Tag Archives: adtech

Without aligning incentives, we can’t kill fake news or save journalism

It’s time to move past the toxic and destructive business called adtech: surveillance-based advertising. Adtech is the Agent Smith of digital advertising: a rogue programmatic approach to digital advertising that rationalizes tracking people like marked animals. Today adtech is the main business model for nearly all … Continue reading

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Really?

It’s misses like this that have people thinking there’s nothing to fear from AI.

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Wanted: Online Pubs Doing Real (and therefore GDPR-compliant) Advertising

ry Continue reading

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The real problem is Decoy News (and decoy content of all kinds)—and the platforms can’t fix it

The term “fake news” was a casual phrase until it became clear to news media that a flood of it had been deployed during last year’s presidential election in the U.S. Starting in November 2016, fake news was the subject … Continue reading

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How True Advertising Can Save Journalism From Drowning in a Sea of Content

Journalism is in a world of hurt because it has been marginalized by a new business model that requires maximizing “content” instead. That model is called adtech. We can see adtech’s effects in The New York Times’ In New Jersey, Only … Continue reading

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Exploring the business behind digital media’s invisibility cloaks

  Imagine you’re on a busy city street where everybody who disagrees with you disappears. We have that city now. It’s called media—especially the social kind. You can see how this works on Wall Street Journal‘s Blue Feed, Red Feed … Continue reading

Posted in adtech, advertising, Broadcasting, Business, Culture, data, infrastructure, Internet, Journalism, Life, Links, marketing, News, Politics, privacy, problems, publishing, Research, Technology | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Is the online advertising bubble finally starting to pop?

I started calling online advertising a bubble in 2008. I made “The Advertising Bubble” a chapter in The Intention Economy in 2012. I’ve been unpacking what I figure ought to be obvious (but isn’t) in 52 posts and articles (so far) in … Continue reading

Posted in adtech, advertising, Business, marketing, problems, publishing, Technology, VRM | Tagged , , | 18 Comments

Will Content Blocking push Apple into advertising’s wheat business?

[Update on 3 January 2016: Buzzfeed reports that Apple is killing iAd and getting out of that business, ending the conflict I detail below. And Apple confirms the decision, here. For a look at what I am sure is behind … Continue reading

Posted in advertising, marketing, problems, Research, Technology, VRM | Tagged , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

On taking personalized ads personally

In the pile of comments under the post on Facebook I wrote about here yesterday, Christopher Brock writes a long and thoughtful response that pretty much represents the thinking of the adtech business today. Since it’s hard to respond point-by-point in Facebook’s … Continue reading

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Thoughts on tracking-based advertising

Yesterday @davidweinberger and I were guests on screen at a @commongroundmcr session in Manchester, hosted by Julian Tait (@Julianlstar) and Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden). We talked for a long time about a lot of stuff (here’s a #cmngrnd search featuring some of it); but what … Continue reading

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