A Use Case for Identity XML - Demographic Surveys
31 Mar 2006 in Customer Relationship, Identity, Intention Economy, Metrics, Research by GarrickStowe Boyd’s running a reader survey. I’ve followed Stowe from Get Real to /Message and thought I’d check out the survey.
Standard demographic stuff; age, gender, household income, zip code, employment status, profession, internet usage, etc. Those common questions attempting to build an anonymous picture of people without actually getting involved with them.
Reading through the questions, the myth of blogs-as-conversation fell away. Stowe doesn’t know who I am - or you are - at all.
If he did, he wouldn’t need to ask these questions - because we’ve already answered them. All of us. Somewhere - if only at the BackBeat Media survey, or in our My.Yahoo.com.
I’d don’t mind giving this info. It’s just annoying to answer the same question twice. I’d much rather just point a URL at the survey.
In the same way I’d prefer to point a URL at my current photo than upload it _again_ to another website (43things, Stikipad, Eventful, or Amazon, Technorati etc).
I’m wondering if there’s an XML specification (or something like it) for the basic identity info all these surveys (read marketers) want. For example:
<BirthYear>1974</BirthYear>
<Gender>M</Gender>
<ZIP>55418</ZIP>
<ChildrenCount>1</ChildrenCount>
I could spin a file with this info, host it, maintain it, and provide brief glimpses into for the right price (so could you).
Yes, this is the Customer as Silo idea, feels like there’s some intention economy connection as well. No, I didn’t complete the survey.
Comments (3)
[...] For better or worse - all the measurement systems listed thus far are isolated and non-portable (pointing your eBay rating at a potential consulting client means little). Maybe I should dust off my Identity XML thinking. Managing access to a bunch of Identity.xml files sounds far more useful than YAIS (Yet Another Identity Silo). [...]
Working Pathways » Blurring Identity to Clear It Up added these pithy words on Jan 05 07 at 12:42 pmStowe Boyd added these pithy words on Apr 01 06 at 9:00 amIt’s really a survey for Federated Media — for advertisers. I know who you are, but they don’t.
Garrick Van Buren added these pithy words on Apr 01 06 at 9:25 amThanks Stowe.
That’s my point, advertisers are at least 2 degrees away from our relationship and looking for a way to get involved on their terms.
As a reader, the best ad is something the author finds interesting enough to talk about - if not just link to. I’ve talked about this before .
