… On the Web, powerful algorithms are sizing you up, based on myriad data points: what you Google, the sites you visit, the ads you click. Then, in real time, the chance to show you an ad is auctioned to the highest bidder. … “Online consumers are being bought and […] Read more »
Social and Anti-Social Media
… Republicans may lament that this is not their father’s country but more to the point this is not their father’s marketing either. Irreversible change in the country’s demography collided with irresistible change in the consumption of media. While older white males get their information from television the people who […] Read more »
Everything We Know (So Far) About Obama’s Big Data Tactics
… During the election, the Obama campaign, which had assembled a cutting-edge team of data scientists, developers, and digital advertising experts, refused to say anything about how it was targeting voters. Now, members of the campaign are starting to open up about what their team actually did with all that […] Read more »
Tracking Online Clicks to Try to Sway Voters
… One of the hallmarks of this campaign is the use of increasingly sophisticated — but not always accurate — data-mining techniques to customize ads for voters based on the digital trails they leave as they visit Internet sites. It is a practice pioneered by online retailers who work with […] Read more »
Study Finds Broad Wariness Over Online Tracking
As marketers, browser makers and government regulators spar over efforts to let consumers limit custom advertising online, a new study suggests that Americans are largely unaware of what that means and have a strong aversion to being tracked online. The majority of Americans surveyed by researchers at the Berkeley Center […] Read more »
Future of Mobile News
The era of mobile digital technology has crossed a new threshold. Half of all U.S. adults now have a mobile connection to the web through either a smartphone or tablet, significantly more than a year ago, and this has major implications for how news will be consumed and paid for, […] Read more »