Behavioural Targeting is an interesting science. Tracking what people do on the web, not what the claim to do during surveys.
Apparently, the folks in the US are now employing behavioural targeting for the presidential elections. One year beforehand, they already measure and track the online behaviour of their fans. Amazing!
Here is a cool 60 minutes video of a David Weinberger presentation on his new book „everything is miscellaneous„.
A video used to be embedded here but the service that it was hosted on has shut down.60 minutes is quite long. But it is very much inspiring, if you’re into the categorization of things, the order of information, data vs metadata, etc.
TechCrunch lists the many german copycats of web 2.0 sites. Didn’t know there were so many. And it makes you wonder: How come that we moved from a nation of thinkers and inventers to a nation of copycats?
“Web 2.0†is a term that brilliantly translates around the world, but many of the sites that are commonly associated with it have a language barrier for international audiences […]. While English certainly isn’t foreign to Germans, it has still slowed their adoption – and network effects, which have been a driving force, are often tied to language and reach as well. What’s been the consequence in Deutschland? A mushrooming of German copycats that have localized and copied their US role models, sometimes down to the last pixel.
But is not only about the adoption amongst users. It is also our inhibiting environment:
In short: Germany is buzzed right now and the biggest question for the startup scene is how the many look-alikes will develop over the next year. You’ll often hear that investors are hesitant to invest in ideas that “haven’t been proven in the US yet†but there are several other factors at work here: Germany is generally more risk-averse, the bureaucracy is more cumbersome, and entrepreneurial networks like Silicon Valley aren’t as strongly developed.
Sad, but true.
A TechCrunch post on the new Pew Internet & American Life Project study mentions the increasing digital divide amongst the internet use population in the US. One thing I found quite funny was the name for the 8% top internet users. They’re called omnivores, because they consume everything, no questions asked.
8% of people are considered to be “omnivores†which the study describes as being Web 2.0 devotes, highly engaged with video online and digital content; “creative participants in cyberspaceâ€.
That’s me, I guess!
Wo ich sonst so bin...