How the Future of Mobile Looks Like the past of TV for Advertising
December 15, 2016
The article titled How Mobile Today Is Like TV Six Decades Ago on The Atlantic explores the radical changes in advertising in the last five years. The era of advertising through newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio is effectively over, replaced by digital advertising, which is almost exclusively mobile. That mobile content is split between Facebook and Google. Those two giants account for half of all digital media advertising. The article explains what this means for news,
For newspapers, magazines, and websites, there are several paths forward. First, billionaires can rescue media organizations from the stormy seas of the mobile Internet and fund journalism that the ad market won’t support. Second, companies like Facebook may determine that it is in their own interest to preserve some news and entertainment publishers, and they will directly pay media companies, the same way cable companies pay carriage to television channels.
The article also considers a return to the subscription model, or companies shifting to event and marketing strategies for revenue. But any company that tries to ignore the seismic shifts in the news landscape is in for an abrupt and painful shock. The article preaches an optimistic approach based in the history of TV. News is here to stay, but how it is paid for and what the advertising looks like is going to change.
Chelsea Kerwin, December 15, 2016
The Business World Is Not Prepared for a Cyber Attack
January 12, 2016
Cyber threats have been a concerning topics since computers became functional and daily tools for people. The idea of a hacker brings up images of IT geeks sitting in a dark basement with their laptops and cracking top secret codes in a matter of keystrokes. Hacking has turned from a limited crime to a huge international problem comparable to the mafia. While hackers are interested in targeting individuals, the bolder thieves target big businesses. News of Bahrain shares that “Biz Not Prepared For Cyber Threat,” translated from headline speech that means the business world would not withstand a cyber attack.
KPMG International released the 2015 KPMG CEO Outlook Study that found businesses are aware of risks associated with cyber attacks, but only forty-nine percent have prepared for one. The study surveyed 1,200 CEOs and one out of five are concerned about cyber risks. The concern has led many CEOs to take action with security measures and safety plans.
“ ‘The most innovative companies have recognized that cyber security is a customer experience, not just a risk that needs to be managed or a line item in the budget. In Bahrain, some firms are finding ways to turn cyber preparedness into a competitive advantage with customers, and they are using this as a differentiator.’ ”
Many companies that are attacked thought they were prepared for any threats, but they underestimated hackers’ intelligence, sophistication, and persistence.
Some of the companies with good cyber security are advertising their technical achievements to prevent attacks. It is a desirable feature, especially as more information is housed on cloud storage and businesses need to be aware of potential threats.
Whitney Grace, January 12, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
All You Can View Patents
November 18, 2015
Patent information is available to peruse via the USPTO Web site and Google has an accurate patent search (that is significantly easier to use than USPTO’s search), but this does not tell the complete story of US patents. GCN announced that the USPTO plans to remedy missing patent information in the article, “USPTO Opens The Door To Four Decades Of Patent Data.”
With the help of the Center of Science and Innovation Policy (CSSIP), the USPTO launched the new tool PatentsView:
“The new tool allows individuals to explore data on patenting activity in the United States dating back to 1976. Users can search patent titles, types, inventors, assignees, patent classes, locations and dates. The data also displays visualizations on trends and patent activity. In addition, searches include graphic illustrations and charts.”
People will be able to conduct the equivalent of an “advanced search” option of Google or an academic database. PatentsView allows people to identify trends, what technology is one the rise or dropping, search a company’s specific patents, and flexible application programming interface to search patent information.
The USPTO wants people to access and use important patent and trademark data. It faces the issue that many organizations are dealing with that they have the data available and even with the bonus of it being digital, but its user interface is not user-friendly and no one knows it is there. Borrowing a page from marketing, the USPTO is using PatentsView to rebrand itself and advertise its offerings. Shiny graphics are one way to reach people.
Whitney Grace, November 18, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Data Analytics Is More Than Simple Emotion
November 6, 2015
Hopes and Fears posted the article, “Are You Happy Now? The Uncertain Future Of Emotion Analytics” discusses the possible implications of technology capable of reading emotions. The article opens with a scenario from David Collingridge explaining that the only way to truly gauge technology’s impact is when it has become so ingrained into society that it would be hard to change. Many computing labs are designing software capable of reading emotions using an array of different sensors.
The biggest problem ahead is not how to integrate emotion reading technology into our lives, but what are the ethical concerns associated with it?
Emotion reading technology is also known as affective computing and the possible ethical concerns are more than likely to come from corporation to consumer relationships over consumer-to-consumer relationships. Companies are already able to track a consumer’s spending habits by reading their Internet data and credit cards, then sending targeted ads.
Consumers should be given the option to have their emotions read:
“Affective computing has the potential to intimately affect the inner workings of society and shape individual lives. Access, an international digital rights organization, emphasizes the need for informed consent, and the right for users to choose not to have their data collected. ‘All users should be fully informed about what information a company seeks to collect,’ says Drew Mitnick, Policy Counsel with Access, ‘The invasive nature of emotion analysis means that users should have as much information as possible before being asked to subject [themselves] to it.’”
While the article’s topic touches on fear, it ends on a high note that we should not be afraid of the future of technology. It is important to discuss ethical issues right now, so groundwork will already be in place to handle affective computing.
Whitney Grace, November 6, 2015
The Tweet Gross Domestic Product Tool
October 16, 2015
Twitter can be used to figure out your personal income. Twitter was not designed to be a tool to tally a person’s financial wealth, instead it is a communication tool based on a one hundred forty character messages to generate for small, concise delivery. Twitter can be used to chat with friends, stars, business executives, etc, follow news trends, and even advertise products by sent to a tailored audience. According to Red Orbit in the article “People Can Guess Your Income Based On Your Tweets,” Twitter has another application.
Other research done on Twitter has revealed that your age, location, political preferences, and disposition to insomnia, but your tweet history also reveals your income. Apparently, if you tweet less, you make more money. The controls and variables for the experiment were discussed, including that 5,191 Twitter accounts with over ten million tweets were analyzed and accounts with a user’s identifiable profession were used.
Users with a high follower and following ratio had the most income and they tended to post the least. Posting throughout the day and cursing indicated a user with a lower income. The content of tweets also displayed a plethora of “wealth” information:
“It isn’t just the topics of your tweets that’s giving you away either. Researchers found that “users with higher income post less emotional (positive and negative) but more neutral content, exhibiting more anger and fear, but less surprise, sadness and disgust.” It was also apparent that those who swore more frequently in their tweets had lower income.”
Twitter uses the information to tailor ads for users, if you share neutral posts get targeted ads advertising expensive items, while the cursers get less expensive ad campaigns. The study also proves that it is important to monitor your Twitter profile, so you are posting the best side of yourself rather than shooting yourself in the foot.
Whitney Grace, October 16, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Full Text Search Gets Explained
October 6, 2015
Full text search is a one of the primary functions of most search platform. If a search platform cannot get full text search right, then it is useless and should be tossed in the recycle bin. Full text search is such a basic function these days that most people do not know how to explain what it is. So what is full text?
According to the Xojo article, “Full Text Search With SQLite” provides a thorough definition:
“What is full text searching? It is a fast way to look for specific words in text columns of a database table. Without full text searching, you would typically search a text column using the LIKE command. For example, you might use this command to find all books that have “cat” in the description…But this select actually finds row that has the letters “cat” in it, even if it is in another word, such as “cater”. Also, using LIKE does not make use of any indexing on the table. The table has to be scanned row by row to see if it contains the value, which can be slow for large tables.”
After the definition, the article turns into advertising piece for SQLite and how it improves the quality of full text search. It offers some more basic explanation, which are not understood by someone unless they have a coding background. It is a very brief with some detailed information, but could explain more about what SQLite is and how it improves full text search.
Whitney Grace, October 6, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Why Are Ads Hiding Themselves
June 25, 2015
The main point of an advertisement is to get your attention and persuade you to buy a good or service. So why would ads be hiding themselves in a public venue? Gizmodo reports that in Russia certain ads are hiding from law enforcement in the article: “This Ad For Banned Food In Russia Itself From The Cops.” Russian authorities have banned imported food from the United States and European Union. Don Giulio Salumeria is a Russian food store that makes its income by selling imported Italian food, but in light of the recent ban the store has had to come up with some creative advertising:
“Websites are already able to serve up ads customized for whoever happens to be viewing a page. Now an ad agency in Russia is taking that idea one step further with an outdoor billboard that’s able to automatically hide when it spots the police coming.”
Using a camera equipped with facial recognition software programmed to recognized symbols and logos on officers’ uniforms, the billboard switches ads from Don Giulio Salumeria to another ad advertising a doll store. While the ad does change when it “sees “ the police coming, they still have enough time to see it. The article argues that the billboard’s idea is more interesting than anything. It then points out how advertising will become more personally targeted in the future, such as a billboard recognizing a sports logo and advertising an event related to your favorite team or being able to recognize your car on a weekly commute, then recommending a vacation. While Web sites are already able to do this by tracking cookies on your browser, it is another thing to being tracked in the real world by targeted ads.
Whitney Grace, June 25, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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