Trends
Published by James December 2nd, 2007 in Advertising, Business ModelA couple of very cool trends running across the nets of inter later that I like to read about.
Advertising
Facebook’s Beacon. It’s scary what a cookie and a profile knows and what intelligent computing can really reveal. At the end of the day, Beacon, is good, because the developers behind it are some of the best in the world. The community will react, just like they did to the River of News. Facebook has been an innovator in the advertising space and they’ve received a lot of backlash because of the transparency in which they deliver this data to the public. But again, that transparency is a good thing. The digital footprint we all leave behind and how much companies already know about it is better out in the open, then for it to be revealed in a less transparent environment. Facebook’s Beacon is word of mouth meets targeted demographics, less noise and hopefully more signal.
I’m interested in seeing how Facebook entices people to use Beacon over time. Do they compensate “publishers” like adsense? Do the uber influentials get free products in their hands from companies that want to promote their product? Do companies create beacon stores ala Google Checkout or Amazon to keep people within the Facebook Environment?
At the end of the day, it comes down to if Facebook can distribute this product. In order to that, they need a huge amount of javascript to warrant the $15 billion valuation.
DRM
Tons of noise from the music industry lately and ArsTechnica has an article on how Amazon and Wal-Mart are putting pressure on the labels to free the music.
Technology is shaped by the people that create it, just like corporations. It is good, when they can see eye to eye.