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Intelligence
Personalization: The (Apparent) Conundrum

Intelligence

Personalization: The (Apparent) Conundrum

Oct 16, 2003By Michael Stoner

Confused about personalization? You’re not alone. This week, two articles presented contrasting views of personalization. I’ve seen posts about each of them on listservs—and had about a dozen people ask for comment.

The first, a Christian Science Monitor piece entitled “Speed-selecting a college” touts the value of personalization for college students who engage in “speed searching,” serial 60-second visits to college websites, one after the other.

The second article was from c|net’s News.Com reporting on a Jupiter Research report, “Beyond the Personalization Myth.” The title of the article says it all: “Report slams Web personalization.”

The Monitor’s “Speed-selecting a college” did not convince me that today’s prospects require personalization in order to be interested in a college. For one thing, students won’t discover true personalization in their initial 7- to 20-second scan of a college site. I’ve seen kids do this and, short as these scans are, they don’t involve filling out a form to take advantage of personalization!

And as it happens, at least two of the four colleges that Scott Snider, the student profiled in the Monitor article, applied to-Duke and Americanare poor candidates for justifying personalization as a way to capture speed scanners. Duke requires prospects to fill out a lengthy form in order to register for more “advanced” features and American offers customization but no apparent “personalization.” The other twoMiami of Ohio and Ohio University-don’t appear to offer personalization either.

So, these choices of Scott’s do not appear to use any of the “cool” stuff mentioned in the article. Do you think his college selections just might have been influenced by other, perhaps more substantial, factors rather than personalized websites and emails????

But then again, Jupiter Research’s report doesn’t convince me that personalization doesn’t work. Jupiter reminds us, “Given flexible, usable navigation and search, Web site visitors will be more satisfied with their experiences and will find fewer barriers to the profitable behavior sought by site operators….” (Thanks for that insight: This is exactly what we’ve been saying for years.)

Personalization is great when it offers something of value—information or content that you really want or need. Like movie recommendations based on your personal ratings of DVDs, which is what I get from Netflix. Or suggestions about new books or music based on your buying history, like I get from Amazon.com. Or how about the new service from New Hampshire Public Radio, which sends me daily email updates about programs that might interest me based on my preferences?

But note that this is all about content, not about offering visitors the online tools they need to conduct business with your institution—e.g., pay a deposit online or check the status of their application. Is it any surprise that people don’t like personalized websites that offer them the same out-of-date, boring content they got from the old site?

So, to sum up:

First, pay attention to fundamentals. Make sure your website has a strong information architecture and that appropriate, up-to-date, relevant content is easy to find.

Once these are taken care of, then it’s worth exploring how a site might deliver personalization of real value: interest-based news delivered in a format and frequency that your visitor determines, eServices that provide greater efficiency and facilitate your visitor’s experience (Apple’s one-click purchasing), or inclusion in an online community where the visitor can connect with like-minded individuals. But if you are not prepared to produce high-quality, interesting, and personally relevant content, and a fair amount of it, you should not consider personalization tools.


  • Michael Stoner Co-Founder and Co-Owner Was I born a skeptic or did I become one as I watched the hypestorm gather during the dotcom years, recede, and congeal once more as we come to terms with our online, social, mobile world? Whatever. I'm not much interested in cutting edge but what actually works for real people in the real world. Does that make me a bad person?