Social Fund News

Social Media Optimization (SMO) may be the new buzzword with regards to getting links from sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, Technorati, and Flickr. There is lots of talk on SEO blogs as well as in forums about this concept. What it really means, essentially, is that web publishers want people to bookmark their content, subscribe to their blogs, news, product and podcast feeds.

A current search at Google for “Social Media Optimization (as of this writing) has Lee Odden’s TopRankBlog post on the SMO topic showing up number 1 for your search.

http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/08/new-rules-for-social-media-optimization/

Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy Pr said in Rule #2 of his “Five Rules of Social networking Optimization” blog post in August, 2006

http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/08/5_rules_of_soci.html

“Make tagging and bookmarking easy – Adding content features like quick buttons to “add to del.icio.us” is one way to result in the process of tagging pages easier…”

Until recently, making “the process of tagging pages easier” has been rather cumbersome and tedious for publishers. Collecting code and “chiclets” (logos) from each service first to facilitate using social bookmark service links and feeds, then posting a mish-mash of these links near web content to encourage people to subscribe to feeds or bookmark that content through some of a large number of popular services.

But a new service at http://www.AddThis.com continues to be launched which seems to solve the complexness for publishers and reduces the “chiclet” clutter by providing just one button for bookmarks or perhaps a single button for RSS feeds, to permit bookmarks and feeds through the most widely used services.

What follows is a Q&A with AddThis.com co-founder Dom Vonarburg

Q) Most interviews end by asking when there is anything else you want to add, what specifically do you want people to learn about AddThis up front?

A) AddThis.com is a completely new service that can help internet users collect information online with a single click, and send it to their favorite bookmarking service, feed reader, wish list service, podcast service, etc. AddThis also helps web publishers promote their content (webpages, feeds, products, podcasts, etc) online by looking into making it more convenient for their people to collect it, save it, and distribute it to social services. AddThis was launched in September at the DEMO conference, the launchpad for emerging technology.

Q) Would you see AddThis like a potentially big player within the Social Media Optimization (SMO) phenomenon since you make it easier for web publishers to get their sites bookmarked, as well as their podcasts and blog feeds subscribed?

A) We started working on AddThis in March 2006, before the term SMO was first coined. The idea behind AddThis was, and still is, to totally eliminate all obstacles web publishers have in distributing their content to visitors and also the social networking services they might use. Our internal term for this was initially social SEO, but I like Social networking Optimization better.

We believe AddThis will be a extremely important player within the SMO space, as it is the very first service to give a generic gateway for collecting and distributing many different types of content. AddThis provides a bridge between your web publisher, the web user, and the social media services.

Q) You’ve added a new angle to the bookmarks game using the “Products” button. Whether it will take off, it seems like it is always good for ecommerce sites, especially with the reporting attached. I haven’t seen this anywhere else. What made you bring the product angle into an AddThis Product Button?

A) “Products” was the next logical step for us after bookmarks, feeds and podcasts. People want to collect and compare the products and services they find online, and ecommerce websites wish to facilitate this process. By adding “Product” buttons for their pages, ecommerce websites may be included in their visitors’ final purchase decisions. The button also helps spread these items with other people through social bookmarking and social shopping websites (Kaboodle.com, Wists.com, ThisNext.com, etc).

Q) You’re offering AddThis like a free service. Is there any plan to proceed to a higher level intend to monetize it? I noted your participation in the DEMO conference where companies seek venture capital and seed funding. Were you seeking funding and had you been successful?

A) Yes, the service is free and will continue to be free. Starting early the coming year, we will also provide reasonably limited version of the service. I’d rather not say an excessive amount of at this time, but the premium service will give you many interesting features for web publishers, one of which will be more advanced statistics. Our primary goal with DEMO ended up being to boost the launch of AddThis. We also received the attention of several investors.

Q) Providing stats was an extra step that probably increased costs and complexity for AddThis. What made you consider the reporting to publishers as an important part of a free service?

A) The statistics would be a quite simple feature to include and that we thought it added a lot of value to web publishers, especially for products. For example, with the statistics, web publishers can find out which products their readers are most thinking about, those receive less attention, etc.

Q) Can there be any reference to ClickAbility.com? (“Email This” “Save This” and “Print This”)

A) ClickAbility differs in that it offers its system for saving information. AddThis does not impose any place to go for the content collected.

Q) Was the AddThis.com domain already yours, or did you purchase from a current owner? It shows in domain records as being registered since 1998, however the WayBack Machine at Archive.org only shows a single page without a penny on it from 2002. So very little history available on the domain. Has AddThis been in the works since 1998?

A) The domain was not ours; we purchased it from the previous owner in March 2006.

Q) Most bloggers providing RSS feeds for their users did their finest to get each of about a dozen of these “Chiclets” allowing subscriptions with the most popular services posted within the margins of their blogs. Many bloggers are now relying on the FeedBurner service and moving to some single feed logo. How does the AddThis.com feed service rival FeedBurner? Do you see FeedBurner like a competitor?

A) FeedBurner’s primary clients are feed hosting and management. Feeds are just one sort of content supported by AddThis, we support and can support many more types. We think our generic approach to content collection and distribution is truly unique. Therefore we don’t see FeedBurner as a direct competitor.

Q) Most big publishers and today a large number of smaller site owners and bloggers are beginning to post Del.icio.us and Furl and Reddit logos and links on their pages hoping that website visitors will bookmark their pages within the social bookmarks services. Some are choosing to add a few links with a from the other bookmarking services, but few go beyond the top 5 social bookmarks site links. that AddThis Bookmark service offers 16 social bookmarks services. How have you decide ones which you would include? Certain popularity levels?

A) We picked the most popular bookmarking services depending on popularity and visibility on the internet. We simply stopped at 16 due to time constraints, but we’ll add many more of them later on. By letting AddThis keep up with the list of bookmark and feed buttons, web publisher can better focus on their content.

Q) Do you have any plans for any tie-in with Digg? Like a news popularity site, there is a different focus than the RSS feeds and Social Bookmarks services, but many site publishers are including “Digg This” links from their web pages included in a “social media marketing” plan. Does your focus with AddThis stay with bloggers, product retailers, bookmarks, and podcasts or are you going to consider expanding into the news along with other areas?

A) Social news is also a logical candidate for AddThis. We will include other kinds of content depending on user adoption.

Q) Is there other things you want to Add(to)This?

A) We think AddThis will have a large role since it constitutes a lot of sense for both web users and web publishers. You can imagine AddThis.com because the more social sister of AddMe.com, or its Web2.0 extension. Each service helps you acquire a different of visibility.

Like a publisher, I had been updating WebSite101 to a new template coupled with been considering including Furl, Reddit, Del.icio.us, and Digg, but came across the AddThis Demo launch story and dropped Furl and Reddit from the add favor of the AddThis “Bookmark” link, since AddThis supports all of the bookmarking services with one button.

I’m keeping the Del.icio.us and Digg links for now, but I think once publishers begin to realize they are able to simplify bookmarks and if users understand that they can use any social bookmark service through AddThis, that you will see strong adoption from the service.

There’s a relatively new group to be treated for addiction and alcoholism that is growing quickly, and that is causing some within the field great concern: It’s the retiring “baby-boomer” population.

There are many reasons the “boomer” generation might be home to many more addicts and alcoholics than the remaining population. Some of these reasons are the boomers were (1) the first generation to engage in wide-spread recreational utilization of a variety of addictive drugs (including cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamines); (2) the very first generation for which a wide variety of prescription medications and painkillers were readily available; and (3) the last generation that treatment and recovery were not culturally acceptable. Of these along with other reasons, some are calling it, ” America’s hidden epidemic”. [1]

According to some studies, it’s expected that, by 2020, the amount of seniors with alcohol along with other drug problems will leap 150 percent to 4.4 million seniors Up from only one.7 million in 2001. [2]

Deborah Trunzo, research coordinator for the SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), has said that, by 2020, the amount of older people who will have drug problems, and be seeking treatment, will be “likely to swamp the system”.

It’s the baby-boomer generation, or the “young old” – those born between 1946 and 1964 – which are in the centre of the possible epidemic. Unlike their predecessors, those in the baby-boom generation are more comfortable taking medications for any number of problems, including pain, insomnia, depression, and anxiety.

In addition, the baby boomers are the initial generation to widely experiment with recreational drug use. Yet along with many of these “firsts”, they are also the last group born before it became somewhat permissible to confess to addiction or alcoholism, or to seek help or treatment.

Among the big concerns would be that the boomers tend to be more vulnerable to late-life symbol of alcoholism, addiction, and substance abuse.

Additionally, over the last years, this group has been prescribed with far more painkillers, as well as newer “designer drugs” including potentially addictive psychotropics.

A. Rush Limbaugh: The Poster-Child for Late-Onset Addiction

For example, in October 2003, in the chronilogical age of 55, well-known political talk-show host, Rush Limbaugh, was faced with prescription drug fraud, and admitted to being hooked on painkillers – primarily oxycodone. With Mr. Limbaugh’s admission to his addiction, he had become the poster child (or poster “senior”) from the new kind of patient showing up in centers, and emergency rooms. [3]

This “late onset” substance abuse is often associated with other medical problems, and the emotional traumas that can accompany old age, which arise from isolation, injuries and accidents, the death of family and friends, and the natural aging and dysfunction of the body.

As the boomers move into retirement, and then leave the job force, they may think it is more difficult to keep their drug supply of choice: On the one hand, those who obtain drugs through legal means may have less medical coverage and less money to invest on prescription drugs. However, those who trust illegal drugs won’t have just as much money to pay for those drugs after retirement, and many will lose “access” to those drugs using their professional vocation (think of the dentist, nurse, or paramedic, for example, that has easy access during work). Retirement may simply mean a loss of revenue of supply, the attendant consequences of withdrawal, and also the need for medical treatment.

A new legion of addicts is coming, and they need a far different approach to treatment, in addition to a higher degree of medical intervention and support.

B. The Need for Greater and much more Specialized Treatment

Generally, older adults have different needs than younger adults; and, with regards to the treatment of addiction and alcoholism in older adults, these differences are magnified.

Typically, younger adults tend to be more resilient, and also have abused themselves for any shorter period of time, and therefore, have a better chance of residing in recovery. However, seniors are much more prone to drop right into a long decline toward death following any significant medical event (such as detoxification).

The aged really are a very vulnerable group, and therefore are noted to have the highest rate of suicide along with other complications with regards to alcoholism. [4] Older adults will also be showing an increase in seeking treatment for methamphetamine use. These are merely a few examples difference and trends which make the boomers such a widely diverse group, with various histories and backgrounds, giving the group the need for a wider variety of treatment plans and responses. [5]

Also, boomers may have dual diagnosis, with untreated long-standing co-morbid mental health issues, such as ADHD, anxiety disorder, along with other personality disorders, which were simply not identified by the medical community back in the day once the boomers were a kid.

Finally, the maturing abused human body in retirement will need more medical attention, more care-giving, more nursing homes, more medications, and more money, normally, than one who has led a comparatively healthy life.

Macroeconomics: Medicare and Social Security Programs

The higher monetary and social costs associated with older adult treatment, recovery, and medical support could be substantial. As we significantly under-estimate the amount of baby-boomers that are or will be addicts and alcoholics within their retirement years, we may have greatly misjudged the overall costs to the healthcare systems.

The Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees just this week released the 2008 Annual Set of the Status from the Social Security and Medicare Programs. [6]

The Summary Report begins as follows:

“A MESSAGE TO THE PUBLIC:

Every year the Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds set of the present and projected financial status of these two programs. This message summarizes our 2008 Annual Reports.

“The personal finances of the Social Security and Medicare programs remains problematic. Projected long term program pricing is not sustainable under current financing arrangements. Social Security’s current annual surpluses of tax income over expenditures will start to decline this year and then turn into growing rapidly deficits as the baby boom generation retires. Medicare’s financial status is a whole lot worse. This year Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund is anticipated to spend more in hospital benefits along with other expenditures of computer receives in taxes along with other dedicated revenues. The difference is going to be comprised of general revenues which purchase interest credits to the Trust Fund. Growing annual deficits are projected to exhaust HI reserves in 2019 and Social Security reserves in 2041. In addition, the Medicare Supplementary Health care insurance (SMI) Trust Fund that pays for physician services and also the prescription drug benefit continues to require general revenue financing and charges on beneficiaries that grow substantially faster than the economy and beneficiary incomes over time.

“The drawdown of Social Security and HI Trust Fund reserves and also the general revenue transfers into SMI can lead to mounting pressure on the Federal budget. Actually, pressure has already been evident. For that second consecutive year, a “Medicare funding warning” has been triggered, signaling that non-dedicated sources of revenues-primarily general revenues-will soon take into account a lot more than 45 percent of Medicare’s outlays. The President recently proposed remedial action pursuant to the warning in last year’s report and, prior to Medicare statute, a Presidential proposal will be necessary for response to the latest warning.

We are increasingly concerned about inaction about the financial challenges facing the Social Security and Medicare programs. The more action is delayed, the higher would be the required adjustments, the greater the burden on generations to come, and also the worse the detrimental economic effect on our nation.”

The actuarial assumptions underlying the Annual Report are based on the intermediate selection of projected costs. As also stated in the Summary Report:

“How Are Estimates of the Trust Funds’ Future Status Made? Short-range (10-year) and long-range (75-year) projections are reported for all funds. Estimates derive from current law and assumptions about factors that affect the income and outgo of every trust fund. Assumptions include economic growth, wage growth, inflation, unemployment, fertility, immigration, and mortality, as well as factors associated with disability incidence and also the price of hospital, medical, and prescription drug services. [Emphasis added.]

Since the future is inherently uncertain, three alternative sets of economic, demographic, and programmatic assumptions are used to show a variety of possibilities. The intermediate assumptions (alternative II) reflect the Trustees’ best estimate of future experience. The low-cost alternative I is much more optimistic for trust fund financing, and also the high-cost alternative III is more pessimistic; they reveal trust fund projections for additional and fewer favorable conditions for trust fund financing than the best estimate. The assumptions are reexamined each year considering recent experience and new details about future trends, and therefore are revised as warranted. Generally, greater confidence can be put in the assumptions and estimates for earlier projection years compared to old age. The statistics and analysis presented within this Summary are based on the intermediate assumptions.” [Emphasis added.]

Therefore, it is possible that the current Reports significantly under-estimate the number of addicts and alcoholics within the boomer generation, the wide diversity of addiction types, and also the overall health problems and medical needs from the boomers because they enter the Social Security and Medicare systems in the years ahead.

If so, the effect on the financial outlook of the systems might be catastrophic:

“What may be the Long-Range (2008-2082) Outlook for Social Security and Medicare Costs? An instructive way to see the projected price of Social Security and Medicare is to compare the financing required to pay all scheduled benefits for the two programs with the gdp (GDP), the most commonly used measure of the total creation of the U.S. economy. Costs for both programs rise steeply between 2010 and 2030 since the number of individuals receiving benefits increases rapidly because the large baby-boom generation retires (Chart B). During those years, cost growth for Medicare is greater than for Social Security because of the rising price of health services, increasing utilization rates, and anticipated increases in the complexity of services. [Emphasis added.]

The opportunity of amplified costs of treatment for a much larger population of addicts and alcoholics would rest upon the shoulders of the already absurdly large set of projected healthcare costs.

C. Conclusion

To conclude, if the actual addiction and alcoholism rates of the retiring baby-boomers is really a lot higher our current estimate of these rates, then the overall medical and related costs to be borne by the Medicare and Social Security Programs could be substantially higher than our current predictions. This, as well as the already high projected costs of healthcare for that group, could, consequently, impact all of us through the significant long-term financial impact on the United States Government.

Because the Summary Report concludes:

“The combined difference grows every year, to ensure that by 2017, net revenue flows in the general fund will total $449 billion (2.0 percent of GDP). The positive amounts that begin in 2017 for OASDI, as well as in 2008 for HI, initially represent payments the Treasury must make to the trust funds when assets are redeemed to help pay benefits in a long time prior to exhaustion from the funds. Observe that neither the redemption of trust fund bonds, nor interest paid on those bonds, provides any new net income towards the Treasury, which must finance redemptions and charges through some combination of increased taxation, reductions in other government spending, or additional borrowing in the public.

“Chart E implies that the difference between outgo and dedicated payroll tax and premium income will grow rapidly within the 2010-30 period because the baby-boom generation reaches retirement age. Beyond 2030, the main difference is constantly on the increase nearly as rapidly due primarily to healthcare costs that grow faster than GDP. Following the trust fund exhaustion dates (2041 for OASDI, 2019 for HI), the increasing positive amounts for OASDI and HI depict the excess of scheduled benefits over projected program income. Once the statutory SMI general fund revenue requirements are put in, the projected combined Social Security and Medicare deficits and statutory general fund revenues in 2082 equal 9.3 percent of GDP, indicating the magnitude of the potential impact on the Federal budget if general revenues were used to make sure payment of scheduled program benefits. A similar burden today would require nearly 80 percent of Federal tax revenues, which amounted to 11.7 percent of GDP in 2007.

“To put these magnitudes into historical perspective, in 2007 the combined annual price of HI, SMI, and OASDI amounted to 38 percent of total Federal revenues, or about 7 percent of GDP. That cost (as a percentage of GDP) is projected to double by 2060, after which to improve further to almost 17 % of GDP in 2082. It is noteworthy that over the past four decades, the typical quantity of total Federal revenue as a area of GDP has been 18 percent, and has not exceeded 21 percent in a given year. Assuming the continuing need to fund a wide range of other government functions, the projected growth in Social Security and Medicare costs would require that the total Federal revenue share of GDP increase to wholly unprecedented levels.”

As the financial outlook for the Programs is bleak, the failure to deal with a potentially larger problem of addiction and alcoholism in the next generation to retire could have amplified consequences for everyone.