Admin

While discussing the upcoming Twitter IPO and whether we were going to "get in" if shares became available, Matt offered up this interesting read on Twitter's acquisition of MoPub and what a game changer it is.  I highly recommend:

WTF is MoPub?

MoPub is the world’s largest mobile ad exchange. That means people trade eyeballs on mobile devices for money through the technology MoPub provides. And they do it billions of times a day.

“The two major trends in the ad world right now are the rapid consumer shift toward mobile usage, and the industry shift to programmatic buying.”

That’s absolutely right. Those are the only trends in the ad world that matter, and........... Twitter is betting big on both of them. It’s a bigger, ballsier bet than my former employer (FB) ever made, and it puts Twitter way ahead of any other social media player. I hate the douchey cant of MBA-speak, but to the extent we can use the term ‘game changer’ without puking in our mouths, this move is that.

There are only two real sources of data in this world, both stemming from browsing: There’s the browsing data the advertiser knows (e.g., you looked at a Canon 6D camera on my site, and I still want to sell you that camera), and there’s the browsing data the publisher knows (e.g., you were on the Wall Street Journal Technology page today). The former gets used by the advertiser to hunt you down and figure out what ad to show you. The latter gets injected into the data stream in some way that hopefully increases the value of advertising to that publisher. The data about the camera the advertiser will never part with, as it’s too valuable. The data from the publisher is only occasionally valuable, and if so, it’s of fluctuating quality. The publisher is willing to part with the data, but the question is whether the data is any good and will anyone pay for it. Often, the answer is ‘no’.

Enter Twitter: They know whom you’ve followed, what you’ve Tweeted, as well as what pages on the Web you’ve browsed. Remember, there are Tweet buttons over the entire Internet, which means they know what websites you’ve visited. That’s very valuable data they can suddenly inject into the real-time ebb and flow of browsing data. It’s also longer-lived. What marketers call the ‘intent window’ of camera shopping might last only last a week or two, but your interest in Lady Gaga indicates a certain demographic category that won’t change for years. And only Twitter knows that (well, and Facebook, but they’re not doing much with it).   Read the full article here

***************************

Now if you'd like to be totally freaked out, take a few minutes to checkout this Ted Talk by Gary Kovacs:  Tracking our online trackers (one of my favs)  http://www.ted.com/talks/gary_kovacs_tracking_the_trackers.html

Not only is it eye opening from an advertising point of view on behavioral tracking, but if you have children or teenagers, you may raise an eyebrow even further.  Enjoy

E-mail me when people leave their comments –

You need to be a member of StockBuz to add comments!

Join StockBuz

We welcome you to post a blog entry, oped or share your daily reading with us as long as it is relevant to the topic of investing and not an attempt to sell a product, proprietary strategy, platform or other service. Please provide links to any research data and if re-posting other articles, give credit where credit is due providing a back link to the original site.

300 words minimum per post. You may also sort by category or search by topic. Don't forget to comment and please "share" via Facebook, Twitter and Google+. If you have any questions, please contact us.

FOLLOW STOCKBUZ

__________________

This is a member-supported site. Please donate when you can to help pay the rent. Thank you!

Stay Informed. Sign up for the FREE StockBuz eNewsletter

________________

Investing involves substantial risk. All content is subject to StockBuz disclaimer.

Create Income With Option Spreads

All content on StockBuz.net is subject to disclaimer and Terms of Service