I've enjoyed this conversation, and salute Graham for the cajones to take the opposing view. I am a VRM banner waver, and feel we need to be challenge the religion to test the faith.
My last startup was an intent aggregator that I can provide some quantitative and qualitative feedback to this conversation.
Our utility allowed users to request their own price for anything. We had some nationwide media write ups that drove some great traffic to an ugly interface that broke down a lot. You will laugh to hear that we required a Facebook logon to even enter the marketplace. (For the record, I have since seen the light.)
Despite the above, we actually got users to engage a bit. What we found was the following:
1) 20% of subscribed users requested their own price. (Leaders)
2) 54% revisited the site over two times. This meant they were interested in seeing what was already "live" in the marketplace. (Followers)
3) Feedback from users proved that the Facebook Logon was a terrible idea.
4) Feedback also told us that people did not like to wait to get the price they wanted. Buyers are Veruca Salt.
5) Most of the kneejerk reactions from merchants felt violated when we approached them to fulfill users requests. ("You are using our name?") Seems they can dish it out (broadcast marketing), but they can't take it (reverse marketing).
I'd be curious to know if anyone has any research or data that shows the accuracy of data-mining The VRM argument is that no amount of data-mining can get a 100% picture of user behavior, but what percent are they currently at?
Cheers,
Joe Serrano
@333serrano