I use the Overcast app for podcasts on my iPhone and iPad. It’s really good – straightforward with some useful features like keeping synced between devices and being able to control the speed of playback. Today it asked me if I wanted to “go anonymous”. So simple. So much simpler and less queasy an experience…… Continue reading Opt in tracking – an all too rare experience
Tag: data
Crypto-consumers
The fact that Ad Blocker and similar plug-ins have long been top of the charts for browser extensions gave us a clue to what people like online: an absence of advertising. What then, to make of the Red Onion Tor Browser – a web browser that makes it hard for digital eavesdroppers to see what you are…… Continue reading Crypto-consumers
Maps made of tweets
This is a lovely image was created by the Visual Insights team at Twitter from billions of geo-tagged tweets posted since 2009. Look closely and you can pick out the roads between cities – even a little bright spot that is Brighton (directly south of London). You can see more images on the Twitter Flickr…… Continue reading Maps made of tweets
Data exhaust trails
Another useful insight from Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think: A term of art has emerged to describe the digital trail that people leave in their wake: “data exhaust”. it refers to data that is shed as a byproduct of people’s actions and movements in the world.…… Continue reading Data exhaust trails
Datafication
“Big data” as a term reminds me of “social media” a few years ago. It is in danger – through mis-use and over-use – of losing its currency before many people fully understand its significance. And it is very, very significant indeed. One of the books I’m reading – at a rapid pace which is…… Continue reading Datafication
Crowdsensing: mobile data and predictive algorithms
In Pakistan, mobile data has helped the authorities predict where an epidemic will break out: Researchers working for the Pakistani government developed an early epidemic detection system for their region that looked for telltale signs of a serious outbreak in data gathered by government employees searching for dengue larvae and confirmed cases reported from hospitals.…… Continue reading Crowdsensing: mobile data and predictive algorithms
Long term trends: The Ngrams Viewer
“A database of intentions” is how John Battelle described Google. It is a thrilling concept, at times unsettling, that you can see into the searching soul of the connected populace by seeing the words they use t find things.Google Trends is one of those miraculous tools of the web that has quickly become commonplace. With…… Continue reading Long term trends: The Ngrams Viewer
Smells like social media meaning
Falsche freunde. False friends. You hear a phrase that sounds like one you already know and misinterpret it… As I’ve said before this happens all the time with the word “networks”. We’re so used to hearing it, prefaced by social-, computer-, broadcast, etc. that we think we know what it means. Read the “five rules…… Continue reading Smells like social media meaning
Milieus of interest in Amazon recommendations
Networks are an abiding obsession for me. So I love this… This data visualisation video illustrates how Amazon applies the power of networks to selling more books (and everything else) – by tapping into the networks of purchases of books to offer more. The visualisation was created with a tool from Christopher Warnow, which is…… Continue reading Milieus of interest in Amazon recommendations
The flawed optimism of digital advertising models
“Do you do any work on how annoying you are?” – Peter Day to an ad re-targeter… In Business, the podcast by the BBC’s Peter Day, is something I have enjoyed for years. Every now and again he does a programme which is so exactly pertinent to things I’m working on that I listen to…… Continue reading The flawed optimism of digital advertising models
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