The Ayman and Naaman Show

LinkedIn is one of those sites which, if you still have a job and a you do have life, you only see if something happens (e.g., somebody sends you an invitation). The other day, I got (yet another) invitation, clicked through, and actually even browsed around (to try to figure out if I actually know the person that invited me - it wasn’t Ayman).

They had an ad on that page (bastards!). The ad was actually intriguing - it was designed as a survey, sponsored by Mazda, with a simple question: do you think your car should reflect who you are, or is it just for getting yourself around. Curiosity won over, and I clicked (which one you think I chose? I am not the Racing Geek, remember).

Now the interesting part. Because LinkedIn are so successful in getting your real-life information (jobs, gender, whatever) they were showing the results (”just for getting around” winning 60-40!) broken down to various categories: size of company, position, type of industy. This shows you what a powerful business ad platform LinkedIn could be - for example, you could advertise only to mid-level managers of high-tech companies size 100-500.

On the other hand, if you want to advertise to the youth, you are in the wrong place. Dead wrong:

I totally agree with FiveThiryEight’s Nate, arguing against broadcasting the presidential debate while including on-screen immediate responses from focus groups. It is one thing to have a Hack The Debate discussion showing Twitter messages over the video stream - this is social media, participation that reflect opinion and is expected to be biased. However, continuously showing responses of so-called “testing groups” (shown in the bottom of the screen below) is something entirely different. Not only the opinions of this group could not possibly represent the population or even the undecided voters, as Nate correctly points out. Worse, the presentation completely robs the debate from its status as the last sanctuary of actualcontent (Palin aside) instead of meta-analysis.

Mindless random crowd likey Obama response!

The elections are not a spectator sport. CNN wants us to believe it’s all about the race, while it should be all about the issues. The debate was the last place where you could really hear about the issues (Palin aside). Even following the #current Twitter messages during the debate showed a reasonable sense of discussion - mostly personal views and comments on the content. But on CNN? It was all about winning and losing, in the most immediate and stupid sense of the word. Couldn’t take my eyes off the screen! This is no social media, even if it has people in it.

media lab’s take on markets: RED
Originally uploaded by leahbuechley

An ambient display gives a clear indication (maybe for the first time ever).