Media—Data Lords: The Existent Storey Of Big Data, Facebook Together With The Hereafter Of News

We don't link to TPM all that ofttimes but their agreement of newsonomics is really interesting. Here's our comment on in conclusion years "Is Venture Capital Destroying Online Journalism?":

I don't know but having spent unopen to fourth dimension trying to front end run Sand Hill Road together with empathise things similar Uber I postulate hold to nation this is an interesting insight.
From Talking Points Memo, Nov 17:
There’s a Digital Media Crash. But No One Will Say It...

And here's the latest from Talking Points Memo:

This afternoon I saw a friend on Twitter nation that he doesn’t purchase the thought that if people simply paid Facebook unopen to sort of fee the information together with privacy resultant would last away. Because he subscribes to the Times, the Post together with the WSJ together with they each rail his readership habits together with sell that information to advertisers or come inwards available to them for targeting. This is at to the lowest degree partly truthful – I’ll beak over the ins together with outs of that yell for inwards a moment. But this is a proficient chance to beak over the existent human relationship betwixt publishers together with large data. It’s genuinely really dissimilar than it looks.

First, what my friend says is true. These publications are all inwards the information collection together with sale business. Indeed, TPM is also – non straight at all but because of the advertizement networks (like Google together with others) nosotros postulate hold no pick but to piece of occupation with. The fundamental on the primary claim is that the resultant is 1 of multifariousness of revenue streams. Each of those large publications mentioned has at to the lowest degree 3 large revenue sources that are relevant to this conversation. They postulate hold premium advertisers for which the form of information we’re talking virtually has express importance. They also postulate hold subscriptions. The in conclusion bucket is made upward of advertising that is heavily reliant on information together with targeting.

The departure is that Facebook is almost 100% reliant on advertising which is non exclusively reliant on information together with targeting but reliant on the most aggressive kinds of information collection, tracking together with targeting. That is Facebook’s entire business. Anything that cuts deeply into that model together with payoff represents an existential threat.

But here’s the genuinely salient point. Almost every publication participates inwards the information economy. But the information economic scheme is almost universally a bad affair for publications, particularly ones that postulate hold existent audiences.

Allow me to explain.
Different publications postulate hold dissimilar kinds of audiences. If you lot desire to sell consumer goods to a volume audience, you lot mightiness advertise inwards People journal or Yahoo News. If you lot desire to advertise to affluent investors you lot mightiness advertise on WSJ or Barron’s. If you lot desire to advertise to highly educated progressive intelligence junkies who are what advertizement manufacture types telephone yell upward ‘opinion leaders’ you lot mightiness advertise on TPM.

Different publications postulate hold dissimilar audiences together with they postulate hold dissimilar relationships alongside those audiences. Some postulate hold deep bonds of trust, others don’t. Historically (and increasingly today), publications sell subscriptions. They also sell ads which tin command dissimilar rates depending the value advertisers attach to talking to dissimilar groups of people. If you lot postulate hold a potent construct together with a fundamental audience, a publication tin command profitable advertising rates because they last a form of gatekeeper for a given audience.

The development of large data, tracking, targeting together with advertising over the in conclusion one-half dozen years has transformed this dynamic.

Let’s accept a hypothetical publication, Fishing Times. In the former days, newspaper or digital, if you’re advertising line-fishing equipment, Fishing Times is a must-buy. But tracking together with targeting changes that. Now Google or Facebook or a issue of other players whose names you lot haven’t heard of tin target people interested inwards line-fishing or fifty-fifty Fishing Times readers wherever they maintain the internet. Let’s telephone yell upward these “Fishing Times readers” collectively.

So Fishing Times’s advertizement subdivision is selling access to the prime number Fishing Times readership. But the Data Lords tin say, ‘we tin demo your advertizement simply to Fishing Times readers when they’re on Facebook, or on unopen to meme site, on the Times or TPM or genuinely anywhere.’ Because the Data Lords postulate hold the information together with they tin rail together with target you. The publication’s piece of occupation every bit the gatekeeper to an audience is totally undercut because the folks who command the information together with the targeting tin follow those readers anywhere together with purchase the ads at the lowest price.

That’s non all. The Data Lords tin also practise something called ‘look alike audiences’, a fundamental business office of what Facebook (but yesteryear no way exclusively Facebook) does. This way that the information may demo that people alongside brownish eyes, Toyota Camrys, fans of Katie Perry together with chocolate milk purchase the most line-fishing equipment together with are the most intensely loyal readers of Fishing Times. Now the Data Lords tin demo your ads non exclusively to Fishing Times readers (wherever they maintain the web) but to this demographic profile which may seem to postulate hold no connection to line-fishing but however has a demonstrated propensity to purchase line-fishing gear inwards the same way Fishing Times readers do....

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