quinta-feira, abril 14, 2005: The frontier of Internet advertising

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That's why this new breed of networks is working on technology that essentially tries to read our minds. They have hired mathematicians to devise complex formulas that crunch a mind-numbing number of variables. Some focus on past activities of individual Web surfers; others look at how demographically similar groups have responded to similar ads in the past. Increasingly, ad networks are blending a bit of both while mixing in traditional content targeting, which means ads are selected based on the topics that appear on pages people are reading.

Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN network have long tracked what people do inside their own Internet networks. What's different about the new ad networks is that they are seeking a more holistic view of our behavior across thousands of Web sites.

Over the past year, 24/7 Real Media Inc. and Blue Lithium are among the half-dozen companies to roll out ad-delivery systems. They compare click-through rates on ads against factors such as time of day an ad was shown, its placement on a page and how various groups responded to it. Then they crunch in additional data about what each Web surfer has read, bought, almost bought but didn't, or clicked on before.
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Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst with the eMarketer research firm, said privacy concerns and worries about data-sharing could keep such networks from becoming the predominant method of delivering Internet ads. A recent eMarketer survey found that 57 percent of Internet users objected to the idea of networks tracking behavior across different sites, even if they collect no personal information.

I don't find anonymous ad targeting intrusive or offensive. I just don't believe the formulas for predicting behavior based on what people bought or read in the past are smart enough yet to revolutionize advertising.

Still, advertising has been so broadly targeted to fuzzy demographic groups for so long, even a slight boost in relevance would be a welcome change for advertisers.
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washingtonpost.com

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