Traffic experiments + more things

2 minutes estimated reading time

Fascinating Traffic Experiments by Publishers (by @baekdal) #analysis  – Presence is often a very big part of the effect that you can have, in that, if you can be present in people’s minds, you often experience a kind of spillover effect on your business as a whole. This is not just true for content, but also everything else … like advertising. We know that creating an ad campaign where you show up in front of people continually over time is far more effective than just having one good ad. – a great delve into online with these traffic experiments. The practice of digital advertising tries to move away from ‘traditional’ advertising thinking a la branded recall. But it ends up validating it. The comment particularly resonates the findings of people like Byron Sharp. More related posts here.

Great video essay on the Yamaha DX-7 synthesiser. After you listen to the bits on percussion you’ll never listen to your iPhone ringtones in quite the same way again.

Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare: How the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Seeks to Wage Modern Warfare | RAND – interesting to read. The concept of system destruction warfare [体系破击战] is also a good analogy for the way Amazon in particular has acted the in the commercial sphere (PDF)

Android Wear is getting killed, and it’s all Qualcomm’s fault | Ars Technica – this assumes that the problem with Android Wear is a supply side issue with silicon, it doesn’t ask if Qualcomm sees it as a demand side issue and has moved on?

The Shift: His 2020 Campaign Message: The Robots Are Coming | NYTimes.com – interesting how the debate about automation has been internalised and weaponised by politicians (paywall)

Useful video, well worth a watch about applying Bayes Theorem to everyday life

Key takeouts:

  • Remember your priors – what do you know about the context in advance of making an assumption
  • Imagine that your hypothesis is wrong? Would the world look different? – it forces you to check your presumptive assumptions
  • Update incrementally – all yourself to gradually change your mind based on updated information (flexible stance rather than dogmatic belief, as body of proof builds over time)