Wednesday, December 15, 2010

A List of Data Miners

Who are the big data mining companies on the internet? This news article profiles the major internet data collectors, how they do it, what they use it for, and how much they know about you.

Pretty crazy what they can piece together about you, especially using tricks like finding your aliases, etc...

The article includes opt out information but it seems a little quixotic.

Our database ABI Inform is a good place to read more on this topic from journals, newspapers and magazines.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Groupon Article

Have you ever turned down $6 billion? Groupon did when Google offered to buy the company.

Groupon will print you for a coupon for a local business - if enough people online show interest as well.

Groupon incorporates some of the key lessons of internet business: long tail marketing, greater efficiency in uniting sellers and buyers and social networking. I want you to think about that if you're starting an Internet company.

Here's a nice Analysis of Groupon in The New Yorker.

The article criticizes Groupon a bit for not being truly unique (there are already competitor sites) and for that greatest of sins in today's world: employing thousands of ad salespeople (hey, there's a job for you after graduation).

However, they do praise Groupon a bit for clever organization, adcopy and name recognition.