• Learning Semantics
    The "Semantic Web" is one of those fuzzy Web 3.0 concepts that is occupying think tanks, VCs, and even a few marketers of late. The idea is that various kinds of data across multiple sites can be combined in powerful ways that make the Web more like a giant computer. Alex Iskold, founder and CEO of AdaptiveBlue, has a rudimentary example of this concept that leverages past- and real-time user behavior to link information in more intelligent ways across sites. His BlueOrganizer plugs into Firefox, reads where you are and where you have been online to link information on the …
  • Engaging Engagement: BT Gets Passionate
    Engagement is the concept du jour for brand advertisers and online marketers of all stripes. Yet according to Bill Gossman, CEO of Revenue Science, most behavioral targeting to date has been oblivious to even acknowledging -- much less exploring -- the relationship between behavior, or what consumers do online, and engagement, or how their behavior uniquely expresses their personal interests and passions.
  • Millions Of People, Millions Of Customized Ads
    What if the movie trailer you watched at Yahoo remixed the video according to your particular tastes in film? It might emphasize the action adventure elements for one audience, and the romantic angle for another. For all of the demographic, contextual and behavioral targeting that Web technology makes possible, customizing creative for these many targets continues to lag. This week a spinoff of British Telecom, Real Time Content, (RTC) unveils a media delivery system that can assemble video and other media on the fly and to match a range of user profiles.
  • Targeting Video From The Inside Out
    Almost everyone agrees that online videos offer unparalleled opportunities for user engagement, interaction, personalization and, in theory, branding and monetization. Key to realizing that opportunity, Thomas Wilde, CEO of multi-media search firm EveryZing believes, is the ability for users to search, publishers to merchandise and advertisers to target video content and behavior from the inside out.
  • Conglomerating Behavior
    In his new research report from eMarketer on behavioral targeting, senior analyst David Hallerman says that the recent acquisitiveness of portals and holding companies like WPP and Google is due in part to growing interest in BT. We asked Hallerman to explore the targeting and privacy implications of this sudden consolidation of the field.
  • Toward 'Open Source' BT: Conversation as Behavior
    "Perception is reality" is a truism most successful brands understand instinctively. Yet as Justin Cooper, chief innovation and marketing officer at Passenger, explains, few brands have ever taken the next step of understanding brand perception and loyalty as changing and changeable behaviors linked to conversation, community, advocacy and influence.
  • Democratizing BT
    Jeff Chester, founder and executive director of the Center For Digital Democracy, which recently filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over the practices of the behavioral targeting industry, discusses the roots of his criticism of BT and digital marketing generally.
  • Merchandising As Targeting, Targeting As Merchandising
    The metaphor of the auction place has captivated the online world of late. Thus far, however, applications of the model have been divided into two separate realms, e-commerce transactions (a la affiliate marketing) and conventional banner or text ad placement. The next iteration of the model, Pradeep Javangula, CTO of Tumri, predicts, will involve a new synthesis of the ad network and e-commerce: a merchandising network, with product offer delivery optimized by behavioral and other forms of targeting.
  • Context And The Crowd Trump Behavior
    Most behavioral tracking works on the simple assumption that past behavior is a solid predictor of future need. Not so in all applications, says Baynote CEO Jack Jia. The founding CTO of content management giant Interwoven took a crash course in social science, which he claims tells us that group behavior in a given context is a better indicator of any given user's future actions than piles of personal behavioral history.
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