AI-Powered Shop Windows

The Shop Window Opens a Portal of Possibilities

Many of us are window shoppers but online purchasers. That may be one of the factors in the widely reported decline of retail stores. To flip the situation around, it may be time to transform the shop window from static tableaux into AI-powered interactive displays that extract value from data.

This is the proposition offered by Outernets, a New York-based platform which enables window displays to transforms storefronts into responsive, personalized ad experiences.  I spoke with CEO and founder Omer Golan about what store windows have been, and what they could be in the future.

Read more in The Shop Window Opens a Portal of Possibilities

Big Data, Analytics, AI, etc.

As All Analytics was removed from the internet, UBM moved most of the articles I had written for it in the past few years to IW at hhttps://www.informationweek.com/author-bio.asp?author_id=4902 But I also have PDFs of it posted on my Contently portfolio at https://ariellabrown.contently.com/

Those of a certain age need not apply

We have laws that are meant to prevent discrimination in hiring. But in practice, employers can find ways to avoid hiring people above a set age threshold with the help of social media and demographic data.

A story that ProPublica copublished with the New York Times declared the dark side of social media targeting for job applicants -- age discrimination. Facebook is designed to give direct access to a precisely targeted population, including those within a specified age bracket. That means ads for employment may be directed only to potential candidates below a "certain age," and that could be both ethically and legally problematic.

(Image: Pixabay)

Facebook has been used as a successful recruiting tool for companies who seek to reach recent grads. The same type of "microtargeting," as ProPublica refers to it, can be used to reach whatever parameter the advertiser specifies, and that often translates into job ads, particularly those in tech, being directed to eyeballs under 40.

Declaring that the age targeting has had a discriminatory effect on workers over age 40, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and three workers filed a class action lawsuit against T-Mobile, Amazon, and other companies that they say used the social media platform in that way.

That's not to say that Facebook has a monopoly on such practices. ProPublica tested out Google and LinkedIn and found that job ads designed to not be extended to people above 40 were allowed. It then contacted the companies and was told by Google that it had no problem with complying with the specified age range. LinkedIn told ProPublica that would make the necessary modification, as did a number of companies whose advertising strategy looked like an attempt to exclude older applicants.

Facebook defends itself against ProPublica's critique. Facebook's VP of Ads, Rob Goldman declared, "We have carefully reviewed their concerns -- and this time we disagree." Though he does not deny that job ads were intended for specified age groups, he argues that does not necessarily constitute age discrimination any more than advertising "in magazines and on TV shows targeted at younger or older people."

ProPublica doesn't buy that argument, though. It points out that the analogy fails because other forms of media may be aimed at particular age groups, but they do not restrict access to them. If a teen wants to look at AARP or if a middle-aged person picks up Seventeen, they will see the ads, too. "Online, however, people outside the targeted age groups can be excluded in ways they will never learn about," it points out.

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Targeted Advertising Triggers Age Discrimination Law Suit

2018: the year RCS overtakes SMS for marketing

As carriers shift to the new Rich Communications Services (RCS) standard, new functionalities and ways to engage consumers will emerge, opening up a whole world of marketing opportunities.  

Even last year, RCS began to emerge as a significant advance for mobile marketing.  At that point, there were about 137 million RCS users, according to David O'Byrne, RCS lead at the GSMA. He was quoted in an MSN reportreferring to that baseline, saying he anticipates users to reach 350 million this year, topping a billion next year.

On the basis of those predictions, combined with the number of people already using SMS, RCS is poised to become a key component of communication in the very near future.  That's the view of Andy Shirey, Senior Product Marketing Manager at OpenMarket. 

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RCS Set to Take Over SMS as Primary Marketing Tool in 2018

Marketing on wheels

Mobility Marketing: Toyota's e-Palette

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Advertising on cars is nothing new, but what we may be seeing in future is not limited to static car wraps but specially purposed vehicles that can change their function and their messages as needed.

At this year's CES, Toyota unveiled the e-Palette concept. The company anticipates first introducing it for use at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo in 2020. But it is already working with partners like Amazon, DiDi, Mazda, Pizza Hut and Uber to develop the concept and its commercial applications. 

In a press release, Toyota describe e-Palette as exemplifying “Toyota's visions for Automated Mobility as a Service (Autono-MaaS) applications.” The vehicle itself is a “fully-automated, next generation battery electric vehicle (BEV) designed to be scalable and customizable for a range of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) businesses.”

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Amazon May be Giving a Voice to Marketing

We've seen a rapid evolution in shopping interfaces, ranging from letting our fingers do the walking on our keyboards, to letting them swipe their way to what we seek on touchscreens. The next big thng, it seems, is a touchless interface made by possible by voice-activation.

As people are coming to expect the convenience of talking to their devices, companies like Google and Amazon are accommodating that form of navigation, and exploring new ways to monetize it. 

Read more in Alexa May Give Voice to Targeted Marketing

Facial Recognition Features on Facebook Find Your Face

Facebook doesn't need tags to know that the person in the picture is you. Is that a good thing? It depends on your point of view.

Given the proliferation of faces that gets uploaded in the form of photos and videos on Facebook, a person may not even know that his/her face appears in a particular context.

photo from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Face_detection.jpg

To address that problem and to increase access for recognition among the visually impaired, at the end of 2017 Facebook rolled out three new facial recognition features:

• For the visually impaired, the feature provides a verbal description of people the AI recognizes in the photos.
• You can be notified whenever the AI recognizes your face in an uploaded image, even when it is not tagged with your name.
• Working off this link of your name and face, the system can alert you if others put your face in for their profile.

As the company explained in its announcement about it, Facebook's new features are based on the same technology the social media platform uses to bring people's attention to faces in images before they are tagged with a name.

While no one would likely object to applying AI to assisting the visually impaired, there are some questions about the effect of the alert feature, which delivers a "Photo Review" message to the user whose face it identifies. The company puts a very positive spin on it, saying, "You're in control of your image on Facebook and can make choices such as whether to tag yourself, leave yourself untagged, or reach out to the person who posted the photo if you have concerns about it."

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Facebook AI Finds Your Face, Enabling New Features