Digital Advertising: Web 2.0

There is an article written by Sonny Ganguly covering the advantages that the rise of Web 2.0 has had on how brands advertise and how web users consume information. He states that one of the main triumphs of Web 2.0 is the evolution of social media, an estimated 1.96 billion people in the world owning a social media account of some description, a number that is expected to grow to 2.5 billion by 2018. This means that there is a huge percentage of the world's population that brands can target directly for their product, tailoring the information that they are exposed to through syncing up their social media accounts, such as Facebook and Twitter, with the brands that reach them.

For example, sites such as Facebook try to make their advertisements relevant to the consumer by basing them off of their web history, tailoring products to known interests, skills and activities that are of interest to the account in use. Amazon for example often recommend products to the consumer via banners titled "People have also purchased..." or "If you liked this, you may also like...", which are based of the persons recent behaviour on the site. Other ways of tailoring the ads to the consumer is by showing them what similar people have "liked" or have enjoyed, with the theory that if they see that someone that they follow or are friends with online, it will influence them to consume similar things.

Another area of digital advertising in the era of Web 2.0 that stands out to me is the methods used by music streaming service Spotify. They fine tune their recommendations to such detail through their "Daily Mixes", which are themed playlists based on artists that you have listened to in the past, featuring songs that you have played before and songs that Spotify recommends due to your listening habits if you are a Spotify premium user. They also do a similar thing to other services, such as Netflix and Amazon, where they recommend a new product based on a previously consumed product. For example, if you listened to an album by St Vincent, they would then be a section on your home page that says, "Similar artists to St Vincent" or "Because you enjoyed this, you may also like...", which leads you to become aware of artists that you had not previously been a consumer of and potential new fans of their media product, which in this case, would be their music. This form of advertising is a good example of below the line advertising, for it is extremely tailored to the individual and based off their past behaviour using the streaming service.

#web20 #socialmedia #internet #worldwideweb #interactive #media #mediaproducts #mediaconsumption #advertising #onlineadvertising #internetofthings #unit1 #convergence