbits together so it forms more of a whole picture.

We’re still a ways away from finding an earth-shattering solution for wrangling the daily data onslaught, but there are a number of very interesting approaches that are coming our way. Once of these is called Twine  and apart from being free, may just offer a first step toward creating personal databases of knowledge that we can later reference. Think of this as your ancillary brain, in you want.

Click here to check out this great story fromTechnology Review on Semantic tools and more about Twine.

Rob Graham
LearningCraft

emerging ideas, Stuff you need to know, Behavioral Targeting | No Comments »