the soupmenu

data mining is the way of today.

as the web has grown, also has the data trails that we create. many companies have been collecting this data for many years. At face value this isn’t that bad…I get nice suggestions from amazon and those cute suggestions in gmail are fun.

But we are heading into a dangerous time for the world of privacy. Two titans, Google and Facebook are now really reaching a level of critical mass. Before sites were simply collecting data concerning your activities and their site. Google and Facebook have stepped into a different realm though. They are now building a complete online identity for each and every person who visits their site. Take a look at the google empire. This article pokes fun at how ‘g’ his life is.

I find this alarming

Google is part of his entire online life. Google was built upon data collection, and it is quite naive to believe that they aren’t collecting data ever moment that you are logged into any of their systems. So let’s see this is what Google knows about the author of that article:
what he searches for on his computer
what sites he visits
what he talks to his friends about
what websites he likes
what books he reads
what research he’s doing
when his anniversary is
when his vacation is
what stocks he owns
what stocks he’s looking at

My friends don’t know that much about me….why should a large company? We aren’t there yet, but i wouldn’t be surprised if eventually they simply started tracking mouse coordinates.

Also take a look at some of the new stuff Facebook is doing. The beacon service now not only infiltrates your circle of friends for passive product placements, but now they are tracking all of your actions upon ‘partner sites’. Facebook can tell me how long i’ve looked at an ex-girlfriends profile and how many times i went to check prices on flowers, or they can tell the highest bidder.

The irony behind all of this is that the primary reason for data mining is to predict the actions of consumers. Therefore the whole system, years and years of Google data, elaborate Facebook user profiles, and the whole concept of data mining could be toppled if the predictions are proven wrong. While humans are creatures of habit, we still are quite irrational.

An effort of coordinated irrationality could topple these empires.

a delicate house of cards indeed.

This is a great article by MBA students at the University of Cape Town about my generation. While I have stepped down the ranks as a gamer to the level of ‘occasional halo god / that jerk who never punts in madden’, I agree with many things stated in this article. As a member of this generation that grew up on/with/around video games, I have seen first-hand a lot of these changes. A life of gaming has effected our minds, and mostly for the better.

The article is very correct in pointing out the idea of communal leadership. My generation has gone through endless courses with group work, has spent substantial time in multiplayer games, and fully trusts an encyclopedia made by everyone. During all of these activities, it is amazing to watch how people interact. I have found it hard to find a person who wishes to stand up and take the reins of a group, as everyone understands the need for a democratic group structure. Sure, there are people who still will standup to organize and guide the efforts, but the efforts are not determined anymore by one person, they are the product of the entire group’s inputs. I think this is a crucial difference my generation compared to generations past.

On the level of problem solving, the article brings up more great points.

“. . . gamers are unique, in that they naturally think about the systems that underlie a game, rather than thinking linearly.”

When playing a video game, one must look beyond the immediate goal. If you only see the task at hand, then the game becomes boring. Enemies, maps, and missions, all become a blur as they all reflect a single set of AI developed by the programmers. But when someone looks to try and decode the internal structure and algorithms of the game, it becomes an endless challenge.

I know very few people who will sit down and play through the set ‘campaigns’ or ‘missions’ of any game. However, I know tons of people who can spend an hour trying to jump to the top of a building just to see if they can bend the rules of the system.

This type of thinking is great. It’s not just ‘thinking outside of the box’, it’s ‘thinking about how the box was created, what the box is made out of, and where are there weak spots in the box if another bigger box showed up.’

It really will be amazing to see how the world changes as my generation moves into positions of influence. Our thought patterns, desires, and mindsets are completely different than those of older generations. We really do have a great tool set to change the world for the better.

sidenote – I really have not liked any of the names for our generation so far. I definitely feel that we deserve a name as we really should have some impact coming up soon. We are also different than the half generation above us (dotcom-ers) and the half generation below us (first generation to fully grow up with the internet). But for us, so far, all of the names stink. We need a catchy word like ‘babyboomers’, but with more style and attitude.

But I’m sure some marketing guy at pepsi will give us a name soon.