Just a reminder - digital is not the only option.

I have no idea what this thing is. There is a new housing estate being built down the road - so it's something to help with that. 

So ... someone makes these things - and someone markets them. Yes, digital might have a part to play ... but please don't tell me the potential buyers will be looking to TikTok, Instagram or influencers in their purchase decision making.

i'm not advertising

 I've included this advert - which appeared in an email - simply to show that the US retailer has become a major player in online advertising.

hello; do i know you?

 I got this in my email inbox.

The thing is, I've not used Google ads for about 20 years and then it was for a week or so to demonstrate their use to students.

Furthermore, according to the home page of the website on the domain name used as the sender email address, the company offers: 'The modern payroll, scheduling, & hiring platform built for restaurants.' Needless to say, I'm not - nor ever have been - in the restaurant business.

Of course, that was a phoney email address - and clicking on the link in the ad took me to a different website [on a different domain name].  

So, it's a scam ... but quite a good one. Not sure what the end game is though - probably my bank details. I can't see Google being happy at their name being taken in vain either.

really?

 I came across this artificial intelligence company [it's been hi-lighted in a number of media outlets]. 

1    Take a look at the service offered as featured on the website's home page.

2    See if you can come up with a legitimate [some might say 'legal'] use of this product. 

 In case the image is too small for you to read the text, I've typed it out below.

'The doublespeed TERMINAL allows you to orchestrate actions on thousands of social accounts through bulk content creation and deployment.'

'Our deployment layer mimic natural interaction on physical devices to get our content to appear human to the algorithims*'.

Our system analyzes what works to make the content smarter over time. The best performing content becomes the training data for what comes next.

*Yes, they did spell this wrong ...  given the organization is all about the use of algorithms and content development, that's a pretty telling mistake.

who gains?

This morning I accidentally 'clicked' on an ad whilst scrolling down X on my ipad. It's something I do quite often on my iphone as well. Made me wonder just how many ad clicks are not deliberate - and what that does to any data gleaned from those ads. And who pays whom?

does this add up

 I was reading an article on a website I would normally recommend, but one section carried the header: 

'TikTok’s audience is overwhelmingly young: 1 in 4 TikTok users are under 25.'

Can just 25% of any group be described as 'overwhelming' - particularly as the overall population concerned probably peaks at 75 years of age, making the age group that represents 75% of total users [ie 25-75] significantly more than the overwhelming group of 25-year olds.

now you see it, now you don't

Going back nearly 30 years, when talking about website development I have always preached 'make the words easy to read'. It seems the message still falls on some deaf ears for the home page of this website ... 

To be fair, I should add that this is a one-off for the site. The white text is normally shown over a dark background, but in this instance the top of the background image wasn't, well ... dark.

it's funny 'cos it's true

 

it's funny because it's true

 I came across this on twitter ... if I find out who came up with it I'll add a credit to the source.

Calling long distance

 I can't remember what I'd just bought here, but I'm guessing it was software of some kind? Whatever it was, I hope it worked - the phone number cannot be reached from outside the USA.