Slashdot Mirror
Marketers Scan Blogs For Brand Insights
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Paying tens of thousands of dollars to companies that scan blogs helps companies decide on products and advertising, the Wall Street Journal reports. For example, the practice helped U.S. Cellular better understand prospective teenage customers: 'Using technology from Umbria Communications, a Boulder, Colo., company that aims to identify demographic groups online based on their speech patterns and discussion topics, WPP's G Whiz concluded that teens were really anxious about exceeding their cellular minutes, often because parents make them pay if they talk too much. The teens also resented being ambushed by incoming calls that pushed their minutes up. U.S. Cellular says that led U.S. Cellular to offer unlimited call me minutes.' Also of note: Intelliseek's Pete Blackshaw 'says companies used to dismiss vocal complaints from one or two consumers as an aberration. But now, they have to pay attention because now those complainers may have blogs. '"
So...you have a blog. You write in it daily. Its on the web where anyone can read it. Supposedly, you _want_ people to read it.
You don't, however, want anyone to learn anything from what you've written? Or actually think about it? Sure, they can't copy your blog and use it in advertising or anything but actually consuming the information you're putting out on the web is also wrong?
Isn't the whole point of blogging to let other people know what you think about something?
You think someone reading a blog is similar to reverse engineering a word processor? But...but...*head explodes*