People think, or seem to assume, that there is some magical machine that spits out accurate predictions of future events from social media data. There is not, and that’s why each credible analysis takes human time and effort. But therein also lies the challenge: when fast decisions are needed, time-taking analyses reduce agility. Real-time events […]
Category: english
On complexity of explaining business failure
Introduction During the research period for my dissertation based on startup failures, I realized there are multiple layers of failure factors associated with any given company (or, in reverse, success factors). These are: generic business problems (e.g., cash-flow) individual-level problems (e.g., personal chemistry) company type problems (e.g., lack of funding for startups) business model problems […]
Buying? How to determine the offer price for a website
Introduction A few years back I was considering of buying a website. In the end, I didn’t end up making the offer, largely because I couldn’t figure out how to calculate the offer price in a plausible way. Since then I’ve had a bit more experience in estimating figures in other contexts, as well as […]
How to measure media bias?
Mass media is old, and so is their bias. Introduction Media bias is under heavy discussion at the moment, especially relating to the on-going presidential election in the US. However, the quality of discussion is not the way it should be; I mean, there should be objective analysis on the role of the media. Instead, […]
Defining SMQs: Strategic Marketing Questions
Introduction Too often, marketing is thought of being advertising and nothing more. However, already Levitt (1960) and Kotler (1970) established that marketing is a strategic priority. Many organizations, perhaps due to lack of marketers in their executive boards, have since forgotten this imperative. Another reason for decreased importance of marketing is due to marketing scholars […]
Meaningless marketing
I’d say 70% of marketing campaigns have little to no real effect. Most certainly they don’t have a positive return in hard currency. Yet, most marketers spend their time running around, planning all sorts of campaigns and competitions people couldn’t care less of. They are professional producers of spam, where in fact they should be […]
Facebook Ads TIP: remember data breakdowns
Here’s a small case study. We observed irrational behavior from Facebook ads. We have two ad versions running; but the one with lower CTR gets a better relevance score and lower CPC. This seems like an irrational outcome, because in my understanding, CTR as a measure of relevance should be largest impact factor to CPC […]
On online debates: fundamental differences
Back in the day, they knew how to debate. Introduction. Here’s a thought, or argument: Most online disputes can be traced back to differences of premises. I’m observing this time and time again: two people disagree, but fail to see why. Each party believes they are right, and so they keep on debating; it’s like […]
What is a “neutral algorithm”?
1. Introduction Earlier today, I had a brief exchange of tweets with @jonathanstray about algorithms. It started from his tweet: Perhaps the biggest technical problem in making fair algorithms is this: if they are designed to learn what humans do, they will. To which I replied: Yes, and that’s why learning is not the way […]
Advertisers actively following “Opportunities” in Google AdWords risk bid wars
PPC bidding requires strategic thinking. Introduction. Wow. I was doing some SEM optimization in Google AdWords while a thought struck me. It is this: Advertisers actively following “Opportunities” in AdWords risk bid wars. Why is that? I’ll explain. Opportunities or not? The “Opportunities” feature proposes bid increases for given keywords, e.g. Week 1: Advertiser A […]