It is, in many ways, a snapshot of the way that statistical data from databases, user data from multiple participants, and social network data from the public will change the nature of rapid decision making in the years ahead. It’s a very big change, and Esri is at the forefront of the way big data and geography will merge in the future. June 17, 2013 at 01:17PM

Being the starting point for online purchases is everything: Google’s biggest source of online advertising comes from searches with a shopping intent. Why look anywhere else when only Amazon will get it to you today? June 17, 2013 at 02:33AM

Skinner’s critics were prescient. They were right about control but wrong about the controllers. Our Internet handlers, not government, are using operant conditioning to modify our behavior today. June 11, 2013 at 01:07AM

Wade Eyerly, CEO of Surf Air, says the airline industry is “desperate for disruption.” As he put it to NPR: “Airlines are literally the only industry that ranked below cable companies for what people think of them — dead last among 47 industries surveyed. No one likes flying June 04, 2013 at 04:51PM

That’s where the “Matrix” part come in. Next time you’re searching for something, or looking on a map, or searching on YouTube, you’ll see what Google has decided are the “most relevant” results (and of course the “most relevant” adverts). If you frequent climate change denial sites, a search on “climate change” will turn those up ahead of the sites run by rational scientists. Whatever your leaning, politically, sexually, philosophically, if you let Google+ see it then that will be fed back to you. It’s the classic “filter bubble”. June 04, 2013 at 05:32PM

Brands want deeper and more profitable relationships with consumers in exchange for the trust they hope to inspire. Marketers are stretching their notions of what brands stand for and smudging the distinction between advertising and entertainment. The lines between marketing and other disciplines within a firm are fading. Brands want to be antidotes to cynicism. But this will not divert marketers from their main task, pungently summed up by an ad exec: “to figure out and fuel consumer desires like they’ve never been fuelled before.” June 04, 2013 at 06:38AM

In the same way, industrial product buyers are seeing their relationship to equipment manufacturers changed by smart, connected things. In the field of mechanical and plant engineering, consider the advent of predictive maintenance. When a machine is fitted with sensors, it can know what condition it is in and, whenever necessary, initiate its own maintenance. May 31, 2013 at 08:29PM

Meeker’s projected numbers for the increase in mobile traffic are too conservative, said James Lamberti, general manager and vice president of AdTruth.

“Not only are we seeing a tremendous growth in mobile phones, but as she noted, tablets are also growing like wildfire, roughly three times faster than the iPhone,” he told the E-Commerce Times.

“More importantly, Mary is right that the mobile ad market is largely untapped,” Lamberti said, adding that the irony of that $20 billion opportunity is that many marketers are skeptical it exists. May 31, 2013 at 12:13AM

There is so much more data out there that you can afford to tailor it to the individual,” says Patrick Wolfe, a statistician who studies social networks at University College, London. “Statistically, strength comes from pooling people together, but then the icing on the cake is when you individualize the findings.” May 23, 2013 at 10:48AM

Of course, the music industry has a long tradition of separating a song’s profit from its creators. Still, wrote Krukowski, “the ways in which musicians are screwed have changed qualitatively, from individualized swindles to systemic ones.” May 16, 2013 at 12:43AM