It All Ads Up to Who You Know; Marketing Software Helps Web Sites Track Personal Data
Most advertising on the World Wide Web these days isn't much different from what you find on television, radio and even roadside billboards. Advertisers can select Web sites like they would TV channels or radio stations, but after that, it's one size fits all. Everyone gets bombarded with the same pitch.</br></br>Nobody who runs a Web business wants it that way. In theory, the Web is the ultimate tool for targeting specific ads to specific people. Unlike other media, every bit of information that shows up on your computer screen when you're on the Web is sent directly to you by specific Web sites.</br></br>Web ads could be like, well . . . junk mail. Just as catalogues from fly-fishing equipment companies tend to show up at the homes of people who stayed in hotels in fly-fishing country, ads appearing on the screen would be targeted to the viewer's interests.</br></br>Doing so, however, isn't simple. Determining just who is visiting a particular Web site -- and what their interests are -- is the number one frustration for many marketers.</br></br>One way is to offer people a trade: a free service in exchange for personal data about themselves, which they type into a screen form -- age, sex, hobbies, what appliances they own, whether they traveled in the past six months, etc. Then, when they use the service, the system knows who they are and displays ads matching their interests.