Inspiration to Transaction in one click

In a post from Sep 2009, Chris Dixon notes that sites who influence purchasing intent are not fairly rewarded since existing affiliate programs only pay the site that delivered the user to the merchant.

For example, Gizmodo might influence me to consider a Canon 7D, which I would research via Google and eventually buy on Amazon. Amazon would kick back a few bucks to Google and Gizmodo would get nothing. Google would make a few additional pennies off my research.

Fred Wilson echoed the same tone.

In both posts and their comments, the proposed solutions were that the “attribution models” needed improvement so that each influencer in the Intent Chain would get their fair due. This would presumably be accomplished with better tracking, algorithmic or social assignment of value to each influencer, and some mechanism for distributing the bounty.

This strikes me as an impractical approach.

On the implementation side, we need

  • a robust tracking mechanism across diverse sites and platforms,
  • a consensual policy for assigning credit, and,
  • a system for distribution of proceeds.

Edge cases abound. Do I get credit if my blog visitor purchases the item after a month? What happens with product returns? etc.

But there’s a social aspect too. Distributing rewards up the chain is at odds with social practice. Winner Takes All, To the Victor go the Spoils, etc. Consider the matter of criminal guilt. The guy who pulls the trigger cannot reduce his sentence by offering up “attribute models” that dilute and assign blame to a book, blog, or person who influenced his decision.

The approach we are taking at MashLogic is to reduce the links in the Intent Chain. To the extent that there are fewer hops between the point of inspiration and the point of transaction, the process of reward attribution is simplified. If Gizmodo had provided immediate access to product reviews, shopping options, and my social network, without requiring me to leave the page, and finally a purchase link, they’d get direct credit and no one pays the Search Engine Toll.

We welcome publishers who wish to integrate intelligent links from MashLogic on their site. Contact us at bizdev@mashlogic.com to increase your page views and unlock your revenue potential.

Mash the Web, Chrome by Chrome

mashChrome

We’ve released a Lite version of MashLogic to the Chrome Extensions gallery. This extension automatically detects and adds links to Wikipedia topics, Music Performers, Places, and Book titles, placing useful, contextual information at your fingertips.

This version does not yet provide for user configuration (like MashLogic for Firefox & IE), but you still get high-quality links on every web page that inform, engage, and simplify web browsing.

We will soon offer the full spectrum of configuration options that give you control, and let you Take Back the Web!

Mashing the LinkedIn API

We’ve just released a new MashLogic version coming with a major LinkedIn mash overhaul, made possible by the new LinkedIn API that they have been working on the past two years. The API being OAuth based, we no longer need to keep a copy of your LinkedIn credentials around, so we purge those from your stored configuration, if you had provided them. We are very fond of the business card look of contacts in the MashLogic callout now made possible:

LinkedIn

Old MashLogic users may note that we have (at least temporarily) removed another feature that mash used to have. Back when we started, when there was no LinkedIn API, we made a proof-of-concept implementation that would (if you configured the mash with your LinkedIn credentials) log you on to the site, use site search and some page scraping, to look up your in-network distance to people we spotted on the web page you were at. Then we would show you this information in a little icon right in the web page beside the name.

In theory, we could do that with the API as well, but so far, the number of API calls a user can do per day is constrained to a maximum of about 50, by our measurements, after which the API stops delivering any data at all. As every name lookup costs an API call (or two, if we show the profile image) and as it is quite likely that your web browsing over the day would encounter more than a few dozen names that have a LinkedIn presence, we have opted not to do this, for now, and only perform lookups when you open a MashLogic callout.

Once you are looking at a person, we of course show you what network distance separates you, and now, even via whom or what people. We hope we will get to iterate to make it better still over the next few weeks, as the LinkedIn API matures.

MashLogic’s Publishers Tool Kit – The gift that keeps giving!

Here at MashLogic Mansion we love Christmas, it’s our favorite time of the year. The office smells of mulled wine and fresh mince pies, the festive lights are sparkling and beautifully wrapped presents nestle under our gigantic tree. Everyone’s excited to see what he or she is getting this year.

We all have a wish list. Ranjit wants a couple of engineers. Our CEO wants more customers and everyone wants a new website. However one particular present did catch my eye. Lavishly wrapped and twice the size of the other, the gift tag on it says “To All Our Publisher Partners”.

Actually I do know what’s in this one, it’s the MashLogic Publisher Tool Kit stuffed full of the kind of goodies that our partners love to receive. It’s absolutely “the gift that keeps giving”.

The tool kit contains two main elements, “2Go” & “2Stay” and both provide Publishers with the ability to drive greater User time on site, increase the number of page views per visit by Users, capture new Users and drive incremental revenue.

“But John, that’s just too good a gift to be true” I hear you exclaim and while you may think that, we at MashLogic believe that access to free tools that benefit your business is everyone’s right and not a privilege granted once a year by a overly generous Aunt or doting Grandparent.

After all, if you are a Publisher you more than likely spend vast amounts of money building a great looking site; you then hire the best writers and photographers to produce fabulous content and top off the process by committing time and money capturing & retaining Users. My friends in the web ops business who know tell me that this process can be likened to standing in a freezing cold shower ripping up $100 bills. That may be an over-dramatic comparison but I do know enough to be dangerous and know that it’s a constant battle to win, keep and grow a loyal User base.

So this Christmas our gift to Publishers is a carefully crafted tool set that intuitively matches a Users interests to additional, contextually relevant content taken from other areas of their site, their sites archive or from within a network of affiliated sites managed by the Publisher. The net result being that Users see more of what they like and are far more likely to stay connected to their favorite brands.

Now before I say it, I know the next bit will annoy somebody out there but here goes: Users are essentially lazy. I say this with respect but also with the belief that Users would rather be offered more of what interest them (preferably from your site) than have to use the search box or even worse for a Publisher, type in a competitors web address and navigate away.

Present the User with one click access to additional, contextually relevant URL’s in a natural and fully integrated way and the likelihood that they will stay with you for longer and view more pages is greatly increased.

Think of it this way. It’s Christmas Day morning. You’ve got loads of good things for everyone and everything is the way you want it to be. You wake up early, full of anticipation. You quickly dress, wake the family, run downstairs and gather around the tree.

Instead of opening all their gifts, you only allow your guests to open just one and after they’ve seen what it is you let them leave and visit someone else’s house to open the presents they’ve got them. If they knew what else you had in store for them they’d probably have stayed all day!

Bah humbug!

When Mash meets Crunch

Earlier, we described the capabilities of MashLogic’s 2Stay technology running on CrunchNotes. We are pleased that TechCrunch decided to give us a whirl on their site.

If you visit TechCrunch with Firefox or Chrome (IE coming shortly), you will notice dotted blue dashed green links beneath companies, people, and other terms. You can mouse over these links for shortcuts to CrunchBase profiles and related articles. When you mouse out, the small callout fades away. 2Stay from MashLogic provides benefits to you and to TechCrunch.

  • You can see profile/headlines/image without leaving the page.
  • TechCrunch directs you to related content within its network, keeping you engaged longer on their site(s).

 

TC2Stay2Go

2Stay adds links to content on the TechCrunch site. To see links to TechCrunch content from any web page, you can install TechCrunch 2Go. This is a browser add-on that automatically adds links to every page you visit. The add-on gives you numerous additional choices to customize these links (e.g. link Wikipedia topics to summaries, Music Performers to streaming music or products, people names to their LinkedIn and Facebook profiles, and much more).

 With TechCrunch 2Go:

  • You stay connected to TechCrunch & CrunchBase from any page on the web.
  • TechCrunch receives more return visits from its readership.

If you publish a Tech blog, and would like to enrich it with links, please contact us at bizdev@mashlogic.com.

If you simply want your blog to be automatically enriched with links to TechCrunch, cut-and-paste the following code into your site, just before the closing <body> tag:

<script src="http://tc.mashlogic.com/loader.min.js"></script><script
src="http://tc.mashlogic.com/brands/embed/tc_embed.js"></script>