As a people, we generally like to figure out how something works so that we can affect and benefit from it in the future. To understand this notion, one only has to look as far as the local news broadcast to see that we all want to know is whether we have to pack an umbrella tomorrow. Of course this is not to say that our interests in the future solely reside in the realm of meteorology. Let’s face it. For the most part we are all interested in money at some level. So it should come as no surprise that experts have been trying to model economies and how financial decisions are made for decades. But while some things can be modelled faithfully through expected-value analysis, there always seems to remain a difference between what these models predict and reality.

No matter its size, an economy remains consistent in that it represents the aggregate of all the financial decisions made by the players within it. However, rather inconsistently, when presented with the exact same financial options, these players will, depending on their mood, choose differently from trial to trial. For instance, depending on whether a player has recently suffered a large loss or a meaningful gain will affect whether he selects a riskier investment or behaves in a more risk-averse manner in the future. As it turns out, there is a good chance that this gap can be spanned with neuroscience.

Risky Business

It has been found that the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) becomes more active in anticipation of a gain and prior to risky decisions while the insula becomes more active during the anticipation of a loss and prior to riskless decisions. Related to this, two steroids have been associated with one’s chances of achieving victory. Testosterone has been tied to encouraging what is termed as the “winner effect”; a scenario in which testosterone helps increase a subject’s confidence, which in turn aids his performance, which in turn increases his chances of victory. And if victory is achieved, the subject’s testosterone levels increase even further, creating a feedback loop where he will be more predisposed to taking on increasingly riskier decisions to continue achieving more victories. Conversely, cortisol production has been associated with what could be considered the opposite of confidence: uncertainty and the expectation of a threat. It’s doubtful that cortisol will be featured on a Wheaties box any time in the near future.

Putting the mechanics of execution and budgetary constraints aside, it could be assumed that if the activity level of either the NAcc or the insula of a subject could be determined, that an offer could be framed in such away to be so appealing that, upon accepting the offer, a feeling of significant gain could be achieved. Continuing with this example, this feeling of victory may prime the subject to be more open to further offers regardless of their riskiness. And even further, if the NAcc or the insula were to be stimulated for a prolonged amount of time, it might be even possible to undermine the subject’s cognitive ability altogether. A marketer’s dream, I dare say.

Casinos, perhaps without formal knowledge of neuro-science, are a prime example of exploiting these financial decision levers. They often offer drinks and other incentives to visitors. It could be said that by doing this they are priming people’s NAccs, encouraging them to take risky decisions, such as gambling.  By winning a game here or there, a visitor’s testosterone could also be tipping the tables towards more gambling through the winner’s effect. It makes you wonder what other businesses are also using this knowledge of the brain towards achieving financial gain. But despite the many possibilities of how this information could be leveraged, the more important question is where do we draw the line?

From answers comes more questions

Today’s North American society is more indebted than previous generations, a fact that could lead to financial hardships for many in the future. Should financial institutions, or even the government, play a principle role in reversing this trend? Should more weight be placed on people’s financial well-being in the future versus the present? And if so, by how much? Is it better to have a comfortable retirement at the expense of a delighted present? And if so, how would one craft a message to convince people of this? By using neuroscience, are we heading down a slippery slope? Or are naysayers simply making mountains out of molehills.

Only a few months ago, at the beginning of the current economic downturn, many switched from being financially aggressive to being risk-averse as they cut spending and chose more blue-chip options. Should these people be coerced using reward stimulus to undertake more risky behaviour to help stimulate the economy? What would people say when they got wind that they were being swayed? The game of financial decision influence can quickly become one about playing with fire quite quickly.

Changing the game is appealing but we have to understand the players first

Undoubtedly, with time, the mechanics of how people make financial decisions will be unravelled, just as the human genome was. Indeed with time, the triggers of risky behaviour and risk-averse behaviour will be mapped out and a myriad of models will be validated. But knowing the triggers are just part of the journey. It must be considered that any actions that increase steroid production in one culture will differ in another as what one culture considers risky could be risk-averse for another. Furthermore, moral questions quickly arise the further we delve into the mind. As with the human genome, knowing how to eliminate undesirable traits or even promote desirable ones doesn’t mean that we should use this knowledge in every case.

However this story unfolds, in the end, the future of neuro-finance remains an interesting one; one that not only promises a better understanding of what drives financial decision-making , but upon identifying all of these drivers, one that will mark the official end of “the easy part” for neuro-finance.

UX meets Blog consumption

When it comes extracting information from consulting-type blog posts, I follow the same theory as Steve Krug when trying to find usability problems on websites. This is a bit of stretch but it makes sense to me (surprise!). For example, say we are trying to figure out how to fix a toilet and Bob Vila has a blog on fixing toilets but to read it will have to shell out a dollar. Do I feel that this information is worth a dollar? Sure, but is it worth me taking out my wallet, entering my information, authorizing the payment and burn a few minutes of my life? Um, no. What I’ll do, is do a Google search for fixing toilets, read three or four of the free articles and extract the major points from all of them. The idea is that while one blog may miss a point, if the point is important enough or significant enough, another blog will bring it up. Reading other points of view on the same subject doesn’t hurt either.

Laziness and Anti-Social Media

So off the toilet, and back to my point. Recently, a very well known and respected blogger, Dennis Howlett (you can follow him on Twitter: @dahowlett) started providing some premium content for a small fee. His explanation for doing so can be found here. While I respect his work, I simply cannot be bothered to pay to read his insights for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, I’m lazy. (OK, I’m not lazy in general, but my wallet is pretty far from my desk). Secondly, and more importantly in my eyes, is that it’s a blog. As a blog, it is part of the social media eco-system. You can create discussions with blogs and interact with readers with a click of a publish-button. Making people pay to engage with you seems pretty darn anti-social if you ask me – especially for a blog, which really, is often just a vehicle to boost one’s reputation in an industry (*cough*). Simply put, I feel that if someone decides to post actionable advice on his own blog, he has opted to work for free.

So while I wish Mr. Howlett all the luck in the world, unfortunately, the next time I run into a prompt telling me I need to pay to view some content – you can be sure that I’ll be Google-ing shortly afterwards and reading another three brilliant posts written by similarly qualified writers – for free.

P.S. Bob Vila does have an article about fixing toilets. Pssst, and it’s for free.

We all love it when brands make us feel special, but how forgiving are we when they get it wrong?

Large strides have been already made in terms of personalization through customized content. Visit Amazon.com for example (my site is on page 24 of that book by the way). If you’ve been there before and sign in, Amazon welcomes you by name, and suggests items that it thinks you’d be interested in. In the case of a hotel, go to a hotel enough times and they’ll remember little details like the fact you enjoy an extra pillow, or what your favorite daily is and provide both of them for you before you enter your room. However, let’s look at this in a different way.

Are the potential gains of creating a positive, customized user-experience worth the risk of getting it wrong from time to time?

It has been said that no two people are alike, but if we generalize enough, we can segment audiences and markets. That’s what all of marketing intelligence is about after all. Web analysts extract behaviours and wants (and hopefully demands) from the volumes of visitor data and all the other internal records at their disposal to serve as the basis of customization systems whose purposes are to make customers feel welcomed and valued. But despite everyone’s best efforts, mistakes do happen.

Consider this, Walmart, a few years ago, “recommended a film about Martin Luther King Jr. to potential buyers of a “Planet of the Apes” DVD” (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10730202/). Damage control must of been in high gear that day and probably left a permanent bad taste in a few customers’ mouths. Whether or not Walmart actually lost customers over this incident is unclear. However one thing is for sure, there was bad press and it wouldn’t be far fetched to assume that even bigger hiccups than this could occur in the future.

Are there times when adapting content for users is dangerous?

Let’s put PR and hurt feelings aside for a moment. There are some cases where identifying personality-types and leveraging this knowledge could be potentially dangerous. For example, take users that can be categorized as substance-abusers or compulsive gamblers. Feeding into their tendencies, though profitable, could be detrimental to their well-beings. In fact, if adaptive systems advance even further, it might be necessary to set guidelines on how they are used to protect vulnerable consumers. And what if governments were to impose their influence on these adaptive systems? Could this be a tool for online propaganda or censorship? Could web logs incriminate users or make them political targets? To deal with these scenarios, it may be necessary for these systems to develop morals.

Customized user-experience: It’s the new black.

Despite any moral implications, customized user-experiences are here to stay, and in fact, they will become more prevalent in the years to come. Consider some other adaptive technologies in the pipeline:

• In 2003, IBM developed a way to customize the grocery shopping experience by helping shoppers know of specials in certain isles, etc via a small terminal attached to shopping carts. It’s only a matter of time until they work out all the angles on this one and introduce it to more grocery chains.
• MIT is working on websites that adapt. These adapting sites change their content and layout for unknown users in order to better suit their preferences. It is predicted that  this technology, when implemented on a site, could increase sales up to 20%. MIT plans to launch their first full version of this technology in the near future in Japan.

If you can’t fight ‘em, join ‘em.

It’s not about whether this will happen, it’s about when it will happen. The web industry has remain vigilant, constantly determine the new metrics, and have the strength of character to remain ethical despite the temptation of possible easy gains. Discussions at the early stage will help steer new technologies and prepare us for the future.

What do you think of customized user-experience? Should we embrace it, or discourage it?

Twitter is a great source of information, but who can keep up?

Twitter is a time-suck.

I’m not sure what the magic number of  people to follow is at which it becomes unmanageable to keep track, but personally, I think that number is around the 200-mark or so. By following so many people at once, there is so much noise and distraction – it is hard to concentrate on any one thing or any one person. As my friend and co-worker, Kirsten, puts it, Twitter is often like an echo chamber. So much content is re-tweeted, and so many conversations are going one at once that  it’s hard to pick out the new and meaningful content. Twitter can be completely draining – and that’s just wrong. Social media should be engaging and invigorating, not tiring and exhausting.

Get organized.

A screen shot of TweetDeck.

Following less people.

One option I considered, was to simply follow less people. I began trying to un-follow people that I either didn’t engage with, or stopped reading – but that proved to be a difficult task as well. Many of the Tweeters I follow tweet about all the mundane minutea of their lives:   like what time they woke up, or how hot their coffee is. So I thought, “Well, perhaps I can cut some of the noise by un-following these Tweeters!”. Then, just as I’m about to drop them, they tweet brilliance – insight that resonates with me so much that I must convince myself that having to read their silly posts is just the price of admission to be part of the thought-party. There went that idea, right out the window.

Taking a break.

Probably the easiest thing to do to avoid Twitter burn-out, unless it’s your job to be on Twitter all day, is to take a break. Accept that it’s OK not to be up-to-date with every single development. It’s OK not to constantly engage in conversation. Twitter will be there when you come back. Promise. The world won’t end, and you’ll feel great – trust me. Treat Twitter like chatting in a cafe. You wouldn’t sit in a Starbucks all day and night would you? (Gosh I hope not at least.) So why blow an entire day on Twitter?

Twitter is like a river. As much as it can quench your thirst for news and conversation – it’s humanly impossible to drink all that Twitter has to offer. It’s OK to take sips – and breaks. So how about it? Close the window. Disconnect for a while. Get out and get some fresh air and feel free to retweet me when you get back to Twitter in a day or so. Twitter can wait. Honest.

How about you? Have you ever experienced social media burn-out or other similar techno-stresses? How do you cope?

Sure they taste good, but are they good for you?

Is the use of cookies to track online behaviour an invasion of privacy?

If you were watching the news lately, you’d think they probably were. Last week, the White House caught quite a bit of flack about using web beacons (a.k.a., web bugs) and persistent cookies on their website, http://www.whiteHouse.gov. Interestingly enough, the use of web beacons (in a nut shell, JavaScript that calls a tiny image while transmitting some data about a web site’s visitors) was not the problem. The problem was the existence of persistent cookies. I won’t go into detail about how the cookies got there, or if they were actually set by the White House website, but basically these little text files that are stored on your computer are quite controversial to some. I’ll just offer this:

Relax. What’s the big deal?

I feel there is this strange perception of what is private and what is not with respect to different mediums. Consider this: whenever you use your credit card, you are tracked by the store, and the credit card company. Banks especially, know if your credit card usage is out of your “norm” and will contact you. Yet, no one complains about that. Similarly, cell phones today have GPS functionality. Yet no one seems to raise a fuss about being located by the phone company. And those close circuit cameras around your offices? No worries. But when it comes to web surfing, it’s a whole different ball of wax.

For some, web usage must remain secret, and completely private. You’d think they were spies, deleting their caches and flushing their cookies after every surf-session. I think the public has to accept that anytime technology is in between you and the person you are trying to communicate with, there is a risk of information theft. Have you secured your WiFi connection? Chew on that for a bit.

Blocking cookies? Pointless.

There is a misconception that deleting or blocking cookies will make you disappear from web analysts’ and Big Brother’s radars. News Flash: You’re just fudging up the numbers. Outside of using public computers, where I totally condone deleting cookies since people might login as you if you’re not careful, I don’t see the point. With respect to Google Analytics (GA) alone, even if you were to block cookies, web analysts still have your IP, screen resolution, browser make, and a myriad of other stats. The cookie is just a small part of the equation.

The anatomy of the Google Analytics cookie system

Upon closer inspection of the GA cookies you’ll notice that the GA cookies actually don’t contain a great deal of information about you. Basically, they only contain:

• A unique number identifying your session
• A Google Analytics account number that identifies the web bug account
• A cookie that refreshes every 30 minutes with no real information in it
• One persistant cookie with no real information in it

By blocking these cookies, you successfully do the following:

• Increase the number of “Unique Visitors” reported
• Reduce the number of return visitors reported

That’s pretty much it really. (See for yourself with Stéphane Hamel‘s WASP application.)

NOTE. Yes, I know 3rd-party cookies are still borderline in terms of privacy. I’m talking about 1st-party cookies here. But thanks.

Most cookie usage is not evil

Another argument I hear is that some users don’t want customized content, or they don’t want to let marketers into their heads because they find marketers “evil”. Contrary to popular believe, marketing isn’t evil. At the heart of marketing (and most web analytics) is the attempt to discover a need or want within a market segment (or to find a new market segment completely) and satisfy them. That’s it. Marketers simply want to figure out what you want and give it to you (I know, crazy concept). If you don’t like what they’re offering, ignore them (which many of us already do), and market forces will do away with them eventually.

Other methods to maintain your privacy

So, deleting/rejecting cookies isn’t the holy grail of privacy. What is a privacy-nut to do then? Here are my tips for those who wish to drop off the map:

• Delete your: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts as well as your blogs and personal websites. Get your personal information off of there – those are prime targets for identity theft, which is much more serious than your surfing history. Try doing a serach on Piple to see what I mean.
• Always use a web proxy you created to hide your IP. Don’t trust anyone else’s proxy but your own.
• Never use WiFi, especially don’t do online banking via wireless.
• Never use, Hotmail, or Gmail. In fact, don’t use mail at all.
• Don’t use a cell phone (iPhones included, dear lord, especially not iPhones)
• Don’t use satellite TV.
• Burn your garbage. Why hack cookies when I can simply pick out your bank statements from the trash?

Essentially, disconnect from the wired world altogether. Or…. accept the reality of the web, that ANY information you put into it is somewhat vulnerable (so be careful about what you publish) and know that cookies aren’t that big a threat, and are definitely the least of your worries.

What are your thoughts about cookies and privacy?

(Thanks to Jacqueline Ng, Stéphane Hamel, Adrian Liem and my classmates at UBC for the great conversation and feedback.)

A university degree in web? Eventually. Until then, let's do something practical.

The transition period.

Arguably, what makes the web so powerful is that it exists at the intersection of all fields of study. Virtually every concentrations, from marketing to anthropology, computer science to fine arts now has to include some aspect of web in their curriculum. But before we start marching over to university provosts’ offices about lowering the requirements to teach web at universities, let’s take a step back and think about that. Firstly, we’re asking universities to lower their standards for some professors and create inequity between faculty members. Secondly, what credibility would there be for a program that was awarding university degrees by professors who didn’t hold one themselves? True, it has to start from somewhere – but the only way I see this happening is if professors, at least, have a degree in something related to the web. Universities are very bureaucratic environments often built on strong historical foundations. New technologies like computer science and nanotechnology have arrived in the past, and degrees were created – but definitely not by people without degrees themselves. No exception will be made for the web, nor should there be.

To say the field is still growing is an understatement.

The web only started being used commercially in the early nineties, and since then we’ve had at least two iterations of it, namely “2.0″ and “3.0″ (as artifical as those names are). Furthermore, not too long ago, all web duties were performed by a “webmaster”. Today, we have web specializations in visual design, user-experience design, information architecture, web analytics, web marketing, social media, back-end programing, and the list grows yearly. Until these specialties have matured and have been stable for a good five years, we can’t possibly expect a high-profile university to offer meaningful degrees in web. And while there is hope in the organizing bodies of the web (e.g., W3C and the like) in setting standards and best-practices, even they are still immature and hold relatively weak influence. (So weak is this influence that Microsoft still won’t release a sufficiently standards-compliant browser.)  The best approach, in my eyes, is to push for the expansion of other degrees to involve web-specific education. Get marketing professors to teach web marketing, computer scinece professors to teach PHP, etc and not just mention web topics in existing courses. Then when enough web-related courses are created, only then can we explore creating an entire degree. That takes time.

So what do we do in the meantime? It should be treated as a trade.

For a web degree to be useful it has to teach practical skills and techniques, not only theories and corollaries. So as much as web “professionals” would want university-level recognition, I believe that web work, web practical work, for the time-being, is destined to be taught as a trade. In a trade, practical, and up-to-date skills are taught, and students know well in advance that their skills will have to updated, and re-certified from time-to-time. Furthermore, trades are taught often with mentors – something I whole-heartedly promote. And eventually, as the field matures, I can see a more developed curriculum, with theories and research papers being taught in universities.

So until B.Web becomes a reality, I offer web workers this advice:

• Keep up-to-date with all things related to the web.
  I’m not saying to be an expert at everything, but at least read about new developments. This includes design, marketing, and analytics. Never stop learning.
• Join a network of web workers.
  You can’t be everywhere all the times, so having multiple ears out there about news, job openings, and new web courses and presentations will go a long way. If you hear of an event named anything with the word “camp” at the end of it – consider going.
• Don’t over specialize.
  Increase your worth and learn at least two specializations, like visual design and front-end development, or back-end programming and usability, or information architecture and web analytics. Not only does this make you more employable, but also it opens your mind to new opportunities where the two fields meet.
• Work on a site, even if it’s your own.
  Nothing beats practical experience. Build up a body of work. Take cheap contracts if you have to (but never free ones), set yourself tight deadlines, and establish some requirements just outside of your capabilities. Virtually every project will have a component you’re not completely comfortable with, and every project will be due yesterday – get used to it. That’s life in the web.
• Act professionally.
  Take yourself and your work seriously. Don’t call yourself a ninja. Be on time. Return calls. Speak and write maturely. Present yourself professionally. As an industry, if we don’t take ourselves seriously – why should others?
• Did I mention, keep up-to-date?
  Seriously. Moore’s law? It’s held for a while now, and I don’t see it giving up any time soon.

A B.Web will happen. It’s unavoidable. But it will take work and don’t let its absence stop you from diving in and keeping your skills fresh. Universities are slow, but the web will not wait for them, nor for you, to catch up.

So get out there and design, create, and innovate.

Do you see web being taught in universities? Is web work a profession or a trade? What are your thoughts?

Sometimes the solution to a complex problem is simple.

CNN recently hosted a debate over the ailing newspaper industry, touching on topics like newspaper publisher complacency, newspaper readership, and budget cutbacks. Whatever stance you take on the subject, one thing is clear, ad revenue for newspapers is drastically low this year. This shortage has forced some newspapers to go completely online, others to reduce home deliveries, and the rest to simply shut down operations completely.

Some have mentioned the web as a possible solution to the newspaper industry’s problems, but it still remains unclear what the complete business model would be. Essentially, the root of the problem is this:

Creating great content takes time and skill, where will the money come from?

A couple of hurdles the web poses for newspaper publishers are:

• The existence of a lot of lower priced (mostly free) alternatives.
  According to a recent study (one which I question the statistical analysis of), the internet has recently surpassed newspapers as a primary source of news. I attribute this preference to the real-time nature of news reporting on the web. The sheer number of bloggers and hobbyist journalists who report on news as it happens provides readers with an embarrassment of riches in terms of articles and content – and most of it for free. This makes it difficult for any newspaper to charge for their content, regardless of how good it is (though some would argue that this would be a good case for Freeconomics). Why pay to read an article when you can get one of approximately the same “value” for free?
• The fragmentation of content.
  According to some web marketers, in today’s high-tech world, content is severely fragmented. While in the past, one could place a commercial spot during the Super Bowl and be assured high-visibility, the emergence of TiVo’s and other technologies have made it possible for viewers to skip over ads. Similarly for the web, more and more content is atomized. Any particular article, can be found in a website, shared in social networks, transmitted in RSS feeds – placing ads within content just isn’t as simple or as effective anymore.

Faced with these obstacles, I guess I can see why some publishers have opted to shut down, fire staff and reduce production. But I feel that perhaps people are overlooking the most obvious solution:

Why don’t newspaper publishers simply charge more?

Call me crazy, but it seems to me that newspaper prices are hilariously low. The Montreal Gazette charges 89 cents for its Thursday issue. That’s five sections of high-quality writing, journalism, and photography for under a buck. The hard work of educated writers and graphic designers, and printers, sold for pocket change. Even a cup of coffee at the local Starbucks can easily cost three dollars, and all that took was a minimum wager and a coffee grinder (I know I’m exaggerating). But c’mon, a bar of chocolate at the corner store costs $1.15 – and it’s nothing but empty calories. And here’s the kicker: you can get the newspaper delivered to your home in a plastic bag for less! How does any of this make sense?

So here are my crazy suggestions for newspaper publishers if they want to maintain the print version of their publications (mind you I’m not an economist, and I’m probably overlooking something obvious like actual cost of publishing):

• How about only putting news and money generating content in the newspaper? I think a few pages could be cut here and there on most issues. Every penny counts.
• Believe in going online and what it can do for your print publication.
• Listen to what readers want. Run some surveys, create a community. Determine their wants and needs.
• Charge more than double for a newspaper. Charging the same price as a cup of quality coffee is not unreasonable.
• Charge more to deliver the newspaper to reader’s homes. I’m not saying charge more than the price at the newsstands, but I think the market can withstand a sizable increase.

Do you think there is hope for the newspaper industry? What are your thoughts?

Pew Research Center released a publication stating that the internet overtook newspapers as a news source.

Just this week, the Pew Research Center released a publication, “Internet Overtakes Newspapers as News Source“, which shows the proportion of people who use the internet as their major source of news several percentage points greater than that of people who use newspapers as their major source. However, after looking over some of Pew’s figures, I’m not sure if that’s the case quite yet.

There may not be a significant difference.

After some number crunching, I would not say there exists a significant difference (at least with a confidence interval of 95%) between the proportion of users that use the internet vs.  that of users who use newspapers as their major source for news. Furthermore, 19 times out of 20, the two proportions can actually be considered equal. In my eyes, just as many people still consider newspapers an important news source as those who prefer the internet.

The sum of the proportions are greater than 100%.

If you sum the total of all the news source proportions (television, newspapers, and internet), the total is 145%. This in itself wouldn’t raise my curiosity had the question been “What news sources do you use?”. However, the question apparently was “Where Do You Get Most of Your International and National news?”. I don’t know about you, but personally, “most” means that a respondent can only answer one choice. So, where did the extra 45% come from? The only explanation I can come up with is that respondents were allowed to select multiple “most”s – which would make trending and comparison difficult from year to year. The internet proportion may be increasing, not because people are changing preferences, but possibly because they are simply more aware of the internet.

So while I am sure that the internet will overtake print as the public’s source of news very soon, I think we’re still a while away from that reality, and I question the Pew Research Center’s judgement in releasing a publication titled, “Internet Overtakes Newspapers as News Source” with such questionable points other than to grab some headlines and perhaps funding. Regardless of the validy of this study (or my back-of-the-envelope analysis), perhaps a more interesting publication would have been one that analyzed which medium had the greatest influence towards a purchase. Now that’s a report that would be worth reading, and more in line with the Center’s goal of reporting “trends shaping America and the world“.

What are your thoughts?

Not all "Twitistics" are meainingful, most are are simply "mind-candy"

Over the last few weeks, I’ve read tweets from various tweeters proclaiming the size of their follower list, the number of direct messages they have, and percentages of this and that. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that, from time to time, I felt a bit of follower envy, however, after some thought and discussion with Jacqueline Ng,  I wondered what the big deal was. Do these stats really mean anything?

Like most statistics (though in this case, we’re dealing with population parameters), Twitter statistics (or “Twitistics” as I like to term them),  lack a point of reference for me. For instance, what does “65% @replies” actually mean? Is it someone engaging with many members of their community or is it a few lengthy back-and-forths with old school friends? And what does “engaging” actually mean to different tweeters? What was the original purpose of a user’s Twitter feed in the first place? Does the Twitter feed belong to a corporate brand, or a mother at home? What’s needed here is a point-of-reference, otherwise, why should we care?

Though I know first hand about the thrill of seeing my follower figure pass certain milestones,  all that is artificial. I know that the number of followers I have is meaningless just like the number of “hits” my website gets. What’s important here are the metrics that I value, as opposed to generic meaningless ones.

For instance, my personal goals on Twitter are to exchange ideas with others in the fields of web design/development, marketing, business and higher education, and to market my skills to potential employers (talk about transparency). Thus the metrics I value are:

• the number of followers I actually have interesting conversations with and
• the number of followers I have that hold positions of influence at companies I’d like to work for.

And metrics I don’t pay too much attention to are:

• Number of DMs
• Number of followers, etc

Furthermore, since these are my personal goals, I don’t feel the need to advertise them because these numbers have meaning only to me, while all the other numbers don’t and are just mind-candy.

So the next time you think about tweeting something like “I need only 1 more follower to crack 2000″, think about:

1. Does this 1 more follower actually mean anything to you?
2. How tweeting something like that reflects on you, i.e., will you come across as someone who values a followers opinion? or will you come across as a shallow person trying to simply build their follower list?