Numerati Baker, Stephen. (2008). The Book Report

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That could lead to all kinds of advertising insights," even though it could just be a coincidence (Baker 2008, p.3). The result could be a cutting-edge campaign for a rental car company stressing romance and danger, rather than safety and budget-conscious effectiveness.

No company wishes to miss out on the next new marketing trend, and all want to find the next 'hot' new connection between two seemingly discordant interests or types of behaviors. One idiosyncratic, accidental click or glance is meaningless, but being able to keep track of large amounts of data makes such decisions is significant for market researchers, as a consistent pattern can be drawn. And the blog world of online journalism is an even more willing source of "unfiltered immediacy" for marketers, who can track what types of blogs generate the largest amount of traffic for specific types of ads. Blogs are especially useful because marketers can contextualize the data with qualitative as well as quantitative information, based upon the blog entries and responses of commentators (Baker 2008, p.101).

The implications of data-tracking go beyond selling soap: terrorists often leave specific data trails that can be tracked by the government. but, because they too have grown up in an 'information age' where the Internet is ubiquitous, they can be just as canny at avoiding leaving a trail. And in some instances, regarding this very important subject, data-gathering falls as laughably short as human analysis: Computers failed to find Osama bin Laden in different languages, given its different spellings in different languages (11 in Chinese alone) (Baker, 2008, p.148).

Some consumers may shrug, of course, and doubt the possibility that their data can be useful to marketers, and say that this type of screening of their private data means little to them. Advertising is advertising, and whether segmented or not, these types of consumers presume themselves to be immune.

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However, it is worthy of note that some of the most well-respected news sites on the web today have used mathematicians to make their advertising more effective. One data-based market research company "has struck deals with thousands of online publications, from the New York Times to BusinessWeek," dropping "a bit of computer code called a cookie into our computers" to trace a surfer's path from one site to the next (Baker, 2008, p.2). Algorithms generated to determine what books or films a consumer likes, as exemplified most obviously in Amazon.com's suggestive features can seem spookily accurate. Even more eerily, Baker and his wife attempted to try out the accuracy of an online dating match site, as an experiment, and were 'matched' together, even after filling out the questions independently.

For individuals still in search of their perfect mate, this might seem comforting -- or even comforting for people simply in search of a new box of cereal who would want a 'smart cart' to guide them as a shopper to the right section of the grocery store and offer a coupon for a product likely to be desirable (Baker, 2008, p.48). But is there not a loss of creativity and independence: what about the ability to find books on new subjects, or to transcend the latest food marketing campaign by trying oatmeal rather than prepackaged breakfast cereal? The more serious uses of the numerati approach seem unable to effectively be used for law enforcement or medical purposes without the risks of serious errors. Machines have yet to replace human judgment and insight in consequential matters and in the less consequential world of advertising, the promise of greater segmentation may simply yield greater homogenization. A world where individuals are only subjected to one type of campaign flyer, and read only Amazon-recommended books based upon past purchases is likely to be a.....

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