The Wantsa Social Media Blog

I’ve been thinking recently about where the internet has come from and where we’re at in both the consumer and business adoption cycle. The first stage of mass adoption was about maintaining a singular web presence (i.e. A website). Up until 1999 and prior to Google becoming a household word, new sites were discovered primarily through link portals like Yahoo. Google wasn’t the first search engine but the speed at which they built adoption of their product assured eventual domination. In 1998 when Google was still in Beta, they were processing only about 10,000 searches a day. A year later, as buzz rapidly spread, they were processing 3,000,000 searches a day.

Not unlike today’s internet start-up’s, Google released its product (the search engine) and only after it had built a sufficient audience did it introduce AdWords, its means of generating revenue from its sizable online audience. The power of presenting context-relevant ads to a user’s search created the “just in time” advertising market we know today.

Just like Google dethroned Microsoft and Microsoft dethroned IBM, I believe there is another King soon to take its crown as the dominant IT Company. But first, let’s examine what’s changing to make Google’s primary product less relevant:

Whereas the first wave of web adoption was about maintaining a singular web presence in an isolated silo, the second wave of web adoption is much about a much more tightly-woven web. Today’s web is all about us moving more of our real lives onto the web and using social networks to stay connected and share our lives with those we know and trust and for some, share their lives with anyone who will take an interest!

Without a doubt, Facebook is and likely will remain the dominant gatekeeper of our citizens personal data. This week, it was announced that Facebook has finally begun construction of its own data-centre and of course, much ado has been made of Facebook’s continual refinement of its privacy settings, to give users more granular and transparent control over what information they share with whom.

That said, the shift to evolve Facebook “the Product” to Facebook the “Business” is a far biggest task than simply growing members or adding/changing features on the site and it’s in this transition where the the rubber hits the road.

As our behaviour and use of the web in this highly socialized, intimate way continues, so too will new companies and ideas present themselves and try to build businesses around managing and sharing our personal lives online. For many of us, there are still lines between what is “private” and “public.” But it seems that the practice of sharing our lives online is irreversible and those lines will continue to rapidly deteriorate.

The Companies that will dominate are those that manage the very delicate balance of facilitating demand for sharing our lives whilst ensuring that that the data underlying these voluntary exchanges is monetized in a hyper-transparent, trusted and ultimately consumer-controlled way. And that’s exactly where Wantsa is headed.

David Strebinger

Just finished reading yesterday’s article on computerworld.com…

So let me get this straight, there are a few people that don’t agree with what Mark Zuckerberg is saying with respect to people’s privacy and the importance of it on the internet.

HMM, well, last I checked, Mark was one of very few people on the planet that can actually speak from the collective consciousness of over 350M consumers and their respective choices, actions and activities.

Facebook knows more about most people than the CIA and FBI put together, and it is all information that people willingly divulge and share onto a website whose sole purpose is allowing people to connect and share information with one another.

Arguing that Mark does not know what he is talking about when it comes to privacy and what people do and do not want, is like arguing with Steve Jobs over whether or not people will like the iPhone. It has already happened. The results are in.

Of course some people will want to control the content they submit and who gains access to it… this is not the point. Zuckerberg has simply said that the control is in the hands of the users; they control their data and set their settings, Facebook will just assume that if you are posting it, unless told otherwise, you want people to see it.

Rest assured, privacy is an area that has had more discussion and thought put into it than any other area of Facebook’s developments. Mark will have had numerous Lawyers, Advisors, Thought Leaders, Accountants, Regulators, Security Agencies, etc. giving him their thoughts, advice, council and concern regarding the power of the data that Facebook is collecting. I am sure he was not walking into this conversation just ’shooting from the hip’.

Mark, if you’re reading this, I think you are doing a great job of leading the pack and taking the heat so that the rest of the industry can fall behind you as you clear the path. The world is changing as a result of social media… of this, there is no doubt. The big changes have not even begun yet and people better get used to a world that is open, transparent and connected.

This industry will change the financial markets, politics, business and economies, and it will all happen within the next 4 years. Hold on as its going to be a bumpy ride… more to come…

David Strebinger

I feel compelled to comment on the unfolding PR firestorm facing clothing retailer H&M because it intersects with the three core elements of what our Company is all about.  If you don’t want to read the full article, here are the salient points of this blog post:

1) This “scandal” shows how a one-off mistake (i.e. not sanctioned by corporate policy and a local human error) is quickly amplified in social media and this very type of “scandal” is the most likely to first visit major and established brands;

2) Scary and stressful as it must be to internal staff, I argue that the spread of this scandal was instantaneously good for H&M and that the Company will only grow stronger and more relevant in social media environments as a result;

3) I articulate the value of being engaged in Twitter before the scandal breaks and how Facebook’s Fan Pages’ functionality works to give brands an opportunity to gain new customers even when their first interaction is reacting to negative news;

4) I defend H&M as one of the best corporate citizens in its field.

I have no affiliation or connection to H&M.  I’ve never spoken to anyone at the Company other than their retail clerks.  In defense of the Company, this is a brand that, up until yesterday’s NYT article, has done an incredible job of delivering on its brand promise.  It’s sales, store growth and connection with its customers is one of the strongest of any apparel brands targeting its demographic.

As part of its brand promise, recognizing that corporate social responsibility is a necessary brand attribute to many of its customers, and especially important in the garment industry, they have invested heavily (relative to their peers) in corporate philanthropy and cause marketing.

To name a few initiatives H&M has been involved in recently:

• A $4.5m donation from H&M to Unicef to fund a five-year program to protect the rights of children in cotton producing areas in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India.
• A collaboration with WaterAid that since 2002 has raised the equivalent of more than USD $1.6m for water and sanitation projects in Bangladesh (where some of H&M’s clothing is produced) by selling a particular garment each year with 10% of proceeds funding WaterAid.
• And perhaps most important to the current fall-out from yesterday’s NY Times article, the statement that H&M’s US Sales operation donates “thousands of garments from its corporate facilities through Gifts In Kind International” that distributes products to community services groups that are improving the lives of people in need.

H&M became top-trending today on Twitter with most of the comments negative in tone and retweeting either the link to the NY Times article or blogs discussing the article.

As far as I can tell, H&M does not yet have an official Twitter presence or any social media representative engaging through Twitter.  Had they been on Twitter, their official tweets would allow anyone who believed the negative reaction was overzealous to retweet official messaging from H&M.  It would take only a few hundred people retweeting H&M’s official tweets to take the search results generated from H&M be a better mix of positive and negative messaging.

Unfortunately, it appears that H&M’s CSR Manager, Ingrid Schullstrom, is currently on an extended leave, making it even more difficult to respond with full force.

What I find interesting is that H&M has more Facebook Fans than any of its peers.  A quick scan showed me the following Facebook fan numbers of some comparative apparel brands:

American Apparel: 171,293
Gap: 503,152
Abercrombie & Fitch 612,103
H&M 1,473,529

I’m guessing that H&M’s Facebook Fan following grew significantly from yesterday’s article and would be grateful if anyone who had these numbers could comment on this post with a “before and after. ”

Anyone who wants to comment on a Facebook fan page (negative or positive), first has to become a fan.

This functionality represents a huge opportunity to H&M and underscores a key incentive for brands to engage in social media.  They have an opportunity to convert every one of the “fans” who have joined to express outrage/dissatisfaction into actual fans of the brand.

H&M’s biggest miss today with its Facebook Fan Page response to the “scandal” is that it’s messaging was in its brand voice, as opposed to finding the right person within the organization to engage on behalf of the brand.  Nevertheless, in looking at the comment stream on the status updates posted on H&M’s page addressing the controversy, there is a good mix of Fans defending H&M from this controversy mixed with negative comments.

The take away here is that for established brands, trust that some percentage of your customers will come to your defense.  Figure ways to empower those “fans” to act as brand ambassadors or at the very least thank them for coming to your defense.

I’m going to go on a limb here and say that I don’t believe that it’s common practice across the H&M store to destroy its products and leave it in its alleys.  To be clear, it probably does destroy some portion of unsold product but it’s not company policy to callously leave destroyed product in its store alleys for all to see.  This comes from a break-down at the store level, not unlike the Domino’s franchise in North Carolina that ignited a similar firestorm of controversy.

The last thing I’ll say is that type of “scandal” is that it’s becoming a common one.  The mistake of  one store or a couple of employees impacts the entire company.  That’s the reality of the new power consumers have over brands through social media.

But my bet is that the net effect of this “scandal” for H&M will be a positive one.  It will spotlight that it leads its peers in corporate social responsibility, it will grow its online audience, and hopefully inspire H&M senior management to develop the capacity to engage real people as representatives within the online spaces where people now talk about its brand.

And just as I finish writing this article, I see that this “scandal” is already on its way to being over.  The NY Times is reporting that H&M has pledged to donate any unsold items from the store where this behavior was reported to charity as opposed to throwing them out.

What a Journey…

The amazing thing about a startup is the speed at which things change, evolve and grow. We had a team meeting yesterday summarizing the challenges we faced and our accomplishments throughout 2009.

Funny thing, as an entrepreneur, when you are right in the middle of the start-up phase, it always feels like things are not moving fast enough. When you are in the middle of it, it is very hard to see the successes as clearly as you do the challenges or issues. The beauty of hindsight is that you can see the entire picture and track the actual progress against the goals and milestones.

When you get a chance to take a breath, look back, and appreciate the magic of what just took place it is really the juice that fuels an entrepreneur.
Here is our TOP TEN list of company accomplishments that happened throughout this past year:

1) We set out to develop an incredible advisory board to guide us in all aspects of our companies’ growth and development.

Starting Number of Advisors: 3  Projected Number: 10 Actual Number: 13

2) We set out to establish letters of intent to partner with a number of major Sites and Site Platforms that would agree to install our tools as core functionality for their community members to take advantage of.

Starting Number of Partners: 0 Projected number: 15 Actual Number Signed: 9

3) We began the year with an objective of bringing 3 core engines that enable us to achieve our vision:
a. A Recommendation Engine that works inside social media;
b. An Offers/Advertising Engines that presents relevant and real-time offers in conversations throughout social media platforms;
c. A Mobile Offers API that is designed to extend our offers engine to existing mobile apps.

ACTUAL: We brought all three to market and are now growing and expanding the feature sets of each platform and partnering with numerous large organizations on implementing and licensing our solutions.

4) We set out to integrate our platforms inside a number of major social networks and begin growing our platform of partners that are connected through our systems.
Beginning of the Year: 0 Projected #: 4 Actual Number: 2

5) We set out to expand our team to handle the partnership growth and technology expansion that was necessary for us to fulfill on our targets:
Starting # of Team Members: 7 Projected Number: 25 Actual Number: 24

6) We set out to add some world class talent to our executive team particularly in the area of Technology Development and Marketing and Advertising.
Actual:

a. We now have Dale Borland – Former 16 year Microsoft Managing Director leading the technology.
b. We now have Rob Whittle – Former 10 year President of DDB Canada leading our Marketing and Advertising Division.

7) We set out to raise additional capital required for our expansion and growth.
Beginning $: $ 1.2M Projected Raise: $ 5.0M Actual Raise: $ 4.2M

8: We set out at the beginning of the year to have 500 small and medium sized businesses engaged and advertising with us through our platform.
Beginning of Year: 0 Projected #: 500 Actual Number: 70

We were faced with the proverbial “chicken & egg” scenario that confronts most start- ups and though conventional wisdom might dictate that we should focus only on gaining and keeping traffic, we have some good ideas on how to grow both chicken & egg simultaneously that we’ll be exploring this year.

9) We set out to prove that social network members would take the following actions in exchange for a personal or community oriented benefit:
a. Purchase Products
b. Sign up for Events
c. Fill our Customer Surveys
d. Fill out Polls
e. Print out Coupons
f. Book Reservations
g. Accept Advertising Endorsements

Actual Result: We have now developed and launched the functionality to deliver the above types of offers. Now, it is time for wantsa to grow and scale our infrastructure to support larger partners and generate substantial revenue flow.

10) We set out with a mission to connect businesses, causes and consumers in a mutually beneficial system that would forever alter how the world gets connected to the things they want.

Beginning of the Year: Just a Dream Projected: The Company will be well recognized throughout Vancouver and Silicon Valley.

Actual: This one is not for me to report… you will know when we do

To Summarize:
-The Wantsa team is now 3.4 times the size it was the previous year.
-Wantsa now has 3 viable and scalable technologies to market, all with very substantial and viable revenue models.
-Wantsa raised 84% of the $5.0 Million dollar target we had over the course of a year that included one of the largest downturns in economic history.
-Wantsa attracted world class executives from Microsoft and DDB to join and lead our Technology and Advertising divisions.
-Wantsa attracted a spectacular Board and Advisory board with a strong track record and history of successes.

Now to those of you who are reading this and have never built a business… This is HUGE growth for a small startup company. While we did not hit every target we set out to hit, the fact is, if you start the year setting goals that seem impossible to hit and then you hit or come close to any of them, when you look back at the year in the rear view mirror and acknowledge where you came from and where you got to, it takes your breath away.

We brought on new people, developed new products, proved out our business model and began setting the foundation required for the future. The life of a startup is one riddled with challenges and opportunities and it is based on how we choose to take on those challenges and opportunities that creates the path for the results we attain. This is the juice that fuels entrepreneurs and allows us to set the sites on targets that seem completely unattainable when you start the year.

As we move forward into the year to come I want everyone to appreciate where they came from and what was accomplished and I challenge you to set goals that go well beyond what is reasonable and comfortable.

To have an extraordinary company we must first set extraordinary goals, then we set out on a path to achieve what others may perceive as impossible. Stay focused on those goals, then look back a year later through the rear view mirror, you too will get your breath taken away…

Thanks, Love, and Appreciation to everyone who helped to make this past year a success and I look forward to seeing 2010’s rear view mirror.

To be Continued in 2010…

David Strebinger

We’re not yet in even in soft-launch mode but we’re emerging out of Stealth mode and wanted to share a major milestone at Wantsa for those of you stumbling across this blog.

We are proud to announce that we are “code complete” on the first iteration of the Wantsa Facebook app. We would be honoured to have you add the application and give us your feedback. Also, feel free to share it with your friends. While we are not considering this as our official “Launch,” it is our opportunity to see what our friends think and like about what we have created as well as implement the suggestions and ideas that come from your comments and feedback. Later in Q1 or early Q2, we will give those of you who have connected with us a “Sneak Peak” on the big things coming down the pipe in 2010. Look forward to the Wantsa platform being available in an OpenSocial environment in Q1 as well.

Amongst many of my colleagues in the industry, Facebook apps have become almost a dirty word synonymous with quizzes, Tamigachi 2.0 and other trivial pursuits. At Wantsa we’re all for play but we also believe that the connections we maintain through Facebook have real value to our real lives. In addition to the sheer amount of time spent playing Facebook apps, much has been written about the the quality of advertising offered within these games. Umair Haque recently wrote an insightful piece on the Harvard Business Blog comparing the quality of these ads and the lack of regulatory protection from Facebook to the ongoing subprime mortgage crisis.

Wantsa is all about Relevance, Meaning and Trust. That is why we built an application that allows you to get recommendations from the people you trust most (your friends). But on top of just getting recommendations, we wanted to change the dynamic of how to add value and create real life benefits for Wantsa users…

The Wantsa platform is an exchange centered around you looking for products and services to fulfill your wants. Whatever you’re looking for, we want to help you find it. And we provide you two ways find the right company or person you’re looking for. The first is by collecting your friends recommendations and the second is introducing you to companies willing to present you with an offer to try their product or service.

There has been a lot of talk about how many applications and social networks are looking to make money off of your personal information. Instead, we felt it was important that the people who benefit from this valuable asset is you. So, we put the marketing, branding, advertising and power in your hands. Using Wantsa, you get to see offers and incentives posted by all kinds of reputable businesses, then you choose which ones you want to engage with.

You can see what information they are receiving and you see what opportunity or incentive you get in exchange. If a business wants you to sign up for something, they need to show you how important you are by offering something that inspires you to take action with them. If they want your opinion or feedback, then what are they willing to offer you to get it. This puts you in control and receiving benefits for every action you take.

You gain these benefits and opportunities simply by taking specific actions through the Wantsa platform. All of our offers are governed by our corporate offers policy meaning that What You See [presented in the offer] is what you get and that these are genuine offers with clear terms of use and privacy.

If you’re a business interested in learning more about how we can work with you through our platform, please click here or contact us.

Oh yeah, one more thing… At Wantsa we have a “Want” of our own. The “Want” is that every time we connect a consumer to something they want, we also make a difference and a positive impact on the planet. For that reason, Wantsa donates money to the charity or nonprofit of the consumer choice every time an action is taken.

The result is that consumers, businesses, and non-profits benefit from being connected through Wantsa…
I sincerely welcome all comments and feedback.

David Strebinger