The Two Modes of Delivering Relevance: Value Ad & Net-New
Glue is a FireFox extension that provides social context to content while LI Apps easily creates apps from a number of content sources to put on your LI profile (assuming the early glitches have been worked out... How ya like me now?).
Installing them one right after the other, I could not help myself in comparing them since ostensibly they both have the same purpose (as all syndicated content) – optimize the user experience by providing value in the discovery and delivery of information. What is interesting is that while the ultimate goal is the same for both services, they are using opposite ends of the content/user spectrum to achieve it.
LinkedIn Apps uses content I created that should be relevant to others based on their context. (Note: there are a few collaborative apps as well)
Glue uses content others
created that should be relevant to me
based on my context.
Another way to look at this -- with LinkedIn Apps I become something of a social advertiser. As a Glue user (and of course as a content contributor) I become something of a social publisher. The irony is that Glue is playing the transactional web and LI lives in the social web. I find that juxtaposition fascinating.
What I realized today and what drew me to even blog this is that the services highlight ideas I’ve started to explore in recent work. Namely, that there are two modes of delivering relevance and each needs to be optimized toward different user goals for performance.
Two Modes of
Delivering Relevance
1) Value Added Relevance: The content is a helpful & useful part of an experience or primary goal
2) Net-New Relevance: The content is interesting enough to change the behavior or cause latent goals to emerge
Let’s look at Glue and LI Apps in the context of these modes.
Value Added: My linked in profile page is there for the purpose of discovery -- learning about me. Apps provide added content that makes that experience much more informative. Another cool thing is that when I’m on my LI and my goal is to learn about other people, apps is there for me as well providing updates on my network. LI Apps provides Value Added Relevance.
Net-New: In the transactional web consideration stage is aligned with discovery goals. Glue sits on the transactional web to “connect with friends around the things you visit” blending social navigation with semantic navigation to deliver discovery via contextual relevance. Semantic web is all about correlations so it makes sense to incorporate social into these taxonomies. While is Glue is adding relevance to the primary goal of the user, the goal of Glue is for latent goals to emerge via social connections. Thus, Glue seeks to provide Net-New Relevance.
Further Definition
Net-New Relevance is about creating awareness. To be successful at it timing is critical. The more down-funnel you deliver Net-New the more you are fighting against the goals of the user so it is at top of funnel experiences where you can optimize (being helpful and useful to the user) by presenting this information.
Value Added Relevance can also create awareness. However, the primary benefit is to help someone complete a goal. Ideally this information presents itself between the current context & the user and increases in value the closer someone is towards completing their goal.
Heads up
One product I like very much in this “semantic discovery” space is SemantiNet’s headup . CEO Tal Keinan was on a panel I moderated at Jupiter’s Web 3.0 conference a few weeks ago and I had the opportunity to walk through headup with him. Like Glue, headup is a FF extension only it runs on top of Microsoft’s Silverlight. Headup is keyword driven. The tool works more like a faceted search result to provide Value Added Relevance and uses a built-in social utility to deliver Net-New Relevance as well.
Both Glue and Headup are worth checking out and likely each will find its audience depending on how you like to use the web. LinkedIn Apps is essential to use.
Keep in mind these awesome services are only baby steps in the move from a web of pages to a web of objects. Still, they provide a window on how useful and interesting that web will become through optimizing the delivery of information about the things that are relevant to us.
We are just getting started here folks. I promise you, one day the web will be so fucking relevant you will crave irrelevance! And it will be there for you to click on.
Great post. In particular this is right on the money -
"While is Glue is adding relevance to the primary goal of the user, the goal of Glue is social connections. Thus, Glue seeks to provide Net-New Relevance."
The twitter integration around commenting on things, I find, enhances the social connection - especially as I have Glue set to autopost to Twitter and Twitter set to autopost to my Facebook wall. One small action as I browse in my own context sparks discussion in a variety of places, and starting a conversation in context this way (with a link to the object) has a gathering effect wherever I am on the web that is unique to Glue and adds meaning and value to the discussion.
Posted by: Steffan Antonas | October 31, 2008 at 02:28 PM