Week 15 – Big Data, Security, Privacy, and Ethics

What would I do if asked for my Facebook password at an interview?  There are so many different angles to respond to this.  I could ask the interviewer for their personal password in exchange or write my “password” on a piece of paper, f^¢kyouforasking and then Instagram the look on their face after reading it. #booyah Oh yeah, you can, “put it eloquently”, like it says in the reading.  If you can’t tell this would agitate me.  I would have already determined that I do not want to work there so I would have nothing to lose.  I do not have anything to hide but I believe that is crossing a line into my personal life.  

I remember hearing about this Instagram issue. As a photographer this is an area we have special interest in.  But really, it’s Instagram, are people really that concerned about their frivolous Iphone photos? Shouldn’t they be thrilled that the photo was used in an ad campaign? It’s not like they invested a lot of time learning the art of photography and investing multiple thousands of dollars on equipment.  I do follow some talented street photographers on Instagram and they have to be aware that posting something online means it is up for grabs.  But they would account for maybe .1% of all users anyway.  Furthermore, Instagram is free, they have to pay the bills somehow.

Patients not having access to their medical device reports offers a sad look into the Inefficaciousness of our nations health care.  If you had access to your own reports that said you were good to go you would not need to see the doctor. The suits that run the hospitals want you to make regular visits so they can roll around in huge profits every year.

Week 14 – Information AggreGATORS

In the verbose article From Information to Audiences, we talk about multichannel marketing.  I talked about this in my web analytics presentation.  How to efficiently and effectively reach consumers and get them to convert.  I’m most interested in tactics used to reach people that abandon their carts.  How and when to reach them using retargeting programs.  What is site retargeting? Here it says, for example,  Google can give information about previously perused pages.

Has anyone changed their online habits now that we now the depth of research advertisers are using to target us?.  

Not a questionnaire or survey taker? Doesn’t matter. Your tweets are being used to determine your personality traits. We are all screwed.  They will say it is to better “serve people as individuals rather than ‘vague demographic blurs’.”  The Gap Demographic information that we may not feel so bad about having documented will give way to, “What they really need is a way to discover the ‘deep psychological profiles’ of their customers, including their personalities, values and needs.” I’d say the determination of those factors is highly subjective and personal. 

Say your personality and values were determined by a company,  could it be summoned in a court case and be used for or against you?

Week 13 – Message Testing

So you want to reach young adults and kids and tell them what they are drinking is bad?  Good luck.  We have known smoking is bad for like forever and young kids still pick it up.  These ads are similar to the truth or Tobacco Free Florida is using to combat smoking.  I was wondering who funds those smoke free ads so I did a search.  

Since 1989, Florida’s Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services have been actively involved in the prevention of tobacco use. In 1997, Florida settled a large lawsuit with a large tobacco industry and was granted $11.3 billion to assist withMedicaid costs incurred by health care services for smokers. As a result of the lawsuit, the Tobacco Pilot Program was launched by the Florida Department of Health to help educate the youth on the impacts of tobacco use. When Florida’s legislation decided to reduce funding to $1 million annually five years later after the Tobacco Pilot Program was launched, the 2006 ballot allowed Floridians to pass a constitutional amendment, which requires an annual appropriation of 15% of the gross 2005 tobacco settlement fund (adjusted for inflation) to provide money for a statewide tobacco education and prevention program.  –  Wikipedia 

I believe alternative options aren’t as readily available and that makes it difficult to avoid SSB’s.  But getting a message out there is important.  An info-graphic showing the number of sugar packets on the side of the can would be very effective.  More so than a  deceased 1600 lbs man’s failed liver in a jar perhaps.  Which do you think would be more effective?

Reaching kids is one thing, but the parents are the ones buying them the drinks.  Why?  Because soda is dirt cheap.  2-liter of soda, 97¢, quart of pomegranate juice, $10.  In high school, I had a slice of pizza, and giant chocolate chip cookie, and 2 chocolate milks everyday for lunch.  I wonder if I was more informed if I would have made better choices for my self.  Do you think the money spent on this campaign could have been used more effectively?

 

 

Week 11 – Crowdsourcing

I found this reading on crowdsourcing the most interesting yet.  As a photographer I have thought about doing stock photography.  I didn’t know the details.  Crowdsourcing makes things cheaper for users and the ease of use allows more people to be involved, globally, even if they are not a pro.  The relatively small percentage of pros will be effected but this is good for pros

 It is interesting that the proliferation of videos on the web is considered crowd sourcing.  It makes sense when cable tv shows are gathering them for broadcast.  I love Ridiculousness on MTV.

 I like the idea of crowdsourcing for manufacturing and development.  There are tone of tinkerers with bright ideas and maybe not the academic credentials to to put them to use in the traditional fashion.

 Jam session brainstorming.  My stepfather is an engineer for St. Johns Water Management District.  He sees a lot of new doctoral graduates at his office.  He says people with doctorate degrees know a ton about one little tiny topic and not the broad picture.  Working in a team brings all these people together. 

 Do you think it would be beneficial for city governments to hold jam sessions to effectively and relatively inexpensively solve issues in the community?

 I’m not surprised to read that education is not keeping up with technology.  Universities are about generating revenue.  UF is collecting a nice fee for our online program at probably 25% of the cost of holding a class on campus.  However, without these online classes at night I would be unable to earn my masters. 

 How do you think UF is doing keeping up with the pace of technology?

 

Week 10 – FSMEP

Formal Social Media Escalation Plan.  Only 44% of companies have one in place for crisis control.  The other 66% are too busy counting their billion dollar profits to care.  However, the days of Aunt Bessie calling on the phone for the complaint department are coming to a close.  I do still get calls at my store for directions and store hours.  I mean, really?  You can get all that info from one pocketable device.  Anyway, I don’t really take the time to complain online.  I just take my business elsewhere.  I have thought about becoming a yelper.  Is that social media?

On Social Echo, I like the part about listening before acting.  Once marketers know what is being discussed they can interject their own conversation and manipulate their image.  Tracking your social echo lets a company see how they vibe with the consumer.  

Do you believe it is hard for a company to sway its “echo”?  What are some of the tactics employed?

Companies can no longer rely on the expensive commercial or paid endorsement.  The consumers voice is louder than ever.  I got stuck on browsing the mcspotlight.org website.  Never heard of it before?  Me either.  Think that has something to do with Mcdonald’s controlling their “echo”?

Week 8 – Mobile Analytics

1.21 gigawatts! I mean 1.5 exabytes!  I don’t know how big that is really but it sounds huge.  I like the stat about mobile data usage last year was 18X the size of the total internet in 2000.  I shouldn’t be surprised by the mobile network 2013 numbers, as I sip my iced latte I am listening to pandora and ebaying on my ipad, writing this blog on my laptop, and facebooking on my phone.  What comes after exabyte, a double exabyte with cheese?

Qr codes seem like a simple solution but I don’t like to use them.  If I can get one to actually scan in an app you have to view the web page in app.  Usually the app has some UI that takes up extra space around the webpage.  I would like it btter if it went into safari or chrome for viewing.

Do you scan QR codes and how useful do you think they are?

Apsalar is able to change the way an app works to strategically market to the user.  I’m sure large corporations will be all over this. I believe it is good for the user as you will not be bombarded by useless ads.  Marketers are going to have to be more creative than banner ads to engage consumers.  I only want to see ads for things I am interested in.  I want them customized for me.  More ads being clicked on mobile devices you say?  I say more people bored at work and screwing around so they are more likely to click an ad or click one by accident on a smaller screen.  I have an adblocker plug in on chrome and Facebook is one of the few places I see ads.

Do you use an adblocker plugin and do you click mobile ads?

Week 6 CRM

Digital self.  It may sound like how you choose to portray yourself online, through facebook posts, shares, and tweets.  In an effort by marketers to not be data rich and information poor they have started to track and analyze total web usage and not just social media interaction.  This is your digital self, compiled for you by companies tracking your web experiences and communications.  Hope you like your “self”.  

Say you were into Ossobuco recipes last year but now you are a vegetarian, do you think your digital self is accurate?

The Expedia campaign was interesting trying to determine ROI on social media.  They offered $1,000,000 in prizes if you got 5 friends to like them as well.  They saw a 750% increase in facebook likes dropping their cost per fan 4.5x.  Was it worth it?  From what I read it is hard to say.  They would follow this enormous gain in fans with future promos and hopefully see an increase in ROI.  

Someone has too much time on their hands with the “933 day Time Series for Anger in Twitter Content.”  I have to believe levels of Tweet anger has to be highly subjective and if people rioting in the streets were not enough of an indicator of public disapproval we have, “This plot shows the raw normalised emotional valence signal for anger along with a smoothed anger time series using a 14-day moving window…” 

Banks are getting into the customer social tracking game.  The article says they are currently unsure of how to use the data.

Will your facebook status, share, and likes be used by banks as part of the loan approval process?

 

Week 4 – Web Analytics

Google 101 information is something we have already touched on.  I never really thought about it like this but I like the example on google as a giant book index that can quickly get you to the page you want.  The index is not just for the pages but words and their locations as well.  The list of pages to crawl is developed from the links on previously crawled page.  The main process we are interested in is serving.  Results are served based on over 200 factors.  What are the 200 factors? Wouldn’t you like to know. And a lot of other people.  I will be sharing a video during my presentation from Eric Schmidt the former CEO of google while he asked to reveal their trade secret.  

What is your guess for the top 3 relevancy factors?

Why Google Analytics? Analytics are used to gather and understand web traffic and usage.  Information like where your visitors come from, what type of device they are on, where in the conversion funnel they fall, and how they interact with your site.  The Google Analytics website says the information is used to improve the user experience, however, ultimately it’s about converting sales.  The depth of information and how it is used will surprise you.  I have some interesting information to share during my presentation.

If the information collected on you and your browsing habits were put into a PDF, how many pages would it be?

Week 3 – SEO

Search Engine Optimization, everybody wants to be the top Google hit, but do you stand a chance?

Google stresses satisfying the end user as essential for optimization. I believe what they meant to say is the more money you have the better your ranking will be.  Million Short is a search engine that omits the first 1,000,000 results.  Amazingly, relevant content can be found this far down the list.  So then we look into how to stand out from this crowd. You can pour over your site adding alt text, descriptive filenames, custom content, submitting your site to Google, and much more. This may work quite well for your origami site with its youtube tutorials, however, look at this infographic of the most expensive Google AdWords.  The top 3 have a $45 to $55 cost per click.  These are generally for industries who are going to get a high return on investment from converting these consumers into customers.  As Lauren stated in her blog, the top result get 50% of all traffic.

Does a small business stand a chance without paying for a top spot?

Regarding the reading on SEM tactics, i understand the need for testing to streamline conversions on a site.  This is done with multivariate testing but I wonder,

Are users missing out on important or relevant information by being shown one version of a site versus another during A/B testing?

 

Week 2

Millennials are a huge and lucrative market.  They have buying power, are tech savvy, and come ready with an informed decision.  They have grown up in the digital and information age.  Information has become exponentially available and expected by the millennial generation. The way we target this group has changed.  No longer do I lust after the latest product shown in that TV commercial.  I have a DVR and Netflix, my daughter and I don’t really see a lot of ads on TV. The only time I listen to a commercial is when I switch songs on Pandora while driving.

What new digital format have you noticed yourself being targeted by advertisers?

The millennials are always connected and that gives more opportunity to reach them.  The format has changed but the message is the same, “buy me!”   I believe in the near future we will all be using the cloud to store our information and physical hard drives are obsolete.  You already let marketers target you through your “likes” on facebook, if you are a “Belieber” and have his mp3’s in your cloud you could be sent an offer for discount tickets when he comes to your city.

Would you be willing to let companies use the information stored in your cloud to customize marketing offers for you?