I have been throwing around the term Product Graph for a while now and figure it is time to start defining it publicly.
Or, more accurately, put a stake in the ground about what should constitute the Product Graph and why it is important. I figure the definition will evolve over time as my and other’s thinking evolves.
(Since the Product Graph is a big idea and since I am still working out what it means, a lot of writing on my part will be needed before I will understand it well enough to be really succinct about it. Consequently, I am going to introduce my Product Graph thinking in a series of posts which I will pretend make these bon mots sound oh so learned but really reflect the messy process of innovation. Please bear w/me 
So what is the Product Graph? Most simply put it is the web of relationships between
- Influencers & Products
- Products & and other Products
- Influencers & Shoppers
- Products & Shoppers
- Shoppers & Shoppers (thus begetting more influencers)
(Snippet of ThisNext Product Graph data. Thanks to Jason Thurkettle for the image.)
OK- so you see it is complicated. But why should you care?
Essentially, the Product Graph captures which products and people have the most product alpha under what conditions.
In more real-world shopping terms, the Product Graph is a map of who you listen to and what merchandising you find useful/are susceptible to and when. For example, I bet you have friends who either you go to or they come to you for product recommendations in particular areas (ie wine, food, technology, etc). You also have undoubtedly walked into stores and bought things you did not even know existed before you bumped into them in the store (ie effective merchandising).
Those 2 offline behaviors (1, asking friends (read: influencers) for advice; and 2, being open to good merchandising) drive about 70% of offline purchases. But this data/wisdom is not really available in any organized way online so much of that offline shopping behavior never makes it online.
Think about that for a second: what if you could unlock 70% more online transactions by leveraging social merchandising? Think how cool if you could make marketing more efficient and simultaneously help shoppers connect w/great products that will improve their quality of life.
Big idea, eh? We think so.
So our goal here at ThisNext is to facilitate, capture, structure, and syndicate all this latent product knowledge by facilitating the growth of the Product Graph.
Next post: the relationship between influencers/mavens and productsproduct graph
3 responses so far ↓
1 Ed Keller // Feb 16, 2008 at 10:14 am
Gordon-
funny- I was just telling my Columbia University students today about ThisNext.
About your product graph ideas: For a while I have been obsessed with alternate ways to represent large arrays of data and then dynamically filter.
Tangentially, Information architecture issues come up, and so does ‘mind map’ software.
Most mind map softwares I have tried aren’t so good. Of the best, I use Tinderbox by Eastgate systems http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/
and have for quite a few years… but it is a rather special tool that is primarily useful for building certain kinds of maps, handling complex note/text management, or building the back end to a BLOG. It’s very flexible, but… not designed to do what you need.
I also have tried Freemind recently which is alpha level and buggy, but has some intriguing ideas. The branching system and the ability to map one’s own directory structure is very useful. Yet I haven’t integrated it into day to day use. http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
These are just precursors to what your Product Graphs concept demands…
In this light, check out Walrus: something entirely different- 3D hyperbolic geometry, interactive, to display and filter data arrays: http://www.caida.org/tools/visualization/walrus/
Obviously, a tool like Walrus with the right filters would be a very robust data analysis tool for your needs.
I would love to do two things with this idea.
1. I think it is the KILLER APP as an interface to one’s own hard drive, a front end to both directory structure and search results- if it was customized a bunch. That might entail a complete rebuild, or just a repurpose of the code. It would really outshine interfaces like ‘PathFinder’ for the Mac OSX.
2. It would potentially be a VERY KILLER APP for your product graphs, if the right filters were built in, so that you could select for types of data to display around a node, such as how many referrals a person on ThisNext makes, who buys based on their reviews, time spent on a page, clickthrus, similar products based on tag clouds, etc, etc.
If we could somehow collaborate at AUM Studio and MediaSCAPES on this I’d be very interested to put a workshop team on it.
2 Is Like.com really “killing” social search? Not yet » VentureBeat // Feb 18, 2008 at 6:54 pm
[…] as our measure, because ThisNext is using venture capital to build out a bold, audacious “product graph” project and isn’t yet focused on making money, or even on maximizing […]
3 Like.com - vizuální vyhledávání (nakonec) funguje // Feb 24, 2008 at 11:12 am
[…] Partners, Clearstone Venture Partners), sleduje delší cíle v podobě produktového grafu (Product Graph) a na obrat a návštěvnost se zatím nesoustředí. Zdroj a foto: VentureBeat Tagy: Anthem […]
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