My job as executive editor at nGenera Insight involves doing a lot of research about new business models and start-ups tied to the Web 2.0. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be sharing a high level overview of some of the work I’ve been doing recently. Today I’m going to start by talking about the story we see emerging from a little company called The Hipstery.
The idea behind The Hipstery is simple. Instead of offering a bunch of t-shirts for customers to pick from, the company invites customers to fill in a survey. They then take these results, apply an “innovative style algorithm technology” to them, and select a t-shirt that seems to suit the customer. Think of it as a way to surprise yourself with a gift.
We’re cautious not to overstate what The Hipstery is actually doing here – the humorous tone of the site makes it appear that the algorithm might be part of a joke. But there’s no reason it need to be. We think the idea behind it points towards an interesting opportunity popping up all over the web.
Without getting into the details of the framework (which is where the Johari Window, among other things, comes in), the idea is to create “blind spot” – things you can no about your customers, but they don’t know about themselves – and capitalize on them. Doing so requires data, and analytical capability. We’ve already seen this happen in online dating – while sites like Facebook offered certain advantages over services like Match.com, it’s eHarmony that captured the blind spot opportunity (and found a business model). If you squint a bit, you can make the argument that The Hipstery model is to Threadless in the clothing industry what eHarmony is to Facebook in online dating.
There’s of course much more to the story than that. But the overall message is that The Hipstery is a very interesting company to check out, and many organizations should consider looking for their own “blind spot” opportunities to exploit.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Denis,
I gather that the “blind spot” is essentially fingerprinting consumers to create a situation where you know something they don’t, and then exploiting it. What an interesting thought! There are maybe two ways to develop a blind spot, knowing specific information about people and knowing general information.
Insurance companies are an example of the former, and have been doing it from day 1. Customize rates based on risk perception by acquiring data to validate the assumptions of risk, and therefore the cost of the policy. At times this has been controversial, e.g. the example of collecting genetic material to determine if someone is likely to develop a disease.
Another example is the stage hypnosis act. The hypnotist pre-screens people in the audience to make sure that a good show results when they come to the stage. As a start, only people who want to be on stage will put their hands up. The audience isn’t conscious of the fact that only suggestible people are on stage. That is the real magic part, the blind spot, of the act.
As far as using general knowledge of people’s behavior, consider the psychological games played to get them to buy products. One example is the 10 for $10 principal used to make people think they need to buy more of something (see http://priceless-the-book.blogspot.com/). This is a blind spot because most are unaware of the tactic, and buy more than they would normally.
And just how unaware are people to the blind spot? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBPG_OBgTWg
What happens when you give an online business the power to screen consumers, to funnel them in the direction you want, all based on “blind spot” information?
Moreover, what tools will be developed to grow the blind spot– what type of new fingerprinting technologies? Surveys may just be the infancy of a whole new way to exploit net going consumers!?
Keep us posted.
Thanks,
Dino
Dino, fantastic thoughts – that’s exactly what blind spots are all about. I hadn’t thought about the different types to the extent that you’ve covered here… I’m particularly intrigued by the potential around “general information blind spots.” hmmm…