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Archives for March 2017

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Facebook Forbids Snooping and Crafty (Pun Intended) Advertising

What’s New This Week?

Stop Spying Everyone, Says Facebook
Facebook is explicitly telling groups to stop using their data for surveillance, writes TechCrunch.  You can thank the ACLU for forcing the issue. Back in October, one group was caught compiling protesters’ posts from social sites and selling the data to law enforcement. Twitter also forbids this practice.

“Very, Very Fictitious” Data
Remember that time the Obama administration manipulated jobs data to make the unemployment rate look lower? Yup, it’s another story about “fake” data in the Trump Administration. Thanks FiveThirtyEight for breaking down why this claim is so absurd.

The State of the Social Media Union
I see so many one-off stories about social media trends (Twitter is over! Facebook use is down!), that it’s hard to keep track. I appreciate Forbes’ mile-high overview of what’s up with each main social platform.

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Battle of the Donation Forms, Facebook Benchmarks & Cool Data Gifs

Election Data Saga, Take 10
I’ve reported before about the Trump campaign’s use of Facebook data to target voters with messages designed to appeal to their personalities. The New York Times says, yeah, it was exaggerated. Not sure if this is a big deal? Well, the Times would have you think otherwise: “At stake are not merely bragging rights, but also an emerging science that many believe could reshape American politics and commerce.”

And, in other Facebook data Trump news, this algorithm, which was designed to determine your marital status from your social posts, thinks Trump is a bachelor (surprise!).

Battle of the Donation Forms
Behave.org features an A/B test of the week and asks viewers to guess which one won. This week’s test is a donation form. Answer A has the typical suggested donation buttons; B has an open field. Which did better? Well, you have to click through and see.

Oops! New Search Pages’ Bad Data
Last week, this email talked about AMP pages, Google’s new mobile-friendly search results. Well, they are probably making a mess of your Google Analytics. Here’s Marketingland.com on that.

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Facebook Spying, Charting UFO Sightings and Saving Fish with Big Data

Long-Reading the Robot Revolution
I try to keep this newsletter away from big data fear mongering. Although this Scientific American article bridges on it, it is also a thought-provoking long read. The author examines historical trends and how the approaching artificial intelligence boom may shape society.

One Fish, Two Fish, Big Data Fish
In case the previous story has you fearing data, here’s a heartwarming tale from Smithsonian Magazine about how savvy use of satellite data is helping to stop illegal fishing.

Those Funny New Search Results
Googled something lately? If you used your phone, you probably noticed that the top results are all AMP pages. This fast loading, mobile-friendly content uses Google’s special markup. (Look for the lightening bolt symbol) Here’s Search Engine Journal on the trend.

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