Business-Consumer Networks. Project Proposal by Yury Lifshits

Business-Consumer Networks Yury Lifshits Caltech http://yury.name Saint Petersburg, 17 January 2008 1 / 25

Project Objectives Goal: to design a web technology that serves as a universal tool for business-consumer communication Outputs: paper, community, prototype Time constraints: 3 months 2 / 25

Informal Idea Business-Consumer Networks: Nodes: businesses, consumers Fan links: who likes which brand 3 / 25

Outline 1 Vision 2 Social Design 3 Information Architecture 4 Implementation Issues 5 Algorithms 6 Conclusions 4 / 25

1 Vision 5 / 25

Two Worlds Private life and business life: Home and ofﬁce Business cell phone and private cell phone Facebook and ??? 6 / 25

Two Worlds Private life and business life: Home and ofﬁce Business cell phone and private cell phone Facebook and ??? Next few years: urbanization of the Web 6 / 25

Business Identity Reference point Accumulating reputation Active: sending messages, organizing events Interactive: answers questions 7 / 25

B2C Functions Marketing Providing information about business Loyalty programs Special offers Organizing fan movement Afﬁliated marketing Customer relationship management Collecting feedback Accumulating data Market research Sales Hiring 8 / 25

C2B Functions Product search, shopping Local search Getting recommendations Sharing experience Customer support Freelance 9 / 25

Business Web is Not Here Yet Social networks are positioned as a tool for private communication Most web services are developed with focus on customers, not businesses Disintegration of services and networks, non-convertibility of reputation Lack of analytic tools: learning and measuring customers 10 / 25

2 Social Design 11 / 25

Social Design Deﬁne rules of the system and economic incentives to motivate: Experience sharing Communication activities “White” marketing, fair competition Interest-driven browsing Self-organization Evangelism marketing 12 / 25

Question List Usage scenarios? Reputation rules? Promotion tools? Privacy policy? Business model? Starting platform? Role of grassroots? Partnership strategy? Starting ID? Deleting fake IDs? Snowball mechanism? Rewarding early adopters? 13 / 25

3 Information Architecture 14 / 25

Components of Information Architecture Entities Communication tools Search and navigation Notiﬁcation system Relations with the big Web Policies Reputations Information ﬂows 15 / 25

Things to Think About Privacy: private, friends-only, network-only, public, XML access, API access Communication tools: blogs, messages, forums, Q&A, reviews, requests Entities: customers, businesses, products, communities, fanpages, listings/offers News feed architecture: top products/companies, friend news, voted stories Interruption policy: who can speak with whom? Market research tools, CRM tools Role of widgets 16 / 25

4 Implementation Issues 17 / 25

Implementation Issues Web application framework Data formatting (FOAF, semantic web). New formats? API policy, widgets Open ID. Business ID? Distributed vs. centralized? Billing tools Integration with mobile devices Upload client for business accounts 18 / 25

5 Algorithms 19 / 25

Algorithmic Challenges Ads Recommendations Search News feeds Computing reputations Discovery algorithms Fighting social spam Market research algorithms 20 / 25

Conclusions 21 / 25

Participate in the Project Participate in designing business web Technology partnership: infrastructure, services User base partnership Funding Engineers support 22 / 25

Participate in the Project Participate in designing business web Technology partnership: infrastructure, services User base partnership Funding Engineers support Be a member of our prototype team! 22 / 25

Topics for Discussion Critics? Threats? Which ideas do you like? Comments to vision? How to start? Ideas for social design? Information architecture? Implementation? Algorithms? Partnership? 23 / 25

Topics for Discussion Critics? Threats? Which ideas do you like? Comments to vision? How to start? Ideas for social design? Information architecture? Implementation? Algorithms? Partnership? How can you contribute? 23 / 25

Links and Contacts http://yury.name http://yury-lifshits.livejournal.com http://yurylifshits.habr.ru +1 626 463 3668 +7 904 331 0563 yury@caltech.edu Yury Lifshits: Facebook, LinkedIn 24 / 25

Thanks for your attention! Questions? 25 / 25

Business-Consumer Networks. Project Proposal by Yury Lifshits

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