Daniel Dixon | EMEA Windows Live Product Specialist
With so many online campaigns running, especially in the world of Social Media; you can follow a sequence of events, a persons’ life, celebrity blog’s or dive into online environments in Social arenas that belong to a sports team or individual the list goes on……..well, just who’s ideas, work or initiatives are you actually reading or following…. and more to the point….does it matter? Let me give you a couple of examples – I’m directly involved with Windows Live Agents; a Messenger contact which you can interact with, converse with, joke with or even play games with. These Agents are of course programmed and in fact you are interacting with a pre programmed Messenger contact, not a person. However, these can of course take on the personality of a person, a celebrity etc such to the extent that they can react and ’speak’ in the same or similar mannerisms as of those they are representing. Take for example the award winning Agent ‘Talk to Frank’ – now, you’re not actually talking to Frank as it were….but a pre programmed Messenger Agent. The point being though is that this is a different approach to the normal channels. Talk to Frank is a government initiative to offer advice and answers to drug users – often minors that might not otherwise feel comfortable in speaking or confiding in their parents or maybe not able to use the phone to speak to someone in person. To use an Agent which provides comprehensive answers obtained from reliable resources offers a one to one experience in a private discussion……It offers a beneficial experience and source of help to the user…which is a benefit, right? Heard of the I’M Initiative? Well, there’s another example. Here’s a link to a piece I read recently on Ignite Social Media and maybe it will help you decide?
We all know of instances in the media of real individuals hiding behind false identities and the risks this can involve for the unknowing but……say if the reason is for marketing a brand campaign or providing a service or area of support and it benefits users either through knowledge, support…….are they any more of an actor or actress but maybe just in a different forum to that of the traditional TV, Cinema, Theatre….
Until next time..
Daniel,
Thanks for the shout out. To me, the major issues are around intent and disclosure. If you’re creating a persona that you’re pretending is real, that’s not ok. Ideally, creating a persona at all isn’t ideal, unless it’s an integral part of the “deal” and it’s either wildly obvious or, better yet, disclosed.
To often, traditional marketers and PR people think about social media “campaigns” and in those worlds, campaigns have fictional people all the time. We need to be careful in the social media world.
~Jim
Hi Jim,
Exactly!!!… and to a tee – intent and disclosure are key – we have, as a nation created personas through many different genres and now the internet is the latest opportunity and forum for this to happen.
The social media world is commonly briefed for online campaigns to include fictional participation and it is in many circumstances with the technology we use, a world of impressive technological possibility and for this and other reasons we need to be careful here.
Thanks
Dan
Hi Daniel
If I understood correctly you’re involved in the windows live agents, right?
I’m currently finishing a masters degree in engineering informatics in portugal, my final work is to develop an agent. I wonder if you can give me some documents/links that speak a little more about the technology/algorithms that are used.
You can indicate something? Can we talk by mail?
Thanks,
André