Marketers Hunger For Data From Wearables (readwrite.com)

An anonymous reader writes:Marketers would love to access information about your daily routines and your precise location, both data sets that would be trivially easy to extract from wearable devices. Those were the two most-requested items in a new survey of marketers, according to a new article at ReadWrite.com. "In the future the data procured from smartwatches might be much more valuable than what is currently available from laptop and mobile users," reports David Curry, raising the possibility that stores might someday use your past Google searches to alert you when they're selling a cheaper product.

Comments

To what end?

[H3lldr0p]

Seriously, marketing is already drowning in data. What good and useful information is this going to provide that the data they already have couldn't? What is the end product going to be and how will it be useful to anyone?

Re:To what end?

[Kierthos]

You're operating under the assumption that they've thought that far ahead.

Remember when Radio Shack would ask for your phone number/email/whatever when you bought batteries? Or, well, anything, really. It was to collect data for marketing purposes, so they could send you advertisements and coupons and yes, turn around and sell that information to other companies.

But no one at Radio Shack really thought ahead to see that it was an asinine plan. Some marketing guy came up with the idea, and convinced a VP of the company that it the best idea ever, and blammo, you're being asked to fill out what amount to a marketing questionnaire when you make a purchase.

Side note: I never got mad at the Radio Shack employees for this. They're only following corporate dictates. I worked in retail for over a decade. You would be surprised how often some silly-ass policy came down from the corporate offices because someone thought it was the best idea ever.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that they've gotten the idea that they want to collect this data, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they know what to do with this data. Other than make money off of it. But like the underpants gnomes, they haven't worked out the intermediate steps yet.

A better question to ask would be...

[QuietLagoon]

... what data do the people who own and wear the devices want to give to the marketers, and how much are the marketers willing to pay for it?

Re:A better question to ask would be...

[pr0fessor]

The real question is how do they continue to make money this way? If I need a new pair of jeans or shoes I go somewhere try on a few pairs and buy the ones I like the best. I go to the store look at what they have and buy groceries. I have never seen and ad and thought I have to have one of those unless it was a brand new never before product and I'm not talking about just the next revision of a smart phone or new model car those are not new products.

Re:That assumes. . .

[plover]

What I don't get is that most 'wearables' don't have location sensors. A Fitbit or Vivofit may have accelerometers, but they have no GPS and no inertial guidance system. The Apple Watch gets its location data from its paired iPhone, which is already in frequent contact with a bunch of marketing companies; this is true regardless of the existence of a paired Apple Watch.

I assume these people are thinking there's some way to monetize heart-rate and/or motion data, but the attached article doesn't claim what that scheme might be. Maybe having an accelerated heartbeat in the presence of an iBeacon near a car dealer's display will tell the marketers which cars are perceived as most exciting, but any auto dealer or car salesman can tell that without needing a pulse check!

Re:That assumes. . .

[kheldan]

Here's a couple points for you to consider, friend:
1. You're assuming that 'forbidding permissions' for anything actually works, or can't be worked around somehow.
2. You're forgetting that the average person either has been brainwashed to not care about their privacy, or doesn't understand that their privacy is being violated in so many ways every single day, or they don't know how to restrict permissions for their very personal data (assuming, again, that even works at all).

So long as all these sorts of devices work with 'The Cloud', you'll never be 100% sure that your very personal data isn't being copied, leaked, or otherwise compromised. The only way that can happen, is if you use devices that don't connect to 'The Cloud' at all, and that you never, ever enter or upload data from such devices to the Internet, ever. Always assume that either by accident or by design, your personal data is getting into the hands of people and organizations that you don't want to have it.