ICYMI – According to Whiteops: Methbot a Russian run ad scam has made over USD $3-5 million per DAY over the past month amounting to over $200M in fraudulent ad revenue by tricking algorithms and mimicking legitimate US web traffic. Though this is an expensive and temporary hiccup (some advertisers who have identified the fraud traffic have gotten their money back), it is one that has gotten the attention of the big players and will hopefully lead to a stronger online ad bidding system with greater transparency and increased efficiency. That said, one of the key takeaways for me is the over reliance on automation and the lack of relationship based selling in the ad space. There will always be imposters when the transactions are automated and the players are not vetted. Not to mention that automation is an oft used reason to explain away poor due diligence.
The many faces of Media.
Is media more divergent or convergent in the digital world?
There’s no doubt that with the advent of home studios it’s now easier to generate and create your own content. Hence we see that in the media sources side of the business there is a huge increase in the number of content creators and this has had a divergent effect on media generation and story telling.
What is more often missed is how our media consumption habits have changed. I don’t mean the device we consume it on but the fact that though there are soo many new media sources you would expect a scattered playing field with a lot of niche content being consumed by different people based on interests, location etc.
Though usage of niche media is rising, we are also seeing a greater rise in everyone consuming the same media story. The collective conscience is more aligned than ever before. We’re consuming the same shows, the same news stories, even the same underground news stories. It’s almost as if certain stories / narratives have been able to fully utilize the reach of the internet by spanning across categories, interests, location, language and all the other usual barriers to captivate the entire globe’s (or at least those with TV & internet) attention.
Is this simply good craft or marketing or a mix of the two or are we just social creatures and will gravitate towards what everyone else is talking about so that we are informed and have talking points that allow us to participate in groups.