IBM: The Great Entertainer
October 25, 2020
The media never stops reporting news and technology never stops revolutionizing the media. The newest upgrade for media brands and publishers is AI says Advanced Television in the article: “IBM Brings AI At Scale To The Media Industry.” IBM wants to remain one of the leading AI developers and suppliers, especially when they have Watson to do the scaling. As part of IBM’s easy array of industry solutions, the company now offers three new products for brands and publishers. The new products focus on reaching consumers while respecting their privacy. IBM already has an all star client list for its new AI product line, including Beeswax, MediaMath, Nielsen, LiveRamp, Xandr/AT&T, and Magnite.
IBM SVP of Cognitive Applications and Blockchain Bob Lord stated that the advertising industry is undergoing a major transformation when it comes to consumer privacy. Major changes are elimination of some third party cookies, mobile identity, and increased demand in transparency, and increased compliance and regulatory shifts. In order for the advertising agency to respect consumer privacy, but also generate revenue Lord explained AI will be invaluable:
“He added: ‘We believe AI will be the ‘backbone’ of the new era as the industry prepares for the next generation of advertising. We’re using AI to help solve problems across the advertising industry, just like IBM has in countless other industries like Healthcare, Financial Services and Retail. Our work will be a step forward in our evolution to meet the advertising industry’s upheaval, and we are proud to help the advertising industry advance with the value of AI.’”
The newest AI upgrades are for IBM’s Watson Advertising Accelerator, Watson Advertising Social Targeting with Influential, and Watson Advertising Weather Targeting. IBM developed these tools for the advertising industry to regain consumer trust. Consumers are upset about the amount of spying and selling of their personal data, not to mention the amount of targeted ads that reach them through their phones, computers, tablets, and televisions.
IBM is using AI to help brands and publishers make sense of the amount of data in the digital space to make wise business decisions. The other goal is to regain consumer trust and respect individuals’ privacy as technology becomes more entwined in society.
IBM, AI, and declining revenues: Take the show on the road.
Whitney Grace, October 25, 2020
Free Book Plus a Data Vacuum
October 22, 2020
DarkCyber spotted an innocuous item offering a “free” book about Microsoft Office 2019, a product the research team no longer uses. TextMaker works just fine, thank you. Curious about the pitch and how trade publishers are responding to the challenge traditional niche publications and publishers are dealing with the impact of thumb typers on print, one of the DarkCyber team filled in the form.
Here’s what we learned. Start the process by navigating to this link.
We received the download link from this link.
Then an online form requires name, address, email, and other useful marketing bits.
The system from TradePub.com then matches the book to specialist topics and titles and displays books in a category, which in this case had a technology slant:
Click a title and the fun begins. Each title gathers substantially the same information. One can repeat this process a number of times to obtain free magazines. Some are in theory still in print and will be delivered to the DarkCyber offices.
So what?
Several observations:
- The data collection is overt
- Data must be entered multiple times
- The download link did not arrive.
Bummer.
TradePub does not operate from the business capital of the rust belt. According to the firm’s Web site, the firm is in California. The company says:
TradePub.com is owned and operated by NetLine Corporation. NetLine Corporation empowers B2B Marketers with the reach, technology, and expertise required to drive scalable lead generation results and accelerate the sales funnel. Operating the largest B2B content syndication lead generation network, NetLine’s AudienceTarget™ technology drives prospect discovery, quality customer lead acquisition, and buyer engagement from real prospect intent as professionals consume content directly across the network. Superior quality, on demand access, and advanced campaign reports enable all clients to achieve lead generation success. Founded in 1994, NetLine is privately held and headquartered in Campbell, California.
For more information about TradePub.com navigate to this link.
How much junk mail will arrive at the “real” DarkCyber email address? Monitoring is underway. The DarkCyber researcher reported that within 10 minutes of registering, three email spam items were received by the “real” DarkCyber email address.
Since the marketing set up has been in operation for a quarter century, why haven’t trade publications and specialist publications outperformed their stakeholders’ expectations?
This is a good question which some study from home, soon to be MBA may want to answer. At least the approach is not chock full of search engine optimization goodness. That’s a plus.
DarkCyber was able to download the book. It is an 800 page tome, which is definitely going to become the research team’s night time read. One of the DarkCyber research crew observed, “This outfit should pay me to read this book.”
Unlikely, right?
PS. The “free” book? It contains zero information about inserting images and controlling their location in the document. Minor point? No, representative of the value of “free.”
Stephen E Arnold, October 22, 2020
Rah, Rah, Sis Boom Analytics. No, Wait. Boo, Boo, Hiss, Hiss Analytics
October 16, 2020
One of the DarkCyber researchers alerted me to “Most CMOs Disappointed with Analytics Results.” We are wrapping up an interview with one of the senior technologists at Datawalk, and the topic of complexity in easy-to-use analytics systems was a topic of discussion. Watch for this revealing interview in an upcoming issue of DarkCyber.
The article about disappointed CMOs is not surprising. What is surprising is that individuals with expectations that smart software will generate just the answer one needs to generate bigly sales are so widespread.
The write up reports citing a study by the mid-tier consulting firm Gartner Group:
“Though CMOs understand the importance of applying analytics throughout the marketing organization, many struggle to quantify the relationship between insights gathered and their company’s bottom line. In fact, nearly half of respondents in this year’s survey say they’re unable to measure marketing ROI,” says Lizzy Foo Kune, senior director analyst in the Gartner Marketing practice. “This inability to measure ROI tarnishes the perceived value of the analytics team.”
Other findings from the study of 415 marketing “leaders” are:
- Training staff is not a priority
- Data science and campaigns are behind other analytic use cases
- Most organizations will spend more for analytics.
These types of surveys deliver results that gild the available lilies.
For those without numerical skills and training, many of today’s analytic tools are like to disappoint. The digital oracle of Delphi is not working particularly well for many users. Even individuals with a couple of statistics courses on their record have to spend time familiarizing themselves with the analytic tools and their options. Plus if bad data go in, not even a super smart system can produce silk purses from chubby data pigs. Nevertheless, MBAs believe in analytics and, of course, magic.
Stephen E Arnold, October 16, 2020
Selling the Millennial MBA Way
October 15, 2020
How does a company sell in the era of the Rona, social unrest, financial uncertainty, international tension, and misinformation? The answer appears in “Drive Growth by Picking the Right Lane — A Customer Acquisition Playbook for Consumer Startups.” The advice is interesting because it pays scant attention to most of the traditional methods. (Methods are explained as “lanes” and “social media”.)
Here’s an example from the introduction to the free how-to. The focus of the write up is narrowed to:
Performance marketing (e.g. Facebook and Google ads)
Virality (e.g. word-of-mouth, referrals, invites)
Content (e.g. SEO, YouTube)
The essay points out that fuddy duddy techniques are not included. The explanation is:
There are two additional lanes (sales and partnerships) which we won’t cover in this post because they are rarely effective in consumer businesses. And there are other tactics to boost customer acquisition (e.g PR, brand marketing), but the lanes outlined above are the only reliable paths for long-term and sustainable business growth.
The how-to includes screenshots, tables, and graphs.
Need a playbook to sell the millennial way? This may be for you.
Stephen E Arnold, October 15, 2020
Google: Handwaving before the Regulators Arrive
October 15, 2020
Google News Makes a Show of Playing Fair
Well this is an interesting attempt to buy off an industry. Fast Company reports, “Google Will Pay Publishers $1 Billion to Quell Claims of Unfairly Profiting from their Content.” Google recently unveiled Google News Showcase, an initiative that will pay some publishers for content it already swiped. I mean, published. The company’s announcement on its blog calls this Google’s biggest financial commitment to publishers to date—all to avoid a much larger, legally mandated payout later, we’d warrant. Writer Michael Grothaus observes:
“But the Showcase initiative isn’t an altruistic move on Google’s part. The search giant has come under increasing pressure from publishers and regulators in recent years about the way it profits from the work publishers do. In short, Google’s News service currently works by pulling story headlines and descriptions from the publishers’ websites, populating the News service with their content. Google has always maintained its News service is good for publishers, as it sends traffic to their sites. However, publishers say Google gets the far better end of the deal since their content drives clicks to the Google News platform and because Google keeps most of the profits from the ads served on its platform. Given the profits Google generates, $1 billion over three years doesn’t seem like a whole lot of money. But for now, some publishers, at least, seem willing to take any handouts. Google says over 200 publishers have already signed up, including Germany’s Der Spiegel. As for the News Showcase itself, the new platform will first launch on Google News on Android devices, followed by iOS devices later this year.”
Just how different will this “Showcase” be from the existing Google News? The platform will probably highlight content from publishers that agreed to play ball. Otherwise, we expect the differences to be minor.
Cynthia Murrell, October 15, 2020
The Rona and Weird Fumes of Content Marketing
October 8, 2020
My suspicious nature kicked into a higher gear when I read this sentence in the Fast Company essay “This One Concept Will Transform the Future of Work Post-COVID-19: Soon We’re All in This Together Will Become This Is a Crisis and We’re Fighting It Together.”
Right now, at SAP, we are transitioning our entire marketing events over to digital, while at the same time creating the processes, acquiring the skill sets, and building the new technologies in order to do so.
The author is an employee of SAP, the IBM-esque outfit which coverts a licensee to its systems and methods for doing “work.” I think of SAP as the company which developed the Trex search system. Whatever happened to that? I may have to look into its fate, but SAP is not a company evoking keen interest here in Harrod’s Creek.
What is interesting is this Transform the Future of Work essay.
One idea in the write up is that some companies cannot complete a digital revolution. I agree. The question becomes, “What does a company have to do to make effective use of new technology?” The answer appears to be: License SAP. That’s super if one has money, time, resources, and knowledge of exactly what to do to reach an SAP representative and cut a deal.
The write up features a number of interesting references. These are “stories” and the implication is that each of the named entities has mastered the revolution and is zipping to the future.
The write up explains:
The root problem here is that many businesses don’t think, when things are going well, that they need to invest in other aspects of the business. Even here at SAP, the conversations we were having at the end of 2019 were “How can we turn our 25,000-person event into a 50,000-person event?” It’s not until physical events get shut down altogether that you realize you should have been asking a different question.
Yeah, right. SAP is part of the transformation. Content marketing is more important than the Rona revolution. I am not convinced that SAP has:
- The ability to predict the future
- The technology to deal effectively with the work modalities now in place
- The track record to convince a small or mid sized business to embrace SAP when there are other options available.
Nice try at sounding like a real management consultant. Sorry, no cigar for you. There’s plenty of smoke in the air now.
Stephen E Arnold, October 8, 2020
Is There a Lack of Talent for Artificial Intelligence?
October 7, 2020
Absolutely, positively no. At least that’s what “Lack of AI Skills a Myth” reports. And the source of this oracular revelation? Pick one: [a] A Chinese fortune cookie, [b] US outfits dependent on whiz kids from Eastern Europe, India, and China (yes, China!), [c] consultants on a Zoom call making up great ideas for selling consulting, [d] tweets from a non-US disinformation service, or [e] Amazon Sagemaker training collateral?
According to the write up:
A Gartner poll of roughly 200 business and IT professionals in September,2020 revealed that 24% of respondents’ organizations increased their artificial intelligence investments and 42% kept them unchanged since the onset of COVID-19. Growth – namely customer experience and retention, and revenue growth – along with cost optimization were the top focus areas for their current AI initiatives.
A sample of “roughly” 200 selected how exactly? What about the margin of error for the global information technology, information research community, and smart software practitioners in places like Bangalore?
Okay? This is not Statistics 205, but it is a content marketing thing. I get it.
Let’s look at some of the other “findings” from the “roughly” 200 respondents. (Were these folks compensated in some way? Are they clients of the research company fresh from a Zoom webinar on AI and ML?)
Alleged findings:
- 75 percent of the sample will continue or start new AI projects
- 79 percent of the sample says something slightly different from the dot point above; namely, “79 percent of the respondents said their organizations were exploring or piloting AI projects
- 21 percent of the “sample” stated their AI initiatives were “in production.”
And the conclusion?
According to the consulting firm, “the lack of AI talent is a myth.”
Sounds like a rock solid conclusion based on the “sample.”
Truly remarkable.
Stephen E Arnold, October 7, 2020
Microsoft, Google: A Rose by Any Other Name?
October 6, 2020
Twenty twenty is unlikely to be remembered for outstanding brand decisions. Let’s look at the Corona thing. There was WuFlu, then Corona, and now for some the Rona.
The Google has taken a bold step and, at this time, it is not another messaging app. Google has changed the name “GSuite” to — close your eyes and imagine the bestest name in the world — Google Workspace. You know almost like Microsoft Works, the baby version of Office which went exactly where?
“GSuite Is Now Google Workspace” reports:
the company decided to also give the service a new name and introduce new logos for all the included productivity apps, which are now being used — and paid for — by more than 6 million businesses.
The addition of the word “space” makes Googzilla so much more homey, where those with real jobs can work. The article helpfully added:
In a press briefing ahead of today’s announcement, Google’s Javier Soltero, the company’s VP and GM for what is now Google Workspace, noted that the company wanted to ensure that the service that people use is the same thing that people buy.
Those are subscribers. The magic monetization technique popular as a business model borrowed from the ruins of the way things were.
Microsoft has jumped in the game as well. Bing is now — wait for it — Microsoft Bing. Instead of compression like Rona from Corona virus, Microsoft takes one syllable and enhances it with another word, “Microsoft.”
“Bing Gets Rebranded as Microsoft Bing (Yes, Really)” reports:
According to Microsoft, the new name “reflects the continued integration of our search experiences across the Microsoft family.” So yeah, not a big change, but just something that brings it a little closer to the rest of the “family.”
Yep, part of the family. What? No subscription to the search system which does not include some content readily found in such potent competitors as www.swisscows.ch?
Language enhances both of these services, doesn’t it?
Stephen E Arnold, October 6, 2020
Gartner Heads for the Clouds with Silver Linings
October 5, 2020
Organizations are offloading their computing, because it saves on expenses and allows them to have endless storage space, maintenance, upgrades, and customer service. At least cloud computing is supposed to be the end all solution. The Register reported on a recent Gartner review of cloud computing services, “Gartner On Cloud Contenders: AWS Fails To Lower Its Prices, Microsoft ‘Cannot Guarantee Capacity’, Google Has ‘Devastating’ Network Outages.”
Gartner’s review faced criticism from the start, because it only covered seven cloud infrastructure and platform services, because they fit the definition of “hyper scale cloud providers.” The biggest players are not surprising: Google, Microsoft, and AWS. The other companies are smaller but specialize in niches: Alibaba, Oracle, IBM, and Tencent. Gartner separated its review criteria into magic quadrants, but failed to identify any movers or shakers.
AWS soars to the top of the report and Gartner warns Amazon wants to own more parts of the value chain that delivers cloud computing services. Microsoft placed second, because it is a good service for Microsoft-based systems and company has a good approach to open source.
Readers of the article were unhappy with it, because:
“It’s not random speculation, it’s paid propaganda.
In 2011 Gartner “predicted” that windows phone would leap ahead of iOS in market share by 2015…
Back in 2003 they said that windows mobile would dominate the smartphone market.
Microsoft paid Gartner for this “analysis”.
Other observations included:
- There are some people who actually consider Gartner reports to be worth something, and this did result in a few companies standardizing on Microsoft mobile devices for a time based on reading the Gartner reports – only to be forced to quickly move to android or ios devices when the devices they were using got dropped.
- They don’t actually use or test the products/services they write about, information published by Gartner is supplied by the vendors themselves – ie it’s “best case” marketing material and doesn’t reflect real world experience where advertised functionality is almost never as good as the marketing literature claims it to be.
- At most what they do, is compare the claimed feature sets of vendors… Only many vendors will exaggerate their claims, they may have features X Y and Z on paper but that doesn’t mean you as a potential customer would need or want those features, nor does it mean that they actually perform as expected.
When it comes to choosing products or services, there really is no substitute for actual experience. There are people who have used a product extensively and know its individual strengths and weaknesses. Every product/service has its own strengths and weaknesses, but which set is best for your individual use case can vary.
Ah, marketing.
Whitney Grace, October 5, 2020
The Quantum Thing
October 2, 2020
Everywhere I look I see “quantum.” For example, consider this confection: “Can Quantum Physics Explain Consciousness? One Scientist Thinks It Might.” And what about “Google Confirms ‘Quantum Supremacy’ Breakthrough.” Or “Intel and QuTech Demonstrate High-Fidelity ‘Hot’ Qubits for Practical Quantum Systems”.
The most recent quantum news to catch my attention appears in “D-Wave Launches its 5,000+ Qubit Advantage System.” The write up explains:
These new systems, with over 5,000 qubits and 15-way qubit connectivity, are now available in the company’s Leap cloud computing platform. That’s up from about 2,000 qubits in the previous system, which featured six-way connectivity. Using Leap’s hybrid solver, which combines classic CPUs and GPUs with the company’s quantum system, users can now solve significantly more complex problems, thanks to both the higher qubit and connection count.
Exciting. I have a few questions:
- When will this technology be available in a mobile phone?
- How much does the cooling component cost to operate per month?
- How does one extract “accurate” data from the system?
Progress in marketing is being made. In practical applications, the charge to the future may be moving more slowly.
Stephen E Arnold, October 2, 2020
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