PhysOrg.com reports that a University of Leicester psychologist has produced the first ever ‘world map of happiness’ by performing a meta-analysis of over 100 different studies covering 80,000 subjects worldwide. The study also correlated the data to other indicators, with the top three being (in order): health, wealth and education.

Some other interesting findings:

• 4 of the 5 Scandinavian countries are in the top 10, and the fifth, Norway, is in the top 20.
• Islands seem to do very well - 9 of the top 20 are island nations.
• After decades of political unrest, Ireland was a surprise (to me, at least) at #11.
• Asia overall didn’t score well, with China #82, Japan #90 and India #125.
• The countries with the largest populations tended to do badly (China #82, India #125 and Russia #167 out of 178 countries), with the exception of the U.S. at #23.

The question this begs is whether this will just make those of us in the happy countries even more self-assured that “our way is the right way”, or if it will perhaps motivate us to try to do something about the situation in the rest of the world (besides evangelizing “our way” to them).

On Thursday, August 3, I’ll be doing a web seminar entitled The Virtual Handshake: 10 Simple Steps to Radically Improve Your Business Network Online. The event is being put on by ExecuNet, a network of $100K+ executives for executive jobs and career development, but is open to the public.

This 90-minute, web-based program will show you how to leverage online communities and social software tools to enhance your professional reputation and establish new business relationships. You’ll discover how to:

• Develop a network-building strategy that complements your business objectives,
• Tame your Inbox,
• Start a blog that gets results,
• Convert your online relationships into professional relationships,
• Focus your efforts for maximum results,
• And much, much more.

The program will be targeted at senior executives, with an emphasis on achieving maximum ROI for minimal time invested, and how to position yourself as an industry leader without becoming “too famous”.

The cost of the seminar for guests (i.e., non-Execunet-members) is $79.95, which includes a copy of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online.

Or get more information at ExecuNet.

According to the NY Times:

The amount of Internet buzz a movie generates is a strong predictor of its box-office take. But it hardly matters whether that buzz is good or bad, according to a study by Yong Liu, an assistant professor of marketing at the Eller College of Business at the University of Arizona.

I’d love to hear from the folks at trend-tracking companies such as Trendum, Intelliseek, Cymfony, and Brandimensions if they a) agree that people’s positive or negative feelings are irrelevant for movies, and b) if this is true, does this pattern hold for other product categories?

HBS Professor Andrei Hagiu is an expert on multi-sided markets, and recently interviewed me on that topic: Market Platform Dynamics–Catalyst Conversation: Conversation with David Teten. His site requires that you submit an email address to read the article (but I should note that he doesn’t actually test if the email address is functional.)

The SOCNET mailing list has had some traffic about using social network analysis for Mideast politics. Valdis Krebs is experimenting with attracting and repelling forces between nodes:
http://www.orgnet.com/mideast.html
has an interesting graph.

Ilan Talmud wrote:

On a structural approach to negative and positive relations and its effect of Interstate militarized conflict see :
Papers:
Zeev Maoz 2006. Network Polarization, Network Interdependence, and International Conflict, 1816-2002. Journal of Peace Research, 43(4): 391-411 at: http://jpr.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/43/4/391

Z. Maoz. R. Kuperman, L. Terris, and I. Talmud. International Relations: A Network Approach.” In New Directions for International Relations, Edited by A. Mintz and B. Russett. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004 (with Z. Maoz. R. Kuperman, and L. Terris). http://soc.haifa.ac.il/~talmud/evolution.pdf

Z. Maoz. R. Kuperman, L. Terris, and I. Talmud. “Structural Equivalence and International Conflict, 1816-2000: A Social Networks Analysis of Dyadic Affinities and Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution (2006, forthcoming), http://soc.haifa.ac.il/~talmud/strucequiv.pdf

Z. Maoz. R. Kuperman, L. Terris, and I. Talmud.” The Enemy of my Enemy: The Effects of Indirect Enmity Relations on Direct Dyadic Relations,” the Journal of Politics (2007, forthcoming)

PC Magazine has a lengthy piece about how businesspeople are using social networking technologies. Topics include:

MySpace Nation

Introduction
Sweeping the Country
Geocities Revisited
How They Work
We All Need to Be Loved
Clicks Aren’t Just for Kids
Bringing the Family Online
What the Future Holds
The State of MySpace
Market Share of Visits to Social-Networking Sites
Page Views Per Month

• Heroes of Social Networking
• How To Get Started: Tips From The Insiders
• Diary of a Madman?
• How To Control Your Content
• Social Networking on the Fringe
• Social Networks: Mobile Edition

http://www.pcmag.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=181460,00.asp

I wrote last week about the initial findings of the survey on transactional trust in social commerce (eBay and other online auctions; craigslist and other classifieds; social networking, et al.) that I did for Rapleaf. Today we’re releasing the full findings:

Transactional Trust in Social Commerce
(PDF, 13 pages, 113K - Right-click and Save Link As or Save Target As to download)

The major conclusions from the study:

Transactional trust appears to be much more important to buyers than to sellers in a social commerce setting. The top four issues for buyers to determine trust all ranked higher in importance than the number one issue for sellers. The average of the top five issues was 18% more important to buyers than sellers. Sellers are also significantly less likely to research buyers prior to completing the transaction. And only 37% of sellers have ever decided not to do business with someone due to a lack of trust, versus 71% of buyers.

This seems to have a good basis in fact. Only 43% of sellers reported ever having any actual trouble with buyers, while 61% of buyers reported experiencing an actual problem with the seller.

The ways in which buyers and sellers determine trust is very similar, though. Ranking the nine factors considered for both buyers and sellers, not one single factor varied by more than two ranks between buyers and sellers (note: buyer rank excludes the two items not relevant to sellers):

Payment – how the money is handled – is the highest priority for sellers. Recommended ways of improving payment trust included the use of PayPal, credit card or other secure payment method. For larger transactions in particular, many people wanted easier-to-use, more affordable escrow systems.

For buyers, relevant history – a track record, a reputation – is most important. Three of the top four issues for buyers are related to this (two related to the individual seller and one to the agent site handling the advertisement or transaction).

In the free-form responses as to what could best be done to improve transactional trust in social commerce, everything is centered on having a persistent, verifiable identity and history. While anonymity may feel safer for buyers and some sellers, it’s not conducive to building trust. Ideally, buyers and sellers both want to see:
- Verified identity
- Valid contact information – street address, phone, web site and e-mail
- Online social presence
- Feedback from others you’re done business with
- Ratings as a simple way to aggregate that feedback

If you’re not prepared to provide all that, you may not be prepared for social commerce in the coming years.

Anjali Athavaley of The Wall Street Journal writes on Getting the Scoop on a Future Boss:

There are now more ways to get the inside scoop about an employer — before you are hired.

In the latest expansion of the Web phenomenon of social networking, more sites are launching features that make it easier for job seekers to connect with the employees of prospective hirers. Still, before you gather around the virtual water cooler, keep in mind that on many sites, what you post can be viewed by anybody — including your current or future boss.

Whether you’re approaching a company about a job or to sell to them, I definitely strongly recommend that you look for insiders who can give you the scoop about the company. One tactic Anjali doesn’t discuss is: look in resume database (like Monster) for people with a background similar to yours, and approach them for advice.

The Wharton newsletter reports:

“With the recent disclosure of wiretapping by the National Security Agency and the booming success of sites like MySpace and Friendster, social networking is much in the news today. But serious interest in social networks can also be found among academics, consultants and corporations seeking to deepen their knowledge of how companies operate. While organizations have been aware of the power of social networks for some time now, researchers at Wharton note that mapping these connections can yield some potent insights, such as how board members interact within and among companies, and how employee relationships can be better understood to improve productivity and the dissemination of ideas.”
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1500.cfm

People are using SNA (social network analysis) in the sports world as well. Via Noor Ali-Hasan on the SOCNET mailing list, I saw a social network analysis of the FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 final match between Italy and France. “It shows the passes from every player to those three team-mates he passes to most frequently. Strength of arcs displays the number of passes. Size of nodes displays the influence (flowbetweenness) of a player.”

http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project.cfm?id=342

Sadly, head-butting doesn’t show up in this chart.

UPDATE: Alan Reifman wrote to SOCNET:

The World Cup soccer passing diagrams are great, and I appreciate Dr.
Ali-Hasan for notifying the list. As some of you may know, I’ve done some similar mappings for U.S. college basketball in recent years (although not nearly as elegantly). Most recently, I presented a poster on this at the 2006 Network Science conference at Indiana University, and in 2005, I presented an earlier study at Sunbelt. For those interested, my research page on basketball passing can be accessed by clicking on:

http://www.hs.ttu.edu/research/reifman/netsci2006.htm

My focus is normally on how people build trust over the course of virtual relationships, but the fact of the matter is that millions of transactions occur online every day between complete strangers, initiated through sites like craigslist, Elance, and dozens of other online auctions, classifieds, social networking sites, and so on. It’s one thing to do business with a well-established brand like Amazon or Best Buy, but how do people create “transactional trust” in these person-to-person situations, when they have so little to go on?

I was recently commissioned by Rapleaf, creators of a portable reputation system that allows you to develop and show your reputation across multiple sites, to conduct a survey to answer exactly that question. The following is a press release going out today that highlights some of the findings of the survey:

Survey Shows Ratings Are the #1 Way Classified and Auction Buyers Determine Trust (When Available)

In an independent survey of users of online classifieds, auctions and social networking sites commissioned by Rapleaf, buyers said that posted ratings are the most important factor in determining their level of trust in sellers.

“I like to see seller ratings and reviews,” said one buyer. “The social proof is very valuable.”

Among buyers, 67% selected ratings of the seller as “very important”, with an additional 25% labeling it “somewhat important”. The reputation of the site itself, rather than of the individual seller, was also an important factor for determining trust, with 63% rating it as “very important”. The payment method being used was a close third. Other factors considered included the quality of the ad, an e-mail or phone call with the seller, endorsements and testimonials, web research of the seller, and intuition/prayer/gut reaction.

For sellers, the payment method being used was the most important factor, with 81% rating it as somewhat or very important. Posted ratings of the buyer was a close second at 77%.

Trust is definitely a challenge for these sites. Over 70% of buyers reported not doing business with a seller because they didn’t get a good sense of trust. 50% of buyers reported an experience in which the product wasn’t accurately pictured or described. Rudeness, defective goods and non-delivery of goods were each cited by more than 20% of buyers.

“Credibility is key,” wrote one respondent, “and I think it’s difficult to establish in a classified ad. How can you develop trust in you, your product, your service, in just a few lines?”

For some, the trust issues prevent their participation entirely:

“I have never done it because I am afraid,” said one respondent. “Not only do I worry that I will lose my money, but I am not sure of the quality of the product or that I will even get the product delivered. Anything that will remove fear, ensure quality, build trust into the transaction would help!”

Sellers also frequently experience problems with buyers. Almost 50% of sellers reported having an experience with flakey buyers. Other top problems sellers cited included rudeness (38%), refusal to pay previously negotiated price (32%), and harassment (19%).

Several respondents expressed a desire to have ratings be available across sites. In response to the question, “What one or two things do you feel could be done to best increase the trust between buyers and sellers,” replies included:

“I like eBay’s feedback concept, although I wish there was a centralized version of this, so I could see how their feedback looks from other places (craigslist sales, Barnes and Nobles used book sales, etc.) and so people could take their feedback scores with them.”

“Reputations systems are important, and being able to understand a person’s reputation across multiple sites would be a boon (in other words, to blend, say, MySpace ratings and eBay ratings).”

“Some sort of due diligence, much like eBay’s rating system. I think also that it would be good to have some sort of overall trusted vendor rating for use on the entire internet.”

“People want to build trust with those that they buy, sell, and barter with,” said Auren Hoffman, CEO of Rapleaf. “Ratings are a proven way of doing that. We rate books on Amazon, electronics on shopping.com, and restaurants on Yelp. As more and more business is done between individuals on the Internet, rather than just with large e-tailers, rating people is the natural next step.”

____________________
Rapleaf is a free portable reputation system for e-commerce that allows buyers and sellers to rate one another. Getting rated and getting a Rapleaf score can help facilitate a greater level of trust among other buyers and sellers.

For the complete results of the survey or more information on Rapleaf, contact:

Auren Hoffman
people@rapleaf.com
(415) 578-4562

UPDATE 7/21/2006: The full report of the survey has now been published:
Transactional Trust in Social Commerce