On October 6, 2013 the Wall Street Journal published a half page article titled “Data mining thanks to Tweeter”. What really got my attention was how profitable and risky data mining can be.
As the company prepares for its IPO, financial statements are being released, showing investors the potential of making billions of dollars in data mining; and although data mining is a small percentage of the company’s business it has already generated over 47 Million dollars year to date by selling user data or twits to other companies that analyze the social media for trends and events in real-time.
The ways businesses are using Twitter data are limitless, supply chain uses twitter users data for inventory and brand of products, politicians use it for their campaigns and social trends, stock price trends are being built and analyzed based on real-time events communicated via twitter, etc. According to the Wall Street Journal the “social listening” business is very profitable, partially funded by millions of dollars promising high returns to IPO investors.
Twitter stands on top of other giant social media companies such as Google, Facebook, and Yahoo. Research firms estimate that the entire “big data” market has grown seven times as quickly as the information technology sector as a whole, and may be valued at $17 billion in two years.
Once Twitter goes public, there will be a higher incentive to sell users data; which makes me wonder if users understand the implications and meaning of every word they post. On the other hand corporations are highly exposed to the inevitable risk of security and malicious use of the big data.
What is your opinion on this issue? Should social media companies be allowed to go public? There is a danger of conflict of interest, maxing shareholders profits verse customer privacy protection. What are some possible ways to resolve this conflict?
Source:
Dwoskin, Elizabeth. "Data Mining Thanks to Tweeter" The Wall Street Journal 6 October 2013: C1. Print.
I think Twitter has found a more profitable way of conducting business. And just like any other for-profit company, finding alternative uses for goods and services that were originally marketed to serve a specific purpose is part of a continuous improvement effort to squeeze out a few more dollars for these existing goods and services. As for privacy, I firmly believe that all the information that is shared on Twitter has been, in one way or another, used to conduct market studies from the very beginning. Maybe Twitter was created mainly with that purpose.
ReplyDeleteMiguel, thank you for your comment. I also think that twitter should be allowed to go public. I am fine with businesses viewing my content, except for private messages. If you put something on the internet, you should understand the potential that anyone can see it.
DeleteI am very aware of how Facebook uses data mining and advertising, as ads are now all over every page you visit, but I suppose it never occurred to me that it may be used through Twitter as well.
ReplyDeleteWith Facebook, we enter all kinds of personal information about ourselves, so I understand how they pull our personal information for use in advertising. Also, since we "click" into our friends accounts, it is assumed that we may be interested in the same things our friends are.
Since I don't use really use Twitter, I wasn't aware it worked the same way. I don't recall every seeing ads either. Maybe since it's a little behind Facebook on this, there were not any ads years ago when I used it a time or two.
I suppose can't really expect them to not to make money somehow and because of the ads, we have access to free services.
Cynthia, thank you for your comment. I am not a big Twitter user myself, but I do use Facebook. I not only have ads on the side, but have been seeing some in the news food as well. While it may not be something of my own interest, I do think they are the interests of other's, whose pages I frequent. Honestly, I do not mind ads, they are a part of life, and personally I would prefer to have ads that are interesting to me, rather random ads.
DeleteThe only big social media I use is facebook. No, not many people understand that every single word they put out there on the internet is visible whether it be on facebook, twitter, instagram, or even here on blogger. I think everyone especially kids need to be educated on this matter. They need to be careful what they put out on their profiles because who is to say that some companies don't get data illegally. I'm not sure if some do but if hackers can get passwords then nothing is really safe.
ReplyDeleteMargarita, thank you for your comment. I agree that everyone should be careful what you post on the internet, even if it does not have your name on it, a picture of you can be found through face recognition (ie. how Facebook will ask you "is this John Smith", when tagging). It is a new world, and while it is beneficial to businesses, everyone must remember that future career opportunities can see it as well.
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