3 ms·
I'm sure there's a lot of actual data sharing going on, but I also wonder how often these are just the Baader-Meinhof effect (noticing recently mentioned things
by bemmu 5y ago
I'm sure there's a lot of actual data sharing going on, but I also wonder how often these are just the Baader-Meinhof effect (noticing recently mentioned things everywhere).
Today I made an insta post about sand that resembled dunes at the beach, mentioning a camel in the description. Less than 5 minutes later I saw the camel logo at the beach bathroom, on someone's discarded cigarettes.
Here it's obvious that there is no connection. But if I had instead randomly seen a camel cigarette ad online at that point in time, I might have seriously wondered if it's because I mentioned it in the post.
- shawnz 5y agoA simple experiment is to try thinking of some consumer product which you don't normally use and wait until you see an ad for that product. Make sure not to pick something you talked about recently or something you were reminded of by the media. In my experience you will be surprised how quickly you start seeing ads for that thing all of a sudden.
- beardedetim 5y agoI’ve been waiting for an ad for turtle necks for over a year doing this experiment. Maybe that’s too specific?
- fian 5y agoThere are definitely IP address based tracking going on. My partners birthday was coming up and I thought she might like a weighted blanket as a gift. Within 10 mins of doing some light searching for prices and local outlets on my office computer, she came into my office smiling asking if I was planning on buying her one for her birthday. She had suddenly seen multiple ads for weighted blankets appear on Facebook. This was the most obvious example, but there have been many others were one of us researching something through our home internet connection will affect the advertising the other person sees. I now have to be more careful in how I do my gift searching. Personally, I'm not really seeing this type of targeted advertising as a net positive.
- sp332 5y agoA friend visited me from Ohio (I live in New Hampshire). After hanging out for a few days, I was getting twitter ads for local Ohio stuff.
- dalbasal 5y ago>> I wonder how often these are just the Baader-Meinhof effect. No. That is, there's Baader-Meinhof effects, misattribution and other things going on at the surface level... but the actual reality is much worse. Ad tech is the entirety of FB & Alphabet. Ad tech is their business and as an industry it rivals energy, shipping... everything but defense. It is the tech industries' biggest achievement, and the most economically significant "big data" and machine learning sector. Don't underestimate it. Tracking and snooping are the single most important element in ad tech. Views & user volume is secondary.