Category Archives: adtech

Toward customer boats fishing on a sea of goods and services

I’ll be talking shortly to some readers of The Intention Economy who are looking for ways to connect that economy with advertising. (Or so I gather. I’ll know more soon.) What follows is the gist of what I wrote to … Continue reading

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Attention is not a commodity

In one of his typically trenchant posts, titled Attentive, Scott Galloway (@profgalloway) compares human attention to oil, meaning an extractive commodity: We used to refer to an information economy. But economies are defined by scarcity, not abundance (scarcity = value), … Continue reading

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The Empire Strikes On

Twelve years ago, I posted The Data Bubble. It began, The tide turned today. Mark it: 31 July 2010. That’s when The Wall Street Journal published The Web’s Gold Mine: Your Secrets, subtitled A Journal investigation finds that one of the fastest-growing businesses on … Continue reading

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Where the Intention Economy Beats the Attention Economy

There’s an economic theory here: Free customers are more valuable than captive ones—to themselves, to the companies they deal with, and to the marketplace. If that’s true, the intention economy will prove it. If not, we’ll stay stuck in the attention … Continue reading

Posted in adtech, advertising, Business, intention economy | 4 Comments

Apple vs (or plus) Adtech, Part II

My post yesterday saw action on Techmeme (as I write this, it’s at #2) and on Twitter (from Don Marti, Augustine Fou, et. al.), and in thoughtful blog posts by John Gruber in Daring Fireball and Nick Heer in Pixel … Continue reading

Posted in adtech, advertising, Apple, VRM | 1 Comment

Apple vs (or plus) Adtech, Part I

This piece has had a lot of very smart push-back (and forward, but mostly back). I respond to it in Part II, here. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch Apple’s Privacy on iPhone | tracked ad. In it a … Continue reading

Posted in adtech, advertising, Apple | 1 Comment

Why is the “un-carrier” falling into the hellhole of tracking-based advertising?

For a few years now, T-Mobile has been branding itself the “un-carrier,” saying it’s “synonymous with 100% customer commitment.” Credit where due: we switched from AT&T a few years ago because T-Mobile, alone among U.S. carriers at the time, gave customers … Continue reading

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Just in case you feel safe with Twitter

Just got a press release by email from David Rosen (@firstpersonpol) of the Public Citizen press office. The headline says “Historic Grindr Fine Shows Need for FTC Enforcement Action.” The same release is also a post in the news section of the Public Citizen website. … Continue reading

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Toward new kinds of leverage

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world,” Archimedes is said to have said. For almost all of the last four years, Donald Trump was one hell of … Continue reading

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We’ve seen this movie before

When some big outfit with a vested interest in violating your privacy says they are only trying to save small business, grab your wallet. Because the game they’re playing is misdirection away from what they really want. The most recent … Continue reading

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