The Internet of Things: The Future
This week I attended three different events focusing on data and the internet, with the last one being about the internet of things. This means actual physical things, for example your home’s thermostat, connecting to the internet for a variety of reasons, such as early detection of a malfunction.
As a digital marketer interested in data analysis as well as a book author, I know this future holds many positive opportunities for us and some less positive issues.
Let’s take an example:
Imagine that Amazon reported to authors each time a reader has stopped reading a downloaded Kindle book of ours. (Leave aside how long the interval of non-reading would be before reporting.) If we saw that many readers stopped reading at the same point, we could consider revising our books to keep reader interest.
Yet on the possible negative side, Amazon’s algorithms could “punish” our books for causing readers to stop at a certain point by making those books less likely to turn up in the Kindle store search. And this negative action could continue even after we uploaded a revised version of our books.
While I am not suggesting we become Luddites — many of the things promised in the very near future can even be life-saving — we should consider the trade-offs before we wholeheartedly embrace each new data connection.
And for those of us writing sci fi stories that take place in the near future (such as my dystopian thriller THE MOTHER SIEGE on Wattpad at http://budurl.com/MSintro), the future may be catching up to us very quickly.
P.S. If you are interested in data analysis for advertising purposes, see my blog post “OMMA and MediaPost Advertising Conference: Mad Men Becoming Math Men” on Linkedin at http://budurl.com/mpomma
© 2014 Miller Mosaic LLC
Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks, including TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO PUBLISH AND MARKET YOUR BOOK IN THE AGE OF AMAZON and the romantic suspense spy thriller CIA FALL GUY.
This is actually a scary thought, Phyllis. There are so many legitimate reasons why they may stop reading. Would Amazon really venture to assume? Hope not. But there goes more proof that along with the pros are the cons of any large conglomerate.
Joylene — I don’t think it probable that Amazon would take this action. I was suggesting a rather extreme imaginary example as a caution. We all need to remember to consider the cons as well as the pros in any new development, and not just those from large conglomerates.