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"collecting thousands of data points on millions of individuals and then building psychographic profiles linked to their inferred personality traits" The truth

"collecting thousands of data points on millions of individuals and then building psychographic profiles linked to their inferred personality traits" The truth is this shit works. It doesn't work on every individual, and it doesn't win every campaign, but there should be no question that it can shape public opinion. If it didn't work, how could Facebook charge $75 billion a year for it?

bertil 7y ago
When did Facebook charge $75M? Genuine question, the claim is new to me, and Google doesn’t know either.
- jordanmoconnor 7y ago
  *$75 Billion. And that's what they generate in revenue from advertising on their platform.
  - the_watcher 7y ago
    Facebook advertising doesn't make billions of dollars due to psychographics. It makes billions of dollars by knowing that you've looked at 7 pairs of shoes in the past 10 days and then showing you more shoes.
mieseratte 7y ago
> If it didn't work, how could Facebook charge $75 billion a year for it? People believing it works and failing to verify?
spuz 7y ago
The question you should ask is "how much does it work?". What percentage point gain did it give Trump, what percentage gain did it give Clinton and what was the net gain?
malvosenior 7y ago
> but there should be no question that it can shape public opinion. Having worked with this technology, I question its effectiveness. Do you have any data to back up your claim that it can sway people's opinion? It seems dubious that it's more effective than traditional brand building through mass media advertising (which itself has never proven to be particularly effective).
tptacek 7y ago
Because people buy things that don't work all the time. Next question?
bart_spoon 7y ago
Your argument is essentially the same thing as the joke about the old and young economist. The young economist sees $20 on the ground and says "is that a $20 bill?" to which the old economist says "it couldn't be, someone would have picked it up by now" and they move on. Just because something is the status quo doesn't imply that the it is the optimized reality. I work in data science and quite a bit with marketing data, and in my experience, its highly ineffective most of the time. More surprising to though, is the sheer number of people, companies, and dollars, on both sides of the marketing business, with major investments in the idea of marketing being effective.

bertil 7y ago

When did Facebook charge $75M? Genuine question, the claim is new to me, and Google doesn’t know either.

jordanmoconnor 7y ago
*$75 Billion. And that's what they generate in revenue from advertising on their platform.
- the_watcher 7y ago
  Facebook advertising doesn't make billions of dollars due to psychographics. It makes billions of dollars by knowing that you've looked at 7 pairs of shoes in the past 10 days and then showing you more shoes.

mieseratte 7y ago

> If it didn't work, how could Facebook charge $75 billion a year for it? People believing it works and failing to verify?

spuz 7y ago

The question you should ask is "how much does it work?". What percentage point gain did it give Trump, what percentage gain did it give Clinton and what was the net gain?

malvosenior 7y ago

> but there should be no question that it can shape public opinion. Having worked with this technology, I question its effectiveness. Do you have any data to back up your claim that it can sway people's opinion? It seems dubious that it's more effective than traditional brand building through mass media advertising (which itself has never proven to be particularly effective).

tptacek 7y ago

Because people buy things that don't work all the time. Next question?

bart_spoon 7y ago

Your argument is essentially the same thing as the joke about the old and young economist. The young economist sees $20 on the ground and says "is that a $20 bill?" to which the old economist says "it couldn't be, someone would have picked it up by now" and they move on. Just because something is the status quo doesn't imply that the it is the optimized reality. I work in data science and quite a bit with marketing data, and in my experience, its highly ineffective most of the time. More surprising to though, is the sheer number of people, companies, and dollars, on both sides of the marketing business, with major investments in the idea of marketing being effective.