Privacy and Fear

I actually find the subject of privacy and the academic side of it dull, but what I do find interesting is how people perceive privacy risks and how that is inaccurate.

For example when Facebook feeds came out there was a huge uproar about privacy infringement even though no additional private information was being given out. Also I have heard several people say that they find Gmail is invading there privacy by "reading" there emails and showing them contextual ads.

I just finished reading Freakonomics while on holiday and it too talks about how people are not very good at assigning risk. I lent that book to someone and I don't think there was a good summary of the point but it said that the dread at the thought of something increases our fear far more than the risk factor. The example given is the difference between deaths caused by swimming pools and guns and how people fear guns disproportionately to the risk associated to them. This applies to a lot of things.

Fear over privacy I think is even more complicated because in a lot of interactions on social websites you are deliberately giving out your information but at the same time you want the perception of privacy. Here are 2 interesting points:

• Facebook is successful because its private
• Myspace is successful because it lacks privacy

Its easy to argue both points. I mean Myspace lacks privacy in the sense that it is a place where a lot of people give out a lot of private information publicly and it enables that to happen. Facebook stresses privacy between friends and gives a lot of controls which has lead it to gain popularity but at the same time people who spend a lot of time on Facebook are going through a lot of private information on people that they wouldn't normally have access to.

The difference between having information available and having it displayed in a different format is big. For example all you have to do is signup to Facebook and you have access to every single members profile picture, you basically know what 10 million (50 now?) look like, thats a pretty big privacy issues, but no one really cares, but when something like peopleradar.com comes along and lets people rate these pictures, then it suddenly becomes a privacy concern.

Lets say next time someone changed there Facebook status from dating to single lets say all there friends received an automated text or even better a call letting them know about the breakup. The automated text messaging is not far from happening, maybe its already been implemented.

I haven't truly figured out everything on privacy, those are just some of my musings and I don't really have a conclusion. I feel like there is probably a way to fully rationalise it, but I am not there yet.

I will leave you with this interesting privacy flaw in Facebook, if you search in Events and Groups for "lost phone" or " new number" or something like that you will find literally hundreds of peoples personal numbers, not just the people that lost their number but also all the peoples comments on that event/groups walls give out more numbers. It is not really Facebook's flaw but a misunderstanding among users, but perhaps all of them realise what they were doing and didn't mind their numbers being available.

Business Idea - Grand Bazaar

Here is an idea inspired by Turkey, although I have had the concept before but never seen the full vision till now.

Basically I like haggling, normal shopping is just so boring. Haggling and joking around in markets in places like Turkey and China is so much more fun. Here are the things that I think I like:

1. No risk: The items are cheap anyway, you know its a good deal, and you never really wanted it so it doesn't matter if you don't get it.
2. Social interactions: Sometimes you make some jokes, sometimes you piss them off but its never neutral, which makes it fun.
   
3. The challenge: It makes buying like a game, you are trying to get the cheapest possible price and ideally both you and the seller feel fulfilled at the end of it.

I really think there is a way of reversing current trends, is there a reason prices are fixed? (I know there are a few but I think there is a market for an alternative)

In the implementation of the grand bazaar website the selling may follow a sequence like this:

1. You come in to a themed bazaar, browse around.
2. Show your interest in an item, the website offers a ridiculously high price (if you accept you are a bit stupid but we wont complain)
3. Then you are given several options, give a lower price, make some comment like "that's ridiculous" or "I found it cheaper the other day", or obviously walk away.
4. The shop then either decides to lower the price, or gives some other comment. Take a lot of pictures of shop keepers from authentic bazaars so you can give some more character to the interactions.

Clearly this would be a fun way to shop. Implementation aside there are 2 main ecommerce concepts that this site has, variable pricing, and game based buying.

Variable Pricing

In the Business to Business world quite a lot of pricing is variable but in the consumer world the trend has been to go towards fixed pricing in developed countries. This has the benefit that it reduces the perceived risk for the buyer and also decreases the hassle invovled in shopping. But this idea is about putting the pain and the fun back into shopping.

Economically fixed pricing is inefficient. Lets say we have variable pricing where some goods sell 20% below cost price and others sell 100% above. The people that have the money and value that good highly would haggle less and pay the higher price, the people that value it less and can afford less with haggle more and pay less. Assuming everyone is rational no one looses (big assumption). Obviously the possibility of getting it below cost price might be a good driving factor for people to take part.

Game Based Selling

I am not sure how you would do this without variable pricing but involving some kind of game to buy something might be a good idea outside the negotiation game.

Complications

There are some obvious ones, kind of boring to consider but I think there is an idea here even with them. a) Not sure what percentage of people like haggling, might be small in the UK. b) Hard/Impossible to use this idea for goods that are sold in a normal way on other websites, because all rational users would try to at least undercut that price. c) Unlike in real life there are no pressures for someone to close the deal and buy a product, in real bazaars you cant walk away after you say you want something (even though sometimes you want to), this means people can test out the system for ever and get the best price. d) Because of b) you will have to solve 2 problems, firstly find goods to sell and then try to sell them in this interesting way, however I think just going for a few weeks in Turkey or China (or other places) will get you more than enough relatively unique goods.

Does it already exist?

Since last time I should have really checked, I did a quick Google search. There seems to be a lot of academic papers on it, so its obviously a good idea ;-). As far as I saw there were no good implementations of it.

Extention

Kind off obvious: you could make an ebay, peer to peer product exchange using this mechanism. This has a big chicken/egg, double network problem so would be crazy to go down from the offset but maybe it has potential.

Alternatively you could make the algorithm and sell it as an ecommerce solution to other websites, assuming it actually generates more profit for the seller.

Business Ideas - Personal Social Network, Music Writing web app etc...

As promised I am writing here most new business ideas I get. Jude and I spent quite a while talking yesterday about business ideas, nothing matches the energy I have from discussing a new idea. I like these two the most:

Personal Social Networks

Basically this is a problem I have and I wish there was a good solution to it. I have more than a hundred business cards and various friends, networks and business contacts which all have different status, notes, actions required etc. I want to be able to put that all in one place, obviously facebook/linkedin help but that requires the other person to be on one of those and it doesn't allow me to associate much information to them. Basic features I require:

• Makes notes next to each person
• Associate with linkedin/facebook/skype/myspace profiles
• Associate actions that I need to perform with each person. I.e. birthday, meetings to arrange etc.
• Scan in their business cards, so I can reduce my collection.
  
• Share my groups or contacts with other people for personal or business reasons.
• Pull in contacts from some format
• Output them to excel or some other suitable service.
• Synch with calender
  

This service would clearly be useful to businesses. Easy to make money by having a premium service for more than 100 contacts or for allowing sharing, or some kind of enterprise licence. Beyond the practicalities of it even if I wasn't running a business it would be fun to just map out all my relationships in a nice intuitive way.

I haven't researched this, does it already exist?

Music Writing Web Application

I have only ever seen these being used by other people so I am probably not the best person to ever make a business out of it, but i am pretty sure there are no advanced music writing web application out there and I was told Flash apps that exist are popular but basic.

If the web app is any good it would do well because these things sell for a lot of money. There are various obvious social elements that you can add on to enable people to share what they create and use other peoples samples/creations. I am not going to go through the features, basically you would just pick the most popular features from existing desktop applications (I don't even know the most popular ones, Fruityloops is one I think).

Again not researched so it might already exist.

It's always fun when I think of an idea and research it to find it already exists. I like the personal social network one a lot, its just so obvious and useful.

There are so many ideas out there that a) its stupid to copy someone elses, b) there is no point in fearing you will be copied, c) You can't tell me that you are waiting for some great idea to strike you down before you do business d) and lastly you can't say that you can't come up with ideas because I will give you some for free ;-).

I will be away for a couple of weeks, so I wish you a happy Easter!

The Fall of Great Empires

My dad loves his history. One thing he likes to point out is how the greatest empires in history have all fallen. Consider, the Egyptian, Persian, Ottomans, Mongols, Byzantine, USSR, Roman, British Empires and a bunch of others. At the time of their reign it seemed like they were unstoppable beasts that would never falter.

Big companies also do not sustain their position forever, and with the Internet the world is moving faster.

This lack of a constant might be slightly depressing but I quite like the world this way. It is from this chaos that we adapt and opportunities arise.

The world is interesting because no one (even people/companies that seem big and confident) really knows what they are doing and everyone is making it up as they go along. The only thing that matters is that you have confidence in what you are making up and aim to make something big enough. So let the games begin :-).