Monday, December 13, 2010

Intersect: Idea and Implementation



It’s easy to get me excited about an idea. It’s hard to get me excited about the prospect of an idea turning into anything more than just an idea. I bottom-line their practical implementations so fast that I tend to see much more crashing and burning than I do success and paradigm shifting. 

When I was sent a beta-user invite to Intersect a few months ago, I didn’t know what to think of it. My initial thought was, “Seriously? Another social networking site? Another geo-location thing? Ack.”  I could not immediately see either a purpose or a sustainable business model that wasn’t already being parsed by countless other online entities. Facebook? Twitter? Foursquare? Yelp?

So I played with it for a while, and it grew on me. Then I spoke with Monica Harrington, CMO at Intersect, and asked her why they were throwing a new stake into a very crowded field.

“We live in a world where there’s just a flood of information going by and you get this sense that if you are not constantly in that stream, it’s hard to catch up. The way stories come through, they’re all immediate, ‘right now,’ stories,” Monica explains. She’s right. It’s stressful, and pointless. “But so many of the really important stories are told over time,” she continues, “and they’re best told from a variety of perspectives. Ultimately, you want stories told by the people who are closest to the action.”

I agree with her, and would add that you want stories told that have some purpose, besides getting you annoyed by a politician or frightened by a spreading threat. In the world of social media and geo-location, there’s a lot of noise, and very little useful signal.  (Which translates into a lot of buzz, but no clear path to lasting relationships and recurring revenue.)

But Intersect is different. Intersect is - in my words - a site that allows you to share information about places and events that matter to you, in a way that is more about promoting the places than yourself. However, because your voice is “known,” it is more credible to readers, and because the stories continue to exist in a time and place in the past, you are not opening yourself up to being stalked and tracked in the present. This can be powerful for people and businesses that are trying to build brand, affinity, revenue and a thriving community. That intersection of passion and purpose sounds like money, to me.

WHO
Sites like Twitter and Facebook do a great job of keeping me connected to people that I know and / or trust. But they don’t do much to impact my life in a real-world way. Then there are sites like Yelp, that I may turn to in order to find something, but those reviews mean very little to me, because I don’t know who those people are.

Intersect lives right at the spot where the reviews hit the real road. By following people that I know I trust, I can discover new places and products. Or, by looking up products and places, I can read reviews and learn about the reviewer to assess whether or not our opinions jibe.

It’s like everything that was once magical about Judy’s Book, before they forgot about their users. It’s the power of discovery from Yelp, but with background checks. This is a good start.

WHAT
Stories on Intersect are not blogs about people’s lives. Generally speaking, the intent is to tell little stories about times and places that might matter to people.  The best sandwich ever at a new deli, or your favorite butcher, or a great park. The idea is to share experiences in a way that may inspire others to try them also. Or maybe just inspire a thought that will improve either the community or sense of community.

Why does this matter? From a personal perspective, I think that most people are looking for something new to try, or something better. Likewise, I think that people want to promote the people, places and businesses that matter to them.  Combine the two and you could have a sticky user community.

But from a business perspective, this is bridging the gap between online and real world. It’s like Groupon with a soul (and without the deal, but, something tells me we can expect to see that soon. At least, that’s where I’d head if I were them.)
 
?WHEN
This intersection of Time and Place is what matters to me. As I’ve said before, I will never use a program that tells someone where I am at any given time. It is not safe, period. However, there are lots of places I’d love to support, just not in real time. Intersect allows me to tell you that Columbia City Bakery has the best pretzels in Seattle, without telling you when I am there. I get to promote a local business without exposing myself. Excellent.
?
WHERE
I am not limited to sharing or discovering stories about where I live. If I am visiting my sister in Ann Arbor, I can tell you about Zingermanns, and believe me, you want to know about Zingermanns.  Most of our lives are not silos. We take daytrips and vacations, and we discover things that are worthy of sharing. But I don’t want to have change my zipcode, or choose another city or….  I just want to share something wonderful that you may like. Don’t fence me in.
 
?WHY
Here’s why I think Intersect just might work – and shift paradigms. As every social-networking site has shown us, people like to feel connected, and they like to feel heard. Intersect nails that, as do many others. What makes them different is that they can promote a virtuous cycle of feeling connected to a community, BY being heard and promoting that community.

The reason that matters is because they will likely be able to make the shift to monetization without pissing off their users. By using existing hyper-local ad models, and even group buying models, they will allow my stories to actually drive customers to the businesses and neighborhoods that I care about, without pissing me off. If I write a story about how Andaluz, in Columbia City is the best little shop in the city,  and Intersect can send customers there by offering them a coupon on my story, I am thrilled. It would actually inspire me to create more content by making me feel respected, empowered and successful at promoting something that matters to me.

Hyper-local and timely are Holy Grails in online advertising, but not easy to get your hands on without annoying throngs of angry users. (Again, Judy’s Book. Oops.) We’re seeing hyper-local content sites trying to get a handle on this market, but that content is expensive to create and I don’t see it working. But Intersect has a shot at it.

Monica agrees, “ if intersect can become a place where individuals have fun and share authentic stories, and also the companies and organizations that they find interesting, then we think there’s a business opportunity.”

So, I’ll admit it, my hopes are up on this one. I like it. I think it has legs.

And it’s not just because of algorithms and networks, Monica and I both agree that this might tap into the ultimate virtuous cycle that actually bonds communities. In her words, with which I agree, “Society works best when there’s a healthy intersection of things that make us feel best as individuals, and a thriving business community that people feel good about.” Those two things support each other, and that’s a sustainable business.
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You can read Alyssa Royse's in-depth thoughts on her blog, or check out her short observations on Intersect, and learn about her favorite butcher (as well as the favorite butchers of everyone who commented.) And if Bob sells more beef as a result, she will be thrilled.


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