11 thoughts on “Week 4: Mass Interpersonal Persuasion: An Early View of a New Phenomenon”
MIP An Early View of a New Phenomenon by BJ Fogg
This reading acknowledges me to understand how to affect mass audiences with persuasive experiences. Mass Interpersonal Persuasion is an ongoing digital movement created both by creators and users. The advances in online social networks and utilities allow people to change their lives that is a shape of MIP. MIP will be available for ordinary people, even though who does not have a skill for writing codes. Also, this huge movement among the mass of people will change another’s distribution and persuasion through mass media. The sharing and distribution move fast.
MIP sets up either potential or frequent users’ expectations by providing a simple task. These expectations are related to people’s life. I can see many possibilities of MIP in our lives, providing persuasive experiences on their needs and purposes. Thus, MIP affects on people’s behaviors dynamically.
Reading informs us six components of successful MIP. The key point of view these six principles: 1. Persuasive Experiences to change people’s attitudes. 2. Automated Structure that systems of delivering experiences with fidelity. 3. Social Distribution that spreading from people to people. 4. Rapid Cycle 5. Huge social ties via interactions. 6. Measured Impact that observed by both creators and users. Simplest persuasion will lead a success. Clicking is the most simple action on online platform. However, if the context and content with clicking is complex for human that people might avoid to contribute even the simple clicking. This is about a human nature psychological cycle. Simple is the best way to change people’s behavior. So even strict, restrain, precise, narrow, and more crispy goal of desire reactions will be easier to achieve. From above all, creators must concern both aspects of psychology and systematic structure simultaneously. I can apply this principle to create a QS (Quantify Self) system. For an example, comparing to the Order Feedback Loop Model, first step will be a setting up a persuasive experiences that change self routine activities. For an instance, it can be useful for tracking consumptions of food and keeping in healthy. Simply clicking buttons on a device, designed for memorizing what kind of food and expired dates, or just scanning food with reading barcodes( usually read a information embedded on things) will assist to keep history of eating visually and people can see their daily food consumption patterns. This system can be made with web platform or some mobile devices that lead people to invite friends to join. If the activity is useful and fun to use then the more people will use them. So rapid cycle, or other components in Mass Interpersonal Persuasion will combine together to lead a successful result.
This system will be based on trusties between their personal relationships in real lives. People want to keep the shape of routine life, even they feel sometimes bored. Because the safe culture and secured private life. The online, or mobile platform would be the extension of their life style. So, active social network will complete MIP. We are a social animal, want to be belonged to one and another.
The future MIP, as this reading points out, the persuasion intent of creators will be affected by distributions if they are not on the same way. Mass media is not only a way of primary tool to diverse the life, but also, tools for participating improve and affecting others lives, as well. There could be a possibility to harm social networks. However, the world is composed by human nature and their social relations. We all need a better life that MIP leads to improve a healthy, enhanced, joyful, and peaceful life .
Still loving The Guru.
Aside from stating at the very beginning of the paper that we’re looking at a phenomenon emerging as of 2007, this was obviously written a couple of years ago because it talks a lot about the power of Facebook. It even mentions Bebo and Hi5 in there, too – and we chuckled. We did.
The Fogg does a nice job here again filtering shadows of our group behavior into crystal clear definition lists, and unless we’ve been sleeping under a rock since 9/11 we completely agreed and we weren’t overly surprised by anything in this definition. We’ve been playing Mafia Wars for a couple of years now, and yeah we know how persuasive it and MIP was in getting us to waste hours of our lives doing basically nothing.
Ok so we know we could have made a Facebook app a couple of years ago and made stupid cash on ad revenue asking people to trade carrots with each other at their virtual ho-down (or whatever it is people do on the farm there *sigh*) but the really interesting part of the article comes in section 7, when we start to come to terms with what is NOT important to MIP and The Fogg delivers the expected clarity.
1. the technology for MIP does NOT matter
2. the topic does NOT matter
3. the initial intent doesn’t necessarily matter, either
Ok, first off: screw Facebook. We’re mostly sick of it and it doesn’t really matter here does it? I mean, it’s the work horse in the equation of most of the examples cited but we’d be doing our imaginations a disservice to believe that it will be around forever or that there won’t be some new social crack to smoke in the future.
Third, the intent doesn’t necessarily matter. If the distributors have use for our product, but not in the way we intended then we go to hell. I like to think of the Masai tire sandal to illustrate this point. But this has very complex legal and IP implications if our persuasive experiences have been introduced into a network without having a solid understanding of how systems really work. Who gets the credit when this goes well, and who’s to blame when things go terribly wrong?
My first reaction is general: Fogg has mastery in writing articles with very clear driven purposes. He writes accessibly and non-academic. It’s a pleasure to read him.
This was an important article because it discussed how to extend behavioral change to a mass community, rather then designing for a single group of people for a singular behavior. The goal is to impact communities through changing attitudes behaviors or both. Communities are interesting because they often have a range of different people with different goals. Fogg clarifies this difficulty in that MIP focus on changing thoughts and behaviors not amusing them or informing them. The concept I would like to discuss from the article is the dichotomy of the simple behaviors these mass social networking sites utilize.
A social networking site usually is just a simple platform where users interject simplistic behaviors. Its goal is to have a series of interjected behaviors constantly coming and going (explained in his rapid cycle iteration). More over each site adds sub-platforms to inspire users to interject behaviors; an example would be the Facebook’s up date your status. Facebook also makes another sub-platform called the news feed. This platform organizes and reports back to the community about things that are happening. What makes this interesting is that community members begin interacting based on that platforms output. Not to get too deep in to this world of rapid cycle—The point is to keep the site fresh and interesting.
Overall this article gave me a better sense of how to understand the interaction between community sites and their users in the context of sub-behaviors. I have worked on several projects (fuzz.com and kiffets.com) all of which have been successful and unsuccessful in their own ways. I feel like if I read this article before I would have had more useful designs… Great read!
BJ Fogg lists six components that create a phenomenon he calls mass interpersonal persuasion (MIP): persuasive experience, automated infrastructure, social distribution, rapid cycle, huge social graph, and measured impact. Great stuff.
MIP is about empowering the ordinary individual with the power to persuade on a large scale. I see interesting parallels with how tech startups (and increasingly larger businesses as well) are run today – leveraging viral marketing or social media marketing, using data to drive decision making, and employing agile software practices; these are essentially all derivatives of the six components of MIP.
Given that a lot of examples were based on Facebook, I thought that the discussion about what is NOT important in MIP was especially interesting. Fogg states that the technology used does not determine whether a phenomenon can be considered MIP. Going beyond Facebook opens up a lot of possibilities – mobile, tablets, interactive TV, wireless sensing, networked 3d cameras – what would an MIP using those technologies look like? Going further would be considering how MIP could occur without computing technology at all. His example of a purposefully spreading a beneficial biological virus as a form of MIP offers a lot of food for thought.
I found this to be an interesting read, although in my mind I do have a hard time sorting between a ‘viral content’ and ‘MIP’. I know Fogg talks about how the viral content requires less than an MIP, but I just can’t separate the two in my head. I also don’t know if Facebook is the best example to give. Especially with all its privacy issues, I feel like it has lost a lot of trust. Not that that really stops the Facebook empire from growing, but I would have been curious to have Fogg address that. Below, once more, are my notes to self:
1. Persuasive Experience: An experience that is created to change attitudes,
behaviors, or both. (eg. Amber Phillips has added you as a Top Friend! Does Amber Phillips make your Top Friends?)
2. Automated Structure: Digital technology structures the persuasive
experience.
- the speed and simplicity of automated tasks
3. Social Distribution: The persuasive experience is shared from one friend to
another.
- social guarantee
4. Rapid Cycle: The persuasive experience can be distributed quickly from one
person to another.
- like all online trends. tumblr, popular things easy to share, build momentum
- unlike things like TiVo (took a while to grow on people)
5. Huge Social Graph: The persuasive experience can potentially reach
millions of people connected through social ties or structured interactions.
- massive amounts of ppl available
6. Measured Impact: The effect of the persuasive experience is observable by
users and creators.
How stats can help the experience:
- seeing how many ppl joined the group/see how large the accumulation/feel bad for not joining
- social proof it’s good
- helping creators improve persuasive experience
MIP does not equal Viral Adoption
- viral can do without: social raph, automation, rapid cycle, or measured impact
What doesn’t matter:
- the technology
- the topic
- the initial intent
This article is an interesting, if a little hyperbolic, presentation of the merits of the Fogg Behavioural Model when it’s used to inform the design of persuasive services experienced through online social networks. Platforms like Facebook now make it possible for the use of a persuasive service to be triggered by the actions of somebody in our social network – a friend installs an app and I see that they’ve installed it, or a friend recommends a service and I see that they’ve recommended it etc. – a type of person to person persuasion. More powerfully, persuasive services gain and maintain traction because they are adopted by groups of people who continually reinforce their usage. One person’s usage of Facebook is an encouragement for others in their social network to continue using Facebook. Leaving Facebook isn’t an option because it means “leaving” friends, or missing out on the detail of their lives. It’s a pretty straightforward form of social normalization – a habit becomes normalized by a group, and failing to adhere to a habit is seen as transgressive or other. I disagree with Fogg in that I think there are parallels to to this type of interpersonal persuasion practically everywhere; fashionable clothing, religion etc. What’s surprising is that most software up until now has totally ignored the psychological and social factors that might encourage adoption and/or usage by others. This is maybe less a comment on the novelty of the idea and more a comment on decades of linear thinking in the design of networked software. Everything we talk about in this article would have been possible 20 years ago – that’s not to say MIP is new.
This definition and breakdown of an MIP into the 6 major categories is super helpful when contextualizing a lot of the activities currently happening on the major social networks. I’d be curious to hear Fogg’s analysis of the distinction between the “like” feature in Facebook versus the “plus” feature in google/google plus.
In terms of “like,” Facebook has made this feature almost ever-present in that no matter what you are doing, the option to “like” is available. Examining it in the 6 categories – it encourages more traffic/attention to a piece of content, it’s automated, it def exists in the context of a massive social network, there’s a clear rapid cycle, the social graph exists, and there’s a definite measured impact. Overall, a user’s “like” behavior will affect their feeds within Facebook which adds an additional layer of feedback. Seems the “like” feature is a home run.
In terms of “plus,” this is a feature that Google has incorporated both in their Google+ social network and their normal search pages. Within the social network, the plus feature seems to resemble the like feature tit-for-tat, except that Google+ lacks the social graph of Facebook. However, what google doesn’t lack are people using their search engine. By incorporating the feature in that context, it would seem the “plus” takes on even greater significance in that search results can/will be affected you and your friends “plus” activity. The question is, are people using it? It’s likely the entire point of creating the Google+ social network was to get everyone comfortable with using the “plus” feature and ideally create more accurate, personalized search results (the question of whether more personalized search results is a good or bad thing is for another convo). Regardless, it will be interesting to see how the “plus” feature progresses as a means of MIP.
Of all the BJ Fogg articles we have read so far, this is the least impressive and certainly does not start the test of time as well as his other work. His writings are still enjoyable because of his clear style and the organization of his argument. Nonetheless, in the bigger picture, his argument about the power of Facebook is a bit overstated.
The article lays out a new term, “Mass Interpersonal Persuasion.” In much of the article, he describes a sensation which seems extremely similar to what most of us would call it when a video or article “goes viral.” The requisite six components needed in MIP are:
1. Persuasive Experience
2. Automated Structure
3. Social Distribution
4. Rapid Cycle
5. Huge Social Graph
6. Measured Impact.
Because Facebook has grown so popular, the act of MIP or something going viral is much easier. Plus, the personal nature of the networks make for a more compelling pitch since it is supposedly coming from your friend.
His class at Stanford built apps for their class and had impressive numbers as a result. 16 million people installed their apps and they had over 1 million daily users.
These of course are astounding. But when I hear his example of supporting causes such as helping Burmese monks, I cannot but think of Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article where he disputed the power of social to make real change. Should even a few million Americans click on a link to support Burmese monks, is there really any genuine change on the other side of the world? Doubtful. Which calls into question the first components of Fogg’s MIP. Are these truly persuasive arguments?
I wish Fogg had presented a stronger argument on why MIP differs from his Facebook example. In fact, it seems almost cliche that applications on Facebook do well, especially when the whole service is free and requires no time or effort spent on the associated causes.
In time, I believe Facebook users will grow more cynical about these apps just as we have grown immune to a large percentage of advertising. Fogg happened to conduct his experiment at a time of rapid growth and as such, earned a clear reward. But now that a few years have passed, he should go back, look at the group supporting Burmese monks and see what real change occurred? How many people participated offline in a way that required time, effort or money? These numbers are just as important for his argument.
I related to this article like crazy. I was in Burma in the fall of 2006 while on semester at sea. The country is amazing, the monks are amazing and governmental situation is RIDICULOUS!!! So like everyone on the ship joined a support Burma facebook group. The one of the time was “US Campaign for Burma.” I read a lot about it when I first joined and it seemed like a good thing. But to be honest. This situation is Burma is still bad and Though I joined this group I have done very little since to support in any way (i fell bad about it).
One critique about facebook. I wen back to look at my what my present relationship was to US campaign for Burma. No one can be a member of this group anymore. I only “like” Us Campaign for Burma. This highlights that MIPs require a level of consistency and understand by the users to be effective. Yes people may be able to see that I like a cause but what actionable steps are either of presented with that will make a difference.
Go BURMA!!
Between the lines, I found a message along the reading, Keep it simple. This is very important, because what I found is that sometimes we think that obvious things doesn’t have to be shown or explain, and actually those are simple, easy to run and easy to analyzed, because we are used to.
I agree with Doug, I would like to see MIP applied to something different from Facebook. It still has some relevant things but is hard to imagine other examples.
Also, why do I think that the Standford class had success?? Because they weren’t thinking about making money. They were focus in understanding the user, no matter what the result could be. Probably as a class, they took their time to fail, and between proof and test, they achieve their goals.
I’m getting addicted to Fogg’s writing. He talks about MIP with great clarityand although the example of facebook and the way that it’s persuasive is very familiar to many of us, but I liked the part where he talks of what is not important in MIP. The fact that the technology, topic and initial intent of the creator carries less weight than one would have imagined did surprise me, but when he explains it in the context of facebook, seems more obvious. It’s interesting how the structure of MIP also makes it sticky. I’ve known people who vowed never to join facebook capitulate because of the social distribution aspect of it. I’ve thought of leaving facebook, only to feel like I’d be missing out on the little details of people’s lives that believe it or not do make me feel connected to them.
The Rapid Cycle is a powerful phenomenon because it fulfills our need for instant gratification, in this case the feeling of having changed the world with two clicks in 2 mins.
There was a moment of being aware of how behind all the “connections” and “Top Friends” and “sharing” of sometimes highly emotional moments, lies cold hard numbers or metrics. In a way, our participation is manipulated through the right phrases, images and evoking of trust, but it’s nothing that advertising, ritual or any other medium hasn’t done before. The difference now lies in the numbers and speed. The moment of awareness notwithstanding, I love that the scope for MIP is larger than it’s ever been and that the potential for good has never been greater. A startling example of this has been the determined campaign o find a bone marrow match for Amit Gupta. From Amit’s friends to Seth Godin, MIP tools such as facebook & twitter have been deployed in the U.S & abroad to get people swabbing or to get them to attend swab parties. If Amit is able to find a match through this, then something magical would have happened through a platform that started as a college rating site.
MIP An Early View of a New Phenomenon by BJ Fogg
This reading acknowledges me to understand how to affect mass audiences with persuasive experiences. Mass Interpersonal Persuasion is an ongoing digital movement created both by creators and users. The advances in online social networks and utilities allow people to change their lives that is a shape of MIP. MIP will be available for ordinary people, even though who does not have a skill for writing codes. Also, this huge movement among the mass of people will change another’s distribution and persuasion through mass media. The sharing and distribution move fast.
MIP sets up either potential or frequent users’ expectations by providing a simple task. These expectations are related to people’s life. I can see many possibilities of MIP in our lives, providing persuasive experiences on their needs and purposes. Thus, MIP affects on people’s behaviors dynamically.
Reading informs us six components of successful MIP. The key point of view these six principles: 1. Persuasive Experiences to change people’s attitudes. 2. Automated Structure that systems of delivering experiences with fidelity. 3. Social Distribution that spreading from people to people. 4. Rapid Cycle 5. Huge social ties via interactions. 6. Measured Impact that observed by both creators and users. Simplest persuasion will lead a success. Clicking is the most simple action on online platform. However, if the context and content with clicking is complex for human that people might avoid to contribute even the simple clicking. This is about a human nature psychological cycle. Simple is the best way to change people’s behavior. So even strict, restrain, precise, narrow, and more crispy goal of desire reactions will be easier to achieve. From above all, creators must concern both aspects of psychology and systematic structure simultaneously. I can apply this principle to create a QS (Quantify Self) system. For an example, comparing to the Order Feedback Loop Model, first step will be a setting up a persuasive experiences that change self routine activities. For an instance, it can be useful for tracking consumptions of food and keeping in healthy. Simply clicking buttons on a device, designed for memorizing what kind of food and expired dates, or just scanning food with reading barcodes( usually read a information embedded on things) will assist to keep history of eating visually and people can see their daily food consumption patterns. This system can be made with web platform or some mobile devices that lead people to invite friends to join. If the activity is useful and fun to use then the more people will use them. So rapid cycle, or other components in Mass Interpersonal Persuasion will combine together to lead a successful result.
This system will be based on trusties between their personal relationships in real lives. People want to keep the shape of routine life, even they feel sometimes bored. Because the safe culture and secured private life. The online, or mobile platform would be the extension of their life style. So, active social network will complete MIP. We are a social animal, want to be belonged to one and another.
The future MIP, as this reading points out, the persuasion intent of creators will be affected by distributions if they are not on the same way. Mass media is not only a way of primary tool to diverse the life, but also, tools for participating improve and affecting others lives, as well. There could be a possibility to harm social networks. However, the world is composed by human nature and their social relations. We all need a better life that MIP leads to improve a healthy, enhanced, joyful, and peaceful life .
Still loving The Guru.
Aside from stating at the very beginning of the paper that we’re looking at a phenomenon emerging as of 2007, this was obviously written a couple of years ago because it talks a lot about the power of Facebook. It even mentions Bebo and Hi5 in there, too – and we chuckled. We did.
The Fogg does a nice job here again filtering shadows of our group behavior into crystal clear definition lists, and unless we’ve been sleeping under a rock since 9/11 we completely agreed and we weren’t overly surprised by anything in this definition. We’ve been playing Mafia Wars for a couple of years now, and yeah we know how persuasive it and MIP was in getting us to waste hours of our lives doing basically nothing.
Ok so we know we could have made a Facebook app a couple of years ago and made stupid cash on ad revenue asking people to trade carrots with each other at their virtual ho-down (or whatever it is people do on the farm there *sigh*) but the really interesting part of the article comes in section 7, when we start to come to terms with what is NOT important to MIP and The Fogg delivers the expected clarity.
1. the technology for MIP does NOT matter
2. the topic does NOT matter
3. the initial intent doesn’t necessarily matter, either
Ok, first off: screw Facebook. We’re mostly sick of it and it doesn’t really matter here does it? I mean, it’s the work horse in the equation of most of the examples cited but we’d be doing our imaginations a disservice to believe that it will be around forever or that there won’t be some new social crack to smoke in the future.
Second, the topic doesn’t matter. “…the persuasive intent could be frivolous or it could be downright evil.” Dude – loving it. We can pack a theater with this idea. Did you hear about the virus that convinced its catepillar hosts to climb to the tops of trees so that when it eventually liquified its hosts’ bodies the ooze would rain an infective acid down on new hosts? Did the technology matter here? I guess not and I suppose the devious nature of the virus didn’t make it any less, *ah hem*, viral.
Third, the intent doesn’t necessarily matter. If the distributors have use for our product, but not in the way we intended then we go to hell. I like to think of the Masai tire sandal to illustrate this point. But this has very complex legal and IP implications if our persuasive experiences have been introduced into a network without having a solid understanding of how systems really work. Who gets the credit when this goes well, and who’s to blame when things go terribly wrong?
My first reaction is general: Fogg has mastery in writing articles with very clear driven purposes. He writes accessibly and non-academic. It’s a pleasure to read him.
This was an important article because it discussed how to extend behavioral change to a mass community, rather then designing for a single group of people for a singular behavior. The goal is to impact communities through changing attitudes behaviors or both. Communities are interesting because they often have a range of different people with different goals. Fogg clarifies this difficulty in that MIP focus on changing thoughts and behaviors not amusing them or informing them. The concept I would like to discuss from the article is the dichotomy of the simple behaviors these mass social networking sites utilize.
A social networking site usually is just a simple platform where users interject simplistic behaviors. Its goal is to have a series of interjected behaviors constantly coming and going (explained in his rapid cycle iteration). More over each site adds sub-platforms to inspire users to interject behaviors; an example would be the Facebook’s up date your status. Facebook also makes another sub-platform called the news feed. This platform organizes and reports back to the community about things that are happening. What makes this interesting is that community members begin interacting based on that platforms output. Not to get too deep in to this world of rapid cycle—The point is to keep the site fresh and interesting.
Overall this article gave me a better sense of how to understand the interaction between community sites and their users in the context of sub-behaviors. I have worked on several projects (fuzz.com and kiffets.com) all of which have been successful and unsuccessful in their own ways. I feel like if I read this article before I would have had more useful designs… Great read!
BJ Fogg lists six components that create a phenomenon he calls mass interpersonal persuasion (MIP): persuasive experience, automated infrastructure, social distribution, rapid cycle, huge social graph, and measured impact. Great stuff.
MIP is about empowering the ordinary individual with the power to persuade on a large scale. I see interesting parallels with how tech startups (and increasingly larger businesses as well) are run today – leveraging viral marketing or social media marketing, using data to drive decision making, and employing agile software practices; these are essentially all derivatives of the six components of MIP.
Given that a lot of examples were based on Facebook, I thought that the discussion about what is NOT important in MIP was especially interesting. Fogg states that the technology used does not determine whether a phenomenon can be considered MIP. Going beyond Facebook opens up a lot of possibilities – mobile, tablets, interactive TV, wireless sensing, networked 3d cameras – what would an MIP using those technologies look like? Going further would be considering how MIP could occur without computing technology at all. His example of a purposefully spreading a beneficial biological virus as a form of MIP offers a lot of food for thought.
I found this to be an interesting read, although in my mind I do have a hard time sorting between a ‘viral content’ and ‘MIP’. I know Fogg talks about how the viral content requires less than an MIP, but I just can’t separate the two in my head. I also don’t know if Facebook is the best example to give. Especially with all its privacy issues, I feel like it has lost a lot of trust. Not that that really stops the Facebook empire from growing, but I would have been curious to have Fogg address that. Below, once more, are my notes to self:
1. Persuasive Experience: An experience that is created to change attitudes,
behaviors, or both. (eg. Amber Phillips has added you as a Top Friend! Does Amber Phillips make your Top Friends?)
2. Automated Structure: Digital technology structures the persuasive
experience.
- the speed and simplicity of automated tasks
3. Social Distribution: The persuasive experience is shared from one friend to
another.
- social guarantee
4. Rapid Cycle: The persuasive experience can be distributed quickly from one
person to another.
- like all online trends. tumblr, popular things easy to share, build momentum
- unlike things like TiVo (took a while to grow on people)
5. Huge Social Graph: The persuasive experience can potentially reach
millions of people connected through social ties or structured interactions.
- massive amounts of ppl available
6. Measured Impact: The effect of the persuasive experience is observable by
users and creators.
How stats can help the experience:
- seeing how many ppl joined the group/see how large the accumulation/feel bad for not joining
- social proof it’s good
- helping creators improve persuasive experience
MIP does not equal Viral Adoption
- viral can do without: social raph, automation, rapid cycle, or measured impact
What doesn’t matter:
- the technology
- the topic
- the initial intent
This article is an interesting, if a little hyperbolic, presentation of the merits of the Fogg Behavioural Model when it’s used to inform the design of persuasive services experienced through online social networks. Platforms like Facebook now make it possible for the use of a persuasive service to be triggered by the actions of somebody in our social network – a friend installs an app and I see that they’ve installed it, or a friend recommends a service and I see that they’ve recommended it etc. – a type of person to person persuasion. More powerfully, persuasive services gain and maintain traction because they are adopted by groups of people who continually reinforce their usage. One person’s usage of Facebook is an encouragement for others in their social network to continue using Facebook. Leaving Facebook isn’t an option because it means “leaving” friends, or missing out on the detail of their lives. It’s a pretty straightforward form of social normalization – a habit becomes normalized by a group, and failing to adhere to a habit is seen as transgressive or other. I disagree with Fogg in that I think there are parallels to to this type of interpersonal persuasion practically everywhere; fashionable clothing, religion etc. What’s surprising is that most software up until now has totally ignored the psychological and social factors that might encourage adoption and/or usage by others. This is maybe less a comment on the novelty of the idea and more a comment on decades of linear thinking in the design of networked software. Everything we talk about in this article would have been possible 20 years ago – that’s not to say MIP is new.
This definition and breakdown of an MIP into the 6 major categories is super helpful when contextualizing a lot of the activities currently happening on the major social networks. I’d be curious to hear Fogg’s analysis of the distinction between the “like” feature in Facebook versus the “plus” feature in google/google plus.
In terms of “like,” Facebook has made this feature almost ever-present in that no matter what you are doing, the option to “like” is available. Examining it in the 6 categories – it encourages more traffic/attention to a piece of content, it’s automated, it def exists in the context of a massive social network, there’s a clear rapid cycle, the social graph exists, and there’s a definite measured impact. Overall, a user’s “like” behavior will affect their feeds within Facebook which adds an additional layer of feedback. Seems the “like” feature is a home run.
In terms of “plus,” this is a feature that Google has incorporated both in their Google+ social network and their normal search pages. Within the social network, the plus feature seems to resemble the like feature tit-for-tat, except that Google+ lacks the social graph of Facebook. However, what google doesn’t lack are people using their search engine. By incorporating the feature in that context, it would seem the “plus” takes on even greater significance in that search results can/will be affected you and your friends “plus” activity. The question is, are people using it? It’s likely the entire point of creating the Google+ social network was to get everyone comfortable with using the “plus” feature and ideally create more accurate, personalized search results (the question of whether more personalized search results is a good or bad thing is for another convo). Regardless, it will be interesting to see how the “plus” feature progresses as a means of MIP.
Of all the BJ Fogg articles we have read so far, this is the least impressive and certainly does not start the test of time as well as his other work. His writings are still enjoyable because of his clear style and the organization of his argument. Nonetheless, in the bigger picture, his argument about the power of Facebook is a bit overstated.
The article lays out a new term, “Mass Interpersonal Persuasion.” In much of the article, he describes a sensation which seems extremely similar to what most of us would call it when a video or article “goes viral.” The requisite six components needed in MIP are:
1. Persuasive Experience
2. Automated Structure
3. Social Distribution
4. Rapid Cycle
5. Huge Social Graph
6. Measured Impact.
Because Facebook has grown so popular, the act of MIP or something going viral is much easier. Plus, the personal nature of the networks make for a more compelling pitch since it is supposedly coming from your friend.
His class at Stanford built apps for their class and had impressive numbers as a result. 16 million people installed their apps and they had over 1 million daily users.
These of course are astounding. But when I hear his example of supporting causes such as helping Burmese monks, I cannot but think of Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article where he disputed the power of social to make real change. Should even a few million Americans click on a link to support Burmese monks, is there really any genuine change on the other side of the world? Doubtful. Which calls into question the first components of Fogg’s MIP. Are these truly persuasive arguments?
I wish Fogg had presented a stronger argument on why MIP differs from his Facebook example. In fact, it seems almost cliche that applications on Facebook do well, especially when the whole service is free and requires no time or effort spent on the associated causes.
In time, I believe Facebook users will grow more cynical about these apps just as we have grown immune to a large percentage of advertising. Fogg happened to conduct his experiment at a time of rapid growth and as such, earned a clear reward. But now that a few years have passed, he should go back, look at the group supporting Burmese monks and see what real change occurred? How many people participated offline in a way that required time, effort or money? These numbers are just as important for his argument.
I related to this article like crazy. I was in Burma in the fall of 2006 while on semester at sea. The country is amazing, the monks are amazing and governmental situation is RIDICULOUS!!! So like everyone on the ship joined a support Burma facebook group. The one of the time was “US Campaign for Burma.” I read a lot about it when I first joined and it seemed like a good thing. But to be honest. This situation is Burma is still bad and Though I joined this group I have done very little since to support in any way (i fell bad about it).
One critique about facebook. I wen back to look at my what my present relationship was to US campaign for Burma. No one can be a member of this group anymore. I only “like” Us Campaign for Burma. This highlights that MIPs require a level of consistency and understand by the users to be effective. Yes people may be able to see that I like a cause but what actionable steps are either of presented with that will make a difference.
Go BURMA!!
Between the lines, I found a message along the reading, Keep it simple. This is very important, because what I found is that sometimes we think that obvious things doesn’t have to be shown or explain, and actually those are simple, easy to run and easy to analyzed, because we are used to.
I agree with Doug, I would like to see MIP applied to something different from Facebook. It still has some relevant things but is hard to imagine other examples.
Also, why do I think that the Standford class had success?? Because they weren’t thinking about making money. They were focus in understanding the user, no matter what the result could be. Probably as a class, they took their time to fail, and between proof and test, they achieve their goals.
I’m getting addicted to Fogg’s writing. He talks about MIP with great clarityand although the example of facebook and the way that it’s persuasive is very familiar to many of us, but I liked the part where he talks of what is not important in MIP. The fact that the technology, topic and initial intent of the creator carries less weight than one would have imagined did surprise me, but when he explains it in the context of facebook, seems more obvious. It’s interesting how the structure of MIP also makes it sticky. I’ve known people who vowed never to join facebook capitulate because of the social distribution aspect of it. I’ve thought of leaving facebook, only to feel like I’d be missing out on the little details of people’s lives that believe it or not do make me feel connected to them.
The Rapid Cycle is a powerful phenomenon because it fulfills our need for instant gratification, in this case the feeling of having changed the world with two clicks in 2 mins.
There was a moment of being aware of how behind all the “connections” and “Top Friends” and “sharing” of sometimes highly emotional moments, lies cold hard numbers or metrics. In a way, our participation is manipulated through the right phrases, images and evoking of trust, but it’s nothing that advertising, ritual or any other medium hasn’t done before. The difference now lies in the numbers and speed. The moment of awareness notwithstanding, I love that the scope for MIP is larger than it’s ever been and that the potential for good has never been greater. A startling example of this has been the determined campaign o find a bone marrow match for Amit Gupta. From Amit’s friends to Seth Godin, MIP tools such as facebook & twitter have been deployed in the U.S & abroad to get people swabbing or to get them to attend swab parties. If Amit is able to find a match through this, then something magical would have happened through a platform that started as a college rating site.