Tag Trading vs. Keyword Trading ? A primer in Tag Trading

?Tagging is more then just keywords? ~David Ruebush

Let?s start out by looking at the differences between ?keywords? and ?tags?.  Most everyone involved in Kule Search or Kooday has a good understanding of keywords.  For those that don?t know,

By definition a keyword is:

• An index term, subject term, subject heading, or descriptor, in information retrieval, is a term that captures the essence of the topic of a document. Index terms make up a controlled vocabulary for use in bibliographic records

~wikipedia.  

This is pretty straight forward, but of particular note is the concept of using a descriptor for building a controlled vocabulary.  This is pretty much what we have come to learn and accept when we search terms on Google, Yahoo and Bing.  It sort of harkens back to the days of looking up index cards to do research at the library.  You have a subject heading and try to narrow down the terms until you find references to the research material you need.  The keyword is usually based on the frequency of times that it occurs on the page, or how closely it addresses the subject that the keyword describes.

Compare this to tags.  Even though people often use tags to perform the same function as keywords, tags are much more flexible.  If anyone has used G-Mail, Flickr, YouTube, ?Word Clouds? on blogs and several other web applications and mail platforms that support tags, you should have a good understanding of tags.  However, until you have searched for data strictly by tags, you may not fully understand their power.

By definition a tag is:

• a label associated with something for the purpose of identification
• provide with a name or nickname

~wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

On first glance, this seems pretty similar.  However, the major difference between the two is a tag is a unique identifier of a particular item or object.

So to contrast the two, a keyword is a header, index, or descriptor that identifies a subject or a broader category or term.  A tag identifies an individual item, just like a person?s name identifies them as an individual.  Human Being could be considered a keyword, while ?Bobby? would be a tag..

What Do We Do With This Information?

Definitions are good, but so what? Let?s find out!

One of the points David went into pretty excessive length in explaining is that tags have a broader range of use then do keywords.  Even by definition, this makes good sense. The benefit of tags is that they identify individual items.  Think outside the retail box and consider that an ?item? is not necessarily a tangible object that one buys and physically holds, but can also be a thought, smell, color, number, concept, or area.

Anything that can be uniquely identified can be tagged.  Much like we do with mathematics or programming, when we have a variable that can represent multiple or unlimited pieces of data ? we call it ?x? and can reference that concept by calling on ?x? at any point in our program or equation.

When searching for tags, it is easier to combine multiple tags to get a clearer picture of an item then it is to combine keywords. 

For example, if you are familiar with G-Mail, you know that you can create tags on the fly.  So an emailed invoice from your supplier could be stored in a ?traditional? email folder as ?Orders? or ?Supplier emails?.  Just like filing a letter in a specific cabinet, in a specific drawer, inside a particular file folder, this would be an example of a keyword. 

In using a tag system you can create several tags called ?order?, ?1-1-2011?, ?fish bowls?, ?Invoice?, ?unpaid? etc.  Now when you go to retrieve that particular email, you don?t have to look in a single header (keyword), you can look up a series of tags to narrow down EXACTLY which invoice you are looking for.  You can combine tags and search on specific criteria with which you pre-identified that invoice.  To continue the example, no longer do you have to look up just the file cabinet, drawer and folder; you can now sort through the individual file folder, and find not just the individual letter, but also individual paragraphs and sentences.  In fact, tags allow you to do away with a file cabinet all together.  You can put everything in one giant file folder, and still be able to find the specifics of the individual pages and paragraphs.

Getting Warmer, But How Does This Help Me Make Money?

If you haven?t already read the Doc in this group titled ?Why you should fund your account in pre-launch? (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_146068078777808&view=doc&id=152653444785938) the following may be a bit ambiguous to you, and you should go read that article before going any further. 

Ok, so we have clearly identified tags, and know they can represent anything.  Let?s transfer this concept to Tagvillage.

David made it very clear that not only will tags be sold for search terms, but also for social actions and activities as well.  Basically, it is safe to surmise that anything that an advertiser would find of particular interest to find a ?foothold? or ?node? into any of the individual Tagvillager?s networks will be a good candidate for a potential tag to purchase.

David said:

?Tags aren?t just search terms ? they?re also concepts, they?re thoughts, they?re emotions, they?re whatever is going on in the social norm of the time - whatever the social trends are and the current social thinking is in whatever geographic area you are in.?

~ David Ruebush

?Tagging is more then keywords, it is actual knowledge of who is looking at the tag as well as what tag they are searching?or talking about.  So our ads don?t just have to run in the search engine, they can run in the social media as well.  When people are discussing a football game or discussing a rock concert we can be running ads off to the side that are right in line with whatever the topic of discussion is, in that moment and we can be targeting it not only to the tag that is in the conversation, but to the types of people and the networks that are in that conversation.?

~ David Ruebush

To make this point abundantly clear, this means that you and a friend in your network are posting about who won the Cav?s game last night, and talking about what a crappy defense they have going this year, Tagvillage will see that context and look for tags associated with basketball, the NBA, Cavalier?s, etc, and run instant ads that pinpoint Cavalier merchandise and clothing, or where to buy tickets, or maybe even hotel accommodations for the next away game in Chicago, or whatever.  Not only will the ad be targeted at those immediately in the conversation and creating ?hits? on those particular tags, but also anyone else in those networks that share similar interests in those same tags.  It will also pick up people in those networks that have shared similar concepts or ?ideas? of basketball, or basketball videos, or score ticker apps, or whatever would associate their interest with basketball.

For another example, imagine someone that has posted a recipe on Facebook, and everyone that has commented on the recipe or ?liked? it, or bookmarked it, or shared it, or in some way interacted with that recipe, will be given directed ads that target either specific ingredients in that recipe, cooking items, recipe books, utensils, appliances, or whatever.  Not only does the advertiser market to the ?target? that created the recipe and created the initial ?hit? on the tag, but now they just expanded that market to a very personal and self-qualified audience of potential buyers of other people that expressed an interest in that tag as well.

This gets into areas I don?t have full technical explanation for, but I had David confirm that this will have ?real time? aspects to it.  This means that every word that passes across the Tagvillage servers quickly becomes a search term and potential candidate for a tag.  Although initial plans don?t call for including chat as an advertising platform, it is a possibility that has been mentioned for future consideration.

This is the closest an advertiser can get to reading potential customers minds, and instantly displaying ads and targeted materials to specific thoughts in real time.  Although mind-reading has been the ?Holy Grail? of marketers since marketing began, this is going to be the next closest thing.

This now makes an entire range of keywords hugely important, that would in any other context and search engine have no value.  Converting those keywords into tags, and giving them the flexibility to be assigned on the fly to deliver laser-accurate advertising to not just the parties that generated the tag, but to those parties? entire networks, is a staggering concept.

 It should become quickly evident that there are very few tools available on the market that can deliver ?cheat sheet? info on what is a ?good? word, as the algorithms and application of those words are not in the same context, therefore, markers and indicators that track keyword trends don?t necessarily fit for tags being used in the Tagvillage context.  It should be evident why smells, numbers, emotions, feelings, experiences, etc become valid search tags and valuable social network conversational tags.

In short, this sort of re-writes the book on everything all our experienced Kooday Diamonds and Kule Searchers have learned about ?valuable? words, and opens the field to a whole new set of concepts and learning curves.

Lets take this one step further, like before, and throw in the ?Tagvillage factor? (maybe I will have to patent this term and call it the ?T-Factor?) and include contextual information from ?My Causes?.  Now, as tag traders, not only do we consider advertisers words and mind-sets, but must take into consideration some of the causes, charities and organizations that will be represented.  Even if the causes themselves choose not to directly advertise on certain words (which would be foolish for them not to) I can guarantee, some enterprising retailers certainly will.  So how does this play out in a real life example?

Imagine a local blood bank is having a blood drive.  Many people in that area that support the ?cause? attend a web event, a group, post on the blood bank?s walls, blogs, videos, news feeds, news articles, etc, about some of the up coming ways that the volunteers can get involved.  The Tagvillage advertising platform will look at the words passing through the posts and compare them in real-time against advertisers purchased tags.  Suddenly words such as ?juice and cookies?, ?recovery?, ?screening?, ?safety?, ?plasma?, ?A+?, ?AB+?, ?O-? take on whole new concepts and meanings.  Any retailer limitations those words may have previously encountered will mean something completely different in this context and many words that otherwise would be considered a ?bad? keyword, now becomes a valuable tag.

As mentioned, it would be in the blood banks best interests to consider its marketing campaign and try to target some specific tags that it knows will be used in context among its fans, volunteers, donors and supporters and take out ads on some of those words.  Even if just advertising itself as a ?Cause? it would have a more significant R.O.I. (Return On Investment) on its advertising dollars then would most any other platform out there could currently provide.

Imagine what happens when the successful marketer of this blood bank begins to send out tweets that help people to target those tags?  Now everyone in the blood bank?s limited network of people that support that cause see these words and respond to those words, by passing those words along.   Every time they link to the tweets, or share articles and videos that contain those specific words (much like well organized SEO campaigns work today), they are providing valuable tag real estate usage for that blood bank.

However, instead of just receiving optimal search engine placement, that blood bank is causing their supporters network?s to create activity within their own individual networks.  Basically like making a video go viral, they are making specific tags go viral.  And the amazing thing is these tags don?t have to reach millions of viewers to be profitable to the blood bank.  All the activity that their follower?s networks generate for the blood bank around those tags, will generate ?activity revenue? among all the networks, and sub networks, and could potentially return to the blood bank a greater revenue then what their advertising budget was to just get those words out there.  In short, they end up advertising for free, and generating new followers, who in turn generate greater Tagvillage activities, and those activities generate more credits, which ultimately find their way back to the blood bank in weekly credit donations and cause matching funds.

This concept is revolutionary, and shows the staggering potential that well designed ad campaigns could generate for retail advertisers and causes alike.  The measure of a successful advertising campaign will shift from the number of ?page views? to the number of ?tag hits?.

Tying It All Together

If the impact of this concept hasn?t made its way home yet, one final point before wrapping this up and we will see if we can?t blow the doors off this thing.

Continuing the above scenario, where a ?Cause? can promote itself and generate its own revenue, there is one more ?T-Factor? to consider.   This one requires a bit of reading between the lines, but I believe is pretty clearly spelled out.

David went on to say:

?Now then, as far as the income is concerned, the residual income that we will pay out on a weekly basis is purely based on activity.  It has nothing to do with owning tags, or buying and selling tags, it?s purely based on you just coming in and using the site.  So the weekly profit shares have nothing to do with you having amassed a huge tag inventory. As a matter of fact, it is highly probable that a ?free? person (a free member who has never put a dollar into the system and never purchased a tag) can make probably the top dollars on the weekly residuals because that person may be there just specifically to support causes, and chat with friends and upload photos, and do the weekly activities.  So the activities alone generate you the points and the points are what we convert into weekly profit shares.  So it is possible to make a good living off of just using the site.?

~ David Ruebush

So here we see that tag trading is ONE method of making money and we know that ?My Causes? will be an important step in generating donations to individual charities and organizations.  But now we also see that just doing social things will generate revenue for all purposes within Tagvillage.  So how does our blood bank profit? 

One more David quote before we look at the answer:

?I will tell you this, and this is going to be a hard thing for me to say, because I can?t give away our intellectual property, but the way that Tagvillage ranks the points, the way that we decide what you do, and how much it?s worth in points, is by how much activity does that generate to the site.  So your long term strategy must be ?I need to do things in Tagvillage that create a lot of activity?. OK?  So if you?re very good at attracting people into a group and getting them all talking about a topic and having lots of discussions that would be a very good thing to do, because that is going to generate activity.  And activity is what we?re looking for in a social network because we need that interaction of people.?

~ David Ruebush

So as we have seen, if the blood bank becomes a member of Tagvillage, and uses current methods it is likely already using to promote itself with Facebook, Twitter, videos, etc, they will not only grow the network, and draw more weekly donations and credit matches to their cause, they will also directly earn weekly profit shares on their own activity and network building. 

This changes the face of fund raising as we know it. Now, not only do organizations have to rely on charity and ?begging? to have successful fund-raising campaigns, they can now actively participate in generating their own funds.  It works out for everyone involved the more aggressive they become in promoting their own cause and building their own networks. Now there will be a reason why people would want to follow them on Twitter and Facebook.  Right now, it usually makes about as much sense as following ?Skittles? (who has somehow managed to get over 14,000,000 Facebook followers).

This is one of the biggest flaws I have seen with Facebook.  They almost punish people by being ?too social?.  Too much risk of spam warning and account suspension for just following the activities that Facebook has designed into its system.  Every application requires friends and has all sort of built in tools to help invite new friends.  This of course makes sense, because these applications are using Facebook as a modified search engine to find people that might be interested in their application.  It basically just extends the idea of using banner ads to target potential groups to display their banners to.  They use demographics and some keywords to target ads, but don?t really have any sort of ?reward? system in place for people that create lots of social activity.  And as David stated, social activity is key, as that is where all the ad revenue comes from.

So we now have two factors in the equation.  We can generate our own revenue through tag trading, and anyone can generate revenue just by using the site and creating large social activities.

Although these seem simple and separate ideas, the key to successful tag trading is going to be how these two unite ? at least from an advertiser?s perspective.

In listening to the recording, David makes it clear that it is likely the first 6 months of tag trading will be in short term trades.  These will be more ?traditional? concepts that people familiar with Kooday and Kule have become quite adept at exploiting.  These will be through commonly used tools in Google Keywords, Google Adwords, Spyfu, Google Keyword Traffic Estimator, etc.  This time period we will term the ?short term? method, and there is another series of articles in the Docs on this forum written by David himself explaining his strategies in Kooday and how to turn fast profits while simultaneously building large word empires.

Since there will be no whistle blown when the ?short term? ends, we must keep these long term methods in mind while building our tag inventories, as we will suddenly find ourselves one day in full realization that we should be utilizing our ?long term? methods.

So What Are the Steps to the Long Term Method?

Obviously, this is a lot of speculation, and as mentioned, nothing to compare this business model to, and no real tools to adopt or use the ?light? version to help us in our tag trading endeavors.

Observation

• The most important aspect is going to be keeping all the above concepts in mind.  Getting a firm grasp on how things work, and why they begin to unfold as they do.  As the site is updated and new pieces of the platform come on-line, it is going to be important to monitor these activities from an advertiser?s perspective.  Why would an advertiser choose one word over another?  How will this tie in to the ?social? aspect?  Is there a set of tags that an advertiser would consider about a particular cause or network that would be more favorable then others?

Socialize

• Actually an extension of Observation, socializing and being familiar with changes in the site and seeing what is important to networks and causes will be invaluable research.  Knowing how things spread ?virally? among your networks and others will be a key aspect in helping to pick important types of words for tags.  What sort of posts do you create that generate the most interest?  Do you get more interest from your ?cause? networks, your friends? networks, or from some other source?  What sort of links do you click on and why?  Are your interests typical of others, or are yours unique?

Pay Attention to Your Tag Trends

• As many that have been with Kooday will testify, the current tag trading is vastly different then it was in their ?heyday? when people could watch their trades sell in real time, and lose track of which words had been purchased or sold.  Things are different at Kooday now, and people are in ?hold? and ?raise? mode.  Do you see similar trends in Tagvillage?  Are certain tags moving faster or slower?  Why are certain words raising in value?  Why are certain words dropping off on sales frequencies?  Is there something in the national news that is affecting these trends?  Watch for natural disasters and other unified causes to effect short term meanings of long term causes.

Always Look for Opportunities

• As mentioned at the beginning, one of the unique things about tags is their flexibility.  Words can change meaning in different contexts.  ?Plasma? for a blood bank is different then ?plasma? to an electronics retailer.  Is there a cause you know about that uses a common word in a unique way?  If someone heard a particular word that was part of a certain group, would they automatically know what the person is talking about?  Do some groups and networks substitute ?wrong? words to describe something unique in their networks?  An example of this is in the R/C helicopter and airplane industries.  Among the hobbyists, the flying style that involves flying inverted and rapidly changing orientation and performing loops and rolls began to be called ?3D flying? among Heli pilots.  This had to do in part with the way they configured their controllers to fly ?switchless inverted? maneuvers.  This term soon was adopted by high-performance gas and indoor electric pilots of fixed-wing airplanes.  Somehow along the way ?aerobatics? went out the window, and ?3D? became the ?new thing?.  Very easily confused with ?3D models?, ?3D movies?, ?3D CAD?, etc.

Use the Tagvillage Keyword Suggestion Tool

• I don?t know what the official name of this tool will be, but David has referenced it in webinars in the past.  In short, this tool will look at words that you are searching for, and list up to 10 similarly related words.  5 of them will be owned, and 5 will be unowned.  Pay particular attention to the trends of similar words that others own.  Compare to the words that are unowned.  Why are certain words still unpurchased?  Are people just ?missing the boat? or is there a reason that some words are not selling?  Watch to see the values of owned words and see if their values are going up, or seem unproportionately expensive compared to your words and other unowned words.

Multiple Search Platforms for Advertisers to Find ?Tag Hits?

• Without getting in to too many specifics, David also mentioned there would be multiple ways for advertisers to find tags.  The first being typical ?Search Engine Ads? that we are all pretty familiar with.  Another will be through ?interactive social ads? and yet another through ?social media ads?.  ?Interactive Social Ads? will likely be similar to what many Facebook users are already familiar with, where someone sends you some gadget, gift, badge or power-up from an app; or an app seeks you out automatically to challenge you to beat a friend?s score, or accept an e-card, or take some sort of action.  ?Social Media Ads? are also quite familiar with Facebook users in these are the demographically targeted ads, and ads based on interests or community social groups.  Keep all of these methods in mind.  What someone may search for may not be the same word that would get someone?s attention if they weren?t searching for the word.  Something that would illicit attention might even be contrary to what the advertiser is actually trying to sell.  We have all seen the ?is this a scam? and ?is this a hoax? ads by MLM?ers who are actually representatives of the company they claim is a scam or a hoax in an attempt to get new people to sign under them.

Think Globally

• Think of tags in terms of networks and network usages of those terms.  Terms that might be considered a ?good? tag for an individual, or a small group of people, might not work so well for an entire network.  Or the opposite is true.  Keep in mind that the most profitable word to an advertiser is going to be the one that reaches the most people in the most diverse range of networks.  Sometimes, this may be the difference of a simple letter (?book? verses ?e-book?).  Remember that everyone?s network will be its own set of uniquely targeted people, and some words will have larger mass appeal then others.

Anyway, I have rambled long enough.  I hope that this helps you have a bit better insight into the way that Tagvillage tags will purportedly work and see how unique this platform really will be.  Even though some things will be quite familiar, some things will be immensely different.  Lastly, keep in mind all of this is speculation based on my opinion and might change within the first few days of tag trading, and may have to be scrapped altogether as the site rolls out its updates.  Only time will tell, and changes may have to be made as I learn more about the actual implementation of the site as opposed to theoretical concepts.  But based on what I have seen, and what points I have had David confirm, I believe this to be pretty much on track.  Check back often for changes and updates.

Russell Miller

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