I read on a blog by Ian Delaney that about 2 weeks ago there was a round table meeting in the UK with several Yahoo folk which included Bradley Horowitz whom Ian took the liberty of describing his job description as someone whose purpose is “making cool stuff happen”. He goes over the details of this meeting that included several other digerati including Sam Sethi and several others. He goes on to talk about how Yahoo’s plans are to continue leveraging existing properties and acquiring new ones all in an effort to better understand and serve their users.
Here’s a quote:
But Yahoo wasn’t just making a branding statement. Like Google and other media companies, its business, essentially, is in selling advertising. Understanding their users, getting hold of their lifestream, was revealed as a key strategy in its acquisitions.
Of course all of this is part of a plan to take ad targeting and optimization to the next level. By increasing the knowledge about their users, Yahoo will effectively do a better job at targeting ads and increasing conversion rates for their advertisers. Privacy concerns aside (easier said than done) It may be hard to believe, but it’s a win / win for users and advertisers we should all get more relevant ads displayed which will lead to us buying more from advertisers. Did I ever mention that I used to work for an online advertising network 🙂
After reading Ian’s post I also came across a post from David Meyer who went on a rant about about this gathering (to be fair he didn’t mention it specifically, but it was fairly easy to connect the dots). He goes on to put a negative spin on Lifestreams with this quote:
I’m used to people tossing around nonsense-words like “leverage” and even “bio-break“, but today things hit a new low with a discussion about “lifestreams” (“lives”, you mean?) and how they need to be analysed or data-mined or what-have-you.
I’ll agree with him on the non-sense words, but that’s about it. He goes on to talk about the lack of of purpose quality content generated by social networks yet goes on to praise blogging as having created a revolution. Ummm…I’ve come across some blogs that I’d put some of the worst MySpace pages up against. Yes there are people who have Twitter as a source in their Lifestream and they may (as David put’s it) add “I’ve had a sandwich”, but hey in the virtual world just as in the real world, you get to choose who your friends are.
Now let me return to Bradley Horowitz for a little while. Ian linked to his blog which in turn linked to this article on the BBC. I’m not sure why he felt remorseful about the blurb because it was one of the most insightful pieces about some very exciting possibilities coming in the near future that I have read in a while. Apparently I wasn’t the only one.
David described Bradley as an Evangelist (remember I’m only speculating here :)) as if that’s a bad thing. I wouldn’t expect anything less from someone in Bradley’s position and the passion that he has regarding the future is evident from the story. I could go on by dissecting what he discusses and how it applies to Lifestreaming but I want you to go read it and I’m tired tonite but this post should definitely generate either some comments below or some discussions over at #Lifestream.
Bradley Horowitz is my new hero and David Meyer is now my nemesis…are you having a laugh?
